Chapter 196: Finally Met You, Sukuna's Vessel
As a sports student with a mind so simple he could be tricked by a few sentences from a stranger, Itadori Yuji was undoubtedly a good person.
When he saw someone in need, he would lend a hand without hesitation; conversely, if he felt he had done something wrong, his conscience would plague him relentlessly.
Right now, Itadori felt as though he had committed some unspeakable act, yet he lacked the evidence to confirm it. If he didn't resolve this uncertainty, he wouldn't be able to sleep for nights.
It's often said that discarding one's sense of morality leads to a direct increase in quality of life—and that statement really isn't a lie.
Fortunately, Fushiguro Megumi was there, having witnessed the entire process.
While falling from the sky to launch a sneak attack was somewhat lacking in decorum, since the victim was a damned cursed spirit, Fushiguro didn't feel like scolding Itadori. On the contrary, he felt he needed to offer some rare praise.
Thinking of this, Fushiguro stepped forward and patted Itadori's shoulder.
"Don't worry. You did great."
"Eh, really?!"
"Of course. That cursed spirit didn't look like an easy opponent. It's best to skip the unnecessary exorcism process."
Fushiguro glanced at the massive crater Itadori had smashed into the ground and added, "Besides, it happened so fast it definitely didn't have time to alert its allies... Now we just have to see if the enemy has a way to monitor our location."
"I see, I see! So it was a cursed spirit. No wonder the impact felt so solid!" Knowing he hadn't accidentally flattened an innocent passerby, Itadori's mood brightened instantly. He even started analyzing the physics of the hit.
"By the way, was that guy really strong? He vanished in one hit."
Fushiguro: "..."
"I don't know. It said it was a locust curse or something. If that's true, it certainly wasn't weak."
The younger generation doesn't have much of a concept of locusts; for them, it's just a childhood memory of catching bugs in a field. They don't carry the negative weight of fear. But long ago, before agriculture was this advanced, humanity's primary food source was large-scale labor, and efficiency was dozens of times lower than today.
Under those conditions, if a massive locust plague broke out, millions would starve. Families would be displaced, and people would be left with nothing. Famine, drought, floods... any of
these natural disasters were far more fatal to humanity than the skirmishes of current cursed spirits.
If that locust curse wasn't lying about its origin, it could easily be classified as a Special Grade—it should have lasted at least several minutes against them.
Time was saved, bit by bit.
"Cough, cough... How are you guys? Any danger here?" Just then, Nobara Kugisaki jumped down the hole with the two brothers. She waved away the annoying dust and scanned the environment.
Since the lights had been damaged by Itadori's impact, the empty tunnel looked quite haunting in the flickering glow.
"Seems we're still far from the destination," Fushiguro observed, surveying the area.
"What do we do now...?" Itadori's gaze locked onto Kechizu.
"Is that so? Big Brother doesn't seem to be here... let me see..." Kechizu had claimed he could track his brothers through a blood connection. But his current behavior... looked exactly like a dog sniffing the ground, complete with a twitching nose.
"Can't find him, can't find him... I know! It's because Big Brother is even further down!"
"Itadori, Itadori! Let's go deeper!"
"Osu!"
The two, both possessing a strangely high desire for destruction, unified their goals again. Itadori raised his Charge Blade, ready to practice a "second time's the charm" excavation.
"Wait a minute! Are you trying to tell the enemy exactly where we are?" Fushiguro grabbed his arm and pointed toward the end of the tunnel. "There's a path right there! Stop doing that!"
"Ah? Right. Let's do it your way, Fushiguro." Itadori obediently stowed his weapon. The group walked deep into the tunnel and entered a stairwell where the elevators had completely stopped.
"Hey Fushiguro, don't you think it's weird here?" Itadori asked halfway down.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, we saw so many people at the entrance, so why is there no one here? Isn't it strange?"
With Itadori's straightforward brain, he couldn't wrap his head around it.
"Isn't it obvious? When a disaster happens, most people's first instinct is to flee to open spaces or follow the largest crowd. They don't have the ability to judge danger themselves."
Otherwise, why would the term "herd mentality" exist? People lose their heads in a crisis. Without clear instructions, a crowd might even trample each other off a cliff.
"So that's why..." Itadori nodded thoughtfully, then posed a new question. "Then, why doesn't the enemy take them as hostages? If it were me, I'd surround myself with hostages. Since Emiya-sensei and Gojo-sensei are so strong, I'd be flattened in a minute otherwise. Maybe I'd even strap a few hostages to my body so the teachers wouldn't dare attack me. Honestly, I can't think of any other way to win..."
For some reason, Itadori grew more excited as he spoke, looking as if he wanted to go grab two people to test the theory right now.
Because of this, he didn't notice Fushiguro's pupils dilating. Fushiguro lunged toward his side.
"Itadori, move!"
BOOM!
The moment Fushiguro shoved Itadori down the stairs, scorching lava erupted from where they had been standing. With a hissing, corrosive sound, the magma slowly began to flow down the stairs after them.
"Itadori! Fushiguro!!"
Because the stairwell was so narrow, the high-temperature lava and gas separated the three above from the two below. Fushiguro could hear Nobara's muffled shout but could no longer see them.
The sneak attack was too sudden. They had no time to react.
"Still worried about them? You should be more worried about yourselves."
Behind Itadori and Fushiguro, a small figure stepped out from behind the wall. Twisting an ear that looked like a volcano cap, he grinned at Itadori, revealing a mouth full of blackened teeth.
"Finally, I meet you... Sukuna's Vessel."
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