Three hours after all contact with Zen'in Mai and Maki Zenin had been lost, Jujutsu High's people arrived on the scene.
The one leading the team was Grade 1 sorcerer Nanami Kento.
"We conducted the site examination together with people from the Zenin family," one of the Jujutsu High staff reported to Nanami Kento. "All three students are missing, and the Zenin family guards — together with Ogi Zenin himself — were all killed by a cursed tool."
The Zenin family representative on site was, at this very moment, shouting at the top of his lungs that it was Maki Zenin and Zen'in Mai who had killed Ogi Zenin and then fled out of guilt. But viewed from an objective, neutral standpoint, the scene actually offered no evidence whatsoever to prove that Maki Zenin had killed Ogi Zenin.
There were no shortage of other possibilities — for instance, it was entirely plausible that some other cursed tool user had ambushed the convoy, killed Ogi Zenin, and abducted the three students.
"It was absolutely those two pieces of trash!!" the Zenin family man was still bellowing. "Arrest them! Round all of them up!"
"Tch." Nanami Kento's brow furrowed.
The weapon profile matched, the timing and motive both lined up, and on top of that the three of them had now vanished — there was no escaping the fact that they would be hunted as suspects.
He wanted to protect the students… but the truth was, Jujutsu High itself was just as much in the dark.
"Pursuit is fine, but I must move together with you," Nanami Kento said, pressing his glasses up the bridge of his nose as he addressed the Zenin family man. "Until the truth is brought to light, I'd advise against trying any clever little tricks."
And meanwhile, over at the Zenin family.
"Hey," said the handsome young man with blond hair, seated in a chair with one hand cradling his chin, his eyes cold as they swept across the three figures before him. "What's that supposed to mean? You're telling me you're here to help me?"
This was Naoya Zenin.
Son of the late clan head Naobito Zenin, and — on paper — the man with the strongest claim to inherit the headship of the Zenin family.
Naoya Zenin's mood right now… honestly speaking, was not particularly good.
Ogi Zenin was dead.
Others might not have known what Ogi Zenin had set out to do, but how could he not?
So he knew that Ogi Zenin's death had to mean that Maki Zenin and Zen'in Mai had managed to kill him in return.
How utterly humiliating.
Tch… he should have known. The kind of bastard who could sire two trash daughters had to be trash himself.
Then again, it was just as well. Ogi Zenin being dead worked out fine for him. In Naoya's eyes, the Zenin family estate was already his by right — there was no way he would share it with anyone. With Ogi Zenin dead, that was one less person he'd have to kill.
And it was easy enough to predict that Maki Zenin and Zen'in Mai would keep on hiding indefinitely, which meant when the time came for the family-estate division assembly, neither of them would dare show up.
Three competitors eliminated in one stroke.
Thinking about it that way, his mood lifted considerably.
And so, once again, he turned his attention to the three figures standing before him.
One adult woman, one adult man, and a hunched, short-statured old man.
All three of them wore black robes.
These three were probably curse users or wild sorcerers come from who-knew-where — people Naoya Zenin had never seen before.
They had come knocking, claiming they were here to deliver a gift, and that they also wished to assist him in becoming head of the Zenin family.
"Aren't you three a riot?" Naoya Zenin propped his chin in his hand, an utterly arrogant smile curling his lips. "I'm already the head of the family… and I need your help for that?"
"Uh… ahem, we came to follow Lord Zenin," the woman tittered awkwardly. "We hold you in the highest regard, and we feel the next head of the Zenin family could be no one but you… so we were hoping you might grant us a bite to eat."
The woman's words, Naoya could at least understand the gist of.
The woman had just demonstrated her Technique a moment ago.
If she wasn't deliberately concealing her true strength… she was actually a fairly decent piece of combat power.
The three of them wanted to enter into a Binding Vow with him — the three of them would serve as combat strength to help him become head of the Zenin family, while he, Naoya Zenin, would in turn provide them with money and the "resources" of the Zenin family as compensation.
Simply put: mercenaries.
Not a bad deal.
But…
Heh.
But the truth was, Naoya Zenin didn't think he needed mercenaries at all.
The young man was extraordinarily — extraordinarily — proud of himself.
He considered himself capable of defeating every single person currently in the Zenin family, and consequently, at this particular juncture, he viewed "relying on outside help" as something unnecessary, and even slightly shameful.
In this world...
Heh — this world was, when you got down to it, a world of trash.
