Their footsteps echoed down the narrow dormitory corridor, each step swallowed by the oppressive silence. The air was thick—cloying, like a place long abandoned but never truly empty. The dim beam of Himari's flashlight jerked and wavered as she strode forward with overconfidence, despite the crimson streak trailing down her arm. Her wound hadn't stopped bleeding, yet she carried herself like it was a mere scratch.
The flickering light carved twisted, shifting shadows on the cracked walls, as if the darkness itself was alive, watching, waiting.
Ryou, ever the quiet observer, followed just a step behind, his sharp eyes scanning every inch of the corridor with a gaze that missed nothing.
"There's something here," he muttered at last, his voice low, almost drowned by the silence. His eyes narrowed at the black maw of the hallway ahead.
"No kidding. It's a cursed site." Himari snorted, rolling her eyes. "That's why we need to hurry up. We'll prove to Yuuji-sensei that we can handle this ourselves."
Ryou didn't bother responding. She was bluffing—he knew that much. Her bravado was just a mask, an armor she wore to keep fear at bay. He'd seen her fight before; she wasn't stupid. If she was acting this cocky, then she must have sensed it too. The wrongness that clung to this place like rot.
Far behind them, trailing in their wake like a ghost, Reika walked in silence.
Beside her, Tetsuya swallowed hard, the sound too loud in his own ears. His fingers tightened around his flashlight, the plastic casing slick with sweat. The darkness here was different. No matter how much light he shone into it, it never fully receded. It clung to the edges, thick and heavy, like it was pressing in, breathing against his skin.
He tried to take a deep breath, but the air itself felt wrong—stagnant, almost suffocating, as if something unseen was coiling around his lungs.
His gaze flicked sideways.
Reika moved like a whisper—weightless, soundless. If not for the occasional shift of her long black hair, he might have believed she was floating. She didn't seem fazed by the atmosphere, didn't react to the unnatural pressure in the air. Not a single flicker of unease touched her face. She looked… unbothered. Unaffected.
And that was what terrified him the most.
It wasn't normal.
Everyone else reacted to cursed energy in some way—an instinctive stiffness, an unconscious bracing of muscles. Even Ryou, composed as he was, had been tense. But Reika? She walked through the malevolence like it was nothing. Like it was home.
Tetsuya had clung to Ryou earlier without a second thought, but with Reika, he kept his distance. Something in the pit of his stomach screamed at him not to get too close.
It wasn't just that she was quiet.
It wasn't just that she lagged behind the group, always on the edges.
It was something deeper, something wrong.
He wanted to believe it was paranoia. The place was eerie—of course he was on edge. But then why, when it came to Reika, did that unease feel so much worse?
His grip tightened on his flashlight. He had to focus. "We should catch up to them," he mumbled, more to himself than to her, trying to shake off the cold dread gnawing at him.
Reika didn't answer. She simply looked at him. Not a nod. Not a word. Just a steady, unreadable stare. Then she turned and kept walking. And somewhere, in the suffocating dark, the whispers began.
Tetsuya's breath hitched.
The hallway felt narrower. The ceiling lower. The walls leaned in ever so slightly, as if the building itself was shifting, breathing along with them.
Then he felt it.
A presence.
Heavy. Suffocating. The air thickened, pressing down on his shoulders, sinking into his skin like invisible fingers digging deep into his flesh.
His stomach churned. His pulse slammed against his ribs.
Cursed energy.
It was sudden, overwhelming—a pressure so dense that it made him lightheaded. He struggled to breathe, his lungs locking up. His instincts screamed at him. Run. Scream. Do something.
But he couldn't move.
It appeared.
A grotesque thing, crawling out of the abyss of the corridor. The same kind of curse that had attacked Himari earlier. Its body was skeletal, its skin stretched thin over brittle bones. Empty, soulless eyes stared at him from a sunken face. Its mouth gaped wide, strings of blackened saliva dripping between rows of jagged teeth.
And this time, it wasn't just hungry. It had tasted blood. Tetsuya couldn't breathe. His legs wouldn't move.
Shit.
