Brrring, brrring...
Then Mahiru's phone rang.
The girl stopped in her tracks. She and Suguru Geto exchanged a glance.
She glanced once more at the distant mountain forest.
They were now only a few steps from the trap she'd laid for Suguru Geto.
Who could possibly be calling at a time like this?
Mahiru checked the screen, paused, and a flicker of surprise crossed her face.
"I need to take this," she told Suguru Geto.
Suguru Geto made a go-ahead gesture, telling her to answer first.
Mahiru stepped aside, wrapped her voice in Cursed Energy, and answered. "What is it?"
"There are two bits of bad news right now — one's not that important, and the other isn't either," Kaori Itadori's voice came through. "Which do you want first...? Wait, you're already there?"
Mahiru glanced toward the trap. "What else would I be doing? So, what's the bad news?"
"The first, minor bad news is that Tokyo's about to get another Cursed Spirit rain."
"Oh, that really isn't important. If things allow it, have little Itadori and little Fushiguro get in some more training..."
"Ah, but they can't train anymore, can they?" Kaori Itadori said with a laugh. "That's the second, minor bad news I wanted to tell you."
Mahiru frowned and glanced sideways at Suguru Geto, still waiting for her in the distance.
Raindrops had already begun falling in the mountain forest.
The girl's arms could already feel the coolness of the rain.
The air hung heavy and dim, the forest utterly still except for the sound of rain slowly building around them. Mahiru let out a soft laugh. "Oh..."
She and Suguru Geto locked eyes once again.
"I've found that Jujutsu High secretly sent several Jujutsu Sorcerers... to the same destination as you and Suguru Geto."
Over the phone, Kaori Itadori's voice carried a smile. "They're suspicious of you... Looks like you've been made—"
Crack.
Mahiru crushed the phone in her hand.
At the same instant, Suguru Geto's eyes hardened and his right hand shot up. "—[Black]!"
Shadows surged around the man and solidified — a black, Special Grade Cursed Spirit in the shape of a massive dragon, beating its wings as it spread them wide beside him.
BOOM!!—
The next instant, the blue-haired Magical Girl appeared beside Suguru Geto out of nowhere, swung her wand, and slammed it into the dragon's body.
Crack!!
The dragon's wing shattered under the blow, bone splintering and flesh flying. At the same moment, three figures burst from the trees around them — all Jujutsu Sorcerers from Jujutsu High, a mix of Grade 2 and Grade 1.
"And here I thought you two had absolutely no caution at all," Mahiru said with a grin.
"The fact that I'm the one on this mission with you means we came here to keep an eye on you," Suguru Geto said, brow furrowed, flicking his hand to pull out another shadow. "Go!"
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh...
Several squid-shaped, blade-like Cursed Spirits burst from the shadow and lunged at Mahiru.
Mahiru leaned back, flipped, and with a single swing of her wand smashed every one of the blade-spirits to pieces.
She spun around to find a man had already appeared behind her, longsword drawn in an iaido stance, Cursed Energy spilling off him. "New Shadow Style — draw!"
Bang!!
Mahiru swung her wand like a home-run bat and sent the man flying, the impact even sparking little cartoon stars.
"So you figured you alone would be enough to handle me?" she said, laughing.
Suguru Geto's expression turned deadly serious.
The timing of their appearance, and the timing of this whole rendezvous, was far too convenient to be coincidence — even with little Fushiguro and little Itadori consistently proving themselves, Jujutsu High could never fully trust Mahiru.
And that was exactly what Mahiru had intended.
Because they didn't trust her, Jujutsu High would put her through a kind of "probation period," sending people to keep watch over her.
Publicly, Mahiru presented herself as being at Grade 1 Sorcerer level.
So there weren't many people qualified to oversee her — at present, only Satoru Gojo and Suguru Geto in Tokyo fit the bill. And whenever Gojo was too busy, the duty fell to Suguru Geto alone.
Mahiru hadn't expected Jujutsu High to send other sorcerers ahead to scout the ground, but it didn't matter — the outcome wouldn't change.
Because these newly arrived reinforcements still stood no chance against her.
"No chance at all, huh..." Suguru Geto said grimly.
Wand in hand, Mahiru dropped one sorcerer with each swing, sending cartoon stars scattering across the sky.
Even the dullest observer could tell Mahiru was far from ordinary. That black dragon a moment ago had been a Special Grade Cursed Spirit with exceptional defense, yet its guard had been shattered in a single blow — her strength was surely no less than his own.
No...
A wave of déjà vu surged through him.
Suguru Geto's eyes trembled. "You're that thing!"
This same overwhelming, familiar pressure... She was that Blue Existence!
Of course — the Magical Girl who had appeared out of nowhere and the Blue Existence who'd been abducting the children of the great Jujutsu clans... were one and the same!
Damn it!
What was she doing, sneaking back here!?
It's no good — I can't beat her!
Gritting his teeth, Suguru Geto quickly pulled out a cursed tool to send a distress signal to Jujutsu High. But Mahiru was faster.
The girl smiled and snapped her fingers lightly. A Barrier spread out, and Suguru Geto's cursed tool went dead.
Thud, thud...
The three sorcerers dropped one by one, unconscious.
Mahiru stopped playing along. Her Magical Girl outfit melted away as an immense, alien surge of Cursed Energy burst forth — she revealed her true, original form.
"Don't worry, I'm only here to take something from you," Mahiru said, smiling sweetly. "Though it's a shame — if you'd just walked into the trap, I could have saved myself a lot of effort, and you'd have suffered far less... Satoru Gojo isn't coming, you know. You should stop hoping."
A chill settled deep in Suguru Geto's chest.
Gojo had grown so much stronger — if only he were here, they might have stood a chance against the being before him.
But now, facing the Blue Existence alone, Suguru Geto had no chance at all.
Refusing to give up, he still held his fighting stance. "So besides my life, there's something else about me you're interested in?"
Mahiru raised her hand — and began forming the seals for a Domain Expansion. "You don't need to know."
She wasn't going to drag this out any longer.
She'd decided to settle it with a single strike.
Nothing could stop what Mahiru was about to do. She wanted to claim Cursed Spirit Manipulation quickly and without loss, and this was the perfect moment.
The rain began pouring down in sheets.
Thunder began to crash.
The girl pressed her hands together into a seal. "Domain—"
—BOOM!
A flash of lightning burst across Mahiru's field of vision. The girl's expression froze, and she slowly turned her head.
Far off over Tokyo, countless bolts of lightning tore through the black, roiling sea of storm clouds like spears of white light.
Within that lightning surged a tremendous force of Cursed Energy.
No — rather, it was that the white light of the lightning itself was infused with tremendous Cursed Energy, condensing it into something solid.
Those bolts of lightning were actually "freezing" mid-flicker, hanging in the air as solidified matter of Cursed Energy, before crashing down at the "speed of light" and leveling entire blocks of buildings.
Suguru Geto's jaw dropped.
Mahiru's eyes went wide with shock as well.
She should have pressed her advantage right then and claimed Suguru Geto's Cursed Technique in one stroke... but she now had something far more urgent to deal with.
That wasn't lightning.
It was [Light of Killing Intent] — the Cursed Technique of Dabura, a powerhouse on par with Satoru Gojo and Sukuna.
If she didn't go to Tokyo to meet this head-on, Tokyo would cease to exist.
____
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