After all that trouble, Geto Suguru still failed to open the dormitory door labeled "GOJO."
The next day, feeling a pang of guilt, he found Asou Akiya, who was preparing for his morning jog, and apologized sincerely. "I'm sorry. Yesterday, I shouldn't have suggested we go look at 'Gojo's' dorm. That was wrong of me. Leaving behind cursed residue inside the room would have been even worse."
Asou Akiya accepted his remorse and pointed out one detail. "What about the cursed residue lingering outside the door?"
Yesterday, Geto Suguru had released a Grade 4 cursed spirit and a Grade 3 cursed spirit.
Geto Suguru answered with absolute certainty. "Anything outside the door was an accident."
Asou Akiya, already dressed in athletic wear and warming up, prepared to head out for his run on campus grounds. "Gojo-san is estimated to show up no later than April 1st at the latest. By then, the cursed residue will have mostly dissipated."
Relieved, Geto seized the moment and asked, "Can I join you for the morning training?"
Asou Akiya replied, "I prefer running the mountain trails alone. I like to gradually build up my lung capacity. You already have a solid foundation in martial arts, so your training volume is clearly much greater than mine. I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to keep up with your pace."
Geto Suguru watched Asou Akiya's retreating back as he left.
For the first time in his life, the person doing the polite refusal was not him, but the other way around.
"To think he could tell at a glance that I have a martial arts foundation… and he's worried about not keeping up with my rhythm?"
At first, Geto Suguru assumed Asou Akiya was just being modest and went off to train on his own. Later, however, he discovered that the black-haired boy always followed the exact same route when he ran. After observing him several times, Geto realized that the amount of exercise was not particularly intense; it was something Geto himself could have easily completed when he was twelve years old. Yet for Asou Akiya, it left him drenched in sweat and panting heavily, barely reaching the physical level Geto Suguru had possessed three years earlier.
Geto Suguru felt a faint trace of disappointment. That stamina really was quite poor.
What he did not know was this: the version he was seeing was already the result of an entire year of dedicated effort on Asou Akiya's part.
With one year of hard work, Asou Akiya had only just managed to catch up to the Geto Suguru of three years ago.
Even so, Asou Akiya paid no attention to anyone else's evaluation and focused solely on improving his physical condition. Yaga Masamichi, seeing how earnestly his student was training, specially designed a light pre-enrollment training menu for Asou Akiya. Until money became less of an issue and proper nutrition could be secured, this was the best they could do.
Yaga Masamichi stood with his arms crossed at the finish line of the morning run and declared bluntly, "Still too weak! You're in your growth period; physical stamina can be built up later. But if your spirit and drive are lacking, then starting from the new term, you'll come train boxing with me every morning."
Asou Akiya steadied his voice as much as he could and answered, "Teacher, I want to learn kendo."
He firmly believed in the importance of training with cold weapons; in the future, cursed tools would help him cut down cursed spirits.
Besides, kendo looked really cool!
"You're not suited for it," Yaga Masamichi replied coldly. "Someone whose hands aren't steady yet would only be wasting time learning swordsmanship. The school doesn't have a kendo master who can train with you. Everything must be approached step by step. At this stage, learning fist techniques will benefit you far more."
Asou Akiya deflated and thought to himself: So in the end, I still can't escape the close-combat path of punching and getting punched?
Yaga continued, "On top of that, whenever you have free time, spar empty-handed with Geto."
Asou Akiya looked pitiful. "I'll just get beaten up one-sidedly."
Yaga Masamichi put on a gentle, almost kindly smile and solemnly announced the future in which Asou Akiya was destined to be pummeled. "You and Ieri-san get along well, don't you? She possesses the reversed cursed technique. You can always ask her to heal you afterward."
Asou Akiya: "…"
Yaga added, "Don't tell me you don't understand the significance of the reversed cursed technique?"
Having reflected deeply on the pain, Asou Akiya declared, "One day, I will master the reversed cursed technique too, and then it'll be Geto-kun's turn to be jealous!"
Without a second thought, Yaga replied, "Good! I look forward to the day you succeed. My students are outstanding. To dare to dream what ordinary people wouldn't even dare to imagine, that's exactly the kind of unyielding ambition you need!"
