Chapter 29

  Dojima Hatori, the principal of Tokyo Jujutsu Academy, was deep in the throes of a passionate speech to the entire high school student body consisting of about a hundred people.

  My freshman year wasn’t divided into more classes, so really, there were only twelve freshmen all in all. There would have been more, but I was guessing that the administration had decided to send those candidates to Kyoto instead, leaving the Tokyo School with fewer students. And they had likely done this because they knew that Gojo and I would be going to the same school.

  I wasn’t seated at the back of the row of chairs alongside my other classmates. No, I was standing in one corner of the large ceremony hall, facing the wall. Gojo faced the adjacent corner. And we were at the front, where all the students could see us.

  Yaga’s idea of a good punishment.

  I let a small Juchū with a human mouth crawl over to him along the walls, unseen to the crowd. While principal Hatori waxed poetic about the sacred mission of sorcerers, I whispered to Gojo.

  “This is all your fault, you know.”

  “My fault?” He hissed. “You were all for fighting!”

  “You wanted a fight,” I said. “I just met your challenge without flinching. Now look at us.”

  “I don’t know how many times I’ll tell you this, but I never wanted to fight you all those years ago. I just wanted to talk.”

  “And then fight,” I said. “Say it true.”

  “…Fine. Fine! Whatever. Yeah, maybe. If I’d known you were an honest-to-god psycho, maybe I would have… hmmm… nah. This was fun,” he giggled. “I’ve never in my life felt that scared while fighting before. Did you know that? It was a freaking rush! What the hell is wrong with your soul anyway? Seriously?”

  This wasn’t working.

  Gojo Satoru was completely unflappable. Nothing I tried spooked him. I regretted not eating those finger flaps in front of him. Maybe then, he would have walked away with some lasting psychological impact to facing me. As things stood, I was extremely dissatisfied by the outcome of our battle.

  “…When did you learn the Reverse Cursed Technique?” I asked him instead, wanting to dig up more info on this rival of mine. “I was under the impression that it’s an extremely rare skill.”

  “Not so rare for users of the Six Eyes and Limitless technique,” Gojo freely surrendered that information. “We do have perfect cursed energy control after all.”

  “But the Reverse Cursed Technique—“

  “Is about enlightenment, not just control. Yeah, I get that. But you do need control. That’s where most people fail, I’m pretty sure. Anyway, I was thirteen. I was busting my ass trying to catch up to you. Since you didn’t want to talk to me, I got, uh… desperate. I got the feeling, somehow, that the enlightenment had to be gained on the edge of death.”

  “Why? That wasn’t it for me,” I said. Neither was really an element of ‘enlightenment’ to be sure. It was more of an epiphany really. A deep understanding of cursed energy that went beyond just being able to control it. It was the understanding of its philosophical implications, therefore allowing one to invert it via a carefully orchestrated reaction. A self-collision of energy, but the formula had to be just right.

  Nothing religious figured into my epiphany. It felt more academic than anything else.

  “Why, you ask? It’s because… I don’t discover new heights unless I’m inspired,” Gojo explained. “Inspiration comes from human experience. I’ve lived… a really blessed life, all told.” He said those words with an air of maturity that I really hadn’t expected from him at all. “I’ve allowed those experiences to inspire me, and it’s been helpful, but… as you can tell, it skewed my Jujutsu Sorcery somewhat. Positivity is only half the picture of life, right? A full life, with all the ups and downs, should provide more inspiration. That was my theory at least. And the worst I ever got was butting heads with the clan elders and having my video games confiscated. Even then, they made sure not to punish me too harshly, or I might rebel even more. All in all, my life’s been a total cakewalk. Probably compared to yours, too.”

  All his life, no one had ever really been able to control him. Or exert authority over him. To me, that sounded like the most blessed existence imaginable.

  I envied it.

  “But I knew that familial drama wasn’t going to cut it if I wanted to learn the Reverse Cursed Technique,” Gojo continued. “So you know what I did?”

