Frieren: — Chapter 95 - Shut Up! You Damn Hag!
Even Kenjaku hadn't been on guard against Itadori in that moment.
Why?
That kind of thing.
Kenjaku had never stopped to wonder.
She only knew one thing: that punch was heavy.
"—!"
Her face caved in visibly where it connected. Blood and saliva sprayed from the corner of her mouth in a wild arc, and she was launched backward like a broken ragdoll, feet leaving the ground entirely.
Her body tumbled and spun in midair, hair plastering itself messily across her face. Before she could stabilize, her gaze snapped upward and she saw another figure diving from the sky.
"COLLAPSE!"
Inumaki had leapt into the air, megaphone in hand, grabbed from who-knows-where.
(No, wait, this is a school. Having something like this around is completely normal.)
Massive gravity crushed down on Kenjaku from above. The ground beneath her feet shattered instantly.
BOOM!
The rooftop couldn't take it. The surface cracked apart and dragged Kenjaku down with the wreckage.
Crumbling, cracking, crashing. Inumaki seized the opening and landed on the rooftop in the same breath.
"Inumaki-kun..."
Okkotsu hauled himself out of the crater in the wall, voice cracking with surprised relief.
"Cough, cough... Salmon. Salmon."
Inumaki pulled out his throat spray and used it, then found it didn't do a thing for the pain. He flashed a peace sign at both of them anyway, grabbed Okkotsu, and ran.
Itadori grabbed Panda and slung him over his shoulder without breaking stride.
"Someone tell me what the hell is going on!"
Of everyone there, Itadori was by far the most lost.
He'd woken up somewhere in the middle of Okkotsu and Haibara's conversation. Hadn't caught a single word. And the first thing he'd seen upon opening his eyes was Panda-senpai flat on the ground looking like he'd been destroyed, face pressed to the floor, sneaking a wink at him.
He didn't fully get it. But the exchange between his dead prison-mom and Okkotsu-senpai? That part he'd understood just fine.
No matter how you looked at it, she was a bad woman.
The details were still fuzzy, but someone who abandoned her kid and then came back to life, and on top of that seemed to be running some kind of con on his senpai...
Forget fake mom. Even if she were his real mom, he'd still have punched her.
Itadori Yuji was just built that way.
"I'll explain later. For now, we run. That person is not your mother," Panda said.
"Salmon. Salmon." Inumaki added.
They were fluent enough in Inumaki-speak by now to follow: the Cursed Spirit Inumaki and Maki had gone to chase was exactly the decoy Kenjaku had released, a plain Grade 2, put down without much trouble. Once they noticed the massive commotion Panda had deliberately kicked up, they'd turned right around and come back.
Panda pulled through.
Okkotsu looked at his friends, something warm pressing against his ribs. It was a shame it couldn't last.
"Now where are you taking my son?"
CRACK!
They'd already jumped to the roof of another building. Kenjaku was already there, closing the gap like a shadow, like she'd never been anywhere else.
She was too fast.
Inumaki yanked his collar down immediately.
"! Col—!"
"Collapse."
Kenjaku passed him and said it first.
Inumaki's face went pale.
BOOM!
The hole that opened beneath him was far deeper and darker than anything he'd made himself.
The gravity swallowed him whole and drove him straight into the earth below.
"The blowback from Cursed Speech scales with the cursed energy gap between the two parties." Kenjaku flexed her hand, speaking to no one. "This body's cursed energy... isn't quite as useful as I'd hoped."
She shrugged.
"Well. Doesn't matter. That's one down."
Gravity Technique.
Kenjaku lunged forward with a savage grin, arriving in the middle of the group in an instant.
She planted her stance and threw.
They tried to fight back. The problem was their earlier success had only worked because it was a sucker punch. In a straight fight, Kenjaku was several levels faster.
And besides,
"You should really pay more attention to yourselves in a fight~"
She struck the exact moment Okkotsu and Panda glanced at each other to check positioning. One instant of distraction. That was all she needed. She slipped through the gap like it wasn't there, and both of them were sent flying in opposite directions.
