The attack came during third period.
Kage felt it before it happened—a convergence of cursed energy signatures surrounding the school, malevolent and coordinated. Not curses. Curse users. The kind of humans who'd traded morality for power and convinced themselves it was worth the cost.
"Gojo," he said quietly, his enhanced senses cataloguing every threat. "We've got company. Fifteen, maybe twenty curse users. They're surrounding the building."
They were in Riko's classroom, maintaining protection detail disguised as transfer students. Gojo sat by the window, looking bored despite the math lesson. Suguru was taking actual notes—overachiever even during bodyguard duty. And Riko was attempting to pay attention while knowing her protectors were more interesting than quadratic equations.
"Let them come," Gojo said, his Infinity already rippling to life. "We knew this was—"
The windows exploded inward.
Glass became shrapnel, desks became projectiles, and suddenly the classroom was a war zone. Cursed energy flooded the space—aggressive, chaotic, designed to kill indiscriminately.
Kage's shadow erupted.
It moved faster than thought, expanding to catch glass shards, deflect cursed technique attacks, create a barrier between the students and the violence. His Abyss technique had grown over six years, evolved from simple shadow manipulation into something that could manifest solid darkness on instinct.
"Everyone DOWN!" Gojo's voice cut through the chaos. His cursed energy flared, Infinity expanding to shield the entire classroom. "Suguru, get Riko and the civilians out! Kage, crowd control! I'll handle the main force!"
They moved like they'd been fighting together for years—because they had. Suguru released cursed spirits to create an evacuation corridor. Kage's shadows swept through the classroom, gently but firmly pushing terrified students toward the exit. And Gojo walked toward the shattered windows like violence was just another Tuesday.
"Riko, Kuroi, with me!" Suguru grabbed them both, his cursed energy already manifesting a defensive perimeter. "We're getting you somewhere safe!"
"What about everyone else?" Rico's voice was small, scared, nothing like her usual bravado.
"We'll handle it," Kage said, his shadows still evacuating students. "That's what we do."
More curse users poured through the windows—some using cursed techniques, others wielding cursed tools, all of them radiating killing intent focused on one target.
The Star Plasma Vessel.
"Time Vessel Association!" one of them shouted, his cursed energy signature marking him as the leader. "Surrender the girl and we'll let the civilians live!"
"Counter-offer," Gojo said cheerfully. "Leave now and I'll let you live."
The curse users attacked.
What followed was less a fight and more a demonstration of overwhelming power. Gojo's Infinity made him untouchable—cursed techniques dissipated against infinite space, physical attacks never connected, and anyone stupid enough to get close got hit with cursed energy output that could level buildings.
But they weren't all stupid.
One curse user hung back, observing, his cursed energy signature different from the others. More controlled. More dangerous. And when Gojo was occupied with the main assault, this one moved.
Directly toward Kage.
"Well, well," the curse user said, his voice carrying surgical precision. "The shadow manipulator. I've heard about you. Kage Zenin, the clan's blind prodigy. Special Grade at twelve. Mastered Black Flash. Developed a light technique that counters spatial manipulation."
"And you are?"
"Bayer. Though most people call me Q." His cursed energy pulsed, and Kage felt something wrong in the signature. Twisted. Malformed. "I manipulate flesh. Bone. Blood. The human body is just meat and water, and I'm very good at rearranging both."
Kage's shadow expanded defensively. "That's disgusting."
"That's powerful." Q's technique activated, and suddenly the remaining curse users in the classroom started changing. Their bodies twisted, bones breaking and reforming, flesh flowing like liquid into grotesque new configurations.
Body horror made real.
Kage felt his stomach turn, but forced himself to focus. Q was transforming the curse users into weapons—living artillery made from human suffering. And from the way his cursed energy flowed, this technique could work on anyone.
Including Kage.
"Gojo!" he called out. "We've got a problem!"
"I noticed!" Gojo was dealing with his own issues—the transformed curse users were attacking in waves, their bodies regenerating from damage, flesh reforming faster than he could destroy it. "These things keep coming back!"
"Because I keep putting them back together," Q said pleasantly. "As long as I'm conscious, they're effectively immortal. Neat trick, right?"
Kage's mind raced through options. Q's technique required conscious control, which meant knocking him out would stop the regeneration. But getting close enough meant risking flesh manipulation, and Kage liked his body in its current configuration.
Range attack, then. Something Q couldn't regenerate from.
His shadow struck.
