Sudugi put her down with complete ease.
Afterwards, he had a small chat with Osada about Tadanosuke, and about life in general, before moving on to find Maru so they could head back.
He could only listen as Maru dropped a great deal of information on him at once. Maru had only ever been sent here to determine whether or not their two species could coexist. The technique he had was shared with his twin brother, and he was forbidden from using it except in emergencies, since excessive use would alert his brother to it.
Maru's hesitation during the earlier incident had not been down to indifference towards the children's lives. It was because him being in danger and resorting to the cursed technique would make his brother trust humans even less.
Confused about whether Maru was even allowed to reveal any of this to him, Sudugi asked why he was doing it. Maru admitted that he really just wanted to be friends. The fight they had just been through had made him realise that they were not so different from tigers, except that they had words, and he wanted to use them to express who he was.
Breaking the moment up and making it even more heartwarming, a small tiger cub poked its head out of the bushes before emerging completely.
Without thinking, Sudugi approached it with his blade at the ready, as if he meant to end the tiger's entire bloodline right there. Frightened that he really was going to do it, Maru screamed out at him, drawing the older man's attention as well.
Lifting up the pup, Sudugi gently handed it over to Osada, asking him to raise it well, and to make sure that it did not become another Tadanosuke. Tearfully, Osada promised that he would.
When Maru asked if that had been the right choice, Sudugi replied that nobody could know how the tiger would turn out, just as nobody could predict what might happen between humans and aliens.
Later that day, back in Tokyo, Usami informed the kids that Maru was an alien, something they obviously already knew. They asked why he was letting them know now, and he explained that the higher-ups had intended to keep Maru's identity a secret, but the Samurans had revealed to them that Maru had already exposed himself. Because of that, the entire intelligence embargo on the aliens had been lifted. Despite this, he asked Yuka and Sudugi to continue carrying out Jujutsu High missions with Maru.
While Yuka and Maru talked, Usami quietly told Sudugi his suspicion that the Samurans' true goal was to gather information on jujutsu, and tasked him with secretly observing Maru. Remembering his earlier conversation with Maru in the forest, Sudugi reluctantly agreed before rejoining the others.
Soon after, Mino briefed them on a new mission, this one at Shuhei Elementary.
The mission involved a child who had been made to repeat the first grade for three consecutive years. Strangely, he never repeated under the same name. Instead he used variations of the original, first Masayoshi, then Masa, and now Masaki. Yet his appearance never changed at all.
When Masaki's teachers attempted to call his parents, they received only a glitchy, pre-recorded message. Mino further revealed that the same student had transferred out and vanished with his family each year, always before advancing to the next grade, only to return the following year at the same address under a new name.
Breaking it down for the rest of them, Sudugi explained that Mino suspected a curse user was impersonating these children and murdering their families. To him, it was likely that they were using some form of rental property to lure in victims. Sadly, they had not been able to track it down yet.
What had truly rattled him, though, was the carelessness of the whole thing. If there was a curse user behind this, it was as if there were no rationale to any of it. They had called it an investigation, but there was also a very real chance that they would go head to head with a curse user. If that happened, Mino warned them not to rely on him in combat, which they already knew, since he was fairly useless in a fight. He handled the barriers, and that was more or less it.
Moments later, Yuka and Mino got into a car in preparation to investigate Masaki's house, while Sudugi and Maru were sent off to find the boy himself.
Having located the school, the two of them waited outside, watching the locals as they left for home. Spotting the boy leaving for the day, Sudugi went in hard and confronted him at once, which caused him to panic and run off.
They gave chase, but came to a sudden halt when they saw a large cursed spirit rising up around the boy to protect him. Unconcerned, the pair tried attacking it. However, the curse blocked them both with ease before returning to the child's side.
Noticing that it did not harm the boy, Sudugi assumed it had to be some sort of shikigami, something Maru referred to as a kalan.
Dropping into a deep monologue in his own head, Sudugi was sure that the aliens were the ones calling the shots, and that they were currently using Maru to gauge the nature of humans. In their first encounter with a curse user, Maru had been worried about whether or not he needed to use his technique. Now, though, they could not let him fight at all. Their objective was to get through this entire testing period without incident.
Then, bringing everyone back to reality, the boy broke down and began apologising.
A little while later, the group sat with the child in a park and talked about what had really happened. Sadly, the boy had found his mother dead three years earlier. He had not wanted to move, so he had begged her to let him stay in the first grade forever. After her death, his mother's lingering spirit had granted that wish.
Masaki, whose real name was Masayoshi, led them to his house, where Sudugi and Maru uncovered a set of bones they believed belonged to his mother. When asked, Masayoshi tearfully admitted to burying her body himself.
The boy then asked whether the police were going to throw him in jail now, and Sudugi reassured him that he would not be arrested. Most likely, if his father also was not around, he would be taken to Jujutsu High to learn how to control his cursed energy.
While comforting the boy himself, Maru shared how his home, everything he had once known, had been taken from him, and that he did not think he could ever fill the hole that was left. That was, he said, until you become someone else's neighbour. A friend who understands why the things you care about are so important to you.
As they spoke, Sudugi received a call from Yuka, who reported finding five bodies buried at Masaki Teada's house, which confused him, since the boy was supposedly living at that same address.
Realising the deception at work, Sudugi turned just as Maru was hit by something, dropping him to the ground unconscious.
Realising that his little act was up, the child began manically tearing at the skin of his own face, revealing a grotesque elderly man beneath.