Meanwhile, inside the building Jujutsu High had allotted them, three Cursed Spirits were busy packing their luggage.
"Seriously, I really did predict it!" Kin-chan was shouting beside Jogo. "Something super terrible — a disaster — is going to happen over on Mahiru-nee's side! It's for real!!"
"Where is this disaster?" Jogo's mouth twisted. "With time to spare on this kind of nonsense, you'd do better to go check your own luggage one more time."
Kin-chan stamped her foot in anger and shouted: "When have I ever gotten a prediction wrong?!"
Jogo sighed. "When have you ever gotten one right?"
"Yesterday I predicted that the snacks we bought would meet with disaster! Today it was proven true!"
"That was because Mahiru told us we had to switch where we were staying — too lazy to haul the luggage, so we ate up all the snacks ahead of time. How does eating them up count as 'meeting disaster'?"
"It's real this time, and it's not an enemy, not a fight — it's a disaster!"
Kin-chan was so angry her cheeks puffed out like steamed buns. "This time it's extremely clear!"
"All right, all right, I get it, but it doesn't really matter, does it?" Jogo waved a dismissive hand. "Even granting it's all just like you say — if there's a disaster, and Mahiru really needs our help, she'll call us herself... Just send her a text to remind her and that's plenty."
Jogo's eyes scanned over the luggage piled up beside them once more.
"She only told us to move — so let's just handle the moving first," Jogo said. "And besides, what kind of disaster could ever... hm?"
The white-haired girl suddenly froze for a moment. Through that subtle perception of hers, she could feel the floor trembling faintly.
...Trembling?
"?" Kin-chan had noticed it too.
The water in the empty fish tank off to one side... the surface that had been so still was now stirring with ripples.
This was...
"An earthquake?" Jogo's mouth opened, mildly surprised.
An earthquake had occurred.
Japan's earthquake monitoring system had picked up on it almost the very instant the earthquake hit.
But at the same time, this earthquake was strange too — unlike any one before it... because the epicenter the earthquake monitoring people had detected was chaotic, scattered.
That said, no one over on Mahiru's side had noticed yet. The tremor there was light, and on top of that, they were locked in the thick of battle.
"She's gone?!" Urogi Kyoko's pupils tightened.
Why had she disappeared?
The one who controlled the Domain was its master, and as far as Urogi Kyoko was aware at the moment, there was no method that could allow anyone to go invisible inside a Domain... There was only one possibility: Mahiru had escaped from the Domain.
How had she escaped?
A Domain was sealed; getting out without breaking the Domain... was such a thing really possible?
Damn it!
At any rate, Urogi Kyoko now completely understood why Mahiru had said "Expand a Domain and you lose." If Mahiru had some means by which she could easily escape from someone else's Domain... then the Domain would end, Urogi Kyoko's Technique would burn out, and she would no longer be able to withstand Mahiru's attacks at all!
Damn.
"I'm canceling the Domain — back me up for a while!" Urogi Kyoko shouted at Naoya Zenin, and at once released her own Domain — the sooner she released it, the sooner the Technique burnout would begin to recover.
The Domain dissolved.
Urogi Kyoko could see the outside scenery once again — and directly below her, the blue-haired girl was indeed standing outside her Domain.
Mahiru was smiling.
Her mouth opened, shaping a single word — "Boom."
Urogi looked up, pupils contracting—
BOOM!!!
The Heavy-Armed Darting Hare that had been flying above the Domain's barrier had long since been lying in wait; the very instant the Domain ended, it slammed a fist straight down at Urogi.
"!!!"
Urogi crossed her arms and took the punch head-on; the blow drove her clean down into the ground, sending up an enormous plume of dust.
At the same time, Naoya stepped out of the Domain too.
For a moment he was sucking in great breaths — what he breathed in was air laced with the thick, acrid smell of poison-blood mist.
"?!"
The next second, Mahiru was suddenly right in front of him, fist slamming down. On reflex, Naoya brought up his Soul-Severing Blade to block.
