Juchu Kaisen Chapters 30-31

Chapter 30

“Alright, listen up, children,” Yaga-sensei barked at the students while on the field, sans myself and Gojo. We were sitting next to one another in the bleachers fifty yards away, banished for this lesson as a ‘punishment’.

Indeed, in Japan, being made to stand out was considered a punishment. In America, this would have been a privilege, missing gym class.

Then again, if I had gone to a magic school in my first run of life, I supposed magic gym would have been a different story.

My… gym-partner, seated next to me, moaned in exhaustion as Yaga went over the fundamentals of Jujutsu.

Shoko snuck a glance at me from the crowd and grinned mockingly. Ugh. She was having quite the bit of fun at my expense, wasn’t she? I had to get her back for this. In a way that wouldn’t make her hate me, of course. As far as human playthings went, she was rather fragile. I had to respect that.

Mostly, my focus was on trying not to police any of the crap going on in and around school like I was still in the Hibana clan. There were some instances of bullying that I did stop, using my Juchū. Mostly, it was between my underclassmen. The high school portion of Jujutsu Academy was in fact remarkably free of bullying.

I could do nothing about the cases of misogyny except just bite the perpetrators with my Juchū a little. I hoped this sort of psychological conditioning would bear fruit over time. It rankled me that I couldn’t do more.

“I was looking forward to this,” Gojo said. “Now, I gotta watch. Boring.”

“Looking forward to learning the very fundamentals of jujutsu?” I asked.

“In my head, I imagined that I would be teaching them,” he said. “Including the teacher. Then they’d just go on and on about how cool and awesome I am.”

“Gojo is a loser,” one kid sang, far away in the elementary and middle school portions of campus.

I laughed a little.

“What’s so funny?”

I had to figure out a way to lead him to those kids in a way that they wouldn’t notice. This was too funny.

Actually…

Michiko.                                                          

Michiko opened up a portal in front of me, above a playground of kids. “Come here,” I beckoned to Gojo.

He raised an eyebrow as he scooted closer.

“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!”

He clutched his chest, expression scrunched up in abject hurt.

“Hahahahahaha!”

“Teira!” Yaga roared at me.

I quickly had Michiko dispel the portal and sat up straight.

Still, my lips quivered in mirth.

“Why would they sing that?” Gojo whispered.

“I don’t know!” I said. “They’re so cruel, aren’t they?”

“I haven’t done anything to those kids,” he said. “This is just wrong on so many levels! Wait—why would they ever sing this?” he asked, sounding more inquisitive than hurt. “Someone must have—“ he turned to me. Then grinned widely. “You taught them that, didn’t you? You freak, you!”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I shrugged.

“Well-played, Teira. Well played.” He punched my arm. “You are the buzzkill to end all buzzkills. I honestly appreciate the effort you put into being so cruel.”

“You chose to get involved with a human curse,” I said to him. “I will humble you, by any means necessary. And also because it’s something to do while making the next four years in hell fly by,” I sighed. “Seriously. All this is beneath me.”

Case in point, after Yaga-sensei went through the basics of cursed energy infusion, he had the kids run laps. Geto pulled ahead effortlessly. Made sense, he was strong.

“Why’d you come, really?” Gojo asked me.

“Cut a deal with HQ. In exchange for wiping away the red on my family’s ledger, they wanted me to come here. That’s what we talked about back when they summoned me for the first time when I was twelve.” Then I grinned. “In revenge, I made sure to flood Jujutsu High with thousands of new sorcerers. As one giant middle finger to the conservatives. You might not have noticed it yet, but really, the traditionalists are in a tailspin at the moment. It’s only a matter of time until the old structures collapse from the weight of all the new blood.”

Gojo looked up at the sky. “Huh. Clever.”

“You don’t seem upset about that,” I said. “I expected as much, but… you really don’t mind at all, do you?”

“I’m not really… dependent on anyone. Or anything,” Gojo said. “Certainly not the oldies. Sure, while being the strongest jujutsu sorcerer in the modern era, and probably history, does have its perks, I don’t think my strength depends on anything else. Not even your strength.”

“That’s a convenient outlook for me,” I said. “Thank you for not getting in my way.”

“And what is your way, anyway? Where do you see things going for Jujutsu Society?”

“There’s a lot of inequality.”

“Yeah? Where?”

I furrowed my brows. “To be honest, I’m a little disappointed that you can’t see it. But I guess that’s expected. For all your Six Eyes, you don’t see much beyond your own way. I don’t really have that luxury.”

He groaned. “Yeah, yeah.”

“They’re building a third school,” I said.

“Oh, really?”

“Yep. In Fukuoka,” I said tiredly. “All the kids I found put too much of a strain on the system. The Academy is understaffed, so they’ll wait a year until the seniors graduate and some of them can become teachers.”

“That’s pretty cool.”

“The kids who didn’t make the cut for the intake to Tokyo and Kyoto were all biracial or ethnic minorities of mixed blood,” I said. “So that’s where they’re going. To Fukuoka. Where they can all be grouped together and segregated from the main student bodies. I doubt they’ll be invited to the exchange event next year.”

“Huuuuh?” Gojo gaped in surprise. “The hell? Surely, there aren’t that many to warrant an entirely new school!”

“Good catch,” I said. “They’re minorities, after all. No, there’s about fifty of them, all told. Back in the old days of Jujutsu High, that would have been enough to fill up the entire school, but with our new capacity, making room for them would have been trivial.”

“Dammit,” Gojo growled. “That’s so stupid. Why separate them like that?”

