"Heh, fool." Watching Naoya hurtling toward her, Mahiru let out a cold scoff.
Those words just now had been bait to provoke him.
She wasn't taking Maki lightly, nor could she casually turn an ordinary person into a Heavenly Tyrant — after all, the Heavenly Restriction is, in essence, an equivalent exchange of "discarding Cursed Energy in trade for a stronger body." An ordinary person's Cursed Energy, even if cast aside, couldn't be exchanged for a body all that strong.
She was simply, deliberately, enraging him.
Naoya Zenin's speed was indeed astonishing, but he had to execute every single one of his preset motions with strict precision. If Mahiru wanted to catch him, all she had to do was disrupt his motions — keep him from completing the action he had preset.
And as for methods of disrupting an opponent's actions, the girl had as many as she could want.
It was just that, up till now, Naoya had been stubbornly keeping his distance from her, which was why Mahiru had never managed to get her chance.
She really hadn't expected it — Mahiru had only riffed off a couple of casual lines, and Naoya had completely lost it…
Instead of keeping away from me, he's coming closer?
"Are you stupid?!" Urogi Kyoko shouted frantically from the sky.
How was it that, even now, Naoya Zenin still had absolutely no clear awareness of how dangerous that blue-haired Cursed Spirit truly was?!
He was throwing his life away!
"Heh." Mahiru chuckled lowly.
At the very same moment Naoya was rushing in, crimson red began to spread out from beneath Mahiru's feet in every direction. A raging tide of blood, with Mahiru at its center, came surging outward in all directions.
——Blood Manipulation · Crimson Tide.
Mahiru possessed Idle Transfiguration; she could create as much blood as she wished.
The girl had deliberately seized this exact moment — the moment Naoya was charging at her — to turn the whole expanse of ground, in an instant, into an ocean of blood.
And Naoya, headlong and reckless, charged straight into the trap Mahiru had laid.
Mahiru smiled, and her hands wove another seal.
"Crimson Binding."
It was only then that Naoya realized something was wrong, but it was already too late.
The instant the surging waves of fresh blood touched Naoya's clothes, they transformed into countless sticky, spider-silk-like bonds, coiling around his body and shackling his movements.
Click—
Bad...
Naoya Zenin's eyes went wide with terror.
Maybe his shoulder had been tugged by the spider-web threads, or maybe his leg had been nudged by a wave of blood... in any case, in that single moment, he failed to complete the action he had preset.
And so, the restriction triggered. Naoya Zenin, in this very instant, was frozen in place for one full second.
"You really are a complete idiot, my friend," Mahiru sneered. "In such a hurry to die — what, are you eager to head down to the underworld and see Toji?"
A faint glow rose from Mahiru's hand as she reached out toward Naoya Zenin.
The moment that hand made contact with Naoya, Idle Transfiguration would trigger, and Naoya Zenin would be killed outright.
In the nick of time, it was Urogi Kyoko, throwing herself down from the sky, who used her own technique to wrench apart the "spatial canvas" between Mahiru and Naoya, forcibly rescuing him.
But Urogi Kyoko paid her own price for it.
She was dragged out of the sky and down to the ground, where countless crimson tendrils rising from the earth wound themselves around her body as well.
In this moment, Naoya Zenin, who excelled at swift movement, and Urogi Kyoko, who could soar freely through the air, were both ensnared by Mahiru's sea of blood.
Although Urogi Kyoko had just barely snatched Naoya out of Mahiru's grasp, the two of them were now utterly trapped, no longer able to maintain their previously nimble mobility.
Something had gone wrong.
Urogi Kyoko ground her teeth, alarm bells screaming inside her head.
She was visibly sinking deeper and deeper... and here, in this place, she had no other allies — she absolutely did not dare use Domain Expansion!
At this rate, things were going to get genuinely dangerous!
"Old woman! What the hell are you waiting for?!" Urogi Kyoko shouted. "If I die, you don't get to live either!!——"
"Aah, what a noisy woman," off in the distance, the Spirit-Calling Granny gave a long sigh. "Grandson, go on. It's your turn."
"Yes, Grandmother."
The man standing beside the Spirit-Calling Granny finally spoke. He pulled back the hood of his long black robe, revealing his face.
He was just an ordinary man, utterly unremarkable. The only somewhat strange thing about him was that his expression was excessively numb — numb to the point of resembling a doll.
From his pocket, he drew a small glass jar. The glass jar was opened, and out of it tumbled a white, shard-like solid.
Without the slightest hesitation, the man tilted his head back, stuffed the solid into his mouth, and swallowed it down. At the same time, the Spirit-Calling Granny lowered her head, formed a seal, and began chanting incantations.
"What?" Seeing the Spirit-Calling Granny use the Spirit-Calling Technique once again, Nanami Kento knit his brows tightly. "Is she summoning yet another jujutsu sorcerer?"
"Hm?" And Maki, sensing the change in the aura of the man beside that distant Granny, suddenly furrowed her brow. "Wait — that's not right..."
