For Mahiru, saving Tsumiki Fushiguro was an extremely simple matter—one might say she could do it with a flick of the wrist.
However, in front of Kenjaku, Mahiru had to guard somewhat against him connecting her to Mahito, so it wasn't very convenient for her to use Idle Transfiguration.
No matter. The "Reverse Cursed Technique Output" that Mahiru had learned earlier came in perfectly handy.
She brought the injured Tsumiki Fushiguro into the house, and Kenjaku followed her in. Right in front of Kenjaku, Mahiru used the output Reverse Cursed Technique on the unconscious Tsumiki Fushiguro.
Soft, transparent energy overflowed from her palm, and the girl's ragged, gruesome wounds healed at a visible pace.
Seeing that Mahiru could even output the Reverse Cursed Technique, Kenjaku couldn't help but feel alarmed once more.
"Come bandage her up, and check her body over while you're at it." With the treatment finished, Mahiru entrusted the follow-up to Kenjaku and softly tiptoed out of the room.
Her footsteps were light.
So the two little ones in the living room didn't notice that she had come out.
From a distance, the two little heads—one black-haired, one pink-haired—sitting side by side on the sofa were unexpectedly adorable.
Itadori had already released the magical girl transformation, but she still looked like a girl now—because she hadn't stopped the flow of her Cursed Energy.
Mahiru just stood there at a distance, listening from afar, and realized that Itadori seemed to be comforting Fushiguro.
"Don't worry, the great Angel big sis is super amazing!" Itadori patted her chest and promised confidently. "She'll definitely heal your sister right up—there won't be a single thing wrong!"
Fushiguro hesitated, then nodded slightly. After being saved by a magical girl, he naturally began to believe in this world's supernatural powers; when Itadori said his sister could be saved, he didn't doubt it.
He looked around the room.
Come to think of it... so this was what a magical girl's room looked like?
Fushiguro had always assumed a magical girl's dwelling... or rather her "base," should be some kind of super cool type.
He never expected such an ordinary house.
It actually put him more at ease.
He tilted his head and thanked the little Itadori beside him: "Um... thank you for saving me and my sister."
"It's nothing, nothing! It's what I'm supposed to do!" Little Itadori waved her hand, unconcerned.
"Uh... but let me ask something..." Fushiguro couldn't hold back and voiced the doubt in his heart. "What exactly are those monsters?"
"Those are Cursed Spirits—uh, what was the principle again? Teacher Mahiru seemed to have told me... um... argh! I forgot! Anyway, they're monsters!" Itadori rubbed her chin, wracking her memory over and over, and finally gave up on explaining. "And the sacred duty of us magical girls is to defeat these Cursed Spirits and protect ordinary people like you."
Originally Itadori had called Satoru Gojo "Teacher."
But now, Itadori addressed Mahiru as "Teacher."
Mahiru had basically snatched the title away.
Fushiguro was slightly dazed. "Cursed Spirits, huh..."
"Um... I don't really understand it that well myself; if you have questions, ask Teacher." At this point, Itadori proudly added, "Teacher is super amazing—she knows everything."
Teacher, huh... Fushiguro thought back to that blue-haired girl.
Earlier Itadori had even called her "Angel"...
"...They really are amazing, magical girls." Little Fushiguro muttered under his breath.
But Itadori suddenly turned her head, as if struck by a thought. "Honestly, you could actually become a magical girl too, right? You seem to have the aura of magic about you as well."
Fushiguro froze on the spot.
"Huh? Magic? Me?" He felt she was making fun of him. "How could I possibly have magic?"
"It's true," little Itadori said. "You have to believe me."
The "magic" Itadori spoke of was, naturally, Cursed Energy.
Just now, while Fushiguro had been fighting for his life against that Cursed Spirit, little Itadori had genuinely sensed the awakening Cursed Energy coming from him.
"I don't think I sensed it wrong, because the aura of magic is really obvious," little Itadori rubbed her chin, thinking seriously. "So you should be able to become a magical girl too."
"Uh... but I'm a boy?" Fushiguro really didn't know what to say. "Do you think I look like a girl?"
"What's wrong with being a boy?"
"How is a boy supposed to become a magical girl..."
