More than half a year later.
At last it was the "in a while" Yaga Masamichi had promised.
Soujun had already worked his way into the Intermediate Upper volume of the new standards. Only now did this moment arrive.
At dawn that morning, Yaga appeared at the door.
"Ready?"
He wore a black suit that made him look solemn.
"Give me a second."
Soujun fetched a key and opened the basement door.
This was Mrs. Minamoto's armory.
In the center stood a dozen life-sized wooden dummies, their surfaces covered in cut marks and stabs.
Weapons lined the walls. Swords, spears, halberds, axes, polearms, hooks and forks.
Every type you could want.
Most numerous were the thrown and projectile weapons on the racks: throwing knives, hand axes, arrows, short javelins. Several racks of them.
The room's purpose was obvious once you recalled Mrs. Minamoto's innate technique.
Even within puppet manipulation, some people control mechs, some control weapons, and some control dolls. Looking at you, Yaga Masamichi.
Right now her strength was around quasi Grade 1, which placed her near the top tier in the jujutsu world. She had inherited the Yaga family's technique and had loved blades since childhood, so her development naturally leaned that way.
She was also a smith.
She learned cursed-tool forging specifically to strengthen her technique.
Cursed tools are weapons that house curses. They are tainted yet protective. Their power and utility are ranked from Grade 1 to 4 just like sorcerers. The higher the grade, the greater the advantage.
Forging one successfully is very hard.
From drafting designs to selecting materials, forging to shape, grinding and finishing, repeated heat treatments, some requiring assembly and painting. The steps are many and meticulous, not to mention the tools and the even more complex prep work.
With success rates of one in ten or even one in a hundred, you need every advantage of time, place, and people. A tool you craft by hand with painstaking care will better fit your innate technique and bring out greater power.
The armory was not full of cursed tools. Ordinary weapons were the majority.
Her talent for forging was not high.
That was a thought that would make her unhappy if she heard it.
Besides the collected pieces, a handful of cursed tools she had forged herself were kept here. Fewer than five in total.
Soujun knew a little about smithing too.
Cursed tools were precious. He maintained them with care. With frequent handling, he picked up real techniques. He practiced often, and with the standards' material on cursed tools, his success rate was actually higher than hers.
After so much martial training, he was no stranger to weapons.
He favored the feel of bare-knuckle strikes. Fist, elbow, knee, and leg. The direct feedback made it easy to respond in the moment.
But having a weapon was still an advantage.
At least until his body became harder and sharper than a cursed tool, he needed a good blade.
He picked up a sword, shook his head, and put it down. Too genteel.
He tried a long saber and wiped both sides. Not quite right. A single edge meant offense and defense each had a gap.
A twin-bladed axe was too bulky.
Spears and halberds were too long to carry.
Hooks and forks were too odd.
After picking and choosing, he simply took two short stilettos.
About thirty centimeters long, both ends tapering to flat, lozenge-shaped spikes, thicker in the middle, the grip wrapped in a dark gauze. They looked like handheld Emei piercers without the finger ring.
These were among the few cursed tools Mrs. Minamoto had forged herself.
Soujun twirled them around his fingers a few times, tucked them at his back, and felt a rise of heat in his blood. He was getting excited.
He left the basement and walked to Yaga.
"Ready."
He had been a fly-head killer for years and a campus type for a long while. At last he was going out for real combat.
In his previous life he had been an ordinary man. He could not become excellent the moment he arrived in this world. He had just kept doing what he was good at, learning, which made things look easy.
Now he would face things outside his specialty. He did not know how far he could go.
At heart he was still that ordinary man, only becoming excellent.
"Let's go," Yaga said, and led him out to a black sedan.
They were quiet at first. After they had driven a while, Yaga explained:
"This is a Grade 1 curse extermination. A juvenile detention center has generated a Grade 1 curse. The threat is severe. So far there are fifteen seriously injured and nine dead. We must get there quickly and exorcise it."
He sounded like he had shifted into a working mode.
Zzz.
They soon arrived. Yaga parked at the curb and brought Soujun to the gate.
Police tape blocked the area. Yaga showed his credentials and passed without trouble, bringing Soujun to the entrance.
"The cursed aura is thick."
