In the eyes of most people, Yuki Tsukumo had always been a lax, irresponsible sort. Because she never took on Jujutsu Sorcerer missions.
But in reality, she had a strong sense of responsibility.
The reason Yuki Tsukumo didn't take Jujutsu Sorcerer missions was that she found them meaningless.
So what if you killed a Cursed Spirit that threatened the world?
Kill one Cursed Spirit, and a second would spring up the moment you turned around.
Killing Cursed Spirits was pointless. Like Sisyphus forever pushing his boulder up the hill... Yuki Tsukumo believed that since she possessed a special power, she ought to do something special with it.
So she wanted to find a way to cure all of this at the root—she wanted to permanently eliminate the problem of Cursed Spirits.
And it was precisely because she wanted to find this method that she traveled all over the world, hunting for clues, seeking out this path.
And that was exactly why, after Mahiru dialed Yuki Tsukumo's number, the words she spoke could carry such magic—enough to yank her right back. Enough to leave her no way to refuse—
"Hello, Miss Tsukumo." Mahiru's voice came, bright with a smile. "I have a way to eliminate every Cursed Spirit in the world. I wonder if you'd be interested?"
On the other end of the line, Yuki Tsukumo's pupils shrank, her whole body freezing in place from the shock.
"Are you serious? No—who are you? How do you know this number? And how do you know what I'm doing?" Yuki Tsukumo narrowed her eyes, her expression both shocked and wary. "Don't tell me... you're someone Tengen sent? Are you people still scheming after me?"
In fact, Yuki Tsukumo herself was also a Star Plasma Vessel.
Like Riko Amanai, she was supposed to have gone to her death to extend Tengen's lifespan, assimilated into Tengen. But Yuki Tsukumo was now the strongest Special Grade Sorcerer—who could do anything to her?
Tengen's faction could only ever condemn her on moral grounds; they had no way to actually drag her over there.
"No—Tengen doesn't even know what I'm searching for." Yuki Tsukumo's brow furrowed tighter. "Just who are you?"
"Hehehe. Miss Tsukumo, who I am doesn't matter. What matters is that I have what you want." Mahiru's soft, laughing voice never wavered. "How about we set a time and place to meet? Let me warn you in advance—I don't have much time. I'll wait two days at most. If you don't come within two days, I'll be leaving—after all, I personally have no interest whatsoever in eradicating Cursed Spirits."
Hearing this, Yuki Tsukumo couldn't help but hold her breath. Having lived through countless dangers, she keenly caught the scent of just how strange and perilous this whole affair was.
This could very well be a trap.
Should she agree?
Yuki Tsukumo hesitated inwardly for a moment, then in the end let out a soft laugh. "All right, then. I can be in Japan by tomorrow morning."
She craved that answer far too much—and she was far too confident in her own strength.
As her words fell, she heard the soft laughter on the other end, which seemed to grow even more delighted.
"Then it's settled, Miss Tsukumo," the girl on the other side said. "We'll be in touch tomorrow. You and I—no leaving until we meet."
For Mahiru, slipping past the eyes of the current Kenjaku was actually quite easy.
The current Kenjaku couldn't use Cursed Spirit Manipulation; his web of informants was extremely narrow. As long as she left Tokyo, there was no way he could surveil Mahiru's movements.
As promised, Yuki Tsukumo arrived in Japan the next morning.
Mahiru had agreed on a meeting place with her and hurried there ahead of time to wait.
It was still afternoon.
The meeting spot had been picked at random—a remote wilderness campsite recently opened out in the suburbs.
But at the same time, it was quite popular.
There was a broad lake here, its shores lined with lush green lawns.
It happened to fall on a holiday, and many people were pitching tents and camping.
Looking off into the distance, one could see Mount Fuji, along with the snow-white reflection of Mount Fuji cast upon the lake's surface.
The scenery was truly beautiful, so it seemed a group of female students from some art academy had also come here as a class to sketch from life.
Mahiru wandered around a few times, then found the campsite staff and rented a tent, an easel, and the like, pretending to be an art student who'd come to sketch, daubing away at her paper with an air of great seriousness.
Yuki Tsukumo had arrived even earlier. The sun had not yet set when that blonde woman, tall and slender, was already standing off to one side.
"...The one who summoned me here... is you?" Yuki Tsukumo set one hand on her hip, staring at the crude, three-year-old's scribble on the canvas before Mahiru, her brow twitching. "Are you meeting me by remotely controlling a puppet? Or is this a Shikigami of yours?"
"Hm? Why do you say that?" Mahiru tilted her head lightly. "I came to meet you in person, in my real body."
"...That's rather hard to believe." Yuki Tsukumo sized up the girl before her over and over. "Don't tell me you're like Tengen—some old monster who seizes other people's bodies to sustain immortality?"
Too young. Too tender.
And at the same time, too innocent, too lovely.
This campsite was wide and open, enough that Yuki Tsukumo had spotted the girl from a great distance.
