Not the screaming, running, curse-filled hell that most people would associate with the supernatural world. No, this was worse. This was rush hour traffic hell.

Drunk salarymen stumbled out of izakayas, teenagers in harajuku fashion screamed over each other near the ticket gates, and the fluorescent lights buzzed like they knew something you didn't.

The air smelled like takoyaki, cheap perfume, and the undeniable stench of humanity.

And somewhere in the middle of it all, a sixteen-year-old girl with hair the color of dried blood stood perfectly still.

Not looking at her phone. Not rushing anywhere. Just... standing.

People flowed around her like water around a stone, most not even noticing her. Some did. Those that did tended to get very quiet, very fast.

She wore a black school uniform that looked slightly outdated, the fabric pristine despite having been pulled from the back of an old shrine closet not an hour ago. Her eyes—sharp, almost too sharp—scanned the crowd with the calm patience of a predator.

Or someone who'd been waiting a very, very long time.

Not because of anything she did. She just... looked at him.

There was something in those eyes that made his brain short-circuit. Something ancient. Something that said I have seen empires fall and I will see yours burn too.

The girl watched them go, expression unchanged. Then she tilted her head, as if sensing something. Something beneath the noise of the city. Something familiar.

Far away, in a high school gymnasium in Sendai, a boy named Yuji Itadori was about to make the worst decision of his life.

And the daughter of the King of Curses felt her father's cursed energy pulse through the air like a heartbeat.

Her own energy responded in kind. The veins on her cheeks began to darken, markings spreading like ink beneath her pale skin as her lips curved into a smile that would've made demons run.