"I used to be a boy too!"
Hearing this, little Fushiguro looked at little Itadori standing before him with hands on her hips and head tilted up, smug about who-knows-what, and was shocked beyond words.
"You're a boy too?!"
"Why did you suddenly get so loud... yeah, I can't believe you didn't notice."
How the hell was I supposed to notice?!
"So boys can become magical girls too?!"
"Well, after all, Teacher Mahiru can do anything."
That's way too all-powerful!
And besides, besides... Fushiguro's eyes scanned Itadori up and down, sizing her up.
How could this guy be a boy...
This guy was more girly than an actual girl!
And besides, so cute, so pretty, just like a little angel...
Fushiguro felt something inside him collapse. But... could I... really become a magical girl too?
If he asked himself honestly... in that instant, a flicker of resistance to the idea of "becoming a girl" did flash through Megumi Fushiguro's heart.
But that resistance was immediately pressed down by something else.
Because he recalled the danger he'd faced tonight, recalled the sight of his sister collapsed in a pool of blood, recalled that monster he'd been almost powerless to resist—one he'd despaired to even look up at—and also recalled this pink magical girl before him, who had smashed the monster into pulp with one light, effortless swing of her staff.
He wasn't like Itadori, harboring such great passion and interest in the grand cause of "saving all ordinary people."
But he badly wanted to obtain this power, and to use it to protect the people at his side.
At the very least, he wanted to make sure the people around him would never suffer even the slightest harm again.
He couldn't be like today again—watching helplessly as his sister was hurt while he himself could do nothing.
"Really?" He looked up, an unprecedented seriousness in his eyes. "...Can I really?"
"Of course you can—how many times have I said it?" Itadori huffed twice. "Teacher Mahiru is all-powerful."
Meanwhile, Mahiru, standing behind the two little ones and listening to their conversation, was already having a bit of trouble keeping a straight face.
This was way too funny, wasn't it?
How had he been talked into it with just a few words?
Ah well... all one could say was that Itadori really was a little succubus.
Mahiru had been racking her brain over how she should wear out her lips talking to draw Fushiguro onto the team... and yet it turned out that Itadori had won Fushiguro over without any effort at all.
Then again, who could face Itadori's sincere, cheerful, dazzlingly sunny attitude and remain unmoved?
The little pink sun was right!
The little pink puppy was right too!
So, Mahiru silently leaned out from behind the two little ones and spoke up with a smile.
"—So, Megumi Fushiguro." She chuckled softly. "Do you want to become a magical girl?"
Startled by this sudden voice, Fushiguro whipped his head around.
But once he saw clearly that it was Mahiru, he mustered all his courage and nodded heavily, forcefully.
"I do! ...Uh, um... Teacher! Please grant me power!"
Mahiru's smile seemed to deepen a little.
Whether or not it was Fushiguro's imagination... that smile seemed to hold a certain triumphant delight within it.
"Of course you can," Mahiru said with a smile. "In fact, you can do it right now."
Mahiru turned Megumi Fushiguro into a magical girl very quickly.
Mainly because she was simply far too practiced at this.
Whether it was turning Megumi Fushiguro into a girl, or turning a person into a magical girl, she was incredibly skilled. One might even say that the current Mahiru could trace out the shape of Megumi Fushiguro's soul with her eyes closed—this was, after all, the one soul she had studied most deeply.
The process of "enchanting" Fushiguro took only about a dozen seconds.
Mahiru pulled Megumi Fushiguro into the bedroom, shut the little door, released her Cursed Energy, gave her Cursed Technique a twist—and out came a fresh, adorable little girl with lustrous long black hair.
Just like Itadori, essentially, Fushiguro only became a magical girl while using Cursed Energy.
And while the Cursed Energy kept flowing, both of them would maintain the appearance of a girl.
Itadori's continued reluctance to change back into a boy was purely because she herself wanted to keep maintaining this state.
Anyway, from then on it would be the two children's own choice.
The little door opened, and Megumi Fushiguro walked out.
The moment Itadori saw, her eyes lit up in a flash, and with a "Woooow" she pounced: "Haha, I didn't expect you'd be pretty cute after becoming a magical girl!"
