The scent of grilled meat drifted in the air like a promise.
Mahito wandered through the crowded street with a light skip in his step, hands tucked behind his back like a curious schoolboy.
The city reminded him of Shibuya during a lull between disasters, people moved with purpose, their faces drawn tight with worry, and every corner offered noise, movement, and the fragile pretense of peace.
Banners fluttered overhead bearing slogans in languages he hadn't quite learned yet, but it didn't matter. He wasn't here to read the world. He was here to touch it.
Touching was always more honest.
Mahito drifted past a market stall stacked with glowing fruit, past a hawker shouting about Originium-infused rice balls, until he came across a modest food cart pressed against a side alley.
A pot of something thick and aromatic simmered over a portable flame. Steam curled upward in lazy coils, catching the amber light of dusk.
A man stood behind the cart. Older. Thin. A towel draped around his neck, sweat clinging to his temples.
His cart was humble, just a battered signboard with characters Mahito barely understood, and a few LMD coins jangling in a tin dish.
Mahito stopped in front of the cart and leaned forward with a curious grin.
"Ojii-san, that smells amazing. What's in it?"
The old man turned, a practiced smile already in place. "Pork belly stew. Slow-cooked. Good on cold days like this."
Mahito inhaled deeply and shivered in exaggerated delight. "It smells like someone's memories. That kind of food, right? The type that tastes like someone you used to love."
The vendor chuckled, wiping his hands. "Something like that. Want a bowl?"
"Mm, yes please."
The bowl came steaming hot, wooden spoon nestled at its side. Mahito took it gently, as if cradling something sacred.
He sipped once, rich, salty, tinged with fat and spice. Then again. He closed his eyes, humming softly, savoring each mouthful.
"Mm. Delicious. It's like biting into a bedtime story."
The old man chuckled again, and Mahito's expression softened with something like genuine joy. For a moment, the scene could have been mistaken for peace.
"That'll be 800 LMD," the vendor said politely.
Mahito blinked.
"What's that?"
"Lungmen Dollars. Local currency," the vendor replied, tapping the tin dish. "Eight hundred."
Mahito's face tilted slightly. His eyes narrowed just enough to suggest he'd lost interest in the food. "Money, huh. Still doing that? In a place like this?"
The old man raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean, young man?"
Mahito set the bowl down with deliberate care. "Let me show you my philosophy."
Before the man could react, Mahito reached across the counter and gently pressed two fingers to his forehead.
There was no glow. No scream. Just a shift.
The man's spine snapped upward with a wet pop, ribs tearing out like a blooming flower.
His arms fused into his chest, his mouth stretched into a gaping, lipless smile that could no longer scream.
Muscles undulated under his skin like worms trapped in a sack of flesh. A single eye blinked slowly in the center of what used to be his stomach.
The newly-born thing gurgled, confused.
Mahito tilted his head in satisfaction.
"There," he whispered. "Now you've transcended the economy."
The crowd screamed.
Panic rippled down the street in waves as people ran, bolted, shoved one another to get away. Mahito remained where he stood, licking stew from his fingers as the monster behind the cart burbled incoherently.
He didn't care about the alarm klaxons screaming overhead. Didn't flinch as two guards burst from the corridor, rifles raised, shouting orders through the sharp clang of boots and panic.
Mahito turned toward them with a lazy grin.
"Humans and their toys..."
His arm rippled, skin sliding like wax over reshaping bone. Fingers fused, stretched, twisted, until what remained was a wicked curve of raw flesh and jagged marrow, a cleaver grown from his own soul.
The guards hesitated.
Too late.
Mahito flickered forward with an unnatural gait, low and serpentine. The first man barely had time to flinch before Mahito's free hand brushed his chest.
Contact.
The guard's scream died in his throat as his ribcage burst outward, spine folding like wet paper. The second man fired once, then Mahito appeared behind him, the blade-arm already swinging.
The rifle clattered to the ground beside what was left of him.
Mahito exhaled a little breath of delight, admiring his work. "See? I pay in art."
