Not too late

Level four of Meiji-Jingumae Station.

Chiyo Shin arrived first, but he did not have to wait long.

Mei Mei, Yuyu, and Yuji Itadori soon arrived as well.

"Let's go." Chiyo Shin led everyone down toward the fifth basement level.

They jumped down from the elevator and landed on level five.

"Something's wrong." Chiyo Shin barely needed to look after landing. Flecks of blood covered the floor and walls.

"Looks like we're a step too late." Mei Mei surveyed their surroundings, then the empty fifth level, and concluded that the survivors had probably met a grim fate.

"Hey, are you okay?!" Yuji Itadori immediately spotted someone still sitting beneath a billboard nearby.

Yuji Itadori hurried toward the man, with Chiyo Shin right behind him.

"Why are you the only one left? Where did everyone go?" Yuji Itadori asked as he reached the man.

"Everyone... turned into monsters... got stuffed into the train, and it left. That man said... the train was full, so he didn't need me anymore!" As soon as the man finished speaking, the timer on Mahito's Cursed Energy Bomb left inside him ran out. His brain swelled violently, killing him on the spot.

"Gojo-sensei!" Hearing that the train had left, both Chiyo Shin and Yuji Itadori grew worried about their teacher.

Chiyo Shin jumped onto the tracks. "Itadori, I'm going ahead to back up Gojo-sensei. Take care of yourselves."

By the time he finished speaking, Chiyo Shin had already disappeared into the tunnel.

The fifth basement level of the Tokyo subway.

The crowd packed the station like a sea.

Hanami fled desperately through the crowd. Just as Hanami felt safe enough to look back, Satoru Gojo was still close behind, radiating murderous intent.

Terrified, Hanami swept up a group of people with branches and hurled them at Satoru Gojo before fleeing again.

Keep Satoru Gojo occupied? Easy for you to say, Suguru Geto.

As Hanami frantically used the crowd to evade him, Suguru Geto's words came to mind. Spotting Choso slacking off to one side, Hanami snapped and shouted, "Choso, if you keep standing there watching, don't expect to get your brothers back!"

"Tch." Choso was reluctant after being called out, but he still condensed several masses of blood, compressed them, and fired them through the crowd at Satoru Gojo.

Satoru Gojo had just stepped out of a heap of people when the shrieking blood arrows struck beside him.

Seeing this bizarre scene, the surrounding crowd scattered away from Satoru Gojo and Choso as though they carried the plague.

Blood splattered everywhere without harming Satoru Gojo in the slightest. He stopped and turned his head toward Choso.

Choso was annoying, but he did not seem particularly eager to fight. Dealing with the cursed spirit in front of him still took priority.

Pushing through the crowd, Gojo resumed his pursuit of Hanami.

Inside the driver's cab, Mahito saw light appear ahead and leisurely pulled the brake.

The piercing squeal of brakes echoed across the platform.

Satoru Gojo stared toward the tunnel in disbelief. A train!?

Hanami stopped fleeing and looked back at the train emerging from the tunnel, relief washing over Hanami. Mahito had finally arrived.

The train's arrival stirred up the crowd. The people who had just avoided Satoru Gojo and Choso like the plague now ignored them entirely.

They all wanted to leave this hellhole. Everyone desperately shoved forward, fighting for what might be their only safe way home.

The train came to a stop, and the automatic doors blocking the crowd opened.

Mahito was the first to jump off the train. The moment he saw Hanami, he offered a cheerful greeting. "Hanami~! Thank goodness you're still alive."

"Yes. If you'd come any later, I would probably have died," Hanami said earnestly.

The cursed spirits' cheerful mood only threw the true hell around them into sharper relief.

Once the train stopped, it brought the people not the joy of escape, but endless terror.

An entire trainload of transfigured humans flooded into the subway station and began slaughtering indiscriminately.

The crowd, packed like sardines only moments before, instantly scattered. Terrified screams rang out without end.

The crowd panicked. People screamed. To stay alive, they shoved those beside them toward the transfigured humans.

