Death

The hallway smelled of old timber and years of dust, with a faint, rusty sweetness of blood.

The sound came from behind the door, a faint crunch of something being crushed-chewing.

Madara stood at the entrance. The cheap composite wooden door divided the inside and outside into two worlds.

On the other side, a tragedy was unfolding.

His face showed little expression, neither fear nor anger, only calm.

The vast memories belonging to Madara Uchiha held countless scenes a hundred times crueler than this, long since dulling any ordinary sense of horror.

The instincts belonging to the boy from Earth were swiftly suppressed to the bottom of his consciousness.

Without pausing, he raised his right hand, fingers loosely curled.

The cursed energy within him moved at his thought, instantly gathering in the channels of his arm like streams of black water.

His muscle fibers tensed slightly under the reinforcement of cursed energy, and a dim gleam seemed to flash beneath his skin.

He clenched his fist, gathered strength, and then-

Bang!

Madara's right hand seized the door handle on the inside directly. Cursed energy burst in his palm, producing a brutal inward tearing force.

The metal handle and the wood around it twisted and shattered, as though an invisible beast had bitten a chunk out of them!

The entire door was forcibly ripped from its frame and toppled inward, striking the floor with a dull thud and raising a cloud of dust.

Had anyone else been present, they probably would have stared at this simple, brutal way of "opening" a door.

Reinforcing the body with cursed energy was a basic technique, but concentrating it at a single point for an instantaneous burst like this required extraordinarily fine control over energy.

Madara looked at his palm.

"Cursed energy reinforcement makes a clear difference in physical strength," he observed calmly.

"But it's still not enough. If my underlying physique were strong enough, and I added cursed energy on top of that..." He pictured it.

"Training really can't wait."

With the door violently removed, the scene inside the room lay fully exposed.

Heavy curtains blocked most of the sunlight, leaving the room dim.

The familiar cheap furniture lay scattered and overturned. A teacup had shattered on the tatami, dark tea stains spreading across it.

The smell of blood in the air abruptly grew stronger.

In the center of the room, the landlady lay lifeless in a pool of blood.

Part of her body was missing, leaving a hideous wound.

Crouched beside her, a cursed spirit raised its misshapen head, covered in dark red liquid, and looked over.

Its skin was grayish white and rough like peeling plaster, its limbs long and twisted, its head like a toad that had been smashed flat.

Its split mouth was packed with tiny, sharp teeth, still chewing something, while a chaotic, greedy light flickered in its eyes.

A dog barked wildly in the corner, at the empty air and in the cursed spirit's direction.

It clearly could not see the cursed spirit itself, but its keen animal instincts let it sense an extremely dangerous presence, leaving it to bark futilely at the place where the malice was strongest.

The chewing stopped.

The cursed spirit seemed somewhat surprised by the intruder.

It tilted its ugly head, studying the slender boy in the doorway.

He neither screamed nor ran, but simply stood there watching.

To the cursed spirit's crude intelligence, born of negative emotions, perhaps this meant he was scared senseless?

Just like the prey it had caught, frozen in despair as they waited to die.

And so the corners of its mouth, split all the way to its ears, curled upward into an ugly smile mingling cruelty and mockery.

A smile of contempt for the weak.

Though it could not yet express itself in human language, its posture plainly said: another snack delivered to my door.

Madara looked at that smile, at the landlady's unfocused eyes behind the cursed spirit, and at the dog in the corner, still barking wildly, unaware that its owner was dead.

He spoke quietly, his voice so calm it barely rose or fell, yet it pierced the room's thick aura of death like an ice pick.

"What the fuck are you smiling at?"

The instant the words fell, he stirred his thoughts ever so slightly.

Humm-

The air gave a low tremor.

A cold light abruptly flared in the dark room.

It rapidly traced a shape before Madara, condensing-

It was a deep blue skeleton formed entirely of energy!

Only a portion of one: the skeletal frame of an arm, extending from the shoulder blade, its five fingers spread like claws, shielding most of Madara's body behind it.

