If there were a button that killed people I hated, I don’t think I’d be able to press it.
But if there were a button that killed people who hated me, I’d press it without hesitation.
“Haa......”
And the idiots chattering up ahead counted as both.
They were making a racket in a movie theater and didn’t even think to turn off their phone lights. Pathetic.
“For high schoolers, you should stop skipping class and coming to the theater.”
I was the same, but my situation was different.
The reason I didn’t go to school—no, couldn’t go to school—was because of those bastards.
Throb
Yoshino Junpei, a second-year student at Satozakura High School and a current truant movie fanatic, clutched his forehead and frowned.
This damn scar never had a day when it didn’t hurt.
It was proof of rebellion. The mark of oppression laid upon the one person who had refused to obey.
The wound those bastards had left him with not long ago was the same.
Junpei sank for a moment into the memory of that day.
“He was looking at my chest with such a lewd expression, you know?”
“Tsubasa’s got big boobs, so they bounce when she runs.”
“I can understand that feeling, Yoshino~”
“Shut up, you idiots. So did you look or not?”
“I didn’t.”
“Then are you saying our Tsubasa is lying? Huh?”
Thwack!
Even though he’d kept as quiet as possible, unreasonable violence kept chasing after Junpei.
Like a child finding a toy hidden in a room no matter what.
“Hahaha, that’s ridiculous.”
“Cut it out already. Oh, half-price coupon just popped up.”
Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn.
What the hell had he done?
More infuriating than the thug who kicked him while he was down was the ugly girl behind him, basking in her own superiority with a smug look on her face.
People like that were always the same.
They trampled the weak to cement their own position and wanted to be affirmed as standing above the caste system.
Already marked by that Ito gang, he was an easy target.
He hadn’t even done anything to earn their hatred.
She just wanted to feed the monkeys whose brains were probably stuffed with dicks instead of noodles.
She dangled her not-that-great looks like a product and got off on having those guys obey her.
No different from a prostitute.
In an instant, Junpei couldn’t hold back his anger.
Normally he would have taken a few light hits and been let go, but this unreasonable treatment had roused his rebellious streak.
“Tsubasa, you think you’re pretty, don’t you?”
“What?”
“You’re ugly, you ugly bitch. The only thing even worth looking at is that stupid slab of fat. These three all know that much. And the only reason they worship a girl like you is because they think you’ll put out—”
Pow! Pow! Pow!
He paid dearly for running his mouth and got beaten to a pulp that day.
After dragging his barely functioning body home, he didn’t go back to school.
He thought he’d never have to see them again......
“Wasn’t this supposed to be a pretty high-cutoff school? Why are there guys like that here?”
From monkeys who could only study a little but weren’t fully human, to the pathetic teachers who prayed every day that nothing would happen.
He was getting sick of human beings. He didn’t expect anything from them anymore.
If trash like that grew up to lead this country, maybe it’d be better if they all just died and the whole thing went to hell...
“Hey, did you see this? Her boobs are insane, right?”
“Whoa, shit. That’s fucked.”
“What the hell.”
The movie had been playing for a long time, but their voices still carried all the way here.
With those obnoxious idiots spouting obnoxious nonsense in obnoxious tones, there was no way the movie could get into his head.
Tap tap, tap.
“Turn your phone off!”
The light from a phone cranked to maximum brightness stabbed at his eyes.
Just as murderous intent began to rise at that behavior, as if manners could be thrown to the dogs—
“Guys, let’s be considerate.”
Someone approached from behind them, grabbed them by the neck, and murmured, and in an instant the theater went quiet.
The phone stopped spewing light, and the noisy bastards obediently leaned back in their seats and started watching the movie.
“Oh.”
To silence them with just one sentence.
The person who’d said it was gone by the time Junpei looked; they must have already returned to their seat.
“Well, whatever.”
In the now-peaceful theater, Junpei quietly resumed watching the movie.
Unfortunately, the movie was utter garbage.
