The moment Tōru Azuma saw that faint blue glow, excitement surged through him.
But he quickly forced it back down and turned toward the boys’ dormitory.
This wasn’t something he should think about out in the open.
Whenever he started thinking deeply, he had a tendency to lose himself in thought and zone out, which might make people think something was wrong with him.
Better to wait until he was alone.
The dormitory management office was at the far end of the first floor.
A middle-aged assistant manager wearing glasses was on duty.
When Tōru Azuma walked in, the man pulled a registration form from a drawer, checked the information on it, then took a key from the key board and handed it over.
“Tōru Azuma, right?
Your room is the one at the very end of the third floor.
Bedding and daily necessities have already been provided, and your uniform has been delivered as well.
If you’re missing anything, go to logistics tomorrow and ask for it.
The dormitory rules are in the folder on your desk.
Read through them when you have time.”
Tōru Azuma accepted the key, thanked him, and headed upstairs to the third floor.
Most of the doors lining either side of the corridor were closed.
Only a trace of sunset filtered through the window at the far end.
He found the last room, opened the door, and took a look around the place where he would probably be living for the next few years.
It was small, but it had everything he needed.
The bed, desk, chair, wardrobe, and everything else still looked brand new.
The bedding was neatly folded at the foot of the bed, and a folded student uniform had been placed beside the pillow.
After setting the documents for his fabricated identity on the desk, he pulled out the chair and sat down.
The room was quiet.
From the subway station until the moment he stepped through this door, there had almost always been someone around him.
Utahime, Masamichi Yaga, the old men in the interrogation room, assistant managers, doctors.
Now, at last, he was alone.
He leaned back against the chair and closed his eyes for a moment before letting out a long breath.
The scene from the hallway began replaying in his mind.
‘That light…
There’s no mistake.
That really was the effect of my Cursed Technique.
Come to think of it, that online friend did ask me whether I’d be willing if they gave me that Cursed Technique and sent me to the world of Jujutsu Kaisen…’
Tōru Azuma tapped his fingers against the desk as he recalled the Cursed Technique he had designed.
Peach Blossom Love Song.
At its core, the Cursed Technique worked by forming bonds with other people and increasing the strength of those bonds, allowing him to assimilate, resonate with, or, to put it most simply, acquire their traits.
And traits included Cursed Techniques, but Cursed Techniques were not the entirety of a person’s traits.
Take the future Strongest, Satoru Gojo, for example.
If Tōru Azuma formed a bond with him and raised it to a sufficiently high level, he would obtain both 100% of the Six Eyes and Limitless Technique, rather than gaining only the Limitless Technique itself.
The extent to which he could use those traits also depended on the relationship level.
Level 1 represented someone he had only just met, essentially a stranger. Follow the newest chapters on g.com.
At this stage, he couldn’t copy anything at all.
He could only see a white glow surrounding the other person.
Level 2 represented a friend he hadn’t known for very long.
At this stage, he could use the other person’s traits, and the glow surrounding them would turn blue.
However, he could only draw out 50% of the trait’s potential.
That 50% was measured against the trait’s own maximum potential and was unaffected by how far the other person had personally developed it.
Level 3 represented a long-time friend whom he could trust with his back.
At this stage, the glow would turn purple, and he could draw out 75% of the trait’s potential.
Level 4 represented two people who truly understood each other.
They could be lovers, or they could be close friends whose beliefs aligned so closely that words were unnecessary.
At this stage, the glow would turn gold, and he could draw out 100% of the trait’s maximum potential.
As for Level 5, it required their souls to become completely attuned to one another, with each person becoming an indispensable part of the other’s life.
At that point, the single-colored glow would transform into a brilliant rainbow.
More importantly, Level 5 would unlock an additional ability related to that trait.
It might strengthen the original ability, or it might cause the ability to undergo an entirely new evolution or transformation.
At first glance, didn’t that sound ridiculously powerful?
Unfortunately, because of certain thoughts he had when designing the Cursed Technique, he had also saddled it with several extremely harsh restrictions.
The first was that there were no shortcuts to raising a bond level.
