"Don't panic." Toji didn't so much as glance at the furious Fushiguro, his eyes still fixed on the racetrack, a confident smile hanging at the corner of his mouth. "You've got to understand—money is the kind of thing that, no matter how you throw it away... in the end it always flows back into its master's hands."
Only those who can master money can hold onto it for the long haul.
Seeing Toji Fushiguro so confident, Fushiguro Maki suddenly froze for a moment.
Ever since she'd seen what Maki looked like, Fushiguro had already understood that her own father was, like Maki, a "Heavenly Tyrant."
A Heavenly Restriction could grant outstanding physical ability and superb combat skill... so then, could it be...?
As if struck by a thought, Fushiguro's eyes went wide.
Toji had flung down five hundred million yen, betting it all on Horse No. 3... how could that possibly be blind gambling?
He had to have come prepared.
Could it be... that Toji could tell from a horse's appearance which one would win?
Toji had put it all on Horse No. 3.
Which meant... Horse No. 3 was the winner!...
"Ohhhh! Horse No. 6 has crossed the finish line!!!——"
The spectators all around the track were cheering.
Maki's eyebrows twitched.
"Tch, damn it." Toji clicked his tongue. "Looks like I'll need to let the money fly a little while longer."
"Fly my ass!" Fushiguro Maki was livid, and hurled a water bottle at Toji's head.
She shouldn't have trusted this guy even one little bit!
Unfortunately, with Fushiguro's puny little arm strength, the water bottle she threw drifted out feebly without the slightest force, and Toji dodged it with a tiny tilt of his head.
Toji frowned and turned his head to glance at Fushiguro Maki.
Silence.
Deep thought.
Expressing his puzzlement: "What are you getting so worked up for?"
"You go around using my name to take out loans and run scams all over the place, and you're asking me why I'm worked up?!"
"But aren't you already called Fushiguro Maki?"
"You——!..." Maki, beside herself with rage, went up and kicked at Toji. "Are you even human?!"
Of course she couldn't budge him.
Toji didn't even bother with Fushiguro anymore. His gaze passed over several people and landed on Mahiru.
Everyone else, he didn't care about.
The only one here who made him feel threatened was this blue-haired Cursed Spirit.
"Did Satoru Gojo hire you to be a bodyguard?" Toji let out a laugh, lounging back in his chair and stretching like some big shot. "How boring... I'm a fine, law-abiding citizen, you know."
With a little "hup," Mahiru plopped down on Toji's other side.
"True enough—all the bad stuff was done by Megumi Fushiguro; it's got nothing to do with the Heavenly Tyrant." Mahiru smiled.
"Forget about Megumi Fushiguro." Toji shrugged.
Fushiguro Maki's face went pale, then red, and in the end she deflated.
And Toji and Mahiru locked eyes.
"So then, what can I do for you?" Toji's smile was lazy. "You want to turn me into a girl too?"
"No, I came to see what this whole Heavenly Tyrant business is really about." Mahiru smiled too. "You know Satoru Gojo will be freed in two days, right?"
"Mm-hm?"
"This Spirit-Called state of yours—if you don't kill yourself, it'll actually go on indefinitely. So, congratulations, you've come back to life forever." Mahiru smiled and wagged a finger. "But also, very unfortunately—for that very reason—I only need to touch you once to kill you instantly."
This was true.
Mahiru's Idle Transfiguration dealt astonishing, untreatable damage, but against opponents whose stats far exceeded her own, a single touch could generally only cause localized destruction.
By rights, the same went for Toji.
Mahiru would find it hard to one-shot Toji.
But Toji was now a Spirit-Called body.
A Spirit-Called body—like Kaori Itadori—would vanish once both the vessel's and the caster's Cursed Energy ran dry. It was precisely because Mahiru had deliberately set up a "backup battery"-like reserve of Cursed Energy inside Kaori Itadori's body that she dared let Kaori Itadori go out and move about freely.
