Chapter Twenty: The Grade One Curse Part One
—Will we be able to live after this?—
The question echoed in Obito's skull, a frantic, silent scream against the rising tide of dread. The silver dome of Kasumi's Simple Domain hummed around them, a fragile soap bubble in a hurricane.
Even after slapping himself, Obito couldn't stop thinking that he was going to die if this continued.
The self-inflicted sting on his cheek had been a temporary distraction. Now, the pain was gone, replaced by the deeper, more pervasive ache of hopelessness. The bubble felt less like a sanctuary and more like a shiny coffin.
The field operating at this moment was something from Obito's memories, which pertained to the manga Jujutsu Kaisen.
A technique that creates a field that removes the opponent's energy and technique. It is a defensive technique, not an offensive one. This technique will continue to hide their cursed energy using the barrier they are trapped in for a certain period.
He recognized it. The 'Simple Domain'—New Shadow Style. A technique used by Miwa Kasumi in the series. A neutralizing field. In the story, it was a cool, niche ability. In reality, pressed against a humming golden wall with a monster evolving nearby, it felt desperately, pathetically small.
But this is not enough to last forever.
The thought was a cold, logical counterpoint to any budding hope. The Domain was a drain on Kasumi, who was already critically injured. It was fueled by the main barrier, which was itself under attack. It was a temporary fix with a very definite expiration date.
—It will disappear when the barrier disappears, or when the curse finishes consuming its cursed energy and evolves to a higher level. That will be the end.
Mai's voice was low, her words measured, each one dropping into the silent space of their dome like a stone into a still pond. She wasn't being pessimistic; she was stating the tactical reality. They were on a timer, and they could hear it ticking in the distant, building roar of the curse's power.
Mai said in a low voice while her head hurt, "Senpai, do you think they will send a Grade One shaman?"
Her question was a lifeline thrown into the dark. A hope for external salvation. Her eyes, heavy with exhaustion, were fixed on Kasumi.
Obito heard this, and his mind suddenly worked, even after being exposed to a reverse reaction to his action of thinking, he could only listen to Mai's words as if he had found something to ponder.
The mental gears, rusted and painful, began to turn. Hope was a dangerous drug, but in their situation, it was the only painkiller available.
—That's right. What if the support team requested a Grade One shaman, especially since the cursed energy was clear at this moment? It is certain that those outside know the curse inside is about to reach Grade One.
The logic was sound. Narumi Seto had seen the readings. He'd called for backup. A Grade One sorcerer—a real powerhouse, someone like Kento Nanami or Mei Mei from the story—could handle this. They could be on their way right now. A cavalry charge at the last possible second.
Kasumi sighed.
The sound was a weary exhalation, carrying the weight of her pain and concentration.
Her mind was focused on the restoration to the extent that she couldn't answer this question, and when she finished forming the barrier successfully, she said in a brief voice:
She had been channeling energy, her good hand pressed against the inner wall of their silver dome, her eyes closed in fierce concentration. The Domain's stability was a direct extension of her will, a thread she couldn't afford to drop. She opened her eyes, their usual sharpness dimmed by pain.
"There is a high probability, but that might be far away."
Her voice was a strained whisper. She didn't have the breath or the focus for more.
She didn't need to say more words; the content of her words said it was possible that help might come, but that doesn't mean we will stay alive when it comes.
The unspoken part hung in the air: Even if a Grade One arrives in five minutes, we might be dead in four. The curse finds us first. The barrier collapses and crushes us. Kasumi's concentration breaks and the Domain falls. A million ways to die before the hero shows up.*
This answer silenced Obito's dreams, in addition to making Mai shiver with cold.
The tiny spark of hope that had flickered in Obito's chest guttered and died. Mai wrapped her arms around herself, though the chill was metaphysical, not physical. The silver dome felt suddenly very, very small.
—
On the other side, in the room the group had fled from, the curse was contracting little by little.
The massive, pulsating amalgamation of flesh and machinery was undergoing a metamorphosis. It wasn't growing larger; it was becoming denser, more defined, like a star collapsing into a neutron star.
The huge mass and the eye began to shrink as if entering a stage of evolution.
The giant central eye, the size of a dinner plate, squeezed shut, its lids fusing. The surrounding, amorphous flesh writhed and compacted, bones cracking and reforming, metal melting and re-solidifying into new, sharper configurations.
The screams of the curses being absorbed were very high.
The process wasn't silent. It was accompanied by a final, horrific chorus. The lesser curses, the ones drawn in and being digested for their energy, weren't going quietly. Their dissolution was an agonizing, drawn-out process.
