The Skeleton Woman, also known as the Skeleton Maiden, is said to have once been a young woman.
After being betrayed by her lover and abused by her family, she ultimately chose to take her own life. After her death, her resentment and suffering transformed into a skeletal form.
She is usually depicted as a tall woman with a haggard face, dressed in a long white robe, wearing a conical hat, and carrying a lantern. Her bones are pitch-black, giving her an unnaturally gaunt appearance, and a putrid stench constantly emanates from her body.
She most often appears in graveyards or forests at night, deliberately seeking out solitary travelers and luring them toward deadly traps.
She uses her beauty and an enchanting voice to draw them in, only to suddenly reveal her true skeletal form, either terrifying her victims into madness or killing them outright.
…
High in the air, atop a pink manta ray–shaped Cursed Spirit, three people were packed closely together as Suguru Geto explained the situation to Satoru Gojo and Akira Zenin.
Satoru Gojo spoke up immediately.
"Looks like a Special Grade Imaginary Cursed Spirit. It should be pretty similar to that Kuchisake-Onna you and I subdued a while back, right?"
Suguru Geto nodded.
"Probably. Still, since it's a Special Grade, we should be careful."
Satoru Gojo closed his eyes, his face full of confidence.
"What's there to be afraid of? We're the strongest."
Suguru Geto chuckled softly.
"That's true."
Akira Zenin slowly opened his eyes. Only then did he realize that while he had been asleep, those two animals had actually been using him as a seat cushion.
His eyes flew open.
"Hey, hey, hey. That's seriously unethical, you know."
Satoru Gojo looked completely baffled.
"Geto, did you hear someone talking just now?"
Suguru Geto shook his head.
"Huh? The wind's too loud. I can't hear anything."
Akira Zenin: "Damn it. Gojo is one thing, but I never thought you'd be like this too, Suguru Geto!"
Suguru Geto dismissed the manta ray Cursed Spirit, and the three of them jumped onto a massive roof beam inside the building.
"We're here. This Cursed Energy really is Special Grade."
Satoru Gojo nodded.
"This place feels pretty retro, though the styles are kind of all over the place."
Akira Zenin pointed toward the Cursed Spirit rampaging through the hall below.
"That's our target this time, right?"
Satoru Gojo nodded again.
"Yeah. Over two hundred people dead in just two days. Looks like most of them were yakuza, though."
He turned to look at Suguru Geto.
"Geto, none of the people down there are good guys. Should we step in now and stop the Cursed Spirit? Honestly, I don't really feel anything either way."
"If you look at the essence of it," Suguru Geto replied calmly, "it's still a Cursed Spirit killing non-sorcerers. No matter how vile their actions are, non-sorcerers should face social condemnation and legal punishment, not be slaughtered by a Cursed Spirit."
Watching this exchange, Akira Zenin finally understood. Back during their Jujutsu High days, Satoru Gojo's overwhelming strength had left him without much of a concept of other people. Even though he constantly complained about 'big moral principles,' he had always treated Suguru Geto as his compass for right and wrong.
"If we're really talking about the essence," Akira Zenin said, "then I think the Cursed Spirit down there is just the world's rules delivering karma to evildoers.
If it's trash like that being influenced and killed by a Cursed Spirit, I'd actually call it a 'natural death.'"
Akira Zenin lifted his head and met the gaze of Suguru Geto, who had turned to look at him.
"Suguru, do you know what this place is used for?"
"A gang hideout?"
"This whole area makes money through loan sharking and forcing people into the adult entertainment industry. And not the kind of performers you'd ever see on NHK."
Seeing Suguru Geto frown, Akira Zenin knew that, at that moment, he had already lost any desire to save the non-sorcerers below.
Akira Zenin continued,
"As for how I know all this so clearly.
It's because I'm the heir to the [Ten Shadows Technique]. My family lets me review many of their sources of income.
