The forest surrounding Tokyo Jujutsu High was a familiar environment for Maki. While she hadn't spent as much time here as she could have, her exile and departure from the Zenin clan meant she was now one of the full-time residents of the school and sanctuary. On nights when she couldn't sleep, she jogged around the school, taking the scenic route that sometimes led her through the forest. Back then, there were no curses, just an empty stretch of trees and a thriving miniature ecosystem where the strongest predator was a particularly annoying fox that had found its way into the forest.
Now, more monstrous things hid beneath the forest's leaves. Case in point: the curse aiming to ambush Megumi. She saw it nested in the trees ahead, an oblong-shaped curse with three spindly limbs gripping the tree for balance. Its body consisted of a single toothless maw with a disgustingly long tongue, salivating at the thought of eating her fellow not-Zenin.
Yet the curse didn't spare her the slightest attention. That was another advantage that came with her faulty Heavenly Restriction. Curses didn't tend to take her serious, instead always aiming for the strongest source of curse energy close to her. They disregarded her as though she were walking stone or moving steel, a curious scenario that only lasted until she attacked them. The more perceptive ones, especially curses in the Grade One and Special Grade ranks, had the intelligence to see the danger that a weapon-wielding human could pose, even if they could barely sense any cursed energy from her.
"Ignore it and keep up the search for Mai and the Grade Two curse if you manage to get a glimpse of it."
Megumi didn't respond, he was too busy multitasking, scouting above the treetops using Nue while running alongside her. That meant he had most likely seen the curse lying in ambush above his path. The fact that he kept his steady pace without even the slightest pause or hesitation spoke of his trust in her. She made sure it wasn't misplaced.
The moment he passed beneath the curse, it unhinged its jaw fully with a grotesque gurgle and swung its head down, sending its enlarged tongue like a lasso to wrap around Megumi's neck, but it caught something else.
Just before it reached Megumi, Maki had shoved the sheath of her blade above his head, and the tongue wrapped around it instead. She slammed her feet into the ground, stopping her momentum, and allowing Megumi to run ahead unhindered. The curse jerked its tongue back and upwards, like a frog that had caught a fly and wanted to gulp it down in a single movement.
Maki disagreed.
She twisted the sheath further, coiling the sinuous tongue around it, then pivoted and tugged downward with a growl. The curse contested her strength and lost horribly. It let out a confused warble as it was ripped from the top of the tree and slammed into the earth. Before it could recover, Maki stomped on the curse hard enough to pulp whatever pseudo-organs it possessed. But already, she could see it regenerating, so she slipped the Soul Split Katana from its sheath and buried it through the mouth, into what she assumed was a brain, if the curse had one.
A second later, the blade was back in its sheath, strapped to her lower back. Another second, and she was running beside Megumi once more. The scene had an air of rehearsal to it, unsurprising since this was the fourth curse they had killed this way, Megumi as bait and Maki as the fisherman.
"Just like you predicted, Todo caught up to Yuji and Toge." Megumi finally broke his silence, a slight frown on his face.
"And?"
"They're fighting, but Toge is just leaning against a tree, watching them like he's not bothered."
Maki frowned at the scene Megumi was painting. Why would Toge stand back and watch while Todo beat Yuji up? She doubted it was much of a fight.
"Is Todo alone?" she asked, already thinking of going there first and dealing with Toge since her sister was proving hard to find.
"Yes. No, wait. Toge isn't just leaning against the tree, he's looking in a specific direction… Kamo Noritoshi. He's hiding in the foliage. I wouldn't have spotted him if Toge wasn't staring in his direction so intensely. He has his bow strung and an arrow nocked, but he hasn't fired a shot yet."
Maki thought about the scenario for a second, trying to make heads or tails of it, before shrugging in annoyance. Itadori Yuji had a way of making straightforward situations complicated.
"How's the fight going? And what about their teammates?"
Megumi was silent for a few seconds, brows furrowed in concentration as he processed whatever information he was receiving from Nue. "They've stopped, now they've started back up. It looks more like a spar than a murder attempt. As for the others, if I track the path Todo took considering he tore a straight line through the forest toward Itadori. i'll find their starting point, and with that I can triangulate where the others must have diverged…"
The hair at the back of her neck came alive, and her attention shifted from Megumi to the surroundings, just in time to catch it.
The click of a hammer being drawn back, then the pull of a trigger, a loud bang.
Maki's hand snapped out, slamming into the back of Megumi's head and shoving him down. The bullet slammed into her arm. Her bicep burned hot as she felt it dig deep into her flesh almost kissing bone.
The bullet tip wasn't blunted.