“Women have been allowed to become Jujutsu Sorcerers under HQ since the end of World War 2, after the rise in cursed spirit activity that had resulted,” I said. “The Big Three likely have different internal policies. Women’s rights alone are laggard in the world of Jujutsu. You ask me what my plans are, and it’s to abolish all the stupid little rules that keep people in unequal circumstances.”

“But… if you’re the reason why all these kids are here, why couldn’t you just make your own Jujutsu Society with these new people?” he asked me. “You’re strong.”

I nodded. “Partly, I didn’t know where you stood on the matter.”

“Because you never wanted to meet,” he rolled his eyes.

Ugh. Whatever. “But mostly, it was to minimize the bloodshed of the innocent—the students. I could have trained them myself and approached the government as an alternative to the traditionalist Jujutsu Headquarters and the Big Three, but that would have involved too many risks. I’m not averse to risk, but I make it a goal not to let innocents get needlessly killed—especially those I’m responsible for. This way… is dead simple. Enter the organization, change it from within—violently, if need be. Destroy the old within the organization with a vengeance and thoroughness. And there you go.”

“How will they let you in?” Gojo asked. “If they know you’re gonna destroy what they love about it?”

“It’s simple: you divide and conquer. Jujutsu Headquarters is going to grow too big to remain under the thumb of the Big Three. And Headquarters likes me.”

“Likes you?! How?!”

I snorted. “Money.”

He wrinkled his nose at me. “You bribed them? Teira, you’re diabolical,” then he grinned. “But in the best way.”

“Thank you,” I said, meaning it. “You can help me, you know. If you really do mean to be my friend.”

“Aaand here comes the manipulation attempt. Alright, lay it on me.”

“You’re Gojo Satoru. You’re one entire third of the Big Three, on your lonesome. I know of your clan’s statistics. They have even less sorcerers than mine did.”

“Right, before you killed them all,” he nodded. Hm. Made sense that he knew. I had told HQ after all.

“Right. And none with any registered cursed techniques as well. They’re nothing without you. That makes you the only relevant voice in your clan. Sure, you might not be politically strong, but sorcerers only care about real strength.”

“Looks like you’ve got everything figured out already,” he said. “Well done. But I’m just gonna come out and say it: don’t bother me about this politics stuff. Not until we’ve graduated. You can do whatever you want, but I won’t make any moves on your behalf, alright?”

“Peaceful high school days, huh?” I said.

“Yeah… pretty much,” he said wistfully, looking away to conceal a flicker of sincerity over his features.

D’awwww!

I opened the portal to the kids singing about Gojo being a loser.

He clicked his tongue and shoved his head through it. “Hey, brats!” he roared.

They all screamed like nothing else and scattered.

I shoved him away from the portal before closing it. “These high school days won’t be peaceful.”

He gnashed his teeth.

“I’ll get you back for this, Teira. Mark my words.”

While he’d try to figure that out, I didn’t feel like I was quite done with him.

“Also—that song was to the tune of Fighting Dreamers! You like Naruto?”

I grinned, as I felt an idea manifest. Not done with him at all. “I’m current on the manga and the anime,” I said.

The slowest among the students doing laps, paradoxically, wasn’t the rotund Ishikawa Takumi, but instead it was Shoko. She wasn’t even really infusing herself. She was just running like a normal person.

I vowed to give her some private lessons.

“No way!” he said. “Naruto is one of my favorites.”

I acted incredibly interested in that. “Oh, really? What else do you like?”

“Ah, that’s easy. My original loves: Pokemon and Digimon. I don’t care that they’re rivals. My heart is big enough for the two of them!”

“That’s… big of you,” I said. “Most people would just pick a tribe and fight over it.”

“Hah. Not me. I see the unique things that both stories bring to the table. But the Pokemon games are better.”

I nodded. “What else do you like?”

“Dragon Ball! Especially Dragon Ball Z.”

“Huh,” I grinned. “Popular picks, huh? Lot of people like those,” I nodded.

“What do you like?” he bumped my shoulder playfully.

I grinned at him. “I’ll tell you what I don’t like. Any of those amateurish, nonsense stories you just brought up.”

Gojo gasped.

“Least of all Dragon Ball. You know, at first, I was neutral about Dragon Ball. I just didn’t think it was the best. Now, though? Just from how much attention and praise this story has gotten, I’m more inclined towards finding all its numerous little flaws and faults. It’s a popularized sci-fi re-telling of Journey to the West, retaining some of its fantasy themes. And just like Journey to the West, the story-telling is circular and reiterative. Perfect for entertaining dimwitted children like you. That’s all it’s for in the end: dimwitted children.”

Gojo scooted away from me, looking down on the ground. “You go too far,” he said tonelessly.

I didn’t stop there. “I mean, seriously! You have to be mentally deficient to ever find value in—“

Gojo plugged his ears and started singing, “Lalalalalalala—”

I clicked my tongue. Foiled again.

After a minute of doing the same singing, he unplugged his ears. “Are you caught up on the manga to Dragon Ball?” I asked him.

“What, you wanna spoil me? Wait—you’re smiling?! You do want to spoil me? There’s something seriously wrong with you!”

“Son Goku is, by far, the least compelling—

“Lalalalalalalala!” He plugged his ears and sang. Then he stuck out his tongue at me. Then he kept singing.

I summoned some Juchū in the air in front of him to spell out my thoughts. He closed his eyes.

Then he shouted. “No! My Six Eyes!” Indeed, he could see right through his eyelids.

I kept spelling out my rant. He ran to the other side of the bleachers. I followed after him.

He took off into the sky.

“GOJO?!” Yaga-sensei roared.