He strolled off, humming as the hallway burned behind him with the scent of blood and restructured flesh.
Walking down the street like nothing had happened, Mahito whistled tunelessly, licking broth from his thumb. He passed a cracked store window and paused.
There it was.
That feeling again.
Heat. Smoldering, thick, not from the sun, but from a soul. A twisted, bitter flame.
He pressed a hand to the glass and closed his eyes. It was faint, but unmistakable.
Cursed energy.
Old. Familiar.
Jogo?
he wondered.
His lips curled into a smirk. "I'll be damned. So someone else crawled out of hell with me."
The reflection in the glass grinned back at him, one eye mismatched, one fang bared.
Mahito turned down the alley, hands back behind his head, voice light and boyish again.
"Guess it's time for a little reunion."
The city kept burning behind him, slow and unseen.
...
The volcano slept, but only just.
Deep in the desolate ravines beyond the edge of civilization, Jogo stood at the heart of a crater that had once been forest.
Now it was blackened earth and bubbling stone.
Rivers of magma wound lazily through the cracks, pulsing with heat. The air shimmered with mirage-like distortions, and anything living had long since turned to ash.
Jogo exhaled.
Flames curled at his shoulders, the ridge of his skull glowing a muted orange. He clenched his fists, letting cursed energy surge within his core, burning hotter and heavier, pushing his limits.
The fight with Sukuna haunted him in the way only absolute annihilation could. He had expected death, welcomed it, even, but what lingered was something far more humiliating.
He was still alive.
Alive, and remembering.
That wasn't supposed to happen.
Curses were reborn through fear, shaped anew in form and memory. The soul dissolved and reformed like mist.
Yet here he was, same shape, same flame, same rage.
Still Jogo. Still seething.
Worse, someone else had made it here, too.
He felt the presence before he saw it. A flicker of cursed energy, familiar in the way a migraine was familiar.
Jogo's eyes narrowed.
From the far end of the crater, something bounded across the melted stone with all the grace of a lunatic child. A figure, tall and thin, draped in that awful stitched-together grin.
Mahito.
"Jooo-goooo!" Mahito sang out, arms wide like greeting an old drinking buddy. "Still smelling like sulfur and failure, I see."
Jogo scowled. "You're alive?"
Mahito slid to a stop beside him, crouching near a bubbling vent, peering into it as if expecting it to say something back. "Alive-ish. You know how it goes. We die, we come back, everyone screams. Wash, rinse, re-manifest."
"You're not supposed to remember" Jogo muttered. "None of us were. The cycle cleanses us. Only the fear remains."
Mahito gave a long, exaggerated shrug. "Well, either the cycle's broken... or we're too stubborn to dissolve."
He looked up suddenly, sharp grin twisting wider. "You trying to power up again? Training arc, huh?"
"I don't have time for your idiocy" Jogo said, turning away. "I sensed Okkotsu. If he's really here, I'll need more than what I had last time."
"Ohhh, scary scary~" Mahito mocked, bouncing to his feet. "Yuta Okkotsu. The cursed child, right? With that freaky ah girlfriend that hits harder than Gojo's lectures?"
"He's stronger than you," Jogo said flatly.
Mahito blinked.
Then grinned again. "Probably. But hey, that's the fun part. Everyone's stronger than me, until I touch them."
Jogo didn't answer.
Mahito wandered closer, arms behind his back, peeking over Jogo's shoulder as if he could see the flow of cursed energy forming in the air.
"So what's the plan, volcano man? Kill everyone? Burn the world? Or just another tantrum like old times?"
"Go away, Mahito."
"But we're friends now" Mahito said, voice dripping with mock hurt. "Isn't it nice? The old gang, back from the dead. It's nostalgic."
Jogo's fire flared, a single spire of flame shooting into the air like a warning shot. The heat made Mahito's shirt crackle, curling at the edges.
He didn't flinch.
Instead, he smiled wider.
"Don't worry," he said, "I won't get in your way. I'm just here to... enjoy things. You know me. Chaos, pain, deformed faces. The classics."
