Chapter Text
The enrollment form arrives on a quiet morning in October, nestled innocuously within a stack of routine admission documents. Amidst the never-ending stream of paperwork, the overworked administrative clerk gives it a quick once-over and grabs the approval stamp—only to do a double take.
Student’s name: Geto Suguru
Parent/Guardian’s name: Kenjaku
Parent/Guardian’s occupation: Curse user
She reads it once, twice—nose going closer to the sheets of papers.
Kenjaku. The infamous curse user whose atrocities are so inhumane that veteran sorcerers wince upon hearing them. Across the centuries Kenjaku has been alive, they have wreaked havoc and sown fear wherever they’ve gone—yet, they’ve evaded capture up till today.
She scoffs. People sure have time to waste, pulling such an effortful prank. All the required documents have been neatly prepared: past academic records, proof of residence, even payment for the grade assessment.
Parent/Guardian’s birth date: Heian era (forgot)
Parent/Guardian’s email address: [email protected]
Attached to the back of the form is an odd envelope that bears an intricate, old-fashioned seal. Once she opens it up, she stills at a sinister energy wafting from the handwritten letter.
To the administration of Jujutsu High,
I am sure that you will find this request to enrol my adopted son, Geto Suguru, suspicious. Nefarious, even. Perhaps a tad bit mischievous. However, I implore you to consider him with impartialness.
While I may have a certain history, my son bears no relation to my actions. He has his own dreams—one of which is to study sorcery among peers his age. He hopes to learn and grow into a fine Jujutsu sorcerer, and he believes the best place to do so is at Jujutsu High.
Just as I have not judged my son for choosing a different path from me, I hope you show him the same grace: that he is his own person, and should not be punished for the acts of his parent.
The clerk’s hands tremble. It should be a joke, but the churning feeling in her guts tells her it’s not.
So, she hurries down the halls, form clutched tightly in her hands. Knocking briskly on the door to Principal Gakuganji’s office, she bursts in.
“Principal!” She blurts, before biting her lip, unsure how to put it across without sounding ridiculous. So, she simply hands him the form.
The principal’s eyes narrow as he takes in the document, and he stops once he sees the envelope and its seal. His expression remains undecipherable while he reads.
Finally, he sets the paper down, clasping his hands together. He lets out a quiet sigh.
“Summon the elders for me.”
—
The higher-ups and the big three sorcerer clan leaders gather swiftly, their outrage blatant. Unanimously seen as a brazen provocation from Kenjaku, no one entertains the idea of accepting Kenjaku’s son into Jujutsu High. Instead, they argue over how to respond to Kenjaku’s audacity, and whether they can take advantage of the letter to track Kenjaku’s whereabouts.
The commotion comes to a tense halt when Zenin Naobito speaks. His expression sly, he proposes an absurd, high-stakes gambit: allow the boy to enroll. It’s unlikely to lead to anything and would merely be provoking Kenjaku back. But on the off chance Kenjaku is sincere, it might offer an invaluable window into the elusive curse user.
The room erupts into chaos. Some elders immediately accuse Naobito of madness, declaring him unfit to lead the Zenin Clan. How could he even consider putting such a dangerous individual in such a sacred institution, one that houses both the next generation of sorcerers and Jujutsu society’s most guarded secrets?
But not everyone is so quick to dismiss Naobito, particularly those with experience dealing with Kenjaku. They remind the others that enemies are best kept close. If they let this chance slip by—no matter how flawed—it may be decades before they get their next opening.
After hours of intense debate with two fierce factions, the tide begins to shift just enough. The prospect of gaining even a brief foothold against Kenjaku is too valuable to pass up. Moreover, Jujutsu High is their home ground, shielded by Tengen’s protections. Rather than view the young students as a risk, they start to see them as an asset—especially with Gojo Satoru, the Six Eyes and Limitless user, who can no doubt subdue Kenjaku’s son.
Finally, with a heavy sense of reluctant agreement, they decide to proceed.
—
Word of Geto Suguru’s enrollment hits Jujutsu society like wildfire, igniting outrage. It’s hardly surprising. In a school devoted to exorcising evil, having the son of Kenjaku—one of the most horrifying curse users in history—walk its halls is nothing short of blasphemy.
The justification to the public only stokes the flames: Every child deserves an education. To prioritise moral posturing over the literal safety of children and society as a whole is insanity, they decry.
