Phase 1 – Fractured Bonds
Arc 1 – The Forgotten Sorcerer
Chapter 3 – Crimson Threads
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The sky over Shibuya burned with the color of dried blood.
Evening had settled, painting the ruins in copper light, a beauty only the dead could appreciate.
Crows circled the broken towers where Domain fragments still floated like shards of frozen glass.
It was quiet. Too quiet.
Kamo Noritoshi felt it first, the soft tremor beneath his boots.
A pulse. A heartbeat in the concrete.
> "They're moving," he said, voice low.
Soya didn't answer.
He was sitting on the curb, staring at his reflection in the cracked puddle beside him.
Every few seconds, his fingers traced the handle of his daggers like he was waiting for them to speak.
Kamo's tone sharpened.
> "Soya. Focus. Do you feel that?"
"...Feel what?"
"The ground."
"It's just rain."
The next second, the asphalt split open.
A wave of black tendrils burst upward, dragging out something monstrous, a curse born from leftover hatred of the Sukuna war.
Its body looked like a mass of human arms stitched into a serpent's frame, dozens of hands reaching, grabbing, clawing.
Soya's eyes widened.
He stumbled back.
Kamo stepped forward, slicing his palm. His blood formed a spinning spear.
> "Stay behind me."
But the curse was faster.
It lunged, hundreds of arms clawing toward Soya at once.
Before the hands could touch him, a thunderous roar erupted.
Shadows cracked the air.
Shun's dragon form exploded from the ground, smashing into the curse with such force that the shockwave shattered windows three streets away.
The beast screeched, until Shun's tail whipped through its skull, crushing it into the pavement.
But the thing didn't die, not completely. Its pieces slithered back together like worms.
Shun's voice growled low, guttural:
> "Persistent trash."
He inhaled sharply, then released a surge of cursed energy that rippled the air like a heatwave.
Everything within ten meters evaporated.
Blood mist, smoke, silence.
---
Soya stumbled backward again, clutching his head.
His heartbeat quickened, not from fear, but from recognition.
Something about the fight, the sound, the rhythm was familiar.
> "Why does it feel like… I've done this before?" he whispered.
Kamo turned to him, eyes serious.
> "Because you have. Many times."
"And I keep forgetting."
"Yes."
"...How many have I killed?"
"Enough to keep you alive."
Soya went silent, eyes empty again.
He didn't know if that made him human or something else entirely.
---
Then, a faint rustle in the wind.
A drop of blood splattered onto Kamo's cheek.
He blinked, then looked up.
From the top of a nearby tower, a shadow.
Calm, balanced, confident.
Sojo Rengeki.
Coat fluttering in the sunset breeze.
A faint crimson aura glowed around him, Amplification.
> "Evening, gentlemen." His voice was lazy, almost amused.
"You've been busy."
Kamo's hand immediately tightened, blood spinning between his fingers.
> "Sojo Rengeki."
"Relax. I'm just watching."
"You're under direct order to—"
"—to kill Soya Gojo, yes. I remember." He smiled faintly. "But where's the fun in that?"
He raised his palm. The crimson sigil flared, and in that instant, every curse fragment within a kilometer reanimated, screaming, clawing their way from the dirt like reawakened corpses.
> "Let's… amplify the chaos."
The air filled with sound, the shrieking of a hundred newly reborn curses.
Kamo's eyes widened.
> "He's manipulating the residual cursed energy itself…"
Soya barely processed what was happening, just instinct.
He drew his daggers.
> "Shun!"
The dragon roared again, diving into the swarm.
He tore through the cursed horde like a storm made of vengeance, every swing, every scream echoed across the ruins.
Kamo joined the fight, blood ribbons swirling around him like whips.
Every movement was surgical. Controlled. Elegant.
But Sojo didn't move.
He just watched.
> "Fascinating, isn't it?" he murmured to himself. "Even without memory, Soya fights like a ghost wearing instinct. A fragment of Gojo's legacy trying to remember its purpose."
He closed his hand, and one of the curses suddenly exploded mid-air, blood spraying in patterns that began to move.
It wasn't random.
It was forming shapes.
Crimson threads.
They crawled across the ground, writhing toward Kamo like living wires.
> "Kamo!" Soya shouted.
"I see it!"
Kamo extended both arms, his blood surged out, intercepting the threads.
When they collided, the air hissed, blood against blood, and suddenly the ground shattered between them in a burst of crimson light.
For a moment, Soya saw something he shouldn't have:
A reflection of Kamo's soul, a chain made of thorns and guilt.
Then the explosion knocked him back into the rubble.
---
When the dust settled, Sojo was gone.
Only the smell of blood lingered.
Kamo stood, panting, blood dripping from his hand.
Shun's dragon form hovered protectively behind Soya, eyes scanning the wreckage.
> "He's playing with us," Kamo muttered.
"Who was that?"
"Someone who wants what you have, even if you don't know you have it."
Soya blinked slowly, confusion and fatigue clouding his gaze.
> "And what do I have?"
"The reason this world hasn't fallen apart completely," Kamo said quietly.
Soya didn't understand.
He didn't need to.
The wind blew, carrying the smell of ash and something faintly metallic, blood, steel, memory.
And somewhere, above the ruined skyline, Sojo's voice echoed like a whisper carried by the dusk:
> "Crimson threads bind the living… but memory binds the dead."
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End of Chapter 3 – "Crimson Threads."