Mahito stared at the woman before him.
She lay on the hospital bed with her eyes tightly shut, her long black hair fanned out across the pillow. It was high noon, and the sunlight from the window washed over her face. Her features seemed frozen in time; she was a high school student when she lost consciousness, and though three years had passed, her face still looked exactly as it did back then.
Mahito glanced down at the medical chart. The name written on it was: [Tsumiki Fushiguro].
Kenjaku looked at her and smiled. "Excellent. It seems the Incarnation ritual I set up hasn't been tampered with... Makes sense. In this world, unless Tengen intervened personally, I doubt anyone else could have noticed it."
"A barrier has been placed on her body. Someone must be protecting her remotely. If we dispel the barrier, the caster will immediately know something has happened here. I'm not sure who set it up, but the worst-case scenario is that Satoru Gojo placed it himself.
"After all, with Gojo's mother-hen personality, it's entirely possible he set the barrier personally to give his student peace of mind," Kenjaku explained with a chuckle. He reached out and gently brushed the woman's forehead, revealing a specific Cursed Energy marking.
"My task is complete." Kenjaku made an inviting gesture. "Mahito, the rest is up to you."
Mahito gently touched Tsumiki Fushiguro's forehead and activated his technique: —Idle Transfiguration.
Suddenly, Tsumiki's eyelids began to twitch, and the heart monitor beside her started to beep rapidly. Kenjaku casually reached over to the monitor; a silent pulse of Cursed Energy was discharged, and the beeping ceased.
The Cursed Energy marking on Tsumiki's forehead vanished like a wisp of smoke.
Kenjaku's eyes widened slightly, staring unblinkingly at the scene unfolding before him. This was exactly the ability he had been anticipating.
Granting an incarnated vessel a flawless resurrection—this was something even Kenjaku himself couldn't achieve. In the original timeline, only Mahito possessed this capability. Before this, chosen vessels could only undergo a slow, three-year continuous modification process, until Kenjaku backstabbed Mahito, absorbed his technique, and awakened all the souls inside the vessels simultaneously.
But now, Mahito possessed an Idle Transfiguration far stronger than his original canon counterpart. He would only do it better.
Tsumiki Fushiguro slowly opened her eyes, staring blankly ahead. Mahito retracted his hand, furrowing his brow in thought.
Kenjaku eagerly took a step forward. Looking at Tsumiki, who had yet to speak, he offered a greeting: "How should I address you now? Miss Fushiguro, or Miss Yorozu?"
Tsumiki finally snapped out of her daze. She tilted her head, looking at Kenjaku. After two or three seconds of silence, she drawled slowly, "It's you, Kenjaku.
"You honored the Binding Vow between us and resurrected me in the future."
Kenjaku's pupils contracted, but he smiled. "So it is Miss Yorozu, I see."
Tsumiki smiled back. "Since I have been resurrected in the modern era, just call me 'Fushiguro'."
"Is that so?" Kenjaku sighed. "I was just thinking, if it was truly Miss Yorozu herself hailing from the ancient era, your first words shouldn't have been a greeting to me, but an eager inquiry about Lord Sukuna's whereabouts... Mahito, your Idle Transfiguration was a little *too* perfect."
Whenever Kenjaku was around people who didn't possess a fanatical devotion to Sukuna, he casually referred to him as Ryomen Sukuna or just Sukuna. But the moment he was faced with someone who harbored genuine, heartfelt worship for the King of Curses, he immediately switched to calling him 'Lord Sukuna'.
"I didn't expect your so-called 'Incarnated Vessels' to actually work like this either," Mahito said slowly. "So all the vessels you prepared... they're all literal reincarnations."
Over the past millennium, Kenjaku had formed Binding Vows with many outstanding Sorcerers to resurrect them in the future. Most found the concept unfathomable. Even though they stood at the absolute pinnacle of their respective eras, 'resurrection' remained a distant, impossible concept. Let alone Kenjaku, even Mahito—whose technique was the literal manipulation of the soul—couldn't resurrect the dead, right?
So, what was the truth behind Kenjaku's resurrections?
The example of Yuji Itadori in the original canon implicitly hinted at Kenjaku's methods.
Yuji's past life was the brother that Ryomen Sukuna had devoured. Sukuna was even capable of directly using his brother's Innate Technique—the fiery arrow he used during his decisive battle with Jogo. This signified that on a soul level, Sukuna and his brother had actually merged into one. This was also precisely why Sukuna could use Yuji as a vessel.
Kenjaku did the exact same thing to the other ancient Sorcerers.