The slaughter carried out by the transfigured humans, those humanoid creatures.

It unleashed an enormous surge of terror and horror from the crowd.

Those emotions became cursed energy, flowing back into Mahito, who had been born from humanity's fear of humanity.

"All this cursed energy... transcendence~." Mahito hugged himself, pleasure coursing through his body as even his soul trembled.

Brimming with cursed energy, Mahito felt supremely confident. A long, narrow transfigured human swiftly lifted him from beneath his feet and charged toward Satoru Gojo.

Satoru Gojo's mind had been racing ever since the transfigured humans entered the station. What are these cursed spirits after? Wouldn't reducing the number of people put them at a disadvantage?

Before he could find an answer, Mahito's fist struck in front of him. "I really can't hit you!"

Satoru Gojo snapped back to the moment and threw a punch, but Mahito retreated and dodged it.

"Let me tell you the most disgusting thing about humans. There are too many of them."

Hearing Mahito's smug remark, Satoru Gojo was about to smash his face in when startled screams and the sound of countless objects falling came from behind him.

Satoru Gojo's Six Eyes sensed everything behind him without his needing to turn, but he looked back anyway.

It was the place the weeds had blocked earlier. So there really are cursed spirits upstairs too, or curse users working with them. Are they planning to keep dropping ordinary people from Shibuya down here to replenish the crowd?

"Blood Manipulation: Convergence!"

"Idle Transfiguration: Soul Multiplicity!"

"Piercing Blood! Body Repel!"

Without giving Satoru Gojo much time to think, Choso and Mahito launched their attacks one after another.

The two powerful attacks struck in front of Satoru Gojo, unable to advance an inch farther.

Having concealed Hanami's presence for some time, Hanami received the signal and burst out of the ground at Satoru Gojo's feet. Domain Amplification ground fiercely against Limitless.

Satoru Gojo swiftly lowered his stance, seized Hanami's arm, and hauled Hanami into the air.

His other hand clenched into a fist, but before he could swing it.

Hanami severed the trapped arm, sacrificing it to survive, then used branches to leap away and stand beside Mahito and Choso.

Mahito watched Satoru Gojo standing motionless, his smile twisted as utterly deranged thoughts filled his mind.

What will you do now, Satoru Gojo?

Make your choice. The living keep increasing, and the dead aren't decreasing. How will you handle it?

Use Domain Expansion to kill every cursed spirit here!?

That would kill plenty of humans too, wouldn't it!?

Think! Agonize!

Satoru Gojo, show me what you'll do!

Hanami was the first to sense the danger emanating from Satoru Gojo, using cursed energy to grow a mass of branches around the three of them.

"Are you serious!?"

Peering through the branches at Satoru Gojo, Mahito's smile instantly vanished. Cold sweat trickled down his face against his will.

"This aura!" Choso lost his composure too, tensing his entire body to defend himself.

"Domain Expansion: Unlimited Void!"

He opened his domain for 0.2 seconds.

More than half a year's worth of useless information flooded the brains of everyone present.

The overwhelming flood of information left everyone frozen in place.

Satoru Gojo raced through the station. Every time he passed through the crowd, swathes of transfigured humans died.

Within 229 seconds of releasing his domain, every transfigured human in the station had been eliminated.

Just as Satoru Gojo breathed a sigh of relief, a cube-shaped cursed object was tossed in front of him.

"Prison Realm: Open."

Kenjaku arrived at last, walking into the station through an entrance to the side.

Hearing that familiar voice, Satoru Gojo was about to turn and look.

A blinding flash of white light swept past, followed immediately by a roar that thundered throughout the tunnel.

The sound was so deafening that Satoru Gojo turned toward where the train had stopped.

There was no train left. It had been blasted to pieces, with only its undercarriage remaining on the tracks.

Satoru Gojo sensed a familiar presence.

The billowing dust blew away, revealing Chiyo Shin atop the wreckage.

Chiyo Shin had finally arrived.