"Now then — I have good news." Mahiko stood at the top of the mountain, looking down at the rolling, unbroken stretch of forest below. "Want to hear it?"
Mahiko was communicating with the others through her communication clone.
The people she was talking to were, of course, Zen'in Mai and Maki Zenin.
"Since Ogi Zenin is dead, the date of the inheritance division meeting has been pushed back by two days." Mahiko said, "So for now, we've got plenty of time. Take your time finishing up whatever's on your hands."
This place was a barren mountain now.
But it had originally been quite a bustling spot. This abandoned hot-spring inn had once seen a steady stream of guests at its doors.
Later, however, several incidents in which tourists were injured or killed occurred here one after another, and the rumour that "this place is cursed" gradually spread among visitors, until eventually no one was willing to come anymore.
And so the hot-spring inn's business sank lower and lower, until at last it went under, and then fell into utter ruin.
In actual fact, the so-called curse was a Cursed Spirit. In an abandoned tunnel not far from here, an earthbound spirit — that is, a Cursed Spirit, and a Special Grade Cursed Spirit at that — had taken up residence.
This Special Grade Cursed Spirit had never been dealt with. The main reason was simply that there weren't that many jujutsu sorcerers to begin with, and when it came to Special Grade Cursed Spirits that wouldn't endanger major population centres, very few people would choose to make them a priority.
So Jujutsu High had simply put up notice boards and warning lines, forbidding people from entering this mountain area, and let the matter sit just like that.
So then — what did Mahiko and the others intend to do about this Special Grade Cursed Spirit now?
"Next up, please enter from each end of the tunnel, and each take on one of this Special Grade Cursed Spirit's two sides." Mahiko sat down on the mountaintop, idly swinging her bare feet back and forth. "Just consider it a chance to get a feel for your new powers."
"Oh, and one more thing — if you want to kill this Special Grade Cursed Spirit, you'll each have to defeat one of its two [sides]. A single person can't take this Cursed Spirit down alone."
"Do your best, sisters. Even if this Special Grade Cursed Spirit ends up killing you, I won't lift a finger to help. After all…"
Mahiko broke into a smile, perfectly at ease.
"I don't really need useless sisters who can't even beat a Special Grade Cursed Spirit, hehe…"
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Footsteps echoed.
A figure shrouded head to toe in a black cloak walked into the tunnel, the light around her sinking into shadow.
"Special Grade… Cursed Spirit, hm?"
The girl murmured the words to herself in a low voice, with what emotion no one could tell, for her face was hidden by the black cloak.
She seemed to draw in a small breath.
Her footsteps did not stop. She kept walking inward.
——If a single word were to be used to describe the life Maki Zenin herself considered the first half of her life had been, that word would probably… have been "darkness."
The little more than a year of student life she'd had at Jujutsu High had added a touch of brightness to her life, but apart from that, there had been nothing for her at all.
The Zenin family pressed down upon her.
The fate that doomed her to never be able to grow stronger pressed down upon her.
The contempt of others pressed down upon her.
Difficulties and enemies that kept growing in number and strength also pressed down upon her.
It made her feel that, in truth, she was drifting further and further from the ending she wanted for herself.
So… the girl's emotions and state of mind had been growing gradually numb.
Faced with the slander of others, the girl would once have flown into a rage; now, it scarcely mattered at all.
When she made some small progress of her own, the girl would not really believe that "I might actually stand a chance someday," but only feel, "so this is all there is to it."
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
The footsteps still echoed.
Maki Zenin walked one step at a time, deeper and deeper into the tunnel.
"Gugu-jiji… gugu-jiji…"
And as if it had sensed the girl's arrival, the Cursed Energy deep within the tunnel began to surge, began to swell.
A massive black silhouette bulged out from the depths of the tunnel.
It was a giant crab.
Tall as a pair of two-story buildings, its body wide enough to span three lanes of road, and across the crab's body grew countless eyes — eyes that gave off that gugu-jiji sound.
Its Cursed Energy was monstrously strong.
There was no question about it. This was a Special Grade Cursed Spirit.
