Chapter Nine: After a Week, The Second Mission – Part Two
In front of room 404, Obito felt not the slightest desire to go inside. Not because of the cursed aura that was draped around the door—perhaps because his legs were trembling. He would readily admit he was a coward, even if he was starting to have a little confidence in his ability to handle cursed energy. But being in front of monsters that exerted this kind of pressure was enough to make the ordinary person he was less than a week ago tremble quite simply.
But the girl beside him, with her blue hair and very calm posture, didn't seem terrified or have any problem looking calmly at the door before turning to Obito and saying,
"The cursed energy in this room is much higher than in the other rooms. This means it's possible the cursed entity is present in this place."
Obito didn't know if he should say something sarcastic at this moment, like, "Wow, brilliant deduction, Captain Obvious." But the serious look from Kasumi made him swallow the words he wanted to say and look at the door again.
Then, before he could dare to say, 'What if we wait until tomorrow or get some food before we go in?' Kasumi's hand had already grasped the door handle and opened it. Using an access card she'd obtained from the hotel—of course, through means he didn't know—she opened the door with extreme quietness, as if it were a precisely manufactured, smooth, and elegant motion.
Obito sat there wishing it had made an ominous creak. At least that would have given his heart a reason to flee at this moment. But with the door opening so gracefully, there was nothing left but to enter.
After they entered suite number 404, where many disappearances had occurred over the past year, the location inside the room was different from what Obito expected. He anticipated something ominous—chaos everywhere, blood, some tears in the wall. But there was nothing. The room was like their own suite, well-decorated and seemingly for the wealthy. This was the only thing Obito could describe at this moment, especially since he'd never been in such a room before. So his eyes looked at everything with awe—or at least, that's what should have happened from his point of view. But the bitter knowledge that he was in a cursed world, not his previous one, made his heart freeze in the next moment.
"It seems the cursed energy reading is low. I can only sense that there was a large amount of energy here in the past, but at this moment, there doesn't seem to be a problem."
They were currently on the seventh floor. Even without these low-level cursed energy detection tools, sorcerers could easily sense cursed energy and negative emotions quite effectively and know where a curse might be. But it was also clear that the amount of negative energy that should be in this place ought to be much larger. This was evidence that the curse that had been here, or the thing that caused the presence of this cursed energy in this room, had left for a while. The cursed energy wasn't low, but at the same time, it wasn't high or threatening. Obito could classify this cursed energy based on Obito Zenin's previous memories as cursed energy from a Grade Four cursed spirit, maybe even approaching Grade Three. He wanted to be precise at this moment while trying to classify this curse.
"This place would be very strange if the curse disappeared in this way. Most of the disappearances were brutal—women, some men, businessmen disappeared in this room. But the people who disappeared most were the investigators and photographers who came here to check out this haunted room."
Of course, in this world, due to the Jujutsu Council, information about cursed spirits and other such things was largely hidden. Most people who came to this room, thanks to the hotel's marketing which used the disappearance incidents more cleverly than others, were drawn here. In truth, others, upon learning that guests disappeared in their hotels, might try to hide the matter. But this hotel used a more beneficial method: they used these haunted rooms to attract tourists, especially photographers and ghost-hunting YouTubers who came in droves just to film this place. But the disappearances hadn't stopped. Amazingly, the police found nothing wrong with these rooms. So it was clear there was something hiding everything that happened in these specific rooms on the seventh floor. This was something both of them had realized without needing much discussion.
They began inspecting the room. Using their ability to sense cursed energy was the best thing they could do at this time, given the lack of sufficient information.
"Kasumi-senpai."
Obito felt an intense cold when he got near the bed. He called out, and in a moment, Kasumi arrived and looked at the bed. Like Obito, she could feel the cold emanating from the bed.
—The cursed energy in this bed is much higher. But at the same time, it was concealed, because one needed to get very close to the bed before being able to sense this cursed energy.—
This wasn't the only thing Kasumi was thinking at this moment. Because before she could deduce anything, an energy burst forth from the bed. The blue-colored cursed energy shot out at high speed towards her and Obito. But before reaching her, it veered sharply and headed straight for Obito. It was as if it were intelligent, because the moment it was heading towards Kasumi, the sword in her hand had moved unconsciously to block the strike. So the cursed energy moved directly towards Obito, who was frozen in place. He hadn't expected that to happen, and due to the cold, he was immobilized.
But in a close moment, as his brain secreted cursed energy at its maximum, his eyes directly transformed to red. With this transformation, the movement, which had been as fast as the blink of an eye, slowed down to become much slower. Furthermore, Obito enveloped his own body in cursed energy. His speed increased dramatically, and with a sideways leap of half a meter, he managed to block the strike.
