Maki lunges aside, narrowly avoiding a blade aimed at her head. She spins, rolls the staff across her shoulder and snaps a counterstrike — fast, precise, all in one fluid motion.
"New Shadow Style: Simple Domain," someone calls out — Kasumi Miwa. She draws and swings her sword with lethal speed. Maki executed a tight backflip, evading a second slash that sliced the air where she had just been standing.
BANG!
The gunshot cracked through the forest. As soon as the sound registered, Maki twisted her body in mid-air, landing a crouched backflip. She snapped her head up toward the tree line. A woman perches who looked almost identical to her… only with shorter hair. — Only her hair is shorter, dark green-black, cropped to her neck, with bangs swept right.
Dark brown eyes, thin brows, a look of pure disgust — and a revolver levelled at Maki.
For a moment Maki's chest tightens with recognition…
'Little sister… So now it's two-on-one? Huh. Fine. I'll still win,' Maki thought with a small smile tugging at her lips.
"Ugh, WHAT ARE YOU SMILING AT?" Mai snaps, annoyance sharp in her voice as she opens fire.
BANG. BANG. BANG. BANG.
Maki spins her staff around her forearm with practised ease, intercepting rounds midair as if they were nothing…
"If you actually used real bullets instead of rubber ones, that might've been scarier, you know, little sister." Maki still had the small smile still tugging at her lips.
"Don't forget about me! New Shadow Style: Simple Domain—Batto Sword Drawing!"
Miwa unleashed her technique and drew her blade cleanly. As her blade left its sheath, the blade spun free and tore through the air; the instant it cleared the scabbard, it accelerated to an incredible speed, coated in cursed energy, slashing through the air.
SLASH!
Maki's eyes for a second grew wide before she reacted; she clamped her staff tightly under her armpit and, unpredictably, drove it upward in a diagonal arc from beneath—redirecting Miwa's slash away!
Miwa is the one stumbling back. She snaps the blade back into its sheath, eyes going wide.
'WHAT THE HELL? Was that? MAI, YOU IDIOT, you told me Maki was weak! How is that weak?! Did she just redirect my slash into another direction from that impossible angle? How is she using the staff like that?!' Miwa thinks, panic skimming her thoughts. 'No. Don't get distracted. I have Mai here — I just need her to make an opening for me…'
Maki blinks, barely registering Miwa's shock. 'That was weirdly fast. I couldn't block that — I had to redirect it… I have a range with my staff, but Mai's here. She negates that advantage. There is no point in chasing Mai since she'll just keep her distance and get in my way, so…'
Maki shrugged, lowered her staff—
CRACK!
—and knead it, snapping it cleanly in half.
The staff cracks clean in two.
Both Miwa and Mai froze for a fraction of a second, stunned by the self-sabotage. But Maki wasted no time. She hurled one half of the broken staff at Miwa like a javelin!
Miwa reacts, slashing to deflect the flying wood, and another projectile whistles past. Miwa gasped as she dodged barely!
THUNK!
A dagger thuds into the tree behind her.
Maki, now sprinting toward her, had multiple daggers holstered at her hips.
Maki had been running with daggers at her hips all along.
'Hidden weapons?!' Miwa panicked, and her mind raced. 'What amazing instincts! She used the staff as a decoy to close the distance! But that's stupid! because I want you to get closer to me!'
Maki was already swinging down the broken staff. Miwa raises her blade and blocks, thinking, 'Okay, my feet only moved a little—let her come closer, then change my stance—wait… what?'
Up close, Maki catches Miwa's sword at the hilt and spins, using Miwa's momentum against her.
BANG BANG!
Mai fired rapidly, but Maki anticipated it, and Maki flipped Miwa clean over her shoulder. Miwa was thrown into the air, used as a human shield. The rubber bullets slammed into Miwa's back.
"Gah!"
Miwa hit the dirt but scrambled up instantly, gritting her teeth against the pain. 'Why the hell is she so strong physically? Not only that, but was that Aikido? She knows martial arts too?!'
Before Miwa could recover, cold steel pressed against her throat.
Maki is smiling, holding Miwa's own katana now in her hand.
Miwa mutters, "What? Even disarming techniques?"