Trash crawled across it like maggots, by the multitude.
The only ones he had ever felt the need to look up to — apart from monsters like Satoru Gojo — were one other man...
Toji Fushiguro...
The man known as the Heavenly Tyrant — Naoya had glimpsed his figure only once in childhood, and from that moment he had been incapable of forgetting it.
Only Toji, and the Satoru Gojo who had defeated Toji, were qualified to stand above him, Naoya Zenin...
Everyone else was an ant!
"I don't need your help. Get lost." Naoya Zenin waved them off impatiently.
Yes — Naoya Zenin was the previous-generation Heavenly Tyrant Toji Fushiguro's number-one fanboy.
The kind of fanboy whose obsession could not be exceeded.
It might sound like a joke or a jab to put it this way, but given the depth of Naoya's fixation on Toji Fushiguro, on those lonely nights when he was feeling empty and cold, the subject of any erotic dreams running through his head was, more likely than not, Toji Fushiguro himself.
Aside from Toji Fushiguro, there was essentially no one in this world capable of earning his complete respect.
However...
What he didn't know was that the few people standing before him had, as it happened, prepared for him with exactly this weakness in mind.
"Hahaha… of course you can tell us to get lost, my lord, but we have prepared a gift for you — perhaps you might take a look at it first?"
The woman gave a dry little laugh and, from behind her, produced a long wooden box, which she then opened.
Naoya Zenin had no interest in any of this whatsoever.
Until his gaze swept across the contents of that wooden box — at which point his eyes went perfectly still.
"Th-that's——!" Naoya's breathing turned suddenly ragged. "Don't tell me——?!"
Lying within the long wooden box was a long blade.
It was a cursed tool — one with a strange, alien Cursed Energy coursing along the entirety of its surface!
Let it be said in advance: Naoya Zenin had no interest in cursed tools, and in fact regarded them with a certain contempt.
On one hand, this was because Naoya Zenin's Technique was a peculiar one, and using a cursed tool was inconvenient for him; on the other, Naoya considered using a cursed tool to fall under the heading of "relying on outside aid," which was disgraceful.
Under ordinary circumstances, if someone had presented him a cursed tool as a gift, Naoya Zenin would have been furious — he would have considered it an insult to his person.
But this cursed tool, the one before him now, was different.
"Could this possibly be..." Naoya's pupils trembled.
The long blade lying before him was so terribly familiar… so much so that his heart began to pound at a frenzied tempo.
Even if Naoya Zenin had forgotten everything else, there was no way he could ever forget this blade.
"Don't tell me..." Naoya Zenin's voice was full of disbelief.
And the woman simply gave a soft little laugh. "That's right. This blade is one of the very swords once carried by the great Toji Fushiguro himself."
A Special Grade cursed tool.
One whose ability allowed it to ignore the hardness of whatever it cut — to Naoya Zenin, head fan of the "Toji Fushiguro" faithful, it was the greatest gift the world had to offer.
——The Soul-Releasing Blade.
Zen'in Mai stirred slowly back to consciousness, feeling as though she had slept through an entire century.
Her head throbbed, the world spun, her memories drifted back in fragments — and then, as if struck by a sudden realization, she bolted upright from the bedding.
Mahiko!
Maki Zenin!
Ogi Zenin!
She remembered that she had originally intended to sacrifice herself so that Maki Zenin could grow stronger — but it seemed something had gone wrong after that. Their mental sphere had been invaded by some strange power, her own soul had been seized by a crushing, irresistible force… she had been unable to do anything, and could only sink into the abyss.
Until this very moment.
...What was the situation right now?
Was the battle over?
Had Mahiko and Maki Zenin made it out of danger?
After the girl rose to her feet, she quickly looked around, only to discover that this was an utterly different place from where she had been.
This was… a room with tatami flooring. The walls and floor both looked somewhat plain, as though the place were quite old — but it was clean.
She was lying in a neatly laid-out futon.
Her clothes had been changed into a yukata, and her body felt as though it had been freshly cleaned.
"Hm?"
She turned her head.
One side of the room had sliding doors. Beyond them was probably a courtyard — there was the sound of running water… and steam.
Where was this?
Wary, Zen'in Mai rose carefully. There at the head of her bed, by her pillow, lay her revolver along with its bullets.
With practised movements she reloaded, then slowly slid open the door leading out to the courtyard.
"?"
As the door opened, the sound of water grew louder.
