You call this a projection?

”Ma... Mahito... what happened...?

Why... why are the cells left behind by Hanami and the others...!?”

Cursed Spirits are lifeforms composed entirely of cursed energy. Naturally, the cells they leave behind are as well. When this cursed energy loses the spirit that maintains it, it inevitably collapses.

Even if Dagon and the others hadn’t been paying close attention to these residual body tissues at first, once the collapse began, the resulting fluctuations in cursed energy were impossible to ignore.

Dagon, whose psychological state was influenced by his current physical form as a Cursed Womb—essentially giving him the personality of a child—looked tearfully at Mahito beside him. ”Hanami... Hanami and the others will be okay, right...?”

Clearly, at this moment, he desperately wanted a denial from his companion. Whether Mahito’s answer was a lie or not, he needed that support to keep from spiraling into madness.

But would Mahito give him the answer he wanted?

”It’s a shame, Dagon. It looks like Jogo’s operation was a total failure.”

Mahito said, ”It’s not just Jogo; even Geto, who instigated the move, and Hanami, who followed him because she didn’t trust Jogo to go alone—they’re all finished.”

No, Mahito would not lie. Or rather, because Mahito actually cherished his fellow Cursed Spirits like Jogo (unlike that ill-intentioned fellow Kenjaku), he refused to deceive Dagon.

”Waaaaah, no! That’s not true!” Dagon argued loudly. ”Mahito, you’re lying! You’re lying to me, aren’t you!?”

Faced with Dagon’s denial, Mahito simply looked at him and said, ”Is that so? If you want to think that, go ahead.

But don’t say I didn’t warn you: the sorcerers who killed Hanami and the others are still alive, and I plan to take revenge for them. If you believe they’re still alive, Dagon, then just stay here, don’t move, and don’t come with me for revenge.”

Having said this, Mahito actually stood up from the beach chair he had been lying on and walked straight toward the exit Dagon had set for the domain.

”...No! Wait, Mahito!”

Hearing this, Dagon stopped crying and scrambled to grab Mahito’s leg. No longer denying the truth, he asked anxiously, ”You already know who killed Hanami and the others!?”

In truth, Dagon knew perfectly well they were dead. He only had the temperament of a child; he wasn’t a child who understood nothing. He simply found it unacceptable. Therefore, knowing the truth, Dagon hungered for revenge just as much.

”Well, no, I don’t,” Mahito replied.

”...Eh!?” Dagon, who had just worked himself into a vengeful fervor, stared at Mahito, nearly unable to process the response.

Mahito added, ”While I don’t know exactly who killed them, didn’t Geto say it? They were going to cause trouble for Gojo Satoru and snatch a seemingly powerful cursed tool from some sorcerer. Knowing that is enough.”

Mahito waved his hand. ”As for the rest, humans will naturally help us find the killer. They’ll even help us weaken them.”

Why not seek out Gojo Satoru directly like Jogo did? Why not kill them all on the principle of ’better to kill an innocent than let a guilty one escape’?

The reason was... they couldn’t win.

Was Mahito angry about Jogo and the others’ deaths? Very. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be talking about revenge. But amidst that anger, he possessed a certain cunning born from his origin—the fear of humans for other humans.

It was precisely this cunning that made humans untrustworthy to their own kind, creating the fear of not knowing what the other is thinking. Accumulating this negative emotion, Mahito inherited all the qualities of the ”human” that humans fear.

Having realized that Jogo and the others were truly dead—and that even with Kenjaku’s preparations, they were so ”dead” they couldn’t even use a resurrection trump card—Mahito rationally understood that Emiya Shirou, who could thoroughly kill Jogo, could undoubtedly do the same to them.

As they were still maturing, facing Emiya Shirou and the others wouldn’t be revenge; it would be suicide.

But because Mahito was a spirit born from human fear of humans, he understood humanity perfectly. He was certain that if they leaked the news that Gojo Satoru and his group possessed the Special Grade tool [Prison Realm], as well as another tool equal to or stronger than it, human greed would drive the sorcerers to find the killers for them. They would then launch continuous attacks against Emiya Shirou and his allies.

”After we release this news, we’ll use the chaos created by the human sorcerers to cover the ’nutrients’ (humans) we need to grow. And we’ll use ’experimental equipment’ (humans) to familiarize ourselves with our techniques.

That way, when we have finished growing, we can take our final revenge on Gojo Satoru and the others, who will be exhausted from the constant fighting.”

Mahito comforted Dagon, re-accepting him so they could hunt and grow together. ”Until that opportunity arrives, all we have to do is wait. After all, besides revenge, we have to fulfill our shared ideal for the sake of the fallen Hanami and Jogo, don’t we?”

”...Fine, Mahito. I’ll listen to you.” After weighing the gains and losses in silence, Dagon replied in a low voice: ”For our shared ideal.”

”Excellent. I knew you were a good boy, Dagon,” Mahito smiled.

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While Mahito and the other spirits were preparing, what about Emiya Shirou’s side?

With the ”spoilers” provided by Emiya Shirou, they knew that of the four disaster spirits, two still remained. They certainly wouldn’t sit idly by thinking everything was resolved after defeating the mastermind Kenjaku and Jogo’s group.

At the very least, Emiya Shirou, having followed Gojo Satoru to the Tokyo Jujutsu High, finally met the man Gojo had called back to the country: Okkotsu Yuta.

Read ahead (100 chapters) by supporting me on buymeacoffee com/varietl or ko-fi edwriting