Jujutsu Kaisen: Nozomi no Sora

dark.

That was something Singi knew best.

"Heaven and Curse".

"It's different from the 'constraints' that you set for yourself."

"That's a shackle that's forcibly imposed on the body from birth."

"I was born without a right hand, without flesh below the knees, and without any sensation below the waist."

But if there really were a choice...

He didn't want any of these powers!

Recalling what the panda had said, Singi still felt a tightness in his chest. What weighed on him wasn't the failure to quickly defeat his opponent, but rather that, facing a cursed corpse like the panda, he, as a human, felt absolutely no sense of superiority.

The fact that a mere cursed corpse could disregard humanity and stroll leisurely in the sunlight was unbearable to him.

Sitting on the stone steps in front of the ancient Buddhist pavilion, Mechanical Maru angrily punched and shattered the stone pillar next to him.

The songstress's communication was brief; she simply led him here and then told him to wait in place, without telling him what had happened.

He looked up at the sky above him, a sky he couldn't tell was real or not.

"Was it my wish... wrong?"

Suddenly, the wooden door behind me creaked softly.

"Huh?"

An unexpected voice came from behind.

"Did I take the wrong turn?"

Mechanical Maru's pupils suddenly contracted, and he abruptly stood up. What came into view was a real person's stitched-together, exaggeratedly eerie smiling face.

"A real person?!"

A figure draped in a cloak emerged from the doorway, casually carrying a backpack in his right hand, his clothes stained with mottled blood.

"What are you doing here?!"

"What? So you weren't here to meet me after all!" The real person had a mocking smile on their face.

Mechanical Maru examined the backpack in the real person's hand.

"That must have been stolen from the high school's prohibited items warehouse! What's inside?"

"Oh, it's Sukuna's finger, and a top-grade cursed artifact..."

Before the words were even finished, the cannon in his palm was already aimed at the real person's face, and the power of the spell shone brightly!

"Give it back, curse! I won't warn you a second time."

"Huh? Why? Aren't we allies?" Zhenren looked puzzled.

"The premise of our agreement is that the Cursed Spirit faction must not harm students from Kyoto School! But I've received intelligence on my miniature communicator over there that your companions stormed the venue and began attacking my classmates. You broke the agreement first, so our cooperation ends here!"

A "Great Exorcism Cannon" instantly blasted towards the real man, shattering the steps beneath him.

"Is that so?" the real man grinned maliciously.

His face was blasted apart by the shell, but the damaged areas quickly filled in and swelled up, and it didn't take long for him to recover.

"You've already betrayed them, your teachers, students, and friends should hate you to the core, right? Otherwise, they wouldn't have sent you to a place like this—to your death!"

His arm suddenly deformed into a huge blade, which slashed down fiercely!

Clang—!

Mechanical Maru raised his arms to block, but was forced back several meters by the immense impact. The real person before him approached like a ghost, unleashing a series of blade strikes!

The mechanical body continued to crack under the brute force of this top-level cursed spirit, with fragments of the outer shell flying everywhere!

"It can freely modify its body and recover quickly from injuries... This thing is beyond my ability to eliminate alone! Damn it! How could such a disgusting creature exist!"

The mechanical device on the enraged mechanical ball's arm unfolded, and several sharp blades shot out from it.

""The Liberation of the Blade Source" - "Additional Thrust"! "

The thrusters hidden in the joints of the Ultimate Machine Maru activated, instantly propelling its speed to a terrifying level. He swiftly closed in on the real person with the sharp blade in his hand, engaging in fierce combat.

However, the real person in front of him was carrying a backpack containing cursed items in one hand and easily defending himself with the other, a smile on his lips, seemingly not taking the puppet seriously at all.

"It seems your true form isn't here. No wonder you dared to attack me directly," the real person said with a smile. "Hiding yourself this way certainly makes you much safer in battle."

In this way, any dangerous tasks can be left to the companions.

I'm actually a little envious of how easy this is!

"What do you know, you mere cursed spirit!"

The mechanical ball roared, and the blade on its arm vibrated at an extremely high frequency, instantly shattering the blade that had been transformed from the human arm!

"That's a good move!" The real person showed a slight look of surprise. "But is this really a good idea? Even if you become our enemy, you'll never be accepted by your comrades again."

The real person's words left the mechanical ball momentarily bewildered.

Taking advantage of this opening, the real person quickly stepped forward, and his arm, now fully restored, transformed into a high-speed spinning drill, aimed at the mechanical ball's head—

In a single instant, countless fragments of parts, accompanied by flashes of electric sparks, detached from half of the machine's face.

The severely damaged mechanical pellet lay motionless on the ground.

"what!"

