Staring at the severed finger lying quietly inside the transparent box, its dark red surface radiating an ancient and evil aura, Natsume's eyes sharpened for the first time.
As a student of Tokyo Jujutsu High who had received a proper education, he recognized what it was almost instantly.
"Special grade cursed object, Ryomen Sukuna's finger."
His tone was calm, but the name carried the weight of a taboo in the jujutsu world, a name that, in the world of jujutsu, was synonymous with the King of Curses.
"Sukuna… a severed finger?"
Yashiro's pupils shrank violently, her small face filled with shock. That legendary thing would actually show up in a place like this.
Natsume reached out and lifted the box from the hole in the wall. Through his Six Eyes, he clearly parsed the gigantic whirlpool of cursed energy swirling within the finger, bottomless and vast.
"So that is how it is."
In an instant, everything that had felt wrong earlier fell neatly into place in his mind.
"No wonder that cursed spirit could reach Special Grade, and even use remote-control techniques that only jujutsu sorcerers should know. The source of its power was a trace of the cursed energy leaking from this finger."
At that moment, Sadako, who had been standing quietly behind Natsume all this time, suddenly stirred in agitation.
Her long black hair rose and fluttered despite the still air, her body trembled faintly, and the eyes hidden beneath her hair fixed on the box in Natsume's hand with an intense, almost greedy hunger.
The enormous cursed energy sealed within that finger, for her, was an irresistible source of power that could trigger a fundamental evolution.
Natsume sensed the change in Sadako. His brows knit together, and in the end he dismissed the idea of letting her devour it.
[No. Sukuna's consciousness still lingers in this finger. If Sadako swallows it, her soul could be polluted, even entirely taken over, turning her into nothing more than a vessel for the King of Curses.]
He decided to seal away this dangerous object for now and only deal with it once he had found a completely safe method.
[Ding! Current commission complete. Total Curse Points gained: 12,000.]
[Current total Curse Points: 20,000.]
The system prompt chimed at just the right moment. Seeing his points break past the twenty thousand mark for the first time, Natsume slipped into a brief dilemma.
Should he spend the points to level up his existing support skills such as Heavenly Sight, or should he save them up, wait until he had a full hundred thousand, and roll the Supreme Lottery that guaranteed at least one divine-grade reward?
However, his hesitation did not last long.
A vast surge of cursed energy suddenly descended upon the top floor of the abandoned building without the slightest warning, so oppressive that it felt hard to breathe.
This was not the violent, chaotic aura of the previous evil spirit. It was older, deeper, as if fused with the entirety of nature itself, a terrifying presence filled with life and killing intent.
Yashiro's body went rigid in an instant. She jerked her head up toward the sky, and for the first time, something very much like despair appeared in her double pupils.
The ceiling above the top floor was gone.
In its place stretched a bizarre yet beautiful domain formed from countless giant vines and strange flowers and plants.
Suspended in midair within that space was a special grade cursed spirit shaped like a humanoid tree, branches winding around its body, a wooden mask covering its face. It gazed emotionlessly down at them with empty eyes.
Its target could not have been clearer, the Sukuna finger in Natsume's hand.
Special grade cursed spirit, Hanami.
"So you are finally here, the main attraction."
Natsume's expression remained calm, but deep in his Six Eyes, a long-lost spark had ignited, a spark of excitement.
[System, spend all twenty thousand Curse Points and raise my Limitless technique proficiency to Divine, First Stage.]
(Note: Because the host's abilities are extremely compatible with Gojo Satoru's, all upgrades to related divine-grade techniques receive a ninety percent cost reduction.)
Faced with this unprecedented enemy, Natsume no longer held anything back. He issued the command in his heart without hesitation.
[Ding! 20,000 Curse Points consumed. Limitless has been raised to Divine, First Stage. Congratulations to the host, you have successfully unlocked and fully mastered the ultimate secret of the technique, Hollow Technique: Purple.]
A torrent of information surged into Natsume's mind in an instant.
At that moment, his understanding of the attractive force of Cursed Technique Lapse: Blue, the repulsive force of Cursed Technique Reversal: Red, and of the concepts of positive infinity and negative infinity themselves, rose to a new height, to a godlike realm.
"Domain Expansion: Swaying Verdant Horizon."
Hanami's voice, neither male nor female, echoed throughout the domain. All around them, enormous man-eating trees tore their way up from the ground, maw-like blossoms opening wide as they lunged toward Natsume Yuu in a frenzy.
Natsume, however, simply stood where he was. He did not even spare the oncoming attacks a glance.
He slowly raised his right hand, pressing his index and middle fingers together and pointing at Hanami in the air.
His left hand took the same shape, but pointed toward the ground.
"Cursed Technique Lapse, Blue."
At the fingertip of the left hand pointing at the ground, a singularity of ghostly blue light formed, a gravitational point that could drag all things toward it.
"Cursed Technique Reversal, Red."
At the fingertip of the right hand pointing at the sky, a crimson sphere condensed, a repulsive source that pushed everything away.
"What… what is this?"
In the distance, Yashiro stared, unable to form any other words, overwhelmed by the sight of two techniques of completely opposite nature being activated simultaneously.
"The essence of jujutsu lies in letting infinite forces collide and merge, generating a fictitious mass."
Natsume's voice rang calmly through the entire domain, as if he were giving a final lesson to an ignorant enemy.
He slowly brought the two extended fingers together.
"Hollow Technique…"
For an instant, time seemed to freeze.
The ghostly blue gravity and the crimson repulsion crashed into each other at his fingertips. Positive infinity and negative infinity intertwined, clashed and erased one another, and from that annihilation was born a single streak of energy that could wipe away all existence, gleaming with an eerie violet light.
"Purple."
A violet beam less than half a meter in diameter burst forth from his fingertips.
There was no earth-shaking roar, no sweeping shockwave.
The beam moved forward in complete silence, faster than the eye could follow.
Wherever it passed, everything, whether it was the man-eating trees spawned by Hanami, the reinforced concrete, or even space itself, disappeared without a sound, like pencil lines being rubbed away by an eraser.
For the first and last time, extreme terror appeared in Hanami's emotionless eyes.
It did not even have time to react before that violet "void" bored straight through its body.
The battle ended the moment it began.
When the purple light faded, the entire top floor of the abandoned building, along with Hanami's domain and even half the sky behind it, now featured a massive, smooth, circular hole.
As if the invisible hand of a god had reached down and simply scooped a piece out of the world.
The special grade cursed spirit Hanami, along with all traces of its existence, had been completely, cleanly exorcised.
Yashiro, Yui, Utaha… everyone present stared blankly at the scene before them, a sight that felt almost unreal. Their brains, overloaded by information far beyond anything they could comprehend, had simply crashed, leaving them in utter, speechless silence.