Jujutsu Kaisen — Chapter 70 - Yuta Okkotsu's First Day

"Wuwuwu... Megumi!"

The man outside the window was beside himself, tears and snot streaming down his face in thick rivers, two fat drops spinning through the air like noodles.

"Your youth is just too dazzling! Your old man is so moved he can't contain himself! As a reward, tonight we're adding a hundred extra laps around the track!"

"...Is that a reward?" Megumi Fushiguro's voice drifted out as if from a grave, soaked in profound despair.

Then the man's gaze locked onto the dumbstruck Yuta Okkotsu like a pair of searchlights snapping on.

"So — this pure-white new classmate! Don't be shy! Put on your vibrant battle robe! Tomorrow morning, come join us under the rising sun and embrace the sweat of youth! If you can't drag yourself out of bed, you'll be getting a spanking! Bye-bye~"

The man flashed a radiant grin.

In Yuta's eyes, it was ten thousand times more terrifying than any Cursed Spirit opening its blood-soaked maw.

Yuta looked down at the indestructible green spandex bodysuit sitting in the basin.

Help.

He really wanted to drop out.

Even a death row execution chamber would be better than becoming a wild boar charging into the sunrise every morning.

.......

He hadn't rested long when, suddenly.

BANG. BANG. BANG.

Someone knocked on the door frame.

Yuta jolted. Another terrifying thing?

"Yo, this is the new unlucky bastard?"

The door swung open. A bright, brash female voice shattered the dorm's eerie silence.

Yuta turned.

Two girls stood in the doorway.

The one in front had short, neat dark green hair and a distinctive pair of half-frame glasses. She wore a sleeveless black training tank top, and the muscle lines across her bare arms were sleek and dense. In her hand she held a long spear taller than she was.

The girl half a step behind had an identical face, except her hair was tied into a crisp short ponytail and she wore the standard Jujutsu High uniform. Her manner was more reserved, but her eyes carried a cold, proud edge.

"Don't scare him, Maki." Mai poked her head out from behind her sister, giving Yuta a quick once-over. "He looks like a stiff breeze would knock him over. He can't handle the old man's training."

"Maki. Mai. You're here." Megumi Fushiguro gave a single nod. That was the greeting.

"Little brother, take good care of this handsome junior, okay?" Mai smiled.

The atmosphere snapped back to normal. Yuta patted his chest.

He'd been scaring himself.

This was what a real school was supposed to feel like.

He put his smile back on, gave both of them a slight bow. "Hello, senpai. I'm Yuta Okkotsu!"

Then he caught it.

"Old man?"

He turned the word over.

He looked at the stone-faced Megumi Fushiguro. He looked at these two twins with their suffocating presence.

The three of them were family? Then that green-suited uncle was...

"Stop guessing. That gorilla is Megumi's biological father and our adoptive father."

Maki strode in and casually dropped the butt of her spear against the floor.

A heavy thud. It traveled straight up through the floorboards and numbed the soles of Yuta's feet.

Maki stopped in front of him and looked him up and down.

Her gaze was sharp enough to cut. It scraped over every inch of him, right down to the cowardice buried in his bones.

This was the look Yuta had feared most for the past ten years.

Every time someone looked at him like that, the shoves and curses came right after.

He instinctively shrank back half a step and dropped his head.

"Um... I'm sorry." The apology came out before he could stop it.

"What are you apologizing for?" Maki's brow furrowed.

"I..." Yuta's mouth went dry.

He didn't know why. He just knew that saying sorry first usually meant not getting hit.

Maki raised her hand.

Yuta shut his eyes. His body went rigid, bracing for the slap he knew was coming.

SLAP!

A warm palm came down hard on his shoulder.

No malice. Just pure, solid force and something impossible to name, a kind of certainty.

Yuta's eyes flew open.

"Listen up, new student." Maki held his gaze, her tone leaving no room for argument.

"In this place, nobody cares how pathetic you used to be. Nobody cares what trouble you drag in with you. As long as you're willing to sweat on that field, as long as you can clench your fist — nobody gets to touch you."

Mai stepped forward and pressed a can of ice-cold oolong tea into Yuta's arms.

"That idiot is a lunatic with nothing but muscles rattling around in his skull." Mai curled her lip, her disdain completely unmasked. "But what he teaches works. At least here, you don't have to get walked on like garbage anymore."

Blunt. Almost harsh.

But Yuta understood.

Before coming here, he'd assumed the Jujutsu world, a world built around curses, would only be more brutal than the ordinary one. More vicious. More ruthless.

But these two sisters. And this dead-eyed roommate standing beside them.

None of them were looking at him like a monster. They were looking at him like a useless junior who needed to be beaten into shape.

A sharp, nameless ache surged up from somewhere behind his nose.

Yuta clenched his back teeth and fought the tears down.

