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."

This is the point where many other sorcerers would have lost. Fortunately for Nanami Kento, he has been very careful, and above all very deliberate about work life balance. The horrible things he experiences at work may not touch his private life, not if he can help it. And, being a fully functional adult with comparatively minimal hangups for his chosen profession, he can. This exact sort of mentality, the protection of the self as an ideal that he constantly reinforces, is what saves him from a truly torturous fate. It is not inaccurate to say that his 'soul,' as Mahito perceives it, is shielded by cursed energy. The transfiguration fails to go through; his soul refuses to be changed.

Nanami still feels the hit, though, and grunts in discomfort before he slices off the offending extremity touching him and jumps away. The curse now shows self transfiguration abilities; this eliminates one of the precious few weaknesses he was able to discern. Also, it makes this matchup even worse. Was it always able to do that and just waiting for a moment to strike, or even worse, is it noticing what its enemy is paying attention to and responding accordingly?

"Oh, you're more interesting than I thought." Stitch's legs seem to have been transfigured into those of a—goat? some ungulate, anyway—and they quickly reconstitute their arm. "You managed to protect your soul on instinct! But you can't sense it, can you? So it won't last. All I have to do is touch you two or three more times..."

"...and you'll be mine." And whether they just discovered this power or were holding back all along, they're not holding back anymore.

Unfortunate. Not enough for the stitched curse to get in anymore transfiguration attempts, but the grade 1 sorcerer is definitely on the ropes, now. This is more of a game of keep away than a proper fight. The prize to keep away is, of course, the sorcerer himself. Quite a dangerous game, but not one he's unaccustomed to. He doesn't even seem particularly flustered, or even afraid.

That's one pact to enhance his own cursed energy, but that's hardly going to be enough. But this time spent playing keep away has gone on rather longer than he would have liked, and so soon enough: it's past 6 PM.

...the sorcerer's cursed energy just suddenly vastly increased. "A time-based pact? You've been limiting yourself all along?" Maybe they should get worried! But this just sounds like a lot of fun. Time to press the offensive even more.

It is the essence of the intelligent 9 to 5 (or in this case, 10 to 6) worker to only expend the energy necessary to get the job done, and not waste time putting in more effort or power than is necessary. That's just pragmatism and planning for the long term to prevent burnout. After his allotted 8 hours of work, well.

"If we both live, let's do this again sometime," he says softly, just as he zips in to slice off one of the curse's legs. And then he really should see about not dying to that large scale cursed environmental collapse he set up, that's kind of the thing that might actually kill him.

And it being just as dangerous to the sorcerer himself means it's extra dangerous to him! Oh shit! He might actually die!

Yep. That's the idea.

But of course, he has no way to be sure, and he does not escape from the deadly collapse unscathed.

Which is why he needs to be picked up and taken to be healed. The irony of the only lasting injury from the fight being self inflicted has not escaped him, but such is the way of the working man.

"Ah, I'm just at Yoshino Junpei's house. I'll call you back."

"No."