You're fixated on appearances

In a quiet room.

Kento Nanami and Yuji Itadori sat upright on the sofa, listening intently to Shoko Ieiri's autopsy findings.

Araki Itsuki, meanwhile, sipped coffee with his legs crossed.

"I should say they were originally human. Like the three boys in the movie theater, their bodies were forcibly transformed through jujutsu."

Kento Nanami was puzzled. With his experience as a Grade 1 Jujutsu Sorcerer, there was no way he could have missed it.

"If it were simply a physical transformation, I would have noticed immediately. But the two humans we fought had surging cursed energy, just like cursed spirits."

"Wait."

Araki Itsuki suddenly interrupted them. He glanced at Yuji Itadori, who was deep in self-reproach. "Call them transfigured humans from now on, not humans."

Kento Nanami fell silent for a moment. "All right."

Shoko Ieiri accepted the term as well. "We'll have to ask the perpetrator what cursed technique they used to answer that."

"There are signs that the brain stems were tampered with, though. Probably to impair their consciousness and induce a state of confusion."

"If they can even tamper with the brain, they might be able to modify humans so they can use cursed energy. After all, we still know nothing about the relationship between the brain and cursed energy."

"By the way, are you listening, Itadori?"

Shoko Ieiri reassured him. "Simply put, they died from shock caused by the modifications to their bodies. You didn't kill them. Don't misunderstand that."

Not wanting Shoko Ieiri to worry, Yuji Itadori readily accepted her words.

But after the call ended, he still couldn't help saying despondently, "To me, their deaths weigh just as heavily either way."

Kento Nanami glanced at Yuji Itadori, his opinion of the boy rising once more. This kid can genuinely get angry on someone else's behalf.

"That cursed residue was a decoy meant to lure us in."

"Our opponent isn't to be underestimated. It seems this won't be easy."

They then pooled the information about the victims' deaths and finally pinpointed Mahito's hideout.

Yuji Itadori was itching to go and teach the culprit a lesson.

"All right, are we storming the enemy's hideout?"

Kento Nanami immediately rejected the idea. This was too dangerous, and he didn't want to take Yuji Itadori along.

"Itadori, you have another job. The boy from the movie theater, Junpei Yoshino, appears to attend the same high school and be in the same year as the victims."

"The only cameras at the theater cover the road outside. We can't see what happened inside. Judging by his behavior, he probably isn't a curse user, but he's still a suspect."

"A curse user is an evil jujutsu sorcerer."

"So I'll leave investigating Junpei Yoshino to you and Ijichi, Itadori. I've already briefed Ijichi on the details."

"Got it!"

Yuji Itadori nodded, then looked curiously at Araki Itsuki beside him. "Then what's Araki's assignment?"

Araki Itsuki chuckled.

"Obviously, I'm going to become the great hero you imagine, charge into enemy territory alone, fight my way in and out seven times, then make a stylish exit."

"Huh!"

"I want to go too!"

Looking at Yuji Itadori, who also wanted to teach the culprit a lesson, Araki Itsuki smiled.

"Itadori, which of us is Special Grade?"

"You are, Araki."

"So if he's taking one person along on a dangerous mission like this..."

Araki Itsuki bumped his fists together and loosened his neck.

"It's got to be me!"

Yuji Itadori could only give up. Besides, if they really encountered a powerful enemy, Araki Itsuki could keep Kento Nanami safe.

"All right, go find Junpei Yoshino. Remember to bring him a bottle of cola."

Yuji Itadori scratched his head, a little confused. He knew Araki Itsuki liked cola, but why bring some for Junpei Yoshino?

Ijichi was already dragging him away, though.

Once the two had left, Araki Itsuki spoke to Kento Nanami.

"You know where the culprit is, right?"

Kento Nanami nodded. "The culprit could leave without a trace if they wanted to. Leaving things like this is an invitation."

"This is dangerous, but with you here, Araki..."

Araki Itsuki waved a hand and gave a lazy smile. "Piece of cake."

In a dark sewer.

Araki Itsuki stood on a clean patch of ground, looking thoroughly annoyed.

"Mahito, if you're going to show yourself, hurry up, will you? I don't want to see you suddenly scurry out like some stinking sewer rat.

"And start babbling, 'Hey! Hello! Hahaha!'"

Suddenly, splashing footsteps came from the distance, and Mahito appeared in black clothes with a grid pattern.

"Oh, here I am, here I am."

"Are you the Araki Itsuki Jogo mentioned?"

Araki Itsuki nodded, regarding Mahito with a half-smile. "We meet again, Mahito."

Mahito rubbed his chin. "This should be our first meeting, right? Why say 'again'?"

"Just a little reminder for an idiot. You lot are so useless that I have to raise the game's difficulty a little."

Mahito studied the smiling Araki Itsuki. His confidence, as though the whole world were his playground, washed over Mahito, making him feel utterly scorned and disregarded.

"You really are confident, Araki. It feels like you don't take me seriously at all."

Araki Itsuki gave Mahito a strange look and replied as though it were obvious, "Well, no shit."

"The weak have no place in the eyes of the strong."

The twisted smile on Mahito's face faded a little. He could tell these weren't empty taunts meant to mock or provoke him.

They were Araki Itsuki's genuine thoughts and feelings.

"Damn you!"