Itadori somehow dodged the first punch and answered with a sideways kick.
Slap.
Kenjaku sidestepped, caught his calf with one hand.
She'd been ready to use the Gravity Technique to snap his leg off.
"My kid really is something else~"
But Itadori had already moved.
What came next shouldn't have been physically possible. His reaction speed exceeded anything a sorcerer should manage. He yanked his leg back, redirected into the inside of Kenjaku's knee, buckled her stance, and put an elbow directly into her temple as she dipped.
!
Flesh gave. Her head snapped hard to the side.
She barely reacted. Her expression stayed thoughtful.
"This is..."
Before she could finish the thought, Itadori pushed off the ground, drove both hands down onto the back of her head, and brought his knee up into her face.
He let go and lined up the follow-through.
"That's a terrible way to treat your mother."
"You're not my mother! You're obviously a fake!"
Oh, but I'm not~
Kenjaku smiled again and blocked his hook with the back of her hand.
"!"
She looked utterly relaxed. Like she was humoring a child.
"The body is just as excellent as I expected — actually, far beyond it. But the technique hasn't been forged yet."
Kenjaku raised her forearm without hurry, let her wrist sink slightly, wound the power through her core and into her shoulder, and fired a short punch at point-blank range straight into his gut.
"Ugh—!"
Itadori's cheeks puffed out. His vision swam. His legs folded.
Everyone went quiet.
Kenjaku, for her part, wasn't fully settled.
(That moment earlier. Was that... a reaction from this body?)
Itadori Kaori's face showed something uncertain as she looked at her own palm.
"Hah... so blood knows blood, does it."
Probably some baseline biological response from the host body. Human genetics doing something inconvenient.
Surely she wasn't the one feeling tender toward this kid.
Hah. Don't make her laugh.
She pushed the thought aside, walked over to the edge of the crater she'd made, and looked down.
Inumaki was down there, unconscious, face twisted in pain.
Kenjaku nodded, satisfied. Then she shifted her weight and stepped back half a step.
"HAI! BARA!"
WHOOSH!
The moment she moved, Okkotsu's fist grazed the side of her face.
"Close combat isn't a great choice." Kenjaku's tone stayed even. "Though sorcerers are generally the type to lead with their fists when their blood's up. Can't be helped."
Unlike Panda, who'd been knocked fully unconscious, Okkotsu hadn't gone down that easily.
"...Yuu... ta..."
Crack. Crack.
Fine fractures split the air. Reality wrinkled.
Thick black swamp spread out from behind Okkotsu like ink through water, and the pressure of the vengeful spirit rolled over the entire rooftop like a wave.
The Queen of Curses.
Emerged.
"Ah... ah." Kenjaku's expression tightened. "I said not to bring that broken thing into the equation."
Her palm was already up, aimed toward where Panda and Inumaki lay.
Okkotsu's face twisted.
"Rika! Get them out of here!"
BOOM!
All of it happened in the span of a single heartbeat.
Kenjaku fired a blast of cursed energy. Rika dove sideways and took the hit with her own body, shielding Panda and Inumaki completely. Not a scratch on either of them.
And Okkotsu charged forward to buy time.
BANG!
Sliding steps, closing distance, palm and fist layering pressure in a relentless tide, feints and real strikes mixed together as he pushed ahead.
Kenjaku retreated, bent her elbow to parry, looking for all the world like she was barely keeping up.
Okkotsu held his breath and kept going.
Everything had happened too fast. But he'd survived the battle against Jogo. He had to have something left.
(My sword's not here. But if I can just buy enough time, )
(It's okay. I'm a Special Grade too, )
BANG!
He took a hit to the side of his face before he finished the thought.
White.
(What just, )
His view shook. Through the blur, he barely made out his own thrown punch, wrist caught tight in Kenjaku's grip.
(She's got my wrist, wait, )
"Letting Rika go save your friends. That was a bad move, Okkotsu."
Slap!
The backhand sent him staggering fully backward.
(...No.)