BOOM!!
That punch carried even more force than the Heavy-Armed Darting Hare's, and it likewise drove Naoya into the ground. He felt his internal organs and ribs rattle apart, and coughed up a great mouthful of fresh blood.
Naoya had not anticipated Mahiru possessing such strength.
That was true enough — Mahiru's raw muscular strength was, in fact, not especially great; ordinarily she relied on the recoil force of Jogo's Technique to push the upper ceiling of her physical power higher.
But not this time.
She had applied to her own body a one-hundred-percent "Heavenly Tyrant" Heavenly Restriction, which had boosted her muscular strength — and at the same time, this was her newly developed strategy for dealing with the enemy's "Domain."
Within a Domain, a "Heavenly Tyrant" possessing not a shred of Cursed Energy would be identified by the barrier as nothing more than "ordinary architecture" — in short, the Domain's sealing effect was useless against a "Heavenly Tyrant."
This countermeasure against Domains was extremely effective.
But it had a problem too: Mahiru's adding a Heavenly Restriction to herself had stripped away every last bit of her Cursed Energy. As a Cursed Spirit, she would dissipate... she probably had a time limit of about one minute.
And during this one minute she couldn't use anything to do with Cursed Energy — like Cursed Energy enhancement, like her Technique. Unable to use Idle Transfiguration, she didn't even have a way of changing herself back.
But she could put measures in place in advance.
For instance, the Heavy-Armed Darting Hare, which had stored Cursed Energy and her Technique within it.
For another instance, a butterfly with a single stored-up use of Idle Transfiguration meant to "restore her to her original form."
Mahiru extended a finger, and a blue butterfly alighted on her fingertip; Idle Transfiguration threaded a sliver of Cursed Energy back into her, and that Cursed Energy spread through her entire body the way dye seeps through fabric.
Her body began to return to its original state.
The transformation from the no-Cursed-Energy state back to her original state still required time, though.
But now, with Urogi's Technique in burnout and on top of that Naoya's preset motions having been interrupted, a single Heavy-Armed Darting Hare was more than enough to wreck both of them.
BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM ——
Not just slamming fists... a whole lot of Bunny Missiles joined the bombardment as well.
In an instant Naoya was bombed into bloody mincemeat; Urogi, meanwhile, used Cursed Energy to fortify her body and gritted her way through the barrage.
Urogi's heart filled with despair. She knew that the moment Mahiru's Technique returned to normal operation would be her own moment of death.
BOOM!
Suddenly, an outside attack came down on the Heavy-Armed Darting Hare, beating it back. It was the Spirit-Calling Granny, who had "called" some sorcerer's Technique down upon herself, charging in to grab Urogi Kyoko and run.
"Fly, faster!" the Granny shouted.
"I can't yet!" Urogi shouted back.
The Heavy-Armed Darting Hare kept hurling missiles in pursuit, and the Spirit-Calling Granny deployed the "Falling Blossom Emotion" Technique in defense.
This too had been obtained through Spirit-Calling.
They could only gamble.
Running while gambling.
Gambling that Urogi's Technique burnout would recover one step ahead of Mahiru's state.
——
But quite plainly, this was a forlorn hope.
From behind came an intense and all-too-familiar surge of Cursed Energy, and the hearts of Urogi and the Spirit-Calling Granny — who had been bolting for the distance regardless of all else — both went cold.
"Relax now — both of your Techniques are pretty fun to play with, so at the very least..." Mahiru's fingertip gathered up [Husk], even as she smiled, even as she pointed it at Urogi and the Spirit-Calling Granny, "this shot won't smash you to pieces completely.
—— [Husk]."
BOOM!!! ——
A bolt of white light streaked across the battlefield.
In an instant, it enveloped both Urogi and the Spirit-Calling Granny.
Boom-rumble ——
"Over there... they've settled it, then..." Yuji Itadori, watching toward Mahiru's side, parted his lips.
Which is to say — Mahiru had won.
True enough — Yuji Itadori had, from start to finish, never even considered "Mahiru losing" as one of the possible options.
