The first curse emerged from behind a mausoleum—a Grade Three, humanoid in shape but with elongated limbs that scraped the ground like an ape's. Its face was a mass of hollow eye sockets, and it shrieked as it lunged.
Shien didn't bother dodging.
He stepped forward and drove his fist into its chest with clinical precision, the brass knuckles of Probable Cause crackling as they connected. The curse exploded backward, body crumpling inward as if struck by a wrecking ball, and disintegrated before it hit the ground.
"One," Shien said.
Two more Grade Threes appeared from opposite sides—one a writhing mass of limbs that crawled along the ground like a centipede, the other a floating specter with trailing robes and hands that dripped black ichor.
The centipede curse lashed out with multiple appendages, each one whipping toward Shien from different angles. He read the trajectory, sidestepped the first three strikes, ducked under the fourth, and caught the fifth with his left hand. His fingers dug into the curse's flesh, and he yanked it forward, pulling the creature off balance.
The floating specter sent a spray of acidic ichor toward him.
Shien released the centipede and twisted, the acid hissing past his shoulder and splattering against a gravestone. He closed the distance in two steps, leaped, and brought his knee up into the specter's midsection with brutal efficiency. The curse folded around the impact, and Shien followed with a downward elbow that drove it into the ground.
It didn't get back up.
The centipede curse scrambled backward, regrouping, but Shien was already moving. He pivoted low, planted his foot, and launched himself forward with explosive speed. His fist connected with the curse's core, and the concentrated force of Probable Cause tore through it like paper.
"Three," Shien said, flicking cursed residue off his knuckles.
Behind him, Hayato whispered, "Incredible."
Chujuro said nothing, but his eyes narrowed.
The two Grade Two curses emerged together.
The first was massive—easily three meters tall, with a body like cracked stone and molten veins running beneath its surface. Its fists were the size of boulders, and when it moved, the ground trembled.
The second was sleeker, more serpentine, with a body that shifted and coiled like smoke given form. Its eyes glowed a sickly yellow, and when it opened its mouth, rows of needle-like teeth gleamed.
Shien's grin widened.
The stone curse charged, fist raised to crush him. Shien waited until the last possible moment, then slipped to the side, letting the fist crater the ground where he'd been standing. He retaliated with a palm strike to the curse's ribs, but its dense body absorbed the blow with minimal effect.
The serpent curse struck from behind, jaws snapping toward his neck.
Shien dropped into a crouch, and the serpent overshot. He spun, caught its body mid-coil, and slammed it into the ground with enough force to crack the earth. The serpent hissed and writhed, then dissolved into smoke and reformed ten meters away.
Annoying, Shien thought.
The stone curse swung again, a wide haymaker that Shien ducked under. He drove his fist into its knee, and this time the concentrated kinetic force from Probable Cause made it stagger. Cracks spiderwebbed across its leg.
The serpent curse lunged again, and this time it wasn't alone—the stone curse coordinated, boxing Shien in.
And then the serpent's cursed energy flared.
"Domain Expansion," it hissed. "Serpent's Coil."
The world warped.
Shien found himself standing in a space of endless darkness, coils of shadow wrapping around the edges of his vision. The serpent curse materialized in dozens of places at once, each one lunging toward him with guaranteed strikes.
Chujuro tensed. "Shien—"
"Don't interfere!" Shien barked.
He closed his eyes, centered himself, and whispered, "Simple Domain."
A small sphere of neutralized space expanded around him, just large enough to encompass his body. The serpent's guaranteed hits collided with the boundary and lost their certainty, allowing Shien to read their trajectories and react.
He pivoted, deflected one strike with his forearm, slipped past another, and caught the third with a devastating counter-punch that cracked the serpent's manifested form. The domain flickered.
Shien didn't give it time to recover.
He poured more cursed energy into his Simple Domain, forcing it to expand outward, and the collision of techniques shattered the serpent's domain entirely.
