"Um, um, Nanamin—how do you do sightseeing at a graveyard... dance on the tombstones?"
Yuji asked tentatively.
Kira tilted his chin toward the abandoned building looming before them.
"We could try a haunted house adventure."
"...Ah, that's the aura of a Cursed Spirit."
Nobara's mouth twitched. She stared at the gloom-drenched building with the dead-eyed resignation of someone whose soul had already left.
"Yep, Cursed Spirit. ORA."
"Cursed Spirit."
Kira clapped his hands, drawing everyone's attention.
"Here are the rules. Yuji and Kugisaki—you're a team. Enter the haunted house and kill the ghosts inside. That's it."
...Poor ghosts.
Yuji scratched his head, hesitant. "But Nanamin-sensei, can't only Curses kill Curses? I don't know any jujutsu..."
"Neither do I. But I have Cursed Energy, and so do you."
Kira nodded and explained matter-of-factly: "So your attacks can hurt Curses. Just ORA as hard as you can."
"Complete the mission and you're free to explore Roppongi afterwards."
"OK!"
Yuji snapped his heels together, stomped his left foot, and threw a military salute. "Then I'm heading in."
Kira watched the two disappear into the building.
Fushiguro shifted restlessly. "So what do Hoshino and I do?"
Ei tilted her head curiously, watching Kira.
"You two fight me."
Kira glanced at the darkening sky. Dusk had deepened; the sun was barely a faint outline.
Getting late.
"It's 5:40 now. I clock out at six. Survive twenty minutes against me and you win."
In truth, this scummy teacher's usual quitting time was eight.
"Oh."
Fushiguro's interest sparked. He rolled his neck, dark pupils glinting.
"Sensei, you sure about this?"
He'd been wanting to see firsthand the strength of Nanami Kira—the man renowned as the strongest below Special Grade.
"I have no problem with that."
Ei's expression stayed calm and distant. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, revealing a pale earlobe where a silver clover earring swayed gently, chiming softly.
The air went still.
Kira stepped back half a pace.
"You should all be familiar with my shikigami's abilities. Anyone touched by its hand is eliminated. Understood?"
"Understood. Megumi Fushiguro, Grade 2 jujutsu sorcerer. Please."
Fushiguro laced his fingers into a strange seal. Black Cursed Energy coiled around him, tracing the outline of an ominous sigil. Something stirred in its depths—his shikigami, straining at the leash.
"Hoshino Ei, Grade 2 jujutsu sorcerer. Please."
Ei smiled faintly. Her cool, clear eyes curved as she regarded Kira, a barely perceptible glimmer flickering in those wine-red irises.
BOOM.
Ten Shadows Technique.
Black Cursed Energy erupted.
Fushiguro vanished from where he'd stood. Kira's vision went dark as a black shape hurtled toward his face—jet-black fur, claws sharp enough to tear through the night itself, descending on him like an avalanche.
Divine Dog.
Killer Queen materialized in front of Kira and drove its fist into the Divine Dog's abdomen. A twist of the body, and the dog was spinning through the air. An over-the-shoulder throw—the ground shattered on impact, dust billowing outward.
Killer Queen threw another punch, this one aimed at the Divine Dog's face. No detonation. If that fist had connected with intent, one punch would have turned the dog's nasal bridge into a bomb.
"Eliminated."
Kira murmured—then felt a chill at his flank. Fushiguro. While the Divine Dog drew Killer Queen's attention head-on, he'd slipped behind Kira. Black Cursed Energy flickered, and another shikigami was clawing its way out of his shadow—
A sneak attack?
The ground exploded. A massive owl-like raptor erupted from the shadow in a steep dive, talons lancing straight at Kira like a row of unstoppable blades.
"Eliminated."
Kira flicked a pebble. It shot toward the diving raptor on a collision course—
Fushiguro realized the danger and reflexively tried to steer Nue clear. But that split second of diverted focus exposed his own position. Killer Queen blurred forward, suddenly right in his face. The black skull-faced fist grew larger and larger in his vision, sharper and sharper, and the terror of death bloomed across every pore—Fushiguro saw the endless malice behind it, saw himself reduced to a wisp of smoke in the seconds to come, utterly powerless.
Kira's calm voice reached his ears:
"When I said 'eliminated' just now, I was talking about you, Fushiguro. Not your shikigami."
"Just as I expected—you care too much about your shikigami's lives, and too little about your own. It's become a weakness."
"That's today's lesson. Try to be greedier."
Killer Queen's fist hovered before Fushiguro's face. The wind pressure skimmed his cheek and scattered his black hair.
"Eliminated. Four minutes."
Only when Kira spoke did Fushiguro snap back to the present. He looked at Kira with a complicated expression and exhaled.
So this is Nanami Kira... That pressure just now—the sheer weight of imminent death—had been so real, so suffocating, that Fushiguro had nearly played his forbidden trump card just to survive.
"Now then, Hoshino Ei."
Kira patted Fushiguro's shoulder and straightened the boy's rumpled sleeve without looking back.
"Why didn't you attack together? Selling out your teammate isn't a good look."
"I wanted to fight Sensei one-on-one."
Ei tilted her head, blinking those brilliant amber eyes.