"Mahiko... you actually love humans, don't you?"
When Mahiko heard Jogo say those words, she was genuinely caught off guard.
She hadn't expected Jogo to say something like that.
"Uh..."
Not sure what Jogo meant by asking, or what her attitude toward it even was, Mahiko hesitated — then decided to lob a question back first.
"What do you mean by that... Aho?"
"Exactly what it sounds like." Jogo gave a small shake of her head, red eyes fixed on her. "I think you're... incredible."
"Huh?" Mahiko blinked, completely thrown.
What on earth had gotten into this one?
"Born from human curses and negativity. Having seen every ugly thing humans are capable of — and still being able to love them. Still being able to find the light in them." Jogo's voice was calm, like someone stating a conclusion they'd thought long and hard about. "You really are incredible."
Mahiko opened her mouth. Then closed it.
She had no idea where Jogo had pulled that conclusion from.
For a moment, she was at a complete loss for words.
"Am I wrong?" Jogo tilted her head slightly, watching Mahiko's expression.
Mahiko blinked, then genuinely thought back over what she'd done and said just now.
She turned it over in her head for a while. She didn't think she'd done anything particularly out of the ordinary.
She had no idea what Jogo had been imagining.
Love humans? Her? If anything, she felt like she was kind of a terrible person.
Honestly — take one careful look at her track record, and pretty much everything she'd done was shady. Saying she didn't hate humans would already be generous. And Jogo was out here saying she loved them? Which eye saw that?
"I'm not really sure what you're talking about," Mahiko said, scratching her head. "I was just playing around with them earlier — teasing them, messing with them — purely because I thought it was fun to bother them and pick on them a little. Did I come across as... someone who really loves humans? I don't think I did?"
Jogo listened to Mahiko's whole explanation, and something flickered behind her eyes.
"Is that so?"
"Mm-hm, that's all it was."
Jogo was quiet for two seconds. Then she let out a soft sigh. "Even so... I don't think I could do what you do."
The truth was, throughout their entire shopping trip, it had been Mahiko doing all the interacting with the other three. Jogo and Hanami had stayed off to the side from beginning to end, never joining in too much.
To an outside observer, they probably just looked like introverts — people who weren't great at socializing, which was why they kept to themselves.
But the reality?
"I can't do what you do." Jogo's voice was quiet, her red eyes dropping slightly. "I was born from human negativity. I can't look at humans the way you do — with that easy, unbothered composure."
It was like knowing everything bad about a person before you'd ever met them. Every flaw. Every ugly thing they'd done. Every bit of nastiness and cruelty they were capable of.
— And then being expected to stand in front of them and shake their hand like everything was fine.
Very few people could manage that.
That was where Jogo and Hanami stood.
"I was born with an instinctive revulsion toward humans," Jogo said. "I'll admit they have their good points. But I'm sorry — I don't think I can extend them the same goodwill you do. Not right now."
She paused, as if remembering something.
"Oh, right — you said you don't have goodwill toward them either. Then I suppose what I mean is: I can't look at them the way you do. Without it affecting me."
Mahiko studied Jogo.
Had Jogo seen through her?
She still wasn't entirely sure. She couldn't tell whether Jogo was probing her, or genuinely just expressing how she felt. Either way, this wasn't the moment to let anything slip.
Mahiko shook her head and smiled. "It's fine, really. Once Cursed Spirits become the new humans of the new world, you won't have to worry about any of that anymore, Jogo-chan~"
The plan — letting Jogo and Hanami interact with humans, cracking open the window between them and human society just a little — had already been going quite smoothly, in fact.
She'd never needed Jogo to pull a full heel-turn like some villain in a children's cartoon — go out for ice cream, have a change of heart, and suddenly make peace with all of humanity. That wasn't going to happen.
It was simply impossible.
Mahiko was a Cursed Spirit herself, after all. She had memories of a human life from before, yes — but in this life, she had been born from human negativity, just like the rest of them.
She knew exactly what Jogo and Hanami felt when they faced humans — because somewhere deep in her own instincts, the same thing was written there.
To know all of humanity's ugliness and absurdity at a soul-deep level, to carry that weight as a fundamental, innate impression — changing that overnight was simply not possible.
All Mahiko really wanted was to break Kenjaku's monopoly on the information these Special Grade Cursed Spirits had access to. That was all.
"Anyway — how are the headphones?" Mahiko smiled, shifting her gaze to the new pair hanging around Jogo's neck. "Better than the last ones? And how are the songs I loaded on — do you like them?"
