Jujutsu Kaisen — Chapter 57 - The Graduation Barbecue Banquet and the Birth of Teacher Gojo
Tokyo, Gojo Clan Main Residence.
A thick stack of reports slammed onto the rosewood low table. Pages scattered like snow.
Satoru Gojo sat with his long legs crossed, his pale-blue Six Eyes gazing down without a trace of warmth.
The intelligence chief lay flat on the tatami, cold sweat soaking through the back of his shirt.
"A thousand apologies, Young Master Gojo!" He didn't dare lift his head.
"The Time Vessel Association's funding chains have been cut into hundreds of shell accounts. The two strongholds we raided in Chiba and Saitama were all outer-ring fanatics. Suguru Geto... he knows our methods too well."
Satoru Gojo said nothing.
Suguru had spent three years at Jujutsu High. How the Gojo Clan's intelligence network operated, how the lapdogs from Jujutsu Headquarters sniffed out a trail, that guy knew it all cold.
If he was dead set on hiding, even the Six Eyes couldn't pinpoint one person deliberately suppressing their Cursed Energy among Japan's tens of millions.
Two months now.
Aside from those two bottom-rung strongholds, barely enough to pick between his teeth, Suguru Geto had vanished off the face of the earth.
"Keep investigating." Satoru Gojo stood.
"Yes, sir!"
He stepped out of the Japanese-style room.
The sunlight was brutal.
He didn't activate Limitless. Let the breeze brush his face.
These past 2 months, he'd stopped rampaging across the country slaughtering Cursed Spirits like a mad dog.
Toji's chuunibyou Will of Fire speech had forcibly yanked him halfway out of his obsessive spiral.
Catching Suguru was one thing. He couldn't let himself go insane first.
---
Afternoon. Tokyo Jujutsu High, Principal's Office.
Masamichi Yaga slid an official document stamped with a red seal to the edge of his desk.
"Jujutsu Headquarters approved it." Yaga looked at this student, now half a head taller than himself. "From today, you are no longer a student of this school. You are an official Special Grade Jujutsu Sorcerer. Use your brain more. Your fists less."
Satoru Gojo picked up the document, rolled it into a tube, and tapped it against his palm.
"Those old fossils can't wait for me to get out of school so I'll cause them less trouble, right?"
"Regardless." Yaga sighed. "Congratulations on graduating."
BANG!
The door was kicked open.
Toji Fushiguro strode in wearing an eye-searing green spandex suit, a large bag of dripping premium wagyu in each hand. He bared his teeth in a grin and stuck up a thumb, a bizarre white gleam flashing off his teeth.
"Yaga! Lose the stepmother face! Today is the youthful coming-of-age commemoration of Jujutsu High's mightiest divine child!"
The veins on Yaga's forehead pulsed. "Fushiguro, this is a school. Show some restraint."
Toji acted like he hadn't heard a word. He walked straight to Satoru Gojo and slammed a broad palm down onto his shoulder.
"Stop scowling, white-haired brat."
"As long as that guy's still breathing, still chasing his so-called great cause, he'll slip up eventually. What we need to do right now is rebuild our strength. The moment he shows his face, we hit him with a fierce youthful fist of justice."
Satoru Gojo stared at Toji.
He really envied this guy.
If the sky came crashing down, Toji would probably solve it by doing five thousand handstand pushups.
"Move out!" Toji hooked an arm around Satoru Gojo's neck. "Barbecue at my place tonight. All you can eat. I'll let you witness the Fushiguro family's secret-recipe Youth Barbecue Sauce."
Satoru Gojo rubbed his forehead. "Fine."
---
Evening. The Fushiguro household.
The door swung open and the crackling scent of sizzling fat hit them square in the face.
"Welcome back, Dad! Oh! Big Brother Gojo is here too?" Tsumiki stood in the entryway wearing a small pink apron, dishcloth in hand.
Satoru Gojo swapped into slippers and walked into the living room like he'd done it a hundred times before.
On the sofa, Megumi Fushiguro was holding a thick book on Jujutsu theory. He looked up at the noise, small face locked in a tight mask.
"Long time no see." His gaze swept across Satoru Gojo's face. "You look a lot better. Not quite as much like a stray dog."
Satoru Gojo raised an eyebrow.
This little brat. His mouth was even more venomous than his old man's.
He stepped closer, used his height advantage to clamp a hand down on Megumi's sea-urchin head, and ruffled it hard.
"Hey! Let go!" Megumi stiffened. He struggled with everything he had.
