Geto Suguru was angry.
The boy with the neat little top-knot wore a smile so false it could have been painted on porcelain, and the low pressure rolling off him lasted the entire break.
Yaga Masamichi rubbed his temples. In all honesty, he wished the jujutsu world had more people like Geto. Yet reality was cruel: kindness alone could not exorcise a single cursed spirit, and in every trade under the sun, those who lived longest were the ones who could look at blood without flinching.
During the break, Yaga knew better than to rely on Gojo Satoru or Ieiri Shoko. He called only Asou Akiya out into the corridor.
"Akiya, I'm counting on you to talk Suguru down."
"Talk him down from what, exactly?"
Asou Akiya kicked the world-class problem straight back like a hot coal. Yaga wracked his brain. "I've never been good at comforting people. Suguru isn't wrong—sorcerers exist to protect ordinary humans…"
Asou Akiya spoke as though he were merely a spectator at a tragedy. "If he weren't a cursed-spirit manipulator—if he were simply an average-strength sorcerer with an overflowing heart—would you still be asking me to console him, Yaga-sensei?"
He changed the angle without raising his voice. "Suppose I were the one thinking like Suguru. Would you be happy about it?"
Yaga's words died in his throat.
The answer was no. He would never allow a student to walk that road of inevitable suffering.
Death would always come. Humanity could not be protected in its entirety. An ordinary sorcerer who did everything within his power was already doing enough.
Asou Akiya continued, gentle but relentless. "You can't treat him differently because of his potential, Sensei. He's only fifteen."
Sometimes Asou Akiya was more tolerant than Yaga himself. "It must be tied to his childhood. His heart is soft, frighteningly sensitive, and he chains himself with restraints and moral purity that reach impossible heights. Yet the world is nothing but filth and ugliness, human hearts are labyrinths of rot, and even sorcerers barely survive. We have no right to demand he emerge from the mud without a single stain."
Yaga's voice came out hoarse. "I know all of that. I'm torn too. Suguru is more suited to protecting the jujutsu world than Satoru ever will be. He is the cursed-spirit manipulator who can commands unlimited cursed spirits"
The entire jujutsu world was waiting for a savior who could turn the tide.
Either the heir of the Gojo clan with his Limitless, or the boy who could command unlimited curses.
Asou Akiya delivered a calm, merciless fastball. "He will break, Sensei."
Yaga's breath caught like a blade against bone.
The black-haired boy smiled pleasantly, nothing like Geto's forced mask, and spread his hands to mime a balloon bursting with a soft pop.
"I can predict it with certainty. The moment the number of cursed spirits he absorbs crosses some invisible threshold—"
"He will lose his mind."
Who in their right mind would dismiss the certainty ringing in Asou Akiya's quiet voice?
"Cursed spirits are born from the negative emotions of ordinary people. They are foul, hideous things. Can you imagine what it tastes like when Suguru swallows those compressed orbs, Sensei?"
He pressed the question against Yaga's conscience like a cold blade. "I don't know where the exact limit lies—one thousand, five thousand, ten thousand—but his appetite has already started to fail."
The mere thought sent chills crawling over Yaga's skin. Guilt settled heavy on his shoulders. "He never said anything before enrollment."
"He's very good at enduring," Asou Akiya replied. "And I just happen to be able to see the cracks."
Asou Akiya bowed slightly toward the teacher who cared enough to worry. "I'm sorry for overstepping, Yaga-sensei."
Then he straightened and offered the only promise he could. "We'll start by fixing ourselves. Only then can we fix the future."
Yaga let out a sigh, "You're right."
Relief rolled off Yaga Masamichi like a storm cloud finally breaking. Thanks to Akiya's blunt warning, he had not yet made the irreparable mistake of piling the entire jujutsu world's expectations onto the still-childish shoulders of a fifteen-year-old boy.
"Thank you, Akiya." Yaga's large hand descended and ruffled the black hair with paternal roughness.
"It is my honor," Asou Akiya answered without flinching. "I should head back to class. Both Suguru and I have a lot of foundational theory to catch up on. If he leaves me behind in the textbooks, I'll be heartbroken."
Yaga gave him a skeptical look. "Theory can wait. Your priority is physical conditioning."
"Yes, yes, of course," Asou Akiya replied with easy good humor.
Every sorcerer eventually turned into a gorilla; resistance was futile. One simply had to roll with the punches.
When he slipped back into the classroom, three pairs of eyes fixed on him with identical suspicion: Are you the homeroom teacher's personal megaphone now?
Asou Akiya cleared his throat theatrically. "Nothing happened. Absolutely nothing."
Gojo Satoru's face screamed disbelief. Ieiri Shoko silently produced a lady's comb from her bag and pointed at his head.
Asou Akiya sat down and began smoothing the damage. With delicate care he wrapped the few shed strands in a tissue and tucked them into his pocket (no littering, ever).
Geto Suguru watched and learned, quietly impressed.
Gojo Satoru instinctively flicked on Limitless, creating an invisible barrier between his body and the rest of the world.
Ieiri Shoko began to wonder if Asou suffered from clinical paranoia.
