Frieren: — Chapter 89 - The Usefulness of Mahito
Having barely escaped the combined assault of Okkotsu Yuta and Hakari Kinji.
But what Jogo saw when he cleared the wreckage wasn't the welcome of an ally.
It was the Hero's gaze.
And the instant their eyes met,
[.!]
Pressure clung to his entire body like glue, tightening and tightening, squeezing his throat, as if every inch of him was about to be wrung into pulp.
Suffocation wrapped around phantom pain. Jogo, nothing but a head now, went ashen in an instant.
So that's... Himmel?
He'd seen photos of the man. He'd read about his deeds.
But face to face, this was the first time.
What was this pressure?
Just locking eyes was enough to taste death. Even if Himmel was strong, this kind of crushing weight... Had he been enraged?
By whom?
The answer came quickly,
"Oh oh, perfect timing — Jogo! We're getting out of here~"
A cheerful voice rang out overhead.
Before Jogo could react, something hard seized him.
He looked up. It was Mahito.
Having transformed into a winged bird through his Cursed Technique, Mahito gripped Jogo's head in his talons, flapping his wings and hovering midair.
"Haha, I think I made that guy angry~"
"You, what exactly did you—"
"No time for that, we're speeding up!."
"Wait! What about Hanami!—"
BANG!
The force stretched his face into something unrecognizable. Jogo caught only a fragment of what Mahito shouted at whoever stood behind them.
"Bye-bye~ Big blue brother, let's play again next time~~"
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Mahito's body began to swell and distort. From his wings erupted several vortex-like structures. Curved shockwaves bloomed outward in layers, propelling the two Cursed Spirits away.
On the ground, Himmel held Hanami's severed head and watched them go.
He made no move to pursue.
Meanwhile.
Two figures emerged from the shattered [Curtain], arms draped over each other's shoulders.
"Hey hey hey! Yuta! You bastard! You totally like pachinko, don't you!"
"No... I really don't...."
"Haha! Speaking of which — you actually have a girlfriend! Getting that hot and heavy! Guess I underestimated you!"
"Haha..."
Hakari's wild laughter. Yuta's tired, half-hearted response.
The two walked out and their conversation died on the spot, because both of them saw Himmel standing there.
"Mr. Himmel!"
The irreverent Hakari's expression snapped blank. He immediately let go of Yuta, rubbed his hands on his pockets, and stood ramrod straight.
Yuta, losing his support, nearly toppled, but he snapped to attention just as fast.
"Yo."
Himmel raised a hand and greeted them with a smile.
"Teacher, why are you holding a head? That's super creepy~"
"Haha, sorry, sorry."
Neither Hakari nor Yuta showed any surprise at the fact that Himmel had quietly killed a Special Grade Cursed Spirit by himself outside.
If anything, the moment they'd realized someone was out there stalling him, they'd more or less seen this coming.
Even Yuta looked at Himmel with a loose, trusting gaze.
Because in their minds, Himmel was someone one hundred percent worth trusting.
As long as the teacher was here, everything would be fine.
But,
Was it just his imagination?
Yuta was a careful observer. And right now, he noticed... the teacher was in a bad mood.
Hm.
Maybe it was the aftermath of the fight, Himmel was wreathed in something like high-temperature steam. Near his feet, if you looked carefully, you could just make out several dark shapes curled against the ground.
Before Yuta could get a clear look,
"You two head back first."
Himmel drew their attention back, his voice gentle.
"I'll handle the cleanup."
"You both did very well."
No further questions. Honestly, the battle had drained them both. Hakari was one thing, but Yuta just wanted to find the nearest flat surface and pass out.
After watching them go, Himmel finally turned to look at what surrounded him.
The gentleness left his face. What replaced it was something harder, rarer.
Just moments ago, he had dealt with the Special Grade Cursed Spirit Hanami. But Jogo and the one called Mahito had gotten away.
By Himmel's standards, that should have been impossible.
And now the smoke had cleared.