He tracked down the modern reincarnations of those ancient Sorcerers and awakened them one by one through specific rituals. Although they were fundamentally the same soul, the cycle of reincarnation caused the world to recognize them as distinct, albeit extremely similar, individuals. Therefore, adjustments had to be made.
This was the true reason why Tsumiki Fushiguro had fallen into a coma.
It also explained why, in the original story, Yorozu woke up claiming she could access Tsumiki's memories and emotions from her brain with zero side effects, to the point where she could flawlessly live out her life as Tsumiki if she so desired.
Because they were fundamentally the same person!
Mahito's original plan was to resurrect the ancient sorcerer Yorozu as a Half-Cursed Spirit. That meant extracting her soul from Tsumiki's body and fabricating an entirely new physical shell for her to inhabit, much like Mahito's own current state.
Compared to using an incarnated vessel, Mahito believed this to be true resurrection—far more perfect than the vessel method. After all, no matter how compatible a vessel was, it could never be truly flawless. Even in the final arc of the original story, despite Sukuna's mastery of Jujutsu, didn't he still fail to completely digest Megumi Fushiguro? A true, perfect resurrection via an incarnated vessel was impossible.
But when Mahito actually got his hands on her and saw the truth of the 'Incarnated Vessel', he was genuinely stunned.
The vessel *was* the reincarnation... What a stroke of absolute genius. Just as Kenjaku had promised, it truly was a 'perfect resurrection'—so perfect it couldn't be improved upon!
Because their souls were intrinsically one entity, even when Megumi begged Gojo for help, and Gojo genuinely did his utmost to save her, Tsumiki still couldn't wake up... Fundamentally, she wasn't sick at all. She was simply recalling her ancient memories, and as those memories surfaced, her physical body was simultaneously adapting to revert to its ancient, superhuman physique.
Just as sleep is the fastest state for recovery after an injury, Tsumiki used her coma as the mechanism to restore herself.
Mahito had previously discussed the vessel issue with Kenjaku (Volume 2, Chapter 15). Back then, he truly believed Kenjaku's method involved years of micro-adjustments to the vessel's body to flawlessly resurrect the ancient sorcerer. Only now did Mahito realize how naive he had been.
He had to hand it to Kenjaku. The man's ingenuity was terrifying.
Mahito hadn't anticipated this. So, when he used Idle Transfiguration and couldn't locate Yorozu's distinct soul, he realized something was wrong. He was then faced with a choice:
Should he follow the original canon, wipe Tsumiki's consciousness, and graft Yorozu's will onto it to resurrect the ancient sorcerer? Or should he delete Yorozu's will, purging her memories and emotions as impurities, so that Tsumiki could wake up from her slumber?
Mahito chose a third option:
Yorozu's ancient memories were completely revived, while simultaneously inheriting Tsumiki Fushiguro's emotions and will flawlessly.
The upside was that this 'Tsumiki' would be much easier to deal with. She lacked Yorozu's pure, unadulterated madness, while perfectly inheriting her ideological depth. She could perfectly replicate the use of the Construction technique, practically identical to Yorozu herself.
The downside was...
Well, for Mahito, there was no downside.
Because the moment he awakened Tsumiki, he had already implanted a [Thought Imprint] into her soul. Since it was applied right before she regained consciousness, not even Tsumiki herself realized it.
Of course, for Kenjaku—who was desperate for another pawn—the downside was catastrophic.
Kenjaku sighed. "This is bad. Miss Yorozu... no, Miss Fushiguro. Are you still a fanatic for Lord Sukuna? Or have your feelings for him faded, to the point where you don't even wish for his resurrection in the modern era?"
"I'm not sure." Tsumiki slightly raised her hand, staring at her palm as she spoke slowly. "To me, Yorozu's life feels like a highly immersive movie. I can empathize with everything she felt, and I understand why she was so intensely obsessed with Lord Sukuna.
"When you ask me if I want to resurrect Lord Sukuna, Yorozu shrieks in my ear like a phantom. But my rationality tells me that resurrecting him in this era will bring nothing but calamity."
Kenjaku stared blankly at Tsumiki, his voice laced with helplessness. "Too perfect. It's too damn perfect. Mahito, your abilities exceed my wildest expectations. You actually managed to link a soul from the past with one from the future, achieving a form of time travel. This is something even I couldn't fathom. How exactly did you do it?"
"It wasn't as hard as you think. I just reorganized the soul's information," Mahito said. "Easier than I expected. Probably because my fine-tuning control over souls is already more than sufficient."
