Before her, on the rooftop, Rime was confronting her with a grave expression.
"What? You want to be a maid too?" Mahiko's expression didn't change — if anything, she smiled.
At some point prior, Kenjaku had introduced Rime to the Four Disasters. So in theory, Mahiko and Rime were already acquainted.
"A maid? That's not what I'm asking about. You know exactly what I mean, Cursed Spirit." Rime frowned.
"Hmm? I genuinely have no idea what you're talking about." Mahiko said. "Whatever it is you're trying to ask, it's not making any sense."
"Everyone else — their hypnosis would have worn off after an hour, correct?" Rime's expression was utterly certain, her tone still that of an interrogator. "The blue-haired girl should have been no different."
"Oh? So what?"
"You have no intention of killing anyone — fine, I have no interest in that, and whether you choose to kill or not is your own business. But even if you weren't going to kill her, all you needed to do was leave her where she was and wait for the hypnosis to lift on its own."
Rime pressed forward, relentless. "So why, before you left — did you put the headphones back on her?"
And she was right. It had been, without question, a completely redundant action.
And precisely because of that — deeply suspicious.
From an outside observer's perspective, there was only one interpretation: Mahiko had used the headphones to do something extra to Miwa.
And Rime happened to be exactly that outside observer. "What was playing through those headphones?"
Mahiko rolled her eyes.
She was fairly certain that this interrogation was purely Rime's own initiative. It probably didn't reflect any suspicion on Kenjaku's part.
She had hypnotized Miwa twice — and both times, she had deliberately cranked the volume in the headphones to maximum, certain that Kenjaku could hear every word.
So Kenjaku would already know: there had been nothing suspicious in Mahiko's hypnotic commands.
Rime was almost certainly acting on her own here.
So Mahiko couldn't be bothered to take this seriously.
"Are you on your period or something?" Mahiko snorted.
"...What is that supposed to mean?"
"It means: if you've got a problem with me and want to start something, then let's fight." Mahiko curled her lip, her tone utterly unyielding. "Your little interrogation is embarrassingly stupid. You get that?"
The atmosphere went cold.
The rooftop wind was still blowing, but the air between them felt frozen solid.
Rime narrowed her eyes, holding Mahiko's gaze.
The silence stretched for three, maybe four seconds.
Then Rime gave a small, quiet shake of her head.
"I have no interest in fighting you. And I suspect if you did fight me, you wouldn't come out ahead." Rime's tone remained calm, but she had stepped back. "I'm not questioning your loyalty. I simply wanted to remind you — don't let a moment of playfulness cause you to carelessly let slip something that needs to stay secret."
"Please. What classified information could I possibly even know?" Mahiko scoffed. "If anything, it's you lot I should be suspicious of — pulling who knows what schemes behind my back."
"What?" Rime frowned.
"Exactly what it sounds like." Mahiko said. "I've been hearing there's a bounty on my head lately — because someone, some person or Cursed Spirit, has been impersonating me and slaughtering civilians. So who did that?"
"You suspect it was me?" Rime's tone darkened. "What possible benefit would that give me?"
Oh, plenty.
Yes — even in this world of Jujutsu Kaisen, where coincidences crawled over each other like maggots, there was still an eighty-percent probability that the factory massacre had been Kenjaku's deliberate doing.
Because Kenjaku stood to gain quite a lot from it.
For instance: it would cut off any chance of Mahiko growing closer to the sorcerers' side. It would make them despise her — making it impossible for her to ever ally with them or coexist peacefully, forcing a fight to the death.
And even setting aside motive — just considering the controlled variables between this timeline and the original story — Kenjaku's culpability was off the charts.
Mahiko had simply been pretending not to care.
Because by all logic, a Cursed Spirit like her shouldn't care about her own reputation. Seeming too bothered by it would look strange.
But since Rime had charged out of nowhere like a complete bulldozer, ready to pick a fight, there was no reason to play along with the quarreling atmosphere and act like she was making a big deal out of it.
"Is that right? Honestly, whatever you all get up to is normally none of my business — I can't be bothered. But that doesn't mean you get to treat me like I don't matter. I have to report my every move to you, but what you do is none of my concern? Give me a break."
Mahiko let out a cold snort. "Don't forget — that person made me a promise. That from now on, he'd never hide the details of your plans from me again. You're absolutely certain none of you were behind this?"
"That person" meant Kenjaku.
Rime felt a jolt of unease and immediately began regretting her decision to come confront Mahiko on her own initiative. She had somehow managed to steer this conversation into very dangerous territory.
But she pressed on, stubborn. "It wasn't us."
And that was exactly the line Mahiko had been waiting for. She broke into a smile. "In that case, I'll be heading out right now — immediately — to find whoever has been impersonating me and killing people, and deal with them. You'd all better not interfere. Understood?"