Toji, on the other hand, because he himself had 0 Cursed Energy and could never expend Cursed Energy on anything, had wound up exploiting a kind of bug that let him stay active permanently.
But what if Mahiru touched him?
Even just a touch of skin, even if Mahiru used the teensy-tiniest bit of Idle Transfiguration to change some spot on Toji's behind into a "has-Cursed-Energy" state, Toji would instantly lose his "Heavenly Restriction" and turn into a weakling.
And if that wisp of Cursed Energy then vanished, he'd even dissipate on the spot.
Toji, upon meeting Mahiru, melts away.
"You think I'm afraid to die?" Toji raised an eyebrow.
Mahiru smiled as always: "But I can help you truly live."
The moment she said this, Yuji Itadori and the others all looked over at Mahiru together.
"Well?" The girl was all smiles.
If you asked whether Toji Fushiguro was a piece of human garbage, well, this man really was pretty far from being a decent human being.
But if you asked whether this man was law-abiding... to be fair, set side by side against other sorcerers, against the backdrop of his peers, this man really didn't cause all that much trouble.
Back when he'd been ostracized and loathed by the Zenin estate, Toji had flatly ignored every last one of them.
For all his immense strength, the means he used to make money were, of all things, just being a kept man and a mercenary.
If the Spirit-Calling Granny had revived some other villain, Mahiru would have had to root him out no matter what; but with Toji, after laying down a few ground rules and leaving him be, there really wasn't much of a problem.
As for Megumi Fushiguro... forget about Megumi Fushiguro.
Mahiru still had to get busy practicing her own Anti-Gravity Technique; she'd leave the mess for Satoru Gojo to fret over later.
"Come make a deal with me." Mahiru looked at Toji with a smile. "You come work for Jujutsu High, and we'll give you a stable identity to live under."
This was an idea Satoru Gojo and Mahiru had talked over. Satoru Gojo had gone right over the heads of a few of the students to tell Mahiru directly.
Yuta hadn't come back yet, Yuki Tsukumo had thrown her life away for nothing earlier, and the old man was still in his life-support pod—aside from Satoru Gojo, Jujutsu High had basically no high-end fighting power left, a visibly gaping vacuum in combat strength.
Recruiting Toji Fushiguro into the fold was an urgent need for them.
With a suitable cursed tool in hand, Toji could even put out special-grade combat strength—a rare asset indeed.
Even though the jujutsu higher-ups would likewise huff and bristle in opposition, a solid, genuine boost to fighting power was far more useful than any other flashy nonsense.
After all——in Satoru Gojo's eyes, Mahiru now counted not as a subordinate or a student, but only as an ally, a third-party faction; and along with her, Maki and Mai had been lumped in with Mahiru into that same third-party faction, no longer belonging to Jujutsu High——and actually, this view was correct.
If one day Jogo and the others got into trouble, Mahiru would still stand on Jogo and the others' side.
"Ha, me, go to Jujutsu High?" Toji was amused. "And do what there? A guy with no Cursed Energy, being your teacher?"
"Does that bother you a lot?"
"I've got no interest in babysitting brats..."
"Then come be a student!" Mahiru suddenly smiled. "That works, surely!"
Everyone present was stunned.
Yuji Itadori reflexively assumed Mahiru was joking, but he soon realized she was serious: "Hold on, you mean..."
Have Toji be what?
A student??
"And you could even be in the same year as your daughter!" Mahiru added with great enthusiasm.
"Me, go to school together with this guy?!——" Fushiguro Maki pointed at Toji and stared at Mahiru, her voice cracking, "And in the same year, no less?!"
Are you kidding me!
Mahiru's earlier words might have been discussed with Gojo, but that last line absolutely had not!
Hearing Mahiru's words, Fushiguro's mind had already started conjuring the image of an extra Toji in the classroom she shared with Nobara Kugisaki and Yuji Itadori... there was no way this guy would ever sit nicely in a classroom, right?!
