Upon entering the barrier, the scenery changed in an instant. The juvenile detention center vanished, replaced by a chaotic landscape of abandoned pipelines and looming buildings interwoven together.
Clearly, just like in the original story, the cursed womb had already fully matured. What lay before them now was its incomplete domain.
"This way."
After sensing the flow of cursed energy within the domain, Seele locked onto the target and immediately activated quantumization, rushing in that direction.
Elsewhere, the three first-year students from Tokyo Jujutsu High had just encountered the Special Grade cursed spirit. Caught completely off guard, Kugisaki Nobara was instantly transferred to another space, where she found herself surrounded and attacked by a swarm of low-grade cursed spirits.
Meanwhile, Fushiguro Megumi and Itadori Yuji stood frozen under the overwhelming pressure radiating from the Special Grade cursed spirit.
"So this is… a Special Grade cursed spirit? It's on a completely different level from the curses we've exorcised before…"
Itadori Yuji spoke with difficulty.
They had been warned in advance about the terror of Special Grades, but hearing descriptions and experiencing it firsthand were two entirely different things.
"Eehehehehe!"
Letting out bizarre laughter, the pale, humanoid cursed spirit—its head crowned with four eyes—raised its arm and swung it down. In an instant, immense cursed energy surged forth, unleashing devastating force that sent Fushiguro Megumi and Itadori Yuji flying along with a huge swath of ground in front of them.
They were completely outmatched!
Struggling to climb back up, Itadori Yuji tried to swing his blade-shaped cursed tool at the spirit, only for it to be shattered with a single strike.
Nearby, Fushiguro Megumi dropped to one knee and formed hand signs, attempting to summon his shikigami.
But at that very moment, the Special Grade cursed spirit—still toying with the two of them just seconds ago—suddenly froze, as if startled by something, scanning its surroundings in alarm.
"What's going on?"
Noticing the change in the cursed spirit's behavior, Yuji and Fushiguro seized the opportunity to regroup.
The next second—
Slash!
A scythe flashed through the air. Even though the Special Grade cursed spirit sensed the danger and retreated immediately, it still lost an arm in a single strike.
Seele appeared before Fushiguro Megumi and Itadori Yuji, scythe in hand.
"Ah—you're the person from that night…"
Recognizing Seele as one of the people who had appeared the night he first encountered a cursed spirit half a month ago, Itadori Yuji blurted out instinctively.
Fushiguro Megumi, on the other hand, visibly relaxed.
"Thank goodness—it's a Special Grade."
He clearly remembered Gojo-sensei telling him half a month ago that she was a newly promoted Special Grade sorcerer. The very next day, he had even received an official notice from the Higher-Ups announcing the birth of the jujutsu world's fifth Special Grade sorcerer.
Now that she was here, it meant that this Special Grade cursed spirit finally had someone who could deal with it.
If one had never directly confronted a Special Grade cursed spirit, it was impossible to truly understand that kind of pressure. Without Seele's arrival, Fushiguro was certain that both he and Itadori Yuji would have died.
"Right—Kugisaki!"
Realizing they were missing one teammate, Fushiguro immediately prepared to call Itadori Yuji and rescue Kugisaki Nobara while the Special Grade cursed spirit was occupied.
However, Seele had already anticipated this.
Taking advantage of the few seconds it took for the cursed spirit to regenerate its arm, she sensed the flow of cursed energy and used quantumization to instantly appear in the space where Kugisaki Nobara was trapped.
Boom!!!
Cursed energy imbued with the power of creation erupted from her hand, wiping out all the low-grade cursed spirits in the area in a single strike. Seele then walked up to Kugisaki Nobara, who stood there stunned by the sudden turn of events.
"Don't be afraid. Seele will take you somewhere safe."
Grasping Kugisaki Nobara's hand, Seele activated quantumization once more and returned to the area where the Special Grade cursed spirit was.
"Kugisaki!"
Seeing her safely returned, Fushiguro Megumi and Itadori Yuji finally breathed a sigh of relief.
"I—I'm fine. Um, who is this little girl?"
Only now snapping back to her senses, Kugisaki Nobara spoke up, though the shock in her eyes had yet to fade.
"She's Miss Seele, the fifth Special Grade sorcerer newly promoted in the jujutsu world not long ago," Fushiguro replied.
Although the Higher-Ups had announced Seele's promotion and even distributed her photo internally to mid- and lower-level sorcerers and staff to avoid cases of mistaken identity, this information didn't extend to students who were still attending Jujutsu High and hadn't graduated yet.
Thus, unless they had seen her before or came from a prominent jujutsu family, ordinary students like Kugisaki Nobara only knew that a new Special Grade had appeared—and her name—not what she looked like.
"Eh?! You're kidding—Special Grade?! At such a young age?!"
Having just recovered from one shock, Kugisaki Nobara immediately plunged into another.
"Gyaaahhhhh—!!!"
At that moment, the Special Grade cursed spirit—its arm fully regenerated—let out an enraged roar. Massive amounts of cursed energy gathered between its hands, eventually forming a glowing orb over a meter in diameter.
"Please step back."
Sensing the terrifying power being condensed, Seele turned and calmly warned the three of them.
The next instant, the cursed spirit hurled the condensed cursed energy straight at her.
Rumble—BOOM!!!
The cursed energy exploded violently, a devastating blast sweeping outward and pulverizing the surrounding structures.
Yet a white light flashed—
The full-force attack of the Special Grade cursed spirit was instantly split in two.
Seele's figure reappeared, scythe in hand. Behind her, the Special Grade cursed spirit had been cleaved cleanly in half, its body severed and completely devoid of life.
Plop.
As the cursed spirit's corpse slowly dissipated, a finger fell out from within and landed on the ground.
It was unmistakably one of Sukuna's fingers.
"Is… is it over?"
Watching the battle conclude—something that looked utterly unreal to them—Itadori Yuji and the others, who had been reduced to mere spectators, asked hesitantly.
"Yes, it's over."
As she answered, Seele picked up the Sukuna finger dropped by the cursed spirit and handed it to Itadori Yuji.
Yuji didn't hesitate. He swallowed the finger in one gulp.
"So… can we go back now?"
This time, however, Seele shook her head.
"Please wait a moment. An Xora-ge has something he wants to ask of you."
Activating quantumization, Seele vanished from the spot. When she reappeared, another figure stood beside her.
An Xora had arrived through Seele's quantumization. He glanced around briefly, then turned his gaze toward Itadori Yuji.
"I have something I need your help with, Itadori-kun. That's why I asked Seele in advance."
"Oh, I see. Then… what do you need my help with?"
Itadori Yuji scratched his head, looking puzzled.
"It's very simple," An Xora replied calmly.
"Release Sukuna, and let him fight Seele."
"Huh?! But why would we do that?"
"Well…" An Xora smiled faintly.
"Just think of it as me being curious about how Sukuna's strength changes after gaining a few more fingers."
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