Mahiko dashed into the kitchen to stop Jogo before things got worse.
"What?" Jogo frowned. "I didn't grill her fish."
What was in the pan was one of those pre-made burger patties you'd find at any supermarket.
"Are we having breakfast or not?" Jogo scowled. "Weren't you and Dagon the ones who said you wanted to eat?"
"My ancestor, yes, but use the stove!" Mahiko stared at him in disbelief, pointing at the stovetop. "Why in the world are you grilling meat on top of your own skull?"
Jogo looked at the stove. Then looked at Mahiko. Then frowned at both.
"What a pain," he muttered, and picked up the pan to move it toward the burner.
Mahiko let out a breath of relief, retreated to the living room, and sank back onto the sofa. Her eyes drifted back to her phone.
She exhaled — long and slow.
Last night, after Jogo had dragged her away from the Ginza incident… a lot had happened. More than she could easily count.
On the surface, it had only been one night — from yesterday evening to this morning. But in that span, Mahiko's situation had flipped completely upside down.
First things first: she was mostly recovered. Her Cursed Energy was still a little depleted, but nothing critical anymore.
After Mahiko had left the scene last night, Kenjaku's group had gotten into a fierce clash with the Jujutsu High sorcerers right there on the spot.
Kenjaku had chosen to avoid direct engagement against the sorcerers from Jujutsu High, but in the process of covering up the traces of their techniques, he'd inevitably taken a beating anyway.
In short: it had been a massive mess.
Jujutsu High hadn't managed to obtain any intelligence on Kenjaku himself — but they had logged detailed information on Rime, Ishiryuu, and Druv's Shikigami. They now knew there was a crew of extremely dangerous Cursed Users causing havoc in Tokyo.
So naturally, Jujutsu High had issued warrants for all of them — serious ones.
Given the scale of the commotion, in theory, plenty of ordinary people should have witnessed it.
But the vast majority of bystanders who had been close enough to see anything had been Assimilated into Mahiko's Domain at the time.
And when she had drawn them into the Domain, Mahiko had planted a post-hypnotic suggestion in each and every one of their minds: forget all of this afterward.
So most of the close-range witnesses, when it was all over, genuinely couldn't remember a thing about what had happened near the hotel.
The official press release that came out afterward attributed the whole incident to a sudden gas explosion above the hotel.
You really had to hand it to "gas explosion" — it was the universal excuse. It could explain away absolutely anything.
With something this big making the news, Mahiko figured Satoru Gojo would be coming back soon.
And from the looks of it, Kenjaku's group… probably wouldn't be stirring up any more trouble for the next few days. They'd need to lay low for a while and lick their wounds.
And now, as things stood — the four calamity-class Cursed Spirits: Mahiko, Jogo, Hanami, and Dagon had officially cut ties with Kenjaku.
The four of them had moved somewhere Kenjaku couldn't easily find, and set up a temporary home base.
There was also the matter of Mechamaru going dark.
After recovering the communication earring Mechamaru had given her before their parting, Mahiko had tried everything — and couldn't reach him. No matter what she attempted, contact was impossible.
All she could get was a voice message he had left for her in advance.
— "The method to restore my body rests in your hands. Since you've already left, I have no further reason to cooperate with Suguru Geto…"
"I'll find somewhere to hide. I'm sure you have your own plans regarding Geto — I'd recommend bringing Satoru Gojo into play, but then again, you're a Cursed Spirit, and what happens next is hard to say. Either way, just carry on with your plan. I'll stay hidden and won't take any unnecessary actions. I'll only resurface when I believe things have come to an end, and I'll find you then…"
"Until then, Cursed Spirit. Farewell."
The message ended there.
Mahiko couldn't reach Mechamaru anymore.
He had probably retreated into one of his safehouses somewhere.
That was fine, at least. He was safe.
Mechamaru had said he wouldn't do anything — and that was a good thing.
If Mechamaru told Satoru Gojo about Geto's situation, the trap Mahiko had laid for Kenjaku would become useless.
As things currently stood, Mahiko had escaped Kenjaku's group — but Kenjaku still had the puppet body on hand, which meant the Culling Game could very likely still be initiated. And Satoru Gojo still had no idea that Geto's corpse had been stolen.
So Kenjaku's plan would probably proceed more or less the same as in canon.
