My head hurts.
"A child should never be the one to hold a parent back."
"Didn’t know? In this country, dragging each other down by the ankle is considered a virtue."
My head hurt, but my mouth was as sharp as ever.
Maybe because I thought this was the end. The father who had always seemed so fearsome, so enormous, now looked like nothing more than a disgusting old man who couldn’t let go of his greed.
Mocking him to my heart’s content was strangely fun, especially when I saw his expression twitch.
Whoosh
The cursed father, having arrived somewhere, threw us down the stairs.
The walls surrounding the room, about the size of a studio apartment, were full of cracks, and through them came unpleasant voices.
"What’s that kid~?"
"Failing grade."
"It has to be lengthwise.. lengthwise, hehehehehe"
Curse spirits.
None of them were especially high-grade, but that number was dangerous.
"This room is used for training and punishment. We raise curse spirits of grade 2 and below here. Right now they’re too scared of me to come out, but soon they’ll crawl out to eat you alive."
"So this is how you clean up after yourself...."
"As someone like you, who can barely make a single bullet, you wouldn’t be able to fight. You’re worse than a half-baked woman."
So that was why he’d dragged us along instead of killing us back there. He’d planned to do this all along.
He didn’t want to dirty his own hands to the very end, huh.
What a cowardly man.
"Goodbye, the stains on my life."
With those words, the damn father shut the door and left the room.
"Ha....."
A hollow laugh escaped me.
Was this what I’d struggled so hard to survive for?
In the end, to be thrown away like trash like this.
"If it was going to be like this, I should never have become a jujutsushi."
Maybe I should’ve just stayed home quietly and done chores, no matter what happened to my sister.
Seeing Maki lying there helplessly made that regret hit even harder.
"Maki, are you alive?"
"......."
"Maki?"
Ah.
"Sis....?"
I dragged my unmoving body over and took my sister’s hand in mine.
Cold.
At the end of it, I couldn’t feel the pulse of a living body.
"Sis."
My vision blurred.
"Get up, Sis..."
Don’t leave me behind.
Please.
---------------------------------
Maki. No, Sis.
Are you listening?
Ever since I got old enough to know better, I hated you.
Unlike me, who got scared and gave up before even trying, you always tried to move forward.
It was the same when you left home.
Even though it was hard, I liked things the way they were.
What was so bad about living by doing chores?
"If I’d kept living like that, I would’ve ended up hating myself."
Why didn’t you just fall behind with me?
I’m sick of trying. I’m sick of being scared.
Because you kept trying, I couldn’t help but try too.
'Sis, don’t ever leave me behind.'
'Of course not. We’re sisters.'
Liar.
I really hate that.
"....I knew it would come to this."
I’d known for a long time.
Why twins are called an ill omen in the jujutsu world.
Because in jujutsu, identical twins are treated as the same person.
It doesn’t matter if my sister worked herself to the bone, coughing up blood, because she wanted to become stronger, if I wished not to be strong.
It doesn’t matter whether I have a technique if she has one.
As long as both of us are alive, we’ll always be nothing but halves.
Fwoosh!
Just as expected, the moment Sis died, cursed energy burst out of my body.
An amount comparable to Okkotsu Yuta’s. This, suppressed by the ‘bond’ of my sister, was probably my true talent.
Unlike before, when I’d get exhausted just making a single bullet, now I felt like I could make hundreds.
"Sis."
I wasn’t happy at all.
The person I truly loved, the one I wanted by my side, had already become a cold corpse.
But it wasn’t too late yet.
I didn’t want to go this far.
If Maki hadn’t died, if there had been even the tiniest thread of life left in her, I would’ve died in her place.
There was only one way now. Whether it would work or not, I didn’t know.
'Orimoto Rika.'
If identical twins are treated as the same person, then that means the condition is limited to the ‘body.’
The soul is the sum of the memories a person has lived through.
"Sis."
I’m sorry I’m not honest.
I always wanted to say it.
That I don’t hate you.
"So I’m cursing you."
Because it was your fault for running wild and dying on your own.
I’ll give you half of my life.
So give me half of yours too.
Smack
With that first kiss, the immense cursed energy surging out of Mai’s body flowed into Maki.
The most twisted curse in the name of love.
From Maki’s body, now cold and dead, the only part that still held warmth slipped out and returned to Mai.
