Yes — and there was no mistaking it. Mahiko was now a "provisional student" — a reserve candidate among the incoming class at Jujutsu High.
And to explain that, you'd first have to explain why Mahiko had just told Nobara and the others that last night, despite how short it was, had actually been packed with more than enough to fill a lifetime.
"Ah, they're here — I'll get the door right now." Mahiko finished speaking with Nobara's group and hung up, then spun on her heel and sprinted to the kitchen, dropping her voice to a hiss. "Are you all done tidying up?"
Hanami gave Mahiko an OK sign. Mahiko jogged to the front door and pulled it open.
"Hey—" The moment the door swung wide, Mahiko lifted her most polished, perfectly courteous smile. "Yuji, Nobara, Megumi — welcome, welcome."
They exchanged greetings all around.
Pleasantries done, Nobara Kugisaki got to it first, turning to ask Mahiko, "Isn't this place a bit run-down for you? Are you comfortable here?"
"Not at all, not at all." Mahiko shook her head, smiling. "It's very comfortable. Thank you for asking, Nobara."
"Good." Nobara visibly relaxed. "The thing is… so many people have suddenly acquired Cursed Energy that the safe houses are completely packed… so this was really the best we could do for you."
"Honestly, being here is already more than enough," Mahiko said, guiding them toward the living room as she spoke. "There's really no need to move us anywhere else."
"Actually, if you end up formally enrolling at Jujutsu High down the line, you'd be able to live on campus," Nobara said, her tone earnest. "It's a fair bit safer over there."
"? This place is perfectly fine." Mahiko waved the suggestion off quickly, then glanced back over her shoulder toward the kitchen. "Besides… my sisters can all stay here with me. I think I'd rather be here."
Nobara tilted her head, thought it over. "Fair enough, I suppose."
Mahiko quietly let out a breath of relief.
She had absolutely no intention of setting foot inside Jujutsu High.
If Satoru Gojo came back, one look and he'd clock immediately that Mahiko wasn't human. That would be nothing short of walking straight into her own execution.
— Yes. This was Jujutsu High's officially arranged safe house for Mahiko.
Mahiko's identity had shifted. She was no longer a "Window" — she was now a reserve student candidate at Jujutsu High.
When Mahiko had deployed her Domain the previous night, the process of Assimilating people would reshape them — reconfiguring them into a state where they possessed Cursed Energy and could operate something akin to a specialized router-type Jujutsu Technique.
Once the Domain closed, the vast majority of those people would revert — their sorcerer-state switching back off.
But a handful of them were individuals who had always carried a faint, innate aptitude for Jujutsu. For those people, Mahiko's Domain Expansion would catalyze something — awaken it. Some gained the ability to see Cursed Spirits from that point on. Others went further and awakened actual Cursed Energy — and as for Techniques, well.
Out of perhaps several thousand people, a few dozen had undergone exactly that kind of change.
All of them had been logged by Jujutsu High that same night, accepted, and temporarily housed in various Jujutsu High safe houses across the city.
Mahiko was one of them.
In Jujutsu High's eyes, Mahiko's human form was that of a young girl who had gone shopping at the mall with Nobara Kugisaki — then been abducted alongside her by those terrorists, after which she'd been swept up in the attack on the garden alongside the other tourists there, and ultimately rescued along with everyone else by the blue-haired Cursed Spirit.
The previous night, after Jogo had taken Mahiko away, Mahiko had made her way back to the scene and simply pretended to be a victim stirring back to consciousness after a brief blackout.
Parachutes had been drifting down from the sky in every direction at that point. Nobody had any idea whether a particular girl had come down from above or not — so Mahiko had blended in without a hitch.
Sometime around four or five in the morning, once Jujutsu High had finished tallying up the situation, they prioritized placing Mahiko — whose human form was already a familiar face to several of their students — in one of their safe houses somewhere within Tokyo.
The safe house came with its own barrier, and its location was subtly chosen. With Mahiko and Jogo's group staying here, they could largely avoid being tracked down by Kenjaku — all in all, not a bad arrangement.
As far as Jujutsu High was currently concerned, Jogo and the others were simply ordinary people — classified as Mahiko's family.
Securing the identity of a reserve student candidate had been the next step in Mahiko's plan — and a natural one at that. It went with the current rather than against it.
It would also make it far easier to gather intelligence now that Mechamaru had gone dark.
All upside, no downside.
As for what to do when Satoru Gojo returned — honestly, Mahiko had already formed an idea.
If that idea went smoothly, then just maybe she could play the part of a sweet, harmless little girl even in front of Satoru Gojo himself.
It was just that making it work… required a certain set of conditions.
The group settled into the living room, and Mahiko bustled around pouring tea for everyone.
Nobara seemed fine, all things considered.
But Yuji and Megumi were both wearing the kind of dark circles that only came from pulling an all-nighter — exhausted, clearly, from having spent the entire previous night dealing with the fallout.
Mahiko carried a cup over to Megumi, but Megumi raised a hand to stop her. "Don't bother. We have other things to deal with after this — we'll be leaving as soon as we're done."
"Then…" Mahiko paused, cup still in hand, and settled back onto the sofa. "What did you all come here to do today?"
Megumi didn't answer immediately. Her gaze drifted — seemingly by accident — toward the kitchen, where Jogo and Hanami were.
