The Menace of Tokyo Jujutsu High (2006 AU)
The summer of 2006 in Tokyo was not just hot; it was offensive.
The air felt like a wet, boiling towel pressed against the face, and the relentless, deafening screech of the cicadas in the trees surrounding Tokyo Prefectural Jujutsu High School only added to the collective migraine of its student body.
Inside the classroom, Masamichi Yaga was currently experiencing a migraine that had nothing to do with the weather and everything to do with the white-haired teenager balancing dangerously on the back legs of his wooden chair.
"Satoru," Yaga growled, a vein visibly pulsing on his broad forehead. "I am going to ask you one more time. Why is there a crater the size of a minivan in the middle of the auxiliary managers' parking lot?"
Gojo Satoru didn't flinch. He let his head loll back, staring at the ceiling through his round, pitch-black sunglasses. He was wearing his uniform jacket completely unbuttoned, violating at least three dress code rules, and he was currently spinning a blue pen around his long fingers with agonizing nonchalance.
"It was self-defense," Gojo declared, using the informal ore. "The curse was highly aggressive. It looked at me funny."
"It was a Grade 4 Flyhead, Satoru!" Yaga roared, slamming his massive fist onto the podium. The chalkboard rattled. "You used Cursed Technique Lapse: Blue on a curse that could have been exorcised with a rolled-up newspaper! You destroyed the auxiliary manager's new sedan!"
"Well, he should park better," Gojo countered smoothly, a bratty smirk forming on his lips. "Besides, I was practicing. You're always telling us to hone our techniques, Sensei. You should be praising my work ethic."
To Gojo's left, Suguru Geto sighed deeply, turning a page of his textbook. His dark hair was pulled up into a messy bun, and his baggy uniform pants made him look like a delinquent, but his posture was picture-perfect. "You were showing off because the Kyoto students were visiting, Satoru. Just admit it and take the detention."
"Shut up, Suguru. You're supposed to be on my side," Gojo kicked Geto's desk.
"I am on the side of logic," Geto replied with a polite, completely fake smile. "And logic dictates that you are an idiot."
"Both of you, shut up," Shoko Ieiri muttered from the back row. She had her head resting on her desk, trying to sleep, a distinctly unlit cigarette tucked behind her ear. "It's too hot to yell. Yaga-sensei, just punch him so we can move on."
Yaga looked like he was seriously considering it. He pinched the bridge of his nose, taking a deep, stabilizing breath. He was a man who crafted cute, stuffed cursed corpses for a living, yet his blood pressure was consistently in the danger zone because of the three teenagers in front of him.
"Enough," Yaga barked, regaining his composure. "I don't have the energy to strangle you today, Satoru. Sit properly. We have an addition to the class, and I expect you all to behave. Especially you." He pointed a thick finger directly at the white-haired prodigy.
Gojo finally let his chair drop forward with a loud clack. He crossed his arms, his interest mildly piqued. "A transfer student? In August? Did they get kicked out of Kyoto?"
"No," Yaga said sharply. "She is a special case. She has been under the protection of the higher-ups, but it has been decided that she needs practical application training to control her... condition. You will treat her with respect."
Gojo scoffed, leaning back again. "Respect has to be earned. If she's weak, she's carrying our bags."
"Satoru, I swear to God..." Yaga gritted his teeth. He turned toward the sliding wooden door of the classroom. "You may come in."
The door slid open with a soft rattle.
The girl who stepped into the room did not look like a jujutsu sorcerer. She looked like she had been dragged out of a dark library against her will. She was petite, her dark hair pulled back into a messy, utilitarian braid. She wore the standard dark uniform, but what immediately drew the eye was the heavy, incredibly thick pair of specialized glasses resting on her nose. They looked like welding goggles modified for daily use, obscuring her eyes completely.
She stood at the front of the classroom, her posture stiff. She looked incredibly uncomfortable, not because she was shy, but because she looked physically in pain.
"Introduce yourself," Yaga prompted, his tone softening slightly.
"Arima Miyuki," she said. Her voice was steady, but there was an underlying tension to it, like a violin string pulled too tight. "Nice to meet you."
Silence hung in the classroom for exactly three seconds.
Then, Gojo Satoru moved.
He didn't just stand up; he practically teleported. In the blink of an eye, the lanky teenager was standing right in front of the podium, completely invading Miyuki's personal space. He was at least a foot taller than her, towering over her small frame.
Miyuki flinched, instinctively taking a step back, but her back hit the chalkboard.
"Satoru! Back to your seat!" Yaga barked, stepping forward, but Gojo completely ignored him.
Gojo leaned down, bending at the waist so his face was inches from hers. He pulled his round sunglasses down the bridge of his nose, exposing his striking, unnatural, crystalline blue eyes.
For a moment, the air in the room seemed to crackle with static electricity. Gojo's Six Eyes were processing the anomaly standing in front of him.
"Well, well, well," Gojo murmured, a wide, obnoxious grin spreading across his face. "Look what the higher-ups dragged in. A defective knock-off."
Miyuki's jaw clenched. Even behind her thick glasses, the blinding cursed energy of Gojo Satoru was like staring directly into the sun. It was loud, chaotic, and utterly overwhelming. Her head throbbed.
"Excuse me?" Miyuki said, her voice dropping an octave, losing any trace of polite introduction.
"Your eyes," Gojo pointed a long finger right between her brows, almost touching her glasses. "They're trying to do what my eyes do, but your brain is too small to handle the bandwidth. You're leaking cursed energy everywhere. It's messy. And these glasses..."
Before she could react, Gojo's hand darted out and snatched the heavy glasses right off her face.
The sensory overload hit Miyuki like a freight train. The sudden influx of cursed energy data—the flow of Yaga's anger, Geto's calm reserve, the residual curses clinging to the walls, and the absolute supernova that was Gojo Satoru right in front of her—flooded her mind.
Her vision went white with static. A sharp, agonizing pain spiked through her temples.
But Arima Miyuki was not a fragile, crying maiden. When cornered, her instinct was not flight. It was fight.
Operating entirely on blind, overwhelming rage and sensory panic, Miyuki didn't ask for her glasses back. She didn't cry.
She balled her hand into a fist, coated it with a chaotic, unrefined burst of cursed energy, and swung it directly upward in a brutal uppercut aimed squarely at Satoru Gojo's perfect jaw.
Smack.
The sound echoed through the classroom.
It didn't hit skin. Gojo's Infinity, which he was currently maintaining manually, caught her fist about a millimeter away from his chin. But the sheer force of her unrefined, panicked cursed energy clashed violently with his barrier, creating a concussive shockwave that blew Gojo's round sunglasses off his face and sent the podium crashing to the floor.
Gojo blinked, his bright blue eyes widening in genuine surprise. He hadn't expected the small, sick-looking girl to literally try to knock his teeth out on day one.
"Give them back," Miyuki hissed, her green eyes blazing with unfiltered, furious cursed energy. She was panting, clutching her head with her free hand. "Give them back right now, you overgrown Q-tip."
The classroom was dead silent.
Geto slowly lowered his book. Shoko actually sat up, her cigarette falling from her ear. Nobody—absolutely nobody—attacked Gojo like that. Not even a suicide attempt.
A slow, wicked, entirely delighted smirk spread across Gojo's face.
"Oh," Gojo purred, stepping even closer despite her fist still pressing against his Infinity. "You've got claws, feral cat. I like that."
"SATORU!"
Yaga's massive arm wrapped around Gojo's neck in a brutal chokehold, dragging the protesting teenager backward away from the new student.
"Hey! Sensei, that's child abuse! I'm the victim here; she assaulted me!" Gojo squawked, flailing his long legs as Yaga practically lifted him off the ground.
"You provoked her!" Yaga roared, snatching the thick glasses from Gojo's hand and tossing them gently back to Miyuki. "Arima, I am so deeply sorry. This idiot lacks basic human socialization."
Miyuki caught the glasses and shoved them back onto her face. The blinding noise of the world dimmed back into a manageable hum. She glared at the white-haired boy currently being strangled by their teacher.
"It's fine, Sensei," Miyuki said, her voice dripping with ice. "I'm used to dealing with stray dogs."
Shoko burst into loud, unapologetic laughter. Geto covered his mouth with a hand, his shoulders shaking with silent amusement.
Gojo managed to wriggle out of Yaga's grip, rubbing his neck and pouting like a petulant child. He picked his sunglasses up from the floor and slid them back on. He looked at Miyuki, who was glaring daggers at him.
He didn't look offended. He looked like a kid who had just found the most fascinating, violent toy in the sandbox.
"This is going to be a fun year," Gojo declared to the room.
