Chapter 33

  Suguru got some scrapes, but in the end…

  He had left all of Higanbana house’s powerhouses insensate.

  Including Satoshi Ren who had decided to join the fray at some point. For some reason. Satoru had to hand it to the little psycho—he was persistent. He’d fought the seniors and Suguru and had gotten his ass kicked, which was to be expected. He was a mob character fighting slightly higher-levelled mobs. The only thing he had going for him was spirit.

  All the other first-years had held their distance. Kobayashi had altogether just left. Satoru’s estimation of him had been right—he really was no fun at all.

  The fat guy in his class was helping up Satoshi, who looked genuinely concussed.

  And the dorm captain guy was on his knees, his head inches from Suguru’s ankles. “Damn you,” he coughed. “How dare you?!”

  Satoru tilted his head. “How dare I? I wasn’t the one that kicked your ass, buddy.”

  “How dare you?!” he shouted even louder. He looked angered to the point of tears. The hell? “You had no right… to challenge Hibana-sama…!”

  The hell?

  No way. No freaking way.

  These assholes were doing this… for Teira?

  “They say you’re the strongest,” the captain spat. “But you weren’t the one who saved our lives. If you’re truly the strongest… then you never did anything. Deplorable.”

  The comment stabbed Satoru right through his Infinity. He could do nothing but… look shocked.

  Because it was the truth. Who had Satoru saved?

  …And why would he care about that? He was a Jujutsu Sorcerer, not a superhero. His family sent him out occasionally to gather experience and fight cursed spirits in a given area. They would kit him with assistants for all his veiling purposes, and just wait for him to clean up. Usually, he never arrived on time to actually save anyone. The nature of exorcising cursed spirits usually entailed that the people in the area had either evacuated, or were dead or dying.

  Worst was when he came across those who were dying. And even then, he never personally saw to them. He simply cleared the area of threats and had his assistants save them.

  “Shut up, senpai,” Suguru said coldly before kicking him in the face, knocking him unconscious. He then turned to Satoru and smiled. “Don’t listen to that meddlesome loser.”

  “Is he wrong, though?”

  It was the guy with dreads. Daiki. He was leaning against a wall, grinning at Satoru. He raised his hands placatingly. “Alls I’m saying is that you kinda did step up to bug girl for no reason—and everyone loves her. People getting pissed about that ain’t a surprise.”

  Satoru clicked his tongue in irritation. Why the hell was he supposed to care what people thought? It wasn’t like he fought her for any other reason than his own amusement. He didn’t give a damn about any of the other implications.

  “Butt out, Nakamura,” Suguru said. “Or I’ll spend the extra five seconds beating you to a pulp, too.”

  Satoru laughed. “Hah! You’re such a bully, Suguru! Leave the poor guy alone!”

  “I’ve been begging for you to make a move,” Daiki grinned, cracking his knuckles.

  Satoru’s phone then rang. “Wait, boys—hold on one second!”

  They paused to look at him as he took the phone and sighed. Old Man Manji. Dammit.

  He took the call. “Satoru-kun. Good evening.”

  “Evening to you, too,” Satoru said. “Can you get to the point of this call?”

  “We need to talk. Just five minutes. Meet me at the entrance of the student village.”

  Dammit. “I’m not allowed to leave the building after first registration,” Satoru moaned.

  “It’s very important, Satoru. The administration will understand. And since when did you care about rules?”

  Screw this bullshit. He hung up and sighed. “I really, really want to watch this, but I gotta head out and see someone. So, for my sake, could you put a pin on this until I’m back?”

  Daiki rolled his eyes. “Yeah, whatever. Can’t have a beatdown without an audience after all.”

  He clapped Suguru on his shoulder on his way towards the balcony, where he intended to fly out. “Thanks, man,” Satoru said to him quietly before passing him by.

  000

  Manjiro was waiting by the ornate wooden arch that led into the school’s student village—six buildings, three for each gender, and separated further by year-level.

  “Before we begin, Satoru,” Manjiro said. “Extend your Infinity to surround us. Make it block out light and sound.”

  Satoru obliged. It was good practice for one day being able to cast a barrier worth a damn. Falling Blossom Emotion was still kicking his ass, and he’d almost died just today because he couldn’t use it worth a damn.

