JJK X FATE: Chapter 61/62

Chapter 61: Sir, Times Have Changed

"Is this where the Cursed Spirits are abnormally concentrated?"

From a black sedan, Eichi and Zen'in Shuji looked out at the campus shrouded in darkness.

"Yes, Young Master Eichi. According to the Window's observation, there are at least thirty low-level Cursed Spirits gathered inside, and their numbers are still increasing."

"Has the cause been found out?"

It wasn't strange for Cursed Spirits to gather, but having so many appear all at once was unusual.

After all, Cursed Spirits also had compatibility issues. When too many gathered together, they usually fought or devoured one another.

"The cause is still under investigation."

"Is that so? Never mind, you can investigate slowly. I'll deal with the Cursed Spirits inside first."

With that, Eichi and Artoria got out of the car.

In the car behind them, Satoru and Suguru also followed.

Initially, the mission had been assigned only to Eichi and Artoria.

However, once Suguru and Satoru heard that Eichi planned to test something new during this Cursed Spirit exorcism, they enthusiastically tagged along.

After exiting the cars, the group followed Eichi into the campus.

"Eichi, what's this new weapon you said you were going to experiment with?" Satoru asked curiously.

Since childhood, Eichi had always brought out interesting things.

"It's these."

As soon as he finished speaking, Eichi's shadow churned.

Pistols, submachine guns, rifles, machine guns, rocket launchers...

"These are the new products from the research institute professors, aren't they?" Suguru immediately guessed their origin.

"Exactly."

Eichi finally pulled everything out. His shadow held a small armory, and only he knew how heavy it truly was.

He was still using his Reverse Cursed Technique.

Bending down, Eichi picked up two submachine guns, checking the magazines and the gun bodies.

"Eichi, how about a little competition?" Satoru asked.

"A competition of what?"

"A competition to see who exorcises more Cursed Spirits."

Satoru picked up two pistols and struck a cool pose.

"I'm not joining. I plan to check if there are any Cursed Spirits worth taming," Suguru replied flatly.

"Aww, how boring."

"I still need to collect data for the lab. You can compete by yourself."

"No way, Eichi, you too…"

One second, Satoru was posing like a cowboy, the next he was slumped over in dejection.

orz.jpg

Outside the campus, Zen'in Shuji had already deployed the curtain.

The group began their operation.

Tat-tat-tat-tat-tat!

A Grade 3 Curse with a fish-like head, a lizard-like body, and eight human hands for feet crawled along the wall, closing in on Eichi.

Seeing this, Eichi immediately opened fire.

The bullets landed behind the Cursed Spirit, perfectly illustrating the essence of "Cursed Spirit outline shooting."

Eichi frowned.

He reloaded and switched to burst fire mode.

If long-range shots weren't accurate, then he'd close the distance. There was no way he could miss at point-blank range.

The lizard Cursed Spirit leaped from the wall and roared as it charged.

Thirty meters, twenty meters, ten meters.

Tat-tat-tat, tat-tat-tat.

When the distance shrank to less than ten meters, Eichi decisively opened fire.

This time, the bullets tore into the Cursed Spirit's body.

It screamed in pain, staggering toward him erratically.

Eichi didn't care. A Grade 3 Curse probably couldn't even break through his defense now.

After emptying two magazines, the Cursed Spirit dispersed into residual cursed energy.

Having found his rhythm, Eichi eagerly searched for the next target.

On the other side, Satoru, who had taken off his sunglasses, was also having a blast.

"Show time!"

Holding two pistols, he charged into the midst of several Cursed Spirits.

Standing on one leg, he spun rapidly as bullets fired from every angle.

It looked like random shooting, but most of the bullets hit their marks, and his accuracy improved with every shot.

When both pistols ran out of ammo, all the surrounding Cursed Spirits dissipated.

"That's quite interesting. Suguru, want to try… Wait, you're cheating! Weren't you going to catch Cursed Spirits?"

Eichi turned at Satoru's protest and couldn't help twitching his lips at Suguru's appearance.

Well, well, he really didn't expect the one who looked the most honest to be the sneakiest.

