"Well, now I see it." Mahiko let out a soft, humorless laugh. "So that's what you've been calculating all along...
In the original story, the only person who could be called Kenjaku's genuine partner — in the truest sense of the word — was Sukuna.
Loosely speaking, Rime could count as one too, but at her core, Rime was nothing more than Sukuna's lackey.
And what Kenjaku was proposing now was this: he admired Mahiko enormously. He found her fascinating, extraordinary — and he was willing to bring her in as a partner on equal footing with Sukuna.
The condition, of course, was that Mahiko demonstrate her sincerity. Or, to call it what it was — her loyalty.
"Heh..." Kenjaku was offering to forge a Binding Vow — pledging not to absorb her afterward — which meant the Culling Game that followed would have to be initiated by Mahiko's own hand.
She couldn't deny it: the path Kenjaku had laid out was genuinely interesting. His candor was real, and the good faith he'd extended was substantial.
If it had been the original story's Mahito standing here right now, he'd probably have been swayed already.
"But unfortunately," Mahiko said, Cursed Energy rising off her in waves, "I have no interest in your plan."
All this girl wanted was to live a normal life.
And if human society was destroyed — where exactly was she supposed to do that living?
"Then negotiations have broken down," Mahiko raised her hand, Cursed Energy surging, shadows coiling and circling overhead. "And that money I borrowed from you? Don't hold your breath waiting for it back."
It was [Skeletal Remains].
A [Skeletal Remains] with less than a few seconds of charge behind it — nowhere near its full power.
The starting gun had fired. Mahiko raised her hand and began condensing every ounce of strength into a single blow, while Kenjaku silently stepped back — he had no intention of fighting personally.
"Glacial Sorcery."
The one who stepped into Kenjaku's place was Rime, already raising her hand to summon her ice techniques.
Rime was stronger than Mahiko.
Mahiko was growing fast — but in terms of Cursed Energy efficiency and sheer volume, she still couldn't match Rime. Rime was an existence that could brush against the title of Special Grade.
Glacial Sorcery's freezing attacks hit hard, and its startup was shorter than Mahiko's.
Before Mahiko's [Skeletal Remains] had even condensed to a tenth of its full power, Rime's attack was already primed and ready — the icy mist in her palm crystallizing to a single lethal point, aimed squarely at Mahiko.
But the [Skeletal Remains] in Mahiko's hand was never the real move. It was a feint.
Rime suddenly caught a flash of crimson light flickering beyond the window. She turned her gaze instinctively — and found a two-meter-tall puppet floating outside the glass, its enormous palm spread wide and aimed directly at her, a palm cannon brimming with concentrated Cursed Energy and flame locking onto its target.
Rime's pupils contracted. She whipped around and threw up a wall of ice in front of herself.
A heartbeat later, the puppet outside fired.
The blast hit the ice wall dead-on.
BOOM —
Rime was caught completely off guard. The cannon round sent her rocketing backward — ice wall and all — crashing straight through the interior of the building.
Mahiko grabbed Nobara by the wrist and hurled herself toward the window.
["Hey. Cursed Spirit. This time I can't help you, so you're on your own. We haven't known each other long — but I know what you are. You're a good... Cursed Spirit. I'm sorry I can't do more."]
That was what Mechamaru had said to her before she came here.
["To keep you from dying at Kenjaku's hands — take off the earpiece I gave you before you go in..."]
["...And let me give you one last gift."]
One [Armored Darting Hare].
This was Mahiko's new technique.
Before Mahiko had set out to rescue Nobara, Mechamaru had given her a final gift — his own notes, sketched out during idle hours: the architectural design for a Jujutsu puppet unlike anything she'd tried before.
Mechamaru was a genius and a grandmaster when it came to constructing remotely-operated Jujutsu puppets.
Mahiko had attempted something like this once before — at the fire station, trying to build a puppet out of rabbits for higher-intensity combat. It had failed. Constructing a puppet of that kind was far harder than she'd imagined; without using a human soul as raw material, it was nearly impossible to give the puppet any real combat capability.
But Mechamaru had handed her an entirely new architectural framework for puppet construction — and it solved the problem.
Because the puppet was composed entirely of rabbits, it could be concealed within the shadows.
Because the framework was so carefully and elegantly designed, Mahiko could feed it Cursed Energy continuously, sustaining it for extended periods.
BOOM BOOM BOOM —
The barrage was relentless.
At this moment, the Armored Darting Hare wasn't just firing its palm cannon — its back and flanks were launching volleys of rabbit missiles in every direction, blasting them wholesale into the area where Rime had been sent crashing through.