------------------------
“W-what is this......”
Even after the credits rolled, the three of them didn’t move an inch.
Sensing something was wrong, Junpei went down to check for a moment and was stunned.
It wasn’t human anymore.
The head was grotesquely swollen, and the facial features were all mixed up.
It was ruined, like a child had been playing with clay.
They were dead.
They had to be dead.
A person had died.
“Did that guy do this...?”
He had to have.
The last person to make contact with them was that man.
But...
If you could do something like this, could you still call him a “person”?
Was he really a “person”?
Junpei reached for his phone with trembling hands to call an ambulance, then hesitated.
This was already too late.
They weren’t alive anymore, and there was no way the police would believe his testimony that some man had done this.
He’d be lucky if they didn’t pin the blame on him.
And then.
A strange thrill rose in Junpei’s heart.
In one corner of his mind,
he
had
wished
for
it
to
happen
anyway.
Junpei shoved his phone back into his pocket and ran out of the theater.
That man.
He had to find that man.
---------------------------
September 2018.
Kinema Cinema, Kawasaki City, Kanagawa Prefecture.
A staff member discovered the bodies of three male high school students, grotesquely twisted beyond recognition.
Cause of death: increased intracranial pressure and massive blood loss due to deformation of the head.
The case was judged unsolvable by forensic investigators and transferred to the jujutsu world as a request for assistance.
Dispatchers: first-year student Itadori Yuji of Tokyo Metropolitan Jujutsu Technical High School, and grade-one sorcerer Nanami Kento.
-------------------------
“Can you see it? This is the residue of cursed energy.”
“No, I can’t see anything at all?”
“That’s because you’re not trying to see it. We usually live our lives seeing curses with the naked eye as if it were the most natural thing in the world.”
Inside Kinema Cinema, where the incident had taken place, grade-one sorcerer Nanami Kento was teaching first-year Itadori Yuji, who was accompanying him, how to see traces of cursed energy.
“When a technique is used, it leaves traces behind. That’s what residue is. But residue is faint compared to something like a cursed spirit, so open your eyes wide and look carefully. If you concentrate, you should be able to see it.”
“Mm......”
Following Nanami’s instructions, Itadori strained his eyes and stared down the hallway of the screening corridor.
Then a blurry trail along the corridor began to appear in his vision.
The white traces left on the floor were still indistinct, but even that was a pretty big improvement.
“Oh? I can see it! I can see it!”
“Of course you can see it. Normally, a proper sorcerer should notice something is off before they even see it.”
Unlike the delighted Itadori, this salaryman-like sorcerer, who seemed detached from everything, started criticizing him without the slightest hesitation.
His evaluation had no rise or fall to it, no emotion at all, and for some reason Itadori felt vaguely irritated.
“Sigh, can’t you teach me with a little more praise...?”
“I don’t praise or belittle people. I regulate myself based on facts. That’s who I am. There was a time when I mistakenly thought society would be the same, but I won’t get into that. Let’s move.”
The words carried a little more emotion than before.
It was proof that even this man, who had become an “adult” worn out by everything, had once been a student burning with passion.
That made Itadori a little happy.
“Yes!! Let’s go with full energy!”
“No. If you’re going to do it half-assed, then do it half-assed.”
Damn it.
They still weren’t clicking at all.
Itadori scratched his head as he looked at Nanami’s broad back ahead of him.
------------------------
Before coming here, he had been introduced to Nanami Kento by his teacher, Gojo Satoru.
Originally they were supposed to go together, but apparently the higher-ups had been keeping an eye on things, so Gojo couldn’t escort him or something like that.
He said it in such a flippant way that Itadori couldn’t tell whether he was serious or joking.
Anyway, the junior Gojo brought in as a substitute was Nanami Kento.
“The ex-salaryman sorcerer, Nanami, at your service~”
“Don’t phrase it like that.”
His first impression was... incredibly strict-looking.
