Chapter 59: The Sky Changes Color
"What is that?"
Maki came to a sudden halt in the middle of the forest and looked up.
A moment ago, the sky had still been clear and bright, sunlight spilling through the canopy in scattered gold. Now it was being swallowed whole by something black and immense, as if a giant hand had overturned a sea of ink above the Exchange Event grounds.
A Curtain.
But not an ordinary one.
It descended from the heavens like flowing tar, thick, heavy, and oppressive, swallowing the light at a speed visible to the naked eye. In only a few breaths, the entire venue was sealed beneath a dome of darkness.
It was not just the light that disappeared.
Even the temperature dropped.
The air turned cold and damp, and an indescribable pressure settled over everyone's chest the moment the black barrier closed.
Wuuuuuuuuu!
At nearly the same time, a shrill alarm pierced through Tokyo Jujutsu High.
It was harsh, urgent, and jarring enough to rattle the bones. The sound spread across the entire campus like an air raid warning, instantly pulling every nerve tight.
"Not just a Curtain, but the intruder alarm too?"
Maki gripped her naginata until her knuckles whitened, her gaze sharpening at once.
Unexpected developments during something like the sister school exchange were not impossible. But an alarm of this level meant only one thing.
This was no drill.
This was a genuine Level One emergency.
Not far from her, Panda and Toge Inumaki also stopped in unison, their expressions changing at once. Even Nobara Kugisaki, who usually met trouble with reckless confidence, clicked her tongue and tightened her grip on her hammer.
Something had invaded Jujutsu High.
Something big.
At the same time, outside the venue, inside the observation room, every monitoring screen flickered violently.
Static swallowed the live feeds.
Then all the images vanished.
The only thing left on the giant displays was a flashing red warning sign, pulsing over and over with a low, grating buzz that made the atmosphere feel even heavier.
"What happened?!"
Satoru Gojo rose to his feet in an instant.
A moment ago, he had still been lounging carelessly in his chair, teasing Utahime as usual. Now, for the first time since the event began, that playful laziness was gone from his face.
His expression turned cold.
Serious.
Although he had complete confidence in his students, this kind of large scale intrusion could not be dismissed as coincidence. It had been planned. Carefully.
And the aura clinging to this Curtain was all too familiar.
"Utahime."
Gojo turned his head slightly, his voice calm, but carrying a faint chill.
"You felt it too, didn't you?"
Utahime Iori's face was pale.
As a semigrade 1 sorcerer, her senses were sharp enough to understand how bad this was. The cursed energy seeping through the barrier was so dense it was almost nauseating.
"Yes," she said quietly. "It is a special grade cursed spirit."
Then her expression darkened further.
"And not just one."
"Besides the one maintaining the Curtain, there is something even worse inside."
At those words, even Yoshinobu Gakuganji frowned.
The old principal's cane struck the floor with a heavy thunk.
"To cast a Curtain over Jujutsu High itself," he said darkly, "those curse users have gone mad."
"I'm going."
Gojo did not waste another second.
His body blurred and vanished from the room.
In the next instant, he was already standing at the outer edge of the Curtain.
The barrier loomed before him like a wall of living darkness, rippling faintly, separating the inside from the outside with absolute malice.
Gojo raised a hand and touched it.
Zzt. Zzt. Zzt.
A powerful rejection force exploded outward immediately.
It was not simple resistance. It was a rule. A binding condition built directly into the Curtain itself. Even when Gojo tried to push through with the Limitless, the barrier twisted and repelled him in a bizarre, unnatural way.
His hand stopped.
Then he let out a small laugh.
"As expected."
He adjusted his sunglasses, and a cold, dangerous smile curved at the corner of his lips.
"A Curtain specifically designed to keep me out."
With this level of rejection, they had clearly sacrificed defensive balance in exchange for a single function. Exclude Satoru Gojo from the battlefield, no matter the cost.
Interesting.
The rats had come prepared.
They understood it perfectly. As long as Satoru Gojo remained outside, the students trapped within would be forced to face the worst case scenario alone.