Rime opened her mouth to say something more, but at that moment Kenjaku's voice floated into her ear: "Let it go. Let her do as she likes."
From Kenjaku's perspective, this was something that couldn't have been hidden from Mahiko in the first place.
The whole thing had been too deliberate.
Mahiko was bound to be suspicious. Stopping her from investigating would only look like having something to hide.
Better to simply distance themselves from it entirely.
Cut loose what needed to be cut loose.
The real problem was that Rime had been far too reckless this time.
Mahiko had been pretending not to care. But then Rime had provoked her — and now Mahiko could use the excuse of being riled up by the argument to justify suddenly making it her business.
"Then go." Rime conceded.
"Gladly." Mahiko smiled.
"...Hmph. I hope you remember," Rime said, turning away, leaving one last line behind: "The plan still needs you. Try not to die an embarrassing death at the hands of some nameless nobody."
A gust of wind swept across the rooftop. Rime was gone — no trace of her arrival, no trace of her departure, not even a footfall. Only a small pocket of cold air still lingered where she'd been standing.
Mahiko curled her lip and went back to eating her burger.
Now that the groundwork was laid, it was time to deal with the thing that had stolen her name and dragged her reputation through the mud.
The provocation just now had been casual — because she'd known all along that Rime wouldn't dare make a move.
Mahiko was the linchpin of the entire plan. There was no way Rime would start an internal conflict with her — especially when today's interrogation had been entirely Rime's own unauthorized decision to begin with.
Still, credit where it was due — Rime was genuinely powerful.
The current Mahiko probably couldn't beat her. Rime was at least at the level of a Special Grade sorcerer — roughly the same combat tier as Jogo.
Hmm... come to think of it, Mahiko wasn't entirely sure how strong she herself was these days.
She'd been growing for so long — she'd mastered Cursed Speech, her control had improved enormously in precision — but exactly where she stood, she genuinely couldn't say.
Her gut feeling was that she still couldn't quite take Jogo in a straight fight.
So if she ever wanted to go up against Rime, she'd need to grow a little more first.
Mahiko finished the last of her burger and gave her own cheeks a light slap.
"Speaking of which — Mechamaru, do you have any idea where Satoru Gojo is right now?" Mahiko communicated with Mechamaru covertly through her earring.
Before moving on to the next step, she needed to take stock of the situation and run through the plan.
The truth was, Mahiko thought about it constantly — every hour of every day — how to eliminate Kenjaku at a moment when Kenjaku wouldn't see it coming.
And one of the methods she'd devised — the safest one — was to secretly pass Kenjaku's plan to Satoru Gojo.
Make Kenjaku's attempt to seal Gojo fail.
At that point, Gojo would kill Kenjaku instead. Kenjaku would die.
And Mahiko wouldn't need to fight Kenjaku herself at all.
This was one of the safest and most airtight plans she had.
So — how to make Kenjaku's sealing of Gojo fail?
Simple: all it would take was getting Gojo to know in advance that Suguru Geto's body had been taken over by someone else.
Gojo was untouchable — and yet he had still been sealed by the Prison Realm. When you stripped it all down, it came to one reason: he hadn't anticipated that his best friend from youth, a friend who was supposed to be dead, could appear before him again.
Seeing Geto's face had made his mind flash through a lifetime of memories in an instant.
And in that moment, the Prison Realm sealed him.
Yes — that flood of memories was the key. The Prison Realm required sixty seconds' worth of images to surge through the target's mind before the sealing was complete.
If Gojo was forewarned — if he knew that Geto's body had been hijacked — that flood of memories would never happen. And without it, the exact method Kenjaku had used in the original story to seal him would simply fail.
And if Kenjaku continued forward with his original plan, even while Gojo knew the truth — Kenjaku would be killed by Gojo instead.
Mahiko's plan would succeed.
Kenjaku would be buried alive by her trap.
So — how to get the information to Gojo? Shout it through a megaphone?
Write him a secret letter?
Actually, the method of delivery didn't matter.
What mattered was making sure Kenjaku didn't find out.
To bury Kenjaku, it wasn't enough just to get Gojo the information. She also had to make sure Kenjaku didn't realize that his occupation of Geto's body had been exposed.
If Kenjaku found out the secret was out, he would simply change plans — and then there'd be no burying him.
So the information had to be passed in absolute secrecy.
Mahiko had been waiting for her opportunity.
And the moment she'd run into Miwa, she'd known: her chance had arrived.
Of course she'd slipped something extra into Miwa's hypnosis.
Using techniques she'd learned from books on psychological hypnosis, she had woven tiny fragments of information into Miwa's hypnotic session — quietly injecting critical intelligence into the depths of Miwa's subconscious.
Those fragments contained three pieces of crucial intelligence.
First: someone intends to seal Satoru Gojo.
Second: Suguru Geto's body has been taken over by that person.