Gojo floated down.

“What the hell are you doing?!” he shouted as he stomped over to Gojo. “I told you to sit down and reflect!”

Gojo seemed lost for words and he cast me a betrayed glance. What, was he going to snitch? Was the strongest going to resort to such a petty tactic? My smirk communicated all this to him and more.

“I’m sorry, sensei.”

“You’re clearly not being kept busy enough. I want you to run with the others. Middle of the pack.”

“What?!”

“Did. I. Stutter?”

“…No,” he groaned. Then he took off running.

Hehehehehehehe.

My glee lasted for all of one minute, after which I just decided to focus on each of the students.

Takahashi Hana was unique in that she had chosen to wear that regressive old-style Japanese girl’s uniform, with blue short shorts, instead of a more sensible track suit, or something with a longer inseam. That was her choice to make, and I wasn’t going to police it, but it did pay to speculate on the sort of person that she was.

She had an eye for style and image, obviously, and based on the fact that she very brazenly wore perfume to school of all places—a decidedly strange thing in this culture—she wanted people to notice her for her looks.

She was also deeply insecure. Upon arriving in class, she had made a beeline for the quiet girl in the back known as Ito Aoi, whose own strength of character was decidedly lacking. Hana had judged, at a glance, that they would make for a good combination—probably to sate her own need for validation.

Hana had made a good selection. The short, mousy brown-haired girl, wearing a full tracksuit as she ran, kept to the middle of the pack in order to not stand out, a few feet next to where Gojo was. Outwardly, she didn’t look like much.

Still, her bone-density rivalled that of seasoned professional combat athletes—male athletes. Her musculature belied her baseline strength and coordination. Of course, without cursed energy, she would never be able to beat a professional male athlete if they weighed more than twice her weight. No, her true strength laid in how well her body conducted cursed energy. She had a knack for enforcement, and a body clearly trained for combat sports.

I recalled that her family owned a karate dojo in Nerima. She’d gone out at night to exorcise curses in and around her area. Given that she was now fifteen, and she had likely awakened at six like everyone else, that suggested a rather long and storied career in self-taught sorcery.

Still, she chose not to pull ahead in front of Takahashi Hana. 

Satoshi Ren had left his hammer by the bleachers. It wasn’t a Cursed Tool from what I could tell. Likely a channel through which he worked his Jujutsu. He was desperately trying to catch up with Geto. Suzuki Yui was overtaking him. She taunted him from the front. Then he’d overtake her and taunt her.

They would alternate on who was second-place, but Geto didn’t seem to care at all. He didn’t even seem to be pushing himself.

I landed a Juchū on his shoulder. “Don’t panic,” I said through it.

He panicked by running up ahead much faster, thus slightly crushing the spirits of the two punks giving it their all in this race.

“I knew it,” I said to him. “You are faster.”

“Hibana?”

“Teira,” I said. “I told you, don’t use my clan name.”

“Sorry,” he said.

“Why aren’t you running as fast as you can?”

“What would be the point?” he asked. He was pulling ahead just to be out of earshot from Satoshi and Suzuki.

Geto Suguru. From Kamakura, a city just south of Tokyo. I had discovered him two years ago, though he must have been active for many years before then. My Juchū had noted a relatively small number of cursed spirit activity in the city, and had stuck around to observe.

The answer had come in the form of a human calamity that could control cursed spirits.

He was thirteen when I first saw him, standing atop a building while a murder of crow-like cursed spirits flew above his head in a vortex. They would fly away, and then return with conjured images reporting their findings. Geto Suguru didn’t have Sense Expansion through his cursed spirits, but he had found workarounds.

I left the city of Kamakura to him, letting him knock himself out with the responsibility of taking care of his town. I wanted to see how far he would come.

…Not nearly far enough.

“They call you Special Grade too, right?” I asked him. “I doubt even Gojo knows. You didn’t tell him, after all.”

“How do you know that?” Geto asked.

“I have really good ears,” I said. “But nevermind the ethical implications of that statement.”

“I would strongly prefer it if you didn’t torment me the way you torment Satoru,” he said, an edge of threat in his words.

“That’s not fair. I never implied that I would,” I said. “Gojo is one thing. You warrant more respect.”

“I’m not Special Grade,” Geto said.

“You held back to the administration?”

He sighed. “What do you mean by that?”

“This is… awkward of me to say to you,” I said. “So don’t get the wrong idea. But I’ve known of your activities for the last two years. I know how strong you are. You held yourself back, for sure. There’s no upper limits to how many cursed spirits you can take in. You contain multitudes. You could watch over the city of Tokyo and exorcise all the major curses on your lonesome.”

“You’re right: that is incredibly awkward to hear,” he said. “Apologies, but I just had to say it.”

“I get it, but let’s move on,” I said. “No need to dwell on bygones. And I never did you wrong either, so why are you so concerned anyway?”

“You’re not… giving me much room to process, you know?”

“Why?” I asked. “Why hold back?”

He sighed again. Really, despite his speed, he wasn’t even winded. Excellent cursed energy infusion, borne from having massive stores of energy. More than Gojo, certainly.

“To ensure my safety,” he simply said. “Why would I entrust this… place with the knowledge of all I am?”

I grinned. I was starting to like him more and more. “Wise,” I said. “But the cat will leave the bag one way or another. When the chips are down, you won’t have to hold yourself back, alright? I’ll block anything that the oldies try to do. Gojo and I will.”

“So I’m slowly coming to understand,” Geto said. “You two truly are the strongest, aren’t you?”

“I’m the strongest. He’s just hard to kill.”