It moved like a living thing, tendrils of solid darkness reaching for Q with intent to bind, crush, consume. But Q's cursed energy flared, and suddenly the shadows hitting his body started changing. The darkness took on texture—flesh, blood, something organic and wrong.
"Your technique is interesting," Q observed, his hands reshaping Kage's shadows into grotesque parodies of life. "Darkness manipulation. Very conceptual. But everything that touches me becomes flesh. Even shadows."
Kage pulled his technique back, feeling the wrongness where Q's ability had corrupted it. This was bad. Q's flesh manipulation countered direct contact, which meant Kage's primary technique was compromised.
Time for Plan B.
"Suguru," Kage called through the chaos. "Riko secure?"
"Yes! We're three floors down, barriers in place!"
"Good. Because this is about to get messy."
Kage's cursed energy inverted. Negative became positive. Shadow became light.
Photonic erupted from his hands like a solar flare.
The battle. Escalation.
Q screamed.
The light wasn't just bright—it was destructive in a way his flesh manipulation couldn't counter. Where Abyss consumed through darkness, Photonic negated through radiance. The corrupted shadows burning with light, purifying through sheer conceptual opposition.
"What—" Q's confidence shattered into panic. "That's not shadow manipulation! That's—"
"The opposite." Kage pressed the attack, Photonic light flowing from his hands like liquid starlight. "My reversed technique. Turns out flesh doesn't regenerate well when it's being unmade on a conceptual level."
The transformed curse users collapsed, their bodies reverting to normal as Q's concentration broke. Gojo seized the opportunity, his cursed energy output spiking as he destroyed the remaining threats with brutal efficiency.
But Q wasn't finished.
His flesh manipulation technique evolved in real-time, adapting to Kage's light. Where Photonic touched his skin, new flesh grew, mutated, became resistant. Q was learning from the damage, using his own body as a laboratory for accelerated evolution.
"You're strong," Q admitted, his body now a patchwork of normal and mutated flesh. "Stronger than intel suggested. But strength alone won't save you."
He lunged.
Not with cursed technique—with pure physical speed enhanced by flesh manipulation. His body moved wrong, joints bending at impossible angles, muscles contracting beyond human limits. And when he made contact with Kage's shadow barrier, his technique activated.
Absorption.
Kage felt it immediately—Q's cursed energy trying to consume his own, pulling at the shadow barrier like a black hole. The flesh manipulator wasn't just reshaping matter; he could absorb cursed energy through direct contact.
"There it is," Q said, his voice strained with effort. "Your cursed energy. So much of it. Dense, controlled, powerful. I'll take it all. Add it to my own. Become stronger by consuming you."
But Q had made a mistake.
He'd tried to consume the Abyss.
And the Abyss consumed back.
Kage's shadow technique responded to the absorption attempt not with resistance, but with hunger. His Abyss technique had always been about consumption—shadows that devoured light, darkness that absorbed cursed energy, void that consumed everything it touched.
Q had just tried to out-consume consumption itself.
"You're right," Kage said quietly, his cursed energy flowing through the connection Q had created. "Strength alone won't save me. But understanding what you are? That helps."
His Abyss technique flowed backward through Q's absorption attempt. Not fighting it—using it. The connection became a conduit, and Kage poured his shadow into Q's body through the curse user's own technique.
Q's eyes widened. "No—"
Darkness erupted from inside him. Kage's Abyss technique manifested within Q's body, shadows flowing through his bloodstream, filling his lungs, consuming him from the inside out.
"You built your power on consuming others," Kage said, his voice cold. "But you never considered what happens when you try to consume something that consumes back."
Q tried to scream. His flesh manipulation technique activated desperately, trying to reshape his body to expel the darkness. But Abyss wasn't flesh—it was concept. You couldn't reshape emptiness. You couldn't regenerate from void.
Kage withdrew his shadow, letting Q collapse. The curse user's body was intact, but his cursed energy was depleted, consumed by attempting to absorb something that had no bottom.
"Stay down," Kage advised. "Or I'll finish the job."
Q stayed down.
Gojo appeared beside him, his Infinity still active, surveying the destroyed classroom with clinical interest. "That was disturbing and impressive in equal measure. Remind me never to try absorbing your cursed energy."
"Wasn't planning on offering."
"Good call." Gojo's Six Eyes studied Q's unconscious form. "He's still alive. Technically. Want me to finish him?"
Kage considered. Q was a curse user, a monster who'd attacked civilians, transformed human bodies into weapons, tried to kill a fourteen-year-old girl. Jujutsu society would execute him. The practical choice was to kill him now.
