Chapter 63

Jujutsu High, Tokyo
9th September, 19:45 JST

I blew a fat plume of smoke out from my mouth after holding, or ‘toking’, for a handful of seconds. The hash smoke was thicker and more voluminous than the smoke of any tobacco I had tried before. It gave the activity another layer of amusement.

Yet another layer was the sheer aura of disapproval that those around me tended to exude at the strange smell that was wholly unlike tobacco. The scent was divisive. Some were confused by it, and some absolutely loathed the ‘stench’.

Zen'in Naobito glowered at me from across the table in our private meeting room. He was among the many that had arrived from Kyoto to personally watch this year’s Exchange Event. It would be the greatest in the history of Jujutsu High, owing to the sheer number of Special Grades competing, including two of the new Jujutsu Society’s pillars: Gojo and myself.

“I wanted to talk to you,” I began, “because I feel like there’s a hole in my understanding of your faction.”

Naobito smirked. He had barely touched his gourd. “Ah, that’s a problem. May I interest you in my clan’s top secret archives, available for your perusal?”

“Sarcasm doesn’t become you,” I said.

“And drugs do not become a young child like you.”

“And here I thought you were an artist,” I said. “All the best ones take drugs.”

“Foreigners,” Naobito snorted. “Homegrown artists have no need for drugs. We have spirit. Do you understand the meaning of the word?”

“Spirituality. Drugs. Why quibble over the details when they are almost identical to one another?”

You could smoke fifty milligrams of hash and achieve a three-hour state of mindlessness, or you could dedicate months to years of your life learning to do the exact same thing with just the power of your mind.

Either way, the result was the same.

“It’s weak is what it is,” Naobito said.

“And alcohol isn’t?”

“The worst alcohol can do is reduce your capability in every way,” Naobito said. “And it may even leave you with an undue sense of confidence. But the difference between that and your drugs is that you lose that confidence after the alcohol wears off. With drugs, you can become high from your own farts even after you’ve sobered up, to say nothing of all the wit you end up losing.”

“Do you want some?”

Naobito blinked.

“It’s just hash,” I said. “That is, cannabis. It’s not addictive, it’s not toxic. The worst outcome is suffering a panic attack that might traumatize you for an undefined amount of time.” I knew this much from anecdotes from my first stint in life. That still hadn’t stopped me from looking down on potheads as generally being a rather useless group of people.

Uselessness was far from the worst sin, however.

The kilogram brick of hash, an off-green hard dough-like substance, was on the table, with a few divots on it from my past harvests from it. I broke off a tiny chunk from it and crushed it up between my fingers before pouring it into the bowl.

Then, I summoned some Juchū, letting them fly the pipe over to Naobito.

He took the pipe with a furrowed brow.

“Don’t mix it with the sake,” I said. “Or do it. It’s your life. It won’t make it any more dangerous, but it will enhance the high.”

“This is ridiculous,” Naobito growled. “I am the twenty-sixth head of the Zen'in clan, not some lowlife drug-addict!”

“I won’t talk you through your fear,” I said, gesturing for my Juchū to grab the pipe again so they could fly it back to me. Naobito held onto it tightly.

“No.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“I will take one drag,” he raised a finger.

He dug through his pocket to retrieve a match box, and lit the crumbs of hash inside the bowl while taking a deep drag.

I hoped that the residue of changa still inside the bowl wouldn’t… affect Naobito unduly. It would only be trace amounts, and DMT was hardly a drug that worked in such trace amounts.

Naobito blew out a fat plume, and I took my pipe back with my Juchū.

He then coughed a few times. “That tastes... interesting.”

“Back to the topic at hand,” I said. “Your plans.”

“What about them?”

“It’s simple, really,” I said. “Kamo Akihito has Joichi, the child that he’s grooming to become my counter.” My Juchū hardly bled, but I had an inkling that he could also take control over their blood once he shed it. That made him just as much of a threat to me as he was to Suguru. Still, I wouldn’t lose any sleep over him. “Gojo Manjiro has Satoru, who he desperately hopes will one day come to his senses so that he can properly put me in check and put an end to my growing political relevance. Then, there’s your lot.”

