Chapter Text
“This isn’t Roppongi!”
Wasn’t it? Oh dear, it looks like he got mixed up again. See, this was why he was always late. If only the old coots higher up could understand his tragic circumstances, maybe then they’d get off his back once in a while for showing up fashionably on time.
Ah well. Roppongi, an abandoned building flooded with enough cursed energy to give form to spirits, what was the difference when you really got down to it? His precious students would probably get just as much fun out of this, either way. They’d save a lot more money too, away from that tourist trap. See? Wasn’t he just so responsible?
“It’s cruel to toy with us country folk!” And there was Kugisaki right on cue, just as offended as Itadori. They got along better than they thought they did, he noted. They’d be a pretty dynamic duo if they got past their cute little ‘interpersonal issues’ and ‘not liking each other’ thing that they had going on.
Speaking of which…
“There’s a big cemetery nearby.” Gojo gestured vaguely off to the distance shortly before pointing towards the dilapidated old thing in front of them, “That, plus an abandoned building… and you’ve got yourself a curse!”
And what an abandoned building it was. People without the knack for cursed energy normally couldn’t see curses, but he wouldn’t have been surprised to hear of a few people complaining about the sickly purple smog surrounding the place. The curses inside didn’t feel that strong in the grand scheme of things, but there was a fair few of them, and that could give off a real nasty feeling even to the folks without potential.
There was something else lingering in the heart of the building too. Something Gojo couldn’t quite place. It seemed harmless enough, though, so the plan could proceed as intended.
He heard Itadori give a little noise of understanding just behind him, and Kugisaki giving a much louder, much more extensive bundle of noises that didn’t sound all that polite a little further back. “So they pop up more often around graves?”
Well… maybe not understanding, then, but luckily for his vocal cords Megumi seemed willing to patch up that particular gap in knowledge. It was good to know he could always trust someone else to explain all the boring stuff. “It’s not the cemetery itself. It’s the fact that people associate cemeteries with fear and unease.”
“Right! It was the same for schools too, wasn’t it?” Itadori understood that much at least, but apparently Kugisaki didn’t appreciate the budding knowledge of her classmate.
“Wait, wait, hold up here. He didn’t even know that yet?” She said, shooting a dismissive glare towards the target of her ire.
Megumi’s pause was highlighted by the faintest of winces that Gojo wasn’t sure either of the other two noticed. “To be honest… he only found out about jujutsu a couple days ago, when he swallowed…” Another pause, as he considered the optics of telling someone who was essentially a stranger just what kind of monumentally insane thing it was that Yuji had eaten. “A special grade cursed object. To save his friends.” He added, as if that would mask his veiled distaste towards the topic, or diminish the complete idiocy that led to such a decision.
Nobara’s disgust was altogether less subtle. “He swallowed a special grade cursed object?! Gross! Eugh, that’s so unsanitary and disgusting! I wanna hurl.” She retched, taking several quick steps away from the person whose finger-eating habits she apparently might have caught if she stood near him too long. “No way, no way, no way!”
“Hey, that’s not nice!”
“I agree with her.” Megumi drawled, leaving Yuji to splutter indignantly in the background at the sudden betrayal.
Left unsaid behind his usual smirk was that Gojo had to agree with the other two on this one. Don’t get him wrong – it was crazy in the best kind of way, but it was pretty stupid to boot. Even if his palate wasn’t exactly what most people would call ‘refined’, he still drew the line at swallowing the finger of an ancient curse whole. To say nothing of the agonising and no doubt gruesome death that by all reasonable odds should have taken Itadori where he stood at the time. But Itadori just wasn’t a reasonable kind of guy.
A guy after his own heart, then.
He’d admit, he felt kind of fond of the kid. Like a puppy eating something it shouldn’t, you just couldn’t get mad at him. Well… Kugisaki could, but she seemed the type to get mad at a loose strand of hair, so that didn’t count for much.
Gojo focused his attention on the building, wondering briefly about the muffled splintering sound he could just about hear from within. “I want to see what you three are capable of. Think of it like a kind of field test, okay? Nobara, Yuji, you go exorcise the curse inside that building.”