The Zenin Clan also earns part of its revenue from this place. In their eyes, non-sorcerers are nothing more than objects, with no rights as human beings. Letting those objects generate profit is just making use of waste.
In the end, good and evil aren't determined by what someone is born as, but by their actions and nature.
As for people like this, I choose to ignore their existence."
Akira Zenin had always wanted to change Suguru Geto's belief that "sorcerers exist solely to protect non-sorcerers." Extreme thinking often led to extreme actions, especially for someone as perceptive and prone to overthinking as Suguru Geto.
While they were speaking, the Skeleton Woman had already slaughtered almost everyone below.
She plunged her hand into the body of the final victim. The man collapsed like a stress ball, skin barely containing his bones as they bulged and caved, writhing through his body before bursting apart with a dull bang.
The surrounding walls were smeared with red, white, soft, and hard matter, as if an unruly child had dumped bucket after bucket of paint across them.
With no targets left, the Skeleton Woman slowly raised her head toward the three figures on the roof.
"May you… die… a miserable death…"
Satoru Gojo spread his hands.
"Oh wow. We've been spotted."
Suguru Geto looked exasperated.
"You weren't hiding at all, were you?"
Akira Zenin noticed that the two of them, who were about to jump down, seemed to have forgotten something. With no choice, he pressed his fingers together and spoke,
"Emerge from the darkness, blacker than darkness. Purify that which is impure."
A black, hemispherical Barrier completely sealed off the area.
Satoru Gojo pulled a face, narrowing his eyes as he mimicked Suguru Geto's usual tone,
"To suppress the birth of Cursed Spirits, the most important thing is keeping the public's hearts at peace. That's why even threats invisible to the eye must be concealed as much as possible."
Suguru Geto rubbed his temples, a headache coming on.
"I really was careless. Good thing Akira was here."
After the three of them landed on the ground, the Skeleton Woman suddenly dropped to all fours, letting out a low, beastlike snarl.
From her back, scorpion-like bone tails hooked five corpses, then launched forward as she charged at them with explosive force.
Even while dodging, the three of them continued exchanging observations.
Suguru Geto glanced at the shattered ground, then turned to Satoru Gojo.
"It can naturally use a technique, and with this level of power, it barely qualifies as Special Grade.
But it can only speak in fragments and can't communicate at all. It's basically a wild beast."
Satoru Gojo blocked the Skeleton Woman's sudden strike with the Limitless Technique and observed her carefully.
"Huh. When the technique activates, it's surprisingly clear. Doesn't it look a bit like what forms when a Jujutsu Sorcerer is killed in an irregular way?"
Suguru Geto dodged a bone whip and fired an octopus Cursed Spirit to force her back.
"If that's the case, it should retain some degree of consciousness."
Akira Zenin blocked a bone blade with the Piercing Ox Shadow and nodded.
"That would explain why a newly born Cursed Spirit can leave its birthplace and attack with such clear intent."
"Maybe the pain at the moment of death was so intense that it subconsciously refused to regain awareness."
Because the Skeleton Woman's technique could control bones through direct physical contact, Satoru Gojo and Akira Zenin, both capable of isolating attacks outside their bodies, instinctively positioned themselves in front of Suguru Geto.
Not that it was really necessary.
Satoru Gojo used [Blue] to pull the Skeleton Woman into midair, while Suguru Geto summoned a sandworm to slam her down into the rubble.
"Akira, weren't you planning to test a new technique?"
Akira Zenin nodded.
"I didn't think you'd remember."
Silently, he chanted in his mind, 'Max Elephant.'
The moment he felt the technique for [Max Elephant] become available, Akira Zenin extended his hand forward.
"[Cleansing] — Rain of a Thousand Needles."
Dense raindrops appeared around Akira Zenin, so pure and clear that they were easy to miss if one wasn't paying close attention.
Like countless needles, the rain instantly pierced the Skeleton Woman as she tried to rise, riddling her body with holes like a honeycomb.