BOOOOOOM!
When it collided with the room's wall, the impact sound was like a cannon hitting the wall, blowing apart a section of the wall in a terrifying explosion.
Obito's gaze, and Kasumi's as well, looked at that explosion. One face was pale with red eyes, while the other, Kasumi, froze for a moment because the cursed energy coming from that explosion far exceeded her expectations. She wanted to say something, but whatever was under the bed had quickly emerged from that place.
The room, which had been an elegant guest suite, transformed into something resembling a bleak prison cell. The bed turned a blood-red color, covered in gore. A putrid smell spread everywhere. And the floor began to tear apart, fissures spreading like black veins.
"Retreat quickly! It's higher than Grade Two! But at the same time, it's capable of creating a barrier!"
There was no hesitation in Obito's movement. He wanted to go directly, open the door, and leave this place. But the door, which should have been the exit, had vanished from where it was. He looked in horror at that, and then looked at Kasumi, who had done the same thing but stopped and turned her gaze back towards the bed, which was dripping blood, and said in a serious voice,
"Get ready. This will be the start of the battle."
The transformation was absolute and horrifying. The soft, ambient light from the tasteful sconces was gone, replaced by a pulsating, blood-red glow emanating from the walls themselves, as if the room had developed a slow, sick heartbeat. The luxurious carpet was now a matted, sticky mess, soaked through with a dark, foul-smelling liquid that squelched underfoot. The abstract art on the walls seemed to melt, the colors running like weeping sores, forming shapes that suggested screaming faces and grasping limbs.
And the smell. Oh, the smell. It was a physical assault. The sterile lavender and antiseptic were utterly obliterated by the reek of rotting meat, stagnant water, and a coppery, metallic tang of old blood. It was so thick Obito could taste it at the back of his throat, bitter and nauseating.
The bed was the epicenter. It was no longer a piece of furniture but a pulsing, fleshy mound. The pristine white sheets had fused into a membrane stretched taut over a form that shifted and bulged obscenely. Dark, viscous blood oozed from its seams, dripping onto the floor with a steady plop… plop… plop.
From beneath this grotesque mound, it emerged.
It didn't crawl out so much as unfold. A long, sinuous limb, grey and slick like a waterlogged corpse, slithered free. Then another. They weren't tentacles; they were more like elongated, boneless arms, ending not in hands but in clusters of sharp, hooked bone spurs that clicked together with a dry, chittering sound (click-click-click-clack).
The main body rose. It was vaguely humanoid but terribly wrong. Its torso was a bloated, translucent sac, through which shadowy, indistinct forms could be seen swirling—the remnants of its victims, perhaps. Its head was a featureless, smooth oval, save for a single, vertical slit that ran from where its forehead should be down to its chin. The slit pulsed open and closed rhythmically, emitting a wet, sucking sound (shhhhlllp… shhhhlllp) with each breath.
This was no simple Grade Three. The cursed energy radiating from it was dense, heavy, and cold, pressing down on them like deep ocean pressure. Kasumi had been right. It was at least a high Grade Two, perhaps even touching Grade One. And it had been smart enough to lay a trap, to disguise its energy signature, to lure them into its self-created domain.
"Barrier technique," Kasumi hissed, her katana now fully drawn, the blade gleaming with a pale blue aura of her own cursed energy. "It's sealed the room. We can't exit until we exorcise it or break the barrier."
"Great. A locked-room mystery with a monster. My favorite genre," Obito muttered, his voice trembling despite his attempt at sarcasm. The red of his Sharingan burned brightly, casting the hellish room in an even more surreal light. Through it, he could see the curse's cursed energy flow—a complex, swirling pattern of dark blue and violent purple centered in its torso. He could also see the barrier's structure: a thin, shimmering shell of energy encasing the entire room, strongest at the points where the doors and windows had been.
The curse's head-slit oriented towards them. There was no eye, but Obito felt the full weight of its attention. A low, bubbling groan emanated from it, a sound that seemed to bypass the ears and vibrate directly in the bones.
Then it moved.
It was deceptively fast for its size. One of its boneless arms lashed out, not at them, but at the space between them. The hooked spurs at its end scraped across the floor, tearing deep grooves in the wood and sending up a shower of splinters and foul liquid.
SCREEEEECH—CRUNCH!
The attack was a feint. The real threat came from the other arm, which whipped around in a wide arc towards Kasumi's blind side. But Obito saw it. The Sharingan tracked the trajectory, the muscle tension in the limb, the slight adjustment before the strike.
