"Three years in Kyoto. Aoi Todo. Introduction complete. Kira-kun, we are now brothers."
The massive, muscular man stared with intensity, a jagged scar cutting across his eye. "Now, what kind of woman is your type? Answer quickly. Men are fine, too. A man's preference reflects the totality of his soul. Those with no interest in the flesh are inherently boring, and I loathe boring men above all else."
He leaned in, his shadow looming. "Tell me. What is your type?"
Kira Nanami glanced at the leaden sky outside and suppressed a weary sigh. He shifted his gaze back to his junior, whose hair was tied back in a messy topknot.
"Those with slender, elegant fingers," Kira replied, his voice flat with resignation.
"Oh? A peculiar fetish!" Todo's expression shifted to one of sudden, booming respect. "I prefer tall women with big bottoms! Perhaps we truly are destined to be best friends!"
Tch.
Kira checked his wristwatch. The light was fading, and a sharp wind had begun to howl against the windows. If this didn't conclude soon, his scheduled sleep cycle would be compromised.
This "welcome ceremony" had been arranged specifically for him by Kyoto Jujutsu High, but he harbored a deep-seated hatred for anything that disrupted his routine. He hated being away from home late. He hated overtime. And most of all, he hated how the stress of overtime made his fingernails grow at an uncontrollable rate.
Suppress it... I am a reliable adult.
He looked at Todo, who was practically vibrating with excitement. "How much longer until your idol appears?"
"Any second! Takada-chan is absolute perfection!"
Kira finally understood. This "ceremony" was merely a pretext for Todo to use official leave for fan activities.
Irritating.
Inside his pockets, his nails began to lengthen at a visible speed—a biological barometer of his rising agitation. Since his youth, whenever his equilibrium was disturbed by unplanned variables, his body reacted. Kira Nanami loathed change.
He thrust his hands deeper into his pockets, his face remaining a mask of stony calm.
"Kira-kun, why the fingers?" Todo asked, unwilling to let the topic of preference die.
"Boki."
"Eh?"
Kira didn't elaborate. He simply tilted his chin toward the stage. "She's here. Your idol."
"Ohhh—!" Todo's confusion vanished instantly. He raised his hands, straining to see over the crowd. A tidal wave of screams erupted from the fans, a surging ocean of bodies that parted only for the narrow corridor guarded by security.
A young woman stepped out, dressed in a sharp JK uniform, her long legs clad in dark stockings. She was tall, radiant, and waved to the crowd with practiced grace.
"Everyone! I love you all!"
"Takada-chan! Suki!" The roar was deafening. Todo was among the loudest.
"See, Kira-kun? Isn't she divine?"
"Yes. Quite beautiful." Kira's eyes were locked—not on her face, but on her hands. Her skin was porcelain, flushed with a faint pink hue; her nails painted in a delicate, shimmering coat.
In his pocket, the growth accelerated.
"Makes you want to scoop her up and take her home, doesn't it?" Todo nudged him.
I want to sever them and take them home.
Suppress it. Control it. You are an adult. Kira clenched his fists until the nails bit deep into his palms. He prided himself on his self-control. As long as there was no direct contact, he was confident he could remain a law-abiding citizen—
"Come on, Kira-kun! I have two handshake tickets. This one's on me!" Todo waved the slips of paper.
"What tickets?"
"Handshake tickets!" Todo scratched his head. "Did you not realize we were at a Takada-chan Handshake Event?"
Kira's breathing hitched, though he kept his chest still.
He looked up, finally noticing the banner draped above the stage. He looked back at Takada's hands. That soft skin. Those provocative nails. The alluring lines of her palms. They were like little sirens, like a queen in a neon-lit club, like a kind aunt, or a gentle teacher. These fingers sparked a pulse in him unlike any woman he had ever known.
It was the feeling of falling in love. Terrible, unavoidable... like a first romance.
And yet, those hands—those sacred, beautiful fingers—were currently being grasped by one sweaty, unwashed fan after another. He watched as her skin touched coarse, hairy palms, over and over. Seeing his "beloved" handled by a rotation of strangers triggered a bizarre, twisted surge of gratification.
It was, frankly, a bit crude. He—
Cut them off. Cut them off. Cut them all off. His nails were clawing at his own fabric now.
"Hey! Are you coming or what?" Todo waved a hand in his face.
Todo-kun... Kira thought, his expression remaining hauntingly neutral. You are inciting a crime.
He realized then that for a man like him, a handshake event was functionally no different from a brothel. It was a path he had never considered.
"Do you attend these often?" Kira asked.
"Every single one I can."
"The next time there is such an event... please find me."
If this was a brothel, Todo was the seasoned regular, and Kira was the humble salaryman asking for a veteran's guidance. He turned to his junior with the sincerity of a student.
"Todo. From this day forward, you are my best friend. Actually, I also like tall women with big bottoms."
Todo's eyes welled with tears. He looked as if he had finally found a soulmate in a lonely world. "Kira-kun..."
"Todo."
"Kira-kun! You really are an interesting man! Truly my brother!" Todo looked toward the ceiling, lost in a sudden "false memory" of the two of them running toward a sunset. Tears and snot ran down his face at a forty-five-degree angle. "Have you become a fan of Takada-chan too?"
So the hand's name is Takada. What a lovely name... Kira thought. Aloud, he said: "Todo, do you limit yourself to one idol? There are other handshake events happening in this venue, aren't there?"
