The elevator light flickered once, then steadied. They descended floor by floor—slow, clinical.
Riko clutched the hem of her cardigan. No one spoke.
Gojo leaned against the elevator wall, gum tucked in his cheek. His blindfold was tighter than usual.
Geto stood tall and motionless. His hands were loose at his sides, but tension curled at the corners of his mouth.
Kishibe had his back to her, facing the elevator doors. His stance was relaxed. But his left hand never strayed far from the hilt of his blade.
They all knew.
The air was wrong. Heavy. Like the building itself was holding its breath.
Her stomach turned.
When the elevator dinged and the morgue door slid open, no one moved at first.
Then Kishibe stepped out, slow and deliberate.
"I'll go first."
"Don't die," Gojo said lightly, though his voice had lost its usual shine.
Kishibe walked ahead, each step echoing in the sterile hallway.
The lights flickered.
A shadow shifted near the lockers.
Kishibe's voice cut through the stillness.
"…We're not alone."
---
The Ambush
It happened fast.
Three monks dropped from the ceiling tiles—robes fluttering, curses stitched into their skin. A blast seal ignited in midair.
Kishibe twisted, blade flashing—one clean cut took off the arm holding the seal.
"MOVE!" he barked.
Riko scrambled back just as Geto pulled her behind a cursed spirit barrier.
Gojo was already gone—a blur of speed and cursed energy tearing down the corridor.
A dozen more monks poured from side doors, chanting in unison. Their voices were jagged, unnatural—like metal scraping against bone.
Geto clenched his fist. "They've prepared for this."
Kishibe's knife sang again—he cut through the throat of one monk mid-chant and caught a second with the hilt to the jaw.
Blood spattered across the white walls.
A curse exploded from a summoning seal overhead—some grotesque amalgam of human limbs and centipede coils.
It lunged.
Gojo appeared beneath it, hands in his pockets.
"Too slow."
His Infinity pulsed, then collapsed inward like a vacuum—imploding the creature into itself, meat and bone turning into dust.
Another monk shouted, activating a binding chant—
Kishibe threw his blade, striking the sigil mid-formation. The monk convulsed—the cursed energy backfired, splitting his chest open.
"Behind!" Geto shouted.
Kishibe ducked.
A halberd barely missed his skull.
Kishibe spun, catching the weapon mid-swing with a brutal parry, then drove his knee into the attacker's ribs so hard the man folded.
"Don't let them scatter!" Gojo yelled. "They're trying to isolate Riko!"
Geto dropped three mid-level spirits from his sleeve—shadowy wolves and one spiked tendril curse—to hold the south hallway.
"Stay behind me!" he told Riko.
She couldn't speak. She just nodded, hands shaking.
Kishibe stood beside them again, covered in blood, jaw clenched.
"Where's the leader?" he asked.
Geto narrowed his eyes. "Hasn't shown yet."
---
The Leader Appears
A monk walked into the morgue chamber like he belonged there.
Older. Calm. Face lined with years of quiet conviction.
He wore no visible weapon—just prayer beads in both hands, which glowed faintly with pale purple cursed energy.
"Give her to us," the monk said. "And no more blood will spill."
Riko felt the cold crawl up her spine.
Gojo smiled, slow and lethal. "You picked the wrong week to test your faith."
Kishibe stepped forward, flicking blood from his blade.
"You'll leave in pieces," he said. "If we let you leave at all."
The monk exhaled—then slammed his hands together, unleashing a binding curse that warped the walls inward like a collapsing throat.
Gojo stopped it cold with Infinity.
Geto's wolves leapt, tearing at the walls. Kishibe moved faster than any human had the right to—cutting the curse at its throat before it fully manifested.
But the monk kept walking forward.
He wasn't chanting.
He was becoming something.
Skin peeled back. Bone warped.
He shed his human form like a robe—and beneath it stood something entirely wrong.
A semi-ascended being.
Eyes with no pupils. Voice that echoed with ten others.
"Your resistance is irrelevant. She belongs to us."
And with that, the morgue exploded into light and screams.