After the students dispersed into the hexagonal cells, Kamo Itsuki remained in the sunlit core. He raised a hand, and six crimson droplets rose from his palm like suspended garnets. Sunlight passed through them, casting tiny red shadows on the forest floor—each droplet a seed, pregnant with potential.
Slowly, they transformed. Wings emerged, delicate and veined. Bodies formed, segmented and sleek. Six small bees buzzed into existence, their compound eyes reflecting the world in fragmented facets. With a soft hum, they scattered, each flying toward a different student's path.
Kamo closed his eyes briefly, syncing his perception with each tiny scout. Through them, he would witness everything—every triumph, every mistake, every moment of fear. He would know when to intervene.
The threshold was clear: life-threatening danger only. Anything less, they would face alone. Lost limbs, shattered confidence, broken spirits—these were the tuition of growth. A future blossom needed sunlight, yes, but also the cruel wind, the unexpected frost, the struggle to push through soil. Greenhouses bred weakness.
With his surveillance network active, Kamo turned his attention to the Beehive Barrier itself.
This was more than an entrance exam. It was a field test—the prototype for his ultimate vision: a nationwide barrier. Akita Prefecture and the Shirakami-Sanchi heritage site were now wrapped in an experimental cocoon of cursed energy. The spirits within had been gathered from across the prefecture, drawn here by the barrier's suction, concentrated for this exercise.
At its heart, buried deep beneath Kamo's feet, pulsed a single Sukuna Finger—the primary power source.
'One finger is sufficient for activation and baseline maintenance,' Kamo noted, analyzing the energy flow through his shared vision with the bees. 'Excellent efficiency. Sukuna's fragments are truly peerless batteries.'
But the finger alone wasn't enough for sustained operation. Kamo had designed a closed-loop system. When students fought, their expended cursed energy didn't vanish—it was absorbed by the barrier, recycled, reused. When a spirit was exorcised, its residual energy was reclaimed, fed back into the grid. Surplus energy could even be stored, potentially recharging the finger itself.
'A self-sustaining ecosystem,' he mused. 'The more they fight, the stronger the barrier becomes. Beautiful.'
Now, to see it in action.
Through Bee Number One, he watched.
Zenin Maki had found her prey.
The hexagonal cell's information had bloomed in her mind the moment she crossed its boundary—location, grade, basic threat assessment. She followed the thread without hesitation, her naginata resting easy across her shoulders.
The creature she found was a nightmare given form.
It hunched in a clearing, its body bloated and chitinous, resembling some grotesque fusion of insect and rotting vegetation. Thick clouds of green gas churned around it, toxic and obscuring. Two twisted arms sprouted from its neck like parasitic growths, ending in hooked claws. Its face was a horror show—a fanged maw that split its head vertically, and above it, a pair of blood-red eyes that burned with hungry malevolence.
Maki didn't flinch.
She moved.
Her body, honed by a perfected Heavenly Restriction, responded like a precision instrument. One explosive push and she was airborne, naginata angled for a devastating downward slash.
The spirit reacted, its maw gaping. A torrent of viscous green venom shot toward her.
Maki twisted in midair—a movement that defied physics, core strength alone redirecting her trajectory. The venom passed beneath her, splattering against ancient trees, which immediately began to sizzle and blacken.
She landed, pivoted, and struck.
Cold light arced through the haze. The naginata's blade, forged by Mai's Construction Technique, sang as it bit deep. One of the spirit's arms separated cleanly, tumbling to the forest floor in a spray of green ichor.
The creature shrieked—a sound of pain, of surprise, of mounting rage.
Maki didn't pause to admire her work. She reset her stance, eyes locked on her foe, calculating her next move.
Through the bee's eyes, Kamo Itsuki observed. A faint, approving smile touched his lips.
'Good instincts. Clean form. She's grown.'
The hunt had begun. The barrier hummed with anticipation, drinking in the scattered energy of the first exchange, recycling it, storing it.
The experiment was underway.
The severed arm landed with a wet thud, its green ichor splashing across the forest floor. Where it touched, the earth hissed and smoked, tiny craters forming as the corrosive fluid ate into the soil.
