Eight o’clock in the morning.
Outside the main gate of Jujutsu High.
Gojo Satoru crouched on a stone pillar, a lollipop dangling from his mouth, swinging his long legs out of sheer boredom.
“Hey, Suguru — you think that muscle idiot’s actually gonna show today?
He didn’t just pocket the ten-million-yen deposit and bolt, did he?”
Geto Suguru leaned against the wall, arms folded across his chest.
“Principal Yaga sent three Cursed Corpses to keep an eye on him.
Yesterday he rented a big house and bought a truckload of protein powder.
Doesn’t look like he’s planning to run.”
“Ha?
The first thing he does with Jujutsu High’s money is upgrade to a bigger place?” Gojo Satoru bit clean through his lollipop.
“What a piece of trash.”
“He’s here.” Geto Suguru lifted his chin.
In the distance, three figures were making their way toward them.
One large, two small.
Gojo Satoru slid his sunglasses down.
His Six Eyes kicked into overdrive.
Then he went quiet.
Geto Suguru went quiet too.
The only sound left in the air was the autumn wind pushing fallen leaves across the pavement.
Toji Fushiguro walked at the front.
He had a black trench coat thrown over his shoulders, but the coat hung wide open, putting the eye-searingly green spandex bodysuit beneath it on full display.
Orange leg warmers gripped his thick thighs.
Wooden sandals clacked against the ground with every step.
His left hand held Megumi.
His right held Tsumiki.
Both kids wore oversized tracksuits on top, but at the collars, a sharp slice of green still stubbornly peeked through.
Megumi’s face was darker than the bottom of a burnt pot.
Tsumiki kept her head down the entire walk, doing her best impression of someone who couldn’t see a thing.
“Yo!
White-hair!
Tiny-eyes!”
Toji spotted them from way down the path and threw his thick arm up in a wave, flashing that signature blinding grin of his.
“Feel that rush of youthful vigor hitting you right in the face?!
This is the battle uniform I stayed up all night designing for our team!”
The corner of Gojo Satoru’s mouth twitched.
Hard.
The hell kind of battle uniform is this?
This is psychological warfare.
“You dare try to make me wear that, and I’ll blast you to dust with Cursed Technique Lapse: Blue.” Gojo Satoru ground his teeth.
“Don’t wear it then, whatever!
Country bumpkin who can’t appreciate Youth!”
Toji didn’t care in the slightest.
He strode right up to the two of them.
“So where’s the Star Plasma Vessel?
That girl, Amanai Riko — where is she?
Let’s go pick her up and get today’s weighted-run training started!”
Geto Suguru’s forehead creased.
This was really the cold-blooded Sorcerer Killer?
This was clearly a gym trainer who’d just broken out of a mental hospital.
Geto Suguru pinched the bridge of his nose, about to say something, when a steadier, heavier set of footsteps came from behind them.
“Have you no shame!”
Yaga Masamichi strode over, frowning.
He swept his eyes over Toji’s psychological-warfare-grade green spandex, then his gaze shifted to the two children, and his frown cut deeper.
“Principal.” Geto Suguru and Gojo Satoru both straightened up immediately.
Toji, on the other hand, didn’t budge.
He turned around, and the grin on his face pulled back a few degrees.
“Good timing.”
He looked at Yaga.
His tone was more serious than either of them had ever heard from him.
“Last time I turned down the Time Vessel Association, someone showed up at my place that same night looking to make a move on my kids.”
He shrugged, voice light and offhand.
But Gojo Satoru’s Six Eyes and Geto Suguru’s perception both caught it, the flash of ice-cold killing intent that flickered across him and vanished.
“Those pieces of trash.
I swept them out.
But those animals probably haven’t given up yet.”
“So.” Toji lowered his head.
One hand each, he nudged Megumi and Tsumiki forward a step.
His voice dropped.
“Until I wrap up this job, Jujutsu High guarantees their absolute safety.
That’s my one and only condition for taking this mission.”
Megumi pressed his lips together, stubbornly silent.
But his small hand had already closed tight around a corner of his father’s coat without him seeming to notice.
