The Room Collapses
The morgue shattered under the weight of unleashed cursed energy.
Walls split open like eggshells. Metal cabinets twisted into unholy shapes. The ceiling folded downward, then expanded violently like a lung gasping for breath.
Riko was thrown backwards—but Geto's arm locked around her waist before she hit the floor. His cursed spirit barrier flared bright and bracing, catching the falling debris.
She gasped. "What is that thing?!"
The thing that used to be a monk was floating now—its skin gone, replaced by translucent muscle and writhing threads of energy. Its prayer beads had fused with its spine, now hovering like orbiting talismans that warped gravity around them.
Its face was a hollow—just one vertical eye burning like a furnace.
It didn't chant anymore. It hummed.
And everything near that sound rotted.
---
Kishibe – The Blade Moves First
Kishibe launched forward before the eye turned on them.
No wasted motion. No flash.
Just steel.
He appeared at the creature's flank with a horizontal slash so fast it split the cursed aura around the body before it touched flesh. The beads spun in a defensive spiral—but Kishibe was already moving again, low and brutal.
He ducked under a retaliatory talisman and drove his boot into the creature's floating ribs, then followed with a knife-hand strike into the joint between shoulder and spine.
It screamed. The humming stuttered.
Kishibe capitalized—shoving his blade upward into the socket of the vertical eye.
It hissed and exploded in a wave of cursed backlash—black lightning and gravity pressure.
Kishibe was blasted back across the room, skidding across broken tiles.
But the eye was bleeding now.
He grinned, spitting out blood.
"Got your attention, bastard."
---
Gojo – Infinity Unchained
The humming started again—but Gojo was already mid-air, flipping into a one-legged stomp that shattered the air like a whip crack.
He clapped his hands together.
"Cursed Technique Reversal: Red."
The repulsive wave slammed into the cursed monk, shattering several of the floating beads and knocking its form against the morgue wall.
It retaliated—slinging five chants at once with its voice splitting into multiple time signatures.
The space warped. Reality buckled.
But Gojo stood calmly. "Don't touch them."
He activated Infinity Blink—repositioning himself in a blink to just behind the cursed monk—and rammed his knee into its back, then followed with point-blank Red again, this time tearing chunks of cursed flesh off its side.
It roared. Gojo didn't flinch.
"You're loud," he muttered. "I hate loud."
---
Geto – The Flood Unleashed
While Gojo and Kishibe kept the cursed monk occupied, Geto stepped between Riko and a new wave of cult reinforcements spilling in through the collapsing hallway.
"Stay behind me," he murmured again.
Then he released everything.
His sleeve unfurled into smoke and shadow—dozens of cursed spirits uncoiling like a swarm.
They weren't elegant. They weren't pretty.
They were feral. Twisted. Starving.
"Eat them," Geto said simply.
The spirits obeyed.
Cultists screamed as they were torn apart—flesh stripped, curses infecting their lungs and nerves. One tried to seal a talisman—
A wolf's jaw closed around his neck and dragged him into the smoke.
Another begged.
Geto looked at him, face empty.
"No mercy for those who come for children."
He raised one hand and crushed the man with a spirit-possessed limb.
Behind him, Riko was shaking. But not crying.
Watching.
Learning.
---
Kishibe – The Close Kill
The cursed monk recovered and launched a final offensive. Its talismans formed a binding cage of light. The air turned syrupy, dense with gravitational pressure.
Gojo was temporarily locked in place. Even Infinity stuttered under this level of prayer-based spatial control.
Kishibe walked into it.
"Don't."
The cursed monk turned, eye flickering.
"You'll be undone."
Kishibe kept walking. "Then hurry up."
He let the gravity crush one shoulder. Blood poured from his nose. The hum burned his ears.
But he moved anyway.
He moved through pain.
The knife glinted once.
And then he was behind the cursed monk—blood-slick blade jammed upward through the base of the creature's exposed skull.
"Quiet now," he whispered.
The creature froze.
The hum stopped.
It collapsed like a puppet cut loose.
---
Aftermath – Riko Watches
Silence returned.
Smoke drifted upward from what used to be the morgue. The cursed monk's body was still twitching—what remained of it.
Riko sat down, knees finally giving way.
Gojo turned and smiled. "See? Not even scratched."
His left sleeve was gone. His hand trembled.
Geto kneeled beside Riko, checking for injuries. "You alright?"
She nodded slowly. "You… didn't let them get me."
"Never would," Kishibe said from where he leaned against a busted column, hand on his bleeding shoulder. "That's the job."
"No," she said. "It's not just the job."
She looked at them—each one bloodied, bruised, breathing like they'd seen death and pushed it back with bare hands.
"You didn't do that for Tengen. Or the world."
She met Kishibe's eyes last.
"You did that for me."
No one corrected her.
Because she was right.