"What do you mean they're not here? Don't send me on a mission alone!"
Utahime Iori, currently riding in a Jujutsu High vehicle toward the site of a sudden Cursed Spirit incident, recalled the sarcastic remarks from those two before their business trip.
"Utahime, be a good girl and watch the house. Geto and I are going on a trip."
"By the way, absolutely do not take a mission alone. I don't want to come back with Geto only to hear you got eaten by a Cursed Spirit."
"Satoru, maybe you shouldn't say that about Utahime."
"She can just run if she can't beat it. After all, no one at Jujutsu High runs faster than her."
"Suguru, I think your comment was even meaner than mine. Hahahaha."
Utahime grinded her teeth in anger. So, when she heard a high-grade Cursed Spirit had appeared in the abandoned chemical district of North Ikebukuro, she came immediately.
"Those bastards Gojo and Geto... I can do this perfectly fine without you two!"
As she clumsily climbed over the police cordon, Utahime was still cursing under her breath.
"Just watch! I, the great Utahime, will exorcise this spirit!"
But as she marched confidently, chest puffed out, through the "Curtain" set up by other sorcerers, she realized she might have spoken too soon.
"What IS this?!"
Utahime's eyes went wide the moment she entered. All she could see were dazzling flames shooting into the sky, illuminating her face.
The entire industrial zone was engulfed in terrifying orange fire, turning night into day. It felt like another world; completely different from the outside, the inside was like a blast furnace.
This wasn't an illusion. A heatwave slammed into her face, and Utahime felt the moisture in her body evaporating rapidly.
"Damn it, toxic gas..."
In a burning and enclosed space, massive amounts of toxic fumes had accumulated.
The concentration was so high that Utahime's vision immediately began to blur and double. She sensed the danger, but she had already inhaled too much; it was too late to use Cursed Energy to neutralize it.
"Sigh... you really are hopeless."
Just as Utahime swayed and was about to collapse, another sorcerer who had noticed her entry caught her. The stranger put a gas mask on her and used Cursed Energy to alleviate her symptoms.
"Thanks..."
Utahime felt much better after putting on the mask. At the same time, she recognized the person supporting her and expressed her gratitude.
"If you really want to thank me, 500,000 yen will do."
Seeing Utahime was fine, her savior cracked a small joke.
"Miss Mei!"
The person who prevented Gojo and Geto from coming back to find Utahime reduced to a box of ashes was a senior to all three of them at Jujutsu High.
Mei Mei. A tall woman who wore a black, waist-cinching suit year-round, her hair tied in a high ponytail that made her look exceptionally capable.
Also a graduate, she was a powerful Grade 1 Sorcerer and served as an Assistant Director at Tokyo Jujutsu High. She was extremely reliable.
"Miss Mei, why are you here today?" Utahime asked.
"Hmm?"
Mei Mei quickly typed a reply on her phone before sliding it back into her pocket—the high heat here could make the battery explode, after all.
"Oh, the Sorcerer Association paid a hefty appearance fee for me to settle this."
Mei Mei's tone was completely flat. Just doing a job for money.
"But as you can see..."
From her conversation with Utahime, it was clear: Mei Mei was a pure capitalist. She did exactly as much work as she was paid for.
Although the fee was substantial, it wasn't enough to make her walk through hellfire.
"I'm preparing to withdraw."
"How can you..."
Utahime's first reaction was to ask her to stay, but knowing Miss Mei's personality, she stopped herself.
"Utahime, you should retreat quickly too. Although I don't know the exact situation with the Cursed Spirit inside..."
Mei Mei offered her advice, a judgment from a Grade 1 Sorcerer.
"But it's definitely bad. This Cursed Energy fluctuation..."
Not quite Special Grade, but extremely close. It was practically quasi-Special Grade level.
An incredibly powerful individual among Grade 1 spirits.
But the stubborn Utahime wouldn't listen. Since everyone kept denying her ability, saying she couldn't do it, she was determined to prove them wrong just this once.
