Ren skipped the fire stairs. He vaulted the railing, dropped two stories, and landed without a sound — no grunt, no shift of weight, nothing to catch on anyone's senses. Then he was just moving, already swallowed by the dark toward the burnt-out convenience store.
Mahito's clone crouched behind a collapsed brick wall, eyes flicking between Maki's staff and Nobara's hammer, fingers drumming against the brick. Waiting for an opening.
He never heard Ren behind him.
The hand closed around the back of his neck before he could react. The clone went rigid, mouth opening — to talk, to shift his arm into something sharp, it didn't matter. Ren didn't give him the time.
One twist of the hips. He threw him.
The clone tore through the air, cleared the sidewalk, and hit the street hard, skidding to a stop under a flickering streetlamp.
Maki and Nobara cut off mid-argument.
Playful Cloud snapped up before the clone even stopped sliding. Nobara was half a second behind her, three cursed nails already slotted between her knuckles.
Mahito pushed himself up on his hands, spitting black dust onto the road.
Nobara's stance eased into something looser, meaner as she looked him over — the stitches, the mismatched eyes.
"Special Grade." Nobara let the hammer rest against her shoulder. "Was expecting more than a guy crouched in an alley watching us talk."
Boots on broken glass behind him. Mahito's head snapped around.
Ren stepped out of the dark, cutting off the only way out. Hands in his pockets, posture loose, soot still dark across his torn uniform.
"Seriously, though," Ren said, his voice carrying easily through the quiet, ruined street. "Crouching in a dirty alley, peeking at two beautiful girls in the dark? That's just sad."
Mahito's eyes twitched. The playful, chaotic grin he usually wore fractured for a split second.
"I mean, I get it," Ren continued, tilting his head with a mocking, lazy smirk. "They're gorgeous. But creeping around in the shadows like a pervert is a terrible look. Even for a stitched-up freak like you. What, couldn't get a date so you decided to just stalk them instead?"
Nobara's nose wrinkled. "Ugly piece of shit. You're the freak who's been obsessing over our idiot Yuji? I was expecting a mastermind. Not a walking trash bag with a stalker complex."
Maki let out a short laugh, iron links clinking as she twirled the staff at her side. "Don't flatter him, Kugisaki. He's a scout who got caught creeping in an alley because he's too scared to fight on the front lines."
Mahito's grin fell apart into a scowl. His arm started swelling, flesh twisting.
"You talk a lot for fragile little monkeys." His voice dropped, the sing-song gone out of it. "Let's see how tough you sound when I—"
"Yeah, yeah." Ren cut him off with a yawn, hands still in his pockets. "Save the monologue. We're on a schedule. Nobara, you want him, or should Maki turn him into a rug?"
Mahito screamed and lunged, arm already reshaped into a jagged white blade.
Nobara didn't move. She smiled.
"Hairpin."
She snapped her fingers. The three nails she'd dropped earlier detonated under his boots, and the blast sent him straight up, blade cutting nothing but smoke.
Maki was already moving. She stepped into the strike, and Playful Cloud caught him mid-air across the ribs — a crack loud enough to carry down the street. He hit the ground skipping, skidded, and stopped dead at Ren's boots.
Mahito coughed up black blood, forcing his head up, one arm shaking as his ribs refused to knit back together.
Ren looked down at him.
"You're a lot less scary when you can't touch souls."
Mahito's eyes went wide. He didn't get time to do anything with it.
Ren's boot came down on the back of his head, driving his face into the asphalt hard enough to crack it outward in a spiderweb. The clone went rigid, then started flaking apart into ash, drifting off down the dark street.
Nobara lowered her hammer, eyeing the scorch mark. "Well. Anticlimactic."
Maki landed beside them, staff over her shoulder, and shot Ren a flat look. "I had that."
"I know," Ren said, stepping over the settling ash. He tipped his head toward the gutted office building. "But we're on a schedule. Let's get inside before his main body figures out the scout's dead."
They crunched over broken glass back into the dim lobby. Panda and Inumaki held a loose perimeter near the entrance; the civilians stayed huddled on the far side of the room.
Ren walked past the reception desk and looked back out through the shattered doors, west toward the dead, black silence where central Shibuya used to be. No shockwaves. No pressure choking the air anymore.
"It's been quiet for a while," he said, low enough the civilians wouldn't catch it.
Maki came up beside him, resting her staff against the floor. "You think it's over?"
"Destruction stopped." He ran through it. "If Sukuna was still going, we'd still feel it. My guess — Yuji finally digested that power spike and took his body back."
He turned to face the group.
"If Sukuna's dormant, the window's open again. We push back to the subway and try to unseal Gojo. Miss this and we might not get another shot." He nodded toward the street. "We're at the edge of the veil here — should be safe enough for the civilians. One sorcerer's enough to hold this spot while the rest of us head back in."