17. Special-Grade Curse: Mahito

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Three minutes earlier.

Ever since the six suspended eyes had appeared and the piercing alarm had sounded, the guard force had reacted swiftly under the command of its leader, splitting into several groups to establish a defensive perimeter.

What were they protecting first?

Naturally, the clan head and the elders came first, followed by the cursed tool vault and the ancestral shrine.

That was right—even their ancestors had to yield to them.

Yet they also understood that, if this were an enemy attack, they would not be the targets.

Thus, the guards existed merely to provide a measure of reassurance to these men who clung desperately to their lives.

The guards knew that as well. Under this unspoken understanding, there was little sense of urgency.

Amid such relaxation, the eldest grandson of one of the elders cursed the old man for favoring his bastard son as he hurried down the corridor, terrified of whatever might have happened outside.

He quickened his pace toward the shelter. Then, all at once, he collided with someone’s chest.

The attendant following behind him charged forward, cursing. “Are you blind? How dare you—”

“—”

A subtle sound.

The sound of popcorn being bitten open in a movie theater; the sound of a marble soda bottle being uncapped.

Then the attendant’s body fell with a dull, terribly heavy thud at the young master’s feet, as though some inanimate object had been thrown down.

It was not an inanimate object. It was a person, and the young master could see it clearly—

The attendant’s head looked as though it had been torn apart, twisted and deformed, blood pouring from all seven openings. His eyes remained wide open, vivid with life, still preserving the arrogance he had possessed before death.

“...Ghk!”

The boy sucked in a sharp breath.

He was a wastrel of a young master, throwing his weight around beyond the clan on the strength of his family name and Satoru Gojo’s reputation. In truth, his technique was inferior even to that of the attendant beside him.

Confronted with such a scene without warning, his legs instantly went limp, and he collapsed to the floor.

“...Wh-who are you?!”

His voice was fierce only on the surface.

He saw the culprit: a handsome blue-haired youth wearing a carefree smile.

What he could not ignore, however, were the conspicuous stitches covering the youth’s face, every patch of exposed skin, and the hand that had touched the attendant.

Like...

A human-shaped doll sewn together.

But how could a doll move?

The thought sent a sudden shiver through the young master.

The blue-haired youth smiled as he approached and extended a hand, resting it on the young master’s shoulder. His voice was gentle, mellow, and pleasant to the ear.

“Nice to meet you. My name is Mahito. Could you pretend you never saw me?”

Mahito, a special-grade cursed spirit.

He was a cursed spirit born from the hatred and fear humans held for one another.

For that reason, he had possessed intelligence from the moment of his birth, and his appearance was humanoid as well.

His cursed technique was called Idle Transfiguration.

He could alter the shape of another person’s soul, causing the body to change along with it and thereby killing the human being.

This time, he had come to have some fun.

Though Geto had called it a mission.

Mahito remembered perfectly: Geto had told him to find the core of the Gojo clan’s barrier—the Six Eyes, which had been turned into a cursed object.

He was either to destroy it or steal it and hand it over to Geto.

Mahito was more than happy to do so. He regarded the whole thing as a treasure hunt.

As for Geto’s instruction to “suppress the fluctuations of your cursed energy and keep them below a certain threshold, or the barrier will detect you,” that was simply one of the rules of the game.

Mahito was willing to follow them.

It was just that...

He gave a soft chuckle.

An unexpected development had come first. Someone else had activated the barrier before he could, and the treasure hunter had run into a human he found rather unpleasant.

Born from the mutual curses of humanity, Mahito possessed a natural interest in human beings.

At the same time, he despised them.

Take the one before him, for instance: overbearing and arrogant, contemptuous of all, bullying the weak while fearing the strong. Even the negative emotion of fear he radiated seemed so cheap...

Yes. A low-quality human.

Mahito quickly found the perfect term to describe him and was immensely pleased with himself.

After hearing Mahito’s request, the little young master swallowed hard. His voice was dry and hoarse as he stammered out a reply.

“...O-okay.”

He might have been arrogant, but he was perceptive.

Under the pressure of such overwhelming fear, instinct screamed endlessly in his ears:

This man will never let him go so easily!

The young master struggled to control his numb right hand. He unconsciously held his breath, curled his fingers, and reached for the cufflink on his sleeve as discreetly as possible.

