"Because this power is drawn from negative emotions at its core. Mana comes from the world around you. A Jujutsu Sorcerer's Cursed Energy comes from within."
Betty tilted her head, mulling it over. "From negative emotions?"
She closed her eyes again.
In the next instant, Cursed Energy erupted from her body like a geyser. The sheer force of it sent her golden twin-tails whipping skyward, thrashing wildly behind her.
"Oh my, what a powerful aura. What's Betty up to?"
The surge drew immediate attention from every strong presence in the mansion. Puck, who'd been playing with Emilia in the courtyard, shot into the air with feline alertness, his gaze fixed on Betty's direction. Roswaal, somewhere deeper inside, drifted to a window and watched.
"Damn. That's impressive for a fresh awakening." Gojo let out a low whistle as the energy rolled off her in waves.
As the undisputed genius of the Jujutsu world, he'd stood at the summit from the moment he was born, already beyond what most sorcerers spent their entire lives striving toward. Even so, what Betty had just unlocked on her very first attempt rivaled what many Grade 1 Jujutsu Sorcerers carried. Give her time, and reaching Special Grade wouldn't be a question of if, but when.
"Alright, dial it back a notch." He raised a hand, still grinning. "Understanding the power is one thing. Control is what matters."
The commotion she'd caused was no small thing. The reason she'd erupted with this much Cursed Energy straight out of the gate almost certainly traced back to her nature as a Spirit, and to the centuries of existence behind her.
Any other sorcerer, no matter how deep their negative emotions ran, would need to extract Cursed Energy bit by painstaking bit. That rule didn't seem to apply to Betty. Four hundred years sealed inside the Forbidden Library had pushed her to the brink of wanting to die. The depth of that darkness was immeasurable. With emotions that profound, this kind of output wasn't surprising at all.
At Gojo's words, the torrent of Cursed Energy pouring from Betty's body began to recede, pulling inward until every trace of it had settled beneath her skin.
"Well? How's it feel?"
She opened her eyes. "Not bad."
Her brow was furrowed, though, and her expression didn't match someone who'd just unlocked an extraordinary new power.
"What's wrong?"
"Something's off." She spoke slowly, attention turned inward, still probing. "After the activation, I noticed Cursed Energy keeps flowing into me. Gathering, all on its own."
"That's normal at first. Your body isn't used to it yet, so it'll instinctively pull Cursed Energy without you meaning to..."
"No. That's not it." Betty shook her head. "After the activation, I didn't extract anything. But the Cursed Energy kept growing regardless. And I can feel it... this energy isn't coming from my own emotions. It's coming from other people."
"Other people?"
Gojo raised an eyebrow. He stepped forward, placed his hand on her head, and began a careful, thorough read of her energy signature.
What he found made him pull off his sunglasses. He looked her up and down, then clicked his tongue in a way that communicated absolutely nothing helpful.
"Why are you making that face? Don't tell me something's wrong."
His expression was making Betty's skin crawl. She took an involuntary step back.
"It's not bad, exactly. Just... unexpected."
"Is it or isn't it?"
"You look like someone delivering terrible news, so spit it out already!"
Gojo scratched the back of his head, watching her fret.
Before this, his theory had been straightforward. As a being composed entirely of Mana, and a Great Spirit of the Yin Attribute at that, Betty would naturally have high compatibility with Cursed Energy. Learning Jujutsu should come easily to her. Twice the result, half the effort.
What he hadn't anticipated was what happened after the activation.
Because Betty hadn't become a Jujutsu Sorcerer.
She'd become a Cursed Spirit.
The very thing he'd spent his career annihilating before crossing into this world. Countless of them, wiped from existence by his own hands. And now one sat in front of him with golden ringlets and a pout.
This Cursed Spirit was nothing like the others, though. She retained full consciousness, kept her original form, and looked exactly as adorable as she always had. No grotesque distortions, no monstrous reshaping. Nothing like the warped, nightmarish creatures he'd destroyed back home.
What she'd described, that sensation of Cursed Energy gathering inside her without any effort on her part, was the proof. Cursed Spirits were born from humanity's collective negative emotions. As a Great Spirit of the Yin Attribute, Betty could passively draw from every scrap of fear, resentment, and dread people associated with Yin-Attribute magic and with Great Spirits themselves.
Yin-Attribute magic was relatively rare, true. But the world was vast, and plenty of people had suffered at its hands. Take Subaru, for instance. After experiencing Shamak firsthand, his lingering unease might well be feeding Betty's reserves right now.
That was why she'd skipped the accumulation phase entirely. No slow extraction, no gradual buildup. The moment her Cursed Energy activated, external sources flooded in, catapulting her straight to a level that matched Grade 1 Sorcerers.
This was the advantage Cursed Spirits held over Sorcerers. Where a Sorcerer had to painstakingly gather and refine Cursed Energy from their own emotions, a Cursed Spirit's power grew passively, fed by the fears of others. All they needed was to master their abilities. Time and human dread did the rest. The more people feared them, the stronger they became.
Gojo studied her. The only thing holding Betty back was how obscure Yin-Attribute magic was, combined with the fact that she'd spent centuries locked away, never building a public reputation. If she were someone like the Great Spirit of Wind, Zarestia, who lived in Kararagi and had earned the title Great Spirit of Murder through sheer terror... a being like that would probably ascend to Special Grade Cursed Spirit the instant her Cursed Energy activated.
What a strange turn of events.
He never would have guessed that one day he'd be contracted to a Cursed Spirit, trusting one as his closest partner. Even if, technically, he was the one who'd created her.
"How do I put this... for you, it's actually a good thing."
