The abandoned elementary school stood in complete silence as its cracked windows reflected the gray afternoon sky like lifeless eyes. Rusted playground equipment creaked softly in the wind, and faded murals of smiling animals peeled from the outer walls as though even the building itself had given up pretending to be welcoming.
The police reports about missing children cases and witness testimonies had already forced local authorities to classify the place as cursed, though ordinary civilians used softer words—haunted or possessed. For sorcerers, however, there was no need for pretty descriptions.
A curse-infested nest was still a curse-infested nest.
Standing just outside the school gates, Gojo casually stretched his arms over his head as though he were preparing for a picnic instead of sending two teenagers into a potential death trap. Though with him, it was like a death trap with no teeth to bite—if that makes any sense.
Beside him stood Yuta, who looked visibly tense as his eyes remained locked on the dark building ahead. Sweat had already begun gathering near his temple despite the cool weather and the wind flowing, his fingers nervously gripping the handle of his katana.
Next to him, Maki looked completely unbothered, as this isn't her first rodeo. She adjusted her glasses with one finger while resting her cursed tool against her shoulder, her expression carrying its usual sharp impatience as she looked at Yuta.
"You're shaking."
Yuta flinched. "I-I'm not shaking." He tried to put on a brave front, as he didn't want to look weak.
Maki glanced at his hands. "You literally are."
Yuta quickly tightened his grip, only making it more obvious. After all, this is his first time in this kind of place, with the intention to exorcise the curse, whose existence he only came to know about recently.
Gojo grinned beneath his blindfold. "Relax, Yuta. That's why you're here. At the rate you are shaking, you die of a heart attack instead of a curse attack."
"You are supposed to be calming him, not agiling him." Maki said in a fierce tone as he saw Yuta start to shake in fear.
Yuta looked toward Gojo nervously. "Sensei… are you really not coming inside?"
Gojo gave him a thumbs up. "Nope."
"That doesn't make me feel better."
"It's not supposed to."
Before Yuta could complain further, Gojo stepped forward and raised two fingers. Dark energy spread outward like ink across invisible glass, rising into the sky before folding over the entire school grounds.
A Curtain. It is a barrier with a large dome-shaped outer shell that hides anything within it from outside view. Inside the barrier turns the sky to night, luring cursed spirits out from hiding. Curtains are mainly utilized by jujutsu sorcerers to maintain secrecy while exorcising curses.
Gojo shoved his hands into his pockets and began casually walking away. "Maki, keep him alive."
Maki smirked in a happy tone as she replied, "No promises."
Yuta's face paled. "WAIT—" He couldn't understand what they were happy about.
Since Gojo was already gone, silence fell between them.
Yuta swallowed hard. "I suddenly miss him."
Maki started walking toward the entrance. "Move."
Yuta quickly followed after Maki. The moment they stepped inside, the stench hit them first; it smelled like a rotten corpse, but there was no body in visible sight.
Along with the rotten stench, something sweet was also present, two contradictory elements whose source they don't know.
The hallway stretched endlessly ahead of them, lined with faded lockers and children's drawings that seemed to watch them as they passed, an eerie scene, to say the least. Tiny handprints covered sections of the wall in dried black residue. Yuta felt something behind him.
"Who..." Looking around, he saw nothing. He didn't like this place; it felt like he was in a horror movie as the character who dies at the start.
Just then, a wet scratching sound echoed from above. Yuta looked up just in time to see a twisted humanoid corpse crawl across the ceiling, its limbs bent backward, its face split open from ear to ear.
"Above—!"
Before he could even finish, Maki vanished. A fraction of a second later, the curse exploded into black mist as her staff shattered its skull in midair. She landed smoothly without even looking back.
"One."
Yuta blinked in awe as he looked at Maki. "That was… fast."
Maki rolled her eyes. "Try keeping up." Unimpressed that Yuta didn't manage to react past that, but given that this is his first time, she can understand.
Just then as Maki's thought ended, school erupted; classroom doors burst open and windows shattered.
Dozens of curses poured into the hallway—small malformed creatures with oversized mouths, eyeless heads, and bodies stitched together from writhing limbs. Their shrieks filled the building like nails against glass.
Yuta instinctively reached for his sword, but Maki was already moving. Years of practice with Mai Mai and Naoya give Maki a lot of physical boost compared to the original, but even with that, she is weak in general. But the curse in front of her was weaker than what she usually hunt.
She became a blur.
Her naginata crushed one curse's spine before spinning into another's skull. She ducked beneath clawed limbs, swept legs out from beneath a larger creature, and then drove the cursed tool through its chest with enough force to splatter black blood across the walls.
Another lunged forward to her with intent to curse her. She caught it midair and snapped its neck in cold motive, with a changing shade of reaction.
And threw its corpse toward two more curses coming in its direction, essentially making them fall to the ground.
Yuta stared in complete disbelief at Maki's cruel type of fighting; no, she wasn't fighting. No, no, no. She was hunting, and she was finding delight in the hunting process as a crazed smile bloomed on her face.
Within seconds the hallway was littered with dissolving remains. Maki exhaled quietly as she was tired; after all of this came from her pure physical power, and Yuta being new wouldn't give Maki that much help either.
"Pathetic." Maki murmurs, looking at the dissolving curse.
Yuta finally shook himself free from his shock. "You could've left some for me."
Maki glanced over her shoulder. "Then stop gawking."
Before Yuta could reply or Maki could react, the floor beneath them moved.
A low rumble filled the school.
Maki's eyes narrowed instantly. " Jump—"
But alas, it's too late. The concrete floor expanded upward.
A massive mouth lined with hundreds of jagged teeth erupted from beneath them, attached to an enormous bloated body of flesh and eyes. The curse was easily the size of a classroom, its maw opening wider than should have been physically possible.
Yuta's eyes widened. "What the hell—?!"
The curse swallowed them both as everything went black.
~~~
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