Chapter Fourteen: The Third Mission, Osaka Factory Part Two
Anyway, after confirming there was nothing else they needed, the three of them finally entered the factory.
The moment they crossed the threshold from the dimming twilight into the factory's perpetual gloom, it felt like stepping through a membrane of filth. The air didn't just get colder; it got heavier, thicker, tasting of rust, old oil, and something indefinably rotten.
The intensity of the cursed energy rose directly the moment they entered.
It was an immediate, oppressive weight, a psychic pressure that settled on their shoulders like a wet, leaden cloak. The sheer density of the malevolence was stifling, making each breath feel like an effort.
Mai said in a slightly low voice, "There's a bad feeling inside it."
Her words were a soft, tense exhale in the cavernous space. They weren't spoken for dramatic effect, but as a flat, clinical observation of a physical phenomenon she was experiencing.
Her voice sounded like a warning to get out, because her feeling at this moment resembled entering a very large water pressure, as if she were deep underwater for a long distance in the depths.
The analogy was apt. The cursed energy didn't just surround them; it pressed in from all sides, a viscous, hostile medium that threatened to crush their will and pop their eardrums with its silent, screaming intensity.
Of course, while saying that, she was holding her pistol tightly, preparing it.
Her knuckles were white where they gripped the custom-made firearm. The blue energy around it flickered, a tiny, defiant star in the overwhelming dark. With a soft click-clack, she ensured a round was chambered, the mechanical sound absurdly loud and comforting in the organic, hateful silence.
In addition, she released a little of her cursed energy to cancel out this pressure that was descending on her head.
It was a subtle flex of power, a personal bubble of resistance. A faint, shimmering aura, visible only as a slight heat-haze distortion around her form, pushed back against the suffocating atmosphere. It was like adjusting your own internal pressure while diving.
"This is normal. If there is a large quantity of curses, this pressure will be generated naturally. Moreover—"
Kasumi's voice cut through, calm and instructional. She was the veteran here, the one who had felt this before, who had learned to breathe in this toxic air. She stood straight, her posture unyielding against the weight.
Kasumi was more experienced, and she said that and decided to stop before explaining directly.
She paused, her sharp eyes scanning the vast, shadowy interior of the factory floor. The pause was heavy, filled with the unspoken 'moreover.' It was the pause of a teacher letting the students realize the 'oh, and also' part of the lesson on their own.
"The presence of cursed energy to this extent means there is a possibility of the birth of a Grade One curse if this curse continues to exist. We must eliminate it as quickly as possible to solve the problem directly."
She delivered the bombshell with a chilling matter-of-factness. A Grade One. That was a different league altogether. That was the kind of curse that required special-grade attention or a small army of Grade One sorcerers. That was a city-block-level threat.
This flow of information settled between the heads of the two.
Obito felt the words land in his brain with the physical impact of a falling brick. The already heavy atmosphere seemed to double in weight.
Obito, although he was scared, when he thought about that possibility, he found the matter logical.
His mind, always looking for the least terrifying explanation, had to admit this one fit. The sheer volume of energy here wasn't just for show; it was fuel. Given enough time and misery, it could condense into something truly monstrous. The math was horrifyingly simple.
The cursed energy in this place was very high, enough that if it gathered with the existence of time, it could form a much stronger curse.
He could see it in his mind's eye: the swirling, hateful fog coalescing, gaining sentience and purpose, birthing a nightmare that would think, plan, and hunt. This factory wasn't just a nest; it was a cursed womb.
And such a danger was definitely something Obito did not want to face.
A vivid, unwelcome mental image flashed: himself, running for his life from a skyscraper-sized lump of hatred with too many teeth. Nope. Absolutely not. Let's not let that happen.*
Therefore, their concentration increased directly.
A new layer of grim determination settled over the fear. This wasn't just a routine clean-up anymore; it was preventative surgery on a tumor before it became cancerous.
And he truly decided to quickly explore the location of these hidden curses and eliminate them quickly.
The 'quickly' part was now underlined, italicized, and highlighted in neon in his mind.
