Well, whatever.
It didn’t matter.
He had no desire, nor the energy, to probe deeper.
After all, he was just a salaryman.
So long as no matters of principle were at stake, he would handle things according to the philosophy of “good enough is good enough.”
“It’s nothing.
I’m just glad it helped,” Ritsuka said with a relieved smile, taking back the Mane of Bayard and slipping it back onto her wrist.
Seeing that genuinely heartfelt smile, Nanami felt his decision had been the right one.
Back to the matter at hand.
What he found most regrettable was that, although the cord’s power had dealt his opponent a severe blow, he himself had been caught equally off guard by its sudden display of force.
He had failed to seize that precious split-second opening, allowing the enemy to slip away.
That had indeed been an extraordinarily dangerous and troublesome adversary.
Without the aid of this cord, the outcome of the ensuing battle was anything but certain.
Next time…
Pushing aside his tangled thoughts, Nanami collected himself and addressed the group.
“Now then, let’s consolidate our intelligence.”
First, his side.
The entity he had fought was an unregistered Special Grade cursed spirit, its appearance virtually indistinguishable from a normal human young adult.
It had long pale blue-gray hair and markings resembling scars all over its body.
It could communicate just like a normal person and was suspected to be connected to the two similarly communicative Special Grade cursed spirits Gojo had mentioned in his earlier reports.
From its own admissions and his observations during the fight, its cursed technique appeared to be something along the lines of “touching souls and altering their shape”—affecting the physical body by modifying the soul.
This ability could be used not only to alter the souls of others, but also to modify its own soul, thereby reinforcing and reshaping its own flesh.
Combined with the humans-turned-monsters they had discovered during their investigation days prior, it was now all but certain that the Special Grade cursed spirit he had faced was the perpetrator behind these attacks—or at least one of them.
“That covers my side of things.”
Next was Ritsuka and Yuji’s side.
Through their investigation, they had confirmed that the suspect, Yoshino Junpei, was indeed a curse user who had awakened his technique, and they had successfully apprehended him.
Beyond that, however, everything else remained unknown.
Whether he was connected to the attacks they were investigating, whether he had any ties to the Special Grade cursed spirit Nanami had fought, whether there was some greater conspiracy against the jujutsu world at play, when exactly he had awakened his technique—none of these questions had answers.
“Then what we must do next is clear,” Nanami said.
Having organized the intelligence they had gathered and the progress made so far, he laid out the plan for their next steps.
Interrogate the suspect, Yoshino Junpei, and extract as much useful intelligence as possible.
Submit the intelligence on the Special Grade cursed spirit to the higher-ups and launch the broadest possible search.
With the plan set, Nanami glanced at his watch and rose decisively.
“That’s the plan.
Dismissed.
At this hour, this already counts as severe overtime.
And without overtime pay, no less.”
“Eh?”
“Same meeting room tomorrow.
Ijichi, I’m leaving their transportation back to you.
You do get overtime pay, don’t you?”
“Good, then that’s settled.
Farewell.”
“Ehhh?!”
Under Yuji’s utterly stunned and bewildered gaze, Nanami swiftly wrapped things up, rose without a shred of hesitation, and disappeared from sight in the blink of an eye.
“So impressive, Nanamin,” Ritsuka remarked with a wistful sigh, staring in the direction he had departed.
Still, she hoped the Servants back in Chaldea wouldn’t pick up this particular habit.
“Alright, let’s head back too.”
Somewhere within the Tokyo sewer system.
Having fled the entire way with every ounce of his strength, and now certain his pursuer’s presence was nowhere within his perceptual range, Mahito lay sprawled on the ground, gasping for breath.
Slowly, he let out a sigh of relief.
“Man…
I seriously almost died back there.”
Recalling the terror of death he had felt in that single instant, Mahito couldn’t help the shudder that ran through him.
Then, he burst into manic laughter.
“Ahaha, hahahaha, ahahahahahahaha…!
So that’s what death feels like?
And just what was ‘that thing’ anyway?
That sorcerer was pretty interesting too.
So many things to be curious about.
Interesting!
Interesting!”
“You seem awfully cheerful, Mahito.
Had fun playing around?”
A figure emerged from the shadows—a mysterious young man with long hair tied back in a ponytail, a seam-like scar running across his forehead.
“Geto!”
Upon seeing the newcomer, Mahito happily called out his name, his excitement palpable.
“Loads of fun!
And I learned a whole bunch of new things too!
For instance, I found out that modifying my own soul has absolutely zero side effects.
From now on, I can try out so much more!”
The man addressed as Geto Suguru smiled and asked, “Though, it seems you didn’t manage to beat your opponent.
Was he troublesome?”
“Ah, a little.
But more importantly, the guy seemed to have something seriously dangerous on him.
I almost got killed, you know!”
“‘Something seriously dangerous’?
Some kind of Special Grade cursed tool?”
“No…
How should I put it…”
Mahito furrowed his brow in deep thought, searching for the right words.
“When that thing hit me, it gave me this feeling…
like it was the natural-born bane of our kind.
But I couldn’t sense its power at all.
It was like it was invisible…
Anyway, it was seriously powerful.
Terrifying.”
“Hmm.
That doesn’t sound like anything within my frame of reference…”
Geto cupped his chin, rifling through his mental archives for any item matching Mahito’s description.
But after searching his memory for a long while, he came up empty.
“Seems like we might need to gather some intel.
Ah, speaking of which—you might not know this yet, but that kid you had your eye on?
He’s been arrested by the Jujutsu High crowd.”
“Eh?”
Mahito blinked in surprise.
Then, his expression slowly darkened, and a wave of horrifying, murderous intent instantly flooded the area.
“Those pieces of trash…
how dare they lay a hand on my things!”
“…Ah, but, oh well.
Picking a fight right now doesn’t seem like it would go our way.”
The next moment, his smile resurfaced, as if the rage from moments before had never existed at all.
He shrugged flippantly.
“I did rather like that kid, you know.
Acting all high and mighty like he’d seen through human nature.
So innocent.
Ridiculously easy to deceive.”
“And he was just about fully seasoned, too.
Harvest time was right around the corner.
I’d been planning all along what kind of despair to gift him with.
Ahh, what a pity.”
He let out a long sigh as he spoke, as if genuinely lamenting the loss.
But just then, as if a sudden thought had struck him, that frivolous grin crept back onto his face.
Though a closer look would reveal the infinite malice lurking just beneath it.
“Come to think of it…
didn’t he tell me once, something like, ‘If the victim were my mother, I would surely hate you to the point of madness’?”
“Aaah, suddenly I’m getting a little excited.”
“I really am curious.
What shape would a soul that’s been driven to utter madness by hatred…
take on, exactly?”