Inside the gymnasium at Jujutsu High.
Swish.
The basketball went straight through the hoop without touching the rim—a perfect hollow shot.
Kenmei, breathing slightly heavily, landed steadily on his feet after the jump shot.
"Ahhh! Kenmei, you're so cool!"
"If I were a girl, I'd fall in love with you instantly!"
"Gojo, you're exaggerating."
Kenmei caught the basketball passed back by Suguru Geto with one hand and looked helplessly at Satoru Gojo, who was lying on his side on the floor.
"It was just a regular jump shot."
Only Kenmei could be friends with Gojo—a friendship forged over a bottle of strawberry milk—despite the latter's penchant for saying such cringe-inducingly exaggerated things.
"Regular? Kenmei, you're too humble."
"Hahaha, Geto is getting absolutely destroyed by you."
Gojo lay on the gym floor, propping his head up with his right hand, grinning as he watched Kenmei and Geto.
Above his head floated a scoreboard made of condensed Cursed Energy, flashy and glittering.
With Kenmei's latest shot, the red number 35 jumped to 37, while the blue number on the other side sat pitifully at 6.
According to Gojo's rough estimate, Kenmei had blocked Geto a full fifteen times and neutralized thirty-five offensive plays in the last twenty minutes.
Why did Kenmei start a 1v1 duel with Geto? Purely to kill time.
Kenmei came to Jujutsu High hoping to find information about the mark carved onto his arm by some unknown entity.
The damn thing had zero presence and emitted almost no Cursed Energy fluctuations. It only gained an extra petal after he killed the "Big Head Doll" Cursed Spirit formed from that fallen brat.
Kenmei wanted Geto to take a look—an offline consultation for peace of mind.
Initially, both Gojo and Geto were enthusiastic, patting their chests and claiming they knew everything.
But when Kenmei rolled up his sleeve to show them the cherry blossom tattoo, the two froze like puppets, knowing absolutely nothing.
Instead, they mocked him: "Why is this tattoo so girly?" and "It suits you, Kenmei."
These two bastards sang a duet of sarcasm. Their passive-aggressive skills were top-tier. Kenmei finally understood why that brown-haired girl always wanted to fight them.
Both of them eventually concluded that their homeroom teacher, Masamichi Yaga, might know something. Kenmei also recalled Azazel mentioning that if he had questions about Jujutsu, asking Yaga would save him a lot of detours.
However, Yaga was delayed by some business but promised to come over as soon as he was done.
Even putting aside old friendships, he owed Kenmei big time.
Kenmei had saved Yaga's student, Kento Nanami, from a Grade 2 Cursed Spirit. A talent Yaga had worked hard to recruit was almost destroyed, and as an educator, nothing was more heartbreaking. Kenmei had averted the worst-case scenario.
So, Yaga would definitely do everything in his power to help Kenmei identify the ghostly mark on his arm.
"Since Sensei said 'a while,' that means 'a long while.'"
"Kenmei, you don't know Yaga-sensei. He drags his feet."
"So, since it's still early, let's go have some fun!"
That search for fun led them here, to the gym. One benefit of Jujutsu High was the low student count; the per-capita space was huge. The indoor basketball court was massive, even bigger than the one at Kenmei's Aoyama Academy.
The first person to suggest going to the gym was Gojo, but he ended up being the spectator.
Seeing Kenmei block Geto multiple times made Gojo cheer wildly.
It had been a while since Gojo saw someone as physically dominant as Kenmei. So, when he cheered for Kenmei, he put his soul into it—using a sickly sweet, high-pitched voice that made both Kenmei and Geto's legs weak.
"Sigh, what a pity."
"First time seeing someone block Geto over ten times in basketball. Leading by thirty points."
"Hahahaha! I'm dying! Geto, how do you still have the face to stay on the court?"
Gojo never missed a chance to roast his best friend. Geto was his lifelong rival, after all.
"You suck!"
Hearing Gojo's ruthless mockery, Geto's usually smiling, squinty eyes snapped wide open with rage.
He forced a smile onto his face and said to Kenmei:
"Kenmei, can we take a break? I want to have a friendly chat with that piece of trash over there."
Kenmei's only thought was: I want to see rivers of blood!
"Come here, Gojo. You're not scared, are you?"
With a cold expression, Geto coated the basketball in dense Cursed Energy. Then, pitching it like a baseball, he hurled it at speed rivaling a cannonball straight at Gojo, who was still lounging comfortably on the floor.
"Hahahaha."
Gojo's laughter echoed through the gym. He hadn't been this happy in a long time.
Even though the ball carried terrifying power boosted by Geto's Cursed Energy—enough to shred a Grade 2 Cursed Spirit—it stopped dead five meters in front of Gojo.
Not only was the Cursed Energy stripped away, but its kinetic energy vanished into thin air. It hung suspended in absolute stillness.
Kenmei saw a pair of exceptionally brilliant eyes shining behind the sunglasses. Those eyes, containing the starry sky within them, looked like a miracle of the world.
"Is that the Limitless Technique?"
Although both Kenmei and Gojo were from the Three Great Sorcerer Families, their status and standing were worlds apart.
One was a family outcast; the other was the future head of the clan.
Gojo was born with the Six Eyes and mastered the Gojo clan's thousand-year-old inherited technique, the Limitless. He was destined to be the strongest existence in the Jujutsu world.
"Geto, I didn't expect a guy full of 'righteous arguments' like you—who always says power should be used to protect the weak—to start abusing your power."
"Whatever. Let's take this outside. Can't really stretch our legs in this cramped place."
Gojo stood up slowly and made a playful throat-slitting gesture, pointing toward the back mountain.
Behind Geto, the aura of countless terrifying Cursed Spirits seemed to roar. His tone was freezing cold.
"Just what I wanted."
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