Not out of a sense of duty, but out of a feeling that if he delayed, he might die in this place.
Ah, the purest, most reliable motivator: sheer, unadulterated self-preservation. It cut through all the philosophical dread and social anxiety like a hot knife. Don't die. Don't die. Find the curses. Kill them before they become the thing that kills you.*
And he did not want that to happen.
It was a simple, elegant life philosophy he was really starting to appreciate.
—
His Sharingan eyes adapted quickly and began transmitting information to his head.
The world dissolved further into its cursed-energy skeleton. The red hue of his vision painted everything in shades of blood and shadow. The chaotic swirls of energy became a map, a topographical chart of malevolence.
They were sending him signals about the cursed energy.
His brain was a command center receiving frantic, overlapping reports from a thousand screaming scouts. He could feel the flow, the eddies and currents of hatred moving through the factory's metal veins.
He was able to see the energy, its adaptation, and its level very accurately, enough to know the directions where the curses could be.
He filtered out the background 'noise'—the ambient, stagnant pools of low-grade misery—and searched for the 'signals'—the concentrated, moving knots of active malice. It was like trying to listen for specific whispers in a roaring hurricane.
In addition, he adapted the cursed energy in his head to increase the effect of the Sharingan, preparing for any surprise attack.
He pushed more of his own energy into his eyes. The tomoe in his irises spun faster, a hypnotic pinwheel of red against the gloom. His visual clarity sharpened, and his predictive capabilities—the faint, ghostly trails of where energy might move next—came online. His head throbbed with the effort.
—
On the other hand, Mai had stopped talking and taken out her pistol, placing it directly in a state of readiness.
Conversation was a luxury they could no longer afford. She moved with a silent, lethal grace, her footsteps making no sound on the gritty concrete floor. Her entire being was focused down the sights of her weapon.
Thus, after they entered and witnessed the abandoned factory, which was gigantic in every sense of the word.
The scale was overwhelming. Catwalks stretched into darkness above, vast machinery loomed like fossilized dinosaurs, and piles of scrap metal formed jagged, shadowy mountains. The echo of a single dripping water pipe somewhere sounded like a slow, erratic heartbeat.
Its size, in addition to it being an iron factory, meant there were certainly many accidents that had happened in it, perhaps hidden by the company before closing this factory.
The sense of industrial tragedy was palpable. Every dark stain on the floor could be oil, or it could be something else. Every rusted lever and broken conveyor belt told a silent story of neglect, fatigue, and sudden, violent ends.
Moreover, in these places where accidents and death abound, the levels of cursed energy are certainly much higher over time.
This wasn't just a building; it was a battery, slowly charging itself on decades of pain, frustration, and the final, terrified moments of its former workers. The air itself felt charged with old screams.
—
"There is a small amount of cursed energy coming from that place."
Obito's voice was a low murmur, strained from the concentration required to filter the sensory overload. He didn't point with his hand; he just tilted his head slightly towards a dark archway leading to a lower level.
Obito pointed to an area where he felt the cursed energy was much lower than the rest of the areas in this factory.
It was a curious anomaly. In this ocean of hatred, there was a small, calm lagoon. To his enhanced sight, it appeared as a dim, grey patch in a sea of violent, pulsing reds and purples. It stood out precisely because it was so quiet.
He was analyzing the place meticulously, monitoring every vibration of cursed energy.
His Sharingan-fed perception was a constant, humming scan. Every fluctuation, every slight surge, was noted and categorized. The mental strain was immense, a high-pitched whine in the back of his skull that threatened to become a migraine.
Moreover, his enhanced vision via the Sharingan was enough to allow him to be precise while saying that.
He could literally see the energy gradient, the way the miasma thinned out like smoke being drawn towards a specific vent. It was the clearest path in the chaotic landscape.
—
Kasumi stopped in her place, looked at Obito, and then said, "It's better we don't split up. We should go from the weakest to the strongest. It's not good to rush in a place like this."
