Jujutsu Kaisen — Chapter 120 - Don't Leave! You Haven't Scrubbed the Toilets Yet!
Zenin Chojuro and Zenin Rantai stared at their clansman. Steam coiled around his entire body. His presence had already surged to the threshold of Special Grade. Every trace of color drained from their faces.
Still fighting?
Fight with what?
Their lives?
In the dead silence of that standoff, a figure carrying a long spear sauntered out.
"Hey, Naoya."
Maki Zenin tapped the spear tip against the ground. A soft tak rang out. "Do me a favor, this piece of old jerky. Let me have him, yeah?"
Naoya glanced sideways at her, one eyebrow lifting.
He had no particular fondness for this glasses-wearing woman who looked like a monkey.
But she was Master Toji's adopted daughter. That counted for something. He let out a cold snort and released the Gate of Rest.
"Suit yourself. Just don't splatter blood everywhere. Cleaning it up is a pain." He pulled his presence back, and that terrifying, oppressive weight receded like a tide going out.
Ogi Zenin's face cycled from red to green, then from green to purple.
Let? Let her have me?
I am the great elder of the Zenin Clan. In the eyes of you whelps, have I become a toy you can toss around as you please?!
"This is beyond intolerable!" Ogi Zenin's hair and beard bristled with rage. The veins on his sword hand stood out like cords.
Maki slammed the butt of her spear into the ground. The floor tiles cracked beneath it.
"What a load of crap."
"Third Gate — Gate of Life, open!"
Green steam erupted from her body, more colossal, more crushing than anything Naoya had released when he opened the Gate of Rest.
Maki's muscles swelled at a visible rate. Her presence shattered the boundary of Grade One in an instant, charging straight toward Special Grade.
Behind her, Mai Zenin bit her lip and fixed her eyes on the fight.
Maki didn't bother with another word. She drove power through her legs and launched. Her whole body became a green cannonball, hurtling straight at Ogi Zenin.
"You insolent brat!" Ogi Zenin, shocked and furious, drew his blade.
The heirloom sword, passed down for a century, sang a clear, ringing note as it cleared the scabbard. Cursed Energy flooded into the steel. A fierce arc of blade-light rose to meet her.
CLANG!
Spear and sword collided. Blinding sparks burst between them.
An irresistible, monstrous force transmitted straight through the blade into Ogi Zenin's hands. The webbing between his thumb and forefinger split open instantly. Blood streamed free.
How is this possible?!
This exile. This waste. How has her strength grown this far?!
A cruel smile spread across Maki's face, undisguised and sharp. She flicked her wrist.
The spear shaft moved like a living snake, slipping past the blade at a vicious angle and lashing brutally across Ogi Zenin's waist and abdomen.
BAM!
He flew sideways as if a speeding truck had broadsided him, crashing through a row of equipment racks along the training ground wall.
"Pathetically weak."
Maki shouldered her spear and walked toward him through the wreckage, one step at a time. In her eyes burned a decade-plus of suppressed hatred, fully lit.
"This one's for me."
She raised her spear.
BAM!
One strike. Both kneecaps, shattered completely.
"AAAARGH—!" The scream that tore out of Ogi Zenin would have embarrassed a slaughterhouse.
"This one's for Mai."
Expressionless, Maki lowered the spear tip slowly, leveling it at his heart.
"Old bastard. Ready to go to hell?"
"Hold it!"
A hoarse, furious shout came from the main gate.
Yoshinobu Gakuganji, principal of Kyoto Jujutsu High, stepped through the entrance with Aoi Todo, Noritoshi Kamo, Momo Nishimiya, and the rest of the Kyoto delegation trailing behind him.
They walked in and were immediately met with the sight of Maki Zenin about to run the Zenin Clan's great elder through.
The Kyoto trio froze where they stood.
Gakuganji's eyelid twitched.
"Maki Zenin! This is still Jujutsu High! Murdering an elder of the Three Great Families in broad daylight, do you have any idea what you'd be putting Yaga through?!"
Maki's jaw tightened. She knew exactly how much Principal Yaga cared about his students.
The spear tip didn't move. It stayed locked on Ogi Zenin.
That old dog's face was a portrait of terror and humiliation.
That small hesitation was all it took.
Ogi Zenin scrambled and crawled toward the gate in a frantic, graceless heap. A foul, acrid stain spread through the crotch of his trousers.
He'd pissed himself.
He'd felt it, truly felt it. His daughter had lost her mind. She was actually going to kill him, her own father.
He clawed his way upright and ran. He didn't even grab his sword. The equally shell-shocked remnants of the Hei unit fled with him, none of them looking back, pouring out the main gate like a pack of mangy, beaten dogs.
"Hey, hey, hey!" Satoru Gojo shouted after their retreating backs. "Don't leave! You haven't scrubbed the toilets yet!"
Gakuganji exhaled slowly. If word got out that a Zenin elder had been killed right in front of him, and if the Zenin Clan couldn't best Jujutsu High in a fight afterward, who did they take their anger out on?
What rotten luck. He should have arrived later.
"HAHAHAHAHAHA!"
The crowd at Jujutsu High erupted. The laughter shook the air.
The gray weight that had pressed down on the school for days since Yuji's "death" seemed to lift, just a little, in that roar of noise. Even Megumi Fushiguro and Nobara Kugisaki, whose faces had been drawn tight for days, managed something close to a smile.
Maki slowly withdrew her spear, released the Gate of Life, and bent over gasping, chest heaving.
Mai rushed in immediately and grabbed her. Her eyes were already red. "Sis..."
Then.
"MY BEST FRIEND—!"
An earth-shattering roar blew the moment apart.
Aoi Todo, Kyoto High's resident muscle-brained lunatic, was staring at Toji Fushiguro with blazing eyes, his whole body radiating the heat of a man who had just witnessed something sacred.
"Righteous justice against your own kin! This scene! Too hot-blooded! This is what youth is supposed to look like!"
He spread his arms wide and charged.
Toji, eyes already brimming, spread his arms just as wide and ran to meet him.
"My best friend! You're absolutely right!"
Two enormous, muscle-packed men slammed into each other in full view of everyone, wrapped their arms around each other, and wept. Like a pair of three-hundred-pound children. Loudly and without shame.
Gakuganji pressed a hand over his forehead and kept walking. He quickened his pace, pretended he had never seen those two idiots in his life, and headed straight for the principal's office.
Hot-blooded slogans and raucous noise echoed across the Jujutsu High grounds.
That blazing "Youth Energy" seemed to press down through the earth itself, seeping through stone and soil into the basement below.
Yuji Itadori, deep in a horror movie, suddenly shivered.
No reason. No cause. Just a shiver.
He felt something stir inside him, restless and insistent, like countless ants crawling through his bones.
A powerful urge surged up from somewhere, the overwhelming need to get outside, feel the sun, and sweat until he couldn't move.
"AAAH! I really wanna go out and do ten thousand squat jumps!" He clawed at his hair.
Junpei Yoshino looked up from his book and quickly said, "Hang in there, Itadori-kun. Mr. Gojo said once you've fully got a handle on your Cursed Energy, you can go out soon."
➤ Next: Maki and Mai's Revenge