Well — Mahiko's decision to hypnotize Miwa hadn't been purely for fun or experimentation. There had been an ulterior motive running beneath both of those, quiet and separate.
Woven into the repeated rounds of hypnosis, she'd slipped in a few extras. Planted something in the depths of Miwa's subconscious.
But — but — but...
Miwa, what in the world have you been reading to form your understanding of what a maid is?!
What on earth was this abomination? This was a butler. And not even a normal butler — this was the kind of unhinged butler you'd only find in late-night anime or some obscure Korean webtoon!
And what was with those bizarre vocal affectations?
And the dancing?
"(mysterious bubble-pop sounds) Still not asleep yet? Oh my, oh my, what an impossible little lady you are..." Miwa heaved a sigh, her expression indulgent and exasperated at once, reaching out to pinch Mahiko's cheeks.
I CANNOT DEAL WITH THIS.
"Shoo. Back off. Go away." Mahiko hurriedly pushed this version of Miwa aside.
She shoved the headphones back on Miwa, switched to a new Cursed Speech command, and began the process of reverse-hypnosis — attempting commands along the lines of "return to normal" to test how many iterations it would take before Miwa was fully restored.
This was already the second round of testing.
The first round — successfully turning Miwa into a maid — had not gone quite as intended. Which was fine. It didn't matter. Mahiko had only been running an experiment anyway. And regardless of whether the maid persona came out correctly, the condition of "eliminating the target's will to fight" had been achieved. No point being picky about the details.
The conclusion: directly seizing mental control of an opponent mid-battle with a few words of Cursed Speech was essentially impossible.
Deep-level hypnosis required a staggering volume of commands. Which meant this technique could really only be used as a post-victory measure — something applied after an enemy had already been defeated.
Honestly, in a real fight, just using Cursed Speech offensively would be more practical.
But the experiment was only one part of it. Mahiko's deeper, secondary objective had also, in all likelihood, been accomplished. Kenjaku probably hadn't noticed her little sleight of hand.
Heh.
You didn't notice. And because of that, you're going to pay for it later.
"That should do it." Mahiko reached out and lifted the earmuffs from Miwa's head.
Lifting a hypnotic suggestion was almost always easier than implanting one, so it shouldn't take long.
She removed the earmuffs and then the eye mask. Miwa blinked open her eyes, dazed, meeting Mahiko's gaze — looking for all the world like someone who'd just woken from a deep sleep.
Once Mahiko confirmed the hypnosis had lifted, the experiment was complete. All she needed to do now was send Miwa back to the people from Jujutsu High, and every part of her plan here would be finished.
"Hey — do you recognize me?" Mahiko waved a hand in front of Miwa's face. Back to normal yet? If not, she'd run the reverse-hypnosis a little longer. Mahiko waited.
Miwa looked at her. Looked at the blue hair — that shade so similar to her own.
"Big sis...?" Miwa blinked, her expression soft and hazy. "Big sis..."
Ah. Not fully back yet, then.
She'd need to run another round of hypnosis. Mahiko picked up the headphones and moved to put them back on Miwa — and that was when something unexpected happened.
"Uwaaah—" With a single broken sound, right before Mahiko's stunned eyes, Miwa burst into full, heaving sobs.
And then, still crying, she wrapped her arms around Mahiko's waist and held on.
Mahiko stared.
"Uwuu... big sis..."
Perhaps it was the hypnosis — it had stripped away the armor the girl wore every day, the careful show of strength, the relentless holding-it-together.
Or perhaps it was the word itself — "big sis" — that had given the girl's drifting, half-conscious mind something to anchor to. Someone to lean on.
The girl had been carrying too much for too long. And here, in this moment, without warning, it all came flooding out.
She cried in front of Mahiko without a single scrap of composure. The blue-haired girl clung to Mahiko's waist as if she truly believed, right now, that Mahiko was her sister.
"Uwuu... big sis, I'm so tired... big sis, Cursed Spirits are so scary... why do I have to work this hard... I don't want to be a jujutsu sorcerer anymore... can I please just rest, big sis..."
Mahiko froze, caught completely off guard by the sudden emotional collapse.
For a moment, she didn't know what to do with her hands.
"Big sis, I'm really so useless... I can't do anything right, I can't beat Cursed Spirits, I can't earn enough money... but my little brothers still need money for school... I'm so tired... I don't want to keep going..."
The girl's voice was muffled against Mahiko's waist, coming in broken, breathless waves between sobs.
Perhaps everyone carries their own hidden weight.
The ones who present themselves as toughest, most unbothered — they're often the ones with the most pressure quietly stacked up inside. They cast themselves in the role of the capable one, the responsible one, the one who holds things together, so they never let themselves be seen as fragile.
They only ever show their real feelings when they've found someone they believe they can speak to. Someone they believe they can rely on.
That was surely what was happening with Miwa right now.
Listening to the girl cry, Mahiko's eyes flickered.
