The sky above the ruined city didn't just crack; it shattered. A hole of the absolute worst emotions of humanity bled into the cursed city, and from its depths, something was violently ejected.
Not something. Someone.
A meteor of flesh and blood fell from the hole of terror and smashed into the ground with the force of a missile.
BOOM!
The impact created a shockwave of dust and air as nearby buildings shattered, falling like a stack of cards blown away by the air.
At the bottom of the newly formed crater, lay a man as still as a statue. The man was tall, a body composed of dense musculature. He had four arms that laid sprawled at his sides. His hair was an unnatural, pinkish red. Black markings, like intricate tribal tattoos, were etched across his pale skin. His face was unnatural, having two distinct sides. The right side had what seemed like a plate made of flesh having two eyes, while the left looked as though it was another face, also adorning a set of eyes. A secondary mouth, filled with sharp teeth, was slashed across his abdomen. His nails, long and sharpened to a point, were painted a deep, onyx black.
Time seemed to crawl at a snail's pace, the world itself seemed to pause. Then, a single twitch. And suddenly.
Four crimson eyes snapped open.
--------------------
My consciousness returned to the familiar comfort of my body. This body was mine, not like the vessels I had inhabited like the brat or Megumi Fushiguru. It was mine. I could feel my immense well of cursed energy coil in my gut. For the first time in what seemed like an eternity, I was whole.
And yet… I was not the same.
A new set of memories had been seamlessly integrated into my own, a full thirty years of a painfully mundane life. It wasn't like a second consciousness was in the back of my head, like how I was possessing a vessel. It wasn't even a secondary soul. It was as though we both were one in the same being, these were my memories.
The last thing I remembered was talking to the patch-faced curse, Uraume at my side as I headed north.
North.
That's right, I had been bested. What a novel concept. A being like me, who had shed every facet of his humanity to reach the peak of existence. My philosophy, built on a mountain of corpses, had been proven flawed by a collective of sentimental fools.
These new memories, they had the one thing I lacked. The one emotion that I had been devoid of to the point I had accepted it as a fallacy. A concept made by the weak to lift themselves up.
Love.
The irony of this was palpable. I had built my life on a single phylosophy–absolute strength achieved through absolute selfishness. But that wasn't all. There was also a litany of pathetic, sentimental weaknesses. The very things I had spent an eternity shedding in pursuit of my perfect existence. I, Ryomen Sukuna, the King of Curses, now possessed a complete understanding of the petty bonds that chained humans to mediocrity.
The old me would have raged at this psychotic poison. But I won't.
My self philosophy had been broken, beaten. While I had won the battle against the Honored One, I had lost the war.
My lips curled into a humorless smile. This wasn't some divine punishment that I had received, nor was it a curse to my existence. It was the answer to the choice I had made, to try and live a different life.
"Well," I murmured, my voice a deep rumble, "let's see where this leads to.
I rose from the crater I had found myself in, my four arms pushing me to my feet. A glint of a familiar metal caught my eye. There, half-buried in the rubble, were what I thought I would ever see again. My two trusty tools that were always by my side–Uraume was more than a tool–Kamutoke the cursed Tokkosho and my favourite, Hiten–the three ponged treasure. With them, I was truly myself. Uraume would be pleased. The thought came unbidden, followed by an echo of sentiment. Annoying.
--------------------
I crouched, my muscles overturned like a coil, and then I leaped. The modern- era road shattered into a spiderweb of cracks at the sheer explosive force. I felt the familiar feeling of wind brushing past my face, a genuine smile that I last wore when fighting Okkotsu plastered on my face. I soared hundreds of feet in the air, pushing off the sky as though it was my own playground (air jump).
A minor twist of Hiten pushing the ashy dust of my path, giving me a perfect view of the city below. This level of destruction… It was reminiscent of something I would have done. I landed on the flat roof of a skyscraper, the impact cracking its foundation, and took it all in.
Below, the streets were swarmed with Skeletons, animated by some form of energy unknown to me. A slip of my new memories seemed to surface. Isekai. What a concept. Escapism in its highest form. Yet here I am.
Reborn in another world. What else could it be, unknown energy. Sorcery of some twisted kind. A city cursed to high hell, yet no curses existed.
How marvelous.
New paths to explore. New heights to reach. How could I call myself the strongest if I haven't even mastered everything in existence?
As I watched the skeletons shamble below, another memory flickered. The smell of incense. The somber quiet of a human cremation. The concept of 'respecting the dead'.
The thought was so pathetic that a dry chuckle slipped past me. What an absurd notion. These new memories were going to be an endless source of this kind of pathetic humour.
These skeletons were beneath my notice. Wasting Cursed Energy on them would be an insult to myself. Instead, I let my senses sweep across the city, past this mindless rabble, searching for what could be the cause of all this.
I stretched my senses miles from my vantage point, looking for anything. Then I noticed something. On the bridge about 5 miles from here, three people standing atop what seemed a ritualistic circle. They were pathetically weak, but one of them had this strange feeling about them. As though they were above human, yet not. A living paradox. Curious.
Then I felt it, a presence blaring itself throughout this cursed city. This one was different. It was an inferno of raw, mindless power, a chaotic storm of negative energy. But deep within its core, beneath what seemed endless rage, I could feel a faint, desperate plea. A soul trapped in a storm, begging to be stopped.
Interesting.
My body moved with but a thought, shattering the skyscraper I launched myself towards the bridge. Ready to find some answers.
Getting a closer look, the three figures were human girls. The strange one with what seemed a parasitic existence attached to her had pinkish-purple hair. Wielding what seemed to be a shield too big for her size that gave a strange feeling. Another, with stark white hair, barked commands despite the terror plain on her face–the leader if I were to guess. The third–wait, what is that?
A thread of power, invisible to the naked eye, connected to the readhead to the shield user., flowing from red seals on the back of the redhead's hand. Fascinating. A welder and a battery
My thoughts were cut short by a roar that shook the very foundations of the city. A building at the far end exploded outwards, showering the girls with concrete. The shield user sloppyly blocked the debris.
Then he appeared. The presence I had felt earlier. A colossal giant made of pure grey muscles, easily a foot taller than me, holding what seemed to be a crude stone axe the size of my torso. Pure, unrestrained power rolled off him in waves. He was a walking disaster, a being who existed only to destroy. He was a challenger.
Who was I to deny a dead man his last wish?
I was about to make my move, to intercept and claim the feast for myself, but the giant moved first. With speed that rivaled my own, it swung its axe at the group. The shield user caught the blow, the shield itself holding firm against the impossible force, but the wielder was too weak. She was sent flying like a stone from a catapult, tumbling through the air.
A weapon with the concept of defense woven into it. Something to note for.
I shot forward, a blur of motion tearing through the air, but I was a moment too late for the other one. The giant's follow-up was brutal, a careless backhand. It struck the white-haired girl. Sending her cartwheeling off the side of the bride in the muddy water below. Unfortunate for her. Irrelevant to me.
As the giant raised its weapon to bring it down on the last, terrified girl, I arrived.
I didn't bother with a word or a warning. I simply smashed into the giants side with the full force of my momentum. The impact was titanic. The bridge groaned, its support structure screaming as our combined mass was launched over the side, sending us careening through the air, away from the girls, and into the heart of the burning city.
--------------------
The world was a screaming blur of motion as the two beings were launched from the bridge. The four-armed man, the initiator of the collision, twisted his body mid-air, forcing his center of gravity down. He landed first in the wreckage of a city street, a controlled impact that nonetheless shattered the asphalt beneath his feet. The mindless giant was less graceful. It crashed through the facade of a ten-story office building, the sound a deafening symphony of tortured metal and pulverized concrete before the entire structure collapsed in on itself.