He laughed. I chuckled.

“Hibana!” Yaga shouted. Wait, what? “If you’re idle enough to laugh, then you can go to the cafeteria and bring a table with cups of water for the class! Don’t think I missed how you used your shikigami to complete your punishment during break! I want to see your real body bring the table here!”

Fuck! Him!

“Quit dawdling and get up!” he shouted.

I stood up with a stomp, turning around so he wouldn’t see my scowl. Dick.

000

Satoshi Ren was six years old when he first heard his grandmother murmur, “I wish I could see the whole blue sky from here.”

She had stood leaned over against the balcony’s railing in their apartment. Her frail hands held her fast as she grabbed the railing for dear life, forcing her weak limbs to stand up straight and look up.

And her view was obstructed by the buildings adjacent to theirs, and the balcony up ahead. Ren saw that the amount of sky she could see was so little.

Satoshi Ren grew angry.

Angry that his grandmother couldn’t see the sky on this lovely, beautiful day. Angry that their building didn’t have an elevator. It was only four floors high after all.

Still, they lived on the fourth floor.

He was so angry that something in him popped.

He grabbed his grandmother, ripping her grasp from its railings, and held her in a bridal carry. “Aah! What! Stop this! Put me down!”

Ren grew angry at the protest. “I’m taking you outside!”

“You can’t carry me all the way down!”

He didn’t care.

He just did.

The first few steps were hard. The following hundreds of steps didn’t matter to him at all. He carried his grandmother all the way to the playground right outside of their apartment building, and sat her right in the swings.

He looked up. A blue sky, barely unbroken by so many buildings. It wasn’t enough, not nearly, but it would do for the next few minutes.

“Ren-chan!” his grandmother grabbed him by his wrist as he was about to return to his house. “Where are you going?”

Ren looked at his grandmother. “I’m getting your wheelchair, alright?! Quit nagging me, dammit!” Fucking bitch.

He would never curse her outright, of course. Still, he had to admit. She was a fucking bitch. So damn annoying.

He ran back up to his apartment, scaling the steps without any difficulty. He returned to the swings with her wheelchair in his hands.

“This place sucks,” Ren scoffed. “All the buildings are blocking off the sky right here. Screw it. Let’s go somewhere else.”

“Ren-chan!”

He ignored her. Old people barely said anything of note. He had learned to ignore her from early on.

He wheeled her out from the playground and proceeded away from the neighborhood, until he finally came across a park.

The same park that his mother and father would wheel his grandmother around every now and then. They couldn’t do it anymore of course, because the idiots had chosen to die. They had chosen to do so in a car crash. Idiots.

Grandmother’s wrinkled hands reached over her shoulder to touch Ren’s hand as he held her chair’s handlebars.

She had gone on and on about how nice it was to see the sky. Like it wasn’t so fucking easy to do just that. She was weak, but she couldn’t help it. He would help her out regardless.

Then, she would start to annoy him.

“You’re so strong, Ren-chan!”

Not at all. She was just light.

As the years went by, he realized that more and more things were just light.

Even his body.

He ran as hard as he could, but that bitch Suzuki kept catching up. And that asshole Geto didn’t even care, as he easily kept in front of them without so much as stumbling.

He’s holding back!

Dammit. What now?

Ren recalled the days he spent carrying his grandmother while hiking through the woods. While hiking up a mountain. While swimming. He gave her all the experiences that her frailty had prevented her from achieving.

He even protected her from the local hoodlums trying to shake her down for a portion of her welfare.

Those assholes had been strong. They had even managed to wound him.

In return, he’d broken all their legs one after another, ensuring that they couldn’t follow after him. Then, eventually, their friends had come knocking. A local biker-gang of middle schoolers, some real toughs. He’d broken their knees as well. Those hoodlums had older brothers.

And on it went.

Even the yakuza hadn’t been able to stop him. Not even thirty of them against only one of him.

When he finally turned seven, his grandmother had died.

He still fought, because he had to.

And he would always win. Even if he fought hoodlums, yakuza, or even those weirdly colored mutant dogs and birds that kept coming after him.

He kept fighting, because although his grandmother died, he still had an older sister that he needed to protect.

Eventually, they stopped coming after him. They were too weak.

He started going after them instead. Something had awakened inside of him. A thirst for combat. A warrior’s mentality. He no longer fought to protect his family. He fought to be the only one left in the battlefield.

After a moth-girl saved him from some particularly troublesome dogs, some random suits had offered to put him in a school where he could keep fighting to his heart’s content. They packaged it around something or other. Some kind of religious service. He didn’t care—they had him at ‘fighting’.

“Alright everyone, now stop running!”

Geto finally slowed down. Ren debated on clocking him in the back of his head, but that’d be cheap. He wanted to beat this asshole fair and square.

The teacher, some tough called Yaga, started yapping as all the students surrounded him in the field.

Yap, yap, yap, yap.

So annoying.

He didn’t want to listen to this. He wanted to keep running. He wanted to beat Geto’s smug ugly face in.

And he wanted another go at that asshole Gojo. He was strong, but Ren knew that if he tried harder, he could break through that stupid forcefield esper power of his. It wasn’t his fault he’d never dealt with a fucking esper before. What was he supposed to do?

Try harder. He’d break through that dumbass force field one day, and then feed that white-haired asshole his own hair after Ren finished ripping it off his scalp.

Then he’d break his knees.

Ren’s frustration reached a critical point and he raised his hand with a growl.

Yaga gave him a nod. “Satoshi?”

“When can we fight each other?”

“When I say you’re ready,” his teacher said.

