I Became a Demon Sword and Traveled the Anime Worlds

By the time Yuji and the others arrived, rain had already begun to fall.

It was a thin, hazy drizzle, cold enough to cling to the skin and blur the edges of the world. Police tape blocked every road leading toward the facility. Patrol cars lined the wet streets, their flashing lights staining the pavement red and blue.

Eishu Juvenile Detention Center, West Tokyo.

A place that should have been sealed from ordinary society now stood at the center of something far worse.

At the entrance, Assistant Supervisor Kiyotaka Ijichi stood waiting for them. He wore a black suit, black-rimmed glasses, and the nervous expression of a man who knew the mission was already several steps beyond what students should be handling.

"Our Window confirmed the presence of a Cursed Womb roughly three hours ago," Ijichi said, his voice tense but controlled. "The facility has already been locked down. Residents within a five-hundred-meter radius have been evacuated."

Rain dotted his glasses. He pushed them up, then continued.

"There are still five staff members trapped inside with the Cursed Womb. Based on the situation, if it completes metamorphosis, it is expected to become a Special Grade Cursed Spirit."

The air around the three first-years changed.

Megumi's face hardened at once.

Nobara clicked her tongue under her breath, her fingers tightening around the handle of her hammer.

A Special Grade.

For jujutsu sorcerers, those two words carried a weight that could not be exaggerated. It was not simply a stronger curse. It was a disaster. A walking verdict. Something that could make strategy, courage, and talent feel like decorations on a coffin.

Yuji, however, remained strangely calm.

Maybe he did not fully understand.

Maybe he did, but his body had not yet learned how to fear properly.

Ijichi looked at them one by one, then said in an even heavier tone, "Your mission is to confirm the status of any survivors and rescue them if possible. If you encounter a Special Grade Cursed Spirit, your only priority is to retreat. Do not attempt to fight it. Do not assume you can buy time. Run immediately."

Yuji nodded, his expression turning serious.

"Understood."

Megumi said nothing, but his eyes had gone sharp.

Nobara lifted her chin. "Got it."

The three turned toward the entrance.

Behind them, Ijichi watched their backs with obvious worry.

"Please be careful."

He raised one hand.

"Emerge from darkness, blacker than darkness. Purify that which is impure."

The Veil fell.

Blackness spread from the sky like ink poured into water, descending over the detention center and the surrounding area. In only a few seconds, the outside world was sealed away. Sight, sound, and presence all became muffled beneath the barrier.

Megumi took the lead.

He formed a hand sign, and his shadow rippled beneath him.

"Divine Dog."

A white wolf-like shikigami emerged from the darkness at his feet. Its ears stood alert, its body low and ready.

Megumi glanced back at the others.

"Let's go. If a curse approaches, it'll tell us."

Yuji immediately crouched beside the shikigami, eyes sparkling despite the situation.

"Seriously? Good boy."

He reached out and patted the Divine Dog on the head.

Megumi stared at him.

Nobara stared too.

Yuji blinked. "What?"

"Nothing," Megumi said, deadpan. "Just keep moving."

They pushed open the door and stepped inside.

The moment they crossed the threshold, the world changed.

What should have been a juvenile detention center became something else entirely. A rust-covered structure stretched before them, twisted into the shape of a warped duplex. The walls were stained and decayed. Metal rails ran along impossible angles. The ceiling rose far above them, swallowed by darkness.

Yuji slowly tilted his head back.

"Wasn't this supposed to be a two-story dormitory?"

Nobara frowned at the distorted space around them. "Is this... a duplex?"

Even she did not sound certain.

Megumi's face remained calm, but his voice was grim.

"This is an Innate Domain made from Cursed Energy. But this is my first time seeing one this large."

He turned back.

The entrance was gone.

Only a blank stretch of distorted wall remained behind them.

Yuji's eyes widened.

"Huh?! The door disappeared!"

His voice echoed strangely through the warped building.

Megumi clicked his tongue, but he did not panic.

"It's fine. The Divine Dog can track the residual scent of the entrance. We keep moving."

Yuji gave him an admiring look.

"Wow, Fushiguro, you're seriously reliable. With you here, we can definitely save the survivors."

