Outside the hospital, the wind rustled through the broken parking lot.
The Window otherwise known as GEGE AKUTAMI stood near the car, hands tucked nervously into his coat.
His eyes remained fixed on the dark hospital entrance.
The veil still shimmered faintly around the building, invisible to normal people but painfully obvious to someone trained to sense cursed energy.
He shifted his weight slightly.
"...Hope they're okay in there," he muttered.
Silence answered him.
He glanced down at the report tablet in his hand.
Mission Assessment: Grade Two Curse.
He exhaled.
"…I really hope the assessment was right."
The man sighed, rubbing the back of his neck.
"First missions are the worst," he murmured.
His voice grew quieter.
"Most jujutsu sorcerers die on their first one."
The wind blew again, rattling the loose hospital sign.
Ibaraki Hospital.
_________________________________________
"WHY WON'T THIS CREEPY LADY DIE?!"
Emiya's voice echoed through the ICU as he stumbled back, barely keeping his footing on the blood-slick tiles.
Across the room, the nurse stood perfectly upright.
The floor told the real story.
Blood smeared across the tiles in thick trails. A hospital bed had been split clean in half. Stone walls Emiya had deployed were shattered everywhere like broken teeth.
And the nurse—
After she had been beheaded.
Emiya had seen Shoko drive her hand straight through the curse's chest and tear out its heart.
At one point the barbarians had split her from the waist down.
Every time—
The same result.
Flesh crawling back together.
Bones knitting.
A new smile forming.
His mind raced, instinctively counting resources.
Walls used: 34
Walls remaining: 16
Most of the ICU was already filled with broken stone barriers he had thrown up during the fight.
Troops deployed: 30
Total possible deployment left: 50
Not much.
And it was getting worse.
Across the room, one of the damaged cannons sparked weakly.
Earlier in the fight—
The nurse had grabbed one of his archers by the throat and hurled it straight into the cannon.
The impact had twisted the metal frame and not destroying it but one more shot will do.
She tilted her head slightly, the same polite smile still resting on her lips.
"You remembered."
Her eyes glinted with quiet amusement.
"It was throwing shots at me…"
She gestured faintly toward the ruined cannon.
"So I threw one back."
And now she stood there again, uniform barely torn, head tilting slowly as if she were confused by their frustration.
"Patients shouldn't shout," she said softly. "It raises blood pressure."
Beside him, Shoko—panting—clicked her tongue.
"…Our luck is really bad."
"Bad is a understate—!"before he can continue.
The nurse's fingers loosened around the oversized syringe and the syringe shot from her hand like a javelin, cursed energy screaming along the needle as it tore through the air.
Towards Shoko.
Shoko had already stepped aside.
The massive needle ripped through the air where her chest had been a heartbeat earlier, passing her shoulder by mere centimeters.
But before she could even breathe—
The nurse was suddenly beside her.
A kick lashed toward Shoko's midsection.
"Wall—!" Emiya shouted.
Stone erupted between them, but the moment the nurse's heel struck—
CRACK.
The wall shattered instantly.
Shoko jumped backward, sliding across the floor just out of the nurse's reach—
And then—
The syringe came from behind.
It shot through the air like a returning spear and pierced into her chest, just below the heart.
"SHOKO!" Emiya yelled.
Her body jerked from the impact.
For a split second she remained standing—like her body hadn't fully understood what had just happened.
Then the strength left her legs.
Shoko collapsed forward, her body hitting the floor face down with a dull thud, blood spreading slowly across the sterile tiles beneath her.
He ran toward her without thinking.
"Fire!"
BOOM—BOOM.
Both cannons roared, consecutive blasts tearing through the ICU as shockwaves slammed into the nurse, hurling her backward across the boundary of the curse territory.
Dust rose in a choking cloud.
At the same time, cursed energy flared violently around him.
"Deploy!"
Five barbarians appeared out of thin air with swords raised, landing heavily on the tiles as they turned toward the nurse.
At the same moment, five archers materialized in a protective ring around Shoko's fallen body and Emiya, bows already drawn and arrows aimed outward.
"Shoko—!"
His hands trembled slightly as he quickly rolled her body over onto her back.
"Hiss—idiot," Shoko muttered weakly, wincing as her body shifted.
"Hang in there," he said quickly, his voice tight with panic.
His eyes immediately scanned the wound in her chest, mind racing as he tried to judge how bad it was.
Shoko coughed, a small spray of blood staining the front of her uniform. For a moment her eyes closed, and Emiya's heart nearly stopped.
Then she exhaled slowly.
"I'll… be fine," she said weakly.
A faint glow of cursed energy flickered around the wound, flowing through her chest as the torn flesh slowly began to knit itself back together. The blood loss stopped little by little, the skin repairing itself under the pale glow of Reverse Cursed Technique.
But it would take time.
Emiya stared at the healing wound for a moment, relief crashing over him.
But Shoko grabbed his sleeve before he could say anything.
"Don't waste time," she said, her voice strained. "Find a way to defeat her… or break this territory and get us out."
Her fingers tightened slightly on his sleeve.
"Otherwise," she added quietly, "we're finished here."
Emiya looked at her.
The chaos of the ICU seemed to fade—the distant crashes, the groan of broken equipment, the heavy presence of cursed energy hanging in the air.
Emiya's gaze hardened.
For a moment he said nothing. Then he nodded once and slowly stood up, turning to face the curse.
The nurse was already rising from the rubble, her smile as gentle and unsettling as ever.
Emiya took a breath.
This time, his voice carried none of the earlier hesitation.
Only confidence.
"I have a plan."