The plot had gone so far off the rails that, if I were still human, my mouth would still be hanging open an hour later, and a fly or two would've built a condo in it as we sped through Tokyo.
How the hell was Mahito the new big bad?
Did the universe spontaneously adapt to annoy me? I had not considered the damage the human-like cursed spirit could do. If I had, I would've found a way to kill him the few times I glimpsed him while surviving Sukuna's rampage.
After the Culling Games had begun, I had discarded every single thought of him. In canon, Kenjaku had simply eaten him, absorbed his cursed technique, and activated the Culling Games. I made the mistake of assuming he was going to do the same thing.
A low growl escaped my throat. Of course he didn't. If there was one person capable of throwing a curveball, it was the immortal body-hopping bastard. I should've put in more effort to kill him when I had the chance. I shook my head. No. I could not regret it. I didn't have the leniency to. I made the best choice. It had been between continuing my fight with Uraume and Kenjaku, or going to Megumi after he was forced into suspended animation.
I made the best choice in the situation. It still didn't change how much of a bastard Kenjaku was being. I had been so focused on the more physical threat Sukuna's return brought to my long-term plans of having Megumi live a long life, I had forgotten Kenjaku was a more insidious threat. A bigger one, in a way. The type of threat that came to shank you in your sleep.
This simply reminded me that these were not just characters in a manga or anime. The plot was not a simple railway track that could only go one way. Choices mattered. So did my presence. I had saved Itadori from the mental anguish of Sukuna destroying Shibuya with his body. I had protected Nanami from both Sukuna and Mahito. I had deprived Kenjaku of his original way of starting the Culling Games. These were the consequences of those decisions.
I focused my attention on my hand, pale skin hidden by patches of crimson. The blood of the elders I had slaughtered. Unlike curses, human blood did not simply flake off and dissolve as their cursed energy faded. The dried blood stood stark on my pale skin, clear evidence of the choice I had made, the path I had taken. The lives I had ripped. The human lives. What did it say about me that I did not feel anything about it?
I had not felt anything while breaking spines, pulping skulls, eviscerating an old man who looked so much like a Zenin. Bisecting an older woman who had looked at me in acceptance, like a petitioner ready to receive judgment. Not even in the way I flayed off the skin of that one Buddhist with the beads and the dotted lines on his forehead.
It had boiled down to a choice once again. They had made the choice to interfere in my life again. To kill Megumi. Unfortunately, they could not deal with the consequences of that choice.
Choices, and the power to deal with the consequences. That was all that mattered in truth. Just like the stupid, smooth-brained elders, I had made my choice. I did not regret any of them, saving Itadori, protecting and standing up for Megumi, protecting Nanami. I did not regret a single one of them. Now all that remained was to prove that I had the power to deal with the consequences that followed.
My palm closed, squeezing tight into a fist.
Mahito.
"We're here!" Ijichi called out from the driver's seat, distracting me. Despite the bruise above his eyes and the cut lip that showed he had resisted being apprehended, he looked remarkably fine. His glasses were missing a lens as well, but it didn't seem to affect him much. In fact, if I were a betting man, I would say he was happy at the moment.
Something about the higher-ups no longer being around to give orders. We had left Nanami, Usami, and a couple of the other first-grade sorcerers behind to smooth the transition. I heard even Mei Mei had been recalled from Malaysia to come and help out. I don't know what's going to happen, how the Jujutsu Society was going to reorganize after the death of their leadership, and this is what Gojo had been worried about. Unfortunately, I didn't particularly care as much as he did.
I hopped off the roof of the car, a place that was growing very familiar at this point, and turned to the red torii gates of the Zenin Clan. My wings twitched, barely taking note of the words Megumi was saying to the older man as he stepped out. Instead, my attention was on the several dozen men clad in the white and black of the Hei, as well as the two men in front: Naoya Zenin and Ranta Zenin.
A fight? Rebellion at Megumi's perceived weakness? Had my decision to spare the fighters in the clan been another mistake? The group stared at me, frozen in surprise at my red-streaked form. The blood of the elders still lining my body like war paint.
My hand reached up, and I found myself hooking my right thumb above my index finger. Then I bent it sideways and down until a sharp crack broke the silence. It did not matter. I was neither in the mood to entertain small fry. If I had made a mistake earlier, it was one I could rectify in seconds. It was a good thing they were mostly gathered as one. It would make this drastically easier.
