Don't Fuck with the White Mage (Jujutsu Kaisen - Utahime Iori SI Chapter 16)

"Meguru."

"Yes, Iyashi-sama?"

"There are two missing." Iyashi was standing in the battlefield, conserving casually with Meguru, hands behind his back resting on one another, almost like an elder. Or a politician.

They were untouched by the the chaos of battle around them, as six Special Grades, Fuhengi and the five revived Treasures Cursed Spirits in engaged in combat with the Sorcerers present.

"So it would seem." Meguru nodded.

"..." Iyashi briefly looked frustrated before schooling his features once more to that of a calm leader. "Where's Hiding Darkness and Fisherman?" He said plainly.

"I can not feel their link anymore." Meguru shook her head, before looking north. "They were defeated, but while I know their general direction due to our relation as 'siblings', I can not retrieve them anymore."

"One of the Sorcerers was able to usurp your connection?" Iyashi held his chin, his eyes narrowed in though. "Hmm... Special Grade Sorcerer, Geto Suguru." He concluded and nodded. "From the memories I acquired of the Sorcerers I liberated, there are two designated as 'Special Grade Sorcerers'. Geto Suguru, user of Cursed Manipulation, and Gojo Satoru, holder of Limitless and the Six Eyes." Iyashi hummed in thought. "It seems in order for us to bring back our missing comrades..."

"We'll have to slay him and take back the links for Hiding Darkness and Fisherman." Meguru finished for him. "Odds are any Cursed Spirit he has captured would be freed too, upon his deat-liberation." She corrected her last word.

"Quite so." He smiled and turned away, beginning to make his way where Geto was supposedly stationed. "Very well then, let us be off to liberating another poor Sorcerers as well as our comrades. Meguru, Fuhengi." Meguru followed after Iyashi, their path unencumbered as no Sorcerer could reach or stop them. The sword wielding Special Grade Curse didn't follow. "Fuhengi?" Iyashi spoke, confusion and annoyance in his tone, at how Fuhengi didn't follow along.

"I'm going there." He looked toward where the Gojo Sorcerer had ran off to.

Iyashi rolled his eyes. "Come now, friend," He moved toward Fuhengi, raising a hand toward his fellow Cursed Spirit in a seemingly comforting manner. "You don't need to hunt down that Gojo. A more interesting one will likely arrive after long enough-"

"No." Fuhengi took a step forward, away from Iyashi's reach. "He stopped my blade. No, slowed it to a crawl. I am not meant to be stopped or have changed imposed upon me, but he halted me." He said with a wide grin as he looked back at Iyashi and Meguru. "That makes him worth fighting."

Silence greeted Fuhengi. The message clear, once he made a choice, he won't be deterred from it.

"I will start my Return Link for you-" Meguru began.

"Now, now Meguru, I'm sure Fuhengi won't need such thing, and will meet back with us when we face Geto Suguru." Iyashi waved her off. "There are only two Special Grade Sorcerers that we were likely to meet. I f you take too long you'll lose your chance at facing the most interesting Gojo." Iyashi said as a way to try and play at Fuhengi's battle lust.

"An appetizer before the main meal." Fuhengi chuckled, and without another he left. "Heh. I'll make it."

Iyashi shook his head at his unruly comrade, and turned to continue onto his destination. Meguru followed without a word.


"Utahime, whatever that thing connecting to Sana, I don't think you should get near-" Kamo Tsururu-sensei began, but I was already moving.

I quickly slid toward the kneeling Tanaka who placed Sana on the ground, as I went to inspect her and whatever the fuck that screaming Cursed Spirit coming out of her mouth-

"...What the shit?!" I uttered, confusion-No. Just plain disbelief filling me.

The moment I touched both Sana's body and the Cursed Spirit I enveloped both with my Will-O-Wisp shroud to freeze their movement, and to directly monitor them and feel their Cursed Energy to see if this just requires healing.

The "Cursed Spirit" however was formed from within Sana. From a part of her.

"Tanaka I have them stable," I wasn't. I wasn't sure if I should start using Reverse Cursed Technique on Sana, exorcise the Cursed Spirit, or what else yet. But I needed him to calm down and explain to me. "Tell me what happened? Who did this? Spare no details. I need to know everything about what caused this!"