And so, the lead up to the new school year is marked by turmoil. Furious crowds swarm the front of Jujutsu High, chanting through loudspeakers and staging weeks-long sit-ins. They brandish banners and hand-painted signs: PROTECT OUR CHILDREN; Like Father Like Son; INCLUSIVITY OR INSANITY?. Families of Kenjaku’s victims clutch photos of the dead, demanding justice.
Despite repeated assurances that safeguards will be put in place, nearly half of the incoming enrollments are withdrawn. Entire clans withdraw their support for Jujutsu High and calls for the school board’s resignation grow louder day by day.
Through it all, the administration stands firm: Geto Suguru will be allowed to attend.
As such, Nanami Kento’s first day of school is absolute havoc.
A sea of protesters churns outside Jujutsu High’s gates, waving placards and shoving pamphlets into the hands of every student who passes. Nanami sidesteps a woman pushing a clipboard towards him—“Sign the petition to expel Kenjaku’s demon child!”—and ducks under a banner reading GETO SUGURU? MORE LIKE GETO-UT OF OUR SCHOOL. There’s a merchandise table selling T-shirts of the same tagline at 30% off.
Nanami exhales through his nose.
A familiar mop of brown hair bobs through the crowd towards him. “Nanami!”
His best friend since middle school, Haibara Yu, barely manages to squeeze his way through. He apologetically waves away someone trying to hand him a doujinshi—Kenjaku x Tengen: I Want To Merge With You, Baka.
“Nanami, you need to hear this,” he gasps, eyes wide as saucers. “You know the curse user Kenjaku? Their son is enrolling in our school! His name’s Geto Suguru.”
Nanami squints at Haibara. The news has dominated every sorcerer news channel for months now.
“I know.”
“It’s crazy, right?” Haibara whispers. “I’m kind of scared.”
“You can drop out if you want. Or transfer to the Kyoto branch,” Nanami remarks. He pulls Haibara to his other side when someone bumps into him. “Deadline’s this Friday.”
Haibara furrows his brows in thought. “Are you going to do either of those?”
“No. Kyoto’s too far, and I want to get out of here as fast as I can.”
“Mm... Then I’ll stay too. I want to go to school with you,” Haibara easily decides, full of earnestness.
“You should go home and think it over,” Nanami says. “You’ll be attending school with a curse user’s son—one of the worst.”
“Well... maybe Geto Suguru is a nice person,” Haibara thinks aloud. “I was reading the school notice outside; apparently, he wants to make friends with sorcerers. It’s not his fault his parent is like that, right?”
Nanami doesn’t answer him. He understands both sides of the argument. On one hand, it’s not fair to judge someone by their blood ties, since nobody chooses what family they’re born (or in this case, adopted) into. But when the family in question is an extremely powerful curse user, it’s also blatantly a security risk.
Suddenly, the ruckus dies down into an eerie quietness.
Nanami turns to see a red car rolling up to the school gates. A woman with stitches on her forehead sits in the driver’s seat. A boy alights, hurrying towards the entrance.
“Bye, honey! If you see Tengen, tell them they still owe me that sacrifice from the Kofun era!”
Immediately, the teachers and staff charge forward, forming a barricade to protect the students. One of them bellows, “All students, get inside the school, now!”
The crowd erupts. Screams ring out as cursed techniques burst into the air like fireworks gone wrong. A shockwave of cursed energy ripples outward, a swirling of vortex charring up several protest banners.
“SORCERERS, ASSEMBLE!”
“Shadow clone jutsu!”
The same voice from the woman in the car yells, “Maximum: Uzumaki! Haha, joking, I don't have that yet—”
As Nanami is swept into the building by the tide of students, he catches sight of the boy who alighted from the car, escorted by a group of staff. The boy is tall with black hair tied into a bun, a stray lock falling over his left eye. His features are sharp, and there’s a touch of poise to the way he carries himself.
All in all, though, he looks like a regular kid.
Amidst the mayhem, they meet eyes for a second.
Nanami sure hopes they won’t be in the same class.
—
Nanami should know better than to wish for things. They’ll always turn out the opposite, simply because perverse irony makes for a funny story.
Of all ten classes in his cohort, Nanami ends up in the same class as the son of Kenjaku. Before Geto Suguru arrives, their teacher, Masamichi Yaga, warns everyone to be nice to him. He’s not his mother, he reminds, he’s just like you and me.
Just as Nanami anticipated, Geto Suguru brings with him a great deal of hassle. With the school acknowledging his background as a potential threat, their class’ curriculum has been sanitised of all sensitive Jujutsu knowledge. To make up for this, they will have an extra hour of class to go through the scrubbed content.
