“Found youuu …”
Mai turned around, and there was the cursed spirit. Its six long arms spanned the hallway, blocking any escape. There was no way she could squeeze past.
She had three shots left in the revolver, and she couldn’t reload with Construction. If she forced herself to pack it with cursed energy, the burden might immobilize her, and she doubted even that would deliver a fatal wound to the cursed spirit.
All alone, one girl stood no chance of fleeing or fighting a grade 2 cursed spirit. She was like a rat in a bag. There was nowhere she could go.
“Looked. Found. Found,” the cursed spirit said with a grin.
It flashed a smile with a lot of gums. Mai had once heard that the act of smiling originated with predators baring their teeth at prey. That made a lot of sense to Mai in the moment.
Even the cursed spirit could see it had Mai in checkmate. It was inching toward her in a leisurely way, as if enjoying this time, backing her into a corner and scaring her to death.
The cursed spirit’s murky aura drew near. This cursed spirit would leap to kill her like a cat batting at a mouse. That was clear from the way it had abducted Yuu but left the girl alive. It would play with her, mock her, and toy with her until it eventually broke her by accident.
Mai thought of Yuu’s pitiful state. That was what lay in her own future, and there was nothing she could do to change it.
Not alone anyway.
“At most, you’re grade 2. Isn’t that what we said? And here you are licking your lips at prey right in front of you. You really aren’t first-rate material.”
“Uungh?” The cursed spirit blinked, then narrowed its eyes in confusion.
Mai backed up and leaned against what appeared to be a featureless white wall. She snuck her hand into her pocket.
“You relied too much on sight.”
She used her thumb to place a call with her smartphone. That was all she had to do to signal, but she also screamed.
“Momo!”
Immediately, Mai ducked her head and adopted a low stance. At that moment, what had appeared to be a pure white wall fell away, revealing a window through which a fierce wind blew.
“Uaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrgh!”
What had fallen away was a section of false wall that Mai had created with Construction. She could only manage such a feat once a day, and she hadn’t been able to create a very strong wall. However, she could hide a single window in a dark hall.
Nishimiya didn’t need to visually confirm the cursed spirit. At Mai’s signal, she just needed to blow wind in through the window that Mai had opened earlier. In the narrow hall, there was nowhere to run from the wind, so it struck at full force.
“Aiiiieeeeeeeeee!”
The cursed spirit extended its long arms, struggling to cling to the walls.
Mai was directly underneath the window, hunkering in the windblock it created, revolver still in hand. She loaded the remaining bullets with what little cursed energy she had left and pulled the trigger.
The gun rang out once. Under stress, her body cried out. Her head hurt so badly it felt like it might split open. She could feel blood oozing from her eye sockets, but Mai didn’t shut her eyes.
She fired a second shot, then a third. The shots struck the cursed spirit. Although they were far from fatal blows, they did loosen its hands. The cursed spirit was blown to the far end of the hall. Yet even that lacked adequate force—they couldn’t kill it with wind and bullets alone. Even now, Mai lacked the strength to finish it off.
But getting it down the hall was enough. Mai’s desire to end this fight herself had lessened. And Miwa was waiting at the other end of the hall.
“Kasumi, the rest is on you,” Mai said.
“New Shadow Style: Simple Domain,” Miwa said, opening her Simple Domain with a radius of 2.21 meters. It was a counterattack that a sorcerer could perform almost reflexively. It did not require the use of sight.
Nishimiya’s wind. Mai’s bullets. A corridor with no place to run. And a cursed spirit who was off balance.
Three layers, double backup.
When everything fell into place like that, there was no way the cursed spirit could get away, especially not with a cursed technique developed just for intercepting head-on attacks like New Shadow Style: Simple Domain.
“Gyarrrrrrggghhh! Look! Look! Look! Loo—”
A single silver flash shot through the darkness and the deformed spirit split in two.
The next day, Yuu Makimura sat waiting for transport to Tokyo Jujutsu High. Given the aftereffects of cursed energy corroding her in body and soul, as well as the severity of her external wounds, it had been determined that Doctor Ieiri should treat her. Doctors capable of the same level of treatment in Kyoto hadn’t been available.
There wasn’t supposed to have been any rescue, so Yuu should have died. She had only been an external collaborator, and there was no need to reinstate her. To the contrary, she was a dangerous individual who had acted foolishly and was thus unnecessary. She wasn’t a sorcerer, which made her expendable. Nonetheless, she was treated with warmth and compassion. After receiving emergency care, she waited in the infirmary at Kyoto Jujutsu High.
