The display window of the ice cream shop had been wiped to a mirror shine.
A blue-haired girl had her face pressed flat against it, forehead mashed against the glass, peering inside with the most pitiful expression imaginable. Her eyes were wide and round, lashes fluttering, and in the faint glimmer of her gaze there was nothing — nothing at all — but a desperate, yearning hunger for ice cream.
Staaare.
The ice cream balls lined up in the display case came in a dazzling rainbow of flavors. The girl's eyes held a longing to match every single one of them.
But — apparently because she had no money — she eventually let out a small sigh, peeled her face off the glass, dropped her gaze in dejection, and turned to walk away.
That forlorn, on-the-verge-of-tears expression was enough to make even the middle-aged owner of the shop feel a pang of sympathy.
"Ahem..." The uncle cleared his throat deliberately. "Hey... little miss..."
"Hm?" The girl turned back at the sound of his voice, looking mildly puzzled.
"You're in luck today." The owner leaned both hands on the counter, smiling warmly. "We're running a special promotion — you're our one-thousandth customer today. One free scoop, on the house."
"...Huh?"
The little blue-haired girl stood frozen for a full two seconds.
"R-really? Is that really true?"
"Really." The owner's smile didn't waver. He gestured toward the door. "Come on in and pick your flavor. What'll it be?"
"The blueberry one!"
The owner handed it over. The girl accepted it with both hands and took a lick.
"It's so good!" She looked up, eyes bright. "Thank you so much, mister! You're the coolest!"
The owner blinked — and then burst out laughing, waving a hand and saying oh, it's nothing, it's nothing, grinning from ear to ear.
"Come back anytime — bring your family next time," the owner said once he'd had his fill of laughing. His gaze drifted down and settled on her earlobe. "Oh — those earrings are lovely. Did you buy those yourself?"
Hanging from Mahiko's earlobes was a pair of tiny butterflies. Exquisitely crafted — wings thin as a sheet of paper, smaller than a thumbnail — they caught the light and gave off a faint, almost imperceptible shimmer.
"These?" The blue-haired girl reached up and touched her earlobe. "My little brother gave them to me."
"Oh?" The owner looked them over with a smile, then nodded sincerely. "Your little brother really does take good care of you, doesn't he."
"He really does." The girl beamed, bright and guileless.
When she stepped out of the shop with her ice cream in hand, the sun was right overhead and the street breeze carried just the faintest edge of cool. She took another lick, thoroughly pleased with herself, and went bouncing off down the sidewalk.
One step. Two steps. Three steps.
The blue tips of her hair fluttered up with each bounce, then settled back down.
Ha——
"Is it really okay for you to take advantage of people's kindness like that."
Mahiko's bouncing stuttered half a beat.
The voice came from her earlobe — tiny, audible only to her, like someone had pressed their mouth right up against her ear and breathed the words in. Kept very low. Very familiar.
It was Mechamaru's voice.
"Deceiving the emotions of a human being," Mechamaru continued. "Don't you think that's inappropriate?"
And you've pulled this exact trick three times today already to get free ice cream. How thick is your skin, you cursed spirit...
All the same flavor, too.
Blueberry doesn't even taste good. Figures — you're a cursed spirit. Your entire flavor system is broken.
Mahiko lowered the ice cream cone from her lips.
She took a breath.
"You know..." she said, a faint note of grievance creeping into her voice, "you're really unpleasant sometimes. How can you take the kindness a grown man shows to a small, cute, helpless little human child and call it my deception? Care, warmth — those are precious human emotions. They're beautiful. Why would you talk about them like that, like they're something dirty? You're such a dark, cynical person."
The earring was silent for two seconds.
"I wasn't denigrating human emotions. I was denigrating you," Mechamaru said. "Also — who exactly is your little brother? I am not your little brother. You lie without even stopping to think about it."
"...Hmph."
Mahiko crunched on her cone and made a dismissive sound through her nose.
"But I really am a cute, innocent, pure little girl," she said righteously. "Look — everyone on this street right now, when they look at me, they——"
Up ahead, an elderly woman was standing at the edge of a crosswalk.
Mahiko broke off mid-sentence. She jogged forward — trot trot trot — and gently caught the old woman by the arm.
"Grandma! Let me help you across!"
The old woman startled, turning to look at her. After a beat, she squinted and smiled, the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes all bunching together at once. "Oh my, child. You're so sweet."
"Of course!" Mahiko cheerfully took the old woman's arm, eyes on the road ahead. "Alright, Grandma, here we go——"
The light turned green.
In the earring, Mechamaru went quiet.
He didn't get it.
He genuinely could not figure this cursed spirit out.
What, exactly, was she trying to do?
......
It had now been roughly one full week since that night.