Tap.
The footsteps came to a halt as well.
Maki Zenin had already drawn up to the closest possible position right in front of the Special Grade Cursed Spirit.
She looked up; the Cursed Spirit looked down. Maki Zenin's eyes beneath the black cloak — still and unstirring as an ancient well — met the countless ferocious gazes of the Cursed Spirit.
"Jii-aow!! ——"
The Cursed Spirit seemed to be enraged by the girl's calm. It had devoured many humans here… and yet this girl in front of it, who gave off no air of danger whatsoever, somehow made it feel insulted.
There's not the slightest scent of Cursed Energy on you — and yet you don't show even a flicker of fear!?
Outrageous!
The Cursed Spirit shrieked, raised a pincer, and brought it crashing down with all its might. The air was crushed beneath the sheer force, and a swirling, savage wind whipped up inside the tunnel.
CRASH!! ——
The girl did not dodge.
The giant pincer struck the girl squarely, dead on.
As the Cursed Spirit had expected, the girl ought, in that instant, to have been pulped into a smear of meat.
But in reality, it was not so.
"Jii??"
The savage wind swept by, tearing the black cloak from the girl's body, and her long, slender black ponytail streamed in its wake.
The girl had simply raised her left arm — and was easily holding off the Cursed Spirit's full-force blow.
Yes…
If the girl's life had continued along its original trajectory… her spirit would only have crept closer and closer to dead silence.
But now, things were different.
Because...
"Heh…" Maki Zenin laughed, and an exhilaration — the kind that comes from breaking through one's shackles, from cocoon to butterfly — rose in her eyes. "So that's all there is to it — a Special Grade Cursed Spirit is this weak?"
——Because the modifications Mahiko had performed on her had already been a success.
"Hah…"
A smile broke across the girl's face.
She raised her fist, her smile widening, stepped forward, and threw a punch that compressed the air itself, even striking out with the roar of an explosion.
CRASH!! ——
The Cursed Spirit's enormous body, vast as a small building, was struck from below and hurled upward.
This single punch from Maki Zenin sent the whole of its body flying, slamming it heavily into the ceiling of the tunnel.
The rock cracked apart.
Squish, splat — flesh and blood scattered everywhere.
The Cursed Spirit let out a sharp, piercing shriek.
Blood sprayed down like rain, splashing all over Maki Zenin, until the girl was utterly bathed in blood.
"Hahaha… hahahaha..."
Bathed in blood, the girl began to laugh.
"Hahahaha——"
She laughed out loud.
Defeating a Special Grade Cursed Spirit… even one of those Special Grade Cursed Spirits whose power was split in two, and rather low-tier at that — for the old Maki Zenin, that would have been something exceedingly far out of reach.
But now...
"How are you this weak!? ——"
With not a single shred of Cursed Energy in her body, the girl, in turn, no longer needed any Cursed Energy.
Discarding her identity as a student of Jujutsu High to become an aide to the blue-haired Cursed Spirit, the girl felt she had stepped into a new world.
The Maki Zenin of this moment was no longer the weakling who used to huff and puff and turn red in the face just to scrap with some roadside enemy.
Now, she...
"Again!!" The girl laughed exhilaratedly, charging once more in the direction of the Cursed Spirit as it fell from the ceiling.
——She had already become what was called the "Heavenly Tyrant," a "demon-being" possessed of unparalleled physical ability.
CRASH——
Another punch.
It smashed the crab Cursed Spirit half-flat.
CRASH——
Yet another punch.
The crab Cursed Spirit went hurtling sideways again, slamming into the wall.
The crab Cursed Spirit was on the weaker end of Special Grade Cursed Spirits, but at minimum it had the strength of an ordinary Grade 1 sorcerer — and now it was being thrashed bare-handed by Maki Zenin, flesh and blood flying everywhere.
Maki Zenin stood in place, watching the Cursed Spirit embedded in the wall, and broke into a bracing smile.
This was the first time in a very, very long time that she had felt so utterly refreshed — as if she had broken free of everything that had once bound her, and been thoroughly born anew.