"...Haah."
What a situation. What a mess.
Mahiko let out a quiet breath, then gently wrapped her arms around the girl weeping against her, and softly stroked her hair.
"It's okay," Mahiko murmured, her voice low and gentle. "You've been trying so hard. You can rest now. I'll be the one who protects you."
The truth was, Mahiko had wrestled with this a little.
If she'd only been tormenting Miwa — treating her like a toy to mess around with — Mahiko wouldn't have felt a single twinge of guilt. But what came next, and the deeper suggestion she'd buried in Miwa's subconscious — that, without question, had dragged Miwa into the center of something she never asked to be part of.
To be honest, in the original story, Miwa was a nobody — and that, in its own way, had been an extraordinary stroke of luck.
Because of that, she'd been able to stay on the sidelines. A background character. A bit player.
But from here on, Miwa's life might be something different.
Because what Mahiko had planted in Miwa's head was heavy. Very heavy information.
Miwa could have been a bystander, start to finish. But now — if Kenjaku ever discovered what was hidden inside Miwa's mind, Kenjaku would eliminate her without hesitation.
Kenjaku didn't know right now. Mahiko had thrown everything she had into concealing her tracks. But what if, someday, that wasn't enough?
Miwa would still be in danger.
Haah.
Mahiko lowered her gaze, continuing to quietly comfort the girl crying in her arms, while silently, in her heart, she made a promise.
In this moment, she swore to herself: no matter what, if Miwa ever fell into danger, she would go to her rescue. Unconditionally.
A private vow made by one person alone — it didn't form a proper Binding Vow.
So even when Miwa woke, she probably wouldn't know that someone had already claimed her, already decided to protect her.
That was fine. Mahiko would remember. That was enough.
When Miwa woke, her vision was still blurry.
The white fluorescent tube in the ceiling swam above her for several seconds before her mind slowly pieced itself back together. Around her were people in Jujutsu High uniforms — some standing, some sitting, someone murmuring in quiet conversation.
The closest person was a woman with long brown hair, leaning over to look at her.
Heavy dark circles under her eyes, but a pretty face all the same. White coat. An unlit cigarette dangling from her mouth.
Before Miwa could say anything, the woman straightened up and turned to say something to the tall man beside her — short blond hair, broad build.
"Same as the others. Not a scratch on her. Have the assessment department come check her mental state later."
Nanami Kento nodded. "Understood."
Then the woman left.
Miwa looked around.
This seemed to be an infirmary. White walls. The smell of disinfectant. Medical instruments arranged on a table nearby.
She was lying in a hospital bed.
She looked up at Nanami with a puzzled expression.
Nanami walked to the bedside, adjusted his glasses, and spoke in his measured, level tone.
"This is Jujutsu High, Tokyo. You were attacked by the blue-haired Cursed Spirit. We found you unconscious at the scene and brought you here... Do you know who you are?"
Miwa nodded. "Yes. I'm Miwa Kasumi."
"Do you know where you're a student?" "Yes. Kyoto Prefectural Jujutsu High..."
Nanami asked several more questions — family circumstances, enrollment date — the kind of personal details only Miwa herself would know. He was clearly checking for amnesia, making sure her basic awareness was intact.
Miwa answered all of them.
"Do you remember what happened before you lost consciousness?" Nanami asked.
Miwa hesitated.
Before she lost consciousness...
She began to piece it together.
She'd gone into a library, and then...
Ah. Right.
It came back to her.
The memory hit, and Miwa's skin prickled all over, her whole body curling in on itself.
She'd run into the blue-haired Cursed Spirit. They'd fought. She'd lost. The two of them had formed a Binding Vow, and she'd cooperated with the Cursed Spirit's experiments.
The last thing she remembered seeing before her consciousness went under was...
"Tentacles!" Miwa blurted out. "And brainwashing!"
Nanami: "...?"
"No, no, wait—" Miwa immediately started shaking her head like a rattling toy drum. "That Cursed Spirit — the blue-haired one — she seemed to have some kind of ability to hypnotize people. She hypnotized everyone there, and it seems like she hypnotized me too. But I'm — why am I completely fine?"
Miwa paused, genuinely confused.
She remembered the Cursed Spirit hypnotizing her, yes. The Cursed Spirit had also said she wouldn't hurt her — that it was just an experiment, that there wouldn't be any lasting side effects.
But right now, calling it "no side effects" almost felt like an understatement. The truth was, she actually felt... lighter? That invisible stone that had been sitting on her shoulders for as long as she could remember — it seemed to be gone.
Her head felt clear. Her body didn't feel heavy.
"Nothing feels wrong?" Nanami asked.
Miwa blinked slowly and shook her head. "No... What happened at the scene? Was anyone hurt?"
"No one was hurt." Nanami shook his head. "The scene... no one remembers much of what actually happened."
Mahiko had of course kept her original promise — she hadn't harmed anyone.
