“Freedom never comes without a price.
In the jujutsu world, that price usually includes a substantial sum of money and a painful memory of losing every scrap of your dignity.” Mizuki Makoto sat aboard the Kyoto-bound Shinkansen, clutching his slightly crumpled “letter of recommendation.” The scenery racing past the window gave him the illusion that he had escaped with his life, but all he could picture was Ieiri Shoko’s languid face, with “scumbag” practically written across it.
For this one sheet of paper, he had spent six months’ worth of royalties on a limited-edition luxury eye cream set for her and signed a weeklong “medical waste disposal contract” whose terms were downright monstrous.
Worse still, whenever Gojo Satoru barged into the infirmary like an oversized white cat, carrying a bag of sickeningly sweet Kikufuku and looking for someone to test them on, Makoto had been required to step forward.
With the resolve of a man going to his death, he had to spread his arms like an obsequious lackey and intercept that sugary biological attack while shouting himself hoarse.
“Sensei!
Let me handle something this trivial!
Shoko-nee is catching up on sleep for the sake of humanity’s future, and nobody is disturbing her!” Shoko had exhaled a contemptuous smoke ring over a sheet of stationery bearing the school’s official seal and scrawled: [Utahime, this is my new portable ashtray.
His brain doesn’t work very well, but he can take a beating and is exceptionally good at dealing with that white-haired nuisance.
You can borrow him for a few days.
No compensation necessary if you break him.] Armed with this contract of servitude for which he had sold his soul, Makoto set foot in the ancient city, his heart full of hopes for freedom and a better life.
…
The Kyoto school had an entirely different atmosphere from Tokyo, steeped in an antiquated, oppressive sense of tradition and strict rules.
Its wooden corridors smelled of decaying timber, and even the air seemed to carry the unmistakable scent of old fossils.
Makoto had barely stepped through the gates, with no time even to appreciate the cultural heritage, when a gunshot cracked through the air and a bullet whistled past the tips of his hair.
A hundred meters away, it punched straight through the center of a target.
A girl with neatly cropped hair slowly turned toward him, her features strongly resembling Maki’s, though her expression was more sullen and spiteful.
Zenin Mai held the smoking revolver steady as her gaze moved between his letter of recommendation and his rather thin face, before her lips curled into a malicious sneer.
“You’re from Tokyo?
Has that useless Maki really sunk so low that she’s stuck being classmates with some deadbeat who’d go down in one punch?” Makoto could almost feel the hostility pressing against him.
As a veteran doujinshi artist, he immediately read the entire volume of subtext in her eyes, provisionally titled Sisters: A Love-Hate Story.
‘You’re someone close to Maki.
You get to be with her when I want to see her and can’t, so I hate you.’ “So you’re Mai-chan.
Maki-chan certainly is pretty useless—as material for my doujinshi, anyway.” Makoto adjusted his glasses and switched into [Limitless Mode] without a flicker of hesitation.
“But when it comes to worrying about her little sister, she’s complained to me plenty of times about whether some idiot at the Kyoto school is getting bullied because she’s too weak.
“She always finishes with ‘She can drop dead for all I care,’ of course, but that stubborn tsundere act is excellent reference material for my next project.” Mai’s pupils quivered, and her fingers tightened sharply around the gun.
Just as she was preparing to shoot this lying piece of Tokyo trash, the paving stones beneath their feet seemed to tremble.
With a thunderous impact, an enormous hand casually swatted a Grade 2 cursed spirit against a wall like a fly, splattering the old red bricks with blood.
The shirtless giant responsible, his muscles bulging like slabs of rock, hadn’t even bothered to look around.
Todo Aoi held a limited-edition Takada-chan music player in one hand, cheerful idol music leaking from his earphones.
The contrast was so jarring that the atmosphere seemed to freeze.
Mai reined in her hostility and took a wary step back.
Todo turned his scarred face toward Makoto and fixed his eyes on him, paying no attention to the recommendation letter or who he might be.
When he spoke, his solemnity would have suited a religious tribunal.
“Hey, you from Tokyo.
Before we introduce ourselves, I have a question.
Your answer will determine whether I beat you half to death.” Even the wind seemed to stop.
“What kind of woman is your type?” Mai gave Makoto a pitying look, the sort usually reserved for someone already dead.
Todo Aoi’s interrogation had never been about whether an answer matched conventional standards of beauty; what mattered to him was the truth of a person’s soul.
If someone lied or gave him a boring answer, he would dismantle them on the spot without hesitation.
Makoto fell silent for three seconds as the CPU in his head began overheating again.
‘If I say “someone with a nice personality” or “anyone pretty,” my dear brother here will probably decide I’m either a boring nobody or a liar and send me flying with one punch.’ Meeting Todo’s oppressive stare, he slowly took his drawing tablet and stylus from his bag, adopting a tone even more serious than Todo’s.
