"Oh, uh. Not everyone who can see curses necessarily wants to dedicate their lives to fighting them. Some people see them, maybe set up a barrier to keep the curses in and keep other people away from them, and then report them to their local sorcerer organization. People who see and report are 'windows'."

"Ah, that makes sense," he says, nodding.

Fushiguro has his brows furrowed, though, like something's nagging at him.

"—something wrong, Fushiguro-kun?"

"Yes. I don't know what this curse should be. There aren't graveyards or schools or hospitals or anything like that, here."

"Construction accident, maybe? Terrible boss and miserable construction workers..?" she theorizes, then furrows her brow and trails off. Hayashi touches the barrier with a hand, giving a thoughtful hum.

"... no. This is not a young curse. I wouldn't have expected such an old one to just be hanging around in Ginza. Are sorcerers really stretched that thin in Tokyo?"

That seems enlightening, and Fushiguro snaps his fingers when he gets it. "No, it was buried."

"The Ginza district used to be a swamp, four or five hundred years ago," he explains. "And then it got filled in. This must be a curse that was buried by construction and progress, here, and this site must have... dug it up, from underground, by accident."

"Lovely. So it'll be good and entrenched," says Hayashi, wrinkling her nose. "I hope it's sleeping, because if it's four or five hundred years old this could get messy. Especially if it's set up a domain. I hate when they set up domains."

"Translation for the newbie?"

"An innate domain is an area created within a being's mind that represents their self and their innate techniques. It is possible to manifest it into reality, which makes the owner virtually invincible inside it, but it is very expensive and requires a lot of cursed energy. Which a four hundred year old curse would have in spades."

"Mm. Which is not great. Not as scary as a young curse that's powerful enough to set up an innate domain, but not great. It's actually kind of a good thing it's been buried for so long, I doubt it's been eating very much. The curse equivalent of living off of discarded garbage. But." She fidgets with the hem of her jacket; she's already been given a uniform. Probably helps that she didn't ask for any customizations. "Like I said, could get messy. I can probably rip us a hole out of it if it's one of the sticky ones, though. If we decide to go brave it."

"...you can what."

"Oh. Uh. I have my own domain. It's not very, uh, refined, but if I get to the edge of a curse's domain it doesn't need to be. It just needs to be enough to disrupt it so I can run through. It's actually how I change the direction of momentum. Without it, I need to actually have things moving in the direction I want to sympathy impress it to. Why did you think I've been so obsessed with economics of cursed energy?"

"That is... impressive. You might want to ask Sensei for help with it."

"Thank you! I will. My first priority is getting a better grasp of basics, though. I will take practical things I can always use over big fancy expensive techniques, you know?"

"Sensible.

"Shall we advance, then?"

Nod.

"Please be sleeping. Think sleepy thoughts," she mutters to, presumably, the curses inside the barrier. And then they can go inside and see what they're in for.

At first? Nothing. The barrier the sorcerers erected around the area muffles outside sounds, but the curse(s) it(them)self(ves) must be doing something more, because it's not just quiet, it's... oppressive. Like warm, hot air surrounding them from all sides.

And then—the ground is gone. It falls apart, or shatters, or ceases, clearly not in a physical way, but in a way that means that the three of them are nevertheless in free fall.

Oh. Swamp. Buried underground. In retrospect, this was obvious.

She manages to make the land on one knee. In... horrible gross swampy muck water. Oh, ew. That is not fun to feel in tights. The fact that this is clearly a manifested domain and that this means that all muck and water made by it are made of curse energy that will eventually disappear is some comfort, but. Not very much. Ugh.

How did the others fare in this less than pleasant entrance?

Her allies are... not. Definitely not around, or visible, or anywhere near her. She can also neither feel nor hear them; only that oppressive, humid heat of the swamp and the chorus of a myriad unseen animals. It's dark, but somehow nevertheless illuminated, an eerie pale glow that comes from everywhere and nowhere, not so weak as to be useless, but also not so bright as to really give her a very good sense of the geometry of the place.

The place is a swamp, though, that one is for sure. The water rises to her ankles when she is standing, but the unmistakeable feeling of mulchy earth beneath her feet promises she can definitely sink deeper if she's not careful. There are vines and trees all around her, but it is not clear that they all actually connect to each other or the ground in a logical fashion. They could be better described as an impression of a swamp rather than a swamp.

Except for the mosquitoes. Those are definitely non-impressionistic mosquitos buzzing here and there and occasionally deciding to snack on her blood. Entirely non-supernatural, to the extent anything here is, but still loud and annoying.

Great. Perfect. Wonderful. She hates when curses have domains. Maybe it's sleeping, though. She doesn't have high hopes, three jujutsu sorcerers landing in its lair probably woke it up, but. There's always a chance.

She makes her way to what passes for high ground, here, keeping to open spaces as much as possible. Hayashi fully expects that she's about to be ambushed.

Is it really an ambush if she's expecting it?

Regardless of the answer to that deeply philosophical question, what happens next is almost out of a cartoon: vines wrapping around her feet and trying to pull her out and hold her upside down.

Not in this anime, asshole!

The vines get themselves some new piercings, and then she kicks her feet to break the now weakened vines that are pinned to what passes for ground, here. Okay, where's the curse responsible for this hentai bullshit, she was going to kill it anyway, but now she's going to extra kill it.