"I still think we should have checked the station bathrooms," Yuji said, popping the tab on his cola. "What if he passed out in there?"
Nobara swung her hammer, embedding the head deep into a nearby wooden training post. "If he died on a public toilet, he deserved it."
A few feet away, Nanami adjusted the cuff of his tan suit. He didn't look at the students. He just stared at the face of his wristwatch. The second hand ticked past the twelve.
"The sweeping operation in Shibuya is complete," Nanami announced. His voice was completely flat, devoid of any leftover energy. "The low-grade curses have been cleared from the metro lines. As of this exact moment, I am officially off the clock."
"Nanami-san, wait," Yuji started. "What about tomorrow—"
"If it does not directly threaten the immediate survival of Tokyo, do not tell me," Nanami interrupted. He turned his back to them, already walking toward the campus exit. "I am going home. I am going to drink a very large glass of wine. Good evening."
They watched the blonde sorcerer disappear down the stone path.
Yuji took a long drink of his soda. "He looks really tired."
"We spent four hours walking through underground subway tunnels squashing fly-heads," Megumi muttered, rubbing the back of his neck. "Everyone is tired."
Nobara yanked her hammer out of the wood. "I'm not tired. I'm pissed." She pointed the weapon right at Yuji. "You gave him the sandwich. This is your fault."
Yuji blinked, holding his soda up defensively. "How is it my fault?!"
"Because he used your terrible breakfast as an excuse!" Nobara yelled. She hoisted her bag over her shoulder and started marching toward the dorms.
...
The neon glow of Shinjuku bled into the damp alleyway, but the shadows here were thick enough to hide the rot.
It was 11:15 PM. Forty-five minutes until Halloween.
Ren stepped over a shattered pile of wooden pallets. He didn't have his canvas duffel bag anymore. Just his dark jacket, his boots, and Nightfall held loosely in his right hand.
A low, wet gurgle echoed from the fire escape above.
A Grade 2 curse dropped from the rusted iron grating. It looked like a swollen, multi-limbed centipede made of human hands, its jaws snapping wildly as it lunged straight for his head.
Ren swung the katana upward in a single, fluid arc.
The silver edge caught the streetlamp's glow, flashing with a blinding white spark. The steel bit into the curse's bone-like armor. A deafening, electric crack split the alley as positive energy detonated on impact.
The centipede's front half vaporized instantly, exploding into a violent cloud of white ash and purple static. The remaining mass of writhing human hands slammed blindly into the brick wall, crumbling into fine dust before it even hit the pavement.
Ren flicked the dry blade to the side out of pure reflex.
"Not bad," he murmured.
The metal hummed in his grip, volatile and warm. One touch. Total erasure.
He slid the katana into its scabbard. The guard clicked into place, echoing off the damp brick. Stepping over the scattered ash, he kept walking. The kills tonight were just a way to kill time.
He vaulted a rusted chain-link fence, dropping silently onto the tar-paper roof of a commercial low-rise. Two miles south, the towering skyscrapers of Shibuya painted the overcast sky in a hazy, electric blue.
The air in front of him rippled. A translucent blue interface snapped into existence, hovering sharply against the backdrop of the Tokyo skyline.
[ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED]Milestone Reached: 500 Cursed Spirits Eradicated.
(Session Tracker: 400+ targets eliminated since 14:00).
[REWARDS DISPENSED]
[...]
...
Hundreds of miles away, deep beneath the frozen forests of Hokkaido, the pale blue light of the underground corridor had stopped being atmospheric about six hours ago.
Now, it was just giving Maki a massive headache.
"Am I walking in a damn circle?" Maki muttered, her voice echoing flatly down the endless granite hallway.
She stopped, resting the butt of her wooden naginata against the floor. She had been walking steadily since the afternoon. According to her internal clock, it had to be creeping close to midnight. The corridor hadn't changed. The same seamless stone, the same faint blue glow bleeding from the masonry, the same thick layer of ancient dust.
"I swear to god," she whispered into the quiet tomb, "if I'm trapped in a spatial loop..."
She stepped closer to the right-hand wall. About an hour ago, out of pure paranoia, she had dragged the blade of her naginata hard across the stone to leave a marker.
She brushed a layer of fresh dust away from the granite.
There it was. A deep, jagged silver scratch etched right into the rock at eye level.
Maki stared at her own trail marker. She let out a slow, deeply irritated breath. Her white breath plumed in the freezing, stale air.
"Unbelievable. It's a barrier maze." She leaned her head back against the cold stone, staring up at the vaulted ceiling. Because her cursed energy had completely vanished—drained to absolute zero—she couldn't sense the subtle shifts in the barrier's walls. The tomb was silently folding space around her, guiding her in an endless, looping circle to keep intruders away from the center.
Under normal circumstances, a sorcerer without the ability to read cursed energy would die down here, slowly starving to death in an infinite loop.
Maki lowered her head. A dark, dangerous grin slowly pulled at the corners of her mouth.
"Well," she said, taking a step back into the center of the hallway. "Good thing I don't play by your rules anymore."
She spun the naginata in her hands, taking a wide, grounded stance. If the hallway was designed to loop forever, then the only way forward was to stop using the hallway.
Maki tightened her grip, her knuckles popping in the quiet air. Twisting her hips, she swung the heavy wooden polearm like a baseball bat directly into the seamless granite wall.
BOOM.