"Mmh… celebrating that we took down the bad guys who put a bounty on me… phew… haah." Riko had already fallen asleep, yet she still lay across Mahiru's lap, mumbling drowsily in her dreams. "And… celebrating that the ocean's so pretty…"
"She actually tired herself out playing until she konked out?" Satoru Gojo propped his chin on his fist across the table, mocking Riko. "How hopeless is that?" Suguru Geto laughed too.
Misato Kuroi couldn't quite keep a straight face either.
The sea breeze off the water carried a salt tang, and the orange glow of the bonfire gave off a gentle warmth—this was the seaside restaurant of the Seaside Resort Hotel. After eating her fill of good food and playing the whole day long, Riko Amanai had drifted off mid-bite, stretched lazily, flopped onto Mahiru's lap, and sunk into a deep sleep.
Snoring away, murmuring in her sleep, comically endearing—Mahiru let out a soft laugh and reached out to stroke Riko's hair. Patting her head might be a touch rude, but the girl was just too cute; Mahiru couldn't resist.
"…Heh heh…" Riko smacked her lips and started grinning dopily.
"Thank you, all of you…" Kuroi said, thanking Mahiru and Gojo and the rest from the heart. "Thank you for protecting the young lady like this. And thank you… for making her this happy…"
Riko Amanai had plenty of friends at school. But those friends were ordinary people, and in their company there had always been an innate gulf between them and Riko, the Star Plasma Vessel.
Mahiru and the others were the first friends of this kind Riko had ever had.
It was the first time Kuroi had seen Riko play so happily, so freely.
That was why she was so grateful to the three people before her.
"It's nothing," Mahiru said, waving a hand with a smile. "This is just what we should be doing—and it's our teacher's assignment too."
"No, that's not what I mean…" Kuroi shook her head slightly. "I know, and the young lady knows too—bringing her here to have fun actually means defying Jujutsu High's orders."
"Mm…"
"…So, I'm truly grateful to you. And the young lady is grateful to you too, really."
And it was true.
When the old men of the jujutsu higher-ups heard that Mahiru, Satoru Gojo, and the rest had actually taken the Star Plasma Vessel on a trip to Okinawa, they were furious. They saw these students as unruly, forever bent on defying their wishes, and had been piling on the pressure ever since—demanding they come back at once and submit to the higher-ups' so-called "authority."
But Satoru Gojo, Suguru Geto, and Mahiru—each more of a hardhead than the last—naturally paid the higher-ups no mind.
"No need to bother with those old geezers," Satoru Gojo said, digging at his ear. "They're nothing."
"Miss Kuroi, don't worry," Suguru Geto said, offering comfort with a smile. "That crowd up top has always been stubborn and hidebound—"
"If you ask me, those old codgers should've stepped down ages ago." Satoru Gojo sprawled in his chair with one leg crossed over the other, loudly venting his frustration. "Talk jujutsu, they've got no jujutsu. Talk brains, their brains are pitiful. What gives them the right to run things?"
"Because power isn't something you can sort out so simply," Suguru Geto said with a smile. "Still, ten years from now, things should have changed."
"Ten years from now?" Satoru Gojo blinked.
He glanced at Geto, then at Mahiru, and smiled knowingly.
"You're right. By then, it'll be our strongest trio in the jujutsu world remaking the jujutsu world."
"That's right." Mahiru rested her cheek in her palm with a smile. "More and more excellent new Jujutsu Sorcerers will keep appearing. And by then, as their teachers, you two will have to be both father and mother to them."
"Hey, don't try to write yourself out of this." Satoru Gojo pointed at Mahiru. "The strongest trio I'm talking about is the three of us. Don't tell me you're planning to slack off."
The group traded another smile.
Still, speaking of the higher-ups…
As the subject came to a close, Suguru Geto, Mahiru, and Satoru Gojo all fell into an unspoken, knowing silence.
Almost by reflex, they exchanged glances.
Clearly, they all knew exactly what the others had on their minds.
"But there's one problem," Suguru Geto said, breaking the silence first. "It's about Riko-chan assimilating with Tengen."
"Mm," Mahiru answered.