Shit, shit, shit.
The curse twitched. Its empty gaze locked onto him, its head snapping in his direction with a grotesque jerk. And then—
BRUAK!
It convulsed.
Without warning—it was yanked backward. Something had taken hold of it. Tetsuya didn't see what. He barely even registered what had happened. One second, the curse had been lunging for him—It was hanging in the air. Suspended. Silent. it was gone. Not killed. Not exorcised. Just… erased.
Tetsuya's breath stuttered. His heart pounded so hard it hurt. He turned, slowly—almost afraid to look.
Reika stood exactly where she had been. Still. Quiet. Empty-eyed. She hadn't moved. Hadn't lifted a finger.
Yet something in the air told him—no, warned him—that it was her.
That wrongness, that inexplicable dread that had sunk its claws into his spine the moment they stepped into this cursed place—it had always been her. Tetsuya felt something deep and primal in his gut tell him to run.
Not from the curse. From her. His breath caught. His legs moved before his brain could even catch up. He ran.
Himari and Ryou were still pressing forward when the sound of pounding footsteps shattered the silence behind them.
DUG DUG DUG!
Tetsuya sprinted down the corridor, his chest heaving, his face drained of all color. His eyes were wide, wild—like he'd seen the Devil himself.
Himari groaned. "Oh, for fuck's sake. What now?" Tetsuya gasped for air, words tumbling out in a broken mess. "It—it was there—it was right there—"
Ryou's gaze sharpened. "The curse? The one that attacked you?" Tetsuya nodded, but before he could explain—
A voice slithered through the darkness.
"Ahh… the scent of fear. Delicious." Not human. Silky. Amused. Wrong. The air turned heavy. The smell of rot filled the corridor—thick, putrid, cloying—From the shadows ahead, it emerged.
This one was different. Bigger. Smarter.
Skin blistered and charred, its body riddled with gaping holes that oozed black vapor. Molten-red eyes flickered like embers in a face twisted into an unnatural grin.
This wasn't just a curse. This was a high-grade. And it was hungry.
"You've caught the wrong kind of attention," it purred. Its teeth gleamed, razor-sharp and waiting. Tetsuya sucked in a breath. They were in deep, deep shit.
Himari clicked her tongue. "Oh, great. A talking one." The curse moved first. And Himari—
Struck faster.
"Blinding Arch." A golden light flared. And the hallway exploded.
There was no warning.
One moment, she was there—the next, she wasn't. No blur, no streak of motion, just absence, like a candle snuffed out in the dark. And then—
CRACK.
She was at its side. A breath, a flicker, and suddenly, Himari's fist was already driving forward, wreathed in searing gold.
"If you can't see me move, you can't dodge me." Her knuckles met flesh. Or at least, what should have been flesh.
But instead of the satisfying crunch of bone giving way beneath her strike, there was… nothing. No resistance. No satisfying snap of breaking tissue. Just a sickening, unnatural give, like punching into something that wasn't solid at all.
Something wrong.
Then, it pulsed.
SPLAT.
The thing's head—if it could even be called that—burst apart, not like flesh, not like blood, but something viscous and shifting. A thick, writhing mass of black sludge, slithering unnaturally as if it were alive.
Before Himari could pull away, it latched onto her arm. Fast. Hungry. "The hell—?!"
She jerked back, twisting violently, but it was spreading. Crawling up her skin like fingers of ink soaking into paper, clinging, growing. Her breath hitched.
Then—A voice. Smooth. Cold. Detached.
"Slow." Her stomach twisted. Another voice followed, low and rasping. "Weak."
The thing laughed. And then, as if it had simply decided to, it grew arms. Two long, sinewy limbs slithered out of its torso where there had been nothing before, bone-thin fingers stretching like something unfinished, something still shaping itself.
Himari's breath came fast. "Shit. It can regenerate?"
"It won't get the chance," Ryou murmured.
He was already moving. Hands flashing in quick, deliberate patterns. His voice, low and absolute.
"Stop." And the world obeyed.
Everything in the air—every shifting particle, every tiny movement—froze. The thing's body, mid-motion, locked into place like an insect trapped in amber.