“I’m ready!” Ren shouted.

Gojo was standing behind a table, with Hibana. The table was filled with plastic cups next to a big plastic bottle of water.

“Your cursed energy infusion is worthless,” the teacher growled. The fuck did any of that mean? “You’re not strong enough to take a serious hit. You’re wasting your power on anger when you should be controlling it. Look at Kobayashi, for example.”

He turned to the creepy-looking nerd with the glasses. He looked like he was simultaneously fourteen and forty. He also acted like his shit didn’t stink. Ren definitely wanted to beat his ass.

“I beat him in the race!” Ren shouted.

“What race?” Yaga asked. “I asked you to run while infused with energy. You wasted yours by needlessly going all out, and now you’re operating on half a tank. Meanwhile, Kobayashi struck a balance. He could go on for much longer than you.”

“I was faster! And I’m stronger!”

“Alright,” Yaga said, walking up to Ren. He was tall, but that didn’t matter. The taller they were, the harder they fall. “Protect your face with cursed energy.” Speak Japanese, dammit. “Clench your teeth, idiot. I wanna see if you can take a hit. If it doesn’t hurt, it means you’re doing it right.”

Ah, right.

Ren clenched his teeth.

The fist flew before he could even react, sending him flying back.

Ow! The fuck?!

“Did that hurt?” Yaga asked, standing above Ren’s downed form. He stood up quickly.

“No, it didn’t!”

“So you weren’t doing it right after all. Come see me after class.”

Dammit.

He then turned to the rest of the class. “You’ll spar only when I allow you to! Only when you’re ready! When will you be ready? When you can take a hit worth a damn without looking like an alcoholic’s least favorite stepchild. And not a damn moment before then. If you think you’re ready, surrender yourself to this test,” he raised his fist. “And I’ll show you that you’re not. Clear?!”

No one said anything.

“I can’t hear you!”

“Yes, sensei!” everyone shouted. Except Ren.

Yaga’s eyes bore into his.

“This is bullshit,” Ren muttered.

“Come again?”

“This is bullshit!” Ren roared. “We’re here to fight, aren’t we?! That’s the whole deal with this school! So let’s fight, dammit! Let’s figure out who’s the strongest!”

“You would selfishly impose your own core motivation on others,” Yaga said. The fuck does any of that mean? “You think your wish to be the strongest is more important than anyone else’s reason to be here. Is that it?”

“It’s more important to me. What of it?”

Yaga nodded. “Fine. Have your wish. Kobayashi. Step up. Everyone else, back away.”

“Fuck him, I want Geto,” Ren growled.

“You’re not ready for Geto,” Yaga said.

Geto, in the meanwhile, looked on impassively, with eyes that barely registered him as a threat. Fucking tall people. They could all go to hell.

Kobayashi stepped up. He put his glasses inside his tracksuit’s pocket. Ren would try not to hit that spot. He didn’t like hassling people with glasses—they weren’t worthy opponents. Leaving people blind after a fight was bad form.

“You should walk away,” Ren said to him. “Once this fight starts, I won’t stop beating on you until you can’t get up.”

“Does a spar really warrant such brutality?” Kobayashi said quietly.

“Only way people learn to respect your strength,” Ren said. “It ain’t personal, four-eyes.”

“Very well.”

“The fight stops when someone goes down,” Yaga said. “It doesn’t continue after that. Feel free to try and test me on that, and I’ll show you why they made me a teacher in this school.”

Dammit. Whatever.

Actually… why not test him on that? Figure out why they made him a teacher and all. He had to be pretty strong.

“Alright, begin.”

Ren moved.

He ran up at Kobayashi, cocking his fist back for a punch—

Kobayashi stepped aside, winding his own punch, and struck him with all the force of a baseball bat in full swing. He’d eaten plenty of those in his time. Strong, but not strong enough. Ren recovered, and threw another fist.

Kobayashi danced away easily, barely looking ruffled. And so it went with each hit. Kobayashi would effortlessly move away, then step through his guard like it barely even existed before delivering punches with all the precision of a fucking archer. Bat-swings were kitten soft to Ren, but it did build up after a certain point.

Throwing caution to the wind, Ren roared and tried to tackle Kobayashi.

The man disappeared, as if he had teleported away from view. What the fuck? An esper power, too?

He felt a blow to the back of his head that sent him down to the ground, on his stomach.

Bull-fucking-shit.

Ren threw himself up on his feet and rushed at Kobayashi, only to run headlong into Yaga-sensei’s outstretched arm.

The arm caught him on his stomach, took him off his feet, and winded him.

Yaga brought him down on his back so hard that the dirt scattered. Ren coughed up bile.

“Walk some laps around the field to cool your head,” Yaga-sensei said.

“Fuck—“

“Kid,” Yaga-sensei said. “You wanna be strong. Like me. I feel you. I understand your motives. But the strong don’t spend their time rebelling against reality. They sit still for as long as they can to learn when someone stronger than them talks.”

Dammit.

That made… sense.

“Walk it off.” Yaga stood up. “Everyone, drink some water, rest and prepare yourselves. You’ll be running until the hour is up!”

Ren got up on his feet, slowly regaining his breath, and took off without taking any of the water. His boiling anger cooled over the span of several minutes, leaving behind a crystallized seed of will.

I’ll get stronger. I’ll figure it out. All of it.

Then I’ll beat Gojo’s ass black and blue.

Chapter 31

“Do everyone in big sorcerer clans wear kimonos, or is it just you?” Shoko asked me that as we headed towards the common room together. It was on the top floor of our residential building—Tachibana House—, and we were taking the stairs up, followed by the girls from our year. They were remarkably quiet around me—had been for the whole day. I hoped eventually we could break the ice. Maybe we would up in the common room?