Her strategy was textbook, pragmatic. Whittle down the enemy's numbers, conserve energy, avoid being surrounded. It was the sensible approach of someone who planned to survive the night, not just win a single fight.
Thus, the team set off towards the place Obito had indicated.
Their footsteps were the only human sounds in the vast metal tomb. The crunch of gravel underfoot, the soft swish of their uniforms, the occasional, deafeningly loud drip from a pipe high above.
There, everyone stopped when they arrived at an iron door in the basement level of the abandoned factory.
The descent down a rusted metal staircase had been a symphony of ominous creaks and groans, each step feeling like it might give way and send them tumbling into the darkness below. The door before them was solid, scarred, and slightly ajar.
This place must have been the iron processing area.
Signs, faded beyond legibility, hung crookedly on the wall. The air here was even colder, damper, and carried a metallic tang that clung to the tongue.
"Zenin."
Kasumi's voice was a command, not an address.
She was pointing directly towards Obito.
Her finger was an arrow of absolute authority in the gloom.
"You have an enhanced reaction due to your cursed technique. You open the door."
The logic was sound. The person with the best chance of perceiving and reacting to an ambush should be the one to trigger it. It was also, Obito noted with a sinking feeling, the job of the designated trap-springer.
She wasn't saying that because she was afraid, or so Obito wished.
He desperately wanted to believe she was delegating out of cowardice, that he could one-up her by being braver. But no. It was pure, cold, tactical sense. And that was somehow worse.
Anyway, he had carried out two missions with her, so he had gained some trust in her, even if that trust was low.
It was the trust of a soldier for a competent, if not beloved, officer. He trusted her not to get him killed on purpose. It was a low bar, but in the Jujutsu world, it was a veritable gold standard.
He went to the door and grabbed the handle.
The metal was freezing cold and gritty with rust. It leeched the warmth from his hand instantly. He took a deep breath, which did nothing to calm the frantic thump-thump-thump of his heart against his ribs.
He also tried to use some strength to be in the best condition, so if he were attacked at that moment, he could avoid it quickly.
He settled into a low, balanced stance, knees slightly bent, weight on the balls of his feet. Every muscle was coiled, a spring ready to unleash him backwards at the slightest provocation.
When he opened the door, the sound of metallic screeching appeared.
The noise was horrific. A long, drawn-out SCREEEEEEEECH that set his teeth on edge and echoed through the basement corridors like the scream of the door itself, protesting this intrusion into its long-held silence.
Before opening the door, he had opened it very slowly to be able to avoid any damage or attack if it happened at that moment.
*It was an exercise in controlled terror. Each inch the door gave way was a victory. He peered through the growing crack, his Sharingan piercing the absolute blackness within, searching for heat signatures, energy signatures, anything**.
"There isn't anything here."
Mai's voice came from behind him, flat and unimpressed, as she looked past Obito's shoulder into the room.
After opening the door, Mai said that while looking behind Obito.
She had her pistol raised, following his line of sight, but saw only stillness and deeper shadow.
But contrary to her, Kasumi was silent.
Her silence was more alarming than any warning. She hadn't lowered her guard. Her instincts were screaming something different.
She had gripped the hilt of her sword well, ready to move at any moment.
Her hand rested on the tsuka, thumb poised on the guard, ready to flick the blade free in a single, fluid motion. The pose was one of absolute, lethal readiness. A click from the sword's saya as she adjusted her grip was the only sound she made.
For her, the calm state of this room in this place that radiated with so much cursed energy was more cause for concern than anything else.
The emptiness felt like a trap. The lack of an immediate threat, in a location that should be teeming with the low-level curses Obito had sensed, was the most threatening thing of all. It was the quiet before the ambush.
—
On the other side, in front of them, Obito was looking at the equipment full of rust in this place.
The room was a graveyard of industry. Massive presses, conveyors, and lathes sat under thick shrouds of dust and corrosion. They were hulking shapes in the dark, like sleeping metal beasts.
Which, when he entered it, his first statement was that he smelled the rust entering his nose.
