The first day of the Kyoto Sister School Exchange Event, team battle: the ferocious race to smash and bash through curse spirits.
Within the designated area, the team that exorcised the first-grade curse spirit released there first would win.
“Could you let go of this?”
“Shut up, Satoru.”
Headmaster Yaga, who had Gojo in an arm lock, explained the rules of the team battle.
“Of course, interference is allowed. But you are comrades fighting against curses. An exchange event exists so that, through competition, you come to know your comrades and know yourselves.”
“Headmaster Yaga, hurry up...”
“Be quiet, Satoru. There are also lower-grade curse spirits, grade three and below, released in the area. If the match is not decided by sunset, the team that exorcises more curses wins. There are no other rules.”
Crack, crack. The sound of Gojo’s arm slowly twisting grew louder.
Even as Gojo’s face twisted, Headmaster Yaga did not loosen his hold and kept explaining, while Utahime snickered from behind him.
“And make sure you don’t kill your opponents or leave them with injuries that put them out of commission. That is all. Dismissed until noon, when the match begins.”
Between the Tokyo and Kyoto students dispersing to their respective sides, Headmaster Gakuganji’s eyes gleamed ominously.
-------------------------
“Um, isn’t this, depending on how you look at it, a pretty hardcore form of bullying...”
“Shut it. Stay like that for now.”
“As expected, he’s got a terrible personality...”
As soon as the Tokyo-side meeting began, Nobara somehow found a framed portrait and put it over Yuji’s face.
Thanks to that, from a distance it really did look like he was dead.
Junpei, who had been dragged into the exchange event the moment he enrolled, didn’t know what to do between the other students and Yuji.
“What should I do? Should I side with him? No, this is pretty harsh...”
“Help me, Junpei...”
Yuji asked for help with a pitiful expression, but Junpei ultimately decided to ignore him.
He was already awkward because this was his first time meeting the other students, and he didn’t have the courage to jump in and start talking.
As Junpei turned his face away, caught between guilt and relief, Yuji looked utterly devastated.
“You traitor!”
“Sorry...”
Unexpectedly, the ones who defended Yuji were the seniors Junpei had never seen before.
“Why don’t you forgive him already? You heard the explanation.”
“I said it!”
“Salmon, salmon.”
“...What?”
When Yuji looked confused at Inumaki suddenly rattling off ingredients for rice balls, Fushiguro explained why.
“Inumaki-senpai is a cursed speech user. It’s a technique that amplifies and enforces spoken words, so he keeps his vocabulary limited for safety.”
“So if he says, ‘Die,’ do you really die?”
“It’s not that convenient.”
Panda then added his own explanation.
Even while listening, Junpei felt a strange sense of dissonance.
Wait, Panda is talking. Wasn’t he a non-speaking animal...?
“Um, how does Panda-senpai talk?”
“I’m a special panda!”
“Ah... I see.”
Damn it, it’s jujutsu again.
At this point, even if a panda talked, all someone had to say was, “It’s jujutsu!” and the proper response was, “Ah, I get it!”
Wasn’t jujutsu basically some all-purpose energy that made people’s wishes come true?
While Junpei was having that stupid thought, Maki casually held out a hand to Yuji, who had quietly taken the portrait off his face.
“Yuji.”
“Hm?”
“Hand over the doza mask.”
At that, cold sweat broke out on Yuji’s face.
So that’s what Gojo-sensei borrowed from one of the seniors. It belonged to her.
But what now? It’s broken...
Trying to think of a way out, Yuji decided to dump all the blame on Gojo.
“Gojo-sensei has it...”
“Tch, that idiot blindfold.”
Megumi’s sharp glare from the side stung.
“So, what now? The team battle format is more or less what we expected. Since the roster’s grown, do we need to change the plan?”
“Bonito flakes.”
“That part depends on Yuji and Junpei over there. What can you two do?”
Everyone’s eyes turned to Yuji and Junpei.
Junpei started worrying pointlessly about how to explain himself, while Yuji simply and bluntly finished his self-promotion.
“Punching, kicking, stuff like that.”
“We already have enough of that.”
