An hour later, Sherlock and Gojo Satoru were both crouching obediently in front of Masamichi Yaga, enduring a seemingly endless lecture.
Gojo had two enormous bumps on his head, one on each side.
Sherlock had one planted right in the middle of his forehead.
As for how things had ended up like this?
The explanation was actually quite simple.
Just as Shoko had said, Sherlock had fully intended to use the higher-ups’ compensation money to cause the higher-ups trouble.
That was how the so-called vacation had been born.
Of course, merely kidnapping Gojo for a few days wouldn’t have inconvenienced them nearly enough.
If Sherlock was going to cause trouble, he wanted to do it properly.
So he’d decided to temporarily empty out Tokyo Jujutsu High and give the conservative elders a reason to panic.
Pulling something this ridiculous with the twenty-eight-year-old Gojo of the future would probably have been nearly impossible.
Unfortunately for everyone involved, the current Gojo Satoru was only twenty-one.
And he had absolutely no intention of stopping Sherlock.
The moment Sherlock explained his plan, teacher and student discovered that they were completely on the same wavelength.
They hit it off immediately.
Their first step was choosing a destination.
Sherlock booked the resort.
Then, under cover of night, the two quietly made their way toward Shoko’s dorm room.
The original plan was straightforward.
Wait until Shoko fell asleep, have Sherlock teleport her directly to Hokkaido, get her settled at the resort, then come back and figure out how to deal with Principal Yaga.
Naturally, plans rarely survived contact with reality.
Shoko had spent three years as Gojo’s classmate.
She knew far too well what kind of nonsense he was capable of.
On top of that, she normally stayed awake late anyway.
So when Sherlock and Gojo tried sneaking into her room…
Shoko caught them immediately.
Fortunately, she’d been under plenty of stress herself lately and wasn’t particularly opposed to Sherlock’s vacation idea.
After hearing them out, she simply decided to join.
However, she established one condition before the operation began.
She would participate.
She would enjoy herself.
But under no circumstances was she taking the blame.
Gojo seemed to have expected that response.
Sherlock nearly stared his eyes out.
In his mind, Shoko had always been the tired, sharp-tongued school doctor who quietly cleaned up everyone else’s disasters.
He had never imagined she would willingly participate in a plan this irresponsible.
Then Sherlock watched Shoko and Gojo coordinate without even needing to discuss half the details.
Suddenly, everything made sense.
Forget the image of the responsible healer.
This woman had survived three years alongside Gojo Satoru and Suguru Geto.
There was no way she was completely innocent.
And so the final operation became beautifully simple.
Shoko handled the sedative.
Gojo carried the target.
Sherlock handled transportation.
Poor Principal Yaga never stood a chance.
Completely unaware of what his students were plotting, he was drugged unconscious, carried away by his former student and current subordinate, then teleported across Japan by his student’s student.
By the time he woke up, he was already in Hokkaido.
There was an old truth about bad ideas.
They were never tiring while you were carrying them out.
It was only after the excitement wore off that reality tended to catch up.
Sherlock and Gojo had been unbelievably enthusiastic while arranging Yaga’s involuntary vacation.
But after dumping the unconscious principal onto a hotel bed…
They suddenly had no idea what to do next.
They went to the hot spring.
After that, they were even more awake.
Neither of them could sleep.
They were still riding the excitement of getting away with everything, but with nothing left to actually accomplish.
Then, completely by accident, Sherlock brushed against Gojo’s automatic Infinity.
A question immediately popped into his head.
“Sensei, can you control exactly how far Infinity keeps things away from you?” Gojo gave him an affirmative answer.
Sherlock’s brain instantly lit up.
After promising to run errands and buy Gojo Kikufuku whenever requested, Sherlock proposed an experiment.
And thus…
The Gojo Satoru Human Maglev System was born.
The ski slope had technically already closed for the season.
By this point, the weather was warming up and some of the snow had begun to soften, so the resort had shut down the course for safety.
But that only mattered if you were actually touching the snow.
Gojo could float.
So what did a closed ski slope have to do with them?
And that was exactly why, when Yaga finally woke up, he looked through the window and discovered Sherlock “riding” Gojo down the mountain.
To be fair, Gojo himself probably had never imagined using Infinity like this.
While marveling at Sherlock’s creativity, he was also having far too much fun.
As for why Gojo ended up with two bumps while Sherlock only received one after Yaga caught them?
That was also easy to explain.
Sherlock was still a student.
Gojo was a teacher.
A teacher who had not only encouraged his student to cause trouble but had actively helped abduct the principal of his own school deserved twice the punishment.
Two punches was already merciful.
Yaga could only lament that both his student and his student’s student were hopeless.
After lecturing the pair until his throat hurt, he still had to clean up their mess.
And judging by the call he made afterward, the higher-ups were absolutely furious.
They wanted accountability?
They tried calling Gojo.
He simply didn’t answer.
Punish Sherlock instead?
That wasn’t so simple either.
Even putting Gojo aside, the higher-ups were already regretting how badly they had misjudged Sherlock’s cursed technique.
If they hadn’t interfered with his grading mission, someone with such a useful ability should have been a prime recruitment target.
Better yet, winning Sherlock over might even have annoyed Gojo.
Instead, they’d practically pushed the boy straight into Gojo’s camp themselves.
Now they were furious with their own mistake.
This wasn’t merely a technique capable of moving someone around Tokyo.
Sherlock had transported several people from Tokyo to Hokkaido in an instant.
Perhaps Flying Thunder God didn’t look overwhelming in direct combat.
But strategically?
Its transportation value was extraordinary.
Personnel.
Supplies.
Emergency evacuation.
Rapid deployment.
As long as Sherlock had a mark at the destination, entire operations could potentially skip hours of travel.
Unfortunately for the higher-ups, regret didn’t rewrite the past.
No matter how angry they were, they had little choice but to accept that Sherlock had firmly aligned himself with Gojo.
For all practical purposes, he was now part of the Gojo faction.
Even this completely unauthorized “forced vacation” had to be tolerated.
Retaliation?
Direct punishment?
Not happening.
As long as Suguru Geto remained alive, the higher-ups couldn’t afford to push Gojo too far.
At least not openly.
Without Gojo, they had no reliable answer to the Special Grade curse user.
So in the end, they swallowed their anger.
As for Yaga?
Although he’d ended up taking responsibility for the entire disaster, he couldn’t deny that a small part of him found the situation amusing.
His furious lecture had mostly been for appearances.
Once he finished the call and officially dealt with the aftermath, Yaga decided there wasn’t much point in remaining angry.
He looked toward the snow-covered mountains outside.
A rare break from missions.
A hot-spring resort.
No paperwork for at least the rest of the day.
Yaga sighed.
Then he finally relaxed.
After all…
Who didn’t enjoy a vacation?