"As things stand, Riko-chan's own wish is to assimilate with Tengen—right?"
"That's right," Mahiru said.
"After all, the kid's a bit of an idiot." Satoru Gojo, still sprawled in his chair, heaved a big sigh.
"But if, when the time comes, Riko-chan doesn't want to assimilate with Tengen, then what would you two choose?" Suguru Geto asked.
Mahiru propped her cheek on her hand and let out a soft snort of laughter, her eyes curving. "Do you even need to ask that?"
"Then she doesn't assimilate, simple as that." Satoru Gojo's tone was easy and unbothered. "Going to war with Tengen, going to war with Jujutsu High… I couldn't care less. We're the strongest, after all."
Hearing his two friends' answers, Suguru Geto let out a relieved laugh. "Then I can rest easy."
"Thank you… all of you…" Off to the side, Kuroi buried her face in her hands and wept.
Right now Riko Amanai truly was still willing to assimilate with Tengen and sacrifice herself.
It was her own wish.
But she was only fourteen. She was still just a child.
After Jujutsu High's long, steady indoctrination with all manner of ideas, Riko Amanai had formed a worldview and an outlook of her own—but it wasn't firm, and it wasn't whole.
Kuroi wasn't good with words, and her classmates understood even less of the situation Riko faced.
She needed other friends to tell her just how precious her life truly was.
And only after that would Mahiru and the others give Riko the chance to choose to live or to die.
By then, if Riko chose to go on living, they would help her live. Because they were already friends.
"Mmh… nom, nom…" The girl sprawled across Mahiru's lap, drooling in her sleep, must have wandered into some lovely dream. "So good… you all eat some too…"
"This kid…" Satoru Gojo cracked up.
Around nine that night, they returned to the hotel.
Satoru Gojo and Suguru Geto shared a room, Riko Amanai and Kuroi shared a room, and Mahiru had a room to herself.
After an hour of washing up, at ten o'clock, Mahiru slipped out of the hotel alone while the others weren't watching. She strolled along the edge of the coastal road, and amid the night wind and the dark she came to a cliff that overlooked the sea.
Here…
"Teacher!" The pink-haired Magical Girl came flying down from the sky and shoved two skewers of little grilled dango into Mahiru's hands. "Teacher, these are delicious!"
Mahiru accepted little Itadori's gift, thanked her, then turned her head—and saw the young woman seated at the cliff's edge.
"Looks like you had a good time," Kenjaku said, watching Mahiru with a smile. "Made some decent friends?"
"Mm. I did."
By now Mahiru was gradually getting too lazy to keep up her old silent, ice-cold persona.
Still, she'd been through so much that Kenjaku found nothing suspicious about the shift in her manner of speaking.
Kenjaku asked, "So what did you call me here for?"
Mahiru stuck out her thumb and jerked it toward some direction behind her. "I've got something to show you. Let's see whether you can figure it out."
Mahiru's current plan had two parts. The first was to kidnap Tengen; the second was to gather as much of the resources and intelligence unique to this world as she could, building up the supplies and information she'd need to fight Sukuna once she returned to the modern world.
The deeper reason Mahiru had brought Riko Amanai to Okinawa—and even summoned Kenjaku here—was to accomplish these two goals.
Okinawa was a region made up of many islands, something like an archipelago. The island where they'd gone sightseeing was fairly well developed, but the one Mahiru took Kenjaku, little Fushiguro, and little Itadori to was another, far less developed island.
They entered the forest and passed through a cave hung with stalactites, and Kenjaku and the two little girls all went briefly still, sensing an uncanny trace of Cursed Energy.
"This trace of Cursed Energy is…?" Kenjaku's gaze flickered. "How strange…"
Strange? Of course it was strange.
Could the Cursed Energy signature of the Culling Game be anything but strange?
The place Mahiru had brought them to was, in fact, another of the Culling Game's [Passages].
Because of Mahiru's various meddling, the structure and form of the modern Culling Game diverged sharply from Kenjaku's original conception.
Still, Kenjaku would most likely be able to recognize this as a system and Barrier akin to the Culling Game she had once envisioned.
As the saying goes, whoever tied the bell to the tiger must be the one to untie it.
