Nobara, dragged out beyond the barrier, swung her hammer behind her.
“Let go of me, you bastard!”
Whoosh!
The thug who had been pulling her from behind sensed the attack the instant he noticed it coming and quickly let go, retreating at speed.
The hammer Nobara had swung at empty air missed its target completely.
“Ah, so you’re a woman. My apologies.”
The man who had hauled her out apologized in a polite voice.
As the shadow beneath the bridge lifted, his features came into view.
He wore more exposed skin than covered skin.
His upper body had nothing on except a harness, and his lower half was an odd combination of leather panties and stockings.
He looked like a masochist who had just stepped out of a cheap gay SM video.
What made it especially infuriating was the bulge thrusting out through those tight leather panties.
“You pervert!!”
“That’s a bit harsh. I have my reasons for dressing like this.”
The strange man shook his head and, as if he had no intention of fighting right away, spread both hands and licked his lips.
“The errand assigned to us brothers... does not include killing sorcerers. If you back off, I’ll let you go, miss.”
“An errand?”
“...? I was certain you and I were on the same errand.”
Nobara had no idea what was going on.
She couldn’t even tell whether this guy was a curse or a curse user.
If he’d come here because of an errand, was he after the curse inside that barrier?
“More importantly, what is that smell?”
Ever since a moment ago, something rotten had kept wafting into her nose. It was probably coming from that guy...
He looked perfectly normal, so why the hell did he stink?
“What do I do? Should I fight him?”
While Nobara hesitated, the man spoke first.
“Our objective is to recover Sukuna’s finger.”
“...What?”
“I’m telling you in advance. If our goals overlap, I’ll have no choice but to kill you. I don’t like fighting.”
It was a blatant look-down-the-nose threat.
But more than anger, concern came first.
“Sukuna’s finger... the juvenile detention center!”
It was just like back when Yuji had died.
Without a second of hesitation, Nobara drew her hammer.
“So you’re fighting me?”
“Yeah. I don’t have time to play around with you.”
Megumi and Yuji had both gotten a lot stronger than they had been back then, but there was no guarantee they’d be safe.
And even if she somehow drove this guy off, what if he went after the two of them once they were injured?
Her resolve hardened.
Whatever this bastard was, it didn’t matter.
There was no avoiding the fight.
“That’s a shame. To think I’d have to kill such a beautiful young lady with my own hands.”
The man, Eso, sighed and immediately took a combat stance, activating his technique.
Rotting Flesh Technique - Maximum.
Wing King.
The blood seeping out in clumps from his back twisted into the shape of wings and writhed violently.
When the blood dripping from the wing tips hit the rock, it went ssshhh and belched out toxic smoke.
“He’s strong...! At least first-grade level...!”
“Who said I’d die that easily?”
She sounded confident, but this was a tough opponent.
Still, she couldn’t keep fighting only weaklings forever.
Just like at the juvenile detention center, just like at the exchange event, she couldn’t stand around doing nothing and waiting for a teammate to protect her again.
“Are you some elite mob? Let me rack up some experience too!”
Nobara turned her anxiety into fighting spirit and grinned as she floated the nails into the air.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
She slammed the hammer down in rapid succession, pouring cursed energy into them.
The true terror of Straw Doll Technique was its sure-hit effect, which activated regardless of distance.
If even one of those nails pierced his body, her odds of winning would shoot up.
Thud!
“That’s dangerous.”
Eso dodged two of the flying nails and blocked one with his hand, frowning.
It hurt a little, sure, but that was nothing more than a sting.
Just as he thought that and manipulated his blood to launch it at Nobara,
“[Hairpin].”
Nobara’s cursed energy, having flowed in through the nail as a medium, exploded from Eso’s right hand.
Crunch!
“...!”
“How’s it taste?”
Bending low to avoid the blood spear, Nobara pressed the attack.
She rushed up to Eso, who was clutching his blown-apart hand, and raised another nail.
This time, she aimed for a more lethal spot. The liver, the heart, the lungs.
Once a marked nail had been driven in, Hairpin could be used again anytime.