When one male classmate lived with that much caution, everyone else started feeling like a sloppy salted fish by comparison.
This was Tokyo Jujutsu High, not some frontline battlefield, not a deadly anime deathworld… right?
It didn't take long for Gojo to get lazy and let Limitless lapse; maintaining it constantly was exhausting.
"Good morning, everyone," the assistant supervisor greeted, voice trembling as he stepped in. Teaching this year's first-years was universally regarded inside the organization as the worst lottery draw imaginable.
Geto Suguru refused to speak to the suddenly "cold and detached" Asou Akiya, stubbornly burrowing deeper into his own horn.
Ieiri Shoko watched the drama unfold like a satisfied spectator and placed a mental bet that they would be laughing again by next period.
She turned the page of her novel as she thought it. The book also featured a character named "Jie," yet the resemblance ended at the name. This "Jie" was more like a dark, obsessive mirror of Gojo Satoru. An archdemon king who saw through every illusion of the world.
He possessed the power to save humanity and the iron resolve to annihilate every vengeful spirit, yet the single delicious contradiction at his core was this:
The great onmyoji who loathed the weak and ordinary found himself daily suffocating under their gratitude and adoration.
A savior of the hidden Japan who despised the very people he saved.
Ieiri Shoko closed the book for a moment and smiled faintly.
What a pitch-black cosmic joke.
At the desk farthest left, Gojo Satoru had slumped forward, cheek pressed to the wood, drifting in and out of sleep. At first he still possessed enough energy to read Ieiri's novel through the Six Eyes, following the lines over her shoulder, but soon even that grew tedious. He settled for counting the individual strands of Geto's weird bangs, one by one, while the assistant supervisor's droning voice worked like a lullaby.
[I really want to ditch.]
The thought rose like smoke and refused to dissipate.
Back at the Gojo estate he had skipped whenever he felt like it, attending only the classes that interested him.
[But I don't want to ditch alone… Yaga will yell at me. Yaga's fists hurt. I'll end up standing in the corner looking pathetic while those two get off scot-free, and that will piss me off no matter how I slice it.]
Gojo twisted every possible excuse inside out, yet his backside remained glued to the chair, behaving so perfectly that the entire Gojo clan would have wept tears of joy if they could see him.
He lasted less than five minutes.
Unable to endure any longer, Gojo began scribbling notes on tiny scraps of paper, crumpling them into balls, and flicking them toward the heads of the two boys beside him.
—Accompany me in ditching.
When Gojo Satoru wanted something, he reached out and took it. No hesitation, no shame.
A grotesque fourth-grade cursed spirit materialised out of nowhere, oozing black miasma. At its master's silent command it opened a maw lined with jagged, needle-thin teeth, swallowed both paper balls in one gulp, and vanished back into the void.
Gojo straightened with eager excitement, the legs of his chair banging loudly against the floor.
The opening move of a fight!
The assistant supervisor shot a pleading glance at Asou Akiya. "P-please no fighting indoors…"
Asou Akiya exhaled through his nose. I'm not the one starting anything—why are you looking at me?
He turned toward Geto. "Suguru."
Geto's gaze sliced across, cold and sharp, radiating a clear message: say one word of apology and we're done forever.
Asou Akiya instantly changed tactics.
Being the magnanimous classmate was useless if the scales couldn't stay balanced. And they really, truly couldn't.
He swivelled toward the girl instead. "Shoko, mind taking notes for me?"
Ieiri flashed an OK sign without looking up.
Asou Akiya stood, slung his bag over one shoulder, and announced with casual flair, "Let's go, classmate who wants to ditch."
Gojo's attention snapped to Asou, suddenly uncertain. Should he keep poking the weird-banged bear?
Asou pressed his advantage. "I'm talking to the confident, handsome, self-proclaimed strongest-under-heaven classmate."
The corners of Gojo's mouth began to climb toward their trademark smug grin.
BANG—the second loud crash of furniture. Geto slammed his textbook shut, shoved it into his bag, hooked the strap over his shoulder, and seized Asou Akiya's sleeve in one fluid motion. "I can hardly refuse such a warm invitation from Akiya. Let's all ditch together."
He dragged Asou straight out the door, leaving Gojo Satoru blinking in stunned betrayal at the empty space where his accomplice had been.
Gojo muttered, utterly lost, "He… he was talking about me, right?"
Confident? Me. Handsome? Me. Strongest under heaven? Definitely me!
To confirm once and for all that he fit the description far better than Geto Suguru ever could, Gojo Satoru did something rare—he turned in a flustered rush to Ieiri Shoko for backup. Ieiri burst out laughing before he could even form the question. "Don't ask me, I have no idea. They're already gone."
Gojo bit his lower lip, caught between chasing after them and the mortifying possibility that he had misread the entire situation.
Ieiri muttered under her breath, "Called it. Instant reconciliation."
She had fully expected Gojo to barrel out the door in one dramatic sprint, but instead he twisted back into his seat with uncharacteristic hesitation and snarled, "Fine. I'm reporting them to Yaga. Let them stand in the corner till their legs fall off!"