Stagnated Force. A technique that manipulated momentum itself, pinning motion in place, rendering escape impossible.
"Now, Tetsuya—" Silence.
Ryou turned. His lips pressed together in something unreadable. Tetsuya stood there, fists clenched, shoulders tight. Trembling.
His breath was shallow. His skin pale. His eyes flickered. He should have spoken.
Should have activated his cursed technique, sent that reverberating pulse of disruption through the thing's skull, turned its mind into a scrambled mess of static and broken signals.
But he didn't. He couldn't. Because he was scared.
Because if he misfired—if he lost control—his technique wouldn't just disrupt the curse's mind. It would throw all of them into disarray.
"Move," he willed himself. "Do something." But his feet stayed rooted. His limbs, stiff. Then, the curse moved first. It smiled—if such a thing could smile.
"Interesting."
—It exploded.
Not in fire, not in sound, but in motion. A sudden, violent burst of shape and mass—dozens of tendrils bursting outward, each one lashing in every direction at once.
Ryou barely managed to hold his ground, hands tightening, trying to hold its motion—but there were too many. Himari twisted, fast as she was, but that black sludge still clung to her, dragging her speed down.
And Tetsuya—
He didn't move.
He was still stuck there, eyes wide, body frozen, waiting for the impact he knew was coming.
Everything stopped. The air thinned. A presence settled into the room. Heavy. Wrong. A voice. Soft. Even. Unhurried.
"Enough." It wasn't loud. It wasn't a shout. But it ended everything. The curse did not flee.
Even as the weight of that single word sank into the air—even as every fragment of its instincts screamed at it to run—it stayed exactly where it was.
It turned. And it saw her.
A girl.
Standing, unmoving, eyes dark and empty, framed by hair black as an abyss. Not afraid. Not even wary. Just watching.
And that—that—was wrong.
Even the most idiotic of creatures would feel fear when faced with something stronger. Fear was instinct. And instinct was survival.
But her? She felt nothing. The curse's throat rumbled, a low, grating sound like stone dragged against stone.
"You… are not human."
The words slithered through the air. Behind her, Himari was still struggling to free herself, face tight with pain and frustration.
Ryou was silent. Watching.
And Tetsuya—
Tetsuya was shaking.
Not just from fear. Not just from the weight in the air. But because—for the first time since they'd stepped into this cursed place—he could not look away.
Something impossible was happening before them. The curse moved. Faster than before. It lunged—
CRACK.
Blood.
Reika's body hit the wall like a ragdoll caught in a storm, the impact splitting the aged concrete behind her.
Dust burst into the air, obscuring her form for just a moment. Himari let out a breathless, shaky laugh. "Hah! Figures. Weakling."
She tried to ignore the searing pain in her arm, the discomfort still crawling beneath her skin.
At least, she thought, this was entertaining.
The dust cleared. And Reika was standing. Not getting up. Not recovering. Just… there. Like she had never fallen in the first place.
The wounds—Were gone. Not healed. Not reversed. Just—erased. Like they had never been there at all.
"What."
Himari's voice came out in a whisper. Ryou's eyes narrowed. And the curse—The curse, at last, understood. No words were spoken. No need for them. The atmosphere had already shifted.
It knew. And so, it adapted. Power surged through its body, black energy curling through the air in a violent, writhing mass.
A blade took form in its grasp—pure cursed energy, pulsing and sharp.
It swung.
Air screamed as the strike carved through it, fast and precise, cleaving the space where Reika had been.
Had been. Because she was no longer there. A whisper. A flicker. And she was behind it.
SLASH.
Blood hit the floor. The curse staggered. Not burned. Not purified. Just… missing pieces. Swallowed. Not by fire. Not by decay. But by something deeper. Something hungrier.
And yet—It didn't fall.
Even in the face of inevitable loss, it turned to face her again. Because despite everything—It had to see. It had to understand. And Reika—Reika took a step forward. Slow. Unhurried.
And as the thing threw its last desperate attack—She smiled. Thin. Almost invisible. But there.