~ 💎 WEEKLY POWER GOALS 💎🔥 60→1ch | 100→2ch | 200→5ch ⏰ Resets Monday!
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The shrill whistle hit like a rusty awl, stabbing straight through the early-morning quiet of the Fushiguro rental.
In his dream, Megumi Fushiguro was in the middle of eating fried chicken.
Then the world lurched sideways, the blanket wrapped around him vanished into thin air, and a stubbly face streaked with two lines of hot tears loomed inches from his nose.
“Rise and shine!
Megumi!
The sun has already reached the starting line of youth!”
Megumi Fushiguro stared at the lunatic before him without expression.
He turned his head and looked at the clock on the wall.
Five o’clock.
Even the stray cat by the dumpster downstairs wasn’t awake yet.
“Your brain has finally broken completely.” Megumi rubbed his bleary eyes and groped for the blanket.
“I want to sleep.”
“Sleep is for the dead!” Toji scooped him clean off the mattress, and from somewhere behind his back produced an object radiating a bizarre fluorescent glow.
“Look!
This is the Fushiguro ‘Youth Special Training Camp’ Combat Uniform No.
1, which Dad rushed to make for you overnight!”
It was a miniature, blindingly bright green spandex suit.
Megumi’s gaze locked onto it and stopped.
That dog-shit color.
That anti-human design so tight it would carve out the outline of every single bone.
If he wore that, how would he ever show his face at kindergarten again?
Everyone would point at him and call him a green-skinned toad.
“I’m not wearing it.” Megumi seized the bedpost with both hands, veins standing out across his knuckles.
“I’d rather die.”
Toji froze.
He looked at his son’s defiant eyes.
The tears brimming in his own instantly burst like a dam.
“Wuwuwu…
it’s Dad’s fault!” His knees crashed onto the tatami with a thunderous BOOM.
“That bastard father from the past never gave you enough love!
Left you without even the courage to face your own youth!”
Toji ripped open his undershirt with both hands, baring that terrifying body, scar-covered muscle stacked like plates of forged steel.
He sobbed.
He flexed his pectorals.
Sweat caught the morning light and gleamed with an uncomfortable sheen.
“But now it’s different!
Dad is going to make up for the past with sweat and hot blood!
We’re going to use this spandex suit, imbued with our bond, to forge your body into a steel fortress that even Special Grade Cursed Spirits can’t bite through!”
Here it was again.
The moment he refused anything, this bastard started ranting.
Megumi felt his scalp crawl.
He looked at that face, features twisted from crying.
Then he looked at the pectorals practically shoved up against his nose.
How could this gorilla cry so much?
If he kept howling like this, the neighbors would call the police on him.
“Fine!
I’ll wear it!
Just shut up!” Megumi gritted his teeth, released the bedpost, and snatched the green monstrosity out of his father’s hands.
Five minutes later.
Megumi Fushiguro stood in the center of the living room wearing the mini spandex suit, his calves trembling.
The material was strange, it clung to his skin, and something high-density was sewn into the lining throughout.
He took a single step and felt like two oxen had been strapped to his limbs.
This was a weighted suit, custom-made by Toji.
To build this kid’s physical potential from the ground up, Toji had poured every scrap of experience he’d gained cultivating the Eight Gates in his previous life into its construction.
“Excellent!
Perfect form!” Toji gave a thumbs-up, flashing a row of gleaming white teeth.
“Now — 200 jump squats!
Begin!”
Megumi bent his knees in despair, jaw locked tight.
Beside him, Tsumiki shuffled out in pink pajamas, yawned, and settled slowly onto a yoga mat.
“Tsumiki!” Toji turned.
The devilish expression on his face went soft in an instant.
“Girls should focus on stretching — just some basic flexibility work.
Be careful not to twist your ankle, okay?”
Megumi was struggling through his third squat.
He heard this and nearly choked on his own rage.
Why!
Why did she get to do gentle stretches while he had to grind out squats in a ten-plus-pound torture suit!
Half an hour later.
Megumi lay on the tatami like a puddle.
He couldn’t move a single finger.
That green spandex suit was a torture device.
It had wrung every last drop of strength from his body.
Toji, meanwhile, was doing a handstand nearby, holding his entire massive frame up on two index fingers.
“108!
For the bond!” He was still chanting under his breath.
