Mahito had always believed that the concept of perfection was something he needed to embody.
Perfection in action, perfection in social interactions, perfection in style. Perfection in all that pertained to his image.
Yet, beneath that perfect facade, something always festered. A sensation that never left.
Unclean.
No matter how much he scrubbed or how many times he cleaned...
Every time he looked in the mirror, blood covered his face, his hands, his smile. Even when displaying a perfect smile, he felt dirty.
From a young age, he had wanted to make it in the world. To become rich, by any means necessary, and to help those like him.
He had clawed his way up, scraping for wealth, influence, for a sense of freedom. And he had gotten it. Built it from nothing. Brick by brick. And corpse by corpse.
The smile he wore in life had been polished to a gleam. The suits tailored. Language refined. A man of the people, he had called himself. A man of elegance.
But underneath it all?
Dirty.
Even at the end, all he smelled was blood.
All he saw was blood.
The way his body had fallen wasn't poetic. It wasn't cinematic. It was messy. Ugly. Imperfect.
But it was perfect for him.
Because it was honest.
And in his second life? There was no stench that clung to him.
He didn't mind the stench of the sewers, he didn't mind the stench of blood. It was nothing compared to what had clung to him in his past life.
The stench of guilt and weakness of humanity had been burned away with his rebirth.
No more lies. Only shape. Only soul.
He was not clean. But even better, he was complete.
And so, as he approached the dark green barrier of Hanami's domain, his steps were light, unhurried. Like a guest arriving fashionably late to a concert he had no ticket for.
He placed one hand against the barrier. It rippled faintly, resisting for a moment.
Then parted. It was not made to hold people outside after all. And so, Mahito stepped inside.
And the world changed again.
The soil beneath his feet was soft, spongy, almost breathing. Shining trees rose in a wide circle around a clearing choked in golden vines, their trunks twisted like rope pulled too tight.
Shimmering petals fell like rain, each one laced with cursed energy sharp enough to shave skin from bone.
The air buzzed with insect noise. Not real insects. Cursed imitations, ambient noise at best.
The hum of their wings was just slightly off. Like a frequency not meant for human ears. Like the forest itself was growling.
Mahito smiled, letting it all wash over him. It was beautiful.
Raw. Unfiltered. This was Hanami's soul. Her truth. The oldest kind of curse. Nature betrayed by humanity. Wrath slow-cooked over centuries.
He admired it. Even respected it. But it wasn't his.
At the far end of the clearing, he saw them.
Yuji Itadori stood first, his chest heaving, blood smeared along his temple. Dirt clung to his uniform, his body trembling from fatigue, not fear. Yet his eyes never lost focus.
Beside him, Todo towered like a wall. Shirtless as usual, his muscular body tense beyond measure.
He stood protectively between Hanami and the others, sweat trailing down his brow as his cursed energy flared around him.
He was still maintaining his Simple Domain, preventing Hanami's Sure-Hit Effect from affecting them all.
Nanami crouched low behind a fallen branch, his blade gripped in one hand. Even now, he was calculating. Looking for angles. For patterns. Ever the professional.
And towering above them all, Hanami had rooted herself to the ground. Her arms were no longer arms.
They had become thorned branches, coiled in preparation, and one shoulder still showcased a strange, glowing red flower. It radiated a highly dangerous energy.
Her mouth was no longer visible. Her face framed by twisted wood. She no longer needed to speak.
But Mahito heard her anyway.
"You should not be here. This is my domain. My burden. My mission."
He raised one hand, waving absently.
"I'm done with missions~"
Yuji, Todo, and Nanami looked toward him sharply from where they stood, still catching their breath from the prior onslaught.
Nanami narrowed his eyes. "What is he-?"
Todo muttered, "He's interfering… My 500.000 IQ Brain CPU failed to predict this..."
Mahito ignored them.
He kept his gaze on Hanami.
"You're still playing the role given to you, huh? Loyal little foot soldier. Carrying out the will of someone else."
"This is not your concern." Hanami's voice rang in the minds of everyone present, sounding outright indignant.
"But it is. It helped me realise something..." Mahito said.
He looked up at the petals drifting overhead, letting one touch his fingertip before it burned away against his cursed energy.
"I played along for a while. Acted cute. Played dumb. Let Kenjaku talk about plans, missions, and whatever long game he thinks he's playing."
He turned back to Hanami and smiled, wide, clear, unburdened.
"But I'm not interested anymore."
"You've betrayed us?!" Hanami's indignation turned to anger, and Mahito couldn't help but laugh a bit when hearing her scream in his mind.
"I was never loyal in the first place~"
Hanami's body tensed, and the domain responded, thorns curling, branches twitching in anticipation. "You are jeopardising everything..."
Mahito stepped closer. "I don't care."
"I will destroy you."
"Try it, flowerface~"
The golden vines shot forward.
Mahito moved in a single motion, bending his soul, shifting his shape. The cursed energy warped around him like water around a stone. Vines that touched him crumpled and fell in splinters, distorted from the inside out.
Everything in that forest was alive, everything within it held a soul. So, his Idle Transfiguration could combat it.
Todo's jaw tightened.
Yuji grunted and took a small step forward, only for Nanami to extend one arm and stop him.
"Let them fight," Nanami said, voice low. "If we're lucky, they'll kill each other or stall each other until Gojo arrives..."
One thing was for sure: neither one of the Special Grade curses present was paying attention to the trio anymore.
"You think you can win?!" Hanami said.
"Funny how someone as weak-minded as you can speak in such a way~" Mahito replied.
He raised his arms outward, stretching slowly, almost theatrically.
"You and I, we were never equals. We were never allies. Remember this..."
His smile widened. His gaze shifting slightly towards Yuji. 'Maybe he can learn a bit from my enlightenment~'
"The reason you die today... It's because you are content with just being a pawn on someone else's board. "
Hanami attacked again, this time a dozen shining roots spearing forward with the force of javelins.
Mahito's cursed energy exploded outward in a rippling wave, his body shifting as he took the brunt of the assault, yet none of the roots that stuck into his body could damage him.
He completely ignored them, even as they dug further into his body.
He spread his fingers wide, as dozens upon dozens of arms sprouted from his back, each of them made distinct hand signs.
Within his mouth, smaller hands reached and formed more hand signs, each inch of his body seemed to move with purpose.
In the back, an eye appeared on Yuji's cheek. Sukuna's attention was seemingly finally caught.
And with a voice that seemed to echo ten times over...
"Domain Expansion..."
The forest buckled. The trees bent inward like they were bowing. The air cracked.
"Cursed Genesis~"
And with that, his Domain expanded, bone and sinew tearing through vines and soil alike, splitting Hanami's paradise with cruel white corridors and jagged ivory archways.
Hanami's cursed energy rose to counter him, and for a moment the two domains clashed, green and gold against bone-white brilliance.
But one was superior to the other... And it only took one second before Mahito's domain was completely set, and overwhelmed Hanami's.
And Mahito smiled into it, calm and whole.
His prior actions, everything he had done, to scheme, to bend before breaking, it had all been counterintuitive. It had stifled his growth.
He was going to course correct.
"I'm done with pretending and following orders... Now I'll just do what I want~"
And what he wanted… was to win.