Just one little kiss~

Red light seized everything. Yang Jian had activated his ghost domain.

It was a layer of color that defied common sense, forcibly rewriting the light and shadow across the entire neighborhood. Sunlight vanished. The sky became an overexposed negative. The laws of optical refraction no longer applied. This was the tyrannical rule of another dimension.

More than ten meters above the ground, Yang Jian's left hand caught the fabric at the back of Riko Amanai's neck with perfect precision. With one arm, he held the unconscious girl steady.

There was no platform beneath his feet. He walked steadily through perfectly level empty space. Every external law of nature had been invalidated within the territory governed by that red light.

The glass curtain wall of a distant building trembled.

A muffled roar traveled across the neighborhood. A column of gray-black smoke from the explosion pierced the morning mist, while flames and flying debris spewed from the breach left by the collapsed exterior wall.

That was Riko Amanai's room.

Shiu Kong's fingers froze in midair around his cigarette, ash fluttering down. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows, he studied the unfolding chaos and released the stale breath trapped in his chest. "So it's started."

"The Time Vessel Association doesn't have what it takes to fight sorcerers head-on, but they're quick to pay. I can guarantee that much." Shiu Kong turned, looking past the broad leather sofa at the man sitting in the shadows. "What do you think, Zenin? Want in on the contract to assassinate the star plasma vessel?"

The man's massive frame sank into the sofa's backrest. The harsh white indoor light illuminated a scar on his chin. He shifted into a more comfortable position, his voice almost boneless with laziness. "My name isn't Zenin anymore. I married into another family ages ago. It's Fushiguro now."

Before his words had even faded.

The natural light outside was erased without a trace.

In an instant, the entire sky was forcibly replaced with an incredibly viscous dark red. Without any warning, the laws of optical refraction were torn apart across the neighborhood. The red light had no source. It simply became the world's new base color.

Toji Fushiguro's back snapped rigid, and he rose from the sofa almost on animal instinct. As the "Heavenly Restriction Tyrant," who had completely relinquished cursed energy in exchange for the limits of physical power, his five senses were exceptionally sensitive to his surroundings.

No residual cursed energy. No opening movements for a cursed technique.

Only pure, nerve-prickling deathly silence.

At the very center of the red light, a figure stood high in the sky. Unsupported, defying gravity. He was the source of that red glow.

The young man held an unconscious girl in his left hand. In the middle of his forehead, flesh split open to either side, exposing an eyeball riddled with scarlet veins that swiveled erratically-

Yang Jian stood high in the air. The ghost eye on his forehead stopped moving, its gaze passing unhindered through buildings several kilometers away to settle precisely on the floor-to-ceiling windows of the tower where Toji Fushiguro and Shiu Kong stood.

He took only one look.

Yang Jian made his judgment. This was not the time to clash with Toji Fushiguro; maximizing the benefits of his later missions depended on it. The red light abruptly contracted like an ebbing tide, and the eerie pressure that had ruled the sky a moment earlier disappeared completely.

Holding Riko Amanai, Yang Jian took a single step and returned to the wrecked, bombed-out room.

Inside the tower, cold sweat had soaked Shiu Kong's back. He bit through the cigarette in his mouth, veins throbbing on his forehead. "Someone who wasn't in the intel. Jujutsu High really went all out this time. They even brought in outside help to protect the star plasma vessel. That thing just covered the whole city. Was it actually a domain?"

Toji Fushiguro did not answer immediately. He lowered his head, slowly rubbing the back of his neck with his broad palm as he recalled his body's reaction when that blood-red eye swept over him. His body had sounded no warning, yet his instincts rejected that thing's very existence.

"I'll take it." Toji Fushiguro raised his head and grinned, baring stark white teeth. "But the risk has changed. They'll have to pay more."

The metal kettle's whistle shrieked. Steam made its lid rattle up and down.

A slender hand turned off the heat and lifted the handle. Boiling water poured into a white porcelain cup, churning the tea fragments inside the black tea bag and steeping into a rich amber liquid. A pair of tongs dropped a sugar cube into the bottom, and a stainless-steel spoon stirred against the cup's walls with bright little clinks.

Suguru Geto settled into an armchair, teacup in hand.

"Please! I'm begging you, just hear me out! It was all my fault!"

Less than two meters from the coffee table, a bloated cursed spirit covered in densely packed round heads held its foul-smelling mouth open. A man in a tactical vest was caught between its jaws. He was an armed member of Q, and half his body was currently lodged in the cursed spirit's throat while his hands desperately clawed at its saliva-coated lips.