Fushiguro... no, she should now be called "Magical Girl Keiko"—hearing Itadori's super weird-sounding praise, she couldn't help feeling utterly uncomfortable, her ears turning red, and quickly reached out to fend off the lunging Itadori: "Get off me!"
Shoved away, Itadori remained just as enthusiastic, circling around Fushiguro to look, examining carefully—left and right, up and down. Just then, the door opened, and Kenjaku helped little Tsumiki out from the inner room.
Kenjaku took one look at Megumi Fushiguro's current appearance and couldn't help being startled again—he truly hadn't expected Mahiru to move so fast.
And Tsumiki, seeing this unfamiliar little girl before her, was even more stunned in place.
"You... are you Megumi?" She seemed to sense something and asked in disbelief.
Little Fushiguro nodded, clenched her fists, her little face set very seriously: "Yeah, sis. I want to become a magical girl... to protect you."
And this time Itadori sidled up again, mysteriously leaning in toward Tsumiki's ear: "Big sis, do you want to become a magical girl too? Teacher Mahiru's magical girl transformation package is buy-one-get-one-free right now—"
Before Tsumiki Fushiguro could react, little Fushiguro dashed over with a "whoosh," like a mother hen protecting her chick, spread her two little arms, and firmly blocked the way in front of her sister.
"No way! There's no way Tsumiki would ever want to become a magical girl!"
He would absolutely never let his sister take part in such dangerous business as risking her life against monsters!
"Mainly, little Tsumiki has no talent," Kenjaku said with a laugh from the side.
Tsumiki indeed had no talent.
However, Kenjaku didn't know that the current Mahiru could actually turn a person into a Jujutsu Sorcerer from zero. Had he known, he would definitely have been shocked out of his wits.
Fushiguro and Itadori were bickering noisily together.
Little Tsumiki walked up to Mahiru and bowed deeply. "Thank you for saving me," she thanked her softly.
After speaking, she glanced back at little Fushiguro, who was making a ruckus, and, as if having made some resolution, bowed again: "Also... from now on, I'll have to trouble you all to take good care of my little brother."
She desperately wanted to protect her little brother.
But things like "magical girls" and "Cursed Spirits" simply shattered her understanding too utterly. After this one night, she painfully realized that with her own strength, she could no longer protect her brother.
If that was the case, then let her brother obtain greater power—let him have the ability to protect himself.
That was why she had so quickly accepted the fact of "her own brother becoming a magical girl."
At this moment, Tsumiki was actually rather pitiful too. Though her wounds had been healed, she was still in tattered clothes, disheveled and pathetic.
Mahiru looked at this still-young little girl before her and couldn't help feeling a pang of tenderness in her heart.
She reached out and gently patted Tsumiki's head.
"If you two ever run into any trouble in the future, you can come find us here," she said gently. "And this Auntie Kaori Itadori will help you as well."
And Kenjaku, standing behind Mahiru, gave Tsumiki a beaming little wave—probably signaling his tacit agreement with Mahiru's words.
Poor Toji Fushiguro—he still had no idea that his bargain-priced daughter and his own biological son had both been spirited away by Mahiru. —He'd never again be able to sell Megumi Fushiguro off for money afterward; a total loss.
"It's getting late," Kenjaku suggested. "Why don't you just rest here tonight."
Little Tsumiki and little Fushiguro both agreed. After all, their home was probably in shambles by now, and staying here at least gave them more of a sense of security.
After tonight's events, the two children probably wouldn't have been able to sleep out there anyway.
Afterward, they got along very harmoniously.
Kenjaku cut open a watermelon, and they huddled together munching watermelon while watching TV, just like a family.
Another hour passed, and it was time to sleep.
The beds were small and there weren't many bedrooms, so everyone squeezed in together.
Mahiru wasn't sleeping. She still had to go out.
Little Tsumiki, little Fushiguro, and little Itadori squeezed onto a single small bed.
Little Fushiguro and little Itadori were on quite good terms by now; the two of them huddled together bickering—always noisy, always chattering away.
Though little Fushiguro was still a bit unused to this new body of hers, under little Itadori's playful antics, as they fooled around and played, she gradually stopped caring about the change in her body.
