Unexpectedly, Asou Akiya did not respond.
After the treatment, Asou Akiya declined Gojo Satoru's request in a listless, dispirited manner, his refusal gentle yet unmistakable.
No one dared to force him—not even Gojo Satoru, who usually believed himself capable of succeeding one hundred percent of the time. In everyone's eyes, Asou Akiya was someone with a good temperament. When he was unwell, when he was irritable, even a blind man could tell that he needed time to rest. To push him then would be unthinkable.
The team match came to a close, with Tokyo Jujutsu High claiming victory. Asou Akiya stepped forward at the last moment to smooth things over, offering a few polite, perfunctory remarks on behalf of Principal Yaga. Before everyone dispersed, he obtained the contact information of the Kyoto students. Among them, the second-year Kamo Masataka was the most grateful, showering him with praise, his words brimming—openly and implicitly—with thanks that the cursed spirit manipulator had not pierced his body through with a sword.
"I'm not the cursed spirit manipulator," Aso Akiya said, pointing toward Getou Suguru, who was exuding wisps of black miasma. "He is."
"See you tomorrow in the individual matches," Asou Akiya added, giving a casual wave to the stunned Kamo Masataka.
Kamo Masataka did not dare to say another word. The people from Tokyo Jujutsu High were terrifying—each one more oppressive than the last. Even the female student responsible for logistics no longer seemed low-key; her face was cold, her gaze fixed sharply on the Gojo clan's "Six Eyes."
The group returned to the Kyoto dormitories. Aso Akiya caught the curse spirit that had been trembling in fear after being intimidated by Gojo Satoru, grabbed it, and stuffed it into Geto's hands. "Getou, you must have lost quite a few curse spirits. You should take this one back."
Getou Suguru had long since forgotten that there had even been a curse spirit following Asou Akiya around. After acquiring a special-grade curse spirit, who would spare a glance for a third-grade one?
…Well, apparently, he would.
The cursed spirit manipulator, keenly aware of his dwindling inventory and feeling painfully poor, absorbed the third-grade curse spirit back into his body.
Then Getou Suguru froze.
Why was there a lingering trace of Asou's cursed energy clinging to the surface of the third-grade curse spirit?
"I used it to protect you," Asou Akiya said calmly.
Getou Suguru thought he should not have done that.
"I treasure your curse spirits," Aso Akiya continued, revealing the truth. "I didn't want it to be destroyed by Gojo." When Gojo Satoru attacked him, the third-grade curse spirit had been caught in the crossfire. To protect Getou Suguru's curse spirit, Asou Akiya had dispersed it.
Getou Suguru's gaze grew complicated. "That's nothing more than a conglomeration of human malice."
Getou Suguru's gaze grew complicated.
"That is nothing more than a mass formed from human malice."
Asou Akiya noticed Yaga Masamichi standing at the doorway, signaling subtly in his direction, and immediately understood that his teacher wanted a private word with him.
As he stepped outside, he turned back and said to Getou Suguru, his voice gentle yet firm,
"That's not true at all. What it was… was the kindness you gave me."
Warmth spread quietly through Getou Suguru's chest.
Thankfully, Asou was still Asou—the same kind-hearted, dependable Asou—untouched and undefeated by Gojo's sugar-coated barrage of words and charm.
When Getou Suguru saw the white-haired youth moving as if to follow them out, he reached out without expression and seized the other's collar.
"Gojo," he said coolly, "Yaga-sensei didn't call you in for a talk. Where do you think you're going?"
"Hah?" Gojo Satoru replied, utterly shameless. "Can't I just go take a stroll or something?"
He showed not the slightest awareness that he had offended Getou Suguru, casually batting away the hand that was making his neck uncomfortable.
With that movement, he exposed his palm—where clear, blood-tinged bite marks marred the skin.
They looked painfully vivid, enough to make one's scalp prickle just from seeing them.
"Shoko," Getou Suguru called out instinctively to their female classmate. "Gojo's injured. Help him treat his hand."
"Nope," Ieiri Shoko replied flatly from the corner as she organized her backpack. "I'm not treating him. Let him remember this lesson."
Getou Suguru immediately caught the implication behind her words. He laughed in exasperation, anger simmering beneath it, and fixed Gojo Satoru with a sharp glare.
"I wasn't gone for that long," he said through clenched teeth. "And the moment I come back, you're already missing. You'd better explain exactly what happened—every detail."