  Soon, they were in utter darkness. Manjiro brought a flashlight and shone it on the ground between them, allowing him to see. Satoru, of course, hadn’t needed that to still be able to see using his Six Eyes.

  “Alright, lay it on me. You’re disappointed that I fought Teira on my first day and cost the clan repair money or whatever,” Satoru said.

  “On the contrary, I was… pleasantly surprised to learn that the damage was largely minimal,” Manjiro said. “No. You did good. Now we know that the wench has a Domain Expansion.”

  Wench. How charming.

  “Satoru,” Manjiro said seriously. “We’ve reached the end of our patience. The time to act is now. The Hibana clan must be stopped.”

  “What do you have in mind,” Satoru murmured.

  “We can’t deal with her directly,” Manjiro said. “She’s beyond our reach now. Except for you. You’re the only one that can stop her. We’ll deal with her clan while you deal with her. But Satoru, you must deal with her. The future of the Gojo clan depends on this. If we do not do something now, all will be lost.”

  Satoru… didn’t understand. “What will be lost? Our lives?”

  Manjiro’s eyes widened slightly at that. “Yes, that very well may happen—“

  “So that’s not the main factor,” Satoru said. “We’re not actually in… imminent danger. What will we lose, Manjiro?”

  “Our power and standing, of course!” Manjiro said. “And what then? This will not just be a loss for ourselves, or even for Jujutsu Society, but all of Japan! We were entrusted by ancient decree to protect humanity. To be sidelined is to falter in that mission. People will die.”

  Satoru took a deep breath and sighed. “Hibana Teira is now my friend.”

  “Wh-what? What? Are you joking?!”

  “No. Not at all,” Satoru smiled. “She’s my friend. I quite like her.”

  “Satoru, don’t joke!”

  “I’m not joking,” Satoru said. “Hibana Teira is my friend. I won’t act against her. And I can tell you right now, that should you provoke her by going after her clan, I won’t stop her from taking revenge. And I need not tell you that you stand no chance against her.” In this world, she only had one equal.

  “Impossible. Has that wench seduced you?”

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Satoru felt a surge of revulsion at his words. The same revulsion and tiny droplet of despair he always felt at the merest mention that he should get betrothed to someone in the family, or outside of it, in order to boost the clan’s standing. It was… truly disgusting, how these old men thought.

  It didn’t actually beggar belief what a girl might do to said old men, were they in his own position. What Teira had done.

  “I’ll pretend you didn’t say that, and leave things at that,” Satoru said quietly. “But I’ll tell you this for the last time, and I do mean the very last time: do not ever make presumptions such as that again. Ever.”

  “Satoru… this is betrayal. Can’t you see?”

  “Who am I betraying?” Satoru asked. “The clan? I never asked to be born a Gojo, you know. I never signed any contract. I never consented to being under your thumb. And the last time I checked, Manjiro, you’re so fucking weak that it isn’t even funny.” Manjiro took a step back in shock. “So in the eyes of Jujutsu, I’m actually the one who calls the shots. And you’re just a yappy dog who thinks it can bully me with its barks. But you have no bite whatsoever. And it’s time you acknowledge that. Before you do something rather insane like… betray me.”

  Satoru’s heart beat a mile a minute as he unleashed the sum total of all his pent up frustrations on Manjiro.

  He was done with this family, now. With his arrival in school, he now had financial freedom and a space for himself. He didn’t need his family at all. They needed him.

  “That includes screwing with my friends,” Satoru said. “So you go and tell the other clan heads that whatever they’re plotting, we won’t get involved.”

  Dammit. Now I’m doing politics.

  “Can I ask… why you’ve taken this position on the Hibana clan?”

  “I don’t give a damn about the Hibana clan,” Satoru stopped himself before going on. What would be the point? He wouldn’t understand no matter how much Satoru tried to explain. “Look, whatever. I’ve given you the score. Just deal with it on your own time. I’m leaving.”

  He didn’t wait to be dismissed, instead just flying back to the dorm building.

  000

  Shoko followed me into my room, where she then did something surprising.

  She hugged me.

  She held the contact for several long, awkward seconds. “Uh.”

  “I told you I was tired,” Shoko said. “And that you should save your tragic backstory for another day.”

  I chuckled tonelessly. That was blunt. “It was a spur of the moment thing,” I said.

  “I don’t really have much to say,” Shoko said. “So… I’m hoping this is enough.” She hugged me a little more tightly, leaving me dumbstruck.

