"To put it precisely — the earlier generations were simply Cursed Spirits born from the same source as Mahiko: the negative emotions humans harbor toward one another. When I called them 'Mahito,' that was purely for convenience — I gave them the same name." Kenjaku said, "In essence, they are entirely different things. If you find the name confusing, I don't mind if you call them 'Fake-itos' instead."
Like different organisms sprouting from the same soil. A lazy person might lump flowers and weeds together under the word 'plants' — but they are two completely different things at their core.
The same logic applied to Mahiko and those so-called 'Mahito' — or 'Fake-ito' — Cursed Spirits of the earlier generations.
She was fundamentally nothing like them.
And yet, because they had grown from similar soil, those earlier Cursed Spirits possessed Jujutsu Techniques with an affinity close to Mahiko's.
Specifically — they could all touch the soul.
"So the Fake-itos' techniques aren't Idle Transfiguration," Kenjaku said. "Take today's specimen, for instance. All it can do is inflict damage on the soul directly — on its own, its combat strength ranks it as roughly a Grade 1 Cursed Spirit, nothing more."
"Then I still don't quite understand." Rime looked at Kenjaku. "You brought these Fake-itos out because Mahiko is getting too uncontrollable — correct? But you also said the Fake-itos can't fulfill your plan. So are you just researching the Jujutsu of incarnation?"
Kenjaku smiled and shook his head. "Researching incarnation is actually secondary. The most important thing is preparing for the plan that comes after."
But you just said the earlier generations are completely useless for the plan — isn't that a contradiction?
— Rime didn't say it aloud. She only thought it.
"It's fine, you can ask directly." Kenjaku seemed to read her thoughts and smiled as he explained, "Mahiko is truly one of a kind. The plan cannot proceed without her — there is no substitute."
Kenjaku had predicted that Mahiko would possess a Jujutsu Technique capable of manipulating human souls at will, and had constructed the entire plan around that prediction.
In truth, Mahiko had already exceeded even Kenjaku's expectations.
The original Mahito — the canon version — was what Kenjaku had anticipated.
What Kenjaku needed was an Idle Transfiguration of supreme precision, brought to absolute full bloom — to serve as the overture that would throw open the curtain on the coming era of chaos and carnage.
In the original story, Mahito only satisfied Kenjaku's requirements after achieving his complete form during the Shibuya Incident.
In reality, however, the precision of Mahiko's technique right now — precision alone — had already surpassed the level of the original Mahito, and already met Kenjaku's requirements.
In terms of raw Cursed Energy output, efficiency, and a host of other metrics, Mahiko still had enormous room to grow — she was still in the early-to-middle stages of her development. But in the single dimension of technique precision, she had undeniably reached the absolute peak.
Kenjaku was, in truth, already in a position to attempt a showdown with Mahiko — to move against her, and try to absorb her technique.
He was already scheming out how to make his move.
But for a variety of reasons, the timing wasn't right. Not yet. Not now.
"She's probably already figured it out," Kenjaku said with a smile. "Why else would she keep not coming back?"
Mahiko remained the ultimate key to the plan.
But what if, in the end, absorbing Mahiko proved impossible?
Then the earlier-generation Fake-itos would serve a different purpose — to forge a vessel.
"A vessel?"
"Correct." Kenjaku explained, "Using this vessel, to secretly store a single use of Mahiko's Idle Transfiguration."
Through calculation and ritual optimization, once Kenjaku initiated the Culling Game, the minimum requirement was a single activation of Idle Transfiguration. So if absorbing Mahiko failed, he could attempt to deliberately take one of Mahiko's Idle Transfiguration attacks head-on, store that attack within the vessel, and use it later to open the Culling Game.
The Fake-itos were failures. They were garbage. But because they had been born from soil similar to Mahiko's, their affinity with her was excellent — making them suitable to be fashioned into vessels.
"I see." Rime nodded. "So you're deliberately letting Mahiko fight the Fake-ito right now — just to make Mahiko hit it with Idle Transfiguration, and test whether forging a vessel is actually feasible."
"No, not at all — that part was pure accident. How was I supposed to know she'd find her way there? I assumed she couldn't." Kenjaku clicked his tongue. "Making a complete vessel requires two Fake-itos in total, and now one's already wrecked. Zero margin for error left. This is entirely your fault for goading her into ruining everything."
Rime had nothing to say.
"Hm?"
That was — not Idle Transfiguration?
Mahiko had initially judged the monster's technique purely by the feel of its aura. But now that they were actually trading blows, she realized the aura was merely similar — the actual technique was something else entirely.
Nothing like her own at all.
