Mei Mei had dealt with all kinds of curses. Loud ones. Stupid ones. Vile, hungry ones.
But this one... this Mahito... was something else entirely.
He didn't just speak fluently. He knew how to negotiate. How to dress lies in curiosity. How to pretend to be small when he clearly wasn't.
She walked through the dim tunnels with Ui Ui in tow, her axe slung casually over one shoulder. Her boots didn't splash. She moved like someone who'd already memorised the terrain.
Ui Ui glanced back occasionally, making sure no remnants of cursed energy lingered.
"He's dangerous," he said simply.
"Very. Especially to the Jujutsu Society as a whole," Mei Mei replied, adjusting her braid.
But danger wasn't the real problem.
There had always been dangerous curses. What set Mahito apart was that he wanted to be something more.
Not a destroyer. Not a devourer.
Something adjacent to humans. Or maybe something that humans would have to learn to live beside.
The Elders would never accept something like him. But eventually, they wouldn't have a choice.
That kind of ambition was hard to put a price on.
And Mei Mei had the pleasure of making contact with Mahito first, and now had the opportunity to profit even more.
She had first-hand access to movements among the 'Unregistered Special Grades', letting her adjust her investments ahead of time.
She could also sell that intel further, at a rather high markup as well.
She had no doubt the information he gave was real, especially with the way that the curse had haggled the price.
'As a curse, he can't purchase anything himself. That's part of our deal, my associates and I manage the funds and handle his acquisitions.'
The Special Grade had already set himself up to have an ongoing cooperation with her, which was commendable.
That's why he only asked for 25% of the profit from the intel sold to the Elders. She had haggled him down from 50%, with the agreement that she would assist with managing his money.
'He might be a curse, but he knows how to invest, and knows not to overplay his hand...'
He was interesting enough to warrant future cooperation in Mei Mei's eyes. He had the potential to bring her quite a bit of profit.
That made him... useful. And being useful was the only currency Mei Mei ever cared about.
'For now, he provides information. Maybe later, he'll even accept missions...'
Regardless, things were bound to get interesting for Mei Mei.
'I get the feeling that business will be booming for the next few years~'
Time passed quietly after that.
One week. Then two.
Then an entire month.
Jujutsu High didn't stir as much as expected. The elders, predictably, wanted to confirm things before panicking. Which meant Gojo was still free to watch from the sidelines, occasionally smirking at mission reports he pretended not to take seriously.
Mahito stayed underground.
No more surprise meetings. No more polite smiles.
Only silence and training.
He had grown fond of the lower levels of the sewers, the ones with collapsed tunnels and no active runoff. The air was heavier there. Thicker with old air and thick in cursed energy due to all of the curses he had gathered there.
It wasn't just his own efforts now. He had agreed with Mei Mei and her associates; they were to steer as many Fly Heads as they could find towards the Lower sewers where he now dwelled.
It was something easy to do, even for the lowest-grade sorcerers, which Mei Mei hired using chump change. Since it didn't require Mei Mei's intervention, the matter only cost about 2.5% of his initial contract in the share of information.
It was a small price to pay to him; now he could focus solely on his Idle Transfiguration, improving it and building his strength.
A perfect space and environment to experiment. Abundant in resources.
The Fly Heads were weak. Bottom feeders. Nearly invisible to most sorcerers in terms of threat level. But they were abundant.
And Mahito had begun stitching them together once again.
Not like a scientist. Like an artist.
His newest creations were grotesque little things, clumps of twisted Fly Head souls melted into patchwork flesh, limbs arranged not for function but for adaptability. Some had too many wings. Others none at all. But they moved. They learned.
They were the Fly Soldiers, Mark II.
He no longer bothered to give them a human appearance, discovering that the strain on them was a lot smaller if he just kept their appearance similar to the shapes of the grouped-up Fly Heads.
But he was able to increase their size considerably, making them comparable to a regular human; Meanwhile, their speed had doubled when compared to the Mark 1 that he had created in the past.
Though stronger individually than his previous creation, Mahito was also able to make a whole lot more of them.
Each one carried the cursed energy of a Second Grade, but their coordination and speed made them more dangerous than the classification implied, maybe even rivalling Nanami or Mei Mei in burst movement.
