Daydream Cinema.
The primary crime scene was an auditorium stained red with blood.
Three grotesque corpses twisted like braided dough could barely be recognized as human.
Their enormous, bloodshot eyeballs were the size of fists. A lingering trace of terror remained on their ulcerated faces and bluish-purple, rotting skin.
Nanami stood to one side, watching Itadori's reaction out of the corner of his eye.
His body was a little tense, but his expression remained fairly composed, and he showed no signs of struggling to hold back vomit.
For a Jujutsu Sorcerer who had only just entered the profession, that was acceptable.
Then Nanami glanced toward the back row, and the corner of his mouth twitched.
Kaneki Hao, who had inexplicably insisted on tagging along, paid no attention whatsoever to the blood covering the floor. With a huge chicken drumstick in one hand and an ice-cold cola in the other, he was happily stuffing his face.
This was a crime scene, not a cinema open for business!
Forget it. He was mentally ill, after all.
Nanami turned away, decisively abandoning any thought of lecturing Kaneki Hao.
"Using a cursed technique leaves traces of cursed energy, otherwise known as cursed residue."
"Unlike crafty Curse Users, most cursed spirits don't know how to erase their cursed residue."
Ever the dependable senior, Nanami began earnestly instructing his rookie partner. "Focus your eyes and look closely."
Itadori held his eyelids open with both hands as cursed energy slowly flowed into his eyes.
"I see it!"
Itadori exclaimed, pointing toward the deserted entrance.
The anomaly previously invisible to the naked eye was now clearly visible.
A long trail of footprint-shaped cursed residue stretched into the distance.
Nanami nodded and followed the residue toward the exit. "Next time, try to learn to sense its presence with cursed energy before you see it."
Completely ignoring Jiahao and his family-sized bucket, the two followed the trail of cursed residue upstairs.
The cinema rooftop.
It was still raining.
Spotting the cursed spirits hiding in a corner of the building, Itadori tossed aside his umbrella and prepared to attack, only for Nanami to hold out a hand and stop him.
One, two, three.
After confirming the cursed spirits' numbers and positions, Nanami set down his umbrella. "Leave the strongest cursed spirit to me. You handle the white one in the back."
"If you can't beat it, stall for as long as you can."
Itadori looked at Nanami's back and pursed his lips. "Aren't you underestimating me?"
"This isn't about whether I think highly of you. I'm an adult, and you're a child. I have a duty to put your safety first."
Nanami drew the cursed tool, the Blunt Sword, from inside his jacket. "Your file says you've already been through several life-or-death situations, but that doesn't make you an adult."
"Finding more hair shed beside your pillow, having your favorite filled bread disappear from the convenience store-it's the accumulation of those little disappointments that makes a person grow up."
"Now that's a dependable adult, Nanamin!"
On the tiled eaves of the rooftop storage shed, Jiahao held a bucket of popcorn in one hand and slapped his crossed legs with the other in applause. "Classic line, classic bold declaration. I'm writing that down."
"Itadori, don't tell Fushiguro or Kugisaki about this when you get back. I'll use that declaration to give them a proper lesson later!"
The rain grew heavier, countless tiny silver glimmers dancing across the ground.
Nanami narrowed his eyes at Jiahao, secretly startled.
There was not a single sign of dampness on him. Raindrops struck the space above Jiahao's head and slid away as though landing on a transparent umbrella.
Noticing Nanami's gaze, Jiahao raised his hand and snapped his fingers.
Boom!
The transparent canopy above Jiahao abruptly expanded, enveloping the entire rooftop.
Had the rain stopped?
Still locked in a fierce fight with the Vertical-Mouthed Cursed Spirit, Itadori thought the rain had cleared, but it had stopped only over the rooftop where they were fighting.
Watching the valor points float out above Nanami's head, Jiahao grinned. "Consider it my thanks for giving me material for a bold declaration. Don't catch a cold!"
It was no strange cursed technique, just a straightforward release of cursed energy.
A bottomless reserve of cursed energy, coupled with extraordinarily precise control.
Nanami, who had almost failed to keep his expression composed, murmured inwardly.
Unbelievable...
This lunatic might actually be at Special Grade level.
"Jiahao, watch out!"