Miyuki closed her eyes behind her thick lenses and prayed for patience. Or a stronger cursed technique to vaporize him. Whichever came first.
The Vending Machine Sanctuary
By lunchtime, Miyuki felt like she had run a marathon. The curriculum at Jujutsu High was intense, but navigating the physical space with a defective Six Eyes was the real challenge. She needed quiet. She needed zero cursed energy interference.
She found sanctuary behind the row of vending machines near the track field. It was shaded, quiet, and mostly devoid of the chaotic energy of the students.
She bought a cold green tea, pressed the icy can against her throbbing forehead, and slid down the brick wall until she was sitting on the grass.
"Excuse me! Are you the new transfer student?"
Miyuki groaned internally and opened one eye.
Standing in front of her were two boys in the Jujutsu High uniform. One had cheerful, golden retriever energy, a bright smile, and short dark hair. The other had blond hair, a face that looked entirely too serious for a teenager, and an energy of someone who was already tired of being alive.
"I am," Miyuki said warily.
"I'm Haibara Yu! First year!" The cheerful boy bowed deeply. "And this is my classmate, Nanami Kento! We heard there was a commotion in the other classroom this morning. Rumor says you punched Gojo-senpai in the face!"
Nanami sighed, adjusting his collar. "Haibara, you shouldn't gossip. It lacks dignity. However," Nanami looked down at Miyuki, a glimmer of profound respect in his stoic eyes, "if the rumors are true, Arima-senpai, I commend your bravery. Gojo-senpai is a natural disaster disguised as a human."
Miyuki couldn't help but smile at the blond boy's deadpan delivery. "I didn't punch him. His ridiculous invisible shield stopped it. But thank you, Nanami-kun."
"That is unfortunate," Nanami said seriously. "Perhaps next time you could use a cursed tool to bypass the barrier. I would happily lend you my blunt sword."
"Don't encourage violence, Nanami!" Haibara laughed. "Anyway, it's really nice to meet you, Arima-senpai! If you ever need help finding your way around, just ask us!"
"Thank you, Haibara-kun," Miyuki said softly. At least they were normal.
"Well, well. Consorting with the underclassmen on your first day? How scandalous."
The voice dropped from the sky. Literally.
Miyuki shrieked as Satoru Gojo hung completely upside down from the thick branch of the oak tree directly above her. His long white hair defied gravity, and he was holding a strawberry milk carton.
Nanami immediately closed his eyes and looked away, as if ignoring the problem would make it disappear. "Good afternoon, Gojo-senpai. Haibara, we are leaving. The air quality here has just plummeted."
"Aww, don't be like that, Nanamin!" Gojo whined, dropping effortlessly from the branch and landing on his feet with zero sound. He towered over Miyuki, who was still sitting on the grass. "I just came to check on my favorite defective experiment."
"I have a name," Miyuki snapped, refusing to look up at him. She hugged her knees to her chest. "Go away, Gojo. You're giving me a headache. Your cursed energy is too loud."
"Am I?" Gojo crouched down so he was eye-level with her. He completely ignored personal space boundaries, leaning in so close she could smell the strawberry milk and the crisp scent of ozone that always clung to him. "That's fascinating. Your Six Eyes can't handle my output? Is it like a ringing noise, or more of a buzzing?"
"It's like a drill going through my skull," Miyuki hissed, leaning away from him. "Stop analyzing me like a bug in a jar."
"But you are a bug in a jar," Gojo grinned, poking her cheek with a long finger.
Miyuki swatted his hand away violently. "Don't touch me!"
"Satoru, stop harassing the poor girl before she actually manages to stab you."
Geto walked around the corner of the vending machines, carrying two cans of coffee. Shoko was right behind him, a melon pan in her mouth.
"I'm not harassing her, Suguru!" Gojo stood up, crossing his arms defensively. "I am conducting highly important jujutsu research! She's the only other person alive with a variation of the Six Eyes. It's my duty as the clan head to investigate this anomaly."
"You're poking her cheek," Geto pointed out, handing one of the coffees to Miyuki with a gentle smile. "That is not research. That is what a five-year-old does when they want attention."
"I don't want her attention!" Gojo squawked, his voice cracking slightly in a very teenage, undignified way. "She's annoying! She's basically blind, and she's mean!"
"She's mean because you ripped her medical equipment off her face, idiot," Shoko said, leaning against the vending machine. She looked down at Miyuki. "I'm Shoko Ieiri. Ignore the tall idiot. He has the emotional intelligence of a wet napkin."
Miyuki took the coffee from Geto, feeling a wave of relief. Geto's cursed energy was calm, deep, and steady—like a quiet lake. Shoko's was soothing and neutral. They were the exact opposite of the walking hurricane that was Gojo.
"Thank you, Geto-san, Ieiri-san," Miyuki said, standing up and brushing the grass off her skirt.
"Call me Shoko," she smiled lazily. "Do you want to eat lunch with us? We're going to the roof. Satoru is banned from the roof today because he broke the door handle, so it'll be nice and quiet."
"Hey! That was an accident!" Gojo protested loudly. "And you can't ban me! I'm the strongest!"
"You're the loudest," Geto corrected seamlessly. He turned to Miyuki. "We would be honored if you joined us, Miyuki-chan."
Miyuki looked at Geto's polite smile, then at Shoko's relaxed posture, and finally at Gojo, who was currently glaring at his two best friends with a look of absolute, bratty betrayal.
"I would love to," Miyuki smiled, a genuine, pretty smile that made the corners of her eyes crinkle behind the thick glasses.
Gojo saw that smile. He stopped complaining abruptly. He blinked behind his dark glasses, a strange, unfamiliar flutter kicking up in his chest. He didn't like it. He didn't understand it. Therefore, he decided to be even more annoying to compensate.
"Fine! Go eat with the boring people!" Gojo huffed, kicking a pebble across the concrete. "I didn't want to eat with a feral cat anyway! Her weird eyes would probably ruin my appetite!"
As Geto and Shoko led Miyuki away toward the stairwell, Shoko leaned over and whispered loudly enough for Gojo to hear.
"He totally likes you."
"I DO NOT!" Gojo yelled from across the courtyard. "I HATE HER! SHE'S DEFECTIVE!"
Miyuki just shook her head, taking a sip of the coffee. "He's deranged."
"Oh, absolutely," Geto agreed smoothly. "But it's going to be highly entertaining to watch him suffer."
The Practical Lesson in Chaos
By 3:00 PM, the heat had reached its absolute peak, and Yaga had decided that the students needed to burn off their excess energy on the training field.
The field was a large, dirt expanse surrounded by dense forest, heavily warded to keep cursed energy from leaking into the civilian world.
"Alright, listen up," Yaga said, pacing in front of the four students. "Practical application today. We are doing two-on-two cursed corpse retrieval. I have hidden a specialized cursed corpse in the forest. Your goal is to find it, subdue it, and bring it back without destroying the surrounding area."
He glared pointedly at Gojo.
"The teams will be Suguru and Shoko," Yaga announced. "And Satoru with Arima."
Miyuki's head snapped up. "Sensei, please, no. I'll do it alone. I'll do it blindfolded. Just don't put me with him."
"Ah, the feral cat is scared she'll hold me back," Gojo mocked, stretching his long arms above his head. He looked entirely too pleased with the arrangement. "Don't worry, Four-Eyes. You can just sit on a rock and watch the Strongest do all the work."
"I am pairing you two," Yaga said sternly, "because Satoru needs to learn control and teamwork, and Arima needs to learn how to operate in a high-stress, cursed energy environment without overwhelming her eyes. You will rely on each other. If Satoru destroys the forest, you both fail. If Arima passes out from sensory overload, you both fail."
Gojo groaned loudly. "So she's a handicap! This is rigged, Yaga-sensei!"
"Go!" Yaga barked, blowing a whistle.
Geto and Shoko immediately dashed into the treeline on the left side, moving efficiently.
Miyuki turned to the right side of the forest, taking a deep breath. She adjusted her thick glasses. "Alright, Gojo. We need to formulate a search grid. If we—"
Whoosh.
A gust of wind blew past her, kicking up dust. Miyuki coughed, waving her hands in front of her face. When the dust cleared, Gojo was gone.
"Are you kidding me?!" she yelled into the empty forest. "He just left!"
"I'm right here, slowpoke!"
Miyuki looked up. Gojo was sitting on the branch of a massive pine tree fifty feet away, dangling his legs.
"Get down here and help me track the cursed energy residue!" Miyuki demanded, jogging toward the tree.
"I don't need to track it," Gojo said smugly. He pulled his sunglasses down slightly. "My Six Eyes can see the cursed corpse's flow from here. It's about two hundred meters north, hiding in a ditch. This is too easy. Let's go."
