Blood sprayed. A cold glint pierced through. Riko Amanai's eyes trembled, barely able to believe what was unfolding in front of her.
No… no, no…
Why was this happening?
The Jujutsu High barrier that no one should have been able to slip into—why had an enemy appeared inside it?
Why had the blue-haired girl, invincible until this very moment, been run through from behind by a blade?
This was a joke, right? Something had to be wrong, right??
At this very instant, as the calamity erupted before her, before Riko Amanai could even register the fact that "she was about to be assassinated,"
the fact that struck her mind first was that "Mahiru had been gravely wounded."
She suddenly recalled that night before… the prophecy about her future given by that mysterious phantom who claimed to come from the future—[You will die utterly worthless.]
What kind of bullshit prophecy was that!
I don't care if I die, but why drag Miwa Ran into it!
The terror that "Miwa Ran might die" swept through Riko Amanai in an instant.
So much so that her body moved on its own, teeth gritted as she made to lunge at Toji Fushiguro—probably meaning to save Mahiru.
But Mahiru flicked out a receipt with a backhand.
Contractual Re-Creation activated.
"Run!!"
The blade Toji Fushiguro had used to pierce Mahiru was not the Inverted Spear of Heaven. But even if it had been, it wouldn't have mattered.
Mahiru, who possessed Idle Transfiguration, naturally couldn't be harmed by a painless little attack like Toji Fushiguro's.
Right now, before she used "her own opening" to draw out Toji Fushiguro's next move, she needed to guarantee Riko Amanai's safety—that is, she needed to get Riko Amanai somewhere safe.
Contractual Re-Creation activated, and a sedan appeared out of thin air, taking Riko Amanai and Kuroi inside.
The engine roared, and the vehicle, obeying Mahiru's command, automatically sped off in the direction away from the battlefield.
By all rights, the value of the "Miwa Ran" identity was already very small now; even if Mahiru simply confessed outright that she was that Blue Existence, it wouldn't matter. But just to be safe, she decided to keep up the "Miwa Ran" persona in Riko Amanai's eyes a little longer, and only after sending Riko Amanai away would she use her true power to deal with Toji Fushiguro.
After all, if she relied only on Contractual Re-Creation to fight the Heavenly Tyrant, the battle would drag on for quite a while, and that didn't fit Mahiru's plan. So…
Mahiru shouted at Riko Amanai, "Get out of here—as far away as you can!"
She drew out a receipt and flung out lightning, forcing the Toji Fushiguro behind her back.
Keep up the act a little longer! Once Riko Amanai could no longer see the battlefield, Mahiru's fight against Toji Fushiguro would be nine-to-one in her favor. Just ten more seconds or so, and it would be fine.
What mattered was what came after…
Yes, the girl was already thinking about what she'd do once she had beaten Toji Fushiguro. But in that moment Mahiru overlooked one small detail—from her own perspective, what she was doing now was "sending Riko Amanai away so she could fight without holding back."
But in Riko Amanai's eyes?
Mahiru, her chest run through by a blade, ambushed by an assassin, had not chosen to flee and save her own life. Instead she chose to use her Cursed Technique, to unleash her Cursed Energy to send Riko Amanai away—this image, this crushing sense of déjà vu—this was exactly Mahiru believing she was as good as dead, and choosing, in her final moments, to spend every last scrap of strength stalling Toji Fushiguro!
Inside the car, Riko Amanai let out a cry of despair. "No—!"
Those few short days together had already made Riko Amanai regard Mahiru as one of her most precious friends.
Seeing that grievous wound on her chest, so ghastly it made her flinch, seeing her about to sacrifice herself as a rearguard, Riko Amanai's heart had turned to ash. "Please… don't do this…"
Wasn't this the barrier of Jujutsu High? Why weren't there other Jujutsu Sorcerers coming to help Miwa Ran? The phone—where had my phone gone? Hurry, call Satoru Gojo and Suguru Geto…
But—was there really still time?
Riko Amanai didn't want to die for nothing. But if surviving meant Mahiru had to sacrifice herself, then she would rather be killed here. She yanked frantically at the door handle, trying to open the car door, and got nowhere at all.
She looked toward the battlefield through the rear window.
Mahiru was gritting her teeth, one hand clamped over the wound on her chest, the other flinging out receipts as she fought on. A receipt burned, and an enormous office tower burst into being in midair, plunging straight down onto Toji Fushiguro. BOOM!— The force was staggering; the very earth shook.
