Sendai. A secluded beach.
Suddenly, space was torn cleanly in half, and a door materialized from the rift. The door opened from the outside, and a visibly annoyed Jogo stepped through. Behind him walked Mahito, in exceptionally high spirits, followed by Hanami.
And joining their entourage...
Kinji Hakari. And Kirara Hoshi.
Hakari shaded his eyes with his hand, looking up at the sky, and clicked his tongue.
"This is your secret base? Looks less like a secret hideout and more like some fancy tourist resort. Are we even still in Japan?" he asked.
His body was completely restored, every catastrophic wound completely erased. Immediately following the battle, he had popped his Domain Expansion, allowing his body to regenerate at a visible rate until he was back in perfect condition. He wore his signature fluffy coat over an undershirt, trailing casually behind Mahito.
Kirara Hoshi, however, was entirely focused on her own appearance.
The cheeks that had just been charred, the arm that had been roasted to charcoal, the hair that had burned away...
Everything was completely restored—and not through the physical healing of Reverse Cursed Technique, but through a restoration at the level of the soul. As long as the shape of the soul was maintained, the physical body would automatically mold itself to match.
There wasn't a single burn scar left!
She hadn't understood a single word of Mahito's theoretical explanation, but the results were undeniable. No, she was fully a 'she' now.
Kirara curiously grabbed her own chest, beaming with absolute joy.
She had become a complete woman. From now on, she could walk with her head held high. Medically speaking, she was even capable of bearing children.
Having Kin's children.
*Hehe. Hehehe. Mwehehehehe.*
*Poof.* She felt dizzy, literal steam rising from her head like a blushing manga heroine.
Hakari tried his hardest to ignore it, but couldn't help clicking his tongue loudly.
*Damn it! I thought I was gonna punch Mahito's cursed technique out of him, but the King of Curses ended up punching his cursed technique into me!*
"Of course we're in Japan," Jogo grumbled sourly. "Though none of us actually know the exact coordinates. This place belongs to Kenjaku. To prevent leaks, Kenjaku hasn't told me where this is."
*A secret base only accessible through spatial portals, huh...*
*Well, even if I wanted to find a way to leak this location to Gojo, I couldn't.* Hakari sighed internally. *They're seriously airtight.*
"Kinji Hakari? Kirara Hoshi? Have you two defected as well?" a metallic voice suddenly spoke.
Everyone's attention snapped to the source of the voice. The first thing they saw was Kenjaku, bearing his signature cranial stitches.
He was sitting on a cheap white plastic chair at a white plastic table, a large beach umbrella casting shade over him. Despite sitting on a sunny resort beach, he was still fully dressed in traditional Buddhist monk robes. A monk chilling at a plastic resort table on a private beach—it was quite the surreal painting.
He raised a hand in greeting toward Mahito. "Yo, Mahito. Looks like the plan went off without a hitch. I didn't actually expect you to successfully recruit Hakari and Kirara into your ranks."
Hakari sneered. "I'm just interested in the future the Lord of Curses is painting."
"So you're equal partners then?" Kenjaku asked curiously.
Hakari's face darkened, but he stayed quiet.
Mahito walked over to Kenjaku, looking thoroughly pleased with himself. "They're subordinates. Because I beat him. Though, there are conditions. I promised Hakari I wouldn't make him fight Satoru Gojo, and I won't order them to do anything completely impossible."
It was always impossible to force Hakari to fight Gojo anyway. And having finally acquired such a powerful general, it would be stupid to throw him away on suicide missions. For Mahito's faction...
"...That barely counts as a condition," Kenjaku marveled. "Mahito, you've grown terrifyingly fast. To think even Kinji Hakari is no longer a match for you. I can't even fathom what heights you'll reach in the future."
"Are you scared?" Mahito asked.
"No, I am genuinely delighted," Kenjaku replied.
Because the stronger you get, the easier it is for me to achieve my own goals. Kenjaku beamed warmly.
Mahito stepped beside Kenjaku and looked down at the object resting on the white plastic table.
It was a metallic disc, resembling both gold and wood, roughly the size of a human ear. Carved into its surface was a crude wooden puppet face. A nearly imperceptible trace of cursed energy lingered on it. Having been tutored by Kenjaku, Mahito immediately recognized what it was.
A Cursed Corpse.
Mahito spoke with genuine interest. "This is a remotely operated Cursed Corpse, isn't it? In theory, a puppet master shouldn't be able to operate one from too far away, but I suppose any sorcerer who catches my teacher's eye wouldn't be bound by such trivial limits."