  “Let me guess: you attempted suicide to try and save your life in the nick of time.”

  “Wha—“ He started. “The hell? That’s where your brain went to instantly?”

  I blinked. “Seemed like the natural conclusion to things. So. How’d you do it? Bleeding out?”

  He didn’t say anything for a while. Then… “Cursed spirit in the middle of the woods, far away from civilization.” Explained why I hadn’t seen it. I only really had eyes in cities and towns. “Let my Infinity fall so it could get some good hits in. It was strong. Never got to finish it off, even.”

  I nodded. “This must have been important to you, unlocking the Reverse Cursed Technique. I wonder why.”

  “…You wonder why?”

  “By your own admission, you’ve lived a blessed life. Therefore, I wonder why you’d ever pressure yourself to such an extent just for power. Blessed children don’t try so hard. Thus, I wonder why.”

  “Heh. I don’t know, actually,” Gojo said. “It wasn’t like I was depressed or really all that inconsolable. I was just curious. And yeah, a little desperate to get stronger. But I wasn’t upset at all, really. And I guess that’s kinda the scary part. I almost killed myself without actually feeling even a shred of desire to die. Then again, I guess it wouldn’t have worked if I hadn’t clung to life so dearly. You know… I’ve never told anyone this before.”

  No matter what I said or did, he just couldn’t help himself. He just had to hobble up to me like a lost puppy drenched in rainwater for a shred of understanding and camaraderie from someone else that he viewed was in his bracket of power. That was what all this was. I understood that from the moment he first started obsessing about me.

  And it had pissed me off for several reasons.

  Although most of those reasons had boiled down to a lack of understanding of Gojo Satoru’s character. Now… I felt considerably less bothered. Especially after this particular revelation. He wasn’t really a company boy at all. Just a kid going through the motions of his immense talent, trying to live his own life.

  “You said there was something deeply wrong with me,” I said. “I can say the same, you know. About you.”

  “Hah. Yeah. I get it. But hey, would you mind… not telling anyone about that? Or actually, let me word it differently: if you tell anyone, I’ll just… never bother with you again. I’ll know where you stand.” He seemed so… vulnerable. Like he had just lowered his Infinity.

  To me of all people. Was he fucking insane?

  I grimaced. “You’d challenge me to expose your words said to me in confidence so that you’d stop hassling me?”

  “Heheh. I guess so.”

  “You’re being really quite pathetic,” I said. “And it’s not a good look. That aside, I simply see no reason to stoop so low if you feel so guilty about mere risky training.”

  Seriously.

  “I knew you’d understand,” he said. “I mean. What I did was probably child’s play compared to whatever you got up to. Seriously—how’d you get your soul to be that way? Were you born like that? And what’s with your multitasking?”

  “I almost ate your finger skin,” I said to him. The hell is wrong with you? Stop talking to me.

  I could just take my talking Juchū away from him, but then he’d just have a one-sided conversation with the wall that I couldn’t help but listen in on.

  “Yeah, I was meaning to ask. You ripped my fingers up before you even knew I had the Reverse Cursed Technique.”

  “And?”

  “You know what? I won’t even question it. Anyway, talk to you at lunch, alright? My new best friend.”

  I could get rid of him by just airing out his dirty laundry to everyone. Then I’d be no different from a petty high school bully.

  Overwhelmed by frustration, I crouched low, and pressed my forehead to my knees, humming in agony.

  I really, really, really need a drink.

  000

  My first day in sorcerer high school was… a contentious one.

  As Shoko and I enjoyed two boxes of strawberry milk while seated next to one another in our classroom in between classes, she stuck her desk to mine and leaned close to me. I could easily smell the scent of cigarettes on her. She had smoked a day past, and had taken two showers in-between that session. One in the evening and one in the morning. Her scented shampoo also masked the scent to anyone with conventional senses.

  We had just gone through several conventional lessons, mostly going over the syllabus, as well as our schedule. Our final period would be Jujutsu in the field that Gojo and I had turned from grassy to an absolute wasteland of upturned dirt.

