In the original story, Mahito had one particularly practical ability — a Divergent Fist of a different kind: clones.
Using Idle Transfiguration, he could split off a portion of his own body and shape it into a small, independently operating individual. These clones shared consciousness with the main body, could be remotely controlled, and in theory could even be used in combat.
Of course, actually directing a clone in battle was extraordinarily difficult — it required simultaneously orchestrating the precise soul-movements of two separate bodies, something far beyond Mahiko's current level of mastery. But making a tiny little clone and sending it out to pass along a message or deliver some information?
That, she could do just fine.
So when she'd been treating Mechamaru, she'd done exactly that — quietly, on the sly.
In the few seconds her hand had been in contact with Mechamaru's left pinky finger, she'd been demonstrating the treatment's effects on the surface while, beneath that cover, carefully splitting off an infinitesimally small sliver of flesh from her fingertip and embedding it inside the finger she'd just healed.
Kenjaku hadn't noticed.
Why? Because the window she'd had to work in was vanishingly short, and the action itself was microscopic — just one extra step layered invisibly on top of the treatment, indistinguishable from the outside. Add to that the fact that Kenjaku's attention had been focused primarily on observing Mechamaru's reaction... and Mahiko had successfully slipped one past the brain.
But why had she done it in the first place?
Simple.
Because she spent every waking moment thinking about how to get away from Kenjaku.
Kenjaku watched her constantly. That mosquito covered in eyeballs was proof enough of that. Her every move fell within that thousand-year-old fox's field of vision; she had no privacy whatsoever. And Kenjaku had a hard counter against cursed spirits — he was currently operating in Suguru Geto's body, and Geto's technique was Cursed Spirit Manipulation: the ability to directly control and suppress cursed spirits. In plain terms, if Kenjaku ever decided to move against her, she couldn't win. Not right now.
So she needed to lay groundwork in advance. Needed to build her own information network and escape routes somewhere outside Kenjaku's line of sight.
But where, exactly, was outside Kenjaku's line of sight?
Jujutsu High?
The school had barrier protections, and Satoru Gojo holding down the fort — Kenjaku's surveillance really would have a hard time penetrating those defenses.
But the problem was: she was a cursed spirit. A cursed spirit stepping within range of Jujutsu High's barrier was basically walking up to the front door and ringing the dinner bell. Those sorcerers would exorcise her on the spot. Satoru Gojo was not going to sit down and have tea with her.
And she couldn't approach Jujutsu High on her own initiative anyway. The moment Kenjaku's surveillance caught her trying to make contact with the sorcerer faction, she'd be exposed on the spot — a cursed spirit, going to find sorcerers — why? Kenjaku would be on high alert in an instant, and the fallout didn't bear thinking about.
So where else was there?
It was in the moment she'd been treating Mechamaru that it had suddenly clicked — Mechamaru's hidden chamber.
That metal chamber beneath the dam on the outskirts of Kyoto, which looked sparse and bare to the naked eye, was in fact a stronghold Mechamaru had been cultivating for years. In the original story, it housed countless mechanical puppets and weapons, with a massive combat robot lurking in the depths below. Mechamaru's control over that space was absolute — his puppet-manipulation technique was precise enough to detect any anomalous Cursed Energy response within, including Kenjaku's surveillance-type cursed spirits.
In fact, Mechamaru thoroughly swept the chamber for surveillance devices after every single meeting with Kenjaku, purging any possible monitoring measures. As far as Kenjaku was concerned, that chamber was a relative blind spot.
Then there was Mechamaru's unique position: a double agent, feeding intelligence to Kenjaku on the surface while secretly calculating how to turn around and kill him. A person like that wouldn't casually report information to Kenjaku that put himself at a disadvantage.
Taking all of these factors together, Mechamaru was the most suitable target she could realistically attempt to make contact with right now.
So that was exactly what she'd done.
............
The metal chamber.
About ten minutes after Kenjaku and Mahiko had departed, Mechamaru discovered the clone on his finger.
A tiny blue-haired figure stood on his fingertip, pinned motionless in a vise of Cursed Energy he'd clamped down on it immediately.
"What did you plant on me?!" Mechamaru's voice was ice. "Cursed spirit!"
"Shh——" The little figure pressed one finger to its lips. "Keep it down. This is a secret between you and me. The brain doesn't know a thing."
Mechamaru's expression shifted slightly.
...Doesn't know?
This cursed spirit had come to find him in secret? Without the knowledge of whoever was wearing Geto's face?
Why?
A cursed spirit — why would a cursed spirit hide something from its own ally to come find him?