As for little Tsumiki, watching her brother—who had always disliked socializing and been reticent—now have such a friend, she couldn't help but feel happy too.
In fact, it was visibly clear that if Megumi Fushiguro kept living like this, kept maintaining this current state and these relationships, then by the time he grew up and reached the age to enter Jujutsu High, his personality would probably turn out completely different from the original story.
He would be raised to be more cheerful, more lively.
Perhaps he'd even become a little black sun.
After all, he no longer had to scrape by in that dark corner.
Though the process was a bit unexpected, a bit different from before, little Fushiguro had, at this moment, truly received the gentle treatment he should have had at his age, along with friends his own age. The night gradually deepened.
The children, worn out from playing, fell fast asleep one after another.
Only then did Mahiru gently rise, preparing to head out.
But just then, Kenjaku called out to stop her.
Mahiru turned back in puzzlement, only to see Kenjaku beckon to her and lead her into the living room.
"If you're still short on candidates to cultivate as magical girls," Kenjaku lowered his voice, "I actually have some things here that I can give you."
Mahiru was a little puzzled.
But the next second, she understood.
Because Kenjaku opened a box on the table, inside which several different cursed objects were neatly arranged.
They were the cursed objects of those Jujutsu Sorcerers who had once made ancient contracts with Kenjaku.
"You want to give... all of these to me?" Mahiru was a bit surprised.
She understood what Kenjaku meant. This guy wanted to use these cursed objects to create children with a talent for Cursed Energy, and then cultivate them as magical girls.
By doing this, Kenjaku was undoubtedly repurposing the preparations he'd made for the "Culling Game." In other words, at least for now, Kenjaku had completely given up on starting the Culling Game again.
Mahiru looked at those few cursed objects in the box.
The idea was viable. But she didn't want to mass-produce magical girls with these things for the time being.
After all, her original intention had merely been to cultivate these boys and girls to cope with the Culling Game that might arrive in the future.
There was another thing Mahiru noticed: although there were cursed objects in the box, they weren't all of them. The exclusive soul cursed objects of the likes of Urogi Kyoko and Ishiryuu weren't in this box—probably having already been placed elsewhere long ago.
Mahiru examined them one by one; two among these cursed objects were eye-catching enough. One was Yorozu's cursed object, and the other was "Reji's" cursed object.
? Reji's cursed object piqued a bit of Mahiru's interest.
Because that guy's "Re-Contract Technique" was really fun.
She'd taken a liking to the cursed object not in order to create magical girls, but because Mahiru really wanted to learn this Cursed Technique for her own use.
This time her plan happened to require a brand-new Cursed Technique—one that would let her disguise herself as a completely new identity, and thereby get close to the Jujutsu High of this current era.
"Then, I'll take this one." So she reached out and took Reji's cursed object.
Over the next two or three days, Mahiru set about looking for more good prospects who could become magical girls.
With the intelligence support provided by her companions in the modern world, she smoothly found little Miwa, and also found little Nobara Kugisaki.
Little Miwa and little Nobara both still had families of their own. So Mahiru didn't force them to carry out any patrol duties, only making verbal agreements with them.
She promised little Nobara that in the future someone would come to take her to Tokyo to study, fulfilling her wish "to go live in Tokyo." As for little Miwa, she told her that once she grew up, being a "magical girl" could serve as a decent source of income, giving her the ability to earn money on her own.
And over these days, little Itadori and little Fushiguro had also kept up all sorts of magical girl training—which was to say, Jujutsu Sorcerer training.
Little Fushiguro's Ten Shadows Technique had already been awakened by Mahiru, and now he could already summon the Jade Dogs.
It was just that, because he'd been remade into a magical girl by Mahiru, the shadow-technique little animals he summoned had all turned into an adorable cartoon style—that is, the magical-girl style.
During this time, Mahiru would also take them into real combat, leading them to various places to exorcise Cursed Spirits and fight monsters, accumulating hands-on experience.
And in this process, inevitably, some of Jujutsu High's assistant supervisors, or Jujutsu High's informants, took notice of these two magical girls; at the same time, some passersby, upon being rescued, saw and remembered the figures of the two little magical girls.
On one hand, this gave rise to a string of urban legends about "magical girls."
