On the outskirts of Tokyo, the road that led deep into the mountains wound and twisted endlessly; the farther one went, the rarer human traces became.
Every day, a red bus ran back and forth between the suburbs and the city, once every thirty minutes. There were very few passengers—often not a single one—and it was clearly an unprofitable route. Yet ever since the bus company had opened this line, it had never once discontinued it.
The final stop was the terminus: [Enzanroku].
Within the company, the bus drivers affectionately referred to this line as the haunted route.
That was because drivers assigned to it frequently encountered strange, uncanny experiences—hallucinations, inexplicable sounds, or sightings of peculiar people. In the end, however, it always turned out to be a false alarm; no real danger ever manifested.
Before retiring, the previous driver had given a special warning to his replacement, Okamoto Yuujirou.
"Yuujirou, remember this well. On this route, it's not strange to meet any kind of person. But if you ever encounter someone wearing a button with a golden spiral on it, you must treat them with respect. If they're adults, try not to disturb them. If they're minors, do your best to form a good connection."
At the time, the twenty-five-year-old Okamoto Yuujirou had innocently asked, "So what exactly is there at [Enzanroku]?"
The retired driver had simply smiled and revealed, "There's an obscure private religious school there. Don't pry into it. Outsiders are forbidden from approaching, and this extremely remote route exists precisely because the company's higher-ups wanted to build good karma."
By now, Okamoto Yuujirou had been on the job for a full week, traveling back and forth to [Enzanroku] multiple times, yet he had not once encountered anyone wearing a golden spiral button. All the same, he found himself secretly fascinated by the company's ghostly legends.
Along the way, he had noticed black business vans coming and going with unusual frequency. Their windows were covered with privacy film, obscuring the faces of the passengers; only the occasional motion of someone flicking ash from a cigarette out the window hinted that those inside were young people with an extraordinary presence.
That invisible sense of urgency, paired with their low-key restraint, inspired an involuntary respect in him.
There was no doubt about it—those were people of real capability.
As Halloween at the end of October drew near, new advertisements were pasted up inside the bus. Okamoto Yuujirou strictly adhered to company regulations, gripping the steering wheel as he drove the red bus, stopping at each platform for a full five minutes. From the city to the suburbs, passengers disembarked one after another, and even when the bus was empty, he never pulled away early.
Then, all of a sudden, two male high school students in uniform boarded the bus and dropped coins into the fare box.
At first, Okamoto Yuujirou didn't pay them much attention—until he noticed the tall, white-haired boy swaying as he walked, his stride carrying an unmistakable don't-care-about-anyone swagger. Only then did he call out,
"The bus doors will be closing shortly. Please take your seats as soon as possible.
The black-haired boy reached out, tugged the tall white-haired boy back, and helped him sit down in the very last row.
On their school uniforms, pinned to the left side of their chests, was a button shaped like a golden spiral, catching and scattering light within the cramped bus interior.
A realization dawned on Okamoto Yuujirou—so the people his senior had mentioned were students?
The bus wasn't large, and the back row was some distance away, yet the voices of the two boys still drifted forward like feathers brushing teasingly against the ear, faint but persistent, drawing his attention without his meaning to listen.
"Want some candy?"
"No. I'm exhausted. Didn't get a lunch break."
"We forgot to put up a Curtain again… and we skipped afternoon classes. We're definitely getting scolded for this…"
"Akiya~, wake me up when we get there."
"Mm… go to sleep."
Reflected in the rearview mirror, the black-haired boy's uniform looked dull and dusty, far from pristine, and there seemed to be a bruise lingering on his face. Beside him, the other boy had snow-white short hair and wore sunglasses, looking so sleepy he could barely speak, both arms draped over the back of the seat in front of him.
Suddenly, Okamoto Yuujirou met the gaze of the black-haired boy as he lifted his eyes in the mirror.
The look was assessing and sharp; his features were handsome, his posture straight and composed, so striking he could have passed for a top student from a film academy.
