"What are you doing here?"
The black-haired girl had her seals already formed, her gaze locked onto Mahiko's face like a nail driven into wood — not moving, not wavering, not for a single instant.
"You appearing here..." Her voice was low and steady. "What's your purpose?"
She and Mahiko stood facing each other across the dim corridor.
Fushiguro Maki was under enormous pressure. Nervous enough that cold sweat had broken out down her back.
Of course she was on guard against the blue-haired cursed spirit standing in front of her.
Everything they'd assessed about this cursed spirit's strength before had been speculation — that she was possibly Special Grade. But 'possibly' was still just a guess.
What had just happened, though, had given them a clear and unambiguous answer.
Mahiko was, without question, a Special Grade cursed spirit.
The powerful Special Grade that had been nesting in this facility — the one capable of warping the very architecture of the building — had been so rattled by a single attack from Mahiko that it hadn't dared approach, hadn't dared stay near, and had immediately turned and fled. That alone was enough to show just how dangerous this blue-haired cursed spirit's attacks were.
For students like them, this 'Mahiko' might be a far greater threat than the Special Grade Cursed Spirit haunting the detention center.
Beside her, Yuji Itadori's face was tight, jaw set, not saying a word — but his feet had already shifted into a staggered stance, weight distributed, body coiled and ready to move at any moment.
Mahiko stood where she was, arms folded, and tilted her head slightly — studying the two people across from her.
They were thinking about how to guard against her attacks. How to escape from her hands.
What Mahiko was thinking about was how to get these two idiots out of here.
Yes. Out of here. That was the goal.
Especially Yuji, that walking disaster.
Between the two of them — one was carrying Sukuna's two fingers inside his body, and the other had Mahoraga on call, a self-destruct button she could press at any time.
They looked pitiful right now, sure. But back them both into a corner, and these two would blow up harder than anyone.
In the original story, it was Yuji releasing Sukuna that instantly wiped out the Special Grade Cursed Spirit. And right now, with two fingers worth of Sukuna — if Mahiko actually got into a real fight with him, she had a feeling her ending wouldn't look much better than that original Special Grade's.
Ugh... what a pain...
She groaned internally.
The main issue was... she couldn't exactly just wave her hand at them and say 'Oh, I don't actually mean you any harm, now hurry up and leave'. She couldn't do that.
Because Kenjaku — that brain-jar — was almost certainly watching this place right now.
She had to play this as though her being here was an accident. As though Kenjaku hadn't told her a single word about this plan in advance, and she'd blundered in headfirst, causing this whole mess through sheer ignorance.
If she casually waved these two off and sent them on their way — on one hand, it would signal that she didn't seem to hold any particular hostility toward jujutsu sorcerers or humans, and on the other, it would look extremely like she was deliberately sabotaging Kenjaku's plan... and then Kenjaku would start asking questions.
And that would put her in a genuinely bad position.
So what was the right move here...?
The blue-haired girl stood in contemplative silence, not saying a word — and with every passing second, the pressure Fushiguro Maki and Yuji felt kept building, the beads of cold sweat on their foreheads growing steadily denser.
While she thought, Mahiko quietly split off a thread of her attention and kept it running in parallel — her butterflies were still moving, probing deeper and deeper into the maze.
But as the butterflies flew further, she began to feel her perception range hitting a hard ceiling. The distance wasn't enough.
Mahiko sighed internally, and once more carved the imitation of Mechamaru's Heavenly Restriction into her own soul — just ten percent this time — shaving down a sliver of her overall ability in exchange for extending her perception range.
The butterflies flew further.
And then she found her.
Nobara Kugisaki — on the opposite side of the maze, very far from where the Special Grade Cursed Spirit was. Practically a different direction entirely. The Special Grade's attention wasn't pointed anywhere near her. Nobara was safe. For now.
Mahiko let out a small, quiet breath of relief.
She wasn't entirely sure why she felt relief at Nobara being temporarily safe. But she did.
And then — from the direction of the Special Grade Cursed Spirit — a blinding burst of golden-yellow Cursed Energy detonated without warning.
Boom.
The butterflies shattered.
Ah. Found out.
That entire line of vision went dark in an instant — exactly as before, dead silence on all channels, nothing coming through at all.
"That thing is so annoying..." Mahiko muttered under her breath, unable to help herself.
She'd lost track of the Special Grade's position again.
And that headache-inducing problem only made another, larger headache-inducing problem louder:
She wasn't sure she could actually take out this Special Grade Cursed Spirit.
Her attacks could deal true damage when they connected — that much was certain. A touch was all it took. And yes, the instant-kill she'd been hoping for hadn't materialized, but she could still inflict very real, very substantial injuries.
Hit it a few more times, and it would die like anything else.
But that was exactly the problem. Connecting — against a Special Grade Cursed Spirit whose movement speed and raw power both outclassed her by a considerable margin — was brutally difficult.
As long as it didn't stupidly present its back to her for another ambush, actually getting a hand on it was going to be nearly impossible.
And she had no reliable long-range options.
The number of attack methods she had that could actually deal meaningful damage... she could count them on her fingers.
Haah. If only I'd spent more time working out effective offensive options before coming here. Relying purely on Idle Transfiguration really is too limited.
In the original story, Mahito would shape his arm into a slingshot and fire off soul-fragments as projectiles, or compress his fist into a spiked mace and just beat people into paste through sheer physical force.
But she'd never practiced any of that. Not once.
If I'd known, I would have spent more time on it... Did I take the wrong path?
No. Wait. Hold on.
Mahiko paused in her own head and gave herself a small, sharp shake.
It was far too early to be tearing herself down like this.
She had no obligation to walk the same road as the original Mahito.
Mahito in canon had gone that route — but she wasn't following the canon route. The original Mahito twisted his body into all manner of grotesque shapes to use as weapons in a fight, but when you got down to it, that approach was still fundamentally primitive. Her ability was to touch and reshape souls — the ceiling on that concept was vast, far wider than anything that could be stuffed into the frame of 'use your body as a weapon'.
She'd already managed to imitate Mechamaru's Heavenly Restriction.
So then...
Mahiko raised her head.
Her gaze drifted to the black-haired girl across the corridor and came to rest there, slow and deliberate, settling on her face like something settling into place.
Could she... imitate someone else's innate technique?
In the jujutsu world, techniques fell into two categories: those acquired through training and practice, and those innately carved into bloodline and genetics from birth — innate techniques.
An innate technique was a person's singular, exclusive power. Potent, and by its nature, belonging to no one else. It was the technique a person was simply born with — arising automatically from the composition of their genes, their bloodline, their very being.
A technique tied to one person's unique blood, their unique genome, their unique soul.
——And her ability was to touch souls. To know them. To change them.
"Hm-hm..."
The corner of Mahiko's mouth curved up, and something crept into her eyes — a gleam of keen, avid interest threaded through with just a hint of mischief.
Her gaze traced slowly down the outline of the black-haired girl's figure — and Fushiguro Maki felt a violent wave of goosebumps erupt across her back. Even the seal she'd been holding began to tremble involuntarily, her fingers shaking by a fraction.
A feeling of profound, bone-deep foreboding rose in the black-haired girl's chest.
A sense of dread. An absolutely catastrophic, screaming sense of dread.
____
👻🔥Whant more?: Walnut-chan🔥👻
🔥 New history: Group chat of the Dead
✅ Read 40 chapters ahead on every series!
✅ Unlock supporter-only perks and news!
Let's reach these milestones together:
🎯 100 Powerstones = +1 free chapter for all readers
🚀 140 MEMBERS = +5 bonus chapters for all series!
👻 Walnut-chan on P...