  “I gotta ask, and don’t turn into an Asura and bite my fingers off if I piss you off about it,” Shoko said, and I giggled. I’d given her a play-by-play of the entire fight, including some details that she had been too far away to see. She had reacted with more fascination than disgust, which was really quite interesting. It boded well for our friendship, definitely, if she could tolerate this much. “But do you… and Gojo… have a thing?”

  I groaned. High school, how I’ve missed thee. “Yes, because when one girl and one boy are overly involved in each other’s affairs, that’s the natural conclusion. Even though you saw me savage him in over half a dozen different ways. In fact, I almost killed him. And I don’t mean that as an exaggeration.”

  “Eeeh, hair-pulling and all, you know?”

  “That’s a patriarchal myth,” I said. “And even then, it only applies for boys. No, Shoko. The answer is a lot more boring, actually. It’s just politics. Gojo doesn’t see or believe that, not really. That’s because he’s… immature to say the least. I did what I did in order to try and establish a power dynamic between the two of us, which would set the tone of all my future communications with Jujutsu HQ.”

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Shoko blinked at me. “…who exactly are you?”

  I explained to her as well as I could, who I ‘was’. With relation to Jujutsu Society, of course. I gave her a brief rundown on my family’s history, though I made no mention of my childhood. Only that I rose to clan head at an early age and ‘worked hard to turn our image around’.

  That also involved essentially bringing in ninety-nine percent of the new generation of sorcerers. Including Geto Suguru and Ieiri Shoko, both of whom had just been given the letters. On my recommendation, of course.

  “Oh,” Shoko said, bowing her head. “That’s… incredibly boring, I think.”

  “Huh?”

  “I thought you were star-crossed lovers, but this is way more boring. Why can’t you just be star-crossed lovers?”

  “At this rate, I will nibble on your fingers.”

  Shoko giggled at that. “That sounds so pervy, you know?”

  I retrieved a big water bottle not filled with water from inside my kosode, took a quick swig and returned it. “Can you do me a favor, though? And not bring that up again? I’m sure we have more interesting things to talk about. Actually, this is quite funny, but I’m currently having one of my shikigami teach the elementary schoolers a nursery rhyme mocking Gojo. They’ve taken to it quite well, if I do say so myself.” Heheheheh.

  “You’re not beating these lover allegations, Teira-chan,” Shoko grinned.

  “Granted, I am overly concerned with him, but that’s mostly because I just want to hurt him,” I said. “That’s not any love I’ve ever heard of.”

  I could hurt him where it really counted now, but…

  …that wasn’t nearly as funny to me.

  “Oooh, maybe I should poison his food or water?”

  “I’m… starting to see your point,” Shoko said. Finally. “Also, do you think it’s a good idea to pick on the quote-unquote strongest?”

  “Who in their right mind would pick on the weak?” I asked. “That’s not nearly as fun. And he’s not the strongest,” I said.

  000

  “I mean, she is strong,” Satoru explained patiently to Geto while he watched Satoru move some sports equipment back to the shed, on Yaga’s orders. Punishment for the morning’s shenanigans. Teira had a shikigami do her work for her. Absolute cheater. “But not really the strongest.”

  “But can you beat her?”

  Satoru hummed. “Her regeneration is stronger than mine by miles. She can easily keep up without even a functioning heart. Though I bet if she wanted to go full-on physically, she’d need her heart to function. Still. That’s better than me. But the question is, can I beat her, right? I could. But if I did…”

  000

  “I’d have to kill him.”

  000

  “I’d have to kill her.”

  Suguru blinked. “And… that’s not an option. Right?”

  “Course not. She’s my friend!”