That just left Megumi right beside him to recover from his totally hilarious roughing up at the hands of a basic cursed spirit, and to act as his insurance policy to prevent himself from having to do anything if the spirit escaped.
There! The steps of his genius plan were coming to fruition before his eyes.
“Hold on.” Yuji piped up, reinforcing that whole ‘confused puppy’ look with the way he cocked his head to one side. “I thought only curses could exorcise curses. I can’t use jujutsu yet.”
Oh, right. “Depending on how you look at it, you’re basically half a curse already. Cursed energy’s flowing all through your body. Although controlling that energy isn’t exactly something you pick up overnight. So use this!”
Most normal people might have raised an eyebrow at a grown man passing a giant butcher knife to a teenager. It was lucky he didn’t have to deal with those too often, although even Megumi seemed a bit surprised to see him hand it over.
Zenin hadn’t exactly been pleased to lend it to him. And he was him. Probably a good idea he didn’t mention that it was going to a newbie she’d never met before. That was going to be a fun conversation to have later!
“The Slaughter Demon!” Gojo grinned, the expression matched by Itadori’s awed look as he accepted the blade. “A weapon imbued with cursed energy! So it’ll work on curses too.”
Nobara didn’t seem as pleased with the impromptu trafficking of deadly weaponry, dismissing the two of them with a scoff and deciding that starting towards the objective would be a better use of time.
Yuji had only just started to follow along when Gojo remembered something fairly essential to the exercise. “Oh! One more thing. Don’t let Sukuna out, okay? If you use him, you’ll get rid of all the curses in the radius without question,” Along with Kugisaki and half the street, he didn’t mention, “But anyone nearby will get dragged in.”
Not like he couldn’t deal with it if it happened, but work was work. And an occurrence like that would totally ruin the point of the lesson he was trying to teach him. Playing catch-up on that would be even more work. Not a cycle he wanted to fall into.
You couldn’t always rely on immense power that was simply granted to you. Even if the mere presence of Sukuna in his body lent itself to a strong pool of cursed energy or a powerful technique, there had to be a solid foundation to work from. He knew that better than anyone – and this was one of those times he could say something like that without hubris.
“You got it!” Itadori shot him a smile and a thumbs up, “I won’t let him out!”
He was sure that Itadori wouldn’t have to either way, but it was better to make sure with these things. The kid didn’t strike him as the type to want to give up control of his body to deal with a low-level cursed spirit, it was just that you never knew what kind of person a jujutsu sorcerer was until you saw them pushed to their breaking point.
Megumi might know better, having been there to see his resolve first-hand. He was being oddly quiet about the whole event at Itadori’s school outside of the sequences he’d explained in his official report, though, which was a little out of character. He was usually so no-nonsense and blunt. But seeing a civilian set themselves up for a life of hardship ending in inevitable execution just for the sake of two people must have rattled him somehow.
Escaping death by a hair’s breadth did that to a person.
“Would you two hurry it up?!” Nobara called back over her shoulder, deaf to the legitimate concerns Gojo was assuaging and already making her way to the building’s shutter.
Itadori shot him one last bemused look as if apologising for his classmate’s behaviour before turning to follow her to their given task.
Gojo waved. “Have fuuuun!” He called, like a doting parent setting his kids loose on a poor, unsuspecting playground. And, just like a doting parent setting his kids loose on a poor, unsuspecting playground, one of the kids in this metaphor sent a proud and excited grin his way because of all the mischief he wanted to get up to while the other scoffed and rolled her eyes because her father was being just too embarrassing for words.
Aww, they grew up so fast. It felt like just yesterday that they came into his life.
Nobara shook her head, realising that the airheaded smile on her apparent teacher’s face wasn’t going to be going away any time soon no matter how much she hated it. She glanced away to at least focus on someone else only to be swiftly reminded that her only company for this mission was even more annoying than Satoru Gojo.
This was going to be easy for her, it was just a matter of carrying that particular hunk of dead weight along with her. Sure, she’d prefer he was far, far away from her – seriously, a cursed object? – but it wasn’t like she wanted him to die. The situation was a little complicated. She knew she was more than good enough to exorcise whatever lame spirit was hanging about a crummy abandoned building in a place that definitely wasn’t Roppongi, but what could Itabori do?
