What a mess, that was the first thought that crossed Gojou's mind once he looked down on the sea of people crowding the Hikarie shinQ's B1F. No matter where he looked, there wasn't a spot on the floor that wasn't occupied by a person, the air was getting quite heavy despite the ventilation system working at full capacity. Gojou could see the turmoil in their gazes as they turned left and right, trying to understand what was going on around them. The situation was worse than we imagined, at first glance he guessed there'd be something between five and seven hundred people, all dressed for the occasion. Vampires, zombies, witches, and monsters of all kinds were present during Halloween night, perhaps too many, which would make moving around quite difficult. Eventually, he decided to simply walk above their heads, the soles of his shoes a few inches away from touching the flabbergasted civilians.
The thing he couldn't understand was why they were all trapped underground while outside was completely desert. Makes him wonder if they were somewhat forced inside by something and unable to leave just like aboveground.
As he slowly descended to the platform of the Fukutoshin line through a pit between floors, Gojou sensed that the curtain originated somewhere in the middle of the railway. Once his feet touched solid ground, he was surrounded by civilians standing on the sides of the rails behind the barriers, holding the mass like dams. At this exact moment, he came to realize what the three individuals in front of him were after. "There you are." One of them greeted him, and Gojou immediately recognized him as the special grade curse who attacked him back in August. Together with the volcano head, there was also the same cursed spirit present at the exchange event and what appeared to be a human curse user. That was fine in his book, the more the merrier.
"Look at ya, all ready to go." He chuckled, "No excuses if you lose again this time, okay?"
"Don't worry about us... just be sure to have your first-ever excuse ready!" Jogou responded. Above the shaman's head, roots sprouted out of the concrete blocking the pit he himself hovered down from, and so was the staircase that led to the upper floors.
"Don't bother," Gojou sighed, "I'm not going anywhere. If I run away, you're just gonna kill everyone here, right?"
"If you run away? We're going to do that..." The corners of the mouth of the ancient curse went up in a vile smile, its only eye lit in malicious content. Suddenly the barriers opened, and soon a wave of bystanders came crashing down on the railway in dozens, pushed by the mass in the space between Gojou and the curses. For the sorcerer, he watched the worst-case scenario unfolding before his eyes.
"Even if you don't!"
______
A lone flame was waved in the silent dark road, a source of light so different from the dim, artificial ones shining down on the asphalt and its wielder. Gabriele's lethargic gaze was trained on the fire, trying to catch any direction its crest may point but so it sat motionless, not a second it hinted of changing direction. It was nothing new, he had checked four times already with little to no result, he knew there wasn't anything outside of the curtain to justify his paranoia. Still, he shone the light through the windows of the empty shops. It amazed him how everything, despite the situation, was in its place as if frozen in time. It made him wonder if the owners had fled the scene as the curtain was cast or, perhaps out of curiosity, they crossed it only to get stuck within. Slowly the flame died out in his hand, Gabriele shifted his attention to his palm, encased in the white velvet glove of his exorcist uniform. He was back in his old attire, the Empyreans had it shipped directly from the Vatican while they destroyed the student uniform right before his eyes. It shouldn't matter, it was a piece of clothing like any other he wore throughout his life but watching them tear it apart was painful, a pang in his heart that held its deathly grasp on the organ to the point he thought it was about to explode. This uniform felt uncomfortable in comparison.
The exorcist hugged his arms, an expression of melancholy adorned his visage. His mind was filled with thousands of fears concerning the well-being of the first years, but mainly on what would happen after this mission ended. Will he see them one more time? Will he be forced to leave, to go back to being enemies?
A tap on his shoulder made him jolt awake, Gabriele spun on the spot with his guard up, his fist mere inches from the auxiliary manager's face.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you like that." The young man apologized calmly, saying that he shouldn't have sneaked up on him while the teenager was in the middle of his self-imposed patrol. The exorcist then lowered his arms, seeing there was no danger he sat on the curb of the sidewalk, arms crossed on top of his knee and looking into the void. The assistant sat next to him, holding a very interesting look as he laid his gaze on him, curiosity written all over his face.
"I don't think we have met before, have we?"
