The mission had been routine—at least on paper. A rural village in Ibaraki Prefecture plagued by minor apparitions. The local shrine maiden had sealed a cursed object decades ago, but its binding had begun to fray. It was supposed to be a field exercise. Controlled. Safe.
It wasn't.
---
Yaga stood at the edge of the forest, arms crossed, watching the students disappear into the mist. His face betrayed nothing, but his heart was heavy. He remembered a time—not too long ago—when Suguru Geto used to smile more.
Now, Yaga only saw calculation in those eyes.
"Don't be careless," he muttered to no one. Then he turned and walked back toward the car, trusting—but never completely.
---
The village was too quiet. That was the first sign.
"Something's wrong," Geto murmured.
Kishibe looked ahead, hand hovering over his blade's hilt. "You feel it too."
Gojo adjusted his blindfold, grinning. "Yeah. Feels like the party started without us."
Geto didn't respond. He was listening—to the silence, to the rustling unease in the cursed energy around them. It was familiar. Too familiar.
The shrine stood crumbling at the center of the village, its talismans weathered and half-torn. Inside, a mound of decayed offerings and dried blood marked where the cursed object had once been sealed.
Then the ground shifted.
A jagged maw of cursed flesh tore through the shrine floor, and the creature that emerged was unlike anything they'd faced. Towering, skeletal, wearing the broken talismans like a veil—it reeked of ancient hatred.
"A hybrid," Geto whispered. "It's... it absorbed too many low-level curses. This shouldn't have happened."
"No time to lecture!" Gojo shouted. He launched forward.
The fight was chaos. Gojo's raw speed clashed against the creature's warped limbs. Geto summoned shikigami after shikigami, their forms barely holding against the corrupted mass. Kishibe darted in and out, slashing precisely, using Severance to cut through spiritual tendons and cursed ligaments.
Still, the curse regenerated.
Geto hesitated.
He recognized something in the energy—it wasn't just hatred or rage. It was sorrow. A human sorrow that had curdled, hardened. His chest clenched.
That's when it happened.
One of his shikigami—the one resembling a serpentine dragon—hesitated, recoiling from the cursed womb's face.
"Geto!" Kishibe yelled. "Focus!"
But Geto was paralyzed. That sorrow, that cursed shape—it reminded him of something. Of someone.
A girl. From a village like this. Her voice calling for help. The way he had turned away. The guilt festered in his gut.
Kishibe tackled him to the side just as a bone spike ripped through where Geto had been standing.
"You wanna die, you daydreaming bastard?!"
Geto gasped for breath. "I'm sorry... I just—"
"No time for sorry. Get your head together."
Gojo punched through the curse's abdomen, his fist glowing. "You two done with the dramatic side story?! Because this thing's pissed!"
Geto nodded grimly. He steeled himself, then raised both hands. "No more hesitation."
He summoned a massive cursed spirit—an ape-like construct with iron-plated arms and glowing runes on its chest. It slammed into the creature, pinning it long enough for Kishibe to lunge, his blade gleaming with Severance.
This time, the curse didn't regenerate.
It split down the middle, the cursed energy unspooling like unraveling thread. It shrieked—less a sound and more a memory echoing into the forest—before fading to ash.
Silence returned.
The trio stood among the wreckage, breathing hard. The air smelled like ozone and rotting incense.
Gojo flopped onto a fallen beam. "Well, that sucked. But I guess that counts as a win."
Kishibe wiped his blade, eyes scanning Geto.
Geto just stood there, shaking.
"I froze," he muttered. "I saw her face. The one I couldn't save. And I froze."
"You didn't run," Kishibe said. "That's something."
Gojo looked up. "You okay, Suguru?"
Geto gave a hollow laugh. "No. But I'm still here."
And for now, that would have to be enough.
---
Later, when they reported back to Yaga, the man said nothing at first. He simply looked at Geto for a long time.
"Every sorcerer has ghosts," Yaga said quietly. "What matters is what you do when they come calling."
Geto nodded. He still wasn't sure of the answer.
But the question had never been clearer.
And with the others beside him, maybe—just maybe—he'd find it.