Fearsome Womb

Chapter update is here.

Get comfortable, turn the page, and let’s see what this story has been hiding 🔥

✦

Although Larue had escaped, the mission was still considered complete under the circumstances. The unknown existence and the cursed spirit were both recorded. Based on Ren's description, specialists who studied the origins and prototypes of cursed spirits judged that this cursed spirit might be an imaginary vengeful cursed spirit, and judging by its ability, it was possibly related to the dream-eating baku of myth.

Another unrecorded Special Grade cursed spirit naturally drew some attention. But that had nothing to do with Ren, whose mission was already complete. Someone else could have the headache.

Missions involving curse users were still rare. Most of those rats had been hiding since more than twenty years ago, cowering in dark sewers. The few encountered occasionally were extremely scarce compared with curse-related missions.

Summer was approaching. People's hearts grew restless, and the number of curses increased significantly. Fortunately, Special Grades were still few. Most curses were around Grade 2 strength. Everyone at Jujutsu High was busy, and when Ren counted it out, it had been some time since he had seen the whole group together.

Ginza, inside a high-end office building.

Two deaths had recently occurred there. Both were identical jumping suicides. Strictly speaking, there had been a third person too, but that person's floor had not been high, so he was lucky enough to survive. According to his account after waking up, it felt as if someone had been controlling his thoughts. Already emotionally unstable, he had broken the window in a daze and jumped.

After the Windows observed traces of a curse there, the sensitive location meant the matter was eventually handed to Ren, who happened to be free at Jujutsu High. It was in a busy downtown area, meaning there could be no big disturbance and the issue had to be resolved quickly. Even Ren felt he was absurdly suited for it.

So he came. The people inside the building had been temporarily evacuated. Reporters downstairs were being kept behind the police line. The victims all worked for the same company, an important branch of a well-known corporate group. Naturally, that drew the attention of reporters who flocked wherever they smelled a story.

So while the incident was not large in scale, it was being treated fairly seriously and needed to be solved quickly. When Ren arrived at the scene, this was what he saw. The police were being bombarded with questions by reporters carrying long lenses and microphones, looking deeply annoyed as they repeated the same official lines over and over.

The smile on Mio Nishizawa's face was almost stiff, yet she still had not managed to pry anything useful from the police officer standing at the cordon. Those cold-faced officers were like blocks of wood. No matter how nicely she spoke, she could not coax out even the smallest piece of news.

Thinking of having to face that bald editor spitting everywhere when she went back made anger rise in her. That lecherous old man was infuriating, but there was nothing she could do. Feeling discouraged, she even wondered whether lowering her neckline a little might make it easier to get information.

At that moment, the photographer following her called out, "Mio, look! A young man just came over there. He is with that officer. Is he going into the building?"

Hearing that, Mio Nishizawa looked up. A young man in black clothes and sunglasses was walking toward the building alongside the officer who always wore a hard expression. Yet the officer's marble-stiff face now somehow carried a smile, and he was saying something to the handsome young man.

A handsome guy definitely meant clicks. With Mio Nishizawa's sharp eye, this person would look amazing on camera. Even popular celebrities, without makeup, probably could not compare to this boy. He was clearly connected to the police and the case. If she could interview him and get even one or two lines, even if there was not much information, putting that face in front of viewers and adding some edited copy and narration would absolutely attract attention.

Revived, Mio decisively told the photographer to follow her. Her heels clicked rapidly as she hurried over. But she was not the only one who noticed. Other media outlets swarmed in too, like sharks catching the scent of blood.

Thanks to the crowding skills she had honed on the subway, and because she had been near the front to begin with, she successfully squeezed up close. She only had time to smooth her hair before urgently thrusting the microphone forward.

"Handsome! Are you with the police? Or are you a specialist they invited? There are rumors this building is haunted. What do you think?"

Ren looked at the female reporter who had broken through the blockade of sweating police officers, then at the swarm of reporters behind her. He felt his head ache a little. He would rather face a pack of curses directly. Right now, he felt like a piece of fresh meat being watched by a crowd of zombies behind a wire fence, their microphones like arms reaching out to grab him.

Officer Otani was displeased. His smiling face dropped instantly, and he urged his subordinates to block these annoying people properly. Whenever something happened, reporters like this moved faster than the police. All they cared about were news hooks, with no regard for the chain reaction they might cause.

