Chapter 64

Jujutsu High, Tokyo
10th September, 11:00 JST

From the viewing room in the middle of campus, Yaga Masamichi and the rest of Jujutsu High’s faculty were treated to an excellent view of the entire battlegrounds. The small auditorium was facing a wall of large screens that were somehow in turn connected to the barrier that Master Tengen had helped erect over the forest outside campus.

The technique of surveillance using barriers was one of Tengen’s specialties, but the technique of connecting that visual information to modern technology was all but. Once again, the Hibana clan had provided this invaluable resource, using their Mori clan vassals.

There were thirty screens, each dedicated to one single participant. Points were counted using another principle of Jujutsu entirely—tracking the cursed energy of whatever managed to exorcise the cursed spirits in the forest—but those points could easily be confirmed with the screens.

“Is it just me, or do these spirits seem more threatening than their Grade should imply?” asked Mukai Reiko, the silver-haired Grade One of Tokyo Jujutsu High’s fourth year. She was sat at the very back row of the auditorium, of her own free will. As a Grade One and a fourth-year, she had just enough pull to earn himself a seat in the room, along with the Special Grade Daimonji Matsuda, making them the only two students in the auditorium.

“They were sourced from the Hibana clan,” principal Dojima Hatori explained. “They disclosed that these curses were, in fact, trained. They used an aspect of the Juchū technique to take control over the cursed spirits, using them to train their young, and artificially improving their skill by way of teaching them optimal strategies.”

“Hold on,” Mukai leaned closer to the screen. “Then what about the Grade Ones?”

Gakuganji hummed. “They will likely be handled by the Special Grades.”

Just then, one of Masamichi’s students, Kobayashi Jun, approached one such Grade One.

“Shit!” Masamichi shouted. The Grade One was a reptilian creature with a set of sharp tails which it could use to instantly shred its opponents.

Jun was only a Grade Three. Even if he had improved, this wasn’t a creature he could—

Jun moved like a man twice his age and ten times the experience, pulling off an acrobatic jumping maneuver that allowed him to instantly slide past the tails, letting him score a substantial hit on the Grade One.

“Who is he?” a Kyoto teacher asked.

“Kobayashi Jun,” Masamichi muttered in disbelief as Jun landed away from the monster. The clash was met once more. This time, Jun severed three tails in one swipe. The monster’s follow-up attack only committed one tail. That, too, was severed.

He was a storm of steel as he fought, each hit substantial, and each attack of the cursed spirit dodged with trivial ease, the same trivial ease that was present in every Jujutsu lesson whenever he fought one of his classmates and did his best impression of a greased eel, slipping and sliding away from dodge with ease.

In the end, Masamichi’s worry had been for naught. It was clear that Jun was the type of sorcerer to relish in the sort of battles that required pinpoint precision. Balancing on the edge of death was his forte, clear as day.

This Grade One had been all attack and very little defense, a near impossible foe against any average Grade Three.

Jun was clearly far from average.

“This one is worth marking,” Gakuganji said. The old man even smiled a little. “What Grade is he?”

He finally sliced the creature’s head off and moved on. “Three,” Masamichi said. “He’s improved.” Masamichi was embarrassed at his exclamation. As his teacher, he should have been more aware of what he could do.

Ito Aoi jumped down from a tree to ambush a Grade One cursed spirit, her first strike blowing a hole through its meaty torso. The humanoid spirit staggered and tried to turn to counter, but it had been utterly crippled in the first strike. It had been an excellent use of environmental advantages and stealth. She had even veiled her cursed energy to achieve this clean hit.

In just moments, the spirit was gone.

Zen'in Naoya, sprinting atop the forest canopy using his Projection Sorcery, stopped as he spotted three Grade Twos huddled together, collectively forming a threat equal to one Grade One.

Naoya fled.

Only to return at a lightning pace to wipe all three Grade Twos in one hit.