Those headphones had not been cheap.
After buying them, the money Mahiko had "borrowed" from Ijichi had been completely wiped out.
If she wanted to do anything going forward, she'd have to find a way to get new funds.
So yes — those headphones were precious.
"These?" Jogo touched the headphones at her neck, fingers trailing lightly along the edge of one ear cup. Then she gave a small nod. "Thank you. The sound quality really is clearer than the last pair. I'll take good care of them."
"Then take good care of them." Mahiko smiled, bright and easy. "If you like them, I'm happy."
Jogo glanced at her once, said nothing more, and slid her hands back into her pockets.
The three of them walked on through the night.
Hanami had been quiet the whole time, never once cutting in. But Mahiko noticed — after Jogo finished speaking, Hanami tilted her head ever so slightly, as though listening carefully to something.
What she was thinking, no one could say.
............
And while the three Cursed Spirits were still out.
Kenjaku slipped quietly into a stand of trees.
Deep within the grove, moonlight filtered through the gaps in the leaves and branches, scattering across the ground in dappled patches of light and shadow.
Someone was already waiting there.
Short white hair. Features neutral and cold. Skin pale as paper. A dark kimono. Standing in the moonlight, she looked like a doll carved from ice and snow.
Rime.
Sukuna's loyal servant.
A thousand years ago, she had stood at the side of the King of Curses. Now, she waited for her master's resurrection.
The alliance between Kenjaku and Rime was built on exactly that foundation — Kenjaku's plan included a component for resurrecting Sukuna, and in exchange for that promise, Rime was willing to lend her assistance.
Mutually beneficial. Mutually self-serving.
In this timeline, Kenjaku had never introduced Rime to the Four Calamities. As far as Mahiko and the others knew, Rime's existence remained a complete unknown — Mahiko herself knew from the original story, of course, but Jogo and Hanami had no idea.
"Why did you call me here?" Rime's voice was flat, straight to the point.
Kenjaku smiled, hands folded into his sleeves. "I'd like you to go and dig something up for me."
Rime frowned slightly. "Dig up what?"
"The things I hid in the Kamo clan cemetery, long ago."
Rime's frown deepened. "You mean... those Cursed Objects?"
"Yes. Those Cursed Objects."
In the original story, Kenjaku had made contracts with many ancient jujutsu sorcerers, fashioning their souls into Cursed Objects and concealing them — only to resurrect them in the modern era.
The method of resurrection was similar in principle to how Yuji Itadori had swallowed Sukuna's finger — the Cursed Object was placed into another person's body, allowing the ancient sorcerer to possess them, then combined with Idle Transfiguration to give them new life.
In the original timeline, Kenjaku hadn't made use of them until after the Shibuya Incident — after he'd sealed Satoru Gojo — using them during the Culling Game to resurrect those ancient sorcerers and force them to participate in that brutal contest.
But that didn't mean the Culling Game was the only opportunity.
Kenjaku had methods of resurrecting the ancient sorcerers even without obtaining Mahiko's Idle Transfiguration — and ways of securing their cooperation by other means.
In the original story, Kenjaku simply hadn't needed to bother. His plan had gone so smoothly — four Special Grade Cursed Spirits had been enough to seal Satoru Gojo — that there'd been no need to play any other cards.
But this timeline was different.
Mahiko's existence was like a stone thrown into a still lake.
Kenjaku had been forced to start preparing other contingencies.
These ancient sorcerers were the "teammates" he was now seeking out.
And at the same time, this meant something else: at this point in time, he had already stopped treating the Four Calamities as one hundred percent reliable allies.
Rime studied Kenjaku's expression for two silent seconds.
"Why?" she asked. "Is it because this generation's master of Idle Transfiguration isn't what you expected?"
"Exactly." Kenjaku smiled.
Moonlight fell across his face, tracing the outlines of the stitches along his skin. A gleam of cunning passed through his eyes. "So — when faced with every possible variable, one must be prepared for everything."
Rime was silent for a moment. Then she gave a single nod, turned, and vanished into the darkness.
Kenjaku stood alone in the moonlight, face tilted toward the night sky. The stitching along his features caught and lost the light in turns.
A game of chess a thousand years in the making. Not a single move could afford to be wrong.
And this generation's Mahito — far more interesting than he'd anticipated. And far more dangerous.
He let out a quiet laugh, turned, and walked away, his silhouette swallowed by the shadows of the trees.
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