"No, we didn't." Gabriele answered, looking at him for a brief moment. The assistant put a hand on his chest as he introduced himself to the foreigner: "My name is Kimura Junnosuke, I heard a bunch of stuff about you from my colleagues. You sound like a force of nature." The exorcist nodded absently, gazing ahead of him with nothing in particular on his mind, not very keen on the conversation at the moment.
"Umh, there's one thing I wanna ask you... How should I refer to those two, you know, on this? To distinguish them, I mean..." He shook the transceiver he had in his hand, Gabriele shifted his gaze towards the two Empyreans a bit distant from where they were, currently sitting close to the barrier deep in meditation.
"There's no real answer since they don't possess a name. You may call them Pinky and the Brain if that amuses you."
"Nah I prefer staying alive, thank you very much." Gabriele gave him a small smile, the first time that he genuinely cracked up in a week.
"Now that I think about it, in the past, they used to be called Apostles, and each one of them took a name from one of the twelve disciples of Jesus. The appellative fell off and was replaced when fewer and fewer exorcists could meet the conditions to become one, now there are only seven of them."
"Like the seven kings of Rome?" Kimura said out of nowhere, taking the exorcist by a slight surprise. The auxiliary manager found his stunned expression to be particularly humorous, so much so that he had to keep himself from laughing out loud. "I'm sorry, it kinda slipped off. I used to be a history buff back in school, becoming a historian was my childhood dream in a sense." The assistant confessed, reminiscing of the time he spent browsing through books about ancient history between classes with a certain embarrassment. In Gabriele's mind, though, a question grew spontaneous.
"How come that you choose to be part of this world?" The exorcist wondered, Kimura took his time watching the dark sky up above before responding:
"Simple, when you can see curses it's the Jujutsu world that comes to you, not vice versa. When I first entered Jujutsu High I was excited, I thought I was gonna fight cursed spirits and protect people like a superhero. But then I soon realized I wasn't cut for it," he laughed bitterly as he scratched the back of his head, "To think I had left my little town in the countryside to be here in Tokyo, such a big jump."
"You sound sad about it." Gabriele said.
"A bit homesick, yeah. I miss the sight of the mountains, the clean air... I can always visit, though!" The assistant suddenly chirped up, for some reason this optimism did not disgust Gabriele, who'd usually dwell on the darker side of the picture. It is rare to be this high in spirit in a reality as grim as this one, to focus on the bright side you had to be either crazy or a fool, or both if your name is Satoru Gojou. The exorcist had this strange feeling about Kimura as if he could open up and bask in his sanguinity and warmth.
"Are you satisfied with yourself?" This time it was Kimura who was taken off guard.
"What do you mean?"
"Don't you ever feel like whatever effort you put in, it doesn't amount to anything in the grand scheme of things?" Gabriele confessed without even realizing, the ghost of ineptitude having the upper hand on his rational side. Despite the initial bewilderment, Kimura understood that the person sitting next to him, regardless of how deep he was in this putrid, rotten world and how long he was submerged in it, was still a teenager, a kid who had yet a lot to learn about life. "If I have to be honest about it, not so much. I may not be fighting in the frontline but I know I can still be helpful like this," he opened his arms as if showing off his suit and tie, then pointed at his transceiver, "My contribution ain't that big, especially compared to yours or your friends' work, but if that means that even a single soul gets to live for another day thanks to a call of mine..."
"Then yes, I'm satisfied with myself."
______
Itadori stared at the grasshopper curse's corpse slowly disintegrate after their brief but intense battle, nothing but a small fish put to protect the curtain in Meiji-Jingumae station, which firmly believed to close the gap in strength between the two of them by using petty tricks. Not as smart as it bragged to be, I'm afraid. In this moment of dissociative state, one thing and one thing only was present in his thoughts. The curse with the patchwork face, or Mahito as the grasshopper called it, was here, somewhere down in B4F and B5F causing havoc amid the civilians and leaving a path of blood and destruction wherever he looked. His attention swiftly moved to the nail-like object plunged into the floor, all wrapped in cursed talismans; it had to be the source of the curtain obstructing the sorcerers in this station. With a confident step, the sorcerer walked to the object and snapped it in half with his foot.
Just as the curtain came undone, so did Yuji's trance, all his senses resumed their natural functions out of the blue. Mei Mei and her little brother must have been waiting for him downstairs.