"Can you save her? Save Sana, your healing doesn't require-"

"Tanaka! Tanaka, look at me." I ordered the panicking Gojo. "Tell me what happened? I need to know to help her. I have her stable, but I need more information to go forward rather than just guesswork. Help me help her!"

"Right! Right..." Tanaka took a deep breaths and began to force himself to recall and speak. "We were facing a Special Grade Curse, one carrying the symbol of the Cloth of the Bees. Everything was going fine, we were winning even! ...Until these three Curses arrived."

Tanaka told me as much as he could remember. Three Cursed Spirits for the symbols of Sword Eight-Hands Long, the Jewel of Turning Back on the Road, and the Jewel of Resuscitation.

"Cursed Spirit Fuhengi, it carried the symbol of Sword Eight-Hands Long. It held a sword of Cursed Energy. I don't know how but it stopped me in my tracks, even while I was charging Limitless with max output. It seemed like when it sliced anything the blade just passed through without any resistance. Be it a Sorcerer's body, Cursed Energy, a barrier or a defensive technique." Tanaka explained.

Okay, the Mahoraga parody. Seems oddly simple enough.

I tried to apply Reverse Cursed Technique to Sana's body, which seemed to elevate her pain a little. Then the Sana Curse connected to her was trying to squirm and scream in pain, only I wasn't letting her move with the Will-O-Wisp Cloak. The Curse's pain in turn made normal Sana squirm and scream in pain. I stopped and they both stopped, but were still in pain, just a little less.

"Next. Quickly." I said. Okay, so healing human Sana is not good? "Who did this to her?"

"Cursed Spirit Iyashi." Tanaka said the name with constrained rage and trepidation. "It held her and Morio, its Cursed Energy flared and a Cursed Spirit grew out of Morio's body and got out of his mouth. His body looked drained of all life, like a shriveled husk. The same almost happened to Sana, but I got her out before it's too late. Right? It did, right? I got her to you in time, right?" Tanaka asked desperately.

But I was currently frozen. Internally panicking as alarms were going off in my head.

"You said he created this Cursed from their bodies? How? Did he do it from their Cursed Energy?" I quickly demanded answers.

Yes, now that I focus more on her body, it looks drained of... fuck! My medical knowledge isn't enough. I just know Sana's human body is drained of liquids and resources a bit, but how and in what way, I'm not sure.

Maybe the answer is to heal the Curse Sana, while keeping the Human Sana alive and recombine them?

Let's see Positive Energy is bad for Curses, so normal Cursed Energy should be good.

I started to use Reverse Cursed Technique on Sana's body, while amplifying the Sana Curse's Cursed Energy. Both started to calm down and squirm less, as they were in less pain, but-

Okay, nooooo! Sana's body was being drain faster of resources, which while I was thankfully restoring thus not killing her, the Curse was starting to grow at an alarming rate. I stopped both and held them back.

Tanaka look at the Curse Sana sudden growing a bit more out of Sana's body in alarm.

"Tanaka! What else did you notice? Was the Curse Iyashi chatty? Did he say anything?!" I shouted.

The seriousness of my tone, threw Tanaka off, but thankfully he had enough focus to answer.

"H-He said that he 'liberated' those he changed. That he freed their 'souls', letting them take their 'true form', which he meant this abomination." Tanaka hastily gestured to Sana and her whole situation.

"FUCK!" I shouted impulsively.

"U-Utahime?" Tanaka flinched back from me, falling from crouching to landing on his butt.

"Utahime-san? Did you figure something out?" Tsururu-sensei asked, as she was the only one from our team to stay close to me, while the rest were keeping a perimeter and watching things from some distance, but ready to intervene.

"Right! Right, sorry. I'm okay." I said quickly.

I wasn't okay. For whatever reason, for whatever divergence from canon this was, I was dealing with Pseudo-Mahito. Or if Mahito's creation was intentional, then Prototype-Mahito?

