"Hey, let me make this clear up front—the wounds on this one have nothing to do with me." Casually tossing the two sacks onto the ground, Hajime Kashimo curled his lip indifferently. "This one was already half-dead to begin with."
"Oh?" Kenjaku raised an eyebrow.
He stepped forward and bent down to untie the two sacks. Inside the sacks were none other than the Spirit-Calling Granny and Kyoko Urogi.
And the one Hajime Kashimo had referred to as "about to die" was the Spirit-Calling Granny.
Although Kyoko Urogi was in somewhat better shape, she too remained unconscious.
The injuries on these two had of course all been dealt by Mahiru. After the battle ended, Mahiru had even casually had the Heavy-Armed Darting Hare throw in a few extra punches, to keep the pair from waking up and causing trouble.
Kyoko Urogi was relatively more durable, so she was fine, whereas the Spirit-Calling Granny had originally been meant to be transported to Jujutsu High to receive treatment and then be imprisoned—but now she had been spirited away en route by Hajime Kashimo.
So up to this point, the Spirit-Calling Granny remained gravely wounded.
Seeing the state of the two, Kenjaku smiled faintly. "It's fine... no, I should say, she was going to die anyway."
"Hm?" Hajime Kashimo frowned, understanding what Kenjaku meant. "You're going to kill her? She is badly hurt, true, but if you mean to kill her, why have me bring her back at all? Are you toying with me?"
"No. Her life isn't important, but her body is very important." Kenjaku shook his head with a beaming smile, adjusting the Spirit-Calling Granny's sack. "It's only now that I've realized the potential of the Spirit-Calling Technique—perhaps a little late... but fortunately you've successfully brought back her [corpse]."
Kenjaku was already referring to the spirit-calling old crone as a "corpse."
This made Hajime Kashimo frown.
He didn't quite understand what Kenjaku was scheming in his head, but he couldn't be bothered to care.
The place where they now were was a wooded patch of wilderness somewhere in the outskirts of Tokyo.
Hajime Kashimo looked at Kenjaku and began to press him impatiently. "So? Where is Sukuna? Just when are you going to let me meet Sukuna?"
"No need to rush, it'll be soon." Kenjaku answered with a smile. "Having Sukuna appear in the modern age, while you do work for me—that is the contract between you and me. Since this contract has already been set, there's no way I would go back on it. Just rest easy..."
What's more... hasn't Hana Kurusu not returned yet?
Kenjaku already had his next move planned out in his head.
Though things had become a complete mess, and though Hajime Kashimo and Hana Kurusu were hardly easy people to handle—still... it was precisely thanks to this that an even more interesting spectacle could play out next.
A butterfly need only gently flap its wings to stir up monstrous waves.
This time, by sheer chance, Kenjaku had been dealt a miserable blow by a single surprise strike from Yuki Tsukumo. But at the same time, this very incident had also handed him an opportunity.
This opportunity allowed him, without having to invade Jujutsu High, to steal away those cursed tools in Jujutsu High's storehouse that he had wanted to steal all along.
However, also because of Yuki Tsukumo, the people around Kenjaku had basically all been injured.
So, to play it safe, Kenjaku had been forced to bring into play two troublesome individuals he hadn't actually wanted to activate at this point.
That is, Hajime Kashimo, and the Angel, Hana Kurusu.
—Why these two of all people?
Meanwhile, on the other side, Mahiru was also startled upon seeing the news.
That Kenjaku would pull out characters who shouldn't appear until the Culling Game and use them ahead of time as underlings—Mahiru was already used to that.
But she really hadn't expected that Kenjaku would summon these two as well.
Because these two were simply far too special.
Hajime Kashimo was an immensely powerful sorcerer from four hundred years ago. His dying ideal had been to do battle with Sukuna, which was why he had struck a deal with Kenjaku and come to the modern age.
Although this character's combat record in the original work was rather pitiful, his true strength was genuinely formidable—calling him part of the top tier just below Gojo and Sukuna would not be an overstatement at all.
He himself was a battle maniac who wanted nothing more than to fight Sukuna.
So summoning him out was bound to interfere with Kenjaku's own plans.
Just what Kenjaku was thinking in pulling him out was truly hard to fathom.
And the other one, the Angel, Hana Kurusu, was even more special.
Hana Kurusu was a modern-day girl who coexisted in symbiosis with an ancient sorcerer from a thousand years ago, the "Angel," and that ancient sorcerer had bestowed power upon Hana Kurusu.