Not that she needed the promise to begin with. Even without it, she probably wouldn't have hurt them.
When Miwa had held onto her and cried, Mahiko had genuinely felt a pang for this girl, and so she'd wrapped things up as quickly as she could.
Once Miwa was soothed and the scene was cleaned up, she'd used Miwa's phone to send out a distress signal and waited for the sorcerers to come collect Miwa and sort out the aftermath. Only once she was sure Miwa would be safely retrieved did Mahiko withdraw.
What the sorcerers who arrived on scene found, beyond the library itself — ransacked and clearly the site of a battle — was a cluster of ordinary people slumped in haphazard positions across a back room, fast asleep, and one Miwa Kasumi, folded peacefully over a desk, also sound asleep.
In a maid outfit.
...A maid outfit?
Honestly, when the sorcerers caught sight of Miwa in that black-and-white lace dress — the frills, the bow, the maid headband — their minds went slightly offline. What exactly had gone on in here? What was the maid outfit supposed to mean?
Through subsequent investigation, they confirmed the library incident had been caused by the blue-haired Cursed Spirit.
But this time was different from before.
Every time this Cursed Spirit appeared, she did something completely different — and always something bizarre. They couldn't make heads or tails of what she was actually trying to accomplish.
"Not a single casualty this time." Nanami was deep in thought. "So why?"
Was it actually possible that the blue-haired Cursed Spirit hadn't been responsible for the earlier killings? The likelihood that the factory murders had a different culprit was growing.
But then... there was also the type of existence that simply didn't hold any particular malice toward humans — not a burning need to kill, just a complete indifference to whether humans lived or died. They'd kill casually when the mood struck, and not bother when it didn't.
That kind of existence was sometimes even more dangerous, because you had absolutely no idea what they might do next.
But was that really what this was?
Nanami jotted several keywords in his notebook, closed it, and looked back at Miwa. "We'll still need the psychiatry department to evaluate you — have a mental health assessment done."
Miwa opened her mouth, then closed it again, and nodded obediently. "Okay."
Then she asked: "Um... where's my sword?"
That sword wasn't cheap. It hadn't been damaged, had it? Because if it was ruined, she was in real trouble. She couldn't afford a second one.
Nanami pointed to the side. "Your things should all be over there. We brought back everything at the scene that might have been yours — you can go claim what's yours."
With that, he walked out of the infirmary.
Miwa hopped off the bed, and the moment her feet touched the floor she realized someone had taken off her shoes. She padded barefoot across the room to the table.
Her sword lay on the surface, her phone beside it. Miwa drew the blade first and inspected it — intact, not a scratch. She let out a breath of relief.
She picked up her phone next and gave it a look — also fine.
And then beside that were her clothes. The ones she'd changed out of when she put on the maid outfit.
"?" And then her gaze snagged on something sitting in the corner of the table.
A small earring, shaped like a blue butterfly.
Miwa looked at it, and a faint sense of something-being-off tugged at the edge of her mind.
Had she... had this earring before?
Hmm...
Miwa thought about it, and decided she probably had.
She picked up the earring and fastened it to her right earlobe — her right ear had a single piercing, and the butterfly clip fit neatly into place.
Conveniently, there was a mirror nearby.
She studied her reflection. The blue butterfly wings caught the light and shimmered faintly. The craftsmanship was delicate.
It was pretty.
And it matched her hair color perfectly.
Of course she had a piercing, of course it fit — it must have always been hers.
The girl didn't question it any further. She gathered her things and headed out to undergo the psychiatric evaluation.
"Hey."
Mahiko was sitting on the rooftop of a building eating a burger when she heard a voice behind her. She turned, raising an eyebrow.
"Oh, so you've finally decided to show yourself?" Mahiko said with a light smile. "Weren't you tired, following me around like that?"
The person standing behind her had white hair.
A neat bob cut, straight-across bangs, dressed in an ancient-style monk's robe and surplice. A slight, slender figure. Refined, cold features — the look of a porcelain doll stepped out of a scroll painting from a thousand years ago.
This was Sukuna's loyal little attack dog: Rime.
A sorcerer who wielded ice-based Jujutsu Techniques, and one of Kenjaku's collaborators.
Well, well.
Mahiko raised an eyebrow.
All throughout the library incident today, she'd been aware of eyes on her — a gaze that had never once let up, start to finish.
Kenjaku's surveillance Cursed Spirit?
Yes. But not only that.
Because there had been more than one pair of eyes.
One of them was Kenjaku's monitoring Cursed Spirit — she'd long since gotten used to that one.
But there had been another gaze, closer. Much closer.
Now she knew. That gaze had probably been Rime's.
Rime ignored her greeting.
The wind swept across the rooftop, carrying a bite of cold with it. Without any preamble, Rime spoke directly.
"At the end. What did you make that sorcerer listen to?" Rime's eyes narrowed.
— (Author's note: Double chapter release, approx. 4,500–5,000 characters.)
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