The Fifth Calamity

The pitch-black sky of the Innate Domain turned to black liquid and dripped down.

The surrounding bones and red earth melted together, coalesced, and scattered.

Now that its form had been exposed, the fully evolved special grade cursed spirit no longer needed to spend cursed energy maintaining its incomplete Innate Domain.

It would face Megumi Fushiguro and Kugisaki head-on in its true form...

"Squelch, squish~"

Wet tearing sounds and sharp cracks came from the serpentine cursed spirit, which stood a full two meters tall.

Thick limbs and dense fur emerged from its torn flesh-

A bear's arm and claws.

The snakeskin sloughed off, still warm. Yet although the creature standing in the blood was clearly a three-meter-tall bear, its eyes retained those eerie green, slit-shaped snake pupils...

"What is this... a magic trick?"

Kugisaki smiled, trying to find some humor in their misery. Before Megumi Fushiguro could answer, she had already tossed the nails in her hand high into the air.

Whatever cursed technique the special grade cursed spirit possessed, whatever abilities it had...

They would only find out by fighting it!!!

Blue cursed energy enveloped her hammer. With a clear, ringing metallic clang, three cursed-energy-infused nails shot toward the giant bear's forehead in a straight line...

Its swiveling snake eyes caught the shift in the air currents. Moving far faster than its cumbersome body should have allowed, the giant bear raised both arms to guard.

But Kugisaki had already anticipated that.

Against cursed spirits whose defenses she felt she could not pierce, defenses that required a more powerful burst of damage, she had a move that never failed her...

"Hairpin!"

The snap of her fingers rang out alongside the incantation for the Straw Doll Technique.

She targeted the last nail in the line with her technique. Blue cursed energy flared in midair, giving the two nails at the front an unparalleled burst of acceleration.

Squelch-!!!

Blood poured from the giant bear's massive arm. The two nails, packed with Kugisaki's full output of cursed energy, tore through its muscles and buried themselves deep in its marrow.

Almost simultaneously, Megumi Fushiguro descended swiftly from the sky atop Nue, a long-bladed cursed tool in hand.

"Max Elephant!!!"

A column of water thicker than Megumi Fushiguro's entire body swept around his attack path and forced apart the giant bear's guarding arms.

Seizing the instant his opponent's guard opened, he drove his sharp, cursed-energy-infused blade precisely into its chest and ripped downward, opening a huge gash...

"ROAR!!!"

The deafening roar became a tangible sonic attack, cutting straight through Max Elephant's stream of water.

Before Megumi Fushiguro could cover his bleeding ears, a vicious sweep of the bear's right claw was already upon him...

"Hairpin!!"

Seeing that the giant bear was about to strike Megumi Fushiguro, Kugisaki abruptly shouted the incantation.

She no longer had time to locate the two nails in its left arm and link them for a Resonance attack.

To interrupt the giant bear's offensive, she had to detonate the nails directly...

But as her cursed energy flowed, Kugisaki's pupils abruptly contracted...

Her cursed energy connection to the nails...

Had it been severed?!

No, it had not.

They were too close!!!

At some point, swarms of hornets had filled the air around her, surrounding her completely.

Kugisaki looked toward the cursed energy fluctuations and discovered two blood-soaked nails suspended among the hornets, nestled within the swarm's immense cursed energy...

Squelch-!!

Megumi Fushiguro and Kugisaki were sent flying backward at the same instant.

Compared with Kugisaki's minor injuries from being caught in her own cursed energy explosion, Megumi Fushiguro, who had taken the giant bear's blow head-on, was in far worse shape.

The heavy impact had broken his ribs and driven them into his lungs. Though he could still breathe, the massive blood loss from the deep gashes across his chest left him unable to force a single breath up through his throat...

One casual blow from the special grade cursed spirit had already all but killed him.

Had it struck him at full strength, Megumi Fushiguro would probably already have joined Itadori in the afterlife...

Was this... the end...?

Blood bubbled up into his throat. That was the only thought left in Megumi Fushiguro's mind.

He clenched his fists and used the last of his strength to raise them, but when he caught sight of Kugisaki lying on the ground from the corner of his eye, he relaxed them again...

I'm done for...

We should've just run...

Megumi Fushiguro closed his eyes in despair, ready to meet his death.

But just as that thought arose, a stream of pure positive energy suddenly began pouring into his badly damaged body...

"Reverse Cursed Technique? Who is it?!"

Megumi Fushiguro opened his eyes again and climbed to his feet, only to discover that he and Kugisaki had been tossed into an open area dozens of meters from the battlefield.

Standing before the special grade cursed spirit that had transformed into a giant bear was an arrogant figure with his hair tied into two buns...

"Who are you supposed to be? I don't remember you showing up!"

A fist brimming with cursed energy slammed forward without mercy.

A short, muffled boom erupted. Wreathed in electrical arcs and carrying tremendous force, the fist smashed straight through the giant bear's raised guard and landed heavily on its chest.

The cursed energy defense coating the spirit's body and the physical defense provided by its dense muscles and bones proved utterly useless against Hajime Kashimo's all-out punch.

A visible dent formed in the giant bear's chest. A blast of air hurled its enormous body backward. The special grade cursed spirit capable of killing Megumi Fushiguro in a single blow was knocked down by one punch from Hajime Kashimo, sent crashing like a cannonball into the distant trees.

"That felt strange. Not like a wild animal."

Unlike Megumi Fushiguro, the battle-seasoned Hajime Kashimo had noticed something wrong with this cursed spirit after just one strike.

Judging by its appearance, the feel of the impact, and the warm blood on the ground, it certainly seemed to be an animal possessing the cursed energy of a special grade cursed spirit.

But Hajime Kashimo could clearly sense that his strike had merely touched its outermost "skin" and had done no damage whatsoever to its core.

Coupled with the cursed spirit's slit-shaped snake pupils...

"That ability of yours."

"It's shapeshifting, isn't it!!!"

The Chain of a Thousand Miles appeared in Hajime Kashimo's palm without warning.

While Megumi Fushiguro watched, utterly unable to understand what was happening, the Chain of a Thousand Miles, flashing with dazzling lightning, had already shot toward the crown of the enormous banyan tree.

Almost simultaneously, three pitch-black blades of wind, laden with the aura of a cursed spirit, sliced out from between the branches and collided head-on with the Chain of a Thousand Miles.

Boom-! Bang, bang!!!

The Chain of a Thousand Miles twisted back along an unpredictable trajectory, swiftly intercepting all three wind blades and neutralizing them.

But Hajime Kashimo's maneuver gave the presence among the leaves an opening. In the gap left by the vanishing wind blades, several thick branches were instantly severed, startling a flock of migratory birds into scattering in every direction...

And at the very instant those birds flew away, the special grade cursed spirit's aura vanished from the entire park...

"It broke through the Curtain and escaped?! How is that possible!"

Megumi Fushiguro's voice trembled. In all the exorcism missions to date, no cursed spirit had ever escaped a Curtain.

Yet when he lowered his gaze to Hajime Kashimo, who was putting away the Chain of a Thousand Miles, he saw not a trace of surprise on the new student's face.

"Its ability isn't just shapeshifting. There's a strong chance it can possess things, too."

"I recommend adding it to the special grade cursed spirit registry and placing it in the highest category..."

As Hajime Kashimo clumsily typed a message on his smartphone, he considered the creature's identity and motives.

If his guess was correct, this special grade cursed spirit, born in the forest park and evolved in such a short time, was definitely intelligent.

Unless something unexpected had happened...

Beyond the four existing Calamities, it was-

The Fifth Calamity.