Kenjaku had Geto's body at that time, so with some experimentation via Curse Manipulation, could he have actually caused Mahito to be born? Or he was a luck of the draw from creating various Cursed Spirits, and he landed on the right one to manipulate souls?

No, that doesn't follow a chain of logic. He doesn't have Geto's body now, how could he create a Cursed Spirit that can semi-manipulate the soul?

"Why did you shout like that? What did you discover?" Tanaka said panickingly.

"You said he affected her soul, right?" I said with an intense look.

The death cult? The mass ritual suicide? Could these events result in somewhat predictably accurate results in the powers of the Cursed Spirits created from them? Could one use events and manipulate the fear of the masses to produce a desired Cursed Spirit?

No. That's not something you can fucking control, no matter how good you are at social engineering. People are vaguely predictable, they follow patterns, but those patterns are never 100%. It would always be a gamble.

"Y-Yeah?" Tanaka said nervously.

"Tanaka, I'm sorry, it might be too late for Sana." I said, and watched hope died from Tanaka's face. I'm sorry, but I don't want to give you false hope. "The soul is something rarely studied as far as I know. If this Cursed Spirit, is technically her soul transformed," I said looking at the Cursed Spirit-No her Transfigurated Soul in one of my hands. "Then I don't know how to fix her. Reverse Cursed Technique is to fix the body, not the soul."

Or is it?

A gamble. Right now that's all I have to save this girl, or at least try and figure out more on how this Iyashi's Cursed Technique works.

"Y-You..." Tanaka was looking down on the ground, teeth gritted and tears pouring down his cheeks. "You sham of a Sorcerer!" He shouted.

"Tanaka!" Tsururu-sensei with a warning tone, hands on her chosen weapon, a zweihander that she carried on her back.

"You always act like you can do, handle or defeat the impossible, but the one time!" Tanaka cried out. "The one time you actually need to do it... the one time I ask and you..." He looked at me with red eyes full of anger. "Is your wish to humiliate me, make me suffer that deep!?" What? "You even have to drag Sana into it!?"

"The hell are you-"

Before I could reply to whatever drama happening in Tanaka's head, with loud stomping of solleret on the ground interrupted our conversation. A new figure entered the clearing we were in.

"So there is where you ran off too." The parody of a knight and samurai in black with a floating broken and still spinning dhrama wheel behind him.

"You!" Tanaka turned to face him, standing up with a hand on his katana.

"Tanaka, is that the Cursed Spirit Fuhengi?" Tsururu-sensei demanded following Tanaka's descriptions, while the other Sorcerers prepared for combat.

"Yeah, that's him." Tanaka said through gritted teeth, but I could see from his posture that he was resigned. "He follow me here. Shit, are the others here as well?"

"The healing witch and the stuck up goat? Nah, only I am here." He spread his arms welcoming. "So I can have the most fun." He smirked.

Looking at the Special Grade Curse, my comrades, and Tanaka facing it, it seemed like a desperate situation. Oh sure, this many-on-one situation seemed favorable, but multiple Sorcerers fighting one high-level Special Grade Curse, doesn't mean its in our favor.

He likely scenario is that everyone here dies, only for Satoru to arrive at the last second. Or after everyone is dead.

In a usual scenario of JJK.

But for one, I am here.

And two?

Yeah, fuck the usual Gege suffering. I'm having none of this grimdark shit, nor am I letting anyone here die.

"Solo Forbidden Area!" I cast my Technique, giving every single fighting Sorcerer here a 100% buff. "Will-O-Wisp." Then created a few dozen Will-O-Wisps as support for extra measure.

"U-Utahime?" Tanaka looked at me surprising. Why do you look surprised that I'd help.

"You're name is Fuhengi, right?" I addressed the Cursed Spirit, glaring with putting all my focus on my patient Sana. "You have until I finish healing her to live. I suggest you run."

"Wait, heal her? But you said-"

"This is uncharted territory for me." I said honestly to Tanaka. "She might never be the same as she was before." I met his surprised, yet desperately hopeful gaze. "But she will live." I focused back on Sana and Curse Sana. "So make damn sure to keep the annoyance off me while I work."

"Yes!" Tanaka shouted and jumped into battle with the Special Grade Curse.

