Ms. Gojo thought she was dating an ordinary person's boyfriend.

As dusk approaches, the children's clinic gradually quiets down.

The windows at the end of the corridor reflected the gray-blue sky, and the lights at the nurses' station were turned on early, casting a white glow that shone on the floor tiles like reflections in shallow water.

The air was filled with the smells of disinfectant, medicine powder, and the sweet milk left by the children. The mixture wasn't pleasant, but it inexplicably made people feel that there was still a bit of life left in this place.

Kikawa Sumi looked down and flipped through the medical records, her finger pausing on a familiar name.

Xiao Qing.

The door was gently pushed open, and the little girl walked in, holding her mother's hand. Today she was wearing a faded knitted cardigan, her hair was neatly tied up, but she was quieter than last time.

She kept her head down, her eyes only on the tips of her shoes, and even when she sat down on the chair, she was overly careful, as if afraid of making the slightest unnecessary sound.

Her mother also looked more haggard than before.

Her face was powdered, but the dark circles under her eyes were still visible. There was a large, dark bruise on the inside of her wrist, fresh and peeking out from the cuff. A band-aid was stuck to the side of her neck, the edges curling up as if it had been hastily applied.

She subconsciously shrank her shoulders as she sat down, and her eyes darted away.

"Dr. Kichikawa." She forced a smile, her voice a little strained, "Thank you for your help again."

"It's alright." Kikawa Sumi closed the medical record, her tone gentle. "Xiao Qing, where are you feeling unwell today?"

"My stomach hurts." This time, it was Xiao Qing who answered herself, her voice very soft.

Kikawa Sumi nodded, asked a few questions about her diet and sleep as per procedure, and then had her lie down on the examination bed.

His movements were always very gentle; his palm rested on the child's soft abdomen with just the right amount of pressure, so as not to make anyone feel uneasy.

But this time, his eyes paused slightly as soon as his fingertips touched the ground.

Although he didn't use his abilities, he instinctively sensed the snake-like aura that coiled around him when his hand touched Xiao Qing.

It was faint and cold, like a wisp of dampness hidden in the corner of the wall, silently clinging to Xiao Qing.

Something was catalyzed.

Last time it was just a vague, indistinct mass, an unformed thing born of fear.

But this time, it has already taken shape.

Kikawa Sumi lowered her eyelashes, her gaze shifting silently.

A semi-transparent grid of pixels spread out from the air, faintly covering the entire consultation room.

A twisted, grayish-black shadow was slumped on Xiao Qing's shoulder, like a crumpled piece of paper or a curled-up infant, its features indistinct, and its body constantly emanating fragmented negative emotions.

A familiar game interface lit up at the edge of his field of vision.

[Enemy Unit: Newly Reborn Low-Level Cursed Spirit]

HP: 10/10

Origin of the problem: It is the result of long-term violent intimidation, chronic psychological fear, and severe family trauma.

Permanent effect: [Parasitic Erosion]

It continuously resides in the host's mental realm, growing stronger with each negative emotion.

Solution: Isolate the source of trauma, eliminate negative environmental triggers, and complete purification.

Kikawa Sumi's hand remained firmly in place, her expression unchanged.

"Does it hurt here?" he asked as usual.

Xiao Qing nodded.

"Did you sleep well last night?"

Xiao Qing paused for a moment, then shook her head.

Xiaoqing's mother, standing to the side, gripped the bag strap tightly and added in a low voice, "She's been having nightmares lately, waking up crying in the middle of the night... and she doesn't like to talk during the day either."

Sumi Kichikawa glanced at her.

This glance was light and calm, yet it made the woman's fingertips tremble.

She seemed to want to explain something; her lips moved, but in the end she only managed to say, "The child is timid..."

"How's everything at home lately?" Sumi asked.

The woman's face turned pale.

She answered almost instinctively, "...It's fine."

Xiao Qing, standing to the side, visibly hunched her shoulders.

Kikawa Sumi withdrew her hand, straightened the hem of her clothes, and took out a moon sticker from the drawer, placing it in Xiao Qing's palm: "You were brave today too."

Xiao Qing paused for a moment, then slowly closed her fingers, gripped the sticker, and nodded gently.

She still didn't smile.

After the prescription was written and the mother and daughter were seen off, the consultation room became quiet again.

The door closed gently, the hinges making a very soft click. The last rays of sunset faded through the glass, making the lamplight appear whiter and colder.

Kikawa Sumi lowered her eyes; the notification in her field of vision had not yet disappeared.

[Recommendation: Cut off the source and eliminate the cause]

"……knew."

He said something in a low voice, as if answering someone.

But the next second, something deeper in the air silently turned over.

Beneath the calm surface of the water, something opened its eyes.

Another sharper, more impulsive thought surfaced from the depths of her heart. Gentleness remained, and so did reason; only the restraint that belonged to "ordinary people" was gently lifted.