"Then wouldn't he have to call Satoru Gojo 'teacher'?" Yuji Itadori's eyes went wide. "Then wouldn't that be..."
Back in the day, these two—Gojo and Toji—had each killed the other once.
How could Toji possibly become Satoru Gojo's student now...
"I can also help make Megumi Fushiguro himself vanish from the face of the earth, for good." Mahiru added.
"Deal." Toji and Mahiru came to an agreement.
"Neither of you two is human, are you?!" Fushiguro yelled, clutching her hair.
And so, amid Fushiguro Maki's frantic cries, Mahiru and Toji... or rather, Mahiru on Satoru Gojo's behalf, sealed the contract.
"Yo, senpai." Toji Fushiguro patted Fushiguro Maki on the shoulder. "Looking forward to your guidance from here on."
"Get the hell away from me!!!"
All one could say was that both Fushiguro Maki and Toji Fushiguro had probably been affected by this concept of [family].
Toji was, to some degree, deliberately teasing Fushiguro for fun.
And it had been a long time since Fushiguro Maki had shown such conspicuous swings of emotion.
Utterly powerless to do anything about it, Fushiguro just sat off to one side, panting, sulking in silence.
Whatever.
It didn't matter.
Whether or not she could turn back into Megumi Fushiguro didn't matter, and whether Toji Fushiguro lived or died or went off to do whatever had not the slightest thing to do with her.
She only needed to protect the friends she truly cared about... and her real family, and that was enough.
Her real family... that surely meant Tsumiki Fushiguro.
Every time she thought of her, Fushiguro Maki would feel a pang of heartache.
When she was little, she'd been abandoned by Toji, and Satoru Gojo had been busy to death, able only to provide financial support; the one and only person who kept her company and gave her the will to go on living was Tsumiki Fushiguro.
Her older sister.
Her stepsister.
An extraordinarily kind and wonderful person.
It was she who, time and again, had pulled Fushiguro Maki out of a world-weary, self-destructive existence, time and again helping her, teaching her how to live with a positive heart.
Without Tsumiki Fushiguro, Fushiguro Maki had no idea what day she might have gone off to play tug-of-war with a rooftop beam.
Tsumiki Fushiguro was the single most important reason Fushiguro Maki had survived to this day.
But at the same time, such a wonderful, kind person, someone who should have lived out a beautiful life... had instead fallen into a coma because of a curse.
Perhaps she would never wake again for the rest of her life.
That was precisely why Fushiguro Maki was utterly sickened by this world.
Why should good people have to be cursed?
Why should Tsumiki Fushiguro have to suffer such a calamity?
Goushi's world was so unfair.
And now Fushiguro Maki had only one reason left to live——she absolutely had to find a way to save her sister.
It didn't matter—the name "Megumi Fushiguro" didn't matter, and as for her own life, that didn't matter either.
...As long as she could protect her friends and bring Tsumiki Fushiguro back, then even if she died, even if she had to offer up everything she had, she wouldn't care at all!
But sadly, even if she died now, it still wouldn't bring back Tsumiki Fushiguro...
"Oh, right—you all kept cutting in, and I nearly forgot what I was going to say."
Mahiru finally remembered what she'd wanted Fushiguro for in the first place, and hurriedly waved her over: "Hey, uh, Fushiguro—you've got a sister, right?"
Hearing this, Fushiguro froze, shaking her head blankly: "...Huh?"
"Want me to save her?" Mahiru asked. "If you need it, I'll go bring her back in a bit."
At these words, Fushiguro went rigid, her pupils dilating slightly.
"...?"
What... did you say?
"Save...?"
The thing that had tormented her for half her life, the agony that not even giving up her own life could save her sister from... now, from this other girl's mouth, it sounded so casual, so weightless...
Fushiguro Maki, in this instant, felt an overwhelming sense of unreality.
____
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