The bones were solid as crystal, cold flames of energy flowing along their edges, exuding a heart-stopping pressure.

Susanoo-its most basic form.

The cursed spirit's ugly smile froze on its face.

Animal instinct overwhelmed its pitiful intelligence, making it sense a power far purer than its own in those bones radiating terrifying waves of cursed energy.

It was absolute superiority on an entirely different level.

It wanted to flee, its slender limbs beginning to draw backward.

But it was already too late.

The enormous deep blue skeletal arm reached forward in a gentle grasp, too fast to evade.

Like crushing a piece of dried clay.

The cursed spirit could not even wail before its twisted body instantly deformed between the closing blue finger bones.

Soon.

Only a few wisps of foul black smoke and a small puddle of mudlike residue remained.

The skeletal arm slowly dispersed into drifting points of deep blue light, like cold fireflies, vanishing completely into the air within a few breaths.

The room fell dim again. Only a shaft of light through a gap in the curtains illuminated the slowly settling dust.

Madara lowered his slightly raised hand.

Using Susanoo for the first time in this world felt somewhat strange.

Thanks to the experience ingrained in Madara Uchiha's very bones, controlling it came as naturally as moving his own limbs.

He walked over to the landlady's body and crouched.

Ignoring the horrifying wound and heavy smell of blood, he reached out and gently brushed over the old woman's staring eyes, closing her eyelids for her.

"Sorry," he said softly, his tone revealing little emotion, more like a formal notification.

"I was late."

After a second of silence, he looked at the old woman's pale face, now a little more peaceful, and added in a voice so quiet it was almost a murmur to himself.

"I don't have to pay the rent, then?"

Then he stood, without giving the scene of death another glance.

His gaze turned toward the empty doorway-the door itself was still lying on the floor.

Footsteps sounded in the hallway.

Two sets.

Fast, well-trained, and making no attempt to conceal their presence.

One gave off waves of cursed energy as immense as a silent, deep ocean.

The other... he could barely sense any cursed energy flowing.

"People from Jujutsu High?" Madara made an immediate judgment.

At this point in time, a pair with those particular traits, combined with his vague memories of the plot.

"It should be Yuta Okkotsu and Maki Zenin."

He quickly considered his options.

Meet them? Explaining would be a hassle.

Someone his age appearing at the scene of a curse attack that had just occurred would have a hard time avoiding suspicion.

Leave? He glanced out the window.

At some point, an unnatural black barrier, like spreading ink, had covered the sky.

A Curtain had already descended, isolating the area.

Breaking through by force was possible. A Curtain of this level probably could not stop him.

But that would cause too much commotion, immediately exposing his unusual abilities and possibly drawing higher-level attention and investigation.

The footsteps had already reached the turn in the stairs. Another second, and they would appear at the end of the hall.

"What a pain." Madara sighed.

He turned to face the doorway, adjusted his breathing, and steadied his heartbeat.

Then he waited quietly.

Waited for the people outside to see the door that was no longer there, and him standing inside.

"Emerge from darkness, blacker than black. Purify all that is impure."

As Kiyotaka Ijichi finished his low chant, a black Curtain descended from the sky, swiftly enveloping the old residential neighborhood before them.

The light dimmed somewhat.

"Thank you, Mr. Ijichi." Yuta Okkotsu nodded slightly, his manner still polite and a little reserved.

He carried a long cloth bag on his back, containing a specially made cursed tool katana.

"Enough chatter. Let's go." Maki Zenin had already strode inside, a naginata resting on her shoulder.

Her eyes behind her glasses were as sharp as ever, though a close look would reveal a barely perceptible tension.

This mission's rating was not low. According to Window's observations, it involved at least a Grade 2 cursed spirit, possibly approaching Grade 1.

"Ah, right!" Yuta Okkotsu hurried after her.

