"You shouldn't have your feet up on the dashboard…it's not safe," Kiyotaka spoke into the tense silence as he briefly glanced away from the road to admonish Kiniro, who was lying back in the passenger seat while Nobara, Yuji, and Megumi were all crammed together in the back row.
"Kiyotaka, even if you were to drive into a concrete barrier at 120 miles per hour, I promise you I would emerge without a scratch, and besides, I trust you to get us to the school safely." Kiniro replied with an easygoing smile, "Honestly, I'm so comfortable I might fall asleep up here."
"Alright, no need to rub it in, asshole," Nobara muttered from the back seat, making Kiniro chuckle, "Hey look, I'll make a deal with all of you, when you show up and save the day, you can get shotgun. But until then, I'm going to enjoy this legroom."
"Um, Kiniro-senpai," Yuji started, only for Kiniro to interrupt him, "Eh, just Kiniro; we're not that close, and I'm barely a student at this point."
"R-right, I was just wondering about your conversation with Sukuna," Yuji replied, and in an instant the mood in the car went from tense to morbid.
"Yeah, what about it?" Kiniro asked, seemingly oblivious to the nervous sweat everyone else had broken out into.
Yuji coughed once, "Well, you told Sukuna that my soul and body were similar to his…what did you mean by that?"
"Oh…I just meant that there's a high chance he's a distant but direct ancestor of yours," Kiniro answered with a shrug.
".....HUH?!!"
A collective exclamation of shock made the car vibrate as everyone stared at Kiniro like he had just grown a second head.
"Well, I'm wide awake now," Kiniro grumbled as he put his feet down and sat upright, "Thanks for that?"
"What do you mean Itadori's related to Sukuna?!" Nobara shouted, sitting forward and grabbing the back of Kiniro's seat, "How is that even possible?!"
"What, did your parents not give you the talk?" Kiniro asked with a straight face as he glanced back at Nobara, who turned bright red with anger, "I meant that it's been more than 1000 years since Sukuna was alive; how could you possibly know if Yuji is related to him?"
Kiniro shook his head, "That is a far more in-depth and existential conversation than teaching you about sex, and you're definitely not ready to hear it."
"But I am related to him," Yuji repeated in disbelief.
"Most likely," Kiniro confirmed, "But I wouldn't put too much thought into it; besides, y'all have far more pressing concerns you need to focus on."
"More pressing than the fact that Itadori is related to the Jujutsu equivalent of the devil," Megumi muttered sarcastically.
"He's an edgy little shit, isn't he?" Kiniro asked rhetorically with a smirk before holding up his finger, "But in all seriousness, yes, and that issue is you all are weak as shit. I mean, I know you're only first years, but fuck me, you guys need to lock in."
"I'm going to strangle him," Nobara muttered.
Megumi nodded in agreement, "I can put the body in my shadow until we find a way to properly dispose of it."
Hearing the threat on his life, Kiniro just grinned, which was the only warning Megumi and Nobara got before they felt the cold, razor-sharp steel of Kiniro's knives press against their jugulars.
"First lesson, if you're going to commit to the bit, make damn sure you can follow through," Kiniro lectured from the front seat as Nobara and Megumi paled as they felt the razor-sharp edge of Lust press against their vulnerable necks while Yuji looked on with a conflicted look in his eyes as his hands slowly curled into fists.
"Kiniro!" Kiyotaka admonished with a surprisingly forceful glare.
"Alright, alright, though for the record they started it," Kiniro muttered as he held up his hand and his knives disappeared back into his sleeves, "I just need to show them how much they need my help, especially with the Goodwill event right around the corner."
"Only second years participate in the event," Megumi corrected as he couldn't help but reach up and feel his neck, checking that he wasn't bleeding.
"Actually, first years can participate if they're given special permission by their teacher, which, knowing Satoru, was going to happen. You three have too much potential to be sitting on the sidelines." Kiniro corrected, "So I hope you've enjoyed your last day of messing around because from here on out, I'm going to make your lives a miserable hell."
---
Maki woke up with the sun barely cresting over the horizon, ready to train as she did every single day. Her routine went as normal as she ran around campus five times and then, on her final lap, took an alternative route that would take her to the training field where she could practice her sword forms.
But when she was a couple hundred feet from the field, Maki heard something she didn't expect, which was anything other than silence, 'What the hell is going on?'
"Come on, Kugisaki, head up, pump your arms, breathe through your nose!"
"If you tell me how to run one more time, I'm going to nail your tongue to the ground!"
"You can only do that if you catch me, and right now you can't even catch your breath. So stop wasting it on me and focus on running in a straight line."
'No…why is he here?' Maki slowed down as she listened to the voices echoing from the field, 'I thought we were finally rid of him.'
Reaching the field, Maki's mood immediately soured as her eyes landed on Kiniro standing in the middle of the track with a whistle in hand as he barked orders at the first years.
"Fushiguro, don't you dare stop or I'm dropping another hundred pounds in your shadow. Itadori, your cursed energy is still far too slo-"
Before Kiniro could complete his sentence, he was interrupted by a sword piercing through his back and emerging a foot out of his chest, perfectly skewering his heart.
Megumi, Yuji, and Nobara all froze mid-exercise as they watched Kiniro slowly look down at the sword jutting out of his body, "You know, I really liked this sweater."
"Don't act like you couldn't have dodged if you wanted to," Maki replied in a monotone as she twisted her sword, worsening Kiniro's wound and the hole in his sweater.
"You've gotten faster," Kiniro noted as he tapped the sword sticking out of his chest before looking up to address the stunned first years, "You three, come here and meet one of your seniors. I promise you she doesn't bite. Unless you piss her off, then she just might stab you in the back as a greeting."
"I'm only reciprocating what you did to me and Yuta," Maki muttered with vitriol before savagely tearing out her sword, leaving Kiniro to weep over his ruined clothes.
"It was a calculated measure that helped Yuta overcome his own self-imposed barriers that prevented him from accessing Rika's and, more importantly, his own power," Kiniro replied coolly as Yuji, Megumi, and Nobara approached, regarding Maki with a mix of weariness and thankfulness now that they were finally given a break.
"And that doesn't make you any less of an asshole or get rid of my desire to mount your head on a pike," Maki muttered before she glanced at the trio, "So these are the first years…how the hell did you end up teaching them?"
"Rescued them after the higher-ups tried to pull the same shit they did with me and have this one killed," Kiniro replied as he pointed at Yuji, "Luckily Satoru saw it coming and asked me to keep a lookout."
"Of course he did, only a moron would keep in touch with the guy who nearly killed him," Maki muttered before she fixed the first years with a look, "As your senior, I'll say this once…whatever you think of this guy, your opinion of him isn't low enough. He only cares about himself, and whatever goodwill you think he's harboring with you is only because he finds you interesting, like a child with a new toy. But make no mistake he does not care about you as a person, only an object whose only significance is in relation to how you can serve his interests."