A moment ago, Yuji had been standing with her. Now, he had vanished without a trace.

  For a sed, a chill ran down Nobara's spine.

  "Itadori! Itadori!" she shouted, her voice eg through the stillness.

  At the same time, nails infused with cursed energy materialized in her hands, her ons for casting teiques.

  "Maki! Maki-senpai!" she called again, louder this time, her voice tinged with desperation.

  But her calls were met with silehe dark forest remained eerily quiet, its oppressive stillness gnawing at her.

  Suddenly, an unfamiliar sensation began to creep in—a profound loneliness, as if the entire world had abandoned her. It felt like she was the st perso alive.

  ---

  Oher side, Yuji was equally fused.

  He had just turned his head for a moment, and when he looked back, Kugisaki Nobara was gone.

  "Kugisaki! Kugisaki!" Yuji yelled, his voice sharp with as he began searg the area.

  He couldn't fathom what was happening. It wasn't like Nobara to wander off or disappear without a trace.

  "Kugisaki! Where are you?"

  But no matter how much he called out or scoured the forest, there was no sign of her.

  "What's going on?" he muttered, frustration building.

  He couldn't hear any sounds of a struggle or danger, nothing that suggested Nobara was in trouble. A, she was o be found.

  As Yuji wahrough the shadowy woods, a sense of helplessness washed over him.

  "Why does it feel… so lonely?"

  It was strange. Yuji had been alone before plenty of times, in fad he'd never felt this kind of emptiness. Scratg his head in fusion, he came up with an idea.

  "Sukuna! you hear me? Say something!" he shouted, hoping for a response from the King of Curses who shared his body.

  But all he got iurn was silence.

  "Damn it, he's ign me again," Yuji grumbled, his irritation growing. "Of course, when I actually need him, he's no help at all!"

  Frustrated, he spped himself twi the face to refocus.

  "Ow!" He wi the sting. Perhaps he'd hit himself a little too hard.

  Still, there was no response from Sukuna.

  "When I get stronger, I swear, I'll make you pay for this!" Yuji muttered bitterly. He khere was no point in dwelling on Sukuna's unhelpfulness now, so he tirudging through the forest, feeling more lost than ever.

  What Yuji didn't realize, however, was that Sukuna wasn't deliberately ign him this time.

  ---

  Within Sukuna's domain, a space built from bones and shadows the King of Curses sat on his throne, his expression calm and eyes closed as if iation.

  But then, suddenly, his eyes snapped open.

  "What's this? That brat's presence is gone!" Sukuna growled.

  It was unusual—unnerving, even. He could no longer sense Yuji's presence.

  He was certain Yuji hadn't died. If the boy had, Sukuna would have been dragged down with him, and that clearly wasn't the case.

  But something was wrong. Very wrong.

  And it wasn't just Yuji. Sukuna could se, an unfamiliar emotion stirring within him. It was the same sensation that seemed to grip Maki, Nobara, and Yuji at this moment.

  Loneliness.

  For a moment, Sukuna frowhis feeling was fn, almost ughable. After all, he had existed as a cursed king for over a thousand years, utterly indifferent to such emotions.

  But Sukuna wasn't oo overlook the obvious. He khis loneliness wasn't natural. It hadn't e from within, it had been forced upon him.

  "Hahaha! So that's how it is!" Sukuna's ughter echoed through his domain.

  "Loneliness, huh? Iing. Very iing!"

  For the first time, Sukuna began to uand the true nature of the space they had been trapped in.

  Previously, Sukuna had dismissed the area as an inplete domain, a fwed space without the guaranteed hit effect that domains typically possessed.

  But now he realized he'd been wrong. This wasn't an inplete domain at all.

  "This domai ck a guaranteed hit effect," Sukuna murmured to himself, his eyes gleaming with uanding. "It's been repced with something else entirely."

  What could repce a guaranteed hit effect? Sukuna already khe answer:

  Cursed Binding.

  As the King of Curses, Sukuna was intimately familiar with the cept of cursed binding.

  Binding curses involved sacrifig something in exge faining something else—like a trade-off.

  Take the first geion of "Heavenly Restri," for example: Fushiguro Toji. He had given up all cursed energy in exge for monstrous physical power that surpassed human limits.

  It was a bance of extremes. Excelling in one area meant being utterly devoid in another.

  And now, it was clear that this cursed domaied on a simir principle. The lonelihey felt wasn't a ce, it was the binding.