The unit members flanking Noburo Zen'in stumbled back in large strides. Soon, everyone had retreated to a safe distance, parting like the Red Sea. For his first murder, Mahito surprisingly felt nothing at all.
He only felt an extraordinarily acute state of clarity. The roar of the heavy raindrops hammering against his sedge hat was deafening, yet his heart harbored not a shred of agitation. He quietly observed the rain-soaked world, visualizing the legendary sword saints who killed amidst downpours. He gripped the divine blade with one hand. Before the fight, Kirigiri had hummed with anticipation, but now she was as silent as falling snow, reflecting an astonishing silver gleam through the storm.
Mahito took a single step forward. He had just slaughtered their captain, yet right now, not a single unit member showed a trace of anger—only sheer, unadulterated terror. As Mahito took his step, the entire formation involuntarily shrank back half a pace.
"Eeeaaargh!" Someone finally broke under the crushing pressure, letting out a grotesque shriek.
That shriek seemed to snap the others out of their trance. Every Kukuru Unit member jolted awake as if waking from a nightmare. As one, they raised their swords and roared simultaneously. The drumming of the rain was instantly banished by the collective war cry of the unit, their expressions twisting from horror into pure, raw fury.
A forest of blades. The unit charged as one!
Mahito felt no fear. He sprinted straight into the teeth of the Kukuru Unit. —Tool Manipulation!
This was a technique that allowed free control over Tsukumogami (artifact spirits) and maximized their innate abilities. Every Tsukumogami possessed its own unique power. Kirigiri was no exception. Cultivated personally by Mahito, she had recorded all his desires regarding swords. Her ability finally bloomed in this moment, its name—
Mid-sprint, Mahito suddenly vaulted into the air, crashing directly into the center of the Kukuru formation. He unleashed a sweeping slash. The unit members raised their swords to block in unison. In the next instant, half of their bodies were cleanly cleaved away, along with their swords. Man and blade, bisected alike!
—[Cleaving Line].
All slashing weapons rely on finding the 'cleaving line.' Only a swordsman who can perfectly strike a target's cleaving line can be considered a true grandmaster. Kirigiri's ability was to physically imprint this cleaving line onto any object within her striking range. Then, as long as the blade followed the line, no matter how indestructible the object, it would be sliced perfectly in two.
All techniques are void; one strike to sever all!
This was the gift Mahito had prepared for Satoru Gojo. It was an inspiration drawn directly from Ryomen Sukuna. Sukuna's spatial dismantle—expanding the target of his cursed technique to sever Gojo's Limitless—proved that a similar slashing attack could bypass Gojo's defenses.
Mirokuji Kirigiri was designed specifically with this in mind.
Mahito kicked away the bisected corpse in front of him, sending the bloody chunks flying into the members behind him. He spun and slashed again. A flanking member's blade was practically inches from Mahito's face, but before it could connect, Kirigiri had already split the top half of his skull open. The torrential rain poured down, smashing his exposed brain to mush.
He had barely killed two before the rest of the unit finally closed the distance. Faces twisted in fury, roaring wildly, they brought their longswords down simultaneously. For a split second, a wall of silver steel flashed through the curtain of rain.
Suddenly, Mahito vanished from their line of sight. Then, an agonizing burst of pain erupted from their thighs.
Mahito had dropped his center of gravity completely to the floor, moving close to the ground like Himura Kenshin. Kirigiri swept out in a wide arc following his wingspan. Every single unit member surrounding Mahito had their legs cleanly severed in half. A bolt of lightning flashed across the sky, illuminating the grotesque sight of the legless members writhing on the flooded courtyard, their wails echoing like weeping ghosts.
Mahito felt a sudden chill. He rolled across the ground as a spear materialized right behind him, aggressively pursuing his rolling form. He brought Kirigiri up to parry. The spear clashed against Kirigiri with a deafening screech of metal. Kirigiri's ability activated. A cleaving line appeared on the spearhead, and in the next heartbeat, the spear was severed in two.
The assault immediately halted. The others had tried to use the opening to swarm him, but Kirigiri spun out of Mahito's grip. The legs of several members trying to sneak-attack him were sliced in two, and they collapsed right in front of Mahito. He didn't even bother using Kirigiri. He drove a bare fist straight into one of their skulls, smashing his head like a rotten melon.
Mahito rose from the ground and noticed a spearman staring blankly at his broken weapon, seemingly incapable of processing how it had been cut. It must have been a cursed tool; lingering traces of cursed energy radiated from it. It was likely a treasured artifact meticulously maintained by the spearman, yet under Kirigiri's edge, it had been cleaved like butter.
In a flash, Kirigiri severed the spearman's head. His expression of disbelief froze on his face as his head slowly tipped off his shoulders. Blood geysered from the side of his neck, mixing with the torrential rain. The spearman fell to his knees, his hands locked in a death grip around the broken shaft, refusing to let go even in death.
In the original work, not a single Kukuru Unit member used a spear. Even the captain used a longsword. This spearman was entirely outside Mahito's expectations.
