Mahiru's first reaction was to search for any trace of Kenjaku.
But on reflection, Kenjaku probably wouldn't dare to show up.
Still, bringing this many people along—it seemed Kenjaku really did value Hajime Kashimo.
"Didn't you say this was a one-on-one duel?!" Hajime Kashimo bellowed at Mahiru. "Why'd you bring along this many people?! Do you have any dignity as a warrior at all?!"
So even if he won, there were other people waiting on the sidelines!
That was just too unscrupulous!
"I didn't," the blue little liar said, shaking her head over and over. "They followed me here on their own."
As if anyone would believe that!
"Ishiryuu!" Urogi Kyoko shouted, even as she yanked at the canvas of space to wrench Toji Fushiguro's attack aside, turning her head toward Ishiryuu. "Don't let it go to your head!"
Kenjaku had sent them over here to keep an eye on the fight between Hajime Kashimo and Mahiru, but his real intent wasn't to protect Hajime Kashimo.
Whether Hajime Kashimo lived or died, Kenjaku honestly couldn't care less.
What mattered was that Hajime Kashimo must not be recruited by Mahiru.
So they still had to find a way to fish him out.
And in fact, with Urogi Kyoko's Technique, as long as they'd prepared countermeasures against Cursed Speech in advance, forcibly hauling a single person off the battlefield was quite simple.
"Let's go!"
Urogi Kyoko mobilized her Cursed Energy, tugging at the canvas of space, and swept Hajime Kashimo's body off into the distance.
At the same time, on a distant hilltop, Ishiryuu laughed: "Of course I know!"
Beams of Cursed Energy fired off one after another from above his head, blasting straight toward Mahiru.
Bzzt-bzzt-bzzt— Boom-boom-boom— The continuous bombardment blasted the ground around the power station until shattered rock flew everywhere and smoke and dust filled the air.
By now Mahiru's Technique burnout had already run its course, and she still retained a great deal of Cursed Energy.
But the other side had slipped away fast.
"Should we give chase?" Jogo asked, rubbing the red gemstone in his hand.
If Mahiru said to chase, then she'd go full magical-girl transformation and set off in pursuit.
But Mahiru shook her head: "Not for now."
The girl felt there was no real need to give chase.
Although she had no idea how Brain Blossom had gotten Hajime Kashimo to do his bidding, a partnership like that surely couldn't last. Hajime Kashimo's ultimate goal was to fight Sukuna—and Sukuna was in league with Brain Blossom.
As long as she let Hajime Kashimo discover this, he'd naturally come looking for her.
Although she really had played Hajime Kashimo for a fool tonight, she figured the impression she'd left in his mind was still fairly positive... probably.
Once he sensed something was off on Kenjaku's side, he'd come back.
...She only hoped Hajime Kashimo wouldn't get killed off too easily by Brain Blossom.
After all, Hajime Kashimo's Mythical Beast Amber was an incredibly powerful Technique... If someday she needed to face Sukuna head-on, Hajime Kashimo would be an exceedingly sharp blade.
On the other side, Urogi Kyoko and her group were retreating at top speed.
Kenjaku maintained an excessively cautious vigilance toward Mahiru at all times, so this time he'd assigned them two extra Special Grade Cursed Spirits as insurance.
But Mahiru's side had little desire to pursue, so in the end they never got put to use.
Urogi Kyoko let out a sigh of relief.
Ishiryuu, on the other hand, felt a touch of regret.
"I actually wanted another round with that blue-haired Cursed Spirit," Ishiryuu said.
Urogi Kyoko grimaced, unable to understand why this guy would want to fight an opponent as nasty as Mahiru.
They didn't stop, first looping back and forth through the mountains for several rounds and repeatedly confirming that neither Mahiru nor Satoru Gojo was secretly tailing them, before finally heading straight for their base.
The journey wasn't exactly short.
Even at their speed it took a full half hour before they ducked into another stretch of deep, ancient forest.
This was their temporary base.
Only on arriving here did Urogi Kyoko finally relax completely, plopping down on the ground and gulping for breath.
As for Hajime Kashimo, the youth sat on the ground, his expression unbearably glum.
Over the half-hour journey, he'd already recovered a bit of Cursed Energy.
But now, replaying the whole ordeal of being tricked earlier, he felt as helpless as an old man who'd just discovered a phone scammer had wired away his life's savings.
Seriously, how could there be someone so utterly without scruples?
In his fights against all the world's masters 400 years ago, he'd never once run into anyone like Mahiru.
Did she have any human morals at all?