Another clash between the Cursed Energy Sword and the Limitless Sword, both stopping in place against each other.

"Alright, what the fuck do I do?" I said under my breath.

So if I have this right, the Cursed Energy is Sana's soul. But her body is still alive. And according to Mahito the body is shaped after the soul. But from Kenjaku's words and Toji's example, the body also affects the soul, or the soul can form from it in a way, right? That's how the resurrected Toji was able to take control of Séance Granny's Grandson.

The battle happened in the background. I barely paid attention to only have the Will-O-Wisps attack every once in a while in a distracting manner. Some Will-O-Wisps hit Fuhengi, others were cut by his sword. There really was no resistance... no. It's like the Will-O-Wisps encountered such a dense Cursed Energy they broke upon crashing into it.

Due to my range of Solo Forbidden Area I was able to measure how every Sorcerer was doing health and Cursed Energy-wise. Anyone that suffered injury was instantly healed, no one was dying on my watch.

Okay, okay back to Sana. Think! If I focus on full Reverse Cursed Technique for all of Sana, her Cursed Spirit self dies, but does that mean her soul perishes and her body with it?

If I focus on Cursed Energy I could save both her body and soul, but then the soul would leave the body as a fully formed Cursed Spirit. Would she be Sana then? Would she be cognizant, have her human memories? Still be herself?

I started to experiment. How much 'healing' can I apply to Curse Sana? What if I disperse her Cursed Energy that make her up to killed the Cursed Spirit self, but keep the Cursed Energy that make her up and shove it back into her body?

My head was hot. I felt something fall down my nose? Snot? I looked down. No it was blood.

My brain was overheating? Shit.

I was doing too much. Assisting in battle with the Will-O-Wisps, healing and buffing for my team, and focusing on Sana's whole shtick.

I applied Reverse Cursed Technique to myself also and instantly felt a kinda cool hit me. I was relaxed again and could focus.

A random thought came that Tanaka didn't exposit on the third Special Grade. Likely the one called the 'Healing Witch' by Fuhengi, as Tanaka described what she looked like, but didn't get into detail on her ability. Healing of Curses? How? RCT? No, that would kill them. Applying more Cursed Energy? Could she be like me in way? Is this important? A dark horse more important, or rather worse, than Iyashi?

I pushed the thought away, filing it for later. I don't have time for it right now.

As I focus on everything again, I wonder if I should deploy my Domain.

No, that would eat up my Cursed Energy. I don't need it. I'm already touching Sana, so I don't need more accuracy.

Looking at the ongoing battle, I saw everyone holding on yet it was an even match, even with my buff. Tanaka's Limitless Blade could stop Fuhengi's attacks, but no one else can. So the cutting power is the effect of a Cursed Technique.

Tsururu-sensei would slash her sword with rapid speed, due to lightening its weight. Her first attack, if Fuhengi is caught off guard, would deal massive damage, but the rest would do nothing but bounce back, almost like attacking an iron wall. Other attacks had similar results. If you catch Fuhengi off guard, the attack would deal damage, but once he focuses on defense, he was invincible.

All the while, the Special Grade Curse was laughing and enjoying himself.

The same ability that makes him invulnerable, is the same that makes his blade unstoppable. I deduced.

He could only focus on attack or defense thus far, but I feel him learning. Soon he'll likely do both. The rate he was improving in combat skill from taking on the various attacks was worrying. A Mahoraga-like ability? Does he have adaption?

My intuition said no. More than that, his continuous refilling of his Cursed Energy by absorbing the ambient Cursed Energy was making his stamina unending.

Wait, taking in ambient Cursed Energy? Can I do that? I tried but there exists no Technique so convenient, like its fucking Senjutsu from Naruto.

I created a Will-O-Wisps next to me.

It is ambient energy, empowered and made by my Cursed Technique and energy. I can control it, right? So I should be able to absorb it, right?

Before I could finish the thought, I felt alarm as Sana was trying to convulse. She was dying, both body and Cursed Spirit. Was she stuck in this in-between state for too long? There was a time limit?

