Hibana Mutou took pride in being Wolf Team Seven’s leader.

  His cousins, best friends, and comrades that had followed him all his life sat next to him in the back of a black SUV driven by one of the family’s assistants. They were Manji, Hiro, and Kenji. The first two were both knuckleheads that wouldn’t know the first thing about exorcising curses if it hadn’t been for Mutou’s leadership.

  They may have all been dressed up in the black suits that denoted their ranks as full sorcerers—graduates of Hibana-sama’s training programme—but that didn’t do much to stop them from acting like children, even now.

  They held their hands in a ball-like fashion, concealing the contents from view. “One, two, three, release!” they cried, both of them uncovering the contents.

  A mantis Juchū in Hiro’s hand, and an atlas beetle in Manji’s. Which meant that Manji had won, because the mantis couldn’t cut the beetle’s carapace.

  Of course, that wasn’t true, but for the purposes of this game of bug-themed rock, paper, scissors, that might as well have been the case.

  “Dammit!” Hiro dispelled his Juchū. The boy’s thin frame tensed up in irritation at his third loss in succession, which meant—

  “Pay up!” Manji, the dramatically larger boy, with a frame built for wrestling, clapped his hands in joy as Hiro passed him a box of cigarettes, the plastic wrapper still on.

  “That’s such a filthy habit,” Kenji, who was on the window-seat on the other side of Mutou, muttered. “This isn’t a manga—we have real, actual lungs here.”

  They were all seventeen, so strictly speaking, they weren’t supposed to smoke according to the laws of the country. However, Teira-sama didn’t penalize this sort of thing apparently, and the managers could be bribed to buy such products for teenagers above the ages of fifteen. Any younger, and people began to lose points.

  “Smoking is a man’s romance!” Manji boomed, grinning as he snatched the pack of cigarettes from Hiro’s hands. “Maybe if you smoked, you’d finally be able to land a girlfriend, Kenji-kun!”

  “Focus, idiots,” Mutou said to them. His arms were folded, and his hands felt the outline of his knife holstered underneath his jacket in a shoulder holster. “Recite the mission briefing.”

  “Man, again?” Hiro asked. “What? You think we’d have forgotten about it in the forty-five minutes since you last asked?”

  “Recite the mission briefing,” Mutou replied, because he didn’t care.

  That was what he had learned from Teira-sama’s punishment: one could never be too prudent.

  He remembered it like it was yesterday. He’d been ten years old, bullying some kid because he quit the sorcerer’s corps to read manga of all things. He’d tried to attack the kid using Jujutsu after he’d provoked him, only for Teira-sama’s Juchū to grab him by his wrist to stop him, and then suspend him for training for an entire year.

  An entire year spent watching Hiro and Manji grow as sorcerers while he could only train on his lonesome, disallowed to even ask them for advice. Or anyone else for that matter. Teira-sama had been excruciatingly exacting about Mutou’s punishment, preventing him from anything but the purest of self-study. Even books had been off-limits.

  Mutou had spent that year repenting. And training. He had felt his way towards optimal Cursed Energy Manipulation, training in solitude with no one to help him. He had let the crushing pressure of loneliness forge him anew, into a creature that only knew Jujutsu.

  And when his year had been up, what else had he returned to but a pair of knuckleheads that had barely even improved since last he saw them?!

  Six years later, and Hibana Mutou was still angry at the two.

  Angry, but grateful that he had arrived when he had, in order to push his idiot friends towards new heights.

  The real kicker, though? That same exact kid that he had bullied, Kenji? Well, he was now in their group of sorcerers, having joined it for the sole purpose of ‘collecting battle knowledge’ so that he could more realistically draw fight scenes for his own manga.

  Which meant that Mutou was now in charge of three different flavors of idiot, all at once!

  “Ah, seriously?” Hiro grumbled.

  Kenji, thankfully, answered before Mutou lost his temper. He cleared his throat and spoke evenly. “An infestation of Grade Two curses plaguing the village of Mizuhara in the Gifu prefecture. Eighteen dead, thirty injured. All civilians have been evacuated. The confirmed number of Grade Twos are four. None of them approach Grade One in capability, but they all surround a similar theme of vermin like rats and mice. When threatened, they conjoin, combining their tails in a tangle to become far stronger, causing them to approach Semi-Grade One, perhaps stronger. Preliminary rankings are Grade One to Semi-Grade One. They use cursed pestilence to harm their targets.”

  “And Teira-sama isn’t present to fight. She is present in a purely observational manner,” Hiro completed. He looked slightly discomfited by that particular detail.

  “Eh, what the hell,” Manji scoffed. “There’s such a thing as being too reliant, you know. Cuts down on our aura after all.”

  Mutou agreed—minus the idiotic ‘aura’ part. “Teira-sama has better things to do than to bail us out should we prove to be as disappointing as the sorcerers that died in the line of duty. Everyone knows this.”

  Indeed, while Mutou would never openly speculate on the capabilities of Teira-sama, he knew that she had the potential to save everyone that ran into trouble while on their missions. Still, she didn’t.

  In fact, ever since she had taken the helm of clan head, twelve sorcerers had died while on a mission. These were usually older sorcerers that had been apprenticing while under the tutelage of the old guard. Mutou also didn’t fail to notice that these sorcerers were low-point clansmen that yet chafed under the leadership of Teira-sama.

  They had invited death to their doorstep by continuing to practice sorcery without properly paying obeisance to the new guard.

