Of course, Maki Zenin and Zen'in Mai had no intention of letting Mahiko tag along with them.
Their original plan had been to have Yuji Itadori, Nobara Kugisaki, and the others come and collect Mahiko.
But Mahiko had pleaded and reasoned with them, back and forth, until at last she managed to convince both Maki and Mai to bring her along to the Zenin estate.
Ogi Zenin, for his part, had no particular objection to the arrangement.
In his eyes, Mahiko was nothing more than a pipsqueak operating at the level of a Grade 4 sorcerer. Having her along would hardly stir any waves.
On the other hand — if they left Mahiko to return to Jujutsu High and she went around broadcasting everything that had happened today to everyone there, that would be considerably more troublesome.
Thud.
Thud.
Car doors shut.
The Zenin family driver spoke up: "Sir, shall we depart?"
Ogi Zenin sat in the front passenger seat, arms folded. "Let's go."
Ogi Zenin had brought a sizable contingent of Zenin family guards with him on this outing.
These guards were men who carried Zenin blood but had been born without any gift for sorcery. From childhood they had been drilled in martial arts and similar disciplines — enough to give them some genuine combat capability.
There were quite a few of them, so they were spread across four or five vehicles.
The car carrying Maki and Mai was the first in the convoy — and the largest, a hulking SUV. Mahiko, Maki Zenin, and Zen'in Mai occupied the back row, with Mahiko sandwiched in the middle once again.
The cars pulled away. Half an hour of driving carried them out of the glittering night cityscape and into the outskirts, the surroundings growing more and more remote with every passing kilometre.
No one spoke for the entire ride. The air inside the car was oppressively, unreasonably heavy.
"Is your home far away, big sisters?" Mahiko was the first to break the silence.
"Mm. It's a place called Zenin Village," Maki Zenin said with a nod. "Either way — it's not close."
"Haah." Zen'in Mai let out a long sigh. "What a pain."
Neither Maki nor Mai had the slightest awareness that they were being drawn toward a trap. In their minds at this moment, the Zenin household was still merely 'a deeply unpleasant place' — not 'a place that would devour them whole.'
If they had truly known that their father genuinely intended to have them killed, forget bringing Mahiko along — they would never have gone home themselves.
At only sixteen or seventeen years old… they were still far too naive.
Mahiko raised her hand. "Mister, I want to play on my phone!"
She was addressing Ogi Zenin.
Ogi Zenin glanced back at her. "Go ahead."
Play away, then… it wasn't as though he could stop her.
So Mahiko fished out her phone and started scrolling through YouTube on full speaker, the volume cranked high. The previously silent cabin filled on all sides with the noise from her phone videos.
["Hey! Today let's take a look at how the fishermen of Hokkaido actually catch fish! …"]
In the dimness of the car, every window caught and reflected the fuzzy, shifting glow emanating from Mahiko's screen.
["Fishing, right… let me tell you something — you don't grab the fish. You let them swim willingly into the trap you've set, until the very moment you pull up the net that they finally realize they've been caught. But by then, it's already too late…"]
The voice filled the entire cabin.
Ogi Zenin heard it. He shifted in his seat, as though he'd suddenly found his posture uncomfortable.
The girl seemed to have grown bored of that one.
She kept scrolling and landed on another video.
It was a clip from a TV drama.
["You bastard!"]
The woman in the video was screaming, her voice raw and torn.
["They are your children! For the sake of inheriting some worthless family estate… you actually had them all killed! …"]
"Pfft — ha ha ha ha…." The blue-haired girl had apparently spotted a comment in the comment section that struck her as genuinely funny. She laughed out loud — her laughter clear and bright, like a little silver bell.
Ogi Zenin grew even more restless in his seat.
He gave a soft cough — twice — as though there was something caught in his throat.
Maki Zenin and Zen'in Mai exchanged a glance.
Something flickered in Maki Zenin's eyes, as though a thought had just surfaced.
"Speaking of which," Maki Zenin began, a wariness rising visibly in her gaze. "The people who are eligible to inherit a share of the estate… who exactly are they?"
Ogi Zenin turned his head and cast a sidelong look at Maki from the front seat. "That is not something you need to concern yourself with. Just follow along with me."
Mahiko kept scrolling through videos.
The audio shifted.
["Let me teach you in thirty seconds how to tell when someone is lying… First point: anyone who has no good reason to be hiding details from you is absolutely lying…"]
The corner of Ogi Zenin's eye twitched.
"Answer me. I need your answer." Maki Zenin's voice was unyielding as iron.
"A useless dead-last like you — letting you split any estate at all is already doing you a favour on account of your bloodline," Ogi Zenin said, a thread of irritation bleeding into his voice. "What business do you have asking question after question? Is that any of your concern?"
Mahiko's attention never once left her phone screen — she appeared utterly indifferent to the argument erupting around her.
But she scrolled to another video.
["The saddest thing about a man isn't ending up with nothing — it's blaming his own failure on his family, or even on his children…"]
Even the driver, at that, struggled to keep his expression neutral. He hastily reached for his water cup and took a long drink.
"Answer my question directly!" Maki Zenin's brow was drawn into a hard frown, her hand dropping to rest on the hilt of her blade. "You're also going to inherit a share of the estate, aren't you!"
["Guys, let me tell you — whenever someone refuses to give you a straight answer, it's because they've got something to hide…"]
"Of course I have the right to split the estate!" Ogi Zenin snapped. "Is that how you talk to your father?!"
["Mama… what does 'eyes bigger than your stomach' mean…"]
"Which means," Maki Zenin said through gritted teeth, "that if Mai and I were dead — our two shares would pass to you. Wouldn't they!"
["Oh~ , my dear Watson, you've spotted the blind spot…"]
"You think I would covet what's yours?!" Ogi Zenin bellowed. Then he wheeled around to fix his gaze on Mahiko. "Put that phone away!! Right now!!"
Mahiko startled visibly, scrambling in a fluster to pause the video.
The girl looked up and met Ogi Zenin's eyes, her own brimming with tears, the picture of someone who'd just been wronged: "But Mister, you said I could look at it…"
"No more looking!"
"Wuu… fine, I won't look anymore…"
And so the blue-haired girl began dabbing at tears that did not exist, closed YouTube, and opened a different app.
"Ding."
"Navigation active — Zenin Village."
"Ding. Please make a U-turn ahead…"
"You have deviated from the planned route. Recalculating…"
"Ding. Please make a U-turn ahead…"
"You have deviated from the planned route. Recalculating…"
Inside the cabin — a silence like death.
Silence.
Silence.
Silence again.
Outside the windows, streetlamps strobed past one by one. The only sound left in the air was the navigation repeatedly recalculating, endlessly correcting its own errors.
Click.
No one could say who moved first.
But then everyone moved at once.
Maki Zenin's hand wrenched the hilt of her blade in a single violent grip: "Mai!"
Zen'in Mai's hand shot into her pocket, yanked out a smoke grenade, and hurled it with full force.
At the same moment, Ogi Zenin ripped his sword from its scabbard in the front passenger seat.
Clang.
Smoke exploded outward. A blade of light swept horizontal.
Steel met steel — and in the crossing of cold gleams, the body of the car was sheared clean in two.
____
👻🔥P- Walnut-chan🔥👻
🔥 New history: Jujutsu x Mieruko: Oh no, am I a villain too?
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