Megumi Fushiguro had only come to Shibuya today to go shopping.
It was a rare day off. He'd planned to stop by a bookstore and see if anything new had come in — something he might actually want to read. He never made it to the bookstore. Before he'd even gotten close, he sensed it: a ripple of Cursed Energy.
— In the middle of Shibuya's shopping district?
This many people around… if a cursed spirit shows up here, the casualties could be catastrophic.
Megumi's brow furrowed. He followed the pull of the Cursed Energy for two city blocks — and then he saw it.
A blue-haired girl. Wings on her back. A halo above her head. White dress. Standing in front of some random pedestrian with her hands planted on her hips, announcing something with tremendous, imperious self-satisfaction.
To look at her, she might have stepped straight out of a painting — an angel. Her pristine white wings caught the afternoon light, radiating a soft, otherworldly glow. A golden halo floated above her blue hair. Her white dress drifted gently in the breeze. She looked like a being that had no business existing on this noisy, ordinary street.
But beneath that picture-perfect image, something churned — Cursed Energy, thick and deeply unsettling. Like the back of a sacred icon crawling with insects. The prettier the surface, the more dangerous what lay underneath.
Megumi's pupils contracted.
Cursed spirit.
Humanoid. Distinctly attractive. And it was talking to the pedestrian — the person couldn't see her, obviously, but she was speaking fluent human language with total ease.
Maintaining a humanoid form. Speaking fluidly. Dense, complex Cursed Energy signature. This thing was absolutely not a low-grade cursed spirit.
Grade 1. Possibly higher.
A genuinely dangerous entity.
Megumi instantly hit the distress signal on his communicator. At the same time, his hands came together in a seal.
Then the target noticed him — and actually jogged over, rambling at him at length. And then, just as abruptly, her expression shifted — the easy grin dissolving into blank shock, and then something that looked a lot like fear.
And then she turned and bolted.
…She ran?
No time to overthink it. Megumi gave chase immediately.
Whatever grade this cursed spirit was, he couldn't just let it go. Not here. Not in the middle of Shibuya, surrounded by ordinary people on all sides. The consequences of doing nothing were unthinkable.
He formed the seal with both hands —
"Jade Dogs!"
Two dark shapes surged up from his shadow, taking form as a pair of enormous canines — one black, one white — their four paws hitting the ground at full stride, launching themselves in the direction the blue-haired girl had fled.
But there was a problem.
This was Shibuya.
Dense crowds. Foot traffic in every direction. Ordinary people couldn't see the shikigami, but the shikigami were physically real — they could collide with pedestrians, cause real injuries. He couldn't let the Jade Dogs barrel through a crowd at full speed.
Two dogs. That was all he could use right now. No Nue. Definitely not going straight to the big summons. He'd have to find a way to herd the target somewhere with fewer people…
Megumi ran, his gaze sweeping rapidly across the terrain around him.
............
Meanwhile.
Mahiko was booking it.
I got way too into it!! I was having so much fun I let my guard drop to absolute zero!!
I almost forgot — in a place like this, there are always jujutsu sorcerers or their assistants doing regular patrols!!
Ordinary people can't see me — but sorcerers absolutely can!!
Legs pumping, the girl tore through the Shibuya crowds in a full sprint, her blue hair streaming behind her. She glanced back over her shoulder — two enormous black-and-white wolfhounds were closing the distance at an alarming rate.
And the sorcerer she'd run into happened to be one of the very last people she'd ever wanted to encounter.
Megumi Fushiguro!!
The second male lead of Jujutsu Kaisen. Heir to the Ten Shadows Technique. A prodigious talent personally watched over by Satoru Gojo himself.
She really didn't want to run into this guy.
Honestly? Megumi Fushiguro wasn't that strong. Not right now.
He was a late-bloomer character — his combat power in the early arcs was solidly middle-of-the-road by the series' standards. At this point in time, he was a Grade 2 sorcerer who had lost fights against Grade 2 cursed spirits. And Mahiko — fresh out of the womb, barely any growth under her belt — was still a Special Grade cursed spirit at her core.
If it came down to a straight fight, she wasn't going to lose to him.
But the problem was —
This guy has Mahoraga.
MAHORAGA!!
A genuinely deranged shikigami. An absolute weapon of mass destruction.
