Mahito appeared on a highway.
To the left of the highway was a canal. The waves of the massive canal crashed onto the shore, kicking up spray. Mahito could smell the moisture. The water's surface was clean and tidy, shimmering with light.
To the right were continuous mountains, covered in green vegetation, and the trees were reflected on the canal's surface.
Mahito looked toward the end of the highway, where there was only darkness.
He understood; this was Yuki Tsukumo's post-death space.
Suddenly, a roar sounded from the highway.
Mahito looked toward the sound.
A motorcycle was racing toward him at high speed.
The person on the motorcycle was indeed Yuki Tsukumo. She wore a motorcycle helmet, her blonde hair flowing out from the edges of the helmet and fluttering backward in the wind.
Mahito stood by the side of the highway and stuck out his thumb.
The motorcycle made a screeching sound as it stopped right in front of Mahito.
Yuki Tsukumo took off her helmet, and her blonde hair fell onto her back.
At that moment, the canal's waves happened to hit the shore, and the moisture spread to Yuki Tsukumo's face, making her look somewhat ethereal for a moment.
She smiled and said, "This is my passage to Hell. You can't hitch a ride on my bike."
She wasn't wearing the black tank top and dark military pants from the outside world. She wore a buckskin leather jacket over a black coat, with jeans on her lower body.
As she parked the motorcycle by the road and leaned against it, her full figure was completely revealed. She tossed her head slightly, her long golden hair flying in the air.
She nodded slightly.
"I was thinking you might come. Sure enough, before I finally enter the Yellow Springs, I really can see you."
"Are you sure you can see me?"
"I wasn't a hundred percent sure, but on the road to the Yellow Springs, I always had this vague feeling. I can strongly feel that when I ride this motorcycle into the darkness, I will completely enter the Yellow Springs. That should be true death. Before that, I would see you."
Yuki Tsukumo turned to look at the canal, watching the spray fly.
"Mahito, what kind of woman do you like?"
Here it was, the classic Tsukumo-style question.
She had even passed this way of greeting on to her Disciple, Todo Aoi!
"How strange. We greeted each other when the battle started, and I thought you would have asked me this question then." Yuki Tsukumo laughed. "It seems my way of greeting is quite famous. Even you've heard of it."
"More than just famous." Mahito couldn't help but laugh. "Your Disciple, Todo Aoi, has really spread your greeting far and wide; he asks it of everyone he meets."
"That's actually quite good." Instead of being ashamed, Yuki Tsukumo praised it loudly.
"Back then, I identified you as a mere Cursed Spirit, and a mere Cursed Spirit wasn't enough for me to acknowledge," Yuki Tsukumo said, looking back at Mahito with a meaningful look. "But it's different now. I regard you as a human."
Mahito's heart stirred slightly.
This was the first time someone had acknowledged him as a human.
Before this, no matter how much he emphasized it, being "human" was just his own claim. Even if Kenjaku didn't say it out loud, he didn't necessarily treat him as a human in his heart.
Only Yuki Tsukumo truly saw him as human.
Perhaps Zenin Naobito should be added to that list, but until the very end, that old man never called him human. Perhaps in that man's eyes, since they had already appeared in the afterlife space, it was taken for granted.
"I've never really considered that question," Mahito mused. "If I had to say... something more traditional? Well, you know, those multi-gender women over in America... I really can't stand them."
"I can't stand them either," Yuki Tsukumo laughed heartily.
Yuki Tsukumo said solemnly, "The type of woman a man desires reflects his true character. Mahito, since you say your preference for women is traditional, it shows that your subconscious is pursuing traditional glory. You must have a strong sense of chauvinism—meaning women should be quiet, pure, beautiful, and indifferent, while men should shoulder the great cause, pursue true benevolence, sweep away all darkness, and ensure all beauty continues."
Mahito felt a sense of pride at being praised and smiled. "You're not trying to PUA me, are you?"
"I'm insulting you," Yuki Tsukumo sneered.
Insulting?
