"I see. Then Gojo-san was very lax to not explain them to you once that was clear." Swipe, dodge, sidestep. "A pact, or shibari, is in short an agreement to bind or restrict oneself. It can be between two people, like your forgotten one with Sukuna, or," sidestep, "it can be with oneself. It is inherent to human psychology that if you give up ground or make a concession, you can gain something elsewhere. Illogical and incorrect in the reality of cold physics, but the world of jujutsu sorcery is not. It is illogical, it is spiritual, it is emotional. And humans, silly creatures that we are, think it should be fair."

He opens his mouth to say something but immediately closes it and braces himself, both arms in an X in front of him to tank a punch.

Which gives him time to think before asking, and so instead he says, "Your restriction is informing... your opponent, such as they are, about how your skills work. Giving up the element of surprise. And the upside...?"

Nanami seems to have gained all he wanted from watching his opponent. He steps forward, and slashes with terrifying precision and speed. In one arcing slash, he removes three limbs.

"Simply put? Power."

Then he tilts his head and eyes his (wrapped) shortsword. It... is covered in blood.

"...Ah," he says softly. "I see."

Curses don't bleed.

Tōkan was talking but not watching, so he did not see the blood.

Instead he thinks. He doesn't have a cursed technique, but...

"Gojō-sensei said that because of learning to manipulate cursed energy so late there's a delay between when I want to use it and when I actually use it." He takes a leap backwards off his foe, kicking its chest. "So my hits are twofold: the initial hit with raw strength, and then a fraction of a second later the cursed energy for a second hit." Will that work as a pact? Time to find out. He leaps forward again, balls a hand into a fist, and punches: "Divergent Fist."

The first hit dents the creature's chest; the second pierces a hole straight through.

Nanami winces. "Well executed, Itadori-kun, but." He removes his phone from his pocket and takes a picture of one of the severed limbs of his own creature. Because it's not a curse, it shows up just fine. "... I would rather have spared you."

"S...pared me?" he asks, blinking. He walks over to Nanami when he notices the offered phone. "A picture. A curse showing up in a picture? ...not a curse." He remembers the deformed state of the three kids who died in the theater and gets a sick, twisted feeling in the mouth of his stomach.

"No. If it's any comfort, if there was anything of them still left inside, they probably would have thanked you. But I didn't observe any manner of thought processing left." He sighs, and finishes his own once-human creature with a final stab to the head. "Welcome to first and special grades. Still believe you can swim?"

Tōkan swallows dryly and nods. "Not... anything else we could have done for them. Whoever or whatever did this to them..." Is his target.

"Is ultimately responsible," agrees Nanami, with a firm nod. He glances around, the closes his eyes. "... It seems these were the only ones left for this trap. Do you see any more signs of a trail?"

He does not want to lead Itadori's conclusions, but... he can't sense anything. Which does not bode well at all.

"No," he says immediately, then frowns at himself and looks around more carefully. "No," he repeats, more certain of his conclusion.

"Neither do I." Sigh. "Let's return to Ijichi-san. Ieiri-san might have more information on the other victims by now. And we'll want to have someone come by to pick these up and attempt identification."

"Yes, Nanami-san."

"There are cursed spirits known as 'special-grade potential apparitions'," says the stitched person. They're holding a book and flipping through the pages idly, lounging on a hammock somewhere in the sewer system. "Cursed spirits are made of the cursed energy emitted by humans, so shared images of fear, even if they're not real, make it easy for powerful curses to manifest."

Talking to the terrifying stitched person has been, as expected, completely terrifying, but Junpei is kind of used to everything being scary, by now. At least this scary thing is being nice to him and teaching him neat stuff about magic.

"So, like the Slit Mouth Woman and other famous ghost stories? Or—or actually can it be more than that, even recent stuff, can the monsters in horror movies become real and proper cursed spirits, too? Because they were put into movies?"

"Exactly! Like Toilet-Bound Hanako-san or the nine-tailed fox." They show Junpei a picture of the latter on the book they're holding and smile at him. "Jujutsu sorcerers keep track of these, and the fact that any unknown unclassified special-grade gets labelled as a potential apparition makes it look like that's all they're focused on."

They turn a knowing look to Junpei himself. "But people constantly fear way more than just fairy tales, don't they?"

"Well, yeah, of course. The scariest things are the ones you can't tuck into the pages of a book, or the runtime of a movie. But without a, a template to follow, what do the cursed spirits end up like? Anything at all?"

Mahito grins and says, "Anything at all. I like how stress-free it is, talking to you."

Just then, though, a loud grunting moan echoes through one of the tunnels right next to Junpei.

Haha if only Junpei could say the same!

"Really?" His eyes turn towards the tunnel the moan originated from, and he frowns. Do not go investigate the sound of the moan, Junpei, you have watched a lot of horror movies, you don't know exactly what's over there but also you kind of do. At least it's not him. "I-I'm kind of a nervous wreck who gets super caught up in trivia."

And now Mahito is standing right behind him, looking into the tunnel, too. "People," they murmur in lieu of replying, "have always feared the earth. The forests. The oceans." They turn their gaze to Junpei himself again. "Because the cursed energy directed towards those is far too big, they gained wisdom long before they took shape, and remained in hiding up until now. I'm proud to call them all friends."

Wow, the terrifying stitched curse person has more friends than Junpei. He knew he was pathetic, but that's just rubbing it in.

"... Sounds nice," he says, because it does. And, actually, yeah, he could see how you could be friends with things made from those kinds of primal fears. "Just because they're feared doesn't mean they're necessarily bad, though. Bad for humans isn't the same thing as bad, and feared by humans isn't either. The earth and forest and oceans don't mean to cause harm, it just happens as a result of what they are. Which is nicer than what a lot of humans could say."

"Bad and good... are themselves also very human concepts, are they not?" Mahito leans closer to Junpei and places a finger on his forehead. "How about you?" they ask, slowly sliding their finger to the left to push Junpei's hair away, revealing all the cigarette burn scars there. "What do you fear?"

"Ev...erything?" winces Junpei, wishing that he could be literally anyone else. Maybe someone that doesn't hate himself, that sounds nice. "I'm afraid that this is all there is, that this is all I'll ever be, that this is just. How the world is. How people are."

"It probably is," grins Mahito. "How people are. And that's how I was born. Because people... are like this."