  The sorcerers under the age of eighteen rarely paid such a price nowadays, because they were far more astute. Even Hiro and Manjiro, despite their levity, were adequate followers of the new law where it mattered. Their efforts had even afforded them girlfriends of all things, in the squads Wolf Team Eight and Nine. Kenji was… too absorbed in his hobby to really seek anything outside of it.

  Mutou forewent such frivolities voluntarily. Especially because there was really only one girl he’d ever had in mind, and she was off to face off against Jujutsu Society itself. She had been a peer to him, as a child. And now…

  Just another star in the sky. Like Teira-sama herself, only lesser of course. Yet, nonetheless bright.

  And there had never really been a guarantee that they could have gotten together had he chosen it. Mutou considered himself to be a delusional sorcerer, to a fault. He had spent much of his childhood chasing the idea that he could ever be equal to Teira-sama.

  He’d known that it wasn’t possible, but he had always felt that it could have been. As long as he just pushed.

  And if he pushed hard enough, then even if he failed to be equal to Teira-sama, perhaps he would have the qualifications to stand besides Haruta-chan?

  “We’re only Grade Two sorcerers,” Kenji frowned. “Even then, only collectively—meaning our capabilities only indicate that together, we may reliably defeat one Grade Two curse. Power levels indicate that we are outmatched, so we should be focusing on strategy and—“

  Manji blew a raspberry as he patted Kenji’s shoulder roughly, causing the boy to shake, knocking his glasses askew. “We’re only Grade Two because Teira-sama’s standards are so high. Don’t you remember the last Grade One we dealt with, back at the clan compound?”

  According to the clan head, that specimen had been directly controlled by none other than Teira-sama, who had used her Juchū to do so. In doing so, the creature’s battle prowess had risen dramatically.

  The exorcism of that Grade One curse had earned them a C grade. None on their side had been injured, but the performance was apparently so lackluster that it prevented them from achieving the qualification of even Semi-Grade One, let alone Grade One.

  That was to be expected. Without the miraculous Juchū given to them by Teira-sama herself, they were far, far away from the peak that an average Jujutsu Sorcerer could possibly aspire to.

  “Even so,” Kenji righted his glasses and glared at Manji. “We should fight like our lives depend on it.”

  “Kenji,” Mutou said. “What’s the first thing we do when we’re up against toxin-type curses?”

  “Prophylactic measures,” Kenji said.

  “Antivenom Juchū out,” Mutou commanded, holding out his hand to summon his own. Manji opened his mouth to let his out from it. It was a winged vial-shaped bug whose contents he upended into his maw. Mutou did the more reasonable thing and drank from it with his hands, same as the others.

  While Teira-sama could produce toxins, one of her most useful inventions was a toxin so powerful that it could swallow up and break down other, lesser toxins. And the toxin of Grade Two vermin were nothing compared to the clan head’s.

  The only side effect, however…

  Mutou winced in agony. Kenji clutched his chest, whimpering as he did. Hiro coughed uncontrollably, while Manji pounded his chest like a gorilla.

  Toxin-type curses were a pain, because immunization was a pain. At least it only lasted a few minutes, and provided them coverage for the next four to six hours.

  Still, with that out of the way, much of what made these vermin Grade Twos in the first place had already been neutralized.

  The driver in front of them spoke up. He was an assistant manager for the family, a step above a non-sorcerer in cursed energy and technique, but far too weak to be expected to fight. “We’re two minutes away from the village. I just received word from Teira-sama that we will be meeting with another squad.”

  Mutou immediately sat up. “Another squad?”

  “Yes,” the assistant said. “From the Ogura family.”

  Mutou sighed, rubbing a hand over his forehead as he did.

  This is going to be a hard one after all.

  000

  The assistant stopped the car at the point on the road where the trees gave way to the open space of the village ahead. Another car had stayed waiting there as well. A few dozen meters up ahead were emergency tents and medical personnel. Non-sorcerer government workers, helping the wounded and poisoned.

  Mutou and his boys stood in a row, watching the mess.

  “So horrible,” Kenji said. “Many of them might die without our antivenoms.”

  “That doesn’t mean we can give it to them,” Mutou responded gruffly. “There’s only so much we can do to involve ourselves with the affairs of non-sorcerers. But these curses aren’t likely to be the type to still have their toxins exist even after their exorcism. Meaning, if we can just exorcise them, the ones suffering from the toxins will be freed from it.”

  That still wouldn’t really address the damage that it had done, but that was none of Mutou’s concern. He was a Jujutsu Sorcerer. He exorcised cursed spirits to protect humans. Healing the sick didn’t figure into that job description.

  As long as he focused on what he could do, everything would fall into place.

  The Ogura clan reinforcements were milling about around their car, being briefed by their own assistant manager. Mutou noted that all of them were girls. They were dressed up in padded full-body suits that made them slightly resemble riot police—or more like super heroes, though they kept their faces bare, of course.

  One of the girls saw him looking, and glared at him.

  “What’s her problem,” Manji snorted.

  “Inter-clan rivalry,” Mutou muttered. “Still, we’ll be expected to get along. Therefore, we need to be on our best behavior.”

  Mutou walked up to them. His team followed.

  The Ogura’s assistant saw them first and quickly gave them a respectful bow. “Thank you for coming. I trust that you’ve been adequately briefed on the situation.”

  “Yes,” Mutou said.

  “Then I’ll leave the rest to you.”