The truth was, before the Spirit-Calling Granny had joined Kenjaku's group, she had rarely ever had the opportunity to get her hands on the corpses of true jujutsu sorcerers.
Limitations in resources and connections had kept her weak for many years, and as a result her reputation had never grown.
But even so, she still had her own trump card, treasured and hoarded away for a very, very long time.
"Come forth — Toji Fushiguro!" The Spirit-Calling Granny laughed, both hands flung wide. "Become my grandson's aid!"
Snap.
"Urgh!"
"Hm?" The old crone's face suddenly changed.
She had the distinct feeling that something was not quite right.
The one she had just spirit-summoned was, of course, the same Toji Fushiguro she had summoned in the original work.
The man's features became handsome, his muscles swelling and growing firm. In the very instant the Spirit-Calling Technique was completed, the man at the old crone's side had transformed into an entirely different figure — his whole body altered into a perfect form.
The Spirit-Calling Technique had indeed succeeded.
But for some reason, the man who had obtained Toji Fushiguro's body raised a hand, seized the neck of a Kukuru Squad member standing beside him, and lifted him one-handed into the air, drawing strangled, choking sounds from his throat.
"Hah... what's going on..." The transformed man looked up at the sky, his gaze dazed. "Sky...?"
No good!!
The Spirit-Calling Granny scrambled to her feet in panic, retreating step after step. She was certain the Spirit-Calling Technique had succeeded — but the person before her was not her grandson.
Her grandson had been body-snatched!
Her technique had spun out of control!!——
——Yes, that was correct.
Just like in the original work, it had spiraled out of control.
To put it simply... during the spirit-calling process, in order to prevent her grandson from having his body snatched by Toji's soul, she had deliberately not included any of the soul's information.
But Toji's body was simply too powerful.
Toji, with nothing more than his flesh, suppressed the grandson's soul and seized the vessel for himself.
And so, the grandson died.
Standing here now was a dead spirit, descending once more into the world: Toji Fushiguro.
Puch——
Toji's hand clenched, and he crushed outright the neck of the Kukuru Squad member he'd had by the throat.
The man's gaze was at once vacant and clouded. It drifted slightly downward, settling on the battlefield before him.
"Zenin...?"
In point of fact, in the worldview of Jujutsu Kaisen, the human soul and the human body are at once dialectical and unified.
Body and soul can be regarded separately, yet body and soul can always communicate with one another.
The newly resurrected Toji had no soul, but because the flesh itself carried the brain's neural information, a small remnant of his pre-death soul information was, in fact, preserved.
Because of that, he could now rely on those residual memories to recognize that the place before him was the Zenin estate.
However...
"Hah..." The man let out an oddly amused laugh, an aberrant smile twisting his features.
However... what was the Zenin estate again...?
Didn't feel like anything particularly important...
Boring, boring!
His dazed, twitchy gaze fell on the crowd in the distance — and then, he caught sight of the weapon in Yuji Itadori's hand: that Special Grade cursed tool, "Playful Cloud."
"Hahaha..." he laughed, exhilarated.
A gust of wind blew past.
As though teleporting, the man vanished from the distance, and in the very next instant appeared right in front of Yuji Itadori.
Snap! The man seized the other end of Playful Cloud, and with a single one-handed yank, he wrenched Playful Cloud right out of Yuji Itadori's grasp.
"?!" Yuji Itadori's pupils contracted, but he reacted instantly, twisting to slam an elbow toward Toji.
At that same moment, on the other side, Maki had arrived as well.
The long blade in her hand came slashing at Toji.
Maki and Yuji Itadori, attacking from two directions in a pincer.
Maki had already sensed it: the man before her shared the very same Heavenly Restriction as she did.
She had not been able to immediately recognize who he was, but the alarm in her chest had already pushed her to unleash her full strength — to put everything into it.
Pak.
Clang!
Girl and boy, attacking from two sides.
But to the surprise of them both, the man before them blocked Yuji Itadori's elbow strike using only one hand, while his other hand easily parried Maki's slash with Playful Cloud.
Bang!
Bang!
One punch, one strike with the staff — sending Yuji Itadori and Maki flying outright.
"Maki!!" Mai cried out.
Everyone present was stunned by this abrupt turn of events.
The people of Jujutsu High all knew exactly how strong Yuji Itadori had become, and Mai understood even better just how strong Maki was now.
Yuji Itadori's strength had skyrocketed during this period, surpassing even what Maki had been before she became a Heavenly Tyrant. And yet he was utterly unable to contend with Toji in a contest of force.
Toji had awakened, and Maki had not — so naturally, Maki was no match for Toji. Although Toji had been dragged here by the Spirit-Calling Technique and his power had taken some damage, the "Playful Cloud" in his hand more than compensated for the deficit.
"Boring... is there no one stronger?" The man, gripping Playful Cloud, swept his gaze across the field.
He was smiling greedily.
In his eyes was nothing but chaotic battle-lust.
He was already completely out of control by this point.
Because of the very nature of the Heavenly Tyrant, even the Spirit-Calling Granny could not terminate Toji's spirit-summoning.
