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The rest days were over in an instant, and the day of the mission came.
Naoya stood at the base of the school staircase, waiting for Utahime.
The car had already arrived.
Surprisingly, it was the same driver who had taken him and Utahime on the mission involving Ryomen Sukuna's finger.
The driver looked at Naoya with a confident look on his face. The moment this mission came, there was quite a chaos among the people back at the HQ. No one wanted to be involved in skirmishes between sorcerers and a group of sorcerers. The chance of dying was quite higher than just being involved with cursed spirits.
However, for some reason, the man had some gut feeling that it was a mission that he definitely had to take and following the same feeling, he volunteered himself.
When he did that, the people back at the HQ were quite shocked. Some commended him for his bravery, some called him foolish, but here he was standing like a champion in front of Naoya.
'...What is this excitement oozing out of him?' thought Naoya as he looked at the man who had a distinct air around him.
While he thought that, Naoya heard footsteps and saw Utahime arriving.
"Morning, senpai."
"Morning. Hm?" replied Utahime and looked towards the other man, who had a distinct air around him.
"What's wrong with him?" whispered Utahime.
"Don't know, he is just standing there like that.....excitedly," replied Naoya.
"Shall we get going, you two? We have a long way to go," said the man.
"Huh, ah, yes. Let's get going, senpai."
Utahime nodded, and the two got inside the car.
Once the two got in, the man smirked and got in as well. He adjusted the mirrors and got ready for the trip.
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While on the way, Naoya looked towards Utahime, who seemed to be carrying something with her.
"What's that, senpai?"
"Hm, this....see," replied Utahime and opened the cover to reveal the cursed tool bat that Naoya gifted her.
"You brought that too?"
"Of course I did. It's a cursed tool. It should be used during missions."
"I mean, I understand that, but I could have just made another one during the mission if you needed something to fight with," replied Naoya.
"Hmph. That won't be the same. You gifted this one. This one is quite special. That one would just be a run-of-the-mill one. I will use the one you gifted me. Also, I have already used this one quite a bit during missions and training," replied Utahime and gave a pat to the bat.
"Well, if that's the case, then I should say I am glad you liked the gift," replied Naoya with a smile.
"Well, it certainly is useful. Though you should change your way of thinking. If you give gifts like these to girls, they won't like you," said Utahime, trying to tease Naoya.
"Hm? I don't know about that. You seem to like it quite a lot. I will say that I am quite liked," replied Naoya with a teasing smirk.
"Wha! I like the cursed tool! Not you!!! Keep your head out of the gutter, Zenin!!!"
"Heh, I would like to think otherwise."
"You! Want me to smack you with this bat?!?!" asked Utahime and started taking out the bat.
"Violence is bad, senpai. You should not resort to violence at any chance you get," said Naoya with concern.
"I don't want to hear that from you!!!!" retorted Utahime and stopped taking out the bat and started arguing with Naoya, who just laughed and chuckled at the banter.
'That's the shit I signed up for....' thought the driver, enjoying the bittersweet chaos in his car.
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After travelling for a few hours, they finally arrived at their destination and got out of the vehicle.
Both Naoya and Utahime stretched their bodies and looked around.
Soon, they spotted the personnel from the HQ and were about to approach them when they noticed another car approaching them.
The car finally stopped, and from it two people stepped out.
Naoya and Utahime looked at the two of them and blinked in surprise. The two who just arrived did the same and looked at Naoya and Utahime.
"What are you two doing here?" asked Naoya.
"We should be asking the same thing. We were assigned a mission," replied Suguru, one of the people who stepped out of the other vehicle.
"Yo~ Senpai, Zenin. Long time no see~" greeted Shoko.
"Sup," greeted Naoya.
"Shoko~ Good to see you. greeted Utahime."
"What is this difference in treatment?" complained Geto.
"Well, injustice," replied Naoya.
"I demand justice."
"Denied."
Suguru and Naoya stared at each other before they snorted and laughed a bit.
"Everyone, please calm down," said the personnel from HQ as she approached the group of students.
"Both sides were assigned the same mission. There is no mix-up," informed the other HQ personnel and looked towards the two groups.
"Don't worry, we were just messing around," said Naoya, trying to calm down the two.
"Yes, don't worry," added Geto.
"Understood, Zenin-sama, Geto-san," said the two of them.
"Shall we start with the mission details?" asked Naoya.
"Yes, we will brief you on the mission."
The two of them gave a serious look and pulled the four of them to the side to explain the mission details.
On the curse users' job site, a group posted a mass hiring of the curse users a few months ago, and it is suspected that this temporary group is the one behind the kidnappings happening around the country.
The HQ decided to look into it, and just as they suspected, it really was the group that was doing the shady things around the country. The issue here, though, is that the one who posted the job in the first place is one of the higher-ups of the HQ.
Kureha Toujo is one of the few female sorcerers who are renowned in the Jujutsu world and holds a position in the Jujutsu division. She is well known for her strict nature and her firm standing as an honest member of the Jujutsu division.