"Ah....."
I could feel it.
Beyond death, the two of us had become both two and one.
Body is soul, soul is body.
Life passed from Mai to Maki, and then from Maki back to Mai.
Mai, or perhaps Maki, who was shedding tears, smiled brightly.
"From now on, until the day we die, we’re together."
I love you.
------------------------------------
Tzzzt
As Ougi was leaving after throwing Mai and Maki into the punishment room, he sensed something strange.
The moment he turned around, a massive surge of cursed energy erupted along with the disappearance of a curse spirit.
'What is this....?'
On edge, Ougi reached for the sword at his waist.
He had confirmed that Maki was on the verge of death. Since Mai seemed more rebellious, he’d deliberately cut a vital point in the first strike.
Then that meant it was Mai....
Swoooooosh
A silhouette emerged through the smoke.
In one hand, she held a sword; in the other, someone’s corpse.
The person staring at Ougi with an expression that seemed half crying, half laughing was Mai.
"How...?"
"Sis, how could you... not believe it?"
It looked almost like two people were talking.
At that scene, which defied all sense, Ougi felt the hairs on his body stand on end.
He had no affection for them, but as their biological father, there was no way he could confuse Maki and Mai.
Besides, that one didn’t have the burn scar.
And yet, why?
'I can’t feel a single trace of cursed energy!'
The fear carved into his body, impossible to forget no matter how hard he tried, came crashing over Ougi.
On Mai’s crazed face, another figure seemed to be overlaid.
The man who had beaten him half to death with nothing but his bare hands and no cursed energy.
The man who had tried to wipe out the Zenin clan in revenge for his childhood.
The man who had been despised by everyone, yet was in truth stronger than anyone else.
Zenin Toji.
Technique Release-
[Scorching Brow Strike]
Fwoosh!
As Ougi drew his sword, flames of cursed energy ignited around the blade and his body.
Brandishing the blazing sword, Ougi roared in fury.
"Fine, bring it on! I’ll burn you to the marrow myself! Come at me, you fool—"
Slash slash slash slash
Before Ougi could even finish speaking, four sword strikes came down and sent his limbs tumbling to the floor.
One exchange.
That was all it took for Mai, transformed into something new, to turn Ougi into a man with no four limbs.
"A-Aaaaagh!!!"
Ougi collapsed to the ground, screaming.
Every time he thrashed, blood sprayed like a fountain from the four severed stumps.
He’d die from blood loss at this rate, but that wasn’t what Mai wanted.
Sizzle
"Gghhhhh!"
Luckily, there was a good styptic right beside her.
Mai pressed the sword, heated by Ougi’s technique, against the severed ends and seared the wounds shut, then stomped on Ougi’s chest.
"Ghk......."
"I hope you hurt more. The way I hurt."
"Wh-what are you... saying... Mai...."
Mai gave a faint laugh and lifted her head to look Ougi straight in the eye.
"Do I still look like Mai to you?"
Aside from the changed eyes, the face was the same.
But that body was a Heavenly Restriction with no cursed energy at all.
If it wasn’t that, then there was no way to explain the speed and monstrous strength from earlier.
Thud!
"U...uh...."
"Mai, wait a sec—"
"Got it, Sis. Let’s switch for a bit."
Mai’s body lost strength as she spat out a disjointed line that sounded like two sentences overlapped.
As the heavenly body returned to that of an ordinary person, an enormous amount of cursed energy began to rise from her body like mist.
When Mai lifted her head again, her face was the usual one.
"Now do you understand?"
"What did you do! How!"
"What do you mean? We became one."
Mai was Maki. Maki was Mai.
Two souls existing within one body.
A miracle that would never have happened if not for the special case of identical twins.
Mai’s eyes, twisted somewhere between sorrow and joy, changed once more.
The vast amount of cursed energy vanished like a mirage, and in its place the heavenly body took over again.
In Maki’s other hand, which had grabbed Ougi by the collar and hauled him up, a knuckle guard had appeared before anyone noticed.
"Now talk. Who did you team up with to pull this off? What exactly is going on here?"
Ten minutes later.
After learning the full truth, Mai left Giko behind, along with Ougi’s corpse, its head smashed to pieces.
With faces ruined beyond recognition, the two of her murmured softly.
"Let’s break everything."
"Break it all for me, Sis."
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