The Armored Darting Hare was pure white from head to toe, accented with occasional patterns of glowing blue, with only a floating torso and two enormous arms — thruster vents on its body keeping it aloft.
The missiles spent, Mahiko shoved Nobara into the puppet's arms.
"Go!"
Time to run.
The two of them burst through the window together.
Outside was nothing but a vast, pitch-black Curtain.
Mahiko raised her finger. The [Skeletal Remains] at her fingertip had now built up to roughly half its full power.
Could it breach the Curtain?
She had no idea — but Rime wouldn't stay suppressed much longer. She had no choice but to gamble.
Then, the next instant, she felt it — an aura of extreme, lethal cold blooming at her back.
Rime had recovered far faster than Mahiko had expected.
"You've got some nerve..." Rime had already risen from the rubble, her ultimate freezing Cursed Energy shaped and ready through hand signs. "Glacial Sorcery — Frost Stillness!!"
Rime exhaled. The pinprick of ultimate ice Cursed Energy in her palm dispersed in an instant, a limitless white fog of ice pouring forth like a river — and swept toward Mahiko.
That ice fog was a temperature beyond what the world normally saw. Touch it and you'd be flash-frozen on the spot, with no margin for luck. The only real answer was to dodge.
Mahiko could dodge. But she couldn't dodge with Nobara in her arms.
Nobara's presence was a massive constraint on Mahiko's mobility.
So she had to defend.
Mahiko gritted her teeth, commanding the Armored Darting Hare behind her to turn and face the oncoming ice fog, spreading its palms wide — the palm cannon overloaded in an instant.
"Burn!"
Drawing on Jogo's technique, flames erupted from the puppet's palms.
Ice and fire collided and cancelled each other out.
But the enemy's cold was too immense — raw output in ice Cursed Energy was Rime's defining strength and specialty.
In the end, Rime's attack had the edge. Even Mahiko's overloaded burning palm cannon couldn't fully neutralize the assault.
The ice fog tore through the flames and swept over her. Mahiko threw up a Cursed Energy defense, wrapped her arms around the unconscious Nobara to shield her — and the Armored Darting Hare folded itself around both of them simultaneously.
For an instant — excruciating pain.
Mahiko felt the outer layer of tissue all across her body freeze solid and die in a single moment.
She held Nobara tight. The two of them, along with the Armored Darting Hare, were frozen into a single ice sphere — and began to plummet.
"What a shame. Honestly, I truly do admire you... but since this is the choice you've made, I won't stand in your way any further..." Kenjaku, who had been watching the battle from the sidelines, sighed and shook his head, raising his hands to form hand signs. "I can only ask that you be buried here, Mahiko."
Kenjaku invoked the Curtain.
In an instant, the space within the Curtain warped — the walls of the building, bricks and stone, began to twist and reshape.
Mahiko, frozen into an ice sphere, was falling.
Inside the sphere, the girl frantically used Idle Transfiguration on herself, restoring her body so she could move again.
The ice shell shattered. She opened her eyes — and found herself plummeting through an enormous spiral corridor.
The corridor spiraled endlessly downward, and lining every ring of the surrounding walls, a vast array of Cursed Spirits clung and crawled.
This was... the space had been warped. The building itself had been remade.
And at the very bottom, there was someone.
"Hey, hey, hey... look, this kind of many-on-one fight is really boring, you know..." The figure was draped in a cloak, head tilted upward, eyes beneath the hood meeting Mahiko's gaze from across the vast distance. "So could we wrap this up sooner rather than later?"
Mahiko froze.
That eye contact lasted less than a second in the chaos of the battle.
Who was that? The voice was familiar — she racked her brain instinctively — but in the very next instant, a flare of Cursed Energy lit up on the figure's forehead, and Mahiko's pupils snapped tight.
She knew who this was.
This person was — !!
"Shaved Ice Shockwave!! ——"
BOOM ——
A beam of blue Cursed Energy fired in an instant, punching clean through Mahiko's abdomen — blasting a gaping hole straight through her with contemptuous ease.
Blood poured freely. It was a gruesome sight.
——
[Author's Note]
Come to think of it — if Mahiko had gone along with Kenjaku to help create a great Cursed Spirit, wouldn't that have been a pretty interesting "what if" route?
Evil-arc Mahiko teaming up with Kenjaku without missing a beat — honestly, that sounds genuinely fun.
Anyone want to see that? Fair warning, the moral compass would take a serious hit!
VOTE:
[ ] Sure, go write it — I'm in
[ ] Nah, don't bother
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