Atop a high-rise, Kashimo released his hand sign. The arcs lingering at his fingertips flickered a few times in the air, then vanished.
He lowered his head to survey the city below. Beneath the Curtain, Shibuya resembled a trapped beast sealed under a glass dome. Its lights still shone brilliantly, but that light no longer belonged to humanity.
Flames danced in the distance, and aftershocks of cursed energy reached him from every direction, like the city's broken, intermittent groans. Behind him lay two curse users whose bodies no longer looked human, twisted at impossible angles. Thin wisps of smoke still rose from their charred wounds. They had long since stopped breathing.
All he had to do now was wait. Wait for Kenjaku's signal.
Once those four special grade cursed spirits reached Kenjaku, he would release Kashimo's cursed energy from the Thunder Ring.
At that instant, Kashimo would sense the coordinates of the electric charge, assess the situation, and reach the battlefield in the shortest possible time.
He had used the same method earlier to deploy his domain and restrain Satoru Gojo. The electric charge served as an anchor, a tether, and a track connecting him to the battlefield. The moment Kenjaku sent the signal, he could launch himself like a released spring.
There was no need to keep the four great disasters alive. Their existence amounted to nothing more than pieces in the plan, and now that the game was nearly over, those pieces no longer had any value. Eliminating all of them at once was the cleanest approach. It would spare him the trouble of hunting them down one by one later.
Kashimo withdrew his gaze and looked once more toward the distant sky, stained red by firelight. The night wind swept between the high-rises, lifting his teal bangs