In this frantic, every-second-counts phase, Mahiru had no time to pore over the Culling Game's inner workings herself—far simpler to bring in Kenjaku in person to deal with the Culling Game.
Of course, the Kenjaku of this era, upon seeing the masterwork of a future Kenjaku, would without question feel suspicion and hesitation. Which meant Mahiru needed a bit of verbal steering and careful framing here.
"Somewhere beyond this world, there's someone else clinging to the very same dull ideal you already cast aside—and they've already begun to act on it." Mahiru pointed toward the distant Culling Game Passage. "This thing will get in the way of my assimilating the world. Can you make sense of it?"
There was a lot packed into Mahiru's words, and for a moment Kenjaku went still.
"…Hold on," she said. "Let me take a look first."
With that, she walked on ahead. Mahiru and the two girls followed.
Kenjaku made her way down along the limestone cavern.
The deeper they went, the clearer that Cursed Energy became.
At the very bottom lay a small underground lake. At its exact center spun a whirlpool. That was the [Passage].
Compared with the ones normally seen, this one was far smaller.
Kenjaku closed her eyes and quietly traced the threads of that Cursed Energy.
Just as Mahiru had said.
This thing really was cut from the same cloth as the vision she had once conceived—there truly was someone else out there carrying out the very ideal she had originally held.
To say Kenjaku had no interest in this system would be a lie.
But at the same time, having gone through her earlier disenchantment and now this close-up examination, she really did seem to be realizing—this Passage wasn't as fascinating, as entertaining, as she'd imagined.
That's how people are. They'll always chase the unknown out of curiosity. Yet once that unknown is actually set right before them, they tend to think instead: ah, so it's nothing much after all.
That was exactly Kenjaku's state now.
If the one who had made this creation before her were standing at her side right now, she would surely be dying to have a deep conversation with them, dying to understand this creation inside out—and what kind of outcome it would ultimately give rise to.
But right now—sorry.
This thing was getting in the way of her present goal and plan.
"Well?" Mahiru asked from the side. "Can you figure out this thing's structure?"
"I can figure it out," Kenjaku answered with a smile. "But it'll take time."
"How much time?"
"Two or three hours, I'd say."
Mahiru's eyes went wide with mild surprise.
That was much faster than she'd anticipated.
A tremendous help. A glint crossed her eyes. "Oh, right—you know, don't you? Tomorrow, we're supposed to head back to Jujutsu High."
"Hm? Yeah, I heard. What about it? They say the assimilation isn't for another three days, but your trip ends tomorrow and you'll be heading back…" Kenjaku glanced back at Mahiru, then it dawned on her. "Ah—you want me to help you kick up a commotion?"
"Exactly." Mahiru nodded. "Tomorrow night, after we arrive at Jujutsu High, help me stir up a disturbance around Tokyo—just like we planned before."
"In other words…" Kenjaku smiled. "The bigger the commotion, the better."
Mahiru nodded. "Mm."
And so the next day came.
They still had a morning's worth of itinerary, but time slipped by in a flash, and before they knew it they'd played into the afternoon and boarded the flight home.
By the time they landed, it was already dusk.
"Back to Jujutsu High, then?" Satoru Gojo asked.
Riko Amanai nodded. "Mm." The girl had had her fill of fun. It was time to go back and meet her calling.
They took another hour to reach Jujutsu High. The instant he stepped inside the Barrier, Satoru Gojo let out a visible breath of relief.
By now, the sky had darkened as well.
Suguru Geto pointed out Riko's temporary lodging for the next three days. "Over there is the dormitory Jujutsu High has arranged for you and Miss Kuroi…"
The sun sank into the west, carrying off the last of the daylight, as though signaling the final curtain on the whole affair.
But then—
BOOM!!—
Far off, very far off. Just like the surging tide of black Cursed Spirits they'd seen before on the New Shadow Style's turf, out in the distance of Tokyo, toward the suburbs, a tide of Cursed Spirits abruptly surged up once more, a black pillar erupting into the sky.
Both Satoru Gojo and Suguru Geto whipped around, staring that way. Their phones began to ring.
The Assistant Supervisor's voice came over the line, frantic.
