27 Chapter 26 -Finger-bearer and Death Painting brothers
"Why is Fushiguro not coming in?" Itadori asked as soon as he noticed Megumi was taking too long.
"He was right behind us before we enteted the barrier, right?" Nobara asked.
Junpei nodded, "What happened?"
"Was it the barrier or did something happen outside?" Nobara frowned.
"Barrier?"
"Should we go out first?" Junpei asked.
"Go out? It's too late." Nobara said as she pointed to the mole-like monster that poked ira head out from several exits.
"Let's finish this quickly then." Itadori threw a punch at one of the heads.
Junpei used his Jellyfish Shikigami to attack and Nobara also used her resonance to blow up the heads.
Just when the three think they were getting a hang of it, Eso attacked Junpei. Junpei quickly summoned back his Shikigami and get into the jellyfish to protect himself from Eso's assault. But, he was a few seconds late and suffered a blow in his stomach.
"Junpei! Are you okay?!" Itadori asked , worried.
"I..I'm fine." Junpei replied and tried to attack Eso with his Shikigami. Eso activated his Maximum:Wing King to give himself movement boost and attack with the lines of blood.
"Brother, I want to play too!" said Kechizu who followed Eso.
Itadori charged towards Kechizu first and threw punches after punches.
"You're strong." Kechizu commented.
After trading a few blows, Kechizu splashed his blood towards Itadori, taking advantage of their close distance.
Itadori could dodge the blood at the last minute and noticed the areas that Kechixu's blood landed on were slowly decaying.
"Is it Toxins?" Itadori mumbled.
They traded a few more blows and Kechizu kept trying to splash Itadori with his blood.
Kugisaki pursed her lips as she took a glance at the two battles and tried to finsh off the mole-like curse quickly.
Despite using his Shikigamis and poison, Junpei still couldn't fend off Eso's attacks. He was tossed around like a ragdoll but Junpei considered himself lucky as his Shikigamis protected him from getting splashed with Eso's blood. However, he knew it was a matter of time before getting pierced by the blood wings if this keeps up.
Nobara also realized this.
"Yoshino! Run outside the barrier. Fushiguro is outside and he could help you. Maybe we could even send a signal to Nakamura." She shouted.
Junpei hestitated, "But what about you two then? I'm not leaving. So just finish off the curse with many heads."
"Fine." Nobara said.
'Yoshino is not looking good. He's clearly not on the same level with that curse or curse user. I have to finish with this curse quickly...' Nobara thought to herself. She then pulled out several nails at once and infused them with cursed energy.
"Resonance!"
After a few more nails, Nobara managed to clear all the heads.
"Now that it's done, I can help Itadori and Yoshino with the other two curses." She said.
But, she was shocked to see a finger-bearer coming out.
"The curse..It's not dead yet....Besides, this presence is..." Nobara mumbled, "even stronger than the one in Juvenile Detention center."
The two death painting brothers stopped their attacks and looked at the finger-bearer.
"Our errand...is here." They said at the same time.
Nobara felt chills down her spine as the finger-bearer got closer to her.
'I..can't move. Its presence alone is making me realize the power difference.' Nobara gritted her teeth.
Junpei and Itadori also stopped fighting as the death painting brothers stopped the attacks and looked at the finger-bearer. They also felt the same as Nobara.
Juvenile Detention Center....
It was where Itadori and Nobara first encountered a special-grade curse. However, they didn't have a chance to feel the terror that comes with it because of Sachiko being there with them and taking care of the curse.
"But, this time...we're alone." The two realized.
"Even Fushiguro is not here.."
They thought back to the times they unknowingly relied on their classmate. Nobara knew she wouldn't have escaped the previous finger-bearer unscathed without Sachiko.
Without Sachiko shouting her to jump, she would've been taken to who knows where by the finger-bearer. Would she have survived?
No matter how they said she had unreliable personality, there were times they relied on her.