“No need for Special Grades,” Mukai scoffed. “The first-years are doing fine on their own.”

No need, indeed.

“Ah,” one teacher from Kyoto, whose name was Yukimura Yasuoka, smirked. He was dressed in a sharp black suit and had a neatly coiffed haircut. He was Masamichi’s counterpart in Kyoto, meaning that he taught their first years, four of which were currently competing.

There was some drama behind his placement in the first-year class, apparently. He was not that class’ first pick of teacher, but he had been forced to step up after the initial pick had been brutally injured and hospitalized by one of the first-years.

One of the four Kyoto first-years currently participating, in fact.

Masamichi turned to Yukimura, curious to see what he was getting at. Upon being looked at, he clarified his exclamation. “The hazard of having too many first-years in your team is clearly on display, don’t you think so, Yaga-san?”

Masamichi didn’t need to look at the screens to understand what he was getting at. Out of the fifteen participants of this year’s Exchange Event, twelve of them were first-years. The entire class had swept the preliminary exam. The rest were three third-years, all of them Semi-Grade One.

Those three hadn’t struggled particularly to achieve their places in the preliminary exam, having chosen to go after weaklings, leaving the strongest in the hopes that they would gain a slot and make the team battle all the easier.

This was in stark contrast to Masamichi’s students, most of whom had fought like people possessed without even a shred of strategy of higher thinking behind their actions. They had fought for their own slot, not for the betterment of the team.

And that was only when they did fight. His three Special Grades had earned their slots without even lifting a finger during the exam. No one had so much as dared to challenge them, least of all their fellow classmates.

And case in point, nearly all twelve of the students were running around like headless chickens, doing their own thing entirely. The only two that were teamed up were Aomori Sakura and Ishikawa Takumi. They were something of a pair now, strategically and socially at least. Masamichi didn’t concern himself with frivolous social developments, if any. All he knew about the two were that they worked hard to complement one another, and had asked him for advice many a times during the school year.

Aomori in particular had grown explosively ever since she finally managed to grow teeth on her innate technique. She and Ishikawa, who had lost a bit of weight since entering the school, were running together atop the forest canopy, seemingly stalking one of Kyoto High’s groups.

They were one of two actual teams within the Tokyo team. The other were the three third-years. The remaining ten were running things solo, for better or for worse.

In many ways, the arrival of so many new sorcerers had made Jujutsu Society a better place, especially for active-duty sorcerers. One thing that had all but disappeared, however, was that old-school sorcerer grit. Individuality. Pure arrogance. The desire to go at every challenge entirely alone, no matter what.

These days, supervised exorcisms were more common than not. Less advanced sorcerers being watched by their upperclassmen or those higher in Grade. It was safer, but it just wasn’t the same as facing a threat entirely alone, with only your own strength to rely on.

“Nothing to say, Yaga-san?” Yukimura grinned at Masamichi, who just shrugged.

“I still have three more years with them. And your students don’t seem to be doing any better in the cooperation department.”

That was all that needed to be said.

Tokyo’s victory was almost a certainty, really. If it wasn’t Teira that would take the win, it was Satoru. If it wasn’t either of the two, then it would probably be Suguru. Masamichi didn’t know how well he would stack up to Joichi—who was razing through the forest, leaving cursed spirits half-dead so he could harvest their blood without it vanishing first. He kept all this blood in a purple orb floating above his head as he ran. He already had six points.

“I’m curious to see how well they fare,” Masamichi continued. “They’ve made things difficult for themselves. That’s bad for them, and good for me as a teacher. Now I’ll have a better understanding of where their limits lie.”

With any luck, Tokyo might actually lose as well. It was unbecoming of a teacher to pray on the downfall of his students, but they were truly lacking in humility and carefulness. That was deadly.

And Tokyo would lose even if they had more points than Kyoto. That would require the survivors of the Tokyo team being outnumbered by the Kyoto team two to one. Suguru, Satoru, and Teira were unlikely to lose, but if everyone else did, and Kyoto had six or more remaining teammates, they would win.

