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Naoya was flying through the sky with a combination of [Projection Sorcery] and partially summoning [Nue].
As he got closer to his destination, the Tokyo Jujutsu Division HQ, he noticed a large-scale curtain covering the area.
"They, at the very least, had the decency of covering the area so that the damage doesn't escape the perimeter."
As Naoya approached the barrier, he was blocked from entering.
He touched the barrier and tried to push it and force his way in, but as the harder he tried, the harder the barrier repelled him.
Now, if he were a certain eye-masked insane dude, he would have tried to break the barrier apart to get inside.
But unlike that unknown man, he had a calm head over his shoulders.
[Frame Drop]
Naoya simply appeared inside the barrier without any issues or harming it.
Frame Drop ignored active techniques occupying space. If there was room to move, Naoya could move.
As he got inside the barrier, Naoya noticed the chaos that was going on around him.
Grade 2 and Grade 1 cursed spirits were rampaging throughout the headquarters, tearing through buildings and overwhelming the sorcerers stationed there.
There was also a Special Grade present somewhere nearby.
Naoya could feel it.
"Well, time to get to work."
[Divine Dogs]
A jet-black wolf and a snowy-white wolf emerged from his shadow.
"Cupcake. Frosting."
The wolves immediately perked up.
"Go nuts on the Grade 2s and Semi-Grade 1s."
"Woof!"
The pair barked excitedly before returning to their full size.
Both wolves stood slightly taller than Naoya.
Without wasting a second, they charged into the horde.
Naoya's gaze shifted toward the injured sorcerers scattered throughout the battlefield.
Many were still fighting.
Many more were in no condition to continue.
[Turbo Granny]
A short-statured and wrinkly shikigami emerged out of Naoya's shadow.
"Go around running and rescue the injured sorcerers. If an enemy comes....well kick their ass."
"Vroom! Vroom!"
The shikigami had a weird speech pattern, but it was a super useful shikigami.
Within moments, a pile of injured humans started to form around Naoya.
"How many of you are alive?"
To his question, those who were not much injured raised their hands while the other people alive flopped like fish.
[Round Deer]
"Senzu, heal them."
[Funeral Tiger] [Nue]
"Snow, Sparkles. Keep Senzu and these people safe. I will be going to do some cleaning."
The shikigami gave a nod in affirmation as Naoya locked onto the nearest Grade 1 cursed spirit.
In an instant, Naoya appeared behind the cursed and smashed it into the ground.
[CTR: Shadow Containment]
The shadows erupted and engulfed the cursed spirit.
The curse wasn't something special from what Naoya could see; however, it could be used to strengthen Snow later. The tigress had the ability to get stronger with every shikigami killed, though Semi-Grade 1 and lower-level curses no longer made her stronger, so Naoya ordered the wolves to deal with them while Naoya went around to collect Snow's chow.
As Naoya moved around the battlefield, killing and collecting curses while also saving a few of the sorcerers who were getting overwhelmed by the number of curses that were attacking them.
Not like Naoya could blame them, there were roughly 500 cursed spirits currently enclosed in this space.
"Naoya Zenin?!"
Naoya heard his name being called out with quite some spite behind it.
This usually meant that a bad guy was the one behind it.
And just like Naoya guessed, there was a bald man wearing an apron and holding a hatchet, looking at him with shock.
"The one and only. Who might you be? Let me guess, not someone from the HQ."
Naoya asked with a bored look on his face.
The bald man was quite shocked and looked up in the sky, more accurately at the barrier surrounding them.
"How did you get in?! The barrier must have stopped you!"
The bald man was Juzo Kumiya, a curse user and one of the assailants who attacked the Tokyo Jujutsu HQ today.
He joined the mission because his boss promised him that he could take as many "materials" from the HQ after he was done with the mission, and he might even get his hands on a premium "material" in the form of a Special Grade sorcerer.
However, he was told that if the sorcerer was Naoya Zenin, then the barrier around the area would have been broken, and the cursed spirits that were wreaking havoc everywhere would have been set free and would have spread out to attack the city.
But none of that happened. The barrier was intact. The curses were still enclosed. Naoya Zenin was standing in front of him.
'What is even happening right now?! Did the boss mess up? Did he lie to me? What the f*ck!!!'
Juzo was busy thinking about the sudden change in the situation.
Naoya waited for him to process everything. After all, he needed the man calm so that he could break his bones and ask him questions.
"...Whatever. It's not my style to think if boss's plan goes down the drain! I only came for my material, and you, Naoya Zenin, will become today's top-selling item!"
With that, Juzo pounced on Naoya.
As Juzo came closer, Naoya simply back-handed slapped the bald curse user away.
"Stay there!" ordered Naoya as he pointed at the motionless Juzo, whose whole body was convulsing.
"...This weak and still able to control these many cursed spirits. Does he have a cursed technique like....Suguru's..."
Naoya's brain short-circuited for a bit.
'Suguru's technique....wait!'
Naoya started looking around.
There were still many curses who were still alive.
There were many whom he had never seen before, but there were indeed some he absolutely recognised.
"...No f*cking way this is real..."
Naoya's calm expression started to waver. If the curses were being manipulated by something and if that something was a technique, then it most likely could be [Cursed Spirit Manipulation]....or a technique that works similarly.
While Naoya was busy having those thoughts, he felt a slightly stronger ominous presence approach him.
"Hey....Am I... pretty?"
As those words echoed around him, Naoya felt his entire body freeze.
'...I am not such a huge dumbass who ignores such obvious hints.'
The cursed spirit that gave off the special grade presence was also one that Naoya immediately recognised.
It was one of Suguru Geto's strongest and iconic cursed spirits, Kuchisake-Onna.
As Naoya was suspended in the simple domain along with the curse, Naoya smirked and replied.
