A Thousand-Year Journey

Shikigami.

The concept was easy enough to understand, whether in the Jujutsu World or in Solaris's Ashihara.

They could be puppets made from inanimate objects and controlled by someone else.

Or powerful beings subdued and turned into their masters' servants and tools.

Shikigami came in many forms, but to their masters, one thing usually mattered most.

Loyalty.

To keep their servants from turning on them, most Shikigami had little intelligence.

Or their masters had used some method to erase it altogether.

Some people, though, wanted a Shikigami that was clever and powerful yet utterly obedient.

They would bind their souls together, ensuring that if one prospered, both prospered, and if one fell, both fell.

The Shikigami of the Ten Shadows Technique clearly fell outside those categories.

Once summoned and subdued, they remained absolutely loyal while retaining a measure of strength and intelligence.

They were the shadows of the Ten Shadows Technique's wielder.

If they had a flaw, it was perhaps that, as shadows, they had too little sense of self.

For most people wary of betrayal, though, that was a good thing.

But something unexpected had happened earlier in the Void Matter Space.

Mo Bai had separated Mahoraga, once his shadow, and brought him into the outside world. Though Mahoraga should have been a Shikigami, he now possessed a complete consciousness of his own.

At first, Mahoraga did not understand what was happening.

Facing his enemy, his former master Mo Bai, he found himself puzzled by his own actions and thoughts—things he had never needed in battle.

Initially, he gave them little thought.

After all, his original aim had been to exploit a loophole in the subjugation ritual by imprisoning Mo Bai, thereby gaining the freedom to exist in this world forever.

But now that Mo Bai had separated him