Chapter Text
“So, you’re telling me this..”
He looked back down to the picture, carefully choosing his words to avoid upsetting the elders in front of him.
”..Now forgive me if this sounds rude, but-“
“Don’t finish that sentence, Itadori,” Fushiguro mumbled, hitting him in the side with an elbow. “This is who we are meant to be recruiting? How old is he?”
”About sixteen. You’ll be finding him at PK Academy in Hidariwakabara, but we’ve heard him to be pretty nimble and quick footed when leaving school.”
He nodded, examining the blurry picture again. He had no idea how such an ordinary kid could be something so special. They weren’t telling him, Fushiguro, Kugisaki, or even Gojo about why they needed-
Wait, why was Gojo coming?
This was hardly even a job for a fourth grade sorcerer, never mind him. Was this job.. Dangerous?
He looked back down at the picture, immediately erasing that thought.
-
“Kind of a boring neighborhood,” he sighed, approaching the outside of the academy. He watched from the corner of his eye as their mentor disappeared behind bushes.
“Tell me about it. I feel like I just stepped into the worst sitcom to ever exist..” Nobara groaned, looking around at the landscape that even there had probably seen millions of times in other places.
”We still have two-ish minutes until they get out.” Fushiguro added, glancing at his watch nervously.
“Dude, chill out. He can’t be that scary, especially with a picture like that!” He and Kugisaki looked at each other before throwing themselves into a fit of laughter, adding jokes about the weirdo they were there to see.
They were cut off by footsteps. A weird man stood confidently beside them, flipping open his phone like just even standing near them bored him.
”Is this..” He mumbled a couple of names to himself before pulling a strip of paper from his pocket. “Ah, yes.. Is this PK? Academy..”
He glanced up and down at them.
Where was Gojo?
”Shouldn’t you kids be inside the school?”
”Excuse me!? Tough talk for a man dragging a six year old around with him,” she scowled, looking down at the blank faced child standing next to him with nervous hands.
”I’ll have you know that this “six year old” pays my rent.”
Silence.
”What..?” Fushiguro asked, finally joining the conversation.
“Shisho..”
”I mean, like, because of his unbridled rage and infinite amount of.. Po-wer? Never mind, is this the school or not?”
”Why would I tell a perv like you the name of a high school? Perv.”
”I’m not a pervert, I’m just looking for a sixteen year old boy.”
Yuuji scowled.
”Kugisaki was right, he’s totally a pervert!”
”Enough.”
They looked over, then towards the front of the school where Satoru talked warmly to a group of girls.
”Should we go over to him..?” Yuuji asked, paying no mind to the man and his child leaving. Without words, the three of them walked over to where they were talking.
”Your eyes are so blue!”
”You’re super buff! Totally kick ass!”
They looked over when they approached, smiling warmly.
”Who are these cuties? Your kids? You have good genes,” the blonde smiled and winked at Yuuji, whose face immediately flushed and he looked away.
”Let’s not get carried away, ladies.. Do you.. Happen to know this man?” He held up a picture, waiting as they stared at it.
”Uh.. Yeah? That’s-“
“Nope, never seen him before. He probably doesn’t even go here,” that same blonde mumbled, slapping her hand over her red haired friend like it was second nature.
They made that silent eye contact with each other for a second before she smiled warily.
”Uh.. Yeah, never seen him..”
”Hm, that’s interesting.. He’s wearing your uniform..”
”Yeah, well, maybe he’s a freaky weirdo who kidnapped a kid here and wore their clothes to get the sick thrill of being a teenager again by stealing childhood from someone else.”
They made eye contact again, the red haired girl now obviously scared.
”..Or.. He graduated from here..” she mumbled, staring at the blonde who smiled warmly.
”Yeah, or that! Let’s go find Kokomi! You cuties have a good day!” She blew a kiss and pushed her friend back into the building.
Once they vanished into the hall, Megumi eyed Gojo who looked back and shrugged.
”They were probably scared off by my hauntingly good looks.”
”Or the fact you’re a grown man looking for a high schooler, what were you thinking?”
A squeal cut them off, and they turned around to immediately see the tallest and, quite frankly, ugliest man they’d ever seen dancing oddly around a short blue haired kid and a weird (but not as weird as the tall one) guy with purple hair.
”We’ll try them,” Fushiguro mumbled, pulling the picture from Gojo and walking over.
”We aren’t getting any ramen without Saiki, where is he any- Any..” They locked eyes and his sentence immediately faltered.
His friend, however, smiled. “Good afternoon, you’re all from Jujutsu High in Tokyo, yeah? I can tell by the buttons, I’ve heard great things from that school. Can we help with anything? Why are you all the way out here?”
”Finally someone normal..” Kugisaki whispered to herself. Silently, he lifted the picture. They looked at it, then back at the people holding it.