“I don’t know what this guy did while he was dead, but if everyone fought without cursed energy, Itadori would win, right?”
“That much?”
“Interesting.”
Overwhelming physical ability.
Close-quarters combat that made use of power and speed surpassing Zenin Maki, who had Heavenly Restriction.
Leaving cursed energy out of the equation, Itadori Yuji was close to the strongest among pure humans.
The second-years, now more or less convinced, shifted their attention to Junpei.
“Then what about Junpei?”
“Wasn’t he said to be a first-grade jujutsushi?”
“At his age already...?”
“Well, there’s Yuta and all.”
“Salmon.”
Earlier, Gojo’s trolling had been so intense that they’d brushed it off, but being a first-grade jujutsushi was not something you could just pick up easily.
Power sufficient to guarantee victory against a first-grade curse spirit, and the trust of other first-grade jujutsushi enough to earn their recommendation.
Only when all of that came together could one finally be promoted to first grade.
In fact, he was the youngest first-grade jujutsushi ever.
That is, if you excluded Okkotsu Yuta, who had been promoted to special grade in just three months.
“It just kind of happened. I don’t really know the details myself...”
“Then have you exorcised a first-grade curse spirit a few times?”
“Yes. Nanami-san came with me, though. Three times in total.”
“Whoa, with that Nanami-san?”
When everyone looked at him like he was some incredible person, Junpei felt a ticklish warmth in his chest.
It was the first time anyone had shown him this kind of goodwill outside of anything related to his hobbies.
Just as Junpei, now thoroughly excited, was about to keep talking, Maki stepped in and tidied up the situation.
“Enough, enough. We get it, you’re a first-grade jujutsushi and you’re strong. But aren’t you getting off track?”
“Ah, sorry.”
“No need to apologize. So what can you do?”
At Maki’s question, Junpei formed hand signs and summoned his shikigami one by one.
“The jellyfish shikigami is [Sediment Moon]. The ray shikigami is [Moonlit Wave]. I can summon those two... and my cursed energy has a poison property.”
“Your cursed energy has a property?”
“According to Nanami-san, my cursed energy acts like poison to other people. So I can secrete it through the shikigami’s tentacles or spines and poison my opponents.”
At that, several people gasped in admiration.
“So he was a shikigami user...!”
“This is the first time I’ve seen someone with a property in their cursed energy.”
“Idiot, what about Hakari?”
“Wouldn’t that just be a property of hitting harder?”
“Salted cod roe.”
“Anyway, that’s amazing. It’s versatile and lethal.”
Yuji, the only one who already knew Junpei’s technique, expressed surprise at the ray shikigami, [Moonlit Wave], which he was seeing for the first time.
“Junpei, I don’t think I’ve seen that ray shikigami before.”
“It wasn’t there when I fought you. I was able to call it after taking on a request.”
“Wait, you and Itadori fought?”
“Uh... that’s a long story.”
“Let’s just say we had a little spat. But now we’re friends!”
Friends.
At that word, Junpei’s heart lifted.
“Yeah, friends...”
“Well, well. Now I’m even more curious what Itadori was doing while he was dead.”
“Salmon, salmon.”
“There you go, off track again. When are we going to make the plan?”
“What’s the rush, Maki? This is good for building camaraderie. Don’t forget the purpose of the exchange event!”
“Haa...”
------------------------
Unlike the fairly warm atmosphere on the Tokyo side, the Kyoto side was sharp and tense.
“Kill Itadori Yuji, the vessel of Sukuna.”
That was the order Headmaster Gakuganji gave.
At those words, third-year Todo Aoi flew into a rage and stormed out, and the headmaster soon followed after him.
Left behind were Mechamaru, Miwa Kasumi, Nishimiya Momo, Zenin Mai, and the de facto leader, Kamo Noritoshi.
“What should we do? If that’s the plan, coordinated action is impossible.”
“Wouldn’t it be fine? He’ll charge straight at the Tokyo side anyway. If he runs wild, we can focus on the game.”
“But we’re supposed to kill Itadori Yuji. I don’t think he’s going to kill anyone.”
“Are they seriously trying to kill him...?”
Miwa Kasumi swallowed her discomfort inwardly.