And from the very first moment she noticed her, she felt that this girl's aura was so pure, so lovely, that one couldn't help but feel affection and a protective urge welling up.
But that, in turn, was exactly what made it feel strange to her—cause for wariness, even.
Because this was also the person who had, from who-knows-where, snatched her most private phone number, and who claimed to hold the clue to the goal she had chased for so long.
When someone inexplicably holds your deepest secrets, you'll always feel fear and wariness toward them.
And that clashed with the aura of the girl before her.
But Mahiru paid no mind to Yuki Tsukumo's suspicion and questions.
She patted an empty little stool beside her, gesturing for Yuki Tsukumo to sit. "I know you'll find this eerie, that you'll be on guard—but that's fine. I'll tell you frankly: I called you here because I want to make a deal with you."
"A deal?"
"I give you the information you want, you give me the thing I want. That's the content of the deal."
"...What do you want? Let me say this upfront—if you have anything to do with that Tengen bastard, I'll leave right away."
"I really have nothing to do with Tengen. But the [method to eliminate every Cursed Spirit in the world] that I'm about to tell you does have a little to do with Tengen. I hope you won't mind."
"...?" Yuki Tsukumo was puzzled. "Something to do with Tengen?"
The method to eliminate every Cursed Spirit in the world that Mahiru was about to share with Yuki Tsukumo... was actually not conjured out of thin air.
In the sequel to the original work, sixty-eight years later, Yuji Itadori—who had become the strongest of that era—had once, together with an alien boy, found a way to purge every Cursed Spirit in the world: namely, to borrow Mahito's Idle Transfiguration and transform the souls and bodies of everyone born thereafter into a form that would no longer leak Cursed Energy.
The mechanism behind this was extraordinarily complex, and its single most crucial link was Mahiru's Idle Transfiguration.
So in theory, even without Itadori, Mahiru could use Idle Transfiguration to accomplish something similar.
For instance, erasing the Cursed Energy from every person in the world, and thereby creating a world that would never again give rise to Cursed Spirits.
"So, do you understand now?" Mahiru went on scribbling at the canvas before her, speaking mildly. "If we could borrow Tengen's Barrier to use a Cursed-Energy-erasing Technique on every person in the world at once, then your ideal could be realized."
Yuki's gaze flickered, her lips trembling twice. "...Words alone prove nothing. How could there possibly be a Technique that erases a person's Cursed Energy?"
"Such a Technique exists." Mahiru set down her brush. "My Technique can do exactly that."
The girl turned her head to look at her and extended her palm. "Care to give it a try?"
Yuki Tsukumo watched Mahiru with wary eyes. Mahiru only let out a soft laugh. "If you don't trust me, you can summon your Shikigami. I'll experiment on your Shikigami to demonstrate my Technique to you... That should put you at ease, won't it?"
Yuki Tsukumo's gaze wavered. She hesitated for a good long while, but in the end chose to trust that her own strength could handle any sudden turn of events.
She summoned her Shikigami.
Her Shikigami could float in midair, its form resembling a snake's skeleton.
Once it was summoned, Mahiru reached out and gathered it into her arms, stroking its head like a pet, while at the same time her Jujutsu began to turn and Idle Transfiguration activated.
As Mahiru worked her Technique on the Shikigami, Yuki Tsukumo seemed to sense something, her eyes flying wide in shock.
The change was very slight—probably because the girl before her had used only the tiniest sliver of her Technique, so as not to trigger a stress reaction... but she truly felt it: the state of the soul at a certain spot on her Shikigami had been utterly altered, and it had thereby lost its Cursed Energy.
Seeing Yuki Tsukumo's stunned expression, Mahiru knew her aim was achieved, and with a soft laugh she restored the Shikigami to how it had been, releasing it from her arms.
"Now do you believe me?" she said with a smile.
For a long time Yuki Tsukumo couldn't manage a single word. "...How... did you do that?"
She believed it.
And it was precisely because she believed it that she felt all the more shaken.
How had such a Technique come into being?
A Technique like this... it was nearly impossible for it to exist at all!
In this world upheld by Cursed Energy as its very skeleton, there actually existed something that could change the essence of soul and Cursed Energy... like a flame somehow burning away the flame itself... it was simply inconceivable.
And upon hearing Yuki Tsukumo's stunned question, the girl merely gave a shrug and a soft laugh.
"Who knows?" she said softly. "Perhaps it's a reward given to the poor wretch who bears humanity's most profound malice toward humanity."
"?"
Yuki Tsukumo's gaze remained puzzled.
Mahiru only shook her head and pulled the topic back on track. "So you understand now, don't you? This is the clue I hold to erasing all the Cursed Energy in the world... or rather, the key. If you want to walk the path of 'erasing all the Cursed Energy in the world,' then my ability is the single most indispensable thing to you."
In truth, though, things were nowhere near as simple as Mahiru made them sound.