Suguru has been told that these are supplementary classes for the other students. He will instead attend moral studies to learn the ethics framework of Jujutsu society during this time, given he is new.
What a pain. Nanami has nothing personal against Suguru for being the son of a war criminal, but he does mind going home an hour later.
Suguru is assigned to sit at the front of the class, next to a boy named Ijichi Kiyotaka—who, understandably, looks about two seconds away from bawling. Surprisingly, their first day goes without a hitch. There’s no sudden attack on the school—no special-grade curses appearing out of nowhere, no level-1 defence breaches, like what the doomsayers had catastrophised. Nobody makes a scene either.
When it’s time for their restricted class, Suguru packs his bag and leaves without a word for his special ethics class. The class shuffle out their textbooks as Yaga grabs a chalk. As he parts his lips, he stops, looking out of the classroom.
The students follow his gaze to find Geto Suguru standing outside the classroom. He’s peering in through the windows, observing the lesson with a calm, curious expression.
It takes a while for Yaga to speak.
“Suguru.” His voice is carefully measured, despite his confusion. “What are you doing?”
Suguru doesn’t flinch. “Nothing.” He tilts his head slightly. “Are you guys discussing any Jujutsu secrets?”
A beat. Yaga’s face contorts.
“No…?”
“Okay,” Suguru says. He remains standing outside the classroom, staring unblinkingly through the window.
No one moves. The students all gaze blankly back at Suguru.
Finally, Yaga heaves and strides towards the door.
—
It continues every day for the rest of the week.
Once the last bell rings, Geto Suguru gathers his things and promptly heads out the door, like any unremarkable student on their way to their next class. But then, without fail, he takes up his post by the back door—peering through the classroom window like a spectator at a zoo exhibit. He only leaves when a staff member physically ushers him away—and even then, he innocuously leaves with the air of someone who’ll be right back.
But it doesn’t end there.
Casually, Suguru begins to ask where secret scrolls are stored—as if inquiring about the lunch menu. Which vault holds the most dangerous cursed objects. How Tengen’s barriers can be undone. When asked why he wants to know, he shrugs and says he’s just curious. Sometimes, he doesn’t even bother to come up with an excuse and just walks off without answering.
After countless reprimands from Yaga, incident reports to the administration and students voicing their concerns, Yaga gathers the students while Suguru is at his ethics class. He looks thoroughly exhausted.
“For now, we’ll just ignore it,” Yaga exhales. “As long as you don’t reveal any sensitive information to Suguru, there shouldn’t be any issues.”
The cries of disbelief immediately resound. One student slams his hand down on the desk.
“Teacher, you can't be serious! Just yesterday, he asked me where we keep Sukuna’s fingers, like it was small talk!”
“Teacher, he's obviously scouting for Kenjaku,” another cuts in, voice sharp with anger. “Why are the higher-ups ignoring it?”
A third student scoffs, words full of contempt. “So, we’re just going to wait until it’s too late to do something, huh?”
Yaga drags a calloused hand down his face, evidently frustrated. After a long moment of silence, his voice drops to a low murmur.
“I’ll tell all of you the truth. After everything you’ve had to deal with, you deserve the full truth. But you must keep this to yourself.”
The classroom holds its breath.
“The administration would like to keep Suguru enrolled here for now, as it will help us in our pursuit of Kenjaku,” Yaga breathes. “However you and I feel about it, their decision is final. The teachers’ hands are tied too.”
Yaga’s jaw locks. “But listen carefully—if he ever does something suspicious or you feel unsafe around him, run away and find me immediately. My priority will always be the safety of you students; that won’t change. I’ve asked all the teachers to keep a close eye on Suguru.”
A beat of heavy silence. Then, he sighs.
“At the same time, I want you guys to remember that he’s still your classmate. I’ve heard of how some students have been treating him.” His lips press into a stern line. “I’m not asking you to welcome him. Just treat him with the basic decency any human deserves, since he’s technically not done anything wrong.”
One student leans forward, trying for a while to find his words, unable to wrap his mind around the incredulous situation.
“Let me—let me get this straight. We’re just going to pretend like nothing’s wrong while he continues mapping out the school?”
Yaga sounds like he’s chewing on rocks. “Yes.”
Nanami lifts his hand.
“Yes, Nanami?”
“Since Geto keeps trying to listen in during the restricted classes, can we cancel them?”
“No.”
Nanami’s sigh can be heard from the next building over.