Kento Nanami unbuttoned his suit jacket and stepped in front of Araki Itsuki.

"I'm someone who prefers to take the easy way out whenever possible, but after seeing those transfigured humans, I still want to teach this culprit a lesson myself."

"Araki, please let me go first."

Araki Itsuki gave Kento Nanami a surprised look. Even the adult was getting angry now.

"Sure."

Watching Kento Nanami step forward, Mahito rubbed his chin, his twisted smile returning.

"Araki Itsuki would be a little troublesome, but humans who are too weak aren't even worth experimenting on."

"You'll make the perfect test subject."

Faced with Mahito's threat, Kento Nanami merely rolled his neck. "I hate overtime. Let's finish this quickly!"

Their battle erupted in an instant.

The muscles in Kento Nanami's thighs tightened as he dashed up to Mahito, swinging his blunt blade, imbued with cursed energy, at Mahito's head.

Mahito sidestepped, a twisted smile on his face, and thrust both hands toward Kento Nanami's body at incredible speed.

As long as he made contact, he could activate Idle Transfiguration.

But as a Grade 1 Jujutsu Sorcerer, Kento Nanami's powerful combat instincts drove him to avoid Mahito's palms.

He jerked his upper body aside while pushing off the ground, driving a side kick into Mahito.

Thud!

Mahito's body arched backward as the kick sent him flying.

Kento Nanami immediately seized the opening as Mahito recoiled, activating his cursed technique to impose a seven-to-three division on Mahito's arm.

Then, with swift precision, his blunt blade left an afterimage as it slashed into the arm Mahito raised to block.

Slash!

Mahito's stitch-covered arm was severed outright, and he hurriedly retreated to put some distance between them.

Waving his severed arm with morbid curiosity, Mahito asked with an innocent, vacant expression:

"I did block that with cursed energy, didn't I?"

"That sort of thing? I don't like leaving abstract questions for others to interpret on their own."

Mahito said happily, "Wonderful. So you don't hate chatting?"

Kento Nanami adjusted his glasses. "Depends on who I'm talking to."

He thought quickly. I didn't expect a cursed spirit with such human intelligence. He resembles the unregistered special grade cursed spirit in Satoru Gojo's report. There must be some connection.

I might not be a match for him.

He glanced at his watch, buttoned his suit jacket again, and stepped back behind Araki Itsuki.

"Sorry for the trouble, Araki."

Araki Itsuki stepped forward. "Let me play with our adorable Mahito."

The smile vanished from Mahito's face, and he fixed his full attention on Araki Itsuki. This guy was dangerous.

Suddenly, he asked, "Araki, which do you think came first, the soul or the body?"

"Does the soul reside within the body, or does the body cling to the soul?"

Araki Itsuki rubbed his chin. "The old me might have chosen the body."

"But now that I've been reborn, I've realized something."

Both Mahito and Kento Nanami looked at Araki Itsuki curiously.

"The body is bullshit!"

Kento Nanami thought, This feels awfully familiar...

Mahito froze. "Then you mean the soul came first?"

"The soul is bullshit too!"

A mocking smile curled Araki Itsuki's lips as he stared straight into Mahito's bewildered eyes. "The soul is nothing more than a fiction lower-dimensional beings invented to explain the unknown. The body is merely an accumulation of flesh and blood."

"Just like how people in ancient times thought burning phosphorus was ghost fire."

Mahito hurriedly raised his arm. The severed end began to swell and heal. "Look! Souls exist!"

"The body's shape changes under the influence of the soul's shape. This isn't healing. I'm forcibly maintaining the shape of my soul."

"Only I can touch souls! Only I can change them!"

Araki Itsuki gave a mocking smile. "So you're saying the body's shape changes because the soul's shape changes?"

"Exactly!"

"Then what's this?"

Araki Itsuki opened his mouth wide and pulled at it with both hands, one above and one below, under Kento Nanami's and Mahito's shocked, bewildered gazes.

He actually tore his mouth apart vertically with his own hands.

There was no blood. It was like malleable mashed banana.

The distortion was so extreme that his entire face split in two. Inside his turned-out mouth was not flesh and blood, but densely packed, razor-sharp teeth too horrifying to look at directly.

Countless hideous, bloodshot single eyes covered those sharp teeth, staring fixedly at the shocked and terrified Kento Nanami and Mahito.

Finally, Araki Itsuki vanished, replaced by a horrific monster composed of countless sharp teeth and blood-red eyes.

Despite having no organs capable of speech, Araki Itsuki's voice still emerged from the monster, tinged with mocking laughter.

"Mahito, I don't have Idle Transfiguration, yet I still changed the shape of my body. You're wrong."

Fighting back his terror and nausea, Kento Nanami took a step back and pulled out his phone to call Satoru Gojo.

If that's human, I'll eat it!

Mahito stood rooted to the spot in a daze. Idle Transfiguration could never achieve such an extreme physical transformation.

He couldn't accept what was before him. His past experience couldn't explain what he was seeing.

"If the body's shape doesn't change because the soul changes, then what have I been touching all this time?!"

The mocking voice echoed through the cold, gloomy sewer.

"What soul? It's nothing but the ignorant fantasy of a weak little cursed spirit who spends all day hiding in a sewer, never seeing daylight."

"Kid, you're fixated on appearances!"