On the other hand, it also aroused the suspicion of the assistant supervisors—were these newborn wild Jujutsu Sorcerers?
They tried to investigate.
But investigate as they might, they couldn't dig up a single thing.
There was nothing to be done about it.
After all, the ones taking little Fushiguro and little Itadori around the world to exorcise Cursed Spirits were the two most sinister people in all of "Jujutsu Kaisen"—Kenjaku and Mahiru.
With the two of them joining forces to cover their tracks, where were you even supposed to look?
In the end, word of this eventually reached the ears of Satoru Gojo and Suguru Geto.
At this time, the two of them were still conducting the investigation into Mahiru's "assimilation incident."
"Huh? Magical girls? What's that supposed to be?" Satoru Gojo let out a questioning sound when he heard the term.
He just figured the assistant supervisor's brain must be a bit off—who could believe in something like that?
It wasn't until the assistant supervisor pulled out a few photos that he half-believingly accepted—oh, so such a thing really did exist.
Beside Satoru Gojo and Suguru Geto, another girl with short chestnut hair leaned in and lazily let out an "Eh."
"Jujutsu Sorcerers these days are getting more and more avant-garde, huh?" This was the young version of Shoko.
"What is this?" Suguru Geto, after his shock, tried to think rationally. "Some new school of Jujutsu Sorcerers?"
"I'm not sure either." The assistant supervisor shook his head. "That's exactly why I said this thing might have to trouble you two to look into it on the side as well."
Lately, what they'd been investigating was the incident of Mahiru making everyone dream the same dream. But that investigation had long since hit a bottleneck, and now with one more matter piled on, it was truly annoying.
During this time, Mahiru had been hiding her Domain Expansion more and more discreetly, and Satoru Gojo and the others had no way of finding it at all.
In most cases, the people caught up in it would collectively black out and lose their memories for a certain stretch of time—yet they themselves were completely unaware of it.
Only when Satoru Gojo and the others came knocking and repeatedly prompted, "Did you forget what happened during that period?" would these people suddenly freeze up, and then abruptly recall that they had, in fact, blacked out during that time.
"How annoying." Satoru Gojo leaned back wearily against his chair. "It'd be great if all this crap could just be solved with violence. I hate this kind of roundabout stuff the most."
"Right? This sort of thing is really unfriendly to idiots." Suguru Geto couldn't help but chuckle.
"Hah? I just find it annoying, that's all." Satoru Gojo frowned and shot back. "You don't actually think I can't use my brain, do you?"
"First time I've heard you can use your brain... all right, then tell me, what can you see?"
"Heh, provocation too?" Satoru Gojo first laughed, then rubbed his chin. "What's so remarkable about it... it's obvious—since these 'magical girls' are all children, and newly appeared at that, it's very likely that someone is digging up children with jujutsu talent to train them, wanting to create their own private soldiers."
"Oh?" Suguru Geto raised an eyebrow. "Actually, I think so too."
Beside them, Shoko lazily drew out another "Ohh."
"In other words," Satoru Gojo said, "if that person still wants to keep developing more magical girls, then he'll definitely go looking for other children with jujutsu talent."
"And what's more, those children have to be the 'overlooked' ones," Suguru Geto continued. "Because children valued by Jujutsu Sorcerer families can't be dragged off to serve as private soldiers. So all we need to do is find the children who are overlooked yet still have a jujutsu bloodline or talent, and stake them out."
Satoru Gojo laughed and patted his shoulder: "Hey, didn't expect little bro Geto to be so sharp."
"Come on now, little bro Gojo," Suguru Geto said with a beaming smile. "I figured it out a full half-minute before you did."
"Hahaha, keep on bragging—there's no one in this world better at boasting than you..."
And so the two of them started bickering all over again.
Shoko watched the two goofballs squabble from off to the side, smiled faintly, and didn't bother with them—she just sprawled over a classroom chair and stretched a little.
The afternoon sunlight spilled in through the window, warm and cozy. Shoko felt that this noisy, rowdy environment was, in truth, really comfortable.
Her ability was to heal others.
But all she hoped for was that no one would ever get hurt.
If an afternoon like this could just go on forever... how wonderful that would be.
____
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