"Aren't you worried?" In a darkened room somewhere, the long-range communication Cursed Spirit whispered into Kenjaku's ear.
"What she's doing — it's going to make things very difficult to control."
Mahiko was playing around.
And Kenjaku, of course, was watching.
"Not particularly." Kenjaku smiled and shook his head. "She's simply having fun. That's all."
Kenjaku had been watching the whole time.
And right now, he was also eavesdropping on the "hypnosis ASMR" Mahiko was playing for Miwa.
Kenjaku understood perfectly well that Mahiko was restless by nature — and that it was genuinely difficult to judge whether she harbored any deep, unwavering intentions to betray him. So he had never once relaxed his surveillance of her.
But this time, it was abundantly clear: the girl was simply playing. Playing with complete and total abandon.
"Just to be safe, should I go ahead and kill that blue-haired sorcerer afterwards?" The voice came through the communication Cursed Spirit.
"No. Absolutely not." Kenjaku shook his head. "That blue-haired sorcerer may be weak, but she is actually quite important. As long as she's alive, a certain insider will remain useful to us. And deliberately killing her would only tip Mahiko and Jujutsu High off to what we're afraid of." Kenjaku shook his head again, eyes narrowing into an easy smile. "Relax. Mahiko really is just playing."
Come to think of it — it was almost funny.
Mahiko... she always gave Kenjaku the impression of someone with deep, calculating schemes — and yet she constantly did things that only someone with absolutely no schemes at all would ever do.
She seemed, on the surface, to be extraordinarily clever. Extraordinarily perceptive.
But when you got down to it, she was still just a Cursed Spirit. Just a child, newly born into the world, with no real experience of it.
Kenjaku felt he had been overthinking things. He truly had been overthinking.
The moment Mahiko had shown genuine fondness toward humans, he had begun to stay on guard. But now, looking back, his long-running wariness of her felt rather like shadowboxing — fighting shadows that had never been there to begin with.
Well, of course.
How could a child possibly know the depth of his plans?
And besides — this particular child had lost herself completely in play. Utterly swept away by it, without a care for anything else.
Take right now, for instance. If Mahiko had truly wanted to seize the opportunity — using Cursed Speech or Idle Transfiguration on Miwa to leave some message for Jujutsu High...
But no. Kenjaku had been listening to everything playing through those earphones, and it was nothing but an endless loop of the Cursed Speech hypnotic command: "You are a little maid." Repeated over and over and over.
And Mahiko had never once used Idle Transfiguration on Miwa's body either.
Not that it mattered — Mahiko didn't actually know what information might pose a real threat to Kenjaku, let alone how to encode it into Miwa's person.
If anything truly dangerous were happening here, the real concern was whether Mahiko might get a sudden impulse and simply kill Miwa on a whim.
......
[The Psychology of Clinical Treatment: A Practitioner's Record Handbook, Page 135, Line 12: ...There are times when the human brain, upon hearing certain sentences, does not merely receive the literal information carried by the words — it also receives more deeply embedded information beyond what the words directly express....]
"Well, I've already tried it once, so —" Mahiko clapped her hands together with a grin. "Hypnotizing someone with strong willpower using Cursed Speech doesn't work in just one or two attempts, and I suspect sorcerers are no different. So I'm very sorry, but I'll be hitting repeat for a while."
And true to her word — the Cursed Speech command looping through the earphones was playing at high speed, cycling on repeat: You are a little maid, you are a little maid, you are a little maid...
The volume was considerable. So considerable, in fact, that the sound bled clearly through the earphones to the outside air.
Almost as if it had been turned up on purpose.
Absolutely deafening. The strategy was simple: even if the hypnosis doesn't work, we'll just chant you into a stupor.
As for why "maid" specifically...
Because what she was testing was the practical viability of this hypnosis technique in actual combat. And in combat, what you want is [absolute control] over the target.
She could have said "prisoner" or "the defeated" — both would have worked fine.
But if she was running an experiment anyway, why not make it interesting?
[Consciousness Studies of the Human Brain, Page 37, Line 23: The brain's language comprehension module, when listening to another person speak, does not only understand the semantic content of the words themselves — it can also extract additional information from the rhythm and cadence of speech, such as emotional tone and implication...]
"Oh, right — apparently this makes it work a little better." Mahiko reached into her pocket and pulled out a stuffed rabbit. She worked it between her hands until it flattened into a long strip of cloth, then looped it around Miwa's head and tied it over those unfocused, glassy eyes.
Whether it would actually help, she had no idea — but it looked the part, at least.
The girl smiled — looking every bit like a mischievous child completely lost in play, not a single thought spared for anything else.
No grand ambitions. No hidden agenda.
"This is just perfect," the girl said, smiling.
Anyone who saw her would think the same — the girl had completely lost herself in the fun.
[Hypnosis: Case Analysis and Conclusions, Case Seven, Section Eighty-Four: ...To summarize the above, when transmitting information to a subject under hypnosis, the "rhythm" and "noise" embedded within the language actually deliver more information to the subject than the words themselves — information which is absorbed by the subject's subconscious mind...]
Then Mahiko's gaze drifted toward the entrance.
A few ordinary girls had just walked into the library — presumably there to borrow books. The moment they stepped into the hall, they saw the bizarre tentacle spectacle unfolding inside.
Every one of their faces went white.
They tried to bolt back out the door, but the Curtain had sealed the library shut. There was no escaping it.
Mahiko glanced over at the cluster of civilians cowering by the entrance and broke into a sweet smile.
"Oh my, don't be scared, ladies~ This will all be wrapped up very soon, so why don't you go have a rest over there for now~"
The girls screamed in unison.
And Mahiko slowly began to saunter toward the entrance.
She had no idea how long the Curtain could keep the noise inside contained.
Hopefully long enough to let her "hypnosis session" run a little longer.
[Hypnosis: Case Analysis and Conclusions, Case Seven, Section Eighty-Five: ...One important note: under ideal conditions, when repeating a word or phrase as a hypnotic trigger, you can transmit deeper information to the subject's subconscious by controlling the frequency of repetition and varying your intonation. However, the information density of human language is far too low, and this method may require an enormous amount of time and repetition — which is why it has yet to see practical application to this day...]
Hypnosis, in a certain sense — the identity you're trying to hypnotize someone into adopts depends heavily on the image of that identity already existing in the subject's own mind.
Say you want to hypnotize someone into believing they're a doctor. If you don't spend a great deal of time explaining to them what a doctor should be like, then the "doctor" they become after successful hypnosis will essentially be whatever image of a doctor already existed in their own head.
And as a result, that hypnotically-induced "doctor" might look nothing like an actual doctor in real life.
Which was precisely what was happening with Miwa right now.
"My lady, it's time for your afternoon nap. (mysterious bubble-voice)"
The Miwa standing before her — ponytail neatly done up, posture radiating a certain cool, dashing composure — was gently patting Mahiko on the head, while Mahiko stared at her in blank, speechless horror.
"If you don't go to sleep soon, I'm going to start dancing, you know? (mysterious bubble-voice)"
Absolutely not!
Mahiko's expression had gone from confused to genuinely terrified.
What kind of maid are YOU supposed to be?!
____
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