The abandoned school loomed ahead—its skeletal remains overrun by creeping vines, shattered glass, and moss-slicked floors. The distant rumble of shifting ground gave the illusion the building itself was breathing.
"Creepy," Panda muttered, cracking his knuckles.
"I've seen creepier," Maki said, tightening the grip on her polearm.
Yuta stayed quiet. His eyes scanned the ruined structure, lips pressed in a tense line. He glanced at Inumaki, who nodded silently, as if hearing something no one else could.
The MC stood to the side, bandages still wrapped around his left shoulder and across his ribs. He wasn't cleared for front-line combat—not yet. But Gojo had allowed him to accompany the squad under one condition: "No heroics. You think, you don't fight."
Still, his fingers hovered near the charm tucked in his sleeve. Birdie, he thought.
"I'm sending it in first," he said. With a flick of cursed energy, the small bird-shaped shikigami materialized, hovering like a drone.
"Ready?" he asked. No one answered, but no one needed to.
The veil fell with a ripple—cast by Gojo high above—and the cursed energy inside the grounds intensified like a spike of static in the air.
Inside the ruined school, it was eerily quiet at first. Debris shifted underfoot as the squad advanced in formation—Maki and Panda leading, Yuta and Inumaki close behind, the MC trailing with Birdie floating overhead.
They didn't have to wait long.
The floor cracked violently. Stone pillars erupted like spears. A massive, hulking curse burst from beneath the ground, shaped like gravattack from ben10
a towering centaur but made of slabs of packed earth, loose bricks for teeth, and glowing magma-like veins of cursed energy coursing across its frame.
"INCOMING!" Panda roared as the ground beneath Maki buckled. She flipped back instinctively.
The curse growled. The walls moved with it. Every time it attacked, it created cover. Stone shields shot up. The air buzzed with energy.
Yuta slashed, his sword bouncing harmlessly off a shifting wall of hardened soil. Maki followed up, spinning her weapon into a strike aimed at its legs—but the ground swallowed the blow.
"This thing fights like the battlefield is part of its body!" the MC shouted.
Birdie launched a glowing orb. It hit the curse's back and BOOM—a fiery crack lit up. Smoke clouded the room, but the curse emerged unharmed. It had used its own stone limbs to absorb the blast.
"None of our attacks are landing hard enough," Maki growled.
"Too defensive," Panda added. "Even my punches are barely making a dent."
Then it clicked.
"Pattern," the MC muttered. His eyes sharpened. "It shifts terrain every three seconds. Blocks attacks from the front, not from above."
Yuta turned toward him. "So we aim from the top?"
"No. We trap it," the MC said. "Inumaki!"
Inumaki looked over. The MC pointed at Birdie, then gestured up, miming an explosion.
"Birdie drops bombs behind it," the MC explained. "Inumaki stops it mid-attack, so it can't raise walls. While it's stunned—Maki, Panda, Yuta—you hit it with everything."
Birdie began to rise. The curse roared again, shifting the floor, chasing them.
"NOW!" the MC yelled.
Inumaki stepped forward.
"Don't move," he said, voice cutting through the chaos like a blade.
The curse froze. Muscles locked, stone mid-formation.
Birdie hovered behind it—three glowing bombs released from its wings.
Tick.
Tick.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Smoke. Flames. Screaming stone.
Yuta rushed in, blade slicing.
Panda lunged, fists smashing through crumbling defenses.
Maki spun, her polearm cracking into the curse's center mass.
With a groan, the monster crumbled like a collapsing statue, chunks falling in every direction.
Silence.
Then… a soft flutter.
Birdie returned to the MC's shoulder, singed but intact.
"You alright?" Maki asked, panting.
"Not a scratch," the MC said, wincing.
"You're lucky Gojo said no heroics," she added.
"Didn't fight. Just thought."
Gojo watched from a rooftop, arms crossed. "They're learning" he said with a smile.