I looked down at my robes and shrugged. “Our fashion is pretty old school, but after getting so used to it, I prefer it heavily over the understated western style.”

“And you’re filthy rich enough to splurge on it whenever. Every day is summer for you, huh?”

“You calling me spoiled?” I grinned. “Pampered from birth?”

“Hmmm. I’m guessing you’re about to lead into a tragic backstory or something.”

“Why?”

“Just based on your tone,” she said. “In case you are: can I ask you to… not? I mean… eventually, but right now, I’m a little tired.” She yawned. “I hate running.”

“You need training,” I said. “I’ll give you some tips, alright? I trained a lot of the kids in my clan as well, and they’ve turned out to be decent sorcerers.”

“Don’t wanna,” she said.

“Why?”

“Don’t got the talent,” she said. “I’ll probably just die to some curse on my first mission. Training will only lengthen the agony. It’s like how the pirates of old didn’t know how to swim. You know that? So in case your ship got sunk, you wouldn’t die slowly, but rather, very quickly.”

“That sounds incredibly made up,” I said.

Suzuki Yui seemed remarkably unspirited as she followed me from behind, not saying a word.

“Suzuki,” I said. She perked up immediately. I slowed down to walk next to her up the stairs. “I want to apologize. For calling you an ant.”

“Wha—“

“I made a promise to Yaga-sensei to not rub in my status or strength to the other students,” I explained. “You provoked me, but instead of resolving our conflict straightforwardly, I opted to belittle you instead. I don’t think you’re an ant, Suzuki.” Such a supremacist way of thinking didn’t become me. I didn’t gather strength to oppress the weak. A part of me had carried this regret for the better part of the entire day, and I hoped that this apology would prickle my pride enough that I wouldn’t repeat myself.

Besides, if I wanted to have some fun, then it was far more productive and satisfying to pick on the strong.

“O-oh.”

“And… your desire to test your strength was valid. If not a little unwise, given that you stepped up to me of all people.” Rotten luck, that. She only had fate to blame.

She chuckled. “Yeah…”

“It’s important to you, isn’t it? Being strong.”

She nodded. “Damn right. I’m here to become the best sorcerer that I can be.”

“Shoko,” I said. She was walking up ahead, and in acknowledgment, she just tilted her head. “I want you to learn from Suzuki’s example. Truth be told, I find it deeply upsetting when someone as young as you takes their own death in stride.”

“Meh. What’s the point of being delusional?”

I frowned. “I find it deeply upsetting, Shoko,” I repeated. She looked over her shoulder at me, then sighed, closing her eyes.

“Fine. Sorry.”

“Only an idiot takes their own death as a given,” Suzuki snorted. “Don’t know how you even get out of your bed with such an attitude.”

“Everyone dies,” Shoko replied. “I may have taken it a little too far.”

I’d drag her into training, kicking and screaming. “Dawn tomorrow, Shoko. Bright and early.”

She slumped over in defeat. “I hate you.”

“I’d rather you live to hate me, than die loving me,” I said.

She slumped down even further.

Once we finally reached the top floor, and the common room—a place with couches around a TV, a ping-pong table on a corner, a wide table, and bookshelves lining the walls—something about the atmosphere seemed off.

All the older girls, our upperclassmen, were looking at us. Or me, really. My robes weren’t that ornate. It was a really simple, black yukata with insectile patterns.

“It’s cold in here,” Shoko remarked dryly.

I didn’t need super senses to read the room, but it did help.

One girl walked up to me. She was wearing a pair of gray sweatpants, and a white tank top that revealed bristling muscles and scars across her arms. She had a pony-tail and piercing eyes. A fourth-year by the name of Mukai Reiko. I was eleven when one of my kamakiri had saved her from a tough spot.

Reiko was a big-shot in her year. The strongest female sorcerer in school, arguably the strongest student sorcerer period—not counting myself or Gojo Satoru, of course. And she was the dorm captain of Tachibana House—the dorm building containing all the girls in the high school portion of the school.

“I have a question for you, kouhai,” she said. I lidded my eyes slightly, preparing for a problem. “You’re the one with the bug shikigami. From the Hibana clan. Right?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Your shikigami saved me. Right?”

Uh… “Yes.”

“Were they all yours?” she asked. “The ones that approached most of us?”

“Yeah… pretty much,” I said. “Do we have a problem?”

She snorted. Then she closed her eyes and shook her head. “Not at all.”

The other girls began to approach me, crowding both myself and my classmates behind me. I prepared for violence.

Then they bowed. Thirty-four out of the forty-five girls in the room.

Even Reiko. They all bowed at the waist.

Then they shouted, “Thank you!”

After a few seconds, they stood up straight. Reiko grinned at me. “Welcome to Tokyo Jujutsu High, Hibana-san. We’re really glad to have you here.”

…Huh.

000

“For the last time, I’m not ducking your challenges because I’m scared of you. I just don’t wanna piss off Yaga,” Satoru sighed.

He and Suguru were in the middle of their dorm building’s hallway. Opposite from them were Ren and the guy with the dreadlocs, constantly listening to music. Daiki was his name.

Daiki grinned. “Teach got you running scared, eh? I expected more from you, big dog.”

“You don’t even…” Satoru winced, closing his eyes as he tried to formulate a way to get this through their thick skulls. “Listen. I’m a raid boss. You’re a level one noobie. You don’t have the qualifications to challenge me. Level up a little and come back, so I don’t kill you in an instant. That’s how this works.”

