The office complex was a tomb of failed ambitions.
Fifteen floors of cubicles and conference rooms, all abandoned when the parent company declared bankruptcy. Computers sat gathering dust on desks where people had spent sixty-hour weeks chasing promotions that never came. Motivational posters peeled from walls, their hollow encouragements rotting alongside the building itself.
The cursed energy was everywhere. Not concentrated in one location like yesterday's warehouse curses, but diffused throughout the structure—a miasma of exhaustion and despair that had soaked into every surface.
"It's spread out," Megumi observed, Divine Dog sniffing the air cautiously. "The curse isn't hiding. It's integrated with the building itself."
"So the building is the curse?" Yuji asked.
"Or the curse is using the building as its body. Either way, we're fighting the environment as much as the manifestation."
They advanced through the lobby—marble floors cracked, reception desk collapsed, the directory board still listing departments that no longer existed. Finance. Human Resources. Marketing. All empty now.
The elevator bank was dead, so they took the stairs. The cursed energy grew thicker with each floor, pressing down like atmospheric pressure. By the fifth floor, breathing was difficult.
"It knows we're here," Nobara said, hammer ready. "Probably knew the moment we entered."
"Then why hasn't it attacked?" Yuji's question was valid. Most curses were territorial, aggressive. This one was patient.
"Because it's intelligent," Takanashi answered. "Probably Special Grade potential that hasn't fully matured. It's studying you. Learning patterns before committing to attack."
"Great. A thinking curse. Those are always fun."
They reached the tenth floor. The cursed energy was nauseating now, thick enough to see—dark tendrils seeping from office doors, pooling in corners, crawling across walls like living oil.
And then it manifested.
Not in one location. Everywhere simultaneously.
The curse emerged from every office, every cubicle, every conference room. Dozens of identical forms—corporate workers in business attire, faces blank, movements jerky and wrong. They surrounded the team in the hallway, cutting off both advance and retreat.
"That's not creepy at all," Nobara muttered.
The manifestations spoke in unison, dozens of voices layered into horrible harmony: "Overtime. Mandatory. No exceptions."
Then they attacked.
The corporate manifestations moved with unnatural coordination—not like individuals but like fingers of a single hand. They swarmed from all directions, overwhelming through numbers rather than individual strength.
Yuji took point, fists enhanced with cursed energy, destroying manifestations with rapid strikes. Each one dissolved into black smoke when defeated, but two more emerged from nearby offices to replace it.
"They're infinite!" he shouted. "We can't kill them faster than they spawn!"
Megumi summoned multiple shikigami—frogs, Divine Dog, anything fast enough to handle multiple opponents. "These are projections! Destroy the main body!"
"Where is it?" Nobara activated Resonance, trying to trace the cursed energy source. But the readings were everywhere, diffused throughout the entire floor. "I can't pin down a central point!"
Akira was fighting on pure instinct, blade cutting through manifestations that pressed from all sides. His shoulder was screaming—every strike sent pain lancing through the weakened joint. But stopping meant being overwhelmed.
"The manifestations are sharing cursed energy," Takanashi analyzed while Akira fought. "They're all connected to the same source. If you could overload the network—"
"How?"
"Remember the furnace? Same principle. Find a concentration point and force too much energy through it."
Akira scanned the environment while fighting. The office cubicles. Computers still plugged in, decades of residual electricity and cursed energy saturating the wiring. If he could channel enough power into the electrical system—
"Fushiguro!" Akira called out. "Can your Nue generate sustained electricity?"
"For a few minutes. Why?"
"I need you to channel everything you've got into the electrical system! Overload it!"
Megumi understood immediately. "Nue!"
The shikigami manifested, electricity crackling across its body. It wrapped around a power junction box, pouring lightning into the building's wiring.
The lights flickered. Sparked. The cursed energy in the electrical system began destabilizing.
"Kugisaki!" Akira shouted. "Resonance on the wiring itself! Amplify what Fushiguro's doing!"
Nobara slammed nails into exposed electrical outlets, her technique connecting the entire floor's power grid into one massive Resonance formation.
The effect was immediate and catastrophic.
Electricity and cursed energy erupted through every outlet, every light fixture, every piece of electronic equipment. The corporate manifestations convulsed, their shared energy network overloading catastrophically.