Not giving the creature a moment to recover, the pink-haired man sent a volley of invisible slashes toward the cloud of dust, carving the building's corpse to ribbons. A few seconds later, the giant walked out of the wreckage. The shallow cuts across its chest knitted themselves shut, the foul energy that animated it sealing the wounds as if they'd never been there. He was unharmed. In one of his hands, a massive stone axe materialized in a flash of bright motes of light. He was ready.
A savage grin spread across the four-armed man's face. He settled into a loose stance, his cursed tools, Kamutoke and Hiten, held casually in two of his four hands. He wanted to feel this one's strength with his own flesh first. The giant roared, a mindless sound of pure rage, and charged. The man met him halfway.
The ground between them exploded.
The giant's axe, swung with enough force to level a mountain, screamed towards its target's head. The four-armed man didn't dodge. He met it with a reinforced right fist. The sound was like a thunderclap. The jagged stone edge tore into his knuckles, grinding against bone, but the force of his punch stopped its momentum cold. Before the giant could press its advantage, the man's other free hand snapped up in a vicious uppercut that rocked his opponent's jaw, lifting the behemoth a full inch off the ground.
Seeing the stumble, the man pulled his bloody right fist back, the torn flesh and shattered bone knitting back together in an instant, and prepared to drive both his free hands into the giant's chest. But the creature was fast. Its axe seemed to hang in the air, forgotten, as both of its massive hands came up to block the two-fisted strike. The ground cratered beneath them from the sheer force of their collision. Then, just as the giant put its full weight into the exchange, the four-armed man let up completely.
Expecting resistance, the giant stumbled forward, its immense momentum now working against it. In that moment of imbalance, Hiten swung in a low, vicious arc, the trident's prongs smashing into its knee. Bone crunched. The giant bellowed in pain and crashed to the ground. The man moved to capitalize, but the beast, in a feat of impossible acrobatics, used its massive arms to throw itself into a handstand, lashing out with a kick. The kick was a blur, grazing its target's chest with enough power to send him sliding back several meters, his sandals carving twin furrows into the broken street.
They both reset, eyeing each other across the wreckage.
This time, the four-armed man brought his weapons to the fore, holding them in his upper two hands. His lower two hands were held back, palms open, ready. The giant seemed to understand the shift in tone. It got into a low running stance and charged again.
It came at him swinging the blade in a high, vertical arc meant to split him in two. The four-armed man caught the haft of the weapon with his two lower hands, the impact sending tremors through the entire city block. The giant was strong. It used its height, towering over him, putting all its weight down through the axe, trying to crush him. His knees began to buckle under the strain.
Smiling, he lashed out with Hiten in his upper left hand. The trident's prongs stabbed deep into the giant's thigh, punching clean through the dense muscle and pinning its leg to the concrete beneath. The creature screamed in agony and fury, and for a split second, the pressure on the axe lessened.
That was all he needed.
He shoved the axe aside and drove his upper right fist, the one holding Kamutoke, directly into his opponent's chest. A sizzle of black lightning erupted from the vajra. The giant's entire body seized, its muscles locked by the high-voltage curse. With it stunned, he spun on his heel, a roundhouse kick connecting flush with the side of its head with the sound of a wrecking ball hitting a cathedral.
But the beast was not done. Even as the kick sent it stumbling, it reacted on pure instinct. With a roar that shattered the windows of a distant building, it ripped Hiten from its own thigh, ignoring the spray of gore. In the same motion, its other arm came around in a savage backhand. The four-armed man brought three arms up to block, leaving the one with Kamutoke back, but the force was still unbelievable. He was blown back several steps, skidding across the rubble. The giant then roared and hurled the trident at him like a javelin. He caught it with three hands, the kinetic energy forcing him back even further. By the time he had grounded himself, the gushing wound in the giant's leg had already sealed itself shut.
Both fighters reset for the next round. The giant stood ready, axe in hand, while the four-armed man lowered himself into a low, predatory stance.
The giant charged. The man waited. Just as the beast neared, he slammed one of his free hands onto the street. An invisible blade of Cursed Energy erupted from the ground beneath the giant's feet. The street cracked into a spiderweb, and the beast, its footing completely destroyed, went tumbling forward. The four-armed man was ready. Reinforcing his lower two arms with the maximum output of his Cursed Energy, he met the tumbling giant with a brutal one-two punch. The first fist was blocked by a hasty, desperate guard.
The second landed flush on the giant's chest. Space itself seemed to distort for a fraction of a second as a flash of black-red energy erupted on impact. A Black Flash.
The giant was sent flying, rocketing backwards through the air like a cannonball. Not letting up, the man pointed Hiten at the airborne figure. A targeted, hyper-compressed gust of wind shot from the trident, a "beam" of pure air that smashed into the giant and sent it soaring even higher. To finish the combo, he held Kamutoke aloft. The weapon cackled with black lightning, and the roiling storm clouds above answered, thundering with sympathetic energy. He brought the weapon down. A bolt of divine lightning, black and jagged, crashed from the sky and engulfed the airborne giant. A blinding flash, a deafening boom.
The first round was decided. The four-armed man leaped into the sky, in hot pursuit of his falling prey.
------------------
For Gudako Fujimaru, the apocalypse had started with cake crumbs.
One moment, she was in the sterile, high-tech command center of a place called Chaldea, trying very hard not to fall asleep during an orientation she barely understood. The next, a sharp slap across her face from the frankly terrifying woman called Director Animusphere echoed through the room.
"Get this buffoon out of my sight!" Olga Marie had shrieked, her face a mask of incandescent rage.
Mortified, Gudako had been "escorted" out. The cute, pink-haired girl from before, Mash Kyrielight, had followed a moment later and guided her through the pristine white halls.
"This is your room, Senpai," Mash had said softly, before leaving.
The first thing Gudako saw upon entering her new quarters was a man with fluffy orange hair lounging on her bed, happily munching on a slice of cake. There were crumbs. On her brand-new sheets.
"Hi there! I'm Dr. Romani Archaman," he'd said with a lazy smile, completely unbothered.
Their conversation was a whirlwind of confusing facts—Romani explaining the "bare-bones" of Chaldea's mission to "preserve the Human Order," a concept so grand it sounded like it came from a cheap sci-fi novel. She was apparently a "Master Candidate," recruited for her "high affinity." It all sounded like nonsense.
Then, mid-conversation, the world shook. A deep, violent BOOM rattled the entire facility. The lights flickered and died, replaced by the angry red glow of emergency klaxons.
"What was that?!" Gudako had yelled.
"That's not good," Romani had said, all traces of his slacker persona gone. He rushed out of the room. "Stay here where it's safe! I have to get to the generators!"
She had followed him anyway. The girl who fell asleep in orientation, the girl who annoyed the Director—she wasn't going to be the girl who just sat in her room while the world ended. She remembered the direction Mash had gone, back towards the command center, and ran.
The pristine white halls were now a vision of hell. Fire licked from shattered walls, and the air was thick with the smell of smoke and burning plastic. It was in the wreckage of a corridor near the command center that she found her.
Mash. Half-crushed under a massive slab of fallen concrete, her uniform torn, her face streaked with tears as she cried softly.
"Mash!" Gudako scrambled over the debris, trying to get a grip on the slab. "I'll get you out!"
She heaved, but it wouldn't budge. The concrete was hot, searing her palms, and she pulled them back with a hiss of pain. It was hopeless. She couldn't move it.
"Senpai..." Mash whispered, her voice weak, reaching out a trembling hand. "Please... don't leave me..."