Gojo Satoru's gaze drifted off toward some indeterminate corner of the room, and for once, he actually looked a little embarrassed, unable to bring himself to recount it aloud.
"Geez, Suguru," he muttered at last, "this is private business. I don't want to talk about it."
Did he really expect Gojo Satoru to spell out the contents of the three separate bindings imposed upon Asou Akiya? Even Gojo Satoru had a right to privacy; he was unwilling to expose those vows to anyone else.
"So you injured him?" Getou Suguru pressed. "Then what about that tree that was smashed clean through—how do you explain that?"
Getou Suguru gave Gojo Satoru no room to dodge the question.
"Oh, that was me," Gojo Satoru replied easily.
He admitted it outright—crime and evidence both accounted for—prompting his two classmates to turn their gazes toward him at the same time.
There was killing intent in the air, sharp and unmistakable. Gojo Satoru, however, was not afraid. His tone remained flat and unruffled as he continued, "Suguru, I know you're angry, and I know exactly why you're angry. But it's useless. As long as Akiya forgives me, you have no standing to accuse me of anything."
In this matter, he deliberately removed his classmates from the equation, and he also accepted Ieiri Shoko's decision not to treat him.
"This is between me and him—our private affair. No one else has the right to know the details. Just watch if you want. Sticking your nose into everything only makes you look meddlesome."
After finishing his statement, Gojo Satoru turned back to Getou Suguru with that stomach-churning, infuriatingly innocent smile.
"I'm going to become Akiya's friend," he declared cheerfully. "His very first good friend."
"He made a vow to me, and I accepted it. I also made a corresponding vow in return—an equal, two-way exchange."
"Suguru," he added, sing-song and smug, "you can't win against me~."
Like someone who had just received the greatest gift imaginable from a peer his own age, Gojo Satoru strode out of the dormitory, chin lifted high and steps brimming with confidence.
After a long while—
Getou Suguru was so angry he practically shut down.
Ieiri Shoko spoke up at last, her tone strangely contemplative. "Do you guys really have such a high threshold just to be friends?"
Vows upon vows, mutual exchanges atop one another—listening to them talk made Ieiri Shoko seriously wonder whether she had somehow gone her entire life without ever having made a friend.
"You're asking about the 'threshold' for friendship?" Getou Suguru snapped back to himself and looked at his female classmate with a swirl of complicated emotions. Clearly, he had thought of Asou Akiya's everyday interactions with Ieiri Shoko. When it came to her, Asou Akiya had never once brought up the so-called standards of a first-grade jujutsu sorcerer when making friends.
"You wouldn't understand, Shoko," he said at last, his tone tinged with envy. "I really envy you—for being able to make friends so easily."
Ieiri Shoko: "..."
Ieiri Shoko: "You envy me? I think Asou just makes friends based on gut feeling."
Getou Suguru said nothing more. It was as though he believed that no matter what he said, the other party would never truly understand. Carrying an air of simmering frustration and destructive intent, he turned and walked out as well.
Ieiri Shoko took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, then began typing rapidly on her phone.
[Jujutsu High Melon-Eating Duo]
[Ieiri Shoko: I think they've completely lost it. What about you? Asou, are you still normal?]
[Asou Akiya: Maybe.]
[Ieiri Shoko: What is going on with you guys, anyway? Gojo went looking for you, and Getou also ran out.]
[Asou Akiya: Let them do whatever they want.]
[Asou Akiya: I'm currently receiving psychological counseling from Yaga-sensei.]
Yaga Masamichi spoke at length to his most outstanding student. Asou Akiya lowered his head and listened attentively. When messages came in, he glanced at them and replied to Ieiri Shoko, never once interrupting or delaying Yaga-sensei's earnest reprimand and guidance.
Suddenly, Yaga Masamichi asked, "Akiya—why don't you want to be friends with him?"
Asou Akiya replied calmly, without hesitation:
"I'm someone who is extremely fastidious about emotional boundaries."
Yaga Masamichi blinked, "Huh?"
Asou Akiya continued calmly, his logic clear and unwavering. "I do not accept inverted causality. Friendship should be friendship—pure and sufficient in itself. Only when it is untainted by external motives can a normal friendship truly begin."
Yaga Masamichi's face twisted into a look of deep confusion, as though he were wrestling with a concept he could not quite grasp. "Explain it more plainly."