"There's been an anomaly out toward the suburbs—we need you two to go help!"
The two boys exchanged a look.
Jujutsu High wanted to send the pair of them on a mission.
Suguru Geto looked at Mahiru. "Mahiru, Satoru and I have to head out on a mission. I'll leave getting Riko-chan back to the dorm to you."
"Sure, go on and don't worry." The blue-haired girl flashed the two of them an OK sign.
Satoru Gojo and Suguru Geto left in a hurry.
In an instant, the air fell much quieter.
"Jujutsu Sorcerers… sure are busy," Riko Amanai sighed, watching the two retreating figures.
"This whole trip, Satoru Gojo never once got to rest, you know," Mahiru said from beside her.
Riko Amanai turned to look at her.
"Because all through this journey, we were constantly on guard against all sorts of assassins." The blue-haired girl explained with a smile. "That guy Satoru Gojo kept his Limitless Cursed Technique defense running the entire time—by now, his mind's probably close to its limit."
Indeed. The young Satoru Gojo couldn't yet keep the Limitless Cursed Technique defense running around the clock, twenty-four hours a day, the way his adult self could.
The Gojo of now had to hold it up on purpose.
These two days of travel had all but drained every scrap of Satoru Gojo's energy.
"So… that's how it was?" Riko Amanai's expression grew moved.
"So, if someone wanted to assassinate you, just now would have been the perfect moment." Mahiru held up a single finger. "But you've entered Jujutsu High's Barrier now. A Jujutsu Sorcerer can't cross the Barrier, so it's impossible for them to assassinate you."
So by all logic, there was no longer anyone who could assassinate Riko Amanai.
—That was what Satoru Gojo believed now. And in the original story, Satoru Gojo had believed the same.
There was nothing wrong with that logic.
But what he didn't know was that this world held a man named Toji Fushiguro. Precisely because he carried no Cursed Energy at all, he could slip across Jujutsu High's Barrier with ease, without a single soul noticing.
So in the original story, Satoru Gojo was ambushed by Toji Fushiguro, and in the end Riko Amanai met a brutal fate.
And this time, by Mahiru's deliberate design, events had unfolded into a situation almost identical to the original.
In the original, because Kuroi had been kidnapped, Gojo was forced to take Riko on a trip. This time, through careful verbal steering, Mahiru had led Riko herself to voice the request: "I want to take a trip to the seaside."
In the original, Gojo let his guard down once inside the Barrier, and that lapse gave Toji Fushiguro his opening. This time, Mahiru had Kenjaku help create a disturbance, drawing Satoru Gojo and Suguru Geto away from Jujutsu High.
So—do you see it now? This was the ideal moment for Toji Fushiguro to assassinate Riko Amanai.
To carry out her plan, Mahiru needed Toji Fushiguro—more than that, she needed Toji Fushiguro's Inverted Spear of Heaven, and she needed Toji Fushiguro to bring the Inverted Spear of Heaven into Jujutsu High.
Because Toji Fushiguro's movements were unpredictable and, thanks to his physical constitution, he was nearly impossible to track by Cursed Energy traces, catching him under ordinary circumstances would be a real headache for Mahiru—to say nothing of then having to find a way to sneak the Inverted Spear of Heaven into Jujutsu High, a whole chain of hassles.
But if it were now—if Toji Fushiguro were to bring the Inverted Spear of Heaven and slip into Jujutsu High to carry out an assassination this very moment—then every problem would resolve itself at a stroke.
And there was no way he wouldn't come.
With Toji Fushiguro's shrewdness, he was certain to aim for precisely this moment to strike.
And so, Mahiru heard the whistle of wind at the back of her head.
And so she knew: the guest she'd been waiting for had arrived.
Squelch—
A long blade ran Mahiru through the chest from behind.
Fresh blood bloomed like a flower.
Riko Amanai's eyes went wide with shock. Before her very eyes, a black-haired man had appeared at some unknown moment behind the blue-haired girl, and had run Mahiru through the chest from behind with a long blade.
Riko Amanai froze, stunned.
She felt drops of blood spatter across her face, warm to the touch.
"…Mahiru!!"
Riko Amanai let out a despairing scream.
____
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