Chapter 67: Escape and Pursuit (Patreon)

Chapter 67: Flight and Pursuit

…

Panda charged, and then Panda flew.

The idol vengeful spirit, running on all four hands and feet, was like a car that had hit sixty kilometers an hour, and it slammed into a bear that had wandered onto the highway.

"Ooh!"

That one packed a punch.

"Stop—!"

The moment Toge Inumaki saw the mass of black haze, he yanked down his scarf and bellowed.

The monstrous body froze mid-motion.

At the same instant, Satoru Anjouin launched his own attack.

He brought the cursed tool sword down hard. Anjouin didn't have the finesse to channel cursed energy into a cursed tool, so he was relying on the sword's own cursed energy alone. He couldn't cut through a cursed spirit's body as easily as Kento Nanami or Maki Zenin could.

Then again, Maki was all brute strength, and she didn't have any trick for channeling cursed energy either.

To avoid seeing the idol vengeful spirit's form, Anjouin had placed a Binding on his own eyes, so naturally he had no idea where his blade landed.

Still, he had followed through with the swing aimed at her head.

Anjouin suspected that the idol's face might be her weak point. When it came down to it, being an idol was a job that depended on looks first. Being good-looking was the number one requirement.

But all he faced was a mass of black haze. He couldn't tell where the head ended and the tail began, so he could only hack away blindly.

And the feel of the blade biting into the idol vengeful spirit was exactly like cutting into a rubber tire.

Inumaki didn't say anything more. He grabbed Anjouin by the back of the collar, and the two of them bolted straight down from the corner landing.

Now that it was confirmed Inumaki's Cursed Speech could effectively counter the idol vengeful spirit's lies, every tactic from here on would revolve around keeping Inumaki able to cast steadily.

Meanwhile, Maki and Nanami caught up with the halted idol vengeful spirit.

Two cursed tools drove into her body at the same time.

But in the next instant, both of them were smacked away by her swinging hand.

Two fresh wounds opened on her body, and the idol vengeful spirit glared at them with resentful eyes.

[We're friends. Hurting friends is wrong.]

Nanami and Maki were hit by the lie again. They stood dazed for a moment, but this time they didn't believe it the way they had before.

Neither of them showed any hostility, though. The idol vengeful spirit paused, then pulled phones and a Bluetooth speaker out of their pockets and smashed them hard against the floor.

[Aqua… Ruby…]

The idol vengeful spirit kept repeating the cry.

Then she went hand over hand, clambering down from outside the walkway, trying to cut off the two who were fleeing.

"Don't run!"

Panda, who had just been sent flying, had already dug himself out of a pile of junk and was putting his bear strength to use again.

His fierce claws came down on the back of the huge body and tore several gashes into it.

Letters sprayed out of the wounds. The idol vengeful spirit fought back with all four hands and feet, but she had no advantage in a contest of strength.

Downstairs, Anjouin, who had already fled down, was thinking about what he could do right now.

He already had a fair grasp of his own level. Since he was only a Grade 3 jujutsu sorcerer, all he had to do was what he was capable of doing.

Of course, his Binding cursed technique had played no small part in this fight. Without the Binding on his eyes and ears, they probably wouldn't even have been able to get close to the idol vengeful spirit.

But results like that didn't satisfy Anjouin.

Right now he couldn't hear her, and he couldn't perceive her. The only thing telling him how fierce the battle was were the tremors coming from above.

"I wonder how Senior Panda is doing."

After all, from where he'd been standing, Panda had been smashed away by an enormous mass of black haze.

Beside him, Inumaki took a notebook and pen from his pocket and wrote quickly.

"Any other ideas?"

Anjouin took the notebook and pen and wrote back at once.

"I don't know how the fight upstairs is going. The priority is still keeping Mr. Nanami and Big Sis in a sound state of mind."

Having tried cutting the idol vengeful spirit himself, Anjouin ruled out the idea of being the damage dealer. At least the current him couldn't do it.

Unless he landed a Black Flash right now and instantly deepened his understanding of the cursed energy core.

Honestly, it was a real headache. Worst of all, he didn't even know whether his last slash had hit her face or not.

It was also lucky the idol vengeful spirit hadn't shown any intent to kill them. Otherwise, a cursed spirit with a cursed technique this troublesome would basically be dumped on Satoru Gojo.

Anjouin felt like a new driver who had barely passed the driving test, and the instructor had sent him straight onto the highway.

He understood better and better why the protagonist of the original story had been getting beaten up the whole way.

What kind of sane person fights a Special Grade right off the bat?

Normally you'd work your way up slowly, from Grade 4 to Grade 3, Grade 2, Grade 1.

Oh, and there were also semi-Grade 2 and semi-Grade 1, the two transitional ranks.

He couldn't help ranting at the jujutsu world's insane matchmaking system.

While Anjouin grumbled to himself, Inumaki read what he had written and nodded. But in the next moment, the mass of black haze seemed to knock something flying.

"Oooooh…"

The two of them heard nothing. They only saw a blurry shape fall past the corner of their eyes.

Then the pitch-black monster with four arms and four legs climbed over the walkway's protective wall and crawled down the outside to the next floor.

