Haibara Yu chuckled good-naturedly. "I like women with big appetites. I find them more genuine."
Nanami Kento sighed, pushing his glasses up his nose. "Haibara, sexual personal preferences can reveal a great deal about a person. It's best to keep them private when you don't know someone's identity."
"Ah, it's fine," Haibara waved a dismissive hand. "I'm a good judge of character. She's not a bad person."
The blonde woman's lips curved into an amused smile. "That's right, I'm not some suspicious individual. I am the Special Grade Jujutsu Sorcerer, Tsukumo Yuki."
Gojo Satoru's eyes lit with brief surprise before settling into calm recognition. "Oh. It's her." Ieiri Shoko and Geto Suguru nodded in silent acknowledgment, as if her name had long been part of their world's landscape.
Tsukumo Yuki raised an eyebrow, curiosity sparking in her gaze. "You all know about me? I didn't realize I was so famous."
Haibara's voice turned respectful yet inquisitive. "Are you the Tsukumo Yuki, Senior? The Special Grade Sorcerer who never takes missions and just… idles abroad?"
A flicker of displeasure crossed Yuki's face. "I knew I hated Jujutsu High. I really shouldn't have agreed to come back and be some lousy judge." She shifted her focus, her sharp eyes scrutinizing Kamo Itsuki, Gojo, and Geto. "You three are the ones being assessed, correct?"
She had received the dossiers from the Higher-ups, of course. The fact that all of them had been jointly recommended for Special Grade—a courtesy never extended to her in her day—had piqued her interest enough to return. Now, standing before them, that interest sharpened into something more visceral. Even as a Special Grade herself, she could feel a palpable, suffocating pressure emanating from the trio. It was the instinct of a powerful fighter recognizing peers, and perhaps even superiors.
Once the assembled Higher-ups were seated, the atmosphere in the assessment venue grew solemn and tense. Kamo, Gojo, and Geto stood at the edge of the grounds, less concerned with performing for the watching elders than with the silent competition humming between themselves.
The rules were simple: a demonstration of power, followed by a judgment. The usual requirement of exorcising a matching grade curse had been waived—Special Grades were rare, and the Higher-ups were too impatient for formalities. Rules, after all, were malleable to those in charge.
Geto Suguru was first. He walked calmly to the arena's center, formed a swift hand sign, and activated his Cursed Spirit Manipulation.
Endless darkness seemed to surge from around him, followed by a tide of curses that poured forth, instantly flooding the testing ground. They varied wildly in form—some ferocious and demonic, others ethereal and ghostly. The scene resembled a living scroll of a night parade of a hundred demons, with Geto standing calmly at its heart like a sovereign of the damned. Every curse bowed to his will.
The numbers were staggering. Countless Grade Two and Three spirits swirled amid the hulking, malignant presences of numerous Grade One and quasi-Grade One curses. The collective cursed energy they emitted was so dense it made the very air of the assessment venue shudder and tremble.
A low murmur of approval rippled through the observation booth. Tsukumo Yuki's voice cut through it, clear and analytical. "If that horde rushed me all at once, even I'd struggle to get out clean. You could destroy ten, a hundred… but he commands a thousand. You'd exhaust yourself before you ever reached him."
Among the Higher-ups, impressed nods were exchanged. Some, noting Geto's non-clan origins, were already calculating potential alliances, their minds turning to political marriages and other enticements.
But Geto was not finished. His hand signs shifted, a clear intent to pull even more from his vast reserves. A palpable spike of anxiety shot through the observers. The visual and spiritual pressure was already overwhelming; the thought of more was genuinely alarming.
"That will suffice!" the head judge called out, his voice strained. "The demonstration is recognized!"
The summons halted. The sea of curses began to recede, flowing back into Geto as silently as they had emerged, leaving the arena scarred but silent. On the sidelines, Haibara Yu's eyes shone with pure awe. "Senior Geto's strength is absolutely incredible!"
Nanami Kento's assessment was more measured, tinged with a quiet resignation. "Indeed. It feels like a level I could never reach."
With Geto's status as a Special Grade unquestionably cemented, all attention shifted to the next candidate.
Gojo Satoru's lips curled into a faint, knowing smile. He offered no preamble. With a casual, almost negligent flick of his raised hand, he unleashed it.
Hollow Purple.
A sphere of impossible, vibrating energy—neither blue nor red, but a violent, erasing violet—streaked skyward. It was not a beam of light, but a negation of the very space it traveled through, leaving a temporary scar of void in its wake. It pierced the heavy cloud cover, not dispersing it, but blasting a perfect, clean hole through the atmosphere, as if a cookie cutter had been taken to the sky. Sunlight streamed dramatically through the new opening, illuminating the arena in a single, stark column.
In the observation booth, Tsukumo Yuki let out a soft, appreciative whistle. "A technique not even fully recorded in the Gojo clan's archives. By superimposing the attraction of 'Blue' and the repulsion of 'Red,' he creates an imaginary mass… a energy wave that scrubs matter from existence. That level of destructive force could exorcise any Special Grade curse."
The Higher-ups stared, silent. The chill that ran through them was primal. They were not witnessing power; they were witnessing an absolute, a natural law made personal. The unspoken thought hung in the air: That could be us. Erased. Just like that.
"Senior Gojo is amazing, too!" Haibara whispered, his earlier awe now multiplied, seeing a new pinnacle.
Nanami, ever the tactician, added a quiet caveat. "If all of Senior Geto's curses were lined up in a row, that attack could likely erase them all at once." He paused. "But Senior Geto's tactics would never be so… straightforward."
The implicit challenge was clear. Two world-altering powers had been displayed. The atmosphere now thrummed with a single, heavy question: what could possibly follow this? All eyes, filled with anticipation and a dawning sense of trepidation, turned to the final candidate—Kamo Itsuki.