Mahito had been profoundly distraught, haunted by a lingering sense of unease since his first encounter with Ethan Park during the Delgour incident of 2004.
He knew instinctively that something about the boy was fundamentally wrong. His innate technique, Idle Transfiguration, which allowed him to perceive and reshape the soul, failed to recognize Ethan Park as a distinct "individual."
This metaphysical blind spot was the sole reason Park had slipped through his grasp years ago when he was merely an infant.
For years, Mahito harbored theories regarding this anomaly, but theories were just that; he required definitive proof.
An opportunity finally manifested through the birth of the new Lex Mortis to end the anomaly. Seizing the moment, the disaster curses believed they had finally cornered their prey. The plan was simple: confiscate Ethan's Ten Shadows Technique and arm Jogo with the Executioner's Sword. However, the strategy collapsed into chaos.
They had—no, Mahito had—underestimated the Jujutsu Sorcerer. The encounter ended in a humiliating fight for survival. They were forced to sacrifice a comrade just to buy a few precious seconds to flee. It was a level of humiliation Mahito had not tasted since the Golden Era.
Following their narrow escape, Mahito doubled his efforts to unearth the "proof" he sought. The revelation was striking: Ethan Park was born a monozygotic twin.
In the rigid logic of Jujutsu sorcery, identical twins are viewed as a single entity, sharing a singular soul and splitting their potential cursed energy between two bodies. But Ethan's case was a perversion of that rule—a perversion Mahito himself had inadvertently authored.
In a typical twin dynamic, the energy is shared. In this instance, Ethan had inherited the vast majority of their cursed energy, leaving his twin with a mere pittance.
However, when Mahito applied Idle Transfiguration to them as infants, he disrupted the natural flow. The twin,Seth lost the ability to utilize cursed energy entirely, which triggered a total collapse of his remaining reserves to zero.
In doing so, the twin acted as a metaphysical shield, inadvertently protecting Ethan from the full effects of Mahito's touch; even to this day, Idle Transfiguration cannot recognize Ethan Park as an "individual."
Throughout his long existence, Mahito had experimented on twins many times, yet Ethan's sibling was an anomaly. The total loss of cursed energy resulted in a Heavenly Restriction, granting him immense physical prowess.
While he remained tethered to Ethan by their shared soul, Mahito's technique had acted as a bridge—or rather, a severance—between them, granting them a forced individuality.
Mahito's singular goal in this life had been to prevent the emergence of a monster that could rival the horrors of the Golden Era.
He had went against his very nature, restraining his urge to slaughter humans, all to maintain the balance. Yet, in his arrogance and his interference, he had paved the way for the worst monster of all. He had created Ethan Park.
When the twin lost all of his cursed energy and was forced into a state of true individuality, Ethan's own reserves of power surged.
It may not have been a massive increase compared to his already vast and deep reservoirs, but it had made a profound difference in his development.
After all, he was finally granted his own individuality and would no longer be tied down or hindered by the presence of his twin. However, that was simply not the case for his sibling. Seth remained tethered to Ethan as if by a phantom limb, existing as a one-sided link—a metaphysical shield that had protected him from Mahito's touch when they were just infants.
This link had inadvertently tied Seth's own biological progress directly to Ethan's "Technique growth."
That was ultimately how the cursed spirit Mahito had found him, tucked away in a desolate section of Niganda, a neighbor to the country of Wakanda.
He was being held in a secret Hydra facility spearheaded by Daniel Whitehall, also known as Doctor Werner Reinhardt. Doctor Reinhardt stood as one of the most prominent and ruthless leaders of Hydra's inner circle.
Originally a high-ranking officer of the Nazi Schutzstaffel during World War II, he led many expeditions to recover mysterious artifacts for the organization, working directly under the command of Red Skull.
Despite his capture by the Strategic Scientific Reserve in 1945, Reinhardt continued to exert his influence. He even once offered advice to Gideon Malick from the shadows, until he was finally freed in 1989 by Secretary Alexander Pierce on the whims of the War Cursed Spirit.
Once back in his old base, he used organs and DNA harvested from an Inhuman named Jiaying to de-age himself into a middle-aged appearance.