The events that followed had, for the most part, run along the tracks of the original story. Fushiguro Maki, with a small assist from Yuji, had ultimately managed to defeat the Grade 2 cursed spirit inside the school — but Kenjaku had quietly released another one from the shadows, deliberately suppressing its Cursed Energy signature so it hit Fushiguro Maki completely off-guard, dropping her into critical condition.
Then had come Yuji — in the most desperate moment of the battle, to protect the two upperclassmen from the occult research club, he had swallowed Sukuna's finger.
The finger went down. Everything changed. Everything began.
After that, Kenjaku had taken Mahiko and left — for the simple reason that Satoru Gojo was on his way.
Kenjaku was far too clever to walk face-first into a confrontation with Satoru Gojo without being prepared. And Mahiko was very much the same. She had absolutely no desire to let Gojo lay eyes on her — staying to watch the show and getting casually swatted dead for her trouble was not on her to-do list. So the two of them had quietly slipped away.
The rest of it would naturally unfold exactly as the original had: Yuji taken away by Satoru Gojo, sentenced to death, execution suspended — on the condition that he swallow all of Sukuna's remaining fingers before dying.
Yuji Itadori's journey as the protagonist had officially begun.
After that day, Kenjaku had no immediate tasks for her, and Mahiko had embarked on what could only be described as wandering aimlessly around the city. Kenjaku was still watching her — she could feel it. But by carefully reading the distribution of Cursed Energy across different parts of the city and taking a few deliberately roundabout routes, she'd managed to work out a few tricks for shaking the surveillance temporarily. Temporarily being the operative word. Vanishing from Kenjaku's sight entirely was still beyond her, or at least — now was not yet the right moment to make that move.
Recklessly telegraphing I'm trying to run away would only provoke him into flipping the table on her.
She still wanted time to grow.
Kenjaku had, at least, delivered on his promise. After they'd returned that day, he'd thrown a large pile of cursed spirits her way for her to absorb and replenish herself.
Nothing particularly powerful — mostly Grade 3s in bulk, the occasional Grade 2, miscellaneous small fry — but food was food, and she took what she could get.
The small fry weren't the point, though.
The point was one that stood out from the rest — a cursed spirit, yes, a weak cursed spirit, but one that wasn't quite like ordinary cursed spirits.
Basic established fact: ordinary people cannot see cursed spirits. Unless they're on the verge of death, or teetering at the threshold of extreme emotional crisis, the eyes of an ordinary human are completely closed to cursed spirits.
But this particular cursed spirit possessed a physical body that even ordinary people could perceive.
In terms of form... something like a ballet dancer, perhaps — one of those strange in-between existences, half human, half spirit. Its power was only Grade 2, nothing impressive — but that unusual physical body of its, perceptible to ordinary humans, seemed to be some kind of innate conceptual trait.
And so, after studying the new insight and ability this cursed spirit had given her — she gained a new skill.
Like right now——
Pop.
A soft sound.
Then a passing man turned to look at a suddenly empty stretch of wall, stopped in his tracks, scratched his head, and blinked with mild uncertainty——
Was there... a little girl over there just now...?
Mahiko flashed him a huge smile.
The man just couldn't see it.
Yes. She could now freely toggle between states — switching her physical form back and forth between "cursed spirit" and "human" at will.
Want to be seen — be seen.
Don't want to be seen — vanish.
As simple as flicking a light switch. It required nothing more than a tiny adjustment to the structure of her own soul. The invisibility only worked on ordinary people — jujutsu sorcerers who could see her before could still see her now.
Which meant — roughly speaking——
She could now walk down the street in broad daylight like a perfectly normal person!
She could walk into an ice cream shop without sneaking! She could go to a convenience store! She could go to a supermarket! She could browse a toy store! She could feed pigeons in the park! She could even go to an arcade!
Yes, yes, THIS is it! Living meant interacting with humans — that was the whole point! Being an invisible ghost lurking on the sidelines was no life at all. She needed people to actually be able to see her!
Mahiko switched herself back into "human mode" and bounced three times on the sidewalk, forcibly restraining the urge to clap her hands and spin in a circle.
Of course, in practical terms, the problem of having no money was still very much present.
That ice cream just now had, in the end, still been mooched off the owner.
But that was temporary. Money... there were always ways to solve that, right?
She couldn't keep freeloading forever... that wasn't really appropriate, all things considered...
She was drifting down the street, mentally sorting through three or four ideas that seemed reasonably viable, just about to circle back and think them through properly——
"That's enough." Mechamaru's voice came through the earring — clean, crisp, cutting her rambling thoughts off at the root. "Right side, just ahead. You're almost there."
Mahiko stopped.
She looked ahead.
The slightly unfocused, wandering look in her eyes slowly sharpened.
Alright.
If they were almost there — then it was time to get serious.
____
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