When Junpei woke up in bed that morning, he caught a faint, metallic smell.
"What is that smell...."
It was a scent he felt like he’d smelled somewhere before.
There was no mistaking it.
Blood.
Why would that ominous smell be hanging in a space that was only supposed to hold his mother and him?
An indescribably bad feeling crept over him.
Junpei stepped out into the living room and found the dining table still bearing the traces of last night.
Today was her day off, so she must have been tired, he told himself, trying hard to settle his rising anxiety. Then one fact came back to him.
His mother always cleaned up the next day after drinking herself to sleep early.
"Mom!!"
There was no answer.
No. It couldn’t be. It wasn’t.
Clinging to that belief, Junpei flung open the door to Nagi’s room.
"Mom....?"
He had no choice but to face a horrific scene.
-------------------------
Blood had splattered across the room.
And in the middle of it, Nagi was lying in bed, bizarrely neat, with the blanket pulled up over her.
Every time Junpei staggered closer, a strange chill brushed over him, but he didn’t even notice his own breath turning white.
"Mom."
Nagi still didn’t answer when he called to her.
As he got close enough to see her face, he could tell it was twisted in pain and terror.
"No."
Junpei prayed with all his heart that this was a dream.
He’d woken up and found his mother dead all of a sudden? It was a nightmare beyond words.
He was sure he’d stayed up late watching movies last night and simply overslept.
So please, Mom.
Come into the room and wake me up.
While Junpei’s mind denied the reality in front of him, his trembling hand slowly reached for the blanket.
Carefully, he lifted it.
Then his legs gave out, and he collapsed where he stood.
Her lower half was gone.
In the place where her legs should have been, exposed organs, ice, and cooling packs were scattered in a mess.
The blanket, soaked through with blood and water, pressed down on her fragile body.
"M...mo...m......."
The sight was so cruel Junpei couldn’t think straight.
It’s a dream. It’s a dream. It’s a dream. It’s a dream.
No matter how many times he screamed it, nothing changed.
He still had to face his mother’s corpse, cold and still, staring up at the ceiling with her insides spilled open.
"Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom."
Pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease
As he kept begging and tearing at his own hair, the metallic smell of blood and flesh stabbed into his nose.
He had to accept it now, whether he wanted to or not. His mother had been brutally murdered.
"Aaaaaaaah!!!!!"
A cry broke from Junpei’s mouth as he dropped to his knees.
Even as tears streamed down his face, the sound never stopped.
It was less a human sob than the howl of a beast, a cry soaked in grief.
"Aaaagh!!!! Why!! Whyyyyy!!!! Mom!! Mooooom!!!!"
He crawled forward and took her hand. The cold, damp sensation seeping through his fingertips made him even sadder.
There was no more talking to her, no more holding her.
The body that had shared its warmth was long since gone cold.
The one and only person in this world who had loved Junpei was gone now.
"Huuuu.... hwaaa...."
Junpei rubbed his face against her corpse, not caring that blood was getting all over him, and kept sobbing without end.
He had been crying for so long he’d lost all sense of time when an unpleasant laugh came from behind him.
-Kihihihit
At that sound, Junpei’s mind snapped awake.
He turned and looked behind him, and there was a grotesque monster.
Its human features and limbs were twisted and knotted together in a hideous mass.
A cursed spirit.
-Kihihihit!! Kihahahahat!!
In its hand was a lump of flesh, as if ripped from someone’s body.
A blood-soaked pink uterus twitched weakly, and Junpei instinctively knew whose it was.
And then he knew who had killed his mother.
"You...."
Blood tears spilled from Junpei’s grief-stricken eyes.
He was beyond his limit, consumed by rage and sorrow.
The moment Junpei staggered to his feet, immense cursed energy poured out of his body.
Cursed energy was negative energy born from negative emotions.
At the most miserable moment of his life, he achieved explosive growth.
The grade 2 cursed spirit that had been tricked by Sukuna’s finger into killing Nagi felt fear for the first time in its life.
That was the kind of pressure the boy in front of it was giving off.
"I’ll kill you."
-Kiaaaah!
The jellyfish shikigami Junpei summoned collided with the cursed spirit.
-------------------------
-Thunk!
The cursed spirit threw a punch at Sediment Moon, only to be bounced back by the recoil.
Sediment Moon had never been very effective against blunt force to begin with, but now it had reached the point where it ignored physical attacks outright.
"Coffin."
-Swoosh
Following the hand sign Junpei formed with both palms stacked together, Sediment Moon swelled in size and revealed tentacles lined with sharp spines.
The cursed spirit sensed it instinctively.
If those spines hit, it would die!
Hardening its outer shell, the cursed spirit dashed to Junpei’s blind spot at high speed.
High-speed attacks stabbed in from angles Sediment Moon couldn’t cover and rushed toward Junpei.
