Revenge

Mahito smiled, walked up to Gu Yanzhi, and pressed a hand against his forearm.

The familiar twisting sensation spread from the point of contact through his entire body. Gu Yanzhi's body began to deform and shrink like clay being kneaded. Within seconds, his three-meter frame was flattened, folded, and finally drawn entirely into Mahito's body.

That darkness again.

That suffocating feeling of being compressed inside liquid again.

Gu Yanzhi opened the eyes of his consciousness in the darkness, silently sorting through the information he had just gained.

His soul did indeed have some resistance to Mahito's Cursed Technique-the system had locked down the core of his consciousness, so Idle Transfiguration could not erase his sense of self.

But when it came to reshaping and storing his physical body, he was utterly powerless. Mahito could mold his body however he pleased and stuff him inside himself like luggage, while Gu Yanzhi could only accept it.

His soul belonged to him, but his body did not. For now, he could do nothing to change that.

Time continued to pass in the darkness. Mahito was probably dealing with Junpei now.

And Junpei-following the course of the original story-had been deceived by Mahito into believing Ito Shota was his mother's killer. Mahito had kindled the flames of revenge. Next came the scene where Junpei returned to school.

Gu Yanzhi waited quietly in the darkness.

He remembered every detail of this scene in the original story, including what would happen next, Yuji Itadori's arrival, and Junpei's fate.

He knew where this boy, dragged down by fate from beginning to end, would ultimately end up. But there was nothing he could do now except wait.

Wait for Mahito's next command, wait to be released again, wait for a chance to break free of this puppet shell.

Meanwhile, at the High School.

The Outstanding Essay Awards Ceremony was underway in the Auditorium.

Students filled the seats below the stage, while the principal stood onstage with a microphone, reading out the award winners' names. "-Would all the students named please come up to receive their awards."

Scattered applause rose from the audience.

Ito moved slowly, but he did not stride onto the stage with his head held high as he usually did. He rose timidly from his seat, gauze still covering the left side of his face. A dark red cigarette burn in the center of his forehead stood out harshly under the lights.

He walked onto the stage with his head lowered, his fingers trembling as he accepted the certificate. The students below began whispering among themselves.

"What happened to Ito?"

"You haven't heard? That Tanaka from Class Seven, the guy who used to wear glasses, tried to shake Ito down for money at school. He even beat him up."

"Tanaka dared to hit Ito? Did he have a death wish? What happened afterward?"

"He stopped coming to school ages ago. You heard about that movie theater case a few days back, right? Tanaka and a few of his buddies skipped class to see a movie, and they ended up either dead or missing."

"Tsk. Serves him right."

The murmuring had yet to die down when someone suddenly pointed out the window and cried out.

An invisible force swept through the entire Auditorium. Everyone-except Ito onstage and a heavyset teacher beside him-slumped in their seats, unconscious.

Ito collapsed onto the floor and huddled in a corner, desperately scrambling backward as he repeated, "Don't kill me, don't kill me."

The heavyset teacher hurriedly crouched to check on the fallen students. In the midst of his panic, a figure appeared in the Auditorium doorway.

Junpei Yoshino.

He walked past the unconscious students, his pace unhurried but every step steady.

The heavyset teacher looked up and froze for a moment. "Yoshino, do you know what happened?"

Junpei did not answer.

He walked up to the heavyset teacher and raised a hand to push back the bangs covering his forehead.

Under the lights, scar after scar from cigarette burns came into view. Old wounds overlapped with new ones, the dark red marks packed densely together. Some had scabbed over; others were still inflamed.

He had been bullied for years, enduring it all without resistance. Countless times, he had sought help from those around him, but no one had ever helped him.

"Sir," Junpei said calmly, "take a good look."

The heavyset teacher stared at the scars, his mouth opening and closing.

This teacher had been assigned to work at the school straight after graduation and had never experienced life in the wider world.

He was, in every sense, an overgrown child.

Whenever he saw several students surrounding Junpei in a corner, he never approached to find out what was happening. Instead, he simply assumed they were Junpei's friends and that their bullying was just horseplay.

But Junpei did not look at him.

The heavyset teacher was not the person he had come to school to find.

He walked past the teacher, who knelt trembling on the floor, and approached Ito Shota, curled up in the corner. At the sight of Junpei coming toward him, Ito shook like a leaf. He wanted to run, but his legs were too weak to let him stand.

"Don't kill me! Please, don't kill me!"

Junpei stood before Ito and looked down at him.

The person who had once led the others in grinding cigarettes into his forehead was now cowering on the floor, his face covered in tears and snot. A dark wet patch was spreading across the crotch of his trousers.

An acrid stench of urine filled the air. Junpei frowned slightly-the guy had actually wet himself in terror.

"Let me ask you something." Junpei crouched down, his voice soft but his tone icy.

"Were you the one who put that thing in my house?"

"I don't know! I really don't know!" Ito shook his head desperately, flinging tears everywhere. "I've never been to your house! I really haven't! Please don't kill me-"

Suddenly, a sharp pain shot through his left hand.

An extremely faint sound came from inside his arm, as though something had crushed the bone.

Then an invisible force clamped around his neck and slowly lifted him off the floor. Ito kicked wildly in the air, his face turning purplish red. An eerie grayish-white color began spreading over the fingertips of his left hand-as though something was eating away at his limb from within.

The foul smell grew stronger.

Junpei stood where he was, looking up at Ito as Cursed Energy suspended him in midair. He had come here to find out what had happened to his mother.

Mahito had suggested that some wealthy ordinary person might have planted the Cursed Object, so Junpei had suspected Ito, who had always bullied him. But now, faced with that tear- and snot-covered face, a trace of uncertainty suddenly welled up inside him.

Ito did not seem to be lying, though Junpei himself could not be sure. But it did not matter. Whether Ito was the killer or not, it was time he paid for everything he had done over the years.

"I'll ask you one more time." Junpei spoke in a low voice. "That day-the person who put that thing in my house-was it you?"

With his throat constricted, Ito could no longer speak. He could only shake his head frantically, tears dripping down his cheeks onto the floor.

Junpei stared at him for a long time, then slowly raised his right hand. A jellyfish-type shikigami appeared behind him, its tentacles slowly spreading.

Just then, the Gymnasium door was pushed open.