Junpei's home was in a somewhat older apartment building, not large, but clean and tidy, exuding a slightly cold but hard-won warmth belonging to a mother-son family. Junpei's mother, Nagi Yoshino, a tired but gentle woman, was a bit surprised that her son had suddenly brought a friend home, but soon enthusiastically prepared dinner.
The meal was simple home cooking, but Itadori found it particularly delicious and praised it generously. He was born with the ability to liven up the atmosphere and genuinely thought Junpei's mother was wonderful at cooking. During the meal, he told interesting stories about his life with his grandfather as a child, imitating the funny and scary actions and lines from the "Worm" movies, which made the initially reserved Junpei and his mother laugh, and the small dining table was rarely filled with laughter.
Junpei's mother looked at the superficial, relaxed smile on her son's face, which almost never appeared, and then looked at Itadori with softer, more grateful eyes.
After the meal, Itadori again helped clear the dishes and chopsticks, then politely said goodbye. Junpei saw him to the door and thanked him softly. Itadori waved his hand, told him to be safe, lock the door at night, and left.
However, Itadori didn't go far. In an inconspicuous corner near the apartment building, he met up with assistant supervisor Kiyotaka Ijichi, who had been waiting there. Ijichi still looked nervous, holding a black metal box.
"Itadori, thank you for your work. Is the contact with the target going smoothly?" Ijichi pushed up his glasses.
"Yeah, Junpei is a good guy, but a bit withdrawn. I haven't mentioned the cinema yet, afraid of setting him off," Itadori reported briefly, then looked curiously at the box in Ijichi's hand. "What's that?"
Ijichi opened the box and took out a palm-sized, oddly shaped tool. The body of the device was matte black, with a slightly raised curved screen on the front, a few simple buttons under the screen, and small cooling vents on the edges. The overall design... gave an inexplicable sense of déjà vu.
"This is a prototype cursed energy tracker, Type A, developed by the technical department based on some barrier principles provided by Lord Zen'in Genji, combined with modern cursed energy technology," Ijichi introduced, a hint of technical pride in his voice. "It can actively sense and connect with the faint veins of the 'Great Barrier' covering the world, detect anomalous cursed energy fluctuations or strong cursed reactions within a 500-meter radius that exceed the environmental baseline, and perform approximate positioning and hazard level marking. We usually call it the 'Cursed Radar'."
Itadori took the "cursed radar" and found it easier to operate than expected. He looked closely at the round screen and a few buttons, then weighed it in his hand. Suddenly, a scene from a classic anime he watched as a child popped into his head, and his expression became a bit subtle.
"Um... Mr. Ijichi," Itadori couldn't help pointing at the radar's shape, the corners of his mouth twitching slightly. "This design... isn't it a bit too... uh, derivative of the 'Dragon Ball Radar' from Dragon Ball?"
The round shape, the screen, the button layout... you couldn't say they were exactly the same, but you could say they were very similar! This was definitely a copyright infringement, right?! How many people would need to apologize for bringing this back into the curse?
Ijichi sharply pushed up his glasses, a flicker of embarrassment crossing his face, and coughed dryly. "Well... Director Murata of the technical department was responsible for the design modeling. He noted that the shape was ergonomic and... had a sense of familiarity. The function, the function is the most important thing!"
Itadori: "..." It has a sense of familiarity, but doesn't the style seem a bit wrong?
He stopped complaining and, following Ijichi's simple instructions, activated the cursed radar. The screen lit up with a faint green grid background, a slowly scanning arc of light in the center. Currently, the screen was clear, only very faint green dots representing themselves.
"This is the normal state. Once a strong cursed entity enters the range or someone uses a large-scale cursed technique, the radar will display a light spot ranging from yellow to red and emit an alarm signal based on their strength and threat level," Ijichi explained.
Itadori nodded. With this device, keeping watch near Junpei's home would be much more convenient. He discussed it with Ijichi, and they arranged to take turns monitoring nearby key points with the radar, while Ijichi would stay at a close distance to maintain communication.
The night grew darker. The lights in most of the apartment windows gradually went out, and the streets fell silent. Itadori, carrying the "Dragon Ball Radar," moved like a vigilant nocturnal animal, silently patrolling the alleys and secluded spots around Junpei's home, his eyes occasionally glancing at the radar.
Time passed minute by minute. Just as Itadori was patrolling a narrow alley behind the apartment building where trash cans were stored, a dazzling red light suddenly flashed on the edge of the cursed radar's screen! At the same time, a sharp, light beep alarm sounded!
"!!!" Itadori's pupils contracted. Red! That means a high degree of threat! And the location of the light spot is... almost exactly matching the coordinates of Junpei's apartment on the map!
"Mr. Ijichi! Situation! Red alert! At the target's home location!" Itadori lowered his voice and spoke quickly into the micro-communicator at his collar. Simultaneously, his body had already burst forth like a cheetah, sprinting towards the apartment building entrance!
He didn't even have time to go through the main entrance. His eyes swept around, and he chose a thick drainage pipe outside the balcony on Junpei's floor. He pushed off the ground, using his hands and feet, and climbed up with astonishing speed!
---
Inside the apartment.