  The Oguras were three in number. And they were all rather… bulky for girls. Not that there was anything wrong with that. It was just odd to see.

  Then again, the Ogura clan focused on Cursed Energy Manipulation and direct physical violence, rather than the subtler arts of Jujutsu. One of them might even have the famed Iron Fist technique.

  “Hibana,” one of the girls stepped up to Mutou. “Just focus on giving us eyes and ears within the area. We’ll deal with the curses.”

  Now was definitely not the time for grandstanding. “We usually make Kenji do overwatch. The rest of us are more than capable of contributing to this fight against four Grade Two curses,” he emphasized the last part.

  She snorted. “Fine. Up to you. My name is Aoba. These are Sumire and Marin.”

  Mutou quickly introduced himself and his team.

  “I trust that’s enough chatter,” Mutou said. “We have curses to kill.” He didn’t wait for anyone else’s say so before walking towards the village.

  “Alright, good luck!” Kenji said to them, grinning brightly from where he stood.

  That was odd. They were roughly five to six hundred meters from the epicenter of the village. Normally, Kenji would have wanted to get closer in order to properly cover his Juchū across the area.

  Instead, he made a handsign, and two insectile antennae grew from his head, bendy at the ends.

  Arthropodal Aspect for Sense Expansion.

  The extension technique was difficult to master, and it carried a stigma around it among the sorcerers of the Hibana clan, because it destroyed the Juchū that went into activating it. Teira-sama encouraged its use, however, and she didn’t shy away from replacing the lost Juchū of any Sorcerers who saw fit to use the technique. As long as they used it for a good reason.

  “I’m not getting anywhere closer, heheh,” Kenji said. “With these, I have a two-kilometer wide radius, perfect for even sensing the cursed spirits that got away in the forest. I’ll mark them for clean-up after you’re done with the village.”

  The cursed spirits had chosen to flee into the wilderness, too? Kenji must have sensed that for him to make the judgment of summoning those antennae. He always did have the sharper senses among the rest of his team. It came with the territory of being a self-proclaimed and proud coward.

  Unlike Hiro and Manji who would always give him grief over it, Mutou had matured since he was a child. He saw nothing wrong with being a coward—as long as it didn’t get in the way of your work. Risk aversion was only healthy.

  “Alright, loser,” Manji chuckled. “Have fun playing with your flies.”

  The Ogura girls snorted at Kenji. Such an attitude would never make the boy popular with girls, unfortunately.

  “Let’s go,” Mutou said.

  They passed by the emergency tents. A few of the ambulance workers tried to intercept them, but the assistant managers intercepted them in turn, leaving the six sorcerers to walk through unmolested.

  The regional police would have wanted more words than that, so it was lucky that they had arrived before them.

  A Speaker Bug, like a beetle with a human mouth, landed on Mutou’s shoulder right shoulder, and the shoulders of the rest of their group.

  “What is this?” Ogura Aoba asked as she snatched the bug from her shoulder.

  “Leave it,” Mutou advised. “It’s there for Kenji to speak to us.”

  “I have nothing to hear from a coward,” Aoba said before letting the bug go. Still, she let it settle on her shoulder.

  “That’s not true at all,” Kenji said through all their bugs. “You might want to start speeding up, however. I’m sensing that there are at least five unevacuated civilians in the village.”

  “Are they injured?”

  “I can only sense their cursed energy. It’s stronger than normal for non-sorcerers.”

  Which, paradoxically, indicated that they were closer to death than not, as non-sorcerers tended to concentrate their cursed energy in their final moments.

  Dammit.

  Mutou didn’t care that he might be seen by the non-sorcerers in the emergency area. He sped up past human limits, running while infusing himself with cursed energy. The others did the same.

  “Aoba-san!” Mutou called as he summoned a quartet of Kamakiri blades. They were the arm-pieces of Teira-sama’s famed Kamakiri Juchū, and were infused with positive energy. He threw them towards the girls, who all caught them and looked at them in confusion. “They’re good against cursed spirits! Here’s the plan: we gang up on one of the Grade Twos. If we all focus on killing them one by one, they won’t be able to join tails and become stronger! Kenji!”

  “On it!”

  Mutou spotted a firefly Juchū flying above their heads faster than they could run. One of Kenji’s. It settled a few hundred meters ahead, on top of a house that sat next to a river.

  “Follow the light!” Mutou shouted, unnecessarily however, as the Ogura girls immediately sped up in front of them, running almost double Mutou’s full speed.

  Damn. Brawler-types are fast.

  “What the hell?!” Hiro spat as all three of them were left in their dust. “Just running up ahead like that? Why are they so annoying to work with?”

  That wasn’t a surprise. Even seven years after the dissolution of the Curse Expert Association, tensions between the different clans were still high. Teira-sama had slaughtered their leadership, after all. Just the fact that they worked this well together was a miracle anyway.

  The three girls reached the house, and just barreled straight through it.

  Seconds later, one of them flew out from a wall and landed in the river.

  Then, the two remaining Ogura girls burst out from the roof of the house while they wrestled the rat-like cursed spirit, taking turns punching it in the head while constricting its front arms with their own legs.

  “Heh! Watch this!” Manji roared as he summoned a weapon-type merged Juchū, in the shape of a spear with wings.

  He threw it.

  The winged spear flew true, accelerated and guided by wings, striking directly into the Cursed Spirit’s mid-section. A small explosion resulted from the contact.

