Mei Mei let out a soft, polite laugh. It sounded nice, but it had all the warmth of a cash register opening. "No, I suppose a student wouldn't. But you do have value. Satoru doesn't hide things unless they're worth hiding. And Utahime mentioned a boy with a very loud, unregistered sword blowing out windows."
Ren kept his face completely blank, though internally he was cursing Gojo, Yaga, and Utahime for having that loud argument about his Special Grade katana right outside his room. "Must be someone else."
"Of course," Mei Mei agreed easily. She didn't press him. Pushing too hard wasn't her style—she was just planting seeds. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out a heavy, expensive-looking business card and held it out.
Ren took it. It was minimalist. Just her name and a number.
"If you ever find yourself needing a favor, or if you decide you want to put those unique physical skills to profitable use, call me," she said. She turned on her heel, her boots clicking sharply against the floorboards. Pausing at the top of the stairs, she glanced back over her shoulder. "Just remember, my loyalty is entirely for sale. Make sure you can afford it before you dial."
Ren watched her disappear down the stairwell. He looked at the card, shaking his head. The woman was literally a walking mercenary.
He stepped back inside, locked the deadbolt, and tossed the card onto the nightstand. Dumping his jacket on the chair, he collapsed back onto the bed.
So much for peace and quiet. Ren stared at the ceiling, flipping Mei Mei's heavy business card between his fingers. He tossed it onto the nightstand, letting it land with a soft thud.
Why did she actually come here?
There was no way Satoru sent her. If Gojo wanted to check on him, he would have just kicked the door down himself. She was fishing.
Utahime and Yaga must have complained loud enough about his unregistered Special Grade sword that the rumor slipped off campus.
A weapon as capable as Nightfall was exactly the kind of prize a mercenary like Mei Mei would want to appraise—or steal.
He let out a slow breath. He just had to keep his head down for two more days.
A sharp, synthetic chime pinged in his head.
The dim room was instantly bathed in the familiar, soft blue glow of the System interface. A translucent panel snapped into existence directly above his face, hovering inches from his nose.
Ren frowned, his combat instincts flaring for a fraction of a second. He hadn't mentally summoned the interface, and he definitely hadn't killed any curses on his walk back from the clinic.
The scrolling text locked into place.
[ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED]
Milestone: Maximum Capacity Reached
Condition Met: Successfully stockpile 50,000 Cursed Energy Units and completely fill a Level 2 Dimensional Inventory Energy Storage.
[HIDDEN CONDITION MET]
Flash Flood: Transition from baseline storage to Maximum Capacity in under 60 seconds. (Time Recorded: 3.14 seconds).
[REWARDS DISPENSED]
+5,000 System Points (Base Milestone Reward)
+5,000 System Points (Speed Bonus)
Ren stared at the glowing blue text. Ten thousand points just for letting Gojo poke his sword for three seconds. He let out a quiet, disbelieving laugh, dropping his head back against the mattress.
"That was literally the easiest payout of my life," he muttered to the empty room.
He dismissed the achievement notification and pulled up his main status page. With the new deposit, his current balance updated to exactly 25,000 System Points.
It wasn't enough to buy any game-breaking innate techniques just yet, but having a solid stash of currency heading into Halloween was a massive relief.
The blue screen vanished, plunging the room back into complete darkness. Ren didn't bother checking his phone or running through any more mental simulations. He kicked his boots toward the corner, pulled the blanket up over his shoulder, and passed out.
...
Wham. Wham. Wham.
The door rattled violently in its wooden frame.
"Ren! Hey, Ren! Wake up!"
Ren groaned, burying his face deeper into the pillow. The knocking didn't stop. It sounded like someone was hitting the wood with a closed fist.
"I know you're in there! I can hear the air conditioner!" Yuji yelled from the hallway.
Ren reached out blindly, grabbing his phone from the nightstand. 7:15 AM. October 30.
Ren rolled over and rubbed his face. He threw the blanket off, grabbed a clean black t-shirt from his desk chair, and pulled it over his head.
He unlocked the deadbolt and yanked the door open.
Yuji stood in the hallway, fully dressed in his dark uniform, holding a half-eaten convenience store egg sandwich.
"Morning," Yuji said around a mouthful of bread.
"It's barely sunrise," Ren muttered, leaning against the doorframe. He squinted against the harsh fluorescent light of the hallway.
Yuji swallowed the bite of his sandwich and pointed the remaining half at Ren. "Nanami-san wants us at Shibuya Station by eight."
Ren stared at him. "Eight. In the morning. On a Friday."
"Yeah, something about pre-Halloween crowd control and cleaning some curses before the city gets too crazy," Yuji explained, completely unbothered by the early hour. "Fushiguro is already waiting by the campus gates. Oh, and Nobara said if you make us late, you have to pay for her breakfast."
Ren rubbed the back of his neck. Shibuya Station.
"I'm ignoring the threat about breakfast," Ren said. "Give me two minutes."
He pushed the door shut, leaving Yuji in the hall. He didn't bother showering. He grabbed his uniform jacket from the chair and hoisted his canvas duffel bag off the floor. The matte-gray scabbard of his Special Grade katana clunked heavily against his back as he pulled the strap over his shoulder.
He grabbed his boots and headed out.
Down at the campus gates, Nanami stood by the stone pillars, checking his wristwatch. He wore his usual tan suit and spotted tie, looking more like an exhausted salaryman than a Grade 1 sorcerer. Megumi stood next to him, scrolling quietly on his phone, while Nobara aggressively tapped her foot.
...
Hundreds of miles north of Tokyo, the freezing wind howled through the dense, snow-dusted pines of Shiretoko National Park in Hokkaido.
Maki's boots kicked through the knee-deep snow. The wind off the Sea of Okhotsk bit at her face, freezing the stray hairs escaping her ponytail. She swung her wooden naginata at a dead pine branch blocking the trail.
The wood exploded.
Maki stopped. Woodchips scattered across the white drifts. She looked at the blade of her polearm, then down at her gloved hands.
She pulled her right glove off with her teeth and spit it into the snow.
Staring at her bare palm, she pressed her thumb into the center of it. The persistent, annoying buzz of her cursed energy—the tiny drop that had anchored her to the bottom of the Zen'in clan her entire life—was fading.
It wasn't just fading. It was being actively pulled.
"It's draining," she murmured, her breath pluming in the freezing air.
She squeezed her hand into a fist. The tendons in her wrist and forearm locked tight as steel cables. She could feel the exact density of her own bones. She was stronger. Ridiculously, effortlessly stronger.
But the math didn't make sense.
A Heavenly Restriction was a pact etched into the soul at birth. Because she was a twin, her soul was split. Mai held the other half. No matter how hard Maki trained, she could never reach absolute zero unless the other side of the scale shifted. For her ceiling to break, Mai's energy had to be vanishing, too.
Maki lowered the naginata. The cold wind suddenly felt a lot sharper.
Why would Mai's cursed energy be dropping?