"I've sent Ijichi a text," Noriko murmured, pushing her phone back into her pocket and pulling her ink brush from the holster under her skirt. "Are you ready?"

Yuji gave a silent nod, eyes flittering apprehensively to the alleyway. Normally, he wouldn't have been scared... but after everything, they'd been through recently? What if it was another special grade? Images of Junpei flashed through his mind as he glanced to Noriko cautiously.

The two young sorcerers began to tread carefully down the alley - Yuji leading the way with Noriko following close behind him, ink-dripping brush in hand. They ascended the stone steps wordlessly and Yuji winced when his head broke above the shadow of the single-storey house next to him. The sun was cold now; pale and sharp as he cringed away from the bright rays. Pausing, he scanned the top of the verge and found his eyes following the dirt path from their location up to a graveyard. It was eerily still and he couldn't see anyone - or thing - in the immediate vicinity.

"Ahh, a graveyard." Noriko hummed in interest as she peered around Yuji's shoulder, coming to stand next to him on top of the verge. "Well, I guess that explains it."

"Explains what?" He blinked, tearing his gaze from the site to his companion, whose relaxed manner soothed his anxiety.

"Did Gojo not tell you?" Taking the lead, Noriko began to tread towards it, glancing over her shoulder when Yuji didn't follow her. He did when she gave him a beckoning gesture. "Hospitals, graveyards, schools - that sort of thing - even when there's not a curse immediately present, you'll start to be able to feel their negative energies. That's the foreboding feeling we felt down there. You know, you'd think shrines would have the same aura, but they're really quite -"

Noriko paused mid-sentence, her right hand twitching slightly around the brush, and then spun on her heel, lifting her opposite leg up to smash into a large discoloured creature that'd sprung out from the bushes. The creature reeled back, letting out a screech and Noriko dropped into a crouch, furiously scribbling on the exposed skin up her leg - the brush moving in rapid, minuscule movements. Itadori dropped slightly as well, bracing himself for an attack as he turned to the curse across from them.

It was large with a long tail instead of legs and mottled, rotting skin - which was half obscured by long black hair that dragged along the dirt as it writhed in pain. As it reeled it's head up again to look at them, Yuji spied a patch on it's face where the skin was peeling off due to Noriko's kick and shivered as it's large black eyes locked onto them.

"Don't you normally introduce yourself first when you meet someone? Ah, so rude." Her jovial tune still remained, even as she spoke to the curse. Nobara slipped into that sometimes, Yuji noted, not as much as Noriko (whose was seemingly permanent), but you could tell they both enjoyed the fight. Pushing herself back up, Yuji watched as her entire left leg began to swirl and seep into a deep blue-black before it receeded sharpy into a palm-sized circle on her calf where she'd first began to write. She clipped her brush back into her holster and gripped the space into the circle. Her hand slipped into the inky void and as she pulled it back out, her manicured fingers around an odd black hilt. "I'll take this one, you can have the other one."

As she pulled the sword out into the light, the golden blade gleamed in the sunlight and the circle faded. Perfectly polished and patterned with diagonal crossings, Noriko moved the Sword of Goujian* into both hands, holding it out in front of her.

"What do you-?" Yuji jumped as another similar creature screeched from above him, perched in a tree a few feet away. Noriko steeled her eyes on her opponent as the overwhelming aura of the sword washed over her. A national treasure, she grinned, maybe a little over-the-top... but who liked to be boring? "Eh, when did that get here?"

The curse in front of her writhed on it's wispy tail, it's eyes practically bulging out of it's head as it chittered at her. The tail coiled and in an instant, it sprang forward, opening a large cavenous mouth of serated teeth as it launched itself at her.

Noriko brought the sword to her hip, leaping out the way as the monstrosity dove past her, twisting her midriff as she jumped and bringing the legendary sword down onto it's back. It sliced through the air, but before it could land on the mottled skin on the curses' back, the thick, tangled hair began to shift, reaching up to grasp the blade.

