Chapter 25: The Thirteenth Step
"It is said that if you walk on the stairs of the teaching building at midnight, an extra, non-existent thirteenth step will appear, and anyone who steps on it will cross the boundary between the human world and hell…"
The three members of the Occult Club, listening intently to Keisuke's narration, looked a bit nervous, but Minamoto Naine seemed completely oblivious, even asking, "Everyone knows that legend. Are there any real occurrences?"
Keisuke, who had been trying to look eerie, changed his expression upon hearing this: "Well… there are, but it's said to have happened four years ago, so I only heard about it from the older students…"
Keisuke cleared his throat and continued, "Apparently, a security guard went missing in the main teaching building while on patrol. The police couldn't find out why, and the school's surveillance didn't show him leaving anywhere. But they searched the entire school and couldn't find him."
"At that time, many horror rumors popped up. Some said he was harmed by an evil spirit, and his body was hidden under the playground, and the vengeful spirit he turned into would find lone students at midnight… In short, there were many rumors. Finally, to quell the matter, the school even issued an order forbidding further discussion of related issues, and then the incident became a secret rumor."
"And our school's security guards are often replaced; some say it's because of this incident."
Keisuke hesitated before saying to Minamoto Naine, "Naine, you're not thinking of trying this occult legend, are you? Although you've never been afraid when we went ghost hunting before, everyone actually knows those are just rumors. Even those who get scared are scared by the atmosphere, or just scare themselves."
"But… this one is really a bit sinister. You'd best not go. You should know Risa and her group from Class Three, right? A few days ago, it's said they made a girl go test this occult legend at midnight, and as a result, that girl was terrified. I'm not too clear on the details…"
Minamoto Naine frowned: "Was that girl Ayako? The thin, fragile-looking girl in my class?"
Keisuke said hesitantly, "Probably. That group only bullies soft targets, relying on their family connections to often do bad things. Naine, is that girl your friend?"
Minamoto Naine nodded with a troubled expression: "Yes, I saw Ayako was acting strangely before, I didn't expect…"
"Keisuke, I'm going to find Ayako now. Thank you for the information."
Keisuke watched Minamoto Naine and Kamihara Hajime leave, shouting loudly from behind, "You absolutely must not go! Don't be foolish!"
"Got it."
Minamoto Naine led Kamihara Hajime all the way to her classroom. There weren't many people inside at the moment, but Ayako seemed to be in the classroom. Kamihara Hajime leaned against the outside of the classroom, waiting, and heard Minamoto Naine, who had gone inside, receive many greetings. Soon, she came out with another girl.
That girl looked like she had a meek personality, walking with her head slightly bowed, as if afraid to look straight ahead. Seeing Kamihara Hajime standing outside, she also hid behind Minamoto Naine and weakly asked, "Naine, who is he?"
Minamoto Naine pulled her and walked ahead, then quietly introduced Kamihara Hajime to her. Kamihara Hajime, following behind, picked up his instrument case and observed the building. As expected, he didn't find any traces of a Curse. According to the boy named Keisuke, the most recent unexplained disappearances or deaths were four years ago, and it seemed no one had gone missing since then.
If this Curse truly existed, it might be one with very strict or rarely encountered conditions, or more likely, one with minor harm. Otherwise, if it caused trouble, it would likely be discovered quickly and a Jujutsu Sorcerer would come to resolve it.
Minamoto Naine pulled Ayako to a pavilion on campus, where dense vines clung to the entire corridor, making it cool and secluded.
Minamoto Naine hesitated for a moment before asking, "Ayako, were you bullied by Risa and her group before?"
Ayako's shoulders trembled slightly, and a clear look of fear appeared on her face. Then, she lowered her head, pressing her hands on her legs and gripping her school skirt, and after a moment of silence, said, "Naine, don't get involved in this."
Minamoto Naine immediately stood up, puffing out her cheeks, "Risa and her group are too much! I… I'm going to report them to the principal. Ayako, I heard from another friend that they forced you to test that thirteenth step occult legend."
Ayako's fearful expression reappeared. She grabbed Naine's hand: "No… Naine, don't ask anymore, because…"
Kamihara Hajime, standing a little further away, spoke at this moment: "Because it's true, isn't it?"
Ayako turned to look over, about to speak but hesitating, while Minamoto Naine now clasped Ayako's hand: "Ayako, this Hajime-kun specializes in solving these kinds of things. Don't be afraid. If you know anything, you can tell him."
