I'm Going In

"I'll be right there," Satoru Gojo said as soon as he answered Shoko Ieiri's call.

"Satoru, I'm not rushing you. Shin's here with me, and he has something to tell you. Come here first," Shoko Ieiri said, twirling a lock of hair around her finger.

"Shin? Got it." Though puzzled, Satoru Gojo agreed.

"Yeah, hurry." Shoko Ieiri hung up after that.

Satoru Gojo slipped his phone into his pocket. "And she says she's not rushing me."

"Come on, let's wait inside." Shoko Ieiri led Chiyo Shin toward the temporary Medical Room.

They hadn't been there long before Satoru Gojo lifted the curtain and stepped inside.

"Shin, what is it?" Satoru Gojo got straight to the point. Time was running out, and civilians inside the Curtain were still waiting to be rescued.

"Do you trust me, Gojo-sensei?" Chiyo Shin asked first.

Satoru Gojo walked over and patted Chiyo Shin's head. "Out with it."

Chiyo Shin smiled, then said solemnly, "Gojo-sensei, everything happening in Shibuya this time is a trap aimed at you. You're in serious danger. I'm going in with you."

"Is that just an excuse because you're worried about your teacher?" Satoru Gojo wasn't particularly concerned about the trap. He was the strongest, after all.

Chiyo Shin was utterly sincere. "No, I mean it."

Seeing how firmly Chiyo Shin insisted, Satoru Gojo said, "All right, you can come along. If people start dying when you enter the Curtain, leave immediately."

Chiyo Shin nodded, then added another warning. "Okay. Gojo-sensei, if you encounter a square Cursed Object at the station, you have to run."

"Okay, I'll watch out for it." Satoru Gojo agreed.

"Anything else? If not, we're leaving now." Satoru Gojo rested a hand on Chiyo Shin's shoulder.

"That's everything," Chiyo Shin said.

The two vanished instantly.

8:31 p.m.

Satoru Gojo and Chiyo Shin entered the Curtain together.

The moment they stepped inside, a torrent of accusations against Chiyo Shin and Satoru Gojo flooded their ears.

Knowing this was Chiyo Shin's first mission of this kind, Satoru Gojo reassured him. "Don't let it get to you, Shin. Focus on the mission."

"I'm fine. I can handle this." Chiyo Shin made it clear that he wasn't bothered.

As soon as they entered the Curtain, Satoru Gojo's Six Eyes spotted a substance approaching Chiyo Shin.

It took a trace of Chiyo Shin's presence from his body, then swiftly retreated.

His gaze followed the substance upward, and when he discovered its source, Satoru Gojo was a little surprised.

A Giant-Eyed Cursed Spirit hung from the top of the Curtain, its body fused with it. Judging by the fluctuations in its cursed energy, it was on the level of a Special Grade.

Carrying the trace of Chiyo Shin's presence, the substance sped toward the Giant-Eyed Cursed Spirit.

The Giant-Eyed Cursed Spirit extended a tentacle and absorbed the trace into its body.

Upon sensing Chiyo Shin's presence, its enormous eye instantly turned blood-red, and several tentacles lashed downward.

Chiyo Shin looked around and saw that no one had died.

But an inexplicable fluctuation came from above. He looked up to see several tentacles already swinging toward the crowd.

"Shin!"

Satoru Gojo had only just called out his warning.

Chiyo Shin had already fired more than a dozen blasts of Destructive White Light at the tentacles.

Just as the white light was about to hit, a mass of shadow suddenly appeared in front of the tentacles and tore open a rift in space, letting every blast pass through it.

"What the hell?" Chiyo Shin was shocked to see his attack swallowed by the shadow, but he also felt as though he had seen that mass of darkness somewhere before.

The tentacles crashed into the crowd like a meat grinder switching on, instantly tearing a swath of people apart and scattering their remains.

The first round of attacks ended.

The tentacles withdrew upward.

"Shin, Stillness."

Satoru Gojo stopped Chiyo Shin from launching another attack because he had spotted that substance coming to collect another trace of Chiyo Shin's presence.

Chiyo Shin instantly activated Stillness, blocking the substance outside.

Once it was active, Chiyo Shin asked in confusion, "Gojo-sensei?"

"A special substance is collecting traces of your presence and delivering them to that eye cursed spirit," Satoru Gojo explained.

Chiyo Shin was first shocked that he hadn't sensed anything at all, then furious.

"Gojo-sensei, head into the station first. I'll be right behind you." As he spoke, Chiyo Shin had already taken to the air, hurtling toward the eye cursed spirit.

Accelerating a second time in midair, Chiyo Shin reached the eye cursed spirit's level almost as though he had teleported.

He drove Vibration to its full power and threw a savage punch.

The eye neither dodged nor evaded.

The punch landed squarely on the eye cursed spirit's body.

Yet the eye cursed spirit seemed not to notice at all.

Chiyo Shin felt as though his fist had struck cotton, finding no resistance whatsoever.

Chiyo Shin looked at the point where the eye cursed spirit met the Curtain, and immediately understood. This cursed spirit had fused with the Curtain, which had dispersed his attack.

And this cursed spirit seems to attack only when it senses my presence.

Chiyo Shin dropped out of the sky beside Satoru Gojo, who hadn't gone far. "Sensei, we can't exorcise this cursed spirit without dealing with the Curtain. I'll head outside and take care of it quickly."

"Go without worrying. Leave this place to me." Satoru Gojo patted Chiyo Shin's shoulder.

"Okay." Chiyo Shin ran quite a distance toward the exit before turning back. "Sensei, remember what I told you."

Without looking back, Satoru Gojo raised a hand and made an OK sign.

Chiyo Shin charged out of the Curtain. Outside, everything was already in shambles. Streetlights flickered, sections of the ground had cracked, and the streets were a mess.

This was the result of the Curtain dispersing the force of Chiyo Shin's punch into the surrounding area.

Ignoring the changes around him, Chiyo Shin ran while using faint vibrations to scan his surroundings.

He ran through several streets without finding anything. Wait.

Could the people who set it up be between the two Curtains?!

Chiyo Shin had fallen into a mistaken assumption. A Curtain could be set up from within, not just from outside.

Chiyo Shin activated Stillness and entered again, scanning continuously with Vibration. Finally, as he approached the Meiji-Jingumae Station platform, he found something.

8:51 p.m., beside Exit 2 of Tokyo Metro's Meiji-Jingumae Station.

"The sorcerer or cursed spirit responsible for casting the Curtain is between the two Curtains," a female assistant supervisor explained, sketching the Curtains' current boundaries on paper.

"But that's just an analysis. Personally, I believe the caster strengthened the Curtain by accepting the drawback that the targets can enter it freely."

"Maybe, maybe not." Chiyo Shin interrupted the assistant supervisor's analysis.

"Chiyo?!" Hearing his voice, Yuji Itadori turned around in shock. "Weren't you... unable to come?"

"Naughty children are no good." Mei Mei was briefly surprised to see Chiyo Shin, but soon accepted it. After all, of Satoru Gojo's students, he was the one most like him.

"It was an emergency. I had to come out," Chiyo Shin explained, then added, "But right now, we need to focus on the task at hand."

"This Curtain took a full-power punch from me. A Binding Vow alone couldn't strengthen it that much," Chiyo Shin told the assistant supervisor.

Mei Mei rubbed Yuyu's head. "Now that's something. In that case, this may be a Curtain reinforced by multiple sorcerers or mediums using a greater Binding Vow."