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Chapter 44 - Ritual of the Whispering God

Some gods don't want your prayers. They want your silence—and honestly, they get buried in places even sunlight's too chicken to visit. 

—Masamichi Yaga

Tokyo Jujutsu High, Strategic Ops Room. 

The whole place was washed sickly blue from a flickering hologram of Tokyo, cursed light crawling across the walls. Saya tracked these nasty pulses of Spiral energy, making a mess out of the city map and ooked like someone let a cosmic snail loose. Everything twisted inward, spiraling toward one spot:

District 4: Yami-Soko Slums.

Gojo just stood there, hands shoved deep in his pockets. Arrogance? Gone. He looked like a guy who'd seen something crawl out of the dark and wink at him.

"This is where it all begins. And it will ends," he muttered, voice heavier than usual. 

"The Spiral Cult's root. Grave of the Whispering God."

Akashi just stared at the map. Yami-Soko. The slums he crawled out of. The Place his mom died. The same dump where the Spiral first carved a mark into him.

Flashback: Yami-Soko, Years Back.. honestly I forgot when it happened:)..

Rain coming down in buckets, rooftops leaking like busted sponges. Akashi, way younger, barefoot and bleeding, knuckles raw from swinging at some curse that tried to chew a little kid. His mom's voice floated through their door—all soft, tired, warm as old blankets.

"Don't fight what you don't understand, Ryu... fight to understand it."

The next night, she vanished. Curse tore through their house. Something inside him snapped awake.

Present: Prepping to Go 

Yuji wraps his hands, Nobara loaded up with her new spiked dolls (looks like something from a fever dream), Megumi's as always silent as a ghost. Out by the dorms, Saya finds Akashi.

"You don't have to do this alone," she says.

He shrugs. "I know." 

"But I'm not that kid anymore. I'm not watching this burn. I'm burning it down myself."

Yami-Soko Slums: Spiral Ground Zero 

The whole place stinks of rot and old curses. Streets empty. Not even a stray cat. Buildings cracked in like creepy spiral fractures, like someone twisted the reality itself. 

Akashi leads—slow and steady. Glyphs flared under his feet, tracing the cursed ley lines.

"They're under us," Saya whispers. 

"Five floors down. Ritual's on."

Descent: Spiral Catacomb 

Down they go, black stone stairs shot through with veins of bone. At the bottom: a huge chamber, A stone coffin upright in the center, wrapped in living glyphs that mutter in dead languages. Around it, the Spiral Heralds totally five of them, eyes hollow, weapons burning with glyphfire.

"You're late," one hisses. 

"The Whispering God remembers its name."

Boss Fight: Spiral Heralds 

These cultists bastards moved like dancers wired to the same beat, all cursed up by their god.

Yuji vs. Twin Blade Herald: 

Yuji's in a brawl, dodging the slashes that made by the spiral and chased him down. He barely keeps up, lands a hit that snaps one blade.

Megumi vs. Mist Herald: 

Fog rolls in, thick and toxic. Megumi calls out his shigikami and that is barely able to keep up and shudders when the god's voice echoes.

Nobara vs. Marionette Herald: 

She's fighting twisted dolls, strings digging into her own flesh. Breaks her own damn finger to snap the curse.

Saya's in the back, chanting, hacking the Spiral's curse long enough to let everyone catch their breath.

Akashi vs. Spiral Blood Herald 

The last Herald grins like a skull. "Son of the Rift. Your birth was our prayer."

Akashi's dragon form erupts, spiral wings blazing. "Then this is my answer."

They clash. Herald fires off memories—his mom's death, every failure, the slum stink of his past—turning pain into weapons.

But Akashi just grits his teeth. 

"I'm not just pain. I'm her love. My will. My spiral."

He roars.

Domain Expansion: Abyssal Severance—Palace of Endless Sin. 

Reality folds. Glyphs scream. Inside, Akashi tears apart the illusions, the Herald, and every cursed lie that's haunted him since he was a kid.

Aftermath: Silence by the Coffin 

The Heralds? Gone. But the coffin's still there.

Saya presses her hand to the lock glyph. "Ritual didn't wake the Whispering God. It just fed it. Next eclipse, it'll be hungry enough to answer its name."

Akashi closes his eyes, glyph fading on his chest. 

"Then we break the name before it's spoken."

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