If she kept driving them in one by one and stacking damage...
Swoosh!
“Ghk!”
That was when blood got into her eye.
Eso, pretending to be in pain, had used the blood streaming from his explosively torn right hand to scatter a surprise spray at her face.
She wiped it off in a hurry, but Eso’s technique had already met its conditions.
“I let my guard down. That guy’s technique uses blood as a medium!”
“Rotting Flesh Technique - Decay.”
Shhhhk!
With a triumphant smile, Eso raised his pinky finger, and the half of Nobara’s face splashed with blood was covered in a black rose pattern.
At the same time, an awful pain of her body slowly melting away assaulted her.
“Kgh!”
“Hurts, doesn’t it? Once one of our brother’s blood enters through the mucous membranes or an open wound, and then any one of the brothers activates the technique, that area starts rotting from the inside out. Five minutes is probably the limit.”
“Poison...!”
“In the end, it’s only poisonous. Our technique is, at its core, decomposition. By tomorrow morning, there won’t be anything left but bones.”
“Hah. If it’s a technique, then all I have to do is dispel it...”
Wobble
Trying to force a smile, Nobara lunged at Eso, only for her legs to give out and send her collapsing to the ground.
If Junpei, the “branch point,” had not survived.
In the original timeline that would have continued unchanged, Yuji would have shared the burden after getting caught in the technique too, and that had allowed her to hold out a little longer.
But now, with no Yuji to endure the poison and beat the hell out of Eso and Kechizu, she was staring defeat in the face.
“Big bro, sorcerers aren’t anything special.”
Eso gave a sly smile as he recalled his older brother.
Brothers who had lived for more than 150 years relying only on each other’s existence.
They could give their lives for one another without hesitation.
He didn’t particularly hate humans or sorcerers, but his brother had said it was better to side with the curses, so...
That woman would die here.
Because that was what the brothers had decided.
“You bastard...”
“If it hurts that much, I can kill you right no—”
Eso’s words were cut off there.
Splat!
Something so mangled it was hard to even make out its shape rolled to a stop in front of him.
It was drenched in blood and covered in black blotches, but Eso recognized who it was at a glance.
How could he forget?
The face of his precious little brother.
“Bro...ther...”
“Kechizu!!”
Wailing, Eso charged forward, but in that instant he felt a thick murderous intent and threw himself to the side.
Swoosh!
“Ghh!”
The attack had been aimed at his neck, but it ended with only one arm gone.
“So fast...!”
Turning his attention to the newly arrived intruder, Eso soon felt his body stiffen.
Black blotches were rapidly spreading over him from the severed area.
“This is... poison!”
He knew it immediately. His own technique was similar.
The meddler, having flicked blood off his blade in one clean motion, looked down at him serenely from atop a flapping stingray.
His one visible eye was bloodshot.
Realizing who the reinforcements were, Nobara forgot her pain and broke into a wide smile as she called out to him.
“Yoshino!”
“Kugisaki...”
Junpei’s gaze swept over her body.
Blood splattered here and there. The black rose drawn across her face. Sweat trickling down her forehead as if she were forcing herself through the pain.
She wasn’t critically injured, but she certainly wasn’t unharmed either.
Veins bulged on Junpei’s forehead.
“You did that?”
“And what exactly did you do to my little brother?”
Junpei answered the growling Eso with a flat expression.
“He’s not dead yet, but don’t worry. I’ll send you off together so he won’t be lonely.”
“You little shit! I’ll tear you apart!”
Eso’s blood shot toward Junpei at high speed.
“Yoshino! Don’t let that blood touch you!”
“Got it.”
He knew that much the moment he saw it.
Probably the blood on Nobara’s body wasn’t hers either, but this guy’s.
It was definitely a dangerous technique, but it was no problem for him.
Screeeeech!
The shikigami user and the shikigami shared growth.
Before entering Jujutsu High and even after, Junpei had survived death’s edge again and again, breaking through one wall after another, and now, at the peak of his skill, the acceleration of his [Moonlit Wave] had surpassed the 2-second zero-to-hundred mark.