Megumi's Technique, at its core, was summoning different shikigami to fight alongside him. And Mahoraga was the single most powerful shikigami he could call — a limitless monster that could infinitely adapt to any opponent's attacks, growing stronger with every exchange. On top of that, Mahoraga had a specific counter against cursed spirits. Fighting the current Mahiko would be like swatting a baby chick. One casual slap and she'd be gone.
The current Megumi was weak — which also meant he had no way to freely control this shikigami. To gain dominance over it, he'd first have to fight the shikigami himself. Beat Mahoraga in direct combat. Only then would Mahoraga acknowledge him.
This process was known as the "Taming Ritual."
The Taming Ritual was nearly impossible. No one in recorded history had ever successfully completed it. But that impossibility had given rise to one extremely unhinged use-case for Mahoraga — as a suicide bomb.
If you summoned Mahoraga in its untamed state, it would automatically enter "I don't answer to you" mode — immediately turning on both the summoner and the summoner's allies.
So if you were locked in a fight with an enemy, all you had to do was summon Mahoraga and tell it: "That person over there? They're my ally." And Mahoraga would proceed to beat the summoner and the enemy both into the ground.
In short: mutual destruction. A guaranteed double kill.
Summon an uncontrollable god, let it slaughter you and your enemy alike.
And as it happened, Megumi Fushiguro had a particular fondness for this strategy.
He'd been dubbed "Jujutsu Kaisen's Number One Pressure Enjoyer" — a title laced with meme-energy, sure, but one that accurately captured his combat philosophy to a disturbing degree.
The kid didn't sweat pressure on a normal day.
Because the moment he felt genuine pressure, his first instinct was to blow everything up.
I've got nothing left — fine. I'm opening Mahoraga and taking you with me.
You're beating me and I can't win — fine. I'm opening Mahoraga and taking you with me.
In the original series, this guy had been ready to self-destruct more than once or twice. Every time it happened, there admittedly hadn't been any other option — but the sheer frequency of it was difficult to witness with a straight face.
And Mahiko's current situation was even harder to witness.
Why does it have to be THIS guy?!
So the scenario she was facing right now was:
She could beat Megumi Fushiguro.
But she absolutely could not let Megumi think he was losing.
Because the moment this self-destruction enthusiast felt cornered, he would open Mahoraga.
And there was absolutely no way she could take Mahoraga right now!! One hit from that thing and she'd be erased from existence!!
Taking it a step further — could she just take Megumi out directly? Strike before he could summon Mahoraga, using the information gap to get in a surprise kill and end it cleanly?
…Sure. In theory.
Using the information gap, she could realistically one-shot him before he had a chance to react.
But that just opened up an entirely different set of problems.
Why? Because standing behind Megumi Fushiguro was Satoru Gojo.
Satoru Gojo.
The strongest living human. Fighting him made Mahoraga look like the preferable option.
Kill Megumi, and Satoru Gojo would hunt her across the entire planet without rest.
Damn it!! How does everyone else have someone watching their back?!
Mahiko felt tears forming.
How is she the only one — the one poor, completely alone, utterly unsupported little creature with nobody in her corner?!
This is infuriating!!
The wolfhounds' snarling rose from behind her, closer than before.
Aaaargh!! Infuriating!!
Don't come any closer!! —
Whoosh —
Whoosh —
The two Jade Dogs wove through the crowd in pursuit — the black one and the white one flanking her from the left and right, attempting a pincer. Mahiko whipped around a corner into a shopping arcade, weaving frantically left and right through the dense foot traffic.
In a situation like this, the crowd was her best cover.
Ordinary people couldn't see cursed spirits or shikigami — but shikigami were physically solid, capable of colliding with pedestrians and causing injuries. Megumi couldn't let his shikigami go full-speed in this kind of environment.
Which meant the speed gap between her and his shikigami was, for now, being bridged.
Sure enough, the two Jade Dogs visibly slowed in the denser sections of the crowd, forced to navigate around pedestrians.
But Megumi himself was still running.
Speed-wise: Dogs > her > Megumi.
In the crowd: Dogs ≈ her ≈ Megumi.
So she hadn't been caught yet — barely.
But just running wasn't going to cut it. She needed to shake him off completely.
Mahiko's gaze swept across the pedestrians nearby. An idea surfaced.