In theory, once the vessel's Cursed Energy was exhausted, the spirit-calling would come to an end — but the Heavenly Tyrant had no Cursed Energy at all in his body to begin with, which jammed up the very mechanism of the Spirit-Calling Technique on a bug-like loophole.
The Spirit-Calling Technique was not going to stop.
The Toji standing here now had become a "slaughter-doll" who would not cease his combat until the vessel itself was destroyed.
And in this very moment, his objective was to keep on searching out the strongest fighters on the field, and to do battle with them.
He glanced at Nanami Kento. No good — too weak.
He looked next at the Kukuru Squad members. No good — they were all small fry.
He sensed mightier ripples of Cursed Energy farther off.
He turned his head to look — and saw a blue-haired Cursed Spirit, and a woman capable of floating in midair.
"Hah..."
Not bad.
These two looked promising — well worth a fight.
The man smiled.
Carrying Playful Cloud, he took a step in that direction.
But then, all of a sudden, he caught a familiar scent.
Blood?
The man's footsteps came to a halt.
This particular scent of blood was not something he had ever truly smelled before, but his sense of smell — together with sheer instinct — instantly caught hold of the information contained within that blood.
And so, he turned his head. His gaze, unable to quite make out individual faces, locked onto someone in the midst of the crowd.
His eyes met hers.
"?" Fushiguro Maki, finding herself locked in his gaze, froze where she stood.
The black-haired girl had just sustained an injury in battle.
And the source of that scent of blood was her bleeding left arm.
He's... looking at me?
A foreboding feeling rose in the black-haired girl's chest.
Frightened by Toji's stare, she stumbled back two steps.
But in the very next instant, Fushiguro's vision blurred — the man with Playful Cloud was already standing right in front of her.
"Fushiguro!!——" In the distance, Yuji Itadori shouted at the top of his lungs.
And Toji, upon hearing that surname, paused mid-motion.
"Fushi... guro?"
Toji was a scumbag of a father. At the very least, that was how he saw himself.
After Fushiguro's mother had died, he had abandoned Fushiguro and deliberately put the child out of his mind.
When was it that he had remembered Megumi Fushiguro again?
It was right before he was killed by Satoru Gojo... in that final, dying moment, he had remembered once more that he had a son named Megumi Fushiguro.[GNT_PBREAk]At that time, before Satoru Gojo, he had only a single breath left.
Of course, he had said to Satoru Gojo: "Do whatever you want with my son."
From a certain angle, he and Satoru Gojo were actually mortal enemies.
He had revealed his son's existence to Satoru Gojo... and he hadn't been able to predict, after his death, what exactly Satoru Gojo might do to his boy.
Would he kill the son, deciding that such a child must not be allowed to live?
Or would he send the son back to the Zenin estate to live there, and take a sum of money from the Zenin family in exchange?
Or perhaps... Satoru Gojo might even raise the son entirely on his own?
Any of those possibilities was possible.
Toji had thought that he didn't really care about what became of his son.
But just now, when he caught the scent of his son's blood inside the Zenin estate, he had unexpectedly felt irritation and anger welling up inside his heart. It was only then that he realized that, in truth, he was not nearly so indifferent about his own son.
Because the Zenin estate was a truly rotten place.
He did not want his son to become one of the Zenin family — to be assimilated by those rotten people in the Zenin estate.
So...
"You — your surname is Fushiguro?"
The man murmured the question.
His gaze was still somewhat hazy, somewhat dazed.
But he was happy.
The man's present state was something akin to a concussion.
For the moment, he still couldn't quite make out his son's face.
But... his surname was Fushiguro... not Zenin...
Well, that really was something.
So it seemed that bastard Satoru Gojo... was a soft-hearted bleeding heart after all.
Toji smiled.
The seething battle-lust that had only just been boiling inside him was smoothed flat by an inexplicable surge of clarity flowing through his heart. His mind, too, was gradually returning to stability — he was beginning to be able to see the things in front of him clearly, beginning to make out the faces of the people before him.
In that case, then, there really was nothing left here worth staying for.
Toji raised one end of Playful Cloud and aimed it at his own temple. He understood that he didn't belong here as one of the dead — that for one already deceased, to be reborn into the world under the pretense of spirit-calling held no meaning whatsoever.
Saying it out loud might be a little laughable to those who had known him...
But after learning what had become of his son, he had no other regrets...
...
... hm?
Not right.
Now that Toji had finally been able to clearly make out the features of the person before him, his eyes suddenly narrowed.
Not right.
Wait a moment.
The scent of blood was indeed not mistaken; the surname "Fushiguro" was indeed not mistaken either.
So the person standing before him should, by all rights, be his son — but what in the world...
Long black hair...
A girl's pretty, delicate face...
A waist-and-hip proportion of body that absolutely only a female would have...
And pretty eyes utterly identical to her mother's...
"Ah?" The once-mighty Heavenly Tyrant of the previous generation, in this very moment, in front of Fushiguro Maki, opened his mouth as wide as it would go. "That's not... my son?"
My son...
How did he end up turning into a daughter???
____
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