"I don't care. Where is he now?"

"...he's, uh, he went to Yoshino Junpei's house."

.... Nanami gives a heavy sigh.

"The witness? ... Fine. It's safe as anywhere else, I suppose, and at least we know its location. Have the address sent to Gojo just in case. I found and fought the curse responsible for the transfigurations, but I wasn't able to confirm a proper exorcism. It might still be out there."

"R-right. I'll be there in a bit.

"...so what, um, happened?"

"The hideout was a trap, as we," well, as Nanami, "expected. I dispatched several more of the transfiguration victims, and soon enough the curse responsible came out to meet me..."

"Oh, good!" calls the curse, emerging from the shadows. They're wearing long trousers and a sleeveless top but their feet are bare, making soft noises against the ground as they walk. And they're beaming widely, sounding cheerful. "I'd have been in trouble if Gojō Satoru himself had come, but you're just strong enough that you'll do great as an experimental subject."

Ugh. It's always so annoying when a client was expecting one of his coworkers, and is surprised to get him instead. He didn't like it in the business world, and he doesn't like it in the world of curses. Fortunately, in the world of curses, he is in fact allowed to stab someone over it, and he doesn't have to hide his irritation. It's insulting to be discounted in favor of one of the most unhinged sorcerers in Japan.

He huffs a heavy sigh. "I can see this is going to drag on, isn't it. And I hate putting in overtime. Do you think we could get this over with before 6 PM?"

"You could lie down and let me test you! That'd be quick. But, ah, a lot less fun, and I want to try your resistance."

And they don't wait for a reply before lunging, their speed and power just as great as would be expected of a curse that can talk.

Yeah, that's about what he expected. Such a pain.

The first bout is fast and brutal, but the cheer and irreverence backed up by overwhelming strength of this curse reminds him of Gojo, of all people. Still, Nanami Kento doesn't do too badly for himself, even now. See? The curse is down an arm.

Which surprises the curse enough that they pull back and stop pressing the offensive, staring at the stump halfway up their forearm from which the rest of their arm is hanging by a thread of skin, blood lazily dripping. "Eh? But I blocked with cursed energy, didn't I? Is your technique that kind of technique, then?"

"I don't know what you mean. You'll have to be more specific in your questioning if you want an answer, vague interpretive statements waste everyone's time."

Now. Is the curse going to tidily heal from that? Because most couldn't, not a cursed strike at the weak point his technique made, but Nanami suspects that this is not like most curses.

They grin and don't immediately heal the injury. "Tell me, what do you think came first: the soul or the body? Does the soul reside in the body, or does the body grow around the soul?"

"What a pointless philosophical question." But potentially very revealing, so he'll play along. "Humans are complicated creatures unfortunate enough to run on meat. We are but victims of the stray whims of the mess of cells and chemicals that make us up. Body, then the vague and ephemeral whims of the 'soul'."

"Wrong! The soul comes first." They lift their broken arm and it—doesn't heal, what's happening there isn't healing, it's just being reshaped into being whole again. "The shape of the body is pulled along by the shape of the soul. So I don't need to heal; just strongly maintain the shape of my soul."

They then reach into a pocket and grab a little blue thing that starts squirming and growing in their hand. "You understand now, right? My technique is making contact with the soul and changing its shape. Idle Transfiguration." They reach out forward and the blue squirmy thing starts growing further into a distorted humanoid. "I keep a stockpile of humans. It's difficult, though; humans tend to die when you change their shape."

"But that's normal humans. I wonder what happens if I do this to a jujutsu sorcerer."

How clever. Of course, as implied by his words, every single one of those is still alive, as required for the technique. Their level of consciousness is unclear, and Nanami doesn't think it'd be particularly useful to spend any time considering the implications of that.

"I started my day at 10 AM," he sighs, adjusting his tie so that it's properly situated, "so I'd rather not have an extended experiment session, if it's all the same to you. Let's finish this up before 6."

Idle Transfiguration is a terrible matchup for Nanami's technique. It seems that the person's original mass is irrelevant for the shape they can take, and Mahito can use their stockpiled humans as bludgeons, tentacles, walls. The 7-to-3 ratio changes every second and even if Mahito can't keep their charges alive once Nanami's cut them up sufficiently they have enough to keep the fight going. Another wall here, a sharp blade there, a tentacle thick enough Nanami can stand on it—

    "Help... me..." says the thing—person—Nanami is standing on. Their face is horribly distended, stretching right under and in front of him, and they're... crying.

"Oh, sorry," says stitch. "I've practised a lot so they don't die right away when I change their size, but their... brain? awareness? I'm still not good with that, so sometimes their souls sweat like that."

"But it's not a problem. Let's continue."

This is not a confirmation that he wanted to have, especially when he's in the middle of fighting a supremely powerful and horrific special-grade curse that he is poorly matched against. It is distracting.

Nonetheless, he does answer, "I'll see what I can do," he says, but then it's back to fighting. Or, well. Dodging as he takes in the abilities of this curse and its weaponized victims. At this time, it's all he can really do.

"Oh, wow! Your soul started trembling, now! Was it the sweating?"

"I don't see why I would disclose the details of my personal feelings while at work," says Nanami, dryly.

As the fight continues, he does start to get more of a feeling of the constraints of this curse. The victims can be changed however the curse likes, regardless of mass constraints or such fickle things as 'logic,' The curse itself doesn't seem to be as malleable as its victims, which means that he can attempt to get his own hits in at very precise 7:3 ratios. At least the curse won't shift its ratios like the victims have been.

And at one point the curse stops attacking and just stands there, looking at Nanami with a curious expression on their face. "What Grade are you?"

"... One."

It's publicly (for sorcerers and curse users) available knowledge, so. It'd just be petty and unprofessional to not answer the question. He is suspicious of this line of questioning, though. It's unlikely to lead to anywhere good. Regardless, he doesn't take the obvious bait to try and slice at the curse. Instead he'll be wary of an attack of some kind.

"Oh, wow! That explains how you're so powerful. I'm really in luck, here. You'll be a wonderful experiment."

And the curse leaps, moving an order of magnitude faster than they've been this whole fight, too fast, and their hand touches Nanami's torso directly— "Idle Transfiguration."