She gives a nod, then holds her hands vertically facing each other, one hand over the other, palms and fingers straight.

"Stay close. Domain expansion:

  "Shattered Reflection."

And the world breaks. Around them, everything cracks like broken glass and slides away, in different directions. The bizarre dark industrial architecture is gone, replaced by reflections of reflections of reflections, repeated in the shattered mirror that is their new reality. There is light, there is darkness, there are reflections of them from a thousand different angles. They stand a hundred times over in a broken infinity.

"This way," says Hayashi, and she takes Fushiguro's hand and leads him through the fragmented funhouse. It is like walking normally, and it is like watching yourself walk in a thousand different directions.

Then she releases his hand, releases the technique, and they are back outside. On the other side of the barrier. Reality makes sense again.

He lets out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding then says, "There is no way you're a grade 3." Then he blinks and looks at his dog, who howls, loudly, more loudly than a dog should be able to. "Please don't die," he says under his breath, to no one in particular.

His comment earns the faintest hint of a real smile from her, and then the mention of death has her back to her brutally efficient business mode.

"Ijichi-san," she says neutrally, spotting him hovering anxiously nearby. Oh. Good. That'll sort out her first question.

Then, with much less neutrality, she stalks towards him and grabs him by the collar to drag him to eye level with her and ask in a cold and even voice, "Did you know?"

He looks to be in a panic. "Kn-know what, Hayashi-san?" he stutters.

Hayashi stares him down. She does not release his collar. It might be noticeable that her other hand holds her fan, which is. Very sharp.

"Who sanctioned this fiasco?" she asks, almost pleasantly.

"P-principal Ga-Gakuganji," he says holding both hands up next to his face in a "surrender" gesture.

"The Kyoto school principal," Fushiguro supplies.

"Ah," she says, releasing his collar. "I see. Expand the perimeter for evacuation, immediately. As far as you can reasonably get it. And call for assistance from a sorcerer equipped to handle Sukuna."

Her face twists and she turns away. "I'm sure you'll mysteriously find that there will be someone right on hand," she snarls, under her breath. "Go. Everybody still here by the time he gets out is going to have a very bad day."

"Y-yes, Hayashi-san," he says, and sprints.

"You... figured something out."

... He hasn't realized it yet?

"Fushiguro-san," says Hayashi, softly. Almost gently. As gently as she can tell him that their own team just played games with their lives. "Why would anyone send a vessel that is part of a matched set anywhere near a brand new, barely formed curse that has any chance of metamorphosing into a special grade? And what happened the very instant we set foot in that block?"

"...one of Sukuna's fingers is there? And they, what, hoped Itadori-kun would eat it?"

"I have no idea what stupid little games they thought they were playing, or what idiotic lies they told themselves to make them think this was acceptable behavior. I do know that there are some very prideful people that wanted our friend's execution sooner rather than later, and probably didn't like Gojo-sensei countermanding them. Or 'stealing' me. Or you, for that matter. Maybe they thought the risk was too great, that it was smart to trigger the proverbial bomb early, maybe this is some sick demented test of ability, maybe they're throwing a petty tantrum with all of the cool toys they don't get to have.

"I do not care. I do know that every single fiber of my being was screaming from the inside that this did not make any fucking sense, but I told it to sit down and shut up, because I trusted them to want me alive. And I was wrong. Do you think we would have been sent in there if they wanted us alive? Why not a window, to grab everyone and run at the first sign of curses, why not a guard, who fucking works here, why only five people in an entire cell block? Why send young, barely trained curse killers into that fucking viper's nest? Why three extremely valuable, rare sorcerers when everyone knows we are always understaffed? To save five? Why—"

And her voice breaks and she swallows a sob.

"I hope I'm wrong, I hope I look back on this as that time I went crazy and got super paranoid and had a mental breakdown. But I do not think that's what's happening. Do you?"

He squeezes his hands into fists and looks back at the building.

Itadori better fucking survive.

And Hayashi starts doing an inventory of her weaponry. Because she used a lot of needles in that fiasco, and she needs to make sure she has enough for - whatever happens. Because she is a sorcerer, and regardless of any other bullshit that anyone else does, her job is and has always been keeping as many people alive as possible. She will do it if it kills her, which it probably will.

Itadori feels a bit childish, is what he feels, from the wall where he's embedded yet again, where four of his right fingers have been cauterised and his left wrist now ends in a sluggishly bleeding stump. He feels a bit childish, still, because he remembers Principal Yaga's saying that no jujutsu sorcerer dies without regrets, and the thing he regrets right now is not having kissed Hayashi and Fushiguro. That's a childish regret, isn't it? He's pretty sure it is.

He peels himself off the wall and wobbles for a couple of steps before steadying himself again. The curse is—it's grinning, of course the shape of its skull doesn't permit anything else, it's always grinning, but also it's grinning, it's clearly having fun with him.

No matter. He'll, he'll stall, then he'll die, and hopefully he will have stalled enough, and then his only regret will have been not kissing those two stupid, overly-serious, hot sorcerers.

Well. Maybe he should try to... make this a bit more interesting for the curse. Gojō-sensei told him not to try to use his cursed energy in an actual fight, but he thinks Gojō-sensei would excuse him now. It's not a matter of life or death; it's a matter of death now or slightly delayed death.

(Or maybe his plan will work any minute now, the part of his brain that's keeping track of the plot says, and he'll receive some sign, and swap with Sukuna.)

He takes another, steadier step forward, and loads his fist with cursed energy. He stares at the curse.

He leaps.

He lands a punch—

—on its open palm. There's the whole whoosh of anime wind from the punch, too, he knows he did it right, there was a buncha cursed energy in his fist and it caused a small crater on the floor just under his feet and there was wind.

It was still. Not. Enough. The curse is laughing at him and holding his fist and, and, and,

and he hears a howl.

The curse—takes a step back, its face immediately melting from the amused grin to something more akin to terror.

Well, at least it's smart enough to notice the change.

"What a thoroughly annoying brat."

"He's obviously screwing with me," sighs Sukuna, taking a step to the side and around the curse.

It gasps and watches him, raising its hands slightly in a defensive manner.

He pats its shoulder. "Hold on a moment, please. I'm thinking right now."