And at top speed,
240 km/h.
Junpei, riding what was basically a rampaging sports car, cut through the air.
Swish! Swish!
Eso’s blood couldn’t even graze him, veering off in the wrong direction.
“What the hell is this? It’s not quite as fast as my brother’s Piercing Blood, but...!”
Swoosh!
His body moved before his brain could even process it.
Acting on instinct, Eso twisted his head, and half his neck was sliced away.
“Guhh...”
“Nice reflexes. You even dodged that...”
Junpei, preparing his next attack, suddenly felt pain in his eye.
When he wiped his face with his sleeve, what came away was a smear of red blood.
Even as his neck was being cut, Eso had used his final burst of resistance to spray out a thin mist of blood and cover Junpei’s face.
“I can’t win with my own strength. If I can just create an opening somehow...”
Eso’s body was already a wreck. He wouldn’t survive the next attack.
But that was true of the girl over there too.
Eso’s eyes locked onto Kechizu, who had been secretly crawling behind Nobara for a while now.
“Y-you’re... already...”
The poison was taking effect faster on this side. The technique itself was also superior on the other side.
He would probably collapse soon.
But he would not release the technique. He had to hold out until Kechizu caught that woman.
“You can do it, little brother...!”
Just when he thought the only winning plan was to take a hostage and negotiate,
“Straw Doll Technique, Resonance.”
Throb!
A fierce pain crashed over Eso.
“I’m not interested in being dead weight!”
Nobara, with nails driven all over her wrist, was smiling through the pain.
“A reverse curse technique...?”
As Eso’s body lost strength and collapsed, a black blade came plunging down over his head.
“W-why...”
“I’m immune to poison.”
The last thing Eso saw was his brother’s back.
“Bro... I’m sorry...”
He hadn’t been able to save his precious little brother. His own life ended here too.
Still, the brothers’ will would live on.
To the strongest eldest brother.
Slash!
As Eso’s head was cleanly severed, the technique was dispelled.
“B-brotherrrrr!!”
Kechizu, who had been pretending to be dead and waiting for his chance, lunged at Nobara.
At the very least, he meant to take one enemy down with him, but it didn’t work.
Crack!
The instant Eso died, Junpei’s blade flew in like lightning, piercing Kechizu’s palate and smashing the brain at the back of his skull.
Thud
Kechizu’s body immediately lost its balance and collapsed.
But the corpses did not disappear.
Neither the headless Eso nor the skull-pierced Kechizu.
“Those bastards... they’re not dead yet...”
“No. They still have bodies. Probably incarnated vessels that swallowed cursed objects.”
At that, Junpei’s tightly clenched hand loosened.
The battle was over. A perfect victory.
With the tension gone, Junpei and Nobara both sat down on the nearest jutting rock.
“Haa...”
“Kugisaki, are you okay? You aren’t hurt anywhere, are you?”
“Of course not. I’m totally fine.”
“Th-thank goodness...”
There was no trace left of the eerie aura from earlier on Junpei’s stupidly smiling face.
“Is that really the same guy from before? Why are you grinning again?”
“Because I’m relieved.”
“Cut the useless talk and hurry up and get over to Itadori and Fushiguro.”
Those guys said they were after Sukuna’s finger.
Junpei’s expression turned grave.
If that was true, then the others were definitely dealing with a special-grade curse right now.
The ominous premonition he’d felt before the mission had been right.
“I don’t know what happened over there. They told us to go play whack-a-mole in the first place, so why did you come to me...”
“Hold on tight, Kugisaki.”
“Huh?”
Junpei pulled Nobara’s arm and took her with him onto [Moonlit Wave].
“You bastard...”
For a brief moment Nobara’s heart skipped at the unexpected strength in the grip around her arm, and then [Moonlit Wave] reached top speed and tore through the air with a sonic boom.
“Waaah!”
“Don’t let go of my hand!”
“Hey, idiot! This is way too fast!”
Even while she was cursing and smacking the back of Junpei’s head over and over, the corners of Nobara’s mouth were lifting ever so slightly.
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