"That odachi in his hands ignores all defenses! It doesn't matter if you reinforce with cursed energy or rely on cursed tool specs—do NOT let it touch you!" someone bellowed, snapping the remaining members back to reality.
It seemed that cursed spear was famous for its defensive properties. That was why the spearman had clashed with Kirigiri so confidently, only to be effortlessly bisected. The warning made the rest of the unit hyper-vigilant. Nobody would dare lock blades with Kirigiri again.
"Not 'it,' but 'her,'" Mahito said, holding Kirigiri horizontally across his chest. In the driving rain, Kirigiri pulsed with a faint silver light, reflecting the blood, the storm, and the thunder dragons writhing in the sky.
"The Divine Blade, Mirokuji Kirigiri." Mahito swung Kirigiri down with a violent snap, cleanly parting the curtain of rain. "A pleasure to meet you!"
Mahito crashed into the mob once again amidst the downpour. This time, everyone was prepared. Not a single person dared to block Kirigiri. They were all masters of physical combat, having honed their bodies and swordsmanship since childhood. In close-quarters melee, they were confident they wouldn't give Mahito another opening.
Mahito swung upward, but this time Kirigiri hit nothing but air. Every unit member in the blade's path had consciously split into two groups, launching a pincer attack from both sides. Mahito's previous momentum was spent, and his next strike hadn't begun—it was the perfect window to kill him. But to their absolute horror, Kirigiri instantly materialized right in front of their faces.
"Wha—!"
Someone reacted and tried to dodge, but Kirigiri's reach was simply too long. It carved right through his torso. The exposed bone and gore were instantly washed by the deluge. Holding the blade with both hands, Mahito unleashed a full-circle spin. The members flanking him didn't even have time to register what happened before they were sliced in two.
Mahito stepped forward, accompanied by blood and meat, wind and rain.
He pulled his sedge hat lower. Fountains of blood and chunks of flesh splattered onto the straw, immediately washed away by the heavy rain, leaving behind only the lingering metallic stench of iron.
Every member who charged him was met perfectly by the arc of his blade. The silver flashes danced sporadically in the wind and rain. These veteran fighters were throwing their lives away without a shred of resistance. Mahito tore through their ranks like a force of nature, and not a single one could slow him down.
Mahito's movements completely defied human biomechanics and ignored all fundamental principles of swordsmanship. If a kendo master saw his technique, they would point at his nose and scream in outrage. Yet, it was this exact 'technique' that allowed him to play a one-man army against the melee specialists of the Kukuru Unit.
Finally, one member realized the truth: "That sword in his hands... it's not a cursed tool! It's a Tsukumogami!"
The application of cursed tools and Tsukumogami were fundamentally opposite. Cursed tools possessed various abilities, but they were ultimately tools meant to assist the user; their output was bottlenecked by the user's skill and strength. A Tsukumogami, however, possessed its own sentience and power. As long as the user could draw out its potential, they could completely surrender the steering wheel to the spirit.
That was exactly what Mahito was doing. He used Idle Transfiguration to maintain the shape of his soul, meaning no matter how aggressively he moved in anti-intuitive, joint-breaking ways, his body would never tear itself apart. Kirigiri was leading Mahito. Every movement was dictated by the blade; Mahito was merely the anchor.
The Kukuru Unit had misjudged him from the very first second!
"Too late," Mahito sighed softly.
Kirigiri spun wildly in the torrential rain, her silver glow bleeding out through the deluge. Mahito followed the sword's lead, as if engaged in a morbid waltz. Never before had he felt Kirigiri's breathing so clearly. She exuded a chilling, spine-tingling beauty that captivated the soul.
In the beginning, Mahito was nothing but a sword rack. But immersed in this slaughter, he was adapting at a terrifying pace. He easily kept up with Kirigiri's tempo and began to actively coordinate with her. He and she strolled casually through the rain. The Kukuru Unit never took a step back; they threw themselves into the meat grinder wave after wave, only to be left with razor-thin, fatal lacerations.
These hardened veterans looked like cannon fodder in a cheap samurai flick. The swordmaster strolled past, and the fodder fell like harvested wheat. None of them bore deep, gaping wounds. Every time the master struck, the very tip of the blade merely brushed across their vital arteries. For a fragile human body, a wound that shallow was more than enough to kill.
Kirigiri, holding the 'Cleaving Line,' was slowly realizing this truth through live combat.
It wasn't just Mahito; Kirigiri was growing too. Never before had a Tsukumogami like her existed in the world. Even the broom Tsukumogami wielded by Momo Nishimiya lacked this level of profound sentience. But this ancient blade was exhibiting everything a newborn life should. She was curious. She was learning. She was evolving.
Mahito was certain this wasn't solely due to his Soul Creation. The blade's base material was a massive factor. As an exquisite replica of the legendary Futsu-no-Mitama—a blade nearly buried by the dust of history—her age eclipsed that of any other Japanese sword. Her sheer antiquity gave her the unparalleled potential to become a Tsukumogami. And now, in this crucible of slaughter, she would finally bloom, baptizing herself in blood.