They were, unfortunately, nowhere near as durable as a Grade 1 Sorcerer and had no cursed technique; they just had strength and limbs created purely for combat.
To make up for that, Mahito had given them crude self-destruction triggers. If overwhelmed, they would collapse in on themselves and scatter shards of cursed bones, a final bite from a dying fang.
Mahito sat cross-legged in a crooked chamber lit only by the faint glow of residual cursed energy. Twenty Fly Soldiers populated the entire room in front of him, pulsing softly, their bodies held together by solid stitches of cursed energy.
'My Idle Transfiguration has improved by leaps and bounds... Let's test their strength a bit~'
One lunged at the wall, its wings flapping rapidly as they extended and sliced the air in a clean arc. It was a lot more than enough force to kill; the casual slice left a deep gash in the stone.
Mahito watched. Evaluated.
Then restructured its leg with a twitch of his finger.
He could feel it now. The subtle difference between shaping the body and reshaping the soul beneath it. Each time he built a Fly Soldier, he understood a little more.
'It's not about control. It's about resonance.'
If their souls bent just right, their forms followed with less resistance. That meant more complex constructs were possible. Not smarter, perhaps. But more precise. More... expressive.
He let out a slow breath.
In the weeks since the spar with Hanami, something had shifted.
It wasn't that he felt stronger. It was that he felt... closer.
To what, he wasn't sure.
Maybe he was closer to landing a Black Flash.
Maybe to the edge of something else.
Mahito stood, his form rippling as he let a new limb shape from his back, an elegant wing made from interwoven strands of Fly Head bone and reinforced sinew. It twitched once, then fell still.
He had managed to safely integrate body parts and grow his soul by subduing weaker ones. But it was not stable yet; the parts he absorbed would eventually break away from him.
Regardless, he had already found new applications of his cursed technique, all that was left was to work on them.
His Fly Soldiers watched. Silent. Waiting.
He smiled.
"Time to take this... a bit further."
He turned toward the far wall, dragging one long finger down the stone. A crude map formed beneath his touch, outlines of patrol routes he'd memorized, surface exits, places where Jujutsu Sorcerers moved.
His finger paused over one line.
"Itadori Yuji... still on patrol. Not alone this time, he stands alongside his classmates... Kugisaki Nobara and Fushiguro Megumi... Good, perfect, actually..."
The three seemed to have been sent on a simple mission alone, likely some type of test.
His grin widened. Not cruel. Not mocking.
Curious.
"Let's see how far you've grown~"
Mahito immediately grasped at the air; the creatures he had created buzzed, coming closer to him. He gathered three of the Fly Soldiers, fusing them in a low huddle of curses and bone. The final form was a long-limbed monstrosity.
A creature with six-bladed arms and 9 pairs of eyes, it walked on legs that seemed to belong to an insect, but could also fly with numerous sets of human-sized fly wings.
It was strong, a lot stronger than the other Fly Soldiers he had made... But it was even more durable in body, but fragile in soul.
It wouldn't last for too long. The forceful bonds that formed it were unstable.
It wouldn't kill Itadori or his classmates. It couldn't.
But that wasn't the point.
"Go," he said, voice low, as he showed the creature a picture of Itadori Iuji.
The creature hissed lowly, immediately rushing to leave the sewers, brushing past all of the other Fly Soldiers that Mahito had created.
Mahito leaned back. He called upon all of the other Fly Soldiers and minimised their forms into finger-sized bits of flesh. Wriggling, still alive.
And without hesitation, he formed a pocket within his body and stored them within his stomach.
He felt... Strangely excited. He wanted to see it, just how much he had grown.
If Itadori crushed his creation without strain, that would give him confirmation that he was growing nicely. That was a good thing; Iuji was an important centrepiece in his plans.
If not, that meant Mahito had already far, far surpassed his original counterpart even when it came to Cursed Technique Manipulation.
Either way, it would be useful.
And if Sukuna somehow stirred and was brought up... Well, that would be even better.
'A chance to witness the King of Curses or the Strongest Sorcerer of this era in person... That's all I can ask for right now~'