-Gurgle
But even that was blocked.
After confirming early on that the cursed spirit’s speed exceeded his perception, Junpei had hidden himself inside Sediment Moon while pretending to launch an attack.
A tactic to block every direction and completely seal off all physical hits.
Even after losing his reason, his mind was working colder than ever.
-Kiiiit!
The moment its attack was blocked, the cursed spirit instinctively tried to yank its arm back.
But its body had already been exposed to poison through contact with Sediment Moon, and it was steadily losing function. The arm that had attacked directly was now covered in black spots and could barely move.
Its legs were getting sluggish too. It must have already sprayed poison into the air.
No fatal wound, but it was being steadily consumed.
And because of Sediment Moon, its own attacks couldn’t land.
The cursed spirit’s judgment was swift, and it immediately tried to open the window and leap out, but—
"Where do you think you’re going?"
Sediment Moon instantly caught its leg with a tentacle and drove in the spines.
-Thud!
-Kiiiiiiik!!! Kyaaaak!!
How could he make the cursed spirit that had taken his beloved mother suffer?
The poison refined from Junpei’s bottomless malice invaded the cursed spirit’s body.
Burning through its whole body and tearing it apart like shards of glass, the pain drove it to shriek and roll across the floor.
More pain. More, more, more.
-Thud, thud, thud, thud, thud
The outcome had already been decided, but it still wasn’t enough to calm Junpei’s rage.
He kept stabbing the cursed spirit for a long time, and only stopped once its corpse turned to ash.
Even after avenging her with his own hands, he didn’t feel any better.
There was nothing to gain from tormenting a cursed spirit that couldn’t even speak.
His mother was dead, and she would never come back.
"Huk.... hhhk......."
In front of the remains of his mother, brutally crushed beyond recognition, Junpei broke down sobbing.
He was starting to wonder if he might actually die of dehydration from crying like this when another cursed spirit burst in.
-Grrrrooo.......
"A...another one?"
Just as Junpei wiped his tears and stood up, ready to fight again, someone else followed the cursed spirit through the broken window.
Idle Transfiguration - Body Release
-KWAANG!
The cursed spirit was smashed to pieces without a trace by the mass of flesh fired by the second intruder.
Junpei tore his eyes away from the scene and looked at the person who had helped him.
"M...Mahito...?"
"Are you okay, Junpei?"
At that gentle voice, Junpei felt the tears he’d been trying to hold back start spilling again in the most pathetic way.
------------------------
With Mahito’s help, Junpei cleaned up the wrecked house and recovered his mother’s body.
His mother, laid out neatly now instead of in that horrific state, looked as if she might sit up at any moment.
".........."
"I’m sorry. I was too late."
"...No. I’m just glad you came."
Junpei stroked Nagi’s closed eyes.
His sorrowful hand showed no sign of leaving.
Then he noticed something clenched tightly in Nagi’s hand.
"What is this....?"
It was a human finger.
For some reason, it was radiating an intensely ominous curse.
That was when it happened.
Mahito snatched the finger from Junpei’s hand, stared at it for a moment, and murmured, "So that’s it...."
"W-what is it?"
"It’s a cursed object that draws curses to it. That’s probably how I was able to find your house too."
"Why would something like that be in our house...!"
"There are plenty of curse users who make money by cursing people. It must have been one of them."
Someone had cursed him.
At those words, Junpei’s heart dropped.
"With enough backing and money, you can easily kill someone with a curse. Do you have any idea who it might be? Anyone who bears a grudge against you or your mother?"
There was no way they’d ever made enemies like that.
His mother was sociable and kind to everyone, and people loved her. She had even parted ways with his divorced father on fairly good terms.
And as for him, he had basically no social connections at all.......
"Or maybe some shady person with money and time to burn."
The instant he heard that, Junpei thought of one person.
Ah.
Right.
That guy existed.
The one with money and time to spare, who enjoyed throwing other people into pits of despair.
The one responsible for making his life turn out like this. It was highly likely that bastard had done it.
He felt as if his blood had gone cold.
Leaving the frozen Junpei where he was, Mahito stood up.
"What are you going to do now?"
"......I think I know who it is."
"I see."
"It doesn’t matter whether he did it or not."
After all, there was nothing precious left for him to lose.
No one would scold him if he killed someone, and no one would grieve for him either.
So from now on, he would act however he wanted.
"I’d like to help, but I’m being chased myself right now. Good luck, Junpei."
"...Yeah."
Mahito left Junpei frozen stiff and stood up.
He didn’t forget to stuff the finger back into some corner of the house while pretending to comfort him.
Once outside, the laughter he’d been holding back finally spilled out.
"Puhahahat!"
Junpei’s stupidity was so funny he couldn’t stand it.
He was looking forward to tomorrow, when the plan would be carried out.
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