And somewhere above them—fifteenth floor, Akira's instincts screamed—the main body shrieked.
"Up!" he ordered. "The real curse is on fifteen! Go!"
They ran for the stairs, leaving the tenth floor to collapse into electrical chaos behind them. Corporate manifestations dissolved as the shared network failed.
Fifteen floors. They took the stairs three at a time, cursed energy burning through their reserves to maintain speed.
Twelfth floor. Thirteenth. Fourteenth.
The cursed energy was overwhelming now, concentrated at the top of the building where the real manifestation waited.
Fifteenth floor.
The executive level. Corner offices with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Sendai. The place where decisions were made that destroyed lives fifteen floors below.
And in the center, in what had been the CEO's office, the curse waited.
It was humanoid but massive—three meters tall, wearing a business suit that had fused with rotting flesh. Its face was a corporate mask, fixed smile and empty eyes. One hand held a briefcase that dripped black ichor. The other held a noose made of office cables.
When it saw them, it spoke with the voice of a thousand overtime deaths: "Performance review. You're all terminated."
The curse moved faster than something that size should move.
It swung the briefcase like a club. Yuji blocked—barely—the impact sending him crashing through a wall into an adjacent office.
"Itadori!" Nobara's voice, sharp with fear.
"I'm good!" Yuji's reply from the rubble. "Thing hits like a truck!"
Megumi's shikigami engaged, attacking from multiple angles. The curse swung the noose, cables wrapping around Divine Dog and crushing it. The shikigami dissolved.
Nobara activated Resonance, nails driving into the floor. The curse staggered, but didn't fall. Its cursed energy was immense—Grade One minimum, possibly approaching Special Grade.
Akira engaged from the flank, blade enhanced with five-curse reinforcement. He struck at the knee joint, black ichor spraying. The curse's leg buckled.
But it caught him with the backswing of its briefcase.
Akira flew backward, crashed through the executive desk, felt his shoulder tear completely this time. Pain white-hot and blinding. He couldn't move his left arm.
"Amalgamation!" the absorbed curses screamed. "Now! Before it kills you!"
The temptation was overwhelming. His shoulder was destroyed. The team was being overpowered. Thirty seconds of amalgamation could end this.
But Gojo's warning: One slip and I pull you from the operation.
And Shoko's: Keep tearing that shoulder and you'll have reduced mobility for whatever time you have left.
And Nobara's face, terrified, as the curse advanced toward him with the noose raised.
Decision point.
Amalgamation and survive. Lose months of life but keep fighting.
Or die here. Maintaining principles but abandoning his team.
Neither option was acceptable.
Third option. Always a third option.
"The windows," Takanashi said urgently. "Fifteen floors up. If you could get it outside the building, the fall—"
"Won't kill a Grade One."
"No. But it'll disorient it long enough for your team to finish it."
Akira forced himself upright, one-armed, shoulder screaming. The curse was advancing, noose ready to strangle.
"Itadori!" Akira shouted. "Maximum output! Aim for the windows behind the curse!"
Yuji emerged from the rubble, understanding immediately. He gathered every bit of cursed energy he had left and struck the floor-to-ceiling windows with devastating force.
Glass exploded outward. The structural supports failed. The entire wall collapsed, opening the fifteenth floor to empty air and a fifty-meter drop.
The curse turned, too late to stop momentum.
Akira charged, one-armed, blade extended. Not trying to kill it—just to push.
He connected with the curse's center mass and drove forward with everything he had, legs pumping, cursed energy burning through his reserves.
They went through the shattered window together.
Fifteen floors of empty air. Wind screaming past. The ground approaching with terrible certainty.
"This is insane!" Takanashi screamed.
"I know!"
At the last possible moment, Akira kicked off the curse's chest, changing his trajectory. He hit the adjacent building's wall, used cursed energy reinforcement to slow his descent, crashed through a lower floor window.
The curse hit the ground.
The impact created a crater. The curse's body shattered, briefcase and noose flying in different directions.
But it was already reforming, pulling itself back together.
Then Megumi's Maximum: Elephant dropped onto it from above. The massive shikigami's weight, combined with the curse's already damaged state, was too much.
The curse collapsed, energy destabilizing.
