Megumi looked at the scene before him, still uncomprehending. Still surprised. He had been too slow to get here, even as fatigued as he was, even with recently healed injuries, yet he had made the arduous journey.
Through shockwaves and explosions, through blows that shook the earth, Megumi ran on. His surroundings were completely ruined. The few buildings that still stood were, as a result of luck more than the capability of their structural reinforcement. The sight of the battle's climax was something out of a movie, and yet. Yet, Megumi could not appreciate it, could not even spare it a glance, not when the sight of Itadori Yuji took his attention, the younger muscle-headed boy, broken and crushed in the aftermath.
Megumi blanked out as he watched Todo cradle Yuji, until he felt it, or more accurately, he finally noticed it. A pressure. It was not simply cursed energy; it was also something more... He struggled to pick a word, and when he found himself devoid of one, he simply turned woodenly in time to see Mahoraga walk up to him.
Every one of the shikigami's steps was so heavy, even without any whole concrete underneath its feet to crack, every footstep rattled something in Megumi.
"In the whole of the history of the Ten Shadows Technique, no user has ever tamed the Divine General."
That single quote reminded him of the power of the shikigami before him, its unrestrained and mercurial nature. That he was still alive was a mystery; that it had made sure to protect him and take him to Shoko for healing had been an inconceivable thought before now, and yet all of that happened. And in the midst of that, he had lost focus, lost perspective, and now, as it walked up to him, with the background of destruction It had carved into Shibuya alongside Sukuna, Megumi was forced to consider if this was actually the end. If the shikigami was done having its fun and was finally ready to complete the ritual.
He took a step backwards instinctively, his hands rising up, his pose shifting. One hand over the other, ready to spin the wheel that signifies summoning the divine general, only to be hit with the reminder... The Divine General was already before him. Megumi let out a bark of laughter, then another, before he was all but folded under, tears mixing with anger and rage at his circumstances. Then Mahoraga's hand clamped on his shoulders and pulled him upright.
He looked at the face of the shikigami, and its features were too inhuman to describe, but from what little bond they shared as a result of the creature being born from his cursed technique, even if it was not subjugated, Megumi had a vague feeling that the shikigami thought he was stupid. That opinion was not helped by the fact that one of its wing appendages went up, much like a brow raise.
Then it turned that massive head to the side. Those creepy wing eyes of Its twitched at the duo a few steps away before it refocused on him. Megumi blinked away the tears from his eyes, bewildered and confused at whatever the shikigami was trying to say or communicate. Mahoraga tilted its head to the side. Its purplish tongue slipped past its lips like a snake to wet them, but still it did not speak. Instead, its grip on Megumi's shoulder tightened, then it pointed at him, then gestured at where Todo was on his knees with Itadori in hand.
"Y-You want me to console Todo?" he asked, the question sounding more stupid when spoken than it did in his head, and the way Mahoraga looked at him told him he was not the only person who thought so. Mahoraga's head tilted to the side again. Mahoraga shifted the weight of its feet once more, and Megumi could tell the shikigami was getting annoyed. Then, faster than Megumi could move or react, Mahoraga acted.
His right hand lashed out, turning into a blur, and slammed into Megumi's stomach. His eyes widened until he realized it did not hurt. Instead, Mahoraga's palm encompassed his stomach, and then he felt it. Mahoraga's cursed energy slipped into him, and from the depths of his being, he felt the reply of nine other voices. They came as a trill, a howl, a trumpet, a roar, a chitter, yet just as quickly as they came to life, they went silent, until only one continued to ring out, a mooing sound and the sensation of something rousing, shaking off its bindings with annoyance before poking at Megumi's awareness.
Mahoraga's hand left his stomach, and Megumi was shocked back to the real world. His eyes just as wide.
"What was that?" he questioned, and in response, Mahoraga stilled, the kind of stillness that came from violence, and that was enough to snap Megumi out of whatever fugue he had found himself in. He was not stupid. His grief had blinded him to what Mahoraga's gestures had meant, but after what the shikigami just did, Megumi would need to be completely stupid not to understand.
His movement was frantic, his fingers shifting into the correct form. He hesitated for a split second, his eyes traveling to Mahoraga. This was going to be a subjugation ritual, one that he had always lost because the shikigami was just too stubborn to lose, and now he would be trying again, yet the real question was if he would be able to keep two subjugation rituals up, and if the second would cancel the first.
Mahoraga remained still, its massive frame locked in place as it watched him. Then Megumi focused. There was no time to waste on that. Drawing what was left of his cursed energy, he called,
Ten Shadows Technique: Round Deer.
