A chill ran through Kira. Something was wrong.
Hoshino Ei was absolutely not dead. Right now she was supposed to be out investigating the cinema with Itadori and the others—she couldn't have slipped away from Mei Mei's watch.
And she'd admitted it herself: her true body was the hand. This body had been nothing but an avatar.
He couldn't afford to sit on the sidelines any longer. Hoshino Ei might truly have allied herself with the Cursed Spirits, just as she'd implied.
Which meant the cinema attack was a trap from the start.
As stated before, Nanami Kira didn't care about anyone. If he possessed anything resembling "goodwill" or "morality," it was nothing more than professional ethics while he was on the job—the self-restraint of a functioning adult.
But he was off the clock now.
He wanted a quiet life. If someone tried to destroy it, they'd answer to this first—
Kira pressed his hand against the window. A pale pink glow pulsed. Click—and every seal-tag plastered across the outer frame ignited spontaneously, dissolving into fluttering ash.
He flipped the window latch, pushed the casement open, and leapt into the blinding midday sun.
He had to get home and confirm the Arrow was safe. He'd sealed it beneath his bed, enclosed in the smallest possible Curtain. In jujutsu, everything operated on equivalent exchange.
By sacrificing both its defensive strength and its size, he'd traded everything for absolute concealment. On top of the Curtain, he'd layered multiple additional barriers. Even if an enemy flipped the bed over, they'd never see the Arrow.
The design was borrowed from the Curtain Hasegawa Kaede had woven around her own true body. Kira had always been a quick study—he absorbed knowledge from his surroundings like a sponge.
He was confident that even a Special Grade sorcerer couldn't find it. The last time Gojo had visited his house, he hadn't noticed a thing.
At the academy, Kira had always been top of his class in barrier techniques.
But Hoshino Ei was different. She had been Hasegawa Kaede. While Kira had innovated on the original technique, there was no guarantee it would stop her.
By now, a clear picture had formed in his mind.
The hand he'd brought back from Kyoto had spawned a Cursed Spirit through sheer resentment. In its infancy it had been extremely weak. Its Cursed Technique was Concealment—a trait likely inherited from its past life's modus operandi: always hiding the true body, never revealing its real identity, entombing itself in a cold and beautiful crystal coffin.
Because of Concealment, the hand had perfectly masked its Cursed Energy fluctuations. That was why Kira had never detected the change.
The rest was obvious. As a newborn curse, the hand had been like a ravenous infant—devouring knowledge from its surroundings, growing relentlessly, until it finally escaped Kira's home.
As for the identity "Hoshino Ei"—that was most likely one of the bodies the Desire Pò had formerly controlled, a sleeper agent Hasegawa Kaede had planted inside the jujutsu academy.
Kira turned these thoughts over as he walked. The scorching sun hammered the asphalt until it softened underfoot, each step faintly sticky.
He reached the base of the hill quickly, flagged down a taxi, and hauled the driver out.
Tearing down the sidewalks, Kira drove well enough—he didn't hit anyone.
He arrived at his house in minutes. The villa sat beneath the midday blaze, palm trees swaying gently, swaying through the lazy afternoon hours.
No sign of anything unusual.
Kira's frown deepened. The irritation inside him was building.
A fire burned in his chest. Something was trying to destroy his quiet life—the source of everything he called happiness—threatening the peace he'd built so carefully.
His nails were getting longer.
Through the garden. The warning barrier at the front gate hadn't triggered, which meant no one had come by. Logical enough, given that Hoshino Ei's technique was Concealment.
He opened the front door. Stray Cat lay curled in the entryway. Sensing the light, it cracked open a lazy eye, saw it was Kira, and unfurled its leaves in delight.
Even Stray Cat wasn't disturbed... Kira stepped past it, went straight upstairs, cut through the hallway, and entered his bedroom.
A small blue tank crouched at the door. Oversized skull-socket eyes stared up at Kira.
Not even Sheer Heart Attack detected anything...
No—that was impossible. No matter how powerful her Concealment, using a Cursed Technique would still leave traces. And the Arrow was wrapped in multiple barriers. To retrieve it, she'd have to dismantle those barriers, which would require Cursed Energy.
There was only one possibility.
Kira flipped the bed frame. His face went entirely dark.
The small box containing the Arrow sat right where he'd left it, perfectly undisturbed. Every barrier was intact.
The Arrow hadn't been stolen. Ordinarily, that would be cause for relief.
But for the first time, Nanami Kira felt truly troubled—and wary.
The enemy's behavior had exceeded his predictions. He despised anything outside the plan, because deviation meant instability, and instability meant danger.
He couldn't guess what the enemy wanted. Couldn't guess their objective.
Which meant a trap was waiting for him somewhere.
Kira secured the Arrow, recalled Sheer Heart Attack, scooped up Stray Cat from the entryway, and gave the house one final sweep.
From the walk-in closet, he selected a black suit. He fastened a fresh bow tie, buttoned every button with precise care, and checked himself in the mirror. Once satisfied that nothing was out of place, he walked out the door.
He had to go to the scene and assess the situation himself.
The imbalance between their positions was severe. The enemy had spent a month embedded at his side, and he still knew virtually nothing about them.
The same went for the Cursed Spirit that had appeared at the cinema, the two Special Grade spirits that had attacked Gojo—all of it was unknown to Kira, and against unknowns, no amount of planning mattered.
One small consolation: the enemy still didn't know how to use the Arrow properly. That was his sole informational advantage.
Beyond that, Kira held one more card—but he hoped he'd never have to play it.
Only in the depths of total despair. But would that day truly come...?
Regardless, Nanami Kira's quiet life had been disrupted.
He moved through narrow alleyways, keeping a low profile.
Breaking out of the academy's confinement wouldn't cause serious problems. The jujutsu world had far worse rule-breakers. Barring further incidents, the worst he'd face was a demotion.
Barring further incidents...
It was two o'clock now—the most brutal hour of the day. The dense skyline of towers and high-rises swallowed most of the sunlight. The sun belonged to those lofty skyscrapers; only stray scraps of radiance trickled down into the cramped, low-slung alleyways. Most of the time, these back streets saw precious little light.
Kira was taking a shortcut. He was heading for the cinema.
He used to walk this route often, back when he'd go see movies with his girlfriend.
Moss grew damp on the stone steps. Slimy mushrooms scaled the cracked walls. Everyone he passed walked with their heads down, hurrying forward.
Over the past two days, several more Cursed Spirit attacks had struck Tokyo.
It was already possible to narrow down the culprit's location. In fact, it was clear the attacker could have left without any residual Cursed Energy at all.
They were doing it deliberately. Baiting.
The school had surely noticed as much.
Barring further incidents...
Then Kira noticed something wrong with the people around him. Their faces were twitching, contorting.
Here in this lightless alley, where the sun couldn't reach.
The middle-aged man ahead collapsed. He doubled over, clutching his chest, vomiting wave after wave of filth—chunks of pink viscera mixed in with the bile.
As if that were a signal, every person in the alley dropped. The elderly. Children. Women.
Bodies swelled violently, bloating like postmortem decomposition—like a rotting corpse inflated by its own gases. Viscous fluid leaked from mouths, from eye sockets, from nostrils. Features stretched and distorted, shoved to one side of the face, growing larger, larger—
The alley filled with monsters.
One. Two. Dozens. They emerged from doorways, from windows, from stairwells—poking their heads out, crimson pupils locked on Kira.
And in some dark corner, a white snake with a human face slithered silently into a storm drain.