The curse was digesting them while they screamed.
Their forms, still semi-corporeal, were pulled into the central mass and unraveled at a molecular level, their essence converted into raw cursed energy. It was a factory of suffering, consuming its own parts to build a more perfect engine of hatred.
Their voices were the voices of people asking for help, but their deformed shapes being digested in the stomach of the Grade Two curse that had begun to evolve made their voices resemble the roars of beasts that spread in the room.
"HEEEELP... NO... GRIND... CRUSH... AAAAAAGH...!"
The pleas distorted, layered, deepened into something subhuman—a cacophony of industrial accident victims, tortured metal, and primal fear given voice. It was a sound that bypassed the ears and vibrated directly in the soul.
Finally, after half an hour of absorption, the sounds gradually disappeared.
The last echoing shriek faded into a wet, final gulp. Then, silence. A deep, profound, and terrifying silence that was worse than the noise. It meant the consumption was complete. The fuel had been loaded.
In addition to the room that was torn apart during the stampede of the curses trying to escape when their instincts realized they were about to die.
The room was a devastated landscape. The walls were scarred by deep gouges where curses had tried to claw their way out. Pools of evaporating ectoplasm stained the floor. The air was thick with the static aftertaste of extinguished malice.
Curses possessed primitive survival instincts like humans and animals. Curses exist everywhere in Japan, but they only attack humans when they feel negative emotions from those humans to become suitable food for them.
It was a basic rule of the ecosystem. Fear, anger, despair—they were the bait that drew the predators. But here, the predator had turned on its own kind, driven by a higher imperative: evolution.
At this same moment, the curses had completely stopped trying to escape when all of them died and became food for the factory curse.
The lesser curses were gone. Eradicated. Recycled. The factory was now home to a single, supreme predator.
This curse, which took on a human metallic appearance resembling a man, but with metal parts.
The evolution was complete. What stood in the center of the room was no longer a disgusting mound. It was a humanoid figure, roughly two and a half meters tall.
What distinguished this curse were the knives and sharpness present in the form of claws on the ends of the hands.
Its arms ended not in hands, but in clusters of rotating, serrated blades that gleamed with a wicked, oily sheen. They moved with a soft, metallic whirr-click, testing the air.
And the body that became more rigid, while there were two eyes in the place of the head and an eye in the chest in a feral shape.
Where a head should be, two smaller, blood-red eyes were set side-by-side, unblinking and intelligent. In the center of its chest, a third, larger eye—a vertical slit like a goat's—glowed with a cold, calculating light. Its body was a sleek, armored carapace of fused metal plates and taut, corded muscle-like tissue. It looked like a medieval executioner redesigned by a sadistic engineer.
The curse stopped in its place, and at the same time, a pulse of cursed energy was released.
It took a step forward. The movement was smooth, eerily graceful. Then, it flexed.
THUMP-WHOOOOM.
A visible wave of dark violet energy erupted from its form, a concentric shockwave that expanded outwards in all directions. It wasn't an attack; it was an announcement. A declaration of its new existence.
The pulse penetrated all parts of the factory, and at the same time, the barrier that the support team had created—
Outside, Narumi Seto and his team were all shocked that their barrier, which they had been trying to reinforce to the maximum possible extent in this short period, had begun to crack.
Narumi Seto and his team were all shocked that their barrier, which they had been trying to reinforce to the maximum possible extent in this short period, had begun to crack.
CRACKLE—ZZZT!
The golden dome, which had been bulging inward from the pressure, now sprouted a network of black, lightning-like fractures. The hum turned into a pained screech. Several of the reinforcement talismans blackened instantly and turned to ash.
The curse released its cursed energy on all parts of the barrier around the factory.
The Grade One curse wasn't lashing out blindly. It had identified the constraint. The pulse had been a probe. Now, it focused. Tendrils of concentrated, razor-sharp cursed energy, visible as black filaments, shot from its body and drilled into the barrier at multiple points, seeking weak spots.
It stopped attacking. It had become smarter. It wanted to get out directly and eliminate everyone.
It ignored the empty rooms, the hidden trio in their silver bubble. The immediate obstacle was the barrier. The prey outside was plentiful and defenseless. The intelligent choice was to clear the exit first.
It began to focus on the barrier that began to restrict its strength and cursed energy naturally, as if it realized the greater danger and left the weaker parts for a later period to deal with them later.
It had prioritized. The barrier was the lock on its cage. The three little sparks hiding inside were insects to be crushed after it was free. Its new intelligence was cold, efficient, and utterly terrifying.