His shadow lengthened beneath him, shifting consistency from simply darkness cast by light to something viscous and liquid that his feet sank into until it got to his ankles. Then out of the shadow, a hulking creature slowly pulled itself into reality. The first part to be exposed were its horns, pale and sharpened into five points on each side of its head. The points came down into the head as the rest of its body was revealed. Its back was turned to him, but Megumi could still remember its features. Four uncaring eyes placed in an arch around its face. A muzzle that chewed on nothing. The hulking deer, a creature of massive muscle, fat, and bristling fur with iron-cloven hooves, stepped out of his shadows, then stamped on the ground in seeming irritation.
"Heal him," Megumi said, pointing at Itadori. "Heal Itadori Yuji," he ordered.
The deer turned its head to him and let out a short snort of amusement, then turned away, discarding his presence and his commands, reminding Megumi that it was not his to command, not when he had proven too weak to subjugate it.
A growl rang out, a low vibration that rattled everything not nailed to the ground, and in response, Round Deer stilled. Then it did the impossible. Its front hooves lowered, and its head dipped as it shifted into a bow. A bow it rendered to the Divine General standing before it, arms folded akimbo. Then Round Deer straightened up and turned to Yuji.
Todo had shifted in response to the growl and turned in confusion at the trio, while Megumi was frozen in place as every few seconds he learned more things about his technique. There was a hierarchy. It was not that surprising. He remembered what happened when he was summoning Mahoraga. He remembered the way every other shikigami had acted, the cries they made, the calls they let out. It was like loyal retainers watching their lord returning home. However, the true surprise was experiencing that hierarchy. Mahoraga could communicate and order his shikigami even without a subjugation ritual.
"What is your shikigami doing, Fushiguro?"
Megumi blinked, then turned to Todo, the question just registering.
"It can use the Reverse Cursed Technique," he started, his words jittery, then he focused as the deer stopped before Todo and Yuji. "It can use positive cursed energy."
Todo's eyes widened, and he immediately lay Yuji before the shikigami. Itadori's eyes were already closed, his heart was not beating, and yet when Round Deer placed its head on him, his body twitched, muscles spasming and contracting, nerves firing as his heart was slowly forced to heal and mend. It was still for a second, then Megumi spotted Mahoraga's smile, and Yuji jerked up with a gasp as his heart began to pump again.
"Brother!"
Todo screamed as he hugged Yuji, while Megumi was left gasping in shock. It actually worked. He did not think it would, but it actually did. Round Deer let out a snort of annoyance at the noise, then it turned away from the duo and trotted back to him. Its four eyes were fixated on Mahoraga for a second, but whatever the shikigami communicated, Megumi was left ignorant of it. Instead, the deer turned back to Megumi, gave him another amused snort before it lost coherence, turning into gulps of shadow and condensed cursed energy before disappearing.
It had unsummoned itself. It was not subjugated. The ritual of subjugation of the rest of the shikigami in his arsenal was not a do-or-die affair like it was with Mahoraga. If he proved unable to subjugate the shikigami, he could release it or allow it to release itself.
Megumi turned back to Mahoraga, who was looking in the far distance with complicated feelings, as he was slowly struck with the realization that Mahoraga had planned everything. It had planned the whole fight against Sukuna right down to the end. It had killed Itadori, knowing that he would get here in time for Round Deer to still be able to revive him. Did Mahoraga do all this following subconscious orders from him to protect Itadori? The odds of that were small, not when the shikigami remained unsubjugated, yet... No, it did not matter in the end. Mahoraga was not simply an it, Mahoraga was a he.
A giant hand landed on the top of his head and ruffled it, then just as fast as it came it was gone, and before Megumi could turn to Mahoraga, he heard his name.
"Megumi!" the revived Itadori called out. "Come and join in!"
Megumi discarded the thoughts and worries as he smiled and walked up to the duo. Itadori was alive. That was enough for him for now. He could figure out Mahoraga at another time.
x
YUKI TSUKUMO
Yuki lowered the binoculars with a satisfied hum, her lips quirking into a small smile as she watched the three boys converge. Her boy looked fine. Todo could act tough, and the kid was tough most of the time, but she was one of the few who recognized that under that strength was a strange softness. Regardless of that, he was fine.
Sukuna's vess- Itadori Yuji, she corrected herself, was alive. Against all odds, against everything that should have been possible given the previous hole in his chest and the broken neck. The kid had more lives than a cat, and apparently, friends willing to bend the rules of Jujutsu sorcery and regulations to keep him breathing.