He dropped from the tree, landing gracefully, and started walking north at a brisk pace. Miyuki had to practically jog to keep up with his long strides.
"You're not supposed to just rush it," Miyuki argued, swatting a branch out of her way. "Yaga-sensei said subdue it without destroying the area. We need a plan."
"My plan is to punch it really hard," Gojo said, not looking back.
"That is a terrible plan!"
Gojo suddenly stopped dead in his tracks. Miyuki, who was walking right behind him, didn't have time to brake and slammed face-first into his broad back. It was like hitting a brick wall.
"Ow! What is wrong with—"
"Shh," Gojo ordered, holding up a hand. The playful arrogance was gone, replaced by the sharp, focused instinct of a predator.
Miyuki froze. She focused her own defective eyes, squinting through the thick lenses.
In the clearing ahead, it wasn't just one of Yaga's cursed corpses.
A natural, semi-Grade 2 cursed spirit had wandered into the training barrier. It looked like a grotesque amalgamation of melted plastic and teeth, clinging to the trunk of a large oak tree. It was pulsating with a foul, rotting cursed energy.
"A stray," Gojo noted, sounding completely bored. "Must have slipped through a weak point in the barrier."
"We need to alert Yaga-sensei," Miyuki whispered, taking a step back. "I'm not equipped for a Grade 2 yet, and my eyes are already straining."
"Alert Yaga? Are you joking?" Gojo laughed, a sharp, manic sound. "This is perfect practice."
He cracked his knuckles, rolling his shoulders. "Stay back, Four-Eyes. Watch how a real sorcerer does it."
"Gojo, wait! You promised Yaga you wouldn't destroy the forest!"
Gojo ignored her. He stepped into the clearing. The curse shrieked, a sound like grinding metal, and launched itself at the white-haired boy, its multiple mouths snapping open.
Gojo didn't even drop into a fighting stance. He just stood there, his hands in his pockets.
As the curse was inches from his face, Gojo smiled.
"Blue."
The gravitational pull was instantaneous and violent. The air pressure in the clearing imploded. The curse was sucked toward the epicenter of the technique, its body twisting and tearing apart under the immense, crushing force of the Limitless.
But Gojo, being sixteen and incredibly arrogant, had put too much output into the technique.
The curse was obliterated, but the gravitational pull continued, ripping the massive oak tree out of the ground by its roots. The earth shattered, sending rocks, dirt, and splintered wood flying in every direction like shrapnel.
"You idiot!" Miyuki screamed over the roar of the destruction.
A massive chunk of wood, the size of a car tire, was hurled backward directly toward Miyuki.
Because her eyes were already overwhelmed by the massive spike of Gojo's cursed energy from using Blue, her vision whited out completely. She couldn't track the projectile. She froze, raising her arms in a futile attempt to block it.
Suddenly, the blinding white static of her vision was eclipsed by an ocean of pure, stable blue.
A heavy arm wrapped around her waist, yanking her forward with dizzying speed. She was slammed into a hard, solid chest. The smell of strawberry milk and ozone flooded her senses.
The chunk of wood smashed into the ground exactly where she had been standing a millisecond ago, kicking up a cloud of dust.
Miyuki gasped, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. She opened her eyes.
Gojo Satoru was holding her.
He had his arm wrapped securely around her waist, pressing her flush against him. His other hand was hovering near her head, having shielded her from the debris. He had dropped his Infinity to grab her properly.
The dust settled around them in the silent clearing.
Miyuki looked up. Gojo's sunglasses were askew again. He was looking down at her, his bright blue eyes wide, his breath coming slightly faster than usual.
For the first time all day, he wasn't smiling. He wasn't making a joke. He was looking at her with a startling intensity, his Six Eyes tracing every line of her face, analyzing the rapid beat of her pulse against his chest.
When he touched her, the agonizing noise of her defective eyes vanished completely. His massive, stable cursed energy acted like an anchor, grounding her chaotic flow. It was the most peaceful she had felt in years.
They stood there in the middle of the destroyed clearing, the silence stretching between them, thick and charged.
"You..." Miyuki breathed, her voice shaking slightly, "You almost killed me, you absolute moron."
The spell broke.
Gojo blinked, his arrogant smirk instantly returning. He didn't let go of her waist, though. In fact, his grip tightened slightly.
"I had it under control," he boasted, leaning his face down close to hers again. "I just wanted to see if you had decent reflexes. Turns out, you don't. You owe me your life, feral cat."
Miyuki's face flushed hot with a mixture of adrenaline, anger, and something deeply confusing that she refused to acknowledge. She pushed hard against his chest, breaking his grip and stepping back.
"I owe you a therapy bill!" she yelled, pointing at the crater he had just created. "Look at the forest! Yaga-sensei is going to murder you!"
"GOJO SATORU!"
The roar echoed through the trees, vibrating the leaves. Yaga was storming through the brush, looking like an actual demon. Geto and Shoko were trailing behind him, carrying the intact cursed corpse.
Gojo looked at the crater, looked at the uprooted tree, and then looked back at Miyuki.
"Run?" Gojo suggested brightly.
"I am not running with you! I am telling him this was entirely your fault!"
"Traitor!" Gojo gasped, clutching his chest dramatically. "After I heroically saved your life!"
Before Miyuki could argue, Gojo grabbed her wrist. His fingers were long and surprisingly calloused.
"Hey! Let go of me!"
"No time! The beast approaches!" Gojo laughed wildly, dragging Miyuki along with him as he bolted in the opposite direction of Yaga's screaming voice.
Miyuki stumbled, forced to run alongside the lanky idiot to keep from falling. "Satoru! I swear to God, I hate you!"
"You love me!" Gojo yelled back, his laughter echoing through the humid summer air. "I'm the strongest!"
As they ran through the forest, Miyuki felt the static returning to her eyes, the heat of the summer pressing down on her again. But as she looked at the back of the white-haired boy dragging her into chaos, she realized one terrifying truth.
Despite the noise, despite the arrogance, despite the absolute disaster that was Gojo Satoru... she hadn't felt this alive in her entire life.
It was going to be a very, very long year.
The Mathematics of Failure
September brought no relief to Tokyo. The heatwave clung to the city like a desperate curse, turning the asphalt into liquid mirrors and the air into thick, unbreathable soup.
For Miyuki, the heat was merely a secondary torment. The primary torment was currently sitting on her desk, swinging his long legs and eating a very loud, very crunchy bag of shrimp chips.
"Satoru," Miyuki said, her voice a fragile whisper of restraint. She didn't look up from the thick, ancient text on barrier techniques she was attempting to read. She adjusted her heavy, modified glasses. "Get off my desk."
"It's a free country, feral cat," Satoru Gojo replied casually, crunching down on another chip. He was wearing his uniform pants and a plain black t-shirt, his round sunglasses resting low on his nose. "Besides, your desk has the best airflow from the window. My desk is in the dead zone."
"Your desk is literally right next to the AC unit."
"The AC unit blows recycled air. I need fresh, natural breezes to maintain my pristine complexion."
Miyuki finally looked up, her green eyes narrowing behind the thick lenses. "If you don't move in the next three seconds, I am going to figure out how to weave cursed energy into a paperclip and shoot it directly into your jugular."
"Ooh, scary," Gojo mocked, leaning forward until his face was entirely too close to hers. The spatial invasion was a daily occurrence now. "You know, you talk a big game for someone whose eyes are currently bleeding cursed energy all over my pristine uniform. Your output is messy today. Didn't sleep well?"
He wasn't entirely wrong. Miyuki's defective Six Eyes were particularly vicious today. The static in her brain sounded like a television stuck between channels at maximum volume.
And the worst part—the absolutely infuriating, humiliating part—was that the moment Gojo had invaded her personal space, the static had lessened. His sheer, bottomless ocean of cursed energy, contained perfectly within his massive frame, acted like a gravitational anchor. When he was near, her own frantic cursed energy naturally aligned with his, calming the storm in her head.
She desperately needed him to stay exactly where he was, but her pride refused to admit it.
"I slept fine until I remembered I had to look at your face today," Miyuki deadpanned.
Gojo gasped, placing a hand over his heart in mock offense. "You wound me! I am the jewel of the Jujutsu world! Girls in Kyoto literally faint when I walk by."
"That's probably because you suck all the oxygen out of the room with your ego."
From the back of the classroom, Suguru Geto sighed, turning the page of his novel. "It is 9:00 AM. How do the two of you already have the energy to bicker? It's exhausting just listening to it."
"He started it," Miyuki said instantly.
