Chapter 11: Blood Manipulation? No—You're Not Worth It Yet!
"Just handle logistics."
She patted Yuanzhi on the shoulder, her tone bossy, the meaning obvious—
If there's real danger, I'll cover you while you retreat.
She arrived late, and these past few days she hadn't seen him fight, so saying that was normal.
Not to mention her rapidly growing combat experience had made her increasingly cocky…
"Then thanks, Your Majesty." Yuji smiled carelessly.
They quickly reached the target floor, the second dormitory area.
Ijichi, thin and slight, stopped and said goodbye to the four of them. "Please be very careful."
He was support staff, responsible for driving sorcerers, setting up the Curtain barrier, issuing mission instructions, and other back-end work. He was good at handling errands, not combat.
So getting this far was his limit.
"Now, set the Curtain."
After speaking, Ijichi looked over the entire detention center and chanted in a low voice.
"From darkness, be born. In darkness, be the deepest."
"Filth and impurity, be exorcised completely."
The next second, a pitch-black barrier descended from the sky, covering the entire detention center.
"It got dark!" young Yuji shouted.
"That's a Curtain. It's close to residential areas, so we use a barrier to hide us from the outside." Fushiguro finally spoke.
To avoid causing public panic, anything involving jujutsu and curses was always kept secret.
"You're way too clueless, Itadori." Nobara crossed her arms, exhaled, her hair fluttering.
"Divine Dogs." Fushiguro formed a hand sign, and from a mass of shadow, a shikigami dog emerged. "If a curse approaches, it will warn us."
"Oh! I see. Good boy, we're counting on you." young Yuji crouched and patted its head.
Then they pushed the door open and went inside, and were met with a sea of crimson—
Pipes ran in every direction, the ceiling was empty, nothing like a dormitory.
"What is this? Is this a dorm or some kind of duplex…" young Yuji hesitated.
Even Fushiguro, who had seen a lot and had been exposed to curses since childhood, was sweating.
"Neither. This is an innate domain created by cursed energy. I've never seen one this big…"
"Where's the door?" young Yuji asked.
"The door is gone."
"No way, we came in through here!" Nobara panicked too.
"What do we do? What do we do now!"
Their mouths were frantic, and their bodies started swaying like waves, almost dancing—excited in a way that was bizarre.
Maybe this was the kind of crazy Gojo talked about.
An absurd ability to adapt, finding looseness inside tension.
"It's fine. Divine Dogs remembers the scent of the entrance!"
"Oh man, what a good kid!" young Yuji's eyes lit up.
"Give him jerky, bring me all the jerky!"
"Will you two get serious!?" Fushiguro roared in helpless frustration at the two clowns.
"Fushiguro, you're so reliable. With you here, the survivors can be saved, and I can be saved too!"
"And with Yuanzhi here, even if we get hurt, we'll get treated right away!"
"Now we have even less to worry about!" Nobara waved a hand, hyping herself up.
Fushiguro pinched the bridge of his nose. "Keep moving."
But reality was far more brutal than they imagined. They didn't follow Divine Dogs for long before they saw a corpse, dead horribly—already gone cold.
The mood turned heavy.
Young Yuji crouched down immediately, and when he saw the name, he clenched his teeth.
Azuma
They were too late.
He was about to say something, but Yuji shook his head and stopped him.
How could Yuji not know what he was thinking?
More than that, Yuji had already lived through this scene.
"It's pointless. It's been too long. The soul has already scattered. Even if you heal the body, it would just be an empty shell."
Young Yuji could only give up. But he was still too immature. Thinking of the boy's mother at the gate, he wanted to carry the body out. Fushiguro objected immediately.
"I'm taking him back. He's that mother's son."
"But…" Nobara said.
"You can still recognize his face. If there's no body and you just say, 'He died,' his mom will never accept it," young Yuji said.
"The body stays. We still have to confirm whether the other two are alive," Fushiguro said.
"Don't joke with me! The way back is already gone. This domain… it's like that kind of horror where you walk in circles! We won't get a chance to come back!"
"I never said we'd come back. I wasn't even planning on saving anyone, and now you want to haul a corpse out too? I'm not doing that!"
"What did you just say—!"