It was like saying, "If everyone in the world gave me one dollar, I'd become a billionaire"—the sort of thing that's feasible only in theory; in practice it's as hard as scaling the heavens.
For one thing, it was utterly impossible for Mahiru to inflict Idle Transfiguration on every single person in the world; for another, even if Mahiru truly were strong enough to do so, eliminating Cursed Spirits was by no means as simple as remaking everyone into a Heavenly Tyrant.
To fully accomplish that, Mahiru would perhaps have to reach for things far closer to the essence of the world itself.
So Mahiru was, in fact, merely painting Yuki Tsukumo a pie in the sky.
And besides, the girl herself had no desire to erase Cursed Energy at all.
Rather than erase Cursed Energy, it would be far more reliable to turn everyone into Jujutsu Sorcerers.
"So, if you want to cooperate with me later on and use my Cursed Energy and Technique for your future research, then now it's time for you to first hand over what I need." Mahiru once again extended her hand toward Yuki Tsukumo, her gaze cool and distant. "Let me touch your soul and study your Technique. I swear I won't hurt you, nor do anything to your detriment."
This time, the woman who had been so full of wariness clenched her teeth, yet her tone loosened. "You want to use your Technique to study my soul? Why?"
"Because I want to travel through time and space." Mahiru answered flatly.
Hearing that, Yuki Tsukumo was dumbfounded on the spot. "Huh?"
Travel through time and space?
The shocking things she'd heard today were simply too many. So many that she began to wonder... could it be that she'd eaten some magic mushrooms and was dreaming?
Or had she carelessly tumbled down a rabbit hole and was now wandering through Wonderland?
"And what exactly do you mean, travel through time and space?"
"In any case—do you agree, or not?"
"...Tch." Yuki Tsukumo clicked her tongue, yet agreed decisively enough. "Fine, I accept this deal. What do I need to do? Hold your hand? Or sit in your arms, the way you treated my Shikigami?"
"That won't do. What comes next is very important, and very difficult." Mahiru shook her head, then gave another soft laugh and pointed toward the lakeside not far off. "Go be my model. I'll paint a picture of you. During the process, you may feel rather ashamed, but please bear with it—the discomfort is normal."
"?"
Be a model?
You're going to paint?
Was this some kind of code again?
And why would she feel ashamed?
Yuki Tsukumo shot a glance at Mahiru; what was painted on that canvas really was worse than a kindergartener's scribbles. To be rendered into something like that really would be humiliating... Never mind.
Faced with the girl's increasingly incomprehensible words, Yuki Tsukumo chose to give up on thinking.
Carrying her chair, she walked to the spot Mahiru had designated and sat down. "How should I sit? Is there a specific pose?"
"No specific pose. From here on, all you need to do is calm your mind."
"Ugh... all right, then hurry it up..."
Since she'd been told to pose however she liked, Yuki Tsukumo simply leaned against the chair's armrest, propped her chin on her fist, and sat there lazily.
At the same time, she looked toward Mahiru, wanting to see what exactly this girl was up to.
But contrary to the "thing the girl was going to do" that she'd imagined—the girl actually did pick up her brush again, earnestly mixing paints before the canvas, preparing for the work of painting.
Was she really going to paint?
The sheer eeriness and absurdity of the scene before her even made Yuki Tsukumo doubt, once again, whether she was being toyed with.
And the very next second, her pupils suddenly contracted—because she sensed a different aura of Cursed Energy beginning to seep through the surroundings.
This Cursed Energy was thick and profound—the kind of aura only someone with the most refined mastery of Technique and Cursed Energy could possess.
At the same time, this Cursed Energy was deep and immense—without a doubt, a very powerful Technique, or rather a ritual, was about to be set in motion here...
No—that's not right...
This seemed to be a Domain?
And a Domain with no Barrier!
It was actually the legendary Open Domain!!
"Hey! You—!"
"Shhh." Mahiru raised a finger before her lips. "Quiet now. I'm about to start painting."
A Domain, its range compressed to the campsite, was in this instant unfurled by Mahiru in the blink of an eye.
Everyone camping here, everyone sketching, was swept into the Domain, becoming a part of it.
Seven-hued paints rose into the air, beginning to trace patterns across the sky. The grassland became a jade-green scroll; with distant Mount Fuji and the lake's surface as her backdrop, Mahiru began to paint.
And so an indescribable sensation of being watched settled over Yuki Tsukumo's heart, making her feel that in this moment, within this Domain, her body and soul were being utterly seen through and dissected.
Under the gaze of the girl before her, she felt as though she were naked and unshielded, laid completely bare.
It sent a chill racing through her whole body against her will, goosebumps rising all over her.
Hey! What are you doing?! What are you doing to me?!
So this is what you meant when you told me not to feel ashamed... How is this any different from dissecting me, stripping me bare...?!
Are you some kind of psychopath?!
This method of yours is far too brutal—far too monstrous!!
____
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