One week earlier.
"I told you people about this last week!"
'The elevator's security door just won't stay shut.'
In the dim stairwell, a young man dressed like a biker gang member tossed his cigarette butt to the floor. He stamped out the remaining sparks and ground them beneath his shoe before roaring into the phone,
"So get over here right now! The weekend? What's that got to do with me? Come fix it immediately!"
His voice was very loud. The stairwell light flickered. Shimada Osamu listened to the elevator doors opening and closing behind him, his irritation mounting as he stood with his back to the elevator and scratched at his hair.
Behind him, the elevator doors closed and opened again and again. Once, then again.
The lights flickered. There was a strange smell in the stairwell, as though something had gone moldy. The place was utterly silent except for the elevator doors closing, but at some point that sound had become dull and heavy, as if something were caught between them.
Once, then again. Thick liquid smeared across the elevator and left streak after streak along the floor...
Creeeak—
"Nagoya, Yamato Hiroshi. Yokohama, Shimada Osamu. Morioka, Kanada Taichi."
"Each was killed one month apart. Kira Nanami."
Assistant Manager Nitta Akari flipped through the documents in her hands as she spoke to Kira Nanami in the back seat.
Nitta Akari was a little nervous. Most jujutsu sorcerers had only heard the legends about the man behind her: driving off a Special Grade Cursed Spirit alone, single-handedly resolving the ultra-hazardous 'Kyoto Plague' incident, repelling Special Grade Curse User Hase Kaede, maintaining a one-hundred-percent mission success rate, and refusing promotion to Special Grade Jujutsu Sorcerer... It was a dazzling record.
Yet the more dazzling the record and the stronger the sorcerer, the more careful Nitta Akari became.
The stronger someone was, the crazier they tended to be. That almost seemed to be a law of Jujutsu Society.
Gojo Satoru, for example. Tsukumo Yuki. Or that great paragon of filial piety, Geto Suguru, who had killed his own entire family...
But Kira Nanami ought to be fairly normal... right? Nitta Akari looked at the man reflected in the rearview mirror. He had sharply defined features, blond hair, azure eyes, and wore a pale violet coat and bow tie with meticulous neatness. At the moment, his eyes were closed as he rested.
He should be a fairly normal jujutsu sorcerer... right?
"Nitta..."
"Yes!"
Nitta Akari answered on reflex.
Kira Nanami slowly opened his eyes and said wearily,
"Why do you think people have to go to work?"
"Huh?"
"I don't particularly mind working, but could you drive a little slower? Yes, slower. Maybe take a few detours."
"W-why?"
"It isn't time for work yet. I want to enjoy the scenery along the way."
Nitta Akari instinctively wiped at sweat that did not exist on her forehead and forcibly steered the conversation back on track.
"Kira Nanami, what do you make of this Cursed Spirit attack?"
"Three people, three places, three different times. All three had complained to building management about problems with their elevator doors."
Kira Nanami closed his eyes again to rest. He had returned very late last night; by the time he finally got Hoshino Ei to leave, it had already been exactly ten o'clock.
The one comforting thing was that Hoshino Ei could not come today—because, for the moment, that girl was still officially a student, and students naturally had to attend class.
"Kira-senpai."
Fushiguro Megumi, who had been sitting silently in the front passenger seat, finally spoke.
"And what does that mean?"
Fushiguro Megumi, Kira Nanami, and Nitta Akari. Those were all the personnel assigned to the mission.
"There was nothing wrong with the elevator sensors. They malfunctioned under a Cursed Spirit's influence... We should be able to find traces of cursed energy on them. This was a Cursed Spirit attack."
Kira Nanami delivered his conclusion.
"We can't be certain the same Cursed Spirit was responsible for all three, but the victims have one thing in common—they all graduated from Saitama Urami East Junior High School."
"So we're going to the junior high to investigate?"
No... Kira Nanami opened his eyes.
"We're going straight to Yasohachi Bridge."
Kira Nanami was not the sort of person who liked to drag things out. He might have asked Nitta to take a detour, but he was still a dependable adult.
He had already heard about Yasohachi Bridge from Yoshino Junpei yesterday, and Yoshino Junpei had learned about it from students at that school. The information was almost certainly accurate.
'Yasohachi Bridge, a famous suicide spot. Jujutsu High students often go bungee jumping there...'
More importantly, Kira Nanami hated needless complications and unnecessary work.
It was like reading a novel. What he hated most was a plot that could head straight for the answer but instead twisted itself into knots taking pointless detours. Such plots had only one purpose: padding the story.
If his life were a novel, then going to the school to conduct another meaningless round of investigation would be pointless filler, the kind readers would curse for padding the word count.
When it came to work, if it could be avoided, avoid it. If it had to be done, finish it as quickly as possible. That was Kira Nanami's way of life.
"Are we going to Yasohachi Bridge to investigate?"
"No. We're going there to bungee jump."
——
"Why can't a cursed object like this be destroyed?"
Jogo tapped a finger against three glass jars. Each transparent jar contained pale green nutrient fluid, and suspended within were three infant corpses—or rather, three tiny embryos.
"Special Grade cursed objects can't be destroyed."
Kenjaku leaned against the door, eyes half-lidded as he replied lazily,
"Just like Ryomen Sukuna's Fingers. Split into twenty pieces and still monstrous beyond belief."
Kenjaku pushed himself away from the door.
"That's why Ryomen Sukuna needs a vessel—but the Cursed Womb: Death Paintings aren't picky."
The Cursed Womb: Death Paintings were children born of a human and a Cursed Spirit, the experimental creations of Kamo Noritoshi (Ancestor), the vilest curse user in history. There were nine of them in total, and every one was Special Grade.
He looked toward the wall. Blood. Nothing but blood. Iron nails pinned a man's joints in place. The flesh peeled back around them had already necrotized, exposing bone the color of raw meat, and even those bones had begun to lose their luster.
Everything looked lifeless—a naked man was nailed to the wall, blood dripping steadily from his body.
"N-no, stop! What do you want? Money? I can give you anything..."
"Shut up, human."
Jogo seized the man's mouth and pried his jaws apart. He took a small, viscous lump from one of the glass jars and stuffed it into the man's mouth. Under the man's despairing gaze, Jogo said softly,
"We are born as Cursed Spirits. We lack nothing. We fear nothing."
Mahito was dead. Hanami was dead. Jogo had already prepared himself to die as well.
No matter what fortune or disaster lay ahead, a hundred years from now, he hoped Cursed Spirits would be able to laugh wildly beneath the open sky.
"Nothing can stand in our way."