His head was spinning.
(Haibara-san's martial skill...)
Kenjaku grabbed him by the front of his shirt and drove her fist into him.
(...is even worse than that Cursed Spirit called Jogo, )
Shk.
Kenjaku's hand-blade moved in the instant before Okkotsu could even begin to react.
It punched through his abdomen.
"Ugh—!"
Okkotsu's face twisted. He had no strength left anywhere in his body.
"You know, Okkotsu-kun."
"If you can perform precise vector manipulation on a person's blood, you can drag every drop down to the lower body in an instant. Brain goes completely bloodless."
"With the Anti-Gravity Technique acting on the blood itself, I can manage something very similar."
Kenjaku leaned in close to his ear. Her hand pushed deeper.
"I won't be letting you use Reverse Cursed Technique."
Okkotsu's consciousness began to slide away.
At the very end, before awareness left him entirely, he thought of Himmel's phone call. The trust in that voice. And Gojo Satoru's face, always grinning, never serious about anything.
Teacher.
I'm sorry.
.
Rika felt the moment Okkotsu Yuta went under.
She had just delivered Panda and Inumaki to safety at speeds that shouldn't have been possible and was already turning back. The instant his consciousness dropped, she stopped being anything approaching calm.
YOU. YOU!—!,!.
The enraged Queen had one intention: remove everything that had harmed Okkotsu Yuta from existence.
She condensed. Slender. Razor-sharp. Her fingertips closed around Kenjaku from every direction.
But.
"Did you really think I wouldn't be ready for you?"
Even the Gravity Technique couldn't stop Rika's kill. The air around Kenjaku filled with the unmistakable weight of death.
In the moment before those giant fingers closed,
"From darkness born, to darkness deeper — let all filth and defilement be exorcised."
The incantation for a Veil.
Kenjaku had pressed her palm to Okkotsu's chest the whole time she was chanting. She completed the last syllable, slipped behind him, and shoved him forward as a shield.
Rika recoiled. She wouldn't risk it.
Kenjaku used the half-second to wrap a length of black cord around Okkotsu's neck.
BOOM!
Pitch-black cursed energy erupted outward, laced through with the screams and howls of curses.
"The essence of a Veil is barrier technique. Barrier technique is the act of drawing a boundary with cursed energy and forcing an independent, closed domain into existence." Kenjaku's voice was unhurried, almost academic. "Domain Expansion is also barrier technique, just a more advanced form. Between the two sits the rigid barrier: below Domain Expansion, far above an ordinary Veil."
Modern sorcerers were mediocre at barrier work. The Veils they used all depended on Tengen's barrier blanketing Japan as their foundation.
Kenjaku was something else.
Her barrier technique had evolved over a thousand years. By any honest measure, she stood on par with Tengen. A creature that even Himmel and Frieren approached with caution. The barrier techniques at her disposal could freely adjust conditions, restrict movement, seal cursed energy circulation, cage sorcerers, the list went on.
What she had just created was a barrier compressed down to the scale of a single human body. Maintained entirely within Okkotsu Yuta.
The obstruction effect of barrier technique filtered cursed energy at its core. Under the right conditions, it could filter physical matter as well.
Right now, Kenjaku's miniature Veil was cutting off all cursed energy flow inside Okkotsu's body.
The bond between Okkotsu and Rika ran in both directions, but Okkotsu had noticed it himself: Rika existed because of his curse. Viewed through the lens of curses, Okkotsu had effectively traded his Copy technique in exchange for Rika. Which meant Rika was, in concept, closer to an extension of Okkotsu's own technique than anything else.
Which meant: if Okkotsu's cursed energy and his technique were both sealed simultaneously, Rika could not move freely.
Special Grade Cursed Tool: Black Rope.
Kenjaku had found Miguel overseas. She had found the Special Grade Cursed Tool his tribe had passed down alongside him, capable of forcibly disrupting any technique. Any technique. Including those belonging to Himmel and Gojo Satoru.
