A Gift for You

Boom!

Inside the enormous blood-red cage, the ground shattered with a deafening crash.

Dust billowed everywhere, rising like a mushroom cloud.

Pfft!

Lying amid the shattered ruins of the platform, Mahito vomited a mouthful of blood. His abdomen looked as though it had been hit by a mortar shell, reduced to a mangled, bloody mess.

"H-how is that possible...?"

Feeling agonizing pain sweep through his entire body, Mahito was once again overcome with disbelief.

"He can actually hurt me directly?"

Mahito's Idle Transfiguration was an extremely special cursed technique.

Changing the shape of the body was merely a byproduct. The technique's true purpose was to alter the shape of the soul—a cursed technique that affected the soul and, through it, indirectly influenced the body that served as the soul's vessel.

Because of this technique, Mahito had rarely, if ever, suffered true injury since his birth.

As long as he used Idle Transfiguration to forcibly maintain the shape of his soul and prevent it from changing, no matter what wounds his body suffered, it would return to its original state under the pull of his soul.

That made attacks aimed at the body meaningless against Mahito. Only attacks targeting his soul could truly injure him.

Very, very few people could do that. Until now, only Itadori Yuji had managed it.

Because another soul resided within Itadori Yuji's body, his sensitivity toward souls far surpassed that of ordinary people. Thus, whenever he subconsciously used cursed energy, he instinctively maintained hostility and aggression toward the inside of the body, allowing his attacks to directly touch Mahito's soul and damage it.

Riezel was different.

His attacks clearly did not touch the soul, yet they could directly harm Mahito.

Mahito had noticed this when Riezel kicked him earlier. But Jogo and the others had been