With that, Mahito turned and wandered off, arms swinging, whistling a tune that didn't exist.
Jogo stood in silence.
The crater bubbled.
He let out a slow, burning breath.
"...Why couldn't it have been Hanami" he muttered.
...
The silence didn't last long.
Jogo should have expected it.
One moment, he stood over the simmering crater, watching a current of molten stone slither past his feet.
The next, Mahito had slunk back up beside him, crouching with elbows on knees like a child bored during a sermon.
"So," Mahito drawled, "what is this place anyway?"
Jogo didn't look at him.
"Different world," he muttered. "Don't ask how. I don't know. None of us belong here. Not the sorcerers, not the curses. But somehow, we're still bound by the same laws."
"Eh?" Mahito perked up. "So the humans here have jujutsu?"
"No." Jogo's molten eye twitched. "Not our kind. Their power named different, Arts. It's a system rooted in Originium and elemental logic. But since Okkotsu arrived, the rules have... shifted."
Mahito scratched the back of his head. "Arts? Originium? That sounds like something you made up."
Jogo finally turned to him, slow and deliberate.
"Originium is a mineral that spreads like a plague. When it infects people, it gives them power, at the cost of their life. The sickness is called Oripathy. There's no cure. It kills slowly. Horribly."
"Ooooh," Mahito said, eyes gleaming. "A disease that empowers? That's delightfully twisted."
"Don't get excited." Jogo grunted. "It's dangerous. Everyone here fears it. And where there is fear..."
Mahito smiled like a snake. "There are curses."
Jogo nodded.
"Exactly. I've felt one forming already. It's slow, but it's coming. The collective fear of Originium and Oripathy is coalescing. That thing, when it fully manifests, it might be stronger than any of us."
He paused. "Even Sukuna."
Mahito whistled, impressed. "Big words."
"It's not alive yet. But it will be. This world has the population. The suffering. The fear. All it needs is time."
Mahito stretched his arms, sighing theatrically. "So that's the new king in the making, huh? Sounds boring. I bet it won't even have a sense of humor."
Jogo ignored him.
"It's not like Hanami. Or Dagon. This one isn't born of a specific domain like nature or water. It's born of disease. Of desperation. If it manifests in a city, we won't be able to stop it."
"...Hanami," Mahito repeated quietly. His grin faded slightly. "Do you think they came through, too?"
Jogo gave him a sidelong glance. "You care?"
"Not really." He smiled again. "I just want to see how weird their faces look now."
"I haven't sensed them," Jogo said. "Maybe they never made it. Or maybe they dissolved. Not all curses were as... persistent as us."
Mahito leaned back, staring at the sky.
"So, who's top dog here?"
"You already know."
"Yuta Okkotsu."
Jogo's face tightened.
"Yes. Stronger than before. Rumor has it, he brought the infection with him. Not Oripathy, jujutsu. His cursed energy spread through Terra like a disease of its own. People started mutating. Arts started twisting. Now, even native humans are awakening cursed techniques. He's accelerating the birth of sorcerers."
Mahito cackled. "So the little plague boy became a plague himself. How poetic."
"Mock him all you like," Jogo said, "but if you meet him, don't underestimate him."
"Don't worry." Mahito flicked a pebble into the lava. "I'll introduce myself properly. If he's really the strongest, maybe I can find a way to turn that soul of his inside out."
Jogo said nothing.
Mahito stood, stretching his limbs, his skin rippling slightly as he adjusted the contours of his form like a man rolling his shoulders.
"So," he said, grinning, "what do you say, old friend? Let's go find this new king of curses. Or make a few along the way."
"You'll get yourself killed," Jogo muttered.
"Maybe," Mahito said cheerfully, skipping down the slope of the crater, "but at least I won't die bored."
Jogo remained behind, staring into the magma, the orange glow reflecting dimly off his cracked mask.
He said nothing as Mahito's laughter faded into the distance, just turned his gaze toward the horizon, toward the cities soaked in fear and smoke.