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Itadori Yuuji, Suguru learns, is nothing if not charming.
The man, despite being at the very least over six feet and wearing all black, exudes an amiable and kind aura. In the heat of battle, Suguru hadn’t noticed it, but it was clearly evident in the way he’d greeted his parents with a bashful smile and a perfectly reasonable explanation for their late return.
Suguru loves his parents more than anything, but they aren’t the most informed when it comes to how he spends his own free time, hence his many late night outings to hunt curses.
As such, they’re easily persuaded to let Suguru leave on a ‘late night train’ to an internship offer in Tokyo.
The moment Suguru has his backpack and a change of clothes with him, the Gojo kid pops out from behind the fence, sucking on a lollipop.
Itadori turns to him, phone out. “Right, so you’ve got two options right now. We can either ride the bullet train back to the school, or I can take you guys and jump. Second one’s faster, but I’ve heard that it’s not the most comfortable ride.”
Suguru eyes the man’s mostly lean frame skeptically. “Jump? Can you even carry us?”
Gojo snorts derisively, earning a glare from him.
“Of course I can,” Itadori says, looking puzzled. “You’re just kids, I can hold you guys no problem.”
“Right,” Suguru squints at him. He doesn’t look any special, besides being weirdly tall. “I mean, some of the curses I have can carry me. I can make them carry you too.”
Itadori’s eyebrows shoot up into his hairline.
“That sounds really fun, actually,” he sighs, “but you’re technically not allowed to use your cursed technique like this without having it registered first.”
Why is getting registered so important? Is having his ability listed on paper that imperative?
“If that’s not allowed, then I guess we’ll just take the bullet train,” Suguru yawns. “I don’t wanna be dropped from thousands of feet.”
“That’s not going to happen, but fine,” Itadori shrugs. “Satoru, you coming?”
“Sure,” Gojo says. He doesn’t look tired in the slightest, annoyingly.
x
Yuuji walks out of the dimly lit room just barely concealing his anger.
No matter how much time may pass, his intense dislike for the stuffy old has-beens will never fade. He doesn’t even know why he bothers letting them order him around. After all, there’s practically nothing they can do, besides trying to put a bounty on him.
They both know how badly that will end.
Honestly, he doesn’t understand why they can’t just leave kids alone. Sure, Geto has an extremely powerful technique that’s never been seen before. He doesn’t come from any elite families; hell, his parents are some of the most normal people Yuuji’s met in a while.
Why do they insist on trying to make every child with a modicum of talent into a sorcerer? Shortages may be especially dire this time of year, but that’s no excuse in taking away some of the best years of their lives.
Smoothing his coat down, he inhales deeply, before stepping out of the shadows to where Geto is waiting.
“So? How’d it go?”
The kid’s doing a good job of concealing his nervousness, but Yuuji can tell he’s anxious about his fate. Of course, he’d been the same, when he woke up chained the floor with an ultimatum that would inevitably end in his death.
He forces a smile.
“It went pretty good, all things considered. You’re not going to be executed or imprisoned, or anything like that.”
Geto’s face whitens a shade. “That was- an option?”
“Ah, don’t worry about that right now,” Itadori rushes to say, holding out his hands. “So, like I said before, you basically have two choices again. Except I’d really advise you to take the second one.”
Geto nods for him to continue. Yuuji can see his fists clenching, as if he’s bracing for the worst.
“One,” he says, holding up a finger. “You can go home, forget everything that happened today, and swear to never use your cursed technique again, or tell other people about them. If you break it, we will know, so don’t think about-”
“I’ll take the first option,” Geto says quickly.
Yuuji shakes his head. “I wasn’t finished,” he admonishes. “We won’t bother you unless you break the swear, but know this: somehow, people will find out about your technique, and they won’t be as nice as I am. I’m not sure if you’re aware, but your technique is extremely unique; it’s never been recorded, and your level of control even without training determines you as a threat.
“There will be bounties on your head as soon as you go back home, especially after the little incident from yesterday,” he continues. “Your parents and close friends will most likely be targeted as well, as hostages, or just outright murdered. Those kinds of cases are common, for people who refuse to become jujutsu sorcerers.”
Geto’s knuckles tighten. “That will- that’s going to happen?”
“Or,” he says loudly. “You can choose to go to the Metropolitan Magic Technical College. You’re practically guaranteed admission at this point, especially with my favour. There, you can learn how to really use your powers, with kids your age. You’ll have some semblance of a normal life until you graduate, even if you have to live in dorms. Your parents will be protected, as well.”
“That’s practically- that’s not even a choice,” Geto laughs self-deprecatingly.
“I know,” Yuuji sighs. “I wasn’t even given one like that. It was either die at the spot, or die a delayed death, after serving my purpose.”
“Wha- really?”