As "he" awoke, Sumi Kichikawa's gaze gradually hardened.

Annoying.

These kinds of people are the most disgusting.

Unable to raise a fist against the world, they reserve violence for the weakest. They create order through intimidation and prove their existence through fear, like stray dogs that only dare to bark behind their own doors, so ugly that even their murderous intent seems cheap.

Rubbish.

"We can't let him continue like this," he said softly.

"...You're right." Sumire lowered her eyes, her gaze falling on the special mark she had made for Haru earlier.

Let me go.

"it is good."

When "Sumi Kikawa" finished her shift, she said goodbye to the nurses as usual, and went into a convenience store to buy a bottle of water.

When paying the bill, he even politely accepted the change with both hands and straightened the advertising sign that had been knocked askew by the child.

He looked no different than usual.

Instead of going straight home tonight, he came directly to Xiao Qing's house.

Xiao Qing's home address is in her medical record.

As a doctor, misappropriating patient information is clearly against regulations. However, these things are actually irrelevant to "him" tonight.

The residential area was quiet at night. Warm yellow lights shone from the detached houses lining the narrow alleyways, and the aroma of dinner wafted from half-open windows, a blend of soy sauce, miso, and hot rice. Two crows perched motionless on a telephone pole, their black fur barely visible.

Sumi Kichikawa stood at the corner and looked up at the house.

Light streamed through a second-floor window, the curtains drawn tightly. From inside, one could faintly hear a man's angry curses and a child's suppressed sobs, clearly frightened.

His gaze paused for a moment.

The next second, he raised his hand and made a light sweeping motion in mid-air.

The faint runes of the curse silently unfolded and covered the house.

[Dharma Realm Observation]

The night was divided into different layers in his eyes. The walls, curtains, lights, breathing sounds, and the lingering echoes of fear hidden in the house were all marked.

Immediately afterwards, a very shallow plate appeared between the ground and the wall.

【Floating World Plate】

Xiao Qing, her mother, the cursed spirit parasitizing the child, and the man in the house who was constantly radiating malice all landed in their corresponding positions on the plate.

If a cursed spirit is attached to a child, it is not difficult to remove it directly, but if the source is not cut off, it will grow back.

Just like no matter how much you wipe the wall, it won't help unless you dig out the mold roots.

Xiao Qing and her mother were still inside the house.

He couldn't possibly lay a hand on a child.

So Sumi Kikawa placed her finger on the floating plate and gently flicked the black mark that belonged to the perpetrator.

[Boundless Realm: Offset]

A very narrow boundary quietly formed inside the room, without disturbing Xiao Qing or touching her mother, but only gently pushing the man's desires outward by an inch.

[Floating World Plate: Short-term outing]

Inside the room, the man who was venting his anger under the influence of alcohol suddenly paused, as if his nerves were gripped by some inexplicable anxiety.

He frowned, grumbling as he grabbed his coat and keys, his movements revealing a restlessness he couldn't quite explain, muttering, "Going out for a smoke," "Don't fucking bother me."

The door slammed shut with a bang.

The room fell silent.

From behind the window on the second floor, a woman's hushed soothing voice could be heard, and Xiao Qing's soft sobs gradually subsided.

Only then did Sumi Kichikawa emerge from the shadows.

The man had just reached the alley entrance, a cigarette dangling from his mouth, and was looking down for a lighter. Before he could even light it, he suddenly felt a tingling sensation on the back of his neck, as if something unseen had wrapped around him.

He turned around abruptly: "Who—"

There was no one behind.

The next second, a faint ring of runes lit up the ground beneath their feet.

【The Infernal Realm】

The man froze.

He couldn't see the boundary, but he instinctively sensed that he had entered a place from which he couldn't easily escape.

"Good evening." A gentle voice came from ahead.

Kikawa Sumi stood in the shadows where the streetlights didn't reach, his black hair and eyes conveying a calm demeanor, as if he were conducting a consultation in a hospital. His sleeves were rolled up to his forearms, revealing his clean-lined wrists.

A night breeze blew by, ruffling his hair and causing the semi-transparent mesh to shimmer gently.

The man instinctively took a step back: "Who are you?!"

"Doctor," Sumi Kichikawa replied calmly, "I'm here to treat the underlying cause of the illness."

The man clearly didn't understand, swore, and raised his hand to throw a punch. The movement was rough and clumsy, and in Kikawa Sumi's eyes, it was as slow as if a deceleration button had been pressed.

[Myriad Realms: Locked]

An invisible cursed pattern descended first.

The cursed spirit parasitizing Xiao Qing was remotely targeted.

[Jail: Downgrade]

The next moment, the filthy emotions accumulated by the violence over the years around the perpetrator suddenly retaliated like a disturbed black fog, wrapping around his limbs.

The man's fist was halfway through its swing when his body suddenly stiffened.

"W-what?!"