"It's Kokichi Muta," Hakari stepped up, staring down at the metal disc with a mocking smirk. "He's a Kyoto student. A Heavenly Restriction user. Born completely paralyzed, stripped of the right to move freely. In exchange, he gained world-class, ultra-long-range manipulation capabilities and cursed energy reserves that eclipse normal sorcerers."
"I didn't expect you of all people to side with Curses, Kinji Hakari," Kokichi Muta said.
Hakari's eyes flashed, and he shrugged casually. "Man, I've been sick of those conservative geezers for ages. They literally slapped a bounty on my head. Is it really that hard to believe I'd side with the Curses to flip the current Jujutsu world upside down?"
"I heard you highly respect Satoru Gojo," Kokichi pressed.
"You heard the boss a second ago. He promised I wouldn't have to directly fight Gojo." Hakari shrugged again. "Aside from Satoru Gojo, the rest of those old fossils can rot. I wouldn't lose a second of sleep over killing them."
Kokichi bought it. He bought the bullshit completely, because he was fully aware of the bad blood between Hakari and the Kyoto conservatives. Just as Hakari said—he had an active execution warrant on his head. After being pushed that far, did they honestly expect him to roll over like a good little dog?
Hakari's temper was infamous. Siding with Curses was unexpected, but entirely logical for his character.
"What about you, Kokichi?" Hakari stared at the disc, his tone dripping with sarcasm. "I hear you're buddy-buddy with the Kyoto students. You gonna betray them?"
"That is exactly the Binding Vow I intend to make with you," the metallic disc replied. "I will act as your spy and provide you with intelligence—but, you are strictly forbidden from harming the Kyoto students."
"Well, the man himself is here now. You can negotiate with him directly," Kenjaku said, gesturing openly to Mahito.
The wooden face on the disc shifted its gaze to Mahito.
"Where's Dagon?" Mahito asked Kenjaku.
Kenjaku shrugged and pointed toward the ocean. "He prefers the water over land. Probably playing with a school of fish down there right now."
Mahito casually snapped his fingers.
From the empty air, the outline of an object slowly but firmly materialized.
Material: Plastic.
Color: White.
Style: Chair with a backrest.
In an instant, a white plastic chair that perfectly matched the setting dropped securely onto the sand in front of the puppet face. Mahito sat down. A pair of sunglasses had somehow appeared in his hand. He put them on and leaned back in the chair.
The metal disc emitted a slightly trembling mechanical voice. "Was that a Construction technique?"
"I was told your technique wasn't Construction, but healing... No, to be precise—Soul Evolution.
"I anticipated that your abilities might be more comprehensive, perhaps covering the entire domain of the soul. But I never imagined you could utilize abilities outside the realm of the soul.
"Do you possess multiple innate techniques?
"Throughout history, aside from Ryomen Sukuna, is there truly another entity capable of wielding dual techniques?!"
Mahito was genuinely surprised. He slid his sunglasses down the bridge of his nose, peering over the rim at the metal disc with deep interest.
"Very few people know that Ryomen Sukuna possessed two different techniques. Even when I browsed the biographies of famous Jujutsu figures, it wasn't recorded. If my teacher hadn't taught me, I would've assumed it was physically impossible for anyone to possess more than one. Yet, you know this. You didn't just stumble upon this in a textbook; you actively sought it out and asked around. Why are you so interested in Ryomen Sukuna?"
The metal disc didn't answer immediately. Instead, it asked, "One question for one question?"
A Q&A was indeed the optimal way for both parties to read each other. Mahito didn't refuse; he nodded in agreement. "One question for one question."
Kenjaku clapped his hands, adding the stipulations. "If you cannot or choose not to answer, you must respond with silence. If you are guessing or speculating, you must state so beforehand. You may not provide ambiguous answers or use leading rhetoric."
Kokichi said, "A Binding Vow?"
Mahito replied, "A Binding Vow."
"Ending with a final, mutual confirmation to conclude the Q&A. This is the Vow," Kenjaku finalized.
As soon as the words hung in the air, both Kokichi and Mahito felt the distinct, metaphysical weight of the pact settling over them.
The Binding Vow was established!
Witnessing the pact being formed so casually, Hakari's eye twitched.
*What the hell do you guys think Binding Vows are? Some unbreakable corporate contract? Don't underestimate 'Vows'! How many historical masters of Binding Vows died inexplicably because they misjudged the direction of the backlash? Even now, there are countless mysteries surrounding them. Anyone with an ounce of common sense in the Jujutsu world knows the safest way to handle Binding Vows is to avoid using them whenever possible.*
Hakari was right.