Megumi finished his talk with Ijichi and turned, only to stop at the sight of the people outside the clan gates, but before I could explode into violence, Ranta called out in a shout.
"We greet the 27th Clan Head, and Divine General!"
The shout was taken up immediately by more than two dozen voices, and as one, they bowed.
"We greet the 27th Clan Head, and the Divine General!"
Huh?
Naoya rolled his eyes at the reverence and veneration the rest of the Hei greeted us with. What I had mistaken for a budding rebellion and disloyalty had been star-struck awe mixed with a healthy dose of fear.
He swaggered forward, giving off an unfeeling air, but he still made sure to stop at a healthy distance away from me, and when his attention turned to me, his gaze did not leave my blood-stained hands. Then he returned his attention to Megumi.
"You're not dead," he noted, in near disappointment.
"Not for a lack of trying on the part of the higher-ups."
"Shame. If you had died, I would've been next in line for the position of the Clan Head."
Megumi's eyes narrowed, and he tensed at the words, and in response Naoya raised his hands with a smirk that didn't quite reach his eyes.
"There is nothing to worry about from me. I'm not stupid, Fushig- Megumi-san. I saw what happened the last time someone seriously threatened your life." His gaze returned to my hulking, quiet form, and he barely managed to suppress the shiver that went through him at the sight of me.
"I can also see that it has repeated itself, so you have nothing to fear from me. Would I celebrate if you somehow got killed? Of course I would," Naoya admitted with a shrug as his hands came down. "But am I stupid enough to make an attempt on your life or even consider it? The answer is no."
"So why are you here?"
A hand clamped down on Naoya's shoulder, silencing him, as Ranta walked up to us. His eyes were still red-rimmed. Had he used his powers recently?
"What Naoya-san was reluctant to say is that we were gathered to save you, or avenge you regardless of your fate." The boy said with a nod that made his ponytail bob. "The rest of the Hei, including Ogi-sama, are keeping an eye on your sister in case the higher-ups sends someone against her as well. The rest of us were on our way to... voice our displeasure at your assassination."
Megumi blinked in confusion, while I suppressed a surprised chuckle.
Naoya's smirk twisted into a scowl. "That's the thing about being in a clan, or being the leader of a clan." This time, he was speaking to Megumi only. "We close ranks when an outsider tries to pull something like this. I can admit to having connections and relationships with a couple of the higher-ups, but when a Clan Head is attacked, our personal opinions do not matter anymore. That is what it means to be the Clan Head of one of the four great Jujutsu clans."
"An attack on you is an attack on all of us. Your weakness and your strengths reflect on us as well, Megumi-san," Ranta finished for Naoya in a more diplomatic tone.
"O-Okay..." Megumi finally replied, with clear hesitation in his tone. I didn't blame him. I was more familiar with the world, and I had not expected things to take this kind of turn. I blame Gege for barely giving any attention to the inner workings of the clans. "You mentioned my sister?"
Ranta nodded in excitement. "She was taken to one of our safe houses in the city. I'll send someone for her at once," the young sorcerer replied. I turned to Megumi, and my sudden focus on him dampened his enthusiasm as he suddenly remembered that there was something wrong with her, something he was trusting me to deal with.
I turned away and began to walk at once. I needed a bath.
__
Finding a tub that could fit my monstrous frame was virtually impossible. It was a good thing the Zenin Clan had an outdoor onsen, which was basically a bath or a small pond fed by natural hot spring water and bounded by rocks that served to stop the water from splashing and finally to contain the pool.
The onsen had gradually begun to change colour, turning a murky red from the dried blood that had been scrubbed off my body by very enthusiastic Zenin maids, before they had left, leaving me a very clean and refreshed Shikigami with a lot on his mind.
Namely, a particularly annoying cursed spirit.
Mahito.
I was never overly worried about the cursed spirit. Unlike the rest of the verse, Canon Mahito was not a danger to me. His greatest ability was his cursed technique, but unlike a vast majority of the verse, I was aware of the outline of my soul, which meant I could actively defend it, and Nanami had shown that even his instinctive reinforcement of his soul, despite not being aware of it, had been enough to protect him from a single touch, which meant I had enough to survive long enough to trigger an adaptation.
He could pop his Domain, but once again, Idle Transfiguration was not a sure kill if you were aware of the outline of your soul and could defend it. For Idle Transfiguration to happen, two criteria had to be met. The first was that Mahito had to touch his opponent, which his Domain automatically solved. The second was to actively shape the soul, which my awareness of it solved, which meant that if Mahito ever put me in his Domain, he would be locking me in a cage fight, and it was not one he would survive.