Startled, Okamoto Yuujirou hurriedly shifted his gaze back to the road, focusing on his driving, and apologized at once,
"Sorry about that. I'm new to this route. Are you heading to the final stop, Enzanroku? I'll call out when we arrive."
The boy's piercing gaze withdrew, as if it had never been there at all.
"A new driver, huh? Thank you," the boy said calmly. "But next time, if there's something you need, just say it directly. Don't sneak looks at my companion."
Not classmate, but companion? Okamoto Yuujirou instinctively lingered on the wording, chewing over the distinction. Startled by the rebuke, he no longer dared to steal another glance. Instead, he heard the tall white-haired boy let out a soft laugh, followed by the black-haired boy's voice—blurred by distance, yet gentle to an almost disarming degree.
Okamoto Yuujirou could only think that back when he himself had been young and reckless, he could never have mustered even a fraction of such tenderness.
Two youths wearing golden spiral buttons… minors?
The final stop, Enzanroku, arrived.
The high school boys—who looked very much like they had skipped afternoon classes—got off together. They headed uphill, their figures vanishing into the layered, rising stone steps, as though crossing an invisible boundary between the ordinary and the extraordinary, entering the depths of the profoundly mysterious private school hidden within Enzanroku.
An inexplicable sense of loss settled over Okamoto Yuujirou. After waiting five minutes, he resumed driving, turning the bus back toward the city.
He had a feeling, one he couldn't quite put into words, that the retired drivers before him had witnessed similar scenes.
Each of them, in their own way, had glimpsed a fragment of a secret.
For several days in a row, Gojo Satoru and Asou Akiya vanished during lunch break and only arrived late in the afternoon. Yaga Masamichi scolded them over forgetting to put up a Curtain, but considering that it was Asou Akiya's first offense, he ultimately let it go.
Ieiri Shoko asked Geto Suguru what was going on. Geto answered with a stiff, fake smile, "They're exorcising cursed spirits."
Ieiri Shoko blinked. "Voluntarily working overtime?"
Geto Suguru's displeasure was written plainly on his face. "No. It's unpaid volunteer labor. There's no compensation, so they didn't plan to drag me along. Gojo decided on his own that if I were there, we'd just end up arguing, and it would affect Akiya's progress in learning 'Black Flash.'"
Geto clenched his fist, wishing he could smash it straight into Gojo Satoru's white-haired head. "How could I possibly hold Akiya back? It's obviously Gojo who likes picking fights with me! He's always looking for trouble!"
Ieiri Shoko thought silently to herself: Isn't that basically the same thing?
Whenever Gojo Satoru and Geto Suguru were present at the same time, the probability of them getting into an argument was a solid eighty percent.
If Gojo, Geto, and Asou Akiya were all present together—and Akiya didn't have the time or presence of mind to smooth things over—then among these DKs, who would start fighting over whose friendship they were inexplicably competing for, the probability of an argument shot straight up to one hundred percent!
Ieiri Shoko shifted her posture, adopting a more relaxed stance as she observed her classmates, and said casually, "Akiya's been getting injured pretty frequently lately."
She added, almost as an afterthought, "And Gojo's also been coming to me more often for brain treatments."
The indignation on Geto Suguru's face softened. His brows relaxed, and the restless, irritable air around him gradually settled.
He wouldn't interfere.
Because he knew that Asou Akiya was chasing that fleeting spark of inspiration for mastering "Black Flash," and that Gojo, recently and somewhat miraculously, had "turned over a new leaf." Gojo now understood how to help Akiya tighten the rhythm of his training, and with the aid of the Six Eyes, he had been offering many genuinely effective suggestions.
Geto Suguru cleared his throat lightly, doing what he could to help his classmates. "Shoko, if you ever feel tired, just tell me. I'm willing to be your personal massage assistant."
Ieiri Shoko propped her chin on her hands. "A massage assistant? You won't end up massaging me into a fracture, will you?"
Geto Suguru looked genuinely surprised. "Is my reputation really that bad?"
Ieiri Shoko replied flatly, "Since enrollment, how many bad things have you and Gojo done together? Don't you have any self-awareness at all?"