Tsumiki looked up at Yaga, her wide eyes full of quiet worry.
“Jujutsu High is not a daycare,” Yaga said, his voice low and firm.
The sharpness from before, though, was already gone.
“I know.” Toji clicked his tongue.
“But you’re the strongest Jujutsu Sorcerers, right?
Put them somewhere that isn’t the safest place in all of Japan and we can talk.”
“Better than having them follow me around while those scumbags keep circling.
Once this job’s done and the money’s in hand, I’ll come pick them up myself.”
He crouched down.
The movement was stiff in a way that didn’t suit him at all.
He reached out and roughly scrubbed both kids’ hair with his calloused palm.
“Listen up.
Behave yourselves.
Don’t cause trouble for anyone.
Especially you, Megumi — quit walking around with that sour face all day.”
Then he pushed himself upright in one sharp motion, and didn’t look back at either of them again.
Long, unhurried strides carried him straight toward Gojo Satoru and Geto Suguru.
“Let’s move.
My muscles are already screaming for action.”
Yaga watched Toji’s retreating back.
He let out a quiet breath, then crouched down and made his expression as gentle as he could manage.
One of his Cursed Corpse bears waddled out from behind him and made its way to Tsumiki, offering her a small flower woven from Cursed Energy. This chapter was copied from novelping dot com without permission.
“Come along, children.
I’ll take you to get something to eat.”
Gojo Satoru and Geto Suguru watched it all in silence, their expressions unreadable.
This man called Toji Fushiguro was far more complex than either of them had imagined.
…
The taxi rolled to a stop outside the apartment building.
The driver stared at the passenger seat, specifically at the mountain of muscle inside it, whose green spandex looked one deep breath away from splitting open, with the fixed, glassy look of a man watching something he couldn’t quite explain.
He quietly reached over and locked every door in the car.
Toji pushed his door open and climbed out, completely oblivious.
He took a long, deep breath of exhaust-thick air.
Hands on his hips, his face practically glowing with genuine emotion: “Jiraiya was right all along.
The places where blossoming maidens live, even the air smells like Youth!
Incredible!”
Gojo Satoru stepped out behind him, shoved his sunglasses down in disgust, and lowered his voice to something only Geto Suguru could catch: “Suguru.
Can I fire off a Red right here and evaporate this walking blob of green psychological pollution straight off the physical plane?”
“Learn your Reverse Cursed Technique first.”
Geto Suguru pressed two fingers against his throbbing temple.
He put on his customer-service smile.
“Hang in there, Satoru.
He’s our colleague now.
I also really want to call the cops on this lunatic, but procedurally it’s a bit of a gray area.”
The three of them started toward the building entrance.
BOOM!
A deafening explosion ripped through the upper floors of the apartment.
Fire and thick black smoke punched straight through the fifteenth-floor window.
Glass rained down in sheets.
Caught in the blast, a slender figure in a sailor uniform was hurled clean out the window, blown from dozens of meters up and dropping in a dead-straight plummet toward the ground.
The girl’s long hair whipped and tore in the wind.
Her scream split the silence of the entire street.
Amanai Riko.
At the shattered edge of the fifteenth-floor window, a head poked out wearing a pair of aviator goggles, Kokun, vanguard Curse User of the Q Group.
He watched Riko plunge and bared his teeth in a wide, manic grin: “Die!
Star Plasma Vessel!
Let’s see you Jujutsu Sorcerers save her now!”
“Bastard!” The warmth in Geto Suguru’s eyes vanished.
His gentle mask shattered in an instant.
His hands blurred through seals.
Massive Cursed Energy erupted from behind him, a colossal dragon-shaped Cursed Spirit roaring into existence, surging upward to catch her.
Gojo Satoru was already moving too, Cursed Energy crushing down to a point at his fingertips, the space around him beginning to bend.
He clicked his tongue: “Pain in the ass.
I’ll just use Blue to get over there, ”
Neither of them finished.
A torrent of green aura detonated between them, violent, suffocating, absolute.
“BURN!
THE FLAMES OF YOUTH!”
➤ Next: Rescuing the Maiden