Spotting the danger in the midst of his fierce battle, Itadori instinctively shouted a warning, then was sent flying by a heavy punch from the vertical-mouthed curse before him.
Nanami said, "You shouldn't let your eyes wander. There's no need for you to worry about what's happening over there, either."
Just as Nanami said, the third curse, a grayish-green creature resembling a giant gecko, was stealthily crawling up behind Jiahao.
Just as the gecko curse opened its enormous mouth and lunged, a piece of popcorn instantly pierced its brain.
Having killed it without even turning his head, Jiahao went back to spectator mode. "Go, Itadori!"
We're both new students who just enrolled... but the gap between us really is too vast to see the end of.
As Itadori climbed to his feet, he marveled inwardly, then slapped himself across the face to pull himself together.
Grandpa always said to save as many people as I could.
Even if I had to die, I should go out in style, surrounded by others.
At that thought, sky-blue flames of cursed energy abruptly blossomed around Itadori's fists.
Jiahao's eyes lit up, and he muttered, "Not bad, young Heavenly Emperor Itadori."
The stronger Itadori became, the more valor points he would produce. The more valor points there were, the stronger Jiahao would become.
Step on your right foot with your left and spiral up to heaven. We all had a bright future ahead.
Having gained basic control of his cursed energy, Itadori already held the upper hand in his fight, while Nanami's advantage was even more overwhelming.
Just as the two were about to finish off the curses, Jiahao, who had finished his popcorn, clapped his hands clean and jumped down from the eaves.
"Chotto Matte!"
"Before you make your move, I think there's something I need to remind you of."
"The curses in front of you were human when they were alive."
Keeping a wary eye on the grotesque curse he had beaten half to death, Itadori looked puzzled. "What do you mean? Didn't you say curses were formed from humans' negative emotions?"
"Itadori!"
With a grave expression, Nanami stepped closer and once again used his phone to photograph the curse facing Itadori.
"What's going on? Didn't you say cursed spirits couldn't be captured by cameras?"
Looking at the picture in his phone's gallery, Nanami's expression grew heavier. "Calm down, Itadori. The opponents we're fighting this time..."
"Are humans."
Jiahao stepped closer and said bluntly, "They're not normal cursed spirits. A cursed technique forcibly transformed them into this."
Jiahao patted Itadori's shoulder, then lowered his gaze to the transfigured human crawling on the ground.
As his cursed technique activated, Jiahao's black pupils instantly changed into scarlet Sharingan.
"Judging by the cursed residue left behind by the technique, they should all have been normal humans half a day ago."
"Maybe they were cinema employees, or just unlucky people who came to watch a movie."
Hearing that, Nanami turned toward the headless transfigured human's corpse in the distance. "Jiahao, did you recognize their condition from the start?"
As though realizing something, Itadori whipped his head around. "Jiahao, if you knew all along, why did you... kill him?"
"What's with those looks you two are giving me? Didn't I just say they were human when they were alive?"
Jiahao couldn't help rolling his eyes. "They were already dead the moment that cursed technique transformed them."
"I'm not the one who killed him. The target you're tracking down did."
At that, Itadori breathed a sigh of relief.
Thank goodness. At least Jiahao wasn't so mentally unstable that he would slaughter innocent people.
His gaze fell on the vertical-mouthed curse he had gravely injured and knocked down, and sympathy crossed his face. "Jiahao, is there any way you can treat something like this?"
Jiahao spread his hands. "If the victim were a Jujutsu Sorcerer, there might still be hope of saving them. But ordinary people without cursed energy are too fragile."
"Put simply, this transfigured human gentleman in front of you is nothing more than a moving corpse now."
"Unfortunately, this King's Strength of a Hundred Technique can't reverse life and death yet."
"If you really want to save him, the best way is to do what I did earlier-send them off painlessly to be reincarnated and start over."
The three transfigured humans were transported back to Jujutsu High. After performing autopsies, the doctor, Shoko, reached a conclusion similar to Jiahao's.
"This was a tragedy caused by jujutsu."
Itadori clenched his fists tightly, a murderous intent he had never felt before flashing through his eyes.
He desperately wanted to find the killer who had toyed so wantonly with human lives.
Then smash its head to pieces!
Before you continue