One More Day

The phone screen was not large, but the photograph on it made the rooftop feel colder.

Misato Kuroi sat bound in the image, her head lowered, a strip of black cloth covering her eyes. The background was deliberately plain. No windows. No landmarks. No careless reflection that could betray a location.

Suguru Geto looked at the photo for a long moment before lowering the phone.

"My mistake," he said.

Satoru Gojo leaned against the rooftop rail with his sunglasses hanging low on his nose. "Not really. They still need the Star Plasma Vessel alive. That means Kuroi is bait, not a corpse."

Riko Amanai stood between them with both hands clenched at her sides. Her face had gone pale, but her eyes did not move away from the phone.

"We have to save her," she said.

"We have to take you to Jujutsu High," Gojo replied.

The answer was immediate. Riko flinched as if she had been struck, then glared at him.

"Kuroi raised me. She is family."

"And the people chasing you know that." Gojo's voice stayed casual, but his expression did not. "If you run toward every hostage they show you, they get to control the pace."

Geto said nothing. He understood the logic, and because he understood it, his silence carried weight.

Riko's shoulders trembled. For a second she looked very young.

"I haven't even said goodbye to her."

A quiet voice came from the stairwell wall.

"Then take her back."

Ren Zenin stood there as if he had been leaning against the concrete for a while. No one had heard him arrive. His pale eyes moved from the phone to Riko, then to Gojo.

Gojo clicked his tongue. "You say that like walking into a trap is a hobby."

"Only if the trap is interesting."

"It might reduce Kuroi's chances of surviving."

"Then do not let it."

Riko stared at Ren. The answer was too calm, too simple, but something in it gave her room to breathe.

Gojo sighed and scratched the back of his head. "Fine. Conditions."

Riko straightened immediately.

"If the enemy's setup looks worse than expected, you go straight to Jujutsu High. If your presence makes Kuroi more likely to die, you go straight to Jujutsu High. If you panic and want out, we take you out. No arguing."

"I accept."

"You answered too fast."

"I accept," Riko repeated.

Gojo looked at her. Riko looked back. For a moment, the two of them were silent, stubborn and bright in completely different ways.

Ren glanced between them.

"Are you about to kiss?"

Riko's face flushed red. "We are not!"

Her hand snapped toward Gojo's face. Gojo slipped away with a lazy tilt of his body and used Ren as convenient cover.

"Do not drag me into your romance," Ren said.

"There is no romance!"

Geto covered his mouth with one hand, but the smile still reached his eyes.

By late evening, the rescue had already ended.

The kidnappers had prepared a hiding place, several curse users, and enough confidence to make all of it fragile. Gojo broke their perimeter before they understood he had arrived. Geto cleaned up the curses. Ren watched the route, then removed the one person who tried to flee with information.

Kuroi was rescued with only bruises and exhaustion.

That should have been the end of it.

Instead, because the location was close enough and because Riko stared at the sea as if it were something she had only been allowed to imagine, the group found itself on an island before dawn.

The next day was the kind of day that did not fit their mission.

The sea was bright. The wind tasted of salt. Riko ran along the beach with her shoes in one hand while Kuroi walked after her, still weak but smiling despite herself. Gojo chased a crab with the intensity of someone fighting a special-grade curse. Geto watched from a distance with the calm of a tired guardian.

Ren sat beneath the shade of a beach umbrella and ate from a small bag of snacks.

"We leave tomorrow at noon," Geto said, stopping beside him.

"Do what you want."

"You agreed very easily."

"I did not agree. I said I do not care."

Geto smiled faintly. "That is close enough."

Riko turned toward them from the shoreline. "Really? We can stay one more day?"

"Until tomorrow," Geto said.

Gojo popped up behind her with a sea cucumber in one hand. "See? Even our big ice block has a heart."

Ren looked at him.

Gojo immediately changed direction and offered the sea cucumber to Riko instead. "Want to see something gross?"

"No!"

Later, after Gojo insisted he could cook anything from the ocean, a pot of crab and sea cucumber ended up on the table.

The crab was acceptable. The sea cucumber was less fortunate.

Gojo placed a generous piece into Ren's bowl with the grave kindness of a host offering tribute.

Ren looked at it, then at Gojo.

