Shokushin turned its head stiffly and saw Mukuro standing right beside it. The trident in his hands was already aimed, its sharp tips glinting with cold light.
"Wait!"
Because of the momentum from its earlier lunge toward Toji, the cursed spirit couldn't dodge in time.
It shouted in panic, all four of its eyes bulging so wide the blood vessels inside looked like they would burst.
Puh!
The sound of blade piercing flesh echoed.
Despite its desperate effort to block, the trident still pierced through both its palms and buried deep into its chest.
"I'll tear you into pieces!!"
The cursed spirit tensed its body, forcing every muscle to clamp down on the weapon, stopping it from being pushed further in or pulled back out. At the same time, its huge mouth opened wide, cursed energy gathering inside, aimed right at Mukuro's head.
"Do you need me to say it again?" Mukuro smiled mockingly like he was watching a circus clown.
"No…!" The reminder made the curse realize something. It tried to turn its head in shock.
"There are two of us."
The continuation of Mukuro's words came from above. Toji had leapt high into the air, catching the long blade his brother had reshaped.
When the curse swung its head around, all it saw was a streak of light cutting faster than thought.
'The world… is spinning?' A strange dizziness overcame it, a whirlwind of confusion filling its mind. Its four eyes widened, reflecting a bizarre and pitiful intelligence that tried to comprehend what had just happened.
In truth, the moment it turned, its head had already been sent flying.
Toji's speed was so fast that its thoughts hadn't caught up before its body was separated from its head.
The corpse still surged forward from the turning momentum, but Mukuro's trident hooked it and dragged it back.
Toji didn't stop. His blade slashed again and again, chopping the ruined body into pieces. Green blood splattered everywhere like rain.
Chunks of meat fell to the ground, muscles twitching as if trying to crawl away, carrying its master's final instinct to flee.
Amidst those lumps of flesh were strange fragments, but the remains soon stilled, unable to regenerate again.
'Is that… my body? Run!'
The head that had been launched into the air still hadn't landed. As it spun, it finally caught sight of the scene.
An unknown fear consumed its mind. Its thoughts twisted like a rope being wrung, leaving only one idea: escape.
"Don't even think about it!" Toji laughed and threw his blade at the airborne head.
The shocking thing was, even reduced to a mere head, the curse still found the strength for one last struggle. Teeth shattered, it used the force of the blade to fling itself further away.
Clack.
Mukuro raised a hand and snapped his fingers. The floor split open, and a black hole spread wide. Out leapt a massive fox with ringed eyes, towering over ten meters.
It lunged like a shark breaching the ocean and bit down on the head. Its jaws clamped shut with a thunderous crack that echoed across the space.
Thus ended the Shokushin.
Once recorded as a grade 1 curse, now elevated to special grade for the first time, it was exorcised by two newcomers still unknown in the jujutsu world.
"What the hell, kid? You sure know how to show off. Even snapping your fingers like that." Toji crossed his arms and smirked at his younger brother.
Boom!
With the cursed spirit's death, its innate domain began to collapse.
The ground shook, the slaughterhouse-like environment shattered, and in an instant the brothers found themselves back in the hospital's lobby.
But the change of scenery didn't let them relax.
"You felt it too, right?"
"Cursed energy as strong as a special grade."
They exchanged looks, confirming what they found. Their senses for cursed energy were sharp, and the moment they returned to reality, they felt something unusual lingering nearby.
Toji followed the trail and saw it came from the remains of the Shokushin, not yet fully gone.
He stomped lightly. The tiles beneath shattered, and fragments rose into the air. With a flick of his finger, one shard shot off like a bullet, striking the pile of flesh.
The violent impact sped up the body's disintegration. At last, the source of that cursed aura appeared.
A finger, about the size and thickness of a fountain pen, lay quietly on the floor. From it poured an ominous aura that made the air heavy.
"No way… So that's why that cursed spirit was only recorded as grade 1 but suddenly became a special grade," Mukuro murmured.
"Is this… one of the legendary special-grade cursed objects? The finger of the King of Curses, Sukuna, from a thousand years ago?!" Toji picked it up, turning it in his hand, his expression shifting from surprise to realization.
Such a dangerous object should have been sealed away by the higher-ups of Jujutsu High.
"Doesn't matter. We'll take this thing and trade it with those guys for money." Mukuro rubbed his chin, thinking about how best to use it. "And besides, if we use this as a stepping stone to get into the jujutsu world, your evaluation won't be low. It's a special-grade cursed object, and the one that swallowed it was a grade 1 curse."
The finger itself was useless to them. They weren't vessels, and when the next era of curses came, keeping such a dangerous object would only put the people around them at risk.
"You deal with it." Toji tossed it casually to Mukuro, then stretched with both hands behind his head and kicked open the main doors.
Outside, the barrier was still up.
"The assistant manager hasn't lifted the curtain, that means some strays are still hiding around here."
During the fight with the Shokushin, plenty of lesser curses had fled when scattered by the wolves and tigers.
Mukuro conjured a long blade and the brothers began sweeping the hospital for the remaining cursed spirits.
* * *
"Hm? What's this?" While Toji was cutting down weak curses one after another, a strange one caught his eye.
It looked like a giant caterpillar.
It didn't resist or attack. Even with his blade about to fall, it ignored him and kept devouring the Fly Head curses nearby.
That odd behavior made him pause, the blade frozen mid-air.
"Oi, oi, oi. So you were hiding here after all."
Mukuro had just finished cleaning up the other rooms when he spotted it too.
His right eye shifted, turning into the number "3." With a slight motion of his finger, several grade 2 phantom curses emerged from the void behind him.
"Mm? Mama… hug…"
The caterpillar cursed spirit seemed to have found treasure. It stopped eating the weaklings and squirmed toward Mukuro instead.
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