”Eh, sorry.. Do you know him?”
The blue and purple haired ones exchanged looks. It was as if they had an entire conversation just with a look.
“Never seen him.”
”Nope, n-nope! Maybe he’s a kidnapper that takes the lives of innocent children to- t-to make himself feel better about his lack of childhood!”
Silence.
He side eyed his friend who immediately squeezed his eyes shut I’m embarrassment.
“..Yeah.. Maybe.. Maybe he- no. No, we haven’t seen him before.”
”What are you guys talking about!?” They watched as the two immediately sulked, growing aggravated as he approached.
”What’s the deal over- oh, hey buddy! Why are you in a picture frame!?”
”Shut up, Nendou! You don’t know him!” He looked from the picture to the scared kid in confusion.
”But.. Yeah, yeah I do! That’s.. That’s my buddy!”
“I’m sorry to give you all false hope, but he’s..” The glasses guy leaned in to whisper. “He’s a bit.. Mentally challenged. I can assure you nobody here knows him.”
”Well, thank you for your help anyways..” Yuuji nodded, gesturing for his friends to follow him as he walked away. “Why was everyone acting so weird today?”
-
“So, why couldn’t we tell him about Saiki?”
He looked up from cleaning his glasses off.
“You never rat out someone. Now, Saiki doesn’t strike me as the type of man to live a double life..”
Kaidou looked around in confusion after a second. “Why’d.. Why’d you stop?”
“Sorry, I thought I heard something. Anyway, if he were to have some other identity we don’t know about, if we told those guys about it he could be in deep shit.”
”But.. But why would they be after Saiki? He’s the most nondescript person I’ve ever met.”
”I don’t know, I don’t care. All I know and care about is that those guys mean business, they came all of the way from Tokyo to find him. We should probably warn him.”
Believe me, I know.
He looked down at the courtyard from the window.
This isn’t anything like the usual people I have to avoid. In fact, I’d rather deal with listless conversations and another bowl of ramen with the biggest idiots I know. However, it seems this predicament is larger than most.
Other than the regular people blocking my path out, there are three different organizations circling the building and waiting for me to emerge. These people seem smarter than my usual problems, though, which leads me to assume I can’t use my usual methods of escaping.
What a giant pain.
I don’t know why they want me, how they know about me, how they can’t sense me up here, anything. My distance from them is too great for telepathy. Good thing those idiots know about basic decorum, it’d suck if they revealed me before I knew how to handle myself.
However, since beginning this inner monologue I’ve manifested many different escape plans. Taj Mahal, here I come!
Just kidding.
Wouldn’t that be easy? Except I always pick the worst days to leave my things at home, where a completely different agency is waiting for me. While I’d like to say their tactic was smarter, it makes this entire situation infinitely more difficult.
“Kusuo, babes. We need to talk.”
He turned around with a shrug.
”This is serious, they are totally serious about finding you and their aura is SCAry.”
”I’m not too worried about it.”
”Yeah, well, you totally should be. I saw some other people by the front entrance a minute or two before they approached us. But, like, there’s a white haired guy who is totally so hot so if he kidnaps and tortures you tell me all about it.”
“There are three groups outside of the school looking for me and one outside of my house.”
She gawked, crossing her arms.
”Okay popular! But, what do they want? Why’d they all pick today?”
”Saiki!”
He turned around, glaring at the purple haired guy who was panting at the stairwell.
”Go away, perv. If you’re telling him about the people looking for him he already knows.”
”No, no! There’s a devil out there, following around this, this.. This weirdo with, with a weird ponytail and.. Some blonde kid! Saiki, the devil can TALK! She’s.. She’s human shaped!”
“Boo, nobody cares Torit-“
”Can normal humans see her?”
He dropped his worry for a second to give a smug look to Aiura who rolled her eyes.
”Anyways, yes! She’s interacting with people like a crazy lady, but she’s.. She’s a devil, she has to be!”
He turned back to the window, sighing and squeezing the bridge of his nose. The problem with this is that he usually couldn’t read the mind of a devil because he couldn’t see them. That’s why he, and he reluctantly said this, needed Toritsuka. Devils and curses were foreign territory for him.
Sure, he could kill or exorcise or do anything to them he could do to humans and ability users, but curses and devils were different because they were invisible. He was, admittedly, a little curious. Would he be able to read her mind? She clearly had some sort of intelligence.
But she probably had no brain.
It was all making his head hurt. Until the day prior he didn’t have to wonder if he could hear the thoughts of intelligent curses, and now he was figuring out how to avoid them. How did everything turn so quickly?
His eyes darted somewhere and he sighed.
“Why do people love these things so much?”
”Uh.. What?”
”Kusuo? You okay?”
He turned around, shaking his head and pushing past them to walk downstairs.
”Wait, Saiki! Wait up!”