Mechamaru was silent for several seconds. Then: "What are you trying to do? What's your angle?"
The little figure tilted its head. "I'd like to ask for your help. Or rather... I'd like to propose a personal deal between the two of us."
"What deal?"
"I want you to gather information for me." The sprite's tone turned serious. "Information on cursed spirits. Information on jujutsu sorcerers. Information on curse users. Every piece of intelligence you can get your hands on — all of it, to me. I want you to be my camera. My eyes."
Mechamaru frowned. "What?"
As had been established before, Mechamaru's Heavenly Restriction had granted him a range of Cursed Energy manipulation that blanketed the entire Japanese archipelago.
Just how terrifying was that range?
He could simultaneously deploy hundreds of mechanical puppets across every corner of the country, receiving real-time intelligence from their sensors. In other words, sitting alone in this metal chamber, he was functionally equivalent to a surveillance network blanketing all of Japan.
Among every character in the entirety of Jujutsu Kaisen, virtually no one could match Mechamaru when it came to that breadth of information-gathering capability.
And that was precisely why Mahiko wanted to work with him.
Of course, if she were being completely honest, her most ideal form of cooperation wasn't intelligence-gathering — it was using Mechamaru as a go-between to contact Satoru Gojo directly, and letting Gojo take care of Kenjaku for her.
But she hadn't done that.
For a lot of reasons.
First: even though Mechamaru's chamber was in all likelihood a blind spot for Kenjaku's surveillance, who could guarantee it was a hundred percent safe? What if Kenjaku had left a safeguard somewhere she didn't know about? If she said something here like I want to team up with you against Kenjaku and Kenjaku happened to be listening, she was finished on the spot. So her words had to be careful.
"Help me gather intelligence" — even if Kenjaku knew about that request, it would only be read as Mahito is building an information channel for himself, not as Mahito is plotting a rebellion.
Second: Mechamaru was himself a person who had already betrayed the sorcerer faction. Mahiko understood his reasons, knew he'd been driven to it by the desperate need for treatment — but the fact remained. A person who had already betrayed someone once: when you cooperated with them, you had to be ready for the possibility they'd betray you again. She couldn't hand her most critical cards to someone she couldn't fully trust.
Third, and most important: even if she contacted Satoru Gojo through Mechamaru, and Gojo took down Kenjaku — then what?
She was still a cursed spirit.
Would Gojo protect her?
In the original story, Gojo had barely managed to keep Yuji Itadori alive — and Yuji was at least human, at least Gojo's student. What about her? She was a cursed spirit. The natural enemy of every jujutsu sorcerer alive. Even if Gojo himself didn't kill her, what about the higher-ups? The top brass who had wanted Yuji dead — who had gone so far as to dispatch Okkotsu to assassinate him in the original story.
Okkotsu hadn't killed Yuji because Yuji was human. Because he was Gojo's student.
But if the higher-ups sent Okkotsu after her? Why on earth would Okkotsu spare her life?
So: using Jujutsu High to take down Kenjaku was one thing. Relying on Jujutsu High to survive was something else entirely. The former was using someone else's blade. The latter was placing her own head on a cutting board in front of a room full of strangers and praying they showed mercy.
She couldn't put her life in anyone else's hands.
On one front, she needed to find ways to increase her own power. On the other front, her most ideal outcome was this: find a way to escape from or eliminate Kenjaku, then run somewhere no one could ever find her and disappear. Disguise herself as a human. Live out this second life in quiet, comfortable peace.
A second lifetime. If she could just live it in peace and comfort, that was more than enough.
Of course, even that simplest of wishes was a luxury she couldn't afford yet.
So she had to tread carefully with every single step. No reckless moves. No exposing her real intentions. No handing the wheel of her fate to anyone. She had to climb out of this dangerous abyss one foothold at a time.
............
Mechamaru was silent for a long time.
"...If this is a deal, as you say," he finally spoke, "then what's my payment for doing all of this?"
The little figure blinked — and then suddenly grinned. "Do you have a thing for Miwa Kasumi?"
Miwa Kasumi. A classmate from the Kyoto school. A cheerful, pretty girl with blue hair.
In the original story, a significant part of why Mechamaru had been willing to risk his life making a deal with Kenjaku — willing to betray the sorcerer faction and become a mole — was because he had a secret crush on her.
He wanted to heal his body. To walk out of this sunless metal chamber on his own two legs. To cross the distance between them and stand at her side, in the sunlight.
A schoolboy crush, which made complete sense — Mechamaru was still a high schooler, after all. It wasn't unusual.
