Chapter Text
Nanami Kento had no particular attachment to Fujiyoshida, a small town nestled beneath the shadow of Mount Fuji. To him, it was just another stop on his itinerary, another task assigned by Jujutsu High. A Grade 1 cursed spirit had torn through an orphanage here, leaving a trail of destruction and panic. His orders were simple: exorcise the threat and ensure no further casualties.
Ijichi was busy tending Gojo's inquiries ("Bothersome bastard," Nanami sighed), so he couldn't drive Nanami to Fujiyoshida on the designated day. It would be just a day, two maximum. Observe the orphanage, evacuate the kids and carers, put a curtain, exorcise the spirit, and go home before 6 pm. Usual business.
After a quiet train ride, Nanami stepped off at the station and made his way through the town. His tall figure was towering as he walked through the neighborhood, the woods was nearby and the locals turned their heads. Nanami, ever the stoic one, just kept walking. No need to make small talk. In fact, he promised himself not to meddle too much with locals. He didn't get paid enough for this.
As Nanami made a turn from the maps on his phone, he stood still. He didn't expect this. The orphanage was already in ruins when he arrived—broken walls, shattered beams, and lingering traces of cursed energy hanging in the air. It wasn't completely destroyed, some pillars and buildings were still there, but it wasn't that big to have many good rooms left.
The spectacled sorcerer walked closer, carefully scanning the area to find anything other than just a residual energy. But none. The floor creaked when he stepped further into the building. He peeked through a door and saw tables had been turned. It was the cafeteria and kitchen as well, but still no cursed spirit. Then he inspected another room. Wooden beds were destroyed and broken, debris and dust were flying in the air, waiting to choke whoever inhaled them. Nanami crouched down, looking at a dark liquid. Probably blood.
"Where is everyone..." the blond muttered to himself. He sighed, this couldn't be good. Who exorcised the spirit? Where were the people? Was someone sent here before him?
As he stepped into another room, he abruptly stopped and reached for his cursed tool. He didn't even recognize what room this was, as this was heavily damaged. The walls got holes and were teared, the roof was collapsed, and one of the wall was literally gone and exposing the area to the woods behind the orphanage.
Yet, there was something unexpected. The mission should have required his intervention, but this Grade 1 cursed spirit was exorcised. And not just one, but many.
Amid the debris, a single figure remained—a young girl lying in the wreckage. She looked peaceful, almost as if she had simply chosen this place for an afternoon nap. But in her hand, she clutched a katana, its blade faintly flickering with cursed energy. Nanami stepped closer, his gaze sweeping over her, assessing. She could be dead. Unconscious. Or just ignoring him.
Tracking the residuals led nowhere. Whatever had happened here, it had left little behind. With a sigh, he unbuttoned his suit jacket, draped it over the girl’s relatively small frame (Nanami thought she was simply malnourished), and lifted her in his arms. He decided to lay this girl in a safe place before tracing the town for any information he could gather when suddenly she stirred. Then she wriggled and dropped herself from him.
"Who are you?!" she snapped, eyes suddenly sharp. "Are those things dead?!"
Nanami didn’t loosen his grip on her arm. She addressed the cursed spirit as 'those things', so Nanami thought she wouldn't have known about the Jujutsu world.
"Could you see what attacked your orphanage?" Nanami's voice was flat, as always.
The girl blinked, then scoffed.
"That one was new," she muttered, shifting her weight as if looking for something. Her sword. Nanami barely moved, but she caught the slight angle of his side where the katana rested.
"I didn’t know it was a real sword," she admitted, rubbing her face with a tired hand. "It was always dull and silly before last night."
Nanami exhaled. His mind was racing with many possibilities. Did this girl exorcise the cursed spirit? Was she alone? How did she do that? Did she know about the cursed spirit before? And what did she mean about 'real sword'? How did she get that katana?
But of course, Nanami would prefer to talk things out calmly, even when it didn't seem possible.
"I have a lot of questions. Come with me."
"But I’m hungry," the girl countered immediately, her eyebrows furrowed. "And I can’t think when I’m hungry!"
Nanami sighed. He hadn’t planned to spend much money on this trip, but the girl was the nearest explanation he could get. He thought he could buy her a bowl of ramen.
"Oh, I’m gonna make you broke," she warned as she could read his mind. Before Nanami could react, she just walked away from the ruined orphanage, stepping on the debris and skipping her way to the nearest restaurant.
"Obaa-chan!" the girl waved her hand lightly, too casually with such a cheerful voice, to an old lady when they walked passed. The old lady held her chest and looked worried.
"Why aren't you evacuating with the rest?" the old lady asked the girl, but she was too far away to hear that. Nanami sighed, this girl would be his new source of headache. He reluctantly followed her along, eventually finding himself standing in front of a restaurant.