—
The team of three were protected thanks to the barrier.
Inside their silver Simple Domain, the pulse wave washed over them. The dome shuddered violently, the silver light flickering like a guttering candle. Kasumi gasped, a fresh trickle of blood leaking from the corner of her mouth.
But even the New Shadow Style: Simple Domain—Complete had limits.
It was a derivative technique, a subset. It couldn't withstand the full, focused power of a Grade One curse. It was designed to hide and neutralize techniques, not tank brute-force energy assaults.
At this moment, Kasumi vomited blood and almost temporarily stopped activating the technique, but she insisted and gritted her teeth and said:
She doubled over, retching, a splash of crimson hitting the floor inside their pristine dome. The connection between her and the Domain wavered. The silver walls grew translucent for a heart-stopping second.
"Dammit! Its cursed energy... it's something I can't bear anymore!"
Her words were a strained hiss, forced out between clenched teeth. The sheer, oppressive weight of the curse's new energy signature was a physical pressure on her mind, threatening to crush her concentration and, with it, their only protection.
Obito was shocked; he also felt it, as did Mai, by the cursed energy coming from the direction of the room.
Even through the Domain's filtering effect, they felt it. A pressure that made the air feel like syrup, a psychic stench of refined hatred and cold, mechanical purpose. It was orders of magnitude worse than before.
But at the same time, it seemed as if it was fighting something else.
The energy wasn't directed at them. It was focused, channeled, concentrated in one direction—outwards. Towards the main barrier.
Soon, the three reached the conclusion; the three said at the same time:
"It's trying to destroy the barrier and get out of this factory!"
Their voices overlapped, a chorus of horrified realization. The curse wasn't hunting them. It was trying to break out of its pen.
The realization was astonishing. The evolution of this curse was terribly extreme.
From a semi-intelligent, reactive Grade Two they had been fighting, to a strategic, proactive Grade One that understood its environment and prioritized targets. The jump was not just in power, but in lethality.
From a weak Grade Two that they were fighting to a Grade One curse that thinks about getting out.
The goal had shifted. It was no longer just about killing the intruders. It was about expansion, about reaching the wider world where fear and negative emotions were a boundless buffet.
In addition to that, "It doesn't want to come to us. I'm sure it knows of our existence."
Kasumi, although suffering from the damage to her arm and the pain, was able to say that while trying to reinforce her style's private barrier.
Her breathing was ragged, but her analysis was clear. "It wants to destroy the barrier first because it restricts its cursed energy and doesn't allow it to move easily, especially since the evolution happened a short while ago; it needs time to control its cursed energy. It has gained enough intelligence to know the barrier restricts its ability to control cursed energy, so it wants to destroy it."
She was reading its actions like a book. The curse was consolidating its power, and the barrier was interference. It was eliminating the interference before dealing with the minor anomalies (them).
This curse was so extreme that Mai could only say her conclusion in a low voice, but Obito and Kasumi heard this easily and had the same conclusion.
Mai whispered, "It's... rational." The word felt wrong applied to such a thing, but it was accurate. It was behaving with a terrible, alien logic.
—If this barrier is destroyed, it means this curse will leave.
The two girls were thinking this way. A grim, hopeless thought. If the curse broke out, their immediate danger might be over. It would leave the factory, and they might survive… only to be consumed by guilt as it slaughtered the support team and possibly civilians beyond.
But Obito's eyes shone. He felt hope.
A wild, selfish, intoxicating hope burst into life within him. Unlike the girls, who wanted to live but had some desire to eliminate the curse, Obito had completely lost hope.
Contrary to the two girls who wanted to live but had some desire to eliminate the curse, Obito had completely lost hope.
Kasumi was a sorcerer with a code, a sense of duty. Mai had her pride, her complicated relationship with her clan and sister. Obito had… a burning desire to not be dead. That was it. That was his entire moral compass at the moment.
He did not want to kill the curse or do anything. He wanted to escape from this hell.
The heroic impulse had died when the ceiling almost crushed Kasumi. The 'save Mai to avoid Maki's wrath' plan had died when the barrier sealed them in. Now, there was only one directive left: SURVIVE.
He wanted to return to that harsh training with Kyoshi, the 30-year-old man who always hit him, because that was better than dying in this abandoned factory.
The memory of Kyoshi's grueling, painful drills seemed like a paradise now. At least there, the pain had a purpose, and death wasn't a metallic-clawed horror lurking in the next room.
This factory curse will kill them if it reaches them.
That was the simple, terrifying equation. Grade One curse vs. three broken, exhausted Grade Threes (at best). Result: red paste.
