Yes — this was exactly how Mahiko had always imagined Kenjaku.
Kenjaku was the deepest, most far-reaching puppeteer in the entire story.
He had spent a thousand years in preparation — a thousand years of accumulation — scheming and plotting everything. A man like that could never make a single move without a contingency waiting behind it. In fact, Mahiko wouldn't have been even remotely surprised if he had a fallback ready for every single step of his plan, no matter which one failed.
In the original timeline, Kenjaku was ultimately killed by Takaba and Yuta together.
It was, if she was being honest, a slightly clownish end — because he never got to show the full depth of reserves that a thousand-year-old fox should have had.
But that was because he hadn't had the chance to reveal them. Or perhaps because he had already poured every last drop of what he'd accumulated into the ritual of the Culling Game.
Dying without ever playing his countless trump cards didn't mean Kenjaku didn't have countless trump cards.
Mahiko smiled along with Kenjaku, but behind her eyes, a cold light flickered for just a moment.
But… so what?
The fact that Kenjaku could be killed by Takaba and Yuta in the end already proved one thing — Kenjaku, as a character, was not infinitely strong.
Kenjaku was not omniscient.
He couldn't have predicted that Mahiko knew the full picture of his plan — sealing Satoru Gojo and launching the Culling Game.
And he couldn't have predicted that Mahiko had already begun quietly putting her own plan into motion.
Or maybe he could.
But Kenjaku's plan depended on Mahiko. For now, he still had to treat her like royalty — feeding her well, keeping her happy, coaxing her along.
Mahiko was well aware that her current self wasn't strong enough to take on a villain who ranked only one tier below Satoru Gojo and Sukuna in a direct confrontation.
But in the time she had, she would push herself to her absolute limit — and squeeze every last drop of value she could possibly extract from Kenjaku.
They'd see how it all played out.
............
"Hey, kid." By the lakeside, Satoru Gojo looked down at the white-haired girl lying face-down on the ground, his tone casual — but his gaze just a shade more serious than usual. "What's your name?"
Jogo didn't answer.
Satoru Gojo rubbed his chin and pressed on. "Or… what's your relationship with Nobara Kugisaki? Do you know her well?"
Because of the fight just now, Satoru Gojo had already taken off his blindfold.
Yuji Itadori stood behind him, and upon hearing that question, blinked in puzzlement.
The person in front of them was connected to Kugisaki?
How had his teacher figured that out?
Yuji sneaked a glance at the girl lying on the ground.
Jogo was no longer in her magical girl form — the Binding Vow's effect had worn off. Short white hair, red pupils, the magical girl costume already dissolved away. Now that the transformation had been cancelled, she had reverted to her previous appearance: a hoodie — though said hoodie was now thoroughly shredded.
The girl gritted her teeth, forcing herself to hold her body up.
Her mind had been caught in the Unlimited Void. Her body itself was unharmed, but her brain had taken damage — something like a mild concussion — and for now she was completely unable to use her Technique.
"Heeey~? Can you hear me?" Satoru Gojo kept asking.
The white-haired girl lay there on the ground, teeth clenched, saying nothing.
Was this… it? Had she really been beaten like this?
Jogo was deeply, bitterly reluctant to accept it.
She didn't know why Satoru Gojo hadn't simply used his Domain to kill her outright — it was probably due to whatever life-saving treasure Mahiko had given her — but at this rate, she was still going to die for certain.
She wasn't afraid of death. She just couldn't stand the thought of going out like this.
And then, at that exact moment —
A voice began to sing.
It was abrupt, and wildly out of place.
A flowing, sacred melody drifted over from somewhere far away, as though someone in the distant distance was singing a song.
The lyrics were in an unknown tongue.
The melody was so pure it didn't seem to belong to this world at all.
The ancient, faraway voice drifted and swayed, as if carried down from some age long past.
Both Yuji and Satoru Gojo froze for a moment — their fighting spirit draining away, their bodies beginning to relax without their consent.
There was still an enemy right in front of them, and yet that song seeped into their every nerve like warm water, making them feel, inexplicably — that now was a time for rest.
Pak.
Satoru Gojo gave himself a light slap on the cheek.
He snapped out of it in the very first instant.
That singing was a Technique.
And that Technique was affecting him.
"Yuji! Snap out of it!"
Satoru Gojo had barely gotten the warning out — and the next second, the ground exploded.
Countless flowers burst from the earth in a frenzy, spreading outward at a preposterous speed. White, purple, gold — petals blanketed the entire lakeshore, stretching from underfoot all the way to the distant treeline, as though someone had turned the entire world into an ocean of blossoms in a single heartbeat.
Beautiful.
Beautiful to the point of unreality.
The Technique sapping their will to fight surged even stronger.
At the same time, from within that sea of flowers, several thick branches and vines shot violently from the ground and wrapped themselves precisely around Jogo's waist and arms — then yanked.
The white-haired girl's body was hauled away by the vines, rocketing into the distance at tremendous speed.
"——!" Satoru Gojo moved to give chase — then caught something in his peripheral vision: another vine was sweeping in from the side, directly at Yuji's throat, fast and deliberate, an obvious threat.
"Tch."
Satoru Gojo spun instantly and slapped the vine apart with one palm.
Splinters flew.
He looked back.
Jogo had already vanished into the far end of the flower sea.
Satoru Gojo stood there in silence for two seconds.
"I couldn't sense their presence at all…" he murmured, narrowing his eyes toward the direction Jogo had disappeared, "…An extremely sophisticated method of Cursed Energy concealment. And long-range Cursed Energy manipulation at that…"
............
Dragged along by the vines, Jogo was hauled at breakneck speed through forests, fields, and mountain ridges.
