I was getting used to my body.
Sailing through the air, hundreds of feet above the ground, the sensation was almost unreal, because I could feel everything. The wind pressure, telling me the way the wind was blowing. The glow of the moon casting my shadow across the city. The thudding hearts that my passengers carried in their chests as I once more landed on top of a skyscraper, uncaring of the collateral damage. Again, I hurled myself forward, obliterating the first two floors of the building behind me.
I was strong. The concept of strength was a curious one. In my past life, I had not exactly been weak. I'd gotten into more than my fair share of squabbles as a teen and had come out on top more than once, yet there was something so viscerally different between the two bodies. The strength of my limbs, for example. I already knew Mahoraga was powerful. I'd watched him fight Sukuna and saw the damage they brought to the city from a front row seat, and yet piloting the body truly put things to scale for the first time.
My fight against the transfigured humans had been my first test of my capabilities. Unfortunately, the gap between the transfigured humans and Mahoraga was so large that I could not gauge just how powerful I was. A Polymorphic Soul Isomer should prove a better challenge and let me know where I stood better, but that was dependent on finding Mahito first and scaring him enough to pull that out.
There were other enemies I could challenge to test myself without going straight to Jujutsu Satan. Kenjaku was somewhere here. He should still be protecting the Prison Realm that was adjusting to Gojo Satoru, which meant he was somewhere beneath me. Unfortunately, those two were the only real threats that could face me for now, and that was because I'd not decided on a counter for their domain expansions yet.
Hanami was dead, as was Jogo. The rogue curse users should have been rounded up in total by now, while Mei Mei should have put an axe through the smallpox deity too. Considering Megumi was here, Toji should have also committed suicide, which brought down my list of viable opponents to a measly three.
"Down there!" My second passenger yelled as he pointed to the ground ahead of us.
The building was old, even in the darkness of the night and barely lit by stubborn street lamps that refused to die in the face of the calamity happening in the district. The building was also surrounded by cursed corpses. There were at least eight of them, and they all turned at once, with strange synchrony, to me, even though I was still hundreds of feet in the air.
Principal Yaga.
It made sense. The higher ups of Jujutsu society were stupid, but you did not need a noteworthy IQ to know that your healers should not be left undefended. My grin widened as I began my descent. I almost overshot and crashed straight into the roof of the building, but I wanted to avoid killing Shoko and Yaga, which meant I had to change direction. Angling my body sharper, my descent tilted as I slammed into the courtyard in front of the building.
The ground beneath me cracked, stone and debris turning into fine sand as the following shockwave blasted forth, sending everything away and revealing my form. My skin was pristine white again. The blood that had stuck to me had been shrugged off due to the sheer speed I'd been moving with.
I took a step out of the crater I found myself in, idly noting that I was going to have to control my strength better. Destroying everything in sight every time I jumped was going to get annoying fast, for others at least. On my third step out of the crater, my wings twitched, and I bared my teeth in response. I flung my passengers upward at once, and a second later, three cursed corpses burst out of the dust cloud I'd thrown up.
The first was built like a rhino and led the charge from the front. Its footsteps matched my own as it cratered the ground with its charge. A flick of my wrist sent the extermination blade back into the shaft. It would be useless here, and I did not need to kill the cursed corpses. I blurred into motion and met it midway.
My left hand snapped up and caught it by the horn, my palm flesh digging into the surprisingly hard material, cursed energy reinforcing the doll. Then I dug my feet into the ground, halting its charge and forcing the puppet to come to a painful halt. My second foot shot out to better brace myself before my free hand lashed out, burying a disastrous haymaker into the side of the puppet's head, enough to completely rip it off and send it flying.
The cursed corpse stood still for a second, confusion fueling it, but the remaining two were already moving. If they were surprised by how quickly I had dispatched their leader, they did not show it. I tilted my frame to the side, dodging the second cursed corpse shaped like a four armed monkey, then my hand shot out and grabbed it by the tail. I spun on the spot at once and used the screeching cursed corpse to whip the third and final opponent into the ground in a single blow.
Before any of them could recover, I stomped down hard on their forms, burying them further into the ground, just in time for my hands to snap out and catch Megumi and the second man. Fushiguro glared at me from an awkward position as I held him dangling from a single leg, while the second man looked like he had been knocked unconscious.
"Be more gentle, you bastard."
