Maki turned her gaze toward the still-chaotic battlefield in the distance, watching the Curtain that had yet to fully dissipate. "The main thing right now is that we're still alive, and the fight isn't over."
"Whatever Sol intends to do, our mission hasn't changed: survive, exorcise Cursed Spirits, and get civilians out."
Panda nodded. "Maki's right. Dwelling on Sol's situation will only slow us down. But since he helped Nobara this time, maybe he won't come after us in the short term?"
He rubbed the back of his head. "If only he was still on the team. It always felt so secure fighting alongside Sol."
"Let's hope so," Maki said, her voice carrying weight. "But we can't count on his goodwill. Stay sharp and keep moving. Nobara, you're with us."
"Yes, Senpai!" Nobara nodded firmly. Her questions hadn't been answered, but reuniting with Maki and the others steadied her. She tightened her grip on her hammer and pushed her thoughts about Sol back down where they couldn't distract her.
The five regrouped and pressed deeper into the dark, fractured streets of Shibuya, each of them carrying an unspoken question about Sol that none of them could yet answer.
---
Itadori Yuji sprinted through the ruined streets, his heart hammering against his ribs.
The news of Gojo Sensei being sealed still screamed through his thoughts, and Sol's strange intervention followed by his silent disappearance only deepened the confusion. He forced it all back. His companions were scattered across the district, fighting desperately, and somewhere deep inside Shibuya Station, where the concentration of cursed energy was at its worst, something waited.
He had to go.
Vaulting over collapsed walls and the burning husks of overturned vehicles, Itadori kept his eyes forward. The closer he drew to the station entrance, the fewer Cursed Spirits appeared. A heavy stillness settled over the area, the kind that swallowed sound, broken only by distant echoes of battle that reminded him the crisis was far from over.
Just as he reached the top of the stairs leading underground, a surge of cursed energy erupted from his front left. It was thick, intentional, and soaked in bloodlust.
Boom.
A wall buckled and collapsed. Through the billowing dust, a figure stepped forward at a measured pace.
He looked nearly human. A black line traced across his face, and his eyes were cold, carrying deep-seated hatred and something older than anger. The cursed energy coiling around him was dense and volatile, carrying a faint, sickening trace of blood.
It was Choso.
He advanced one step at a time, each footfall deliberate, as though he was crossing a floor only he could see. His gaze never left Itadori.
"Itadori," he said, his voice low and edged with grief. "I finally found you."
Itadori stopped immediately, settling into a fighting stance, his focus locking onto the man across from him.
Whatever this was, it wasn't indiscriminate. The killing intent radiating off Choso wasn't aimed at sorcerers broadly or at humans in general. It was pointed, precise, and directed entirely at him.
"Who are you?" Itadori asked, cursed energy already flowing into his fists.
"My name is Choso." His voice carried enormous sorrow. "For my brothers, Kechizu and Eso, you will pay with your life."
He raised his hand before he finished speaking.
"Piercing Blood!"
A blood projectile, compressed to a razor point, screamed toward Itadori's face at a speed that barely registered before it arrived.
Combat intuition saved him. He snapped his head to the side at the last possible moment. The projectile grazed his cheek, its pressure stinging the skin. The metal lamppost behind him was punched clean through, metal shrieking as it twisted apart.
So fast. If his reaction had been even half a beat slower, his skull would have been split open.
Choso swung both arms again without pause.
One blood projectile after another came from different angles, each one calculated to cut off his escape routes. Precise, relentless, aimed at nothing but vital points.
Itadori roared and pushed his cursed energy and physical ability to their limits, weaving through the narrow gaps between ruins, using debris and collapsed structures as cover. Where the projectiles struck walls and pavement, they punched through completely, leaving deep, ragged holes.
"Why are you coming after me?" Itadori demanded between movements. "What happened to your brothers? I don't even know who you are."
"Stop pretending." Choso's rage sharpened, and his assault intensified. "You killed them. That debt only closes with your life."
The blood he drew from his own body stopped spraying and began to move. Under his control, it twisted through the air in coiling, shifting patterns, striking from directions that made no intuitive sense. The technique grew more erratic and harder to predict by the second.
Itadori felt himself getting pushed back.
The cursed technique was precise, overwhelming in force, and driven by a grief that made Choso completely unwilling to give an inch. Getting close for hand-to-hand combat was nearly impossible.
He couldn't keep dodging indefinitely.
Spotting a fraction of an opening, Itadori drove his foot into the ground hard enough to crack the pavement. His body launched toward Choso like a round fired at close range.
"Blood Edge."
Choso had seen it coming. The blood orbiting him compressed instantly into a massive blade, wide and sharp, and swung horizontally across the path of Itadori's charge in a single sweeping arc aimed at his midsection.
Itadori's pupils contracted. Mid-sprint, he wrenched his body sideways and threw his forearms up, condensing cursed energy between them and the blade.
The edge grazed his face as he leaned back, missing a lethal cut by a fraction.
But Choso wasn't finished. He rotated at the hip, and his left fist drove into Itadori's side with brutal force.
The impact launched him off his feet. He crashed into a pile of rubble and lay there for a moment, the pain in his midsection white and electric.
He dragged himself upright and spat blood.
"Cough."
The strength behind that hit was nothing like a Grade 1 Cursed Spirit. This opponent was something different entirely.