"She provoked me with her hostile aura," Gojo countered, pointing an accusatory shrimp chip at her.
Shoko Ieiri walked into the classroom, kicking the sliding door shut behind her. She had a can of coffee in one hand and a mission file in the other. "Save the domestic disputes for later, you two. Yaga just handed us a group assignment. We're leaving in ten minutes."
Gojo immediately groaned, throwing his head back. "A mission? It's ninety degrees outside! Tell the curses to wait until autumn!"
"Tell them yourself," Shoko tossed the file onto Geto's desk. "An abandoned arcade in Saitama. High concentration of low-level curses congregating and merging. Yaga wants it cleared out before they form a Grade 1."
Geto scanned the file, his dark eyes serious. "A simple sweep-and-clear. Satoru, this shouldn't take you more than five minutes."
"I am not a janitor," Gojo complained, finally hopping off Miyuki's desk. He stretched his long arms above his head, his shirt riding up to flash a sliver of pale skin. "But fine. I'll go exterminate the bugs. Feral cat, grab your things. You're carrying my bags."
"I am carrying absolutely nothing for you," Miyuki snapped, standing up and grabbing her wooden training sword—a specialized tool crafted by Yaga to help channel her erratic cursed energy.
"See? Hostile," Gojo said to Geto.
Geto just smiled his polite, terrifyingly patient smile. "Let's just get to the car before Yaga decides to give us another lecture on teamwork."
The Ride and the Noise
The ride to Saitama was its own form of psychological torture.
The auxiliary manager's black sedan was spacious, but when occupied by Satoru Gojo, it felt like a matchbox. Gojo had immediately claimed the middle seat in the back, forcing Miyuki to the window on his left and Geto to the window on his right. Shoko had wisely taken the front passenger seat and immediately fallen asleep.
"Satoru, move your knee," Miyuki gritted her teeth, staring out the window. "You are invading my quadrant."
"I have long legs, Miyuki," Gojo whined, deliberately spreading out further. His knee pressed firmly against her thigh. "It's a biological necessity. The Strongest needs room to breathe."
"You are going to breathe through a tube if you don't move."
"Are you always this violently angry, or is it just a Monday thing?" Gojo teased, turning his head to look at her.
Miyuki closed her eyes behind her thick goggles. The truth was, she was irritable because the movement of the car, the blurred scenery, and the residual curses clinging to the highway were overloading her brain. The "noise" was deafening. Her hands were curled into tight fists in her lap, her fingernails digging into her palms to ground herself against the sensory onslaught.
Gojo, despite his absolute lack of social grace, noticed.
His Six Eyes caught the erratic, spiking fluctuations of her cursed energy. He saw the tension in her jaw, the slight tremor in her hands. To anyone else, she just looked angry. To Gojo, who saw the world in high-definition atomic structure, she looked like a system on the verge of overheating.
He found it incredibly annoying. Not because she was weak, but because seeing her struggle with the exact same eyes that gave him absolute power felt... wrong. It agitated a primal, protective instinct deep in his chest that he vehemently denied having.
She's so annoying when she's whining in her head, Gojo thought defensively.
With an imperceptible sigh, Gojo shifted his weight. He didn't move his knee away. Instead, he dropped the manual barrier of his Infinity on the left side of his body, just enough so that the raw, immense weight of his cursed energy bled over into her space.
It wasn't a gentle embrace. It was a localized gravity shift.
The moment his unfiltered energy hit her, Miyuki's breath hitched. The deafening roar of the highway vanished, crushed under the sheer, absolute silence of Gojo's power. It was like stepping out of a hurricane into a soundproof room.
Miyuki slowly opened her eyes, turning to look at him.
Gojo was staring straight ahead, looking entirely bored, absently playing with the hem of his black shirt. He didn't acknowledge what he had just done. He was playing it cool, pretending he was just taking up space.
Miyuki looked down at where his knee pressed against her thigh. She could feel the heat radiating from him. She knew he was doing it on purpose. He was arrogant, deeply irritating, and possessed the emotional maturity of a teaspoon, but he had just effectively turned off the pain in her head without saying a word.
"Thanks," she muttered, so quietly it was barely audible over the hum of the engine.
Gojo didn't look at her, but the corner of his mouth twitched upward into a small, smug smirk. "Didn't hear you. Did the feral cat just purr?"
Miyuki's gratitude evaporated instantly. "I said, your knee is bony and uncomfortable."
"Liar," Gojo chuckled, finally glancing at her. His blue eyes sparkled with mischief over the rim of his glasses. "You love my knees. They're premium, top-tier Gojo clan knees."
From the other side of the car, Geto let out a long, exhausted sigh. "I am going to throw myself out of this moving vehicle."
The Arcade of Doom
The abandoned arcade in Saitama looked like a graveyard for neon lights. The exterior was covered in faded graffiti, and the glass of the front doors had been shattered long ago. As they stepped out of the car, the oppressive, putrid stench of cursed energy rolled over them like a physical wave.
"Gross," Shoko commented, lighting a cigarette the moment her feet hit the pavement. "Smells like rotting garbage and old sweat."
"A high concentration of negative human emotions," Geto observed, his eyes scanning the building. "Frustration from losing games, anger, gambling debts... It's a perfect breeding ground for curses. It looks like they've started merging."
Miyuki adjusted her goggles. Even with Gojo standing near her, the visual input of the building was intense. The entire structure was wrapped in a thick, pulsating web of black and purple cursed energy.
"Alright, listen up," Geto said, taking the unofficial role of leader, as Yaga usually expected him to. "Satoru, you take the second floor. It looks like the highest concentration is up there. Shoko and I will clear the ground floor. Miyuki, you stick with Satoru and assist. Do not overexert your eyes."
"Why do I get stuck with the handicap?" Gojo complained loudly, stretching his neck.
"Because if she stays with me, you'll destroy the building out of boredom," Geto replied flatly. "Go. And try not to cause any structural damage this time."
Gojo gave a mock salute and sauntered toward the entrance, kicking a broken piece of glass out of his way. "Come on, Four-Eyes. Try to keep up with my incredibly long, majestic strides."
Miyuki gripped her wooden sword tightly and followed him into the darkness.
The inside of the arcade was a labyrinth of dusty, broken machines. Pac-Man cabinets with smashed screens, racing simulators covered in cobwebs, and crane games filled with moldy stuffed animals. The only light came from the sunlight filtering through the dirty windows.
As they walked up the stalled escalator to the second floor, the air grew noticeably colder.
"You're awfully quiet," Gojo noted, walking a few steps ahead of her. His hands were stuffed in his pockets. He didn't look tense at all. To him, a building full of curses was just a mildly inconvenient playground.
"I'm trying to focus," Miyuki whispered, her eyes darting around the shadows. "There's something big up here. Multiple signatures merging into one."
"Yeah, yeah. Semi-Grade 1, probably," Gojo said dismissively. He stopped at the top of the escalator, looking out over the expansive, shadowy floor of the second level. "It's hiding behind the DDR machines."
Miyuki stepped up beside him. She could see it now. A massive, bloated mass of cursed energy, pulsing like a dark, diseased heart. It looked like a horrifying amalgamation of tangled wires, arcade tokens, and human teeth, clinging to the ceiling in the far corner.
It let out a low, vibrating screech that made Miyuki's teeth ache.
"Okay," Miyuki said, raising her wooden sword and settling into a defensive stance. "If we flank it, I can use my cursed energy to disrupt its flow, and you can exercise it with—"
"Flank it? Disrupt?" Gojo interrupted, letting out a loud, genuine laugh. He turned to look at her, shaking his head. "Miyuki, Miyuki, Miyuki. You think too much like a regular sorcerer."
He turned back to face the massive curse, pulling his round sunglasses down to the tip of his nose, exposing his glowing blue eyes completely. The air pressure in the room immediately shifted, the dust particles freezing in mid-air around him.
"Watch closely, feral cat," Gojo declared, his voice dropping into that arrogant, utterly confident tone that drove her absolutely insane. "You're about to witness the pinnacle of Jujutsu sorcery. A technique so complex, so mathematically beautiful, that only I can pull it off."
Miyuki frowned, lowering her sword slightly. "What are you talking about?"
Gojo raised his right hand, extending his index and middle fingers. A terrifying amount of cursed energy began to gather at the tips.
"The Limitless is based on the convergence of infinite series," Gojo began to lecture, sounding entirely too pleased with himself. He wasn't even looking at the curse, which was currently detaching itself from the ceiling to charge at them. He was looking at Miyuki from the corner of his eye, making sure she was paying attention.
