"Boom!"
The barrier shrouding the school shattered with a thunderous crash.
Warm, golden sunlight streamed through twisted rebar and broken wreckage, falling on Mahito's numb, despairing face.
"Six hundred forty-three..."
"Six hundred thirty-six..."
"Six hundred... six hundred twenty-nine..."
His expression utterly broken, Mahito mechanically recited the answers to subtracting seven from one thousand.
Only when the dazzling sunlight spilled over him did a glimmer of life finally return to his vacant eyes.
The seven-to-three sorcerer, Sukuna's vessel... had reinforcements from Jujutsu High finally arrived?!
A flicker of hope crossed Mahito's face. Forcing his ruined body to move, he desperately crawled toward the edge of the crater.
"I'm here! The cursed spirit is here!"
"Jujutsu sorcerers from Jujutsu High! I'm here!"
Streaming tears and snot, Mahito desperately wriggled through the pool of blood... making his grand escape into the sunlight.
"Here! I'm here!"
"Come catch me! Hurry and save me!"
His voice horribly distorted, Mahito shouted outward through wet, bubbling gurgles, his throat clogged with blood.
"Crack!"
Hearing knuckles crack behind him once again, Mahito froze mid-wriggle and instinctively answered in terror, "Nine hundred... ninety-three!"
"Tsk, tsk. Giving out already?"
A shadow blocked the sunlight overhead. Trembling, Mahito raised his head and met the mocking red eyes of the white-haired Grim Reaper.
"J-Jiahao, bro, don't!"
"Don't kill me!"
Why did those lines sound so damn gay?
"Don't be scared. We're partners, after all. Why would I actually kill you?"
Jiahao bent down and gently patted Mahito's dough-like head, smiling. "I was just joking. Don't take it seriously."
Seven minutes earlier, at the school gates.
After dealing with the large number of transfigured humans in the city district, Nanami finally arrived at the scene and ran into Itadori, who was still carrying out surviving students.
Working together from opposite sides, they shattered the barrier shrouding the school, finally rescuing all the unconscious students by the entrance.
The barrier's effect allowed entry, but no exit.
Nanami hadn't expected the cursed spirit to possess such an advanced barrier technique.
The battle-ravaged school building had collapsed on one side, and the deep crater looked as though it had been blasted open by a missile.
Following the trail, the two reached the battlefield in the crater.
Itadori stared blankly down into it and sucked in a breath. "Was that patchwork-faced cursed spirit beaten into a bloody mist?"
The crater was carpeted in blinding crimson. Mangled brains and dozens of severed limbs appeared before them in the form of cursed residue.
Looking at the hellish scene before him, Itadori felt sympathy for a cursed spirit's plight for the first time.
Nanami couldn't help swallowing as he watched Jiahao walk out of the crater.
That cursed spirit who toyed with lives deserved to die, but torture this brutal made it hard not to wonder...
Was Jiahao having an episode right now?
What if he hadn't had his fill of torture and turned around to bury me and Itadori too?
Nanami shook those horrifying fantasies from his mind and returned to the matter at hand. "What happened to the patchwork-faced cursed spirit? Is he dead?"
Nanami hadn't even considered the possibility that Mahito still had the strength to live. He was simply following procedure and asking as regulations required.
But to both their surprise...
"He's still alive."
"What?!"
Itadori and Nanami were stunned!
Jiahao brushed nonexistent dust off his shoulders without so much as a blush or a skipped heartbeat.
My name is Jiahao, and I'm about to start lying!
"Just as I was about to gently send that soul-manipulating cursed spirit off to reincarnate in the Otherworld, another unregistered special grade cursed spirit stepped in and rescued him!"
Jiahao spoke with utter seriousness. "That other cursed spirit had a strange cursed technique. It could extinguish this King's will to fight."
"Oh! I know that one!"
Beside him, Itadori suddenly understood. "A cursed spirit that can extinguish your will to fight! Gojo-sensei and I saw one a while ago too!"
"Its cursed technique seemed to involve plants. It had branches growing where its eyes should've been, and its skin was as white as a wall!"
As he recalled that night, Itadori lowered his head, his voice heavy with guilt. "Gojo-sensei could've killed Volcano Head that night, but another special grade suddenly appeared and attacked me..."
"Itadori!"
Jiahao stepped forward and patted Itadori's shoulder, speaking earnestly. "You're just a young guy who's only recently joined the Jujutsu Society. It's perfectly normal for you to be a little weak."
Nanami nodded. "There's no need to blame yourself. Protecting students is a teacher's duty."
"Jiahao! Nanami!"
Hearing their reassurance, Itadori looked up, his eyes glistening.
