"Is this your doing?"
"It wasn't me. I didn't do it. Who told you that?"
"Oh."
Junpei's gaze lingered on Kira for a long time before finally sliding away. He was silent for a while, then forced a sound from his throat. He turned his blank face toward the door and began shuffling away, one leaden step at a time, like a corpse learning to walk.
So his mother was killed... Right—Junpei left the cinema with me. X was inside the theater and saw everything.
Was it a warning? Or does it mean something else?
Junpei has a natural talent for jujutsu. Did X target him because of that?
Does the time of death coincide with when I escaped from the school... Kira felt a deep sense of wrongness. A profound unease.
Why would he suspect me based on timing alone?
That doesn't make any logical sense...
"Junpei."
Kira tried to call him back, but Junpei seemed not to hear. He dragged himself forward with heavy steps, through the door, down the stairs.
His pace quickened. Faster and faster—as if fleeing from something. Faster still.
Kira frowned and hurried after him. Light fell on Junpei's back, casting a long shadow down the corridor. Kira followed that shadow through the door, down the stairs.
Junpei was nearly running now, sprinting desperately, his shadow lurching across the stairwell like a guttering candle. At last he reached the building's exit and crashed through the door, stumbling out.
The rust-covered door groaned open, deep and heavy, flakes of red rust crumbling away. It creaked back toward the frame, and in the instant before it shut—another slender hand caught it.
Kira pushed the door open. Blinding sunlight struck his eyes, filling his vision with pale amber halos. He squinted, and at last made out what was lined up outside, rank after rank.
Sorcerers clutching an array of Cursed Tools. CE surging through every one of them. Identical black uniforms. Faces grim and tense, all fixed on Kira.
Dozens of them.
The sorcerers of Jujutsu High.
At least four Grade 1s among them.
Nobara Kugisaki. Yuji Itadori. Megumi Fushiguro—they were there too, mixed into the crowd, watching Kira with complicated expressions.
Kira swept his gaze across the assembly. His eyes met Hoshino Ei's in the crowd. She smiled at him—a sly, catlike grin, smug and proud.
She's still here, in the school... This body is another one of her avatars.
"Kira-kun. Long time no see."
The woman at the front inclined her head slightly. Brown hair drifted in the wind. She tucked a stray strand behind her ear—her left eye hidden beneath her hair, her right eye narrowing into a lazy arc.
"If you don't mind—would you come with me?"
Grade 1 jujutsu sorcerer. Mei Mei.
Kira tilted his head.
"I just left the school without permission. Surely that doesn't warrant this kind of welcome."
Mei Mei's lips curled with amusement, her gaze drifting lazily as she drawled:
"Let's not dance around this. Talking costs extra."
"And what's the non-extra option?"
Kira's expression darkened.
"Drag you back—or kill you."
Dozens of CE signatures erupted at once, blazing in the afternoon sun with a radiance fiercer than the sun itself.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
The air tore apart. In the span of a single exchange, Mei Mei was already in front of him. A massive battle-axe swung high, golden sunlight streaming along its edge, carrying unstoppable force and speed as it cleaved toward Kira.
No time to dodge. His right hand flew up beside his ear, a faint pink glow flickering. Killer Queen's hand shot out—but in the next instant, the axe crashed into his right side and sent him and Killer Queen flying together.
A shockwave of wind pressure erupted from the point of impact.
It howled and shrieked, slamming into the trembling window panes. Every one of them shattered.
Click.
Kira pressed his finger mid-flight. The axe in Mei Mei's hand disintegrated in a rapid chain—the massive, meters-long shaft, its dark-gold grain pattern igniting with invisible flame, snaking toward her grip like a shadowy serpent.
Boom.
Half of Mei Mei's arm was torn open by the blast. Kira, meanwhile, crashed to the ground from mid-air, smashing a massive crater into the earth.
"You can even turn a Cursed Tool into a bomb..."
Mei Mei's shoulders trembled—as though she might cry:
"Do you have any idea how much that was worth? No—do you know how long it was with me? How many times we've fought for our lives together? Do you—"
"I happen to own a villa in the Kyoto suburbs."
"You're forgiven."
Mei Mei smiled, tilting her head.
"But I still can't let you go."
Her slender fingers wove rapidly before her chest, tracing pattern after arcane pattern, finally pressing together in a strange mudra. Her entire body's Cursed Energy trembled and began to converge:
"Black Bird Manipulation."
For a sorcerer, the most effective way to amplify one's power was a life-or-death Binding Vow.
Everything in existence carried Cursed Energy and was bound by its limits. Mei Mei's Black Bird Manipulation could release the binding on a crow—at the cost of the crow's life, removing every limiter on its Cursed Energy and sending it on a suicidal collision course with the enemy.
The force was enough to one-shot a Special Grade Cursed Spirit.
Its name—
"Bird Strike!"
A black crow dove from the sky—like a bolt of lightning, like a lance of fire—carrying incomprehensible power and speed as it slammed into Kira's chest.
It disintegrated into pulp, into a cloud of feathers drifting through the air.
No sound. The wind was left behind in that instant. The scene plunged into absolute silence.
The delayed shockwave finally detonated, snapping everyone's clothes taut.
"Can you tell me why? What happened?"
Kira's muffled voice broke the silence. Sheer Heart Attack was pressed against his chest—it had absorbed the brunt of the impact.
But what remained was no small thing. The residual force had punched deep into his torso, rattling every organ. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.
"If you'd just come with us quietly, none of this would've happened!"
Mei Mei's silhouette vanished. Her black dress trailed afterimages. Overhead, another pitch-black crow dove, falling in formation beside her, both bearing down on Kira.
"Negotiations have failed, then."
Kira pressed the switch.
A fist-sized hole erupted through Mei Mei's abdomen—no, blasted open. Blood sprayed outward. Organs, bone, flesh—all laid bare.
The devastating hit obliterated her balance instantly. Like a high-speed train detonating mid-journey, she cartwheeled and slammed into the earth. All that matchless force and speed crashed with her.
The ground shuddered as if struck by a siege hammer three times over. Cypress leaves shook loose. Windows shattered one after another. Cracks split the earth.
Stray Cat.
Kira had brought Stray Cat with him. Using its ability to manipulate air, he'd turned something already invisible—air itself—into an unseen bomb.
Mei Mei's speed and momentum had been immense. She'd been charging in a straight line—she had to, or the inertia would have flung her off course.
Her trajectory was easy to predict.
So Kira placed the air bomb directly in her path.
He stepped past Mei Mei where she lay on her side—her entire body wrecked, more than half her bones broken, abdomen still hemorrhaging, eyes shut. She'd clearly lost consciousness.
Most of her injuries, in truth, were from the crash itself.
Their exchange had seemed lengthy but had lasted only seconds.
Kira walked past her. The sorcerers arrayed before him in a wide ring said nothing. They only gripped their Cursed Tools tighter.
Every one of them began releasing their Cursed Energy.
"Kira-sensei..."
His fingernails grew longer and longer. Irritation. Irritation.
Irritation!