"Yeah,"
Maki said casually, glancing at Mai.
"By the way—pretty nice blade you've got here."
'Uh… Can I get that back? I am kinda useless without my sword…' Miwa panics inwardly, but before she can bargain, Maki pivots and bolts toward Mai.
'I have to take Little Sister out fast.' Maki analysed as she ran. 'Inumaki and Panda are doing a three-versus-two, plus that monster Todo is there… Ugh! What is my luck? One of my team members is nowhere to be seen—where the hell are you, Ren?—and the second one refuses to fight…'
She closes the distance and halts before Mai.
"Any last words?" Maki's voice was almost playful.
Mai, already reloading, fires without thinking.
BANG.
Maki moved fast, brought the blades in her hands up, and sliced the flying round cleanly in half. The shredding sound is small but precise.
Maki slashed the bullet in half!
Maki weaves and zigzags forward. Making Mai's aiming a nightmare.
"Tch!" Mai clicked her tongue and fired again as Maki began to close the gap.
BANG!
KSH!
Bullets nick the gravel. Maki ducks the next volley, and when she's close enough, she doesn't swing with the blade—she roundhouse-kicks Mai across the torso.
"ACK!" Mai grunted, the wind knocked out of her. She stumbled back, clutching her side.
Mai's thoughts twisted painfully: 'I knew it. Maki has… something… I don't.'
'You were always so carefree…
Whenever I saw a curse and you didn't, you still pulled me along when I was scared…
You dragged me forward anyway! You! I hate you running forward always…
I hate you!'
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Mai stood trembling on the gravel, the lake behind her, a grim set to her jaw, the revolver empty — six shots gone. Maki eyes her like a hunter marking the last of her prey. 'That was it, six shots. 'I won't let you reload…' Maki thinks and surges forward.
Mai's chest heaves.
'I hate you. That's why I never told you… Who my first crush was or that I had a cursed technique!'
BANG!
A seventh bullet was fired.
Mai smirked weakly.
'My cursed technique is Construction: using my cursed energy, I can construct any object from nothing… All I need is cursed energy; however, it takes too much cursed energy… So I can only make one bullet per day… But that's enough; this is why I use a 6-bullet revolver. It's perfect to make a bluff… I win…'
But—
Maki's hand snapped up.
SMACK.
Maki caught the bullet.
With her hand.
Point-blank.
Maki grunted, her hand vibrating from the impact. She shook her hand violently, and a crumpled rubber bullet fell to the gravel. Her palm was bleeding, a trickle of red running down her wrist.
"Ugh, what the hell? You had one more bullet? That stung… But it's over now," she says, grim and calm.
Mai collapses back onto the gravel, nose bleeding from the backlash of overusing her cursed energy.
'Maki has something I don't…'
You were supposed to have a cursed technique, but you exchanged that for physical prowess—the ability to surpass normal humans. Something I don't have…'
Maki looks down at Mai, blade in hand. Mai croaks, "Why did you leave?"
Maki answers simply, "Huh? I mean — you know why you went to Jujutsu High too."
"I… I never wanted to become a Jujutsu Sorcerer!"
Mai's voice cracked… and tears welled in her eyes.
"It's all your fault! For always giving it your all! Forcing me to do the same! The effort, the pain, the fear—I've had enough! What's so bad about being used as a servant?! Doing chores and living a normal life? Why… Why couldn't you just fall down the hole with me…?"
Maki looked away, staring out across the lake. "At that rate, I would have hated myself. It's as easy as that. Sorry."
Memory flickers behind Mai's eyes—a simpler time when Maki had held her hand.
A younger Maki holding a younger Mai's hand.
"Don't leave me, okay, big sis?" Little Mai had asked.
"I won't," Little Maki had promised.
"Promise?" Mai had asked.
"Yeah, yeah." Maki had replied, grinning.
"Promise me you won't leave me behind…"
"Of course—we're sisters, right?"
Mai curled tighter.
"Liar… I Hate You…"
…
..
.
Somewhere else, a young man in a jacket with bandages around his arm jogs toward the woods and then stops, breath fogging in the cool air.
Ren blinked.
'Eh? Wasn't the Goodwill Event in the forest?'