"My technique, Blue, amplifies the Limitless, creating a magnetic vacuum. Negative numbers," Gojo explained. The air around his fingers began to distort, a faint blue glow illuminating the dark arcade.
The massive curse hit the floor with a sickening splat and began to sprint toward them, its multiple mouths gnashing.
"Gojo, it's charging!" Miyuki yelled, taking a step back.
"Relax!" Gojo waved his free hand dismissively. "Now, if you take that negative energy, and you multiply it by negative energy... You get positive energy."
Miyuki stared at him, her defective Six Eyes widening in shock. She knew the theory. Every sorcerer did. It was the Reverse Cursed Technique. But applying it to a destructive innate technique was considered practically impossible. The complexity was mind-boggling.
"You... you can do that?" she asked, genuinely awestruck for the very first time.
Gojo's grin widened to a manic degree. He loved this. He loved the look of shock on her face. He wanted to impress her, though he would sooner eat glass than admit it.
"Cursed Technique Reversal," Gojo announced grandly, turning his full attention to the charging beast. The curse was only thirty feet away now, shaking the floorboards.
Gojo struck a dramatic pose, channeling his immense cursed energy, pushing his limits, visualizing the multiplication of negative by negative to create the ultimate repelling force.
"Red!" Gojo murmured.
He thrust his fingers forward.
Miyuki braced herself for the explosion. She raised her arms to shield her face, expecting the roof of the arcade to be blown off. She expected a blinding flash of crimson light, a shockwave of godly power.
The curse roared, leaping into the air, its jaws opening wide to swallow the Strongest Sorcerer whole.
Gojo's fingers sparked.
A tiny, pathetic little poof of smoke emerged from his fingertips. It looked like a damp match failing to light.
Nothing happened.
There was no red light. There was no repelling force. The negative energy hadn't multiplied; it had just fizzled out into the humid air.
Gojo froze, his fingers still extended. He stared at his hand.
The curse, completely unbothered by the non-existent attack, was now three feet away, descending rapidly toward Gojo's head.
"I FAILED!" Gojo screamed, his voice cracking in sheer, straight panic and embarrassment.
Abandoning all complex mathematics, all theory of infinite series, and all pretense of being an untouchable god, Satoru Gojo simply reeled his arm back, coated his fist in a massive, chaotic layer of raw blue cursed energy, and punched the curse squarely in the center of its mass.
WHAM.
The physical force of the punch, backed by Gojo's monstrous physical strength and brute cursed energy, was devastating. The curse didn't just get exorcised; it exploded into a shower of purple gore and dust. The shockwave of the physical hit blew Miyuki's hair back and shattered the remaining glass in the arcade cabinets around them.
The curse vaporized into nothingness.
Silence descended on the second floor, save for the sound of a lone token rolling across the wooden floorboards.
Gojo stood there, his fist still extended in the punching motion. He slowly lowered his arm. He didn't turn around. He just stood very, very still, the tips of his ears turning violently red.
Miyuki lowered her arms. She looked at the spot where the curse used to be. She looked at Gojo's back. She processed the grand, arrogant speech about negative numbers, the dramatic pose, the pathetic poof of smoke, and the panicked scream of "I failed!" before he resorted to a basic right hook.
A small, high-pitched sound escaped Miyuki's throat.
Gojo's shoulders stiffened. "Don't."
Miyuki clapped a hand over her mouth, but it was too late. The giggles bubbled up, completely uncontrollable. She tried to muffle it, but the sheer absurdity of the situation shattered her composure.
"Do not laugh at me," Gojo warned, his voice low, finally turning around. He looked absolutely mortified. "The math is highly theoretical! It requires a delicate balance of—"
Miyuki bent over, clutching her stomach, full-blown laughter echoing through the empty arcade. It was a bright, genuine sound, completely devoid of the tension that usually plagued her.
"You—you gave a whole TED Talk!" Miyuki gasped, wiping a tear from her eye behind her glasses. "'Watch closely, feral cat! The pinnacle of Jujutsu!' And then it just—poof!"
"Shut up!" Gojo snapped, though his face was burning. He stalked toward her, looking like an angry, flustered stork. "I am still developing the technique! It's a work in progress! It takes time to master the Reverse Cursed Technique!"
"You screamed 'I failed,' and just punched it!" Miyuki was laughing so hard her ribs hurt. She leaned against a broken Pac-Man machine for support. "Oh my god, I wish Yaga-sensei were here. I wish Geto saw that."
"If you tell Suguru about this, I will throw you off the roof of the school," Gojo threatened, stopping right in front of her.
He was scowling, looking down at her with absolute indignation. But as he watched her laugh—truly, freely laugh, with her head thrown back and her green eyes crinkling behind those awful glasses—his anger hit a wall.
He realized, with a sudden, confusing jolt in his chest, that this was the first time he had ever heard her laugh. Usually, she was glaring at him, ignoring him, or suffering in silence.
The sight of her looking so carefree, so completely untethered from the burden of her defective eyes, made the breath catch in Gojo's throat. The embarrassment of his failed Red vanished, replaced by an intense, hyper-focused awareness of the girl leaning against the arcade machine.
Miyuki's laughter slowly died down as she noticed how quiet he had gotten. She looked up at him, wiping a final tear of mirth from her cheek.
"What?" she asked, her smile lingering.
Gojo didn't step back. In fact, he took a half-step forward, closing the distance between them until his boots bumped against her shoes. He looked down at her, his crystalline blue eyes studying her face with the same terrifying intensity he used to analyze cursed techniques.
Miyuki's breath hitched. The sudden proximity triggered that familiar phenomenon—the agonizing static in her brain instantly muted, overpowered by his massive, stabilizing energy. But this time, the silence didn't bring relief. It brought a heavy, suffocating tension.
The air in the arcade felt suddenly too thick to breathe.
"You have a loud laugh," Gojo murmured, his voice dropping its defensive edge, becoming something softer, something a little too observant.
"You have a loud... everything," Miyuki countered weakly, her heart suddenly beating entirely too fast against her ribs. She pressed her back against the arcade machine, acutely aware of his height, his broad shoulders, and the smell of ozone that always accompanied him.
Why was he looking at her like that? Like she was a puzzle he suddenly wanted to solve?
Gojo tilted his head. His gaze dropped to her lips for a fraction of a second before snapping back up to her eyes hidden behind the dark lenses. He was a teenager who understood quantum physics but knew absolutely nothing about the sudden, heavy twisting in his own stomach.
He wanted to touch her face. He wanted to pull those stupid glasses off and look at her properly.
He raised his hand, his long fingers reaching toward her.
Miyuki held her breath, her eyes widening.
"Satoru! Miyuki!"
Geto's voice echoed up the stalled escalator, shattering the heavy bubble around them like glass.
Gojo flinched, his hand dropping to his side instantly. He stepped back, the arrogant, untouchable facade slamming back into place with practiced ease. He shoved his hands deep into his pockets, turning his back to her.
"We're up here, Suguru!" Gojo called out, his voice slightly louder than necessary. "The feral cat got scared of a Grade 2, so I had to handle it!"
Miyuki blinked, her mind reeling from the sudden whiplash. The tension evaporated, replaced immediately by familiar, burning irritation.
"I did not get scared!" Miyuki yelled down the stairs as Geto and Shoko appeared. "He tried to show off, failed miserably, and then just punched it like a caveman!"
Geto reached the top of the stairs, looking between Satoru's slightly flushed face and Miyuki's highly defensive posture. He raised an eyebrow, an amused, knowing smirk forming on his lips.
"Is that so?" Geto asked smoothly. "A failure, Satoru? How uncharacteristic."
"She's lying! Her defective eyes are hallucinating!" Gojo argued loudly, walking past Geto toward the stairs. "I executed a perfect, flawless exorcism! Let's go, it's hot in here, and I want ice cream."
Shoko walked up next to Miyuki, pulling an unlit cigarette from her pocket. She nudged Miyuki with her elbow.
"What did he actually do?" Shoko whispered.
"He screamed 'I failed' and threw a right hook," Miyuki whispered back, a grin returning to her face.
Shoko snorted loudly, shaking her head. "Idiot."
As they walked out of the arcade and back into the blazing Saitama sun, Gojo was already complaining loudly about the lack of good dessert places in the area. He was walking ahead, his long strides putting distance between him and the rest of the group.
But as Miyuki watched his back, she couldn't shake the memory of how he had looked at her in the quiet of the arcade. Underneath all the bravado, the arrogance, and the overwhelming power, Gojo Satoru was just a boy. A very frustrating, highly dangerous, and entirely too observant boy.
She pressed a hand to her chest, feeling the lingering, erratic rhythm of her own heart.