The black cloak from her body had long since fallen away.
The girl beneath the cloak — her body was slim and delicate, her long hair even longer than before, her hairstyle, after being rearranged by Mahiko, even cooler and more dignified.
The same as before, her body was slender but with the implicit lines of muscle, brimming with a sense of power; her black fitted shirt and slim-fitting trousers made the girl look like one of those gymnasts who might appear at the Olympic Games — compared with her appearance in the original work, the lines of her muscle were softer, slightly more restrained.
But different from before — the girl no longer wore glasses on her face.
The Maki Zenin of this moment could now see Cursed Spirits with her own eyes.
The presence she carried — that of a solitary, lofty plum blossom, dignified and cold — had now been completely unleashed.
If this place really had been the arena of the Olympic Games, then no doubt the girl would have been at the centre of every camera lens.
Not to mention, right now she was laughing in a way that was at once handsome and beautiful — fierce and graceful, sharp and untrammelled.
There was, however, one thing to bear in mind: a sorcerer could be bludgeoned to death with one's fists, but a Cursed Spirit could not. A Cursed Spirit had to be dealt damage with Cursed Energy in order for it to take effect, and the Heavenly Tyrant carried no Cursed Energy in her body at all. As a result, fists could be used to mould Cursed Spirits like silly putty — but actually killing them was a troublesome business.
And so, in the end, she still had to rely on the Cursed Energy contained in a cursed tool to slay a Cursed Spirit.
As a matter of fact, Zen'in Mai had made her a long cursed tool blade, which was tucked inside the black cloak that had fallen at the start. But Maki Zenin was suddenly feeling that she shouldn't bring the fight to a close quite this early.
"Come on and play my punching bag for a little while longer." The girl smiled and continued walking toward the crab Cursed Spirit. "And whatever moves you've got, you'd better hurry up and pull them out, hmm?..."
The girl approached, step by step.
The Cursed Spirit let out a chittering, scratching sound… as though in fear.
"Oh-ho. Big sis Maki's situation is going pretty nicely."
At this very moment, Mahiko was observing the battles on both Maki Zenin's and Zen'in Mai's ends from afar.
Maki Zenin's side of things was looking very good.
She had been training her own hand-to-hand skill all along to begin with; once she'd obtained the bodily strength of the Heavenly Tyrant, she had quickly come to grips with her own power.
The method Mahiko had used to tune the two sisters was actually quite simple.
She had used her own "Idle Transfiguration" to directly erase the previous twin "Cursed Energy equal-split" mechanism between the two sisters.
In this way, Zen'in Mai's Cursed Energy would no longer be evenly siphoned off onto Maki Zenin going forward.
Maki Zenin, on the other hand, had now become a completely and utterly zero-Cursed Energy Heavenly Tyrant.
"Hmm... but she does seem a little short of the level in the original work…"
In the original work, Maki Zenin first awakened the Heavenly Tyrant after the Shibuya Incident.
The Maki Zenin of that point had been through several more high-intensity battles than the current one, had richer combat experience, more accumulated training, and had even seen footage of the first-generation Heavenly Tyrant's fights.
All in all, the Maki Zenin at the moment of her awakening in the original work — whether in combat experience or in physical skill — was stronger than the Maki Zenin of right now.
And the present-day Maki Zenin — if she didn't bring along some rather strong supporting equipment — was probably only at the level of a fairly strong Grade 1 sorcerer.
That was already very good, really.
After all, she had only just been pulled in through the gate of a new world by Mahiko.
In any case, Mahiko was thoroughly satisfied with the results of her work on Maki Zenin. After giving a happy little nod, she turned her gaze back to whatever was going on over on Zen'in Mai's side.
This Special Grade Cursed Spirit was something Mahiko had stumbled across by chance.
To ensure both Zen'in Mai's and Maki Zenin's safety, Mahiko had, in fact, gone ahead and tested out this Special Grade Cursed Spirit's strength and Technique well in advance.
This Cursed Spirit had to be entered from both ends of the tunnel, with both of its sides slain at the same time, in order to be completely eliminated.
