Nobara didn't wait for him to finish.
She marched up and jabbed a finger into his chest. "No way in hell. Don't even think about benching me. I've been running around this city all night — I'm not sitting here playing babysitter while you guys go be heroes."
Ren put his hands up. "I wasn't talking about you—"
"Good." She crossed her arms. "Because I'm going."
A sigh came from the back of the lobby before Ren could ask who was staying.
Kusakabe stepped forward, unlit cigarette hanging from his lips, hands buried in his coat pockets.
"I'll stay," he said flatly.
Panda tilted his head. "You sure, sensei? Could use your sword up front."
"Someone's gotta be the responsible adult." Kusakabe adjusted his collar, not quite meeting anyone's eyes. "These people are traumatized. Needs a steady hand back here. You kids go ahead."
Maki gave him a long look. She wasn't buying a word of it.
"Right," she said. "So brave."
"Tuna mayo," Inumaki muttered from the corner, pulling his collar up to hide a smirk.
"Perfect." Ren turned back to the blown-out doors, tightening the strap on his gear. "Kusakabe holds this block. Maki, Nobara, Panda, Inumaki — we push west. Stay tight, don't split up, kill anything in the way."
Ash fell over Shibuya like snow — pale, weightless, and dead silent, blanketing the ruins where a city block used to be.
Ren reached the ridge first. His boots crunched against asphalt.
Beside him, Maki went still.
A few steps behind, Panda, Inumaki, and Nobara crested the rise.
Nobara stopped so fast her hammer dipped an inch in her grip. Whatever sharp remark she'd been building up on the walk over died somewhere in her throat.
"What," she managed, "is this."
It wasn't rubble. There was no twisted rebar, no collapsed buildings, nothing left standing to even burn. For several blocks in every direction, the ground itself was simply gone — scooped into one smooth, bowl-shaped crater, like something had taken a bite out of the city.
"Sukuna," Panda said. His whole body had gone rigid.
Inumaki tugged his scarf higher over his mouth, eyes narrowing as he swept the depression for movement.
Ren was fixed on the center of the crater, staring straight through the drifting ash.
"Down there," he said.
Maki followed his line of sight.
Two figures stood at the middle of the wasteland, small enough against all that destruction that it was almost embarrassing.
Mahito. The Special Grade curse that had spent weeks turning commuters inside out for fun was dragging himself backward through the ash on one remaining leg, missing two limbs, his usual grin nowhere to be found.
Yuji Itadori was walking toward him.
He walked at a slow, even pace, blood soaked through what was left of his uniform. His eyes were flat, done — a wolf that had already decided how this ends and was only taking its time getting there.
"Itadori," Nobara whispered, and took half a step forward before something about the stillness in him stopped her cold.
Maki shifted her weight, ready to drop in and finish it.
Ren's arm shot out, the back of his hand catching her collarbone before she could move.
"Ren?"
"Wait." His voice dropped low, eyes locked on the far rim of the crater. "Someone else is down there."
Everyone froze.
Below, Yuji closed the last few feet, cocked back a bloodied fist to end it — and the falling ash parted like a curtain.
A tall man stepped out of the gray and planted himself between Yuji and the curse crawling at his feet. Dark monk's robes. A jagged scar cut clean across his forehead, like something stitched shut a long time ago. And on a battlefield that looked like the end of the world, he was smiling like he'd just stepped out for a walk.
Panda stared. "No way."
The monk looked down at Mahito, sobbing and half a person in the ash at his feet. His voice carried up to the ridge clean and unhurried, like he wasn't raising it at all.
"Shall I save you, Mahito?"
Maki's eyes swept the rim of the crater.
"Wait," she said, low, and nudged Ren's arm toward the far side of the wasteland. "Look."
Shapes were settling into position out in the ash.
High up, almost lost against the black clouds, a blonde girl sat perfectly still on a hovering broomstick — Momo Nishimiya. Lower down, tucked behind a slab of bent rebar, Noritoshi Kamo already had an arrow drawn, its tip slick and dark with blood, aimed square at the center of the crater.
"Kyoto's here too," Maki muttered. Near the base of the crater she picked out Kasumi Miwa, hand resting on her sheathed katana, dropping into the low crouch of her Simple Domain.
Down in the crater, nobody had told Yuji the plan.
Yuji threw himself forward across the ash without a shred of the caution everyone on the ridge was exercising.
Kenjaku watched him come, and didn't stop smiling.
Yuji's boots slid on the ash, but he didn't slow down, closing the gap with a fist still smoking with whatever cursed energy he had left to spend.
Kenjaku didn't move his feet. "You're too emotional, Yuji."
The ground dropped out from under him. A catfish curse the size of a delivery truck surged up through the ground like it was breaching water, jaws wide, and Yuji's balance went with it. He hit the ground hard as the thing sank back into the earth like nothing had happened.
"People in the mid-Edo period blamed earthquakes on giant catfish," Kenjaku said, conversational, like he was killing time before a train. He flicked his wrist, and a knot of centipede curses the length of a man came writhing up to pin Yuji where he lay. "This is the real strength of Cursed Spirit Manipulation. Not power. Variety."
Behind him, Mahito lunged.
What was left of his arm reshaped itself into a blade, aimed at the base of Kenjaku's skull. One touch. That was all he needed.
Kenjaku sidestepped without turning around, sighing like this was tiresome.
"I knew it," Mahito spat, black blood dribbling from his mouth as the strike went wide.
"Something born from a human — I knew you'd turn on your own."
"Did you." Kenjaku smiled and pressed his palm flat against Mahito's face.
The scream didn't last long. Mahito's body folded inward, flesh and bone and cursed energy compacting with a wet crunch until nothing remained but a small, dense, swirling orb sitting in Kenjaku's hand.
Up on the ridge, Nobara made a small, disgusted sound. "Did he just—"