Suguru, standing behind them, had put on Satoru's sunglasses and was holding a massive Gatling gun. A blade of grass from the roadside hung from his mouth.

"You even picked up a blade of grass, Suguru. Were you trying to smoke a cigar?" Eichi teased.

"Satoru, it's fine to shoot them half to death before I tame them."

That actually made too much sense, and Eichi was speechless.

The next moment, a rain of bullets poured down.

Da da da da da!

Watching the Cursed Spirits get torn apart, Eichi silently recited the "Gatling Bodhisattva Sutra" in his heart, then casually tossed a few grenades toward the half-dead ones.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

"The power has increased quite a bit."

Watching the Cursed Spirits turn to ash, Eichi sighed at the research institute's speed of progress.

Mahoraga had also played a role in that.

Cursed Spirits could heal themselves, which made it difficult to accurately test weapon effectiveness. That was why research on firearms against Cursed Spirits had progressed so slowly.

One time, when the institute lacked Cursed Spirits for testing, Eichi had an idea and let Mahoraga serve as the test subject.

He later shared Mahoraga's feedback with the old professors.

At that moment, their eyes lit up.

Through repeated experiments, their views on Mahoraga completely changed.

It was perfect, an ideal experimental subject.

It couldn't be permanently damaged, and it provided detailed feedback on every attack.

That day, the professors tested every weapon the institute had developed on Mahoraga, and based on its feedback, they scrapped more than half of their ongoing research projects.

Many hypotheses were directly disproven, which dramatically shortened their development time.

Eichi swore, if the research institute hadn't been under his own investment, neither he nor Mahoraga would have made it out alive.

"Roar!"

A loud roar came from the teaching building.

A fleshy orb covered in mouths emerged from within.

"A Grade 2 Cursed Spirit. This one's worth taming."

Suguru, reloading the Gatling's ammo belt, finally spotted a target that caught his interest.

"Leave this one to me!"

But before he could finish reloading, Satoru was already sprinting forward with two rocket launchers.

"Wait."

Holding a rocket launcher in each hand, Satoru closed in on the Grade 2 Cursed Spirit and pulled both triggers.

At nearly point-blank range, there was no chance of missing.

Boom! Boom!

Satoru instantly teleported several meters back, striking the pose of a man who never looks back at explosions.

Behind him, the Cursed Spirit burned in flames and turned to ash.

Suguru: ???

No way. I just had my eyes on that one, and you blew it up?

Suguru's fist clenched tightly.

(To be continued.)

Chapter 62: When You and Your Good Brothers Stand Together as Punishment

"The few of you, reflect properly."

"Yes, Yaga-sensei." ×3

Why did this happen?

Because the three of them had gone a little too wild last night, all of them acting like incarnations of outlaws, playing a real-life round of CS on campus.

The result was numerous bullet holes across the school walls, and traces of grenade and rocket explosions scattered across the playground.

Good news: the students got three days off.

The cleanup crew needed time to collect bullet casings and repair the damaged grounds and outer walls.

Bad news: Eichi, Satoru, and Suguru were rewarded with a full day of standing punishment. Artoria, who had been guarding the Assistant Supervisor and enjoying a late-night snack in the back, received no punishment at all.

Standing punishment is an interesting thing, and different people view it differently.

For example, in Shoko's eyes, the three boys outside were simply getting what they deserved, completely losing face.

But in the eyes of Eichi and the others, they looked like a superhero team standing before an audience, basking in attention.

"It's normal to cause damage while exorcising Cursed Spirits. Yaga-sensei is making a big deal out of nothing."

Satoru leaned lazily against the wall, looking up at the sky.

"Satoru, this time we really went too far."

Suguru stood more upright, though his back was already pressed to the wall.

"Speaking of which, my investigation report from the exorcism mission is out. Want to hear it?"

Eichi, who was squatting on the ground, bored, drawing circles, looked up.

"Yeah, sure."

Satoru agreed without hesitation, and Suguru turned his attention to Eichi.

"There was a student at that school with decent Cursed Energy but no Technique. His family had an old book they'd bought from an antique market, which contained instructions for luring and controlling Cursed Spirits as shikigami."