She had kept a portion of it. Wrapped around Okkotsu now, working in tandem with the barrier technique. For a short while, Rika would not be able to manifest.
This was the cage Kenjaku had built for the boy.
Every step of it had been razor-thin.
But Okkotsu's nature, caring more about his companions than about himself, had ensured he never got the chance to tap his real potential.
(Unlike with Jogo. I wasn't going to give him that kind of time.)
"Right. That one slipped away, didn't she."
Kenjaku glanced back along the path she'd come from.
She'd lost track of Zenin Maki during the fight. Hadn't thought to keep an eye on her.
Not that she'd expected a few young sorcerers to actually bring her down. And Zenin Maki specifically, that woman was simply uninteresting. For Kenjaku, who had spent a millennium building a precise internal hierarchy of who mattered and who didn't, the ranking went roughly like this:
Sorcerer ≈ Curse User > Cursed Spirit > Zenin Maki.
Someone like Fushiguro Toji would have been exciting. Maki was not. And her cursed energy was close to zero, which made her difficult to sense in the first place. She'd probably assessed the odds, decided there was no winning, and left, taking Panda and Inumaki with her, since Rika had already delivered them.
Fine.
Now,
Kenjaku carved a new Veil into existence on the spot. Range: the entire school campus.
There was no time to relocate. Not even a minute to spare.
"Mahito will keep Himmel occupied."
For how long?
She almost laughed. Counting travel time in both directions, if he bought an hour she'd be lighting incense in gratitude.
Before that window closed.
Kenjaku looked down at Itadori and Okkotsu, both flat on the ground at her feet.
"Himmel... why would you leave yourself this exposed?"
At a moment this critical, heading out alone on a solo mission.
Did he really not see how central Okkotsu was to her plans?
True, no one yet knew the full scope of Kenjaku's Grand Grand Grand Grand Grand Cursed Spirit Plan. But still.
Kenjaku looked up at the pitch-black sky sealed beneath the Veil.
"Was it on purpose?"
Because of Mahito's particular nature, every day Kenjaku's side stayed hidden meant more transfigured humans, more leverage, more time working against Himmel. The longer the stalemate ran, the worse it became for him.
But the first time Himmel had encountered Mahito, the intel wasn't there. Even Monk hadn't been enough to finish it. Now, with things at this stage, Kenjaku would never have moved unless the other side handed her an opening she was genuinely confident about.
Himmel had put himself out as bait. An invitation.
He hadn't restricted Okkotsu's movements either, because he'd known that if Okkotsu stayed home, neither Kenjaku nor Mahito would act. And letting this stalemate drag on helped Jujutsu High not at all.
As a decision, Kenjaku couldn't argue with the logic.
But.
"Risking yourself for ordinary people. Just like Geto Suguru said."
.That meaningless kindness. At the end of the road, all it builds is a mountain of the people you love.
Did he genuinely believe he could finish Mahito and be back before it mattered?
Or maybe,
"Are you counting on Gojo Satoru?"
Jujutsu High had more than one trump card.
Was Himmel trusting Gojo to sense something wrong and tear through every arrangement she'd made in time to pull Okkotsu out?
Kenjaku turned it over.
"Placing that much faith in him... To be underestimated like this, even by implication." A thin edge entered her voice. "That's irritating."
And besides.
Her counter for Gojo Satoru was already in place.
The Black Rope had always been the trump card against him specifically. With Miguel in play and the rope in hand, stalling Gojo Satoru for 30 minutes was a realistic ask.
Had Himmel accounted for that too?
Knowing neither side's full hand, he'd chosen this anyway?
Then,
"Let's see which of us manages to curse the other first."
At that same moment.
Somewhere across the city.
Tokyo Metropolitan Curse Technical College.
Inside the faculty office.
"Hm?"
Gojo Satoru, who'd been kicked back with his feet crossed eating a luxury bento and watching a mukbang video, went still. His finger hovered over the screen and hit pause.
Something had shifted. He couldn't name it yet. He turned toward the window.
"Yuta?"
➤ Next: Mahito: I Really Am the Buff Bro