Reality snapped back.
The serpent curse reeled, its form destabilized, and Shien capitalized immediately. He closed the distance, feinted left, then drove his right fist into its core with every ounce of strength his restricted output allowed.
The curse exploded into residue.
"Four," Shien said, breathing harder now.
The stone curse roared and charged.
Kenjaku watched with growing fascination.
The boy was eight years old and had just countered a domain with a Simple Domain—a technique most sorcerers didn't master until their twenties. His movements were efficient, his timing perfect, and despite restricting himself to five percent output, he was dismantling Grade Two curses with ease.
"Remarkable," Kenjaku murmured. "Naobito's genes combined with... whatever enhancement that is."
She tilted her head, considering.
A potential vessel? Perhaps.
But first, let's see how he handles this.
With a subtle gesture, Kenjaku released the barrier she'd placed around Sukuna's finger.
Shien was mid-strike against the stone curse when he felt it—a sudden spike of cursed energy, dense and malevolent, pulsing from deeper in the cemetery.
The stone curse felt it too.
Its molten veins flared brighter, and it abandoned the fight, turning and lumbering toward the source of the energy with single-minded purpose.
"What—" Shien started.
The curse reached the ancient tree, plunged its massive hand into the earth, and pulled out something small and gnarled.
Sukuna's finger.
The curse didn't hesitate. It shoved the finger into its mouth and swallowed.
The transformation was immediate.
The stone curse's body convulsed, cracks spreading across its form as new cursed energy flooded into it. Its size doubled, then tripled, molten veins turning into rivers of magma. Its eyes blazed red, and when it roared, the sound shook the entire cemetery.
The remaining Grade Three curse, drawn by the overwhelming energy, crawled toward the stone curse and began to merge with it, their bodies fusing into a single, grotesque mass.
Shien watched, fascinated.
"Gramps," he called without looking back. "Still don't interfere."
"You stubborn fool!" Chujuro snapped. "That's—"
"I know what it is," Shien interrupted. "And I'm not breaking my vow."
The fused curse finished its transformation.
It stood nearly five meters tall now, a hulking monstrosity of stone, magma, and writhing flesh. Its cursed energy output was unmistakably Special Grade.
Shien cracked his knuckles.
"Now this," he said, "is worth my time."
The curse attacked with terrifying speed for something its size.
Its fist came down like a meteor, and Shien rolled to the side as the impact obliterated a row of gravestones. He sprang to his feet, closed in, and drove a punch into its leg.
The curse barely flinched.
It backhanded him, and Shien crossed his arms to block, but the force still sent him skidding backward, boots carving trenches in the gravel.
Strong, Shien thought, grinning despite the pain radiating up his arms.
The curse opened its mouth and exhaled a stream of molten rock. Shien dove behind a mausoleum, the magma melting through stone like butter. He circled around, analyzed the curse's movements, and adjusted his approach.
It's powerful but slow. I can work with that.
He darted in low, targeted the same leg again, and this time he poured as much of his restricted cursed energy as he could into a single concentrated strike.
The leg cracked.
The curse stumbled, and Shien capitalized, driving a rapid combination into its torso—left jab, right cross, uppercut with Probable Cause enhancing each impact. Cracks spiderwebbed across the curse's chest.
But the curse adapted.
It slammed both fists into the ground, and the earth erupted around Shien, forcing him to retreat. Magma bubbled up from the cracks, cutting off his approach angles.
The curse raised one massive hand, and cursed energy began to condense.
Shien felt the shift in the air and realized what was coming.
A cursed technique, he thought.
The curse unleashed a concentrated beam of magma and cursed energy directly at him.
Shien's eyes widened.
He couldn't dodge—the beam was too wide, too fast.
So he did the only thing he could.
He punched it.
Shien drew back his right fist, poured every ounce of his five percent cursed energy into Probable Cause, and met the beam head-on with a straight punch.
For a split second, nothing happened.