Asou Akiya did not mind laying everything bare. "When I was dizzy earlier, I didn't have the presence of mind to think it through. But once I calmed down, I realized that Gojo misunderstood something fundamental. He did not make a vow in order to become my friend—he became my friend in order to respond to a vow."
Yaga Masamichi felt his soul hovering on the verge of leaving his body.
Asou Akiya went on, "Yaga-sensei, he doesn't understand—but do you really not understand either?"
Asou Akiya's voice remained steady, but every word cut with precision. "Gojo doesn't understand friendship. Or rather, he has never truly conceptualized what friendship is. He once heard Getou make a one-sided vow to become my friend, and from that, he concluded that the condition for becoming friends was that both sides must make vows."
"When I made a vow to Gojo," Asou Akiya said, "he immediately believed that we had become half-friends. He crossed the boundary with ease, taking it for granted that this meant we could naturally become true friends."
Asou Akiya turned toward a direction where someone was, in all likelihood, eavesdropping, and let out a cold, faint smile.
"I don't accept that."
"Being classmates requires no conditions. But if you want to be my friend, then either do it the way Getou did—or show genuine sincerity."
"A vow that doesn't force the other party?"
His smile sharpened, frost settling in his eyes.
"Am I really that cheap in your heart, Gojo Satoru?"
Stripping away the glossy sugar coating of those sugar-coated bullets so confidently fired—Asou Akiya discovered that what lay inside was nothing but bitter candy filling, dense and sharp on the tongue, utterly devoid of sweetness from beginning to end.
A fifteen-year-old boy trying to deceive him with flowery words and clever talk? In his dreams.
Gojo Satoru: "..."
Getou Suguru laughed so hard that his entire body shook. He pressed a hand to his stomach, rubbing at the ache brought on by excessive laughter, then braced himself against the wall and walked away with deep satisfaction written all over his face.
As expected of Asou—there was absolutely no need to worry about him being tricked!
That night, among the four of them, the atmosphere shifted into something subtly absurd. Gojo Satoru lay alone under his blanket, sulking in silence, refusing to speak to anyone, stewing in his frustration like a sealed pot left to boil. Meanwhile, Asou Akiya sat in the dormitory with Getou Suguru and Ieiri Shoko, playing cards. Their conversation flowed endlessly, laughter and casual chatter rising and falling, each sound striking Gojo Satoru's ears like deliberate provocation.
In Gojo Satoru's mind, one particular sentence echoed with cruel clarity, looping again and again, stabbing precisely where it hurt the most.
Cheap?
Was his vow—something he had made with absolute seriousness—fundamentally cheap?
He turned onto his side beneath the covers, burying his face deep into the bedding as if trying to suffocate the thought itself. Unbidden, Getou Suguru's vow rose in his mind for comparison. Getou's vow had not brought Asou Akiya any tangible, immediate benefit, and yet… it carried a weight, a resonance, that struck far deeper than Gojo had expected.
Getou's vow had been simple, yet overwhelming in scale: to become a special-grade jujutsu sorcerer, to protect Asou Akiya, to stand against the higher-ups of the Jujutsu Headquarters if necessary.
And his own—
…Huh?
A faint flush of embarrassment crept up Gojo Satoru's cheeks, betraying a sudden, uncomfortable lack of confidence.
[I get it now!]
[First comes the determination to be friends, and only then does one make vows for that friend—that's the correct order.]
Lying there in the dark, wrapped in his blanket and his thoughts, Gojo Satoru stared into nothingness, finally realizing that the problem had never been the vow itself, but the heart that should have preceded it.
Gojo Satoru, who had been given a blunt lesson in reality by Asou Akiya, grasped the core of the matter at last and began turning over possible approaches in his mind, earnestly pondering what he should do next.
Once he started thinking about it… he realized that even by the next day, he still had not arrived at any concrete conclusion.
September 18th arrived, marking the second day of the Jujutsu High Sister School Goodwill Event—the long-awaited individual matches.
Today, as per tradition, was the stage for showcasing the personal strength of jujutsu sorcerer students. There would be no reliance on teamwork or coordinated tactics. With three students from Tokyo Jujutsu High and seven from Kyoto Jujutsu High, the most suitable format was naturally a series of challenge arenas.
The elderly principal of Kyoto Jujutsu High spoke first. "Three arenas."