The more Hajime Kashimo thought about it, the angrier he got, and the angrier he got, the more he stewed.
At that moment, Ishiryuu walked over, sat down beside him, and patted his shoulder.
Hajime Kashimo turned his head and met his gaze.
Between the strong, there's a natural resonance.
He could feel the deep, profound Cursed Energy radiating from Ishiryuu.
That cannon-like bombardment of Cursed Energy beams earlier had been terrifyingly powerful, and Hajime Kashimo had taken note of it.
Suddenly, a memory from his former life surfaced in his mind.
He seemed to realize just who the person before him was.
"Heh... the man with the strongest Cursed Energy output, is it...?" Hajime Kashimo gave a laugh. "So Kenjaku didn't lie to me after all."
"What?" Ishiryuu didn't get it.
Hajime Kashimo didn't answer directly; instead, the will to fight had already rekindled in his eyes. "You're strong. Really not bad at all."
A battle junkie was a battle junkie, all right.
One moment he'd been completely bamboozled by Mahiru, and the next, scarcely healed and already forgetting the pain, he was itching to brawl with someone again.
But that was just the kind of person Hajime Kashimo was.
Mahiru had nearly tricked him sick, yet he held no grudge—after all, all's fair in war; a loss was a loss, and he took it wholeheartedly.
Not just anyone could glance over the traces of his battles and keenly pick out his weakness.
He figured that Mahiru's ability to dupe him was precisely a sign of just how sharp her insight was.
"Ha, is that so..." Meeting Hajime Kashimo's battle-hungry eyes, Ishiryuu smiled too.
So they were the same breed, were they?
"Wanna fight?" Ishiryuu asked.
"Of course," Hajime Kashimo said with a grin. "Even though I've signed a Binding Vow with you lot, if it's just a friendly spar with no ill intent, that's not out of the question."
The fight with Mahiru had given him a bout of food poisoning, so to speak; even now, his belly still growled with hunger.
Two hungry men met each other's eyes.
Sparks of fighting spirit clashed in the air.
Not bad at all—there were still strong ones to be savored. Or so Hajime Kashimo thought.
"Not bad at all—surely you can understand me, right?" Ishiryuu said with a smile, his thoughts so very like Hajime Kashimo's own. "There are always so many people who don't understand me... I have a happy family, I'm laden with honors, and the people around me are forever asking why I'm still not satisfied... It's because my life is only eight-tenths full..."
...Hm? Eight-tenths full?
Hearing the keyword, he automatically flashed back to the blue-haired Cursed Spirit. Hajime Kashimo gave a violent shudder, his expression shifting.
But then, just as quickly, he relaxed again.
It was just a coincidence that the phrasing was the same... he shouldn't be too on guard...
"My life is still missing dessert!——"
Hajime Kashimo shot to his feet with a whoosh.
No, seriously, he was genuinely triggered.
What's with every single one of you being eight-tenths full and all missing dessert?
"Are you in cahoots with her?" The youth's face was grim.
The lines were word-for-word identical—how could that be a coincidence?
So there was a second stage of "deception" waiting here too?
"Huh?" Ishiryuu was lost. "What's wrong?"
"Fight's off." Hajime Kashimo turned and walked away.
"What? Why?"
"No reason."
Tch... Trying to get me to fall for it a second time... don't even dream of it!
Hajime Kashimo left, leaving Ishiryuu sitting there dumbfounded.
Only after getting far from Ishiryuu did Hajime Kashimo remember the other task Kenjaku had assigned him.
—To summon the "Angel" to Kenjaku's room.
Though he had no idea why Kenjaku wanted him to do this.
After winding around for a while, he found a small hut.
Inside sat a girl with golden hair.
Seeing Hajime Kashimo push the door open and enter, her eyes turned slightly wary. "Is there something you need?"
"Come with me." Hajime Kashimo's tone was cold; tossing out those curt few words, he turned and left.
Hana Kurusu froze for a moment, unsure what to do.
And just then, a tiny mouth emerged on the side of her face; it opened and closed gently, the voice calm: "Go with him."
Only then did Hana Kurusu step forward and follow after him.
The one who'd spoken was none other than the Angel—the existence dwelling within Hana Kurusu's body.
The Angel's Technique was named "Jacob's Ladder," capable of annihilating Jujutsu Techniques and disrupting the flow of Cursed Energy.
And precisely because of this, her attacks were a natural counter to incarnated bodies. The very existence of an incarnated being depended on the sustenance of Jujutsu Technique, and the Angel's power could dissolve exactly that sustenance.