Todo's pupils dilated. He swallowed hard, staring at Kira in disbelief. "One... isn't enough?"
"Three? You want three?"
"I want tickets for every idol present."
Sever them. The white ones. The slender ones. All of them.
Todo swallowed again. What a greedy man. What a terrifying man. This senior wasn't just a kindred spirit—he was a grandmaster of the craft, someone who had transcended the mortal plane of obsession.
"Yoshi, yoshi, yoshi..." Todo gave a thumbs up, his voice trembling with awe. "Kira-kun! I cannot compete!"
Aoi Todo, a man who respected no one, not even Special Grade sorcerers, felt true, heart-felt admiration for the first time in his life.
Kira ignored Todo's emotional theatrics. He adjusted his tie and smoothed the wrinkles on his shoulders. He checked his watch again.
The line thinned. The clock ticked. Outside, the moon hung low over Kyoto, and the streetlights flickered to life against a sky that felt like heavy gauze.
Finally, it was Kira's turn.
His nails were now half an inch long. The pressure was unbearable.
As the small, dainty hand reached out toward him, Kira maintained his facade of the composed professional. Just a touch. I won't take it home. It's fine. No one can stop the growth of nails, and no one can suppress nature... just one touch...
What a beautiful hand. A shame it's attached to a person.
Kira reached out. His skin was inches from hers.
BOOM.
A violent explosion rocked the hall. A shockwave of heat and shattered glass tore through the room. A man nearby dropped to his knees, screaming as he clawed at his eyes, blood weeping from empty sockets as his flesh began to ripple like water. The crowd devolved into a panicked stampede.
Takada's hand vanished. She was whisked away by her security detail.
Kira's hand remained frozen in mid-air, grasping at nothing.
"More! More! More! Let the hatred and fear feed the Cursed Spirit!"
"Quiet, Murashita."
Two men stepped through the smoke. They wore black robes and masks adorned with multiple prosthetic eyes.
Curse Users.
"Die," Todo growled, his muscles bunching as he prepared to lung forward. He was stopped by a hand on his chest.
"Todo. Go evacuate the civilians. Set up the Veil..." Kira said, his back turned. "I will handle these two."
"Brother, are you ordering me? I hate being told what to do. You're risking our friendship. I am very angry right now."
"Not an order. A request. A request between friends." Kira turned his head. "Because I also need to vent my anger."
Todo paused. Kira's eyes were like stagnant water—flat, dead, and utterly unblinking. It was the kind of calm that made one's skin crawl.
After a moment, Todo nodded. "For the sake of our brotherhood, I'll leave them to you." He turned to go. "Crush them."
"Until there is nothing left but ash."
"Arrogant old man!" The lead Curse User, a man with a scarred face, laughed. He pointed a finger at Kira's nose. "Look at you, you pathetic salaryman. Even if you are a sorcerer, you're Grade 2 at best. My boss is Grade 1!"
He squinted, a flicker of recognition crossing his mind, but he didn't stop. "Coming to a handshake event... poor middle-aged loser. You spend your whole paycheck just to touch a girl's hand? Corporate slave."
"It is 8:30."
"Huh?"
"It is 8:30 PM. I usually clock out at 7:00. I am now ninety minutes over my scheduled time."
"What are you—?"
A muffled pop.
A fragment of skin flew off the man's pointing finger. Then another. Murashita looked down in horror as his body began to crack like a porcelain doll. Internal, silent explosions rippled through his muscles like a burrowing snake. It traveled up his arm, across his chest, and toward his throat. In the split second before the flames consumed his skull, he saw something standing behind Kira.
A large, pink, feline entity.
"I have no grand ambitions," Kira's voice drifted through the roar of the fire. "I only wish to live a very quiet, peaceful life. Winning or losing... those are things I find tedious to calculate."
"I am a man of simple needs. That is my philosophy. However, if I must fight, I do not lose to anyone. If someone interferes with my sleep... if a 'trouble' or an 'enemy' prevents me from finishing my work on time... they will encounter this before they can even speak."
He pressed his thumb down as if clicking a detonator.
Red flames swallowed Murashita whole. In his final moment of consciousness, a name surfaced in the Curse User's mind.
Blonde hair. Thirties. Salaryman attire. The strange Shikigami.
Kira Nanami.
The man with immense Cursed Energy but no innate technique—only his summoned spirit. The most anomalous sorcerer in history, whispered to be the strongest beneath the four Special Grades. The "Mad Genius" tipped to one day surpass even Satoru Gojo.
In the world of Curses, the evaluation of him was different:
He is less a sorcerer and more the Curse itself.A pure, unadulterated villain.
'Killer Queen.'
"Lord Kira."
The leader of the group stood over his subordinate's ashes, his expression unchanged. He removed his eye-covered mask to reveal a plain, unremarkable face.
"Forgive my subordinate's rudeness. My name is Kaede Hasegawa. I am a Grade 1 sorcerer. I have a bit of a reputation—a bit of a genius, they say. If we truly fought, I might not be inferior to you."
He shrugged, his posture relaxed and arrogant.
"You want to go home, don't you? Let's trade apologies. Fighting me won't gain you anything. I'm quite formidable." He smiled with a terrifying confidence. "So, how about you spare me? I'm young, talented, and I'm not quite ready to die."