But that was canon Mahito...
I had absolutely no idea the kind of being Kenjaku was going to create from a Mahito that had been twisted into another whole creature by using him as the focal point of the Culling Games. In canon, Kenjaku had simply beaten Yuki and Choso and had planned to merge Tengen. Now, the body-hopping bastard was going to use the cursed energy gathered with the Culling Games and merge it with Mahito instead... just what sort of monster was that going to create?
I did not have an answer for that. It was a good thing I had an answer for the following problem, because she had just stepped into the Zenin Clan.
My smile widened as I forced myself to stand. I cracked my neck to the side, but it was more out of habit than need. The soak had limbered me up; every single muscle was fresh and ready. It was time to finally deal with that pest.
__
Megumi Zenin
Megumi sat uneasily in the waiting room of the clan head and felt like a fraud. There was nothing familiar about it, nothing personalized. The previous clan head had barely used it; instead, the entire room looked like it belonged to a man born a hundred years before him and was filled with antiques.
There was a table in the middle. Lacquered and low. It was the traditional kind used to serve tea, and someone had arranged it in anticipation of his use. He had spared it attention for all of a second before sitting on the more modern chair and table by the window that looked like they had seen more use. A quick sniff brought the smell of aged, spilled liquor to his nose, which explained where Naobito had held his own meetings.
The sound of footsteps forced him to discard his musings, and then the door opened, revealing Tsumiki.
She looked better than she had in the hospital. Her brown eyes moved about before settling on him.
"Your Shikigami is not here?"
"He disappeared a few minutes ago."
"You look terrible," she said, pivoting the discussion to him while her face changed, a familiar cute frown settling on it. "What happened? Are you okay?"
He hesitated for a second, then another before scratching at his head. "I was poisoned."
Her eyes widened in shock and surprise before narrowing, just like they had the first time an upperclassman had tried to bully him when they were younger.
"Are you alright? What happened?"
"I'm fine. It's a long story, but it's taken care of now." He waved away her worries, and despite himself, he could feel himself sink into the familiarity of the whole conversation.
A small sound escaped her that was not quite a laugh, and when Megumi focused on her, he could see her barely hidden smile. "You've really grown up a lot in the short while I've been gone, haven't you?"
The question was rhetorical, but Megumi answered once more, his guard lowering with every breath. This was the Tsumiki he knew, this kindness and care for him. There was none of that specific wrongness he had noticed the first time; the strange behavior and actions were absent. Had it all been in his head?
"A bit," he replied despite the fog in his head. "We've also figured out a couple of ways to deal with your problem. All we need is a bit of time."
"I see. Thank you," Tsumiki said. Then she tilted her head to the side and gave him a bright smile with her eyes closed. Megumi's heart skipped a beat. This was the same smile she had given him the day she left and was brought back to him in a coma. This was his sister.
Then, all of a sudden, Tsumiki tensed. Every muscle in her body taut for a split second, and before he had finished processing the sudden change, Tsumiki moved so fast she was a near blur. She twisted out of the chair with a speed that had no business belonging to his sister, and her feet found the floor for only a fraction of a second before they sent her diving back.
She did not get far.
The wall beside them simply exploded, throwing Megumi back, and through the dust came a hand, pale and enormous, fingers spread, moving like a snake. The hand caught Tsumiki's ankle mid-retreat.
Then the rest of Mahoraga came through the wall, and the grin on its face was the widest Megumi had seen it since the Shikigami fought Sukuna. Megumi had approximately one second to register all of this before Mahoraga whipped Tsumiki into the floor with enough force to crater the lacquered wood and send the teacups airborne. Then the Shikigami spun and released her, sending her body through the opposite wall in a controlled arc that sent her flying in a direction that would lead her out of the clan grounds.
Megumi rolled to his feet a second later. He did not have the time to process the confusion because Mahoraga turned to him, and the Shikigami's grin had not changed.
"Stay."
The Shikigami growled out, then it turned and jumped through the wall after her.
Megumi stood in the ruined waiting room of the clan head, surrounded by shattered lacquerware and two holes in the walls, and considered the order for a heartbeat before deciding to hell with it, and then he ran after them. Intent on understanding what the hell was happening, and how Tsumiki moved so fast.