Oyakodon.
That was her choice. She had ordered two bowls, even before Nanami could find a seat. At first, he thought, 'Oh, so nice of her for ordering for me. I guess she still has manners."
But then she turned her head to Nanami and asked innocently, "What do you want to eat?"
"Just get me a black coffee," Nanami muttered. His urge to drink whiskey was growing too big now. He didn't even know the girl that well but there was an aura around her. An aura that, if one looked closely, was spelled C - H - A - O - S.
Nanami sat in front of her, and her bright green eyes were sparkling when the guy who served them put down two bowls of oyakodon in front of her. As she lifted her chopsticks, she grinned. Without even saying gratitude before eating, she just opened her mouth and consumed a hearty amount of rice coated with eggs. Nanami frowned, torn between feeling disgusted or awed.
"This is luxury. I've only had oyakodon three times in my life. And now—" she held up two fingers with a dramatic flourish, "—I’ve had five!"
Nanami studied her in the dim light of the restaurant. Long, untrimmed black hair, and a pair of striking green eyes that gleamed with mischief. She couldn’t have been more than 162 or 163 cm, her frame slightly too thin or maybe that was just the baggy, washed-out clothes she was wearing. Her fingers were long, her posture slouched in a way that suggested equal parts defiance and exhaustion.
Nanami leaned back in his seat, watching the girl across from him. She ate like she hadn’t had a proper meal in days—which, knowing her circumstances, might actually be true. Her chopsticks scraped against the bowl, scooping up the last grains of rice, and without hesitation, she licked the edge of the bowl clean.
He sighed, “Aren’t you afraid that I could be a bad person?”
The girl glanced up, her bright green eyes gleaming with something between amusement and exhaustion.
“Everyone’s bad to me,” she said matter-of-factly. “What could be worse? Besides, you fed me. If I’m about to die, at least I’ve eaten five oyakodon in my life. And that’s a lot.”
Nanami stared at her, expression unreadable. The way she spoke—so casual, yet so detached—reminded him of someone who had learned not to expect much from life. It was unnerving.
He exhaled and decided to move on. “Since when have you been able to see cursed spirits?”
The girl blinked. “What the fuck is that?”
Nanami resisted the urge to massage his temples. He should have expected this. He spent the next hour explaining the Jujutsu world—the existence of cursed spirits, the nature of negative energy, and the hidden world beyond what normal people perceive.
She listened, sometimes interrupting him ("Wait, who gets to decide that? Is there, like, a Jujutsu president?" or "Headquarters? Sounds like a bunch of old farts" or "Okay, but if cursed spirits are born from negative emotions, why haven’t we exorcised capitalism yet?" or "Why does every big Jujutsu family have, like, one guy who ruins everything?". Nanami decided to rest for a while, drinking his coffee when she commented, "Man, this system sucks," because he agreed). Nanami looked at her, thinking he mostly covered everything she needed to know.
"When did you start seeing cursed spirits?" he asked, leaning on his seat. She was idly swirling her chopsticks in the empty bowl. Then she tilted her head.
“Huh. Since I was little, I guess. I always saw strange creatures, especially around my city. There is a really big spirit on top of Mount Fuji whenever we celebrate the Yoshida Fire Festival. But they never really did anything. Just… existed. Then, out of nowhere, they attacked the orphanage.”
Nanami noted that down in his mind. “And you decided to fight them?”
She scoffed, stretching her arms above her head, “Well, I was one of the older kids. They knew I could see them, and I wasn’t about to sit around and let them kill everyone. So, yeah, I decided to fuck around and find out.”
He looked at her with mild disapproval. “Do you remember killing them?”
She squinted, thinking, “I remember when they attacked me… my toy katana got really heavy and started glowing? Like, blue light. I might’ve been tripping, though.”
She gestured vaguely in the air, “I asked everyone to go evacuate, I didn't know where they are right now. Then I just—had this instinct, you know? They rushed at me, so I slashed and cut and pow this! Pow that! Bam and boom! You get it.”
Nanami, in fact, did not get it.
He frowned, considering her words. “Did anything unusual happen before the attack? Something that could’ve triggered a curse?”
She hummed, tapping her fingers against the table. “Well, yesterday I swept all the cherry blossoms petals of a cemetery… I really like spring, you know, but I hated it when they told me to clean the front yard, so I hid at the nearest shrine. Oh, yesterday I also gathered firewood from the forest where—”
“No, I meant something that could be curse-related," Nanami almost lost his temper.
She rolled her eyes,“What do you mean curse-related?”
Before Nanami could clarify, she suddenly hunched over, pressing a hand to her stomach, “Ow.”
