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The windows of the principal’s office were shut tight.
Masamichi Yaga stared at the Time Vessel Association Extermination Report on his desk like it had personally wronged him.
He pressed his fingers against his throbbing temple, looked up at the three wildly mismatched men standing before him, and his migraine got worse.
Satoru Gojo had both hands shoved in his pockets, head tilted back, staring at the ceiling.
Suguru Geto had dark circles under his eyes as he walked through what had happened.
The culprit, Toji Fushiguro, was leaning against the doorframe, whistling something light and thoroughly off-key, looking like none of this had anything to do with him whatsoever.
That green spandex suit, the gunpowder smell permanently baked in no matter how many times you washed it, was an active assault on the eyes of everyone present.
“I understand the situation.”
Yaga rubbed the bridge of his nose, his voice rough.
“‘Window’ sent their highest-level cleanup team.
The police have been briefed.
Official classification: chain explosion from underground gas pipelines.
The fact that the Time Vessel Association headquarters is now rubble has been temporarily buried.”
Suguru Geto’s eye twitched.
A shooting incident witnessed by hundreds of people.
Rewritten as a gas explosion.
The higher-ups had thrown out their last pretense of a bottom line just to keep the Star Plasma Vessel mission from becoming a public scandal.
Thinking about it, Suguru Geto actually felt a grim sort of satisfaction.
“Then that’s none of the Youth Choir’s business anymore.”
Toji glided over to Yaga in a single smooth step, his restless leg snapping straight the instant he stopped.
His two rough, oversized hands rubbed together with a sound that made everyone’s teeth ache.
He bared his teeth in the most mercenary, ingratiating smile he could manage.
Even the scar at the left corner of his mouth crinkled into the grin.
“Mr.
Principal, since the mission wrapped up perfectly, that…
the agreed-upon final payment — don’t you think it’s time to settle up?”
“Final payment?”
Masamichi Yaga’s palm came down on the already-groaning office desk.
BANG!
A crack split clean across the solid wood surface.
“You have the nerve to ask for a final payment?!”
Yaga jabbed a finger at Toji’s nose, spittle flying.
“Sealing off the scene, erasing believers’ memories, bribing the media, and on top of that, soothing the fury of those old fossils upstairs!
Do you have any idea how large a special fund the school had to allocate just to clean up your mess?!”
He was breathing hard, glaring at the green-clad muscleman in front of him.
“That sum of money, even if you sold every ounce of that useless muscle by the pound, it wouldn’t come close to covering it!”
“And you still dare ask for a final payment?!”
“Not deducting your deposit is already the greatest mercy I have in me!”
The smile on Toji’s face went rigid.
That once-garish green battle suit lost its luster in an instant.
His entire body caved inward.
He became a head of cabbage left in the sun for three days, wilted, dehydrated, shriveled, radiating a flat, ashen gray from head to toe.
“My…
Youth startup fund…”
He muttered it to himself.
His voice came out broken.
Satoru Gojo, with zero regard for the occasion, burst out laughing.
Suguru Geto silently turned his head and fought down the corners of his mouth, which were climbing fast.
Serves him right.
Toji was about two seconds from throwing himself on the floor and making a scene when the door to the principal’s office swung open.
A four-year-old boy with a sea urchin haircut poked half his body through the gap.
He hadn’t finished whatever he was about to say.
He spotted the massive, ashen-gray figure first.
A six-year-old girl followed him in a beat later, both hands clutching two rice balls wrapped in plastic wrap.
“Megumi!
Tsumiki!”
The deathly pallor vanished from Toji the instant those two names left his mouth.
Blazing light surged back.
He let out a roar that rattled the walls and launched himself at them like a tiger off a mountain.
“I missed you so damn much!
My kids!”
He scooped both of them into his arms at once.
His thick, heavy arms locked around them and squeezed.
Tears and snot burst like a broken dam.
They smeared all over Megumi Fushiguro’s head.
“While Daddy was away these past few days — did you eat properly?!”
Did you train your bodies?!”
“Daddy thought about your smiles every single day out there!”
Megumi Fushiguro was smothered face-first into that wall of chest muscle, his small face going red.
He used every bit of strength he had to shove that stubble-covered face away.
“Let go!
You stinking, sweaty gorilla!
I’m suffocating!”
Tsumiki was used to it.
She calmly produced a tissue from her pocket, placed it over her hand, and pushed Toji’s looming face back.
“Uncle Toji, you got Megumi’s hair dirty.”
“Also, that grocery money you borrowed from me, you said you’d pay it back when you got the mission bonus.”
Toji’s wailing stopped dead.
He looked away, guiltily, and fixed his gaze on the ceiling light fixture.
“Ah…
well…
the wind at the school today is quite something, hahaha…”
Satoru Gojo elbowed Suguru Geto.
“Geto, I’m starting to think his mental state has genuinely transcended the limits of cursed techniques.”
“How does he switch between killing people and parenting without even a breath in between?”
Suguru Geto watched this family of three.
A dull ache stirred somewhere in his stomach.
But the tension in his shoulders, coiled tight for days, finally came loose.
“No idea.”
“But I’m certain of one thing.
Whoever dares touch these two kids in the future is going to end up in a worse state than the Time Vessel Association.
By a factor of ten thousand.”
…
Afternoon.
In front of the girls’ academy gates.
The school was prestigious in every sense of the word, an integrated campus running from elementary straight through to secondary.