"What's with the brooding act in front of adults, you little squirt?" Satoru Gojo mussed the hair into a full explosion. "Smile once in a while, or you'll grow up into a deadpan, greasy man like Principal Yaga."
Fuming, Megumi stomped down hard on Satoru Gojo's foot.
Without Limitless active, he felt every bit of it.
"Hss—" Satoru Gojo sucked in a sharp breath and let go. "Little brat kicks dirty!"
Megumi retreated, smoothed his hair, and gave a cold sneer. "Serves you right."
---
At the dining table, top-grade marbled wagyu sizzled and popped on the wire grill.
Toji, apron on, wielded the tongs so fast they left afterimages.
"First piece goes to the great graduate! Celebrating Satoru Gojo officially stepping onto the youthful road of eighteen!" A piece of beef, charred on the outside and tender inside, landed precisely in Satoru Gojo's bowl.
He stuffed it into his mouth without ceremony.
Genuinely good. Far more satisfying than the exquisitely refined, borderline insufferable kaiseki meals from the Gojo Clan household.
Tsumiki quietly poured barley tea. Megumi worked through his bowl in focused silence, cheeks puffed round as a chipmunk's.
Satoru Gojo propped his chin on one hand, gaze drifting between Toji and Megumi.
"Say, Teacher Fushiguro." He swallowed and spoke up.
"Hm?" Toji was mid-shovel.
Satoru Gojo pointed at Toji, then at Megumi. "One with smooth hair, one with spiky hair. One a hot-blooded idiot, the other a precocious deadpan. You sure you didn't grab the wrong kid at the hospital?"
Megumi's chopsticks stopped.
He lifted his head, black-and-white eyes locking onto Satoru Gojo. "Big Brother Gojo, if you don't need your Six Eyes, you could always donate them to someone who does."
"HAHAHAHA!" Toji erupted with deafening laughter.
He hooked an arm around Megumi's shoulders and rubbed his cheek hard against his son's.
"Of course he's mine! This is the continuation of my life, the crystallization of my youth! Our personalities may differ, but the unyielding Will of Fire flows through both our veins!"
"The Will of Fire doesn't put food on the table." Satoru Gojo deadpanned.
"What do you know!" Toji jabbed the tongs at him. "One day, when you have your own students — when you have young sprouts you'd stake your life to protect — you'll understand what this kind of bond means."
Satoru Gojo raised an eyebrow.
Being a teacher, huh.
Through his sunglasses, his gaze settled on the sea-urchin-headed kid quietly working through his rice.
Ten Shadows Technique. Mental fortitude that put his peers to shame. A ready-made prodigy, sitting right there.
"Hey, Teacher Fushiguro." Satoru Gojo set down his chopsticks. A flash of something reckless crossed his pale-blue eyes.
"What?"
"About your suggestion that I take a teaching position at Jujutsu High..." He reached out and pressed a hand down on Megumi's head, a thoroughly wicked grin spreading across his face. "I've decided. First time as a teacher, I'm using your son to practice."
Megumi's chopsticks froze mid-reach.
A strip of grilled beef belly dropped onto his plate.
He smacked Satoru Gojo's hand away and shrank back, every line of his face broadcasting refusal. "I refuse. I am not being your lab rat."
"Refusal denied." Satoru Gojo crossed both arms into a giant X in front of his chest, grinning like a villain. "Prepare yourself for Teacher Gojo's devil training."
Toji watched the whole thing and roared.
"Yes!" He stuck up his thumb. "You teach Cursed Energy and technique, I'll handle taijutsu. Flowers that bloom through sweat, that is passionate youth!"
"Hey! Old man!" Megumi stared in disbelief at his own father, who had sold him out without a second's hesitation.
"To Teacher Gojo's glorious first day, cheers!" Satoru Gojo picked up his barley tea and raised it toward Toji.
"CHEERS!" Toji bellowed, hoisting his massive beer mug and crashing it into the teacup.
Barley tea and beer foam sprayed into the air.
Forcibly drafted as a "practice subject," Megumi quietly scooted sideways, putting a little more distance between himself and these two idiotic adults, afraid their hot-bloodedness might be contagious.
He was fully aware of the tragic fate bearing down on him.
The corner of his mouth ticked upward anyway, just barely, almost too small to catch.
These adults who'd spent every day these past months buried under worry and gloom, they'd finally come back to life.
➤ Next: The Brutally Inhumane Megumi and the Return of Youth