This was a hidden rule, agreed on by the faculty of each school. Masamichi’s hope was that it would remind his Special Grades that victory meant nothing if you were the last man standing on your side.

Then again, he should know better than to expect Satoru or Teira to care.

The latter was busy giggling at the sight of a tree. She ran her fingers over the bark, then rubbed her fingers, and then touched the bark again, over and over.

All the while, her point counter ran up every ten or so minutes. It was at three now. She had exorcised three curses while playing about, all of them Grade Three.

Satoru, meanwhile, had wasted no time at the start of the match flying to the top of the barrier’s dome, and then firing a Hollow Purple at the Special Grade three kilometers away, ending its existence in an instant of pure destruction. At least he had kept the damage to a minimum. The impact crater was very deep, but it was only about twenty meters wide in the middle.

And now he was taking a nap atop the branch of a tree, in the barrier’s epicenter. Masamichi smirked as he read Satoru’s intentions. He was in the barrier’s epicenter because he wished to avoid the barrier passing him by as he slept.

Unfortunately for him, he would have to wake up soon. The barrier was not going to shrink uniformly. The true ‘epicenter’ would be offset from the center of the initial barrier.

Masamichi returned to the sight of Teira, feeling a growing sensation of sympathy bubbling up for her. The stresses of her position were clearly taking its toll. Ever since the new semester had begun, she had changed, becoming less engaged, far more quiet.

The few times they did directly interact, she spoke with a greater degree of wistfulness and melancholy. She still interacted regularly with her friends, and that was a good sign, but she hardly ever squabbled with Satoru, these days.

Masamichi would have to bite the bullet and sit down with Teira to have a frank conversation about her mental state one of these days. Hopefully, this change was merely the start of something better, but he wanted to be sure before assuming things. As her teacher, it was his responsibility to ensure that she developed in a healthy fashion, insomuch as any sorcerer could develop healthily.

…why was she so fascinated with tree bark, though?

At least she was having fun.

All of his students seemed to be having fun. For the second and third-years participating, the Exchange Event was serious business. It was an integral step forward in their careers as sorcerers, and would decide their position in Jujutsu Society’s hierarchy of Grades.

For his students, most of whom did not hail from a sorcerous background, this was just an opportunity to apply the powers that they had worked so very hard to cultivate.

“Ah, one of yours is about to kick a steel board,” Yukimura smirked.

Satoshi Ren was currently converging towards a group of four Kyoto students, all of them in their second year. Grade Threes and one Semi-Grade Two to his Grade Three.

It was difficult to imagine him coming out on top of this one. He had been dutiful in his training, and his senpai Mukai Reiko had lavished him with her personal attention. Knowing her power as a Grade One, that would definitely translate into results.

“I wouldn’t count him out,” Mukai said. She crossed her legs and grinned at the screen, almost hungrily. “He’s a team player now.”

Ren had spent no time at all communicating with his fellow teammates, which wasn’t odd considering everyone else had done the same. Ren had also made an enemy out of almost all of his classmates simply due to how… irritating he could be.

This claim of Mukai’s was interesting, however. “How so?” Masamichi asked.

“He made a beeline for the closest people,” Mukai explained. “He even ignored some cursed spirits on the way.” Masamichi had noticed that, but he had assumed that Ren simply required a greater challenge. “He’s trying to weaken the opposing team.”

That was teamwork, if you also assumed that he was taking this fight for the betterment of his team, and not just to sate his own ego.

In any case, the efficacy of this strategy of his was the only thing that could redeem him, and Masamichi was eager to see the knucklehead show off some growth.

000

“Listen, Ren-kun. All that matters, all you have, is your endurance. Don’t give up, no matter what, and you’ll come out golden.”

