[Q: In your opinion, what exactly is the relationship between Rui and Yuna?] [Maki Zen’in: Huh?
Lovers, obviously.] [Yaya: It depends on the specific situation, but they’re probably lovers.] [––Yaya was the nickname you gave Panda after discovering she was actually female.] [Satomi Gojo: They’re probably lovers, right?
Though if you factor in whether a confession has actually happened yet, the result might be a bit different.] [You: Some kind of relationship that isn’t quite a couple.] [The time is September 2017 AD.
Nearly half a year has flown by since Yuna Okotsu enrolled back in April.] [The source of a sorcerer’s cursed energy is negative emotions, and adolescence is the prime age for accumulating them.
In other words, most sorcerers experience an explosive surge in strength during their teenage years, which stops once they become boring adults.] [You have gradually adapted to your expanding cursed energy reserves, and your general cursed energy manipulation has improved as well, which drastically cuts down the cost of activating your Construction Technique.
Since the original mantis armor from April could no longer keep up with the updated version of the world, you gradually experimented with integrating the biological structures of other insects.] [Though, how should you put it…
weight is a massive issue.
If you carry a carapace that is too heavy, your mobility plummets exponentially.
At the end of the day, it’s far more efficient to specialize in a single stat: like a High-Speed Mode utilizing dragonfly wings, flea legs, and mantis scythe-arms; or a Heavy-Assault Mode featuring stag beetle armor, ant muscles, and a hornet stinger.] [So, why not just use a multi-form build right from the start?
––The problem is, Construction Technique is just too mechanically rigid.
Every single time you want to switch modes, you have to dispel the current armor and construct a brand-new one completely from scratch.
Going back and forth like that burns through cursed energy at an absolute suicidal rate; you’d run completely out of mana after switching three or four times max.] [“Tachibana-kun, can I try out your technique?” by Yuna Okotsu.] [“Wow, amazing!
My body feels so light, and my athletic ability instantly skyrocketed…
But Tachibana-kun, why don’t you just add every single insect organ all at once?
That way, its raw performance would be optimized, and you wouldn’t have to keep manually shifting forms.” by Yuna Okotsu.] [“The body gets too heavy…?
Hmm, really?
It feels pretty fine to me…” by Yuna Okotsu.] [*Fucking unconditional copy powered by infinite cursed energy.
What kind of human being comes up with a game-breaking technique design like that?*] [Regardless, it’s an undeniable fact that your strength has grown.
Over the past few months, you’ve regularly sparred with Yuna Okotsu.] [In the beginning, hand-to-hand combat specialists like Maki and Yaya could still participate, but as your insect armor kept getting updated, they gradually found themselves unable to keep up with the tempo.
Eventually, daily training sessions dwindled down to just you and Yuna, both deploying dragonfly wings, playing Ace Combat high above the skies of Jujutsu High.] [Unrestricted flight is an exceptionally rare capability even within the Jujutsu world.
If utilized correctly, it allows you to completely punch above your weight class.] [You actually sparred once with a second-year senior at the school, Kinhime Hakari.
The girl opened the fight with a zero-frame Domain Expansion.
Her domain’s specific effect was a “lottery jackpot”–as long as she hit the grand prize within the domain’s duration, she would enter a 4-minute and 11-second state of absolute infinite cursed energy.] [Boundless, overflowing cursed energy would flood her entire body, triggering an automated reflex of Reverse Cursed Technique that instantly mended any and all forms of physical damage.
It was, for all intents and purposes, total immortality.] [The thing is, the exact second she hit the jackpot and prepared to lung forward to shred you with a massive combo, you just shifted into High-Speed Mode and flew straight up into the stratosphere.] [Senior Hakari immediately realized something was off–this kid was playing a complete stall strat.
But since she couldn’t trap you to open a new domain, she straight up called for outside assistance, dragging in her little girlfriend, Senior Kirara Hoshi–who was, in fact, also a female senior.
Using Kirara as the target for her technique, she opened her domain again, hit the jackpot, and came back out, repeating the cycle infinitely.] [In the end, that match dragged on for over two hours without a definitive victor.] [According to Ms.
Gojo, Hakari and Okotsu are her two students with the highest raw potential.
In other words, Hakari possesses Special Grade potential just like Yuna, or at the very least, Quasi-Special Grade.
