What kind of experience was it to be bombarded by two oversized megaphones while trying to rest in the dormitory?
Asou Akiya, who had been temporarily dragged out to the training field for drills, held the authority to answer that question.
The person on the left declared, "Listen to me! Just like this, just like that—you have to focus and pay attention to my lecture!"
The person on the right countered, "Everything Gojo is saying is a complete mess. Listen to me instead. I'm far better suited to be the teacher. My understanding of Black Flash is that you cannot afford to be distracted at all; you need an absolutely unwavering belief in defeating the enemy—Akiya, you cannot let your gaze go vacant like that!"
There was no room for refusal at all. Asou Akiya found himself forcibly inundated with an avalanche of Black Flash experiences.
Geto Suguru possessed a particularly strong practical spirit. He pulled Asou Akiya into sparring sessions, helping him search for the elusive sensation of harmony between body and cursed energy.
If Geto's approach was relatively gentle, then Gojo Satoru, who was competing fiercely for the teaching position against him, was downright terrifying. He dove straight into hands-on demonstrations, swinging punches at Asou Akiya to illustrate his points, frightening him so badly that Asou immediately retreated to Geto's side for protection.
After enduring the high-intensity torment from both of them, Asou Akiya squatted down on the ground, his head spinning and vision blurring, and pulled out his phone.
"Yaga-sensei, save me!"
These two did not regard ordinary people's talents as anything worth considering at all. They seemed eager to make him produce Black Flash right on the spot.
If his talent had been even half that high, why would classmates be the ones teaching him in the first place!
Yaga Masamichi jumped at the distress call, heart pounding as he wondered what disaster had struck, only to rush over and find Gojo Satoru and Geto Suguru standing there with perfectly normal expressions, swearing up and down that they were going to become Asou Akiya's Black Flash instructors.
Yaga Masamichi delivered a solid punch to each of the two problem children in turn.
"I am the one who teaches him!" Yaga Masamichi roared in fury. "I achieved Black Flash long before you two little brats ever dreamed of it. I have abundant experience, and among the graduates I have trained, there are records of those who mastered Black Flash as well. If anyone is going to guide him, it will be me. How could it possibly be you two first-year students without a single teaching license?"
Gojo Satoru froze in place, his expression draining of color. "Huh? Yaga's pulled off Black Flash too?"
Geto Suguru's face turned ashen, and he muttered under his breath, "We're done for. I completely forgot that Yaga-sensei's only advantage is his muscles."
The facts proved that their frantic competition to demonstrate their teaching prowess had been utterly pointless from the start.
The facts proved that their frantic competition to demonstrate their teaching prowess had been utterly pointless from the start.
"You two haven't even earned special-grade certification yet, and you already dare to look down on your own teacher?" Yaga Masamichi snapped, glaring fiercely at the pair before turning back and hauling the utterly exhausted Asou Akiya to his feet. Beside the broad, muscular frame of their homeroom teacher, the slender black-haired boy looked no sturdier than a single bean sprout. "Akiya, ignore your two classmates. Train at the pace your body can handle."
Asou Akiya answered in a voice drained of strength. "I've heard that a sorcerer's growth isn't a straight line but a curve. When they try to help me like this, it's probably because they genuinely want me to get stronger as quickly as possible."
Yaga Masamichi shook his head. "That kind of accelerated growth only applies in extreme circumstances—circumstances I would rather you never encounter in your entire life."
A sorcerer's innate talent sets a hard ceiling on potential. If steady, peaceful progress is possible, why force strength to bloom between life and death?
"I understand…" Asou Akiya murmured, the corners of his mouth twitching in a motion that was neither agreement nor objection.
He knew full well that while most techniques could be learned gradually, Black Flash belonged to a rarer category—an opportunity that arose only under particular conditions.
It was something that could be encountered but never forced, something that demanded a true life-or-death enemy.
For the moment, Asou Akiya had no desire to flirt with mortal peril. Instead, he turned his full attention to absorbing the theoretical knowledge.
Yaga Masamichi had originally intended to delay any detailed explanation of Black Flash, but the fear that his two unreliable students might lead Asou astray forced him to draw on years of teaching experience. He broke the entire process down into digestible pieces and fed them carefully to Asou.
Geto Suguru, standing off to the side, listened with rapt attention and evident enjoyment. "Yaga-sensei really knows his stuff."
Gojo Satoru shrugged. "He is a first-grade sorcerer, after all."
The remark was not mere self-aggrandizement or flattery toward their teacher. In the jujutsu world, those who stood visibly at the top of the pyramid were the first-grades. The heads of the Three Great Families operated at the same level, more than capable of handling ordinary special-grade cursed spirits.