Mahito wasn't lying. It really was just a matter of fine-tuning. He even suspected that if the original canon's Mahito had triggered the ancient sorcerer awakenings instead of Kenjaku, he could have achieved the exact same result.
In the original story, after Yuki Tsukumo's death, the other Sorcerers found a handwritten journal in her belongings documenting her soul research—her life's masterwork. In it, she stated with absolute certainty that even if human souls were forcibly merged, there would always be residual traces. Flawless fusion between human souls was impossible.
Yuki's research was correct. After all, even Sukuna couldn't perfectly merge with Megumi Fushiguro. For anyone else, it was even more impossible.
But Mahito shattered that established law. His ability was the only one in the entire series capable of flawlessly fusing souls.
In terms of difficulty, bridging an ancient soul to a modern soul was obviously less challenging than perfectly fusing souls in defiance of the world's natural laws. So for Mahito, reorganizing the souls of the ancient sorcerer Yorozu and the modern high schooler Tsumiki Fushiguro really wasn't that hard.
"I need your help, Miss Fushiguro." Mahito smiled. "My sword is critically damaged due to my improper usage. I need the best doctor in the world to heal her. That is why I pulled you back from the ancient era to the modern one."
"'Her', huh?" Tsumiki mused. "Calling a sword a girl... you don't see that often in the modern era. You must have had an ancient mentor... Let me think who that could be..."
Kenjaku proudly pointed a thumb at himself. "That would be me."
Tsumiki gave him a side-eye, thought for a moment, and asked, "Could it be Swordmaster Ashiya?"
Kenjaku's face darkened with metaphorical anime lines. "Why can't it be me?!"
"You know Master Ashiya too?" Mahito asked in surprise. "I heard he joined the subjugation squad to hunt down Ryomen Sukuna. But Miss Fushiguro, shouldn't you have been on Sukuna's side?"
Tsumiki smiled. "So it was Swordmaster Ashiya. The sword he wielded when he went to subjugate Lord Sukuna... I was the one who provided it."
Mahito was dumbfounded.
Tsumiki said flatly, "From the bottom of my heart, I believed Lord Sukuna was lonely. He was invincible under the heavens, yet no one could understand him. Everyone else's emotions toward him were either fear or fanaticism; no one treated him as an equal.
"I used to be overwhelmingly in love with him. Thinking back on it now, it wasn't romantic love, but a love born of pity. I wanted to walk into his heart. To do that, the first step... was obviously to find an equal adversary for him. Swordmaster Ashiya was one of the candidates I selected.
"Of course, back then, I hadn't developed the 'Insect Armor' and 'Liquid Metal' yet. I hadn't forged my own unique path. As a result, I was deeply in despair over my inability to keep up with his footsteps, which is why I was willing to go around investing in his enemies.
"In fact, many Sorcerers were personally delivered to Lord Sukuna by my own hands.
"But the moment I carved out my own path, I no longer allowed anyone else to touch him." She paused, a cruel, razor-sharp smile cutting across her face.
"I believed from the bottom of my soul that the only one who could kill Lord Sukuna was me... and that only Lord Sukuna could kill me. Outside of that, there was absolutely no room for anyone else to interfere in our relationship. If anyone else dared to challenge him, I would slaughter them myself."
*Intense. This woman is way too intense.* Was this the legendary love an ancient sorcerer had for her beloved? What kind of deranged mental wiring was that? Mahito's mouth twitched involuntarily.
No wonder she didn't hesitate to force a Binding Vow on Sukuna in the original canon—kill me or marry me. She was a pure, unadulterated psycho!
Mahito was genuinely thankful he hadn't chosen to resurrect pure Yorozu. If that crazy bitch had been fully resurrected right now, God knows what kind of chaos she would have unleashed. This was much better. The current Tsumiki Fushiguro possessed neither the sheer madness of ancient Yorozu nor her own original helpless kindness. She was in a liminal state. Given time, Mahito believed she would develop a completely different personality.
"I understand. If it's Swordmaster Ashiya, I'm willing to place my trust in you." Tsumiki glanced at Kenjaku. "I will follow you temporarily. Right now, I can't fully process Yorozu's emotions, nor can I return to Tsumiki's normal daily life... I need some time to adapt."
Kenjaku couldn't hold back anymore. "Am I really not worthy of your trust?!"
"Kenjaku, I can't read you. I haven't been able to read you since a thousand years ago." Tsumiki glared at him. "It's just that back then, I stayed by Lord Sukuna's side, dedicating everything I had to him body and soul, so I couldn't care less what you were plotting... Thinking about it now, that was my negligence. I should have eliminated you before you ever made contact with him. You're too dangerous."