“Todo-kun, before I answer that, I think we need to establish a few parameters.” He adjusted his glasses, a sharp glint flashing across the lenses.
“Broadly speaking, my type is a woman around 170 centimeters tall, with a waist-to-hip ratio between 0.65 and 0.7, and a bust measurement at least 25 centimeters larger than her waist.
“But artistically, are you asking about the luminous innocence of a young woman drawn in a cel-shaded style, or the full-bodied presence and physical power of a mature woman rendered in a richly painted style?
“Todo-kun, looks are only the starting point.
For a man like me, what’s truly intoxicating is a woman’s sense of self.” Todo raised an eyebrow, his muscles relaxing slightly from their readiness to strike.
“Oh?
Egoism?” “Exactly.” Makoto adjusted his glasses again, another sharp reflection crossing the lenses.
“What attracts me is a woman who wears a mask of elegance or indifference, but underneath it sees the world as her hunting ground and lives entirely by her own convictions.
“She doesn’t need anyone to understand her, because that absolute, aggressively asserted sense of self is the very essence of sex appeal.” He paused, his stylus tracing a decisive arc across the screen.
“Even when she’s simply standing there, you can feel that dangerous, alluring sexual tension, as though something inside her is trying to break its restraints.
“That arrogance, that strength, and the mystery that makes you want to strip away her disguises and masks…
That’s the ultimate art I want to capture in my doujinshi!” Silence held for a full five seconds.
In truth, Makoto’s passionate declaration of his tastes had been modeled entirely on Mei Mei, the heartless beauty who cared only about her bank balance and managed to exude elegance and cold calculation with every breath.
Beside him, however, Zenin Mai’s expression underwent a remarkable transformation.
She stood frozen, her knuckles paling around the grip of her revolver.
‘An absolute sense of self…
A mask of indifference…
Living only by her own convictions…
Something straining to break free…’ The phrases circled in her head until they formed an image of Maki, rebellious and uncompromising, leaving the Zenin clan behind to prove herself.
Yet they also seemed to touch something inside Mai herself: the girl who had learned to arm herself with elegance and sarcasm from childhood, when all she really wanted was to stop trying and get by in that disgusting family.
‘Is he looking at Maki through me?
Or has he seen something else?’ Mai bit her lower lip and glared at Makoto, her murderous hostility twisting into embarrassed anger as even her ears began to redden.
“Y-you pervert!
What are you looking at?!” Before she could explode, a huge shadow fell over Makoto.
Todo stepped forward and brought a hand capable of crushing a cursed spirit’s skull down on his shoulder, nearly killing him on the spot with the force of the friendly gesture.
Ignoring Mai’s embarrassment, he stared at Makoto with trembling pupils and a frightening intensity of enthusiasm.
“An analysis that strikes at the very essence of the soul…
An artistic instinct that can distill arrogance and obsession into art…
“Are you the brother from another mother and father I lost on the streets of Tokyo—the one I’ve spent years searching for?!” ‘Todo, what “memories that never happened” is that 530,000 IQ of yours rendering now?!’ Makoto refused to retreat, stepping forward instead and reaching back to pat the Gojo Mai drafts in his bag, which were more than enough to earn him an Unlimited Void from Gojo Satoru.
For a moment, his boundless shamelessness took on something of a martyr’s fanaticism.
“Who do you think I am, Todo Aoi?
I’m the man who drew the Gojo Mai series knowing full well that white-haired bastard might string me up outside the school cafeteria and put my browsing history on public display!” Mai’s revolver fell to the ground with a clatter.
She no longer looked at Makoto as though he were merely insane, but as someone who had gone so far beyond caring whether he lived or died that something inside him had finally broken.
Todo stared for two seconds before exploding into laughter loud enough to blow the roof off the school building.
“To dare challenge the almighty Gojo Satoru…
That courage to take on the strongest…
That pure honesty about what turns you on!” He threw an arm around Makoto’s neck, his enormous cursed energy suddenly suffused with the fervent warmth of a man who had found his soulmate.
“Brother!
You really are my brother from another mother and father!” Still laughing, Todo hauled him deeper into the school with a grip as brutally enthusiastic as it was impossible to refuse.
“Come on!
We’re going to my room!
If you have the nerve to draw Gojo Satoru in a doujinshi, then surely you can understand how Takada-chan’s divinity transcends dimensions!
“We’ll discuss everything from the beauty of skeletal mechanics to the reshaping of the soul!” As he was dragged away, Makoto glanced back at Zenin Mai, whose understanding of the world had clearly been shattered, and let out a long, inward sigh of relief.
‘It worked!
I don’t know who she was imagining, but I managed to connect on the pervert wavelength!
‘Now hand over that information on Tsukumo Yuki, Todo Aoi!’