She'd healed so many people in the past hour — her precision in manipulating souls had climbed an entire tier. She could cure myopia. Repair fractures. Work on microscopic, hair-fine deviations in a soul. So could she do something even more delicate?
Like — manipulating the nervous system's electrical signals?
Not reshaping the soul's form. Instead, delivering an incredibly small, instantaneous stimulus to the soul — just enough to trigger an involuntary physical response. Like plucking a single string on a harp and producing exactly one note.
The precision this required was extreme. Far more demanding than healing.
But after treating so many people, so many different conditions, her soul-perception had been sharpened to a delicate, trembling threshold.
She felt like she could —
Oh forget 'feeling like' anything, just TRY IT before thinking another thought!!
She threw caution to the wind. Mahiko reached out and brushed her fingers against the calf of a passing office worker, activating her ability.
And then —
The office worker's right calf muscle spasmed violently.
"Ow —!"
He stumbled, pitching sideways — directly into Megumi's path of pursuit. Megumi's reaction time was exceptional; he twisted to avoid the collision, but his stride broke for half a beat.
It worked!!
Yes!!
Mahiko kept running, right hand extended, touching three or four more pedestrians in quick succession.
"Ah —!"
"My leg —!"
"What's happening?!"
Suddenly, several people along the entire shopping arcade dropped at the same time — buckling like knocked-over bowling pins. Some went straight down and blocked the path; others knocked into the people beside them, triggering chain reactions. Megumi was forced to slow to a near-stop, swerving and weaving around the fallen pedestrians.
What is going on?!
Megumi sensed something was wrong.
Multiple people cramping simultaneously? That wasn't a coincidence. Was this the cursed spirit's doing? Was the cursed spirit attacking people?
Damn it.
He couldn't keep playing it this way. His original objective had just been to continuously track and lock down the spirit's position — but now he had to find a way to go on the offensive and stop it from hurting people.
He formed the seal again.
He was going to summon another shikigami, launch a direct attack. But — right at that moment —
A random pedestrian suddenly grabbed him in a bear hug.
"?!"
Megumi went completely rigid.
A middle-aged man in a business suit — for absolutely no discernible reason — had just thrown his arms wide open and pulled Megumi tightly into his chest. His grip was strong, too. Like he'd been reunited with a long-lost relative.
"???"
"Huh??" The man himself looked equally baffled, staring down at his own arms with no idea why he was embracing a teenage stranger on the street. "S-sorry!! I don't know why I — my hands just did it on their own —!"
The man scrambled to let go, face flushing crimson, stumbling back two paces and bowing three times in rapid succession.
Megumi hadn't even had time to process that when, from the other direction, a plump middle-aged woman charged over and seized him in an equally enthusiastic embrace.
"Young man — huh? Why am I — oh my god, I'm so sorry!!"
Megumi stood there, spine rigid, every single hair on his body standing at attention as the woman squeezed him. He wrenched himself free with a dark expression and looked up in the direction the blue-haired girl had fled —
She was getting farther away.
Megumi: "…Damn it."
No — she wasn't just attacking the crowd. She was controlling their movements. It had started as people tripping and falling; now she was making them physically grab him. Clearly, her ability was improving. Rapidly improving.
Tch.
His frustration was spiking.
"Nue!"
He reformed the seal.
A massive aerial shikigami erupted from his shadow — Nue, an owl-type flying shikigami with orange wings and a white mask, its wingspan enormous, crackling arcs of electricity spreading wide as it took to the air.
She could run as fast as she wanted on the ground. She couldn't outrun something in the sky.
Nue locked onto its target from altitude, then folded its wings and dove — wrapped in a sheath of lightning, screaming downward —
BOOM!!
A massive shockwave detonated. Dust and debris were blasted across the street surface; the surrounding pedestrians staggered, buffeted by the impact, screams erupting in every direction.
Smoke and dust billowed.
Megumi strode forward, gaze locked tight on the cloud where the dust was beginning to settle.
The dust fell.
Nothing.
The blue-haired girl was gone.
Megumi stopped.
But he didn't believe she'd truly vanished. Not with this density of crowd. She was here somewhere. She had to be.
Hiding?
But where?
"Do you still have the scent?"
He murmured the question to his shikigami.