Therefore, he stopped for a moment while he thought of a plan.
His mind, which had been cycling through panic, began to coldly assess the new variables. The curse wanted out. The barrier was in the way. They were trapped inside the barrier.
—He will help this curse destroy the barrier. Then, he will be able to escape. After that, he won't care if Mai and Kasumi are present anymore.
The plan formed, ugly and simple. It wasn't about heroism or betrayal. It was about becoming a temporary part of the environment that aided the curse's primary objective, thereby achieving his own.
He wasn't a hero, and he wouldn't care about Maki's revenge anymore. True, she might take revenge on him, but at this moment, he will die in front of something completely non-human, something that will kill him without mercy.
The threat of future-Maki was abstract. The threat of the rotating blade-claws three rooms away was visceral, immediate, and currently drilling into the only thing keeping it from him. Future consequences were a luxury for people with futures.
Primordial fear controlled Obito's entire body, in addition to his feelings, which were just those of an ordinary person for more than two decades.
Beneath the reincarnated soul, the borrowed body, and the awakened Sharingan, was the core consciousness of a modern office worker who liked manga and quiet weekends. That person was screaming. That person wanted to live.
True, he is now 16, but that's only because he transferred to this body, but in truth, he is just an ordinary man who only loved reading manga and doing some desk work. That's all.
He wasn't a warrior. He was a tourist in a warzone, and his visa was about to expire in the messiest way possible.
Will he be able to survive again? What did he do throughout this mission?
He ran through a mental checklist, a pathetic resume for survival. Fought low-grade curses? Check. Activated Sharingan under duress? Check. Almost got killed multiple times? Check. Saved a teammate? Reluctant check.*
He improved in using his cursed energy. He felt he was capable of defeating Grade Three curses.
A small, bitter pride there. He'd gone from zero to… well, to barely competent against the weakest of the weak. It was like learning to swim in a puddle right before being thrown into a tsunami.
He gained a greater understanding of the Sharingan, to the point that he had even mastered the technique of enhanced vision, prediction, and the replication special to the Sharingan, even if it was to a simple extent.
The eye had unlocked levels under pressure. He could see trajectories, copy physical movements. It was impressive. It was also utterly useless against a concentrated blast of Grade One energy that would vaporize him before he could blink.
Every skill he mastered this day began to be etched in his head. Nevertheless, it didn't raise his confidence; it made him realize the tremendous difference that had surrounded him all the time.
The more he learned, the more he understood how deep the abyss was. His tiny candle of skill only illuminated how vast and dark the cave of his inadequacy truly was.
No matter what he does, even with the Sharingan, he won't be able to stay alive. Even if he had his body with its full capabilities once again, his technique is disabled and needs a lot of time before returning.
The Sharingan was a burnt-out circuit. His body was a broken tool. He had nothing left in the tank. He was running on fumes, and the fumes were almost gone.
His head is about to explode. Just thinking is difficult, but at this moment when his life was on the edge of a knife, he didn't find any other way to relieve himself except through thinking.
Paradoxically, the mental agony was a focus. The physical pain and fear were a white noise. The act of planning, of scheming, was a tiny island of control in an ocean of chaos.
His body was moving very slowly, without interest, between the two girls who were silent; each one of them was thinking her own thoughts.
Kasumi was focused inward, maintaining the Domain, her face a mask of pain and determination. Mai was staring at the silver wall, her expression unreadable, lost in some private calculation of survival or regret.
But he didn't care about any of that. All he cared about was focusing on one plan: staying alive.
Their internal struggles, their codes, their loyalties—they were abstractions. His own heartbeat was the only philosophy that mattered now.
Therefore, he said in a low voice, "We have to help this curse destroy the barrier."
The words left his lips calmly, almost casually, as if he were suggesting they order pizza. They hung in the silent, shimmering air of the Domain.
His voice was calm and had a cold tone, but not as a threat, but as one piece of advice he gave the two girls if they wanted to survive.
He wasn't commanding. He was presenting an option. The only option he could see that didn't end with them being found and slaughtered.
"How exactly are we going to do that?"
Kasumi's words surprised Mai and Obito, who had proposed this idea, pulling him out of his seriousness.
Kasumi's words surprised Mai and Obito, who had proposed this idea, pulling him out of his seriousness.
He looked at her as if looking at another person. He'd expected horror, rejection, a lecture on duty. Not a pragmatic question about methodology.
The girl shrugged her good shoulder and said clearly, "Don't look at me that way. I don't want to die. If the curse can be eliminated, I will do it. But if that means my death, I will stop. The reason I've been fighting until now is because I didn't want to lose hope."
