"Senpai, can you really handle Nightmare alone?"
Megumi looked at Shun with clear worry. "Should I call Gojo-sensei over too?"
Shun shook his head, expression a little sour. "This mission was originally my uncle's. He just dumped it on me."
"Huh? Really?" Megumi was genuinely surprised.
"Anyway, I will take care of Nightmare. You do not need to worry about that."
For now he did not have much in the way of concrete leads.
That did not mean he was in danger.
Just like he had told Tokisaki Kurumi before.
He could, in a very literal sense, afford to die a few times.
Sorcerers were people who tied their heads to their belts every day.
Even Shun had moments where he wondered if he would someday misstep and die for real.
Which was exactly why it was important to stack as many safety nets as possible.
"Your retrieval mission is what I am more concerned about. Do you know where the cursed object is being kept?"
If it was at Sugisawa High, then...
"According to the intel, it should be somewhere near a school called Sugisawa High."
Megumi repeated what was written in his mission brief.
Shun fell silent.
Alright. No need to keep guessing.
Megumi. Itadori Yuji. A cursed object.
There was no doubt Sugisawa High was about to become the starting point of everything.
Honestly, Shun felt both excited and a little gloomy.
Excited, because it meant he would get to see Sukuna in the flesh.
Ever since he was a kid, he had held an unusual interest in curses of every kind.
The legendary King of Curses was no exception.
He had studied Sukuna's fingers before, but you could only learn so much from those.
Compared to that, studying Sukuna himself sounded far more fun.
The part that made him sigh was something else.
He did not fully trust the "plot" in his head.
For one thing, his memories were spotty. For another, with his existence here, who knew what would change.
Nightmare, for one, was a Tokisaki Kurumi that had never appeared in the anime he remembered.
Not that he cared too much about that.
As long as he was strong enough to crush his way through, nothing else really mattered.
He just had to make sure his uncle did not get blindsided somewhere.
If that was covered, Shun could basically coast.
What actually depressed him was this.
Once things began for real, he was going to be endlessly busy.
Any hope of a peaceful, lazy life would go up in smoke.
Megumi noticed the strange look in his eyes. "Senpai, do you know this school?"
Shun said calmly, "You could say that school is Nightmare's territory."
"What?!"
Megumi's eyes flew wide.
Recovering a cursed object near a school was one thing.
Tying it directly to a special grade like that was something else entirely.
With his current strength, going up against that kind of curse was no different from asking to die.
"Tonight, when you head over there, I will go with you," Shun said.
Partly because he was genuinely worried about Megumi's safety and did not want Nightmare killing him and...partly because he wanted to see with his own eyes whether Sukuna really would awaken.
Of course, if possible, he would prefer Yuji not eat the finger.
A lot of tragedy could be avoided that way.
"Yes. Understood."
Now that he knew what he was walking into, Megumi, prideful as he was, did not argue.
Shun nodded. "That is it for now. Before that, you are coming somewhere with me."
"Now? Where?"
Megumi glanced up at the sky. It was nearly dark.
If they were not heading to Sugisawa , then where?
Were they going to prepare tools or something?
"A place to eat," Shun replied.
Kurumi's face flashed through his mind and he gave a helpless shake of his head.
"Huh? A place to eat?"
Megumi looked more and more confused.
The deck was already surrounded by eateries. Did they really have to go somewhere else?
Faced with that puzzled look, Shun found he did not know how to explain.
"In short, just follow me."
Megumi gave a short nod. "Yes, senpai."
...
Apartment
By then, Kurumi had pretty much finished preparing dinner.
Her cooking really was impressive.
From the presentation to the aroma, everything was top notch.
It was hard to believe she had only picked all this up in the year after her parents died.
You could say the environment had forced her to keep moving forward.
"Hmm hmm hmm~ hmm hmm hmm~"
She hummed cheerfully as she worked.
Shun's junior was coming over tonight, so she had to help him save face.
Even she found it strange when she stopped to think about it.
They had not known each other long at all, yet somehow she was already this close to him.
It made no sense.
Maybe that was just how people worked.
With some, you stayed strangers no matter how many years you knew each other.
With others, a single meeting was enough to feel like old friends.
Weird.
But whatever the reason, right now she was really happy.
"Ah!"
Happy did not mean she stopped being clumsy though.
She caught her foot on the corner of the table.
The teacup she had just taken out slipped from her hand and dropped toward the floor.
"Crack!"
Porcelain shattered across the tiles.
"Uuugh"
Kurumi pulled a face at the glittering fragments.
She needed to clean it up quickly. If Shun came in and saw this, it would be so embarrassing.
She crouched down at once and reached out to pick up the bigger pieces.
At that exact moment a faint breeze drifted through the room.
It lifted the bangs that covered her left eye.
A clockface glowed in that exposed pupil.
Just as her fingers brushed the broken porcelain, Kurumi heard it.
A gunshot, sharp and echoing, right next to her ear.
"Bang."
The next instant, the already shattered cup began to rewind.
The fragments pulled together, cracks knitting, until it sat whole on the floor, as if it had never fallen at all.
"...!!"
Kurumi jolted, falling back onto her rear.
The hand she had reached out with snapped back like she had touched a hot iron.
Trembling, she pressed her palm over her left eye.
Just now...
What was that?
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