"What were you doing on the night of September 15th?"
"I, I don't remember." Clearly, Yamagami Ami's mental state was still very dazed. Seeing this, Shoko had no choice but to continue.
"You passed by the alley next to the appliance store in the old shopping district at 12 o'clock at night. What did you see there?" Shoko tried to slowly guide Yamagami Ami's memory in this way.
"I, I worked overtime until very late that day, and then, and then I..."
Under Shoko's guidance, the woman began to slowly recall what happened that night.
"It was too late, so I thought about taking a shortcut home from the shopping district, and then, and then..."
"Then what happened?" Shoko looked at the woman in front of her.
"I want a cup of milk tea," the woman suddenly said, looking up.
Shoko clearly had not expected the woman to suddenly make such a request, but she had no choice but to agree. Shoko then walked to the hospital room door, opened it, and said to Genji, who was guarding the door:
"Genji-san, could you please go buy a cup of milk tea?"
Genji was stunned for a moment by Shoko's sudden request.
"It's for the victim inside. She seems to be in a better mental state than before."
Hearing this, Genji subconsciously glanced at Miss Tayama, who was nearby. He wanted to ask her to go buy it, but realized she had been fiddling with her communication device since earlier, so he gave up on the idea.
"Alright, I remember there's a drink shop downstairs."
"Then I'll leave it to you." After saying this, Shoko returned to the hospital room, and Genji turned and went downstairs. On the way to buy the milk tea, he intended to call Satoru Gojo to ask about the situation, but discovered his phone had no signal.
"How strange," Genji thought. Since he entered the hospital room earlier, he had felt that something was wrong, but he just couldn't pinpoint what was giving him that feeling.
"Your milk tea is ready." The clerk handed him a large, extra-large coconut jelly and taro ball pearl milk tea, along with three cups of lemon tea. As the ominous premonition brought on by that feeling of discord in the hospital room grew stronger, Genji grabbed the drinks and hurried upstairs. Just as he returned to the bottom of the inpatient building, a figure suddenly fell from the sky and crashed heavily to the ground. As the smoke cleared, Genji finally saw the figure in the smoke—it was Satoru Gojo.
"Gojo, why are you here?"
"That woman..." Satoru Gojo panted heavily. Clearly, the movement method he had just used, which he had never used before, had placed a significant burden on him.
"The survivor who escaped is a Cursed Spirit in disguise!"
---
Time returned to 15 minutes ago, when Satoru Gojo and Suguru Geto had just been pulled into the Barrier.
"What a twisted sight." Looking at the environment inside the Barrier, Satoru Gojo commented.
"And there are many surprises waiting for us." Suguru Geto looked at the group of Cursed Spirits gradually approaching them and said in a flat tone.
"Please leave those two grade 2 and one Grade 1 Cursed Spirit for me; you can exorcise the rest."
"No problem." As Satoru Gojo spoke, he condensed Blue in his hand and fired it in front of him. Under Satoru Gojo's precise control, it perfectly bypassed the targets Suguru Geto wanted and wiped out most of the remaining Cursed Spirits. Suguru Geto also summoned his two Grade 1 Cursed Spirits, which fired flames and electricity to destroy the rest of the Cursed Spirits, then immediately activated his Forbidden Technique to turn the two grade 2 and one Grade 1 into a cursed spirit orb.
Looking at the cursed spirit orb in front of him, Suguru Geto frowned, then swallowed it.
Satoru Gojo was examining the Barrier from the side, only to discover that after eliminating the group of Cursed Spirits, the Barrier had not begun to dissipate.
"Geto, the Cursed Spirits we just eliminated weren't the culprits this time; the Barrier hasn't dissipated."
Upon hearing this, Suguru Geto looked around and discovered several things resembling white cocoons above his head.
"Gojo," Suguru Geto called out, then manipulated a Cursed Spirit to lower several of the cocoons. The two opened one of them and found a woman's corpse inside.
"This is the second missing person," Suguru Geto said, glancing at the woman's face and recalling the photo of the woman in the mission briefing.
"Does that mean everyone in these cocoons is a missing person who was murdered?"
"But there are nine cocoons here." Satoru Gojo counted the number of cocoons and realized something was wrong.
Realizing that the number of cocoons did not match the number of missing persons, an ominous premonition surged in both of their hearts. They hurriedly tore open the remaining cocoons to look, and finally, they stared with grim expressions at the figure in the last cocoon.
"This person is still alive, but..." A missing person surviving should have been a happy thing, but the face of the person in front of them was exactly the same as the only survivor who was currently supposed to be receiving treatment at the hospital.
"What is going on?" Suguru Geto looked at Satoru Gojo.
"I don't know, but this is definitely a living person, and they're wearing a work uniform; it's definitely not the one taken to the hospital earlier." Based on the feedback from his Six Eyes, Satoru Gojo was certain that the person in front of him was definitely a human.
"The one at the hospital is a fake!" the two said simultaneously.
"Genji is in trouble!" Suguru Geto became uncharacteristically anxious. However, the Cursed Spirit he used for rapid movement had been destroyed by Satoru Gojo yesterday. Just as he was getting anxious, Cursed Spirits began to emerge around them again and attacked the two of them.
"Gojo, leave this to me. Do you have a way to get there quickly?"
"Alright, I can try using Blue to see if I can get there faster. I'll leave this to you." As Satoru Gojo spoke, he used Blue to blast a hole in the boundary of the Barrier and rushed out through the hole.
Time returned to the present.
"The survivor who escaped is a Cursed Spirit in disguise!"
Looking at Satoru Gojo in front of him and the intelligence he brought, Genji finally understood where the sense of discord from earlier came from—the Cursed Energy residue on that woman was too fresh, as if it had just been born from a Cursed Spirit. Not only that, but the signal problem was likely also the influence of the Cursed Spirit.
Having understood the key to the matter, Genji dropped the things in his hands and rushed directly from the outer wall toward the hospital room.
Meanwhile, in the hospital room.
"Cough, cough, cough," Shoko was patting the back of the woman who had choked on water.
"I, I remembered." The woman, having recovered, suddenly said.
"Did you remember something?" Shoko said to the woman in a soft voice, while quietly starting to circulate the Reversal technique, but she did not notice that the woman's face, hidden by her hair, was beginning to gradually twist.
"There's a monster chasing me! I have to run, I have to run, I didn't get away, why am I here!" The woman clutched her head and said incoherently.
In order to help the woman relieve her pain, Shoko began to slowly release the Reversal technique onto her. However, the moment the positive energy output from the Reversal technique touched the woman, she suddenly screamed, and at the same time, her body began to twist and elongate. The parts of her body where Shoko had output the Reversal technique began to dissolve, but this did not cause any serious damage to the Cursed Spirit; instead, it enraged it. The Cursed Spirit raised its sharp claws and swiped at Shoko.
"Ah?" Shoko had not reacted at all. Just at the moment before the attack was about to arrive, the window suddenly shattered, and Genji rushed in, blocking in front of Shoko.
Blood splattered onto Shoko's face; the Cursed Spirit's claws had pierced Genji's right chest. Seeing its target had been saved, the Cursed Spirit appeared even angrier. Just as it wanted to tear this kid in front of it apart, it saw a flash of ghostly blue light, and felt the seemingly powerless punch that the kid had landed on it, yet its own body began to gradually collapse.
"Ah~~" the Cursed Spirit let out a sharp cry, and then completely disappeared from this world.
And at the same time as the Cursed Spirit was completely destroyed, Genji's body swayed, followed by him vomiting blood, and he also collapsed.