The shrieks of the Kukuru Unit grew increasingly shrill; Mahito met them with dead silence.
He swung his blade through the storm, the silver flashes spraying recklessly. He walked in absolute silence. Initially, he had to keep his stance low, sprint across the ground, and actively dodge. But as the seconds ticked by, he stopped dodging entirely.
He was simply taking a stroll, accompanied only by the flash of his blade.
Kirigiri suddenly let out a soft hum. Her silver glow drew a flawless, mesmerizing arc through the curtain of rain. Mahito felt it—he was in perfect sync. Having zero prior experience wielding a sword, he executed an immaculate slash in that exact moment. Kirigiri's cursed technique didn't even trigger, yet Mahito felt it all: the grain of the muscle, the joints of the bone, the gaps between the organs. Kirigiri traced the cleaving line of the human body and slid through effortlessly. The man fell cleanly into two halves.
Mahito and Kirigiri were evolving together at a pace visible to the naked eye!
He and she swung the blade with wild abandon through the downpour, churning the wind and rain outward as if he were wreathed in a cyclone of mist. Kirigiri darted through the haze like a swimming fish. There truly was a silver fish weaving through the tempest—it was the tip of Kirigiri's blade, moving in tandem with Mahito's footwork.
And there truly was mist—a mist of blood. And there truly was the flash of a blade, slicing that blood mist cleanly in two.
Mahito hadn't lied; they had realized the truth far too late. If the unit had known from the start that Kirigiri was a Tsukumogami, and that Mahito's fighting style was 'the man follows the sword,' they would have devised a countermeasure. But now, the window was shut. In that brief, initial clash, they had missed their only opening. In the short time since, both Mahito and Kirigiri had evolved beyond their reach. The unit had lost their chance forever.
Screaming like banshees, the men raised their swords high and rushed him, only for their screams to die in their throats a second later. Mahito brushed past them. A hairline laceration, thin as a thread of death, appeared across their bodies. A heartbeat later, they dropped dead without a sound, the stench of their blood violently suppressed by the pounding rain.
Finally, a Gatotsu thrust.
Without warning, Kirigiri slammed into the chest of a unit member. The tip pierced straight through his heart and burst out of his back. Mahito casually wrenched the blade upward, bisecting the man's torso. He collapsed to his knees, his head slumped forward as if in deep prayer.
The very last member of the Kukuru Unit was still mid-charge when he suddenly realized he was the only one left. He stared at Mahito, violently hurled his sword to the ground, and let out a broken, sanity-shattering scream.
Screaming at the top of his lungs, he turned and sprinted back. But just as he crossed the threshold of the Zen'in gates, a massive hand made of solid stone erupted from the ground and clamped around him. Before the fleeing man could even shriek, the stone fingers crushed inward, popping him like a blood blister. Gore and viscera squeezed out from between the stone fingers, washing down under the heavy rain like a grotesque parody of Buddha's Lotus Mudra.
"Utter trash. You couldn't even force him to reveal his Cursed Technique, and you dared to turn tail and run? Have you no shame?!" a raspy, ancient voice bellowed in fury.
It was true—they had served no purpose. From start to finish, Mahito had only used two techniques. Initially, he used Boogie Woogie because he assumed the entire Zen'in clan would swarm him at once; he needed to thin their numbers rapidly and isolate the biggest threats. But to his surprise, only the Kukuru Unit was sent out. The true elites of the Zen'in family hadn't lifted a finger.
It was a classic ancient military tactic: send the penal battalions in first to die, while the elite troops rested in the rear. Only when the fodder had exhausted the enemy and revealed their capabilities would the elites take the field.
Mahito realized immediately that the Hei were using the Kukuru Unit's lives to gauge his abilities. Knowing this, Mahito obviously wasn't going to show his full hand. He had instantly deactivated Love Rendezvous and relied purely on Tool Manipulation to slaughter them.
And now, the true elites of the Zen'in clan had finally appeared.
The Hei had been standing inside the courtyard the entire time. They had watched Mahito butcher the Kukuru Unit man by man, completely unmoved. Their sharp eyes tracked his every twitch, analyzing his movements, hoarding every scrap of intelligence they could glean.
Mahito flicked his sword. Not a single drop of blood clung to Kirigiri's steel. She was as blindingly silver as ever, washed clean by the rain like a maiden fresh from the bath. Mahito straightened his posture and rested Kirigiri against his shoulder. The blade faced upward, the unsharpened spine resting on his collarbone. The two-meter-long odachi sat across his shoulder like a polearm. Beneath his sedge hat, he stood casually in the torrential rain. Thunder ripped across the sky. His heterochromatic eyes had begun to glow at some point, flickering ominously through the curtain of rain.
An old man stood in the center of the courtyard, his hands locked in a hand sign. When he looked at Mahito, his shoulders twitched slightly, but then he roared with the ferocity of a wounded beast:
"This child's play of crossing swords is over, Curse!"
"Zen'in Clan Hei Member." Chojuro Zen'in.
"Sorcerers without techniques are ultimately just trash. Allow this old man to teach you the true cruelty of the Jujutsu world!"