The Doll Maker was raving with pain and fear as the countless arms swung like whips. They had the force of storm winds, strong enough to pulverize bones. But the arms were nearly as frightening as the swarm of insects welling from inside his stomach and crawling over his skin.
No …
Looking more closely, Nanami realized that the countless bugs were in fact small cursed corpses. As they devoured the Doll Maker’s body and the corpses of babies hidden under his clothes, they gradually grew and multiplied.
“A cursed corpse factory and self-generating cursed corpses?” Nanami said.
Even now, the cursed corpses were slowly reproducing as if weaving hair and flesh. There was no way to determine the degree to which they had devoured the man’s body.
That answered the final question they had.
“I’ve been wondering what happened to the flesh left over after you used the skin from the corpses to make cursed dolls for the parents. Now I see you were using it to replace your own consumed flesh,” said Gojo.
Nanami concurred: “I was also wondering how he made such sophisticated-looking cursed corpses.”
“They aren’t the kind of thing a modern-day curse user could just dash off,” Gojo said. “He’s probably the remnant of an old line of sorcerers who pulled a cursed tool out of storage … or found an unmanageable cursed object.”
“So you established a complicated pay-by-mail system, at first probably just to rake in cash. That alone proves your dishonest motives. Claiming extenuating circumstances simply won’t cut it,” Nanami said to the Doll Maker, with a sigh that expressed immense exhaustion.
“That thing devours the living as well as the dead, so I bet you really had to keep your nose to the grindstone.” As he said this, Gojo’s shoulders slumped as if he had simply run out of energy.
A doll that feasted on human flesh to produce more dolls, and a Doll Maker who gathered dead bodies to replace his own consumed flesh. He couldn’t keep up and eventually became possessed by that doll. None of it should have existed in this world.
Nanami and Gojo wore the same look on their faces. It expressed grim resignation.
They had accepted the harsh reality, and it didn’t bode well for the Doll Maker wheedling for mercy.
“Huh? N-no! H-h-help me! P-please!” he begged.
“Huh? No can do. Surely you know that,” Gojo said.
“If it hadn’t gotten to this point already, Ieiri might have removed it, but …” Nanami reached behind his back, where a large hatchet-like blade was strapped.
This was the weapon he bore.
After abandoning his life as a salaryman, he had become a sorcerer and taken up this righteous weapon. Nanami pointed it at the Doll Maker.
“W-wait! What’s that?!” the Doll Maker cried.
“Seven to three.” Nanami flourished his blade. “My cursed technique divides my targets to forcibly create a weak spot at the ratio point of seven to three. That holds for both living things and non-living things. You’re a fusion of both, so it’ll treat you as a single object.”
“W-what are you talking about?”
Nanami was divulging his cursed technique. This was part of a binding vow that allowed him to amplify his cursed technique’s effect. Revealing information carried a disadvantage but also increased attack strength.
In other words, Nanami was announcing his desire for maximum damage.
“I do pity the state you’re in, but from the start you were clearly using dangerous sorcery to make some dough,” Nanami said.
“H-h-hey … You’re kidding, right? I-I’m human! W-what would a s-sorcerer do against a human being w-with that blade?!”
“It’s too late for you.”
“No, no! No, no, no! Ulp … You can do that?! I brought the dead back to life! I offered comfort to the human heart! I saved them! Only I could do that! B-but now you’re g-gonna k-k-k-k-kill me?!”
“You can barely talk, and you’re losing control of your conscious self,” replied Nanami. “And even worse …”
Nanami brandished his blade with precise control in the cramped space.
To the Doll Maker’s eyes, his action was clearly full of murderous intent. With his back against the wall, there was little he could do. Fear and frustration seized him.
“This is because you scattered curses among other people, thereby making a curse of yourself,” Nanami said.
Nanami’s words cut the threads of the man’s tension, which were already about to snap.
“I’ll kill youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu …”
The Doll Maker flung himself at Nanami. He flailed his remaining human arm and countless other doll appendages.
Nanami didn’t flinch. He uncoiled like a spring, parting the air with his blade. “Act like an adult and take responsibility for your actions.”
One stroke.
“ … uuuu!”
The Doll Maker never even released a final gasp.
The cursed technique, amplified by revealing information, segmented the Doll Maker’s body at precisely the ratio of seven to three. Nanami struck downward at an angle from the shoulder, exactly between the human and doll-like parts, which then flopped to the floor.
The severed doll body, which had probably been feeding on the Doll Maker’s soul, beat out an inorganic, rattling clamor and eventually fell still.
With faint sounds that didn’t form words, the Doll Maker stopped moving, like a doll with severed strings. Then, as if a cord had been severed, the small bug-like cursed corpses stopped moving, one after the other.
Perhaps the flesh and blood, the unchanged portion that Nanami had severed from the doll, was able at the last moment to die a human death.
Nanami’s single strike had returned the man’s humanity, though it was a relief for no one.
“Well done, Nanami.”
Gojo slapped him on the shoulder, and Nanami swung his arms in circles as if to work out the kinks.
“It would’ve been easier if you had done it,” Nanami said.