That was where—

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Yet in the very next instant, the young master felt a chill stir behind his head. His hair stood on end, and he immediately pressed the hidden clasp.

“—”

Under the effects of Mahito’s technique, the little young master had only enough time to let out a short, shrill scream before he lost his breath and his body went limp, collapsing onto the floor.

The blue-haired cursed spirit crouched down.

From the young master’s hand, he found fragments of the cufflink.

“Hmm? What’s this?”

He was curious.

But Mahito soon found out.

It was something akin to a tracking device and alarm. The sorcerers quickly located him.

A barrage of techniques surged toward him like a blizzard.

Since Mahito’s true form was his soul, almost none of the technique attacks could harm him. He therefore countered every sorcerer present.

“Woo-hoo!”

Mahito darted through the threadlike rain of cursed techniques, weaving between the sorcerers.

A single casual touch was enough to harvest a life.

The blue-haired cursed spirit, his face covered in stitches, had found a delightful new toy and was having the time of his life.

Before long, the sorcerers surrounding him had piled up into a small mountain. Mahito’s excitement was now in full swing, and he eagerly began experimenting with his new toy—

Idle Transfiguration: Soul Multiplicity.

First, he fused two or more souls into one.

Soul Multiplicity: Body Repel.

Then, by exploiting the rejection between the fused souls, he caused their mass to stack upon itself, creating an unstable burst of energy before firing it at his opponents.

“Boom—!”

The group of sorcerers was struck by Soul Multiplicity: Body Repel. They scattered like a row of bowling pins knocked down all at once, and Mahito threw back his head and laughed.

“Haha!”

But he became carried away with his triumph, unaware that Geto’s warning had been entirely serious.

Once the fluctuations in his cursed energy exceeded a certain threshold, the barrier would automatically lock onto him and launch a counterattack.

The Six Eyes in the void opened once more, and crimson, uncanny cursed energy began to surge.

The Limitless technique, reversed—

Red.

A surging sphere of scarlet cursed energy, drawn onward by the Six Eyes, hurtled toward Mahito on the ground with an overwhelming, crushing force, as though descending from above to pass judgment.

Mahito had only recently been born and knew nothing of the vastness of heaven or earth. He actually moved forward of his own accord, attempting to meet the attack and receive it head-on.

In the blink of an eye, light swallowed the earth.

Mahito’s soul nearly faded from existence. Within time that seemed to have slowed to a crawl, his eyes widened in sudden realization.

That was a level of technique strength beyond the universal definition of power—a technique that transcended the rules themselves.

An attack capable of annihilating both soul and body.

“Boom—!”

*

[ I thought Kenjaku had sneaked over to raid the place while Gojo was away. I got so scared I didn’t even dare eat my duck wing. ]

[ Mahito is scary too... ]

[ I feel like he’s the one among the four calamities who gives me the strongest sense of oppression. ]

[ This is the elders’ residence, right? ]

[ Everyone, I noticed a blind spot. The manga hinted before that Mahito was born during the rainy season, around June or July. It’s already June now. ]

[ Uh... ]

[ So, has Mahito had his first full month yet? ]

[ I’m dying! ]

[ No wonder the guidebook said he was “childish.” He really is a child. Not. ]

[ Mahito’s growth potential is terrifying. During the Shibuya Incident, he could perform Black Flash just by watching someone else use it and learning from them. ]

[ He’s the only special-grade cursed spirit who learned Black Flash, right? That makes it even more impressive... ]

[ So at least for now, Mahito is just a newly born little weakling? ]

[ Definitely not! Mahito was already special-grade at birth. His level alone is enough to crush a whole group of people. ]

[ That young master really had terrible luck, running into Mahito. That sinister little bastard would never let him go easily. He just loves to toy with humans. ]

[...]