  As the Ogura girls landed on the ground with the giant rat, it was already dissolving into cursed energy.

  “Great!” Kenji said. “One down. Three more to go. Now, if they join tails, they’ll only be as strong as a Semi-Grade One at worst!”

  Kenji’s firefly flew over to a different house now. Manji held out his hand, and the spear flew back to it, all the while as the Ogura girls cast them annoyed glares at him for stealing their kill.

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  Mutou judged that this was fine. If they couldn’t cooperate effectively, then they might as well make it a competition.

  000

  In the end, the three remaining rats had chosen to join together rather than wait to be picked off one after the other.

  Mutou and Kenji focused on the lesser Grade Three and Four spirits in the area in order to let the remaining five have a clean battle against the Semi-Grade One abomination.

  The ensuing mess had levelled several houses, and claimed the life of one of the injured civilians. That would reflect poorly on their performance review, but in Mutou’s estimation, little could have been done about that.

  As Jujutsu Sorcerers, their prime mission was to exorcise cursed spirits. To neglect that mission in order to save civilians was self-defeating, as it would just give the cursed spirits room to kill more while the sorcerer’s focus was diverted.

  Mutou watched the entangled rats dissolve dispassionately while Manji and Hiro gave each other high fives. The girls hadn’t gotten off as scot-free. Brawling with toxin types was an idiot’s game, but what the hell could you expect from brawler-types, anyway?

  He walked up to them and saw that one had a wide gash along her forearm. Sumire, if he recalled correctly. He summoned more antivenom Juchū in his hands and handed the vials to them. “Drink,” Mutou said.

  The cursed spirits were dead, but if these were the type to let their toxins linger after their deaths, then it was better to be safe than sorry.

  The girls took the vials, glowering at him all the while. “You’re welcome, by the way,” Sumire said.

  “Don’t go flattering yourselves without cause,” Mutou replied. “You chose to go at this in the riskiest way possible. Our job isn’t to save you from your own mistakes.”

  “You—”

  “Wolf Team Seven.”

  The call came from above.

  An Ambassador Juchū was floating gently down in their midst. The Ogura girls immediately held their tongues and bowed, as did Mutou and his own team.

  “C-grade. Do better next time.”

  Mutou felt a stab at the sudden grading.

  For Teira-sama to have sent an ambassador Juchū meant trouble. Her attention on this level usually always heralded something grave.

  “Your full performance review will be handed to you by your assistant manager. Black Boulder Team Three,” she then said, focusing on the Oguras. “C minus-grade. As frontliners, your job is to distract cursed spirits from focusing on your more physically frail allies. You did a good job on that. Your attitudes, however, require work.”

  And with that, she disappeared.

  Dammit!

  Mutou didn’t even think to draw some satisfaction from the Oguras getting chastised.

  Instead, he could only blame himself for being too damn ineffectual.

  At this rate, would he ever be able to call himself a Grade One?

  Would he ever be able to stand in the presence of her?

  If Haruta had been here, she might have earned them an A.

  Or even taken care of the cursed spirits on her lonesome. Among all the Grade Two sorcerers in the clan, she had been the only one to take on a Grade One and win without any back-up. She had been the only one to earn an A-grade, exorcising a curse on that level in the span of six minutes and thirty-five seconds.

  And that still hadn’t been enough to get her promoted.

  He wondered what it would take for her.

  What it would take for him.

  And he wondered how monstrous the students she would meet in Jujutsu High would be.

  “Ah, that’s a bummer,” Kenji said. “Anyway, time for clean-up! Head on into the woods and let’s have ourselves a duck hunt!”

  “No rest for the wicked,” Hiro sighed.

  He lit himself a cigarette.

  000

  Shigemo Haruta… kinda hated Kyoto.

  There was something in the air here that disagreed with him. Or maybe it was something in the water, turning every Kyoto native into a total snob who viewed everyone else as their lesser. He much preferred the alienation of Tokyo’s seedier underbelly where he had grown up. There, people didn’t put on as many airs.

  They were still assholes, of course. Everyone was when you made a living scamming and shaking people down for a quick buck. But in their assholery, there was a level of humility to it. Being an asshole was a matter of survival, not satisfaction. Well, there was satisfaction too, but it was undercut by the fact that they were self-aware in how pathetic they were.

  He had accepted this invitation into a Jujutsu school on a whim, after hearing from this bug woman that there was money involved. All he had to do? Exorcise demons and monsters for a living. He had almost turned her down before learning that in this school, he’d also be able to learn how to become stronger.

  That… kind of offset the risk. And besides, what else was he going to do with his life? There wasn’t really much for him in Tokyo.

  Weirdly, he had been offered a place in their Tokyo school, but something had gotten mixed up, and now he was here.

  Traditional architecture everywhere, and the ground and air was just littered with pretty cherry blossoms. This whole damn place had an air of snobbery to it. National pride that insisted upon every inch of the school grounds.

  He wore a backpack filled with changes of clothes, but was currently wearing his school’s uniform: a dark blue, almost black gakuran with a golden button on his chest with a black spiral on it, marking him as a sorcerer.

  Fighting monsters was definitely going to be a massive pain in the neck, but if he just held his head low and did as he was told, he’d be swimming in cash. Probably. Hopefully. He just needed to get lucky, was all.

  Fortunately for Shigemo Haruta, luck was usually always on his side.