A crisp white suit worn with perfect precision.
A neatly put-together appearance.
And slicked-back hair with green sunglasses covering his eyes.
“There are plenty of weirdos among sorcerers, but this guy’s a real workhorse, since he used to work in a company and all.”
“Nobody wants to hear that kind of thing from you.”
Ex-salaryman, huh.
If he was Gojo-sensei’s junior, he must have graduated from Jujutsu High, so why become a salaryman instead of a sorcerer?
Itadori wasn’t the type to hold back his curiosity, so he asked Nanami exactly what was on his mind.
“Ex-salaryman... why didn’t you become a sorcerer from the start?”
“First, let’s greet each other properly. Nice to meet you, Itadori-kun.”
“Ah, yes. Nice to meet you.”
He answered the greeting with detached indifference, then let out a sigh and began explaining the reason.
“What I learned while studying at Jujutsu High is that sorcerers are fucking awful.”
“...?”
Contrary to his strict appearance, what came out of his mouth was the kind of profanity a corporate drone would use.
While Itadori was frozen speechless by the unexpected reversal, Nanami went on without caring, pushing up his sunglasses as he spoke.
“And what I learned while working for a regular company is that labor is fucking awful.”
“Is that so?”
“(This guy’s kind of dark, huh...)”
“(Right?)”
“So if both are shitty, I figured I might as well choose the one that suited me better.”
“(He’s pretty gloomy, isn’t he...)”
“(Told you.)”
“That’s why I became a sorcerer.”
Nanami snapped his head around and looked at Itadori, who had been whispering with Gojo.
Itadori straightened up without realizing it under that gaze, as if Nanami could see right through him.
“Itadori-kun, don’t assume that Gojo-san and I think the same way. I trust him, yes, but...”
“But~?”
“I don’t respect him.”
“Huh?!”
“I hate the higher-ups’ methods, but I’m the type who says we should follow the rules, no matter what.”
That explanation was getting a little long.
Itadori listened to Nanami with a tense posture.
“In short, I don’t recognize you as a sorcerer either. Even if you’re carrying around a bomb called Sukuna, do your best to show that you’re useful.”
He was right, but it was brutally cold.
Maybe because he’d experienced life as a salaryman, Nanami’s gaze toward Itadori was the same as society’s gaze toward a young man fresh out of college.
What he judged was only “practicality.”
So, are you useful or not?—and Itadori answered that question in his own way.
He learned it when his heart was pierced in battle with a special-grade cursed spirit.
He was weak.
If Sukuna hadn’t been there, he would have died on the spot.
And that was exactly why he understood it even more clearly.
“.....I’ve recently experienced enough to be sick of how weak and useless I am.”
But I’m going to get stronger.
“If I don’t get stronger, I won’t even get to choose how I die.”
Were the words his grandfather left behind when he died a curse, or a blessing?
“Die surrounded by many people.”
To carry on his will, he had to become stronger.
“You don’t even have to say it—I’ll make you acknowledge me for sure, so please wait a little longer.”
“No, say that to the people above me, not me. Honestly, I couldn’t care less...”
“......Ah, yes.”
Yeah, this guy really doesn’t suit me.
-------------------------
“Was that your doing?”
“Oh? You can see me...?”
A curse born from human hatred of other humans.
Special-grade cursed spirit Mahito looked at the boy who had followed him with interest.
“What if it was? You gonna criticize me? Were they special to you or something?”
To Mahito, humans were nothing more than toys to play with.
Souls and bodies alike.
They were there, so he touched them and broke them.
He took pleasure in that.
He’d already kneaded three of them into a rather entertaining shape, so he had no intention of killing this one too.
That would change if the kid started getting annoying, talking about revenge or calling the police or whatever.
But the reaction the boy in front of him showed was rather novel.
He seemed angry, but that anger wasn’t directed at Mahito.
With veins bulging on his forehead, Junpei opened his mouth.
“Could I do the same thing too?”
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