Third: do not reveal that you know Kenjaku's plan. Sit quietly and wait.
She'd wanted to plant more — but the constraints of the hypnotic method and the time available had made it impossible to add anything further.
So three was the maximum.
And that was also why she hadn't included any information about the Prison Realm.
There simply wasn't enough space left.
Still — these three brief pieces of intelligence were more than enough.
If these three pieces of information reached Gojo without issue, and Kenjaku continued forward with his original plan—
Kenjaku would be finished.
Gojo was sharp. Whether or not he chose to believe the information was one question — but knowing it, he would never recklessly tip off the enemy.
And in order to keep the delivery process covert — and to protect Miwa from falling under Kenjaku's scrutiny — Mahiko had also layered a restriction into Miwa's subconscious.
After all, Miwa was a girl with essentially no capacity for deception.
If she were carrying this kind of information, any slip in her expression or behavior could give it away — and if Kenjaku noticed, everything would unravel.
So Mahiko had planted a secondary suggestion: in her normal, waking state, Miwa would have no awareness of the three pieces of information whatsoever.
They would lie dormant in the deepest layers of her subconscious — like documents sealed inside a vault — never surfacing on their own.
Only under one specific condition would they rise to the surface.
That condition was: when Miwa was in Satoru Gojo's presence.
The moment Miwa was near Gojo, those three pieces of information would well up automatically from her subconscious. She would recall them naturally, and understand instinctively that she needed to pass them to Gojo. Quietly.
Why Gojo specifically?
Because Gojo's presence was absolute safety.
No matter what Miwa might let slip in front of Gojo — even if she screamed Kenjaku's plan and identity to the sky — Kenjaku would not dare touch her.
With Gojo there, no one would dare make a move.
And with Gojo present, even if Kenjaku dared to surveil, he would be doing so from an enormous distance.
So even if Miwa's expression betrayed something the instant she saw Gojo — Kenjaku would never be close enough to notice.
She had originally considered adding a second trigger condition: when Miwa entered the interior of Jujutsu High, the information would also surface automatically.
Jujutsu High was protected by Tengen's barrier — theoretically very safe, and impossible for Kenjaku to surveil from within. If Miwa recalled the information while inside, Kenjaku wouldn't be able to eliminate her before she reached shelter.
But Mahiko had thought it through, and decided against it.
Because there was a hidden risk — one that most people probably wouldn't catch, but that Mahiko had.
The limitation of hypnosis.
The same limitation she'd discovered with the "become a maid" experiment.
Whatever Miwa believed a maid to be — that was what she became under hypnosis. The effect of the hypnosis depended entirely on the subject's own perception.
The same principle applied to the phrase "Jujutsu High" for Miwa.
Mahiko wasn't certain how well Miwa actually knew what Tokyo's Jujutsu High looked like — its exact layout, its precise boundaries. Whether Miwa had a clear, confident picture of where Jujutsu High's territory began and ended was an open question.
Miwa was a student at Kyoto Prefectural Jujutsu Technical College — her school was in Kyoto. Tokyo's Jujutsu High might be somewhere she'd only ever heard of, never actually visited in person.
After all, last year's exchange tournament had been held in Kyoto, not Tokyo.
If Miwa's mental image was fuzzy, problems would follow.
To put it crudely: imagine Miwa walking down some random street in Tokyo, spotting an ordinary high school, and suddenly thinking, "Maybe this is Jujutsu High?" — and at that moment, all three pieces of intelligence would surge to the surface of her mind.
And if Gojo wasn't there, and there was no one else to protect her, and Kenjaku's surveillance happened to catch that flicker of strangeness—
Miwa would be finished.
And Mahiko's plan could fail right along with her.
So Mahiko couldn't take that risk.
She didn't know whether the scenario would actually play out that way — but she couldn't gamble on it.
So she hadn't added "entering Jujutsu High" as a trigger condition.
Gojo, on the other hand, was an entirely different matter.
Miwa knew exactly what Gojo looked like.
Knew — in fact, was an understatement. Miwa idolized him.
White hair. Crystal-clear Six Eyes. Gojo was the kind of person whose appearance was so distinctive it was physically impossible to mistake him for someone else.
So there was absolutely zero risk of Miwa accidentally mistaking some stranger for Gojo and leaking the intelligence.
As long as Miwa was with Gojo, she was safe.
And regardless of anything else — the school exchange tournament in one month's time would guarantee Miwa encountered Gojo.
So Mahiko had set the condition this way: Miwa would only be able to recall the intelligence when she was in Satoru Gojo's direct presence.
It was the most reliable solution she could devise.
And finally, Mahiko had given Miwa one more thing — the butterfly earring.
Its function, compared to everything else, was relatively simple: a device to track Miwa's location.
It was a carefully crafted clone of herself. No residual Cursed Energy — no one besides Mahiko herself could identify it as her clone.