Mio Nishizawa and the reporters behind her were pushed away by the police after her photographer only managed to take a few shots from the front and back. Once the young man and the officer disappeared from sight, she finally gave up.

"Quick! Check whether the shots are clear enough. Today's assignment depends on this. With the right packaging, it might even go viral. People online love this kind of thing now."

Mio urged the photographer to check the results. But his sweaty, panicked reply made her blood pressure spike.

"What? You did not get him? How can you make such a basic mistake? You say you definitely took the pictures, but somehow they disappeared? What, did the ghost inside that building come out and delete them?"

The culprit, Ren, removed his sunglasses after entering the building. Officer Otani had escorted him inside and then returned. White Wolf ran in through the sealed side entrance. At Ren's instruction, he happily rushed deeper into the building.

Thirteenth floor.

Ren was using his phone to chat with everyone in a LINE group. Up ahead, White Wolf, now much larger, was chasing a faceless humanoid cursed spirit all over the place. The curse wanted to escape, but Ren blocked the doorway. Showing only the cursed energy he had gathered was enough to scare the spirit back.

Ren sent the picture he had taken of White Wolf to the group. Because the cursed spirit could not be captured on camera, the image only showed White Wolf idiotically pouncing at empty air. He had no idea he had already become the topic of idle chatter among several bored people.

Crash!

The cursed spirit, pushed into a desperate situation by White Wolf and blocked again by Ren, could not even break through the wall. In the end, it smashed through the thick floor-to-ceiling window on the outside of the building and tried to flee that way.

Hearing the noise, Ren looked up and saw the curse already leaping out through the broken window. This was the thirteenth floor. He wondered what would happen if a cursed spirit jumped from here. The sudden noise also drew the attention of the reporters who still had not dispersed downstairs, but when they raised their heads to look for the source, they saw nothing.

Timewheel: Reverse.

The shattered glass became an illusion. The cursed spirit appeared back in the room and stared blankly at the intact glass in front of it. Its intelligence was incomplete, and it could not understand what had just happened. Before it could make another move, its vision spun upside down and sank into nothingness.

Ren put Dojikiri away and waved his phone at White Wolf. "Emergency mission. Let's go."

West Tokyo City, Eishu Juvenile Detention Center.

"Three hours ago, the Windows observed the presence of a cursed womb. When evacuation was about ninety percent complete, the facility was sealed off based on the situation at the scene. Five inmates in the second detention block are currently still inside with the cursed womb."

Ijichi pushed up his glasses, his expression grave. "If the target is the type capable of metamorphosis, it may generate a Special Grade cursed spirit. Mr. Gojo is away on business and cannot come for the moment. Second-year Ren Kamishiro has already been notified as well. In this line of work, we are chronically understaffed, and being sent on missions above one's ability happens all the time. But this case is both urgent and abnormal."

"Until Ren-kun arrives, there is only one thing you need to do: confirm whether there are any survivors. If there are, rescue them if possible."

"Absolutely do not fight. If you encounter a Special Grade cursed spirit, there are only two options: run or die. I repeat, your objective is confirming survivors. You must avoid encountering or fighting the Special Grade cursed spirit. Backup will arrive soon."

Yuji Itadori listened obediently until Ijichi finished, then raised his hand. "Um... how are cursed spirits graded again? I still do not really understand Special Grade and all that."

After Ijichi gave him a rough explanation, Yuji looked enlightened. "Oh! Then that second-year senpai is really strong?"

Megumi Fushiguro said calmly from the side, "Jujutsu High currently has three Special Grade jujutsu sorcerers. One is Gojo-sensei. Another is Okkotsu-senpai, who is overseas right now. The last one is Ren."

Nobara Kugisaki had not expected the second-year senpai she had met once to be a Special Grade jujutsu sorcerer. Unlike Yuji, she knew some things about the jujutsu world. That knowledge came from her grandmother back home.

Ijichi added, "Ren-kun has already exorcised Special Grade cursed spirits alone several times. This mission probably will not be a problem for him. However, because the incident happened suddenly, he is in the middle of another mission and will need some time to arrive. So... all of you, be extremely careful."

"No problem! Then let's do what we can!" Yuji said, full of energy.

Megumi and Nobara were nowhere near as optimistic. Nobara silently grumbled to herself.

'This idiot. Special Grade cursed spirits are not comparable to those lower-level curses. This mission is extremely dangerous, even if all we do inside is search for survivors.'