And at the same time, the battle over on their side was likewise leaning toward its conclusion.
The Spirit-Calling Granny's Technique was formidable, but she had no way of making up for the Kukuru Squad's flaw of "insufficient Cursed Energy reserves."
They were carrying on them Techniques of sorcerers roughly on par with Ogi Zenin, but owing to that flaw of insufficient Cursed Energy reserves, in actual combat each one of them, at the very most, could only be reckoned as a "semi-Grade 1" sorcerer.
In the end, the Kukuru Squad members were either killed off or had lost the ability to fight — owing to Toji's unexpected entry into the fray, two Heavenly Tyrants plus three Grade 1 sorcerers... in the end, none of the Jujutsu High crowd had even sustained any serious injuries.
"Pfft — what a lot of smoke... ugh... I haven't gone and overdone it, have I?" Mahiru approached Urogi and the Spirit-Calling Granny, watching as the dust began to clear.
Oh, that was all right — Urogi and the Spirit-Calling Granny both looked a bit dead, but in fact they were still alive, just unconscious from heavy wounds.
Both Urogi Kyoko's Technique and the Spirit-Calling Granny's Technique were very useful — both worth studying. Killing them outright would be a complete waste.
As for Naoya Zenin...
Mahiru shot a glance in Naoya's direction.
Naoya's Technique was, to Mahiru, rather lukewarm — because its requirements were too strict.
Naoya had to make twenty-four preset motions per second to fulfill the Technique's conditions — that his family could use this Technique at all involved some measure of inherited family talent. At any rate, Mahiru couldn't pull it off.
Right now, Naoya had been beaten halfway dead by Mahiru's one fist, and looked just about ready to give up the ghost.
Whoosh ——
A flash of blade sliced through.
Naoya's head was chopped clean off, every last spark of life snuffed out of him.
The dust all around gradually dispersed; Maki Zenin came walking over, lifting Naoya's head in her hand.
And on the other side, Toji — without anyone quite knowing since when — was likewise standing right there.
Mahiru turned her gaze sideways, locking eyes with Toji.
Toji smiled.
"What's your relationship with Satoru Gojo?" he asked, going straight to the point.
Mahiru froze for a moment, not understanding what Toji meant by the question.
"I don't have any kind of relationship with Satoru Gojo."
Honest truth. She and Satoru Gojo hadn't even met face to face yet.
"Hm? It wasn't Satoru Gojo, together with you, who turned Fushiguro into a girl?" Toji stroked his chin.
"It wasn't," Mahiru said. "I did that on my own. Just for fun."
"Oh? So that's how it is." Toji rubbed his chin, then suddenly broke into an interested smile. "In that case — any interest in cooperating?"
"Cooperating on what?"
"Cooperating on... hm, say — does Satoru Gojo have a kid by now?" Toji laughed. "And his kid — boy or girl?"
Mahiru: ?
Mahiru burst out laughing.
"Sure — I promise you, if Satoru Gojo's got a kid, I'll give the kid one too, just like that." She smiled sweetly. "So — is that the only thing you've got?"
The dust had fully dispersed.
Mahiru surveyed the surroundings. "Or — do you all have anything else?"
The Jujutsu High people, along with Maki and Mai, had all drawn closer too.
Maki and Mai were standing behind her.
And Yuji Itadori and Fushiguro stood on the other side, a little ways off from Toji, together with Mahiru's group forming a triangle.
Playful Cloud was in Toji's hand.
And that Soul-Severing Blade, now, was in Maki's grasp.
"You all have anything you want to ask?" Mahiru looked smilingly at the Jujutsu High crowd. "If you want to ask, just ask. I'm in a good mood right now — I'll answer whatever I know, you know?"
Want to ask what...? In fact, what Jujutsu High wanted to ask couldn't have been more obvious.
Why had Maki Zenin and Zen'in Mai become your companions?
Why had you come here to insert yourself into all this?
You seemed to know perfectly well the reasons behind the upheaval at the Zenin estate...