The creature appeared to be... yes, the kind of Cursed Spirit born from the negative emotions humans directed at one another. But its technique was, at best, the equivalent of 'my palm can slap your soul' — and an unimpressive version of that. It was arguably weaker than even Yuji Itadori's soul-touching Black Flash.
What actually gave this Cursed Spirit its combat power was the other cursed object fused within its body — the one carrying Blood Manipulation.
"What's the point of this thing?" Mahiko thought, genuinely puzzled.
She'd assumed Kenjaku had resurrected the earlier generations of Mahito — but now it turned out the earlier generations weren't Mahito at all, just Fake-itos with no Idle Transfiguration to speak of. So what was Kenjaku's purpose in dragging these things out?
Pure cannon fodder?
Mahiko couldn't figure it out.
And honestly, Kenjaku's scheme of 'forge a vessel that can store one use of Idle Transfiguration' was simply too strange to guess at from the outside.
From anyone else's perspective, that plan would just make them laugh. It was like a thief who, instead of cutting off someone's hand to get their fingerprint, just let them slap him in the face and used the handprint as the key.
Absolutely embarrassing.
Not that Kenjaku would care about any of that, of course.
If anything, he'd probably find it rather amusing.
"Piercing — Blood!!"
The monster pressed its palms together again and fired off another Piercing Blood — but this time Mahiko had already read the windup, ducking low to dodge it.
Piercing Blood was like a laser. The beam itself moved at blinding speed, but raising the hands to fire had a visible tell — a startup animation. As long as you moved the instant you clocked the tell, the enemy couldn't pivot the 'gun barrel' fast enough to track you afterward.
Especially when the monster's mastery of Blood Manipulation was this poor.
It couldn't control its own Piercing Blood at all.
The first shot sailed past. Mahiko dodged. The monster twisted its body, trying to swing the blood-beam horizontally to cut her down — but it had no control over the horizontal or vertical recoil. The blood-thread whipped wild, began slashing back and forth at random, and in an instant carved the entire warehouse into ribbons.
Clang — !!
The warehouse's load-bearing points were sliced clean through, leaving smooth, glassy cuts. The ceiling began to collapse.
The monster ended its Piercing Blood, let out a shriek, and hurled a blood-blade at Mahiko — then promptly got buried under the falling debris itself.
Mahiko carefully sidestepped the blood-blade and frowned slightly.
Honestly, 'attacks that damage the soul' were mostly useless against ordinary targets — but against Mahiko, they were the most irritating counter imaginable. She had high damage reduction but a short health bar. She hated taking true damage.
This monster's ordinary blood-blades were actually a bigger threat to her than Piercing Blood. She had to dodge every single attack.
The warehouse collapsed.
Mahiko leapt outside.
The blood from the fire hydrant earlier had already been spent — the ground outside was covered in shallow puddles of blood.
Clang, clang — BOOM.
The monster came howling out of the wreckage, flung its hands wide, and sent a storm of blood droplets flying — droplets that transformed into spikes mid-flight and streaked toward Mahiko.
This thing — let's just call it the Fake-ito — seemed to harbor an intense drive to attack Mahiko specifically. Was it some kind of like-repels-like instinct?
Mahiko herself felt nothing particularly special toward the creature in front of her.
Ah — right, of course. Jealousy.
Jealous of how perfect I am, looking at how hideous you are.
The girl let out a soft laugh and formed a hand seal.
"How pitiful."
BOOM —
Several rabbits that had been lying in wait outside the warehouse ruins erupted, blasting jets of searing flame directly at the monster. The scorching heat flash-evaporated the blood pooled across the ground — steam hissed through the air with a sharp shhhhh.
The blood-spikes flying through the air were intercepted by the flames as well, evaporating before they'd crossed even half the distance.
Whoosh —
"Hm?"
A silhouette, blackened and charred head to toe, came blazing out of the flames and launched itself at Mahiko, driving a fist straight at her face.
Mahiko startled — throwing a small rabbit forward as she stumbled back. The rabbit rapidly inflated like an airbag, absorbing the monster's blow for just a split second.
The airbag exploded. Mahiko had already cleared the way.
"Raaaugh!! —" The monster roared and swung again — but was blasted back by a volley of rabbit-bombs Mahiko summoned.
"Not bad at all." Mahiko broke into a faintly excited grin. "So the flames couldn't finish you off, huh?"
(Author's Note: Something came up tonight, so I'm posting now. If I have time later tonight, I'll try to push out another update.)
____
👻🔥Heey! Walnut-chan for more chapters!🔥👻
🔥 New history:JJK: Naoya Zenin Reborn as a Woman
Help us reach these goals:
🎯 100 Powerstones = +1 universal bonus chapter