Standing outside the Curtain, Ijichi adjusted his glasses and watched their figures swiftly disappear into the darkened streets, murmuring to himself.

"Take care, both of you. Please be careful. I'll wait outside." As an assistant supervisor, his task ended here. What followed was the jujutsu sorcerers' work.

Maki walked ahead at a brisk pace, the tip of her naginata tracing slight arcs through the air with her movements.

She glanced at Yuta Okkotsu beside her, half a step behind, cautiously surveying their surroundings.

In just a few months, this boy who had once needed protection had gained terrifying strength worthy of a Special Grade rating.

He was now indisputably one of Jujutsu High's aces.

In such a short time... he'll soon be getting more and more missions, Maki thought.

He'll barely have any time to stay at Jujutsu High. Panda and Inumaki will be lonely, too.

This... really might be our last mission together.

The thought made her grip on the naginata's shaft tighten slightly.

A jujutsu sorcerer's grade determined the frequency and difficulty of their missions.

She was Grade 4, relying on cursed tools and taijutsu in battle, her ceiling plain to see, with the Zenin Clan obstructing her from behind as well.

Okkotsu, meanwhile, was Special Grade. His battlefield would soon move to heights she would struggle to reach.

After all, I'm only a Grade 4 sorcerer. Heh.

The self-mocking thought flashed through her mind, and she quickly suppressed it. This was not the time to think about such things.

"What's wrong, Maki?" Keenly noticing a fluctuation in his companion's presence, Yuta Okkotsu turned and asked with concern.

His perception had grown increasingly sharp as his control of cursed energy improved.

"Nothing." Maki flatly denied it and pushed up her glasses.

"Let's hurry. Most of the people around here should have been evacuated by now. We'll finish this quickly...!"

Before she finished-

Maki suddenly shuddered violently, as though an invisible needle of ice had pierced her spine!

She stopped abruptly, holding her naginata across her body as she looked warily toward an old three-story apartment building ahead and to the right.

An immense surge of cursed energy with an overwhelming presence erupted from a window in that building, like a ghostly blue flame ignited in the dark!

"Did you feel that?" Maki kept her voice very low, her muscles taut.

"Ah... of course." The gentle expression vanished from Yuta Okkotsu's face, replaced by a warrior's gravity.

At some point, he had undone the cloth bag on his back and taken the specially made cursed tool sword into his hand.

The blade was not fully drawn, but his fingertips already rested against the guard.

His sharp gaze locked onto the same direction.

"It's strong... at least Semi-Grade 1. No, the cursed energy might be close to Grade 1!"

He paused, frowning slightly. "But it seems like there's another source of cursed energy, too..."

"Hm!?" Maki's gaze sharpened. "An overlooked civilian?"

If a civilian had been caught in a cursed spirit attack of this level, death was almost certain.

"Ah... I'm not sure either." Yuta Okkotsu probed carefully with his senses.

"But it probably isn't a civilian. That faint cursed energy... seems to be deliberately hiding itself. That's why I only vaguely noticed it now."

Neither a cursed spirit nor a civilian.

An unidentified presence at the scene of a cursed spirit attack?

Maki's heart sank.

The worst possibility-a curse user.

"Is that so?" She tightened her grip on the naginata, her knuckles turning a little white.

"Then let's find out. Okkotsu, stay alert."

"Understood," Yuta Okkotsu replied briefly, drawing the blade an inch, its cold edge gleaming.

Just as the two prepared to rush toward the apartment building-

Boom!!!

An enormous crash, mixed with the sounds of a building being violently smashed apart, came from the third floor!

The battle had already begun.

Maki and Yuta Okkotsu exchanged a glance, each seeing shock in the other's eyes.

"Hurry!" Maki no longer hesitated and took the lead, surging toward the apartment building.

"Ah, okay!" Yuta Okkotsu followed close behind, the sword in his hand fully drawn as cursed energy began to flow faintly around him.

Like arrows loosed from a bow, the two rushed into the old apartment building, which was unusually quiet.