"Hey, hey! I'm the one who made the Binding Vow to resurrect you guys in the future!" Kenjaku retorted.
"Which brings me to my point—why exactly are you resurrecting us?" Tsumiki said coldly. "You even manipulated Lord Sukuna. Even now, I don't know your true goal. How do you expect me to trust you?"
*What a badass.* Mahito couldn't help but admire her. She had literally just woken up. Her physical condition was so weak she could barely walk, yet her glare at Kenjaku didn't waver for a millisecond. It was as if she was ready to casually execute him on the spot if his answer displeased her.
This was an arrogance stemming from the very core of her soul. In her eyes, aside from Ryomen Sukuna, no one else was worthy of her taking them seriously. Conversely, if she *did* get serious, no one under the heavens—aside from Sukuna—could possibly be her match.
And Kenjaku was no exception!
She possessed absolutely zero fear over the fact that she had just woken up while Kenjaku had accumulated a thousand years of time. Quite the opposite; she firmly believed that even having just awakened and possessing only a century of combat experience, she would hold an overwhelming advantage against a millennium-old Kenjaku.
Kenjaku gave her a long, hard look, then uncharacteristically raised his hands in surrender.
"Scary, scary... But I'm not using him, you know? I genuinely believed from the bottom of my heart that an unparalleled hero like Lord Sukuna shouldn't just vanish into history. I promised him that one day in the future, I would perfectly resurrect him, without a single shred of personal motive."
Kenjaku backed down!
Tsumiki broke eye contact. "A hero, huh. I didn't expect anyone to actually view Lord Sukuna as a 'human'. Kenjaku, you've surprised me."
Curious, Mahito asked, "If not a 'human', then what?"
"A god," Tsumiki said. "The world called him a god. Why do you think Lord Sukuna was called Ryomen Sukuna? Because he *was* a god."
Ryomen Sukuna was a demonic god from Japanese folklore, recorded in the *Nihon Shoki*. Legend said he had two faces and four arms, possessed boundless strength, and delighted in eating humans. However, another interpretation claimed he was a local guardian deity; despite his grotesque appearance, he was a benevolent and kind god, with shrines dedicated to him that persisted even into the modern era.
Mahito remained silent, recalling how the Jujutsu Headquarters from a millennium ago had actually treated Sukuna like a living god, regularly sacrificing boys and girls for his consumption, completely abandoning their duty to protect humanity.
Tsumiki wasn't lying. A thousand years ago, Ryomen Sukuna was truly viewed as—a god.
"One last question." Tsumiki stared directly into Mahito's heterochromatic eyes. Her gaze seemed to carry physical weight, sending a chill down his spine. "In your current faction, who calls the shots? You, or Kenjaku?"
Kenjaku chuckled merrily. "He does. I'm just the tactician."
Tsumiki didn't even spare Kenjaku a glance, keeping her eyes fixed entirely on Mahito.
At that moment, Mahito finally understood why Kenjaku had surrendered so easily. Tsumiki hadn't used a single drop of Cursed Energy, yet her raw, unyielding will exerted a tangible, crushing pressure on whoever she looked at. Mahito felt it acutely.
Tsumiki cast her will over the entire room. She was lying on a hospital bed, struggling just to move, yet simply looking into her eyes, simply receiving a passing glance from her, made you instantly believe she possessed the dominating aura of a monarch ruling over all creation.
She... was undeniably powerful.
Mahito's heart pounded, both from the instinctive sense of danger and from the realization that—she had already been subjected to his [Thought Imprint].
—*Tsumiki Fushiguro is already mine!*
Mahito took a deep breath and said solemnly, "I do."
Tsumiki stared intensely into his eyes. Mahito didn't look away, nor did he flinch. After two or three seconds, she finally gave a slow nod. "Understood."
Mahito extended a hand toward her. "Though I believe I restored you perfectly, having been bedridden for so long, your instincts have probably forgotten how to use your limbs... Can you stand?"
Tsumiki stared at Mahito's hand. After a brief hesitation, she grasped it. "Thank you... I haven't asked yet. What is your name?"
"Mahito," he replied. "My name is Mahito. A pleasure to meet you, Miss Tsumiki Fushiguro."
***
"You're asking me to turn your Tsukumogami... into a human girl?" Tsumiki stared in sheer disbelief at the eagerly expectant Mahito. The composed expression she had maintained until now finally shattered into a twisted grimace. "Are you out of your mind?"
"Give up. It's impossible," Tsumiki declared.