Hajime Kashimo was also an incarnated being.
If Jacob's Ladder struck Hajime Kashimo, it could directly undo his incarnated state.
So she had no reason to fear him.
Hana Kurusu followed Hajime Kashimo the whole way, finally arriving at the entrance to a room built into the interior of the mountain.
They pushed the door open and entered.
The space here was vast; even footsteps and breathing echoed clearly. In the darkness came the faint gurgling of some viscous liquid, but because the light was so dim, nothing could be made out.
"You've come?" From deep within the darkness came Kenjaku's voice.
"Hey, you said I'd get to meet Sukuna tomorrow—you're not lying to me, are you?" Hajime Kashimo spoke up, his voice carrying obvious caution.
After being deceived once by Mahiru, he'd come to deeply appreciate just how sinister these scheming old foxes could be.
Still, Kenjaku shouldn't be lying to him—after all, the Binding Vow had already been forged; if he said Sukuna could be met tomorrow, then it probably really would be tomorrow.
Sukuna...
Sukuna would be resurrected too... but from where?
Hajime Kashimo was very curious.
And Kenjaku smiled: "Of course. I never lie to you."
Hajime Kashimo crossed his arms and gave a cold snort. "You'd better not."
If he dared to deceive him, then Kenjaku would not only suffer the punishment of the contract and its backlash, but the Binding Vow they'd established earlier—"for one month, neither may take harmful action against the other"—would also automatically dissolve.
And at that point, Hajime Kashimo would give him a thorough thrashing.
Hajime Kashimo cast one last glance at Kenjaku in the darkness, then turned and walked out of the room.
The great door closed. In the room, only Kenjaku and Hana Kurusu remained.
Hana Kurusu didn't speak; it was the Angel who spoke: "Why did you lie to him?"
Kenjaku kept his unchanging smile: "I didn't lie to him."
"But you concealed a very important fact from him," the Angel said. "You didn't tell him that the fingers you stole from the Jujutsu High convoy are Sukuna's fingers."
Kenjaku was amused.
True—Hajime Kashimo only knew the name Sukuna, knew that this person was the strongest sorcerer of a thousand years ago, the opponent he most wanted to challenge in this life.
But he had no idea that Sukuna's soul had been transformed into twenty fingers scattered across the world.
Earlier, when Kenjaku had them raid the Jujutsu High transport convoy, he'd only said it was to seize important cursed objects, never once mentioning that what dwelled within those cursed objects were fragments of Sukuna's soul.
Hajime Kashimo had absolutely no idea what it was he'd stolen.
Kenjaku chuckled merrily: "But you didn't tell him the truth either, now did you?"
"I have no reason to tell him the truth," the Angel said. "Because my goal conflicts with his."
If Hajime Kashimo's wish were fulfilled, then the Angel's wish would become hard to achieve.
Hajime Kashimo wanted a fair, head-on fight with Sukuna at his full peak—which meant he had to wait for Sukuna to recover his fighting strength.
The Angel, on the other hand, wanted Sukuna utterly dead, by any means necessary.
Her ideal plan was, at the very instant Sukuna took flesh and before he'd found his footing, to blast him dead outright with Jacob's Ladder.
One wanted to wait for the enemy to grow stronger; the other wanted to strike while the enemy was weakest. Their interests were in complete conflict—there was no way the Angel would tell Hajime Kashimo the truth.
"Yes, I understand, and you understand—you and I are the ones on the same side." Kenjaku's smile widened. "I really am stringing him along... When Sukuna takes flesh, only you and I will bear witness."
"It's three."
"Oh, right—three."
Sealing a soul as a Jujutsu Technique was an ancient art mastered by very few. And among all cursed objects, Sukuna's was the most special of all.
Because Sukuna was the only existence whose soul had been split into twenty parts.
The reason it had been split into twenty parts remained unknown to this day.
But long ago, someone had raised a question—if Itadori ate one of Sukuna's fingers, and Megumi Fushiguro also ate one of Sukuna's fingers, would two Sukunas appear at the same time?
The answer was no.
Because there was only one Sukuna.
The twenty fingers weren't vessels for the soul, but more like anchor points for it.
Even if two people each ate a finger, Sukuna's soul could only exist in one place.
In theory, as long as Sukuna's soul remained within Itadori, then even if a finger were fed to another person, no new Sukuna would arise.
—Unless the Sukuna within Itadori killed himself.
Ah, those were the rules as written; Sukuna had once even said to Itadori something like, "Even if you die, it makes no difference to me, because I still have the other fingers."