Geto Suguru picked up his book and began reviewing history with an air of utmost seriousness. "No, I'm innocent. I was purely dragged down by Gojo. Back in middle school, I was a universally acknowledged top student—my parents' pride, and the gentle, handsome type in the eyes of my female classmates."
Ieiri Shoko looked at him with open disdain. "You…?"
Geto Suguru smiled at her, dark energy practically seeping out of the corners of his grin, sly and wicked. "What's wrong with that, Shoko~?"
Ieiri Shoko: "..."
She had three male classmates who were all handsome and fully aware of it—and yet, every single one of them seemed to have a spine made entirely of contrarian bones.
Ten days later.
October 27 was a special day.
In an era when Special Grade cursed spirits did not emerge easily, Grade 1 cursed spirits represented the highest level that jujutsu sorcerers routinely exorcised. Gojo Satoru stood high above the ground, his foot planted on a lofty vantage point as he looked down at the nursing home shrouded within a deployed Curtain. He did not even have time to eat the hamburger meant for lunch. His eyes glimmered with a faint, luminous light, harmonizing perfectly with the vast azure sky behind him.
Gojo Satoru fixed his gaze on the battle below.
Asou Akiya was facing a Grade 1 cursed spirit that possessed an innate technique.
The fight was no longer one-sided. Over this period of time, the Grade 3 sorcerer had achieved remarkable growth. Asou Akiya's breathing grew steadier and deeper with each cycle, his heart contracting in a measured rhythm to supply blood throughout his body, dispelling the oppressive pressure emanating from the cursed spirit.
What pressure could be greater than death itself, greater even than Gojo Satoru's expectations?
The answer was simple: none.
Asou Akiya focused entirely on the battle, his concentration twisting into a single, taut strand that ignited into flames, burning with fierce and passionate intensity.
He dragged himself down into the realm of the ordinary, no longer treating himself as a transmigrator who knew the plot in advance.
There were far too many battles in this world that lay beyond any written storyline.
Live—or die.
He assessed the origin of the cursed spirit: a Grade 1 entity born from the despair of Japan's elderly. Its cursed technique was "Aging," capable of causing muscle atrophy, brittle bones, and rapid physical decline in anyone it struck. It was one of the natural nemeses of close-combat fighters. Even Tengen, secluded within the Tombs of the Star Corridor, would have to sigh and remark, "How terrifying," if faced with such a technique.
Yet Asou Akiya did not fear the "Aging" technique.
Because he was young, because he had comrades.
And because there were things far more despair-inducing, far more frightening to him, than simply growing old.
His eyes tracked every movement of the Grade 1 cursed spirit; his breathing shifted in perfect accordance with the rhythm of combat. Saliva gathered between his lips and teeth, held there unconsciously as he sank into complete immersion. Pride, preferences, personal sentiments—everything dissolved into nothingness. The world was reduced to only three silhouettes: himself, his enemy, and the observer.
Within an error margin of 0.000001 seconds, Asou Akiya's swinging fist resonated with his flame-like cursed energy. Crimson fire erupted in a frenzy, releasing, detonating, warping reality itself. Within that blazing red, a dazzling black radiance spread outward like a drop of ink blooming through scarlet!
That was hope born from the ordinary!
That was eruption unleashed from the extraordinary!
Ahead of his fist, a force equal to two-and-a-half times the combined impact of physical power and cursed energy detonated all at once!
To the Six Eyes, the core of the Grade 1 cursed spirit was glaringly clear. Relying on the heightened cursed-energy perception brought on by extreme sensitivity, Asou Akiya pinpointed his opponent's weakness and, with the first Black Flash of his life, shattered the core in a single, decisive blow.
In its death throes, the Grade 1 cursed spirit launched a final counterattack, aging Asou Akiya's hands in an instant!
His face turned icy and unreadable.
He did not care. He did not think. He did not fear. He fully awakened the battle instincts buried deep within his body.