Soujun looked up. Black miasma rose and gathered above the facility into a bank of dark cloud. Curses boiled within it, oppressive and heavy.
Yaga said nothing at first, carefully observing from outside.
Then he raised his right hand, ring and pinky curled, thumb pressed across them, index and middle fingers together and straight before his lips.
"Born of the dark, darker than black. Filth and defilement, be cleansed away."
Curtain.
The new standards had a detailed entry. Form the sword-hand seal, recite the incantation, inject cursed energy, and you can deploy a barrier called a Curtain.
Notes flashed through his mind. Right-hand sword fingers are for writing and chanting. The words must be whispered clearly without error. The cursed energy must be moderate, neither too much nor too little.
A thick ink-like liquid poured down from the sky and formed a black hemispherical barrier that covered the entire facility.
"Come," Yaga said. "Ordinary people cannot see the Curtain itself. They can see through it to the inside, but they cannot perceive what is happening within." He stepped in first.
Soujun followed into the grounds. Inside the Curtain it was gloomier and dimmer, as if everything wore a veil of shadow.
They had not gone far when they saw a centipede with human hands and a belly covered in eyes. Its massive body coiled around the outer wall of a building, gulping curses from the sky while muttering in an eerie whisper.
Before they even got close, half its eyes turned at once. A cold glare fell on them. Pupils trembled as if they would squeeze out of the corners. Blood vessels swelled and crawled across the whites.
Yaga cupped a palm over the head of a teddy bear puppet. Cursed energy surged. The bear's mouth curled upward and a crease of shadow ran from its nose to its brow.
A doll's face showing menace.
"Go."
Space seemed to twist. The puppet vanished and reappeared above the curse.
The curse tracked it, but could not defend. The bear pounded from upper belly to lower belly. Eyes burst one after another. Flesh and fluids flew.
The curse screamed and coiled tight to the building, grinding along it in a bid to crush the bear.
The bear was small. Its attacks were fierce yet nimble. The curse could not touch it and, thrashing in pain, smashed half a building.
Dust rose and grew, swallowing both figures. The noise faded and then stopped. Silence.
Soujun fanned the air with his hand. When the dust settled the centipede lay on the ground, its body stretched out and even larger in death. The tiny bear stood atop its head in stark contrast.
Picking through the rubble, Soujun passed human limbs and remnants.
He came to the curse, touched it, and sensed quietly.
The curse began to break down on its own and drift away as black mist. Even the clouds above the facility thinned and faded.
Where did that cursed energy go?
Watching it, Soujun's gaze grew deep.
It was hard to describe his mood.
He did not feel fear, nor any disgust at the gore.
He had heard the saying. Do not be curious about the smell of a corpse. It is unlike anything you have smelled before. The first time you smell it, your instincts will tell you what it is, and the sensitive will panic and fear. It is etched in human genes.
He fanned the air again and felt a strange calm.
"Do you see now? Human life is fragile," Yaga said at his side. "Places that carry many memories, like schools and hospitals, tend to accumulate curses. A curse's nature is to remain where it was born."
"If we exorcise them after they appear but before large casualties, these places can slowly recover their life. This case was discovered in time."
He stopped there, but Soujun finished the thought in his heart.
There are countless places no one knows about. In remote corners, villages, even city blocks, tens of thousands die quietly under curses.
"There is no easing between humans and curses. This is a sorcerer's life. You snatch life back from death, or you dedicate your own life to death."
They fell silent.
"Come on. Next mission point. There is a lot to do today. We need to save time." Yaga caught the bear as it hopped back, flicked it once, and slid it into his pocket.
"The next target is a Grade 3 curse. With your strength you can handle it. I will leave it to you."
"Mm."
Soujun squeezed the word through his teeth. His hands began to tremble. His teeth clicked together.
He felt like a roller coaster at the highest point, poised before the drop. His heart surged and pumped a rush of blood that tore through his body.
He lowered his gaze. In moments he calmed. His hands were steady enough to scare.
The mission site was a village.
The report had come from the villagers themselves. The elders were superstitious. When strange things happened they kept an eye on it. Once it turned truly weird they reported it at once.
So when Soujun arrived, no one had died. The villagers had been moved safely to the square.
The curse was active on the west side of the village.
Yaga took up a position to the side. As agreed, everything would be handled by Soujun.