Ten years. Ten years of carrying Rika's terror alone. Ten years of cold stares and turned backs.

This was the first time.

Someone had actually looked at him and decided to let him stay.

Something cracked open in his chest.

Gratitude. Grief. Relief.

All of it slammed through him at once, too much for his thin frame to hold.

And in that instant.

The temperature in the dorm plunged to freezing.

A Cursed Energy so dark, so dense it looked thick enough to drip poured out of Yuta's shadow without warning. Evil didn't begin to cover it. The air around it bent. The light distorted.

The wooden floor groaned under the weight of it. Plaster cracked and fell from the walls.

"Who dares... come near... Yuta..."

A shrill, ragged screech tore through the room, trailing a pressure that nearly split eardrums.

Maki moved before the sound finished.

A tenth of a second before the Cursed Energy fully broke loose, every muscle in her body snapped taut. Her spear swept a blinding arc of silver and the blade came to rest directly across Yuta's throat, cutting off the black tendrils reaching outward.

No hesitation. Not a flicker.

This was combat instinct that Toji had hammered into her bones through hell she'd lost count of.

Mai had her pistol out at the same moment, muzzle locked on the shadow pooling behind Yuta.

Megumi Fushiguro didn't move. But the shadow beneath his feet was already churning, and two massive Divine Dogs surfaced in the darkness with their fangs bared.

Three points of a triangle. Yuta locked dead in the center.

If that thing so much as lifted its head, they'd drive it back in under half a second.

"Don't! Stop!"

Yuta's mind went white. He reacted before he could think, both hands flying up in frantic waves while he hammered at it internally with everything he had.

Rika! Back off! They're friends! They're not going to hurt me!

The emotions slammed shut.

With Yuta's desperate coaxing, the suffocating pressure hitched, paused, as if something was considering it.

Then, sulking, it let out a low whine.

And dragged itself back into the shadows.

The temperature in the room climbed back to normal.

Maki watched the darkness for a few more seconds. When nothing moved, she flicked her wrist, spun the naginata in a clean flourish, and slung it behind her back.

"Special Grade Cursed Spirit?" She raised an eyebrow. "The old man really brought home a world of trouble this time."

She stowed the weapon. And instead of fear, what crossed her face was a grin that was all teeth and appetite.

"Keep your pet on a leash, new student. If she starts acting up on the training ground, the old man will personally teach her some manners. With his fists."

Maki turned and walked out.

Mai shrugged and followed.

The door clicked shut.

Yuta stood there holding the can of oolong tea, his palms soaked through with sweat.

He looked at Megumi Fushiguro, who had already flipped his math workbook back open.

That was it?

No alarms. No quarantine. No looks that said freak.

He exhaled slowly, one long breath.

Nerves wound tight for months finally loosened, just a fraction, in this absurd and strangely warm dorm room.

Maybe this place isn't so bad.

Actually, it might be pretty decent.

Yuta walked to his bed, pulled out the green spandex bodysuit, folded it neatly, and set it at the head of the bed.

No matter how humiliating it was, he was wearing it tomorrow.

He was staying. He was going to get stronger.

The night deepened.

Outside, insects called in the dark, scattered and unhurried.

Yuta lay in bed, turning over and over, sleep refusing to come.

His head was too loud.

Gojo-sensei. The green-clad uncle's grin. His stone-faced roommate Megumi Fushiguro. The beautiful twin senpai.

It all spun through him in circles, one image bleeding into the next.

Eventually, exhaustion won. He stopped fighting it and sank.

......

Tick.

Tick.

The wall clock's second hand cut through the quiet dorm with perfect, merciless clarity.

Yuta rolled over. His eyelids felt like they'd been packed with lead.

Yesterday had gone on too late. He hadn't gotten nearly enough sleep.

A cold wind crawled across his face. Bone-deep, wrong.

Something was standing next to the bed.

Yuta dragged his eyes open. His vision hadn't fully focused yet when a massive shape swallowed all the light above him.

The room was dark. But that shape glowed, a lurid, crawling green that raised every hair on his body.

A face filled his entire field of view, inches away.

White teeth split the dimness into a smile so wide, so unhinged, it belonged in a nightmare.

"The time is now five thirty-three."

The green monster's voice came out soft. Gentle, even. The register of something that had already won.

"You're late, little seedling of youth."

Something detonated in Yuta's skull.

Megumi Fushiguro's warning from yesterday came rushing back.

"W-wait, wait! I—"

He never finished the sentence.

The blanket over him vanished, ripped away in an instant like it had been hit by a typhoon.

Then a large, calloused hand came down from above, trailing a sonic boom.

"AHHH—!"

The scream tore across the sky above Jujutsu High.

On the training ground below, Megumi Fushiguro was already running his laps. He glanced up, shrugged once, and looked away.

Not my fault.

➤ Next: Passionate Youth Starts with a Sweat-Drenched Morning Workout!