Before Gojo Satoru's birth, the overall strength of the jujutsu world had been in steady decline. The Three Great Families had held the line with millennia of accumulated heritage, never lacking first-grade sorcerers to serve as pillars.
Yet, against the explosive population growth across Japan in the past century, only one special-grade sorcerer had emerged in all that time—a stark testament to the withering of true apex power.
Special-grade meant exactly that: exceptional.
At present, only Tsukumo Yuki had reached that height, standing far beyond the realm of first-grade.
"You cannot rush learning Black Flash," Yaga Masamichi continued, speaking earnestly to Asou Akiya as though they were the only two people on the field. "You already have excellent resources available to you. Never forget why you became a sorcerer in the first place. Hold fast to that conviction, then fight with complete focus. Being weaker has its own advantages—you will encounter enemies far stronger than yourself, while opportunities like that are rare for them."
Geto Suguru: "…"
What kind of cursed educational policy was this?
Gojo Satoru: "…"
He's straight-up cursing me and weird-bangs to never meet a strong enemy and therefore never grow stronger, isn't he!
Asou Akiya, meanwhile, wore the earnest expression of a student who had just received divine enlightenment. Yaga-sensei's homemade chicken-soup-for-the-soul was delicious.
"Yaga-sensei, want to join us for zongzi?" Asou asked brightly, dragging their teacher back to the boys' dormitory before anyone could object.
Yaga had assumed the rice dumplings would be ready to eat. Instead he walked into a war zone: three teenagers attempting to wrap zongzi from scratch, reed leaves flapping like startled birds, glutinous rice raining everywhere in sticky white blizzards. An entire hour passed before the first batch finally made it into the pressure cooker.
Yaga Masamichi felt his lifespan shorten by several years.
Yet when he looked at Asou Akiya's face (untouched by even a flicker of envy, calm and genuinely cheerful), he let out a long, relieved breath.
[He's controlling his negative emotions beautifully… no, wait. Is he actually happy?]
[He really is.]
[Having him as their classmate, day after day, will let Satoru and Suguru see how hard it is at the bottom.]
[I hope the three of them stay friends forever and bring a little kindness to this rotten world.]
When the zongzi were finally ready, Asou Akiya casually probed Geto Suguru while they ate, asking what kind of danger they had encountered on the mission. Geto deflected with practiced ease.
"You need to have more faith in our strength, Akiya. There was no danger at all. If I had to name the single greatest threat… it was this guy right here." He jerked a thumb toward Gojo. "He's scarier than any cursed spirit."
Gojo, mouth full of honey-date zongzi, chewed thoughtfully, then delicately spat out the now-pitless date skin.
"Weird-bangs just complimented me. I'll accept it graciously."
"I didn't compliment you."
Geto Suguru handed Gojo the next zongzi anyway, a quiet thank-you for helping him subdue Rainbow Dragon.
"Are you two getting along better now?" Asou Akiya asked. He was eating the savoury saltwater variety, dipping each bite in plain white sugar instead of soybean flour. "You learned Black Flash one right after the other. Suguru… don't tell me you only managed it because Gojo provoked you in the middle of battle."
Asou studied Geto's flawless poker face for cracks and found none. "So, what kind of cursed spirit did you tame?"
Geto's voice took on a faint, almost dreamy note. "A flying dragon-type. Pure white scales that caught the sunlight beautifully."
Asou swallowed a mouthful of sticky rice and smiled faintly. "Did Gojo ride it?"
Geto's eyes flickered for the briefest instant. "He did."
Asou tilted his head. "[Curtain] wasn't forgotten, I hope?"
Geto laughed softly. "The assistant supervisor who tagged along threw one up for us. Otherwise we'd have been chewed out the moment we got back."
Yaga Masamichi kept his head down, devouring zongzi at an alarming rate and quietly satisfied with the mission results.
Gojo, ever the agent of chaos, deliberately slid the weird-flavoured one in front of Yaga and waited for the inevitable reaction.
Asou turned back to Geto. "Did the assistant supervisor leave a phone number? Will we work with them again?"
Geto's priorities lay with his fellow sorcerers; assistant supervisors barely registered. "That sort of thing is up to the school. I'm not Gojo—I don't care who they send."
The moment the words left his mouth he felt a chill. He hurried to amend them. "Anyway, I'll be going on solo missions from now on."
Asou Akiya pretended not to notice the casual disdain toward assistant supervisors and said gently, "It's still safer to have someone with you. You're technically an underage minor when you're out there. Clients might not trust you right away."
Geto gave a small shrug. "I'll have to get used to it eventually."
Asou suddenly turned to Gojo. "Did you two argue with the assistant supervisor?"
Gojo answered with the ruthless honesty of someone who genuinely didn't care whether Geto lived or died. "Who is she again? Does it matter? If she can't learn to keep her mouth shut and starts running it to the higher-ups, I'll make sure she regrets it."