If Sukuna killed himself, there would be no more Sukuna in the world.
And if at that moment a new finger were given to a new vessel, Sukuna could be resurrected within that new vessel.
Itadori was the most special vessel, utterly irreplaceable—but that didn't mean he was the only one qualified to serve as a vessel.
Itadori's specialness didn't lie in his immunity to being poisoned to death by Sukuna's fingers—Megumi Fushiguro, for instance, wouldn't die from them either.
Itadori's true specialness lay in his ability to suppress Sukuna.
To carry out his plan with peace of mind, Kenjaku didn't want Sukuna acting freely, which was why he'd chosen Itadori. In fact, in the original work, Kenjaku never once played the "Sukuna" card of his own accord until the very end, instead letting Itadori exist merely as a chaotic factor.
In the end, it was Sukuna who broke out on his own.
But now things were different. He had no choice but to summon Sukuna out.
Because Mahiru and Satoru Gojo had already sealed off all his other options.
In that case—it was time to set the final plan in motion.
During the day today, he'd sown chaos within Tokyo, and amid the turmoil dispatched a Special Grade Cursed Spirit to convey a message to Sukuna in an obscure ancient tongue that even in that era very few had known.
[Come. Come back.]
[Sukuna, I've come to receive you.]
Sukuna had already killed himself.
And Itadori was certain not to notice quickly—for Sukuna to deceive Itadori was utterly effortless.
Only if Satoru Gojo looked at Itadori with his naked eyes, or Mahiru touched Itadori with Idle Transfiguration, would they catch any hint of it.
But by then, what use would it be?
"Now then, let's begin." Kenjaku spread his hands and laid out sixteen fingers in a neat row on the ground before him. "The hour of incarnation and bathing has come—this is... the final round."
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.
The torches around the room ignited one after another, their orange-red glow gradually illuminating this enormous space.
Kenjaku sat cross-legged atop a high platform.
And behind him was a vast pool, brimming with a deep, viscous liquid that gleamed with a nauseating sheen.
Above—directly over the ceiling of the entire massive room—hung a great mass of jumbled flesh and blood, sealed in iron netting and ice.
If one looked closely, one could see it was countless Cursed Spirits processed into offerings through a special ritual, dripping dark liquid downward drop by drop, like a bloodletting—slow and sickening.
The Angel could tell what this was.
This... was a ritual used to stabilize the existence of an incarnated body and to suppress the soul of the original host.
And so the Angel began to sense something was wrong.
"Wait a moment..."
Why are you preparing a ritual like this?
Wasn't the plan to incarnate Sukuna, and then for me to kill him?
Isn't that what you and I agreed on?
What's the point of this ritual? Something's off... Something's wrong!!
The Angel suddenly realized something and tried to activate her Jujutsu Technique, but the Cursed Energy didn't respond.
Hana Kurusu tried to move, but her body wouldn't budge an inch.
Only then did the Angel feel the full weight of the danger, grasping what he meant to do.
Before the Angel had completed her symbiosis with Hana Kurusu, there had been a blank period. During that time, Kenjaku had had ample opportunity to tamper with Hana Kurusu's body.
If Hana Kurusu's body could withstand the Angel's Jujutsu Technique dwelling within it, then naturally it also possessed the aptitude to host the incarnation of other cursed objects—with proper cultivation, Hana Kurusu could likewise become a vessel for Sukuna!
And this ritual before her was, in all likelihood, meant to suppress the souls of Hana Kurusu and the Angel, paving the way for Sukuna's incarnation. Under the ritual's effect, even if they wanted to resist, they were already powerless to do so.
"You bastard!!" the Angel cursed. She'd been deceived!
This Kenjaku had intended from the very start to use the Angel and Hana Kurusu as nourishment and vessel for Sukuna!
"My, to be honest, deceiving you really wasn't easy at all." Kenjaku dropped the act entirely, his smile turning gleeful and mocking. "But what can you do, when the initiative was in my hands the whole time?"
Whatever Kenjaku did before the Angel awakened was none of the Angel's business.
And before Kenjaku had even signed a contract with the Angel of her former life, he had, in fact, already been deeply trusted by her.
"And besides, I haven't broken my promise, have I?" Kenjaku said with a smile, picking up one of the fingers. "[You and I will witness Sukuna's incarnation together, and once the incarnation is complete, I won't stop you from making a move against Sukuna]..."
Kenjaku hadn't broken a single word of it.
It was just that the vessel used to hold Sukuna would be the Angel herself.
____
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🔥 New history: COTE: Counterattack System
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