It's just the heat, Miyuki told herself firmly. Just the heat, and the noise.
But deep down, as she watched the Strongest Sorcerer kick a soda can down the street, she knew that the noise in her head was the least of her problems. Gojo was slowly, inevitably, becoming a problem she couldn't just filter out.
The Yukata and the Noise
By the first week of September, the crushing heat of summer had finally begun to break, replaced by the warm, nostalgic breeze of early autumn. For normal high school students, it meant the beginning of the school year. For the students of Tokyo Prefectural Jujutsu High School, it meant Yaga had miraculously granted them a single Saturday evening off to attend the local Tanabata festival.
Miyuki hated festivals.
They were loud. They were crowded. The air was thick with the chaotic, unfiltered cursed energy of thousands of normal humans experiencing joy, frustration, and exhaustion all at once. For her defective Six Eyes, it was a recipe for a catastrophic migraine.
However, Shoko Ieiri was a force of nature, and she had decided that Miyuki was going, whether she liked it or not.
Which was why Miyuki was currently standing near the entrance of the shrine, wearing a pale green yukata with a subtle bamboo pattern, her dark hair pinned up with a simple wooden hairpin. She wasn't wearing her thick, modified goggles. Shoko had strictly forbidden them, insisting they ruined the outfit.
Instead, Miyuki's striking, bright green eyes were completely exposed to the world.
She squeezed her eyes shut, pressing her fingers against her temples as a wave of dizziness hit her. The chatter of the crowd sounded like a swarm of angry bees.
"Breathe, Miyuki-chan," Geto's calm voice cut through the noise.
Miyuki opened her eyes. Geto and Shoko were standing in front of her. Geto looked incredibly comfortable in a dark navy yukata, his hair tied up neatly. Shoko looked bored but elegant in a dark purple one, a candy apple already in her hand.
"I can't," Miyuki hissed, gripping the edge of her sleeves. "There's too much input. The residual energy from that takoyaki stand alone is blinding me."
"Just focus on the ground," Shoko advised around a bite of candy apple. "We'll stick to the edges. Where is the idiot, anyway? He said he was going to buy us all shaved ice."
"He got distracted by a goldfish scooping game," Geto sighed, pointing toward a crowded stall fifty yards away.
There he was. Gojo stood head and shoulders above the crowd, completely disrupting the flow of traffic. He was wearing a stark white yukata that contrasted sharply with his round, black sunglasses. He was currently yelling at a terrified stall owner, holding up a tiny, broken paper net.
Even from a distance, his cursed energy was a massive, brilliant beacon. It was so dense and pure that it naturally repelled the chaotic "noise" of the civilian crowd around him.
Miyuki watched him, a familiar flutter of irritation mixing with something far more complicated in her chest.
"I'm going to go drag him away before he uses Blue on the goldfish," Geto said, rubbing the back of his neck. "Shoko, watch her. Don't let her pass out."
"Aye, aye," Shoko saluted lazily as Geto disappeared into the throng of people.
Miyuki leaned against a wooden pillar, taking slow, deep breaths. The air smelled of fried dough, fireworks, and sweat. She reached into the small cloth bag hanging from her wrist and pulled out a cherry-flavored lollipop. It was a coping mechanism. The sharp, artificial sweetness helped ground her senses when the world got too loud.
She unwrapped it and popped it into her mouth, the tart sugar immediately providing a tiny sliver of focus.
"Hey, Shoko," Miyuki mumbled around the plastic stick. "If I throw up, please don't let Gojo see. He'll never let me live it down."
Shoko laughed, pulling out her phone. "Oh, no. I'll take a picture and send it to him immediately. It's my duty as a friend."
Suddenly, Shoko's phone buzzed. She looked at the screen, her eyes widening slightly before a wicked, knowing grin spread across her face.
"Ah. Yaga just texted," Shoko lied smoothly, pocketing her phone. "There's a minor curse report near the east gate. I have to go check it out."
"What? By yourself?" Miyuki panicked, standing up straighter. "I'll come with you!"
"No, no! You stay here. You can barely stand straight," Shoko waved her off, already walking backward into the crowd. "Tell Satoru and Suguru I'll be back in twenty minutes! Don't move!"
"Shoko! Wait!"
But she was gone, swallowed by the sea of colorful yukatas.
Miyuki groaned, leaning the back of her head against the wooden pillar. She closed her eyes, rolling the cherry lollipop over her tongue.
Just focus on the sugar. Ignore the noise. Ignore the static.
"Why are you hiding in the corner looking like a sick pigeon?"
The voice was entirely too loud, entirely too close, and entirely too familiar.
Miyuki's eyes snapped open.
The Direct Hit
Gojo was standing right in front of her.
He had ditched the round sunglasses.
Miyuki's breath hitched. In the soft, warm glow of the paper lanterns hanging above them, Gojo's Six Eyes were fully exposed. They were a brilliant, terrifying, crystalline blue that seemed to glow in the dim light. They were the eyes of a god, beautiful and fundamentally alien.
But right now, those eyes were locked entirely on her.
Gojo stopped dead in his tracks. He had been planning to tease her about being left behind by Shoko, but the words died in his throat the second he looked at her.
He had never seen her without those awful, thick goggles.
Her eyes were green. Not just a dull, ordinary green, but a vibrant, striking emerald color that practically sparked with unrefined cursed energy. They were wide, framed by dark lashes, and currently glaring at him with a mixture of annoyance and pain. She looked incredibly small in the pale green yukata, her hair pinned up, the soft curve of her neck exposed.
For the Strongest Sorcerer, whose brain processed information at the speed of light, his entire cognitive system suddenly hit a massive, inexplicable lag spike.
He stared at her. He didn't say a word. He just stared.
Miyuki frowned, the cherry lollipop clicking against her teeth as she shifted her weight defensively. The sudden proximity of his massive cursed energy acted like a switch, immediately silencing the painful roar of the festival crowd in her head. The relief was instantaneous, but the silence he brought with him felt incredibly heavy.
"What are you staring at?" Miyuki snapped, her voice lacking its usual bite.
Gojo blinked, pulling himself out of his daze. The tips of his ears felt suddenly, uncomfortably hot. He quickly masked it with his signature, obnoxious smirk.
"Just admiring the view," Gojo drawled, taking a step closer, completely ignoring the concept of personal space. He leaned down slightly, bringing his face dangerously close to hers. "I didn't know you had actual eyes under those welding goggles, feral cat. I thought you just had two black holes leaking cursed energy."
Miyuki scowled, gripping the stick of her lollipop. "They're called glasses, Satoru. And yes, I have eyes. Green ones. Deal with it."
"Green," Gojo repeated, his voice dropping an octave. His gaze didn't leave hers. "They're... loud. Your cursed energy is practically screaming out of them. No wonder you get headaches."
"Thank you for the medical diagnosis, Doctor Gojo. Where are Geto and Shoko?"
"Suguru got pulled away by some girls from a rival school wanting his number," Gojo rolled his eyes, shoving his hands into the pockets of his white yukata. "And Shoko ditched us. So it's just you and me."
Miyuki groaned, pulling the lollipop out of her mouth. Her lips were stained slightly red from the cherry candy. "Great. My nightmare is complete."
Gojo's bright blue eyes followed the movement of her hand. He watched the glistening red candy leave her mouth. He watched the way her lips parted slightly, slick with saliva and sugar.
He was sixteen. He was arrogant, untouchable, and possessed the power to level cities. But he was also a teenage boy whose hormones had suddenly decided to stage a violent coup against his logic.
He stared at her lips. He couldn't look away.
Miyuki noticed the shift. She saw the way his pupils dilated slightly, the infinite blue of his irises darkening in the lantern light. She saw the subtle tension in his jaw.
A sudden, wicked spark of realization flared in Miyuki's chest. The great Gojo Satoru, the boy who constantly mocked her, who made her life miserable, was staring at her mouth like a starving dog.
She couldn't resist. The feral cat decided to bat at the lion.
Miyuki popped the lollipop back into her mouth, a slow, deliberate movement. She leaned back against the pillar, crossing her arms over her chest, a mocking smirk playing on her lips.
"Take a picture, Satoru," Miyuki teased, her voice a soft, challenging purr. "It lasts longer."
Gojo snapped his gaze back up to her eyes, a flush of pure, indignant red creeping up his neck. "I wasn't looking at anything!"
"Sure you weren't," Miyuki laughed, rolling the candy around in her mouth, the stick pointing out cheekily. "You were staring so hard I thought you were going to use your Six Eyes to analyze the chemical composition of my saliva. Or were you just jealous because you didn't get a lollipop?"
It was a taunt. A blatant, mocking taunt designed to embarrass him.