It was clear that Ayako trusted Minamoto Naine quite a bit. After hesitating for a moment, she finally spoke: "Actually, I didn't see anything… but those things really seem to exist, after I saw the thirteenth step…"
Minamoto Naine and Kamihara Hajime exchanged glances. Yes, even if a Curse existed, Ayako shouldn't have been able to see it, so this, in turn, served as corroboration.
Ayako stared straight ahead, mumbling, "Although I didn't see anything at the time, it felt like something was hiding in the darkness around me, and we all heard faint cries. Risa and her group were scared away. My legs went numb, and I thought I was going to die, but even as I dragged myself away from there, I didn't touch those… things."
Seeing that Ayako's emotions were already a bit abnormal, Kamihara Hajime gave Minamoto Naine a look and walked to the side, letting her comfort Ayako. After the comforting, Minamoto Naine also got Ayako a leave of absence and sent her back to the dormitory area.
"So what should we do next?"
Kamihara Hajime did not answer Minamoto Naine but instead asked, "Are you really going to go with me?"
Minamoto Naine nodded firmly, as if to say something, but Kamihara Hajime raised his hand to interrupt her: "Just be resolute. The operation will likely be at night. I'll teach you some techniques first to help you protect yourself as much as possible."
In essence, he was teaching her some basic Cursed Energy usage techniques. The previous time she forced back that Cursed Spirit was mostly luck, and if he wasn't mistaken, Totsuka-no-Tsurugi also played a part. Although the unknown Curse on campus currently seemed to pose little danger, they still couldn't be careless.
Without lingering at the school, after finding White Wolf and Sugihara Riko, they arranged for a car to take them back to the Minamoto Family. Then, a courtyard was cleared, and Kamihara Hajime began his instruction.
The basic usage techniques were relatively simple. Minamoto Naine spent an afternoon initially grasping how to actively extract Cursed Energy and imbue it into her body, thereby gaining superhuman strength, which made her very happy.
Time quickly passed into the evening. During the day, Kamihara Hajime wasn't just training Minamoto Naine; he also sought help from above, which was essentially from Gojo Satoru. Due to the large size of the campus, the school had already moved all staff and students to the other side, leaving the main teaching building and its vicinity empty.
Kamihara Hajime and Minamoto Naine stood beneath the teaching building, which appeared somewhat eerie under the night sky. Neither of them showed any fear. Then, Kamihara Hajime pointed his fingers and chanted, "Born from darkness, to the deepest darkness. All defilement and residue, be entirely exorcised."
A 'Curtain' then descended, obscuring the teaching building. Minamoto Naine watched this scene with novelty, then followed Kamihara Hajime's call. Next, Kamihara Hajime took Totsuka-no-Tsurugi and Extermination from the instrument case, and the two began to climb the stairs of the teaching building.
"One, two, twelve."
Minamoto Naine counted the steps, a bit disappointed: "Still twelve. Will there really be a thirteenth step?" White Wolf also didn't seem to have found anything. Kamihara Hajime led the way up to the fourth floor, saying, "No rush, let's keep looking."
However, they reached the rooftop without seeing a thirteenth step. Minamoto Naine raised her hand and checked, saying, "Could it be because it's not exactly midnight yet? There are still five minutes."
Although the rumor was that the non-existent step would only appear after midnight, it was just a rumor after all. Would a Curse really pick a specific time to appear? Or was this some kind of Binding Vow?
So the two returned to the first floor, keeping a close eye on the steps and the passage of time. As time crossed the last second of the day, Kamihara Hajime's expression changed, and White Wolf beside him also adopted a vigilant stance.
"It appeared."
From Kamihara Hajime's perspective, it was as if a non-existent step had been squeezed out of thin air above the perfectly aligned twelve steps, connecting harmoniously with the stairwell corner.
Minamoto Naine exclaimed, "The thirteenth step! It really appeared."
The scene on the steps could be seen at a glance, with no abnormalities. If it weren't for this strange step and the faint Cursed Energy, there would truly be nothing amiss.
"There's another possibility: this Curse also has an innate domain trigger condition, which is probably stepping onto that step. We still need to try, but before that…"
Kamihara Hajime raised his hand and released a ball of Cursed Energy, striking the thirteenth step. The step then shattered into a gap like ordinary stone bricks. But then, an unusual scene occurred: the scattered fragments quickly "melted" into black mist and disappeared, and the damaged part quickly restored itself as if growing back.