Itabori? Ikadori? Whatever. She’d bother learning his name if he turned out to be at least a little useful.
He had that knife that Gojo gave him, that Slaughter Demon, and she could tell that it was a decent enough cursed tool, but a good weapon didn’t amount to much if the person using it was a big dumb sack of potatoes.
Did he have a powerful cursed technique? No… he couldn’t have. That gloomy one with black hair said that it had barely been a week since he’d learned anything at all about the world of jujutsu. That wasn’t nearly enough time to figure out what your inherent technique was, let alone get it to a point where it was usable against cursed spirits in live combat. What was it that Gojo said? That he was basically half a curse already? Putting aside the fact that Ikabori ate some old, cursed finger, she hoped that meant that he could actually do something with the power that incarnated in him.
If not, then she had to do enough work for the both of them just to not get them embarrassed in front of their teacher. Great.
Nobara shook her head and ran a hand through her hair with a long-suffering sigh. So much for the illustrious Jujutsu Tech.
All the information she’d been given about the campus had promised comfortable accommodations, hands-on field experience, professional teachers, and plenty of free time to explore the city among a laundry list of other benefits. So far she was one for four, and she couldn’t say she was impressed. At least back out in the sticks there was… well… no, thinking about it, coming to the city was still one of the best things that had happened to her in recent memory. Escaping that miserable pit and ending up in the place Saori always told her about was a dream come true.
No way was she going to let a little bad luck keep her down! No way was a pair of disappointing classmates going to ruin her fun!
So what if her teacher was an idiot with a grin like he was always high on something? So what if Jujutsu Tech wasn’t all it had cracked up to be? She’d get her leisure time, damn it!
If all she needed to do was get rid of the stupid curses in this stupid building in this stupid place that still wasn’t Roppongi, then fine!
Progress towards Nobara’s explosion: 60%.
Had Nobara been a more dramatic person, she might have envisioned the signature blue-black tongues of fire belonging to cursed energy starting to bathe her form in light as a sign of her determination. Those same flames shone through in her eyes, the grit of her teeth, and the clench of her fists.
None of that was literally true, but something of it must have shown in her demeanour because even someone as clueless as Ikadori stopped mid-step to stare at her as she walked – no, strutted! She was a proper god damn sorcerer now; she deserved that kind of energy! - towards the metal door that blocked their way.
“Whoa, you’re really eager to show off what you can do, Kugisaki!” Itadori – that sounded right enough to be his real name, come to think of it – smiled widely, pumping a fist in the air. “I like what you’re puttin’ down! Let’s do this thing!”
It was dumb. Really, really dumb. Nobara would rather die than admit it, but even something as lame as that was only another log tossed onto her blazing indignation.
She didn’t bother to grace him with a second glance. Blanking his idiocy was way better than feeding into his delusions about being cool. There wasn’t time for it anyway; she had curses to exorcise and a whole lot of shopping to do once she ended this charade.
Nobara was just about to reach both hands beneath the shutter when a wave of pressure washed over the area.
The air around them seemed to pulse. None of them missed the sensation, as alien as it was. Megumi sat up straight on the perch he’d found for himself, phone slipped right back into his pocket. Itadori stood frozen in place, gawping up at the building they’d been just about to exorcise. She herself jumped back a few steps and held her hammer out in front of herself just in case.
They could all only watch as the dense wisps of purple energy that leaked from each nook and cranny of the abandoned site seemed to be drawn inwards and then explode out all at once – chased out by tendrils of something totally unfamiliar. Flares of bright blue power that none of them recognised, tinged with soft purples and pinks at its outer edges. It travelled along the latent cursed energy like a long, winding trail of oil set alight. Choking, oozing purple gave way to brilliant cyan until only the barest traces of the thick fog were left behind, dissipating only moments later.
Almost immediately after, a pulse rocked the building down to its very foundation, as if someone had set off some kind of explosive without any of the tell-tale signs of one – like an explosion.