Back at the Kyoto campus, Singi angrily clutched her forehead, which was also aching.

However, what pained him even more were the words spoken by the real person.

"Yes, even if we try our best now, what can we change?"

They'll just think I'm a traitor.

However, all of this is my own fault.

Even at this point, he couldn't help but recall the battle with the panda during the team competition.

It's just a cursed corpse, yet it seems to genuinely consider itself human...

"If you get angry just from being called 'Cursed Corpse,' then I, as the real 'Cursed Corpse,' will be really hurt..."

No, perhaps it never even had that thought.

On the contrary, it seems—very proud?

Singi remained silent, gazing at her own mutilated body inside the intensive care unit.

He slowly closed his eyes.

"Was I wrong from the start...?"

In the end, I was just flaunting my misfortune...

"Um?"

Just as the real man was about to leave, he noticed something was wrong. But when he turned around, he was met with a heavy punch from the mechanical ball.

Caught off guard, the real person was slammed to the ground.

Looking at the mechanical ball standing up again behind him, Makoto's face revealed a ferocious and manic smile.

"What happened?! How can it still move after being beaten like that? Don't push yourself too hard with just a puppet!"

Machine Maru stared at the curse before him with his shattered face. Because his machine was severely damaged, he couldn't yet control his head properly.

However, a surge of magical power quickly enveloped the body of the Ultimate Machine Maru, and the puppet that had been "dead" once again pointed its palm at the real person.

The real person sensed the change in the other party's curse power and quickly understood.

"Forcibly increasing your spell power output to repair the damaged parts? You can use this much spell power even from Kyoto to Tokyo, such a long distance?" Makoto's lips curled up again. "Fine, I'll just dismantle you into parts!"

At that moment, the Ultimate Machine Maru in front of them slowly spoke.

"My technique—'Puppet Manipulation.' As long as a puppet exists, it can be precisely controlled from a distance. Under normal circumstances, the precision of the control depends on the precision of the puppet; once the puppet is damaged, not only will the precision of the control decrease significantly, but the consumption of magical energy will also increase exponentially."

My "Heaven and Curse Binding" is a "binding" that comes at the cost of freedom, granting me a limited range of control and output of my magical power. Under this binding, the magical power I can unleash is equivalent to seventeen years, five months, and six days of my life—

"A reserve of top-tier magical power accumulated through divine intervention and curses!"

"The technique is being revealed? Looks like you're risking your life!" the real person shouted excitedly.

"—'Great Exorcism Cannon,' 'Infinite Weight.'"

Without warning, without hesitation.

The Ultimate Machine Maru's palms transformed into roaring turrets, and blinding beams of magical energy tore through the air, pouring out like a torrential downpour!

The real man laughed maniacally as he transformed his body into the most suitable form for evasion, like a mad beast leaping through the rain of death. Cannon fire exploded behind him, mud and rubble were hurled into the air, and the entire land was transformed into a scorched inferno...

In the care unit far away in Kyoto, Singi and Singi stared intently at the monitoring screen in front of them.

On the sensor, the power bar representing "seventeen years, five months, and six days" was rapidly decreasing.

That was his entire life, accumulated day by day, as he huddled in the darkness.

Warm blood slid down his lips and dripped onto his clothes.

But he was laughing.

His eyes were red from laughing, his whole body was shaking from laughing, and he laughed like a child who had finally felt the light and warmth.

--I see.

This is what "living" is all about!

It's not about peering at the world through cold, mechanical eyes, nor about hiding in a dark room, envying the sunlight of others. Instead, it's about turning all of this into fuel, stuffing seventeen years of pent-up resentment, bitterness, and loneliness into the cannon barrel, and then—

Get them out!

"No need to worry about the cost of incantation power...!"

"No need to worry about the machine overheating...!"

"That's it—fire them all!!!"

With this boundless, heavy firepower, bought at the cost of one's entire life, we utterly shattered the darkness and misfortune that had been sealed off for seventeen years!

At this moment, Singi finally saw clearly the "hope" that she truly wanted to protect—

"Mechanical Maru, don't miss your ultimate attack. There might be more than just this one enemy."

He remembered what Noriyuki Kamo had once told him.

"So annoying!"

"Mechanical Maru! Don't think that someone who hesitates for ages about what kind of girl he likes can become a fully-fledged sorcerer!"

No, only Toudou Aoi would have such strange values!

"Here's the machine pellet, it's not a rechargeable battery."

Kasumi Nanawa, who had been fooled by Mayu and the others into thinking that Mechanical Maru liked AA batteries, blinked her clear eyes and said this.

"I... don't use that kind of driver..."

Memories of the past flooded back like a tide.

What he hoped for—

I just hope that one day I can stand under the same sun as everyone else.