Your Life As A Tokyo Jujutsu High Background Student

Chapter 23 - Regrets

When you reached out with trembling fingers to touch Nanami's face, his skin was disturbingly cold and clammy.

Dread coiled tighter in your gut as you sensed how tangled and turbulent his cursed energy felt – like it was being stifled from within. Of course... this had to be a mental curse. At an abandoned asylum nonetheless, the perfect vector. It made terrible sense why the sorcerers sent here previously never returned.

Mental curses were renowned for being some of the deadliest, even to first-grade sorcerers. This curse seemed to operate through spiders. The amount of cursed energy in a tiny spider was simply too minuscule for most sorcerers to notice. And this was an abandoned building, of course, spiders were everywhere, no one would even pay attention to them.

Just one spider latching on the target was enough. The curse must have gotten to Nanami before he realized what was happening. You simply got lucky that you had completely suppressed your cursed energy before entering the premises. The curse couldn't detect you.

Your mind raced as you tried to remain calm and formulate a plan.

Mental curses trapped their victims in personalized manifestations of their deepest fears, regrets, and insecurities. Chains forged from their own doubts and memories, binding them in inescapable illusions within their psyches. Even a powerhouse like Nanami wouldn't be able to break free on his own. Trying to forcibly wake him could fry his brain permanently.

You squeezed your eyes shut, sucking in a deep breath. You had this. You could do this. All those dusty texts and scrolls that you'd begrudgingly studied suddenly took on importance. You knew the principles for safely extracting someone from a mental curse's thrall. You just needed to stay calm and focused.

With a steadying breath, you let determination override the lingering tendrils of fear. First, you concentrated your cursed energy into casting the strongest protective barrier you could manage around both yourself and Nanami's unconscious form. It shimmered into place, a defensive dome that would ensure the curse couldn't interfere while you worked.

Then, bracing yourself, you leaned forward until your foreheads touched. You allowed your cursed energy to flow outward, a gentle blanket enveloping Nanami as you carefully traced the disturbed patterns of his inner energy flow. Slipping into a meditative state, you focused your mind, pulling up every mental image and sense memory you had of your prickly senior.

His polite smile that first moment you met, though his eyes betrayed annoyance at being stuck babysitting a rookie. The faint hint of his cologne. The irritated scowl that seemed to be his default expression whenever you opened your mouth. The firm, no-nonsense tone of voice as he laid out mission orders, expecting you to just shut up and follow them without backtalk.

You concentrated on every little detail until it coalesced into a clear mental picture of Nanami. And then, seamlessly, you felt your consciousness slip inward, pulled along the tether of energy connecting you to his trapped consciousness.

When your awareness resurfaced, you certainly weren't expecting the scene before you. Rather than a twisted nightmare, you found yourself standing on a beautiful, pristine beach. Soft white sand stretched out before gently rolling waves of the bluest ocean you'd ever seen. The sky was so vast and clear it made your heart ache.

For a long moment, you could only stand and gape at the unexpected beauty surrounding you. This was... Nanami's inner world? You pressed onward, following the line of the shoreline as you searched for any sign of him amid this paradise.

Up ahead, you finally spotted him – a solitary figure came into view further up the beach. Seated with his arms loosely wrapped around his bent knees, Nanami stared out at the ocean with a serene expression.