In the past several decades within the jujutsu world, only Ieri Shoko and the special-grade sorcerer Tsukumo Yuki had mastered the reversed cursed technique, and Ieri Shoko surpassed even Tsukumo; she could use the reversed cursed technique to heal others. Before her, injured sorcerers had no choice but to go to regular hospitals.
The teacher believed he could do it!
Asou Akiya's eyes grew hot, and he lowered his head to hide it.
"Teacher, can you teach me boxing right now?"
"You wouldn't be able to handle it."
"That's fine," Asou Akiya said with a tired but determined grin. "With the reversed cursed technique, Ieri-san can use my body as practice material."
"Not today," Yaga Masamichi decided, deliberately looking away from the boy who was already swaying on his feet. "We start tomorrow."
"Sensei, you're being so good to me," Akiya teased, voice light despite the exhaustion. "What if the other students get jealous?"
Yaga raised a hand and beckoned the silent Geto Suguru closer. "Geto, you heard him. If you want to learn fist-work, come find me. You two will keep each other honest and push each other forward. Same routine after the term starts."
"Understood," Suguru answered with an easy, obedient smile, though his mind was already turning over this mysterious thing called the reversed cursed technique.
Akiya suddenly spoke up again. "Why not invite Ieri-san too?"
Suguru blinked, startled. Training in boxing before the school year even began was intense enough—was Akiya really suggesting they drag a girl into this madness?
Yaga gave a helpless sigh. "Ieri… she's rather busy."
Akiya tilted his head, genuinely puzzled. "Even if the jujutsu world needs her, she's still a student at the tech. Getting stronger is everyone's homework. If she stays cooped up indoors all the time without moving, her stamina will never improve."
He turned to Suguru, seeking agreement. "Becoming stronger has meaning."
Suguru's smile warmed. "Exactly."
Yaga considered them both, then compromised. "Only if she wants to."
At the entrance to the girls' dormitory, Ieri Shoko looked up in mild surprise to find two polite boys waiting for her.
"Boxing?" She shook her head at once, brown bangs swaying. "Pass. I'd rather read or sleep."
"You'd get stronger," Akiya pressed gently. "And you'd shape up nicely."
"I already know getting stronger is useful," Shoko said, seeing straight through their enthusiasm. Her gaze settled on Suguru—the one among the three who seemed to understand the least about real burdens. "Healing people is troublesome. Punching people is troublesome. Doing one thing well is already my limit. The rest of my time is for enjoying campus life. I don't plan on keeping up with you two monsters. Just tell me about the missions later—how you exorcise cursed spirits and all that."
With a lazy wave, Ieri Shoko shut the door in their courteous faces without a trace of hesitation.
Leaning back against the closed door, the short-haired girl's expression grew quiet. She drew a cigarette from her pocket with practiced ease and raised it to her lips—then paused, suddenly unsure whether to light it with only a thin panel of wood separating her from Akiya's terrifying observational skills.
(Being looked after by classmates… it's kind of nice.)
It had only been a few days since enrollment, and already she was tasting a happiness she had never known before.
She pulled out her phone and typed into the group chat titled [Jujutsu High Melon-Eating Duo].
[Ieri Shoko: Akiya, healing is on the house whenever you need it. I'll come running. But I recommend building some pain tolerance first, and don't bother me at night when I'm sleeping—I have murderous morning grumpiness.]
[Ieri Shoko: For you and Suguru's sake, I'll even throw in scar removal service.]
She stared at the screen a moment.
(It shouldn't sound too blunt, right?)
The books all said teenage boys had fragile pride.
[Ieri Shoko: I wasn't spying. Your wrists are just really obvious. Wear short-sleeved training clothes when you punch.]
[Asou Akiya: Thank you. I understand what you mean, Ieri-san.]
[Asou Akiya: It's hard on you. If you ever get tired, tell Suguru-kun and me. We'll figure something out.]
Shoko snapped her phone shut with a sharp clack, forcing herself not to dwell on the warmth creeping up her neck.
[Ieri Shoko: Tch, Akiya, you should be grateful I know you're a rational guy. Saying stuff like that is supposed to be helping me, but be careful you don't turn into emotional trash.]
A fifteen-year-old boy would be better off born without a mouth than armed with such honeyed words.
Outside the door, the two boys huddled close, whispering like conspirators.