Angry, Utahime rolled up her sleeves, revealing her slender arms, and prepared to charge into the fire.
"I'll show you all!"
"Is this really the time to play hero? You idiot."
Mei Mei rubbed her forehead helplessly. As an Assistant Director, she couldn't just sit back and watch.
"What?"
Just as she was about to grab the fool and drag her back, her heart seized with a violent spasm from some unknown cause.
Mei Mei knew exactly what this was. Her intuition was exceptionally strong; her body always warned her before danger arrived.
There wasn't even time to shout a warning. Ignoring her image, Mei Mei lunged forward, tackling Utahime to the ground.
"What are you doing? Mei—"
Utahime didn't finish her sentence. An intense sense of crisis choked the words back down her throat.
BOOM!
A split second later, an unimaginable, thunderous roar came from the distance. The ground shook violently, as if the earth itself was screaming.
Lying prone, Utahime slammed into the ground twice—once from Mei Mei's tackle, and a second time from the rebound after the ground was compressed by immense force.
"What is it this time?!"
Not an explosion, but something smashing into the ground with incredible force.
The earth shook so hard she thought it was the apocalypse. A terrifying shockwave erupted from the impact center, sweeping in all directions. It actually extinguished the raging flames of the entire chemical plant. Even the "Curtain" Mei Mei had set up couldn't withstand the force and shattered into fragments in the sky.
Soil from the surrounding green belts was blasted ten meters away, burying both Mei Mei and Utahime. Thankfully, they were wearing gas masks, or they would have suffocated.
When the two of them, covered in dirt, clawed their way out of the mud, they saw it.
The central area of the chemical zone no longer existed. In its place was a massive crater nearly 150 meters in diameter. Terrifyingly thick arcs of blue lightning crawled continuously within the pit, crackling loudly.
It looked like a scorched wasteland from the end of days.
"We survived..."
Utahime, surviving the disaster, was so weak-kneed she couldn't even stand. Gone was her earlier high-spirited demeanor; she sat on the ground in a "duck sit," completely collapsed.
This was even more intense than the near-zero-distance explosion Gojo that bastard had subjected them to last time.
Unlike the useless Utahime, Mei Mei stood up unsteadily. She shook off the dirt on her clothes and formed a strange hand seal to activate her technique.
In the sky, dozens of crows immediately appeared from the distance, flying from all directions toward the center of the incident.
Soon, Mei Mei discovered the culprit.
In the center of the crater, a massive figure appeared before her eyes. It wore heavy, full-body armor in sapphire blue with gold trim—gorgeous and exquisite, like something a medieval noble would wear, but far grander.
Honestly, she had never seen armor more exquisite than art even in national museums around the world.
And those violent, snake-like blue lightning bolts originated from that magnificent "armor." It was filled with a sense of power and beauty, and a terrifying majesty.
He raised the strange curved blade in his hand.
Shk. A flash of blade light.
The Cursed Spirit, which had already had two-thirds of its body smashed, was completely dissipated into the air after this clean, decisive strike.
When that strange armor raised its head and glanced at the crow, Mei Mei cursed inwardly and immediately tried to cut the connection with her bird.
But it was too late. Mei Mei felt paralyzed. When she came to, a blue giant god capable of overlooking heaven and earth appeared before her, staring down at her from the sky. Its terrifying majesty crushed her, making it impossible to breathe.
She had never felt so small.
It effortlessly breached her mental defenses. Panic, awe, fear—words weren't enough to describe it.
"Miss Mei?"
Utahime touched Mei Mei very carefully, but she reacted violently, as if electrocuted.
"Demon God..."
Mei Mei crouched on the ground, hugging her shoulders tightly. Her expression was one of panic, and she kept repeating the words like she was possessed.
"That was a blue Demon God..."
This was the first time humanity in this world had witnessed the cursed psychic power of the Thousand Sons Legion.