The sea cucumber vanished from Ren's bowl and appeared in Gojo's.

Gojo paused.

Riko burst out laughing. Kuroi tried to hold herself together and failed. Even Geto turned away, shoulders shaking.

"That is cheating," Gojo said.

"Eat what you serve."

"You sound like a cruel parent."

"You sound like a bad cook."

The day passed in small, ordinary pieces. Shopping. Food. Riko laughing too loudly at Gojo's jokes and then pretending she had not. Kuroi walking a little behind her, eyes soft with things she did not dare say. Geto keeping count of the time. Gojo pretending not to.

Ren stayed on the beach when the others went into town.

The shore quieted. Sunlight moved over the water. Beneath the rolling surface, something immense and young shifted in the dark.

Ren's gaze lowered.

A cursed spirit hid in the sea, shaped like an octopus with a blunt face and strange, childlike movements. Its cursed energy had the depth of a disaster. Not mature yet. Not complete. But the source was clear.

Dagon.

The newborn disaster curse was celebrating something in the deep water. Then it sensed Ren.

The water around it froze in spirit if not in temperature.

Dagon fled.

It sank into the darkness as fast as its body could move, dragging the pressure of the sea around itself like a blanket.

Ren did not chase.

"So the fear of water has already taken shape," he murmured.

If Dagon had been born, the others would not be far behind. Jogo. Hanami. Perhaps Mahito, though the curse born from hatred between humans might still need more time.

Ren looked back toward the town, where Gojo's laughter carried faintly on the wind.

The disaster curse could wait.

Vacation came first.

The next day, they returned to Jujutsu High.

The barrier accepted them like a heavy curtain closing behind their backs. Kuroi looked up at the grounds with quiet tension. Riko, by contrast, seemed almost excited, turning her head left and right while Geto explained the path ahead.

"So this is Jujutsu High."

"Try not to wander off," Gojo said. "I refuse to babysit you twice."

Ren looked at him.

Gojo spread his hands. "What? I worked hard."

"You spent an entire day catching crabs."

"Under mission conditions."

Riko snorted.

Then the ground beneath them split.

Cursed energy erupted from below like a buried storm.

"Jump," Ren said.

The warning was calm, but everyone moved. Gojo vanished with Riko. Geto pulled Kuroi back. Ren stepped aside as the stone path exploded upward.

A black-hooded man burst from the ground, huge and muscular, a silver pendant swinging against his chest. The portrait inside the pendant had been polished from constant handling.

He clasped it and bowed his head.

"My lord, witness me."

Gojo landed several meters away with Riko in one arm. He watched the man finish praying.

"You got all the way into Jujutsu High for that?"

The hooded man opened his eyes. "Thank you for allowing the prayer to end. I will bring you back to my lord. You will evolve."

"That sounds annoying."

He attacked.

Gojo shifted, but the strike curved after him as if the air itself had rewritten the path. The fist followed the target, not the line. It smashed into the wall when Gojo disappeared again, carving stone apart.

Ren's eyes narrowed slightly.

"Divine Kingdom Cult," he said. "Different from the last one."

Gojo heard him and grinned. "Take the others inside. I will keep this one busy."

Geto nodded. "Riko, Kuroi, with us."

Riko hesitated.

Gojo waved without looking back. "Go. I will catch up after I teach him why people should research before attacking me."

The hooded man charged again.

Red light gathered at Gojo's fingertip.

"You people really do not know anything."

The blast struck like a small sun. Stone shattered, dust rose, and a crater opened where the cultist had been.

When the smoke thinned, nothing remained.

Gojo stared at the damage with a faint frown.

The question was not whether the enemy had died.

The question was how he had entered the barrier at all.

Somewhere ahead, Ren, Geto, Riko, and Kuroi reached the entrance to the Tomb of the Star Corridor.

Kuroi could go no farther.

Riko turned to her, and all the courage she had been holding together began to crack.

"Kuroi..."

Kuroi tried to smile. "This is as far as I can accompany you."

Riko threw herself into her arms.

"I love you," she said.

Kuroi closed her eyes and held her tightly.

Then Riko pulled away and ran after Ren and Geto, wiping her face with both sleeves.

The corridor stretched downward in silence.

At the end of it waited Tengen.

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