A grin tore its way onto her face, past the pain of a bullet lodged in her arm. Her right hand unsheathed the Soul Split Katana in one fluid motion and placed it in front of her, flat edge first. Two more shots rang out, slamming into the blade and deforming against the cursed steel. The force sent a vibration up her arms, throwing her back.
Megumi slipped from her weakened grip, instincts kicking in as he dropped, tucked, and rolled behind a tree while Maki followed the momentum, rolling back to dodge the next bullet. Then she was back on her feet, jerking to the left as two more gunshots rang out trailing behind her, always too slow. Then she was behind a tree too.
The forest was quiet for a heartbeat as they reorganized from the ambush. "How's the hand? I've got your blood on me," Megumi asked, peeking around the tree, and almost getting a bullet to the head for his troubles. Instead, the bullet buried itself inches away in the ground.
She tested the hand, clenching and releasing her fist rapidly. Her Heavenly Restriction came with something of a healing factor, unfortunately, it was not anywhere near as potent as reverse curse energy, especially mid-battle. The bullet hadn't sunk too deep, but it was lodged firmly in her bicep, keeping it from causing further damage while also ensuring she now had a bullet lodged beneath her skin. An irritating and painful circumstance, yet for some reason, the smile that had appeared on her face the moment the first bullet hit was still present.
"Good enough," she lied, flexing the limb.
"Judging by the sound, the size of the hole it made, and the angle of impact… that was a Smith & Wesson Model 460, wasn't it?" He glanced at her injury again from behind cover, his expression unreadable. "It's a miracle your arm's still attached. I'm guessing that's your sister, Mai Zenin?" Megumi asked.
Maki raised a brow at his knowledge of the weapon just from the gunshots, then she shrugged and responded. "Yes."
Mai had outplayed her. Her younger twin knew her too well. If she had aimed directly at Maki, dodging would have been effortless. So instead, she had aimed for someone slower, someone Maki had to protect. That split-second hesitation had been enough.
"Well played, Mai," Maki murmured under her breath as she finally settled on the injured limb.
Her arm was down to maybe 40% functionality, fingers lagging, muscles sluggish, pain pulsing with every twitch. But pain was a familiar companion, one she grew used to per gate usage and one she could shove aside for now. What mattered was what came next.
If this was the extent of Mai's plan, a slightly bigger gun, and an ambush meant to wound her before she could close the distance, then Maki would be disappointed.
Mai was smarter than that. She had to be.
Because if this was all she had?
Then Maki was about to tear through her like a storm.
"Nue is close enough. I can see her. She is 300 meters to your right, while I have someone trailing and aiming to flank me... Mechamaru." He frowned as he looked to the side. "Considering what he is made of, Nue's lightning would not be as effective. I will have to switch Nue out, which means ending our ability to observe the wider battlefield temporarily."
Maki stood up from her crouch, and then cracked her neck to the side before responding. "Do it. You have already given me her location. Hold out against Mechamaru for as long as you can. This should be quick."
Megumi did not respond, but she did not need to. Instead, she honed her senses, tuning out everything unnecessary. He had given her only vague directions, but that was enough. Maki focused her awareness on a specific range, isolating the area until she caught it—a faint heartbeat. Cool, steady, and controlled. It was not the heartbeat of someone who had just fired on her own sister.
"I'm going."
She shot out from her cover, and a fraction of a second later, a bullet sliced past her ear, leaving a stinging divot along her cheek. Mai had predicted her movement down to the moment she would emerge.
Maki did not slow. She had already mapped the route in her mind, weaving between trees that would serve as obstacles. She did not need to know firearms as well as Megumi to understand she was up against a much higher caliber than before. The sheer force behind each shot was proof enough. Bullets shredded through thinner trees, splintering them apart as she passed, forcing her to stay in motion.
The gun's range was another problem. It had to be longer than what Mai typically used, considering the distance she was being fired at. A glint of sunlight on metal caught her eye, and she reacted instinctively, ducking right as another shot rang out. The bullet struck the ground where she had just been, carving a deep furrow in the dirt.
She darted behind a tree, but before she could settle, another shot obliterated the trunk, forcing her to dive forward and roll into cover again.
Maki exhaled sharply, pausing just long enough to assess the situation. Despite the near misses and the absurd stopping power behind Mai's gun, she was getting closer. Every step reduced the gap between them, leaving less room for Maki to dodge as well as increasing the risk for Mai. Sooner or later the gun's presence would be irrelevant.
Then an explosion rocked the forest.
A blast of fire and plasma tore through the distance, shaking the earth beneath her feet and sending debris flying. Maki's eyes snapped toward the source. Mechamaru.
She had been uncertain about his capabilities. He was one of the three unknowns in this fight, but that curse energy output alone confirmed one thing. There was no way he was anything less than a semi-grade one sorcerer.
A smirk tugged at her lips as realization dawned.