She expected him to yell. She expected him to insult her yukata, or call her defective, or storm off to find Geto.
She did not expect what happened next.
Gojo Satoru did not retreat when challenged. He conquered.
The embarrassment vanished from his face, replaced by a dark, intense look that made Miyuki's breath catch in her throat. In a blur of motion too fast for her to process, Gojo stepped directly into her space, caging her against the wooden pillar.
Before she could even gasp, his large, warm hand shot out and wrapped firmly around her slender wrist.
Miyuki froze, her green eyes wide with shock.
Gojo didn't break eye contact. The air pressure around them shifted, the heavy weight of his cursed energy pressing down on her, trapping her completely. Slowly, deliberately, he pulled her hand toward his own face.
"S-Satoru?" Miyuki stammered, the mocking bravado shattering instantly.
"You think you're funny, Arima?" Gojo murmured, his voice a low, vibrating rasp that sent a jolt of electricity straight down her spine.
He leaned in. He parted his lips.
And right there, in the middle of the crowded festival, surrounded by hundreds of people, Gojo wrapped his lips around the cherry lollipop still held in her trembling hand.
He pulled it out of her mouth and took it into his own.
The intimacy of the act was staggering. It was an indirect kiss, executed with absolute, shameless dominance. Miyuki could feel the heat of his breath against her knuckles. She watched, completely paralyzed, as his cheek hollowed slightly as he sucked on the candy she had just been eating.
He tasted her saliva. He tasted the cherry sugar. He tasted the absolute victory of shutting her up.
He slowly pulled the lollipop out of his mouth, a thin string of saliva connecting the candy to his lips before it snapped. His blue eyes burned into hers, wild and incredibly predatory.
"Cherry," Gojo noted, his voice dark and raspy. He let go of her wrist, but he didn't step back. He licked his lower lip, tasting the lingering sweetness. "Not bad. But I prefer strawberry."
Miyuki's brain short-circuited.
Her face turned a shade of red that rivaled the paper lanterns above them. The sensory overload of her Six Eyes was nothing compared to the absolute, catastrophic meltdown her nervous system was currently experiencing.
He had just basically kissed her. He had taken something out of her mouth and eaten it while looking her dead in the eye.
"You—you absolute psycho!" Miyuki shrieked, her voice cracking violently.
She shoved him hard in the chest. Gojo didn't even budge, but he let her push past him.
"I hate you! Don't talk to me for the rest of the year!" Miyuki yelled, turning and practically sprinting into the crowd, her pale green yukata disappearing into the sea of people.
Gojo stood there, completely alone under the lanterns, the cherry lollipop still in his hand.
He watched her run away, the lingering scent of her—sweet, and something uniquely Miyuki—fading into the festival air.
He popped the lollipop back into his mouth, crunching down on the hard candy with his back teeth. The sugar exploded on his tongue, but it wasn't the candy he was focused on.
A sudden, sharp pressure drew his attention downward.
Gojo froze.
He looked down at the front of his white yukata.
For the first time in his sixteen years of life, the Strongest Sorcerer in the world, the untouchable god of the Gojo clan, was sporting a very obvious, very inconvenient, and incredibly aggressive erection.
It wasn't a biological reaction he could control with cursed energy. It wasn't a technique. It was a raw, primal response to the girl with the green eyes who had just mocked him.
Gojo Satoru, the boy who understood the fabric of the universe, stared at his own crotch in absolute, horrified fascination.
"Well," Gojo breathed, his voice barely a whisper in the noisy festival. "That's new."
He quickly adjusted the folds of his yukata, stepping deeper into the shadows of the shrine to hide his predicament. His heart was hammering against his ribs, a frantic rhythm that felt entirely foreign to him. His blood felt hot, rushing through his veins with an intensity that had nothing to do with combat.
He leaned his head back against the wooden pillar, exactly where she had been standing seconds ago.
He closed his eyes, the taste of cherry sugar still coating his tongue. The memory of her wide, striking green eyes, the soft parting of her lips, and the sudden, breathless flush of her cheeks replayed in his mind like a high-definition movie.
A slow, terrifyingly genuine smirk spread across his face. The arrogance was gone, replaced by a deep, awakening hunger.
"I wonder," Satoru Gojo mumbled to himself, the noise of the festival completely forgotten, "if her lips taste as sweet as this damn lollipop."
The summer of 2006 had officially ended. But for the feral cat and the untouchable god, the real chaos had only just begun.
The Confession of a God
The festival was still raging down the mountain, the sky painted with the bright explosions of fireworks, but the stone steps leading up to the main shrine were relatively deserted.
Geto sat on the top step, nursing a bottle of cold green tea. He was enjoying the rare moment of peace, the chaotic hum of Tokyo reduced to a distant murmur. He checked his phone. Satoru had been gone for twenty minutes. Shoko was likely finding a place to smoke.
"Suguru."
The voice was entirely devoid of its usual obnoxious, booming confidence. It sounded strained. It sounded... panicked.
Geto turned around.
Gojo was standing at the bottom of the steps. He looked like he had just seen a ghost, or worse, Yaga with a new cursed corpse. His white yukata was slightly rumpled, his round sunglasses were back on his face, and his posture was completely rigid. He was clutching a small wooden folding fan in front of his midsection like a shield.
"Satoru?" Geto stood up, immediately alert. He scanned the area for cursed energy. "What happened? Did you run into a Special Grade?"
Gojo didn't move. He stared at Geto, his jaw clenched so tightly it looked painful. Slowly, agonizingly, Gojo shook his head.
"Worse," Gojo rasped, his voice dropping an octave.
Geto frowned, taking a few steps down the stairs. "Worse than a Special Grade? Is it the Kamo clan? Did they find Miyuki?"
"No," Gojo practically squeaked. He squeezed his eyes shut behind his dark lenses. He looked like he was trying to calculate the trajectory of the moon and failing miserably. "Suguru. I need you to listen to me very carefully. As my best friend. As my brother in arms."
Geto stopped, his concern deepening into genuine worry. Satoru never spoke like this. "I'm listening. What is it?"
Gojo took a deep, shuddering breath. He tightened his grip on the folding fan, pressing it firmly against the front of his yukata.
"I was talking to the feral cat," Gojo began, his words rushing out in a frantic, hushed torrent. "She was being annoying. She was eating a lollipop. A cherry one. And she was looking at me with her stupid green eyes, without those awful goggles, and she mocked me, Suguru. She mocked the Strongest."
"Okay," Geto nodded slowly, trying to follow the logic. "So you insulted her back. Standard procedure."
"No!" Gojo hissed, his face flushing a violent shade of red. "I didn't insult her! I... I took the lollipop."
Geto blinked. "You stole her candy? Satoru, you're sixteen, not six."
"I didn't steal it!" Gojo groaned loudly, running his free hand through his white hair in absolute distress. "I took it out of her hand. While it was in her mouth. And I put it in my mouth."
Silence descended on the stone steps.
Geto stared at his best friend. He processed the information. He processed the implications. A slow, incredibly amused smirk began to form on his face.
"You indirect-kissed Miyuki," Geto clarified, his voice dripping with sudden, wicked delight. "In the middle of the festival."
"It was a tactical maneuver to assert dominance!" Gojo argued defensively, though he looked entirely unconvinced by his own lie. "She was being smug! I had to shut her up!"
"And did it work?"
"Yes! She yelled at me and ran away!" Gojo said, before his shoulders slumped in absolute defeat. "But Suguru... that's not the problem."
"Then what is the problem, Satoru?" Geto asked gently, though his eyes were sparkling with mirth.
Gojo looked left. He looked right. He leaned in close, bringing his face near Geto's ear, his voice dropping to a panicked, horrified whisper.
"Suguru," Gojo breathed, his grip on the fan turning white-knuckled. "I got a boner."
Geto froze.
For three seconds, the world completely stopped. The fireworks exploded silently in the sky. The crickets ceased their chirping.
Then, Geto Suguru, the calm, collected prodigy of Jujutsu High, threw his head back and let out a bark of laughter so loud it echoed down the mountain.
"IT'S NOT FUNNY!" Gojo shrieked, jumping back and wildly punching at Geto with his free hand, keeping the fan firmly in place over his crotch. "I HAVE NEVER HAD THIS HAPPEN IN COMBAT! OR IN AN ARGUMENT! I AM A BIOLOGICAL ANOMALY!"
"You are a teenager, Satoru!" Geto gasped, clutching his stomach, tears of genuine hilarity forming in the corners of his eyes. "You got turned on by bullying a girl! You're not an anomaly, you're just an idiot!"