Geto Suguru couldn't hold back a quiet laugh. He stole a glance at the wrist hidden beneath Akiya's sleeve and asked, "Why did she warn you about becoming trash?"
Asou Akiya calmly tucked his phone away, utterly unflustered. "Rest assured, Geto-kun. The title of trash will never land on my head."
Suguru's smile turned sly. "You let me glimpse the screen on purpose, didn't you? So I'd understand Ieri-san's situation."
Akiya countered smoothly, "And what exactly did you understand?"
Suguru fell silent for a moment, thoughtful. "…I can't say I'm completely clueless. Ieri-san doesn't seem very free. When Yaga-sensei arranges training for us, he always—whether deliberately or not—leaves her out. That feeling must be awful. She's grown used to it… I don't think Yaga-sensei is the type to play favorites. He's probably just powerless to change it."
Akiya lowered his voice further. "You're half right. The higher-ups in the jujutsu world have forbidden her from leaving campus."
Suguru's eyes widened in shock. "That's imprisonment!"
Akiya placed a steadying hand on his shoulder. "We need to be kinder to Ieri-san. Her body won't be harmed, but her heart… who knows? She's our classmate, not just some support healer to keep in the back."
A heavy weight settled over Suguru's chest. He silently vowed to head straight to the library and dig up every record he could find on the reversed cursed technique until he understood exactly what was going on.
Akiya opened his mouth to say more—then the door flew open and a plastic bag full of fresh fruit crashed down on both their heads.
"No whispering conspiracies right in front of my door!"
…
Five o'clock in the morning. The sky was still the color of dull steel.
On the training field, Geto Suguru trudged forward, eyes bleary from staying up all night reading. In stark contrast, Asou Akiya had paused his running drills, face bright and refreshed after breakfast. Thick athletic tape wrapped his wrists; he wore no black uniform like Suguru—instead, a simple short-sleeved base layer on top and loose training pants below. Cheap, practical, and perfect for unrestricted movement.
Yaga-sensei had not yet arrived.
Suguru mumbled like a sleepwalker, "What exactly is cursed energy multiplication?"
Akiya answered honestly, "I don't know."
Suguru scratched at his messy topknot, yanked the hair tie free, and retied it with sluggish fingers. "The book said the reversed cursed technique is an extremely advanced application of cursed energy. The principle is 'negative times negative equals positive,' turning negative cursed energy into positive, healing energy. I read the whole thing and it might as well have been blank. I can't wrap my head around it no matter how hard I try."
"First master Black Flash," Akiya said, sharing the insight he'd once been told about the reversed technique. "Raise your cursed energy manipulation to the absolute limit of what you're capable of right now. Only then will studying the reversal become easier. Someone once explained it to me like this: the key is to grasp the very essence of cursed energy and drive it with the utmost desperation to survive. Negative times negative—turn the impossible into reality and reach a new realm of cursed energy. Those who succeed feel an overwhelming mental euphoria. Many techniques that involve reversal have the reversed cursed technique as a prerequisite…"
He spoke with quiet certainty. "The people who learn the reversed cursed technique aren't necessarily the strongest—but every single one of the strongest has mastered it. When two sorcerers who can both expand domains fight, and their technique performance is roughly equal, the one who cannot use the reversed cursed technique will die without question."
Suguru found himself leaning in, absorbing every word like rain on dry earth. "You know so much."
Akiya gave a small, self-deprecating smile. "Just second-hand wisdom from those who came before me. I'm all talk on paper; I can't offer you anything more."
What he did not say was that the experience he was relaying belonged to Gojo Satoru.
In the later stages of the original story, battles were nothing but high-level domain clashes. The number of times one could expand a domain became the decisive factor. The reversed cursed technique could heal technique burnout—destroy a specific region of the forebrain, repair it instantly, and a sorcerer who could normally expand their domain only once per day could do it again.
Yaga Masamichi arrived just in time to catch these fragments of conversation drifting through the morning air. He tried to forget what he'd heard.
His brain refused to let him.
This was knowledge passed down in absolute secrecy by the Three Great Families.
Just like the "Falling Blossom Emotion" that had been inherited generation after generation within the Zen'in, Gojo, and Kamo clans: a counter-sparking technique that used cursed energy to deflect cursed energy. No common-born sorcerer could ever touch it in their lifetime unless they married into one of the clans or were raised as a privately trained retainer.
