In an instant, the air grew taut.
Jogo was already planning to open with a full volcanic eruption.
Mahito's right hand lifted as well.
Judging by his expression, he very much wanted to try remodeling Tokisaki Kurumi on the spot.
And Kurumi, all by herself, stood facing two special grade curses.
...
"Do you really think you have a chance against the two of us right now?"
Mahito asked with a smiling face. "From what I can see, your current condition is not very good. At the very least, you are much weaker than I imagined."
Jogo nodded.
He had noticed that from the moment he laid eyes on her.
She had reached the realm of special grade, that much was true.
But at just this level, Jogo could not believe she had survived the pursuit of so many jujutsu sorcerers.
"A version of you like this choosing to fight the two of us is not very rational," Mahito continued, smiling as he shifted into outright threats.
"If things go badly, you might end up just like all those curses you exorcised."
"Oh? Planning to gang up on me?"
At that, Kurumi did not show a hint of fear. Instead, her smile grew more and more mocking.
"I am starting to doubt whether you are really Nightmare at all," Jogo said, cracking his knuckles, clearly about to start.
"Ara ara, doubting whether I am Nightmare..." Kurumi put on a troubled expression. "Of course I am not."
In the end, Nightmare was just a label humans had given her.
She had never personally acknowledged it.
"Then you really are just..."
Jogo's words cut off mid-sentence.
"But, if you are looking for a fight, I do not mind."
As Kurumi spoke, the crisp sound of bullets being loaded rang out.
She raised her twin guns and aimed at Jogo and Mahito.
If that was all, neither of them would have been surprised, let alone frozen in place.
A curse not as strong as they had imagined was nothing to be afraid of.
The problem was, reality did not match their expectations at all.
Because from the ground to the rooftops, in every direction around them, Kurumis appeared.
One, two, three...
There were so many it was impossible to count.
Every face wore the same mocking smile. Cursed energy surged through every pair of pistols in their hands.
And they could not tell which one was real.
Or rather, they could not be sure any of them were real.
The cursed energy flowing around each Kurumi was nearly identical.
Her true body might not even be here.
Right at this moment, both Jogo and Mahito were deeply unsettled.
How was this possible?
Special grade curses were extremely rare.
That was common knowledge.
Yet the number in front of them was beyond anything they had ever imagined.
This was already enough to form an army.
Could the current jujutsu world really withstand this many special grade curses?
What a joke.
Even if each Kurumi felt like they only just barely reached special grade, the sheer number of them made that point irrelevant.
Under the moonlight, the clock-face pattern in the girl's pupils twisted, becoming eerily strange.
"Just now, the two of you seemed very eager to gang up on me," Kurumi said, looking down at Jogo and Mahito with open amusement. "The thing is, I really like group fights."
When it came to brawling in a crowd, Kurumi had never been the one to back down.
...
Mahito took a long, slow breath and lowered his hand.
He patted Jogo's shoulder, gesturing for him to calm down for now.
"Oh? You are backing out already?"
Kurumi's smile did not fade.
The cursed energy inside her guns did not diminish in the slightest.
"Miss Nightmare, there is no need for things to go this way," Mahito said.
His eyes were now filled with caution.
As expected of the most infamous, most mysterious curse of this era.
"We are all curses, and we all share the same enemy."
"We are not enemies to each other. If this displeases you, we can leave immediately."
Mahito was clearly yielding.
Unlike Jogo, he still did not fully understand the depths of his own strength.
If a fight broke out, Jogo might be able to escape with heavy injuries.
Mahito, on the other hand, estimated at least an eighty percent chance he would die under a barrage from these guns.
"And if we really fight, the impact on you will not be small either, will it?"
He did not believe that if all these clones were caught in Jogo's domain, Kurumi would feel nothing at all.
Kurumi nodded. "It would affect me a bit."
"Then..."
Before he could finish, Kurumi pulled the trigger.
Bang.
The bullet hit Mahito.
This time, his head did not explode.
Instead, his entire body went rigid.
His eyes went wide, but he could not move a single muscle.
"Seventh Bullet," Kurumi said calmly. "You should be quiet now. I really do not like listening to you talk."
Seventh Bullet.
Its effect: to halt the time of whatever it strikes.
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