For some reason, the conversation was flowing in the direction of actually killing Itadori Yuji, following the headmaster’s order.
She hated killing, and she hated being killed even more.
“Then we’ll need someone to keep an eye on Todo and take Itadori Yuji out of the picture.”
“We still have curse spirits to deal with, and it’ll be two-on-two anyway, so doesn’t it not matter?”
“No, it won’t do. As the rightful heir of the Kamo family, I can’t just leave an ambiguous existence like Itadori Yuji alone.”
-All of us from Kyoto High will attack Itadori Yuji.
By the time everyone was agreeing with Kamo’s opinion, Nishimiya raised an objection.
“But what if Itadori is with Inumaki? Charging in with a cursed speech user in front of you is pretty risky. Couldn’t you get wiped out all at once?”
“That’s true.”
“As long as you’re careful about the fact that it’s coming at you, it isn’t that scary.”
“Maki, leave the first-year with the brown hair to me too, if possible.”
“That was just as bad as something Todo would say.”
Crack.
A vein popped on Mai’s forehead.
Seriously, I hate him.
“But even if you say that, isn’t there a bigger problem?”
“You mean Yoshino Junpei?”
With Okkotsu Yuta absent, he was clearly one of the Tokyo side’s greatest assets right now.
The problem was that he had only recently entered the jujutsu world, so there was no information on him.
They knew nothing about his technique or his traits.
“If he’s a first-grade jujutsushi, he’s on Todo’s level.”
“He seemed pretty close with Itadori Yuji too, from what we saw earlier...”
“No choice, then. We can only hope Todo handles that part. There’s no greater foolishness than worrying about what we don’t know.”
“What if he’s traveling with Itadori?”
“Then we all rush him together and bring him down. If he’s seen moving separately, Nishimiya, report Yoshino Junpei’s location to us first. The nearest person will keep him in check.”
And so the Kyoto students’ plan to target Junpei and Itadori was complete.
Without any idea what kind of result that careless plan would bring about.
-----------------------
Once the plan was set, the Tokyo students gathered at the site where the team battle would take place.
“You can do it?”
“It’s not that hard, is it?”
This exchange event’s key was Junpei.
He had been given a fairly weighty role.
“It’d be nice if it works, and if not, we’ll make it work somehow!”
“Haha.”
The tension eased under Yuji’s optimistic pat on the back.
Junpei’s slightly stiff expression relaxed.
“What do you mean, somehow? We have to succeed for sure!”
“I’ll take care of it myself, even if you don’t say anything, Kugisaki.”
“Huh?!”
“You two are unbelievable. What are you going to do if infighting starts before the match even begins?”
Maki stepped in and kept them from escalating further, but the two still glared at each other for a moment before turning away.
“Why do you two hate each other so much?”
“Listen, Yuji. You can just think of Kugisaki and me as being different races. Got it?”
“I don’t get that at all...”
Yuji, who was popular because he was good-natured and athletic, didn’t understand Junpei’s troubles in the slightest.
That was because, at his old school, everyone had been kind to him.
Most of them were genuinely drawn to Itadori’s character and skill, while some were just afraid of Itadori’s iron fists. Either way, nobody dared treat him lightly.
As Junpei wondered whether he should explain the subtle caste system of school life, Megumi approached from behind.
“Yoshino.”
“Wah!”
“What are you freaking out for?”
“No, because you came up without saying anything.”
“Do you have a reason you need to win this exchange event?”
Reason. He hadn’t really thought about that.
Junpei paused for a moment, then gave a plausible answer.
“I don’t have any grudge against the other side, and I haven’t even known you guys for a full day yet... but this is the first time I’ve ever felt this fired up.”
You don’t need a reason to want to win.
You just throw your whole body into the heat.
The title of first grade.
The experience he had built up through requests.
Junpei was thirsty for the exhilaration of battle and growth, feelings he was experiencing for the first time.
“That’s enough.”
“What, that’s it? So anticlimactic.”
“I want to win this exchange event too, if possible.”
“Then let’s go for a crushing victory!”
“Salted cod roe.”
Yes.
“Let’s win.”
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