  The end of our first ever meeting with the Jujutsu Women’s Union had been rife with physical affection as well, and a newfound shared spirit for change and revolution.

  But that was different. That was a mutual transfer of energy.

  This… felt like I was being one-sidedly comforted.

  I hugged Shoko back. “Thank you.”

  “Teira?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Are you doing something with your energy?”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Not really, no. Why?”

  “Because it feels like if I keep hugging you, I’m going to die.”

  Uh-oh.

  Michiko?!

  She responded swiftly, and ceased transferring her malevolent intent. She was definitely going to be a problem.

  “Why are you still hugging me, then?” I asked.

  “You need a hug.”

  Thanks. Now I’m healed of all that ails me.

  “…Thank you,” I said quietly instead, biting my tongue. “We’re still waking up early to train tomorrow morning.”

  Shoko clicked her tongue. “Drat.”

  While I shared this wholesome moment with Shoko, I was of course focused on a thousand other things.

  One of them being a certain girl from the Kamo clan, who disappeared into her room after the second registration to ‘sleep’. Outwardly, she had declared her loyalty to the Union, but as I wasn’t born yesterday, I had bugged her all the same, just to wait and see.

  She didn’t call anyone. Instead, she was writing a letter to someone high up in the Kamo clan, based on the name it was addressed to, and its respectful language.

  She got into the meat of the letter very quickly after the niceties were over with. She had made contact with me. I was more terrifying than she had expected. I was also garnering a lot of support.

  She hesitated before mentioning the Women’s Union.

  At that point, I felt that I had to speak up.

  My Juchū was in the shape of a small beetle. It was compact, and it also had a fully developed system of organs to allow it speech. The total cost was about five-hundred Juchū. They were also a category of Merged Juchū that I created for my clansmen based on what sort of specialty they wanted.

  It landed on top of the paper, causing Kamo Sachi to scream.

  She stood up and backed away in a fright, and I wondered if it was on account of seeing a big, freaky bug, or knowing that the bug was being controlled by me.

  Rather than wait for additional reactions, I spoke. “Is it really that important to you, Kamo-senpai?” I asked. “Betraying not just me, but all the other girls in the Union? Your classmates? What have they done to deserve this backstabbing?”

  “Wait, wait, no, you don’t understand—!”

  “Don’t beg,” I said. “It’s disgusting. Rather: listen to me. If you think I won’t expose you for this, you’re dead wrong. You can run back to the Kamo clan and tell them everything you’ve learned today. But you won’t get any help from the Union after that. If you still wish to be a sorcerer, your only support will be your clan. If you’re na?ve enough to think that means anything—that it could possibly offset this betrayal—then go ahead.”

  “It’s not like that,” she hissed. She was crying. “I don’t wish to betray anyone!”

  “Fine,” I said. “Then I’m giving you this one chance: ask me for help.”

  “You can’t help me,” she whispered.

  “Ask.”

  She took a moment to dry her tears on the sleeves of her yukata before nodding. “The truth is… I’m in love. He’s… a kind boy. A good sorcerer. And far too good for me. But he likes me, too. Yet, our union cannot come to be—for his parents have already decided a more fitting betrothal for him. This is why I’m here. They sent me here two years ago in order to keep an eye on the situation, and so that once you joined Jujutsu High, I would be able to inform them about you. They told me that if I did that, I had a higher chance of changing the minds of my beloved’s parents. If I don’t serve the clan… there is no way they would ever allow me to marry him.”

  Ugh.

  Love. Why did it have to be love?

  She was right. I really couldn’t help her.

  Not directly, at least.

  “Then you make a choice, Kamo-senpai,” I said. “And you make it without any regrets. Us or him. If you choose us, there is no way I will ever forget that. Kamo-senpai… I may not be able to influence the decisions allowing this betrothal to come to be. I don’t have that kind of influence over the Kamo clan. But should you and him choose to break away from the Kamos, I would provide you a safe haven.”

  “He would never agree to that,” she shook her head. “He is proud of being a Kamo.”

  “In a scant few years, the Big Three clans will lose their former relevance,” I said. “Whether you do anything right now or not, believe this: they are facing the twilight of their influence.”

  I explained to her exactly how that was. It was difficult to believe, but from what continued of our conversation, it was clear that Kamo Sachi had a very narrow view of things. She wanted to act at the behest of the Kamo clan solely to secure her relationship with her crush, a guy called Tabito.