But Kage had learned something important over six years: practical and right weren't always the same thing.
"Leave him. Let the higher-ups deal with him." Kage's exhaustion was catching up, his cursed energy reserves depleted by the Photonic technique. "We're not executioners."
"Speak for yourself. I'm whatever I need to be." But Gojo didn't kill Q either, instead binding him with cursed energy restraints. "Though I suppose letting him face jujutsu society's justice is crueler than death anyway."
They surveyed the damage. The classroom was destroyed, windows shattered, desks obliterated, scorch marks from cursed techniques burning the walls. But the students were safe—evacuated before the worst of the fighting, protected by their combined techniques.
One mission objective achieved.
"Riko?" Kage asked.
"Safe with Suguru. Three floors down, barriers holding, probably traumatized but alive." Gojo's cursed energy signature carried relief. "We did good, Kage. First assault repelled, zero civilian casualties, and you got to do your creepy void thing. Call it a win."
"It's not a win until Riko's safely merged with Tengen."
"You're no fun when you're right."
Kage's legs chose that moment to remind him that he'd depleted most of his cursed energy reserves, used both Abyss and Photonic in combat, and pushed his body beyond reasonable limits.
He collapsed.
"Dramatic," Gojo observed, catching him before he hit the ground. "But on-brand."
Infirmary. Tokyo Jujutsu High.
Consciousness returned with the familiar scent of antiseptic and Shoko's disappointed sighing.
"You're an idiot."
Kage opened his eyes—a useless gesture, but habits died hard. "Good morning to you too."
"It's evening. You've been out for six hours." Shoko's hands glowed green as she performed diagnostic scans. "Cursed energy depletion, technique strain from using both Abyss and Photonic in quick succession, and minor internal damage from pushing your body past its limits. Again."
"Is Riko safe?"
"Yes. Suguru has her secured, Gojo's maintaining perimeter, and the school's on high alert." Shoko pulled her hands back. "You can stop being a hero for five minutes and focus on not dying."
"Dying seems inefficient."
"And yet you keep almost doing it." She poked him in the forehead, hard. "Stop that."
"Stop almost dying or stop being heroic?"
"Both. Either. I'm not picky." Shoko sat back, lighting a cigarette that she definitely shouldn't have in the infirmary. "The higher-ups are furious, by the way. An attack on a civilian school, curse users operating openly, property damage that'll take weeks to repair. They're demanding explanations."
"Explanation: bad people attacked, we defended, I won." Kage tried to sit up, found his body disagreed with that plan. "What happened to Q?"
"Arrested. Being questioned by special investigation. Apparently, you did something to his cursed energy that has them concerned. Something about consumption techniques being dangerous in the wrong hands."
"I consumed his attempt to consume me. That's basic self-defense."
"That's philosophical horror." Shoko exhaled smoke. "But effective. Gojo said you basically out-hungered the hunger guy. Very metal. Also disturbing."
"I contain multitudes."
"You contain issues." She stood, stretched. "Someone's been waiting to see you. Try not to be weird."
"I'm always weird."
"Try to be less weird."
Shoko left, and moments later, Riko entered.
The fourteen-year-old looked exhausted, her school uniform still dirty from the evacuation, her eyes red from crying. But when she saw Kage awake, relief flooded her expression.
"You're not dead."
"Disappointed?"
"Shut up." She sat in the chair Shoko had vacated, her hands twisting in her lap. "I wanted to... thank you. For protecting everyone. For fighting that monster. For..." Her voice cracked. "For treating me like I'm worth protecting."
"You are worth protecting."
"I'm a sacrifice. A vessel. Everyone keeps saying how honored I should be to merge with Tengen, how privileged, how special." Tears spilled down her cheeks. "But you guys treat me like I'm just Riko. Like I matter as a person, not just as a component for a ritual."
Kage didn't have words for that. Comfort wasn't his strength, emotional support wasn't something the Zen'in Clan had taught him, and he'd spent six years learning to be a weapon when what he wanted was to be human.
But Riko was crying. And she'd just been attacked by monsters who wanted to kill her for existing. And she had two days left before her identity was subsumed into something greater.
Screw proper emotional distance.
"You're not a sacrifice," Kage said firmly. "You're a person. Fourteen years old, bratty, annoying, and worth protecting for exactly those reasons." He paused. "And if the merger wasn't happening, I'd tell you to live your life, make friends, do stupid teenager things. But since it is happening..."
"What?"