  000

  “He’s a huge pain in the neck,” I said. “But I don’t want him dead. He’s far more amusing to me while alive, and I no longer believe our differences to be irreconcilable. But I do enjoy the thought of humbling him. I think it’s good for him. You know, he showed me a sniveling, pathetic side earlier, during the entrance ceremony.” I cracked a grin, shaking my head. “You should have seen how he all but whimpered and mewled as he bared his soul to me in an attempt to bond. I won’t give you the details, of course. It’s my own little private plaything of a memory.” In retrospect, it was funny, though it hadn’t been at that moment.

  “Man. Jujutsu sorcery romance. Not even once.”

  I snorted. The more I protested, the more she’d just dig her heels down. It just wasn’t worth it.

  Instead, I listened to the nursery rhyme I had made a bunch of kids memorize, to the tune of Fighting Dreamers.

  Gojo is a loser

  He’s the biggest fraud in school, a

  Big, fat loser

  No one likes his dumb white hair, a

  Big, fat loser

  No one likes dumb black shades

  Oreoreore, he should go away!

  000

  Gojo Satoru had made good on his promise to meet me during lunch. He found the place where Shoko and I were sitting in the cafeteria, and brought along his friend Geto Suguru as well.

  Interrupting our conversation, too.

  “What were we talking about?” Gojo grinned as he put his tray of food and drink down, sitting next to Shoko, who sat across from me. Geto gave me a nod of greeting.

  “May I?” He asked. He had manners. That was good. I gave him a nod.

  “Of course,” then I turned to Gojo. “And we were talking about—“

  “Nothing at all, really,” Shoko interrupted. Actually, she looked far more energized right now than during our discussion about the life and times of Ikeda Riyoko-sensei, the author and illustrator of Rose of Versailles, and her experience in the Democratic Youth League of Japan, the youth wing of the Japanese Communist Party. My intention had been to lead that into a brainstorming session about my brainchild, the Jujutsu Women’s Union, which I intended as an organization that would be the seed of a future, honest-to-god, Jujutsu Labor Union. It would, of course, be a unisex organization, but just the fact that it would carry over the existing structures and organizational culture of the Women’s Union would do wonders for workplace equality as a main agenda.

  “That’s not true,” I pouted. Why would she dismiss our important conversation like that?

  “I’m sorry,” Shoko said, her eyebrows furrowed in consternation. “I just… I tuned out, okay?”

  Huh. “I should have noticed that.”

  “It was some kind of shojo manga, I think,” Shoko said to Gojo—

  Oh my god. “If you’re not even going to—“ I cut myself off before ranting. “What do you want, Gojo?”

  “I just wanted to share some lunch with my new good friends Ieiri Shoko and Hibana Teira, the mysterious mystery woman of the Hibana clan, of course!” he said. “And also because I think it would give the higher-ups a conniption if it got out that we were friends now.”

  Huh! He made a good point! “Alright then.”

  “What, just like that?” Shoko asked, grinning widely. Just then, a couple thousand Juchū started surrounding us, concealing us from view. “What the—”

  “I really only just have a problem with the old guard,” I said to her as I reached into my kosode, retrieving four porcelain cups, each of which I placed carefully in front of everyone. “To me, Gojo—“

  “You can call me Satoru.”

  “Gojo was less of a person and more of an extension of their will. I’ve determined this to be false. He’s either far worse or far better. But it would be more productive to keep you as a friend.”

  “So that you can manipulate me,” Gojo said. Indeed. What use were lies before the power of the Six Eyes anyway? “Perfect!”

  He was confident he couldn’t be manipulated, as expected. His overconfidence would be his undoing.

  “Uh, Hibana—“ Geto said, looking down at his cup.

  “Call me Teira. I don’t like being referred to by the clan name.”

  I put down a water bottle that contained no water in the middle of the table.

  “What’s with the cups?”

  “To sanctify our friendship, of course,” I said as I opened the bottle and powered a measure of sake into each one. I threw the bottle back into the portal waiting underneath my kosode.

  I raised my own cup. “As Jujutsu Sorcerers, our lives are likely to be short, and they will end in agony. Anyway, before that point, let’s try to provide to each other a bastion of vitality and stimulation.”