Her confession was sincere and clear, coming from the person who had suffered injuries while fighting the curse, in addition to having saved them several times.
This sincere and clear confession from the person who had suffered injuries while fighting the curse, in addition to having saved them several times, was shocking enough to silence the two.
Even Obito, who had suggested the idea of destroying the barrier, was astonished. He stared at Kasumi, seeing her not as the infallible senpai, the embodiment of Jujutsu duty, but as a hurt, exhausted, scared teenager who also really, really didn't want to die.
He knew now that he wasn't in the world of manga, but in a real world similar to the world of Jujutsu. There are real people, and everyone wants to stay alive. There are no perfect, holy people.
The fourth wall of his isekai experience crumbled completely. These weren't characters following a plot. They were people. Flawed, desperate, selfish, brave, cowardly people, just like him.
Even Kasumi wanted to stay alive, in addition to Mai and him. Everyone wanted to stay alive.
It was a unifying, base-level revelation. Beneath the techniques, the clans, the grades, and the curses, they were all just mammals fighting for one more breath.
"Is there a way for us to destroy this barrier and help the curse?"
Mai thought of her sister. She thought of her desire to live. She didn't want to die in this place. The physical and mental pain exceeded limits, but her thinking was clear at this moment.
Mai thought of her sister. She thought of her desire to live. She didn't want to die in this place. The physical and mental pain exceeded limits, but her thinking was clear at this moment.
Her desire for survival, no matter the cost. Even if destroying the barrier might make the curse eliminate the people outside, she didn't care. That was selfishness, but it was acceptable selfishness to her.
Her desire for survival, no matter the cost. Even if destroying the barrier might make the curse eliminate the people outside, she didn't care.
She'd spent her life being less-than, being a pawn. Here, at the brink of death, her will crystallized: My life comes first. My survival. Everything else is negotiable.*
That was selfishness, but it was acceptable selfishness to her.
Obito understood that kind of selfishness. It was his own brand. He felt a strange, grim kinship with her in that moment.
—
Again, Obito couldn't believe these words. Those characters in the fictional world were now thinking about life more than he was.
He had been thinking only of destroying the barrier for survival, but from her words and her look, he knew she meant she was ready to pay the price even if it was the lives of the other people outside.
He had been thinking only of destroying the barrier for survival, but from her words and her look, he knew she meant she was ready to pay the price even if it was the lives of the other people outside.
Kasumi's pragmatism had a darker edge than he'd imagined. It wasn't just about duty; it was a cold calculus of acceptable losses. And right now, the support team outside were the most acceptable loss imaginable.
Therefore, he stopped and was silent for a moment and didn't know what to say. In the end, he didn't want to be the reason the people outside died.
A sliver of his old-world morality, a ghost of his past self, twinged. Narumi Seto, the nervous support staff—they were just people doing their jobs. Sacrificing them felt… wrong. Even for a coward.
But at the same time, he didn't want to be the victim who would ensure their survival.
The equation was brutal: their lives for ours. Three for a dozen? More if the curse got out into the city? The math was clear, but his stomach churned.
—Obito's life was the most important thing to himself. He wanted to live longer.
*The core truth, stripped of all pretense. He wanted to see another sunrise. He wanted to eat a meal that wasn't flavored with fear. He wanted to not be dead**. That desire was the strongest force in his universe.
He looked at Kasumi, then at Mai. Their faces were expectant, waiting for him to elaborate on his terrible, wonderful plan.
The silver dome flickered again as another concentrated drill of energy from the Grade One curse struck the main barrier. A sound like tearing metal echoed through the factory.
The clock was ticking.
He took a deep, shuddering breath.
The words, when they came, felt like someone else was saying them.
"We use the Domain," he said, his voice oddly flat. "We use it not to hide, but to... channel. We focus its energy, and our remaining energy, into a single point on the main barrier. We help the curse drill through. We create a weak spot. A door."
He looked at Kasumi. "You're connected to it. You can redirect its purpose, can't you? From hiding to... piercing."
Kasumi met his gaze. Her eyes, bloodshot and pained, held his for a long moment. Then, slowly, she gave a single, grim nod.
"It's possible," she whispered. "It will likely destroy the Simple Domain. And it will tell the curse exactly where we are."
Mai's voice was like ice. "Then we run like hell the moment it breaks. We don't look back."
Obito nodded. That was the plan. A simple, ugly, potentially catastrophic plan.
Help the monster break its chains.
And hope you're fast enough to slip out between its legs before it turns around.
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End of Chapter.
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