Then, halfway through his own sentence, Yuji suddenly paused.

A thought finally caught up with him.

He turned his attention inward and asked, "Asuramaru, do you know what's going on here?"

Inside him, Asuramaru's lips twitched.

Only now?

He let out a long, exhausted sigh.

What could he do? This was the Sword Master the system had given him.

Asuramaru's voice sounded in Yuji's mind, edged with irritation.

"Everyone inside is already dead. The Cursed Spirit is about to complete its transformation and reach Special Grade. There are also several other cursed spirits here."

His tone cooled.

"If you don't leave now, all three of you will die too."

He did not tell Yuji everything.

Through Perception, Asuramaru had sensed something else inside the domain.

Something lurking deeper.

Something whose presence far exceeded the Cursed Womb.

Could it be Kenjaku?

If his memory of this world was correct, this entire incident might be nothing more than a test. A trap dressed up as a mission. And somewhere behind the curtain, a far more troublesome player was watching.

Outside, Yuji's expression changed the moment he heard the warning.

"Fushiguro, Nobara," he said urgently, "we need to get out of here right now. There are no survivors. The Cursed Spirit has already become a Special Grade."

Megumi stopped.

"What?"

His first instinct was to ask how Yuji knew.

Then he remembered.

Asuramaru.

That explained it.

Mostly.

Megumi still could not stop himself from shooting back, "Then why didn't you say that before we came in?"

Yuji froze.

He could not exactly say, I forgot Asuramaru could do that.

That would be stupid.

Even for him.

Nobara looked between the two of them, her brows knitting together.

"Hold on. Why does Itadori know what's going on inside? And Fushiguro, what did you mean by that?"

Megumi cut her off immediately.

"It's classified. I can't tell you."

Nobara's eyes narrowed. "You two are terrible at being subtle."

Megumi ignored that and turned to the Divine Dog.

"Lead us back. We're leaving."

The shikigami lowered its nose, catching the trace of the vanished entrance.

"Stay close," Megumi ordered. "We move fast."

"Got it!"

The three ran.

Their footsteps echoed through the rusted corridors. The building seemed to stretch around them, passageways bending where they should have been straight, stairwells appearing in places that made no architectural sense.

They passed through a narrow hallway and emerged into a large, hollow space beneath a massive dry drainage outlet. It resembled an empty reservoir, all cracked concrete and damp shadows.

Then Yuji saw the bodies.

Three men lay on the ground.

Or what remained of them.

Their deaths had been brutal. Twisted limbs. Torn flesh. Blood dried in black streaks against the concrete.

Yuji stopped.

For a moment, he could not move.

Hearing that people had died was one thing.

Seeing it was something else.

The sight hit him in the chest with a weight he had not prepared for. His pupils shrank. The smell of blood and rot crept into his throat, and for the first time since entering, the reality of the mission sank in.

These were people.

They had been alive.

And now there was nothing he could do for them.

Asuramaru's voice cut through his frozen thoughts.

"You can't run anymore. The Special Grade is here."

Yuji's head snapped up.

His grip tightened around his sword.

"The Special Grade is here!"

Megumi and Nobara reacted at once.

The pressure arrived before the curse did.

It pressed down on them like a hand around the throat. The air grew thick. Breathing became difficult.

Megumi's gaze swept the area.

Then he saw it.

The Divine Dog lay dead on the floor.

Its head had been torn off and thrown aside like garbage.

"Divine Dog..."

Megumi's expression froze.

He had not sensed it.

He had not heard the attack, had not seen the movement, had not even felt the moment his shikigami was destroyed.

That alone told him everything.

The thing inside this domain had reached Special Grade.

"Run!"

But the word had barely left his mouth when the curse appeared between them.

It stood there as if it had always been there.

Humanoid.

Blue-gray skin.

Four eyes.

A mouth full of exposed white teeth.

Its upper body had already formed, but its lower half remained a malformed Cursed Womb, an irregular, pulsing mass beneath its torso. It looked incomplete, yet the pressure pouring from it was already monstrous.

Yuji, Megumi, and Nobara all froze for the briefest instant.

.....

[If you don't want to wait for the next update, read 50 chapters ahead on P@treon.]

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