Hydra had kidnapped Seth when he was an infant, subjecting him to a life of cruelty. They experimented on him, tortured him, and trained him to be a loyal Hydra operative.
They even tried to brainwash him into worshipping Red Skull and the ideals of Hydra, but Seth didn't buy into their lies. He knew he was fundamentally different from the others. By the age of five, he was already unnaturally strong, not just in body but also in mind; he could best multiple adults in a physical fight with ease.
He only grew stronger as he aged, his power climbing steadily until he turned seven years old. That was when his physical strength became stagnant. No matter how much he trained or pushed his limits, his progress hit a wall.
And then came the deeper experiments. Doctor Werner Reinhardt was the name of his primary torturer. Seth was strong, but he was not yet invincible; bullets still penetrated his skin. He knew this well, having been shot in the stomach by the doctor when he tried to resist the procedures once.
Throughout his years of torture and rigorous training, Seth never forgot who he was. No matter how much these people tormented him, he harbored a flicker of hope that one day he would finally find freedom.
But that day arrived a day too late for his only friend. He wasn't entirely alone in this hellhole. There were others—individuals with strange powers whom Hydra sought to weaponize. One particular girl had been his cellmate for a long time.
Her powers were related to her blood being a lethal poison. She was a simple, perhaps even "stupid" girl in the eyes of their captors, but she shared her dreams with him on nights when neither could sleep due to the pain of their treatment.
She wanted to open a bakery, just like her mother had done before her. It was a silly dream, yet beautiful in its own way.
Yesterday, the guards took her away in the middle of the night. They brought her back several hours later, but she was barely clinging to life after having too much of her blood harvested.
Seth sat with her as she took her final breath, feeling utterly powerless against the reinforced walls of their cell.
But something fundamental changed today. As he gripped the metal bedside pole, it folded like paper in his hand. Seth had a look of sudden realization.
His strength had grown again after being stagnant for almost seven years. What Seth didn't realize was that his growth was directly linked to Ethan's "Growth in Technique."
Due to him acting as a metaphysical shield during their infancy, he was linked to Ethan one-sidedly.
When Ethan first awakened his technique at the age of five, Seth also felt a surge in strength. With each shikigami Ethan subjugated, Seth's strength grew simultaneously.
That was the case until seven years ago, when Ethan subjugated the Tiger Funeral, Tora.
After that, Seth's strength remained constant. Although he was still superpowered, he wasn't anywhere near the level of Toji Fushiguro.
His body had spent the last seven years simply adjusting to the strength he already had.
Then yesterday, Ethan finally subjugated the Divine General Mahoraga and reached his maximum potential.
This unchained the shackles binding Seth, and his Heavenly Restriction became fully awakened, finally making him the physical equal of Toji Fushiguro.
A theory in Jujutsu proposes that individuals with Heavenly Restriction—specifically those with zero cursed energy—are tied to the Ten Shadows Technique to help users overcome its greatest challenge.
The Ten Shadows ritual requires a user to tame shikigami alone. Because individuals with zero cursed energy are not recognized as traditional sorcerers, they can intervene without voiding the ritual.
This is similar to how Tengen-sama, the Six Eyes user, and the Star Plasma Vessel are all linked together by fate.
As Seth focused on his improved body, his senses reached an astonishing degree. He could now "see" a non-graded curse clinging to the girl's corpse. Seth backed away, bewildered by the grotesque creature.
Sensing him, the curse launched itself forward, but to Seth, it was moving in slow motion. He extended his arm, grabbed the curse by the neck, and squeezed hard, snapping it in an instant.
Though the curse did not die, Seth continued to stomp on it until the reinforced floor beneath him cracked.
Curses cannot die by physical trauma alone; only through the use of cursed energy or dimensional energy can they be truly exorcised.
He heard the guards rushing toward his cell, drawn by the sound of the reinforced floor shattering beneath his feet. "Let's get started, Sam..." Seth said, addressing the dead girl. He picked up two metal bedside poles and began grinding them together, sharpening them into makeshift weapons for the upcoming battle.
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