Zen'in Mai was startled — because outside seemed to be a hot spring.
The very traditional Japanese kind — natural-stone hot spring, pool steaming with rising vapour, a bamboo deer-scarer thocking against its base in time with the running water, trees beside the pool, wooden fencing encircling the whole area.
On a closer look, the area wasn't small.
To one side stood signboards informing patrons which pool corresponded to which kind of spring.
It felt like… some sort of hot spring inn?
Except there was no one around. Except the weeds had grown rampant. It clearly hadn't seen any maintenance in years.
Zen'in Mai was a bit dazed.
Why am I here?
"Mahiko? Maki?" the girl called out.
And the hot spring — as though in response — gave a splash of water.
"Oh! Big sis Mai, are you awake?" Mahiko's voice drifted out from within the hot-spring pool. "Come on, come on, big sis Mai — we were just waiting on you, you know?"
A sudden pivot to a scene like this, on the heels of a tense and bloody battle, was the sort of thing guaranteed to feel deeply uncanny.
Still — there really was a healing kind of magic to Mahiko's voice. Hearing the girl's bright, innocent tones, Zen'in Mai's body unconsciously relaxed.
"Mahiko, were you hurt in the fight just now?" Zen'in Mai started walking toward the source of the voice. "What's the situation now?"
The girl drew closer.
She saw the blue-haired girl.
Mahiko was in the middle of soaking in the hot spring at that moment. Seeing Zen'in Mai approach, she happily lifted her hand out of the water, sending a spray of droplets flying.
"Over here, over here!"
Not a single injury anywhere on the blue-haired girl's body.
Zen'in Mai unconsciously let out a breath of relief.
"What's going on right now?" Zen'in Mai asked.
"Soaking in the hot spring," Mahiko said, extending a hand toward her. "Why don't you come soak with us too, big sis Mai?"
Before the girl had time to refuse, Mahiko had already grabbed her by the wrist — and so all she could do was obediently undo her yukata and step into the spring.
The spring was rather hot. Zen'in Mai let out a hissing breath.
"What about Maki? How is she? Why are we here?" Once she had partially adjusted to the water temperature, Zen'in Mai turned to Mahiko with questions. "Where is she? Why can't I see her?"
Mahiko gave her purest of smiles. "Big sis Maki is hard at work getting stronger, you know?"
Hard at work… getting stronger?
What was that supposed to mean?
"What I mean is," Mahiko said, gesturing with her hands, "during the battle just now, even though big sis Maki was rescued, she came to a deep realization of just how weak she is. So she decided to make herself stronger."
"Huh? Rescued?"
Had someone rescued them and brought them here?
"Big sis Maki is hard at work getting stronger right now!" Mahiko didn't answer Zen'in Mai's confusion, but instead broke into a brilliant smile. "But she still needs big sis Mai's help!"
"Hm?" Zen'in Mai blinked, blank again. "What do you mean?...You...Why?"
"Big sis Mai should already know, right?" Mahiko tilted her head with a smile, blinking. "You've been holding big sis Maki back."
"No, no, of course I know that..."
Zen'in Mai felt that something was wrong.
A chill ran down her back.
"What I mean is, why...why do you know about that?"
Ever since she had woken up, all of this had felt so strange.
Mahiko's appearance in the middle of it had caused her guard to drop — but right now, in this moment, that uncanny feeling was rising up in her chest all over again.
"Of course I know," Mahiko said with a sweet little smile. "And what's more — the one who rescued you and big sis Maki was me, you know?"
What did that mean...
What did that mean...???
Every expression on the girl's face, every flicker of feeling, was exactly the same as the original innocent girl she knew — yet the words coming out of her mouth were enough to make Zen'in Mai's skin crawl.
"You...who are you...?"
The terror in her heart was climbing toward its peak. Zen'in Mai kept retreating step by step through the hot spring.
When she had stepped into the water, she had left her revolver inside her yukata. Right now, she was completely unarmed.
"Is big sis Mai scared? But I really do mean to help you, you know? Big sis Maki and I have already concluded a contract — she's willing to become my possession, and I'll help her grow stronger and help her conquer the Zenin family..."
"But big sis Maki alone isn't enough. So, big sis Mai, it would be best if you became my possession too..."
"So enter a Binding Vow with me too — like big sis Maki, sell your life to me..."
Mahiko had her usual smile on her face.
She advanced step by step. Zen'in Mai retreated step by step.
