Chapter 131 - Bosom Friend, Fellow Disciple, Master — This Is Youth!

The aftermath of the exchange event was cleaned up fast. The back mountain, blasted beyond recognition, was efficiently cordoned off and cleared by the school's auxiliary staff. The badly injured students, treated with Shoko Ieiri's Reverse Cursed Technique, were all out of danger. A few unlucky ones needed bed rest, but nothing worse. Kyoto Jujutsu High, conference room. The air sat heavy.

Satoru Gojo propped his chin on one hand, spinning a pen idly with the other. Suguru Geto, yanked back from a mission the moment it ended, sat beside him with a stone-carved look. Toji Fushiguro sat with legs sprawled wide, arms crossed over his chest, eyes shut.

"...That's pretty much how it went."

Yuji Itadori scratched the back of his head, a little sheepish, as he finished recounting the events from his own perspective. He left out the part where Toji used him as a human sandbag. Sukuna getting knocked around, what did that have to do with Yuji Itadori?

"After Sukuna was blasted out, he did swallow three fingers." Megumi Fushiguro, seated nearby, added flatly. "Then he deployed his Domain Expansion. My father broke it open by force, and then... it was over."

He said nothing about the one-sided beating that came after.

"Oh?" Gojo stopped spinning his pen. His Six Eyes swept over Itadori. "So the Stitched-Face Man's goal was never to kill Yuji in the first place. More like he was in a hurry to force-ripen him, feeding him fingers, driving him to grow stronger."

He rubbed his chin. A smirk tugged at his mouth. "Trying to fully resurrect Ryomen Sukuna? Tch. That guy's brain circuitry is genuinely baffling."

Toji planted his hands on his hips, laughing. "The so-called strongest King of Curses, doesn't seem like much to me!"

Geto pressed a hand to his forehead. "It's only the sixth finger. If they're all gathered, things could get troublesome."

Gojo clapped Geto on the shoulder. "Relax, Suguru. The strongest — Satoru Gojo himself — is standing right here."

"Hmph. You brats really do talk big." The voice from the head of the table came flat and cold. "That is a thousand-year-old King of Curses you're talking about."

"Which is exactly why I'm saying it."

Yoshinobu Gakuganji sat at the head of the table, arms folded, his aged face a map of deep creases. He gave a cold snort.

"A vessel like Yuji Itadori should have been..."

He never finished the sentence. The temperature in the conference room dropped several degrees in an instant. Three gazes landed on him at once, each one like a blade pulled straight from ice.

"Cough — cough, cough!"

The old principal choked on his own saliva. He broke into a violent coughing fit, his face flushing deep liver-red. He waved his hand and scrambled to patch his words back together.

"...Should have been, been better protected! Yes! Strictly guarded. Given priority protection!"

He wiped cold sweat from his forehead, still rattled. These brats had all lost their minds. The Jujutsu World was finished with these people running loose in it. Gojo let out a derisive snort and stopped paying attention to him. Then...

"BANG!"

The conference room door slammed open with tremendous force and smashed against the wall. A figure wound head-to-toe in bandages, moving with the rolling, unstoppable power of something barely contained, came charging in like a storm front.

"Bosom friend!"

Aoi Todo walked straight through the room's bizarre atmosphere like it didn't exist. His burning gaze locked onto Yuji Itadori. Then he wheeled toward Toji Fushiguro, and one knee began to bend toward the floor. Toji moved before the knee could touch. A quick hook of his toe and one precise burst of force lifted Todo right back up.

"A man's knees are worth more than gold." Toji's brow creased. "You bleed and sweat, but you don't cry. You kneel to heaven, to earth, and to your parents, and no one else. If you've got something to say, say it on your feet."

"Master is absolutely right!" Todo snapped upright immediately, tears of pure emotion glittering in his eyes. He bowed deep and low to Toji Fushiguro, then threw his head back and roared with everything he had:

"Please take me as your disciple!"

"I want to become your disciple too!"

"I want to learn the Eight Gates Released Formation!"

The voices were so thunderous that dust shook loose from the ceiling and rained down. The entire conference room went dead silent. Yoshinobu Gakuganji's eyes nearly left their sockets. He leveled a trembling finger at Todo, lips shaking, unable to get a single word out. This was his most prized student. The future of Kyoto Jujutsu High. How had he defected to the enemy?!

Gojo let out a sharp bark of laughter and slapped the table. Geto pressed his palm to his forehead. His temples throbbed. Megumi Fushiguro quietly turned his face away and pretended he'd never met anyone in this room. Yuji's arms were flying.

"Master, take Senior Todo! He's really strong!"

Toji Fushiguro looked at Aoi Todo's eyes, at the pure, uncut desire and reverence burning in them, that hunger for strength without anything muddying it, and for a moment it was like looking at a younger version of himself. Toji's own eyes went wet. He surged forward, gripped both of Aoi Todo's shoulders, and held tight. His voice came out with a slight tremor.

"Good. This is exactly it."

"This youthful heart, the one that wants to chase strength through sweat and sheer will, I feel it!"

"From this day forward, you are my disciple!"

"OHHHHHH! Master!"

"OHHHHHH! Aoi!"

Two enormous men embraced in the middle of the room, in front of everyone, as if the rest of the world had ceased to exist. Behind them, blazing flames of youth seemed to roar up out of thin air. Yoshinobu Gakuganji's eyes rolled back in his head. He passed out cold.

---

Three days later. Evening. The setting sun dyed the training grounds of Tokyo Jujutsu High a warm wash of orange-red. Megumi Fushiguro sat on the steps at the edge of the field, expressionlessly drinking a can of iced coffee. Out on the running track, four figures were drenched in sweat and bathed in the last burning light of the sun.

"One, two, three, four! Again!"

"Youth is a run that never stops! Let's embrace tomorrow with our sweat!"

"OHHHHHH!"

Leading the pack was Toji Fushiguro in his signature green spandex, shouting slogans of deeply questionable meaning as he ran. Right behind him was Yuji Itadori, also in green, inexhaustible as a force of nature. A little further back, Yu Haibara with his bowl cut ran along with a bright, easy grin, belting back every slogan at full volume and clearly loving every second of it.

And at the very back of the line, in green tights that somehow made his enormous frame look even more enormous, Aoi Todo. Over Yoshinobu Gakuganji's furious objections, Aoi Todo had been transferred to Tokyo Jujutsu High as an exchange student. In his place, Yuta Okkotsu had gone to Kyoto, where he happened to need swordsmanship training anyway.

Todo ran and wept at the same time, brushing tears off his face with the back of his hand, muttering to himself in a low voice.

"Bosom friend... Master... fellow disciple... Is this... is this the youth I've been dreaming of..."

Four hot-blooded idiots. Four sets of green tights. Forming a picture beneath the setting sun that burned the eyes to look at. Megumi Fushiguro watched them in silence. Watched them pound lap after lap around the field. Watched the stupid, radiant, utterly unhinged grins spreading across their faces. Slowly, very, very slowly, he raised his hand and crushed the coffee can.

CRUNCH!

He felt his soul lift gently from the crown of his head and drift upward. His world went dark. Peaceful and quiet.

"Megumi! Break's over, get moving! Shout the slogans!"

Toji's voice cracked like a whip behind him.

"Youth! Invincible!" Yu Haibara thundered in cheerful agreement.

And Megumi Fushiguro, with a soft crack, died right there on the steps.

➤ Next: Burn, Soul of Cheering!