Ieiri quietly sucked in a breath. [Help… that was actually kind of cute.]
The novel in her hands suddenly lost all flavour.
She was never the studious type. With the sly grace of a cat, she slid her blank notebook across the desk to the assistant supervisor, sweetly asking him to fill in the lesson notes for her, and smoothly transformed the rest of the theory period into a sanctioned phone-scrolling free study.
By the time lunch break rolled around, neither of the escapees had returned. Gojo's mood visibly withered like a flower left in the sun.
"That's it—I can't take this anymore!"
He snatched his phone and bolted.
In the group chat, Asou Akiya had just posted a photo of their lunch in the city: two beautiful bowls of chilled zaru soba, glistening with ice water, green onions floating like lily pads.
Having ditched the strongest sorcerer alive and fled the school grounds on Asou's bicycle, Geto Suguru's spirits had soared higher with every kilometre. The cold, chewy buckwheat noodles had then performed a full baptism on his taste buds, washing away the last traces of his earlier gloom.
"What are you staring at?" Inside the little soba shop, Geto asked, unaccustomed to Asou Akiya being so quiet.
"Ah…" Asou drawled lazily, chin propped on one hand. "Just mourning my poor bicycle. Wondering how many more years it has left in this world… whether it will survive until graduation."
Geto looked away, confidence restored. "I can fix bikes. We were only going a little fast."
Asou gave him a flat stare. "You didn't yeet me off the back, so I consider that a win."
Geto scratched his cheek, troubled. "What I really want right now is a cursed spirit that can fly at mach speed with a passenger."
Asou's response was the epitome of half-hearted encouragement. "You'll get one eventually."
Geto shot him a displeased glance, but Asou simply rested his cheek on his palm, utterly impervious to the petty grudge forming across the table.
"Suguru, hurry and eat. We're running out of time."
"???"
KABOOM!
The glass sliding door of the shop shattered inward with explosive force.
Gojo Satoru had chained a dozen short-range teleports using Blue, calculations flawless, and made his entrance like a supernova wearing crooked sunglasses.
The white-haired boy strode forward with the swagger of someone who acknowledged no relatives, not even the laws of physics.
"I'm starving. And my head's spinning."
Without waiting for invitation he dropped into the seat beside Asou Akiya, long legs splaying wide, nearly kicking Geto's shoes across the room. The impossibly beautiful delinquent high-schooler wedged himself into their lunch like he had been there from the start.
"Akiya, you pay for the door. I just want food." Gojo pointedly ignored the side dishes the other two had already touched.
"I didn't bring my card," Asou replied with perfect calm. "Suguru's treating today."
"Weird bangs—" Gojo Satoru suddenly whipped around and pointed at Geto Suguru in exaggerated astonishment. "Your bangs just flew up!"
That was pure rage, Asou Akiya noted silently.
I must not lose my temper. I must not wreck this shop. Geto Suguru wrestled with himself inside, anguish twisting his features.
Gojo remained utterly unaffected, declaring whatever came to mind. "Buy me lunch and I'll catch you a first-grade cursed spirit."
Geto's voice dripped acid. "How very generous of you, Gojo. People who forget their wallets always have the most confidence. You think first-grade cursed spirits are wandering around the streets waiting to be picked up like stray cats? Akiya has fed you countless times, and I've never seen you return the favor once."
Gojo failed completely to grasp why Geto was angry. He only tilted his head, genuinely puzzled. "You're being awfully nosy."
Little Tangerine feeding him was only natural, as inevitable as sunrise.
Gojo tugged at Asou Akiya's sleeve (same uniform, same school, yet somehow he wore it with far more proprietary ease than Geto ever managed). "Akiya, I burned a ton of energy getting here. My stomach's growling."
Asou Akiya smoothly laid his palm against Gojo's flat abdomen. The muscles beneath the fabric tensed for a fraction of a second.
"Yep, heard it loud and clear." Asou withdrew his hand. Gojo relaxed again, not entirely accustomed to being touched.
"Suguru," Asou called across the table with a faint smile, "one first-grade cursed spirit on offer. You really won't fleece him this once?"
The shop owner was already storming over, murder in his eyes. Geto sighed in defeat and reached for his wallet to cover both the meal and the shattered door.
"Too late to refuse now."
By the time the mess was settled, Geto turned back to find Gojo happily rattling off his order like a kid in a candy store.
And yet, contrary to what Geto had expected, Asou Akiya was not indulging Gojo without limit. His expression stayed cool, distant; only the corners of his mouth lifted in the barest hint of a smile when directly addressed.
In contrast, Gojo's own grin was bright and unburdened, as guileless as summer sky, seemingly oblivious to the subtle chill radiating from the boy beside him.
One more shameless than the next.
Early-May sunlight, lazy and golden, spilled across their shoulders, yet somehow it felt icy against the skin.
Geto Suguru shivered without meaning to.
Two absolute weirdos.
He slid into his seat and stared at his own reflection in the polished tabletop (silent face, cold black ear studs glinting like chips of obsidian).
If my classmates are monsters, then what does that make me?
Not exactly a good person either.