[ The sorcerers are starting to gang up on him. ]

[ Oh no, aren’t they just sending themselves to their deaths?! What happened to the barrier? Why hasn’t it reacted?! When that scumbag boss attacked earlier, didn’t it counterattack immediately? ]

[ Case solved. Mahito said it himself—it depends on the strength of the cursed-energy fluctuations. ]

[ Summary: The scumbag boss genuinely wanted to kill the painter, so he held nothing back and caused huge fluctuations. Mahito deliberately controlled his cursed energy, keeping it below the alarm threshold. ]

[ Something feels wrong... How does Mahito know so much about this barrier? ]

[ More accurately, Kenjaku knows. ]

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[ ...I just sucked in a breath. I thought of a possibility. Could the cursed object made from the Six Eyes after its death have been created by Kenjaku?! ]

[ What?! ]

[ Thinking about it carefully, it isn’t impossible. ]

[ After all, throughout history, Kenjaku seems to be the only one skilled at this. ]

[ Kenjaku turned Sukuna’s corpse into cursed objects. Besides the twenty fingers, there was also the living Buddha statue—or whatever it was called? ]

[ That’s horrifying when you think about it. ]

[ Wait, he can make cursed objects, but why would he help the Gojo clan make one? ]

[ ...Wait?! Mahito got too excited, and the barrier noticed him! ]

[ That is one expensive special effect. ]

[ Was he exorcised?! There’s so much dust that I can’t see anything, but according to the rule that where there’s smoke there’s no damage, I have a bad feeling... ]

[ Don’t. ]

[ Just give us a definite answer already! ]

[ There’s a shadow rushing out. Please don’t let it be Mahito—well, all right, it’s Mahito. He isn’t dead! How is he not dead?! I’ve been holding my breath this whole time. ]

[ He turned into a bug and burrowed underground. ]

[ What a disappointment... ]

[ Wait, isn’t he heading straight toward Yushu in this direction?! ]

Meanwhile.

From the moment Ieiri Yushu saw the first comment appear, he realized that the audience’s viewpoint was not focused here. It should have been directed at the site of the enemy attack.

A special-grade cursed spirit: Mahito.

A newcomer had entered the stage.

From the comments, it was clear that Mahito was an utterly evil cursed spirit who treated human life as worthless and enjoyed toying with humans for his own amusement.

He also seemed quite intelligent.

What surprised Ieiri Yushu, however, was how coincidentally the route Mahito had chosen overlapped with his own location.

“—”

In the blink of an eye, the special-grade cursed spirit burst from underground. He resembled a catfish, or perhaps an earthworm, and halfway through restoring his humanoid form in midair, he attempted to kill the person blocking his path.

It was merely a transformation. As long as he did not use the powerful Soul Multiplicity, he would not be locked onto by the barrier.

With that thought in mind, the special-grade cursed spirit still wore a carefree smile, entirely undisturbed.

Mahito heard humans howling, but what use was that? They could not hinder him in the slightest. He would kill every one of these people who had appeared at such an inopportune moment.

Mahito smiled with childlike innocence.

Then, amid the multitude of souls, he saw one person—a person whose soul was utterly different from the others.

Mahito’s expression went blank for an instant.

He had seen countless souls.

Some were murky and flushed red, others gray-white and viscous. They were all different, but they shared one thing in common:

They were all fragile, as though they would break at the slightest tug.

And that was exactly what happened.

Beneath Mahito’s fingertips, those weak souls could be twisted into any shape he pleased. But that person’s soul was different—

Light, immaculate, indestructible, radiant as sunlight.

The cursed energy surrounding that person was pure and cold, the essence of absolute evil. There was not the slightest trace of the weakness, complexity, or indecision belonging to humanity.

Mahito met those eyes directly, and it was as though even his own soul began to tremble.

And more than that—

The aura emanating from the other person’s soul felt so familiar, so warm, as though it had returned Mahito to the womb that had given him birth.

Ah...

Mahito’s lips moved soundlessly, as though he wanted to say something.

The next instant, two vicious barbed whips pierced through his body without mercy, pinning him to the ground.

Mahito coughed up a mouthful of blood.

He raised his head and saw two figures standing shoulder to shoulder—or rather, a human and a cursed spirit. One had long hair, the other short; one was tall, the other short, their difference in height an uncanny match.

The same absolute evil.

The same purity.

Mahito lay sprawled on the ground, the two figures reflected in his vacant eyes.

They reminded him of a poster he had once seen on a street corner: an image of a family of three.

The humanoid cursed spirit smiled blissfully and said to the blond-haired boy with radiant delight, “Nice to meet you, Daddy...”

“And Mommy, too...”

They ought to be a family.

[...]

[ Huh? ]

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