Tears blurring her vision, Gudako did the only thing she could. She knelt in the burning rubble and took Mash's hand, holding it tight. "I'm right here," she promised, her own voice cracking. "I won't leave."
Then, a brilliant white light. A feeling of being pulled apart and stitched back together in an instant.
She awoke to the acrid smell of a different fire, under a blood-red sky, a city of flames stretching out before her.
Mash was there too, no longer injured, but clad in a strange, form-fitting armor and carrying a massive shield.
"I am a Demi-Servant," Mash had said, her voice now filled with a strange, new confidence. "I will protect you, Master."
Gudako's world had been a cascade of impossible facts ever since. They found the Director, Olga Marie Animusphere, wounded but alive, whose sheer terror was eclipsed only by her screaming frustration. She had barked orders, leading them through the ruined streets. Their destination: the great Fuyuki bridge.
"It's a leyline!" Olga had explained, her voice frantic. "A place of power! If we can get a connection, we can contact Chaldea!"
The brief, crackling communication with Dr. Romani had only painted a grimmer picture. Chaldea was in ruins. Forty-seven other Master Candidates were in critical condition. "You, and Fujimaru, are all we have left," the Doctor's strained voice had echoed from a high-tech bracelet on Olga's wrist.
The news had hit Gudako with the force of a physical blow. Those forty-seven people… they were dying because they weren't her, because she'd somehow, impossibly, survived. Olga, her face pale but set with a grim resolve, had ended the call.
She knelt, using a piece of sharp metal and a drop of her own blood to hastily scribe a glowing, complex circle onto the bridge's pavement. "We have no choice," Olga stated, her voice tight with concentration. "We must call forth a Heroic Spirit—a Servant. A champion from humanity's history to fight for us."
Hope, a fragile, desperate thing, had begun to bloom in Gudako's chest. A real hero? Someone who could actually fight and save them from this nightmare?
As Olga finished the final line of the circle, A building at the far end of the bridge just... exploded. Not a hero. That wasn't a hero coming out of the smoke. It was a monster. A giant thing made of gray muscle, all twisted and wrong. It was holding a huge, jagged piece of stone that looked like an axe. It let out a roar, a sound so loud it felt like it was shaking the bridge apart.
"What… what IS that thing?!" Olga screamed, her face draining of all color.
The giant moved with a speed that should have been impossible. Mash met its charge, her shield held high. The impact was titanic. Gudako watched in horror as Mash was thrown aside like a ragdoll. The monster's follow-up was a brutal, careless backhand that struck the Director, sending her cartwheeling off the side of the bridge with a scream and a sickening splash.
Gudako was alone.
The giant, the Berserker, turned its burning red eyes on her. It took a single, ground-shaking step, raising its massive stone axe. Time seemed to slow. Gudako was frozen, a small, insignificant thing in the path of a natural disaster. The axe began its descent.
She was going to die.
And then, a blur of pink and black that Gudako couldn't even properly perceive smashed into the giant's side. The two beings were launched from the bridge in a titanic collision that sent a shockwave blasting back at her. She was thrown from her feet, landing hard on the pavement.
She pushed herself up, her ears ringing, and crawled to the edge of the shattered bridge. Down in the heart of the city, a battle of titans was raging. One was the gray-skinned giant. The other... she couldn't see. All she could see were the flashes of their battle, shockwaves of force that continued to rock the very foundations of the city.
Gudako Fujimaru, the girl who fell asleep in orientation, was alone on a broken bridge in the middle of hell. She was alive. A raw, ragged sob of relief and terror tore itself from her throat. She was alive. For now.
--------------------
I landed silently on the edge of a deep, smoking crater. At the bottom, sprawled amidst the wreckage of a collapsed skyscraper, was the giant. It rose to its feet, slower this time, a low growl rumbling from its chest. Its regeneration was sluggish now. The charred, blackened wound where my divine lightning had struck was knitting itself together with agonizing slowness, the foul energy that fueled it finally showing signs of strain.
He was slower. Weakened. It was just the opening I needed. I didn't wait.
The giant roared and charged, a predictable, headlong rush. This time, I moved inside his clumsy axe swing. My lower right hand, a blur of motion, deflected the stone weapon, sending it wide. My lower left caught his other arm, halting his momentum with a wrenching twist. As the blackened flesh on his chest finally sealed itself shut, I drove the bladed end of Kamutoke into the fresh scar tissue, and with a thought, discharged a focused blast of pure Cursed Energy.
Electricity erupted from the inside out. The giant's body locked up, every muscle spasming uncontrollably. Seizing the advantage, I pulled my lower hands back, planting my feet and driving my two now-free upper palms into his chest in a powerful double thrust. I didn't need distance.
"Cleave."
The word was a quiet command. His chest didn't just get cut; it exploded, a perfect, donut-shaped hole of absolute nothingness appearing where his heart should have been. The force of the blow sent him stumbling back ten meters, but impossibly, he was still standing, his monstrous vitality refusing to let him fall.
Normally, I would have found this amusing. Commendable, even. Instead, my four eyes narrowed. I had been focused on the raw power, on the flesh, but now, with his body broken and his energy reserves faltering, I could finally perceive the soul within. It was that desperate plea I had sensed from the beginning. It was not a mindless beast. It was a prisoner. The consciousness was trapped, sealed away under a thick, corrupting layer of this world's foul energy, forced to watch as its own body raged.
My mind flashed back to an irritatingly recent memory. Trapped inside the brat's body, a passenger to a fate I could not control.
I knew this feeling.
The new, sentimental memories offered a word for this sensation: sympathy. How utterly distasteful. And yet... the intellectual conclusion was the same. To continue fighting this puppet was pointless. The real opponent, the one who had corrupted this warrior and stolen his will, was not here.
The old me would have kept fighting, would have dissected this creature piece by piece to understand its unique form of immortality. The me that had chosen to go North decided this charade was over.
I planted Hiten into the cracked street, its prongs digging deep. I placed Kamutoke's shaft between my teeth. My lower hands formed a familiar sign—Enma's palm. My upper right hand, fingers splayed, pointed directly at the still-recovering giant. My two mouths began the incantation.
From my main mouth: "Scale of the Dragon."
The giant finally finished healing the gaping hole in its chest and started to lumber towards me again, its movements sluggish.
"Recoil."
Its charge regained some of its mindless fury, driven by the corruption.
"Twin Meteors."
Just as the giant was about to reach me, my abdominal mouth spoke the final word of the chant: "Dismantle."
It wasn't a physical cut. The invisible slash I unleashed was a conceptual blade, aimed not at flesh, but at the bonds of power. It sliced through the link between the warrior's soul and the corrupting energy that shackled it.
The giant stopped dead, its axe clattering to the ground. It began to convulse, a horrifying war playing out beneath its skin. The slate-gray of its flesh started to lighten, returning to a more natural, tanned hue, before the dark corruption began to bleed back in, fighting for control. It wouldn't last. The shackle had been broken, but it would soon reforge itself.
I admired his resilience. His strength was real, not just a product of this curse. "A fine vessel for such raw power," I said, my voice low and filled with genuine respect. "You were an excellent appetizer. I would have enjoyed a true battle against you, warrior, not this mindless husk."
Ending his misery was the only logical, interesting thing left to do. It was… a kindness. Another bizarre new sensation.
I pulled Kamutoke from my mouth. My upper left and lower right hands clasped together. As I pulled them apart, my abdominal mouth intoned the command.
"Fuga."
Cursed Energy ignited, coalescing between my hands. Not lightning this time. Pure, unadulterated flame, condensed into a searing orb, a miniature sun born of my own power. I formed it into the shape of an arrow.