Naobito grinned mildly. “We have billions of yen between all our assets and our funds. Our history of cooperation with the government is also long and substantial. Why do you assume that you threaten me or mine in the first place?”

That was the rational position.

But what about the conservative position?

“Change is difficult,” I said.

“But ultimately, not worth throwing tantrums over,” Naobito leaned his head on his fist.

“Says you.”

“What I say goes.”

Which brought me back to my initial statement. There was a hole in my understanding of the Zen'in faction, a hole in which something lied in wait for me.

The only thing that came to mind was…

“The Ten Shadows.”

Naobito grinned. “What about it?”

“Is that your card?”

“Of course,” he said. But he said it in a way that was too confident. He was too unsurprised by my sussing this out. Was he baiting me?

If not the Ten Shadows, then what?

It wasn’t just the weed that was making my mind run through every possible bad outcome. Something was on the horizon.

I looked down at the pipe in my hand.

Anything could happen in the world of Jujutsu.

Which meant that I had to be careful.

“You’re an untroublesome point of contact with the Big Three,” I said to him. “So out of respect for this lack of trouble you’ve caused me, I’ll assume that whatever happens, you had no knowledge of it.” This close to me, all of Naobito’s physicality was apparent to me, which made it exceedingly simple for me to cold read him. It was never an exact science, but I could tell when he was being honest or not.

“And what will happen?” Naobito asked.

“Who knows?”

He chuckled. “Ah, this is funny. We’re speaking nonsense.”

“You underestimate my insightfulness,” I said. “I wouldn’t waste your time with nonsense. We’re clan heads.”

With any luck, their ace in the hole was actually just Toji. He hadn’t mentioned a word of this. The Zen'in clan had not been able to contact him ever since he changed his name to Fushiguro, and the usual ways that a clan could employ to locate their rogue sorcerers were inapplicable to Toji on account of his lack of cursed energy.

Or perhaps, they had yet another person with a Heavenly Restriction somewhere in the clan, one that they were banking on defeating me.

I had a hundred other ideas besides, many of which became increasingly bizarre. It seemed to be a running theme for me whenever I smoked weed, that I would endlessly generate ideas and then fixate on them like they were even worth anything.

Very few of them were, but this line of inquiry was definitely important.

“Not friends?” Naobito asked. “Or mentor and student?”

I probably shouldn’t have given him a hit. Now he was wasting my time with nonsense.

I had come to him with concerns of a possible war, and he was wasting my time like this. People could die when there was no need for death.

My heart stirred.

I… didn’t want to kill.

Right now, at least. I was sure that the flip would switch given time. Creatures like me didn’t get to play at humanity for any length of time. But it was during these phases of quietude and peace that I could build thicker walls around the monster, by suing for peace rather than fanning the flames of war.

Naobito could very well become my enemy given time. I had said and done everything that I could to prevent that. Everything within my tolerance as the clan head of my own faction, and within the tolerances of my own agenda.

“More like a doddering old man trying to look cool in front of a high schooler,” I said.

“I am cool,” Naobito laughed. “In fact, hand me that pipe. I want more.”

I grimaced in disgust. “No. You already ruined alcohol for me. I’m not going to let you take this, too.”

He shrugged and grabbed his gourd before lazily pouring the harsh drink down his gullet.

000

Jujutsu High, Tokyo
10th September, 10:35 JST

The week that had gone by since the arrival of the Kyoto students had left Gojo Satoru simultaneously feeling overstimulated and understimulated.

Thus far, the only one to really catch his eye had been Daimonji Matsuda, who Satoru had spent the past week badgering for a fight, only to be denied by the kindly young man at every turn.

‘I’ve sworn a binding vow to never use violence except against monsters.’

According to Daimonji, just having the raw power of Six Eyes and Limitless didn’t necessarily make you a monster. He refused to fight humans, and that was final. It was a damn shame.

The fifteen selected Kyoto students were all so disappointing that he ducked them all at every opportunity. He wanted a fight, not a fly-swatting.

Unfortunately for Satoru, the only worthwhile fighter in the world was busy turning herself into a drooling mess every other day and seeing rainbows.