The window looked out on a beautiful autumn sky. Billows of clouds drifted by lazily. It was refreshing weather, in contrast to the feelings in Yuu’s heart. She used one hand to open the window in hopes that contact with the outside air would make her feel better.
Immediately, a gentle breeze brushed her cheeks, and a witch drifted down on a broom.
“Hi! Seems you can walk again!” Nishimiya said.
As Yuu looked up at Nishimiya sitting sideways on her broom, she grasped the space where her arm used to be.
“They used a cursed technique to stop the bleeding, so it doesn’t hurt anymore,” Yuu said.
“We reclaimed the arm,” Nishimiya said. “If the stitches work out, it should stick back on. A doctor who knows reverse cursed technique is going to be taking care of you, and your prognosis is good. I’m glad.”
“I’m sorry for the trouble I caused.”
“Yeah, that was some trouble.” Nishimiya was blunt about it, but her tone of voice didn’t suggest she was criticizing the girl.
Nishimiya’s status as a third-year and a sorcerer was evidenced by the way she smiled exasperatedly, as one might at a small and mischievous child, and Yuu’s mood brightened.
“I have a message from Mai,” Nishimiya continued. “She wants you to learn from this and stop following her around. She doesn’t want to see your face, so next time you get in trouble, you’re on your own to die all you want.”
“Mai’s so sweet,” Yuu said.
“You really think so, after that message?”
“Yep!”
“Okay,” Nishimiya responded.
If Yuu could interpret those words in such a positive way, it must mean she really did care for Mai, even though her actions had been careless. Nishimiya understood that. She couldn’t bring herself to be too hard on the girl. Yuu may have been an incompetent ally, but she was an ally nonetheless.
“Have a good life, okay?” Nishimiya said. “Otherwise, there was no point in us exorcising that curse, right?”
“Yep …”
“Aw, don’t cry! If your eyes puff up any more it’ll totally ruin your cute face!”
Nishimiya handed Yuu a handkerchief edged with lace, then rose high in the air. She caught the autumn breeze and flew her broom in a broad arc. A little bird that looked like it was wearing a necktie flew alongside her. Nishimiya looked at it strangely, wondering what it was doing.
Flying at the height of the leaves on trees, she lightly zipped over the tiled roofs. Upon seeing a figure standing at the entrance to the schoolhouse, Nishimiya dipped to a lower altitude.
“Yo, taxi!” a voice called out.
“Fine,” Nishimiya replied. “The meter starts at 800 yen.”
“A bit pricey, don’t you think?”
Mai hopped onto the broom behind Nishimiya.
The broom didn’t bear the double load easily, but they wouldn’t have any trouble slowly cruising over to the dorm. Nishimiya upped the altitude a little despite her passenger. The sky was better for a quiet chat than the school’s halls.
“Momo, your pigtails are getting in my face.”
“Yeah, but I like my hair this way. Don’t use them as handlebars like before!”
“Okay, okay. Where’s Kasumi?”
“She’s trying to ingratiate herself with Tanabe, since he used to think highly of her.”
“We should do something to make it up to her later.”
Their conversation was peaceful, like gentle drops of rain. They were flying high enough that they could see far, and Mai was looking into the distance. A black car rolled up to the entrance to the school grounds and a human figure climbed inside. They couldn’t see the person’s face, but she walked with a firm gait.
“You really didn’t want to see her face-to-face?” Nishimiya asked.
“No,” Mai replied.
Nishimiya didn’t pursue it any further, and Mai didn’t offer any further comment.
Mai had done what she said she’d do and saved a life. No one would praise her, and it wouldn’t raise her standing as a sorcerer. She had acted on her own decision and had expelled a cursed spirit without anyone asking her to.
The Zen’in clan might reprove her. They might be harder on her than ever. Nonetheless, she had been unable to ignore her desire to act. As usual, she felt like she couldn’t breathe. And as usual, she was disgusted with it all. In her heart, however, she was relieved. If you take a hard look at where you are, then change your perspective, the scenery just might brighten up.
“You can really see far from up here, Momo.”
“Uh-huh!”
“And the harder you try, the better the view.”
“But it’s hard work, isn’t it?”
The world spread out before them, a wide and colorful landscape. No doubt, some of those colors were muddy, but there were also beautiful colors among them.
The world was cursed, but it also had sorcerers.