And — most importantly of all...
"Are you... Mahiru?" Yuji Itadori asked, hesitation written across his face.
Clap.
Mahiru clapped her hands together with a grin. "Got it in one~"
She had originally been concealing her identity only to mooch off Jujutsu High's resources; now that suspicion had been aroused again, Mahiru couldn't be bothered to keep up the act.
Pretending or not, in the end, made no difference.
On top of that, she'd already had Jogo and the others relocate, so it mattered even less.
And Yuji Itadori, Kugisaki, and Fushiguro — every one of them had their gazes tremble when they heard those words. Back when they had seen the blue-haired Cursed Spirit at the Zenin estate, they had already entertained similar suspicions, but they had never expected... Mahiru would admit to it so cleanly.
As though it were a matter of no consequence whatsoever.
"So I'd actually... bumped into you that early on...?" Kugisaki's voice was trembling. "That's why... you saved me?"
Mahiru was the blue-haired Cursed Spirit.
Once that was settled, a great many things the blue-haired Cursed Spirit had done were easier to explain.
But — the blue-haired Cursed Spirit was Mahiru.
And so the boys and girls now realized that many of the things Mahiru herself had done were becoming impossible to explain.
Their minds were in chaos.
For the moment, they couldn't work out... how exactly they were supposed to view the Mahiru standing in front of them.
And as the students were standing there dumbstruck... beep-beep, a phone notification went off.
Mahiru pulled out her phone and gave it a glance — it turned out to be a message from Kin-chan.
Kin-chan was saying that over on Mahiru's side... a major disaster was going to happen.
Hm?
A major disaster?
Mahiru froze for a moment, and instinctively scanned her surroundings.
Kin-chan's "prophecies" really were always rather off-base, but viewed from another angle, they were actually pretty accurate. The things she predicted didn't tend to play out in the form most people would imagine — but they would, without fail, come to pass.
If she said "disaster," then eight times out of ten, something that did rise to the level of a "disaster" really was going to happen.
So Mahiru cast her gaze around.
Truthfully, the only one on the field at the moment posing any threat to Mahiru was Toji. If he were to leverage Playful Cloud in a sneak strike and snatch up the Soul-Severing Blade — Toji wielding the Soul-Severing Blade had a strong likelihood of cutting all the way down to the soul.
That would seriously counter Mahiru.
But even so, it shouldn't really count as a "disaster."
Then... was it Kenjaku?
Kenjaku was much the same as Mahiru — when in motion, he tended to plant a wide range of Cursed Spirits all around him for surveillance.
And Mahiru herself placed clones too.
So whenever Kenjaku and Mahiru drew near to each other, they would mutually discover each other's clones or Cursed Spirits at a great distance, and Mahiru wasn't the slightest bit worried about a sneak attack from his side.
So what was going on?
"...Hm?"
And at exactly this moment, Mahiru's brow knit.
At the same time, the others had likewise picked up that something was off.
The ground... was shaking?
An earthquake?
"Disaster" — was it referring to the earthquake?
That really did line up with Kin-chan's prophecy. In which case there was nothing to worry about — for how could Mahiru possibly be afraid of an earthquake?
But... for some reason she couldn't quite name, a thick, ominous foreboding bubbled up in Mahiru's heart.
This earthquake... was absolutely not the whole of the disaster.
At most, it could only count as the tip of the iceberg...
"...The feeling isn't great." Toji spoke up too.
Beep beep ——
And just then, Mahiru froze again. She heard the notification tone once more, but this time the tone wasn't coming from her phone — it was coming from the communicator Mechamaru had given her earlier.
Mechamaru was contacting her?
At a moment as convenient as this?
She knit her brow tight and accepted the message in her head.
And the very first line of Mechamaru's message made Mahiru's pupils contract.
"Yuki Tsukumo is dead," Mechamaru's message read. "Get away from your current location, fast... very soon, a Black Hole will swallow up where you are now... You must get far away — as far as you possibly can."
____
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