On the last courtyard building on campus leading to the expansive wilderness of Mount Ushiro where the first round of the event would take place, the grown-ups had the Kyoto students standing in a row across from the Tokyo students, all of them facing one another.

He remembered Haruta, Teira’s nth cousin. She was busy glaring daggers at everyone that dared to meet her gaze. Especially Shoko. Next to her was some blond kid with purple triangles under his eyes, like fang marks. Probably related to his cursed technique, which was…

Wait, holy shit. Satoru smiled. That was definitely a fun one. He’d take his time with him later.

The blond kid saw that Satoru was looking at him, and his eyes widened. He gulped in terror, and Satoru grinned.

Naobito’s kid was there, too. On the other end of the line from where Haruta was. Naoya, if Satoru recalled correctly. He also had Projection Sorcery.

Kamo Joichi tried to glare at Satoru, but he purposefully didn’t meet the guy’s eyes just to rile him up. Satoru would go out of his way to avoid him as well, because he wanted Suguru to fight him. The guy needed all the challenges he could get.

He didn’t sense anyone else interesting. One girl had the ability to control crows. Another could boost other people’s output—making her nothing but a support character. Good to have in a group, but ultimately rather weak and helpless.

Everyone in the Kyoto row had a cursed technique, however. This was in contrast to the two in the Tokyo row that didn’t—Ito and Shoko.

Theirs were rather uninteresting, however.

One could shoot waves of wind from his kicks. Another could summon an invisible cape. There were some straightforward strength-enhancing techniques as well, and one that…

Satoru raised an eyebrow at the last boy. He had seen him before, in the Zen'in delegation. Conspicuously, he was not standing next to Naoya.

And he was steadfastly not looking at Teira. That was normal, of course. She had a presence that made it impossible for weaklings to look directly at her for any length of time.

Satoru debated on whether or not to fill Teira in on what he could do.

Ultimately, he decided against it.

In fact, he hoped that she would get her ass kicked in a humiliating fashion, if only so that it would give her a wake-up call and cause her to take things more seriously. She wouldn’t listen to reason, and Satoru had no idea how to be the voice of reason, or how he ever managed to land himself in that position of all things. Drastic situations required drastic measures.

“I should have ducked out at the prelims,” Shoko, who was standing next to Satoru and Teira, muttered under her breath.

Satoru had never met a person more committed to being weak than Shoko, which made it impressive that she had come as far as she had. He wanted to see how she fared in the first round.

“I hope you understand that you can’t rely on that tactic of yours in real life,” Teira said. “The Reverse Cursed Technique isn’t invincible.”

“Not even for you?” Shoko asked. “I’ve seen you skirt close to death so many times.”

Teira shrugged. “Even for me,” she said. “The Reverse Cursed Technique exists in the brain. That’s where the cursed energy is converted into positive energy. Destroy the brain, and the Reverse Cursed Technique would stop working for anyone. It would be instant death.”

“Furthermore,” Satoru said, “if something were to separate your brain from your core of cursed energy, you would die.” It was pretty basic, after all.

“And it wouldn’t take nearly that much to kill you, Shoko,” Teira said. “You’d run out of energy just from healing your blood loss, to say nothing of being able to keep yourself conscious even during dire situations.”

“I should have ducked out,” Shoko repeated.

“No cure for regret,” Suguru said.

Principal Gakuganji and Principal Dojima, side by side, approached the two rows of students, a procession of assistant managers behind them.

Gakuganji, as always, looked older than old. He was hunched over, leaning his weight onto a gnarled wooden cane. His eyes, nestled within deep eyeholes, were shadowed under his comically long eyebrows, and he had a whopping eleven gold ring piercings on his face, four on each ear, two on his lower lip, and one in his septum.

“Welcome, students,” Gakuganji began. “To the sixteenth annual Sister School Exchange Event. We are pleased to—“

Bla, bla, bla, bla, bla.

Satoru tuned out the long-winded speech about ‘building a brighter future’ and ‘strengthening the relationship between Tokyo and Kyoto’. He couldn’t care less. He couldn’t imagine that anyone in attendance even did.