The girl's heart was hammering. Mahiko was as pure as she had ever been — but now she filled her with overwhelming dread.
Suddenly, Zen'in Mai felt her back bump into something.
She whirled around — and discovered that what she had just bumped into was a great tangled mass of dried, withered vines.
"…"
Before she had any time to calm herself, in the next instant Zen'in Mai's breath caught in her throat.
Because it seemed she had seen something inside the vines.
Unable to believe her own eyes, struggling to breathe, she reached out with trembling hands and parted the vines on the surface of that enormous mass.
Deep inside the tangle of vines, she saw Maki Zenin's face — her mouth and nose covered by an arm-like tendril.
"??!!——"
Pat.
She felt Mahiko reach up from behind her and touch her cheek.
A breath drew close from behind her, a whisper at her ear.
"Now...the only one left is you, big sis Mai, you know?"
And so, inside the abandoned hot-spring inn deep in the mountains, there rang out a young girl's bloodcurdling scream.
"Hahahaha..." Mahiko was rolling around on the ground, laughing. "Big sis Mai's just too funny."
Mahiko had honestly never anticipated that Zen'in Mai would let out a sound like a tiny little girl, and then keel over on the spot in a dead faint.
She was dying. She was actually dying — this time, she really was dying of laughter.
Granted, Mahiko had indeed deliberately frightened Zen'in Mai just for the fun of it, but for Zen'in Mai to just roll her eyes back in her head and pass out on the spot — that was, frankly, way too funny.
"...Sigh." Maki Zenin, leaning against the wall, watched Mahiko howling with laughter and couldn't help letting out a sigh.
Meanwhile, Zen'in Mai, having only just regained consciousness after fainting, was now sitting off to one side, grinding her teeth.
But she didn't dare voice her anger.
This place was the temporary refuge Mahiko had located after erasing every trace from the scene that might have exposed her identity.
It was some abandoned hot-spring inn deep in the mountain forest.
Mahiko was here for two purposes: waiting for Zen'in Mai to wake up, and meanwhile getting a head start on running experiments on Maki Zenin's body — trying to work out the best way to readjust the Heavenly Restriction and Techniques on the two of them.
That Maki Zenin inside the vines, with her mouth and nose covered — that had actually been the Maki Zenin currently being experimented on.
Mahiko had originally been getting on with serious business, but it just so happened that Zen'in Mai was nearly awake, and on a whim she had decided to pull this little prank — and scared Zen'in Mai unconscious.
And now, Zen'in Mai had come around.
Maki Zenin and Mahiko had told Zen'in Mai the full story from start to finish.
"I really never would've thought..."
Zen'in Mai looked at Mahiko, a complicated little smile on her face.
Just like Maki Zenin — she didn't know how to render judgment on the thing in front of her either.
The blue-haired Cursed Spirit was an enemy.
The blue-haired girl was a junior whom they needed to protect.
They had indeed once stood opposed to that "blue-haired Cursed Spirit" — but they had also, in truth, gone shopping with the "blue-haired girl," played with her, and spent short, happy stretches of time together.
Was the blue-haired Cursed Spirit a good person? Unclear — but as far as actions went, she really had rescued them.
Was the blue-haired girl a bad person? Also unclear — the logic behind her actions was just too difficult to pin down.
As a matter of fact, this current situation actually came as something of a relief to Zen'in Mai.
If Zen'in Mai and Mahiko were standing on equal footing right now, then eighty percent of the time Zen'in Mai would have no idea how to face her.
But now it was fine.
She no longer had the right of independent choice, and thus naturally no longer needed to wear herself out wrestling with "is the blue-haired Cursed Spirit friend or foe."
After all… the blue-haired Cursed Spirit was already, by contract, the master of them both.
She could just stop thinking about it.
"Hehe, the two of you are pretty lucky to have been saved by me this time, you know?"
Mahiko was always magnanimous (probably).
To release the restrictions on the sisters' bodies, both of their cooperation was needed. Signing with Maki Zenin alone wasn't enough — she had to sign a contract with Zen'in Mai as well.
And Zen'in Mai was currently in the mindset of a captive-under-the-blade — I've been caught by you, so I'll do what you say. So on the matter of the contract she didn't waste much breath.
The terms of the contract were that the sisters were, from now on, to do whatever Mahiko said, and were not to do anything against Mahiko's interests.
