The baseball game between Tokyo Metropolitan Jujutsu Technical High School and Kyoto High ended with Tokyo’s victory.
Todo got his head smashed by Maki’s full-power pitch, and Nobara, furious at Mechamaru’s pitching machine setup, even sparked a bench-clearing brawl, but the tournament itself went along without much trouble.
In the bottom of the ninth, Itadori, batting sixth, hit a home run, and Toge, who had already been on base, crossed home plate in one go. Final score: 2–0.
A clean win.
Of course, Junpei had contributed absolutely nothing to that victory.
Whoosh!
“Strike!”
Whoosh!
“Strrrrike!”
“........”
Junpei kept swinging and missing at the pitches thrown by Mechamaru MK.2, the pitching machine, and each time, Gojo’s obnoxious strike call rang out from behind the plate.
Junpei’s body, unenhanced by cursed energy reinforcement, was below average.
His arm strength, after spending so long with no exercise at all, was weaker than Nobara’s.
In a fit of irritation, he even tried to bunt.
Tap!
“Double play!”
“Panda and Junpei are both tagged out! Change sides!”
“Junpeeeeeeei!!!!”
“......Sorry.”
The result was not good.
Still, the baseball game wrapped up successfully, and they parted on good terms with the Kyoto side.
After fighting a common enemy in the form of curses and curse users, then sweating through a sports match together for the after-party, they were able to leave behind a much friendlier atmosphere than before.
“Sorry about that, Itadori.”
“No, it’s fine. I get it.”
“As expected of my brother. You’ve got a broad heart.”
“Please, just shut up, Todo.....”
The matter of Itadori’s execution had also been settled more or less.
Almost everyone except Todo, who had acted on his own, apologized to Yuji, and the person himself forgave them with a generous heart.
Truthfully, Yuji hadn’t thought much of it at all.
He’d already endured countless murder attempts before.
He’d been sentenced to death before he even enrolled.
He’d been sent to a juvenile detention center with a special-grade curse and actually died once.
He couldn’t remember it well, but after making a deal with Sukuna to survive, he’d been attacked by Mahito and nearly died again, and now even Hanami had joined the list.
For Yuji, assassination attempts were just another event that happened as routinely as an academy entrance ceremony ambush.
The Kyoto students’ cute little tantrum wasn’t even funny anymore.
Besides, before they could do anything, Junpei had already subdued all of them, so they hadn’t even managed to touch a hair on Yuji’s head. It was almost strange that they were still angry now.
Even Gakuganji, the one who had issued the order, no longer regarded him as a threat after speaking with Principal Yaga.
“Though we part ways for now, never forget that my heart remains here, brother!”
“Yeah, yeah. Take care, Todo.”
With Todo crying his eyes out at the end, the Kyoto students were no longer in sight.
“So they’re finally heading back to Kyoto.”
“Huh? They’re not going back. They’ll be staying in Tokyo for a while.”
“.......?”
“There’s still a lot they need to do.”
“Then why was Todo acting like that just now.....?”
“No idea. Who can understand the thoughts of a madman?”
It seemed their connection with Kyoto High was not over yet.
-----------------------------
After the exchange event ended, Jujutsu High returned to its everyday routine.
“All right, then. You’ve had your fun, so now it’s time to get back to your duties as students, yes?”
“What exactly do you think counts as fun, Gojo-sensei? A life-or-death brawl against a special-grade curse? Or a chase scene with sister-school students trying to kill us?”
“Someday, when you all grow up, you’ll understand how I feel.”
“No chance.”
“Sensei, is common sense just not a concept that exists in your brain?”
Gojo laughed off the students’ complaints and rapped the blackboard pointlessly to get everyone’s attention.
“Since Junpei has joined us, I’ll explain the basic curriculum at Jujutsu High. Any objections?”
“I do.”
“The person at the center of this is raising his hand.....and this is all because of you?”
“Why are you only explaining this now? You didn’t say a word when there was plenty of time before the exchange event started.”
“Let’s just call that part of my humanity. Even someone as perfect as me forgets things sometimes!”
“........”
When he’d been called in just to show his face, they hadn’t explained any of that.