"I'm sorry! I'm really sorry!" the member cried, his voice cracking, tears and snot smeared across his face.

"Give me a kiss. Come on, just one little kiss." Several of the cursed spirit's heads leaned closer, puckering tumor-covered mouths right toward the man's face.

The man twisted his head away and struggled desperately, shouting at Suguru Geto on the sofa. "I swear I'll never get involved in this job again! I won't be a curse user anymore, either!"

"Just one little kiss. Please? Just one." The cursed spirit's tongue licked the man's cheek, leaving sour, stinking slime behind.

"I'll quit Q right now! Yes! I'll just go back home and farm!"

Suguru Geto propped his chin on one hand and lowered his eyes to the tea fragments floating in his cup. "If curse users are going to better themselves, they'd do well to learn enough farming to make a living."

"You were listening all along!" With his escape plan exposed, the Q member's face flushed crimson, embarrassment turning to anger. "You're just a brat who's still in school! How dare you look down on me! Don't get so smug. Mr. Bayer is already here! He's Q's strongest fighter! Once he finds us, every last one of you will pay!"

His phone screen lit up with a vibration. The notification interrupted the bluster.

Suguru Geto set down his teacup, unlocked his phone, and glanced at it. It was a message from Satoru Gojo.

He turned the screen around and held it before the hysterical attacker's eyes. "Just to confirm: this invincible Bayer you keep talking about-is he the man in this picture?"

The screen showed a patch of woodland. A man slumped limply against a tree trunk, blood from his nose covering half his face. In the foreground, Satoru Gojo wore sunglasses and flashed peace signs at the camera with a toothy grin ✌︎˶╹ꇴ╹˶✌︎.

The attacker, who had been barking his head off a second earlier, became instantly tongue-tied. He went completely docile, letting the cursed spirit's enormous mouth slowly press a kiss onto his face.

In the shadows at the corner of the room, Yang Jian leaned against the wall. Having watched the entire interrogation, he offered his assessment: "May I win one true heart, and never part till our hair turns white."

A few minutes later.

"Should we have a doctor look at her?" Suguru Geto rose.

The door swung open. Satoru Gojo walked in carrying the unconscious Riko Amanai bridal-style.

"Forget it. If only I could casually use reverse cursed technique a few times like Shoko." Pouting, Satoru Gojo carried her into the living room. "I asked her to teach me before, but I couldn't understand a word she was saying. Something about going 'whoosh' first, then gathering it all together and going 'shoom.' Who's supposed to understand that? And she had the nerve to say I had 'no talent at all.'"

Riko Amanai made a muffled nasal sound in his arms.

The girl's eyelids fluttered, her eyes still clouded with sleepy confusion. When her gaze focused, it met Satoru Gojo's as he looked down at her.

"Oh, you're awake," Satoru Gojo greeted her.

Smack.

An exceptionally loud slap landed squarely on Satoru Gojo's cheek without the slightest hesitation. He had not activated Limitless because he had not considered her a threat.

"Take this!" Riko Amanai used the momentum to twist in midair, rolling free and landing on the floor.

She quickly backed away several steps, holding one hand high and the other low in an old-fashioned defensive stance. Even her voice rose two octaves. "Ye villains dare plot against me! Then I shall take your lives first!"

Silence held for two seconds.

Suguru Geto sighed and approached with a gentle smile. "Riko, calm down first. We're not with the people who attacked the building. We're here to escort you."

Yang Jian silently followed behind Suguru Geto, his hands in his pockets.

The reassurance did nothing to lower Riko Amanai's guard. Her wide eyes scanned the three men before her.

"Stop spouting nonsense!" She pointed at Suguru Geto. "You've got a face that practically screams con man, and those bangs are ridiculously weird! And the one next to you..."

Riko's gaze shifted to Yang Jian, and she instinctively shrank back. "That one's even creepier. He doesn't look alive at all!"

She had hit every possible nerve capable of killing the mood. Suguru Geto kept the corners of his mouth raised, but cracking sounds came from his neck as though his bones were shifting out of place. He was smiling.

"Let go! Stop it!"

The elevator reached the top floor, its alloy doors sliding into the walls with a ding.

Misato Kuroi sat atop Suguru Geto's cursed spirit, holding the supplies she had just bought. The scene before her brought her brain to a standstill.