Pushed by a sense of fret, Itadori dashed towards the staircase, jumping down the entire flight of stairs with no repercussions. B4F, the floor was a total desolation, the strong stench of the several half-eaten corpses lying around made the air almost unbearable as he ran across it. A bloodstained bluetooth speaker was discarded on the floor, the catchy tune playing at full volume gave the place an even more spectral atmosphere, accompanied by the grunts of the transfigured humans he promptly kicked their skull in. Found the way that led down to B5F, He joined back with the rest of his squad, the grade one sorcerer Mei Mei and her little brother Ui Ui, currently carrying a battle ax the same size as him.
After jumping the turnstiles, the woman spent some words of consideration for Itadori during this moment of temporary quietude: "Incredible, I honestly thought you'd have more trouble." She said, "You're good enough to be a first-grade already. I haven't seen anyone get this far without using any technique since Kusakabe."
"It wasn't that patchwork guy, though, it wouldn't have been so easy if it was." Yuji humbly retorted, earning a stern look from the kid Ui Ui.
"My sister is praising you. Just take the compliment."
The trio went down the escalators to finally reach the metro platforms in B5F, but where they thought they'd find a scene worth of a George Romero movie, their eyes looked upon a relatively intact space compared to B4F, the traces of blood were present in minor quantity respect at the pools on the floor above. A scene much more reminiscent of a riot than a massacre. "We're too late..." Mei Mei spoke with remorse while Yuji noticed a person sitting alone by the subway's wayfinding sign.
"Are you okay? What happened?" Itadori knelt beside him as he watched him in concern, the survivor didn't seem to acknowledge the teen's presence at first. He sat there, unblinking, with the pale visage of someone who had witnessed horrors beyond his comprehension and struggled to find a sense in it. "Everyone... monsters..." He said in a whisper, "They got... on the train... he said... it was already full... I wasn't needed..." In a span of a second, his cranium split and began to inflate to inhuman proportions, blood leaked copious from his nostrils as it collapsed lifeless on the floor. The teen was seized by anger, the patchwork curse, Mahito, or whatever the hell that fiend was called was here, but at that precise moment the last words the survivor had pronounced sunk in.
"Gojou-sensei!" He yelled out. A train full of transfigured humans was on its way to Shibuya, one stop away from here.
"Mei-san, how far is Shibuya from here?"
"Ten minutes on foot, if we run then probably not more than a minute at your speed... though I'm certain that the train has already reached its destination." The woman answered in a calculating manner, "What awaits us there is a massacre like no other... I hope you made peace with that, and ready to face what's to come." Itadori nodded, he gave a quick look to the deformed cadaver and uttered a small promise that they'll fix this, that no death will be in vain. Together they hopped down on the railway and proceeded to venture down the tunnels at a great pace. In his mind, he had completely rejected the idea of losing, not when his sensei, the strongest sorcerer alive, was in the equation. But not only Gojou, but all the other sorcerers, his classmates Fushiguro and Kugisaki, his senior Maki, Panda and Inumaki, and even Esposito came back to face this arduous challenge, he heard. How can they possibly fail after all the hard work and effort they have put in?
Suddenly he felt something attach itself to his ear, causing him to abruptly stop in his tracks. "What the?!" His sudden burst caught the attention of his two companions a few feet ahead of him.
"What's wrong?" Ui Ui asked. Before he could answer, a robotic voice interjected their conversation:
"Can you hear me? Yuji Itadori? Listen care-" The teen in question did not waste his time to hear as he grabbed whatever thing he had in his ear and threatened to crush it with the bare strength of his hand. "Wait wait wait! I'm on your side!" It cried for its life. Upon a closer inspection, Yuji understood it was a small device, the size of a medallion, sporting the semblance of the robot he had met at the exchange event.
"This is Mechamaru, from Kyoto High!" Itadori immediately remembered what had occurred a month and a half ago like a flash in his mind but something was wrong with it. In fact, Gojou had told them that Gabriele had found the corpse of the one controlling Mechamaru, so whoever was communicating with them couldn't be him. Also, he was the mole who shared confidential info with the cursed spirits. The teen thought twice about destroying the device here and now, and then he remembered that he himself had come back from the dead, too. So perhaps it was a similar situation or something like that. What came out of its mouth, however, made the blood of the present freeze on the spot, a possibility beyond their more macabre expectations...
"Gojou Satoru has been sealed."