Wind screamed past her ears, branches whipped across her cheeks, and she was yanked along like cargo on a green conveyor belt for several kilometers.
Until finally the vines decelerated and released her.
Her body hit the ground and rolled twice before she came to rest face-down on a patch of grass.
She braced herself against the ground and lifted her head.
Someone was standing in front of her.
A woman.
Tall, with a full figure, dressed in a flowing white dress whose hem swayed softly in the night breeze. A flower-shaped ornament adorned her hair, accented by a few jade-green leaves and colorful petals.
Golden hair cascaded to her waist, its texture so smooth it was like silk, catching the moonlight in a faint, gentle sheen. Skin fair, features refined and impassive — and her ears were pointed.
— Slightly upturned pointed ears, exactly like the elves of Western fantasy.
Her eyes were covered by a black blindfold, yet for some reason she didn't give the impression of someone who couldn't see. It was more as though her gaze could simply pass right through it.
Standing there, the woman looked as if she had stepped out of the painted pages of some Norse mythology storybook — a spirit of the forest made flesh.
Jogo recognized her.
"Hanami…" The white-haired girl pushed herself off the ground and stood, brushing the dust and grass from herself, studying the elf-like woman before her.
Jogo thought about the state she was in, and let out a wry, helpless laugh. "Thank you… and thank Mahiko as well. If it weren't for that life-saving thing you two gave me, I'd have been done for."
She still didn't know what was inside that necklace, or why it was so miraculous — why it had made Satoru Gojo choose not to harm her.
But however it worked, she had managed to crawl back from the edge of death.
Hanami gave a slight nod.
"Don't mention it." Her voice was soft and clear, genuinely like a fairy's.
Jogo let out a long breath and looked up at the night sky, then back at Hanami. "Satoru Gojo is really, truly terrifying."
Hanami nodded.
"Indeed." She paused, her jade-green eyes gazing into the distance through the sliver beneath her blindfold. "I suspect that even all four of us together wouldn't be able to handle him."
Silence settled for a few seconds.
Hanami lowered her gaze and looked at her own hand — the fair, slender fingers.
"After Mahiko's modifications, my body's physical strength has decreased," she said quietly. "I'm not well-suited for close combat anymore."
She clenched her fist, then released it.
"But my Cursed Energy's range and output have both increased considerably. I can now manipulate every tree within a very great distance and use them to attack."
She raised her head.
"Even so, that distance is still too short against Satoru Gojo's speed. If he were intent on it, he could close the gap and reach me in an extremely short amount of time."
Jogo was quiet for a moment.
Hanami said, "It seems… he was right."
"He" meant Suguru Geto.
And what Suguru Geto had said was, indeed, correct.
Satoru Gojo was their greatest obstacle.
Without sealing Satoru Gojo, no plan could move forward.
Jogo nodded and said nothing more.
Hanami fell silent too, and the two of them stayed that way together for a long while.
Hanami looked down again, glancing over Jogo's body, and once she confirmed there were no serious injuries, spoke up. "You're not hurt — that's what matters most."
"Yeah… ugh. Whatever, it is what it is." Jogo rubbed her still-swimming head. "Let's just retreat for now."
Hanami shook her head. "Not yet."
Jogo blinked. "What's wrong?"
Hanami reached into the pocket of her white dress and pulled something out.
A stack of paper.
No — to be precise: a stack of banknotes.
Human world currency.
Jogo stared at the bills, her expression bewildered. "What does this mean?"
"It's human currency. Mahiko gave it to me." Hanami's voice was gentle, her cadence unhurried. "I think… this is probably a gift she meant for the two of us as well."
Jogo frowned. "What use do we have for this?"
"Apparently it can be freely exchanged for things in human society."
"I know this is called money and that you can buy things with it," Jogo said, her tone edging toward impatient. "But what use is it to us specifically?"
"Mahiko asked the two of us to buy her some ice cream," Hanami said. "It's a kind of human food."
Jogo: "..."
"And incidentally, she said that after buying the ice cream, whatever money is left over we're free to use however we please. Consider it a gift from her to us."
Jogo: "...Why are we running errands for her."
Hanami looked at her, tone calm and matter-of-fact. "We don't have anything else to do, do we?"
Jogo opened her mouth, then closed it again.
…That was, annoyingly, a very reasonable point.
"Let's give it a try," Hanami said. "I've never bought anything with money before."
Jogo heaved a long, long sigh.
Then she looked down at herself.
Her hoodie had been beaten to rags — several gaping holes punching through the fabric, her pale skin visible beneath. Her jeans had torn open in multiple places too. She hadn't noticed while fleeing the battlefield, but stopping to actually look now, she was indistinguishable from a homeless person.
She sighed again.
"Fine." The white-haired girl spoke in the tone of someone accepting their fate. "Then I'm buying some clothes too."
She wasn't sure why, but ever since she'd ended up with a human body, having her skin exposed just felt deeply uncomfortable. When she'd been a Cursed Spirit she'd never felt anything of the sort — but now, inexplicably, she had this nagging urge to wrap herself up properly.
How strange.
Hanami watched Jogo's expression — that mix of reluctant resignation and helpless acceptance — and was silent for two seconds.
And then —
She smiled.
It was the first time Hanami had smiled since she came to inhabit this new body.
"Alright," she said softly, and the curve of her lips was like watching a glacier thaw. "Let's go together."
----------
Whoa, honestly, now I'm thinking Hanami as a cool big-sister ninja would've worked really well too. She could throw seed-darts as hidden weapons and move without a sound. Maybe I should go back and give Hanami a mode-switching form — I'm deeply contemplating this.
____
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