"I am a woman of the new era," Yuki Tsukumo said calmly. "I strive for progress and hope to hold my destiny in my own hands. I don't care for tradition, and I am full of prejudice against traditional women. A man like you could never be interested in a woman like me. Everything I just said was a subtle insult, but unfortunately, you didn't understand it."
Mahito was stunned.
Yuki Tsukumo stood up from the railing, leaned back against her motorcycle, and casually started a new topic:
"Mahito, what do you think is the difference between an ordinary person and a Jujutsu Sorcerer?"
Why did she suddenly bring this up?
Mahito thought for a moment and said, "It should be a physiological difference from birth, right? The organ that can extract Cursed Energy is in the Jujutsu Sorcerer's abdomen, and the organ that can use an Innate Technique is in the prefrontal lobe of the brain. Ordinary people don't have these organs."
"That has been common knowledge for a thousand years." Yuki Tsukumo leaned against the motorcycle as the canal water splashed. She smiled. "But for me, it's slightly different."
"Oh?"
"It's the Soul," Yuki Tsukumo said flatly. "A Jujutsu Sorcerer's Soul is completely different from an ordinary person's. The Jujutsu World has one thing wrong: it's not that a special Soul exists because of a Cursed Technique. It's the exact opposite; it's because there is a special Soul that a Jujutsu Sorcerer can be born."
This was indeed a principle never mentioned in the original work.
Mahito suddenly remembered that in the original work, Yuki Tsukumo seemed to be an expert in the field of the Soul. In the entire Jujutsu World, she seemed to be the only one who dared to call herself a Soul Great Master. Before her, no one in the Jujutsu World had studied the Soul so deeply.
Her ideal was to eradicate Cursed Spirits. On the surface, this seemed far removed from her research... Why did she study the Soul?
Mahito said thoughtfully, "Speaking of which, I've also heard that if a cursed object contaminates a vessel's body for a long time, then even if the cursed object is expelled and the vessel is freed, the vessel can still use the same abilities as the cursed object."
This was stated by Gojo Satoru in the original work. After seeing that Itadori Yuji could accommodate Ryomen Sukuna, he concluded that over time, Itadori Yuji would eventually be able to use the same techniques as Ryomen Sukuna.
At that time, the setting regarding the special relationship between Itadori Yuji and Ryomen Sukuna hadn't been introduced yet, and Gojo Satoru shouldn't have known about it. But Gojo still made such a judgment, which shows that, at least theoretically, this was true.
Yuki Tsukumo sighed in admiration. "As expected of the Lord of Curses who holds the ability to make people evolve, you're even clear on such profound knowledge."
Is this considered profound?
It actually was.
Mahito was suffering from a cognitive bias. Because he possessed eyes that could look directly at the Soul, he could determine the outline of a human Soul. He could even influence the physical body by altering the Soul, so his understanding of this theory was deep and he never doubted it.
But most Jujutsu Sorcerers didn't have this ability. Even a veteran Grade 1 Sorcerer like Nanami Kento didn't know how to protect his Soul, did he? He relied on the automatic protection of Cursed Energy to withstand one round of attacks from the original Mahito. Any other Jujutsu Sorcerer would have been transfigured by the original Mahito in the first strike.
There were very few people in the world who could study the Soul to this extent. Gojo Satoru was one, and Yuki Tsukumo in front of him was another. They were the true experts, not relying on Innate abilities, but rather like old scholars relying on experience, theory, and the accumulation of knowledge.
"Mahito, the relationship between the Soul and Cursed Energy is deeper than you imagine," Yuki Tsukumo said slowly. "Through my extensive observation and experimentation, I've discovered that Cursed Energy is more deeply connected to the Soul than to the physical body. Furthermore, Cursed Energy doesn't grow with the growth of the physical body... it grows with the growth of the Soul."
"How did you think of the connection between energy and the Soul?" Mahito asked. "Generally speaking, since organs that produce Cursed Energy can be found in the physiological structure and organs that produce techniques can be found in the brain, most people believe they've already found the essence of energy."
Yuki Tsukumo pointed her index finger at Mahito and smiled. "From Cursed Spirits."
Mahito was stunned. "From... Cursed Spirits?"