Noriko's grin grew as the blade was stopped mid-air. Pushing all her weight into it, she forced the blade down and struggled against the resistance, however, as the ancient sword's aura flared again, it cut down through the hair and then further, slicing the the curse cleanly in half. It shrieked and writhed for a few seconds as Noriko landed clumsily on her feet, pulling the blade back as it hissed in the sun, black blood evaporating in steam off the golden metal.

"You okay, Yuji?" Noriko called, peering over her shoulder as the curse at her feet began to settle in ash. Her classmate had the second one in a headlock and when he noticed she was done, his energy flared and he shoved it away from him, not even giving it time to think before he slammed his fist down onto the top of it's head. He glanced back over to her proudly."Oh, you got better at that."

"Yeah, Todo taught me," he chriped back, striding over to meet her as she texted Ijichi, confirming that they'd gotten rid off all the curses in the immediate area. He sent her a very quick thank you and commended her - she figured she was one of his favourites, even though she caused some issues with Mai and her attendance, she was technically already experienced with being a sorcerer. She was almost thankful of the shrine. "He's decided, uh, that we're best friends or something."

"Oh, Fushiguro must be jealous," Noriko mused, twirling the sword in her hand before she dispelled it into a shallow pool of ink on the ground. Yuji followed her obediently as she moved towards the graveyard, stepping carefully in between family shrines and such. "I doubt that boy has any friends other than us."

"Fushiguro? I think he prefers the second years more, he and Maki seem to get along," he hummed, falling into step with her as she made her way up to the top of the graveyard. "I'm sorry you missed your coffee date, you couldn't even go with Nobara, and now this."

Noriko paused, frowning at him.

"Why would going with Nobara be better than going with you?" He opened his mouth to give her an answer but she cut him off. "I go with Nobara because we both like shopping and gossiping over coffee, not because we're closer or anything. Not that I don't regard her as one of my closest friends."

"Oh, I thought -"

"I would tear the sorcerer society apart with my bare hands for you." She elaborated firmly, folding her arms across her chest and Yuji felt his ears go pink at her admission. "You're someone I admire and someone I would never want to lose, and when the day comes when they decide you're of no use to them anymore, I'll fight for you, wether you've been absorbed by Sukuna or not. I don't care if there's so much of a sliver of you left in that body, I'll stick with that fragment to the end."

At that point, it wasn't just Yuji's ears that were pink, but his whole face and the top of his neck. He couldn't find the words to reply.

"Now, come on. There must've been a protective relic around here somewhere, it's our responsibility to check on it," she turned away from him, continuing back up to the small wooden shrine at the top of the grounds. It was elevated on a stone slab and had traditional charms and rope tied around it. As she got closer, with Yuji trailing behind her quietly, she began to feel the familiar pulse of energy.

Pausing, she stared head on at the box shrine before reaching out a hand to open the wooden doors, squinting her eyes to see inside the dim box. It was empty.

She froze in place, eyes wide at the full brunt of the energy that washed over her and paled at it's odd familiarity.

"I wonder how much it would hurt him if I killed you?"

[A/N: Hi all ٩(◕‿◕｡)۶ so yeah, we love big bad Sukuna. I almost died today tho. I was mid 6 hour biochem exam and one of my cats leapt up onto the desk and knocked over my coffee onto my laptop ＵＴｪＴＵ. Luckily my laptop is fine but I did lose about 30 mins of my exam cleaning it off the white carpet, no stains tho. I hope you all like the chapter, and again, thank you for all your support.

Sword of Goujian: the sword is regarded as a national treasure in China and is believed to be owned by Emperor Goujian - one of China's most famous emperors. It was first discovered in 1965 and is 2,500 years old. When it was found, it was found completely untarnished and still incredibly sharp - leading people to believe that there was a magical or spiritual aspect to it.]