“I ain’t worried,” Daiki smiled.

“Yeah, no shit—it’s because you don’t have a frame of reference to be worried. Let me guess: you figured out how to use your cursed technique and now you think you’re invincible. Maybe it’s a strong technique. Maybe it could even get past Infinity. But then you’d have thrown away your shot at beating me with your dogshit fundamentals hampering you every step of the way. Do you get that? Jujutsu isn’t just about cursed techniques.”

“Meh,” Daiki said. “You’re just scared.”

“Satoru,” Suguru said softly. As if Satoru needed to be calmed down or something. He wasn’t stupid.

“You’re stupid,” Satoru said before walking past him.

“And you’re a coward!”

Ren said nothing, which was interesting. He was usually one to fly off the handle at the slightest provocation.

The beating he took from Kobayashi and Yaga-sensei must have knocked some sense into him. That was good. Probably boded well for his survival too, since Satoru couldn’t see a future in which such a hothead could ever survive as a Jujutsu Sorcerer.

Kobayashi, though… now, there was a strong kid that somehow also knew his place at the same time. Those were rare. The young and talented often tried to overreach out of sheer confidence, only to get smacked down and humbled by life. Kobayashi played his cards well.

Without a flashy technique, a Jujutsu Sorcerer’s best recourse was to keep their cards close to their chest and not get involved in fights that they couldn’t win.

Not that anyone could even come close to threatening Satoru. Only Teira could do that. That was a slight shame.

Hanging out with her was fun, but it did get to a certain point where he had to move away from her for his own mental health. Hopefully, over time, they’d strike a more bearable balance.  

Still, he wanted to see her again. Fight her again.

He cast a glance over his shoulder. His Six Eyes could easily make out Teira’s cursed energy through the many walls and the distance separating their two dorm buildings. Her toxic cursed energy. Satoru had only noticed it after activating his Infinity, but aside from her hits managing to pierce through his defenses to put pressure on his nerves, they also carried a lingering property of a sort, that made his own cursed energy control slightly cruder.

She was just full of tricks.

That was okay. He had learned half a dozen things from fighting her, and he desperately wanted to apply his new knowledge. He knew that if he did, it would cause some kind of political incident. He had already been skirting close to the edge of acceptability. And there was no way that Teira would agree to anything. She was straight-laced to a fault.

Satoru stopped dead in his tracks to think.

He looked up at the ceiling and smiled.

Man. Nothing about this school was anything I had ever expected.

Why do I even care what Yaga thinks? Why…

“Changed your mind, Gojo?” Daiki caught up to him and faced him.

“Satoru,” Suguru said tiredly. His tone was really so exhausted. And Daiki seemed to be itching for a sorcerer battle.

And yet, something held him back.

Why do I care what any of these people think?

Ugh, screw it.

“Suguru. Can we talk?”

Ren walked ahead, towards the staircase leading up to the common room.

Daiki grinned hungrily. “So—“

“Get lost, small fry,” Gojo said.

“Who’s the small fry?” Daiki asked. “Me?”

“Seriously. Just give me a minute.”

Daiki scoffed and turned around to leave. Soon, the hallway was empty, except for himself and Suguru. He turned to face him, grinning. “Look, man…”

While Satoru looked for the words to express his… frustration, Suguru spoke up. “We’re going to be late for registration at this point.”

“If I’ve been a headache,” Satoru began. Then he felt a surge of shame at starting off with such weak-sauce words. “Man, it’s been a long day, huh?”

Suguru… smiled. “Guess so.”

Satoru looked up, and rubbed the back of his head. “I, uh…”

What the hell was he trying to say?

I’ve never had a friend before in my life, and if I screwed this up, then I’m sorry.

I’ll try to be less…

…well, me.

No. He couldn’t give his own identity up just to fit in better. It didn’t make any sense.

“You’ve been a real handful, Satoru,” Suguru said. Ouch. “I’ve never met a person more self-assured, and less self-aware at the same time. You’re… truly insane. But… I don’t mind.”

Satoru’s eyes widened. He looked down from the ceiling, to Suguru, and saw a bright, albeit tired, smile. “First day in a new school can be hard for everyone. Don’t sweat the little stuff, Satoru. I know you’re trying. In your own… concerningly insane way. But if I’m being honest… I’d… prefer to have crazier friends this time around. Friends I can actually talk to, about all this crazy stuff. The sorcery. And all that. I didn’t have any of those, before. Before I got to this school, I was alone. No one could understand. Not even my parents. But now…”

Satoru’s shock wore off, and he grinned. “Alright, then. Guess I was just panicking over nothing. Let’s hurry up to registration, then.”

000

“They put the lives of every student in this school in danger, and all you did was… take them out of gym class? Force them to run errands for you?”

Yaga was in the middle of a darkly lit room, six secret councilmembers arranged around him in a hexagonal pattern, concealed by wooden doors.

Handling the council was easy. He would have been grateful if it had just been them.

Instead, they were joined by the clan heads of the Big Three. The esteemed Gojo Manjiro, Zen'in Naobito, and Kamo Akihito.

The whole fucking crew had come to bust his balls. Typical.

Kamo Akihito had been the one to reprimand him.

“I’m far more concerned that you punished Satoru,” Manjiro said. “When he clearly acted in self-defense.”

Did he honestly believe that? He couldn’t. He knew his… ward well. Knew of his history of seeking out Hibana, even at the threat of destabilizing Jujutsu Society.