Mahiko read the look in an instant and waved her hand dismissively. "It's fine. They all know about Jujutsu sorcerers. No need to hide anything, and no need to worry about them."
"I see." Megumi brought her gaze back to the blue-haired girl. "We came to take stock of the Technique you awakened."
At Megumi's words, Mahiko made a small sound of acknowledgment, then stretched both hands out in front of her.
There, in front of all three of them, a tiny droplet of water materialized between Mahiko's palms out of thin air — suspended mid-air, slowly rotating.
This was a Jujutsu Technique she had learned from Dagon.
In truth, Mahiko's Cursed Spirit form had never displayed this water-based Jujutsu Technique in front of anyone — so repurposing this water manipulation technique as the Technique that her human form had awakened upon gaining sorcerer abilities was, conveniently, a perfect fit.
"A water-based Technique…" Megumi's eyes flickered briefly. She jotted something down in her notebook. "Can you manipulate more water than that?"
Uh… more… how much power was she actually supposed to show here?
Mahiko expanded the water droplet — basketball-sized now — and let it drift lazily through the air.
"Hmm…" Mahiko made a show of concentrating. "That's about as big as I can manage."
Megumi Fushiguro rubbed her chin. "All right."
By her estimate… probably Grade 4 sorcerer level, give or take.
Though the development potential of a Technique like this did seem fairly high.
Mahiko let the droplet dissolve. "Are we good?"
Megumi nodded. "We're good."
"So what's my status now?" Mahiko pointed at herself.
This was honestly a bit absurd, but Mahiko and Jogo's group did have ID cards.
Forged ones, obviously — fabricated back when Mahiko had been bored and had Mechamaru put them together.
And based on the age listed on Mahiko's forged documents — exact figure aside — she was definitely younger than Yuji and the others.
She wasn't old enough to enroll in the full program.
"If you want to study sorcery, you can sit in on classes and observe us during missions," Megumi explained, then added, "As for general academic subjects… you'd probably need to find online classes on your own."
Ah, right.
So Jujutsu High really doesn't have academic teachers at all? I always assumed it just wasn't shown in the original story — turns out it genuinely doesn't exist.
What on earth is the blackboard even there for?
"Actually, the main reason we came today was to check whether your body has been affected at all," Nobara Kugisaki said, turning to look at Mahiko. "I didn't protect you well enough… I'm sorry."
Mahiko blinked.
From Nobara's perspective, Mahiko was just an unfortunate child who had been dragged into danger while acting alongside her — in a very real sense, you could say it was Nobara who had brought all of this down on Mahiko's head, and no one would be wrong.
Nobara was looking at Mahiko now with nothing but concern and guilt in her eyes.
Mahiko shook her head. "That's not your fault."
If anything, it was Nobara who had been caught up in Mahiko's mess.
But before long, Mahiko moved on to the other question she'd been turning over in her mind.
"Speaking of which — are the sorcerers planning to hunt down that blue-haired Cursed Spirit?" Mahiko asked. "What are you all… thinking about that?"
Nobara's expression shifted at those words.
"She saved me. If it hadn't been for that Cursed Spirit, I'd be a corpse right now — no, actually, if it hadn't been for her, everyone would be dead. She saved every single person there…" she said, fist tightening. "So I don't understand… why the higher-ups at Jujutsu High would issue a warrant like that for her…"
Nobara was genuinely unable to accept it.
She had regained consciousness earlier than most of the other bystanders. The moment she'd come to, she had given Jujutsu High a thorough, detailed account of everything she had personally witnessed — how she had been taken, how she had been used as bait to lure in the blue-haired Cursed Spirit, how that same Cursed Spirit had saved her and everyone else.
All of it. She had told them every last detail.
And yet, even after all that, Jujutsu High had ultimately issued a kill order for that blue-haired Cursed Spirit — something Nobara Kugisaki simply could not wrap her head around.
Yuji and Megumi, for their part, believed every word Nobara said. They'd been there; they'd seen what had happened with their own eyes.
So from last night until now, every last one of Jujutsu High's students had been left adrift, uncertain about where exactly they stood.
"So if you ran into that blue-haired Cursed Spirit again, would you go after her?" Mahiko asked.
Nobara Kugisaki's lips pressed together.
"I would… give her the thank-you I still owe her first, and then…" Nobara looked down. "Put on a bit of a show, throw a few punches, and call it a day, I guess."
"Hey, keep talk like that between these four walls, all right?" Megumi cut in. "Without the strength of Gojo-sensei or a Special Grade behind you, you'd be better off treading carefully around the old guard at the top of Jujutsu High."
"I know…" Nobara's expression darkened, on the verge of snapping back.
And then, right at that moment —
Her phone vibrated in her pocket.
Nobara startled, instinctively glancing up at Mahiko, then pulled out her phone to check the screen — a new message from Jujutsu High.
Almost at the exact same moment, Mahiko heard her own phone buzz on the coffee table. She picked it up and looked — sure enough, the same group message from Jujutsu High.
"Let me see…" Yuji leaned over, flipped the screen so everyone could see, and read the contents aloud, brow furrowing as he went. "Regarding updates to the inter-school exchange event between Jujutsu High Tokyo and Kyoto — the content of the first-stage match has been revised to… huh? [Tracking and Apprehension of the Blue-Haired Cursed Spirit]?"
"Are you kidding me!" Nobara's eyes went wide, and then she erupted. "What is wrong with these people?!"
____
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