Binding Vows were incredibly dangerous tools for sorcerers. Even in the original story, their usage was exceedingly rare. Kenjaku was the most infamous practitioner of them. Over a thousand years, he had forged an unimaginable number of Vows, suffering virtually zero backlash. If his methods were made public, it would trigger a massive academic earthquake in the Jujutsu world.
His secret to manipulating Binding Vows boiled down to a single principle—
"Sincerity," Kenjaku said, holding up a single finger. "Binding Vows are terrifying things. But if you look deeper, you realize that the Vow itself isn't terrifying—it's the two parties making it. Ultimately, a self-imposed Vow is different from a Vow with another person. If you break a self-imposed Vow, the worst that happens is you lose whatever power you gained. But if you break a Vow with another person, heaven only knows how it will exact the toll."
Hakari was dumbfounded. "So you know all that, yet you still..."
"That penalty only occurs when one of the parties enters the agreement with malicious intent," Kenjaku said, withdrawing his finger and tucking his hands into his wide sleeves, smiling warmly. "If both parties are completely sincere about the Vow, then the Vow acts merely as a reminder. Those historical masters you mentioned who suffered the backlash of their Vows? At the end of the day, it was because they arrogantly believed they could play word games and exploit loopholes within the Vow's structure. They lost their reverence and sincerity toward the other party, and they reaped what they sowed."
There exists a traditional contract known as a "Gentleman's Agreement."
This Gentleman's Agreement requires no written documentation, no witnesses, and exacts no collateral. When two 'gentlemen' strike this pact, it is conceptually impossible for them to break it.
Because at the moment of the agreement, both parties possess absolute faith that the other will not break it, and absolute conviction that they themselves will not break it. Staking their personal honor, both parties recognize the contract as absolute.
This type of Binding Vow was a 'Gentleman's Agreement.'
As long as both bound parties genuinely intended to fulfill the contract, actively worked toward it, and refrained from pulling any tricks or playing word games, the 'Binding Vow' would exact zero penalties.
This was the optimal application of Binding Vows, and the fundamental reason why Kenjaku had never suffered a Vow's backlash in over a thousand years.
Sincerity was the ultimate solution to 'Binding Vows.' Just like the 'Vow' they had just made.
Both Kokichi and Mahito genuinely wished to use this Q&A to better understand each other. They both mentally committed to not using manipulative rhetoric or obscuring the truth during the exchange. They needed a trustworthy Gentleman's Agreement to facilitate their mutual probing.
Thus, both their stances and intentions were perfectly aligned.
This was the most flawless form of a Binding Vow, one devoid of any potential penalty. Kenjaku's explanation was both a clarification and a threat.
A Binding Vow is only perfect when both parties are 'sincere.' If either party harbors ulterior motives, the Vow will inflict unknown damage on both. Mahito's side was obviously genuine; if something went wrong, the fault would lie entirely with Kokichi.
Kokichi understood the warning. The puppet face's mouth opened, emitting a metallic voice: "Strictly speaking, I am the one asking for a favor here. I will, of course, honor the Vow."
Mahito nodded slightly. "To show my sincerity, Muta-san, you may ask the first question."
*Snap.*
Mahito snapped his fingers again.
Around the white plastic table, four more chairs materialized.
Jogo and Hanami naturally claimed two of them. Hakari hesitated for a moment before sitting in the third.
Only after Hakari sat down did Kirara finally take the last remaining seat.
At this point, aside from Dagon playing in the ocean, Mahito's entire faction was seated, clearly deferring to Mahito as their leader. The full might of the King of Curses was laid bare before Kokichi, and a sudden, crushing weight settled in his chest.
Special Grade Curse User, Suguru Geto.
Intelligent Special Grade Curses: Jogo, Hanami, Dagon.
The uncrowned Special Grade Sorcerer, Kinji Hakari.
The rare spatial sorcerer, Kirara Hoshi.
And—
The King of Curses, Mahito.
It was no exaggeration to say that, excluding Satoru Gojo, no individual or faction in the entire Jujutsu world could withstand this lineup. Kokichi took a silent breath and officially began the Q&A.
"Then I will cut straight to the chase," the metallic puppet declared solemnly. He didn't ask about healing his Heavenly Restriction, nor did he ask for a guarantee about his Kyoto classmates. He didn't even follow up on his earlier question regarding the 'Dual Innate Techniques.'
He asked: "King of Curses, what is your ultimate goal?"