Yuki Tsukumo nodded slightly. "Cursed Spirits are pure Cursed Energy creatures without physical bodies. We've already confirmed that Cursed Spirits are born from the Curses emitted by humans. Cursed Spirits have no physiological structure, yet they can use techniques normally. I naturally began to speculate about the Soul."
"I have studied it seriously." Yuki Tsukumo pointed her thumb at herself and said proudly, "Ever since the great criminal Kamo Noritoshi found a woman who could conceive Cursed Spirit children hundreds of years ago and forced her to give birth to the Cursed Womb: Death Paintings, the Jujutsu World has forbidden all Jujutsu Sorcerers from studying the composition of Cursed Spirits. But the Jujutsu Higher-Ups' ban means nothing to me; I started this research anyway."
Mahito murmured, "You really are crazy."
Now that he was no longer a Jujutsu novice, he truly understood why the Jujutsu Higher-Ups labeled Kamo Noritoshi—the body possessed by Kenjaku a hundred years ago—as the greatest criminal in history.
It had been emphasized before that a Grade 1 Sorcerer is already a pillar of the Jujutsu World. As for Special Grades, they are beyond the scope of discussion; in the entire history of the Jujutsu World, fewer than a hundred people have been certified as Special Grade Sorcerers.
What about the Cursed Womb: Death Paintings?
If all of them had grown normally, every single one of them could have claimed to be a Special Grade Sorcerer!
Nine Special Grade Curse Users filled with malice toward humanity... Imagine nine Curse Users, each just one level weaker than Geto Suguru, sweeping across the entire world at once. You can see how terrifying that would be.
Don't think they were unworthy of their reputation just because the two younger brothers of the Death Paintings were killed by Itadori Yuji and Kugisaki Nobara as soon as they appeared.
On the contrary, they were very strong; it's just that Itadori Yuji and Kugisaki Nobara happened to use Black Flash for a one-hit kill!
Another factor was the elemental advantage. In that battle, the narration stated that because Itadori Yuji was the vessel for the King of Curses, Ryomen Sukuna, he was naturally immune to poison. Yet, the techniques of the Death Painting brothers happened to be poison-based.
It could be said that although the manga depicted the battle as a hot-blooded struggle for survival, in reality, Itadori Yuji was never in much danger from the start. The only one truly in danger was Nobara Kugisaki.
The worst-case scenario would have been Itadori Yuji killing both brothers in a row while Nobara Kugisaki died. Itadori Yuji countered the two Death Painting brothers too perfectly.
From a human standpoint, even Mahito had to admit that the Jujutsu Higher-Ups had at least done one decent thing in this matter.
As for why Kenjaku looked down on the Death Paintings... he even looked down on Okkotsu Yuta, so you can imagine how high his standards were. He simply couldn't be viewed as a normal Jujutsu Sorcerer. His vision was so high that he didn't care about a mere nine Special Grade Jujutsu Sorcerers.
Incidentally, in the original work, he was killed by the very Okkotsu Yuta he looked down upon.
Yuki Tsukumo said flatly, "To eradicate Cursed Spirits, you can't do it without being a bit crazy."
Mahito was speechless.
He sighed. "No wonder you said you're going to Hell. As expected, Heaven can't accommodate you."
"All Jujutsu Sorcerers should go to Hell, whether they are Jujutsu Sorcerers or Curse Users." Yuki Tsukumo laughed. "Mahito, you are truly kind, so much so that your eyes can't see the darkness that belongs to Jujutsu Sorcerers."
Mahito pointed to himself. "Me? Kind?"
"Let me tell you why I'm unwilling to trust you no matter what, even though I know clearly that your acquired education has overridden your innate nature, and I know your magnanimity and charisma are enough to stabilize the world."
Yuki Tsukumo turned around, her blonde hair fluttering slightly in the wind along with the spray from the canal. She pressed down on her long golden hair and let out a bright laugh:
"Listen closely, Mahito. All creatures that use Cursed Energy, whether they are Jujutsu Sorcerers or Cursed Spirits, are a bunch of lunatics. The more powerful the existence, the more insane they are. This has nothing to do with what the individual themselves think."
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