The Chiba guardian barrier hummed with an unusual energy—and an even more unusual soundtrack.
Inside the Open University's monitoring room, Inumaki Toge sat before a bank of screens, watching the area around the stadium through dozens of camera angles. Before him stood a microphone connected to the campus-wide broadcast system. In his hand, he held a handheld megaphone—the transformed spirit-slaying sword, adapted to his unique needs.
On the monitors, Cursed Spirits converged on the stadium like moths to flame.
Inumaki raised the megaphone. His voice, when it came, was calm and absolute.
"Stop."
The word echoed through every speaker on campus, amplified, undeniable. Outside, the approaching Cursed Spirits froze. Mid-stride. Mid-lunge. Mid-flight. Suspended like insects in amber.
Inumaki waited, watching the monitors as more spirits joined the frozen crowd. When the gathering was sufficient, he spoke again.
"Die."
The effect was instantaneous. Every Cursed Spirit within range of the broadcast simply... ceased. No struggle. No resistance. They collapsed like puppets with cut strings, their forms dissolving into nothing.
If anyone had witnessed this, they would have been terrified. It was too clean. Too absolute. Too easy.
Inumaki sighed, leaning back in his chair.
"So boring. Why am I the only one at this node?"
He glanced at the corner where Kamo Itsuki's clone stood motionless, guarding the barrier connection.
"Well, Teacher Kamo is here. But that's a clone. Not the real thing."
He tapped the megaphone against his chin.
"I wonder how everyone else is doing. But with Teacher Kamo's clones at every node, they'll be fine. Probably."
A pause.
"Teacher Kamo is watching, though. I should perform well. Make a good impression."
These thoughts—once confined to his mind during his silent years—now spilled freely into the air. The inner demon trial had liberated him, but liberation came with consequences. When he was alone, his thoughts became monologues. When someone was present, he became an explainer, repeating himself to ensure understanding.
A chatterbox. The complete opposite of the silent boy he used to be.
And right now, he was bored.
His eyes lit up.
"I've got it!"
He looked at the monitors, at the new wave of Cursed Spirits gathering outside. He raised the megaphone.
"Dance."
The effect was immediate—and absurd. Cursed Spirits of every shape and size began to move. Not attacking. Not advancing. Dancing. Tentacles swayed. Claws tapped rhythmically. Grotesque forms twisted in grotesque choreography.
Inumaki grinned. He found the campus broadcast's music library and queued up something appropriately upbeat. Suddenly, the area outside the guardian barrier resembled the world's most terrifying music festival.
But as more spirits arrived, the dance floor grew crowded. Spirits bumped into spirits. The chaos intensified.
Inumaki had another idea.
"Kill each other."
The dance continued—but now, between the steps, spirits began tearing into their neighbors. The scene became a macabre ballet of violence, bodies dropping even as others swayed to the music.
The effect was brutally efficient. The spirit population plummeted.
Inumaki hummed along with the music, thoroughly entertained.
Above, Kamo Itsuki's clone watched the scene unfold. A vein throbbed in his forehead.
"Did Inumaki's inner demon trial malfunction, or was this hidden trait always there?" He rubbed his temples. "Such a good kid. How did he turn out like this?"
Before he could ponder further, a new figure appeared on the monitors.
A cockroach. Massive. Twitching antennae. Chitinous body gleaming with unnatural light.
Kurourushi. Special Grade Cursed Spirit, born from humanity's disgust and revulsion toward cockroaches. In another timeline, Kenjaku would have captured and deployed it. Here, it had remained free, roaming, growing, hungry.
It sensed the concentration of humans. It came.
It came within range of the music.
The brainwashing melody hit it like a wave. Kurourushi's antennae twitched. Its legs began to move—not in attack, but in rhythm. The swarm of smaller cockroaches accompanying it followed suit, thousands of insects swaying like drunken revelers.
Inumaki Toge watched his newest dancer arrive and smiled.
"Welcome to the party."
Kurourushi's antennae twitched wildly, its fragmented consciousness screaming warnings that its body couldn't obey.
Wrong. Something is wrong.
The swarm of cockroaches around it—its children, its tools, its extensions—began to bite. Mandibles sank into its chitinous flesh, tiny legs scrabbling against their master's body.
"You dare?!" Kurourushi's mind, what little remained uncontrolled, burned with outrage. It reached for its Cursed Technique, and found it still responsive.
Wriggling Earthworm. *
Two grotesque cockroach Cursed Spirits emerged from the earth, each carrying a massive, pulsating sac. They lurched toward the school, toward the source of the music, toward the hidden sorcerer.
They made it ten steps before the music claimed them.
Their legs began to move in rhythm. Their antennae swayed. They turned, tottering back toward their creator.
"What—" Kurourushi's already-limited intellect struggled to process. It shook its head—not intentionally, but because the music demanded it. "This damned music!"
It drew its Cursed Tool—Rotten Life Blade, a blunt, terrible sword with cavities in its blade filled with parasitic eggs. Normally, it would fire those eggs at enemies, watching larvae burrow into living flesh.
Normally.
Today, it dared not. What if the eggs, mid-flight, were also controlled? What if they turned on it?
So instead, Kurourushi did something far more primitive.
It hacked.
The Rotten Life Blade rose and fell, rose and fell, chopping its own creations into pieces. When the sacs ruptured, they sprayed foul liquid into its face—harmless to its kind, but humiliating.
And still the music played.
Da-da-da-dum. Da-da-da-dum.
Kurourushi's thoughts grew fuzzier. Its movements grew more synchronized. Its will eroded with every passing moment, dissolved by relentless rhythm.
Soon, it no longer remembered why it had come.
Soon, it no longer remembered it was a Special Grade Cursed Spirit.
Soon, it only knew the music.
And the music said: summon your children. Devour the others.
Kurourushi obeyed.
It summoned swarm after swarm, each one turning on the surrounding Cursed Spirits, devouring them with mindless hunger. The area around the guardian barrier became a feeding frenzy—cockroaches consuming spirits, spirits fighting back, chaos upon chaos.
When the last of Kurourushi's Cursed Energy finally gave out, it stood alone amid the carnage. The swarm had turned on it, as they turned on everything. They devoured their master without hesitation.
Kurourushi dissolved into nothing, consumed by its own children.
And Inumaki Toge, humming happily in his monitoring room, never even noticed a Special Grade had fallen to his power.
Kamo Itsuki's clone watched the entire sequence unfold. His expression shifted from exasperation to surprise to dawning comprehension.
He didn't even try. He just... hummed.
The realization crystallized.
Inumaki had used Cursed Speech intentionally at the start—the simple commands that made the spirits dance and kill each other. But later, when he hummed unconsciously, when he infused his genuine enjoyment into the melody, the Cursed Speech continued.
The intention was there. The sincerity was there. The words—now transformed into music—still carried power.
Inumaki Toge had discovered, entirely by accident, a way to make Cursed Speech persist. A single use, sustained by genuine emotion, continuing to affect targets long after the words were spoken.
"The key is sincerity," Kamo murmured. "He truly immersed himself in the moment. In the joy. In the music."
He shook his head slowly.
"The power of sincerity truly is invincible."
A smile touched his lips.
"I never imagined Cursed Speech could be used this way. There's so much untapped potential in that technique."
He watched Inumaki through the monitors—still humming, still swaying, completely oblivious to his breakthrough.
"I wonder when he'll realize what he's done."
When that day came, Kamo suspected, the world would see the strongest Cursed Speech user in history. And he would have this absurd, wonderful moment at a Disneyland-adjacent guardian barrier to thank for it.