I dropped the obnoxious boy in response, and he must have learned from the last time because he was smart enough to land and brace himself with his hands first. He staggered his way to his feet and braced against my form before looking up at me, and I could see the beginning of a tirade forming until the doors to the building before us opened and a solidly built man stepped out. His clothes matched Megumi's dark blue, and his eyes were hidden by dark shades.
Principal Yaga stepped out of the building ready for a fight, his knuckle dusters in hand and five, no, six extra cursed corpses of different sizes and shapes surrounding him. Then he stopped at the scene before him. I could not tell what was running through his head, so I simply dropped the second man and nudged Megumi.
"Fushiguro san? Is that really you?"
Megumi gave me a half hearted glance for a second before he turned back to the principal and gave a nod. "It's me, Principal. I need to see Ieiri san." He finished, gesturing to his pale features and the hole in his stomach.
__
Megumi
The silence in the emergency ward was thick with tension, and it was only partially due to the white behemoth half hidden in the corner of the room.
Shoko worked with practiced skill, her hands glowing with the soft green light of reverse cursed technique as she moved them over Megumi's torso. Healing others with reverse cursed technique was slower than healing yourself. Still, Shoko was not called the best healer for nothing. The worst of his injuries, the puncture wounds that had been leaking blood at an alarming rate, closed first. Then came the broken ribs, the internal bleeding, the countless bruises that painted his skin in shades of purple and black.
It was quick and painful and felt like fire ants were crawling beneath his skin, rebuilding tissue that had been torn apart. Megumi gritted his teeth and endured it, because the alternative was bleeding out, and he'd already come far too close to that tonight.
The room itself was small and was lit by a single flickering light overhead that cast weak shadows across the room. The bed he lay on smelled of antiseptic and blood, both his own and from the dozen other injured sorcerers who had been evacuated the moment Mahoraga landed in the courtyard.
Outside, Megumi could hear the low murmur of voices. Sorcerers who had been pulled back from the front lines, some wounded, others simply exhausted. They had scattered the moment Mahoraga appeared bearing them. Apparently, the principal had begun evacuating them, including Ieiri, while he had stepped forward to sell his life dearly if needed.
Fortunately, there had been no need.
Unfortunately, that meant Mahoraga was still here.
The shikigami remained in the corner of the room, motionless as a statue. The visible part of his pale white form almost glowed in the dim light, while the rest was hidden in the darkness. His massive frame took up far too much space, those broad shoulders nearly touching both walls. Mahoraga was a strange shikigami, considering the wheel and the tail at the back of his head, but it was the wings that unnerved everyone the most.
The four appendages, where eyes should be fluttered occasionally, twitching in response to sounds or movements. You could not tell who Mahoraga was looking at. The shikigami could be staring at you, or past you, or at nothing at all. That uncertainty created a constant pressure at the back of Megumi's neck, an animal awareness that something dangerous was watching.
Shoko had not said a word since she started healing him, but Megumi could see the tension in her shoulders, the way her jaw clenched every time Mahoraga shifted his weight. Principal Yaga stood near the door, arms crossed, his cursed corpses dismissed but his knuckle dusters still on. The man's face was unreadable behind those dark shades, but his posture screamed wariness.
They did not know of Mahoraga. The principal was vaguely aware he had a powerful shikigami in storage, but other than the Zenin, the only other people aware of the Divine General were the Gojo. Yet even without any knowledge of the pale shikigami, his presence alone was enough to put everyone on edge.
The quiet stretched on until finally Shoko pulled her hands back and let out a long breath. "You'll be fine, kid. I've taken care of the worst of it. You'll need rest and some real food, but you won't die. You definitely came out of this better than that classmate of yours. What was her name? Maki."
Megumi blinked in surprise. Maki was here? The last time he saw her, they had just escaped Dagon's domain.
Shoko slipped out a stick of cigarette from her overall, her dark brown eyes questing for a lighter when they stumbled upon Mahoraga again. The healer flinched before scowling as she glanced back to Megumi.
"Can you desummon your shikigami now? He freaks me out."
Megumi shifted his focus. If Maki was here, then whatever injury she had must have been healed by Shoko already. He flexed his fingers, testing his newly healed body. The pain was still there and would likely take minutes or hours to fully fade, but he could move without feeling like his ribs were going to puncture his lungs. So he sat up slowly, swung his legs off the cot, and met Shoko's eyes.
"I can't."
Her expression did not change, but annoyance flickered in her gaze. "Why not?"
"Because I don't control him," Megumi kept his voice level. "The ritual I used to summon him was one of subjugation, and it hasn't been completed."