Spiderweb cracks appeared on the overhanging balconies. Rubble and dust fell in front of them all, forcing Nobara and Itadori to back off another few steps as they shielded their coughing faces.
Nobody moved while the activity settled down.
Both students capable of using cursed energy reached out tentatively to feel for the intrinsic spark of darkness that indicated the presence of a spirit, and grew bolder once they felt no resistance. Sure enough, there was nothing.
The only sound that could be heard now was the gentle pitter-patter of a few final loosened fragments of concrete and brick falling to the ground below.
Nobara spared a look behind her to verify that everyone else had seen the same thing she had, only to find Fushiguro at a loss for words. Even Itadori couldn’t muster up one of his stupid comments. Not that she’d blame him for that: this was outside of the experience of practiced sorcerers, let alone a total newbie.
Just what the hell was that? It wasn’t the spirit because… there was no spirit anymore. Unless it died on its own and went out with a bang, but could that even happen? She’d never heard of cursed spirits dying out on their own. At least not the bigger ones. Smaller curses born of petty emotions and surface-level annoyances tended to fizzle out or get consumed by a larger curse pretty quick. Nothing like that could have caused a wave of energy like that.
To top all that off, the feelings she’d felt just off the lingering hints of that power weren’t like any cursed energy she’d ever felt. There was none of the instinctual rolling in her stomach that all sorcerers felt when they channelled their techniques or faced off against something strong. It was almost… warm. And if becoming a sorcerer had taught Nobara anything, it was that something you didn’t recognise doing something unrecognisable was usually a recipe for something bad.
None of it made any sense, and she wished that someone would speak up so that she didn’t have to, but everyone was just standing still waiting for the exact same thing!
There was one of them who had something to say, though.
Gojo stepped forward, shooting them all a collective thumbs up. “Great job, kids!” He called, managing to sound genuinely proud.
Only Itadori failed to send a dirty look his way for that one.
Progress towards Nobara’s explosion: 70%.
“What was that, teach?” Itadori piped up, eyed wide as he gestured wildly to the distinct lack of cursed energy existing behind him. Then his lips tugged downward in a considering frown. “Wait… that was you, wasn’t it?! You just wanted to make us come all the way out here for nothing!”
“That wasn’t Gojo.” Megumi frowned, not taking his attention away from the building that he really hoped was empty. “In fact, that wasn’t anything I’ve ever felt before. Even the most skilled sorcerer can’t completely hide the signature of a technique being used while it’s being used. There was no cursed technique involved in what just happened.” His mood darkened. The feeling caught on quickly, and Itadori couldn’t hold off a grim expression when he faced the anomaly again as well. “That was something else.”
“So it’s something dangerous?” Itadori asked.
Their teacher tilted his head to one side for a second, looking uncharacteristically contemplative, though his hands never left his pockets. “That, I’m not too sure about. Whatever just happened clearly got rid of all the cursed spirits that were in there, but that’s no guarantee that it wouldn’t mean any harm to us or anything else.”
Itadori realised something, then. Something in Megumi’s explanation just then that didn’t line up with what – admittedly little – he knew. “Wait, but-“
“Only cursed energy can exorcise curses?” Gojo cut his student off, pre-empting the obvious question. Upon seeing Yuji’s nod, he elaborated. “According to all of recorded jujutsu history, that should be true. It’s been that way for thousands and thousands of years. But!” And here he pointed towards his student, “According to everything humans knew a few hundred years ago, wings were the only way to achieve flight. Now we’re on the moon! Isn’t life just funny like that?”
“So, hold on a minute.” Nobara interrupted, still having to take another step back when yet more rubble crashed to the ground. “You’re saying we just stumbled across something brand new? Someone or something with a new way of taking out curses?”
She was rewarded with another thumbs-up for her efforts, which only made her snarl again. “Thaaaaaat’s right!” Then, he shrugged. “… Maybe. Who knows?”
“What do we do, then?” Megumi asked, finally opting to stand up from the place he’d found to sit. There wasn’t a trace of boredom to be found on his face anymore. He was all business, just the way Yuji had first met him in the hospital.