The insect-like Cursed Spirit howled—but it did not flee. Pain, for such creatures, was merely fuel.
Its remaining arm lashed out, claws extended, while its grotesque maw gaped wide enough to swallow a grown human whole. The stench rolling from its throat was suffocating, a wave of decay and rot that made the air itself feel poisoned.
Maki's response was economy itself.
A backflip—clean, precise, the movement of someone who had drilled fundamentals until they were instinct. The snapping jaws closed on empty air where she had been.
She landed in a crouch, then exploded upward.
The naginata, gripped in both hands, became an extension of her will. She swung with full commitment, the blade connecting with the creature's fangs in a shower of green sparks and shattered enamel.
CRACK.
The Cursed Spirit reeled, its agonized shriek echoing through the hexagonal cell. It stumbled backward, clawing at its ruined mouth, the toxic gas around it thickening in response to its distress—a last-ditch defense, filling the space with choking, blinding fumes.
Maki straightened. She leveled her naginata, the tip pointed directly at her enemy's core. Her eyes, brown and steady, held no fear. No excitement. Only the cold certainty of a predator concluding a hunt.
"The warm-up is over."
The Cursed Spirit, sensing the contempt in her voice, found a new reservoir of rage. It charged—a final, desperate lunge, all fangs and claws and poison.
Maki charged too.
They passed.
For a single, frozen moment, the world held its breath. Then Maki came to a stop, naginata lowered, her back to the creature.
The Cursed Spirit stood motionless. A thin line appeared across its body—diagonal, precise.
It split in two.
Green gas and ichor erupted, then dissipated, the creature's form crumbling into nothingness. Where it had stood, only scorched earth remained.
Maki didn't look back. She strode toward the next hexagonal cell, her steps unwavering, the barrier humming softly as it absorbed the exorcised spirit's residual energy.
Through Bee Number One, Kamo Itsuki observed. He nodded slowly, appreciatively.
'Her control has matured. The raw power is still there, but now it's channeled. Refined.' He made a mental note. 'She needs a master—kendo, or perhaps a martial arts specialist. Brute force will only take her so far. To reach her full potential, she must learn precision. Elegance.'
He checked the barrier's energy readings. The exorcism had generated a healthy surplus—more than the fight had consumed. Efficiency was high.
'Good. The system works.'
He shifted his attention to other bees, other students.
Bee Number Two hovered at the edge of a sun-dappled clearing, its compound eyes capturing a very different scene.
Okkotsu Yuta and Rika Orimoto walked hand in hand through the ancient forest.
Their pace was leisurely, unhurried. They spoke in low voices, heads bent toward each other, occasional laughter bubbling up between them. Rika's smile was radiant, her fingers intertwined with Yuta's as if they had been made to fit together. Yuta's posture was relaxed but alert, his dark-circled eyes scanning their surroundings even as he responded to something Rika said with a quiet chuckle.
They looked like young lovers on a picnic—not students on a life-or-death mission.
Then the sky above them cracked.
A Cursed Spirit plummeted from the canopy, landing with a ground-shaking thud directly in their path. It was a twisted thing—multiple limbs, too many joints, a face that seemed to melt and reform as they watched. Its presence radiated malevolence, a palpable weight of negative emotion.
For a moment, it simply stared at them, savoring their fear.
Rika's smile didn't waver. She tilted her head, still holding Yuta's hand, and said, "Oh. An interruption."
Yuta sighed—a soft, put-upon sound. "I know. Just when we were having a nice walk."
The Cursed Spirit, confused by their complete lack of terror, hesitated. This was not how prey was supposed to react.
Yuta's grip on Rika's hand tightened slightly. "Give me a second, okay?"
Rika nodded, releasing him with obvious reluctance. "Don't take too long."
Yuta stepped forward, one hand reaching into the cloth bag at his side. When it emerged, it held a katana—simple, unadorned, but thrumming with restrained cursed energy.
He faced the spirit, his expression shifting from mild annoyance to something cooler, more focused.
"I'm sorry," he said, and his voice held genuine apology. "But you're interrupting our date."
The Cursed Spirit, finally recognizing that something was wrong, shrieked and lunged.
Yuta moved.
The katana sang.