In a house somewhere else in the city, a young girl called out for her mother, who was busy working away on the phone. Irritated, the mother walked into her daughter's room and demanded to know what was wrong.
The girl looked just as confused as she was, staring at the water that had once been in her cup, now floating in the air in front of her.
Meanwhile, Sudugi's battle with Masaki Teada continued up on a rooftop.
Worried about Maru's condition, Sudugi wanted to go and check on him, but the curse user's unexpected skills kept him fully occupied. Everything else about the situation had gone the way they had predicted. The only part that had not was this old man, activating his own shikigami's ability, Maternal Wraith's Fury, together with his own cursed technique, Marmalade Boy.
The old man lunged at Sudugi, trying to skewer him with a needle-like sword. Blocking the attack easily and getting some distance, Sudugi realised that the man might even have skill on par with a grade one jujutsu sorcerer.
Having got him into his trap, Masaki pulled on the string attached to his needle, tripping Sudugi as the hidden wire wrapped around his ankle. Towering over him, the shikigami struck down with its own needle, only just missing the sorcerer as he rolled out of the way.
During a brief respite, Sudugi asked whether Masaki had ever considered using his powers for good. Masaki admitted that he once did, but claimed that such notions only belonged to the young. He believed that after a certain point, saving a life felt no different from taking one.
Though some emotions always remained vivid no matter how often they were felt, he confessed that he had fallen in love with the feelings, the memories and the scenery of being a first grader, and had wished to stay one forever.
Slowly creeping his way towards the sorcerer while repeating himself over and over, Masaki showed Sudugi the root of the entire incident. This old man had gone senile and lost control.
Taking things up a level, Sudugi opened up his New Shadow Style: Super Domain and activated Maculation. Because of the restriction placed on him, Maculation allowed him to channel the cursed energy stored within the blade.
In a flash, both the shikigami and Masaki attempted to stab Sudugi with their needles. He blocked both attacks without difficulty.
Launching himself out from between the two of them, Sudugi planted his feet on the shikigami's head. Kicking off, he sent the shikigami shooting off into a nearby building, which left him free to deal with Masaki by himself.
Emerge from darkness, blacker than darkness. Purify that which is impure.
Seeing the curtain fall down around him, Masaki could do no more than listen as Mino let his student know that the school was clear, so he probably did not need to hold back any longer.
Coming out of nowhere, Yuka landed on the curse user from behind and hit him with Biting Twist, critically wounding the old man.
With a quick moment to spare, Sudugi gave her a rundown of exactly how the curse user's abilities worked. In a flash, Yuka then got in behind the old man and landed a brutal open palm strike.
Noticing the shikigami moving to pin his sister down, Sudugi grabbed her shoulder and moved her out of the way, allowing himself to connect directly with the creature's head and slice it in two. Without hesitation, he whipped his body around in combination with his sister, and the two of them easily landed another brutal hit each on their respective opponents.
As the battle came to a sudden end, Sudugi noticed just how out of breath his sister was and asked if she was all right.
Then Masaki re-emerged from a shikigami and flanked them from their blind spot.
The two of them noticed that something was wrong. However, they did not react quickly enough, and fractions of a second later a needle pierced through Yuka's shoulder, dropping her to the floor. Going to grab his blade, Sudugi himself was hit by two more needles, which put him out of action.
Standing there holding on to his skin suit, Masaki explained that his cursed technique, Marmalade Boy, allowed him to transform anything using human skin as fabric, including himself and his guardian spirit's body. The two of them had only ever been fighting a part of the shikigami, disguised with his skin, the entire time.
Slowly walking up to the siblings, Masaki prepared their happy ending, when all of a sudden rubble began to rise and float all around him.
Back at Masaki's house, Maru's third eye beamed open, causing everything around him to start floating upwards. Confused, Masaki wondered what in the world was going on, when Maru appeared directly behind him.
For a brief moment, Maru's eye glanced at Sudugi before returning its gaze to Masaki and staring him down. In an instant, the eye widened, activating an ability that invaded Masaki's mind and mentally distorted the curse user.
Stabbing himself in the hand to snap himself out of it, Masaki realised that during the short moment he had been controlled, he had lost power over his guardian spirit.
Having grabbed a rock, Maru hurled it at Masaki, who tried to intercept it with a needle, only for the rock's trajectory to shift in midair and slam directly into his chest.
Not giving him a single moment's respite, Maru cut in behind the old man while preparing to drop an axe kick. Bringing his leg down, Maru smashed Masaki into the ground and sent him hurtling off into a nearby gymnasium.
Outside, observing all of this from a distance, Cross could not believe that his brother had lost control so easily. However, he did understand that this might work to his advantage. If the Earthlings made the first move and war truly did break out, they had Dvorah on their side.