He gave Betty a brief rundown: what Cursed Spirits were, how their power worked, where their strength came from.
When he finished, Betty showed zero concern. If anything, her eyes were sparkling.
"So you're saying that as long as I spread fear, as long as people are afraid of me as a Yin-Attribute Great Spirit, I'll keep getting stronger?"
"That's the gist of it." Gojo nodded. "Though if you actually went around terrorizing people, you'd probably get hunted down before long. Besides, your beloved brother is currently spending his days meowing like a good little cat."
"Excuse me, what's wrong with meowing? Lia thinks I'm adorable." Puck floated closer, mildly indignant.
"Brother!"
Betty, who'd been deep in thought about Cursed Energy a moment ago, lit up the instant she saw Puck. She snatched him out of the air and pressed her cheek against his fur, nuzzling relentlessly.
"Is this really appropriate right in front of me?" Gojo sidled up to them with exaggerated jealousy written across his face. "Honestly. Your own contractor hasn't gotten this kind of treatment once. Keep it up and I might get jealous."
"What were you two doing just now? It looked interesting." Puck let Betty cuddle him, peering at Gojo with curiosity.
Betty said nothing, only glancing at Gojo.
This was his power. He'd taught it to her. That didn't mean she had the right to go telling everyone about it. She understood that much. When it came to her contractor's secrets, even her beloved brother didn't get to know without permission.
"Nothing much. Just taught Betty a little trick of mine."
"It was really something, though. Gave me quite a scare."
After a bit more playing, Emilia called Puck back, and the little cat spirit floated off obediently.
Gojo turned to Betty. "Forget the whole spreading-panic idea for a second. Have you noticed any special abilities you've gained?"
"Are you stupid? Spreading panic doesn't require me to do anything dramatic. Rumors work just fine."
She shot him a withering look, then turned her attention inward, exploring.
A moment later, she raised one hand toward a neatly trimmed ornamental tree at the edge of the courtyard.
Energy rippled around the tree. Under Gojo's watchful gaze, an invisible force seized it, crushing inward from every direction. The trunk buckled, compressed, folding in on itself, shrinking smaller and smaller until it vanished entirely.
"Compression?"
He replayed the scene in his mind, intrigued.
"More or less."
Betty's tone was casual, but the smug grin creeping across her face betrayed her completely.
"Looks promising. But building the compression field takes time, doesn't it?"
As an absolute powerhouse among Jujutsu Sorcerers, Gojo spotted the weakness of her Innate Technique in a single glance. For ordinary opponents, the speed was more than sufficient. Against a true heavyweight, though, it fell far short.
"I'm just not used to it yet," she said stubbornly.
With a flick of her wrist, rectangular blocks of energy materialized across the courtyard, one after another, hanging in the air.
That was the mechanism. Those blocks had enclosed the tree before crushing it out of existence. But this time, she'd summoned dozens at once. They arranged themselves according to her will, snapping into formation with precision.
"What about this?"
The blocks expanded in a flash, ballooning outward until they dominated the space ahead, swallowing the entire courtyard in a lattice of translucent walls.
"They can grow too?"
"Interesting."
Gojo watched with genuine fascination as Betty snapped her fingers. The enlarged blocks began to shrink, closing in from every direction.
"Seems like breaking out would be easy enough, though..."
Before he could finish, the shrinking blocks suddenly linked together. In the blink of an eye, what had been scattered, independent shapes fused into a single massive rectangular cage, seamless and inescapable.
The scattered blocks had been bait. Anyone who assumed the gaps were safe, who tried to slip between them, would find themselves sealed inside the moment the pieces connected.
"Expand?"
Betty let out a satisfied laugh, raised her hand, and swept it upward. The joined structure rocketed into the sky and detonated.
The explosion ripped through the air above them. A shockwave rolled outward, wind tearing across the courtyard and setting everyone's clothes snapping like flags in a storm.
Gojo tilted his head back, watching the blue sky where the blast's aftershock still lingered.
"That's a solid Cursed Technique. Give it a name."
"Hmm." Betty lowered her gaze, thinking. "Prison."
Prison?
Gojo patted her on the head. "Good name."
For every Jujutsu Sorcerer, an Innate Technique was shaped by two things beyond heredity: personality and the landscape of the heart. That Betty's technique had taken this form was inextricable from those four hundred years spent locked inside the Forbidden Library.
"Practice whenever you get the chance. Once you've mastered the fundamentals, you can start developing a Domain..."
As someone who'd never coached a Cursed Spirit before, Gojo could only draw on his own experience. Some things, for him, had simply come naturally, no study or practice required. Teaching them was another matter entirely.
"You don't need to tell me that. Betty already knows."
Still the same tsundere act, but her expression gave her away. The discovery of this new power had her genuinely excited.
And with good reason. As an artificial spirit, Betty had no innate ability to absorb Mana on her own. Back in the Forbidden Library, she'd quietly siphoned Mana from the mansion's other residents to sustain herself. Now the Library was gone, and she depended entirely on Gojo.
The problem was that Gojo's total Mana reserves were, to put it generously, modest. For Betty's needs, they barely covered a handful of high-level spells before running dry.
That frustration had been a constant weight.
But now?
Magic? What magic?
The moment she'd felt her Cursed Energy surge to life, vast and still growing, Betty shoved magic aside without a second thought. Magic, she decided, was a distant acquaintance at best.
Cursed Energy wouldn't leave her feeling helpless. It wouldn't chain her combat ability to the limits of Gojo's Mana pool.
She wasn't proficient yet. Not even close.
But given time, Betty was certain of it.
...
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