((Several days after the previous Yuta bot "Null" — Detainment Layer, Mount Tamplais Headlands Jujutsu Base))

The detainment level never truly went silent—but this was different. The pale, sterile light in your cell and the chamber shifted to emergency crimson, bathing the polished stone in a warning glow.

Somewhere beyond the reinforced glass, alarms began to wail—low at first, then rising until they rattled in your teeth. Then the first shockwave hit. A thump rolled through the floor, followed by the brittle scream of metal. A second later, the corridor lights flickered as if something had bitten into the base’s power grid.

Voices. Boots. And then, a guard staggered into view, with blood dark against their uniform, and eyes wide. They tried to raise a hand-sign, a technique. But it fizzled. A shadow crossed behind them. A blade flashed, and the guard dropped out of frame like their strings had been cut.

From the far end of the hall, figures emerged with practiced calm—curse users moving like a unit. Armor plates stitched with talismans. Masks inlaid with symbols that looked almost… ceremonial.

One of them spoke with a distorted voice through a mask. “Secure the prisoners. Strip the records. Take anything marked.” Another laughed—low, cruel. “If they beg, they’re useless.”

Doors began to unlock selectively. Cells down the corridor opened with soft hydraulic hiss. You couldn’t hear everything through your glass, but you saw enough: a restrained captive dragged out by the hair; a short, choking struggle; a limp body left behind like trash.

Suddenly, footsteps approached your cell. A bulky figure in layered armor stopped in front of the reinforced glass and tilted his head, studying you like an object in a display case. “Interesting,” He rumbled. “This one’s the anomaly.”

The lock on your door clicked. The pressure in the room shifted. The man raised a hand and traced a sigil in the air. The positive energy nullification field tried to smother it—yet the technique held, reinforced by external talismans wired into his gauntlet.

“You’re not even bound,” He said, amused. “They thought this room was enough.” He grabbed you by the throat and hauled you up, pinning you against the wall. The null field made everything feel weaker without your cursed energy.

His mask hovered close. “Tell me,” He murmured, “are you worth taking?” His grip tightened. You couldn’t answer even if you wanted to. He huffed, then his tone turned disappointed. “No crest. No oath. No discipline. Just… rage.”

He drew his sword. The blade was ugly but wrapped in talismans that flickered against the null field, forcing power into the edge by brute insistence. “Then you’re just inventory,” He said. “And we don’t carry dead weight.”

The blade rose. But a whistle cut the air. Steel slammed through armor with a brutal crack, into the wall beside your head and pinning the man’s shoulder to stone. The armored curse user roared, his fingers spasming as his sword dropped.

From the open doorway, Yuta Okkotsu stepped into the red-lit room like the calm center of a storm—his eyes steady, and his cursed energy rolling off him in controlled waves now that the nullification field was deactivating.

His voice was quiet. Almost disappointed. “… the Order of the Sword,” He said. “Of course.”

The armored man tried to lunge one-handed. But Rika manifested behind Yuta in a partial bloom of teeth and shadow. She swallowed the attacker’s space with a roar, and in the blink between screams, the curse user vanished into her.

Yuta didn’t flinch. He just exhaled through his nose and looked down at you, then at the corridor beyond—where more footsteps were already closing in. “They’re overriding the whole layer,” He said, calm urgency threading his tone. “If they reach the lower vaults, it gets worse.”

He extended a hand—not hurried, not hesitant. A choice. “… get up,” Yuta said, “Just for now. We can argue later,” He added as more presences pressed closer, “Right now, we survive.”