And in order to keep it covert, she'd stripped out all other functions. So the earring clone had one purpose and one purpose only: detecting and tracking Miwa's position.
And if Miwa moved outside the range of Mahiko's Cursed Energy, the signal would go dark — it only worked within range. But since Mahiko could carve Mechamaru's Heavenly Restriction into herself, that limitation was essentially a non-issue.
The reason she'd planted this clone was simple.
She would use it to support any future effort to protect Miwa.
Because Miwa was too weak. The girl would struggle to protect herself.
And because Mahiko had already made that girl a promise — quietly, inside her own heart.
So Mahiko had given her a tracker. At the very least, in the moments when she sensed Miwa might be in danger, she could find her in time.
But Mahiko also knew that randomly gifting Miwa something would immediately raise Kenjaku's suspicions. So she'd chosen a more artful method of delivery.
She had pierced Miwa's ear. And through hypnosis, she had made Miwa believe in her own memories that the piercing had always been there — that the earring had always been hers.
This was an implanted sense of recognition and familiarity — categorically different from the three "pieces of information" — so they wouldn't interfere with each other or compete for the same mental space.
And rather than openly handing the earring to Miwa, she had slipped it into the pile of clothes Miwa had changed out of when she'd put on the maid costume.
That way, even if Kenjaku noticed it, there would be nothing of Mahiko's signature or residual Cursed Energy to detect — no way to determine what the earring was for.
Add to that the fact that the scene had been a complete mess at the time — books strewn everywhere, the bags and stationery and miscellaneous belongings of studying students piled all over the floor in total chaos. Kenjaku would have had no way to determine whether the earring belonged to Miwa or to some random bystander.
When the people from Jujutsu High came to clean everything up afterward, they would take Miwa's clothes and the surrounding items along with everything else. And once Miwa woke, the hypnotic suggestion would do its work — she would naturally recognize the earring as her own, and put it on.
In Kenjaku's eyes, the earring would be nothing more than Miwa's personal jewelry. No Cursed Energy. No information connected to any plan. Indistinguishable from clutter.
And even if, in some future round of surveillance, Kenjaku noticed a new piece of jewelry on Miwa's ear — he would simply assume the girl had bought it herself. After all, what was strange about a high school girl picking up a new earring?
"Unfortunately, Gojo is currently away on a mission — and in all likelihood, he won't be back until the school exchange tournament in a month." Mechamaru replied.
Mahiko frowned.
Meaning it would be at least a month before the intelligence she'd planted for Gojo could actually reach him — and only then would the bomb she'd set under Kenjaku truly be armed?
It wasn't impossible to live with.
The information she'd planted in Miwa's mind was the foundation of her plan — not the entirety of it.
Would the delivery go smoothly? Would Kenjaku stick to his original plan? Would the uneasy balance between Mahiko and Kenjaku really hold for a full month? Would Gojo act exactly as she hoped?
There were too many variables she couldn't control.
Just as Gojo's current absence had been unexpected — the world changed. The butterfly effect of her transmigration was rippling outward, spreading and fermenting, and the story of this world had long since begun to diverge from what she knew.
Kenjaku, honestly... the plan inside his head might already be something entirely different from the original.
So — adapt as she went.
The game had only just begun.
"First things first — let's go clean up whatever has been killing people in my name." Mahiko stretched her arms lazily. "Where are those leads you were going to send me?"
"Not yet," Mechamaru said.
Mahiko's brow twitched. "Not yet?"
Painfully slow. Absolutely useless.
"But I do have some intelligence you might find interesting. Do you want to hear it?" Mechamaru said.
Mahiko stroked her chin. "Go ahead."
"Recently, a covert unit from the Kamo Clan has been conducting secret operations in Tokyo." Mechamaru said. "Are you familiar with the Kamo Clan?"
"Oh." Mahiko blinked. "You could say I know them quite well."
The Kamo Clan. Covert operations...
Ha. She didn't even need to think about it. These were Kenjaku's people.
In the original story, Kenjaku had been infiltrating the Kamo Clan for a long time — and by the later stages, had effortlessly brought the entire clan under his control.
At this point, if you told her Kenjaku already had half the Kamo Clan in his pocket, Mahiko wouldn't bat an eye.
So Mahiko now knew exactly whose teeth she was going to be knocking out.
"Oh? You know of them?" Mechamaru asked.
"Of course. Can you find where they are right now?" Mahiko said.
"I can." Mechamaru immediately fed her a location. "This is their suspected base of operations. You can check it out."
"Perfect." Mahiko's eyes narrowed to a gleam.
Next, she would need to put on a little performance — pretend to use her clones to search, then conveniently stumble upon the Kamo Clan's covert unit.
And then: a thunderous, all-out surprise attack.
You dared to kill people in my name? You'd better be ready to face what's coming.
____
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