Which meant the trap she had set should still be effective.
Of course, she couldn't take that for granted — the situation on the ground had already diverged drastically from the original story. She'd have to keep a close eye on how things developed.
So then. What should she do next?
Mahiko rubbed her chin and thought.
— FWOOM.
Then she heard an explosive burst of flame from the direction of the kitchen.
Mahiko startled and whipped her head around.
What she found was this: Jogo had placed the pan on the gas stove — but hadn't used the burner at all. Instead, he'd simply extended his hand, palm-up, and was blasting fire directly from it onto the meat.
"No — no, no, no." Mahiko was on her feet in an instant. "When I said use the stove, I didn't mean it like that!"
She sprinted back into the kitchen to put a stop to the destruction.
"Mmmh…" At that moment, Hanami came shuffling down from upstairs, rubbing her eyes, her sleep mask still perched on her forehead. "Good morning… bed… so comfy… I never knew sleeping in a bed could be such a wonderful thing…"
Hanami peeked into the kitchen, where Mahiko was in the middle of delivering a lecture titled "If You Don't Need to Use a Jujutsu Technique, Don't Use a Jujutsu Technique," while Jogo listened with poorly concealed impatience, his lips pressing together.
"I can make a salad," Hanami volunteered, raising her hand.
Dagon, who had been attempting to stuff a large fish from the sink into a small aquarium, looked up at Hanami's words, eyes lighting up. "What's a salad? I want some!"
"Sure~"
So after Mahiko finished arguing with Jogo and turned around to check on Hanami, she found her standing at the cutting board.
The girl's delicately pointed, sprite-like ears twitched — once, twice — and then plants began sprouting from the top of her head. Grass, then fruit.
Dagon craned her neck to watch from the side.
Hanami plucked all the grass and fruit off herself and began chopping them up on the board.
Mahiko stared, a little dumbfounded. "What… are you doing?"
"Making a salad." Hanami smiled sweetly. "If you want one too, Mahiko, I can make you a portion as well… oh, and juice is possible too, if you'd like?"
Juice?
Where exactly was the juice going to come from?
Mahiko immediately shook her head hard, flinging a very not-safe-for-children mental image out of her brain.
She then delivered a second round of verbal education — to both Hanami and Dagon this time — on the subject of "if you can avoid using a Jujutsu Technique right now, please do."
They needed to be discreet. They needed to keep a low profile.
Kenjaku's side was probably still in complete disarray — too busy putting out their own fires to spare any focused effort on hunting Mahiko down. For now, at least.
But in truth, Mahiko's most pressing priority right now was to survive against the massive manhunt being conducted by Jujutsu High.
Because the orders issued by Jujutsu High's leadership this time were nothing like the previous warrant.
The old one had been: "Report Mahiko on sight, and we'll all move in together to capture her."
This one was: "Everyone who isn't occupied with something important — go find Mahiko. She must be eliminated."
In the wake of this incident, there was no doubt that more and more of Jujutsu High's stronger sorcerers — those out on assignment — would be recalled to deal with her.
The trouble she'd face in the future was only going to get worse.
Mahiko was honestly in a pretty passive position, because she'd lost contact with Mechamaru.
Mechamaru had always been her most reliable source of intelligence. Without him, she had no other means of gathering information in real time — no way to know whether Jujutsu High was closing in on her at any given moment. Very inconvenient.
Wait.
You might be wondering: if Mahiko didn't have Mechamaru leaking information to her, how did she know all that stuff about Jujutsu High's internal situation just now?
Ah, about that…
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Someone was at the door.
All four girls froze at the same time.
"Quick, tidy everything up!" Mahiko barked, then bolted out of the kitchen, ran to the entryway, and pulled up the security camera feed.
The camera showed the outside.
"Hello~!" Standing in front of the camera were Yuji Itadori, Nobara Kugisaki, and Maki Zenin. "We've come to visit~!"
As it turned out, the house where Mahiko and the others were currently living was a safehouse that Jujutsu High had assigned to Mahiko.
The reason Mahiko could access Jujutsu High's internal broadcast intelligence was because, at this point… she had actually, somehow, nearly become an unofficial student of Jujutsu High.
Quite mysteriously, without any fuss, she had effortlessly infiltrated Jujutsu High from the inside.
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