Mukai-senpai had said this to Ren when she had finally deigned to let him out of the school’s pit of Grade One cursed spirits. He had survived in the expansive basement without food or water for a good forty-five days. No sleep, either. All he had known back then was movement. Move forward. Never look back. Never give up.

And Ren hadn’t. He hadn’t given up, even when conventional wisdom demanded it.

Mukai-senpai had cut him loose not too soon afterwards, citing that “nothing I say will get through your skull anyway, so why bother? Just go out there and do it.”

She hadn’t taught him anything in terms of Jujutsu. No techniques, no barrier bullshit, or even that Shikigami bullshit either. She had gone many, many rounds with him, however.

They had fought a total of sixty times before she had grown too bored to continue, and Ren had still been able to stand at the end of it all, no matter the damage he had accrued.

Ieiri had been helpful. She had wondered how he had even managed to remain alive long enough to come to her, but after an hour of her healing magic, he had been returned to his peak form.

And he had continued training all summer according to Mukai-senpai’s instruction to just ‘go out there and do it’. Truthfully, it didn’t really require much of anything beyond what he could already give.

All he really needed was his Endurance.

And in this match, he would show it off to the fullest against the enemy team. He didn’t need a damn point to still win. All he needed to do was put some of his Kyoto senpais on the ground. Defeating them meant infinitely more than some random cursed spirits that were already handled by the school. They weren’t nibbling on kindergartners, so who gave a damn?

If this was a game, then Ren would make sure to at least make it fun.

…And if he found Ieiri somewhere, he’d carry her around and use her as a mobile battery to remain in top form. Together, they could probably kill the Special Grade from Kyoto. He desperately wanted a turn with that asshole. Ren hated his eyes.

He could smell the Kyoto people better now. Not really ‘smell’ them, but he could feel them in a way that reminded him of smelling, but for the spirit. Their scent of strength drew closer as he ran. They were many, and they were probably older than him. There were only four first-years in Kyoto, meaning that Kyoto’s upperclassmen were probably stronger than Tokyo’s. They even had a Special Grade fourth-year, likely stronger than Mukai-senpai.

He burst through a tree-line and saw them, all huddled together, standing around without an ounce of care and looking his way. They knew he’d come. Ren wasn’t dumb enough to think that just because he could smell them, they couldn’t smell him right back. They were probably thinking that he was too dumb to take seriously. He had seen that look in many a gangster that he had put in the ground in the past.

“Oi, brat—“

Ren kept running at full tilt. They finally drew themselves up, raising their fists and weapons. One of them gave the other three a look and stepped forward. He wielded a katana.

He rotated it so that he was using the blunt edge.

Then, he blitzed forward, smashing the flat of the blade into Ren’s chest hard enough that he felt cracks throughout his body. He felt it sharply in his ribs, and dully in his spine. It launched him backwards towards a tree. He crouched, landing on the tree on all fours, and launched himself back towards the dick that had hit him, ignoring the pain as he delivered his punch finally.

The guy blocked it with the blunt edge of his sword, causing his hands to fly up. He took a step back, and Ren pursued him instantly, jumping on top of him and raining down blows on him.

One on the face. One more. One more. He was straddling his chest and letting them fly.

Someone wacked him across the head. A huge mistake. He had learned this one special technique in the curse pit.

Letting his head get hit. If he was hit hard enough, things would get all swimmy and weird, and he’d feel less pain. It was hard to focus on the smart thing to do, but that didn’t matter so much when the rules of the game were so dead fucking simple—just keep hitting.

What else was there?

Two more on the face. Three more.

The other three were surrounding him, and were busy raining down blows on him. Each of them were enough to momentarily blind him with pure sensation. Such vivid, such sharp sensations. That was all pain really was; a sensation intense enough to be ‘uncomfortable’ according to science or whatever.

But science was stupid, and Ren didn’t have to listen to it if he didn’t want to.