"I did not get turned on!" Gojo yelled, his face now resembling a ripe tomato. "It was a reflex! A... a cursed energy fluctuation in my lower abdomen! It's the Six Eyes processing the sugar content of the cherry candy!"
Geto leaned against the stone railing, trying to breathe. "The Six Eyes processing sugar. Right. That's definitely how anatomy works."
"Suguru, you have to help me," Gojo pleaded, looking genuinely distressed. "It won't go down. It's been five minutes. I tried doing calculus in my head. I tried visualizing Yaga's cursed corpses. Nothing is working. I am trapped behind this fan!"
"This is the greatest day of my life," Shoko Ieiri announced.
Both boys jumped, spinning around.
Shoko was standing at the top of the stairs, leaning against a torii gate, an unlit cigarette dangling from her lips. She had her flip phone out, the camera lens pointed directly at Satoru Gojo and his strategically placed folding fan.
"Shoko!" Gojo shrieked, his voice cracking again. "Delete that! If you show that to anyone, I will literally vaporize you with Purple!"
"You haven't mastered Purple yet, idiot," Shoko said smoothly, snapping another picture. The shutter sound echoed loudly. "And I'm keeping this for blackmail. So, the great Gojo Satoru is pitching a tent because Miyuki looked at him. Incredible."
"She didn't just look at him," Geto supplied helpfully, thoroughly enjoying his friend's misery. "He indirectly kissed her via a lollipop."
Shoko whistled, walking down the steps. "Aggressive. I like it. Where is she?"
"She ran away," Gojo grumbled, finally lowering his shoulders in defeat. He sat down heavily on the stone step, keeping the fan firmly in his lap. He looked utterly miserable. "She called me a psycho and said she hates me."
"Well, you did essentially steal her saliva," Shoko pointed out, sitting down next to him. She nudged his shoulder. "So? What's the plan, Romeo? Are you going to keep harassing her until she files a restraining order, or are we going to fix this?"
Gojo looked up, his blue eyes wide behind his glasses. "Fix what?"
"Your massive, embarrassing crush," Shoko deadpanned.
"I do not have a crush!" Gojo yelled automatically, immediately defensive. "She's annoying! She whines about the noise! Her cursed energy is a mess! She's entirely too small, and she punches like a wet noodle!"
"And you got an erection when you tasted her lip gloss," Geto added, sitting down on Gojo's other side, effectively boxing him in.
Gojo groaned, burying his face in his hands (careful not to move the fan). "I hate both of you. You're the worst best friends in the world."
"Satoru," Geto said, his tone softening slightly, taking on the calm, logical cadence he usually reserved for mission briefings. "Listen to me. You are the Strongest. You get whatever you want. If you want Arima to look at you with something other than absolute disgust, you have to change your tactics. You can't just bully her into submission."
"I don't bully her," Gojo mumbled into his hands. "I just... demand her attention."
"Which is bullying," Shoko corrected. She pulled out a small notepad and a pen she usually used for autopsy reports. "Alright, boys. Mission objective: Make the feral cat fall in love with the idiot god. Let's form a strategy."
Gojo slowly lifted his head from his hands. He looked at Shoko's notepad. He looked at Geto's serious expression. The sheer absurdity of the situation—the three most powerful teenagers in Japan forming a tactical war council on the steps of a shrine to get a girl to like him—was completely lost on him.
To Gojo Satoru, this was now a mission. And Gojo Satoru did not fail missions.
"Fine," Gojo declared, pushing his sunglasses up the bridge of his nose. His competitive spirit ignited. "I am going to make her so aggressively in love with me that she begs me to eat her lollipops."
"Phrasing, Satoru," Geto sighed, rubbing his temples.
"Let's start with the basics," Shoko tapped her pen against the paper. "What does Miyuki like? Satoru, you have the Six Eyes. You analyze everything. What are her preferences?"
Gojo crossed his arms (the crisis in his lap having finally, thankfully, subsided). He thought deeply. His incredible brain, capable of calculating the atomic structure of the universe, focused entirely on Miyuki Arima.
"She likes quiet," Gojo stated confidently. "She likes cold green tea. She likes hiding in the archives because the thick stone walls block out the residual cursed energy of the school."
"Okay, good," Shoko wrote it down. "She likes sensory deprivation. What else?"
"She hates the Kamo clan," Gojo added, his voice darkening slightly. The playful teenager vanished for a second, replaced by the lethal sorcerer. "They keep sending letters trying to get her transferred to Kyoto. It spikes her heart rate every time Yaga hands her an envelope. I can hear her blood pressure rise."
Geto exchanged a look with Shoko. They both recognized the possessive, violent undertone in Satoru's voice. The "crush" was already much deeper than Satoru realized.
"Alright, so she values safety and autonomy," Geto summarized. "And currently, you represent neither of those things. You are loud, chaotic, and you constantly invade her personal space."
"I am a delight," Gojo argued.
"You are a menace," Shoko corrected. "Step one: Stop touching her without permission. You ripping her glasses off is a massive violation of her coping mechanism. It's like kicking a crutch out from under someone."
Gojo frowned. He remembered the sheer panic in her green eyes when he had done exactly that in the classroom. He remembered how hard she had tried to punch him. A tiny, unfamiliar pang of guilt echoed in his chest.
"But when I touch her, her cursed energy stabilizes," Gojo argued quietly, looking down at his hands. "When I drop Infinity and let my energy bleed over, the static in her head stops. She told me. It... helps her."
Geto's eyes widened slightly. He hadn't realized the depth of their cursed energy resonance. "You act as a battery for her Six Eyes?"
"More like a grounding wire," Gojo nodded. "My output is too massive. It drowns out everything else. It gives her brain a break."
"That is highly intimate, Satoru," Geto said, his voice quiet. "If you are the only one who can provide her relief from chronic pain, you hold a massive amount of power over her. You have to be careful with that. If you use it to force her to be near you, she will resent you."
"I don't force her!" Gojo protested, feeling entirely misunderstood. "I just... offer it. Aggressively."
"Step two," Shoko wrote firmly on the pad. "Provide the battery passively. Don't demand gratitude. Just be near her when she looks stressed, but don't say a word. Let her associate your presence with relief, not annoyance."
"That sounds incredibly boring," Gojo complained. "I have to just sit there and be quiet? I am a conversational masterpiece!"
"You are a loudmouth," Shoko said. "Step three: Acts of Service. You need to do things for her that show you pay attention."
"I can buy her a new cursed tool!" Gojo suggested brightly. "A really expensive one! I have unlimited Gojo clan funds. I'll buy her a sword that shoots lightning!"
"Satoru, you cannot buy a woman's affection with weapons of mass destruction," Geto sighed. "Try something simpler. You said she likes cold green tea. Bring her one when she's studying in the archives. Don't make a big deal out of it. Just leave it on her desk."
"Leave it on her desk and walk away?" Gojo looked horrified by the concept. "Without demanding praise? What is the point of doing a good deed if she doesn't tell me how amazing I am?"
"The point," Shoko tapped her pen against his forehead, "is that she will realize you are not a completely selfish monster. It builds trust. Trust leads to affection. Affection leads to..." She gestured vaguely. "...not running away when you eat her candy."
Gojo rubbed his forehead, processing the data. It went against every instinct he had. He was a showman. He demanded the spotlight. But as he pictured Miyuki's soft, relieved smile—the one she only ever showed when she thought he wasn't looking—he realized he was willing to try a different approach.
"Fine," Gojo declared, his blue eyes flashing with determination. "I will be the quietest, most attentive, most incredibly supportive battery she has ever seen. She won't even know what hit her."
"I give it two days before you accidentally blow up a building to impress her," Shoko muttered, closing her notepad.
"Have a little faith, Shoko," Geto smiled, standing up and stretching his legs. He looked down at his best friend. "Satoru is a genius. If he applies himself to romance the way he applies himself to Jujutsu, Arima doesn't stand a chance."
Gojo stood up, the embarrassing incident with the fan finally forgotten. He threw his arms around both of his friends' shoulders, pulling them into a tight, entirely unwanted hug.
"We are going to win this war!" Gojo shouted into the quiet night, his arrogance returning in full force. "The feral cat will be eating out of the palm of my hand by December!"
"Please let go of me, you're sweating," Geto groaned, trying to pry Satoru's arm off his neck.
"If you yell again, I am sending the photo to Yaga," Shoko threatened.
As the three teenagers walked back down the stone steps toward the fading lights of the festival, Gojo Satoru felt a strange, thrilling anticipation in his chest. It wasn't the thrill of combat. It wasn't the rush of exorcising a curse.
It was the terrifying, exhilarating realization that for the first time in his life, he had found something he actually had to work for.