And as if the shit party couldn't get any worse Fuhengi managed to parry Tanaka's blade upward. Then through sheer strength didn't have his blade follow Tanaka's sword covering in an aura of Lapse Blue, but swing down and cut Tanaka from his torso horizontally in half.

"Tanaka!" Shouted one of our comrades. Kamo-sensei focused on taking Fuhengi's head during his lapse of on concentration as the Cursed Spirit was grinning and revealing in victory. He caught her blade with one hand, and was about to bisect her too.

His dhrama wheel was also absorbing Tanaka's Cursed Energy. He powers up by taking in his victim's CE?

"Alright, fuck this. Domain Expansion!"

My Domain exploded outwardly overtaking the scenery and enveloping everyone within it.

The Torii gate was behind me, and everyone stood on the sea-sky of the ground.

"Bestowing Kagura."

I grabbed the two pieces of Tanaka's body and force them back together to heal him.

"You don't fucking die until I say you can die! I'm not saving Sana just so she can see you died instead of her." His body was dying, literally the place where Cursed Energy was formed was cut in half.

I refused that outcome. Rejected it and forced reality to follow. People cut in half are dead? Says who!

I forced the two halves to connect and heal, regenerate, and forced his body to start generating Cursed Energy again, amplifying it to make his body work to heal itself along side me, by making him produce Reverse Cursed Energy.

His body was making so much Cursed Energy, along with moving my own next to it in his body's pathways, and turning my Cursed Energy into Positive Energy, his Cursed Energy mimicked me. It helped that he was knocked out from the pain.

Oh, now he was awake again from the massive amount of Cursed Energy and Positive Energy running through him.

Good, one problem down.

Next is Sana.

I saw far more than I expanded of Sana's body and soul. Able to see far more accurate minute details of her transformation.

It's a Cursed Technique. Iyashi's Cursed Technique was still upon her, while she was in this in-between state, it worked subtlety, was pushing her to finish the transformation even without Iyashi's Cursed Energy present. It would have used Sana's Cursed Energy, but the end result of the Curse Sana likely would have been suboptimal.

Iyashi's Cursed Technique was being torn apart due to interacting with my RCT, which is leading to Sana and her Curse's breakdown and death. The CT was acting as a stabilizing factor in a morbid way, even if both Sana's body and 'soul' were in grave pain.

Iyashi, Fuhengi and the Healing Witch, they are all supposedly newborn, yet they were this devastating? This is definitely due to the circumstances of their 'birth' and how extreme it was. If a similar even happened in canon, likely the whole Jujutsu society would have also jumped on this situation to kill it in the crib.

For Sana, there was only one thing I can to do to save her. I can't afford to experiment to see how to optimally heal her. I don't have enough time or sample sizes to know how to heal a soul correctly. For Tanaka's sake, I at least have to save her life.

The soul and the body are one, right?

I grasped half-formed Cursed Spirit Sana with veil of Cursed Energy and shoved it back down Sana's throat into her body.

Sana and the Curse Sana's eyes widened in terror, disgust and panic. Yeah, the weird fucked-up shit train isn't stopping baby!

Once both body and 'soul' were together in the same place again-I ignored how bulged out Sana's body looked. Her stomach, chest and throat filled up almost about to explode. A heavy dose of RCT to the body put a stop to that.

The Curse Sana was trying to wriggle and get out.

"Nope, not having that!" I grinned, and used a wave Reverse Cursed Technique to break the Cursed Spirit down, instantly followed by Curse Energy Amplification. The dual waves of RCT and Amplification followed one another, as I broke down the Cursed Spirit's form, while keeping it "alive" in a sense to merge back Sana's body and soul in the same "vessel.

Eventually the Cursed Spirit shrink down to nothing, absorbed into Sana's body, but now it felt like there were two Cursed Energies within Sana... even though they were almost identical. Overlapping even. No one but me due to how I was touching her with my Cursed Technique, or maybe someone like Satoru would have noticed.

Did I make Sana an incarnated human, but the Cursed Spirit in question is her own self? Did I give her a Cursed Spirit twin in her body?

Should be fine, right?

Right! Now to focus on Fuhengi.

"Perish." I commanded. Within Bestowing Kagura my word was law.