However, because of her rigidity, most of her colleagues didn't see her in a favourable light, which led to a few mishaps in Kureha's life. She continued to work, but she recently quit her job at HQ and is now involved in this mess.
No one knew what she wanted from these kidnappings, but her involvement with this case is confirmed, and it is now the students' task to find out the details of this mess and deal with Kureha.
The number of curse users involved is around 100, and they also have some around semi-grade 1 and grade 1 level.
They operate in small groups and are scattered during their operations, but once every three months, all these groups gather to deliver the 'goods' to a facility, and that would be in three days.
Once the details were over, the students looked at the personnel from the HQ, wondering if these two were serious.
None of them doubted that the mission was serious, and these guys needed to be stopped, but all of them had a single question that was just trying to burst out of their mouths.
"Correct me if I am wrong....the higher-ups at the HQ felt it was alright to mess up a person's life, and now that their actions are having consequences, they are asking us to deal with it?" asked Naoya.
Utahime and the other students looked at Naoya, mentally commending him for asking that question.
They too had the same thoughts, but their standing was not as high as Naoya, and they could not risk disrespecting the higher-ups like that. Maybe Geto could, considering he was strong enough to deal with them, but the other two couldn't.
It was now the time for the people from HQ to widen their eyes in shock. They never expected the students from Jujutsu High to outright blame the higher-ups. Technically, what Naoya said was right, but still, he was out of line to say that about the higher-ups. They could call Naoya out for disrespecting the elders, but knowing Naoya's position, the two hesitated.
A special grade sorcerer and the unofficial heir of the Zenin clan.
'...Isn't he scarier than the higher-ups?' thought the two of them and gulped.
In the end, the two decided to keep their mouths shut and drop the question altogether.
Naoya and the rest didn't know what to feel about the mission. It was necessary to stop them, but it was practically the fault of the higher-ups, and they need to clean their shit on their own.
The people from HQ soon left since their job was done. Only the people who drove the students here stayed behind.
Naoya looked at the other students and asked, "So, how are we doing this? We can wait around for three days and jump them, but before that, we need to gather our own info. We also need to save these kidnapped people."
The rest gave a nod, and Utahime spoke up.
"We can tail one of these groups. Taking some action before we find out about the kidnapped people might put them in danger."
"Agreed. I don't care much about the agenda these higher-ups might have, but saving the people here is the priority," said Geto.
"From the reports, most of these are kids. They might have serious trauma from the events. Considering the usual curse user outlook towards life, I can hardly imagine the kids to be fine if they annoyed them because they were scared," said Shoko.
Naoya's and Geto's expressions hardened a bit.
"...Let's split up and look for these groups. I will go with senpai. Shoko and Suguru, you two search together, too. Try not to get caught. Don't take action against them until necessary, just tail and get info. Call us if you find something. We will contact you if we find something, too."
The Tokyo students gave a nod, and the two groups split up.
They were in Kobe. While the city was a popular tourist spot and had quite a lot of metropolitan areas, it was also an important port, meaning there were quite a few warehouses and storage facilities for hiding and storing 'goods'. Also, considering the population of the town, hiding here was also quite easy and finding people was incredibly difficult.
Naoya and Utahime have changed into normal civilian clothes and were walking around the town, trying to blend in and not raise suspicion.
Naoya and Geto were probably assigned to this mission because the two of them had the means to do a widespread search around the town with their techniques. Geto had his cursed spirits, and Naoya had the shikigami.
But neither of them was planning to use their techniques for search. A sudden surge in the number of cursed spirits might alert the curse users, and the same was the case with the shikigami. If the curse users felt something was wrong, they might take the people as hostages, and that was not something the students were very keen on.
"We should split up; that will give us more ground to cover," whispered Utahime.
"No offence to you, senpai, but you are too weak to handle a high level curse users. Also, if you walk around carrying a bat, that will definitely be quite eye-catching," replied Naoya.
"Oi! I am not that weak!!!!" complained Utahime.
"You are not, but you are definitely not that strong to just pummel every curse user you encounter," replied Naoya.
"Hmph."
"Don't be sad, senpai. Come here, I will show you something," said Naoya and held her hand before pulling her to the side inside an alley.
"Wah!"
"Shh~ Not another word," muttered Naoya and put her against the wall.
Utahime's face flushed in embarrassment at the situation. She was not able to process what was going on.
"Senpai, we are being eyed," whispered Naoya seriously as he leaned in a bit.
"Huh?" muttered Utahime dumbfoundedly and stared at the junior. She was about to look around, but Naoya suddenly held her chin and stopped her.
"Don't look around like an idiot," whispered Naoya.
'You are the idiot!!! What are you doing?!?!' thought Utahime as she mentally screamed. The distance was too close for her.
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Not far from them, the driver who brought the Kyoto students suddenly felt a strange disturbance. It was as if he were missing something important.