"What are the conditions?" Yaga asked from his position by the doorway.
"I need to beat him, or he needs to kill me. As long as those conditions aren't met, he stays."
"And if you dismiss the technique anyway?" Yaga continued.
Megumi turned to face the principal. "I don't know. The records don't say, but I don't think it's possible, not without completing the ritual at least."
The principal's jaw tightened, but he nodded. "Then we work around it. If he hasn't attacked you by now, he's probably not going to attack you anytime soon. I was worried he'd attack after your healing, but he's been content to remain standing there. Now onto important matters. Fushiguro, I need you to listen carefully. Nanami is missing."
Megumi straightened, ignoring the protest from his still healing muscles.
"Gojo Satoru has not been sighted since, so we can only assume he hasn't been recovered from the Prison Realm yet," Yaga continued, his voice grim. "We don't know the exact location of this new enemy that managed to trap him, but he's had time to let it adjust to Gojo's presence. If we don't retrieve it soon, we may lose our chance entirely."
Megumi listened in silence.
"We need to mobilize. A vast majority of the civilians have luckily been evacuated," Yaga continued. "Now's the time to gather what sorcerers we can, locate Satoru, and release him. Every moment we waste is..."
"We need to find Itadori first."
Both Yaga and Shoko turned to stare at Megumi.
"Itadori Yuji?" the principal began in a neutral tone. "I understand you have a personal connection to the boy, Fushiguro, but..."
"It's not about that," Megumi cut him off, his mind racing. "Sukuna is back. I'm sure we all felt it. Itadori has the ability to suppress the King of Curses, so if for some reason Itadori is the one being suppressed now, we need to find him and return him back to normal. Sukuna is the more important threat."
"And how do you expect us to face an incarnated King of Curses without the man that serves as the cornerstone of modern day Jujutsu sorcerers?" Shoko interjected into the conversation, sending Megumi a half-lidded stare. "I understand you, kid, believe me, I do, but retrieving Satoru first would be easier than facing down Sukuna without him."
Megumi wanted to argue otherwise, but the words got stuck in his throat. Logically, he knew they were correct, and yet...
The previous silence returned, and this time it stretched between them.
Then Mahoraga moved.
The shikigami had been forgotten in the debate. He had been so still for so long that when he shifted, everyone flinched in response. That massive frame unfolded as it stepped fully out of the darkness, one foot stepping forward, then another. The floorboards creaked under his weight, and the entire building seemed to groan in protest.
Megumi's heart hammered in his chest. "Mahoraga?"
The shikigami didn't respond, didn't even look back. He simply walked, slow and deliberate, each step measured. His wings fluttered, the tail swayed, and that wheel above his head vibrated like it could sense something the rest of them couldn't.
"Where is he going?" Shoko asked.
Megumi didn't have an answer for her, so he pushed himself off the cot, ignoring the protest from his body, and followed. Behind him, he heard Yaga and Shoko fall into step.
Mahoraga walked through the hallways of the small building like he owned it. The few sorcerers mobile enough to move pressed themselves against the walls, eyes wide and their cursed energy flickering weakly around them as the shikigami passed.
Then they reached the entrance of the building.
Mahoraga stopped in the doorway, his frame blocking most of the view outside. For a long moment, he simply stood there, wings twitching, tail swaying. Then, slowly, he stepped forward and out of the building.
Megumi moved forward, Yaga and Shoko flanking him, and looked out into the courtyard.
His eyes widened because standing in the center of the ruined courtyard, illuminated by the pale moonlight and the distant glow of fires, was a familiar figure. Pink hair. A lean, athletic build. But the way he stood, the casual arrogance in his posture, the four eyes looking back at them told him a simple truth. That wasn't Itadori Yuji.
The King of Curses tilted his head to the side, a sharp smile spreading across his face. When he spoke, his voice carried across the distance, clear and mocking.
"Well, well. Look what crawled out of the shadows."
Megumi's hand moved instinctively to form hand signs, but Mahoraga raised a hand, and the motion stopped him cold. Then the shikigami took one step forward, then another, moving with that same deliberate slowness until he stood fully in the courtyard, four meters away from the strongest sorcerer in history.
"Finally," the King of Curses said, spreading his arms wide in welcome. "I was beginning to think you'd keep running away, Megumi Fushiguro, and this must be him. That sense of danger I'd felt. Oh, truly, what joy it is to experience this all once more."