In the long corridor leading to the first-year classroom at Tokyo Jujutsu High, Mizuki Makoto leaned against a vermilion pillar, idly tossing a coin whose design had nearly worn away.
He had smelled trouble long before the approaching weight of cursed energy began to stifle the air.
“Well, well, Mizuki!
Waiting here to welcome us in person?
I’m touched.” Gojo Satoru’s cheerful voice drifted around the corner, followed by a boy in a white uniform with such dark circles beneath his eyes that he looked ready to collapse from anemia at any moment.
He huddled behind the white-haired giant like a frightened fawn.
“Yuta, this is Mizuki Makoto-kun, the one I told you about.” Gojo patted the boy’s shoulder.
“He’s a very…
‘cheerful’ upperclassman.” “Cheerful” was a polite way of saying “morally bankrupt.” “Hello, Mizuki-kun…
I’m Okkotsu Yuta…” Makoto adjusted the monocle on his nose and ignored the greeting, adopting an expression of profound concern, three parts pity to seven parts despair.
“Yuta-kun, was it?
My advice is to turn around and run straight out of those gates.
You might still save the rest of your life—and everything below your waist.” “Huh?!” Yuta stared at him.
With a long sigh, Makoto stepped closer and lowered his voice conspiratorially.
“Since you’ve already set foot in this place, I have a duty as your senior to tell you the truth.
Those three new classmates of yours…
They’re monsters in the most literal sense.” He raised a finger and began a truly shameless campaign of slander.
“First, there’s that woman, Zenin Maki.
An exiled fighter from the Zenin clan, known as the Demon Princess.
“She can’t stand pretty boys.
The last transfer student made the mistake of stepping forward with his left foot first, and she nearly used a cursed tool to rip out his ribs and turn them into a musical instrument.
They had to carry him into Ieiri-san’s office.” Yuta went a shade paler and swallowed with considerable difficulty.
“Then there’s the panda.” Makoto shook his head, his tone growing more ominous.
“Don’t let that cute exterior fool you.
Underneath it, he’s a wild beast in a bearskin disguise.
“He has this little habit of eating tender young things like you when he gets hungry—the weak-looking ones are his favorite.
Half the remains in the ash pit behind the school are his leftovers.” Yuta couldn’t even find his voice, and his legs had started trembling.
“Finally, there’s Inumaki Toge, the last of a line of Cursed Speech users.
When he opens his mouth, someone dies.
“He usually keeps quiet because if he so much as says ‘Die,’ nothing within a hundred meters survives.
His favorite hobby is making people pole dance until they collapse from dehydration.” Makoto patted Yuta’s shoulder with enough sincerity to win an Oscar.
“You seem like such a sweet kid, Yuta-kun.
I’m honestly worried you won’t survive the night.” Crouching nearby, Gojo listened to this solemnly delivered bullshit—every bit of it technically grounded in truth—with the corners of his eyes twitching furiously behind his sunglasses.
He was dangerously close to losing the battle against laughter.
‘Hold on.
Didn’t Maki nearly take your ribs out because you insisted on calling her Maki-chan and then tried to feel her abs?
‘And those “tender young things” were the expensive chicks you talked Panda into sneaking off to roast with you, weren’t they?
‘As for Inumaki…
You tricked that innocent Cursed Speech user into yelling “Strip!” at Panda because your perverted curiosity demanded a look at how a cursed corpse was put together.
How can you blame someone else for that with a straight face?’ Gojo took a deep breath and looked at Yuta, who seemed ready to fall apart, before discreetly allowing himself a smile remarkably similar to Makoto’s.
‘Seriously, this kid…
Was I this much of a bastard back then?
Is this how Utahime and Shoko saw me?
Or Nanami and Haibara?’ By the time Yuta entered the classroom, he was thoroughly convinced that everyone was out to get him, and the situation promptly went off the rails.
The fear Makoto had planted in him also sent a powerful surge of alarm through Rika.
“No…
Rika…
They’re going to kill me…
They’ll eat me…” Yuta clutched his head, muttering in despair.
“DON’T…
BULLY…
YUTA!!!” The furious resentment of Orimoto Rika, the Queen of Curses, erupted in an instant.
Maki, Panda, and Toge had only sensed the threat she posed and made a cautious, defensive move to test it, but to Rika, they fit Makoto’s descriptions perfectly: the violent woman, the man-eating beast, and the killer who murdered with words.
What should have been a restrained “welcome ceremony” turned into a one-sided remodeling job, accompanied by an enormous crash.
Two minutes later, Makoto leisurely pushed open the classroom door.
The room was a wreck, the blackboard had been smashed to pieces, and three familiar figures were suspended near the ceiling in remarkably artistic poses.
Rika had twisted Maki’s staff into a coil and used it to bind her securely to a roof beam.
Panda had been compressed into a ball by cursed energy and was swaying back and forth like a plush keychain.
As for Inumaki Toge, Rika had found tape somewhere, sealed his mouth with it, and hung him upside down from a ceiling-fan blade, leaving him to turn in a steady succession of full, 360-degree rotations.
“Bonito flakes…” His voice was thick with dizzy despair, the words amounting to a desperate plea for help.
“Oh dear.
This really is terrible.” Standing amid the wreckage, Makoto made no immediate effort to rescue anyone, instead pulling the latest model of phone from his pocket and adjusting the angle to photograph the three works of art from every possible direction.
“Panda, turn a little to the left.
Yes, perfect.
That angle really captures the despair in your eyes.
“Maki, stop glaring at me.
Put this on the school forum, and I could get at least twenty thousand yen a copy.” Still tapping the shutter, he gave a thumbs-up to Yuta, who was trembling in the corner and apologizing over and over.
“Good work, Yuta.
See?
I told you they were an enthusiastic bunch.
They’ve already got you involved in aerial acrobatics.” “I-I’m sorry!
I really didn’t mean to!” Yuta looked close to tears.
Gojo peered around the door at the three students swaying overhead, all of them looking ready to throw up, then turned to Makoto, who was busy editing the photos for Twitter.
He sighed deeply.
“Makoto-kun, I enjoy a lively atmosphere as much as anyone, but hasn’t this particular welcome ceremony…
strayed a little beyond the bounds of basic human decency?” Makoto kept swiping through his photos without looking up.
“Sensei, this is called building stronger bonds.
By the way, want a copy of this Panda fan photo?
Just a thousand yen, and we share the copyright.” Gojo was silent for three seconds before decisively taking out his wallet.
“…Deal.
Make sure you send me the original in full resolution.” From the ceiling came Maki’s hysterical roar.
“MIZUKI MAKOTO!!!
WHEN I GET DOWN, I’M CHOPPING YOU UP AND FEEDING YOU TO THE FISH!!!” He smiled, tapped “Send,” and gracefully withdrew from the classroom.
“Ah, another day filled with the joys of friendship.”