Acting on impulse and sparring with Himmel for a bit had left Nanami covered in bruises, black and purple all over.
Yaga was an impressive educator, all things considered.
A normal teacher couldn’t make a certain prodigy from the Gojo family show up to school like a functioning human being.
He also made a pretty good guess at where Nanami’s injuries had come from.
And why.
He sighed, didn’t say anything, and picked up the phone.
“What happened to you two~” And then there was the present.
Jujutsu High.
Infirmary.
Nanami lay on the white hospital bed with one forearm draped over his face, projecting the energy of a man who had zero interest in conversation.
Beside him sat a girl with her legs crossed and a lollipop tucked in the corner of her mouth.
Ieiri Shoko.
Shoulder-length hair.
Light brown eyes with a slight droop at the corners, carrying the hazy quality of someone perpetually half-asleep.
Clear, pale skin.
A small, neat nose.
The kind of effortless beauty that didn’t need to try.
The dark circles under her eyes were another matter entirely.
Black and purple.
She looked like she hadn’t slept in days.
“Who hit my Nanami~” she said, her voice tired but still teasing.
She gave Nanami’s shoulder a little shake.
He wanted to stay silent.
The shaking wore him down.
“A jujutsu sorcerer getting beaten up by curses.
Do you even need to ask?” “Liar~ You can lie to anyone but not a doctor, Nanami-nanami.
These are fist bruises, right?
Ah, look at this one.
There’s even a knuckle print.” “….” Nanami said nothing.
He did, however, fix Himmel with a look that could strip paint.
Human eyes don’t talk.
Himmel could read them anyway.
Something along the lines of: How hard did you hit me?
Why didn’t you tell me you were that strong?
Go to hell Jujutsu sorcerers are all completely useless.
Shoko caught the look and immediately perked up.
“Hey.” She leaned back slightly, hair spilling loose, eyeing Himmel with a sidelong glance.
“Beating up a classmate your first week?
That’s a bad student right there.” “Misunderstanding.
Total misunderstanding.” Himmel smiled and waved it off, entirely unbothered.
Shoko neither confirmed nor denied this.
She reached out her hand.
“Ieiri Shoko.
I’m your senior.” “Himmel.
I’m your junior.” They shook hands with matching amusement.
Then she tilted her head and asked, “Why’d you become a jujutsu sorcerer, Himmel-kun?” “Because I want to save people.” Nanami had asked him the same thing.
Himmel was beginning to think this was just how strangers introduced themselves at Jujutsu High.
“Heh~ So you’re strong, then.” “Mm.
Very.” Shoko grinned, teeth and all.
“Oh no.
We’ve got a wholesome version of Gojo Satoru.” “Exactly what I thought.” Nanami’s tone was perfectly sincere.
“Actually, can we just hand him over to Gojo-senpai and be done with it?” And he meant it.
Himmel was polite.
Himmel was gentle.
Himmel also had an iron-clad confidence that was, frankly, maddening.
“Alright, alright — let’s get started.” Himmel watched the ‘healing magic’ of this world unfold in real time.
A faintly distorted energy gathered in Shoko’s hands and spread over Nanami’s bruised skin.
The bruises responded immediately, blue shifting to yellow, yellow darkening toward black, the skin growing rough and raw before finally sloughing away and coming back clean.
In Himmel’s experience, healing techniques across any world came down to two fundamental types.
The first: drawing on substances already present in the atmosphere (magnetic fields, mana, ambient spirit energy, whatever invisible medium that world happened to run on) and using it to fill and reconstruct damaged flesh from outside.
The second: stimulating the body’s own internal processes, forcing accelerated self-repair from within.
This world was clearly the second.
“Could I learn that?” Himmel had folded his hands behind his back and bent forward to watch, posture identical to a retired man in a park spectating someone else’s chess match.
He was, in fact, a retired man.
“Hmm~~ Theoretically.” Shoko kept working while she talked.
She looked completely relaxed about it.
As had been explained before , the Cursed Energy jujutsu sorcerers produced came from human negative emotions.
Hence: negative energy.
Reverse Cursed Technique was an extraordinarily advanced application of that energy.
The principle was blunt: multiply negative by negative and you produce a positive.
Direct that positive output at damaged tissue and you get cell regeneration.
Easy to say.
Stranger to do.
Hmm.
Though honestly…
Even if I can’t learn it, it’s not a problem.
Himmel turned the thought over quietly.
……
“I’m home~” After a full day of hard work, Master Himmel returned to the Jujutsu High dorms , Ieiri Shoko walking alongside him.
For the record: Nanami also lived in the dorms, but had deliberately chosen a room as far from the senior trio as the building allowed.
The Hasaba sisters, meanwhile, were still staying temporarily in Shoko’s room.
The two of them pushed the door open mid-conversation, and the scene waiting for them was , “Can’t catch me~” “Big sister!” The room wasn’t large.
Nanako and Mimiko were tearing around it anyway, weaving between furniture with the bottomless energy of children their age.
All things considered, they seemed to be recovering reasonably well since leaving the village.
“Don’t run around.” There was someone else in the room.
That was the surprise.
A pot was bubbling on the small kitchen stove, lid rattling.
Geto Suguru stood at the counter in a white shirt, one hand braced on the edge, the other stirring the pot with an expression of deep resignation.