The smell of frying eggs drifted from the kitchen.
Tsumiki came out carrying 3 plates: golden fried eggs and two slices of toast each.
Toji flipped upright and landed, rubbing his hands together with excitement.
“Oh!
Tsumiki’s cooking is getting better and better!
Dad is so moved he might cry again!”
He reached for the toast.
SLAP!
A thin slip of paper hit the center of the dining table, landing squarely over his portion of fried egg.
The manic grin on Toji’s face went still.
A water bill overdue notice.
Stamped in glaring red.
Tsumiki pulled out her chair, sat down, and calmly took a sip of milk.
“Uncle Toji.”
“Ah…
yes.” Toji straightened his back without quite knowing why.
“This is the water bill.
The property management people came to the door yesterday.
They said if we don’t pay by tomorrow, the water gets cut off.”
From her apron pocket, Tsumiki produced several more slips of paper and laid them on the table one by one, like dealing cards.
“Electricity.
Gas.
And Megumi’s kindergarten meal fees for next month.”
Toji stared at the row of bills.
The color drained from his face.
The man who had been bursting with green-spandex energy shriveled back into a dehydrated, grayish cabbage.
It was over.
These past few days, he’d been so consumed with training the kids and preaching the gospel of youth that he had completely forgotten he was an unemployed bum with zero income.
The final payment from the Star Plasma Vessel mission had been stiffed by that old bastard Masamichi Yaga.
The deposit had already gone toward renting this place and buying training equipment.
Toji stared at the water bill.
His mind started moving fast.
Go back to his old trade and take assassination contracts?
No.
In Might Toji’s dictionary, there was no such filthy phrase as killing for money.
He had sworn to earn an honest living.
To set a shining example for the kids.
Construction work?
With his body, clearing out an entire construction site in a single day wasn’t a problem.
But the pay came too slow, a few tens of thousands of yen per day settled wasn’t anywhere near enough to cover the nutrition costs that serious training demanded.
You couldn’t cultivate the Eight Gates on boiled eggs.
He needed a legitimate job.
Good money, low hassle, and ideally a platform to spread the gospel of youth while he was at it.
Then a face flashed through his mind.
Sunglasses.
White hair.
An expression so smug it practically begged to be punched.
Satoru Gojo.
Tokyo Jujutsu High.
Those people had the entire upper echelon of the jujutsu world behind them and more money than they knew what to do with.
If he couldn’t kill them for money, he’d earn money from them directly.
Wasn’t that Yaga guy always fretting about his students’ lack of real combat experience?
Wasn’t the young master of the Gojo family loaded and a little dim about it?
Go be a teacher.
With his physique, walking into that school as the head taijutsu instructor, asking for an annual salary of a hundred million yen wasn’t asking too much, was it?
The gray drained from Toji’s face.
Ruddy color rushed back in.
The fire in his eyes burned hotter than before.
“Leave it to me, Tsumiki!”
He shoved back from the table, grabbed the toast, and crammed it into his mouth, nearly eating the corner of the overdue notice along with it.
“This little financial crisis is nothing that can stop us from pursuing youth!
Dad is heading out right now to solve the ultimate trial our family is facing!”
He strode into the bedroom and threw on a slightly faded black trench coat.
Underneath it, of course, he was still wearing the blindingly green spandex suit.
That was his final bottom line.
The dignity of a predator.
Lying on the floor, Megumi rolled his eyes and exhaled.
“What stupid thing are you going off to do now…”
“Adults are talking, kids don’t ask questions!” Toji stepped into the genkan and jammed his feet into his mud-caked leather shoes.
He yanked the door open.
Sunlight poured over his face.
“Dad’s going to shake down the wealthy!”
He turned back and flashed the two kids an outrageously arrogant grin.
“From today on — call me Teacher Toji!”
BAM!
The door slammed shut.
Megumi stared at the closed security door and pressed his fingers to his temples.
That place called Jujutsu High was probably in for a world of suffering.
At the same time.
Tokyo Jujutsu High.
The principal’s office.
Masamichi Yaga was sorting through a stack of documents on faculty allocation for the new semester when his right eyelid began twitching, hard, and completely beyond his control.
➤ Next: Applying for Teacher, The Agony of the Jujutsu High Students
Jujutsu Kaisen