Kamihara Hajime pondered for a moment, then struck again. This time, the Cursed Energy was larger. With a resounding crash, this section of the stairs was blown apart by the Cursed Energy he released, and then an even more bizarre sight reappeared before their eyes.
The quickly restored thirteenth step floated in the air, without any connections around it, completely motionless. It seemed this was not the source. After simple destructive probing proved ineffective, Kamihara Hajime then activated "Time Wheel - Reverse".
Then, the intact stairs reappeared. Minamoto Naine, who almost doubted her memory, was somewhat surprised, but then simply regarded it as part of the strangeness of the place.
"Let's go."
Kamihara Hajime was the first to ascend the stairs. He stopped at the thirteenth step and said to Minamoto Naine beside him, "Let's step on it together. If I'm not mistaken, once we step on it, we'll fall into the Curse's innate domain. There's no guarantee we won't be separated. You hold onto Totsuka-no-Tsurugi for now. If we get separated, you hold on, and I'll resolve it quickly."
He handed Totsuka-no-Tsurugi to Minamoto Naine, and then the two people and one dog simultaneously stepped onto the final step. The anticipated dispersion did not occur; instead, the surrounding environment became abnormal.
Just like the zoom-out effect in movies, Kamihara Hajime watched everything around them recede. The scenery stretched and disappeared, and in just a moment, they were already in a corridor-like place, with both ends extending into the darkness.
Along both sides of the corridor were evenly spaced closed doors. Kamihara Hajime gestured for White Wolf to search for traces of the Curse. Just as White Wolf led them a few steps forward, White Wolf suddenly growled forward.
Kamihara Hajime watched the doorknob of the front door slowly turn, reaching out to have Minamoto Naine hand him Totsuka-no-Tsurugi, and then the two people and one dog stared intently at the door that was moving.
Soon, the door was pushed open from inside by a pale hand, and the figure that emerged was revealed: a male student wearing an unfamiliar school uniform. After stepping out of the door, his pair of vacant eyes stared straight over.
Kamihara Hajime drew Totsuka-no-Tsurugi. Minamoto Naine beside him stammered, "Is… is he also a Curse? But…"
However, before her words even finished, Kamihara Hajime's figure had already vanished, reappearing behind the eerie student. The student then suddenly lost the support of his legs and fell to the ground.
Kamihara Hajime looked at the figure with severed legs, fallen to the ground. No blood flowed from the wound, only a small amount of purplish-black unknown liquid seeped out.
"Indeed… how could any ordinary living person survive here? His expression and actions are all wrong. Although this thing temporarily has a human appearance, it's hard to say what it actually is."
He raised his hand and used one strike to pin the head of this thing, which was still struggling to get up, to the ground. Cursed Energy spread along the blade of Totsuka-no-Tsurugi. The destroyed thing quickly stopped struggling and slowly decayed into black ash on the ground.
Kamihara Hajime was looking at Totsuka-no-Tsurugi in his hand. He wondered if it was his imagination, but when he used this sword to cut through the body of what he didn't know was a Curse, he felt no resistance at all.
Perhaps it was just because that entity was too weak… But soon, the subsequent anomalies that arose drew both of their attention. The doors one after another began to stir, and then, amidst a continuous sound of opening doors, more than a dozen figures emerged.
Minamoto Naine looked up confusedly at Totsuka-no-Tsurugi, which Kamihara Hajime offered her, while Kamihara Hajime tilted his head towards the figures whose bodies had begun to mutate: "These are for you. I'll cover you from behind."
"I, I, I…"
Kamihara Hajime had already pushed Totsuka-no-Tsurugi into her hand, giving her a thumbs-up with a smile: "Don't worry, you'll definitely be fine. These aren't the main body of this school legend's Curse; they're all very weak. Just extract Cursed Energy and imbue it into yourself as I taught you. By the way, you've studied swordsmanship, right? It's okay if you haven't, just swing it."
Minamoto Naine said with a slight nervousness, "I have studied it, but…" Looking at the group of figures before her, whose faces were disfigured by expanding tumors, Minamoto Naine took a deep breath and her expression became resolute.
"Then… I'll give it a try."
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