After drinking some wine, Junpei's mother, Nagi Yoshino, had fallen asleep at the dining table. She was woken by a faint movement outside the window and an inexplicable feeling of unease. She rubbed her sleepy eyes, lifted her head, and her gaze involuntarily swept over the dining table.
Then her movement stopped.
On the dining table, which had been cleared, another object lay at some point. A finger, about the length of an index finger, its whole body pitch black, its surface covered with writhing, malevolent spiral patterns...
Sukuna's finger.
In the dim light, the finger lay quietly on the tablecloth, radiating an indescribably eerie aura that made people feel uncomfortable and repulsed.
"What... is this?" Nagi frowned, thinking it was a strange toy her son or that boy named Itadori had dropped. She instinctively reached out her hand, wanting to pick it up and look at it.
However, just as her fingertips were about to touch the pitch-black finger—
A cold, slimy, malevolent aura, like a cold tide, suddenly erupted from the living room shadow behind her! A terrifying cursed spirit, so fast it left only an afterimage, composed of countless tiny flesh whiskers and a large mouth full of sharp teeth, like a venomous snake that had been hiding for a long time, viciously biting at the back of Nagi's head!
This cursed spirit was clearly attracted by the strong cursed aura emanating from Sukuna's finger, which was like a drug and a beacon to it! It wasn't very high-level, roughly Grade 3, but excellent at stealth and surprise attacks! For an ordinary woman without cursed energy, this was a fatal assault!
"Mom!" Junpei, who had just woken up from the faint movement outside and came out of his bedroom to check, happened to witness this soul-crushing scene! He wanted to rush over, but the distance was too great, his body frozen in fear, only able to let out a heart-wrenching cry.
Everything happened in an instant.
Seeing the mouth full of sharp teeth about to bite Nagi's neck—
"Get away!!"
Suddenly, a thunderous shout came from the balcony!
Immediately after, the sharp sound of shattering glass windows exploded!
A pink figure, like a god descending, wrapped in a pulsing, furious momentum, burst into the room through the broken balcony window! The cold light in Yuji Itadori's eyes was like lightning. He didn't even have time to take in the full picture of the cursed spirit. The moment his body was still in the air, his eyes locked onto the trajectory of the cursed spirit's sudden attack, his right fist already shooting out with unstoppable inertia!
This time, no need to brew, no need to deliberately seek the feeling. The extreme anger, the desire to protect his companion's mother, and the combat instincts forged from the intense training of the past few days made his cursed energy, body, and will naturally and perfectly synchronize at the moment of the strike!
Buzz—!
The black, malevolent, yet destructive force of lightning once again flickered on his fist!
Black Flash!
The fist wrapped in black lightning arrived just as the cursed spirit's sharp teeth were a millimeter from Nagi's skin—
Hard and without any extra features, it struck the heart of the cursed spirit's fleshy, whiskered body!
Thud—!!!
No loud sound, only a strange muffled thud that seemed instantly compressed and mixed with energy annihilation. Under the terrifying force of "Black Flash," equivalent to a power of 2.5 bonus, this Grade 3 cursed spirit didn't even have time to scream. Its existence was completely torn apart, scattered, and annihilated by the raging black electric light! It turned into a small cloud of black smoke and cursed residue that quickly dissipated, not even leaving decent debris.
The airflow brought by the fist wind ruffled Nagi's bangs. She maintained her reaching-out posture, blankly turning her head to look at Itadori, who had suddenly burst through the window and smashed the "monster" behind her to ashes, then at the strange black finger on the table, her mind blank.
"Mom! Mom! Are you okay?!" Junpei rushed over, hugging his pale-faced mother, checking her over.
Itadori slowly clenched his fist, the black lightning that had been jumping on it quietly disappearing. He glanced at the frightened mother and son, then sharply looked at the black finger on the dining table, his brow furrowed.
"Itadori-kun... what, what is this?" Junpei's voice was still trembling, looking at the last traces of the ugly cursed spirit on the ground, which were quickly vanishing, shocked and terrified.
Itadori took a deep breath and tried to make his voice as steady as possible. "It's a cursed spirit. A monster born from the negative emotions of humans. Ordinary people usually can't see them. It was just attracted by this." He pointed with his eyes to Sukuna's finger on the table.
"This is..." Junpei's mother, Nagi, also came to her senses, looking at the finger with lingering fear.
"A special-grade cursed object, Sukuna's finger," Itadori said in a deep voice, not hiding it. "This thing strongly attracts cursed spirits, like a beacon in the dark. That cursed spirit was just drawn by it. But..."
He looked up, his eyes like torches, and looked at Junpei and Nagi. "This thing shouldn't be here. And certainly not on your family's dining table."
The implication was clear: someone or something had deliberately placed this extremely dangerous finger here. The purpose was to attract a cursed spirit and attack Junpei's family!
Junpei's face suddenly turned as pale as a sheet the moment Itadori said "Sukuna's finger" and "deliberately placed here." He suddenly remembered something extremely terrifying, his body trembling uncontrollably, his eyes filled with incredible fear, panic, and a slight... deep pain and internal struggle. He suddenly turned his head and looked at his mother, his lips trembling, but he couldn't say a word.
And Itadori, taking in Junpei's fierce reaction.