The moment he approached someone with an ulterior motive or deliberately tried to raise the level, the bond would stop progressing entirely.
Not even by the slightest amount.
The bond also had to be mutual.
If he treated someone as a friend while they saw him as nothing more than an ordinary acquaintance, his Cursed Technique would have no effect whatsoever.
Likewise, if someone later distanced themselves from him or their relationship deteriorated for some reason, the corresponding bond level would fall as well, and the ability he gained from them would drop back to the appropriate lower level.
Even with something as subjective as the need to genuinely build a relationship, the Cursed Technique still sounded absurdly powerful and overpowered, right?
The real restriction was the second one.
He could only form bonds and raise bond levels with women.
Put that way, didn’t the terrifying potential of the Cursed Technique suddenly drop dramatically?
After all, if you thought about it carefully, nearly all of the overwhelmingly powerful Jujutsu Sorcerers in the original story were men.
The few female characters who received much attention also had rather poor combat records.
Those two restrictions had done a very good job of keeping the Cursed Technique’s strength under control.
And when he had designed it, the people he had in mind were specifically the female characters he liked.
Not admired.
Not respected.
His feelings toward them were different from how he felt about Satoru Gojo, Suguru Geto, Yuji Itadori, and the others.
It was the kind of affection that made him want to stand beside them and move forward with them from the past into tomorrow.
To put it bluntly, when he designed the Cursed Technique, he had let his lower half do the thinking.
But back then, he had only designed it to show an online acquaintance and maybe use it later when writing fan fiction.
Who could possibly have expected him to bring it with him into the world of Jujutsu Kaisen?
If he had known, he would have designed something even more ridiculous.
Thinking about it, Tōru Azuma let out a weary sigh.
His thoughts returned to the blue glow he had seen around Utahime.
That was proof that the bond between them had risen to Level 2.
He still couldn’t freely channel Cursed Energy into the structure of his Cursed Technique and actively trigger its effect to check bond levels whenever he wanted.
But when a bond level increased, it naturally produced subtle signs that only he could perceive.
Which meant…
After listening to what he had said, had Utahime already started thinking of him as a friend?
The thought brought a faint smile to Tōru Azuma’s lips.
He shoved the documents containing his fabricated identity into a drawer, stood up, and walked over to the mirror.
Ever since arriving in this world, he hadn’t had a chance to properly look at himself and see exactly what had changed.
Back at the subway station, he had noticed that his voice sounded much younger and that the signs of age on his hands had faded considerably.
But until now, he had never known exactly what he looked like.
The moment he saw himself in the mirror, he froze.
He certainly looked nothing like the worn-down office worker he had been before transmigrating.
It was as though he had perfectly returned to his high school years.
His black hair was styled in a center-parted mullet, with the slightly longer ends resting against the sides of his neck.
His face was lean, and his dark eyes looked unusually calm beneath the fluorescent light.
He reached up and brushed aside the hair hanging over his forehead.
The person in the mirror made the exact same movement.
Staring at his younger self, Tōru Azuma fell into a daze.
Even now, he still couldn’t understand why that online acquaintance had so casually sent him into this world, restored his body to its younger state, and even given him a constitution suited to this world.
In his previous life, he had grown up in an orphanage.
He had no family waiting for him and no loved ones he absolutely had to return to.
But not knowing that online acquaintance’s motives or intentions still left him uneasy.
What if he woke up tomorrow and discovered that everything had only been a dream?
The thought sent a chill through him.
In the end, however, he could only stop thinking about it.
Whatever happened tomorrow, he would have no choice but to accept it.
That was just how life worked.
Tōru Azuma walked over to the bed and dropped onto it.
He had been unconscious throughout the previous night and hadn’t woken until this afternoon, but being questioned one after another by Masamichi Yaga and the higher-ups had left him mentally exhausted.
He decided he should get some rest first.
After all, he had to wake up early for training tomorrow morning.
He switched off the light beside the bed and closed his eyes.
At that exact moment, he suddenly remembered Utahime turning around to wave at him, along with the sound of her light, cheerful footsteps.
A faint smile appeared at the corner of his mouth.
He pulled the blanket over himself and rolled onto his side.