THE NOTHING PUPPET

"My technique can forcibly produce a weak point in whatever opponent I'm faced with. Keep 7:3 as is. Then it makes the target a length a line segment….if you're able to land an attack on that point, it'll create a critical hit. I can inflict damage on things of a higher grade than me…and if it's something with weak magical power, I can bisect it with this blunt sword." Nanami paused for a moment. "Are you listening? Itadori-kun?"

"Ah?! You were saying all that to me?" Itadori said, a little startled. He didn't know whether to concentrate on the curse or listen to Nanami's story. "Is it okay to reveal that kind of stuff?"

"It's a technique that's okay to reveal, and it's an opponent it's okay to reveal it to. And it's good if revealing it misleads our opponent, right? There's merit to it. The 'contract of showing ones cards'…raises the effectiveness of the technique." Nanami slowly raised his dull blade and prepared himself. "Just like this."

With a swift and effective move, Nanami pulled his blade and sliced the arms and legs of the cursed creature without delay or hesitation. It was a clean and nearly elegant blow.

"That's it for me," Nanami said, flicking the blood away from his blade.

"Amazing…" Itadori said in awe. He was nearly taken off guard when his opponent began to move and lunged at him. Itadori leaped away from its attack and turned his attention back on it.

"Detergent…" It wheezed.

Yurei stayed close to Juri, an arm around her just in case things were to happen. She just wanted to make sure Juri was alright.

"You need help?" Yurei called out dryly.

"No, no… I'm good," Itadori insisted, his fists igniting with highly concentrated cursed energy.

This was something he learned from Gojo during his extensive training. He was told that there was a lag in his curse energy output, which in return, caused two blows. His first initial blow with his fist was quickly followed by the release of cursed energy.

Itadori pulled his fist back and slammed it against the chest of the curse, causing two hard impacts that caused its body to crumble and break apart.

Juri looked delighted to see this. She was enamored to see Itadori's progress with her own eyes. It was just a huge step forward from his usual power output. She was so excited to see this that she didn't even realize that Yurei had floated away from her.

"Ben…bento…" the gangly curse whispered from the floor, his body in shambles from Nanami's attack.

Yurei hovered curiously over the creature with a finger pressed to her chin. Her eyes narrowed with deep thought as she brainstormed with an ugly realization.

"Juri…" Yurei called out, her voice unusually soft.

Juri's brow arched with confusion as she walked over to her. She knelt beside the curse to see what Yurei was so focused on. Suddenly, she saw what it was, and her eyes grew wide, a sharp and devastated gasp escaping her lips.

"Nanami..!" she called out, sounding distressed.

"What is it?" Nanami asked and walked beside her. Juri was taking a picture of the curse with her phone, which made no sense. Curses could not be captured in photographs.

"This is not possible…right?" Juri asked, her voice shaking as she showed Nanami the picture.

Nanami's gaze darkened when he saw that she managed to snap a picture of it, and not only that…but a picture of the watch the gangly creature had on its wrist.

"Itadori-kun!" Nanami shouted before Itadori could deliver the final blow on his opponent.

"What is it this time?!" Itadori cried out, a little frustrated that he had to be stopped.

"Look at this," he said, showing Itadori the picture. "Kocho-san took a picture of my opponent."

"Isn't it impossible to take pictures of Cursed Spirits…?" Itadori said, his voice quivering with unease.

"They're humans," Shoko announced over the phone.

Hearing about the situation, she decided to take the bodies with her and inspect them. Once she was done, she called them back to give them her findings.

"No…maybe it's best to say they're ex-humans. They're the same as the three people in the movie theater. Their bodies were forcefully contorted with sorcery."

Juri pushed her lips up into a perplexed frown. She sat back beside Itadori and began fiddling with the fabric of her skirt. "That's…horrible. But shouldn't we have noticed that?"

Yurei shrugged. "They're bodies were filled with magical power, just like a Cursed Spirit. I think it was an easy mistake."

Shoko continued over the phone. "That just sounds like an effect of the culprit's technique. There are traces of tampering around the brain stem. Disturbance of consciousness is likely…it was probably to produce a state of confusion. If they were even able to tamper with the brain, it's probably possible to reconstruct a human who can use magical power. Because the relationship between brain and magical power is still pretty unknown. Loosely, their cause of death is shock from having their bodies contorted." Shoko paused for a moment during her explanation. "You didn't kill them. Don't be mistaken by that." she addressed directly to Itadori.

Relief filled the young man's face when he heard that. "Yes."

Once they were done talking to Shoko, Juri reached over and ended the call.

"Either way, their deaths weigh heavy on me," Itadori continued after a second, a wave of brewing anger just behind her trembling words. "Even so…this hoppy is just too terrible."

