Time does not slow its pace for anyone. It grinds forward, heavy and unstoppable, like a wheel crushing everything in its path.
Four o'clock in the afternoon. The Curtain at the door remained unbroken.
Under Sorako's efforts, just under half of it had been eroded, but for the overall situation, this changed almost nothing.
When true nightfall came, all that awaited them was death.
Of course, Nanami Kira had one last insurance policy: fight his way out. A thousand years of accumulated curses was formidable, but for a Special Grade Jujutsu Sorcerer, surviving a single night wasn't an insurmountable problem.
But that sounded exhausting. Nanami Kira hated overtime more than anything. He wanted to clock out by eight.
The business trip alone had worn him down to the bone. Though he had to admit, stroking Hoshino Ei really was quite soothing. It had eased no small amount of his travel fatigue.
What a wonderful hand. If only it didn't come with a mouth.
At this very moment, our Miss Hand was chattering away in Nanami Kira's ear:
"Kira-kun, Kira-kun..."
Like a clucking little hen.
Here was the truth: Hoshino Ei, or rather, Hoshino Ei's soul form, hadn't been brought inside at all.
Thanks to her Innate Technique, Concealment, she'd hidden her presence so thoroughly that none of the three outside had detected her.
The plan was simple. Hoshino Ei handled the search for the barrier node outside. Nanami Kira handled the interior.
A two-pronged approach. Naturally, they'd be out before quitting time.
This was the reason Nanami Kira had dared to walk into Geto Suguru's trap.
As for why he'd walked in willingly, the answer was straightforward.
Nanami Kira needed to ensure Sorako's safety. She was a headstrong young lady. Short of using force, there was no stopping her from following them to the third floor.
And force was precisely what he couldn't use. So he'd come along.
As for why he needed to protect Sorako: it was certainly not because her hands were pretty, her nails were lovely, her fingers were long and slender, her skin was so dewy and fresh it must feel like soft candy, and removing them to press against his cheek would surely bring a sense of profound calm. No, certainly not for any of those reasons.
Nanami Kira was not so shallow a man.
A true man knows when to... and when not to... He had internalized this lesson well.
No, Nanami Kira's reason was singular: Sorako was the most foolish. The most recklessly overconfident. Compared to Geto Suguru and that old man, she would have been among the first to die in the previous timeline.
That was why he was keeping her alive.
To guide her toward the correct death, and witness all of it firsthand.
Whether in the future or the present, Nanami Kira was the same person. And no one understood himself better than he did.
He'd lost his memories. By any normal logic, the rebirth should have been useless; you couldn't carry memories from one timeline to the next, which made it no different from starting over at level one.
But Nanami Kira always found a way. He knew himself. The him from the previous timeline would have used that same self-knowledge to leave clues for the current him.
Hints encoded across time. Information from beyond the Edge of Tomorrow.
Clues hidden inside death itself.
It sounded like a fairy tale.
But Nanami Kira knew those clues were buried inside Sorako's body.
They might even be buried inside everyone's body. Inside the Tuxedo Man. Inside Sayahi.
The pity was, his butterfly effect had likely shifted their fates. They'd died earlier than in the original timeline, died in the wrong way.
And with them, the hints they carried had been lost. An irritating complication.
"Gojo Grade 3! Gojo Grade 3!"
Sorako's voice shattered his thoughts. He blinked.
She stood before him, slender brows drawn into sharp angles. The haughtiness she wore so naturally had cracked, and her irritation was bleeding through, louder and more pointed with every word.
"What on earth are you doing?"
"We are in a crisis! We have to help each other! I've been working myself to the bone trying to break the Curtain, and you said you'd look for the barrier node, so is this what you call searching? Sitting around doing nothing?"
Nanami Kira's brow creased. His nails had grown a little longer.
Seeing his silence, Sorako only grew angrier. That was natural enough. From the day she was born, the heiress of the Minamoto Clan had been raised in an atmosphere of blessings and respect. That she hadn't developed a full-blown princess complex under those conditions was already remarkable.
But that same sheltered purity had produced a heart that was equally sheltered. She took the efforts of others for granted as naturally as breathing.
She believed herself to be good. To be kind. And she projected those qualities onto everyone around her. She couldn't abide laziness. She couldn't abide evil. She couldn't abide weakness.
"In a dire situation like this, we must pull together! I know you're only a Grade 3, but even a Grade 3 has their uses—"
Irritating.
Nanami Kira looked into her eyes. His nails clicked faintly as they grew.
Irritating.
What kind of bitch is this?
He tilted his head.
But Sorako wasn't irritated at all. Quite the opposite. Guiding others, leading the lost toward the righteous path, it nourished something deep in her self-image. In this hopeless place, it was the one thing that gave her comfort.
Put another way: standing atop the moral high ground, this young woman had achieved self-actualization.
"Even if you're just a Grade 3... come on, enough daydreaming. Come help!"
He was losing control. The impulse was growing harder to suppress.
Don't make me kill you ahead of schedule, Lady Minamoto...
Nanami Kira had believed, truly believed, that his mind was a sea too still for anyone to disturb.
But it turned out that a saintly bitch, yes, that was the right term for it, had succeeded where the vast majority of Special Grade Cursed Spirits had failed.
It had provoked the instinct Nanami Kira kept locked away.
Something to be proud of, in its way.
More than the three schemers outside, it was the victim who repulsed him.
Those three were cunning, yes, but at least they knew what they were. They didn't dress up their wickedness in the clothes of justice. Clean, naked villainy, like a bank robber waving a gun.
And then there was the other kind of evil: the hostage inside the bank, screaming at the police for not arriving fast enough.
Nanami Kira despised the latter far more.
"Hoshino. Found the node yet?"
"Hmph. Not even going to praise me first?"
Hoshino Ei's soft grumble drifted to his ear.
"Too busy flirting with that wretched woman, I bet..."
Somehow, her voice didn't seem so grating anymore.
"It's done~ I've found the barrier node. I just need to break it. It's right here in front of me. I'll just go ahead and—"
Nanami Kira listened patiently.
But there was no continuation.
"Hoshino?"
He looked down at the hand in his pocket. It had gone perfectly still.
Time seemed to freeze. The air turned to glass.
"Gojo Grade 3—"
"Shut up."
Sorako bristled with anger, but then she saw his eyes.
"Shut up. Bitch."
Calm.
Holding all the world's darkness.
"Shut up."