So, if Zen'in Mai couldn't defeat the Cursed Spirit on her end, then no matter how much Maki Zenin pummelled the crab boss over here, it would all be for nothing.
"...Hm?"
But this was strange.
Things over on Maki Zenin's side were already going boom and bang and full of fireworks — yet why hadn't a single sound come from Zen'in Mai's side?
Mahiko turned her attention to the clone on Zen'in Mai's side.
She had placed an earring made from a clone on each of Maki Zenin's and Zen'in Mai's ears.
Observing Zen'in Mai's situation through the earring now, she discovered that Zen'in Mai had not even entered the tunnel yet.
"Eh?" Mahiko's puzzled voice rang out from Zen'in Mai's earring. "How come big sis Mai's still outside? Did you run into some kind of trouble?"
Mahiko had said she wouldn't help, but the moment things went the wrong way, she would absolutely jump in at once to rescue the two girls.
So had something cropped up on Zen'in Mai's end?
Actually, before sending the two girls out to cut their teeth on this Special Grade Cursed Spirit, Mahiko had already made an assessment of both girls' strength.
Maki Zenin's side was easy to call.
The hard part to call was Zen'in Mai's strength after the seal was lifted.
As a matter of fact, the two sisters had been holding each other back to begin with.
The most widely-agreed-upon theory was that Zen'in Mai's Cursed Energy had been shared out between the two sisters. In other words, Zen'in Mai's Cursed Energy was equal to "normal-state Maki Zenin's Cursed Energy" plus "normal-state Zen'in Mai's Cursed Energy."
In that case, it would be very weak indeed.
But that wasn't actually right.
The very fact that the two sisters' Cursed Energy was not equal was already enough to show it: what existed between them was not a simple, even split of the Cursed Energy of Zen'in Mai alone.
Mahiko had observed carefully this time, and the truth was that the Heavenly Restriction on Maki Zenin's body had been swallowing up Zen'in Mai's Cursed Energy on a large scale.
In other words, with the restriction removed, the Cursed Energy now in Zen'in Mai's body was not the simple sum of what she and Maki Zenin had originally possessed, but rather the total amount of Cursed Energy she ought to have had in the first place, had it not been devoured on a large scale.
In the original work, Zen'in Mai — even in a state of being slashed open and on the verge of death — was still able to forge a Special Grade cursed tool for Maki Zenin. While there was the factor of burning her soul involved in that, it was still enough to show that Zen'in Mai's original Cursed Energy reserves had, in fact, been far from small.
And now, after the bodily modification, Mahiko estimated… Zen'in Mai's total Cursed Energy now had already reached the level of an upper-mid-tier Grade 1 sorcerer. That was precisely why Mahiko had been confident in sending Zen'in Mai out here to fight.
"So what's actually going on? Did my modification end up with some kind of problem?" Mahiko asked.
"No, just hold on a second." On Zen'in Mai's end, she was anxiously flipping through documents on her phone. "I'm still reviewing..."
"Reviewing what?" Mahiko asked, puzzled.
"Tch." Zen'in Mai clicked her tongue, brows knitted tight, and began chewing on her thumb. "I'm re-memorizing the molecular structures of the elements and the chemical equations…"
Originally, the Cursed Energy in all of Zen'in Mai's body had only been enough for her to construct a single bullet in any given real combat.
So although she'd studied many principles of modern science in the past, she had never actually deliberately memorized any of it, because it wouldn't have come in handy.
So now it was a real headache.
Right now, Zen'in Mai was like a student who'd just been told there was going to be a test in the next class, and was therefore frantically cramming outside the exam hall, only to suddenly discover she'd forgotten so much that she didn't know anymore — anxious, restless, and at her absolute wits' end.
"Ah, this." Mahiko listened and went a bit blank.
Well… that really would be quite anxiety-inducing.
____
👻🔥Walnut-chan in "P" for more!🔥👻
🔥 New history: Jujutsu x Mieruko: Oh no, am I a villain too?
Help us unlock these community rewards:
🎯 100 Powerstones = +1 Bonus Chapter for everyone