Nanami could easily see Itadori's anger begin to gather. "The remnants themselves were a bluff. We must have been enticed."

"So…this person is skilled," Juri said. She took a deep breath and hunched over a little, running her hands through her hair. "This isn't going to be over anytime quick." she realized, a hardened look slowly fixing to her face. A glimpse of determination. "Then what are we waiting for…lets go all out."

Itadori quickly followed in her tracks and stood up. "Yes, ma'am!"

"There are spirits known as special-grade potential spirits," Mahito said as he lay on a hammock suspended from two sewer pipes. "Cursed Spirits are a culmination of cursed energy leaked from humans. An image of fear shared by the masses, even if not real…can manifest a powerful curse."

Mahito was an unsettling individual, but Junpei was blinded from the unease as the two talked one-on-one. Despite what Mahito had done in front of the young kid, he seemed unbothered and unperturbed about the situation.

Junpei only really had someone to talk to once meeting Mahito, and honestly, it felt good to speak to someone again. Someone who shared his beliefs.

Junpei pushed his lips up into a quizzical expression. He glanced across the room at a lingering dark figure in a blood-red kimono. Nanika, as Mahito has called her. She too was the same as him. A special-grade Cursed Spirit.

"An image of fear shared by the masses? Like famous monsters or ghosts?" Junpei asked.

"Yup. Like Hanako or the Nine-Tailed Fox. Jujutsu sorcerers brand such entities as special-grade potential spirits, and fear them as much as powerful unidentified curses. The fact that they categorize them as such really shows their shallowness. But what people fear the most aren't those fairy tales, right?"

Junpei stopped to think for a moment. "Natural Disasters?"

Mahito looked down at him and smiled. It was oddly friendly, easily hiding his sinister nature just below the surface. "Talking to you is so easy."

Junpei looked delighted to hear that. "Really...?"

"The earth, the forest, the sea. People have always feared them. The cursed energy directed at them was so massive that before they could take form…gained consciousness and remained hidden. I'm proud to call them my friends," Mahito said fondly.

Junpei looked up and met the person's mismatched eyes. "Mahito…what are you born from?"

Mahito held his gaze with a sharpness at the edge of his words. "People. Thanks to the hatred spewing between people…I was born."

A cool chill ran under Junpei's skin as he stared at Mahito with a sense of wonder, ignoring the warning signs his body was trying to relay to his brain. All doubt was quickly cast aside though, as his eyes wandered back over to Nanika, silently standing in the corner.

"What's Nanika?" he asked.

Mahito picked his head up and looked curiously over to Nanika. He tapped his finger against his chin and hummed to himself. There was an odd, indifferent look on his face.

"Nanika…is nothing. She's just a puppet," he said, but his voice was unexpectedly cold. A strange dislike just below the surface. This time, Junpei wasn't so blind as to not notice this sudden shift.

"But… isn't she just like you and your friends?" Junpei asked, hoping what he heard was just his imagination. To his relief, Mahito smiled once more, quickly overshadowing his doubts.

"She's nothing like me," he said, but the coldness remained. "I mean, she's nothing but a tool. Only following orders of one man. If she's not following them… she's acts just like a statue. See?"

Suddenly, he lifted the book he was reading and hurled it across the room. The hard binder struck Nanika against the side of the face, right above the eye. A small cut bloomed on her brow, and blood trickled down her face. Still, Nanika didn't move, much less react.

"See? Just like a statue," Mahito said, his smile slowly turning cruel with wicked delight.

Junpei gasped sharply and quickly stood up. He moved a little closer to Nanika and peered at her. The Curse Spirit didn't even look at him despite blood dripping from her face. Her eyes remained focused ahead with this eerie, thousand-yard stare.

"You…you didn't have to do that," Junpei said, his voice cracking from shock.

"What are you talking about. She doesn't care." Mahito jumped down from the hammock and walked over to Nanika. He grabbed her long black hair without warning and ruthlessly began pulling at it. "She doesn't even feel it…no matter how much I pull. She's a puppet…just a shell of whatever she used to be," he said, his voice colder than before. He sounded disconnected by this whole thing.

Junpei couldn't move. His stomach churned as he listened to the strained pulling and the ripping sound of Nanika's hair being yanked. And what was worse…Mahito didn't care, and Nanika wasn't even reacting to the blatant assault. Her face wasn't twisting with pain and remained totally emotionless.

After a couple long seconds, Mahito finally gotten bored of his mild-torture session and let go of Nanika. Locks of black hair fell from his hand as his uncanny smile returned.

"But enough of her. I got lots more things to tell you." Mahito said and wrapped an arm around Junpei's shoulder.

As Junpei was led away, he briefly looked over his shoulder at Nanika…and for a moment. Just a tiny fraction of an uncertain second…he thought he saw a single tear run down her face.