"GAAAAH!" The Special Grade Curse cried out, as he fell to one knee, holding onto his sword stabbed in the ground for balance. "You... don't... think... this is enough... TO BEAT ME!" He shouted and tried to stand, while Cursed Energy was evaporating out of him, before being absorbed again by his dhrama wheel to heal and reform him.

"...Tough little fucker, aren't you?" I said to myself. His Cursed Energy was dense. That's the best way to descript it. It's like, if I usually disperse an opponent's Cursed Energy, breaking the bonds that held it together into harmless negative emotion, I was breaking the bonds of a gas, or a liquid when it comes to veteran Sorcerers.

Fuhengi's Cursed Energy acted like a solid. That flowed like a liquid, because Cursed Energy doesn't follow physics.

But even so I was winning. I was stripping him of his Cursed Energy that makes him up faster than he can reform. I focused on the dhrama wheel and realized that wasn't his Cursed Technique. The wheel gathers ambient Cursed Energy and feeds it to him, along with any Cursed Energy of his fallen foes.

But again that wasn't his Cursed Technique, it was a feature he had. The denseness of his Cursed Energy was just a property of his Cursed Energy, like Kashimo's electricity.

So his Cursed Technique is...

I saw his form solidifying for a moment, before my exorcism broke through that.

...Aaah! I understood. When his Cursed Energy is given a form, it locks into that form. Like it was frozen in time in a sense, no wonder his blade could cut through everything with ease. It was an unstoppable force. Or rather an immoveable object locked in the form of a blade, that he swung around.

Immutability. That was his Cursed Technique.

"Damn, with every everyone revived I'm weakened to this point." He said, making me and everyone perk up. "Don't think this is the end, miko. I will return." He gave a bloody grin. "And when I do, not even your purifying power will stop me."

I felt it as I focused. A link to outside my Domain. A link that was carrying away pieces of the defeated Fuhengi. I tried cutting it, destroying it, yet it was as if the act of pulling the slain Fuhengi was something that already happened long ago.

"Bring it on, bitch." I said before Fuhengi's form was reduced to ash.

The enemy was dead. For now, my instincts said. Everyone was healed and alive, even Sana was breathing normally again, her body alive and functioning normally, she was just knocked out. Who wouldn't after the shit she went through. I dismissed the Domain.

"Sana!" Tanaka ran to Sana's side as soon as he could. He checked on her body and saw she was breathing normally with her face back to normal color.

"She is..." I began to say before shaking my head, throwing politeness away. "Is not gonna be well when she wakes up. Healing with Reverse Cursed Technique can only do so much, who knows if her mind will handle the experience of the shit she went through well."

Oh yeah, she's traumatized as fuck! Jujutsu Society better have a Special Grade Therapist for this shit. Mei Mei and I should probably fund this kinda idea.

"I..." Tanaka looked at me, almost like he wanted to protest, yet had a pitiful look on his face. He saw my harsh expression and looked back down at Sana. "I understand, it's fine. She's alive and I'll be with her throughout her recovery. Thank you." He hugged Sana tightly to his chest. "Thank you, Utahime."

"Right." I nodded. "Tanaka, I'm sorry to push this on you now, but the last Cursed Spirit, the one with the symbol of the Jewel of Turning Back on the Road. I need you to tell me about her."

"Yeah, yeah..." Tanaka said, taking a breath to recall and think. "Her name is Meguru."

And then he explained her ability and it was far worse than I thought.

"You're saying one of the Special Grades can revive the other slain Curses!" Shouted one of the Sorcerers of our team.

"No wonder that samurai didn't care that he died and said he'd return."

"Everyone, we need to go reinforce the southern containment team. There's no time to wait, those of you who can still fight, follow me." Tsururu-sensei said quickly, taking command of the situation. "Utahime, we need you with us. Your Domain is needed to finish this quickly." She said toward me, while sending the group text message with our information to all our Sorcerers on this mission.

"Yeah." I said as I stood up, and took out my phone. "Sorry, but you'll have to go first, and I'll follow right after. I just need to make a call." The phone rang and picked up after the first ring. "Mei, how far away are you?"