  At that thought, his mood instantly picked up. Yes, what did he have to worry about? This sorcerer thing was definitely going to be a breeze. He’d learn all the greatest hits. The rasengan, the spirit bomb, whatever the hell they could teach him. He wasn’t particularly picky.

  With a pep in his step, he skipped towards the main school building. He was already running a little too late to unpack at his assigned dorm room. Ideally, he should have arrived the day before, but he’d already been given a nice stipend.

  He’d… spent most of it in a pachinko parlor, collecting rare orbs. He hadn’t cashed them in, of course. He’d wait a couple more months until their rarity shot up. They were an investment, really. And he was sitting on almost two hundred thousand yen worth of orbs! In any case, the food in the school was free, and he’d get a bed and a roof over his head for free as well. Survival was no longer his main concern. It was freeing!

  “Out of my way—“

  Mid-step, someone shoved Haruta to the side, causing him to trip over on his feet and land on his face. Ow! What the hell? There were barely anyone else in this wide path.

  Haruta sat up and rubbed at his sore face. “Screw you, you jerk!”

  Immediately, he felt something slam his face into the pavement, dazing him. “Who the hell do you think you’re talking to, trash? Do you wanna die?!”

  What the—what the fuck?!

  The thing holding his head down let go, and then—

  Oomph!

  Something kicked him so hard that it sent him flying into the air, over a dozen meters away. It felt like getting hit by a car! And he’d survived more than a couple of car-crashes in his life. It was his preferred method of making money, in fact—getting hit by cars and shaking down the drivers for cash to pay off his non-existent ‘medical bills’. Of course, he’d always been too tough to actually get hurt—despite his slight and wispy frame.

  Now, it felt like he was feeling the same thing that a normal person felt when a car hit them.

  Utter agony, and an inability to breathe.

  He rolled to his back, and caught sight of his assailant.

  Handsome. Infuriatingly so. Just his type, too. He had medium-length gray hair, sharp eyes, a sharp chin and a muscled frame. And he was tall. Maybe even six feet, almost.

  Haruta usually never suffered from bullies. He was too tough to be hurt by normal people.

  Unfortunately, he had made a grave miscalculation: he was no longer around normal people. Everyone else seemed to be a similar freak of nature as him. That was the reason he had been headhunted into this demon slaying school in the first place.

  This was the first true interaction he’d had with this world of people like him. In all his fifteen years, he had thought himself alone, a unique specimen of nature.

  Of course there would be others stronger than him.

  Of course there would be consequences for no longer being special.

  And this asshole was wearing the same uniform as him, too. So he was also just a student. A person that was supposed to be on his level, but was far, far beyond that.

  “I knew I’d eventually meet a maggot like you,” the guy said. He didn’t even seem particularly angry, just annoyed. “Human scum that doesn’t even know his place. You could have gotten off lightly, you know, if you’d just held your tongue. But you had to go and pick a fight with me. You know what that means, right?”

  Haruta tried to crawl away as his mind blared ‘danger’ to him over and over again. He didn’t want to get kicked again. He wanted nothing else than to not get kicked like that again. It hurt too much. It still hurt. When would it stop hurting?

  The asshole stomped on his back, driving him down to his stomach and knocking the wind out of him again. “What’s your name, Trash? I won’t ever refer to you by it, since your name is now Trash, but I’d like to know. Just for the record. And who knows? As my first slave, you might end up being promoted down the line, as long as you tough this beating out.”

  Dammit.

  That’s the game, then.

  Haruta could only blame himself for having used up his luck on pachinko of all things. But if he was to become this asshole’s underling, then so be it. He’d take his lumps now, and laugh it off without hesitation. As long as he didn’t break any bones or lose any teeth, he could even let go of his grudge, too.

  This was the way of the underworld, after all. The strong enslaved the weak. And now, it was finally his turn.

  “Shigemo…” he wheezed. “Haruta…”

  “You look like a girl, trash,” the asshole said. “Long, blonde hair in a ponytail. You’d have been my type too if you weren’t a fucking boy.” He stomped him again. “What a fucking pain. People like you should just die.” He stomped him again. “Trash!”

  Haruta tried to laugh it off. “Heheh, I know—“

  The stomps became harder.

  Shit, this isn’t working, what do I do?

  “Don’t talk, Trash-chan!” the asshole laughed. “You’re ruining my buzz!”

  There really was no winning with this asshole! Why did the prettiest faces have the blackest hearts, anyway? It wasn’t fair!

  “Alright, sit in seiza,” the asshole said.

  Haruta instantly obeyed, pushing himself up to his knees, orienting his body towards the asshole, and sitting on his heels, hands on his lap.

  “Ready to become my slave, Trash-chan?”

  Haruta nodded eagerly.

  The asshole kicked him in his face twice, on each side of his face.

  “Good. Next, cut that ponytail of yours. You got scissors on you? If not, I’ll rip it out of your scalp, no problem.”

  Haruta tried not to whimper at the order, due to the fact that he didn’t have any scissors on him or in his backpack.

  “No scissors, huh? Too bad—“

  In that exact moment, something happened. Something that Haruta’s eyes had barely been able to follow.

  A girl falling from the sky sent a flying kick directly into the asshole’s face, sending him flying away face-first into a tree so hard that the tree cracked. It didn’t break off entirely. The asshole slid down the tree, and then—a fist-sized bug landed on the nape of his neck and bit him.

  The girl landed softly on the ground in front of him.