"This is a juvenile detention center. Sorcerers knew all the intel in advance. Do you really think any of them were good people?"
The two started arguing on the spot.
"That's enough, ah…"
"What are you two doing, are you stupid!?"
Nobara clenched her fist and stepped in, out of patience. "At least consider where we are. And Yuanzhi, you should say something too…"
"It's fine. They have to go through it." Yuji said.
"Hah? What!?" Nobara was about to snap back.
The next second, a pool of black liquid appeared beneath them and dragged the two of them down instantly.
"Nobara!"
Fushiguro turned—and saw that not only had Nobara vanished, even Divine Dogs had been embedded into the wall, dead.
Something that could do all of that in an instant could only be…
Special Grade!!
"Itadori, run! We'll find Nobara and Yuanzhi later!!"
Fushiguro shouted at young Yuji.
Too late.
At their side, a humanoid cursed spirit appeared, grotesque and horrifying.
Special Grade Imaginary Cursed Spirit
Cursed Womb: Deity-Bearing
The overwhelming pressure froze them in place, unable to move.
Before it even attacked, they already felt the suffocating difference in power.
…
"Where is this place? Yuanzhi, you got pulled down too!?"
Nobara was in total darkness, but she could feel someone beside her.
"I came down on purpose."
Yuji's face didn't change as he observed the surroundings.
"On purpose?"
Nobara didn't dwell on it. "I haven't seen you fight once… Fine. Stand behind me like usual. Leave it to me."
After saying that,
Yuji, under the name Yuanzhi, actually obediently moved behind her.
"You really don't hold back, huh." Nobara chuckled.
Then, dense mask-faced cursed spirits appeared in front of them!
All Grade 4, but there were so many—at a glance, dozens!
"No, there are already over a hundred."
"And there are more lurking in the dark. There should be some around Grade 3." Yuji pointed toward a corner.
Centipede-shaped, mushroom-shaped, tick-shaped…
"How are there this many…" Nobara felt it getting messy. No time for nonsense—she pulled out nails and a hammer, her cursed tool.
Bang!
Bang bang bang!
After several dozen seconds, she'd used up all her nails, panting hard.
"I should've brought more."
She looked awkward, but remembering she was shielding someone behind her, she could only force herself back in!
Another several dozen seconds passed.
The cursed spirits piled up even more.
Nobara was a beat too slow, and finally couldn't hold. She got blasted back more than ten meters.
She barely stood up, and by now her forehead was smeared with blood.
"Huff… huff…" Nobara panted, her head splitting. "Yuanzhi, heal me!"
"And there are too many. Stay farther back… If it comes to it, you can run first!" she said.
About at her limit now. Yuji stepped closer and placed his hand on Nobara's forehead.
He wiped.
Wiped away some blood.
That single motion cost time, and the cursed spirits were already closing in from every direction!
The sense of danger surged.
"What are you doing!" Nobara glared, clearly misunderstanding.
"At a time like this, you finally notice my charm and start getting handsy?"
Nobara slapped his hand away. "Fine. Now you can't get away either."
Yuji said nothing, only lightly clenched the blood in his hand.
Squelch.
Like…
something got crushed.
The next second—
Whoosh whoosh whoosh!
The compressed blood turned into hundreds of diamond-hard pellets, instantly breaking the sound barrier, scattering in every direction like a storm of petals!
Bang bang bang!
Those Grade 3 and Grade 4 cursed spirits, radiating thick malice, all froze.
Then,
holes opened across their bodies.
They were through-and-through wounds. The blood spikes were smaller than needle tips, yet the damage they caused was as wide as bowls.
It was absurd.
Huff huff huff!
More than a hundred cursed spirits in the area all dissolved into black mist.
And it didn't stop there.
In corners no one could see,
hundreds more cursed spirits scattered around the building, on every floor, were pierced straight through walls and killed in a line.
…
Yuji relaxed his hand again. The blood in his palm lines had been used up completely.
"So you won't even lend me a little blood, Nobara?"
A moment ago, Nobara was hunched like a mother tiger ready to fight to the death.
The next moment,
goosebumps rose all over her—
From that close, the speed of that blood just now had been a hair's breadth from death!
"Y-you… you…" Nobara's teeth chattered, and she couldn't form a full sentence.