Nobara appeared at the crater's edge, nails ready. "Resonance: Complete!"
Her technique detonated inside the broken curse's core.
It shattered finally, permanently, dissolving into black smoke that the wind scattered.
Dead. Exorcised. Gone.
Akira crawled out of the building he'd crashed into, one arm hanging uselessly, vision graying at the edges from blood loss and exhaustion.
His team found him sitting in the rubble, laughing despite the pain.
"That," he said, "was stupid."
"That was insane," Nobara corrected, checking his shoulder with shaking hands. "You jumped out of a fifteen-story building."
"With a curse. Important distinction."
"Not really helping your case."
Megumi activated the communication device. "Command, Team Itadori. Northern sector Grade One eliminated. Requesting immediate medical extraction. Kurozawa is critically injured."
Harada's response was immediate: "Medical en route. Status?"
"Shoulder destroyed, possible internal injuries from impact. Conscious but compromised."
"Copy. Extraction team ETA five minutes. Good work."
They waited in the rubble, afternoon sun warm on their faces, the office complex burning behind them from the electrical overload.
"You didn't use it," Nobara said quietly. "The amalgamation. Even when you should have."
"Couldn't. Gojo would've pulled me from the operation."
"So you jumped out of a building instead."
"Creative problem-solving."
"You're insane."
"Consistently."
The medical van arrived. Shoko emerged, took one look at Akira's shoulder, and her expression promised violence.
"What did I tell you about that shoulder?"
"To protect it?"
"And what did you do?"
"Destroyed it while jumping out of a fifteen-story building?"
"Get in the van before I kill you myself."
Operations Base - Medical Wing
The reversed cursed technique healing was agonizing this time. Shoko had to completely reconstruct the shoulder joint, the damage too severe for simple knitting.
"This is going to leave permanent scarring," she said, hands glowing. "The tissue is too damaged for perfect restoration. You'll have reduced mobility and chronic pain."
"For how long?"
"For whatever time you have left. Seventeen months with a compromised shoulder instead of full functionality." She withdrew her hands, healing complete but imperfect. "And before you ask—yes, you can still fight. But you'll need to adapt your style. That shoulder will never be at full strength again."
Akira moved his arm experimentally. Range of motion was reduced by maybe twenty percent. Pain flared with certain movements.
But functional. Still usable.
"Could be worse," he said.
"It will be worse if you keep doing stupid things. You're benched for tomorrow. I'm not clearing you for combat."
"Shoko—"
"Non-negotiable. Your body needs rest, not more trauma. You're benched." She pointed at the door. "Get out of my medical wing. Go rest. That's an order."
Evening - Room
Nobara sat beside Akira on the bed, carefully not touching his shoulder.
"Benched tomorrow," she said.
"Yeah."
"Probably for the best. You need recovery time."
"I know." He leaned back against the wall. "Two Grade Ones down today. Three to five remaining, depending on overnight developments."
"And the Special Grade maturing tonight or tomorrow morning."
"That too."
They sat in silence, processing the day's violence.
"You scared me," Nobara said finally. "When you went through that window. I thought—" Her voice broke. "I thought you were dead."
"But I wasn't. Calculated risk."
"There's a difference between calculated risk and suicidal desperation."
"Sometimes that line gets blurry."
She turned to face him, eyes fierce. "Promise me. Tomorrow, when you're benched and I'm out there—promise me you won't do something stupid if things go wrong."
"I can't promise that. If you're in danger—"
"Then trust the team to handle it. Trust Yuji and Megumi. Trust Kimura-san as backup." Her hands gripped his. "Trust that we can survive without you sacrificing yourself."
It was the core issue. The martyrdom complex Gojo had identified. The tendency to take everything on himself.
"I'll try," Akira said honestly. "I can't promise perfect restraint. But I'll try to let you handle things without jumping in to save you."
"That's all I'm asking. Try."
She kissed him, careful of his injuries, then curled against his good side.
Tomorrow he'd be benched. His team would face whatever Grade Ones remained without him.
And sometime in the next twenty-four hours, a Special Grade would mature in Sendai's city center.
Day two complete.
Two more days minimum.
Then home.
If they survived.
Seventeen months and two weeks.
Minus one functioning shoulder.
Still enough time.
If they survived Sendai.