“Be careful, don’t bump into — ah.” He’d been keeping half an eye on the girls.
He turned his head now.
And found Himmel standing in the entryway, watching him with a small, unreadable smile.
Geto had nothing to say to that.
Shoko, on the other hand, didn’t need a second to compose herself.
She covered her mouth and laughed.
“No way.
I never thought I’d actually see this , Suguru taking care of kids.
So~ wrong~ for you~” “Shut it.” Geto turned back to the stove, rare defiance in his voice.
Shoko followed him anyway.
“Geto-mama, are the eggs supposed to be scrambled like that?” “They taste better this way.
And don’t call me mama.” “Ah~ So Mama prefers egg drop over sunny-side up?” “No, it’s easier to eat.
And don’t call me mama.” Shoko leaned in to offer her full assessment while Himmel crossed the room toward the Hasaba sisters, who’d already spotted him.
“Himmel!” “Welcome home!” “I’m home.” He crouched down and opened his arms.
They crashed into him.
“How was your time with Geto-kun?” he asked softly.
Nanako: “Good!
He’s nice!” Mimiko: “Mama!” “I told you not to call me , who said that?” Geto’s head snapped around.
He’d been turned into a flustered mess by Shoko’s running commentary and had lost track of everything else.
He was still mid-protest when Shoko reached over and grabbed him.
She hooked an arm around his neck, pulling his head into the crook of her elbow, and dropped her voice.
“I heard what happened.
These kids just went through something bad enough to leave permanent marks on how they develop.” Her tone had shifted , quieter, more precise.
“They look fine right now.
Lively.
Normal.
But that’s just the instinctive self-preservation response in young children.” “What they need most is security.
So if they’ve imprinted on you as a safe adult — as a parental figure — you smile and you accept it.” Geto didn’t argue with Shoko on medical matters.
He went quiet.
Then, slowly: “If they see me as ‘mama’…
that genuinely helps their recovery?” “No idea.
I got my medical license through self-study.
I just wanted to see you get called mama.” Instant answer.
Geto Suguru: ?
You , His pocket buzzed before he could finish the thought.
“Hello.” “Huh?
Gojo?
You finished your mission?” “I…
there’s a bit of a situation…” “A party?
In the middle of all this, what are you ,” Geto handed the cooking duties to Shoko and stepped away with his phone.
She’d already guessed who was calling and accepted the spatula without complaint.
Across the room, Himmel had settled cross-legged on the floor and was now fully absorbed in whatever game the two girls had invented.
“Wait, if Geto is ‘mama,’ what does that make me?
A knight?” Himmel was genuinely curious.
He was a functioning adult, unlike Geto.
He had no real feelings about what the kids decided to call him.
Nanako & Mimiko: “Mama!” Well.
Simple enough.
“Huh , I’m ‘mama’ too?” He laughed.
“Logically, shouldn’t I be ‘papa’?” “Mm-mm.” Both girls shook their heads firmly.
Nanako pointed at Geto , currently pacing the far corner with his phone pressed to his ear.
“Black mama.” Then she pointed at Himmel.
“Blue mama.” Shoko was seeing this for the first time.
For some reason she couldn’t quite explain, she pointed at herself anyway , maybe some instinct had already clocked this place as safe, these people as good.
“Red mama!” “You’re handing out ‘mama’ to someone you just met?” Shoko glanced back from the stove, spatula in hand.
“And my hair is more of a brown, actually.” Kids probably didn’t know the word brown.
“Wait , you’re already here?” On the other end of the room, Geto pressed a hand to his forehead.
“No, hold on, the situation here is complicated right now, just ,” Click.
Something outside.
Less a knock, more a push.
The door swung open to reveal Nanami Kento, looking like a man who had eaten something unpleasant and was being polite about it.
“Nanami,” Himmel said, concerned.
“What’s wrong?
Did we run out of soy sauce?” “Absolutely not.” Nanami clicked his tongue.
“I dropped him off.
I’m going to sleep.” He turned and left before Himmel could say another word , just barely fast enough that a second figure squeezed through the door behind him.
“Hey hey hey~~ Yo yo yo!” The flimsy dorm door swung wide.
The thick, sticky heat of late summer poured in.
A figure appeared in the backlit doorway.
Very handsome.
Small tinted sunglasses.
“Let’s get hyped!
Let’s GET HYPED!” White hair sticking up in every direction.
Sunglasses sliding to the tip of his nose.
Eyes curved into boomerang crescents.
One fist punched toward the ceiling, the other arm and one leg kicked out behind him , a perfectly frozen, perfectly ridiculous ‘cute’ pose , delivered in the most aggressively theatrical voice imaginable.
“Everyone who’s coming to the party today, grab my finger~~ ,” The pose held.
The voice stopped.
Because there were children in this room.
Huh?
Kids?
He hadn’t even processed it fully before the Hasaba sisters raised their fingers on instinct and pointed.
“White mama.” Gojo Satoru: ???
The smile dropped off the strongest jujutsu sorcerer’s face.
His arm was still in the air.
He turned , slowly , to look at Shoko and Geto.
“When did we HAVE ONE!?” “HOW IS THAT NOT OBVIOUSLY A MISUNDERSTANDING!?” Geto Suguru’s eyes were shut.
His mouth was wide open.
He was still holding his phone.
The story is already written.