  “Vitality and stimulation?” Shoko wrinkled her nose.

  “Not necessarily comfort or joy,” I said. “Just… keeping each other on our toes. We’ll have each other’s backs, of course. Fight for each other’s lives, but we don’t have to be all sappy about it.”

  “Yes!” Gojo grabbed his cup.

  “Is this really…?” Geto looked down at cup in real concern.

  I pulled it away from him, remembering myself. Geto seemed like a normal person. Maybe this was too much from him. “You don’t have to—“

  “No,” he shook his head as he reached for the cup. “I’ll take it. Just this once.”

  “Alright,” Shoko raised her own glass. “To, uh, vitality and stimulation.”

  “Let’s curse each other to our heart’s extent!” Gojo cried.

  “Let’s… just be friends instead?” Geto asked, trying to delude himself into thinking that he wasn’t entering into a devil’s sacrament.

  But his earnest plea for mercy… would go heard. Geto was… legitimately rather adorable. I’d take it easy on him in particular.

  “Alright. Kanpai!” I raised my cup. The others did the same.

  We drank.

  All three did a spit-take. At each other. Geto’s aimed at Gojo, but Infinity blocked the few droplets that got past their mutual collision of sake beams.

  I had a wide beetle Juchū manifest in the nick of time to block Shoko’s beam aimed at my face.

  “What the hell?!” Shoko shouted. “That was really—“

  “What did you think it was, water?” I asked. Why would I pour them shots of water?

  “You’re crazy,” Gojo wheezed. He was having trouble even breathing.

  …Wait.

  I looked at the bottle.

  Ah.

  The undiluted one-eighty proof stuff.

  Shit.

  000

  Using his Coward’s Dance, Jun approached all the upperclassmen that he could—the ones least likely to pose a threat to him, even in the social sense. They had filled him in on a lot of the background information regarding this world of sorcery, including the political situation as of late.

  The situation that involved the Gojo clan’s birthing of the fortuitous user of the Six Eyes trait and the Limitless cursed technique—a combination not seen in four hundred years. And the situation that revolved around the recent breakout clan of the criminal underworld, trying its best to rehabilitate its image and become righteous sorcerers: the Hibana clan, whose information network had been responsible for the headhunting of almost every single student that went to this school.

  Kobayashi Jun’s opinion that the Juchū that had met him had been directly controlled by Hibana Teira. He had spread that opinion as though it were the truth, simply because his Coward’s Dance had indicated such.

  The upperclassmen disagreed. They claimed that the Hibana clan itself pooled its strength to send out their ‘Ambassador Juchū’, as those moth women were called by the mysterious higher-ups of Jujutsu Society.

  They all had very similar stories, however. Ambassador Juchū had descended from the skies to exorcise the curses plaguing their local community, before giving them a quick rundown on how to control cursed energy in order to prevent the attraction of additional curses.

  That the reason why their communities were so riddled with curses in the first place was because these people lacked control, didn’t go unnoticed by Jun.

  Coming here… had been the right choice for him. Purportedly, it also hadn’t been a real choice for many of the children who had lost their parents and guardians to the threat of cursed spirits.

  During lunch, Jun had debated on going to a roof or someplace high to eat, where he could continue adding to his aura of mystique. He had decided otherwise, as doing so might make his act too blatant.

  So he had come to the cafeteria like everyone else, picking out an empty table early on—the table that Hibana Teira was not seated. Despite… everything he had seen, he didn’t have a negative opinion on the girl.

  No, his opinion was informed by pure uncertainty. She was a math problem like none other—and boy, was he shit at math. He would simply watch her from afar, observing her until they had any reason at all to interact.

  As for Gojo Satoru, who along with Geto Suguru, sat with Hibana Teira…

  He just hoped that they would take their fight outside once again, should they fight.

  Although Hibana seemed like the conscientious type, given how well she had cleaned up after herself. The field’s grass was a mess, but it would grow back in time.

