Tokyo Metropolitan Jujutsu Technical College, school gate.
The noon sun was vicious enough to feel as if it could melt the bluestone path.
Makoto sat in the shade of the corridor, his pen scratching softly across the paper as he worked on the latest illustration for Gojo Mai: Household Affairs—the “Gojo Mai Bathing Scene.” ‘Tsk, tsk, yes!
That’s it!
That broken feeling of a fallen deity!
Perfect!
This is absolutely the peak of my artistic career!’ “Heh…
you captured the moment of ‘divinity collapsing’ rather well.” A black parasol opened silently above his head, blocking the glaring sunlight for him.
Makoto turned his head and saw a pair of narrow fox-like eyes, curved with a warm smile.
The man wore a solemn gojō-kesa robe, his long hair neatly tied into a half bun.
He stood quietly beside Makoto’s wheelchair, looking for all the world like a monk who had come to visit an old friend.
“Ah, mister.” Makoto calmly flipped the drawing paper backward by one page, his acting so flat it was almost impressive.
“Life is hard, so I’m drawing a little ‘forbidden’ material to scam some sponsorships.
Want to buy one?
Since you’ve got a pretty strong ‘Greek sculpture’ vibe, I’ll give you a twenty percent discount.” “Greek sculpture?
What an interesting evaluation.” Geto Suguru bent down and carefully examined the string of broken prayer beads in the drawing.
“However, Makoto-kun—may I call you that?
The ‘her’ in this drawing is wearing the robe backward.
Right hand over left is the way the dead are dressed.
Though for that man, perhaps that sense of self-destruction suits him even better.” “You’ve got some insight, mister.” Makoto followed Geto’s topic naturally, his left hand already sketching swiftly across a blank page.
“But I think the most moving part is the struggle of someone trying to grasp the last bit of light in despair.
Like knowing an ideal will fail, yet still putting on a magnificent robe and trying to carry it out anyway.
Isn’t that kind of self-indulgent devotion also a form of art?” Geto’s eyes brightened slightly.
It was the illusion of having found someone similar to himself.
“The art of self-indulgent devotion, is it?
Well said.” He straightened up, the black parasol hiding half his face.
“If such an ideal could be commemorated with a grand ‘destruction,’ that would be an ultimate aesthetic in its own right.” “Mister, if my teacher hears that dangerous speech, he’ll demolish you like a Special Grade illegal construction.” Makoto said it half-jokingly, though his pen had already lowered quietly.
“He’s already there.” Geto turned around.
“They’re my students.
Don’t go filling their heads with your twisted ideas.” The hand holding Geto’s parasol paused slightly.
He slowly turned his head, and the curve of his lips took on the exact shape of an old friend’s reunion as he spoke softly to the white-haired man.
“Satoru.
Long time no see.” Immediately afterward, Geto put away that gentle air and began delivering his usual speech to Yuta.
Under the noon sunlight, which was so bright it almost felt sarcastic, every word came through clearly.
“Yuta, come to my side.
We noble sorcerers shouldn’t be bound by those foolish ‘monkeys’…” As he grew more emotional, the aura of a cult leader around him reached its peak beneath the sunlight.
“A…
achoo!” Makoto’s sneeze was extremely deliberate.
In that instant, from the stack of “inspiration sketches” resting on his lap, the page he had drawn in a sudden burst of inspiration while discussing “the art of self-indulgent devotion” with Geto—an unbelievably realistic, sharply faithful drawing that even carried a strange, solemn dignity—took off with perfect accuracy in an invisible cursed-energy breeze created by Gojo Satoru’s flawless cooperation.
It spun elegantly twice in the air, then landed with the force of destiny.
Smack.
It stuck perfectly across the bridge of Geto Suguru’s nose while he was still speaking.
Geto’s sermon came to an abrupt stop.
He reached up and peeled the drawing off his face.
The moment he saw what was on the paper, the air at the entrance of Jujutsu High seemed to freeze completely.
It was not Geto suppressing his anger.
It was his thought process crashing because it had received an impact far too extreme for logic to withstand!
That was not a rough sketch.
It was a solemn, dignified, realistic portrait of a gorilla cult leader that somehow even contained a hint of philosophical contemplation.