At his feet lay a cluster of unconscious ordinary civilians, every trace of Cursed Energy gone from their bodies.
...................
......
"What exactly happened?"
Nearly every teacher at Jujutsu High had been pulled into an emergency meeting.
For Jujutsu Sorcerers, who never stopped working, this was rare. To drag them away from their ongoing duties was more or less the same as telling them: save fewer people today.
Something bigger had come up.
The round-table conference room was lit only by a few cold-white overhead lights. Seated around the oval solid-wood table were every Jujutsu Sorcerer of weight who could be gathered from the Tokyo and Kyoto areas.
A crew-cut man sat upright in the head chair, back straight.
Principal of the Tokyo School.
[Grade 1 Jujutsu Sorcerer. Yaga Masamichi]
On either side of him sat the two current Special Grade Jujutsu Sorcerers.
Gojo Satoru and Himmel.
Gojo Satoru followed not a single rule. He was sprawled carelessly in his chair, long legs propped on the table, humming something to himself.
And Himmel, who usually kept the atmosphere from curdling, was quiet.
Further down the table...
"Hehe, sounds like there's money to be made~"
A striking woman with a stunning figure, most of her face hidden behind long white hair.
[Grade 1 Jujutsu Sorcerer. Mei Mei]
Blue shirt. Left hand resting on his goggles.
"More overtime......"
[Grade 1 Jujutsu Sorcerer. Nanami Kento]
"Haha, isn't that fine? Honestly, we're used to it by now~"
A glamorous woman with long brown hair tilted her head and raised a hand.
"Oh, and Gojo — undo your technique for a sec."
"Huh? Why?"
SMACK!
"Feet down."
The woman in the white lab coat brought her hand down on Gojo Satoru's shin without a shred of mercy. Gojo yelped.
[School Doctor]
[Ieiri Shoko]
"If we just left everything to Himmel and Gojo, we could all clock out together."
A man swaddled in a brown trench coat, looking frankly like he had no spine, dangled a toothpick from the corner of his mouth and grimaced.
[Grade 1 Jujutsu Sorcerer. Kusakabe Atsuya]
"Mr. Kusakabe, please stop looking for the exit every time something happens... This is a critical period for the students." The shrine-maiden-robed woman with the scar on her face let out a tired sigh. "Still... it really has been one thing after another."
[Semi-Grade 1 Jujutsu Sorcerer. Iori Utahime]
"That's enough of that."
THUD!
A cane struck the floor. A trembling white-haired elder looked up and met Principal Yaga's gaze.
[Kyoto School Principal. Grade 1 Jujutsu Sorcerer. Gakuganji Yoshinobu]
"What matter requires so many of us in one room."
"....Let Himmel answer that." Yaga rubbed his bare head and gestured for Himmel to stand.
Himmel didn't hesitate.
When he rose to his feet, face unreadable, every eye in the room settled on him.
And almost in unison, whether they were the composed type or the restless kind, every person present went grave.
Because...
(If this were any other time, Himmel would be grinning by now.)
(Those kids might not know, but we've seen every corner of that man's brain. Something's wrong.)
(Something big is coming.)
Every face in the room darkened. Even Mei Mei, who would normally be counting her commission, let the excitement drain out of her expression.
"The situation is as follows...."
Himmel walked through the mission in a businesslike tone, Okkotsu Yuta and Hakari Kinji's assignment, start to finish, including what had happened inside the barrier between the two of them.
When he finished, the room sat with their own thoughts.
The Kyoto teachers quietly sucked in a breath, muttering to each other about why Tokyo always produced this kind of student.
The Kyoto principal, Gakuganji, did not mutter. His entire face collapsed into a scowl.
"Preposterous!"
He slammed it down.
"I said from the beginning, Okkotsu Yuta should be executed! You refused, fine. But to actually let that boy attempt to control Orimoto Rika!"
"Even if that Special Grade Cursed Spirit was killed, if Okkotsu Yuta had died in the process and Orimoto Rika subsequently went berserk, the entire city of Sendai would have been destroyed!"