"Tadashi... Is my son all right?"

An ordinary woman broke through the people blocking the area in panic. Her face, carved by life, held completely unhidden worry and fear. Seeing her, Ijichi stepped forward to explain.

"It is possible an unidentified person released poison gas inside. That is all I can tell you. We are currently organizing personnel to enter and perform a rescue."

Seeing the mother unable to stop crying, Yuji's expression hardened. "We have to bring them out. Fushiguro, Kugisaki..."

"We know."

The three stepped through the gate and advanced into the cursed place.

Megumi summoned a Divine Dog ahead of them to stay alert and search. Once the three entered the building, however, they discovered that the inside was not a two-story dormitory. It had become an apartment-like structure with five or six floors. When they turned back, the door they had entered through was gone, replaced by a wall full of pipes.

"This is... an innate domain opened with cursed energy. This is my first time seeing one over such a large area."

Megumi was already starting to feel something was wrong. Yuji and Nobara panicked a little when they saw the entrance was gone. After all, that affected their retreat and their survival. Megumi had no choice but to explain.

"My Divine Dog remembers the entrance's scent. This place only changed the environment. It did not erase the entrance out of nowhere. Once we find the survivors, we can follow the dog and leave through the entrance."

"Oh! Good dog."

Looking at the two, who had barely any sense of tension right now, Megumi could not help feeling speechless. These two... After Yuji finished petting the Divine Dog, he turned and praised Megumi.

"Good thing we have you, Fushiguro. The people inside should be saved. And I got saved by you too. Haha."

Megumi's expression turned unreadable. Then the three continued forward. Before long, they found a horrifying scene in an open room.

There were probably three corpses there. Two on the floor were twisted into ball-like shapes that could barely be recognized as human. The only reason they could be identified at all was because of the rough shape of limbs and torn clothing.

The only one that could be called intact was half a body leaning against the wall. The upper half was mostly complete, with only some blood below the mouth and nose. Compared with the horrors beside it, it looked much better.

Yuji silently went over to inspect the relatively intact corpse. On the clothing, he saw the name: Tadashi Okazaki. This was... that woman's son.

"I am taking his body out. This is that woman's son."

Hearing Yuji, Megumi walked over, grabbed the back of his collar, and pulled him up. "We still need to confirm whether two other people are alive. Leave the body."

"But once we turn back, there may not be a way here again."

Megumi spoke each word clearly. "Not later. Leave it."

"He was not someone I wanted to save in the first place. Now that he is dead, there is even less reason to waste strength on him."

Yuji grabbed Megumi by the collar, suppressing his anger. Megumi's expression did not change at all.

"This is a juvenile detention center. Did you not read the briefing? Tadashi Okazaki drove without a license and killed a girl on her way home from school. And that was his second offense for unlicensed driving."

"Are you going to save every person you meet? If someone you save kills people later, what will you do?"

Just as the two were about to argue, Nobara ran over from the side. "Hey! If you two are going to fight, could you at least pick the time and place?"

Following Nobara's indication, they saw the dead white Divine Dog sealed into the wall, only its head exposed. Megumi's heart sank. He had not sensed the shikigami's death at all. Such fast, silent killing...

At that moment, a black hole appeared beneath Nobara's feet. With no chance to defend herself, she fell in instantly. Megumi turned and shouted at Yuji.

"Run! We will find her later!"

Before his words finished, a terrifying presence enveloped both of them. Something had descended into this place.

With difficulty, they moved their eyes toward the being that had appeared behind them. It was a muscular humanoid monster, with a huge mouth almost devoid of lips and eyes set on ridged protrusions at the top of its head. Merely standing beside them, the terrifying aura pressed them down until they could hardly move.

'No mistake. It is definitely Special Grade. So this is the pressure of Special Grade?'

Yuji's eyes widened in fury. The unknown Special Grade cursed spirit suddenly closed the distance. Struggling with everything he had, Yuji finally regained some ability to move. He raised the cursed tool Gojo had given him for the previous mission, Slaughter Demon, and swung without hesitation.

But in the next instant, his hand felt light. Slaughter Demon split in two and fell to the ground. A familiar hand was still gripping the handle.

'Isn't that my hand? When did...?'

✦
✦
✦

Ready for more?

The next chapters are already waiting on my Patreon, along with early access, previews, and extra story updates 🗝️

www.patreon.com/c/EmberHollowFanfiction