Junpei swallowed his grumbling with a sulky face.
Whether he liked it or not, Gojo started chattering away at the front of the room.
Yuji, Megumi, and Nobara, who already knew all of this, promptly slumped over and went to sleep, leaving Junpei as the only one still awake, forced to endure an orientation that was more than half Gojo bragging about himself.
“So there aren’t regular classes, and this place just trains and educates sorcerers? You also store cursed objects and cursed tools here? And the higher-ups who handle matters related to the jujutsu world are part of the school too?”
“That’s right. From now on, you’ll be training while learning things like hand-to-hand combat, techniques, and cursed tools. And every now and then, you’ll go out on assigned missions too. First-grade sorcerers are rare, you know? You’ll be pretty busy.”
“What kind of school is this! It’s just a mercenary group dressed up to look respectable!”
“Ahaha, you really are smart. Right on the money, aren’t you?”
He was the fourth first-year student, and there were three second-year seniors.
He’d heard there was one more, but that person was currently on a long-term assignment in Africa.
The third-years weren’t even showing their faces.
He had brushed past it because he’d been through so many outrageous things in just one day after arriving here, but the structure of the jujutsu world, including Jujutsu High, was bizarre.
Ridiculously few students. A government institution that brought to mind the feudal systems of old.
A Spartan-style education that prioritized real combat over classroom study.
“If you want, you can take the required subjects you used to study at your old school by bringing in outside lecturers. Nanami studied that way and ended up becoming a salaryman.”
“I don’t need that, okay?!”
“Good call. Nobody takes those classes anyway. Except the ones who get pulled off to be assistant supervisors.”
“Assistant supervisors are from Jujutsu High too...?”
Junpei only knew one assistant supervisor: Ijichi.
Thinking of his frail body that looked like it would collapse if you so much as poked him, and his black-rimmed glasses, Junpei was a little surprised to learn he was a sorcerer.
He had assumed Ijichi was a non-sorcerer like Junpei had once been, someone who could only see curses.
“There are people like that sometimes. They have a technique, but their cursed energy is too weak to be useful in battle; or they don’t have a technique, but they can still see curses. If those people enroll at Jujutsu High, they usually choose the path of an assistant supervisor. Ijichi’s my junior by two years, too.”
“So that means you can exploit Ijichi’s labor without feeling guilty, since he’s your junior.”
“That’s harsh. I treat him pretty gently, actually. Anyway, any questions?”
“Is Gojo-sensei the only teacher here, aside from Principal Yaga?”
“There’s Kusakabe, who’s homeroom teacher for the second-years. He’s not here right now, though. And you met Shoko, didn’t you?”
Ieiri Shoko. He had. He’d gone to get treated right before being interrogated by Nanami.
It wasn’t just that they’d crossed paths; they even ran into each other sometimes in the smoking area.
He’d expected to get scolded for smoking as a student, but instead she’d just lent him a lighter without saying a word.
“Shoko-san was a teacher too?”
“Yep. Every school has one, right? A school nurse. For the record, she’s my classmate.”
“Oh.....”
“She started smoking in her first year too, just like you. Though she was one year younger than you.”
“Ugh.”
“Don’t worry. I’m not going to lecture you about it. Being a sorcerer means you might die tomorrow, so what’s the point of shutting down even the small vices?”
Gojo laughed heartily, but Junpei once again felt the darkness of the sorcerer’s profession.
Thrown into life-or-death missions from the time they were students.
Unable to be understood by non-sorcerers who couldn’t even see curses.
When they died, they died alone, in the dark, soaked through with curses.
“You said you learned a few things from that ragged curse and Nanami, right? Then I’ll skip the basics. Nice to have someone who isn’t a total greenhorn like Yuji.”
“.....Yuji definitely said he entered the jujutsu world by eating Sukuna’s finger.”
“Yeah. At first he didn’t even know what cursed energy was, so I had to explain everything one by one.”
He knew that.
He’d heard it while talking with Yuji.
Since it was September now, Yuji had not even been a sorcerer for three months yet.
“But how can they do that? Throw themselves into danger for someone they’ve never even met, and go into certain death even knowing they’ll die?”