Geto's face fell into outright despair.
Asou could already picture the poor woman's mental breakdown.
He pulled out his phone, scrolled through the class group chat, and quickly spotted the assistant supervisor who had quietly left the conversation. There—a woman's name. "Yaga-sensei, could I have this assistant supervisor's phone number?"
Yaga handed it over without even asking why.
Before leaving, Asou entrusted Yaga with a mission of his own: since male students weren't allowed in the girls' dormitory, he asked the teacher to deliver the remaining zongzi to Ieiri Shoko and the two upperclassmen.
Later that evening, Asou Akiya shouldered his backpack stuffed with the last of the rice dumplings and paid a personal visit to the assistant supervisor in question.
He apologised sincerely on behalf of both classmates and told her that if Gojo or Geto ever gave the assistant team trouble again, she could contact him privately. As long as the situation wasn't too serious, he would do everything in his power to smooth things over.
Assistant supervisor contact list: +1.
Asou knew perfectly well that assistant supervisors were a tight-knit community. Being disliked by one was equivalent to being disliked by all.
Because Gojo and Geto treated them with open contempt, Asou now had a rare opening to build bridges. One careless complaint from either of his classmates could cost an assistant supervisor their performance bonus—or worse.
In the original story, Ijichi Kiyotaka's high standing among the assistant supervisors stemmed entirely from the fact that he had survived handling the single most difficult sorcerer alive: Gojo Satoru. The others regarded Gojo as an actual demon king and worshipped Ijichi for his superhuman endurance. The entire assistant-supervisor circle had become his collective fan club.
Asou Akiya had no ambition to become an assistant supervisor himself, but he would never refuse the chance to add another useful connection to his web.
He softened his voice until it carried the warmth of genuine admiration. "Usami-san is such a capable adult. You've seen so much of the world. The moment I saw you, I felt an instant kinship—like you could be the big sister I never had. Unfortunately, I'm an orphan. My parents were killed by cursed spirits, so I have no choice but to walk the path of a sorcerer. Otherwise, my dream right now would be to become an assistant supervisor just like you."
Truth and fiction braided together seamlessly until the line between them vanished.
He leaned in slightly, voice earnest. "If there's ever a mission where details need to be clarified quickly, please feel free to contact me directly. I'll do my best to ask on your behalf. As you can see, my strength is nothing special. Approaching them as a classmate is already the limit of what I can manage."
The woman surnamed Usami felt her eyes sting with unexpected emotion.
What a good kid!
So young, and already considerate of the burdens adults carried.
Few sorcerers ever spared a thought for assistant supervisors. No assistant dared complain to a sorcerer's face; it was common knowledge in their world that sorcerers bore the heavier load, while assistants were merely desk workers.
Usami's voice trembled with gratitude. "From now on, whenever Asou-kun heads out on a mission, please give me priority."
Asou Akiya accepted with a gentle, grateful smile and casually asked for the names of a few assistants known for pulling all-nighters.
"Men are meant to shoulder the harder jobs, after all."
He collected a tidy list of names and specialties, presented the remaining zongzi as a parting gift, bowed politely, and took his leave. As he walked away he cast one last appraising glance over the modest but comfortable Tokyo apartment building. Not bad at all. Clearly her salary matched the stress she endured.
"She still hasn't breathed a word about what Gojo or Geto said. Her lips are sealed tight. Probably can't be turned into an informant."
"Has she been threatened?"
"Gojo isn't the careful type. Could it have been Geto who warned her?"
"Next time, I'll watch whose presence makes her flinch more. That'll tell me everything."
"I can't dismantle the intimidation the Three Great Families hold over the assistant supervisors. But if the one who threatened her—if the one who made her afraid—was Geto, then I'm confident I can pull her to my side. Little by little, she'll grow used to my help, until she's willing to slip into the assistant-supervisor circle on my behalf."
Asou Akiya walked briskly through the Tokyo streets in plain clothes, footsteps hurried like everyone else's. In this world, every person had a reason to keep moving; only a few chose to rot in place.
Because he remained wary of cursed spirits, he never lingered alone outside for long. A wide-brimmed sun hat shaded his face, a backpack stuffed with leftover zongzi hung from both shoulders, and he clutched a transit card in one hand—an utterly ordinary high-schooler on his way to visit relatives.
Along the roadside, inside one of the brightly lit pachinko parlours, a tall silhouette sat hunched over a pinball machine, completely absorbed in the clatter of steel balls.
A fourth-grade sorcerer and a man cursed by the heavens with zero cursed energy—two lives that ran like parallel lines, destined never to intersect.
Once again, they passed each other by without ever meeting.