The whole office tower fell from the sky like a meteor slamming into the ground, violent tremors rippling out through the earth, smoke and dust erupting with a roar and swallowing more than half the battlefield. This time Mahiru's attack was more brutal than any before. Out of the smoke, her figure withdrew.
At the same time, she drew out a hospital receipt, using "Contractual Re-Creation" to reproduce the process of "treatment."
The wound on Mahiru's chest closed at a speed visible to the naked eye.
And in that same instant, several flashes of blade light streaked through the ruins.
The fallen wreckage of the office tower was cut open from the inside out, fragments blasting away. A black-haired man strolled out of the rubble.
"Oh? Reverse Cursed Technique? No… some other means of healing."
The man raised an eyebrow and smiled. The Cursed Spirit perched on his shoulder was his portable armory, holding many special-grade cursed tools inside; the cursed tool in his hand now was the Split Soul Katana. His stance was relaxed. While Mahiru, Satoru Gojo and the others had been traveling in Okinawa, Toji Fushiguro had been quietly running his own investigation.
He believed he understood this so-called genius Jujutsu Sorcerer girl before him thoroughly.
Toji Fushiguro wasn't even afraid of Satoru Gojo and Suguru Geto.
Cutting down the blue-haired girl in front of him felt like an even surer thing.
What good luck, he thought. The two troublesome brats weren't around.
And no one could have guessed he'd be able to ignore Jujutsu High's barrier.
Every single condition lined up as neatly as some exquisite coincidence. Toji Fushiguro had assumed he'd need to make a great many arrangements to steer things to this point. Yet somehow it was as if a mysterious giant hand in the unseen was manipulating the whole situation, guiding the flow of events, pushing everything toward the outcome most favorable to him.
Riko Amanai was being carried off by the car, farther and farther away.
But it didn't matter.
Toji Fushiguro could easily catch up to that sedan.
He stood only one obstacle away from achieving his goal of assassinating Riko Amanai—this last blue-haired girl before him.
"If you're willing to withdraw, I won't kill you," Toji Fushiguro said with a faint sneer. "After all, killing you does me no good."
Mahiru didn't answer.
She kept pulling out receipts, replying through action. Contractual Re-Creation again!
Four or five gigantic steel coils materialized in midair, carrying their own charging momentum, hurtling head-on at Toji Fushiguro like missiles. Toji Fushiguro grinned, dodging while swinging his blade to slice every coil to pieces. The moment a coil broke, the taut momentum inside burst loose, fragments scattering, detonating, punching into everything around and leaving the whole area in ruins.
But Mahiru's assault didn't stop.
She hurled more receipts, and several RPG launchers appeared in midair, blasting at Toji Fushiguro. At the same time, industrial demolition charges went off along with them. Flames shot skyward.
The girl seemed to pour out all her firepower at once, burying Toji Fushiguro completely within that explosion.
And in the distance, Riko Amanai—who could still see the battlefield—saw Toji Fushiguro swallowed by the flames, and saw Mahiru heal her own wounds for the moment.
Could it be… Ran could win?
A sliver of hope rose within her. Yes—Miwa Ran was strong.
Even Satoru Gojo and Suguru Geto admitted that Miwa Ran was extraordinarily strong.
How could some obscure, unheard-of killer like this black-haired man possibly beat Miwa Ran?
The girl forced a strained grin, staring at the battlefield, fists clenched tight.
Flames shot skyward, the facilities around Jujutsu High shattered by the aftershock, as the blue-haired girl burst back out of the explosion, her expression grim as she stared into the heart of the flames.
Riko Amanai's heartbeat raced to its limit.
She has to win… she just has to win…!
Because I haven't even had the chance to say goodbye to you yet!—
—But.
Squelch!
Riko Amanai's heartbeat suddenly stalled.
The blue-haired girl on the battlefield had gone rigid with what looked like genuine shock.
At some point Toji Fushiguro had circled around behind her again. This time the Split Soul Katana aimed for the spot over Mahiru's heart in her left chest, and drove straight through.
"If you'd been a little more of a coward, you might have lived," Toji Fushiguro said with a smile. "You should know—in this world, only the strong deserve to have courage."
"No—" Riko Amanai let out a heart-rending scream inside the car.
With a clatter, the car jolted around a corner, and the battlefield vanished completely from her sight.
And on the battlefield, Mahiru was still reaching for a receipt. But Toji Fushiguro raised his blade backhand and stabbed her hard several more times in the back. Blood sprayed.
Mahiru's body collapsed limply.
Only then did the man step back a few paces, watching warily the Mahiru sprawled in a pool of blood. He waited a few seconds, and seeing that she no longer pulled out a hospital receipt to heal herself, he slowly turned and walked in the direction Riko Amanai had gone.