The warrior—the true soul, now momentarily free—stopped convulsing. He stood, broken and exhausted, but his will was his own. He looked at me. And for the first time, he smiled. A warrior's smile, one of acceptance and gratitude.
I took aim. The sun descended upon the city.
The arrow struck, and there was no explosion, only an all-consuming silence as the white-hot energy incinerated everything in its blast radius. The warrior, his corrupt shell, and his trapped soul were erased from existence, a final act of purification.
When the light faded, there was only a molten, glass-lined crater where he had stood. The battle was over. I stood for a moment, a contemplative expression on my faces, and then reached down, pulling Hiten from the scorched earth.
My gaze drifted upwards, to the roiling, blood-red sky of this strange, new world. This... was going to be an interesting life.
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MASH POV
The first thing I felt was pain. The giant's blow had sent me flying with the force of a freight train.
From across the bridge, I could only watch as the Director was backhanded into the river, and the monster turned its attention to Gudako. My Master. My Senpai.
I wanted to avert my eyes, to not see what was about to happen. In that frozen moment, I pictured it: the creature, with a roar, bringing that monstrous blade down upon her.
Yet, that didn't happen.
One second, its arm was raised, ready to strike. The next, a sharp smack of colliding flesh and bone echoed across the bridge. Something had smashed into the giant, a blur of motion that sent both of them hurtling into the city proper, away from my Master.
Ignoring the stinging sensation in my arms, I scrambled to my feet, my shield feeling heavy in my grip. "Senpai!"
Gudako was pushing herself up from the pavement, trembling but alive. "Are you okay?"
"I... I think so," she stammered, her eyes wide with a terror that mirrored the feeling in my gut.
I had failed. I was a Servant. My entire purpose was to protect, and I had been defeated in a single blow. The Director was gone, and only an unknown being had prevented my Master's death.
"The Director," Master's shaking voice snapped me from my thoughts, her hand pointing to the edge of the bridge. "We have to—"
Her words were cut off by the sound of splashing water. My gaze snapped downwards. From the muddy river below, a figure was carrying the Director's unconscious body. An enemy? A scavenger? I moved without thinking, an instinct—from the Servant I had merged with—planting myself and my shield between my Master and the newcomer.
The figure looked up, directly at me, then he leaped. It was a fluid, powerful jump that carried him from the riverbank directly onto the bridge.
As he placed the Director on the pavement, I took in his appearance. He was tall, dressed in a blue and white robe with golden accents, over a black undershirt. A wooden staff covered in runes appeared in his hand in a shimmer of light. His long hair was blue, his eyes a piercing crimson. A Servant.
I stood my ground and forced my own shaking to stop. "Who are you?" I demanded.
My attempt at an intimidating posture seemed to fail entirely if his calm demeanor was anything to go by. He offered a lazy, disarming smile. "Relax, girlie. If I wanted you dead, I'd have left your friend to drown."
Girlie?
He gestured with his staff to where the Director lay. He didn't seem immediately hostile, but I stayed on guard. "I am Caster," he said. A Caster-class Servant. One of the seven standard classes. "I was a participant of this Holy Grail War, at least, I was. Now this city is a hellscape. Animated skeletons, shadow Servants stalking the streets… whatever happened to Saber changed everything. Let's just say I'm a survivor."
A survivor of the Fuyuki Holy Grail War? And Saber was the cause of all this? He could have answers, but he was still an unknown. A threat until proven otherwise.
He seemed to ignore us, kneeling beside the Director as if we weren't a concern. I watched his every move, ready to intervene. He let out a low whistle.
"Berserker really did a number on her. A backhand like that probably shattered her arm and her leg on the fall." He looked up at us. "You are lucky that's all that happened."
Just as he finished his sentence, the ground shook, a deep rumble echoing from the direction the monster—the Berserker—had been launched.
Ignoring the tremor, my gaze fell upon the Director's body. He was right. If those tremors were any indication, the Berserker had enough strength to have pulverized her on impact. Her right arm seemed floppy, her leg bent at an unnatural angle. But something else was wrong. Utterly wrong. Her vibrant white hair had turned a dull, lifeless grey. There was a feeling about her—the same dead stillness I had felt from the skeletons.
Before I could process it further, the Caster was in motion. He tore strips from the Director's own coat, fashioning them into crude but effective splints. Then he moved his finger through the air above her, as if writing. Glowing symbols—runes, a system of Magecraft I had only read about in textbooks—flared to life over her forehead and on the splints.
When he finished, he looked up at me. "She was too close to death. I've placed her in a state of suspended animation. She won't get any worse, but she won't get any better until a healer can take a look."
The act was helpful, but it only confirmed his status as a powerful, unknown Servant.
Then, a wave of heat. A scorching heat so intense I could feel it on my skin even from miles away. I looked towards the battle. A light, brilliant and terrifying, bloomed in the distance. For a single, blinding moment, it was as if a second sun had descended upon the earth.
Just as it came, it vanished. The sky went dark again, the wave of heat disappearing as if it had never been.
Moments after, Caster's demeanor changed. The relaxed confidence vanished, replaced by the sharp focus of a predator. He rose to his feet and turned his gaze not to us, but to a distant skyscraper. His voice, no longer casual, cut through the air with a clear edge.
"Alright, you've had your fun. Show yourself! I felt the Berserker's presence vanish, so what's your game?"
For a long moment, there was only silence. Then a figure launched itself from the skyscraper, the upper half of the building crumbling into dust from the force of its departure. It had to be the one who had saved my Master. If what Caster said was true, this being had just defeated the Berserker that took me out in a single shot.
The jump was a high, long arc that covered miles in seconds. It landed on the far end of the bridge with a ground-shaking BOOM, the force of the impact rattling the entire structure.
--------------------
From my vantage point on the skyscraper, I observed the blue-haired man on the bridge. I could feel the power radiating from him—potent, controlled, and entirely different from the mindless rage of the brute I had just dispatched. He was intriguing. I decided to engage, but on my terms.
A memory, one of the human's, flickered—something about first impressions. The old me would have made an impression with overwhelming violence, a casual display of force to establish a pecking order. But the human memories suggested a different kind of logic: violence was a tool, but not the only one. Right now, what I needed was answers, not corpses. Dominance could wait.
I leaped from the skyscraper, landing on the bridge with a ground-shaking impact that sent cracks spiderwebbing through the pavement. The two girls flinched, but my four eyes were solely fixated on the sorcerer. I walked toward their small group at a calm, measured pace. The girls were terrified insects, irrelevant to the conversation that was about to take place. Only he mattered.
As I closed the distance, a silent pressure erupted between us. My own aura, oppressive and heavy with the weight of an absolute predator, rolled forward. His was different; it was sharp, a focused spear point of pure, indomitable will that met my pressure without breaking. Everyone I had ever met buckled when faced with my presence, either surrendering in terror or breaking themselves in a futile attempt to push back. A memory flickered—white hair, six eyes. Almost everyone.
The two girls, caught in the invisible wake of our auras, stumbled. The one holding the shield barely caught herself; the weaker one simply collapsed, her senses overloaded.
We both withdrew our power simultaneously. A tacit agreement. A fight here, now, was not the most interesting outcome for either of us.
The moment our standoff concluded, the sorcerer's demeanor shifted. He went from a coiled warrior to a relaxed guide, though I could feel the readiness humming beneath his skin, waiting for me to make a move. I smirked. He was itching for a real fight, just as I was.
He turned and said something to the girls that made them blush, picking up the gray-haired woman into his arms. The shield of the pink-haired girl vanished as she scooped up the redhead. He looked back at me, gave a sharp nod, and then took off at a sprint. I followed.