Except for that long-haired girl with the support-power from Kyoto. She was paying rapt attention to the Principal, eating up all of his bullshit.

“—Event will take place over a span of two days. We generally agree on a team battle on the first day, and individual battles on the second day,” just as Satoru had predicted. “And the rules are simple: no killing other students. This is strictly forbidden and will be punished to the fullest extent of the law if done with malice aforethought. Other than this, all Jujutsu is permitted in battle, including the usage of cursed tools.”

Principal Dojima spoke from that point on. The wheelchaired, bald old man cleared his throat before launching into details. “Today’s team battle is called the Cursed Spirit Battle Royale. A barrier will be erected around the forest where you will all compete to gain as many points as possible, by exorcising cursed spirits. Defeating members of the opposing team will award no points, but it will eliminate them from the game. Defeat occurs when one has lost consciousness, when one has admitted defeat, or when one has crossed the barrier of the game. To make things interesting, the barrier will gradually shrink over time, which will force frequent enemy engagements. The game is over when the last cursed spirit has been defeated.”

Gakuganji went on from there. “If you were eliminated in the team battle, your chances of being selected for the individual battle will reduce. Only eight from each school will be allowed to compete individually.”

And there was the hook which would ensure that Satoru would take this shindig with a modicum of seriousness. He had to at least make sure not to take a nap so long that the barrier ended up crossing him by accident.

Really, that was the only way he could imagine losing. He would be damned before he became the moral of the tortoise and hare fable.

And this second round selection was liable to kick his ass, too. If he freeloaded, there was no guarantee that they’d let him enter. In fact, the petty old dicks might try to teach him a lesson by specifically not letting him enter.

He’d have to rack up his fair share of points, probably, becoming top eight by virtue of that alone.

He looked to Teira. She was likely thinking the same thing. He spoke under his breath, quietly, but knowing that she could hear. “You better not zone out, you shameless junkie.”

Kamo Joichi chuckled darkly. “So I just have to destroy all of you, is that it? Then I’ll win.”

Suguru smirked. “It’s a team battle, in case you missed that point.”

“There are forty Grade Three spirits, each worth one point,” Dojima continued. “Twenty-five Grade Two spirits each worth two points. Ten Grade One spirits each worth four points. And one Special Grade, worth twenty points.”

Teira’s clan had offloaded their stock of cursed spirits for the event, including a “Special Grade”. Satoru supposed that he’d just take that one out and call it a day. Twenty points out of a hundred and fifty total points would probably put him close to number one, if not outright number one.

Satoru sensed some of the students squirming in fear at the high number of cursed spirits. Right. In the world of the weak, Grade Ones were genuinely a big deal. It was so sad how these people lived.

“The barrier will transport you out of danger based on the aforementioned conditions, but it will not be able to rescue you should a single strike be enough to take your life,” Dojima said gravely. “This is a distinct possibility, so do not lower your guard.”

Teira slipped something into her mouth.

Ugh.

Oh well. Today was bound to be a snoozefest, but tomorrow was another day. He grinned, thinking of how nice it would be to battle Teira one more time.

This time, he would win.

“The moment you enter the barrier, the game will begin,” Gakuganji said. Just then, an amber dome unlike any other opened up over the forest. “Where you enter from is up to you. You may spend however long you like outside the barrier before entering, but keep in mind that the longer the enemy team is inside the barrier, the more points they will accrue. Best of luck to you all.”

000

Jun’s provisional Grade Three rating had been a thorn on his side for quite a while. It hadn’t completely blocked him from being able to take on greater challenges, but it had been difficult. To this day, he had still only been in four fights against Semi-Grade Two spirits and one fight against a Grade Two, and that one had been supervised by one of his senpais.

Grade Three was an appropriate Grade, in Jun’s mind. If he had been in any other cohort, he would have been happy being labeled a Grade Three so early on in his Jujutsu career. Many third-years were still stuck on that level, and he had entered it almost on a whim.

Grade Three was good. Compared to the three Special Grades in his class, one Semi-Grade One, and the two Grade Twos, he was actually rather middling.