And now that they were forced to face with a special grade curse alone, she felt the terror she didn't get a chance to have before.
She stared at Itadori charging towards the finger-bearer with Black Flash.
Itadori was getting stronger.
So was Fushiguro by training with Gojo after the exchange event.
Even the new student Junpei was learning and getting stronger than he was a month ago.
But, was she getting stronger?
She was snapped out of her thoughts when she felt a splash of blood on the left side of her face. The blood flowed to her neck and left arm.
"Was I just ambushed?" She murmured.
It was Kechizu.
Then, she saw black flowers appearing on the skin that was in contact with Kechizu's blood and she started to feel the pain of her skin starting to slowly decay.
"That's our cursed technique. As long as you have made contact with my brother's blood or my blood, your skin will decay. Don't worry, even the blood is not lethal unless you get it all over your body." Eso said.
"Kugisaki!" Junpei called out worriedly despite himself lying on the floor with blood gushing out of his chest.
The death painting brothers laughed at them, "How can Jujutsu sorcerers be this easily ambushed? You two look so naive and weak for a Jujutsu sorcerer." Eso commented. "Were you sheltered?"
Naive....
Sheltered...
Was that what she was these past few months?
If not, why did she....
"Kugisaki! Snap out of it!! We need to focus!" Itadori shouted to her as he continued punching the finger-bearer with Black Flash. "If we don't want to die." Itadori finished as the finger-bearer used his cursed energy to blast him away.
The impact was so fierce that he was knocked back several meters at once and hit the wall with his head hard. Blood flowed down from his head to his face.
The death painting brothers launched their attacks at Itadori.
Itadori tried to dodge the attacks of the brothers but it waw hard to do so when he was just slammed across the wall by the finger-bearer. The finger-bearer also continued its assaults and Itadori was cornered.
"Itadori!"
Junpei got up and summoned his Shikigami to attack the brothers. Blood was still gushing out of his body but Junpei knew he had to do something.
Nobara looked at the two and she knew what she had to do. Whatever doubts she had, they didn't matter for now. She had to focus on the present and fight for herself.
After realizing this, she tried to stand still and gritted her teeth, "Just now, you just said it was your brother's blood that activated the technique, right? But that was a bad match with me," She said as she pulled out a nail and a hammer. She put the nail onto her skin and hit it with the hammer.
"Resonance!"
"Brother!" Kechizu said as he felt Kugisaki's cursed energy seeping into his body.
"Stop.." Resonance also affected Eso.
"Let's have a battle of endurance, shall we?" Nobara grinned.
"It's about endurance, isn't it? We can do this, Kechizu." Eso said to his brother.
Meanwhile, Itadori was not doing well. Even with Junpei helping him out, fighting the special-grade finger-bearer and death painting brothers were no easy feat. He couldn't handle them at once.
Soon, Junpei was at his limit first as he fell onto the ground again. He had lost too much blood.
"This is not working. I need power...I need to be stronger than this..." Itadori mumbled. He was about to ask for Sukuna's help when he remembered Sachiko's words.
'Did she know this could happen?' He thought.
"Yoshino! Go out of the barrier first! Then, call for help!" Nobara shouted to Junpei as she continued hammering new nails onto herleft arm covered in black rose patterns.
"But..." Junpei wanted to protest but was turned down by Nobara. But, Junpei knew it made sense because he was in no condition to fight right now.
He struggled to get up and walk to the barrier but he managed to do so after a while.
Just after getting out of the barrier, he saw Megumi waiting.
"Yoshino?" Megumi was surprised to see Junpei in a state like this but quickly recovered and asked about the situation inside.
"Fushiguro, Itadori and Kugisaki.. they need help. Can you contact Nakamura?"
Megumi shook his head grimly. "I can't call her. So, I tried using divine dogs to track her and send the message but they can't seem to find her as well."
"I have a bad feeling about this.." Junpei said weakly.
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