As we moved through the ruined city, I mulled over the situation. The first warrior had been a physical equal, a brute with astonishing vitality. This blue-haired sorcerer was different. He was skilled—the glowing symbols keeping the gray-haired woman in suspended animation were proof enough of that. He was powerful, but what truly fascinated me was his nature. Both he and the hulking brute were "containers" for some kind of spirit, but there was a critical difference. I could see the desperate soul of the one I fought, but I couldn't pierce the veil protecting this sorcerers. It was like trying to look into a sealed box. The feeling of being unable to fully dissect something was a novel, and irritatingly fascinating, sensation.
Our journey was interrupted by a streak of light from the distance. An arrow, wreathed in a simple but potent burst of energy, screamed out of the darkness. It wasn't aimed at me or the sorcerer. It was aimed at the weakest link: the girl being carried by the one with the shield.
Before either of them could react, I was there, appearing in the arrow's path. I didn't dodge. I raised a hand and caught it. The moment my fingers closed around the shaft, it detonated in a violent flash of light and force.
My lower right arm was shredded, the flesh burned away to reveal shattered bone. But before the smoke even cleared, Reverse Cursed Technique knitted the wound shut, my arm reforming perfectly in less than a second. I flexed my pristine hand. An amusing trick, with respectable power behind it. Cowardly, but effective.
My gaze drifted towards the mountain that loomed over the city, the source of the attack. I could feel the sniper's presence nestled there, near a large torii gate at its peak.
I would not let this go unpunished. As another arrow formed in the sniper's bow, I responded. Lifting Hiten, I aimed not at the sniper, but at his next shot. A thin, hyper-compressed stream of air, invisible to most, shot from the trident's prongs. As the sniper loosed his arrow, my attack met it mid-flight, detonating it prematurely. He abandoned his position, leaping from the gate just as my second attack—a more powerful blast of wind from Hiten—carved a clean hole through the mountainside where he had been standing. The message was clear: I see you. Try that again and see what happens.
We finally arrived at our destination. I couldn't help but look with a degree of professional curiosity. An invisible barrier, different from a Jujutsu barrier, covered the entrance to a hidden bunker. My senses could decipher three distinct layers: an illusion that hid the entrance, a ward that imposed a suggestion to ignore the area, and an alarm. Clever.
The sorcerer descended, placing the gray-haired woman on a simple cot inside. He produced bottles of water from a cache, tossing one to each of us. I caught mine without looking, my eyes still analyzing the intricate runes etched onto the woman. The shield-maiden caught hers while the other girl fumbled, dropping hers to the floor with a clatter.
I took a drink, unconcerned. Poison was a triviality.
I turned to the sorcerer, my four eyes locking onto his. A dozen questions were already forming in my mind.
-----------
I lowered the bottle, turning my full attention to the blue-haired sorcerer. The air in the small bunker crackled with unspoken questions, a silence pregnant with the threat of violence. It was he who broke it first, extending a hand not as a warrior, but as an equal seeking an introduction.
"Caster-class Servant," he said, his voice level, holding a calm confidence that bordered on foolishness. "Cú Chulainn."
I met his hand with one of my own, the grip firm and dry. A name. A title. I processed them. The name, Cú Chulainn, sparked a flicker of recognition—one of the mundane human memories, a story from some northern European island. My eyes widened for a fraction of a second, an involuntary reaction that the sorcerer did not miss.
"Ryomen Sukuna," I replied, my voice a low rumble. I saw no reason to hide my own name. Power has no need for pseudonyms. "The King of Curses."
Cú Chulainn's eyebrow raised a fraction. "King of Curses, eh? A lofty title. And you've heard of me?"
"I have," I admitted, a smirk playing on my lips. The memories felt like reading from a dusty scroll, disconnected from my own reality but clear nonetheless. "The Hound of Ulster. Son of Lugh. Trained by that warrior in the Land of Shadows, the one they called a god-killer." I paused, my gaze deliberate. "What intrigues me is your title. Caster. The Hound was a spearman."
Before I could press the point, the Caster's gaze shifted to the comatose gray-haired woman on the cot. He looked back at me, his expression turning serious. "Before we get into that, what about her? I saw you regenerate your arm after that sniper's arrow blew up. Can your sorcery do anything for her?"
I followed his gaze. The woman was stable, for now, thanks to the glowing runes he'd inscribed, but I could feel something else clinging to her, a parasitic remnant of energy left over from the brute's attack. A corruption.
"Healing her is a trivial matter," I stated, a simple fact. "What concerns me is this taint clinging to her. A curse of some kind, but crude. I've never seen its like. I have no idea how her body will react if I attempt to excise it."
"I felt it too," Cú Chulainn admitted, his brow furrowed in concentration. "But I have no way to remove it. You do?"
"I have a way," I confirmed.
As the Caster was about to speak again, the shield-maiden, Mash, stepped forward, her expression a mixture of desperation and anxiety. "Excuse me, but what are you talking about? Taint? Is the Director…"
Her words died in her throat. I turned my gaze upon her, letting the full, oppressive weight of my presence descend. The air in the bunker grew heavy, the temperature dropping several degrees. Cú Chulainn tensed, but did not move.
"You," I began, my voice a cold, quiet whisper that carried more menace than a shout, "have not introduced yourself. You are interrupting a conversation between your betters. You are an insect attempting to speak at a King's table."
The girl froze, her face paling as she struggled to breathe under the pressure of my aura. The Caster finally moved, stepping between us, a placating hand raised. The pressure did not affect him as it did the girls, a testament to his own will.
"Easy there, King," he said, his voice losing none of its confidence despite the crushing presence. "The girl's just worried about her leader. Show a little grace."
I held my gaze on the shield-maiden for a moment longer before slowly retracting my aura. The Caster was right, in a sense. Her outburst was a product of the human weakness I was now supposed to be studying—loyalty. Still, it was irritating.
I turned back to Cú Chulainn, dismissing the girl as if she were a piece of furniture. "I do not understand what you see in them," I said, my voice flat. "She is a talking shield with an overinflated sense of duty. The other one couldn't even catch a bottle of water. They are fragile. Annoying."
The Caster let out a sigh, then clapped Mash on the shoulder, guiding her and the other, terrified redhead to the far corner of the bunker to speak with them in hushed tones. Left to my own devices, I turned my attention to the true problem at hand, the woman on the cot. My four eyes examined the intricate web of corruption clinging to her, and I began to dissect the puzzle. This new world, with its strange rules and fascinating problems, was becoming more entertaining by the minute.
----------
Cú Chulainn leaned back against the bunker's cold concrete wall, his staff held loosely in his grip, his crimson eyes never leaving the four-armed being on the other side of the room.
Heh. So the brute's presence really did just snuff out after that flash. The thought came, sharp and analytical. A monster like Heracles, gone in an instant. To pull that off single-handedly... what the hell kind of trump card is this "King" hiding?
He was alive, that was for sure. No Servant felt like that; a being of pure mana was a fundamentally different thing from this creature of flesh, blood, and bone. That changed the entire game. There was no Spirit Core to aim for, which meant you had to destroy him completely to put him down. He wasn't leashed to some Master's mana supply, so a war of attrition was out. He was a different kind of problem. A puzzle with none of the usual pieces.
He called himself the King of Curses, and Cú was inclined to believe him—the very energy rolling off the man felt like a pure, weaponized curse. He'd seen the arm grow back from nothing after that sniper's potshot, too. So you couldn't just wound him; it would have to be a battle of total annihilation to put him down for good.
His gaze flickered over to the two girls huddled near the entrance. They were terrified, and rightly so. But they were also liabilities. The Shielder was all duty and no instinct; she'd get herself vaporized trying to be polite to a hurricane. The other one looked like she was just trying to remember how to breathe.