The vintage red-brick buildings sat quiet and unhurried in the sunlight.
Toji had changed into a faded, washed-out undershirt with a black trench coat thrown over it.
The terrifying outline of his muscles showed through anyway.
One hand held the expressionless Megumi.
The other held a slightly nervous Tsumiki.
Behind them stood Riko Amanai.
The high-ranking members of the Time Vessel Association were dead to the last man.
What remained of the organization had scattered like spooked birds.
The Star Plasma Vessel assassination mission was a scrapped file.
No one would mention it again.
The school and the higher-ups had arrived at a certain delicate compromise.
Riko’s identity had been thoroughly wiped clean.
She was now, on paper, an ordinary orphan.
Toji, without a moment’s hesitation, had leveraged Masamichi Yaga’s connections and placed the six-year-old Tsumiki into this school’s affiliated elementary division.
Riko looked down at the brand-new dark blue sailor uniform she was wearing.
The fabric was crisp and precisely cut.
She straightened the red ribbon at her chest.
Then straightened it again.
Through the school gates, girls her age were drifting out in twos and threes.
They were debating the new crêpe shop down the street, complaining about how much homework the Japanese literature teacher had assigned.
Their laughter was light and easy.
Nobody discussed cursed spirits.
Nobody talked about merging.
This was the ordinary life she had wanted, had reached for in dreams, and believed she would never actually touch.
She had survived.
Not as Tengen’s vessel.
Not as the exalted Star Plasma Vessel.
As “Riko Amanai.” A person, alive in this world.
“Thank you…
old man.”
Her voice came out thick with the effort of not crying.
Her hands gripped the straps of her schoolbag until her knuckles went white.
Her shoulders shook slightly.
Tears fell, one after another, spattering onto the toes of her black regulation shoes.
“This is so moving!
This — this is what Youth really is!”
The ear-splitting howl shattered the moment completely.
Toji’s hands came down hard on Riko’s shoulders, nearly sending her face-first into the pavement.
“A maiden’s tears are the most crystalline pearls in the sea of Youth!”
“Seeing you embrace life again — this old father’s heart is about to melt!”
The words weren’t even fully out of his mouth before his tear-streaked face snapped closed, eyes hardening into the focused glare of a drill instructor.
Young Lady Amanai!”
He raised one finger and held it approximately 1 centimeter from the tip of her nose.
“A comfortable life is the poison that rots Youth from the inside!”
“To celebrate the beginning of your new life, and to forge your willpower, so that you have the strength to knock down any bad guy who comes at you at any moment,!”
Riko’s eyelid twitched.
“Starting tomorrow!
Every morning!
5 o’clock!”
“20 laps around the school track!
Followed by 200 jump squats!”
“I will personally come and check your form!”
“Miss a single lap, and I’ll introduce you to what I call the Iron Fist of Love!”
Riko turned to stone.
5 o’clock.
20 laps.
Jump squats.
What kind of garbage was actually filling this lunatic’s head?!
Did he think she was applying for special forces?!
“Who asked you?!
You muscle-brained idiot!”
She choked her tears back down through pure force of will and shouted at him without a shred of courtesy.
“I am here to experience Youth!
Not to train for a triathlon with you!”
“Don’t show your face in front of me tomorrow!”
Toji was completely unbothered.
He planted his hands on his hips and laughed at the sky.
“Hahaha!
Spirited resistance is an indispensable seasoning of Youth!”
“No need to be shy!
Tomorrow I’ll be here right on time, Megumi and Tsumiki in tow!”
Beside him, Megumi Fushiguro rolled his eyes.
Hard.
Who in their right mind was getting up at 5 in the morning to run laps?
Tomorrow, even if he had to superglue himself to the mattress, he was not getting up.
This gorilla of a father could look elsewhere for his excuses.
Riko turned away in a huff, refusing to waste another second looking at this atmosphere-destroying lunatic.
Her gaze landed on Tsumiki, standing quietly to the side.
The anger left her face.
Tsumiki had on the smaller-sized elementary division uniform.
She was clutching the hem of Toji’s trench coat in both hands, staring up at the grand school buildings with wide, careful eyes.
Riko walked over to her, crouched down, and held out her hand.
“Don’t pay any attention to that idiot.”
She smiled at the little girl, a real smile, the kind that actually belonged to a fourteen-year-old.
“Tsumiki, from now on we go to the same school.”
Tsumiki blinked.
She looked at Toji, then back at Riko.
Then she slowly reached out her small hand and took it.
“Don’t worry.”
Riko closed her fingers around that soft little hand.
Her voice was steady.
“At school, big sister will look out for you.
And if anyone gives you trouble,”
She paused.
A very specific image surfaced in her mind: Toji putting his foot through a wall with someone still attached to it.
“I’ll have that gorilla go beat up their whole family.”
Tsumiki pressed her lips together, fighting a smile that came out anyway.
“Thank you, big sister Riko.”
Toji watched the whole thing.
He fished a rag from somewhere, origin unknown, better left unasked, and blew his nose into it loudly.
He threw his arm wide.
“Right!
To mark this historic occasion!”
“Daddy is personally cooking tonight!
Special high-protein nutritional meal, made with love!”
“NO!”
Megumi and Tsumiki refused in perfect unison.
➤ Next: Jujutsu High, Your Hot-Blooded Teacher Has Arrived!
Jujutsu Kaisen