Kokichi Muta was a boy who served as Yuki Tsukumo's disciple and was an aspiring sorcerer in the first grade of elementary jujutsu school.
He was a man of great effort who had managed to achieve a semblance of normal daily life despite a body made extremely frail by a Heavenly Restriction. He accomplished this through the constant deployment of Reverse Cursed Technique, mastered after long and painful training, and through prosthetic limbs that utilized his innate technique.
His innate technique, Puppet Manipulation, was exactly as it sounded—a technique to control objects with cursed energy. However, right now, in the common room of the Jujutsu High dorms, he was being forced to waste his technique more than ever before.
"Whoa! Awesome! It's a Gundam! This is incredible, Megumi!"
"Yeah, it really is!"
Satoru Gojo and Suguru Geto had gone out for drinks after a mission and, in their pleasant intoxication, ended up buying Hyper Hybrid Model Zaku and Gundam kits at a hobby shop. Now, at the intense request of Yuji Itadori and Megumi Fushiguro, Kokichi was stuck making them move.
'I actually prefer Evangelion... I've only ever seen Gundam once...'
"Well, even while he grumbles, Kokichi is too nice not to follow through and move them properly."
"...It was hard to say no when those two had such sparkles in their eyes."
While Kokichi played around with the Gundam and Zaku within their range of motion, he was only doing so as a side task. The thing he was currently focusing on with serious effort was the maintenance of his own equipment: his prosthetic arms and legs.
To be precise, they were less like simple prosthetics and more like a reinforced exoskeleton. By covering his entire body from the neck down in a design similar to the plugsuits from Evangelion, it did more than just replace his missing parts; it was a masterpiece that assisted his overall physical activity.
While the Reverse Cursed Technique required a supply of Kokichi's cursed energy, the system for executing the technique itself had been successfully integrated into this exoskeleton. Thus, simply by wearing it, he could protect his incredibly delicate body. Of course, he had to take it off and maintain the Reverse Cursed Technique manually when bathing, but outside of those times, the system was designed so it wouldn't put much strain on his brain.
His master, Yuki Tsukumo, had devised the base for this exoskeleton, but Kokichi had made so many modifications that it had become his own original machine. The logic behind the machine's performance—improving in precision and output with every version—was extremely simple. The more Kokichi became capable of fine, detailed work, the higher the quality of his creations became.
Therefore, his precision in visualization and the precision of his craftsmanship should eventually converge and hit a plateau. Fortunately, he hadn't reached that stage yet. Every time he performed maintenance, Kokichi's reinforced exoskeleton continued to be improved into something even more superior.
"You've tucked quite a few blades in there."
"It's a new model. Until now, it just popped out a sword, but I tried making it spin at high speeds like a mixer the moment it deploys. Of course, even after deployment, it can be used as a weaponized arm loaded with blades."
"That's nasty. Don't use that on me, even if you'd use it on my sister."
"No, I don't plan on using it on Maki or you, Mai. It's dangerous; you'd just die."
Kokichi waved his hand in front of his face as if to say 'no way,' but Mai Zen'in raised an objection to that statement as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
"Well, maybe I would, but wouldn't my sister be fine?"
Mai turned her gaze toward her twin sister, Maki Zen'in. Because the Split Soul Katana had severed the chronic fate of twins, Maki had awakened as a perfect physical gifted. Having received training from two powerhouses—Toji Fushiguro, a pioneer of that path, and the Special Grade Yuki Tsukumo—her body possessed heroic physical abilities that were absurd for a first-grade elementary student... or a human being, for that matter.
However, to be honest, it was also a fact that Maki wasn't very self-aware of that. Because the sorcerers around her were not just the cream of the crop but practically distilled excellence, she was still just a child who lacked worldly knowledge, holding the very mistaken self-perception of, 'Isn't this just normal for a jujutsu sorcerer?'
"Hey, Mai, what do you take me for? I'd die like anyone else. This blade looks like it cuts incredibly well."
"If the blade actually hits you, sure. But in our last match, you caught my pilums as they flew at you and swung them around until they all broke. Even if Kokichi's arm becomes a mixer, it won't be a problem for you, Sister."
"...Well, I guess I could parry the blades if I really tried. Kokichi, show me that mixer once."
"Fine, but... [WEAPON DEPLOYMENT]"
"...I can see it pretty well."
"No way. The deployment speed is a fraction of a second, and the rotation is 3,000 RPM. That's beyond the human speed of perception..."
While engaging in such banter with the Zen'in sisters and focusing on his mechanical work, Kokichi worked on improvements based on Maki's feedback—such as adding multiple axes of rotation to create unpredictable slashing trajectories. At the same time, he showed off his dexterity by adding more figures to the play session at the request of Panda and Toge Inumaki, who had started frolicking with Yuji and Megumi. He was thoroughly enjoying his daily life with his friends.
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