His face turned pale, as if he had suddenly seen something extremely terrifying; his eyes darted around, and his breathing became rapid.

Kikawa Sumi walked closer, reached out and grabbed the man's neck, slamming him to the ground and looking down at him.

"Do you like to use your hands?" Sumi Kichikawa asked softly.

His tone was so calm that it was more chilling than rage.

The man trembled, wanting to curse, but only managed to exhale broken, gasping breaths.

Kikawa Sumi lowered her eyes, looking at the other person's pupils trembling with fear, her gaze calm and almost gentle.

"Then you should give it a try too."

He lightly traced a line in the air with his fingertip.

[Causal Cycle: Reversal]

In an instant, the scene before the man's eyes completely changed.

The narrow alleyway felt like being dragged into an unseen realm, with fine, intricate patterns and cracks appearing all around.

The narrow alleyway felt like being dragged into a distorted game map, with fine pixel cracks appearing all around. He could hear Xiao Qing's suppressed sobs from countless nights, a woman's low pleas, the sound of shattered cups, heavy footsteps, the sound of door locks turning, and the unpredictable pain—all the fear he had inflicted on others was packaged by the rules and stuffed back into his senses intact.

"No, no...!" He finally broke down, his voice trembling uncontrollably, "I was wrong, I was wrong—"

"Where did we go wrong?" Sumi asked.

The man was incoherent, tears and snot streaming down his face: "I shouldn't have hit them... I'll never do it again... Please..."

Sumi Kichikawa glanced at him for two seconds.

There was neither pity nor pleasure in his eyes.

It's just to confirm whether the lesion has actually been pried open with a crack.

After all, pain doesn't always make people better, but it can at least teach some people to stop temporarily.

So he let go.

The man collapsed to the ground, gasping for breath, as if he had just been pulled from drowning.

Meanwhile, in the house in the distance, the newly born cursed spirit, having lost its anchor after being downgraded, scattered like dust that had been sucked out. The last bit of black energy tried to struggle, but in the next second, it was gathered into an invisible boundary by Kikawa Sumi's raised hand.

[Prison Realm: Purification]

The gray-black filth was completely isolated, stripped away, and purified, eventually dissipating silently into the night.

The faint runes faded away layer by layer, and the night returned to its quiet state.

But just as the spell was about to close, a tiny ripple still leaked out from the edge of the boundary.

Sumire Kawakawa raised her eyes slightly.

He knew he had become somewhat conspicuous.

But it doesn't matter.

At the same time, Ijichi's car was driving past the intersection under the overpass.

In the back seat, Gojo Satoru leaned back lazily, his long legs casually crossed, twirling his phone with his fingertips, his expression as nonchalant as ever.

"How strange," he drawled, as if complaining about the night outside the car window.

"W-What's so strange, Mr. Gojo?" Ijichi immediately tensed up.

"There weren't any missions all afternoon yesterday." Gojo Satoru leaned back in his chair, his tone slightly exaggerated. "I thought the cursed spirits had finally learned to be considerate of laborers, but as soon as I left the vicinity of that bookstore, missions popped up. What's going on? Are they targeting me?"

Ichichi: "..."

Isn't your focus a little off?

Gojo Satoru himself found it a bit funny and was about to say something more when he suddenly paused.

Beneath the blindfold, the pair of six pale blue eyes were slightly open.

"parking."

Ijichi instinctively slammed on the brakes: "Yes! Is there a cursed spirit?!"

Gojo Satoru had already pushed open the door and left.

The night breeze lifted the hem of his coat, and his white hair swayed under the streetlight. He stood by the roadside, tilting his head slightly, as if trying to catch the sound of something falling into the wind.

Just a moment ago, he sensed a very strange fluctuation of magical power.

It is neither an ordinary curse spirit nor a common spell.

"Oh..." He squinted slightly.

interesting.

"Ichichi, wait for me here." After saying that, he walked towards the direction of the ripples.

The further into the residential area you go, the quieter it gets. The lights of the convenience store are left behind, leaving only the sparsely spaced streetlights and the warm glow of lights from the windows of each house.

But the fluctuation just now seemed to have been cleaned up by someone, leaving no trace whatsoever that a normal spell should have left.

Gojo Satoru stopped at the alley entrance, raised his hand and removed a bit of the edge of his blindfold, his six eyes scanning over it.

empty.

There was nothing there.

It's ridiculously clean.

"No way," he chuckled softly, "that works?"

As they were talking, a familiar figure suddenly appeared in their line of sight.

With black hair and black eyes, and a slender figure, he was carrying a plastic bag from a convenience store and walking at a leisurely pace, like an ordinary person taking a walk after get off work.

The light from the streetlamp fell on his shoulders, softening his silhouette.

Gojo Satoru looked at the man, paused for a moment, and slowly raised the corners of his mouth.

"...It's you again, doctor."

This time, even he himself couldn't tell whether there was more surprise or a kind of almost pleasant anticipation in his words.