Right, he thought with a grim sense of finality. Play it smart. Keep the brats alive, figure out the monster's game, and try to have a little fun before this all goes to hell. Simple.
Simple enough in theory. Cú let out a low sigh and pushed himself off the wall. He strode over, clapping the Shielder on the shoulder. The gesture had enough force to make the girl flinch. He steered them both toward a corner of the bunker, away from the object of their terror. "Over here," he murmured, his voice low. "Quick chat."
He leaned back against the wall again, staff held loosely, and pinned them with a look that cut straight through the haze of their panic.
"Alright, you two," he started, his voice a serious murmur. "Time for a quick lesson in how not to die in the next five minutes. Are you listening?"
The Shielder, Mash, managed a stiff, formal nod. The other one, Gudako, just gave a jerky twitch that was probably a yes. Close enough.
"Good. Rule number one: that thing over there," he said, jerking his chin towards Sukuna without looking at him, "is not your ally. He's not a Servant you can reason with, and he sure as hell isn't a hero. Got it?"
He watched them both nod again, the reality of their situation slowly sinking in.
"Think of him like… a wild animal," he continued, searching for the simplest analogy. "A big, four-armed predator that just wandered into your camp. He's here because this place is interesting, and right now, we're the most interesting things in it. The second that changes, the second we become boring, or annoying, or more trouble than we're worth…" He drew an imaginary line across his throat with his thumb. "...he'll deal with us. Simple as that."
He looked directly at Mash, his crimson eyes sharp. "You, with the shield. I get it. You're the knight. You protect. But you need to understand, your job right now is not to get in his way. You do not talk to him unless he talks to you. You do not question him. Your shield is a powerful tool, but against something like that, provoking him is a death sentence for your Master here."
His gaze then shifted to Gudako. She was purely a civilian, a non-combatant caught in a war of monsters.
"As for you, girlie… you just focus on staying alive. Stay behind her shield. Keep your head down. And for the love of all the gods, try not to do anything that pisses him off." He flashed a brief, grim smile. "Consider that the most important mission you'll ever have."
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I was observing the way the curse affected the gray-haired woman when the Hound approached, having finished his little talk with the girls. It was amusing; he must have known I could hear every word.
Standing behind my crouched form, he asked the question I knew was coming. "So, King. You said you had a way to fix her. Was that just talk, or can you actually do something?"
"I can restore her physical form," I stated, not looking at him, my four eyes fixed on the fascinating network of corruption. It was coursing through what appeared to be a secondary nervous system, a set of specialized organs dedicated to this world's sorcery. How novel. Jujutsu sorcerers used the brain to process Cursed Energy; these people had evolved an entirely different system for their craft. "That," I continued, "is a trivial matter. The issue is the corruption itself."
I rose to my feet, gesturing with a lower hand toward the comatose woman. "It is a parasitic curse, quite peculiar in its design. It's not just feeding on her; it's using her own energy network as a delivery system to taint her very soul." The spirit within her was seeped in this malevolent energy, its core identity being actively overwritten. A truly exquisite piece of sorcery. "I can heal her body and remove the energy, but restoring her soul to its original state is another matter. Even if I cleanse the physical vessel, the stain on her spirit will remain. And if I were to attempt to purify her soul by force… I have no idea if the taint would fight back. If that were to happen, well..." I let my gaze meet his. "All you would have left is a husk."
"So you can't do it?"
The arrogance. I almost smiled. "Is that what I said?"
Without waiting for a response, I acted. With two hands, I turned the woman's limp body onto her front. With a single, sharp nail, I sliced through the back of her uniform, exposing the pale skin beneath. Then, I placed one of my lower hands upon her back.
The first step was simple. I focused, and the familiar warmth of Reverse Cursed Technique flowed into her flesh. I felt the shattered bones of her arm and leg grind and then seamlessly knit themselves back together. Her ruptured organs mended. Lacerations and contusions vanished. The physical damage was an amateurishly simple problem to solve.
The next step was artistry.
I pushed my Cursed Energy deep into her system, a probe to map the infection. The alien energy of the curse was a living network, using the woman's own "magic nerves" as a battery to funnel its poison into her soul. First thing's first. I focused my will, aiming for the spiritual link itself. With an application of Dismantle precise enough to be imperceptible, I targeted and severed the connection between the corrupting energy and her soul. The moment it was cut, the energy thrashed, trying to re-establish its parasitic bond.
Not on my watch. I flooded her system with positive energy from my Reverse Cursed Technique, the purifying force burning away at the taint. Systematically, I backed the remaining foul energy through her magical nervous system, forcing it to retreat, to coalesce into a single, terrified mass on her back, just below a strange, intricate crest that, I noted with some curiosity, had remained utterly untouched by the corruption, protected by its own ancient, powerful wards.
Then, with a thought, I used a minute Dismantle to open a shallow cut on my own finger. Crimson, Cursed-Energy-rich blood welled up. I dipped the finger into it and drew upon the woman's skin. I was using her flesh as a talisman, my own blood as the ink. The intricate lines and geometric shapes flowed from a mind that had perfected this art over two and a half centuries. It was a prison, a flawless containment circle.
I rose to my feet and observed her soul. With the source of its infection severed and quarantined, the corruption staining her spirit began to recede, to flake away, until only the faintest discoloration remained. So that was its nature. A self-propagating curse that, if left unchecked, would have converted her own power until she became a willing vessel for the taint itself. An Altered being, a split personality, a shift in alignment… the possibilities were fascinating.
"Examine her, if you wish," I said to the Hound, my voice cutting through the silence as the woman's hair returned from a dull gray to its vibrant white, save for a few stubborn, faded strands. "I have sealed the foreign energy. I could purge it completely, but the woman's soul has already been altered on a fundamental level. Reversing it now would be… imprecise. It is better to have a contained sample to study, should we need to restore her fully later." A live specimen for dissection would provide a much more elegant solution.
Cú stepped forward. I watched as he placed a hand on her back, his own energy probing my work. A moment later, he bit his thumb, drawing blood, and inscribed two glowing runes directly over my own seal. How fascinating. These simple symbols of his were not the raw, overpowering locks of my Jujutsu; they were elegant, sophisticated keys. Like comparing a bludgeon to a scalpel. I could feel their effects: one was subtly amplifying the containment field of my seal, a clever reinforcement. The other was a tripwire, a ward designed to alert him if my seal began to fail. A collaboration, of a sort.
As Cú pulled his hand away, satisfied, a soft gasp came from the cot.
We both turned. The woman's eyes—her golden eyes—were now wide open.
----------
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Olga Marie Animusphere's eyes shot wide open with a gasp. Her world was gray concrete and dim, flickering light. Her first sight was a nightmare come true: a four-armed demon and a blue-robed stranger loomed directly over the cot she lay. A raw, instinctual terror overrode her training, and she scrambled backwards, tumbling off the cot to hit the cold floor in a tangle of limbs.
From across the room, she heard a sharp "Tch" of pure annoyance. The four-armed being, without a backward glance, turned his back on her and walked to the deepest shadows of the bunker.
That brief moment of being ignored was the only cue Mash and Gudako needed.
"Director! Are you alright?" Mash was at her side in an instant, helping her up.
Olga waved her subordinate's hands away, her own trembling as she pushed herself to her feet. The Director's mask, her only shield, snapped into place. "I'm fine!" she said, her voice a brittle, high-strung command. Her eyes scanned her own body. Her arm was whole. Her leg was whole. She remembered the crunch of bone, the searing pain. This was impossible. Her mind seized on the blue-robed man with a staff. A healer? A Caster of some kind? This must be his work.