Black Flash. Yaga Masamichi had landed it exactly once.
When a sorcerer pours their entire being into a physical strike and the deviation between the impact of the blow and the surge of cursed energy falls within 0.000001 seconds, a jet-black cursed energy erupts, twisting space itself. The average output is the normal strike raised to the power of 2.5.
"Ahem! Line up for training."
Yaga Masamichi cut their conversation short with a gruff cough.
"Geto-kun, pretend you never heard what I just said," Asou Akiya added casually, as though patching a small hole in cloth. "I only told you because you have a far higher chance of learning the reversed cursed technique than I do. That way you can take some of the burden off Ieri-san's shoulders."
Geto Suguru smiled, easy and unbothered. "Got it. Consider this one favor I owe you." He didn't take the warning too seriously. After all, there was another girl in their class who already had plenty of experience with the reversed technique. Once training ended, he'd simply go ask Ieri Shoko for pointers.
(Geto, this isn't some simple favor. Ieri Shoko refuses to teach anyone.)
Yaga Masamichi stared at them, utterly speechless. He was now completely convinced of Akiya's origins: the boy had to be a "study companion" sent by the Gojo family. Weak on the fundamentals every jujutsu sorcerer was expected to know, yet stuffed to the brim with knowledge that was leagues beyond the curriculum.
Listen to the people they were casually name-dropping: two sorcerers capable of Domain Expansion locked in combat?
Spare me the abbreviations.
Those were records straight out of ancient texts describing battles between special-grade sorcerers.
In the present day, the only publicly acknowledged special-grade was Tsukumo Yuki. Gojo Satoru, born into one of the Great Families, had never undergone the Jujutsu Headquarters' evaluation, and his public appearances were so rare that no one truly knew the extent of his power.
"Feet together. Posture straight." Yaga slipped into his stern instructor voice. "Don't reach for the stars before you can stand on the ground."
He fixed both boys with a hard glare.
"A sorcerer who doesn't understand close-quarters combat will never, ever land Black Flash!"
…
Kyoto, Japan.
The fourth first-year student, who still had not reported to campus, remained blissfully unaware inside the Gojo estate.
A white-haired boy walked toward one of the elders in the measured, tiny steps drilled into him by generations of aristocratic upbringing. The elder, seated, looked up and dipped his head ever so slightly, inwardly marveling at the young lord. Satoru wore a montsuki haori hakama (forbidden to commoners in ages past), the haori embroidered with the Gojo crest. His shoulders never swayed; his bearing was impeccable, so long as one ignored the way his foot itched to upend the tea table at any moment.
Gojo Satoru gazed down at the elder with the cold arrogance of someone who had never needed to ask permission for anything in his life. Even that indifference was starting to fray into irritation.
"When does the term start?"
"Reporting to the honored Satoru-sama: the first of April. Your dormitory at Tokyo Jujutsu High has been fully prepared."
"I'll go to Tokyo alone at the beginning of the month. No escorts."
"You… refuse attendants?"
"Yes."
Gojo Satoru was a person born "without father or mother." Until he came of age he was the young lord; the moment he did, the Gojo clan would naturally fall into his palm. He owed none of them even the pretense of courtesy. His voice was flat and icy, the calm command of a divine child addressing a worshiper.
"I don't want to see any more of those fawning sycophants."
He had breathed the rotting, feudal stench of the clan for too long; even he felt the urge to vomit.
—
Author's Note:
Tomorrow night after 10 p.m., the sky will flash once, and Gojo Satoru will officially make his entrance.
[Baidu Explanation: Black Flash]
[The following details in this chapter are direct quotations from the original work.]
In essence: when the deviation between a physical strike and the surge of cursed energy falls within 0.000001 seconds, space itself distorts.
Average power increase: 2.5 raised to the power of the strike.
There is a world of difference, in proximity to the core of cursed energy, between those who have experienced Black Flash and those who have not.
No sorcerer can deliberately produce Black Flash, yet Itadori Yūji possesses the talent to become the first who can use it at will.
Black Flash intensity is calculated by taking the sorcerer's cursed energy volume and physical strength as the base, then raising the result to the power of 2.5.