  She wore a dark blue sailor uniform, and on her back were a pair of large dragonfly wings.

  She checked her watch. “Whew. Arrived in Kyoto just in time! Who knew this place would be so far from Tokyo? Anyway,” she reached a hand to Haruta. “We should get going before he wakes up.”

  He took her hand and got a better look at her face. She had short black hair, teal eyes, and an infuriatingly pure grin, like someone who thought themselves the hero of their own story.

  Before he could formulate a sentence, she grabbed him bodily and tossed him over her shoulder before flying away once again, to the top balcony of one of the buildings, where she set him down against the wall gently.

  “He got you good,” she hissed sympathetically as she unslung her backpack and rummaged through it. She produced a clay jar and handed it over to him. “This is cursed honey. You should rub it over your bruises and it’ll heal you quickly. I have some bandages too, so that your clothes won’t get sticky. Fair warning, though: it’s itchy as heck!”

  “Who was that guy?!” he shouted.

  She looked over her shoulder, to the ledge of the balcony. “A problem,” she responded cryptically. “And… I did something I shouldn’t have done.” She then turned back to him with a wide smile. “Anyway! Shirt off! I’ll help wrap you up nice and quick!”

  He could hardly mount any resistance to her demands at this point, having learned his lesson to not go against the will of those stronger than him.

  She leaned close to his face with big, curious eyes. Too close.

  He hated when girls got interested in him. Girls did nothing for him, and yet they couldn’t help but throw themselves at his feet. It was such a damn shame. “I like those purple fang markings on your face! They’re quite cute!”

  She was referring to the row of six purple triangles rowed under his eyes, three under each one. They were long and thin, and pointed downwards, like fangs for his eyes, or like eyelashes. Occasionally, they’d dim and lose color in the middle, but most of the time, they were fully colored. Haruta had no idea what caused them to change. He guessed it was just one of those mysteries of life.

  “Thanks,” he said quietly as he removed his shirt. She pulled back to lather some of the honey on the bandages.

  She didn’t hesitate to quickly wrap him up, or wait to ogle at his bare-chested body like a total virgin would have. Instead, she had done exactly as promised, providing him with the first aid before clapping her hands and grinning sunnily. “There! All done!”

  She was right that it was itchy. What a damn pain. “How long will it take to work?”

  “A couple of hours,” she said. “I can’t sense any internal bleeding, so you should be fine after two hours at least.”

  Dammit. Two hours. That was two hours too many. Still, he couldn’t exactly be a dick about it. She had gone out of her way to save him. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” she said. “I wish I could have arrived earlier, but I’m glad things didn’t go too far.”

  “Do you know that guy?”

  “I know of him,” she said. “He’s… one of the three Special Grade sorcerers in the first-year of Jujutsu High. The only one in Kyoto, of course. The remaining two are in the Tokyo branch. His name is Joichi. Yamamoto Joichi.”

  “Special Grade sorcerer?”

  “He’s strong. There’s two other Special Grades in the Kyoto school, but they’re in the third and fourth year. Among them, however, my clan believes that he might have far more potential than those two.”

  Great. “Are there any grades higher than Special Grade, or am I uniquely fucked in how much trouble I’m in?”

  “Oh no, you’re definitely screwed,” she grinned. “Hopefully, he won’t realize that it was me who knocked him out. You won’t tell, will you?”

  There were probably a bunch of witnesses around who would tell for him. Haruta actually didn’t want to go against that guy, Joichi, all that much. He’d much rather continue getting his lumps in so that he could become a valued underling. Rebelling against the strong didn’t often go over too well.

  “But as long as you stick with me, then I’ll protect you! I might not look it, but I’m actually kind of strong, I think!”

  That… hardly inspired much confidence.

  Anyone could do a surprise attack against the strong and come out on top. The girl’s only mistake had been not finishing the job and killing him. But maybe that was going too far, even in this world of freaks and sorcerers.

  “My name is Hibana Haruta, and one day, I’ll be the right-hand woman for my clan head!”

  Haruta, huh? “I’m Shigemo Haruta. I’d say it was nice to meet you, but you’ve probably set me up for a world of hurt, you know.”

  She frowned. “Hmmm… that won’t work.”

  Was she mad that he was being ungrateful?

  “We can’t both be Haruta,” she said. “Can I call you Haru-kun? And to be fair, you can call me Haru-chan, so we both have nicknames!”

  He’d much rather prefer to be called by his last name. “Let’s go with Shigemo instead.”

  “Ah, your face might start bruising, too,” she said as she offered him the pot of honey. “Just scoop it onto your face!”

  Yuck. Whatever. It beat looking ugly on his first day. He dipped a finger into the honey and applied it on his face like it was lotion.

  All the while, he considered what to do with this girl. Though it would be troublesome to have her like him, he did so enjoy manipulating girls to do his bidding. It was so easy, too. It was fun bullying them as well when he got tired of them. Girly tears were the best.

  “Haru-chan,” he said. “I’m glad that you looked out for me. To be honest… I’m not really that popular with girls,” he said, giving her a cute grin, and batting his eyelids in a way that all the girls liked.

  “Hm, that makes sense—you’re all too weak,” she said. Urgh. She was probably the type of girl to like big and strong boys, and not sensitive, effeminate boys. That was a shame. “But it’s okay. We can just be friends. You’re not my type, either way.” Double-urgh.

  “It’s not like you’re mine, either,” he grumbled under his breath.