"Make these two days count. Eat good food. Laugh at stupid jokes. Spend time with Kuroi. Be Riko Amanai, not the Star Plasma Vessel." His voice softened. "And know that we're not protecting you because it's our mission. We're protecting you because you're our friend. Even if you've only known us for two days."
Riko's tears fell harder, but her smile was genuine. "You're terrible at comfort."
"I'm aware."
"But thank you." She wiped her eyes. "For being honest. For not treating me like I'm made of glass or divine destiny. For just... being you."
"I don't know how to be anyone else."
"Good. Don't change." She stood, headed for the door. "Get better soon. Gojo's insufferable without you around to insult him, and Suguru's stress-cooking enough food to feed an army."
She left, and Kage lay in the infirmary bed thinking about sacrifice, choice, and the weight of two days.
Riko Amanai would merge with Tengen. That was decided. But between now and then, she'd be protected, valued, treated with dignity.
It wasn't enough.
But it was all they could offer.
And maybe—just maybe—that mattered more than he thought.
That evening. Visitor.
"You're popular today."
Gojo lounged in the visitor's chair, legs kicked up on Kage's bed with zero regard for medical protocol. "Riko visited, Suguru brought food, Shoko yelled at you, and now I'm here to mock your dramatic fainting spell."
"It wasn't fainting. It was strategic unconsciousness."
"That's just fainting with extra words." Gojo's grin was audible. "But seriously, good work today. Q was a real threat. Body manipulation techniques are hard to counter, and you handled him perfectly."
"By almost dying?"
"By winning. The almost dying was just flavor." Gojo's tone turned more serious. "Your Abyss technique. What you did to Q. That was new."
"I consumed his consumption attempt. Turned his technique against him."
"Yeah, I got that part. But the way you did it—making your darkness hungry, actively consuming instead of just absorbing—that's evolution." Gojo's Six Eyes glowed behind his sunglasses. "Your technique is growing. Adapting. Becoming more than simple shadow manipulation."
"Is that bad?"
"It's powerful. And power always has consequences." Gojo paused. "Just... be careful. Techniques that consume can become addictive. The more you use them, the more they want to be used. I've seen it happen to curse users. They start controlling their technique. Eventually, their technique controls them."
"You worried about me?"
"I'm always worried about you. You're my rival. If you go evil, I have to kill you, and that would be very inconvenient for our friendship."
"Your concern is touching."
"I know. I'm very emotionally available." Gojo's cursed energy pulsed with genuine concern beneath the sarcasm. "But real talk—how are you feeling? After fighting Q, almost dying, carrying Riko's emotional weight?"
Kage considered lying. Considered saying he was fine, everything was manageable, nothing affected him.
Considered, and rejected.
"Tired," he admitted. "Physically, emotionally, existentially. I keep thinking about Riko. About how she's fourteen and been told her entire life that dying for Tengen is her purpose. And I wonder—if jujutsu society can do that to her, what stops them from doing it to us?"
"Nothing stops them. We just have to be strong enough that they can't." Gojo's voice was quiet. "That's the burden of the strongest, Kage. We carry the weight so others don't have to. We become monsters so children like Riko can be human."
"That's depressing."
"That's reality." Gojo stood, stretched. "But hey, we've got two more days. Two days to keep Riko safe, make her feel valued, prove that jujutsu society isn't completely broken. That's something."
"Is it enough?"
"It has to be. Because the alternative is giving up." Gojo moved toward the door. "Rest. Heal. Tomorrow we continue the mission. And Kage?"
"Yeah?"
"Thanks. For being my rival. My friend. My partner in this mess." His smile was genuine. "I couldn't do this alone."
"Good thing you don't have to."
After Gojo left, Kage lay in the darkness—his natural element, his inherited curse, his chosen weapon—and thought about consumption.
Q had tried to consume him and been consumed in return.
His Abyss technique had evolved, become something hungrier, more dangerous, more aligned with the void he'd been born into.
And Gojo's warning echoed: Techniques that consume can become addictive.
Was he becoming his technique? Or had he always been the Abyss, just wearing human skin?
Questions without answers.
Doubts without resolution.
But tomorrow would bring more fighting, more protecting, more choosing between practical and right.
And Kage Zenin—Special Grade sorcerer, void child, reluctant hero—would face it like he faced everything.
With shadows, light, and the stubborn refusal to let good people die on his watch.
Two more days.
Seventy-two hours minus six.
Riko Amanai would reach Tengen safely.
Or they'd die trying.
There was no third option.