Strange. Toji Fushiguro let his smile fade, thinking.
At this moment he somehow didn't feel all that relaxed.
Why?
By rights, he'd soon collect his reward for killing the Star Plasma Vessel; he ought to be pleased. The man knew he'd never had a conscience, and he certainly wouldn't feel guilty over killing one young girl.
So why now?
Why was his mood so heavy?
Tap.
The man's footsteps halted.
He froze, his eyes flying wide. Then, slowly, he turned around.
"…You've got to be kidding me."
He watched the blue-haired girl spring up from the pool of blood with a cheerful little grunt, brushing the dust off herself as if nothing had happened. "You…?" What in the world was this?
One second ago this girl had taken several of his cuts, face twisted with grief and fury, lying lifeless in a pool of blood. How, the next second, had she risen off the ground so easily, as if she'd never been wounded at all?
She even stretched luxuriously right in front of him. The hole where her heart should have been was almost wide enough for him to see the scenery on the far side of it… This thing… was human?
"What's going on with you…" A flash of insight went off in Toji Fushiguro's mind, and understanding seemed to dawn. "You were acting?"
He turned his head to glance toward the direction Riko Amanai had been taken. The instant that car left his sight, the blue-haired girl had sprung up off the ground—which meant everything just now had been a performance for the Star Plasma Vessel.
"You…" "Enough with the 'you, you, you,'" the girl said with a smile, an eerie Cursed Energy welling up around her. "I've got other things to do soon. Why don't you just surrender? It'd be more convenient."
The girl's Cursed Energy now was utterly unlike before, a world apart. Toji Fushiguro felt the shift in his opponent's presence, and his pupils snapped tight.
The abyss. He felt as if he were staring into an abyss.
The girl who had been acting until moments ago could not only rein in her strength but also disguise the very aura of her Cursed Energy. But now she no longer needed to act.
Thick Cursed Energy flooded out from beneath her feet like a rising tide. The evaporating Cursed Energy congealed into dense fog, taking the shape of a pillar standing between heaven and earth.
The ground began to tremble, the air began to tremble, and Jujutsu High's barrier began to tremble too.
Toji Fushiguro's heart lurched into a sprint.
Within the mist, he saw the blue-haired girl walk gracefully out, her appearance already returned to its truest form. And this aura—Toji Fushiguro had taken note of it once before…
That mysterious Blue Existence!
That mysterious Blue Existence that had the entire jujutsu world braced as if for war… so she and that genius Jujutsu Sorcerer girl who'd appeared out of nowhere were one and the same person! "Miwa Ran" was a fake! Behind the forged identity lurked a monster!!
Toji Fushiguro gritted his teeth.
No good! This monster was beyond dangerous! His instincts were screaming the alarm—he had no chance of winning against her! He had to run!
But was there really still time?!
The girl, her full power at her command once more, spoke: "Freeze."
Cursed Speech activated. Toji Fushiguro's body seized in an instant.
The next moment, the blue-haired girl was already right in front of him.
She smiled freely, her palm closing over the crown of Toji Fushiguro's skull.
—Idle Transfiguration.
The most insidious Cursed Technique in this world, running at full power, rewrote in a single instant the Heavenly Restriction buried deep in Toji Fushiguro's soul. Exactly as Mahiru had said before—
by granting Toji Fushiguro Cursed Energy, she could easily shatter his Heavenly Restriction and strip away his fighting strength.
Toji Fushiguro felt a thread of Cursed Energy well up inside a body that should never have held any at all.
And as the price, what vanished was the body he had lived by—the body powerful enough to crush any sorcerer alive.
Weakness and bitter resentment surged up together.
The Cursed Speech let go of him. He staggered backward, footing unsteady, and dropped straight down to sit on the ground.
The man couldn't believe it.
What Mahiru's Cursed Technique had done lay completely beyond the reach of Toji Fushiguro's common sense.
All he knew was that he had lost the ability to fight—and that this monster of an opponent seemed to have shown only the tip of the iceberg.
This time, it seemed, he had truly misjudged something.
As it turned out, he was the prey.
And the blue-haired girl, her true appearance restored, only arched an eyebrow and turned her head to look up at Jujutsu High's barrier in the sky.
Toji Fushiguro—she could finish him with a single slap. Her mind was already fixed entirely on what she meant to do next. His appearance had only been the last piece of the puzzle in today's plan.
What came after was the truly important part.
She was going straight off to kidnap Tengen.
____
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