"Report," she snapped, her focus shifting to Mash. "What happened?"
Mash, her usual military composure completely gone, flinched at the sharp tone, her voice cracking as she began. "Director, we were attacked on the bridge! That giant… that monster… it-it took me out in a single blow." She took a shuddering breath, her gaze darting towards Gudako. "It was about to kill Senpai—Master. Her life was in danger, and I couldn't do anything!"
Olga's blood ran cold. Our last Master. Our last hope… nearly died?
"But she wasn't," Mash continued, her voice dropping to a near whisper as she gestured with a trembling hand toward the shadows. "She was saved. The… the pink-haired man, he intervened."
Olga's terrified gaze flitted over to the silent, terrifying silhouette. Her mind, a whirlwind of confusion, couldn't begin to process the contradiction. The demon had saved them?
Before she could demand more details, the blue-robed man interrupted, a lazy, charming grin spreading across his face. "I'm the one who fished you out of the river, by the way," he said casually. "A heroic rescue for a pretty lady like yourself. Doesn't that deserve a kiss?"
"You—you disgusting pervert!" Olga shrieked, her terror momentarily eclipsed by sheer indignation.
He just laughed, the sound echoing in the small bunker. "Name's Cú Chulainn," he continued, completely unfazed. "Caster of this botched little war. The big gray brute that knocked you around was a Berserker. Heracles, if you can believe it."
Heracles. The name, spoken so casually, hit Olga with the force of a physical blow. The pinnacle of Greek heroes, the most known hero in the world.
"And that's not all," the Caster continued, his red eyes twinkling with amusement. "After we got back here, the big guy over there,"—he jerked his chin towards the four-armed being—"is the one who fixed you up. Healed that nasty curse that was eating you, too."
The revelation struck Olga the most. Her mind reeled. The healing wasn't the work of the Caster. It was a casual afterthought for the silent demon in the corner. Her mouth opened, but no words came out. Her carefully constructed composure was gone, replaced by a raw, naked terror as she stared at the four-armed being.
The storytelling was clearly over. From the shadows, the four-armed being finally turned. His crimson eyes—all four of them—pinned them with a cold, impatient glare that seemed to suck all the warmth from the room.
"Are you done with this meaningless chit-chat?" the demon asked, his voice a low rumble that vibrated through the very floor. The time for answers was over. His interrogation was about to begin.
-----------
My four eyes were as I waited for the real conversation to begin. I had been patient and now it was at an end. I broke the silence. "You introduced yourself as 'Caster'," I began, my gaze shifting to the hound. "And the brute... you called him 'Berserker'. Explain these titles."
Instead of answering directly, the sorcerer let out a low whistle, a slow, knowing grin spreading across his face. "So I was right," he muttered under his breath. He looked directly at me, his crimson eyes sharp with certainty. "You're not from this world, are you? Oh King of Curses?"
My impassive expression was all the confirmation he needed. Interesting. The people of this world know of others. He took this as his cue and launched into his explanation, his tone that of a seasoned veteran briefing a new, unpredictable recruit.
"It's all part of the Holy Grail War," he said, leaning casually on his staff. "A battle royale between seven 'Masters' and seven 'Servants'. We Servants are heroic spirits, copies of warriors pulled from a place outside of time, and summoned into one of seven Classes. The winner gets a prize." He gestured to the redhead cowering behind the shield-maiden. "The humans, the Masters, bind us with the Command Seals on their hands. They're a mark of their authority."
A place outside of time? Wait. "A slave's brand," I stated, my voice dripping with disdain. My four eyes gazed at the red sigils on the girl's hand with open disgust. It was an obscenity.
He let out a weary sigh. "You're not entirely wrong," he admitted, a flicker of a dark memory in his eyes that I recognized as genuine. "Some Masters do treat it that way. But that's not all they are." He raised a finger. "A Master can burn one to give us a massive surge of power, instantly heal wounds that should be fatal, or even pull us across the city to their side in a blink. They're useful tricks."
The tactical applications were intriguing, but the core concept remained repulsive. "Fascinating abilities for a leash," I retorted. "But the question remains. Why would any true warrior willingly wear it?"
"Some of us, like me, just come for a good fight," he said with a shrug and a grin. "But most spirits on the Throne... they have regrets. Things they failed to do, people they failed to save. They come for the prize." He finally named it. "The Holy Grail. An artifact that can grant any wish. Rewrite your past, change your legend, anything."
My amusement curdled into disgust. Pathetic. If you want something, you take it with your own hands. The desire to erase one's past is the ultimate weakness. To erase your past is to erase who you are. The past is what makes you 'YOU'. The girls' lack of reaction told me this was a commonly accepted truth in their world, but I was certain a prize this powerful had to have a price. There was always a price.
The white-haired woman, having gathered a sliver of her courage, stepped forward. Her voice was still shaky, but firm. "If you are from another world… how did you get here?" She then asked the question that truly mattered to her. "Before you arrived, did you encounter an old man… a magician by the name of Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg?"
"Why is this man's presence important?" I asked. Is he someone to take note off.
It was Cú who answered, recognizing the woman was too terrified to explain clearly. "He's different," the sorcerer said, his casual tone gone, replaced by one of genuine gravity. "He is a Magician. He wields True Magic, not the parlor tricks and limited 'Magecraft' the rest of us use." He paused, letting the weight of the term settle, his crimson eyes locking onto mine. "What he does… it's not sorcery. It is a Miracle. The Second Magic. They call it the Kaleidoscope, and it grants him the authority to operate parallel worlds."
For the first time since waking in this wretched city, I fell completely silent. The sorcerer noted the shift in my demeanor instantly. The woman, lost in her own explanation, missed it.
Miracles. The operation of parallel worlds.
My Jujutsu, the absolute pinnacle of power in my own world, could bend and break the rules of reality. It could command life and death, space and energy. But it was still bound by the fundamental laws of existence. This "True Magic" was something else entirely. It was the power to rewrite those laws. A level of mastery, a tier of power, I had never even conceived of. A burning, avaricious hunger ignited within me, a desire more potent than any simple battle lust. Forget a good fight. Forget the Grail. Knowledge of this world's sorcery was now the true prize.
The woman, mistaking my silence for consideration, pressed what she thought was her advantage. "The Wizard marshal—Zelretch is the only person who can send you back!" she pleaded. "Help us fix this Singularity, and I swear on the Animusphere name, I will use every favor, every resource my family has, to arrange an audience. We will find a way to send you home!"
I began to laugh—a low, dry, humorless sound that startled them all. "Go back?" I asked, a predatory grin spreading across my face. "Why would I ever want to leave a place that has suddenly become so… fascinating?" I let the threat hang in the air for a moment before continuing. "But I will hold you to your 'offer.' Perhaps after I am done here, you can arrange for this 'Wizard Marshall' to take me somewhere even more entertaining."
A flicker of a memory: a battle with the six eyes, a fight where my own overwhelming power was not enough. I pushed the irritating thought aside. Perhaps a rematch was needed.
"Very well, woman. I accept." I paused, my gaze deliberate. "You keep using that term. What… is a 'Singularity'?"
This opened the final floodgate. The woman, Olga, now feeling a sliver of control, explained everything: Chaldea's mission, observing the timeline, the utter incineration of humanity's future, and how this "error" in Fuyuki was the cause. She told me of a saboteur, of the loss of their primary Masters, leaving them with a single, "incompetent" civilian in Fujimaru.
"Hey!" came a faint protest from the back.
