Wangchuan Arrives!

Mount Yoshida, the abandoned shrine grounds.

A black Curtain hung down from the mountainside.

Inside the Curtain.

Three masses of shadow formed a triangle, trapping the broad figure in the center.

Aoi Todo was bare-chested.

Sweat and dust mingled into dark streaks across his muscles. Several long, narrow cuts crossed his left arm and the side of his waist, beads of blood slowly seeping from their edges.

But his mouth was stretched into a grin.

"Hahaha!"

"Three Special Grades!"

"This pressure feels incredible!"

Opposite him, the three Special Grade Cursed Spirits each occupied a different direction.

The one on the left was the largest, as though piled together from lumps of distorted flesh. Countless faces covered its surface, each opening its mouth in a silent scream of agony.

More than a dozen arms of varying thickness protruded from the gaps between the faces, their fingers spasming erratically in the air.

The one on the right was relatively thin, but extremely tall.

The one directly ahead was the strangest.

Its body looked as though it had been pieced together from hundreds of broken mirror shards.

Aoi Todo's gaze lingered on the one directly ahead for an instant longer, and then he laughed again.

"Oh?"

"So you can reflect things?"

"Now that's interesting."

Just as he finished speaking, the shadow-shaped cursed spirit on the right suddenly moved.

It was incredibly fast, letting out a shrill screech.

Without warning or any preparatory movement, it shot straight for the side of Aoi Todo's neck, as though some force had launched it in an instant.

Aoi Todo narrowed his eyes slightly.

He did not dodge.

Just as the bone blade came within half a meter of his neck, he abruptly raised both hands and clapped loudly in front of his chest.

[Boogie Woogie.]

Clap!

The instant the sound burst through the air, his figure vanished.

The mirror cursed spirit directly ahead vanished at the same time.

A second later, Aoi Todo appeared where the mirror cursed spirit had been, while the mirror cursed spirit was swapped into the spot where he had just stood.

The shadow cursed spirit on the right could no longer pull back its bone blade, and it plunged straight into the mirror cursed spirit's body.

The mirror cursed spirit's surface rippled violently.

Countless tiny shards burst from its edges and scattered in every direction, their surfaces refracting distorted images.

Aoi Todo did not waste that split-second opening.

The instant his feet touched down, he pushed off, shooting toward the mass-of-flesh cursed spirit on the left like a cannonball.

His kick blasted a shallow crater in the soil beneath him, loose dirt and gravel tracing an arc through the air behind him.

"Hey!"

He drew his right fist back to his waist, his muscles taut.

The countless faces covering the flesh cursed spirit turned toward him at once, and its spasming arms reached for him.

But Aoi Todo was faster. Before those arms could close around him, his fist had already slammed out.

Thud!

A deep, heavy crash rang out, like an iron hammer striking wet mud.

A large section of the flesh cursed spirit's body caved inward at the point of impact, the faces on its surface screaming silently.

Its enormous body slid four or five meters backward, plowing a deep furrow through the ground.

Aoi Todo withdrew his fist, watched the lump of flesh he had sent flying, and shook the black slime off his hand.

"Too weak!"

He grinned.

Then a faint clinking of glass came from behind him.

Without even turning his head, he simply reached out and slapped toward the ground behind him.

Clap!

Another crisp clap rang out.

Ten meters behind him, a blade Kasumi Miwa had placed earlier stood embedded in the ground.

The instant Boogie Woogie activated, his figure vanished again, replaced by that short blade where he had just stood.

The shards fired by the mirror cursed spirit passed through his former position and struck a distant tree trunk, embedding themselves deep in the wood and leaving more than a dozen holes trailing black smoke.

Aoi Todo appeared where the short blade had been.

"Todo..."

Kasumi Miwa and Mai Zenin were crouched behind that stone wall, their uniforms torn in several places, their faces smeared with dust and blood.

Aoi Todo tilted his head slightly toward them.

It was a small movement, but clear enough in the dim light.

"Go."

Kasumi Miwa's lips moved as she tried to say something.

But Mai Zenin caught her wrist before she could.

"Don't hold him back."

Mai Zenin kept her voice extremely low, but every word carried a clearheaded decisiveness honed on the battlefield.

"He can't hold out much longer. Staying here will only distract him."

"Right!"

Kasumi Miwa gritted her teeth and nodded firmly.

Keeping low, the two moved quickly from behind the stone wall, retreating toward the edge of the Curtain.

Only after watching them disappear behind a cluster of collapsed torii gates did Aoi Todo turn back.