But the touching moment lasted less than a second before Jiahao added, "After all, not everyone can be like this King... bullying special grades the moment he joins the Jujutsu Society."
Jiahao shook his head and sighed softly. "Take it in stride, Itadori. Sometimes the gap between two people is bigger than the gap between a person and a pig."
"Talent is innate and completely unreasonable. It's like the stars in the universe: the greater your talent, the brighter you shine, until there's no hiding it."
"The difference is especially obvious with jujutsu sorcerers."
"The core of jujutsu, the workings of a cursed technique-you either understand them or you don't. You can't pretend to understand when you don't. You can only pretend not to understand when you do..."
"Itadori, do you understand?"
Nanami: "..."
Sure enough, he was having an episode right now.
Itadori stared at Jiahao with beady eyes. "...Not really."
"All I heard was you praising yourself as the brightest star... while I'm a pig."
Jiahao smiled faintly. "Well, it looks like you understood a little."
"You bastard!"
Furious, Itadori lunged at Jiahao. "Give me back that touching moment, you bastard!"
At sunset, Nanami dragged his exhausted body into the principal's office at Jujutsu High.
After handing his mission report to Yaga, Nanami dropped into a cushioned chair with a soft sigh.
What had begun as a cursed murder case at a cinema, provisionally classified as a Grade 2 mission, had suddenly escalated to special grade.
He had spent several days tracking and investigating, while also having to personally kill transfigured cursed spirits who had once been human.
Never mind a novice sorcerer like Itadori-even a veteran Grade 1 Jujutsu Sorcerer like Nanami felt exhausted in both body and mind.
Nanami raised his wrist to check his watch... and frowned.
What tormented Nanami, a wage slave worked like a beast of burden, most was the endless overtime.
Half an hour later, Yaga took off his sunglasses and rubbed between his brows. "Panda, go turn on the lights."
Panda, who had been hiding among the dolls and eavesdropping on the gossip, stiffened. A moment later, he crept off to light the candles.
After silently finishing everything, Panda slipped back into the pile of dolls as though nothing had happened, even making a shushing gesture at Nanami.
Not bothering with Panda's foolish antics, Yaga undid the top button of his collar and sighed. "Intelligent special grade cursed spirits capable of communicating... and they're banding together into a cursed spirit organization."
"An advanced barrier technique. There may even be human curse users working with them."
The more Yaga spoke, the worse his headache became.
Unlike his carefree white-haired student, Yaga wasn't optimistic enough to find a gathering of special grade cursed spirits interesting.
Nanami reminded him, "Principal, this mission has already gone beyond what a Grade 1 Jujutsu Sorcerer can handle."
Yaga nodded. "I'll have Satoru return to Japan immediately to investigate. Compared with the special grade curses overseas, which rarely leave their territories, the situation here is clearly more serious."
"Where are Jiahao and the others?"
Nanami said, "Itadori should be visiting Junpei at the hospital right now. As for Jiahao... he said he was going to the Yamaguchi-gumi to visit some old friends."
"The Yamaguchi-gumi... old friends?"
Yaga paused, then caught on. "Did that guy go to collect protection money again?"
Nanami spread his arms across the sides of the chair's back and shook his head. "I didn't see anything, and I don't know."
"Even if I did know, I don't have the strength to stop him."
"Itadori said he hasn't changed his outfit in several days. I imagine he must be short of money for clothes."
"High-quality cosplay outfits really aren't cheap these days, after all."
"He does special grade work on a Grade 4 Sorcerer's salary. It's not hard to understand why he'd want to earn a little extra on the side."
After speaking, Nanami took a sealed wooden box from inside his jacket and handed it to Yaga.
"I've been so busy I nearly forgot to give you this."
"It's the little finger from Sukuna's secondary left hand. Jiahao found it at Junpei Yoshino's house."
"Junpei Yoshino..."
Yaga flipped back and forth through the report, frowning. "This boy was turned into a sorcerer by the patchwork-faced cursed spirit. Why would Sukuna's Finger be in his house?"
"Well..."
A strange expression appeared on Nanami's face. "Last night, Jiahao got into Ijichi's car with Junpei Yoshino's mother."
"There were also a few low-level curses at Yoshihara Junpei's house at the time, drawn there by the presence of Sukuna's Finger. Jiahao exorcised them while he was there."
"According to Ijichi's exact words, Jiahao said something to Nagi Yoshino in the back seat along the lines of... 'You wouldn't want anything to happen to your son, would you?'"
"You can ask Ijichi and Junpei Yoshino's mother... Nagi Yoshino, for the details."
"Nagi Yoshino should currently be staying in... Jiahao's room."
At those words, wisps of dark aura rose above Yaga's head.
That little brat sure got creative!
Before you continue