I processed the information, my world expanding with each word. I had assumed this "Grail" was a local artifact, that these "Servants" were simply this land's equivalent of Cursed Spirits. But if these humans could observe time, if Cú Chulainn, a figure from mythology, was real... then gods were real in this world. And time travel... a feat even I, in my centuries of mastery, had deemed impossible... these fragile humans had achieved it. The scale of this new playground was vastly greater than I could have ever imagined.
I let out another, louder laugh, this one of pure, unadulterated joy. This was no mere side-show. This was the greatest, most entertaining stage in the multiverse. The new human memories, with their sentimental notion of "saving people," aligned perfectly with my own hedonistic desires. The path forward was clear.
Saving humanity? Me? The idea was so beautifully, exquisitely ironic, I had no choice. How amusing.
---------
With the fragile alliance set, Olga's Director persona fully reasserted itself. The first priority was to re-establish a clear line of communication with Chaldea.
"Caster," she began, her tone sharp and formal, "We are on a leyline, correct?"
"A minor one, but yeah," Cú affirmed. "It's why I picked it. I am a Caster, even if not a proper one."
Olga nodded once, then activated the communication device on her wrist. A holographic screen flickered to life, showing the exhausted, pale face of Dr. Romani Archaman.
"Director!" he exclaimed, his relief palpable. "Your vitals are stable! We were… we were losing you!" He then noticed the two figures behind her, and his professional demeanor cracked into sheer, unadulterated shock, his eyes widening at the sight of Sukuna.
"Romani, report," Olga demanded.
Romani flinched, his gaze darting nervously away from Sukuna. "Th-the Master Candidates are in cryopreservation as you had asked," he stammered. "But Chaldea's resources… eighty percent were destroyed. We are on backup power. Director, the situation is…"
"I am aware," Olga interrupted. She took a breath, forcing herself to be clinical. "Listen closely. We were attacked on the bridge by a Berserker-class Servant, Heracles."
"Heracles?!" Romani shouted, his voice cracking with disbelief.
Cú, leaning against a wall, let out a dry chuckle. "Guys a riot." He pushed himself off the wall and walked closer, now a part of the conversation. "That's what I told them, Doc. And I'm the Caster for this botched little war, by the way. Name's Cú Chulainn."
"Cú Chulainn! Ireland's Child of Light," Romani said in disbelief.
"The one and only," Cú replied. "Berserker was defeated by the big guy"—he pointed at Sukuna—"over there."
"He then... Healed me," finished Olga.
It was Cú who clarified the most critical point for them. "Hold on now," he said, his tone shifting from casual to serious as he looked at Olga. "I wouldn't exactly call you 'healed.' He only repaired the physical damage." Cú's gaze hardened. "The King is the one who worked on you. He said the curse from the corrupted river is still there, tainting your soul. He put a seal on it, but if you use your own Magic Circuits for more than five or ten minutes, it'll start to break down." He then added, "Your Crest should be safer to use, but even that will strain it over time."
"What?!" Olga and Romani shouted in unison. "Why didn't he remove it completely?!" Olga demanded.
"You'd have to ask him," Cú said with a shrug, jerking a thumb towards Sukuna.
Sukuna, who had been observing their pathetic drama with growing boredom, finally spoke, his voice a low rumble. "The woman's soul is tainted," he said, not bothering to look at her. "While I could remove it, the resulting clash of the taint and my craft... Well, let's just say I doubt you'd want her returned as a vegetable."
Romani, trying to get a grip, seized on the only positive news. "If Heracles is gone, what's holding this Singularity up?"
The question hung in the air, and it was Cú who answered. "Saber... She's propping up this whole mess with the Grail." He shook his head. "She's hooked right into it, gives her a bottomless tank of mana. Something happened to her early in the war, she started a bloodbath, and somehow revived the Servants she killed to be her puppets."
Olga's face was grim. "Do you know her identity?"
"I do," Cú confirmed. "Anyone who has seen her swinging her sword would know. She's wielding Excalibur." He added, his tone turning grim, "I saw her use it once. One swing. It took out three Servants and their Masters and carved a trench in the city clean out to the sea. That's what we're up against."
The name and the description struck the Chaldeans like a thunderbolt. "Excalibur?!" Romani shrieked. "King Arthur?!" Olga and Mash gasped in horror. Sukuna, however, shifted from bored observer to a state of sharp, focused attention, his four eyes narrowing.
Cú lamented with a sigh, "If I'd been summoned as a Lancer, I might've had a shot. Her main defense, aside from that sword, is her Archer guard dog. He's a real piece of work. Fights up close with two short swords like a Saber, but snipes from a mountain away. An annoyance."
"Seven Servants," Sukuna interjected, his voice cutting through the stunned silence. He had been counting. "You are Caster. I killed Berserker. Saber and Archer remain. That is four. What happened to the other three?"
Cú blinked, impressed by the quick tactical accounting. "Right. Assassin I took out myself, early on. Rider was a fool who mocked Berserker's dead Master, so the brute tore him apart. That just leaves one… a Lancer. She's still out there."
With the new information settling in, Gudako, wanting to contribute, finally spoke up. "The plan is simple then!" she said with a burst of naive confidence. "We'll just ignore the Lancer, and all march to the mountain together!"
A genuine, mocking laugh escaped Sukuna's lips. Cú just stared at her with a deadpan expression.
"Right," Cú began, his voice laced with pity. "First, the Archer will see us coming from miles away and turn you two,"—he gestured to Gudako and Olga—"into pin cushions before we get halfway there."
"And you would leave your backs open to an attack from this 'Lancer'," Sukuna added, his tone dripping with condescension.
Cú then raised the final, critical issue, turning to Gudako. "Besides all that, I don't have a Master. I'm running on fumes."
Seeing the undeniable logic, Olga gave the order, her voice tight with resignation. "Fujimaru. Contract with him. Now."
Cú, smirking, pulled up his arm in a fist. Gudako raised her hand in kind. A flash of light later and a new connection was formed between them.
With the team finally, officially, assembled, Sukuna turned to Cú, a sharp glint in his four eyes. "Your idea of a plan, sorcerer?"
"Simple," Cú replied, now with a Master backing him. "The three of us take down the Archer, create an opening, and then we all face Saber together."
Sukuna laughed again. "The brute was a decent warm-up. This 'Saber'… she sounds truly entertaining." He paused, his gaze sweeping over all of them. "I will fight her alone."
Olga looked like she was about to have an aneurysm. "Are you insane?! You heard what Caster said—"
Cú silenced her with a sharp, warning look. He turned back to Sukuna, a cunning glint in his eye. "Alright, King. I get it. But you need an opening. Even you can't fight two top-tiers at once."
Sukuna cut him off, his gaze dismissing the girls. "And how would they help? The shield-maiden might be a decent wall, if she possesses a strong... what did you call it? Ah, a Noble Phantasm."
Mash, flinching under his gaze, was forced to admit the truth, her voice a near whisper. "I… I can't use it. I don't know the name of the Servant I've bonded with… or my Noble Phantasm's True Name."
Another laugh, this one cold and devoid of all humor, left Sukuna's lips. "This," he said, gesturing to the three terrified women. "This rabble is what you would use to fight the Archer?"
Cú's grin turned sharp. "Let's make a wager, then, King of Curses."
Sukuna's four eyes narrowed in genuine intrigue.
"We let these three handle the Lancer I talked about. No help from you or me," Cú proposed. "If they can beat her on their own, you owe me a proper spar when we make it out of this hell alive. If they fail…" He shrugged. "Then I'll owe you one favor. Anything within my power to grant."
Sukuna considered the bet. A test of the "teamwork" concept. A chance to see these weakling's struggle. The entertainment value was simply too high to refuse. A slow, predatory smile spread across his face.
"Amusing. I accept."
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