But then Gojo lifted his gaze toward the black sky and smiled a little more deeply.
"Still," he murmured, "did you forget about someone?"
Inside the Curtain, in a secluded section of the forest, Yami, Yuji Itadori, and Aoi Todo had all gone still.
The three of them had been talking only moments ago, the atmosphere still half warm from Todo's absurdly intense lesson on Black Flash. Now that mood had vanished completely.
All three were staring upward.
The sky had been painted black.
The sunlight was gone.
Only the suffocating pressure remained.
"This is getting interesting," Todo said, though the grin on his face only widened.
He called it interesting, but the battle lust in his eyes had not faded in the slightest. If anything, it had become even more violent.
"A Curtain of this scale, plus that disgusting cursed energy. This exchange event has officially turned into live combat."
"Hell level live combat," he added with obvious satisfaction.
Yuji looked around anxiously.
"Megumi and the others are still out there," he said. "They'll be okay, right?"
The oppressive feeling brought him right back to the juvenile detention center. That same suffocating dread. That same instinctive warning from every nerve in his body.
No.
Stronger than that.
This was not an ordinary cursed spirit.
This was special grade.
And not the mindless kind, either.
He turned instinctively toward Yami.
"Yami, what do we do?"
Yami had not spoken since the Curtain fell.
He stood still with his eyes closed, breathing slow and steady, as if listening to something that only he could hear.
Total Concentration.
The forest air was heavy with scent. Damp wood. Earth. The grassy bitterness of plants. And beneath it all, the smell of scorched soil and ancient malice.
To anyone else, it was only unpleasant.
To Yami, it was like a drop of filthy black dye spilling into clear water.
Hanami.
That plant like cursed stench was impossible to mistake.
And hidden beneath it, more subtle and more repulsive still, was another presence.
Mahito.
Yami slowly opened his eyes.
There was no fear in them.
Only clarity.
"So they finally came."
His voice was calm, but a strange light flickered deep in his red pupils.
He had expected this moment from the very beginning. From the moment the exchange event started, he had known the real battle would come sooner or later.
The original course of events had shifted because of him, but not enough to erase the storm completely.
Hanami had still arrived.
And this time, it had come for Yuji.
And for him.
"Todo. Itadori."
Yami's voice was steady, cutting cleanly through the pressure in the air.
The moment they heard him, both of them calmed down.
"We split up."
Todo raised an eyebrow.
"You take Itadori and support the others," Yami said. "Especially Maki's side. There is another strong cursed presence there."
Yuji blinked. "What about you?"
Yami turned his head and looked into the deepest part of the forest.
The cursed energy there was thickest.
Megumi Fushiguro, Toge Inumaki, and Kamo Noritoshi were in that direction.
And so was Hanami.
"I'm going there."
His hand rose and rested on the hilt of Shiranui.
At once, a familiar heat passed from the weapon into his palm, as if the blade itself had already sensed battle and begun to thirst.
"There is a big one over there."
Yami's gaze sharpened.
"I'm going to cut it down."
The moment the last word fell, his figure vanished.
No warning.
No wasted motion.
One second he was there. The next, only a gust of wind remained, whipping dead leaves into the air and sending branches shuddering in his wake.
Yuji stared after him.
Todo watched the direction Yami had disappeared and broke into a wild grin.
"Truly worthy of being my sworn brother."
Then he slapped both hands against his cheeks and roared, "Come on, Itadori!"
"Let's go make some noise of our own!"
"Do not disgrace the taste of tall women!"
Yuji's face twitched. "That has nothing to do with this!"
"Everything has something to do with this!"
Even so, he still clenched his fists and nodded.
"Right!"
The two of them took off at once, vanishing into another section of the forest.
Deep beneath that black sky, the battlefield was already changing.
Everywhere, students and cursed spirits were being pushed toward their own trials of life and death.
And at the darkest center of it all, a red glow had quietly begun to burn.
It was the light of Sun Breathing.
The light of a blade.
The light of hope that existed solely to cut through despair.
.....
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