The muscles in Asou Akiya's hands shriveled like dried cured meat drained of moisture, his bones teetering on the brink of collapse, while the human sensation of pain remained severed from his nerves.
The next strike came as a sweeping kick—he slammed the elderly, distorted form of the cursed spirit viciously into a deep crater!
"BOOM—!" Asou Akiya pressed the attack without hesitation!
As he raised his arm, having already staked his life and lost all awareness of his own condition, the radiance of a second Black Flash began to gleam.
Black Flash was a power that could never be deliberately forced into existence.
If fortune favors you and your resolve is firm, even a novice can trigger successive Black Flashes within a single day—and Asou Akiya's determination to fight to the death had never been inferior to anyone else's.
Gojo Satoru flickered into existence, intercepting Asou Akiya and stopping that force—one that would have annihilated the enemy and destroyed his own arm along with it—from being released.
Gojo Satoru, who had always loved flooring the accelerator and racing forward without restraint, slammed on the brakes for Asou Akiya this time. To forcibly break him out of his battle trance, he shoved the hamburger he hadn't yet eaten straight into Asou Akiya's slightly parted lips, disrupting his sense of taste. He had already seen enough of that attitude that treated life and death as trivial things.
A fleeting moment of confusion crossed Asou Akiya's face.
Gojo Satoru said, "If your original arms can be saved, then save them. Don't go giving Shoko extra stress, yeah?"
He glanced at Asou Akiya's desiccated arms and tilted his head. "Man, that looks ugly."
Asou Akiya snapped back to his senses at once.
He withdrew his arms and tugged his sleeves down, concealing the injured, prematurely aged limbs.
Within the deep crater, the Grade 1 Cursed Spirit stubbornly attempted to repair its cursed energy core, unwilling to become an "old man" forgotten by the world.
Asou Akiya said nothing. He walked over, aimed at the place from which it could still let out its wailing cries, and stomped down once more.
Cursed energy erupted. Flames surged upward from beneath his foot, harming neither their master nor his body, instead illuminating that refined yet pallid face. In that light, he looked like a sorcerer reborn from nirvana—completely different from who he had been before—no longer able to conceal his sharp brilliance behind mere appearance.
A jujutsu sorcerer who has grasped "Black Flash" stands on an entirely different plane from before. The difference is like that between a diner and a gourmet, a singer and a vocalist, a writer and a literary master. Sorcerers like them can already savor the flavor of cursed energy itself, carefully discerning it, drawing forth the power they were always meant to wield—but had once restrained through the limits of their own hearts.
Asou Akiya delivered the final blow to the Grade 1 Cursed Spirit.
Exorcised.
Standing to the side as witness to the outcome, Gojo Satoru asked, "So—after seeing something like that, what do you think a normal classmate is supposed to do?"
Asou Akiya spat out the hamburger that tasted like chewing on wax and said with firm conviction, "Applaud."
"No problem." Gojo Satoru did not hold back at all as he broke into applause. "Clap clap clap—! Let's celebrate me fulfilling my vow! Akiya, you're the first student I ever taught 'Black Flash' to! As expected, I'm a genius in every conceivable way!"
Almost the instant he fully registered the content of that celebration, Asou Akiya's mind finally relaxed. His body, already unable to withstand the damage to his internal organs, gave out completely. His eyes rolled back, and just before losing consciousness, he heard Gojo Satoru shouting in exaggerated alarm, "Akiya, you're filthy from head to toe—there's no way I'm carrying a male student! You'd better hang in there until we get back to the school!"
[Hah, just a DK being all talk… and also… I'm so tired.]
Darkness swallowed his consciousness.
When Asou Akiya brushed against the core of cursed energy in the depths of that unseen realm, he beheld his own soul from a godlike vantage point.
The soul, still preserved in the form of a youth, was wrapped in flames of cursed energy, quietly radiating a feeling of joy.
Always clean.
A self like this, a life like this… it was truly wonderful…
—
Author's Note:
That's all for today.
Good night—yawn—going to sleep now.
PS: Tomorrow will be the Halloween arc. You know what that means. Heh~.