"Well, that's one crisis averted," she muttered to herself, slipping the binoculars into the saddlebag of her motorcycle. The bike gleamed in the ambient light of the ruined city, a pristine machine despite the chaos that had torn through Shibuya like a natural disaster.
She was about to turn away, to leave the cleanup to the higher-ups who were undoubtedly scrambling to contain the fallout, when she felt it.
A pulse of cursed energy. It was strange and twisted. Wrong in a way that made her instincts scream out in danger.
Yuki's smile faded, replaced by a frown as she turned her attention toward the source. It was distant, kilometers away perhaps, somewhere in the heart of the devastation. The signature was clearly from a curse spirit, yet different, like cursed energy filtered through something else. It flared once, then settled a second later.
"What the hell was that?" she murmured, her hand moving instinctively toward the shikigami floating beside her hips. Her fingers brushed its scaled back. The physical manifestation of her innate technique chirped at the attention, then her hand stilled.
No. She did not need to act. Whatever that was, it was already stabilizing. And with Shibuya in the state it was, with casualties mounting and curses and transfigured humans still running loose in the outer districts, charging headlong into an unknown threat that was not causing any immediate damage was stupid.
Yuki Tsukumo might have been reckless, but she was not exactly stupid, at least not as stupid as Satoru if the brat really got trapped and stolen away.
"Not my problem," she said with an uncaring shrug. She would investigate later, of course. After she checked in with Tengen. After she made sure the barriers around the tombs were still holding. After... dammit. This was why she did not like returning to Japan. She had better things to do than act as Satoru's replacement, stamping down on every single problem the higher-ups decided to send her way... but she was already here. She might as well take a look.
She brought out her binoculars and looked in the direction she felt the strange cursed energy, but there was no one there. It had come from beneath the ground. Well, she tried, she told herself with another shrug, then movement caught her eye.
Yuki's gaze snapped back to the trio of boys and raised a brow in surprise.
The shikigami was staring at her.
Mahoraga. The Divine General. Eight-Handled Sword Divergent Sila Divine General Mahoraga, to use its full title. The thing that had just gone toe to toe with Sukuna and won. She did not know much about it other than what she had managed to rifle through the Zenin clan archive when she sought more ways to accomplish her goals.
The shikigami did not have eyes. Not in the traditional sense. Those wing-like appendages that framed its head served the purpose. She knew that much from the reports she had read in the archive. But even from this distance, even with kilometers of ruined cityscape between them, Yuki could feel its attention lock onto her like torchlight pointed in the dark.
For a moment, neither of them moved.
Yuki stood beside her motorcycle, Garuda bristling as it floated up behind her in a domineering display, her cursed energy coiled instinctively beneath her skin. Mahoraga stood among the ruins, surrounded by the boys it had apparently decided to protect, its massive frame utterly still in that way that spoke of perfect control of its own body.
Yuki wasn't sure she could have come out of that fight as seemingly unscathed as the Shikigami looked.
She grinned.
It was a sharp thing, all teeth and challenge, the kind of expression she wore when she found something interesting. Something worth remembering, something worth exchanging blows with. She raised her free hand, pressed two fingers to her lips, and blew the shikigami a kiss.
The gesture was absurd, playful, and completely inappropriate given the circumstances, but she just could not resist.
Mahoraga's head tilted exactly one degree to the left.
Yuki's grin widened. "Oh, yeah, you're definitely smarter than the records suggested," she said to the distant figure, knowing it could not possibly hear her but somehow certain it understood anyway. "We'll have to have a proper conversation sometime. When there are not quite so many corpses around."
She tilted her head to match his. "I wonder." Her grin shifted into something softer. "Do you have a type?"
Mahoraga simply stared at her, so she shrugged her shoulders. She tried at least.
She swung her leg over the motorcycle, slipped the binoculars back into the saddlebag, then started the machine, smiling as the engine roared to life with a twist of her grip on its handles, the sound echoing through the ruins.
Mahoraga's wing eyes tracked her movement. Still watching her despite the distance.
Yuki revved the engine once more, then paused. Her expression shifted one final time, the playfulness fading into something more serious.
"Take care of them," she called out with a wave behind her, her voice carrying across the distance with a thread of cursed energy woven through the words. "They're going to need it in the days ahead."
The wheel above Mahoraga's head turned once.
KLNK.
"Right then," Yuki muttered, turning the bike toward the outer edge of Shibuya. "Time to see what kind of mess and horrible decisions the higher-ups have made while I wasn't looking."