  “Good! Then we won’t have any misunderstandings, Shigemo-kun!”

  At least she was good with boundaries.

  Alright, you crazy psycho. Let’s be friends. But you’d better make a damn-good bodyguard against that psycho Joichi, or I’ll curse you for the rest of your life.

  Out loud, he just said, “then let’s be friends, Haru-chan.”

  000

  Hibana Haruta couldn’t believe her luck, in finding a friend so quickly into her first day of school. Also lucky was the fact that she had managed to make it to Kyoto in time before first period began. Flying up high was a real hassle. The wind was cold and it burned cursed energy like nothing else. She had barely had a quarter left in the tank by the time she made it. It would take the rest of the day for her to regain her stores. She hoped it wouldn’t get in the way of any jujutsu lessons.

  She definitely wasn’t in any shape to exorcise Grade Ones for the time being, however. She hoped that wouldn’t be a part of any entrance exam or somesuch thing.

  She also couldn’t believe the luck that had led her to find someone with the same name as her! What fun that was! Shigemo Haruta was an oddball who lied as easily as he breathed, and never said anything that he truly felt. She hoped eventually he’d become more honest with her, but for now, she’d tolerate his two-facedness. It wasn’t that big of a deal anyhow. She could read him just fine, lies or not.

  Lies were just the flipside of truth. Teira-sama had taught her well on how to use her senses to discern the truth of the world. Still, she had disappointed her teacher by failing to perform even a single Black Flash thus far.

  To perform the Black Flash was to discern the most profound truth of all—the truth of the world itself. That was a whole lot harder than navigating interactions with one kid her own age.

  Of course, her luck had been tempered by the misfortune of coming at odds with the powerhouse that was Yamamoto Joichi.

  Teira-sama had tasked her on keeping an eye on the unruly boy. According to her, the boy was impossible to recruit. Haruta took that as meaning that the boy would have asked for too steep a price to align herself with the Hibana clan, like a position of power or something. A nonstarter of course, considering that he likely couldn’t hold a candle to Teira herself.

  She had a better inkling now of why Teira had judged this to be the case: the boy was cruel to a spectacular degree.

  And considering his cursed technique, the Hibana clan would be better off if the boy was snatched up by one of the Big Three instead. Then he would be their problem.

  Special Grade sorcerers were a double-edged sword. They were incredible military assets, but they were also individualistic and capricious almost as a rule. Gojo Satoru was this generation’s greatest example of that. He had almost risked war within the Jujutsu Society just to seek Teira out, following his own whims with barely any regard for the wishes of his own clan.

  Teira herself was another example. No authority existed above her. Haruta couldn’t even imagine her accepting anyone else’s authority over her. She couldn’t imagine that anyone was even qualified for the task.

  Haruta took the lead as Shigemo followed her from behind, through the school building’s hallway, in search for their homeroom. As they walked, she explained the particulars of Jujutsu Society’s grading system, from Special Grade to Grade Four.

  He happily listened to her as she explained everything, and deep down, he was likely plotting to cut ties with her should an association with her be more trouble than it was worth.

  Unfortunately for Shigemo, he was a little too fascinating for Haruta to let go of. It might have had something to do with those markings on his face. Haruta’s cursed energy perception would never allow her to just discern the nature of someone’s cursed technique. Such an ability was beyond even Teira-sama.

  Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something truly special about the boy. Something that her ability of discernment couldn’t quite make heads or tails over. Until she figured that out, he wasn’t going to get rid of her very easily.

  “Now, remember,” she said to him. “If you meet anyone surnamed Kamo, Zen'in or Gojo, you should just keep your head low and try not to attract their attention.”

  “I definitely shouldn’t mouth off to them if they push past me without provocation,” he said dryly. Was that what had set Joichi off? Clearly, he had been actively searching for someone to torment. Haruta wondered if Teira-sama had been right to cut him loose, and not just kidnap him and break his spirit until he learned how to behave properly. It wouldn’t have been particularly hard for her. She’d done the same to much of the clan’s adult population without hesitating.

  Perhaps she really did mean to turn him into a ticking timebomb that would sabotage whatever great clan tried to adopt him.

  Just as likely was the possibility that she wanted to turn him into an obstacle. An obstacle for Haruta to overcome.

  …but a Special Grade sorcerer, Teira-sama? I don’t stand a chance against a guy like him in a fair fight!

  She could almost hear Teira’s response. A part of her master’s way of thinking had already been imprinted inside of her, and she knew exactly what she would have said in response to that: then don’t fight fairly.

  Someone ahead of them turned a corner, and was deliberately not looking in their direction as he spoke. He had short blonde hair, ear studs, and a surgically fastened smirk. She failed to recognize him at a glance, which meant that he likely belonged to one of the three big clans—an idea supported by the traditional kosode and hakama that he wore. Case in point, “I could have sworn I just heard some riffraff mention my clan’s name.”

  “Shit,” Shigemo said. He instantly bowed his head.

  “Of course, that could have just been the wind,” he said airly, as if he was talking to the ceiling. Was he… slow? He didn’t seem like a very intelligent individual. Finally, as they approached one another, separated only by two meters, he looked down at her, scowling. “Your head’s too high, girl. Didn’t you just say you should bow your head in the presence of someone from the Big Three clans?”

  “I did,” Haruta replied. “But that advice was meant for my friend, who doesn’t hail from a great clan. I, however, very much do.”