He faced the three Special Grade Cursed Spirits again as they readjusted their stances.

"Hmm..."

His gaze swept from left to right, then he suddenly burst into laughter, louder than before and carrying an almost provocative arrogance.

"Hahaha! You three walking lumps of meat!"

"Quit flailing around with those disgusting cursed techniques."

"To me, you're nothing but three walking lumps of meat."

"One punch."

"And there won't even be scraps left!"

The surface of the mirror cursed spirit directly ahead rippled violently, its shards colliding with a shrill noise.

The bone blades at the ends of the shadow cursed spirit's four limbs spread open at once with a series of cracks.

The flesh cursed spirit on the left slowly pushed itself up from the ground, the expressions on its faces growing even more twisted.

The auras of all three Special Grade Cursed Spirits surged at the same instant.

Aoi Todo's grin widened further.

"...Here they come."

He lowered his center of gravity slightly, staggering his feet half a step apart.

In the ruins behind him, several cursed tools Momo Nishimiya and the others had left earlier were still embedded in the nearby ground.

Blades, daggers, guns, and other cursed tools.

He swept his peripheral vision over the weapons' positions, quickly committing their coordinates to memory.

"Come on, come on!"

"If I don't put my life on the line today..."

He clapped his hands sharply.

Clap!

"Wouldn't that be a waste of this encounter?!"

Outside the Curtain.

Momo Nishimiya crouched behind a jutting rock, holding a broom taller than she was.

She gripped her phone tightly.

She abruptly looked up and saw two figures stumbling out of the haze at the edge of the Curtain.

"Miwa! Mai!"

She jumped up, nearly tripped over her broom, and staggered two steps before running toward them.

A large patch of fabric at Kasumi Miwa's knee was torn away, and she limped a little as she walked, but she still managed a smile when she saw Momo Nishimiya.

"Momo!"

"Are you two okay?!"

"Todo told us to retreat first."

Mai Zenin supported Kasumi Miwa by the shoulder. Her breathing had yet to settle, but her voice was already rapidly regaining its composure.

"He's holding off those three Special Grades alone in there. Momo, has backup arrived?"

Momo Nishimiya raised her phone, its screen showing the latest entry in her call history.

"Ms. Utahime Iori said she's on her way, but she said it'll still take her about fifteen minutes to get here!"

"But she..."

"She said Teacher Wangchuan was already heading over!"

Kasumi Miwa's eyes suddenly lit up.

"Teacher Wangchuan? Her boyfriend?"

"Yes, yes! The really powerful one!"

"I heard he's teaching at Tokyo Jujutsu High now."

At that, Mai Zenin's tense shoulders relaxed slightly.

But she still frowned, taking the phone from Momo Nishimiya and quickly opening the contacts.

"I'll call Ms. Utahime to confirm again..."

Her finger was just about to tap the call button when, suddenly...

A voice came from above.

"No need."

"Huh?!"

All three froze at once.

They looked up together.

A figure hovered in the air roughly three meters above their heads.

A black T-shirt, deep black trousers, both hands tucked into his pockets.

He was positioned right at the boundary between the shadow at the Curtain's edge and the sunlight, half his face covered by the darkness of the Curtain's wall.

"I'm already here."

Momo Nishimiya's mouth hung open.

"You... who are you?"

"Could it be?"

Kasumi Miwa's eyes were as wide as two ripe grapes.

"Teacher Wangchuan?"

Mai Zenin's hand stopped in midair, still holding the phone. Her gaze lingered on the hovering figure for two seconds.

Only after several seconds did she squeeze out those words.

Only then did Kasumi Miwa and Momo Nishimiya learn who he was.

For Momo Nishimiya in particular, it probably had not even been two minutes since she had called Ms. Utahime Iori.

"...That was fast."

Wangchuan descended from the air.

His movements were light, his feet making almost no sound as they touched the rock's surface.

He glanced at the three of them, his gaze pausing on the wound at Kasumi Miwa's knee before moving away.

"Todo's still inside?"

"Yes!" Momo Nishimiya nodded repeatedly. "He's taking on three Special Grades head-on, all by himself!"

Wangchuan nodded. "Got it."

He turned and took two steps toward the Curtain's wall.

The black barrier of cursed energy rippled slightly as he approached, like the surface of water sensing that something was about to be dropped into it.

"Wait here for Utahime."

"I'll go bring Todo back."

Then he turned and walked unhurriedly into the black wall of the Curtain.