In the middle of the living room, Satoru Gojo and Suguru Geto stood on opposite sides, one gripping Riko Amanai's wrists and the other her ankles. They were pulling her wildly in both directions as though wringing out a wet rag.

Directly in front of the sofa, Yang Jian crouched on the floor. He placed a burning, deathly white candle beneath Riko.

Its flame was a sickly gray-green. It gave off no warmth at all, instead radiating a chill found only in a freezer.

"This is an outrageous affront to me! Stop at once!" Riko's face had been stretched beyond recognition. Turning her head and spotting the figure at the door, she immediately shouted at the top of her lungs. "Kuroi, help!"

"Please, go easy on her!" Misato Kuroi hurriedly pleaded.

Hearing the protest from the girl's guardian, Satoru Gojo and Suguru Geto exchanged a look and released their hands simultaneously, flinging Riko Amanai onto the sofa cushions as though tossing away a pair of trash bags.

Seeing this, Yang Jian bent down and pinched out the green flame with two fingers. The white candle released a wisp of acrid bluish smoke before he stuffed it back into the bag behind him.

"Isn't that candle a tool specifically used to attract ghosts?" Suguru Geto rubbed his wrists, his gaze passing over the bag behind Yang Jian. "It must be valuable, right? You just used it like that?"

"There isn't another ghost here besides me. The White Ghost Candle isn't valuable or particularly useful. And without any ghosts around, it can burn for a long time." Yang Jian's tone was even as he stood and brushed the dust off his trousers.

Taking advantage of the opening, Misato Kuroi hurriedly helped Riko sit upright on the sofa and explained in detail the assignment Jujutsu High had accepted, as well as Satoru Gojo and the others' roles as her bodyguards.

Once the misunderstanding was cleared up, Riko Amanai toned down her struggling a little. She noticed the soft black mass beneath Misato Kuroi and asked, "Kuroi, what have you been sitting on this whole time?"

"Mr. Bangs summoned it with his cursed technique," Kuroi answered honestly.

Suguru Geto's brow twitched. "Please don't call me that again. This ability is called Cursed Spirit Manipulation. It lets me take control of cursed spirits I've subdued."

Satoru Gojo sprawled shamelessly in an armchair, his long legs covering the tabletop. "This little girl's got a much worse temper than I expected. I thought facing something like 'assimilation' would make you all sensitive and emotional. When the higher-ups gave us the mission, I was even thinking about how to be more considerate of your feelings."

"Hmph. How shortsighted." Riko Amanai stepped onto the cursed spirit Kuroi was riding and straightened up, looking down at the men seated below.

"Open your ears and listen well! Lord Tengen is me! I am Lord Tengen himself!" Riko swept out her arm. "Many ignorant fools share your shallow understanding, always confusing 'assimilation' with 'death.' You could not be more mistaken!"

She cleared her throat and continued her lengthy speech. "Although completing the 'assimilation' will make me a part of Lord Tengen, the reverse is also true: Lord Tengen will become me! My consciousness, my soul, and even my will shall continue to live after the 'assimilation' is complete, until I am immortal!"

After delivering this impassioned declaration, she waited expectantly for her audience to look awestruck or ashamed.

Instead, Satoru Gojo had turned away and was holding his phone up in front of Suguru Geto. "Look, I just changed my wallpaper. It's Waka Inoue."

"Nice resolution. Can you send me the original?" Suguru Geto took out his flip phone to connect via infrared.

"Hey! Are you even listening to me?" Unable to save face, Riko gritted her teeth and glared at the two utterly unprofessional sorcerers.

"With the way she keeps spouting all this nonsense, she probably can't make any friends at school, can she?" Satoru Gojo put away his phone and nudged Suguru Geto's arm.

"True. If she has no attachments, we can send her on her way without any worries." Suguru Geto nodded in wholehearted agreement.

"Who said I don't have friends?" Riko's face instantly turned bright red. "I'm normal at school! A normal middle school girl!"

To prove she had a normal social circle, Riko abruptly turned toward Kuroi. "School! Kuroi, what time is it?"

Kuroi turned her wrist and checked her watch. "It's not noon yet. But Miss Riko, given the explosion and attack just now, I suggest you stay away from school today for your own safety."

"Silence." Riko hopped off the cursed spirit, grabbed her coat with the hole in it, and headed for the door. "I shall go."

(That's the only chapter for today. I'm slacking off a little. Guys, what do you think about having Yang Jian shout "Domain Expansion-'****'" when he opens his ghost domain later? Feel free to guess.)