His posture straightened. “Are you hurt?”
She waved him off, “No, no. It’s my period. Just started two days ago. Can’t believe how annoying it is up until now. You should respect women for going through all this each month, you know. Oh my God, I'm going to feel this for the rest of my life.”
Nanami was caught off guard, and didn't hear anything else beside the point he thought was interesting. “…It just started?”
“Uh, yeah?”
“You mean, like not just this month but just started as in... your whole life?" Nanami was thinking. "How old are you?”
“Fifteen?”
He frowned, “And you only just got your period?”
She looked deeply offended, crossing her arms, “Excuse me? What do you expect from a poor orphanage? We’re malnourished and overworked every day. It’s not uncommon.”
Nanami stayed silent, but his mind worked quickly. If her cursed energy had awakened at the same time as her first period, then the surge in negative energy might have drawn the spirits to her. A catalyst. The orphanage wasn’t attacked at random—it was drawn to her. The moment her cursed energy was activated, the cursed spirits sensed danger.
“Right,” Nanami leaned back, a pause. “Come on. We need to go back to Tokyo.”
She stiffened, “W-What? Why? I can’t!”
Nanami raised an eyebrow, “Why not?”
“The orphanage is ruined! And that’s probably because of me! I need to be there to help rebuild—I need to earn money to replace everything—”
“Listen,” jis voice was calm but firm. “You have a cursed technique, and I’m taking you to Tokyo Jujutsu High to hone your skills. Don’t worry about your orphanage. They’ll be taken care of.”
She went silent.
Nanami sighed, “You’re homeless and have no relatives. The school can provide better protection.”
“I might be homeless and alone,” she said quietly. “But that’s better than leaving the people I love.”
He studied her for a moment, “Even when they don’t love you?”
She flinched. He had struck something—something raw, something she hadn’t wanted to face. He wasn’t trying to be cruel, but he needed her to understand.
“I’m saying,” he continued, softer this time as his mind raced to find the right words, “we’ll say you were adopted and moving to Tokyo. The orphanage will receive money for reconstruction. If you truly want to protect them, you should take my offer.”
She sat still for a moment, thinking. Then, suddenly, she pushed herself to her feet, “Okay.”
Nanami nodded. It was settled. Then she grinned. “But could you buy me one more oyakodon for dinner?”
Nanami checked his watch. It was barely 4 p.m. He exhaled, standing, “I’ll buy you one in Tokyo.”
As they walked toward the station, she practically buzzed with excitement. Her head swiveled in every direction, taking in every passing sign, car, and neon light with an almost comical level of awe.
“This is crazy…” she muttered, half to herself. “I’ve never taken a train before. Let alone a shinkansen. Actually, I’ve never even been out of Fujiyoshida.”
Nanami glanced at her, unimpressed, “Is that so?”
“Yeah! It’s like… the world just stopped at Mount Fuji,” she grinned. “And now I’m leaving for the first time. Feels like I’m in one of those adventure mangas or something.”
When they reached the ticket booth, she instinctively reached into her pocket to buy her own ticket, but before she could, Nanami spoke up, "I'm buying the ticket. What's your name?”
She froze. Her mouth slowly opened in sheer disbelief, her expression torn between offense and exasperation.
“Seriously?” she repeated, her voice a mix of shock and irritation. “We’ve been talking for almost two hours, and you’re just asking now?”
Nanami simply waited. She let out a dramatic sigh, crossing her arms, “Kageura Junko.”
Nanami gave a short nod, “Nanami Kento.”
She gawked at him as if realizing his existence for the first time. “Wait—Nanami Kento—like a full name?! Your name sounds as serious as you.”
Nanami ignored her reaction—guess he could call her Kageura now—and handed her a train ticket. She took it, still mumbling about his "businessman energy" as they boarded the train. Once inside, Kageura immediately took the window seat, her entire body pressing against the glass. She stared at the passing landscape with wide, gleaming eyes, taking in the flashing city lights and the occasional glimpses of the countryside.
For the first thirty minutes, she was completely enthralled. Then, gradually, her excitement faded as sleep crept in. Before she knew it, her head slumped to the side—right onto Nanami’s shoulder.
Nanami didn’t react at first.
But then Kageura shuddered slightly in her sleep, shifting uncomfortably. With a small sigh, he reached over and adjusted her jacket, pulling it up to keep her warm. While she slept, he opened his phone, typing up a brief report on the incident to school. He kept it efficient—describing the orphanage attack, Kageura's apparent cursed technique, and his decision to bring her to Tokyo Jujutsu High. With a click, he sent the report over to Yaga and leaned back in his seat, closing his laptop.
Now he should just wait until they arrive in Tokyo.