Since you managed to pull off a clean fifty-fifty split against Hakari, that should comfortably place you at a Quasi-Quasi-Special Grade level of strength, right?] [Aside from your combat prowess, however, there was something else that was progressing by leaps and bounds.] — [“S-sorry to bother you…”] [The dormitories at Jujutsu High consist entirely of single rooms, with zero separation between the male and female living quarters, making it incredibly easy to pop over and visit…
For instance, Yuna Okotsu would routinely show up at your room.] [“Tachibana-kun, thank you for your help again today…
I-I’ll be extra careful not to hurt you.”] [Then, she would cup your freshly sliced finger in her hands and enthusiastically suck on it.] [Truth be told, your unique cursed energy properties weren’t specifically a hard counter tailored to Yuna.
It was simply that the larger a sorcerer’s pool of cursed energy, the more irresistible the temptation became.
To ordinary Grade 1 or Grade 2 sorcerers, you only smelled like a fine gourmet meal, while to someone like Maki, who lacked cursed energy entirely, it had zero effect.] [In the entire school, Yuna Okotsu was the only one whose cursed energy reserves were so absurdly monstrous, combined with an absolute lack of fine motor control…
Wait.] [Hindsight suddenly kicking in, you vaguely recall Senior Hakari looking at you with a pretty terrifying gaze after her domain ended that day.
Thank god you stayed flying in the air and never came down.] [This was the official proposal Shoko provided after reviewing your mission report from the abandoned hospital:] [“Since merely drinking a bit of blood can placate her appetite, why not just do it a bunch of times to desensitize her?
Besides, since this raw appetite stems entirely from the sheer volume of cursed energy, learning to suppress that urge counts as an excellent exercise in fine cursed energy control.
For Okotsu-san, who can’t freely manipulate her energy yet, it’s a perfectly tailored training regimen.”] [Just to be absolutely clear: the current Yuna Okotsu, after this extended period of training, was already capable of controlling Rika to a certain extent–at least enough to restrain the curse when it wanted to harm people.
Otherwise, there was no way in hell you would have ever agreed to this setup.] [After a long while, Miss Okotsu–who had been working hard sucking on your finger–slowly lifted her head.
Her forehead was already glistening with a fine sheen of sweat, and you couldn’t tell if it was a trick of the light or if her cheeks were genuinely flushing a deep crimson…] [Either way, her lips were completely glossy and bright, looking exceptionally pretty.
For a moment, neither of you spoke, the silence making the sound of your damp breaths remarkably distinct.] [*Man, this atmosphere is incredibly weird.*] [Glancing toward the doorway, you notice that, true to form, Rika is currently plastered against the crack of the door spying on you.
Okay, now it’s even weirder.] [Pulling your gaze back, you suddenly flinch in panic–you hadn’t noticed it just now, but at some point, Miss Okotsu’s face had drawn excessively close.
So close that her eyelashes looked ready to brush against yours.] [She seemed a tiny bit displeased when you initially looked away, but that fleeting irritation instantly melted into thin air the second your eyes locked back onto hers.
If this girl were reincarnated as an animal, she would absolutely be a golden retriever.
Way too easy to coax.] [As for what to do next…
you have absolutely no clue.
Ms.
Gojo, the person responsible for teaching you basic life skills, is a literal virgin from birth herself.
If anything, practically every single Jujutsu Sorcerer is a virgin from birth, excluding the Big Three Families.] [*Knock, knock.*] [Right at this critical juncture, the bedroom door was rapped sharply.] [You and Yuna Okotsu froze simultaneously.] [The very next split-second, Miss Okotsu–resembling a vampire who just discovered someone could move their fingers inside a time-stop–sprang backward, letting go of your hand and retreating half a meter in a flash.] [“Rui, Yuna, I’m coming in.”] [The door slid open, revealing Satomi Gojo standing at the entrance.] [For once, there wasn’t a single trace of a smile on her face.
She placed a letter held between her fingertips down onto the desk–the edges of the envelope were laced with faint traces of residual energy, possessing a cursed property that didn’t match anyone you knew at the school.] [“Jujutsu High received this letter just a moment ago…
I have a feeling this matter might concern both of you–or to be more precise, it concerns Yuna.
So I came over to fill you in.”] [*…If it concerns Yuna Okotsu, why the hell did you come looking for her in my bedroom?*] [“The sender of this letter is the Special Grade Curse User, Sugumi Geto.”] —