Both Jade Dogs lowered their heads, noses brushing the ground, and began to track. The black one's nostrils flared; it followed the residual trace of Cursed Energy along the pavement.
And at that very moment, Mahiko was standing in the crowd less than five meters behind Megumi Fushiguro.
Wings gone. Halo gone. White dress replaced by an ordinary jacket and jeans. Blue hair shortened and darkened to black. Her face reshaped into the blandest, most forgettable pedestrian face imaginable.
*Idle Transfiguration* could reshape her own body however she pleased. Whatever she wanted to look like — done.
She kept her head low, blending into the crowd, watching Megumi's movements from the corner of her eye. The moment she saw the Jade Dogs drop their noses to the ground, she couldn't help but inwardly wince.
Oh no…
Dog noses…
Your shikigami are really impressively multi-functional, aren't they, you little menace…
She could change her appearance. But she currently had no idea how to change the Cursed Energy "scent" she gave off. That was simply beyond her at the moment. The Jade Dogs tracked via smell, homing in on Cursed Energy — as long as they followed the trail on the ground, they'd find her eventually.
What now?
Mahiko's gaze landed on a young woman nearby, scrolling through her phone.
Screw it. In for a penny, in for a pound.
I refuse to believe I can't figure something out…
Mahiko reached out and lightly tapped the young woman on the back.
The young woman paused.
Then she put her phone away, turned, walked directly toward Megumi Fushiguro, raised her right hand, and wound up with her entire arm —
SMACK.
Directly across the left side of Megumi's face.
The crowd seemed to hold its breath for exactly one second.
Megumi stood there dumbfounded, slowly straightening his head back to center. He looked at the woman who had just slapped him. His expression was one of pure, uncomprehending bewilderment. "…You?"
The young woman was equally bewildered.
"I — I'm so sorry!!" She clapped both hands over her mouth, eyes wide with horror. "I don't know why my hand just — oh my god, I'm so sorry!!"
Megumi pressed a hand to his left cheek, eyebrow twitching.
He hadn't even begun to process this when —
SMACK.
Another slap. Right cheek this time.
From a completely different direction, a male student in glasses had delivered a firm smack to the other side of Megumi's face — and then immediately startled himself, leaping backward.
"Oh my god, what the — my hand just moved on its own — I'm so sorry!!"
Megumi: "..."
And then it clicked —
That absolute—
He understood now.
The cursed spirit was doing this. It had to be the cursed spirit, controlling these people from a distance!!
"Jade Dogs, find —"
SMACK.
This one was heavy. Very heavy. A man standing one-eighty, rolling up his sleeve first for a proper wind-up — the slap spun Megumi a full two hundred and forty degrees where he stood.
SMACK.
Then an old man.
SMACK. SMACK. SMACK——
Pedestrians approached one after another, each delivering a slap to Megumi with zero warning, and each one following it up with a look of absolute horror and a profuse apology — not a single one of them knowing why they'd done it.
And Megumi had absolutely no framework for handling this scenario. He couldn't use jujutsu on these people. He couldn't have Nue airlift him out, because people would see him take off — and the existence of jujutsu was supposed to be kept secret. All he could do was reinforce himself with Cursed Energy and take it standing up. Smack after smack, spinning like a top in the middle of the crowd.
The result: even though the two Jade Dogs had already traced the scent to a location, their summoner was currently being turned into a human gyroscope — and all they could do was pace in frantic circles nearby, baring their teeth and growling at the passing pedestrians, looking exactly like the most useless bodyguards in history.
And the architect of this entire disaster had, by now, borrowed a stranger's face — and slipped out of the crowd in the confusion, quiet as a ghost, while Megumi was otherwise occupied.
One corner.
Another corner.
She ducked into a narrow alley with no foot traffic and ran. Ran hard. When she finally couldn't push any further, she pressed her back against the wall and gulped down air in great heaving gasps.
"Ha… ha…"
Safe.
Should be safe. Probably.
Mahiko restored her own face. The long blue hair cascaded back down around her. She tilted her head up to look at the narrow strip of sky visible above the alley and exhaled a long, slow breath.
...Wait.
Mahiko snapped to high alert, her gaze cutting to the far end of the alley.
Someone was there. A sorcerer. The Cursed Energy coming off them was enormous — an entirely different sorcerer, and a powerful one.
Another jujutsu sorcerer!!
____
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