  The clanner clicked his tongue at her. “Which one? I didn’t think there was a Gojo worth anything aside from Satoru. So you’re from the Kamo clan?”

  “The Hibana clan, actually.”

  He instantly tensed.

  Haruta recalled some of Teira-sama’s advice from earlier on in the day.

  Try to get along with the kids from the Big Three clans. Their grown-ups are our enemies, but the younger generation doesn’t necessarily have to be.

  Haruta found it hard to imagine being friends with this one. Still, it was amusing to consider having two blond friends that were boys. It would be like she was in a shojo manga of a sort.

  Alright, now, how did she explain how to be friends again?

  “Are you a first year as well?” Haruta asked.

  “Yeah? What’s it to you?”

  Good. That meant that he likely didn’t have any friends, too.

  “My name is Hibana Haruta. What’s yours?”

  “Zen'in Naoya,” he replied. “I’d say the pleasure is mine, but then I’d be lying. Curse user.”

  Haruta ignored the insult in favor of trying to remember the next line that Teira had given her. “Nice to meet you, Zen'in Naoya. You can call me Haruta. Can we be friends?”

  “Friends?” He spat.

  What was the other line, again?

  “Uh… I must inform you: should you betray me, then I will make your life a living hell.”

  “What the fuck?!”

  “I have no use betraying you. Should we find ourselves at an impasse, I will immediately announce my intentions. I don’t foresee myself resorting to subterfuge in order to get one over on you.”

  And what did she say next?

  “Are you stupid?”

  “Ah. You don’t strike me as a strong person, so I have no use resorting to such measures. I don’t need to deceive you, I can just be straightforward.”

  Shigemo pulled at the back of her shirt. “Haru-chan, are you okay?”

  He slapped her.

  The shock of the strike knocked her out from her thoughts. “Just shut up, you stupid bitch,” Naoya said. “You talk way too much. Girls should know to—“

  She grabbed him by his shoulders, pulled him down and kneed him on his stomach.

  “That was rude!” She shouted.

  This was so unfair, why hadn’t it worked for her when it had worked for Teira?

  As she watched Naoya stagger backwards, all thoughts of making friends disappearing, she managed to assess the situation more impartially. She should have done that from the start. Instead, she had allowed Teira’s suggestions and her own faith in Teira’s methods to blind her to the truth. A rookie mistake, but it was hard to accept that Teira could have been wrong.

  Wait… she wasn’t wrong. What else had she said?

  “At this stage, you simply ensure that the other party is receptive towards politeness. Then you ask.”

  Right. She had missed that vital step. That was on her.

  It was clear to see that Naoya hated Haruta. In retrospect, he had hated her from the moment he had first seen her. Before he had even known that she was a Hibana, too.

  “I’ll kill you,” he spat.

  An elderly-sounding cough stopped the violence dead in its tracks. A man walked up behind Haruta, sending chills up her spine. She hadn’t even noticed him! How careless…

  No. Not careless. He had hidden himself well. The man was old. Elderly, in fact. Deep, cavernous eyes, a wrinkled face, a long white beard, and… piercings all over his face and ears. That incongruence knocked her out of her shock, and she stepped back away from him, holding her arm out for Shigemo to do the same.

  A Grade One sorcerer who hadn’t let time dull his edge by any means, even if he walked with a pronounced hunch, and used a gnarled wooden cane to walk. He had placed himself smoothly between her and Naoya. “That’s quite enough, you too,” Gakuganji Yoshinobu, principle of Kyoto Jujutsu High, demanded. “Competition is healthy, but there is a time and place for such things.”

  “Old man, you can’t seriously be defending this whore!” Naoya shouted. “She’s the enemy of Jujutsu Society. Our enemy! Siding with her is tantamount to betraying the Big Three—“

  The old man smacked him on the head with his cane, hard enough to send Naoya stumbling towards the wall, holding it for support. The force must have travelled into his inner ear with how off-balance he looked. “A leader among the Big Three, you are not, Naoya-kun. Your father, you are not. You will refer to me with respect.”

  Naoya balled his fists, pushed himself from the wall and shakily bowed his head, before turning around and disappearing down the hall.

  Principal Gakuganji then turned to focus on Haruta. “You’ve made powerful enemies, child. Between the heir to the Zen'in clan, and that boy you knocked unconscious, I would say that you’ve found yourself in an unenviable position. And your clan head is too far away to protect you. I suggest you slow down before you meet your end at any of their hands.”

  Haruta’s eyes widened at the words. She wouldn’t be receiving any protection from the school.

  No, not quite. Gakuganji was implying that even with the school’s protection, her enemies might still find a way.

  Her heart beat faster, and she couldn’t help herself from breaking into a grin.

  How exciting!

  “Of course, sir,” she said.

  He merely raised an eyebrow. “Good. A Jujutsu Sorcerer should never shy away from risk. But hear this,” he said as he walked past her. “If it comes down to it, my loyalties lie with the Big Three. Tread lightly.”

  Like climbing a cliff-face without a safety net at the bottom or a rope at the top. She was entirely on her own, now. Even Teira-sama couldn’t help her.

  As Gakuganji disappeared, Shigemo groaned, as if agonized. “I think, Haru-chan… I might actually hate you—are you laughing?!”

  She grabbed him by his hands and spun him around. “Are you crazy?!” he shouted.

  “We’re in so much trouble already! Don’t you see how much stronger this will make us?!”

  “Let go of me! We’re done! I hate you!”

  She did not let go of him.