"So that student tried it?" Suguru quickly pieced it together.

"Exactly. That school has high academic pressure, and the teachers are strict. The student, who liked ghost stories, had poor grades. Eventually, feeling resentment toward the teachers, he remembered the book's contents. He disguised the method of luring and controlling Cursed Spirits as a wish-making game called 'Mr. Dog Fox' and spread it around campus, hoping the evil spirits described in the book would take revenge on the teachers.

But because they couldn't see Cursed Spirits, they never completed the control steps after summoning them.

As a result, the Cursed Spirits that gathered there didn't know what to do and just wandered around."

Incidentally, that book now sat in Eichi's personal collection.

"What a mess. Luckily, no one was hurt."

"Indeed."

If anyone had been injured, the Jujutsu World would have had to intervene, and that student's punishment would've been far more severe than a demerit for promoting the 'Mr. Dog Fox' game.

Out of boredom, Eichi started studying his own shadow.

Ever since he began researching shikigami control Techniques, he had made a new discovery.

The eito mirror engraving on the toad's belly seemed deeply connected to the depths of his shadow.

This gave Eichi a new theory about the Ten Shadows Technique.

Originally, because there were ten shikigami, he thought the Ten Shadows Technique was simply about summoning ten shadow shikigami.

But after using his shadow for storage, movement, and now feeling the same energy as the eito mirror mark within it, he began to realize something more.

The Ten Shadows Technique was far more complex than it appeared.

The last two characters of the Technique weren't "shikigami" but "Spell."

Eichi reached out to the shadow cast on the wall behind him and slowly sank his hand in.

Before long, his whole body disappeared into the shadow.

A minute later, Eichi emerged, gasping for air.

"Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale."

"What's wrong, Eichi?" Suguru asked in concern.

"Nothing, just… no oxygen. Inhale, exhale."

"What's it like inside the shadow?" Satoru asked, walking over and touching the wall.

"Eichi, let me go in and play too."

Eichi didn't refuse.

Soon, Satoru sank into Eichi's shadow.

"Pfft! There's no oxygen in there at all!"

Satoru quickly popped back out.

Just as Eichi was about to speak, the classroom door slammed open, hitting the frame with a loud bang.

"You three! You're supposed to be in standing punishment, not playing around!"

"Yes, Yaga-sensei!"

The three of them immediately stood straight and bowed ninety degrees in apology.

"Go run a hundred laps around the playground!"

"Yes!"

The trio bolted from the classroom.

While they were enjoying their lively high school days, let's shift our focus to one year ago.

On an island far from Ota City, Japan.

"Hey, hurry up and tell me, what's the method to control the Shadow Crocodile?"

In a dim cave, several Curse Users surrounded and tortured a man completely bound in ropes.

"There isn't, there really isn't!"

Crack!

Another lash struck his body, and the cursed energy infused in the whip made him scream in agony.

"Still stubborn? Are you going to talk or not?"

"Alright, stop hitting him. You'll kill him."

One of the Curse Users grabbed his companion's arm, stopping the next strike.

"Then what do you suggest we do?"

"Throw him in. If there really is a method to control the Shadow Crocodile, he'll use it. If not, we run."

As he said that, he turned toward the distance.

There, a large well stood, its surface sealed with countless talismans and bound by layers of shimenawa ropes.

Shimenawa, sacred ropes used in rituals to mark divine or forbidden areas, often decorated with white shide paper, were common around torii gates, sacred trees, and Divine Stones.

Torii, those red gates marking the entrance to Shinto shrines, symbolized stepping into the realm of the gods.

The Curse User nodded at his companion's suggestion. It was indeed the most effective way.

Together, they tore away the talismans and shimenawa, lifted the cover, and threw the bound man into the well.

The moment he hit the bottom, the Curse User waved his hand, releasing the ropes.

They watched him struggle below.

To their surprise, the man didn't die.

"Do you feel like the mouth of the well just turned black?" one of them muttered.

"Has it? It's dark in the cave, you're seeing things."

But behind them, a horrifying presence beyond human comprehension silently opened its massive jaws.

(To be continued.)