"What a pointless farce."
When Natsume's calm voice, tinged with the sense of finality, echoed through the suffocating ward, every gaze in the room turned toward him without thinking.
He glanced once at the Ghost Sergeant still locked in a stalemate with the lipless spirit, then spoke quietly to Yashiro at his side.
"Call your graduates back. This farce ends here."
With that, he slowly reached into his pocket and took out another talisman.
Unlike the earlier charm that had glowed with soft golden light, this one was pitch black, as if a piece of the deepest night had been flattened and cut into a rectangle.
Across that abyssal black, symbols drawn in blood-red cinnabar twisted and coiled across its surface. The strokes formed a complex, violent script that reeked of destruction and collapse, every curve carrying an aura of ruin.
Simply appearing in his hand was enough.
An invisible pressure crashed down at once, strong enough to make every spirit in the room tremble.
This was the Fivefold Thunder Extermination Talisman he had drawn using a supreme method from the Ancient Refinement Manual, reinforced with his own overwhelming cursed energy, a talisman that carried a faint trace of power that did not belong to ordinary jujutsu.
"Milady, danger!"
Almost the instant the talisman came out, the Ghost Sergeant abandoned his struggle with the lipless ghost and flashed back in front of Yashiro, his body of old battlefield grudges forming a shield as he covered his master completely.
On the other side, Teikiri Oiran, who was usually all sultry smiles and lazy charm, went pale. For the first time, an expression that could only be called fear twisted her beautiful features. Her body shook uncontrollably, as if she had run into a natural enemy.
Even Sadako and Hanami, whom Natsume had summoned himself, instinctively stepped back half a pace. The way they looked at that small piece of paper held clear, deep wariness.
"What… is that?"
Yuji swallowed hard, his throat dry, feeling as if even his soul might be crushed under this pressure.
Natsume did not answer.
He merely lifted his hand and flicked the pitch black talisman toward the lipless woman, who was still trying to restore herself by gulping down waves of resentment.
"Go."
There was no deafening chant, no gaudy cascade of effects.
The talisman drifted through the air with unsettling lightness, floating toward the ghost.
Then, as it passed through midair…
Crack.
A massive bolt of lightning, so thick it looked like it could tear the sky in half, suddenly appeared in the "heavens" of the mirror world, coils of golden lightning twisting violently along its length.
Without warning, it ripped apart the gray sky woven from malice, descending with a force that clearly did not belong to the human world, a bolt of annihilating thunder carrying overwhelming destructive force.
For an instant the thunder's glare lit every face in the room, freezing their features in expressions of pure shock.
Time itself seemed to stop.
Boom.
The golden lightning struck the special grade curse dead on.
No scream.
No struggle.
Not even the slightest sign of resistance.
Before that ultimate, blazing power, a force of pure annihilating lightning, the special grade curse formed from resentment and cursed energy stood no chance at all.
Together with the ink black ocean of malice surrounding her, she evaporated in an instant, erased completely, leaving not even a trace behind.
One strike, and she was gone.
When the blinding light finally faded and the ward returned to its usual dim stillness, the entire room fell silent.
The Ghost Sergeant, Teikiri Oiran and the rest of the spirits remained frozen in their guarding stances, bodies shaking uncontrollably, reacting with instinctive terror before a power far beyond their own.
The Jujutsu High trio had already turned to stone.
Yuji's mouth hung open wide enough to fit a fist inside, his usually lively face wiped clean of everything.
Nobara's sharp, proud eyes now held nothing but naked awe and… a faint, unmistakable hint of girlish admiration.
And Megumi, usually calm and analytical, felt the full weight of the realization settle over him.
Just one talisman, and he had erased a special grade curse with extraordinary regeneration, something even a first grade's domain could not suppress, down to the root.
He had only ever seen someone do something like that in such a casual way once before.
In his mind, the image rose unbidden of a white haired man who wore an eye covering and drifted through life like he did not care, yet, the moment he got serious, became an invincible figure descending upon the battlefield.
Gojo-sensei.
There was no question.
This man called Natsume stood on the exact same level as Gojo Satoru, a true "strongest" in every sense.
The jujutsu world… was going to change.