Phase 1 – Fractured Bonds
Arc 1 – The Forgotten Sorcerer
Chapter 2 – The Curse That Remembers
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Shibuya's ruins hadn't healed.
Even after a year, the ground still whispered with leftover Domain residue — the smell of burnt asphalt and cursed smoke lingering like rot that refused to die.
Soya walked through it barefoot, a long black coat fluttering behind him.
Each step left faint marks in the dust, like footprints belonging to someone who shouldn't exist anymore.
Noritoshi Kamo followed a few paces behind, blood-sense probing the shadows.
He could feel a thousand traces of lingering malice — ghosts of those who fought here and never returned.
> "Stay close," Kamo said.
"Am I supposed to know where 'close' is?" Soya replied vaguely, eyes scanning the rubble.
His voice was soft, detached — like he was speaking to the wind.
Every few minutes, his gaze flickered with confusion, as if his mind rebooted mid-thought.
Then, something stirred.
A faint hiss in the air.
Cursed Energy — old, angry, not natural.
The ground trembled.
> "They're still here," Kamo muttered, drawing a needle of blood from his palm.
"They?"
"Remnants of Sukuna's army. Stay behind—"
But before Kamo could finish, the pavement exploded.
From beneath the concrete, a cursed spirit burst forth — humanoid but skeletal, with six arms and a mouth that stretched across its chest.
It screamed, and dozens more followed.
Soya stumbled back, drawing his twin daggers by instinct.
He didn't remember why he carried them — only that they felt familiar, right.
> "Tch. Figures." Kamo's tone sharpened. "Grade 1 swarm. Let me handle—"
He stopped.
Because something else moved.
From Soya's shadow, black mist began to seep out — liquid darkness dripping upward, twisting, solidifying.
And then, with a guttural snarl that made the spirits hesitate — Shun appeared.
A dragon, massive and feral, made entirely of shimmering cursed mist and spectral bone.
His eyes glowed red, but not with rage — with pain.
> "Stay behind me."
Soya blinked.
That voice again — rough, human, tired.
> "Shun…?"
"Still here. Still cleaning your mess, idiot."
Before Soya could even breathe a word, the dragon lunged.
---
The first spirit was shredded instantly — Shun's claws tearing through it like paper.
Cursed blood splattered the ruins, sizzling on impact.
Another charged from the left — Shun opened his jaw, energy crackling deep in his throat, then unleashed a beam of dark flame that vaporized half the street.
Soya watched wordlessly, unable to move.
Kamo could only stare, half in awe, half in guilt.
> "So that's what you became, Shun…" he whispered.
The remaining spirits didn't flee — they swarmed.
Clawing, crawling, screaming.
They piled over Soya like waves.
Before they could reach him, the dragon coiled around his master, wings of black scales unfurling in a massive protective arc.
When the cursed tide hit, it was like throwing sand against steel.
The explosion lit the entire block.
Ash rained down.
When it cleared, only Shun stood — breathing heavily, his body covered in cracks of cursed energy like shattered glass.
Around him, hundreds of spirit corpses melted into sludge.
Soya looked at him — not afraid, just empty.
> "You're… protecting me?"
"You think I'd let you die before remembering my face?" Shun growled softly.
"I… I killed you."
"Yeah."
"Why?"
"Because I let you."
Their eyes met for the first time.
Soya's hand trembled, the dagger slipping slightly from his grip.
Kamo watched in silence, his blood retracting back into his veins.
He understood it now — this was no simple haunting.
Shun wasn't a curse clinging to hatred.
He was a memory refusing to die.
---
They walked through the ruins in silence after that.
The city was quiet again — eerily so.
Crows circled above the decaying towers, and distant thunder rolled over the horizon.
Soya sheathed his daggers slowly.
> "How long… have I been forgetting?"
"Every day since that night," Kamo said, not looking at him.
"And yet you stay with me."
"Orders."
"...Liar."
Kamo's jaw tightened — just a bit.
> "You're right," he muttered. "It's not orders. It's guilt."
Soya stopped walking.
> "For what?"
"For letting you become this."
He walked ahead before Soya could reply.
---
Far away, on a rooftop overlooking Shibuya, Sojo Rengeki stood — hands in pockets, eyes watching the trio below.
> "A dragon that remembers… a boy who forgets… and a guardian bleeding guilt."
A faint smile touched his lips.
Then his palm lit with a crimson sigil — Amplification.
He whispered softly, almost fondly:
> "Let's turn memory itself into a battlefield."
The sigil dissolved into the wind, infecting the broken streets below.
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End of Chapter 2 – "The Curse That Remembers."