"Left!" he shouted, his own body already moving on instinct.
Kasumi didn't question it. She dropped into a low crouch, the scything limb passing just over her head with a violent WHOOSH that stirred her blue hair. In the same motion, she thrust her katana upwards, channeling her cursed technique.
"Cobalt Pierce!"
A concentrated beam of blue energy shot from her blade's tip, aimed at the curse's central mass. It struck the translucent sac with a sizzling ZZZAPT! The curse shuddered, letting out a pained, watery shriek. The shadows inside its torso swirled violently.
But the wound sealed almost instantly, the flesh knitting back together with a sickening squelch.
"It regenerates!" Kasumi warned, springing back to her feet.
The curse, now angered, focused on Obito. It had sensed his warning, his disruptive presence. Both arms retracted and then shot forward like harpoons, aiming to impale him from two sides.
In the slowed world of the Sharingan, Obito saw the twin points of death coming. He couldn't dodge both. Panic surged, and with it, his cursed energy flared wildly. He didn't have a fancy technique name. He just poured everything into his legs and leaped.
CRACK-BOOM!
He didn't just jump; he launched himself backwards with enough force to crater the blood-soaked carpet where he'd been standing. He slammed into the far wall, the impact driving the air from his lungs with a pained oof! The two hooked limbs stabbed into the space he'd occupied, punching through the floorboards and lodging there.
The curse tried to pull them free, but they were stuck fast. It was momentarily vulnerable.
"Now!" Obito wheezed, pushing off the wall.
Kasumi was already in motion. She dashed forward, her katana becoming a blur of blue light. "Cobalt Flash: Serpent's Bite!"
Her technique wasn't just raw energy; it had form and intent. The cursed energy around her blade condensed into the shape of a coiling, ethereal serpent that struck at the curse's stationary torso, not with a pierce, but with a series of rapid, slashing bites.
SHINK! SHINK! SHINK-TCHAK!
Chunks of gelatinous flesh flew. The curse thrashed, its trapped arms useless. The shadows inside its body leaked out like black smoke, screaming silently.
But it wasn't finished. Its head-split gaped wide open, and from within, a torrent of dark, brackish water erupted, aimed directly at Kasumi.
She tried to leap aside, but the spray was too wide. The water wasn't just physical; it was saturated with concentrated cursed energy that felt like acid and ice. It caught her left arm and side.
HISSSSSSS!
She cried out, a short, sharp sound of pain, as her clothing sizzled and her skin burned. The corrosive energy ate at her cursed energy reinforcement.
Obito saw her stagger, her concentration broken. The serpent technique dissipated. The curse, seizing the opportunity, gave a mighty heave and ripped its arms free from the floor with a sound of tearing wood and snapping tendons (RRRIIIP—SNAP!).
It turned its full, horrifying attention to the injured Kasumi.
A cold, clear thought cut through Obito's panic. She'll die. If she dies, you're next. And you can't break that barrier alone.
The red tomoe in his eyes spun wildly. The world didn't just slow; it became a series of data points. The curse's energy core. The weakened spot on its torso where Kasumi had struck. The trajectory of its next blow—a straightforward, crushing overhead slam with one fused-then-hardened arm.
He didn't have a technique. But he had cursed energy. He had these stupid, cheating eyes. And he had a week's worth of bottled-up rage and fear from getting beaten to a pulp every single day.
He channeled it all—not into reinforcement, but into pure, raw output. He focused it into his right fist, compressing the chaotic, smoke-like energy until it was a dense, vibrating shell of darkness. It wasn't skilled. It wasn't refined. It was a bomb he was holding in his hand.
As the curse's arm descended towards the kneeling Kasumi, Obito moved.
He didn't run. He blitzed. The Sharingan predicted the optimal path, a zig-zagging sprint that avoided patches of unstable floor and converging energy flows. He crossed the room in three strides, his feet sloshing through the filth.
He reached Kasumi just as the shadow of the curse's limb fell over them. He didn't shove her. He planted himself in front of her, his back to the curse, and raised his glowing, dark-energy-clad fist not to block, but to meet the descending blow head-on.
"Just… BREAK!" he roared, his voice raw.
The cursed arm met his empowered fist.
KABOOOOOOOM!
The collision wasn't a clean impact. It was a detonation. Obito's uncontrolled, volatile cursed energy reacted violently with the curse's dense form. A shockwave of force and dark light erupted from the point of contact, blowing backwards through the room. The luxurious (now grotesque) furniture disintegrated into splinters. The blood-red light in the walls flickered violently.
The curse's arm didn't just stop; it shattered from the point of impact upwards, exploding into a shower of black goo and fragmented bone spurs that rattled against the walls like morbid hail.
SPLAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT!
The curse reeled back, a gurgling, unearthly scream tearing from its head-slit. Its balance was gone. It stumbled, its one remaining arm flailing.
Obito wasn't unscathed. The recoil traveled up his arm with a sickening CRUNCH—he felt bones in his wrist and forearm give way. The force threw him backwards, right into Kasumi. They tumbled together in a heap of limbs and pain.
But Kasumi, despite her burns, was a trained sorcerer. Pain was a tool. She used the momentum of their fall to roll, coming up on one knee, her katana already glowing with her most concentrated technique. She saw the curse, off-balance, its core exposed and pulsing erratically from the backlash of Obito's attack.
She didn't waste the opening.
Gritting her teeth against the pain in her side, she poured every last drop of her cursed energy into her blade. The blue light became so intense it was blinding in the crimson gloom.
"FINAL COBALT: DRAGON'S FANG!"
She thrust her katana forward. The condensed energy didn't just shoot out; it coalesced into the form of a majestic, roaring dragon's head made of pure blue light. It flew true, a bolt of azure vengeance.
It struck the curse's exposed core dead center.
There was no explosion this time. There was a moment of absolute silence, followed by a high-pitched, shattering sound, like a giant pane of glass breaking.
CRIIIIICK—SHATTER!
The curse's body stiffened. The swirling shadows inside its torso froze, then dissipated into nothingness. The bloated sac deflated like a punctured balloon, collapsing in on itself with a wet, sighing sound (phhwwwoooosh). The remaining limb went limp. The entire form began to dissolve, turning into wisps of black smoke that were sucked into the void left by its destroyed core.
As it vanished, the cursed barrier around the room shattered as well. The blood-red light died. The horrible smell began to dissipate, replaced by the stale, but normal, air of a sealed hotel room.
The transformation reversed. The walls bled back into their cream color. The floorboards repaired themselves, the tears sealing shut. The bed reappeared, pristine and white, though now standing in the middle of a room littered with the real-world debris of their battle—splintered wood, torn carpet, and a fine layer of grey dust that was all that remained of the curse.
The door to the hallway was there again, solid and ordinary.
Silence descended, broken only by the ragged, pained breathing of the two sorcerers.
Obito lay on his back, cradling his shattered right arm against his chest. The Sharingan had deactivated, leaving his vision blurry and his head pounding with a migraine that felt like a pickaxe to the temple. Every part of him hurt. But his arm… his arm was a universe of agony.
Kasumi knelt beside him, her own left arm and side a mess of painful-looking burns, her uniform scorched. She was pale, sweating, but her eyes were clear. She looked from the now-normal room to Obito's mangled arm, to his pale, pained face.
For a long moment, she just stared.
Then, she spoke, her voice hoarse but unmistakably carrying a new, unfamiliar weight.
"You… you saw its movement. You predicted the feint. You positioned yourself for the counter." It wasn't a question. "And that energy… that was your cursed technique? A destructive, close-range explosion?"
Obito could only manage a weak, pained gasp. "I… don't… know… what it is…" he admitted between gritted teeth. "It just… happens… when I'm about to get… smushed."
Kasumi's gaze was intense, analytical. She was seeing him not as a useless tag-along, not as a Zenin charity case, but as something else. An unpredictable, self-destructive, but undeniably potent variable.
She slowly, painfully, got to her feet. She sheathed her katana with a soft click. Then, she reached into a pocket and pulled out her phone. It was cracked but functional. She made a call.
"Manager. Mission complete. Target was a high Grade Two, possibly semi-Grade One, barrier-capable curse. It has been exorcised." A pause as she listened. Her eyes flicked to Obito. "Yes. Confirmed. Obito Zenin's cursed technique manifested during combat. Visual-type, predictive capabilities. Secondary effect: high-destructive output, self-injurious. Recommendation: immediate extraction and medical attention. His right arm is severely damaged."
She hung up. She looked down at Obito, who was just trying not to pass out from the pain.
"The clean-up team is on its way. They will bring a medic and a cursed tool for bone repair." She paused again, that strange look still in her eyes. "You… did adequately."
It was the same assessment as before. But this time, it felt different. It felt earned.
Obito closed his eyes, a faint, pained smile touching his lips. Adequate. He'd take it. He'd take it, along with the broken arm, the migraine, and the lingering smell of death, if it meant he was one step closer to not being just "trash" in this terrifying, magnificent, utterly ridiculous world.
From the hallway outside, the first sounds of approaching footsteps could be heard—crisp, efficient, and blessedly normal.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
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End of Chapter.
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