  She hadn’t seen what the other Big Three had seen: an imminent paradigm shift unlike any other.

  “The times are changing, senpai,” I said. “For your own sake, you must make the right choice. What is young love before a lifetime of equality and justice, not only for yourself, but for others as well?”

  She nodded. “I… understand. I’m sorry.”

  “I’m not forcing you to do anything,” I said. “If Tabito means this much to you—“

  “No. I understand. I won’t… I won’t betray the Union,” she nodded resolutely, balling her fists as she did. “But promise me, Hibana Teira. Just promise me one thing.”

  “What is it?”

  “Promise me that you’ll do everything you’ve said you’ll do,” she said. “Or die trying.”

  “I swear it. On my name. On everything that I am,” I said. “I won’t rest until I’ve reached justice.”

  She nodded again. “I will finish writing my letter. It won’t mention the Union. In fact… I will mislead my clan and say that you have less influence than you actually have. I will tell them that you’re not very popular.”

  “In case of any fallout,” I said, “I’ll move mountains to protect you. Thank you, Sachi-senpai. Thank you.”

  000

  Over the course of the last seven years training not just one, or two, but four entire clans of young sorcerers, I had come to develop a robust educational system for Cursed Energy Manipulation, through trial and error, and my own superior senses to aid in it.

  Of course, each of the clans had subtly different curricula. The Ogura clan were more focused on developing their bodies in tandem with their control, even the ones without the Iron Fist inherited technique. The Shiba and Kagae, too, had different spiritual idiosyncrasies. Not just as a whole as clans, but as individuals as well. The other clans treated their ‘deviant’ sorcerers better than the Hibana did by a mile in that they didn’t enslave them. That made them more accepting of individualized training methods.

  Over the years, I had tailored so many individual training methods to have been able to find a common uniting thread that made my lessons more successful than not.

  Shoko and I met on the field at five AM. She looked miserable, and she was shivering slightly from the cold morning air. “Shoko, your control is abysmal. It’s like you’re not even trying to move your cursed energy.”

  She grimaced more deeply. “Ugh.”

  “That’s excusable,” I said. “You haven’t found the knack for it yet, the approach that works for you. Jujutsu High would have you banging your head against a wall in search for an answer until finally manifested that understanding. I’ll save you the trouble, and instead inject you with a poison that will essentially make you high.”

  Her discomfort was quickly replaced by shock. “What?”

  “It’s not any high that can be reproduced by regular drugs,” I said. “Neither is it addictive. Well, not overly so. It might be, but as I’m the only one with a supply of this drug, you needn’t worry about addiction. I will simply not feed it. Now, what I’m basically doing is lowering your cognitive functions while heightening your grasp of cursed energy, and the more you manipulate your cursed energy, the more satisfaction you feel. You will therefore intuitively be able to find this knack of yours, and hopefully you will recall enough of the experience to reproduce your manipulation while sober. Results have varied regarding how often people remember everything. Usually, however, I stop this regimen in an average of seven sessions, rounding up.”

  Shoko wrestled for a question, and then looked more and more thoughtful as I spoke, until finally, she sighed. “Will I sober up before the first lesson?”

  “Of course,” I said. “The high and the lowered cognitive function will last for one hour. Two hours at worst. That’s why I woke you up early.”

  “But why do this in the field if I’m just supposed to figure out how to move my cursed energy?”

  “So you don’t break anything while you’re basically half braindead,” I said.

  “Can’t you just… teach me normally?”

  “Were you taught how to walk? Or run? Did someone speak the words to you such that you understood?” I asked. “Cursed Energy Manipulation is not a technical skill. It’s in the spirit. The foundations of it cannot be communicated. The only person that can make you strong is yourself. You are your own master, you decide your own limits. I’m just a guide that will hold your hand and walk with you,” I reached my hand towards her. “But only if you will allow me.”

  She nodded, taking my hand. “Fine.”

  “Then, let us walk.”

  As we did, a Juchū landed on her neck and injected her with the poison that would allow her to feel her way into Cursed Energy Manipulation.

  Shoko’s pupils dilated. “Can you hear me?” I asked her.

  “Yeah…”

  A few minutes later, she became entirely nonverbal.

  Then… her cursed energy flared.