Run.

Inumaki tugged Anjouin's clothes and shot off.

Anjouin understood immediately what he meant. He followed right behind and copied his way of running.

In his few days at the school, he'd made escaping a particular focus of his training.

The two of them nimbly ran to another staircase, but instead of going down, they headed straight up. They were going to find Nanami and Maki, who were still under the effect of the Lie cursed technique.

…

Elsewhere, Panda had been knocked flying out past the walkway again by accident, but he caught the wall before he fell and climbed back into the apartment building.

"Ugh, what a headache."

Panda scratched his head. He probably hadn't expected Nanami and Maki to be standing right there, just watching.

"Regroup first, regroup first."

As he said it, Panda locked eyes with a little boy who had just opened his front door.

"Mommy, a panda came to our house!"

"Honestly, I told you to watch less TV. Next time Mommy will take you to the zoo. For now, be a good boy, stay home, and do your homework."

Then a boy's wailing erupted from inside the rental unit.

Perhaps to prove he hadn't imagined it, the boy dragged his mother to the door.

And behind the door, of course, there was nothing.

…

The two of them took the steps three at a time and dashed back upstairs. Inumaki went first, poked his head out, and signaled for Anjouin to follow.

But before he could move forward, Anjouin grabbed his clothes.

Anjouin stared hard at the specks of dust jumping on the floor and pulled Inumaki back into the stairwell.

A moment later, the idol vengeful spirit that had just climbed down to the lower floor hauled herself back up from the outside, her long neck stretched out as she searched for something.

The two chose to keep moving up another floor, this time with softer steps.

Anjouin kept his eyes on Inumaki's footwork, picking up escape techniques from it bit by bit.

To avoid being spotted, they crouched down and used the walkway wall as cover. Feeling the vibrations underfoot, Inumaki signaled them to stop.

The two pressed hard against the wall, held their breath, and carefully hid themselves.

Feeling the pressure of a presence on the other side of a single wall, Anjouin reined in his emotions.

The idol vengeful spirit saw nothing and was about to climb to the floor above. Inumaki was just about to move when he found his clothes being tugged.

He turned his head and noticed how deathly pale Anjouin's face was.

He wanted to ask on the notebook, but then remembered the notebook and pen were both with Anjouin.

And Anjouin was already drenched in cold sweat.

The idol vengeful spirit had, after all, once sneaked up behind Nanami and crept close to him. Anjouin didn't believe a simple hiding trick like theirs could fool her.

In fact, he could see a mass of black haze appear twenty-odd meters ahead of them, and that haze had already reached into the walkway.

Even though he couldn't perceive her form, a terrifying picture formed in Anjouin's mind anyway.

The pitch-black monster was still hanging on the outer wall, pretending to move up a floor. In truth she had circled around to ambush them from the front.

If he and Inumaki kept going, they would run straight into the idol vengeful spirit.

"Damn it."

Anjouin felt the idol vengeful spirit glaring down at him.

Her long neck was stretched out, and her head, thrust into the walkway, was aimed squarely at the two of them.

"Stop—"

Without a word between them, Inumaki turned and used his technique on her, and then the two spun around and ran.

They leaped straight down the stairs. Anjouin even leaned his head out over the middle of the stairwell and spotted a flash of black and white racing up from below, then hauled Inumaki along with him.

The idol vengeful spirit chased right behind them and followed them into the stairwell.

Feeling the pressure closing in from behind, the two ran even faster.

Inumaki was about to bail out of the stairwell, but Anjouin grabbed his clothes again. Even though they couldn't talk and couldn't pass thoughts on the notebook, he followed without a moment's hesitation.

They descended three floors in no time. When Inumaki saw his fuzzy friend, a smile broke across his face.

Anjouin gestured toward the space behind them.

"Oh, leave it to me."

Panda patted his chest.

Anjouin couldn't hear what Panda said, but he chose to trust him, and he ran past Panda alongside Inumaki.

Inumaki had wanted to stop and help Panda, but he chose to follow Anjouin anyway.

And the idol vengeful spirit, hot on their heels, immediately ran into a black-and-white gorilla.

"Die!"

The gorilla's fist landed on the pitch-black body made of letters.

With a dull thud, the enormous idol vengeful spirit was stopped dead.

The idol vengeful spirit seemed confused, as if she couldn't understand why the humans she was chasing had turned into a gorilla.

"Take this! Take this! Take this!"

The gorilla roared as he swung his fists, ora-ora-ing nonstop.

Like heavy iron hammers, the fists pounded into the idol vengeful spirit's body one after another. The stairs clearly couldn't bear that kind of force. Cracks spread through them, and then they collapsed.

The gorilla and the idol vengeful spirit dropped to the floor below together.

On the other side, the two who had circled around through the walkway and let Panda draw her attention headed back upstairs and found Nanami and Maki standing there in a daze.

The moment Anjouin saw them raise their cursed tools at him, he started slapping Inumaki's back over and over.

Inumaki looked puzzled for a moment, but then he saw Nanami and Maki charging at them.

He didn't need to be told what was going on. He shouted urgently.

"Wake up—!"