Comparison was the thief of joy. It was so bizarre that his achievement lost so much of its luster purely because it was not impressive in comparison to others. And it was bizarre that Jun was so moved by this loss of luster that he was working so hard to attain a level that he felt was ‘good’.

He had all but lost his carefully cultivated aura of mystique and intrigue among his classmates. The three Special Grades indulged him at best—one of them occasionally bullying him for his refusal to accept her overtly evil gift—and the others were all so cool and impressive that they clearly didn’t have time to marvel at how cool Jun appeared.

His only hope, now, was to survive until his second year, pick up some hapless kouhais and show them the ropes. And he wouldn’t allow himself to do that until he was at least a full Grade Two. Semi-Grade One would be nice, but he supposed that that would be the work of at least two years to attain. He wanted to reach Grade One by the time his fourth year rolled up, becoming a Jujutsu elite.

From everything that Yaga-sensei had taught him, this timeline was extremely unreasonable and abnormally accelerated. But his classmates were unreasonable and abnormally accelerated, so all he could do was try his best to keep up.

He ran alone through the forest, the canopy thick and letting very little light through. What little came through was additionally shaded by the amber veil in the sky. Jun had paid lip service to the idea of cooperation at the start of the round, only for everyone to ignore him to do their own thing.

Having expected that, he had wasted no time peeling off, in search for his own quarry. On his side was a cursed tool in the shape of a katana that he had loaned from the school. As Cursed Tools were permitted, he wanted to ensure that he had as many edges as possible.

The Coward’s Dance painted the world in all sorts of colors and lines that shifted each time he changed his definition of danger. It would reveal handholds on the trees to him, should he consider ‘falling’ a danger, and it would even lead him to powerful cursed spirits, should he consider them a danger as well.

His goal was to take out one Grade One. That was the dream. If he couldn’t find one, he’d try to exorcise as many Grade Twos as he could reach. All he wanted to do was fill his CV with evidence that he was worth more than Grade Three, and there was no better way to do that than to effortlessly dispatch stronger cursed spirits.

And it didn’t matter that he would be using all the effort his body could spare. With his innate technique, it would look effortless anyhow.

All that mattered was tricking the watchers into thinking he was strong.

The Coward’s Dance showed a red path in front of him that gradually darkened. His cursed energy perception spiked as he sensed the growing danger of the quarry ahead of him. A Grade Two. No Grade Three had pressured him to this extent before.

He took half a moment to wonder if it was wise of him to engineer a reputation of strength with little basis in reality. It seemed liable to kill him in time.

He arrived at a clearing. The cursed spirit was a large, reptilian creature with many tails ending in sharp, bone-like blades. It looked like a kaiju of a sort.

The monster let all of its tails whip at the same time, creating a nigh-on impenetrable wall of pure death.

Was this truly a Grade Two?

The wall of death was nigh-on impenetrable, but nigh did not mean absolute. There was a crack in the attack that was clear as day to Jun.

He jumped, flipping his body horizontally, bending his knees and then his neck to avoid all the tails. By the time he was past the tangle of attacking tails and was right in front of the cursed spirit, his jump had flipped him upside down.

He had no leverage against the ground, but he was close enough.

He unsheathed his blade, still upside down, and sliced the only place on the monster that wasn’t a dark red from his Coward’s Dance.

His blade parted the cursed spirit’s flesh, wounding it severely.

The battle was on, and the first point in the match was his. All he needed was to execute ten more perfect maneuvers and then move on to the next cursed spirit.

He swung his blade again, this time making it so that the hit launched him away from the cursed spirit. He landed in a neat flip and calculated his next move.

He came upon an answer to his earlier question as the battle mania took hold. To trick the world into thinking he was stronger than he was, would put him in mortal danger.

And in that danger, he would learn, and he would grow.

Fake it till you make it. Jun had lived by that mantra all his life. Why stop now?

A/N: I don't wanna jinx it, but I feel like I'm finally on a roll.

It also occurred to me after posting the last chapter that I only ever made this announcement on Spacebattles, but I was sick for much of last week, and having lots of trouble sleeping. I'll make up for my slump by releasing at least one chapter every day for this week, with some double chapters if I'm able.

Thank you so much for your patience. I'll see you again tomorrow o7