The mood back at the Church of Last Pour was twisted. Yuji hadn't said a word in an hour. He sat on the stairs with bloodied fists and a silent scream behind his eyes, watching Juno sprinkle purification dust on what was left of the cursed food truck. Father Asher was praying. Or at least mumbling drunk psalms while nursing a bottle of Consecrated Cabernet.
Flint tried to cheer Yuji up by juggling flaming skewers and nearly lit Nanami on fire. Nobody laughed. Not even Spillglass, who usually laughed at car accidents and emotional trauma. Marrow sharpened knives in the background while humming something that sounded like a funeral dirge in Morse code.
Junpei's name hung in the air like a ghost.
"Mahito's not done," Yuji muttered, cracking his knuckles. "He's playing with people. He's playing with him."
Nanami had already returned to HQ to report, but not before telling the Communion: "If any of you follow me, I will throw you into traffic."
Naturally, they followed him.
Sort of.
Because what came next wasn't stealthy, nor tactical. It was divine dumbfuckery.
They called it: "Operation: Junpei".
Thorne was the first to lay it out. With a whiteboard stolen from a failing cram school, he drew a flawless triangle that somehow summoned a minor curse just by existing.
"Our goal," he said, eyes serious, "is to break into Mahito's cursed territory, locate Junpei, and bring him out—dead or alive or emotionally shattered."
"Preferably not shattered," Juno muttered, placing glittery trauma wards on everyone's shoes.
"We don't know where Mahito's hideout is," Marrow said flatly. "And curses have eyes everywhere."
"Then we'll go where they least expect." Spillglass grinned. "The sewer art museum."
"The what?" Yuji blinked.
"Exactly."
They left at dawn. Well, 2 p.m. Close enough.
Gojo passed them on a rooftop and didn't stop them. He just watched them march like a chaotic cosplay group into the underbelly of Tokyo and muttered, "I've seen worse plans."
Below the city, the cursed domain throbbed like a living wound.The group entered through a forgotten tunnel—lined with melting advertisements, cracked mirrors, and graffiti that shifted when you blinked too long.
Yuji clenched his fists, determined to face Mahito again. The others… were less focused.
Flint picked a fight with a cursed vending machine and lost.Juno accidentally triggered a memory maze by humming.Marrow elbowed through shadow hands like it was a rave.Spillglass offered a curse a hit from his flask—it died instantly.
And Thorne... kept walking like he was carrying something heavy. Something old. Something sealed.
The further they went, the more twisted everything got. Faces grew out of walls. Bones lined the ceiling like chandeliers. The air pulsed with something. Mahito's cursed energy was everywhere.
Then, finally, they found the door.
A steel gate, wrapped in fleshy sutures.From behind it, they heard muffled screaming. It was Junpei.
Yuji rushed forward—only to get slammed by a barrier so thick it sent him flying back into Marrow, who called him a dumbass mid-air.
"Only one of us can pass," Thorne muttered. "The domain's testing the soul."
"Great," Flint groaned. "Who's got a test soul?"
But Thorne didn't move. He stared at the barrier, eyes distant, then peeled off his hoodie. Beneath it was a vest marked in symbols most of them had never seen.He walked forward, slowly, like a priest entering fire.
And then he whispered:
"I didn't want to use this... but I'm tired of watching good people die."
The barrier reacted instantly—warping, folding, trying to reject him—but something in Thorne snapped back harder.
His aura exploded. Not violently. Sharply.A fractured calm, like a glass prayer breaking inside a hurricane.
And then, under his breath, he uttered the words:
"Technique: Griefsmith—"
BOOM.
The tunnel exploded in cursed backlash.
The screen went white. Air was gone. Everyone staggered.
Thorne vanished through the barrier, leaving behind his shadow... and something else:
A floating, pulsing shard of sorrow, shaped like a broken weapon.
Yuji reached for it, but it burned with memories not his own.
Then the door slammed shut.
Inside, Junpei screamed louder.
And Mahito?
Mahito smiled.