On the rooftop of a building, Megumi Fushiguro held up his phone as he reported the situation.
Across from him, a gigantic caterpillar-like Cursed Spirit was charging straight at him. Every time it wriggled forward, cracks and dents spread through the poured concrete rooftop.
In the face of a monster nearly two stories tall, everything else seemed secondary. Its size alone gave it enough destructive force and momentum to make it hard for anyone to handle.
And the enormous amount of Cursed Energy stored inside it made it feel as though one were standing in an ocean of malice...
"Yeah, Ijichi, Shinjuku's basically cleared for today, so you can come over now. Also, has the handover for part of Gojo-sensei's assigned area been finished yet?"
Megumi Fushiguro remained calm as he spoke with Ijichi on the other end of the call. Just as the caterpillar Cursed Spirit drew near, a glittering golden mirror covered in ornate patterns suddenly appeared behind him and shone toward the Curse.
[Otsu no Kyou: Can manipulate positive energy similar to "Reverse Cursed Technique" to create extremely high temperature "sunlight."]
A burst of blinding light erupted. The Cursed Spirit only had time to let out a vague murmur and a scream before it was burned away without a trace...
In truth, aside from paid missions, every sorcerer at Jujutsu High had an area of their own to oversee. Sorcerers jokingly called this routine task of clearing out Cursed Spirits "street-sweeping time," and the higher-ups in the Jujutsu world paid a fixed salary for it as well.
As a Special Grade Sorcerer, Satoru Gojo naturally had a lot of territory under his care. That was one of the reasons he was always so busy.
After obtaining the [Ten Sacred Treasures], Megumi Fushiguro felt his abilities were finally enough, so once Satoru Gojo went home to sort out his thoughts, he took the initiative to take over one of his assigned areas. Shinjuku.
It had to be said, Shinjuku truly lived up to its reputation as a crucible for Cursed Spirits. Beneath all its glitter and bustle churned a sea of negative emotions. Grief, jealousy, disgust, favoritism, selfish desire, anger... all of it tangled together into a chaotic mass that could make any Jujutsu Sorcerer shudder.
And that really was the case. Grade 2 Cursed Spirits appeared one after another, and there was even a Grade 1 nearly every week... On top of that, the level of intelligence these Cursed Spirits displayed was anything but ordinary.
Luckily, Megumi Fushiguro was strong enough now that those Cursed Spirits posed no threat to him at all. But because he had to balance classes, missions, and clearing his assigned area, he ended up relying on Ijichi to drive him back and forth every day...
Megumi Fushiguro looked at the marks the Curse had left behind on the rooftop and felt a headache coming on. The real trouble was always the cleanup afterward. He would have to leave that to Ijichi...
He felt a little guilty for some reason. How did the teachers shamelessly dump all this on the assistant supervisors with a straight face?
Then suddenly, the negative emotions that had always been "invisible" even to sorcerers condensed into black curses, forming a demonic cloud that covered the sky above some point in central Shinjuku.
Megumi Fushiguro quickly half-summoned [Nue], letting shadowy wings spread out behind him, then spoke sharply into the phone.
"The situation's changed! This is definitely a Special Grade incident. Ijichi, notify the principal right away and find a way to evacuate the crowds from central Shinjuku!"
...
Sukuna had already been in central Shinjuku for nearly three days. He had more or less figured out the Technique of the brat whose body he had incarnated into, both the Technique itself and its extensions...
Normally, that Technique used "luck accumulated by oneself" for "probabilistic defense." In other words, the target of the Technique was the user himself.
Once reversed, it became "granting miracles to others" in order to "actively grant miracles to oneself." In that case, the target of the Technique was someone else. And if he wanted to accumulate "miracles," that person's original "misfortune" could not have been caused by him.
"Not bad..."
Sukuna lowered his gaze as he looked at the people moving around him.
"Now that the Technique experiment is over, these people are useless... 'Miracles'? In the end, those are something you give yourself."
Sukuna was just about to casually use his Technique to slice up a few "fish" for amusement when something crunched beneath his foot.
He glanced down. It was a piece of pumpkin candy wrapped in newspaper.
"Heh..."
Letting out a faint laugh filled with contempt and vague puzzlement, Sukuna prepared to send out a few more slashes. But just as they were about to fly, a thunderous roar came from somewhere nearby, and water began rushing through the streets like a flood.
As the crowd started fleeing in panic, Sukuna saw a bird-like figure flying above the crest of the flood. That "real water" was gushing out from a mirror at his side...
"A current of water formed through Cursed Energy... but it's made to seem remarkably real, almost on the level of the Construction Technique... Still, only the outermost layer is 'constructed' as a thin film of water. The scale is created by filling the rest with Cursed Energy... Is it meant to drive off the crowd?"
While Sukuna was still thinking, the figure had already rushed forward and seized his wrist. Was this supposed to stop him from using his Technique?
But Sukuna's Technique was not limited to his hands. Several vicious, brutal slashes instantly cut toward Megumi Fushiguro, only for a translucent cloth to appear beside him and disperse them.
Without knowing the enemy's Technique, Megumi Fushiguro had switched through [Hetsu-kagami] and brought out a veil used to disperse Techniques.
The outer "flood film" also crashed down onto the street after losing [Hetsu-kagami]'s control.
Just as Megumi Fushiguro let out a quiet breath of relief after successfully driving away the crowd, he found himself meeting the eyes of the true source of the "Special Grade incident."
Megumi Fushiguro sensed a presence from the other man that he had felt once before, back when he was recovering a certain Special Grade Cursed Object...
Megumi Fushiguro's eyes widened as he realized who the person in front of him was. Sukuna!!
Sukuna grabbed Megumi Fushiguro's wrist with his right hand and stared straight into his eyes.
"Does driving away the flock make you happy? Little... sheepdog..."