“Yup. I took it all in stride, though, so it’s fine,” he shrugs. “I’m a teacher now, in exchange for living long enough to consume all the fingers.”
Then, Yuuji turns back to Geto. “So, what’s it going to be?”
“I’ll go to the college, of course,” Geto sighs. “When do I start? Who’s going to teach?”
“That’s great!” Yuuji claps his hands together. “And didn’t you hear just now? I’m a teacher. I teach first-years, and occasionally drop in to the second-years. You can go back to your parents and let them know about moving schools. I can send all the official stuff later.
“By the way, don’t take too long saying goodbye and stuff,” he adds. “You can still visit, and we have a third student to pick up next week.”
x
Ieiri Shoko, Satoru finds out, is yet another special case.
How annoying.
What happened to him being the only special-grade student? The only living human able to perform a powerful technique? This girl can’t even exorcise curses properly, according to Itadori.
Although, he will begrudgingly admit, reverse curse technique has been one thing he’s never been able to do, no matter how hard he tries. As he is now, the Limitless techniques are mostly unavailable to him, besides the basics and an overwhelming well of curse power that he doesn’t know how to properly use.
It’s humiliating. Is he not the strongest? The first child born in the Gojo family in centuries to possess both the Six Eyes and Limitless Curse technique? Fushiguro likes to remind him that despite his potential, he is still a child. Always room to improve, the man says.
It’s sickening, at times.
Of course you can say that, Satoru wants to scream. You’re the strongest, already! There’s no improvement for you because you’re already the top!
Going to the college was meant as a compromise between his family and Fushiguro, but above all, it’s to become stronger. So that one day, he can catch up to the likes of Fushiguro, and Itadori-sensei, and Kugisaki. He’s pretty sure, despite his status as special-grade, even Kugisaki could beat him.
Such is the difference between student and Grade 1 Sorcerer.
Angrily, he shoves his phone into his pocket. He’s forgoing the sunglasses, today. Let the new special student see his Six Eyes.
Right on time, someone knocks on his room door.
“Satoru,” Itadori’s voice calls. “We’re going to pick up our third first year! Hurry up and get dressed, the train leaves in ten.”
Instead of answering, he bursts the door open, narrowly missing the other new student’s face.
“Good . . . morning,” Geto says awkwardly.
Satoru fixes his usual nonchalant smile on his face. “Yo! I heard about your classification. Feels pretty nice to be called special, huh?”
“Eh, not really,” Geto muses, rubbing his neck. “I’m not as powerful as those officials make me out to be.”
“Don’t be humble,” Itadori cuts in. “The curse I exorcised the other day was pretty powerful. Grade 2 or Semi-grade 1, I’d say.”
Geto just nods along amiably. His hair is tied up weirdly, Satoru notices. In a bun, but with one long bang on the side. He’s tempted to bring it up, but the guy didn’t bring up his sunglasses the first time they met, so he’ll ignore it for now.
“Right then. The student asked us to meet her in Tokyo, so that’s where we’re going. Don’t worry about bringing anything special, you two. It’s just a pick-up.”
“Okay,” Satoru and Geto say simultaneously. Itadori laughs instantly, and before he can crack a terrible joke, Satoru steps out of the threshold.
x
“Isn’t three students too small for an entire class?”
Gojo gives him an annoying, I-know-something-you-don’t look. “It’s not that bad. Have you ever met anybody else who can see curses?”
He doesn’t have to think about it to answer. Not even the occult club members could do anything other than make up horror stories. “No. I thought there was just something wrong with me.”
“Exactly,” Gojo says with a nod. “Sometimes we even recruit sorcerers from hospitals, you know? Psychosis is a common thing for non-sorcerers to believe is what’s happening. That’s just how rare jujutsu sorcerers are.”
“Huh,” Suguru crosses his arms. “By the way, I thought I was the third student. Why is this person after me?”
“Oh that,” Gojo waves dismissively. “She was enrolled before you. Everyone has different circumstances, here. You’re not that unusual of an entrance.”
“Thanks for waiting, you- oh?”
Itadori walks out from the station, wearing the same all black ensemble. “Looks like your uniform made it on time, huh? How’s it feel?”
“Fine,” Suguru answers. “It’s customizable, just like you said.”
“Good to hear,” Itadori nods. “Have you guys seen the student yet? She’s supposed to be in uniform as well.”
Geto says, “Nah,” at the same time Gojo hums an affirmative and points.
He whips his head around to look at the guy. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was waiting to see how long it would take for you to notice,” Gojo grins.
“Asshole,” Geto mutters, before walking in the direction he pointed, a- smoke break area?
Sure, he knew how strange Jujutsu Sorcerers were before Gojo mentioned it, but even this is too much. The girl, Shoko or something, is leaning against a bench, smoking a cigarette like she isn’t very clearly still a highschooler.