And Mahiko, for as long as she remained in this world, was to safeguard the sisters' safety and interests, and additionally was to bring about Maki Zenin's wish of "conquering the Zenin family."
This last clause was incidental as far as Mahiko was concerned.
The girl had every intention of clearing out the troublesome nails sticking up inside the Zenin family anyway.
And now, with the negotiation concluded and the contract completed, it was time to get on with some actual work——
"Come!" Mahiko, wrapped in a bathrobe, threw herself with a flop onto the wooden cot beside the hot spring. "Little Ki, little Mai, come give big auntie here a shoulder massage!"
——She was going to throw her weight around!
Researching how to adjust souls was exhausting work.
Surely there could be no objection to her collecting a little tax!
The contract Mahiko had signed with Zen'in Mai and Maki Zenin wasn't quite that extreme — it wasn't as if the moment Zen'in Mai or Maki Zenin failed to gratify some trivial whim of Mahiko's, the two of them would drop dead on the spot.
But on the whole, they did have to be compliant.
So Zen'in Mai and Maki Zenin took up positions on either side of her, faces dark, and began massaging Mahiko's shoulders.
After a while, though, their faces stopped being so dark.
Because Mahiko's shoulders and neck were soft and springy, comfortable to press, and even a little stress-relieving.
"Want me to do your legs too?" Zen'in Mai suddenly spoke up to ask.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Mahiko slanted a look at her. "Aren't you supposed to feel humiliated?"
"It really is pretty humiliating," Zen'in Mai said in a perfectly flat, deadpan recitation. "Oh dear, captured by the terrifying blue-haired Cursed Spirit, reduced to a servant, truly so very humiliating..."
Zen'in Mai genuinely didn't care.
Zen'in Mai had a thick skin.
"So — before all this, you really did save Nobara Kugisaki, right?" Zen'in Mai asked. "And your reason for saving Nobara Kugisaki was the same as your reason for saving the two of us?"
All of it… because you happened to like the look of us?
"Something like that." Mahiko stretched on the wooden cot like a cat. "Interesting things deserve to be preserved — it'd be a shame for them to be destroyed."
"Really?" said Zen'in Mai, whose head spun faster than her sister's. "By rights, the benefit you stood to gain from saving the two of us was far smaller than the losses, wasn't it?"
The girl had a clear-eyed view of herself. Putting her sister aside, she at least was, without question, useless.
Taking her on as a subordinate didn't carry much meaning.
She had already understood that Mahiko had clung to them and insisted on accompanying them to the Zenin estate precisely in order to save them.
If Mahiko had simply slipped away on her own, or had never tagged along in the first place, Mahiko could have kept right on enjoying free run of Jujutsu High under the identity she had so painstakingly constructed.
But now, Maki Zenin and Zen'in Mai had probably become wanted fugitives, and by extension Mahiko's identity would come under repeated scrutiny.
A pure net loss — a losing bargain.
——Just like that earlier time when Mahiko had saved Nobara Kugisaki.
"So you really are a good Cursed Spirit?" Maki Zenin remarked with a faint touch of feeling in her voice. "A discovery like this — submit it to the scientific community and you could win a Nobel Prize."
"Believe whatever you want... but I'll warn you, letting your guard down too much can get you killed." Mahiko gave a yawn.
"Sun's up over the mountains," said Maki Zenin, not picking up the thread, but instead raising her head to look off into the distance.
Zen'in Mai had woken up roughly at the dim, just-before-dawn hour.
By now it had become full daylight.
Tomorrow was the day the Zenin family would convene its estate-division assembly.
Mahiko blinked, decided the timing was about right, and rolled off the wooden cot in a single fluid motion.
"Alright, alright, time to get on with the body modifications on the two of you. Time to start sobbing and screaming, babies." Mahiko planted her hands on her hips with a grin. "Final warning — what comes next is going to completely change the trajectory of your lives. Make your final mental preparations."
Of course, mental preparation was the only thing they could do.
Once the terms of the contract had been carried out, Zen'in Mai and Maki Zenin… would never be able to return to what they had been, nor to the world they had come from.
"Well then, big sisters, goodnight." Mahiko clapped her hands together and smiled with utter innocence. "See you in a few hours."
Countless vine-like tendrils sprouted up from the ground and wrapped around the bodies of the two girls.
The second-generation Heavenly Tyrant, and a complete-body Construction Technique user armed with modern knowledge...their account login screens were now loading.
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