"So that's your plan, little sister?" She called out, her voice carrying through the rustling leaves. "Slow me down, keep me occupied here, then let Mechamaru finish off Megumi and hit me from behind in a pincer attack."
Silence.
Maki knew Mai was listening, but she would not respond. But it did not matter.
Because they had made two fatal mistakes.
The first was assuming that the son of the Sorcerer Killer could be taken down so easily.
The second was thinking that Mai could hold her back long enough.
Maki closed her eyes, letting out a single breath, then she relaxed her body, slotting her sword back into its scabbard before opening her eyes once more. Gate of Life: Open. Cursed energy erupted beneath her skin in a sensation she could never get used to. Her senses sharpened, the feeling of power and pain as her body accommodated the rapid increase in power.
This time, when she burst from cover, she had already taken five steps before the gunshot rang out behind her, long forgotten. She was a blur of reddened skin, weaving through the forest in an erratic zig-zag, always just ahead of Mai's shots, five steps ahead, to be exact.
Then she broke through the foliage on Mai's left.
Her little sister barely had time to react. It was like watching her in slow motion. The twist of her hips as she tried to realign her gun, the slight shift in stance to compensate for the surprise.
Ten steps into the clearing, and Mai had almost positioned herself perfectly to take the shot. But with the third gate burning through her veins, Maki could read her every movement. She saw the trajectory before Mai even pulled the trigger. A subtle shift in her weight, a sharp exhale, and Maki dropped low, her body parallel to the ground, just as the bullet tore through the space where her chest had been.
Then she was in range. Mai didn't even know what hit her.
Maki didn't hold back. Her kick landed solid, launching Mai like a ragdoll. But she wasn't done. She caught up before Mai even hit the ground, her grip locking around her sister's slender neck. Her momentum carried them both into a massive tree, burying half of Mai's body in splintered wood with a cough of blood and a muted scream from the girl. Then there was silence.
Maki stood there, chest heaving, her fingers still wrapped around Mai's throat. The fight was over. The impact had knocked her sister out cold.
Weak.
Vulnerable.
Hopeless in her grip. Her shirt was torn from her grip and the velocity they had traveled.
The grin faded from Maki's face as she took in the sight before her, her breath slowing, disappointment settling deep in her gut. Then—
"Why did you leave me behind?"
The whisper barely reached her ears. Mai had regained consciousness.
"You know why," Maki murmured back, her voice low.
Mai's lips, the only part of her face visible beneath the curtain of her hair, curled into something bitter. "We could've stayed weak together," she said, her voice quiet but laced with resentment. "Lingered at the bottom. I wouldn't have cared… not if we were together."
Her empty fingers tightened into a fist.
"But you left me alone in that hell."
Maki's grip faltered. For the first time since that night, since she had stood outside Mai's room in the Zenin compound, waiting for a conversation that never came, she truly looked at her twin.
The same short hair. But while Maki's had been cut to dodge a blow that would've taken her head, Mai's had been by choice.
And then, Maki saw them.
Scars.
Her breath caught in her throat.
Mai exhaled shakily. "Every day, you got stronger. Every day, the pressure on me grew. Every day I was reminded of my weakness. I was the failure left behind."
Maki wasn't listening anymore. Her eyes traced the visible scars littering Mai's skin, each one a story she hadn't been there to witness. Her fingers slackened further around Mai's throat.
Mai's amber eyes, unfocused and glassy, met hers.
"This is your fault," she whispered. "You made this happen. Now Look at what you created."
Her hands shot up, gripping Maki's arm with a force that belied her exhaustion. Then she screamed.
Cursed Technique Reversal: Destruction.
Agony exploded through Maki's body. Her nerves lit up, her flesh seared from the inside out. Maki's accompanying scream tore through the clearing, raw and unrestrained. Her vision blurred as white-hot agony surged through her body as it unraveled from the inside out.
...
The entire room was struck dumb. Silence reigned supreme as they watched the scene play out in ways that none of them had even considered. None of them, other than Satoru and Kusakabe, at least. While the rest had leaned back in shock, they were the only ones who leaned even further forward in curiosity and satisfaction.
"What was that?" Mei Mei was the first person to break the silence as she finally recovered from the surprising change in the flow of the battle. Her sole visible eye focused on the screen where the twin sisters fought.
A fight that many had assumed was a foregone conclusion. While Mai had surprised them with the gun she used, and her ambush was applauded alongside her plan to stall, nobody thought the younger Zenin was good enough to hold back the semi-grade one Maki, especially after her showing in the past few months. And they had been right.
The moment Maki had decided to reduce how much she held back, the fight had been a foregone conclusion. She had blitzed past the bullets and taken down the other girl in a single hit. That was until she did the improbable.