Yaga Masamichi followed up with a clear explanation. "The first arena is capped at first-grade jujutsu sorcerers. The second arena is capped at second-grade jujutsu sorcerers. The third arena is capped at third-grade jujutsu sorcerers."
"This event is based on the principle of voluntary participation," the announcement continued. "No one is being forced to fight, but we hope everyone will give it their all again today."
Both schools were being given opportunities for sorcerers of different grades to demonstrate their abilities, deliberately preventing any single individual from monopolizing the spotlight.
Without the slightest hesitation, Gojo Satoru leapt directly onto the first arena.
Getou Suguru let out a cold laugh and did not follow. He ignored Gojo Satoru's provocative finger-hooking gesture entirely and instead focused his attention on Asou Akiya.
"Akiya," he asked in a low voice, "are you confident you can hold the third arena? Do you need me to provide any near–first-grade or higher cursed spirits?"
Asou Akiya smiled faintly. "Wouldn't that be cheating?"
He reached down and unfastened the long sword at his waist, his fingers closing around the hilt with steady assurance. "With this, I'm more than enough."
Third-grade and fourth-grade jujutsu sorcerers formed the foundational bedrock of the jujutsu world. Their battles did not require flashy techniques or elaborate tactics. Once Asou Akiya grasped the basics of his opponent's abilities, he could bring the fight to a swift conclusion.
Members of branch families from the Three Great Clans often took pride in having received formal clan training, and their combat strength typically surpassed that of civilian sorcerers by a noticeable margin.
But who was Asou Akiya?
He had enrolled early in March, and from that point onward, his training and treatment had been relentless. The comprehensive support he received was on par with that of a clan heir. He had a practitioner of Reverse Cursed Technique on constant standby, a cursed spirit manipulator providing an unlimited supply of cursed spirits for sparring practice, and even the occasional guidance from the bearer of the Six Eyes, who would casually dispel confusion, tear through veils of misunderstanding, and share the deep, time-honed foundations of cursed energy manipulation accumulated by millennia-old noble houses.
Against such a background, the so-called advantage of pedigree meant very little indeed.
Yaga Masamichi believed that if Asou Akiya performed just a little better in this Goodwill Event, he could be nominated for third-grade jujutsu sorcerer certification once it concluded.
Asou Akiya, however, always made a point of giving Yaga-sensei a pleasant surprise.
That third-grade certification—he was determined to claim it.
By his own strength alone, Asou Akiya held the third arena, utterly indifferent to the chaos and clashes erupting at the other platforms. A swordsman carried within his heart a backbone that could not be broken. He could afford to lose to others in sheer quantity of cursed energy, but he would never lose to opponents of the same grade.
Even if the opponent possessed an innate technique—so what?
Fushiguro Toji had taught him a simple, brutal truth: With the use of cursed tools and tactics intelligently, even the so-called geniuses could be cut down.
[The blessings bestowed upon you by the heavens amount to nothing more than this.]
When Asou Akiya advanced with his sword, flames burned in his eyes, a subtle blend of cold malice and searing heat entwined within them.
His spirit and will surged to unprecedented heights.
What sustained him now was no longer the imagined fervor of an illusion, but the tangible, undeniable sensation of power held firmly in his own hands.
—This extraordinary world… it truly is beautiful.
With the emergence of special-grade pressure, the first arena was utterly smashed to pieces. Gojo Satoru and Getou Suguru were both disqualified as a result, yet they immediately pretended it was an "accident" and proceeded to demolish the second arena from outside the ring. Using strength to bully the weak, they turned into living calamities, reducing a group of unwilling participants to tears.
In the end, Asou Akiya stood atop the completely intact third arena, sweat seeping from his brow, bearing witness— as the sole victor of the individual matches—to the unforgettable conclusion of the 17th Jujutsu High Sister-School Goodwill Event.
In the years that followed, Tokyo Jujutsu High would become a place of nightmares for Kyoto's students.
After all, Who would ever want to go somewhere knowing that the moment they arrived, getting beaten up was practically guaranteed?!
—
Author's Notes:
Wow—Quan Quan saw that there were over five hundred comments in the comment section of the previous chapter. I've read every single one of them. Thank you all so much for coming out of the shadows and leaving your thoughts!
A small hint of the next chapter: The Moon-Viewing Festival (Mid-Autumn Festival).