The scent was overpowering here—a dry, acrid, metallic smell that coated the inside of his nostrils and throat. It was the smell of slow death, of oxidation eating away at the bones of the building.
But he calmed himself and focused his Sharingan eyes on knowing if there was any curse in this place.
He swept the room methodically, left to right, top to bottom. He ignored the physical objects and looked only for the energy signatures. The initial scan showed… nothing. Just the same low, ambient pool he'd sensed from outside. It was deeply unsettling.
His concentration was the only thing he was trying to maintain at this moment.
It was a fragile thread holding back a tide of panic. Focus on the scan. Left. Right. Up. Down. Look for movement. Look for a pulse. Look for the lie in the stillness.*
—
Without Obito or any team member knowing, the curses that were all over the factory felt their presence.
The intrusion had registered. Like poking a beehive with a very long, very obvious stick. The dormant hatred in the air shifted, stirred, and focused.
And there was something ordering them to return to the room where the team was in the basement of the factory.
A command, silent and psychic, rippled through the cursed energy network of the building. It wasn't a sound, but a pull, a magnetic attraction towards the source of the disturbance—towards the three living sparks of energy in the silent basement.
Unfortunately, the team of three individuals did not feel the advance of the curses until the last moment.
They were focused inward—on the empty room, on the anomaly, on their own tension. The gathering storm outside their immediate perception went unnoticed until it was upon them.
Where, in one moment, Kasumi, who possessed the greatest amount of experience, in addition to Obito, who possessed the Sharingan that enabled him to see the disturbance in the cursed energy that began to rise and approach them little by little, felt it.
It was Kasumi who stiffened first, her head snapping towards the corridor they'd come from. A fraction of a second later, Obito's Sharingan caught it—the ambient energy in the hallways was no longer stagnant. It was flowing, rushing like a foul river towards their location. The calm grey pool in his vision was being inundated by a violent, rising tide of red.
"Dammit! There's a larger number of curses coming to this place!"
Kasumi's curse was sharp, a blade of sound in the quiet room. It wasn't fear, but furious recognition. The trap had been sprung, and they were the bait.
Mai Zenin did not hesitate.
Her reaction was instantaneous, born of drilled instinct rather than conscious thought.
She looked directly backward.
Her head turned, ponytail whipping through the air with a soft swish.
She hadn't felt the arrival of the curses yet, but she immediately believed Kasumi's words.
Trust in your squad leader's perception was another unspoken rule. If Kasumi said trouble was coming, trouble was coming. Period.
And raised her pistol to look, ready for any curse to enter.
She assumed a classic two-handed stance, feet planted, arms extended, her entire world narrowing to the sights of her gun and the dark archway of the door.
But she didn't realize that right in front of Obito, directly, there was a giant eye hidden behind the wall.
*While everyone's attention was pulled to the corridor, the true danger had been in the room with them all along. The 'calm' spot. The 'empty' room. It hadn't been empty; it had been concealed**.
It was barely visible.
A sliver of wet, yellowish sclera, veined with pulsing black capillaries, peered from a gap between two massive, rusted gear assemblies. It was motionless, unblinking, watching them with a patient, ancient malice.
But the moment the curses arrived close to this room, and the main curse had felt that, it began to reveal itself.
The psychic call had been its summons. The gathering of its lesser brethren was its signal to strike. The energy in the room, the 'calm' pool, began to churn and bulge.
Obito felt the cursed energy before everyone.
His Sharingan, still focused on the room, saw the truth unfold in horrifying slow-motion. The 'floor' of low-grade energy wasn't a floor at all. It was a skin. And it was now rippling, tearing, as something massive began to push its way up from beneath it.
He quickly took out the Butcher Knife he had placed in his bag and drew it.
The motion was frantic. He fumbled with the strap of his small pack, his fingers feeling thick and clumsy. The knife came free with a soft shing of metal against leather. Its plain, brutal edge looked pitifully small.
His quick posture caught the attention of Kasumi, who heard the movement of the Butcher Knife she had given to Obito.