“Oi,” he calls out. “Ieiri Shoko?”
The girl looks up, blinks once, and stubs out her cigarette before heading over to their group.
“Yo,” she says, holding a hand up. “I’m Shoko. Nice to meet you, I guess.”
Up close, the dark circles under her eyes are even more prominent, and her breath smells strongly of smoke. Next to him, Gojo crinkles his nose in distaste like the privileged rich boy he acts like.
“Nice. All three first years are here. How do you guys feel about going around Tokyo a bit? Shoko’s from the countryside, and I’m sure Suguru’s never gotten to tour the city from that little town, right?” Itadori asks.
He shakes his head no.
“Anywhere specific you guys want to go?”
Shoko says, “Nah,” at the same time Suguru answers, “I don’t mind anywhere,” and Itadori groans, putting a hand over his eyes.
“Damn. I was hoping you guys would be excited. I guess there’s no wasting time if you’re fine with it. We’re going to exorcise a curse.”
“A curse?” Gojo noticeably perks up, eyes catching the sun from even their spot in the shade.
“You’re sitting this one out, Satoru,” Itadori makes an x with his arms. “Can’t have you doing the dirty work all the time, yeah?”
At that, the kid sighs obnoxiously and crosses his arms.
“Ready? Let’s go!”
x
Ieiri Shoko is not having the best of days.
Her favorite brand of cigarettes, she found out, wasn’t available in any of the five hundred convenience stores in Tokyo, and her pack is half empty already.
Then she met with her classmates, one of which is obnoxious, strong, and knows it. The other is better, but not by much, and what’s with that stupid hairstyle?
There are no other girls. Bummer. She could have made some friends at witch college if the boys weren’t so immature, but well, Ieiri knew what she was signing up for. She’s probably going to die before thirty, anyways.
And now, their teacher, a ridiculously tall man with pink hair (not dyed?) has sent her and dark hair on a mission. Despite his reassuring smile and thumbs up with a “Don’t worry!” Ieiri doesn’t know what he’s thinking. Her ability isn’t suited for direct combat at all, and she doesn’t want to rely on a boy with no fashion sense like a damsel in distress.
If it’s a choice of her life or her pride, she will choose her pride.
That’s an exaggeration. Reverse curse technique can be used on her own body, but the cursed energy it takes out of her at the same time makes it so that it’s almost never worth using it over regular medicine. Excluding fatal wounds, of course. If worst comes to worst, she can keep healing herself until she kills a curse, or runs out of energy.
It’s just that the latter will be more likely, against a Grade 2 or above.
“So.” Dark hair- Geto, kicks at a small piece of rubble, hands in his pockets. “What are we going to do?”
“I don’t care. If you want, you can just exorcise the curses all by yourself. I’m here to heal any wounds you acquire during battle.”
Geto snorts. “No, really. Is that what you want? We could just split up, to make this go easier.”
“Sure,” Ieiri says, and promptly starts walking away.
“Huh? Wait, I was joking. Is that we’re going to do?”
“Figure it out, special-grade,” she calls behind her back, already halfway up the staircase. “Is that title just for show?”
He says something too quiet for her to hear, no doubt insulting her, but she doesn’t care. Truly, the only reason why she even agreed to become a jujutsu sorcerer is how desperate the messengers were being, and to escape the unending boredom at home.
Even this abandoned building is nothing out of the ordinary, doors opening with a squeak that probably anyone but her would find unsettling.
This room is empty and dusty, this room used to be storage for food, this room is full of stuffed animals (weird), this room is-
Interesting.
Mannequins are piled up in the back of the room, spines bent over and hanging in a parody of horror movies. Not something that would catch her eye, usually, but there’s one in the middle that has an a strange vibe about it. It’s just as broken as the rest of them, but when she squints through one eye and focuses, she can see it.
The unmistakable air of a curse. Or at least, a cursed corpse. It must be very weak, for even her to struggle spotting it, which means she can beat it. It probably only needs a burst of cursed energy to exorcise.
In that case, she should get up and close before it realizes she’s a sorcerer, and tries to run away or attack.
With a burst of speed, she sprints to the mannequin, and grasps her hand around it, releasing pure energy into the vessel. Most people are surprised to see that she’s actually pretty fast, despite her smoking habit, and this corpse is no exception. It struggles only briefly before her cursed energy overwhelms it.
Nice. Its body goes limp again, and she drops it before dusting off her hands.
Then, a faint noise sounds behind one of the old cardboard boxes, making her put her hands up again. Another curse? No, if it were there, she would have sensed it while her cursed energy was active. Then- it’s human.
“Hey,” she whispers. “Come out of there.”