"Unlike what a lot of people think, Mai Zenin is not a flawed replica of her sister. Unlike Maki, Mai has a technique," Kusakabe started by way of explanation, and the rest of the teaching body turned to face him.
Seeing his rapt audience, he continued, "Somehow, a cursed technique imprinted itself on her body, too late for the Zenin clan to notice or even care to acknowledge. Utahime had been in charge of overseeing her education by then and was the first person to have an inkling of suspicion. Then she called Satoru in for confirmation."
"It took me a single glance," Satoru continued smoothly. "Her cursed technique had to do with construction, but then there was the obvious problem.
"Her cursed energy capacity is above that of a non-sorcerer or an anomaly like Maki, but it's nowhere near enough to rival even an average sorcerer. She wouldn't be able to make good use of a cursed technique like construction." Yagi analyzed, and everyone nodded in agreement.
"That is true. If we had followed the normal way of teaching, training lapse first and focusing on it, she might have been able to do something, maybe create a bullet or a knife, but at the end of the day, Mai would never be a match for any sorcerer worth their salt, especially with the pressure the Zenin clan was putting on the poor girl. It was only a matter of time until she broke. That was where Gojo Satoru came in."
Satoru gave the group a peace sign and a grin as the full weight of their surprised attention bore down upon him. "What's with the looks of surprise and astonishment? I'm a teacher, ya know!"
His faux outrage was ignored with ease by the entire group.
"That is not in doubt, Gojo, but one can count the number of times you've taught anyone other than your little band of… unorthodox students," Principal Gakuganji rasped out, and Gojo's grin widened in response before he shrugged.
"Okay, you got me. The whole thing was a favor for Kusakabe and Utahime. Explaining the theory on cursed technique reversal. The kid was all too desperate to learn it if you ask me, but by the time I was done, she had still not finalized it. This is coming as a shock to me just as it is to you guys."
Satoru defended with his trademark grin, and this time, he wasn't even lying. He only ignored the part where Maki had gotten word of Kusakabe and Utahime asking for his help, and how she had begged him and made him promise to actually help. And considering it was one of his little gremlins asking for help, he could hardly say no.
"That is all well and good, but even with falling back on reversal instead of lapse, considering her output, it should not be enough to do more than sting a little, it should not be enough to do that."
Mei Mei pointed at the screen in response, where Maki had been flung away and was a charred mess in the midst of what seemed like the heart of an explosion, while her other sister struggled to her feet.
"Unless…"
Kusakabe nodded in agreement before continuing Mei Mei's train of thought. "A binding vow. I don't know the content of the binding vow, but it's reasonable to assume that a binding vow, alongside cursed technique reversal would result into this. An attack that was enough to put a sorcerer like Maki down for good."
Kusakabe said with pride, to a smattering of applause from the other teachers, at least until a soft laugh echoed through the speakers. A laugh that slowly increased in volume as the charred figure on the ground slowly rose.
"Have you not heard the saying before, Kusakabe?" Satoru whispered into the void that had become the room. "Do not count your chickens before they hatch." He finished with a chuckle as he leaned back into his chair and popped a sweet into his mouth. The rest of them watched as Maki dragged herself to her feet, parts of her body burnt and charred, while some other parts looked like they had gone unstable and were in the process of melting off the skin.
Yet.
Amber eyes opened, and darkened lips tore apart to reveal cracked teeth. Underneath all the injuries and damage, none could underestimate the girl that stood back up.
"She used a higher gate, activating it simultaneously the moment Mai activated her cursed technique reversal.." Mei Mei whispered in realization. "With instincts like that..."
Two sisters stood across from each other, battered and exhausted, yet neither willing to back down.
Maki spat blood and broken tooth onto the ground, forcing herself upright despite the searing pain that wracked her body. Her breaths were ragged, her limbs heavy, but her voice was unwavering.
"Good," she said, straightening with a wince. "I told you, didn't I? I'll never let you go, little sister."
On the screen, Mai hesitated. A flicker of uncertainty crossed her face as she instinctively stepped back, while Maki, despite her trembling legs, took a single, defiant step forward.
"I won't let you waste away in weakness," Maki continued, her voice hoarse but fierce. "I don't care how much you fight me, I'll drag you to the top alongside me, kicking and screaming if I have to. But I will not let you go."
Then she roared and lunged forward.
The two sisters crashed into each other, swinging clumsy fists and throwing sluggish kicks. There was no grace, no precision, just raw, unfiltered screams shouted at each other. And still, no one watching looked away. Whatever the two girls lacked in finesse, they made up for in conviction.
This was no longer a fight, but a battle of wills. A war between two opposing ideals. Stagnation vs Progress. And, above all, it was one sister's desperate attempt to save the other.