The guy on the ground’s mouth was filled with blood and saliva that dribbled out from the side, but his eyes were still lucid and sharp even if his brows were pulled together in what could only be fear. He had let go of his sword, something that Ren had counted on at the start of his barrage. It was why he didn’t want to use weapons. It just made things more complicated. The only way he’d lose his hands was if they were cut off from him. They were always there and ready for use.

Three more punches, and those eyes finally rolled back into his skull.

One of the three others kicked him so hard that he went flying, while still holding the guy he was punching. He reoriented himself in the air, grabbed the poor sap by his shirt, and landed, holding him like a shield.

“You’re dead!” one of them roared. A typical line from yet another goon that he would destroy even if it killed him. All he had to do was latch and hit. Latch and hit.

He ran towards Ren with a fist cocked back, shimmering with some light. He probably had some kind of ki punch. Ren was a little jealous as he had yet to really figure out what his innate technique did. Gojo, that prick, had told him once that he did have an innate technique. He just wouldn’t tell him what it was. Prick.

Ren blocked the punch with the guy’s friend, and countered with his own right. The idiot took the fist in his skull, headbutting it in a way that would have shattered Ren’s fists if he gave a shit.

Ren didn’t give a shit, so his fists didn’t shatter. The weird crackling sounds on impact had probably been the guy’s forehead.

He punched him again.

He blocked a flying blade of wind from one of the other people’s kicks with the unconscious guy.

Then he threw the guy up in the air, grabbed him by his ankles, and used him to hit the one that had taken his punch on the forehead.

The idiot tried to retreat, but he couldn’t do it in time. Their friend was too tall, so his head had struck that guy’s head.

He tried to swing the guy again, but he suddenly disappeared from his hands. An innate technique?

No. He recalled at the start of the game that the rules were like in the preliminary exam. He remembered having lost some human weapons the same exact way. Dammit.

Ren didn’t spend a millisecond longer thinking about what to do. He just rushed at the one that looked the most damage—the one with the ki punch—and latched his legs around his waist with his own legs before raining down blows on him until he, too, fell.

The hits that rained down on him weren’t any softer than before, but it was even easier to ignore now that there were only two of them.

He didn’t stop hitting him this time until he was fully unconscious and finally disappeared.

When he stood up again, he felt like he weighed barely a single kilogram. Those head-hits had disabled his ability to sense his own weight, making him even faster!

He looked around.

They were all gone. What the hell?

000

Masamichi slapped his own forehead in disappointment.

Mukai was simply clapping, entirely too enthused by what they had just seen.

Just like that, the Kyoto school was down two fighters.

“He’s on his last legs,” Yukimura said, eyes dark. “He might even die at this rate.”

It was true that Satoshi Ren was now a bloodied mess, but he looked far from down. He stumbled a few steps through the forest, shook his head, and took off in a trot that began to look more and more measured as he ran.

“The Reverse Cursed Technique?!” someone in the room shouted.

“No,” Mukai said. “It’s just Cursed Technique. He’s still injured, but that… really doesn’t matter.”

Despite what he had just seen, and despite what he had resolved, that Ren would be vindicated by the results of his strategy, he still could not accept this style of fighting. It would kill him one day.

“What a barbaric fighting style,” Daimonji said quietly, his eyes full of disapproval. “He fights no better than an animal. Why have you encouraged this, Mukai-san?”

“Me?!” Mukai shouted. “You try encouraging him to do anything he doesn’t already want to do! In Ren’s world, there are no teachers. Only himself, and the experiences that allow him to refine what he already knows.”

If that ain’t the unvarnished truth, Masamichi thought tiredly.

“He is not worthy of Grade Two,” Yukimura said. “Even if he beat them. That means nothing. Without the Reverse Cursed Technique—“

“He will never survive for any length of time,” Mukai completed tiredly. “Yeah, I thought that, too. You have no idea, sensei. Just watch.”

Masamichi wondered, once again, how well he really knew his students. First Jun, and now Ren.

Who would be next?