And so, when Mahiko spoke that name — Miwa Kasumi — Mechamaru's pupils practically shattered.
"How could you possibly know that?!"
The sprite burst out laughing, cackling so hard it was rolling back and forth across his fingertip. "Don't worry about how I know — I just know, okay?"
Mechamaru's expression snapped into something dangerous. "If you're planning to use Miwa to threaten me, I will fight you to the death. If you dare lay a finger on her——"
"No no no, that's not it at all!" The sprite waved its hands frantically, then clicked its tongue. "Do you have anything but bad water in that head of yours?! I'm not like that — I'm one of the good guys! Pure, kind, upstanding, a model citizen!"
Mechamaru: "......…"
"Here's the deal I want to make with you." The sprite sat up straight, unusually serious for once. "You gather intelligence for me — be my eyes. In return... I protect Miwa for you."
Mechamaru went very still.
"Jujutsu sorcery is a high-risk profession — you know that better than I do," the sprite said. "And the world is about to get very messy. Very messy. As someone operating in the grey zone, your own position is already precarious — it'll be an achievement just keeping yourself alive. What exactly are you going to use to protect Miwa?"
Mechamaru said nothing.
"Your abilities are genuinely impressive, and your information coverage is enormous — but that's all remote. When real chaos breaks out up close, when it comes down to blades and blood on an actual battlefield, can you really protect her on your own?"
Silence.
"But I'm closer to the center of that chaos than you are. I can do what you can't. Keep the person you care about safe from the threats that would otherwise reach her." The sprite spread its hands open. "Well? What do you say?"
Mechamaru stared at the little figure for a long moment.
"How am I supposed to trust you?"
"We can make a formal agreement — a Binding Vow, in your sorcerer's terminology." The sprite said. "As long as you provide me with intelligence and maintain the cooperation for a given day, I protect Miwa for that same day. The moment the cooperation ends, the vow dissolves automatically. A fair trade — nobody gets the short end."
Mechamaru fell silent.
He was silent for a very long time.
And then——
"...We have a deal."
"OK!"
The sprite leaped up in delight, bouncing twice — then whoosh, it contracted back into Mechamaru's finger and vanished. The finger returned to its original damaged state, as if nothing had ever been there.
............
"Hey — what's wrong? You're spacing out."
A gentle voice drifted in from beside her.
Mahiko snapped back to herself.
She was walking down a rural road, Kenjaku strolling alongside her with his easy smile. She'd been allocating part of her attention to the clone all the way back in Kyoto, which had left her main body wandering along in a bit of a daydream.
"Nothing," Mahiko said, turning to smile back at Kenjaku. "Just bored. Oh, by the way — what about my payment? When are you handing over the cursed spirit you promised me?"
"Anytime you like." Kenjaku smiled pleasantly. "You're free to leave right now, do whatever you want. But — there's something rather entertaining coming up. Care to come watch?"
Mahiko tilted her head. "What kind of entertaining?"
"You'll see when we get there."
Mahiko didn't press further — but her peripheral vision caught the edge of a road sign.
Sendai City.
...Sendai?
This place... wasn't this where Yuji Itadori lived?
She snuck a sideways glance at Kenjaku.
Hmm...
Don't tell me we're here to meet the protagonist.
Now that actually sounds a little interesting.
---------
[Author's Promo:]
「You Said Go AFK — Now You're Running an Empire」
The human race that dominates the stars has always claimed its greatest enemy is the Four Chaos Gods of the Warp — but in the eyes of every other species, there have always been five.
Rumors about the God-Empress circulate endlessly:
"She has survived since the dawn of civilization — ten thousand years. She sold her dignity to become an immortal, undying being."
"She long since stopped being human. Whatever sits on the Golden Throne is an artificial intelligence."
"She is a puppet, a vessel — someone else pulls the strings of the Imperium. Its true master is the divine law humanity worships: the Omnissiah."
The Fifth Chaos God revealed itself long ago, quietly raising up humanity's ruler from the shadows, guiding the arc of civilization from the Bronze Age to the age of the stars.
Its power is so vast that once every ten years it casts a single glance upon the mortal world — what it calls "one turn."
Ironclad proof: the treasured scripture known as the Holy Edicts of the Omnissiah, from which the following passages have been excerpted:
"If the code runs, don't touch it."
"Every time I go AFK, someone starts a rebellion. Fine, no choice but to cheat my way through it — at least it hasn't been patched yet."
"The Imperial fleet blots out the sky and covers the sun — however many suns are up there, it doesn't matter."
____
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