“More concerning is her threat level,” Naobito said. He had brought his gourd of sake for his meeting. He never went anywhere without it. Strange man. “We’ve clearly underestimated her. Special Grade: Class One was created to label those Special Grades with powerful abilities, but lacking fundamentals in Jujutsu Sorcery. Even discounting all her other… abilities… she used a Domain Expansion. Even the mighty Gojo Satoru met defeat—“

“He was not defeated!” Manjiro shouted. “The domain shattered instantly!”

“So they drew,” Naobito shrugged. “That makes no difference in the end. It’s time we come to appreciate her level of power. I propose we move her up to Class Three.”

Invincible against non-Special Grades.

I really shouldn’t be here.

As a Jujutsu Sorcerer, Yaga Masamichi had a duty to uphold the stability of Jujutsu Society.

As a teacher who wished to see his students grow, he had no business whatsoever listening to old men sharpen their knives as they contemplated how to deal with his student. It was disgusting and unbecoming.

“May I be dismissed?” Yaga asked curtly.

The clan heads stopped squabbling to look at him in silence.

Manjiro cleared his throat. “The Gojo clan would like to put forth a motion to replace this first year class’ homeroom teacher with someone more capable of controlling his students.” Mad that Yaga wouldn’t budge on the punishment against Satoru, no doubt.

The funny thing with both Jujutsu Academies was that, for the purposes of Headquarters and the Big Three, the academies contained pretty much all of the next generation’s Jujutsu Society, which made their impression of Gojo Satoru far too important. The Gojo clan wanted to control their impression. Actually, they had never wanted Satoru to even so much as step foot in this school. Satoru’s image was just as important to them as his true strength.

And they were mad that Yaga had tarnished that narrative, by trying to equalize Satoru with the other students, and also punishing him.

“Don’t waste your breath,” Naobito sighed, shaking his head. “I would veto that motion every time. Yaga may not be strong enough to force these children to do anything, but he’s a better option. He’s not as politically exposed as other candidates. He hails from no clan, whether minor or major. He exists in-between the cracks of every faction there is. He’s ideal.”

That, too. Yaga wasn’t worried about being replaced. The amount of forces and interests that had converged into allowing him this position were uncountable. He was stuck fast to this role by sheer virtue of how much effort it would take to replace him with a non-controversial pick. It was the way of politics in the Big Clans.

If the Kamo clan said that the sky was blue, the Gojo clan would call it black just to spite them, while the Zen'in clan would claim that the sky didn’t exist.

“More concerning is the lack of a severe enough punishment for the girl,” Kamo Akihito said. “She should be expelled for what she did. What say you, Yaga?”

Expelled, thus cutting short the deal she had made with HQ, to allow the Hibana clan into the Society. That was… an extremely unwise maneuver, in Yaga’s estimation. “If I expel Hibana, then I will have to expel Gojo,” Yaga said, kicking the proverbial ball over to Manjiro.

“Absolutely not!” Manjiro caught the ball instantly.

“Then we must renegotiate our terms with the Hibana clan,” Akihito said. “We made this deal long before she so recklessly decided to scour the lands for potential sorcerers to the point that she has made irreparable changes to our Society’s structure. She acts in bad faith. We all know this.”

“Moreover,” Manjiro added, “we already have a policy for redeeming outlaw clans. The Inumakis are our precedent: we force them to breed out their sorcerers, and stop them from performing Jujutsu. Why should the Hibana clan be exempt from this?”

“Absolutely,” Akihito said. A rare occasion in which two clan heads agreed. That was a bad sign. “Why should we simply sit still and bear it? Her bad faith politics and the fact that her clan is somehow exempt from suffering the consequences of their criminality? Hibana Teira must be punished somehow, and we must reconsider our relationship with the Hibana clan. You must punish her, Yaga.”

“What does the council say?” Yaga asked.

Yaga sensed hesitation in the air. Likely because the Big Three had arrived. Thus, they couldn’t maintain their agenda with impunity, or the clans would rightfully identify that they had been bought by the Hibana clan.

The Big Three knew that already, but their physical presence was enough to remind the councilmembers of who their original sponsors were.

And, of course, that should any of them overplay their hands, the Big Three knew exactly who they were, and would use violence if necessary to cause them to behave. Where Hibana Teira approached them with gifts, the Big Three preferred the old ways, instead.

The Jujutsu ways.

“We see no need to jettison our working relationship simply from this one minor lapse,” one of the councilmembers said. “Hibana Teira has displayed contrition adequately by surrendering to Yaga-sensei’s authority and allowing herself to be punished to his satisfaction. We trust in Yaga Masamichi’s judgment, and will therefore leave the matter to his discretion.”

Passing the ball back to him, now.

They would pressure him to amend his judgment, and claim that Hibana Teira needed more punishment. The council didn’t want her expelled, but they wouldn’t stop him if he did it.

The Big Three’s stance was crystal clear.

And they could kill him, should he refuse.

Unfortunately for them, he would die for his students. “I consider the matter settled,” Yaga said. Manjiro clicked his tongue, and Akihito scowled. Naobito just shook his head. Truthfully, that reaction frightened Yaga more than the other two’s. He seemed resigned, almost, in what he felt he needed to do.

Let them come.

“You are dismissed,” the council said.

Yaga stood up and left the room.

Whether he’d live to see tomorrow, Yaga knew one thing. Never would he ever live with the regret of not protecting his students to the best of their abilities. As long as that was the case, he could die in peace.

---

A/N: I just crossposted to Royalroad. If any of y'all have an account, please consider dropping a follow and a rating of whatever you think the story deserves https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/152553/juchu-kaisen-wormjujutsu-kaisen doing this would help me TREMENDOUSLY