He could feel it even while traveling with Nanami.
Sorcerers were all insane in one way or another.
“I became a sorcerer because I didn’t want any more idiots like me to end up as victims, ruined by curses. Along the way, I had to learn that lesson the hard way through my mother’s death. But not everyone else has a story like mine, right?”
“That’s true. Most of them are born into sorcerer families and naturally become sorcerers themselves.”
“How can they all be so calm? Don’t they feel guilty about teaching kids to fight from such a young age, then sending underage teenagers with barely any brains left to slaughter on the battlefield? Surely there are people who don’t want to do this.”
“That’s because it’s the duty of those who have power.”
When Gojo’s serious voice rang out, Junpei lifted his head.
At some point, Gojo had taken off his blindfold, and his eyes were glowing with an alien light.
“Like you said, there are people with rotten guts and people who are just weak who still step into the jujutsu world. Most of them get knocked out early, but some survive and change.”
“.........”
“And when people like that gather together, they become the great current that is the jujutsu world.”
We are part of society, yet our existence is not acknowledged.
The only thing we can rely on is our comrades, but even then, when death comes, we die alone.
Even as curses pile up in our bodies, no one recognizes us; bound by a thin thread called jujutsu, we grip our swords and fight side by side.
Shallow duty. Fear of death. That is the foundation of us sorcerers.
“Like you said, sorcerers are a mess. They’re all a bunch of people with something wrong in their heads. But even so, we fight. We fight to prove our worth and to decide the purpose of our lives. Every student who steps foot here has already made that resolve. You too. Yuji, Megumi, Nobara.”
We are not perfect beings, so through struggle we seek to fill what is lacking in us.
Junpei shivered at those words.
It felt as though resolve and iron will were rising up his spine.
Gojo, silently watching the tense Junpei, soon tied his blindfold back on and returned to his usual carefree, half-serious self.
“Well, that’s about it. Everyone has their own circumstances, but that also means everyone has their own resolve! Don’t think too hard about it. There’s no need to go hunting for a reason.”
“.....I guess so. Thank you, Gojo-sensei.”
“Glad you understood. Anyway, that’s the end of orientation! Wake up the idiots sleeping next to you now, Junpei.”
With Gojo’s clap, the three of them rubbed their sleepy eyes and woke up.
“Huh? What, already over?”
“Yeah, you sleepyheads. Nobara, go to Maki and get some close-combat training. Megumi and Yuji, come see me later.”
“Tch, and I was going to go buy a new training outfit today.”
“Understood.”
“And Junpei, come with me for a bit.”
At Gojo’s words, calling him off separately, Junpei got goosebumps all over.
“Why...?”
“Ah, just follow me for now.”
Hesitantly following him, Junpei found himself outside before he knew it.
More precisely, he was outside while being held by Gojo.
Floating in midair.
“Wah! What are you doing?!”
“I needed a place where no one would come around.”
“Why?!”
“Because from here on out, we’re going to fight like crazy.”
Gojo set Junpei down on the ground with casual ease, then crooked a finger in an arrogant gesture.
“I’ve got a rough idea of your abilities, but now that I’m in charge, I should get a proper read on you, don’t you think?”
“A sparring match?”
“Yeah. If it were Megumi or Yuji, I could’ve fought them indoors, but I want to see you at full power.”
What he was good at.
Where he was weak.
And how far he could grow.
“Come at me like you mean to kill me. If you so much as touch a hair on my head, I’ll give you five billion won as a reward.”
“If you get hurt, I’m not responsible. I wasn’t taught how to cure that by Mahito.”
“That’s a completely useless worry, so just get started already.”
“......Here I go.”
The man before him was unquestionably the strongest of this era.
The gap between them was vast, but even so, shouldn’t he at least leave a scratch on that obnoxiously smiling face?
With that resolve, Junpei formed his hand signs, and Gojo’s lips slowly curled upward.
‘Yes. That’s it, Junpei.’
You’ll be able to surpass me someday.
But not today.
So come at me.
I’ll teach you, thoroughly, exactly what level you should be aiming for.
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