Another soft whimper. Slowly, a small hand reaches out from behind, and out crawls a little boy. Crying, and a scraped knee. He’s still pressed against the wall, hands trembling. How long has he been hiding? Where are his parents?
“Here,” she gestures. “Get over here. I’ll protect you.”
Instead of coming like a good, obedient child, he just shakes his head vehemently, tears and snot coming down even faster.
She sighs. “Are you scared of me or something? Can’t be helped. I’ll call Geto over, stay there.”
“W-wait!” the boy cries, hand reaching out. “Don’t leave me!”
Before she can even start to go back to him, the wall ripples, and a clawed hand wraps around the boy’s neck, and a curse steps out, snickering.
“Shit!” Her hand is already out, gathering cursed energy. Just from a single glance, she can tell it’s weak, stronger than the mannequin, but not even Grade 2. She could take it, if it weren’t for the goddamn kid.
The kid that the curse is currently taking hostage. Its claws are pressing into the boy’s neck, drawing tiny drops of blood. They weren’t kidding when they said city curses were on another level, in terms of intelligence. The ones back home only groaned and wreaked havoc on anybody they saw.
Ieiri tightens her fist, before lowering it slowly, letting the energy go. She probably won’t die against a small-fry like this, but the kid is another matter. He’ll die too quickly for her to save, if she’s busy fighting the curse. The only option here, as much as she hates it, is to convince the curse to go for her instead.
Pain is one of the things Ieiri likes to avoid, but she can handle some if it means she saved a life.
“Oi. Let go of him and come for me instead, you fuckin’ coward,” she calls. “I’m your opponent, here.”
The curse doesn’t move, and she berates herself for her foolishness. She doesn’t even know if it understands languages. She opens her hands to show she’s unarmed, but the curse only leers at her, claws still at the boy’s throat.
Sighing, she turns her eyes momentarily up to the stained ceiling.
I wish I could have smoked another cigarette before this.
The curse seems to have taken that as a sign of defeat, and the creepy grin widens, claws stabbing just a little deeper, eliciting a choked sob from the boy. She narrows her eyes, readying the energy again. If she misses, this kid is dead. She can’t have a child’s life on her conscience before she even gets her doctors degree.
A blast in the face will throw the curse off, giving her the time to snatch the boy from its grasp. Then she’ll-
A grotesque flying caterpillar-curse appears out of nowhere, and bites a chunk out of the curse’s arm. From behind, Geto slides out, arm out and releasing more curses. Distracted by the torrent of curses, she lets her energy down for a moment, which proves to be a sore mistake.
The curse hadn’t managed to bite so deep that the curse couldn’t move its arm. Good news: it weakened the curse enough that its claws dropped from the carotid artery. Bad news: they were at the boy’s side, and already stabbed clean through.
The boy screams deafeningly loud in the small room. The curse drops him, more focused on dodging the onslaught of curses from Geto than killing.
Ieiri is already moving, catching the kid before he can hit the ground. He’s crying loudly, tiny hands touching the area around the holes in his side.
Fuck.
She wants to give this curse the most painful death ever for daring to harm an innocent creature like this boy, but a quick glance at Geto confirms that he’s doing the job just as well, curses chomping bits out of its flesh.
“It’s okay,” she reassures, putting her hands over the wound.
The technique responds faster than normal, as if sensing her urgency and anger. Controlling emotions is key to being a jujutsu sorcerer, but well, if it can save this child, she doesn’t mind letting her emotions play a part in it.
”Reverse cursed technique.” She mouths the words, and slowly but surely, hands humming with the force of energy being pushed into the boy, the holes start to close.
The boy’s sobs lessen, and in a couple seconds, it’s almost as if the wounds were never there, aside from the tears in his clothes. At her side, Geto is holding a ball of- something. It’s swirling like a snowglobe, and bits of shadow are curling around it.
Spotting her looking, he grimaces and says, “It’s the essence curses leave behind. I need to ingest it.”
That doesn’t sound pleasant. Geto exhales quickly out through his nose, then drops it into his mouth and swallows with an audible gulp. Immediately, his expression sours, gagging before thumping his chest.
“It’s disgusting,” he explains. “Like- vomit and urine all soaked up into a sponge.”
Ieiri is glad that her cursed technique isn’t something horrendous like that. She would have quit before she even started if she had to do that everytime she exorcised a curse.
Instead of laughing like she normally would, she sits up, leaving the boy propped up against the wall.
Opening her pack, she takes out two cigarettes, lights one, and offers the other to Geto. “You should start smoking. It’ll get rid of the taste fast, and there’s nothing better than a nicotine rush after exorcising.”
His nose crinkles, and he waves away at the smoke. “I’d rather die than be addicted to something like that.”
Ieiri doesn’t miss the irony in that statement.