"Um... Hayashi said he has something to take care of. He said he'll join us next time for the movie," Itadori Yuji scratched the back of his head and laughed. "It's okay, we can watch it together, right?"
"Sure," Junpei replied, not really caring about where Hayashi had gone. It didn't matter much to him.
After Itadori and Junpei left, Hayashi emerged from behind a tree two hundred meters away, his curse energy expanded in full range, constantly observing Junpei's house.
Barely a few minutes passed when a shadow approached Junpei's home and entered it easily.
"Doing such errands… They've got me running around even though I'm almost a special-grade cursed spirit! And I'm just a delivery boy?" the curse spirit muttered as it entered Junpei's house, holding a purplish-black severed finger. It glanced at the woman asleep at the table. "Why not just kill her and be done with it? This is so unnecessarily complicated. She's just an ordinary woman."
Still, it didn't dare disobey Geto Suguru's orders. Reluctantly, it placed the severed finger on the table. Yoshino Nagi was fast asleep, dreaming of her son Junpei's joyful growth, and she felt deeply content.
"Hehe, the show's about to begin!" the curse spirit chuckled as it slowly retreated.
"Indeed, the show is about to begin."
Just as the curse spirit was about to leave Junpei's house, a cold voice rang out. It turned to see a black-haired man silently standing next to the table, casually picking up the severed finger.
"Who are you?!" The curse spirit was shocked. How had someone appeared out of nowhere? "How did you get in here? Put that down, now!"
"Not bad, not bad. Even the errand runners are at this level now," Hayashi commented, looking at the severed finger of Sukuna he had picked up. His previously calm face turned dark. "You don't even know who I am, and you're out here running errands? You're just cannon fodder. Don't you get it?"
Seeing Hayashi's cold, piercing eyes and sensing the immense curse energy radiating from him, the curse spirit panicked and lunged toward him.
If Hayashi took Sukuna's finger, it couldn't return to report the failure. Mahito would definitely kill it, so it had to kill this boy first.
"I don't care who you are, you're going to die!" the curse spirit roared as its curse energy flared, and sharp claws lashed out at Hayashi.
"Another brainless one, I see," Hayashi sighed, casually swinging a punch at the curse spirit's head as it charged at him.
"Azure-Black Flash, Power Multiplied."
[Power Multiplied Randomly]
[Power Multiplied ×3]
Boom!
With just one punch, the head of the semi-special-grade curse spirit exploded. Its body collapsed instantly, unable to even comprehend that it had already died.
After the curse spirit died, it disappeared completely. It seemed it was a genuine curse, not one of Mahito's reanimated transfigured humans.
Hayashi had no plans to stick around. The area was now secure. If Geto Suguru wanted to send more curse spirits to deliver fingers, Hayashi would be happy to oblige. After all, why not take advantage of the opportunity to collect these powerful objects?
The first time, Hayashi had let Itadori Yuji consume Sukuna's finger. But now, with the finger in his possession, there was no need to give it to Yuji. He wasn't foolish. The more fingers Yuji consumed, the stronger Sukuna would become. And ultimately, it would be Hayashi who had to deal with Sukuna.
Why dig his own grave? Weakening Sukuna's power and using the finger to strengthen himself seemed like a much better idea.
After Hayashi left, the atmosphere around Junpei's home returned to normal. Yoshino Nagi continued to sleep soundly, her dreams still filled with happiness.
"That guy ruined my plans again. This is getting to be too much! I'm really starting to lose my patience!" Mahito's face showed no anger, but internally, his tolerance for Hayashi was rapidly reaching its limit.
At that moment, Mahito stared at the calm surface of the ocean, but his mind was far from peaceful. Every time his plans were thwarted, it was by Hayashi. How was this guy always so spot-on with his intel? How did he know that they'd target Junpei's mother that very night?
"Should we just eliminate him early?" Geto Suguru walked in, opening a door that led not to a typical dormitory building but to a sunny beach and sea.
"I said we should've killed that kid back then, but Mahito didn't agree. I don't understand his thinking. Letting someone with this much potential live—it's like raising a tiger that'll turn on you. Besides, he's not even one of yours. Can you really keep him under control?" Deerhead cursed spirit, lounging on the beach, spoke while staring at the ocean.
"You don't understand Mahito," Geto Suguru glanced at Deerhead, his expression calm as always. "Mahito wants Hayashi to grow. Once he reaches a certain level, Mahito plans to use Idle Transfiguration to perfectly handle him. Then, Hayashi will become one of our strongest allies."
"No, no, no," interrupted a giant-headed curse spirit. Its body was small, but its head was ten times larger than that of a normal human. Its transparent skin revealed the inner organs and flesh, and inside the enormous head was a massive, green brain.
Seeing its arrival, Geto Suguru slightly furrowed his brow but said nothing.
"Based on the information I've gathered, Hayashi's strength is at least semi-special grade, if not already special grade. Controlling him won't be easy. And, as Geto said earlier, using Mahito's Idle Transfiguration on him? Haha, that won't work," the giant-headed curse spirit chuckled.
"Just the blue curse energy armor surrounding him is likely enough to block Mahito's Idle Transfiguration. Unless you completely exhaust his curse energy, everything you try will be in vain."
"As expected of Brain Cursed Spirit. So, do you have any ideas on how to deal with Hayashi?" Deerhead, who wasn't particularly fond of Brain, asked. Brain's cursed technique was terrifying—able to share thoughts within the minds of others.
However, there was a condition: it could only invade people's brains when they were asleep and had to be within two meters of its target. Otherwise, it could only invade the brains of ordinary people without any restrictions on range or time.
"Hehe, we don't need to deal with Hayashi ourselves. Others have already started making moves. Our target is Gojo Satoru. Let the others worry about Hayashi," Brain laughed, though it withheld one crucial detail from the others.
Brain had already learned that Hayashi could use domain expansion. It had discovered this in Heisei International Tower when it shared the thoughts of ordinary people and gleaned that Hayashi was capable of domain expansion.
Although those people had no awareness of what was happening, the environment around them still existed, allowing Brain to gather the necessary information.
So, Brain wasn't foolish enough to go up against Hayashi directly. However, letting others do the dirty work was a fine alternative, especially since Brain wasn't a combat-type curse spirit.
Brain harbored its own ambitions within Mahito's group.