The city didn't notice the rot, but Gojo did.
By now, he could feel it in the rhythm of Gotham itself — in the way streetlights flickered too often near the old storm drains, how alley cats avoided certain corners, and how the air near the condemned playground behind St. Jared's Church buzzed with cursed vibrations so subtle, only someone with Six Eyes could track them.
Kai stood on the edge of the rooftop overlooking that forgotten part of town. The late afternoon haze turned the skyline into a rust-colored blur. From here, everything looked normal. Mundane. Safe.
But through his Six Eyes, he saw something else: cursed energy lines webbing beneath the ground, slowly tightening, like a heartbeat that hadn't quite finished forming.
The nest was almost ready.
He adjusted his scarf and took out a worn black notebook. Pages were filled with field notes, diagrams, cursed symbol sketches, and estimations of energy fluctuation rates. He flipped to the page labeled "Underground Nest – Projected Growth Timeline."
The last line read:
"Phase 4: Incubation complete within 24–36 hours."
Kai clicked his pen and underlined it.
He hadn't made this decision lightly.
In the weeks since first discovering the cursed hotspot below Gotham's forgotten alley, he had done what any smart Jujutsu sorcerer would do — wait and study. He wasn't Gojo Satoru at his peak, not yet. Every fight still drained him, and Reverse Cursed Technique was out of reach.
If he attacked the nest too early, it would scatter and regrow elsewhere. Too late, and it could birth something far worse — maybe even a cursed womb capable of producing independent spirits.
He didn't have a team. He didn't have Tokyo Jujutsu High. He didn't even have a real uniform.
But he had knowledge. He had instincts. He had time.
And now… time was almost up.
The last week had been spent deep in preparation.
Every night, after the orphanage lights went out, he snuck through the ventilation shaft with a pouch full of talismans and cursed energy tracking threads. He mapped sewer layouts. Logged cursed spirit migration paths. Measured the pressure of the nest's aura over time.
Even with Six Eyes, it was exhausting.
He wore himself thin testing new cursed seals—ones designed not for combat, but concealment.
The Curtain he was preparing wasn't some flimsy concealment dome. It was his own adaptation of a full suppression field — a hybrid barrier meant to mask both spiritual and technological detection, while also anchoring his cursed energy to the area's natural decay.
He had to weave its activation glyph into six separate talismans, all placed at precise junctions underground. If one was even slightly misaligned, the whole thing would fail.
But last night, he'd finally finished.
Back in his hidden basement workshop, Kai sat cross-legged on a sheet of cardboard, surrounded by tools, incense, and the familiar comfort of the food bag that sat beside him like a loyal companion.
On his lap was his weapon: Blue Fang.
Forged from a sharpened copper rod, reinforced with a steel-core spine from a dismantled utility pipe, and wrapped in black cloth, it was crude—but effective. On the handle, he'd carved three kanji:
蒼牙 – Blue Fang.
It hummed with cursed energy now, the air around it slightly distorted from the thin layer of Limitless infused into its blade. It wasn't a proper cursed tool—not yet. But it was his. A product of his skill and necessity.
He opened the food bag, pulled out a container of pork katsudon, and ate silently.
Each bite steadied him.
Each bite reminded him that he wasn't a copy of Gojo — he was Kai. A boy reborn. A fan, a fighter, a strategist.
He wasn't here to mimic a story.
He was here to write his own.
Later that night, under cover of darkness and Gotham's choking fog, he returned to the alley.
The cursed pressure now radiated visibly in his Six Eyes — a thick, oozing aura that coiled around the sewer grate like smoke from a dying fire.
A stray cat froze near it, hissed, and darted away.
Kai stepped closer, placing his hand against the concrete.
He whispered, "It's time."
From his belt, he pulled a rolled cloth containing six talismans inscribed with his most refined cursed energy. He set the first one on the wall beside the grate, then reached into his jacket and withdrew the activation talisman — a circle of iron-bound paper etched with complex sealing patterns and a blood-red cursed spiral at the center.
Kai breathed in deeply.
The next words were whispered not just with confidence, but with ownership:
"Curtain. Enclose."
The cursed talismans flared blue.
The air shimmered.
A pulse of energy radiated from the seals, covering a three-block radius in complete sensory nullification. Sound became slightly muffled. Lights above flickered and dulled. Every mystical trace was locked inside.
The nest was sealed off from the world.
Not even Batman would feel this.
Kai crouched low, touched the final talisman with his palm, and whispered a mantra of his own design.
This time, the words weren't in Japanese or Latin or any sacred tongue.
They were anime quotes. Manga callbacks. Personal truths.
"Protect what's behind you. Strike what's before you. Break what tries to bind you."
The seal burned bright—then vanished.
Curtain stabilized.
For a long moment, he stood alone in the silence.
There was no crowd. No mentor. No cheering narrator. Just him, a cursed blade, a blindfold in his pocket, and the taste of lingering katsudon still warm in his memory.
His cursed energy flared in a low hum.
"I'm going in."
He dropped into the tunnel.