*Her eyes flicked to him for a split second, then followed his horrified gaze into the depths of the machinery. She understood immediately. The threat wasn't just behind them. It was here**.
"There! There's a curse! It's stronger than any curse I've seen!"
*His voice was a hoarse shout, cracking with panic. He didn't have the vocabulary for grades in that moment; he only had the raw, animal sense of scale and threat. What he was seeing was wrong**, on a fundamental level.
Before he could finish his words, a low scream erupted.
It wasn't from the emerging curse. Not yet.
It was like a terrifying scream of several men asking for help.
The sound was a distorted, multi-layered chorus of agony. It seemed to come from the very walls, from the pipes, from the air itself. It was the sound of the factory's accumulated pain given voice—the final cries of the accident victims, twisted and amplified into a weapon of terror.
The curses that were advancing and coming out from the other side had appeared in front of Mai from a distance, emitting these sounds.
From the dark corridor, shapes began to pour forth. They were misshapen, humanoid only in the loosest sense—lumps of shadow and malice given form, trailing rust and ectoplasm. Their 'mouths' were ragged holes from which the terrible, layered screams emanated. "HEEEELP... GRIND... CRUSH... AAAAAAGH..."
The girl holding the pistol steadied herself as she heard these sounds coming from these curses.
She flinched, the horrifying audio assault hitting her like a physical wave. But her training held. She took a sharp, controlled breath, her jaw tightening. The pistol in her hands didn't waver.
And said, "It seems we have become trapped in this place."
Her statement was delivered with a dry, almost sarcastic flatness. The gallows humor of a sorcerer. Of course they were trapped. The universe's sense of timing was impeccable.
—
Kasumi finally realized that going to this place was a mistaken step on their part.
The tactical error crystallized in her mind with brutal clarity. They hadn't gone from weakest to strongest. They had walked directly into the lair of the strongest, lured by its clever disguise of weakness.
Her idea was to go from the weakest curse to the strongest to preserve strength and also to defeat them gradually.
It was a good plan. A solid plan. It just had the fatal flaw of being based on catastrophically faulty intelligence provided by a cursed entity with deceptive abilities.
But at this moment, she understood the changes that had happened in this place.
The pieces clicked together. The anomalous low energy reading. The sudden, coordinated convergence of all the factory's curses. The hidden presence in the room. It was all a single, horrifying strategy.
(This curse is the reason.)
Her thoughts were a silent snarl of frustration and renewed focus. The boss monster. The puppeteer.
The curse that was in front of Obito, which Kasumi finally managed to see after it appeared completely, in a disgusting form.
It hauled its full bulk into view. It wasn't hiding anymore.
It looked as if it were a deformity of flesh with a giant eye in the middle of its stomach.
The description didn't do it justice. It was a pulsating, amorphous mass of what looked like fused, decaying machinery parts and swollen, bruised flesh. Rusted pipes and bolts protruded from its form. At its core, dominating the central mass, was a single, enormous, bloodshot eye the size of a dinner plate. The pupil was a vertical slit, like a goat's, and it fixed on Obito with an intelligence that was deeply unnerving.
The matter was revolting, but she was accustomed to this from curses.
Her stomach didn't even churn. She simply categorized it: Type: Amalgam/Factory Haunt. Primary sensory organ: Central ocular. Probable weak point: The eye. Secondary threats: Appendages, psychic screams, command over lesser curses. It was just another day at the office.*
—
"What should we do now?"
Obito's question was less a request for orders and more a desperate plea for a miracle exit strategy. His voice was tight, strained. He really, truly wanted to leave this place.
Obito truly wished to leave this place, but when he saw the exit from which all the curses were coming, he didn't have the courage to go between those curses and leave.
The corridor was now a seething, screaming river of malformed shadows. Trying to run through that would be like trying to sprint through a woodchipper. It wasn't courage he lacked; it was a functional death wish.
Of course, Kasumi didn't know Obito's thoughts and only felt that Obito wanted to know the next step, so she said:
She misinterpreted his panic as a soldier awaiting orders. A good, if terrifying, sign.