Everyone in the room knew it. Okkotsu Yuta was both a ticking time bomb and the only thing keeping it from going off.
Orimoto Rika's Cursed Energy was bottomless. Her output climbed without limit alongside her rage. The reason she appeared manageable at all was entirely because Yuta was subconsciously holding her back.
For something like that, you didn't wait. You blasted it to nothing before it could react.
That was Gakuganji's position. It had always been his position.
"Blegh~"
Of course, this was all ancient history.
With his legs smacked off the table, Gojo Satoru was forced to sit like a person, but his face made up for it. He rolled his eyes, scrunched up his nose, opened his mouth wide, stuck out his tongue, and mimed gagging.
"So old, so rotten~ Did anyone bring LEC Gekiochi-kun? I'm pretty sure I can smell mold in here~"
[Note: LEC Gekiochi-kun is a bathroom mold-removal gel spray.]
"Gojo Satoru!"
Gakuganji's glare was furious. But he didn't push further.
"Principal, a moment." Iori Utahime stepped in, tired, and smoothly redirected. "Himmel. You didn't call all of us here just to show off your students."
At that, Himmel's expression settled.
"No, I was genuinely showing off my students just now. Don't you think they did an excellent job?"
".........."
Mouths twitched around the table.
Fair enough.
Everyone in this room knew: this blue-haired man was slightly more reliable than Gojo Satoru, but his brain ran on the same frequency.
"Kidding." Himmel smiled. "Even I wouldn't drag everyone in here just to brag about my students."
Wouldn't casually drag them in...
A few people developed a visible eye twitch.
But Himmel's expression had already turned serious.
"What I need to discuss now is what happened outside the barrier."
While Yuta and Hakari were fighting inside, Himmel had done exactly what a reliable teacher should: stayed outside and observed.
Through his own Instinct, he could perceive the interior to a degree.
He hadn't finished Hanami immediately because he wanted his two students to handle Jogo themselves.
Given Hakari's abilities, they could hold out until he stepped in. Whatever they learned in the process would be worth more than any lesson he could give them.
It also drew out more of the enemy's pieces.
And there was another reason. Because of Geto Suguru, Himmel couldn't simply kill Cursed Spirits, killing them outright sent them back into the cycle of reincarnation, which accomplished nothing.
For the past 9 years, his method had been to subdue Cursed Spirits until they couldn't resist, then bring them back to Geto. Hanami, for instance, even with its head torn off, it wasn't dead. Just weakened. Helpless.
When Geto consumed Hanami, it would help ease the burden of the Cursed Spirits he carried.
Everything was going smoothly. He'd secured Hanami. Jogo had been unexpectedly beaten into the ground by Hakari and Yuta's sudden surge. And then,
The piece Himmel had been waiting for arrived.
A Cursed Spirit born from the accumulated malice of human beings.
[Mahito]
Not especially powerful. By Himmel's assessment, Mahito wasn't even at Hanami's level right now.
But his ability...
"The Cursed Spirit named Mahito possesses the ability to observe and manipulate souls. Based on his Cursed Technique disclosure, it is called [Idle Transfiguration]."
The atmosphere in the room shifted.
In this world, humans possessed a clearly defined concept of the soul.
The soul shaped the body. If someone could manipulate a human's soul directly, physical transformation followed naturally. And because the soul's fundamental freedom far exceeded what the human body could achieve, controlling the soul meant controlling the body however you pleased.
A powerful ability. But given Himmel's own parameters, the change in everyone's faces wasn't fear.
It was the opposite.
"Hey, Himmel." Gojo Satoru was the first to speak. The lazy ease had left his voice entirely. "You mean to say, "
"That's right. I think everyone already sees it."
Over these 9 years, everyone in this room had gotten to know Himmel and Gojo Satoru well enough.
They all knew what these two Special Grades had been working toward.
[In this generation, end the existence of Cursed Spirits.]
"Mahito's ability," Himmel said, "may be capable of doing exactly that."
➤ Next: iGojo TV — Words Unspoken