Then the kinetic force from Probable Cause exploded outward, colliding with the beam and creating a shockwave that tore through the cemetery. The beam split, arcing around Shien and carving molten scars into the earth on either side of him.
Shien's arm screamed in pain, his muscles tearing from the recoil, but he didn't stop.
He stepped forward, into the dissipating energy, and drove his fist toward the curse's core.
One millionth of a second.
Cursed energy and physical impact aligned perfectly.
Reality distorted.
Black Flash.
The world seemed to stop.
Shien felt it—the moment his cursed energy synchronized with the impact, the spatial distortion that amplified his strike to two-point-five times its normal power. The sensation was indescribable, a rush of clarity and euphoria that flooded his entire being.
The curse's chest exploded inward, a crater forming where Shien's fist connected.
Time resumed.
The curse staggered backward, ichor pouring from the wound, and Shien felt the change immediately. His understanding of cursed energy shifted, deepened, the flow becoming smoother, more intuitive.
He laughed, breathless and wild.
"Again."
The curse roared and lunged, but it was slower now, wounded.
Shien didn't give it a chance to recover.
He closed the distance, feinted right, and when the curse committed, he pivoted left and drove his fist into the same wound.
Black Flash.
The second one came easier, the threshold between physical impact and cursed energy application almost instinctive now. The distortion rippled outward, and the curse's entire torso caved in.
It collapsed to its knees, body disintegrating.
Shien stepped back, breathing hard, and delivered one final strike to its head.
The curse shattered.
Silence.
Shien stood in the center of the ruined cemetery, blood dripping from his knuckles, ribs aching, but alive. Shien felt a clarity he had never felt before, and like Tetris pieces, his brain clicked together and memories came unbidden into his mind as he went to one knee, clutching his head. Shien had always had memories of a previous life locked away in his soul. He was never able to access all of them—they were both clear and vague at the same time, like trying to remember a dream after waking up—but now he had a spark of clarity. He remembered his name, who he was before he was Shien.
Shien staggered to his feet as he released the self-imposed binding vow, his cursed energy returning to him in a flood.
He felt the serum already working, mending torn muscles and cracked bones with inhuman efficiency. In an hour or two he would be back to full health. The older he got, the stronger and more pronounced the effects of the serum had become.
Shien was still grappling with the memories he had gained as Chujuro and Hayato walked toward him with concern in their eyes. Shien shook his head and cleared his mind as he walked to where the curse had fallen and retrieved a finger, turning it over in his hand.
The cursed energy was dense and potent. Shien had never seen anything like it. How could someone have hidden something this powerful? And why had he not sensed it in the beginning?
"Interesting," he murmured.
Behind him, Chujuro exhaled slowly. "That is a very dangerous object. It is one of the fingers of the King of Curses."
Shien examined the finger and slipped it into his pocket. "Let us take it to the Zenin armory. I might have a use for it."
"That was stupid! You could have died," Chujuro admonished.
"I landed two Black Flashes. I think it was worth it." Shien showed Chujuro the finger. "Someone hid this here and the energy flared mid-fight. I'm sure you felt it."
Chujuro nodded and looked around the cemetery with suspicion. "Let us leave. We will discuss this when we get home."
Hayato approached cautiously, still clutching the Nintendo DS like a sacred artifact. "Shien-sama, are you—"
"I'm fine." Shien took the DS back and immediately checked the console. "Good, it still works."
Hayato blinked. "That's... what you're worried about?"
Chujuro growled.
"Obviously."
In the distance, Kenjaku laughed softly.
"Two Black Flashes on his first mission," she said to herself, smile widening. "And he retrieved the finger without hesitation. Zenin Shien... how very interesting you are."
She traced the scar on her forehead one last time, then let her veil dissipate.
"A potential vessel, indeed. I'll be watching you, boy."
And with that, Kenjaku slipped away into the morning mist, leaving no trace she'd ever been there.