  A most curious contrast of order and chaos.

  Unbidden, one of his classmates came to sit next to him. “Hi, there!” It was Ishikawa Takumi, the very tall and heavy-set boy who never seemed to have a moment in which he wasn’t smiling guilelessly. He had a calming aura. “Don’t mind if I do!”

  He had taken a large portion of food as well. Several wings of karaage chicken, three onigiri, and quite the helping of cabbage. The portions seemed like they were almost about to spill out from their little compartments in the tray.

  “Help yourself,” Jun said, giving him a nod of acknowledgment.

  That, unfortunately, had opened the floodgates for more of his classmates to sit by him.

  Across from him? The irate Satoshi Ren, still sporting some bruising from his unfortunate flight out the window. Just the fact that he had survived at all indicated that he did have some skill in sorcery. “The hell are you plotting, four-eyes?” Satoshi asked. “I swear, people like you give me the creeps.”

  In any mundane situation, Jun’s character would have given regular classmates a cause to view him as an inscrutable threat. In the world of Jujutsu, it seemed that no one was put off by fears of the unknown. After all, they were hunting cursed spirits for a living.

  Jun ignored him and continued eating.

  “Got nothing to say, huh? Typical.”

  Satoshi didn’t push any further, however. That was good. Jun had been scared that he was about to play chicken with this guy. He wasn’t an unbeatable threat, but Jun hated the idea of fighting on his first day.

  This was really all too stressful. He just couldn’t wait for this day to be over. He just wanted to hug his briefcase.

  He resisted reaching out to the handle next to him. It made no sense to hold it while he was eating. And there were too many eyes on him. Dammit.

  More students arrived.

  The hip-hop aficionado known as Nakamura Daiki. He bumped his head to some music in his headphones as he sat next to Satoshi, eating his food. He had rolled back his sleeves, revealing his tattoos.

  That was all the boys in their class accounted for.

  The girls sat on another table. The beautiful Takahashi Hana, whose sheer radiance was a threat to Jun’s act. Then the quiet, mousy Ito Aoi. Suzuki Yui sat with them, too, but the atmosphere seemed slightly contentious. Made sense. Suzuki was a contentious person.

  Where was Aomori Sakura, the girl who had been quietly keeping to herself?

  On a table on the corner, eating with one hand while writing with the other. Odd. Though maybe there was a serious unspoken threat to her. Her range was still massive after all, even if said range was benign.

  “How the hell did you get tattoos?” Satoshi asked Nakamura, who flashed a grin at him.

  “Wouldn’t you like to know, MC Hammer?”

  “What the hell is that?”

  Nakamura clicked his tongue. “Damn, son. You don’t know your classics. Listen, boy: I came from the trenches. You don’t got the stripes for these tatts.” The tattoos weren’t the usual yakuza style, but looked more like tribal tattoos from overseas.

  “You ain’t got no clue what I can do,” Satoshi glared. “Gojo’s a special case apparently, but I’m still confident I could beat everybody’s ass. Except bug-girl. Ouch,” he slapped his neck. “Something bit me. Ugh, whatever.”

  “That’s some weak-ass shit, homeboy. Keep your eyes peeled in the jujutsu lesson, aight? Imma show y’all how it’s done.”

  “Show us what?”

  “I’ll beat Gojo’s ass black and blue, and that’s on Big Buddha Brand.”

  That was an incredibly delusional claim to make. On a whim, Jun reactivated his Coward’s Dance.

  The first time he had done it, the feedback had returned an ‘average’ threat level. Jun hadn’t felt threatened enough to analyse it further.

  Upon a closer look, however…

  His hands were orange. Good enough skill in hand-to-hand.

  His throat? Red.

  In fact, his entire face was red.

  Nakamura Daiki opened his mouth to shovel some rice into it—revealing a tongue so dark red that it was almost black.

  And right then, Jun finally felt the physical feedback like a punch to the gut that winded him.

  This… might prove interesting.