"We must act quickly. Eliminating the strongest curse now is the only way to end this matter swiftly."
Her voice was ice-cold steel. There was no debate, no alternative. It was the only tactical play left: cut the head off the snake. The body might thrash, but it would die.
Obito was stunned.
The color drained from his face, visible even in the red hue of his Sharingan. Eliminate the strongest curse? The one with the creepy giant eye and the vibe of a final boss? With a butcher knife? His mind short-circuited for a second.*
And on the other hand, Mai could only keep herself calm while her heart was pounding because she heard Kasumi's words.
*Internally, she was screaming. Externally, her face was a mask of grim focus. Her heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic drumbeat shouting *bad idea bad idea bad idea, but her training shouted louder: Follow the plan. Trust the sword.
The blue-haired girl who possessed the katana was the calmest individual at this moment.
Kasumi stood between the horror in the room and the horde in the hall, a slender, unyielding line. Her calm wasn't an absence of fear; it was the mastery of it. It was a weapon in itself.
At the same time, her gaze was directed towards the disgusting curse before she spoke firmly.
She didn't look at the lesser curses swarming the doorway, which Mai was now covering with sporadic, precise gunfire—BANG! BANG! The sharp reports echoed deafeningly in the enclosed space, momentarily drowning out the screams.
"We must eliminate this curse before it gathers with the rest of the curses. I feel that all the curses in this area have been brought here by this one."
Her analysis was spot-on. The lesser curses weren't just converging; they were lining up, forming a crude, screeching wall to block their retreat, waiting for the main curse's command to swarm.
—
Of course, Kasumi didn't know that at this moment, Obito had thought of something terrifying when he heard this.
A realization, cold and slick as oil, slid into his mind.
(Damn it. I am the reason this happened.)
The bitter irony tasted like copper in his mouth.
Obito's desire was to go to the weakest curses so he could calm down while ignoring the danger.
His self-preservation instinct, his desire for the path of least resistance, had been his own undoing. He'd chosen the 'easiest' target, guided by his own fear and laziness.
But he didn't expect now, at this moment, to realize something terrifying: while he was searching for the weakest, he chose the lowest cursed energy aura.
He, with his fancy Sharingan, his superior detection abilities, had been played. He'd been the perfect fool, led by the nose by a curse smarter than he was.
But it turned out to be the aura of the curse that controls the rest of the curses in this place.
The lowest aura wasn't a sign of weakness; it was a sign of perfect control. The boss curse wasn't leaking power; it was hoarding it, containing it, using it to puppet its minions. The quiet spot was the eye of the hurricane.
He wanted at this moment to beat himself to death.
The urge for self-flagellation was strong. A mental image of him repeatedly hitting his own head with the butcher knife flashed, almost welcome in its simplicity.
But he looked at the disgusting thing and assumed a fighting stance.
There was no time for a guilt spiral. The giant eye was focusing, a nauseating wet sound accompanying its movement—squelch.*** A thick, muscular tentacle tipped with a sharpened piece of rebar uncurled from its mass and rose into the air.*
And he did not dare to say that to anyone at this moment.
His monumental screw-up would remain his secret. If they survived, maybe he'd confess over a drink. If they died, well, it wouldn't matter. The only thing that mattered now was not letting the tentacle skewer him.
He tightened his grip on the Butcher Knife, its mundane weight feeling utterly absurd.
It was like bringing a toothpick to a tank fight. He could almost hear the giant curse laughing at him, a sound that would probably be like grinding metal and splintering bones.
Across the room, Kasumi's blade finally cleared its sheath with a clear, resonant shing that cut through all other noise—a promise of violence.
Mai's gun fired again—BANG!—and a lesser curse at the door dissolved into smoke.
The giant eye in the stomach blinked, a slow, deliberate blorp of a sound.
And Obito thought, with a clarity born of utter terror:
Well. This is it. The consequences of my own cowardice. How… tragically predictable.
He took a step forward. It was either that or be crushed between the boss and the mob.
The real fight began.
──────────────────────
End of Chapter.
──────────────────────