In the original work, after the Angel heard that Sukuna had been resurrected in the modern age, she became single-mindedly bent on killing Sukuna. So she too was someone standing in complete opposition to Kenjaku's plans.
Thus it could be seen that Kenjaku had now, all at once, summoned two staunchly rebellious people into his own camp.
Was he really that short of people to use?
"Tch, this is feeling messier and messier." Mahiru muttered, and set the matter aside in her mind for now.
In any case, Satoru Gojo had now returned... and although Satoru Gojo's entire attention was currently devoted to dealing with the black hole, Kenjaku and his lot certainly wouldn't dare make too big a scene in Tokyo.
So it didn't matter.
Mahiru would just focus first on getting the matter at hand done right.
Huh? What? You're asking about Megumi Fushiguro? Forget about Megumi Fushiguro. Let Yuji and the others go look for him.
Mahiru would tend to her own business first.
Thinking this, Mahiru walked into the cemetery where, according to her investigation, Yuji's mother lay.
She searched row by row, and finally came to a halt before the gravestone of Yuji's mother, Kaori Itadori.
Tokyo had been struck by an earthquake, but this graveyard was fortunate. The quake had caused it no damage.
Mahiru first stood before the gravestone, pressed her palms together, and bowed again and again.
In her heart she offered several apologies to Kaori Itadori's spirit in heaven, then pulled out two large shovels from behind her and handed them to Mai and Maki, who stood behind her.
"You two, get to it!" Mahiru pointed at the grave. "When you dig, dig respectfully, dig with a heart of reverence—understand?"
Mai, who had come along with Mahiru, couldn't help but have the corner of her mouth twitch.
You've come all the way to dig up someone's grave—how on earth are you supposed to have respect and reverence?
Where, pray tell, is the reverence in that?
Maki, off to the side, on the other hand, had no great qualms, and got to work with the shovel right away.
Although the matter of the Zenin estate had long since concluded, and the two sisters' innocence had already been proven, the two of them had nonetheless decided to give up their identities as sorcerers and continue following Mahiru as her attendants.
After all, the contract had long since been set, and Mahiru had indeed saved the two of them.
"But nobody said the job would be this kind of thing..." Mai grumbled in complaint, picking up a shovel and getting to it as well. "Doing something like this is just too lousy a thing to do..."
Mai's hairstyle had already been cut into the short hair from the later part of the original work.
The two sisters dug shovelful by shovelful, while Mahiru, behind them, rubbed her nose, a little embarrassed.
Indeed... doing this sort of thing did always feel like a weight on the conscience... But!
Come to think of it carefully—actually, that's not right!
—What she was digging up was not Kaori Itadori's grave, but Kenjaku's grave!
On the contrary, she was actually avenging Kaori Itadori, so how could this be called a lousy deed? This was obviously a tremendously good deed!
Right, right—my digging is righteous digging, noble digging! It's absolutely not a lousy deed!
Thinking this, the girl felt much better, and could even accept it with her hands on her hips.
With a clang, a shovel struck something hard.
The two sisters hauled the coffin out from within and opened the stone casket; inside the stone casket was an urn of ashes.
Mahiru carefully lifted out the urn, then opened it.
"...Hm?" The blue-haired girl blinked her eyes.
The inside of the urn... was empty?
There were no ashes inside at all—only a tiny brocade pouch.
Mahiru took out the pouch and examined it closely, finding inside a black knotted cord—on close inspection, it was a knot braided from a woman's hair.
"Oho?" The blue-haired girl raised an eyebrow.
The ashes being gone probably meant that Kaori Itadori's corpse had been swapped out by sleight of hand.
It must have been Kenjaku's doing.
This much Mahiru had in fact long anticipated.
But that this little cloth pouch should actually hold Kaori Itadori's hair—that did rather take Mahiru by surprise.
This was probably some ancient burial custom, and it looked like it must have been left behind by Kenjaku.
Kenjaku had taken away Kaori Itadori's corpse, yet had left Kaori Itadori's hair in the coffin as a substitute.
It seemed Kenjaku was quite a person for ceremony, too.
"So next..." Mai, watching Mahiru's expression, felt a flicker of foreboding cross her heart. "What are you going to do...?"
Mahiru, for her part, gave a sly little giggle and said, "I wouldn't do anything bad, now would I?"
It's merely a matter of dragging Kaori Itadori's soul back into the real world—how could that be called a bad thing?
____
👻🔥Walnut-chan🔥👻
🔥 New history: Homelander: Founding the Hero Association
🎯 100 Powerstones = +1 Bonus Chapter for everyone