The gorilla’s facial contours—especially the cheekbones, brow ridge, and mouth—perfectly overlapped with Geto’s appearance under some bizarre “cognitive deviation.” It was also wearing a nearly identical solemn kesa robe, and its deep, almost compassionate gaze seemed like a mirror in that moment, clearly reflecting Geto Suguru as he was right now.
Beneath the gorilla were two lines of title text, somewhat wild from the artist’s extreme shock yet still perfectly legible: [Bro, I realized that if we kill all ordinary people, cursed spirits won’t be born anymore.] In that moment, Makoto felt as if he could already see King yama waving at him from the road to the underworld.
Gojo stared at the realistic gorilla drawing in Geto’s hand, then looked at Geto’s face, which had gone as stiff as a sculpture.
“Pff—hahahahaha!
Suguru!
Hahahahaha!
I didn’t notice while you were swearing your ‘great cause’ just now, but now that I look at it, this picture is literally your self-portrait!
Hahahahaha!
Even the patterns on the robe are exactly the same!
Hahahahaha!” Gojo Satoru unleashed the most disrespectful laugh of his entire life, sounding as if he were about to laugh his lungs out.
“Makoto!
You’re a genius!
I’m absolutely framing this and hanging it right at the front entrance of Jujutsu Headquarters!” “Um…
sorry.” Makoto hid behind Gojo Satoru, trembling with acting so awful it could barely be called acting.
“That was just my artistic realization after talking with mister about ‘extreme aesthetics and self-directed evolution theory’!
I only wanted to draw an inspirational manga about how even a gorilla can pursue a great cause…
I really didn’t know it would look this much like him!
Please forgive my damned artistic instinct!
Sensei, save me!
The Evolution Cult Leader has manifested!” Geto Suguru looked down at the drawing in his hand.
A compassionate gorilla cult leader on the paper.
A compassionate Geto cult leader outside the paper.
The realism of that drawing made it impossible for him to numb himself with the excuse that it was merely a brat’s prank.
He felt a physiological disgust that struck straight into his soul!
It was humiliation—the feeling that his pain, his ten years of righteous purpose, all his effort and conviction had been downgraded in a single instant into the mutterings of a gorilla by some unbelievable, bullshit absurdity.
A cold, sticky, violent Special Grade pressure erupted outward, strong enough to make an ordinary person suffocate on the spot.
The paper in Geto’s hand instantly turned charred black, and in the flames, the face of the compassionate gorilla cult leader seemed to twist slightly.
But in the end, he took a deep breath and forcibly suppressed his urge to kill.
Making a move across Gojo Satoru’s bottom line was obviously not a wise decision.
“…Satoru.
This student of yours…..
I’ll remember him.” Geto’s face was terrifyingly dark as he turned and led his “family” into the mouth of a bird-shaped cursed spirit.
No matter how one looked at his departing steps, there was a clear impatience that seemed to say, ‘I never want to see a damn gorilla again.’ Silence returned to the entrance of Jujutsu High.
“Makoto, I could almost smell the malice coming off you just now.” Gojo Satoru pulled down his blindfold and looked at his bastard student with a smile that was not quite a smile.
“Sensei, I’m just a frightened, disabled sorcerer.” Makoto reopened his sketchbook and secretly wrote a note beneath the discarded gorilla draft.
[Today’s Training Insight] When the great cult leader saw himself in the mirror beneath the bright sunlight, the emotional feedback produced by the clash between “self-deification” and “species-level reality” was delicious.
Too delicious!
Maki-chan didn’t see it, but I’ll draw this story across ten full pages and stuff them under her dorm room door.
Silence returned to the entrance of Jujutsu High.
“Sensei, I want Wagyu!
This time, add a serving of daiginjo too.
After all, I just performed an artist’s dimensional strike in front of a Special Grade.” Gojo’s smile vanished.
Expressionless, he stretched out one finger and poked Makoto firmly in the forehead, his tone extremely resolute.
“Food is fine.
Alcohol for minors is absolutely not!” As though remembering some painful memory, he revealed a deeply disgusted expression and added, “Besides, what’s even good about that bitter, throat-burning stuff?
That biochemical weapon that can knock you out until noon the next day after one glass is only for people with no taste…
no, anyway, as my student, you’re coming with me to drink strawberry cola instead!” Makoto looked at this “strongest teacher,” who was supposedly once taken down effortlessly by alcohol at a party, and fell into deep thought.
As expected, the least logical things in this school, aside from that lawless panda, were this substitute teacher with Special Grade alcohol intolerance.