Soujun did not flinch. He settled his mind and carefully observed that quarter of the village.
The curse concentration was nothing like the detention center. Not even close.
The report was correct. A Grade 3 curse.
Soujun raised his sword fingers and whispered the incantation. "Born of the dark, darker than black. Filth and defilement, be cleansed away."
He injected cursed energy.
A darker black gathered overhead.
He frowned and drew back a bit of energy. The black lightened, then poured down to form a Curtain covering the west side.
He entered alone.
The signs of daily life were still fresh. Some doors stood open, and steam still rose from dishes on tables.
The village was small. The bounded third was smaller still.
He found the curse quickly.
It stood upright like a penguin. Human legs held up a bloated body. A vertical mouth ran down its belly like a zipper, clamped tight. A triangular head held three eyes set evenly across the face in place of other features.
When Soujun saw it, it saw him. The blood vessels in its eyes surged. The point of its head split to either side, revealing rows of jagged teeth.
He glanced once. Three rows up, three rows down. He was not distracted. In that instant he simply read a lot of information.
The belly mouth was camouflage.
The mouth on the head had a jet organ in the throat.
Soujun turned slightly. As the jet organ squeezed and swelled, a stream of murky yellow fluid shot out. He avoided it as if he had foreseen it.
He did not move to attack first. He was gathering information. Yaga had briefed him, but he trusted his own eyes and data more.
When the spray failed, the curse charged on its two legs.
So the jet cannot fire repeatedly.
Those legs barely supported the bulk. Its run was slow. The legs likely had no other tricks.
The short wing-arms were too short. They had a lot of muscle and likely excelled at batting and flapping, but only at close range.
Sparse attack options. Mostly body checks or biting with the big mouth.
Soujun drew a stiletto. Muscles laced along his arm. He snapped his arm and the blade flew past the charging curse and punched straight into the gaping maw.
The curse screamed. Its charge stopped. It clutched its head with its short arms and howled.
Soujun did not stand idle. He accelerated in, left foot forward as a pivot, right leg swinging, hips twisting left to deliver a knee-snap side kick to the thigh.
Crack.
Bone broke. The curse dropped to one knee.
The sequence was smooth from start to finish. The curse had only managed to spit one mouthful of acid and stumble forward a few paces.
Soujun kicked it down, planted a foot on the false mouth on its belly, yanked the stiletto out hard, then went eye to eye.
He punctured them all.
He did not know why, but he felt a strong urge to attack eyes. Like a child with bubble wrap, he could not resist popping each bump and loved it.
Especially with curses. Round and juicy.
After a few screams the curse went still.
Alive, they have anatomy and splatter blood and flesh. Dead, they quickly become curse and disperse.
Soujun's clothes were still clean. That made exorcisms much less of a hassle.
Which saved a lot of trouble.
He tried to intercept the curse aura that rose into the sky.
He failed. The curse passed through his palm without a trace.
He did not mind. He flicked the stiletto once and kept it in hand.
Now he understood why Yaga had flicked the puppet. A bit of psychological cleanliness.
He returned to Yaga and watched the Curtain fade. He was in good spirits.
"Good job observing carefully before engagement," Yaga said. "Many sorcerers trust the briefing too much and never analyze the scene. They die to the unexpected."
"Your martial base is solid. A bit too flashy though. Too many extra moves. Fix that. Many sorcerers die because they do not conserve strength and waste cursed energy."
"And one more thing." Yaga looked at him. "So, you enjoy tormenting curses? Remember, there is only one goal during a mission. Exorcise completely. Do nothing extra. Stay alert at all times. Many sorcerers relax after an easy win and pay with their lives."
Soujun listened closely as Yaga reviewed his performance. Overall it was fine, with plenty of flaws.
Practice reveals truth. He had fought easily just now because it was only Grade 3. In reality, many issues showed. That was fine. Find problems and solve them. At least he still had the chance to solve them and had not become one of the "many sorcerers" Yaga mentioned.
"By the way, your cursed energy control is good," Yaga said at the end.
"…"
They completed two missions in total. By the time they left the village it was already dark.
Dinner was rushed. The day could be summed up in one line.
Exorcising curses and traveling between exorcisms.
That is the ordinary life of a jujutsu sorcerer.
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