"Meh, below average, I'd say."
"I'll kill yo-"
[CTR: Shadow Containment]
Before she could attack Naoya with her scissors, Naoya's shadows engulfed the Special Grade curse.
"Things just got way more complex than I would have liked..." Naoya muttered as he finished turning Kuchisake-Onna into a shikigami.
After that, there were no stronger opponents. It's just that because of the large number of curses and people around the area, Naoya couldn't just blow things up and get done with everything faster.
Still, it wasn't exactly a bad outcome.
The curses were eliminated. The attack on HQ was stopped. Injured people were being treated, and even the attackers were captured alive.
All in all, a good result.
After leaving the clearance and post-battle activities to the other sorcerers, Naoya moved to an isolated spot and called Satoru.
"Yo~ You wouldn't believe who I met. Lava Cyclops-kun! I beat his ass so bad he has gone speechless at my greatness."
Satoru explained with quite some enthusiasm in his voice.
"Good job...listen, things might be a bit messed up. How soon can you get here?"
"Give me a sec."
10 seconds later
Satoru Gojo stood in front of Naoya.
Naoya looked at Satoru.
Satoru Gojo was holding the curse's head.
"I didn't want to carry the whole thing. Plus, he looks funnier this way."
Gojo explained without being asked anything.
Naoya gave a nod.
It was a valid reason.
"So what's the big mess we have at our hand? On that note, what or who did you fight?" asked Satoru, and he looked around.
Unlike his battlefield, Naoya's looked much cleaner and more vibrant.
"Curses, quite a lot of curses...and that man over there too."
Naoya answered and pointed at Juzo, who was lying on the ground.
Satoru gave Juzo a single glance before he shrugged his shoulders. He didn't feel anything special from the man.
"Curses, huh...wait, curses? As in more than one curse? They attacked this place together...in a group?"
Satoru was surprised by the information.
Weaker curses do group up, but the stronger ones tried to act alone, and from the looks of it, the ones that attacked this place weren't the weak kind.
"Yes. I was getting to that. The curses attacked this place as if they had planned it and were following a certain pattern while fighting instead of mindless beasts."
"Highly unlikely that they are the intelligent kind like Mr Cyclops here....something or someone must be controlling them."
Satoru stated and looked at Naoya.
Knowing him, he probably came to that conclusion as well. The big question was what was controlling them.
"See this."
[Kuchisake-Onna]
Naoya summoned his newly captured shikigami.
Because of the potential boosts, the shikigami's appearance changed a bit from when it was a cursed spirit, but there was still a distinct resemblance to her old self.
Satoru looked at the curse for a while as his eyes started to widen from surprise.
"...Is it really?"
"Yup."
"...F*ck."
Both the special grades had a similar thought.
The fact that the curses were being controlled by something and that this particular cursed spirit was present most probably meant that their fellow Special Grade friend Suguru Geto might still be alive.
It was great news.
The part that was not great was that he is somehow connected to the attacks.
Naoya sent the shikigami back into the shadows, and a heavy silence filled the atmosphere around them.
"Well, look at the bright side, we might find Suguru!"
Satoru tried to break the silence.
"For that, we need to know if he is actually alive.... and if he is, then whether he is on our side or not."
The air turned heavy once again.
Neither of them was sure what to make of this situation now.
...For now, there was only one place where he could get answers from.
"Alright, Lava Cyclops. You will answer our questions."
Satoru's iron-clawed Jogo's head and tried to order him.
"I won't tell you shit."
"Huh! Is that how you talk to someone who kicked your ass? Where are your manners?!"
"Do you know this guy?"
Naoya asked and showed Suguru's picture to Jogo.
"Nope."
Jogo replied with a smirk.
Naoya wanted to crush that single eye of the curse.
His tone clearly told the two special grade sorcerers that the curse wasn't answering seriously.
They wanted to hurt the curse until it gave them answers; however, considering the amount of damage it has taken and the amount of CE left within the curse, it wouldn't hold together if they tried some serious stuff on it.
Naoya could also not turn the curse into a shikigami to make it comply, as a curse-turned shikigami does not carry forward its memories.
Right now, their choices are quite heavily limited.
There was the other guy as well, who was currently unconscious and considering how weak he was, Naoya and Satoru had little hope that he would know if Suguru was involved or not.
Jogo smirked, seeing the two human anomalies feeling helpless against him.
"Haha, you two are wondering about this random man. You two should worry about how things are going on at the place you all call Jujutsu High."
Jogo laughed out loud.
He might have lost, but he will still try to divert their attention from their main goal.
The longer the people don't catch wind of what was going on, the better.
Satoru and Naoya knew what the curse was trying to do.
It was quite obvious, since from the start, their enemy was trying to separate their forces for something.
They didn't know what it was, but for now, they cannot worry about that.
A new trouble in the form of Suguru Geto just popped up, and the two were more interested in that front.
As for how things were going at school, they will be heading back now to check on things, but-
"Don't worry about that....my students are quite capable of keeping themselves safe."
Naoya replied with a smile.
"My students take after their beloved and amazing sensei; they, too, are simply amazing."
Gojo declared and tightened his grip on the cyclops' head, making Jogo scream in pain.
"Well, then, Cyclops head. Looking forward to cooperating with you to answer our questions."
"Like I said! I ain't telling you shit!"
Satoru snorted.
Then threw the head at the ground.
Pulled it back with Blue.
And repeated the process.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Dribbling Jogo like a basketball.
"I!"
BOUNCE
"WILL!"
BOUNCE
"END!"
BOUNCE
"YOU!"
BOUNCE
Jogo screamed in fury.
Naoya simply ignored the two of them and summoned [Rainbow Dragon] to head back to Jujutsu High.