Yuji, for his part, felt more than a little bit out of his depth. He’d only just gotten used to the idea of curses, cursed energy, and all the rest of it. Falling face-first into a massive paradox like this wasn’t exactly what he had in mind when he agreed to learn jujutsu. It felt like the kind of thing you’d see in movies: the big last-second twist that turned everything the heroes knew on their heads right before the final act.
Strangely and most disconcertingly of all, though, was that he could hear Sukuna thinking. It wasn’t obvious - not like he was muttering under his breath or anything – but if he focused for a moment he could definitely pick out minute hints that the ancient curse was paying rapt attention. He doubted he could explain the feeling to anyone that didn’t have a demon chilling in their soul, and that incidentally meant the list of people he could explain it to was pretty miniscule.
It was probably a bad thing that whatever this was might have been interesting or dangerous enough to catch Sukuna’s attention. But then, he was apparently a sorcerer back when he was alive. Something new on that end would probably still be interesting to that part of him, at least.
But that made the curse sound a lot more human than he was.
“I don’t know about you guys, but I wanna know who thought it’d be funny to waste our time when we could have ended up somewhere cleaner!” Nobara scowled, and suddenly Itadori had to do a double take when the girl equipped herself with a vicious looking hammer out of nowhere in the hopes that it would be aimed at someone other than him. “I’m going in.”
Megumi, to his credit, reacted to the brandishing of a weapon with an only marginally more irritated look than usual. “Are you sure that’s a good idea? We don’t know what this is. It’d probably be a better idea to let the school know so that they can investigate-“
“That’s a great idea, Kugisaki!” Gojo leaned over the broody boy’s shoulder to give the girl a third thumbs up, not even registering the change in support when Megumi jerked away from him.. “I wanna see what this is all about too!”
The girl was stuck between two choices. She could keep going with her original idea to go and investigate the building, or she could spite her ditzy as hell teacher by refusing to go inside.
“I’d like to know what’s going on as well!” Itadori offered, matching Gojo’s goofy grin with his own. “Seems kinda lame to just leave things hanging.”
Nobara exhaled, fighting against the urge to pinch the bridge of her nose. There was only one person left to vote. At least mister high school Sasuke seemed ready to take on the role of the voice of reason.
The boy in question opened his mouth just long enough to say “I think-“ before being cut off yet again.
“You’re still recovering from your injuries, which means you’ll be standing at the back of the group and letting us do the dirty work whatever happens, so you don’t get a vote!” Megumi glared at his teacher for a solid five seconds, obviously weighing the pros and cons of arguing that particular point in his silence. When it became clear that he wasn’t going to be able to come up with a solid rebuttal and that he wasn’t going to dignify the snickers of his classmates with a response, Gojo moved on. “Great! All settled then. Leeeeet’s get moving!”
With that, he moved past his assembled students and started on his leisurely stroll towards the shutter that Nobara had been going for, which now stood cracked and splintered so heavily that he didn’t even change his stride or take his hands out of his pockets in order to just walk straight through and break a distinctly Gojo-shaped hole in the metal barrier.
Yuji, Nobara, and Fushiguro all shared a look in a rare moment of completely unified feelings before following after Gojo’s example, though choosing to walk through the gap he created rather than make their own.
“For the record, Mob, this is why I don’t accept inter-city jobs.” One Reigen Arataka commented to the middle school boy following along beside him.
The aforementioned Mob, also known as Shigeo Kageyama, thought for a moment before responding. “Because we don’t get any?”
Reigen’s laugh wasn’t entirely comfortable. “Well, uh… sure, that too, but mostly because it’s just a huge pain. I mean,” he gestured widely to the grim situation the corridor around them was in and cringed when he had to shake off the cobweb that had caught on his hand as he did so, “It’s filthy in here. And like you said when we showed up, there isn’t even a spirit to exorcise for all our hard work!”
He might have had a point if the hard work he referred to hadn’t amounted to a free trip to Tokyo and a meal that was paid for by their client, but Shigeo didn’t need to know that.
It had all started about a week ago after a strange looking request came through on the Spirits and Such website. Getting a request from outside of Seasoning City in the first place was uncommon, and from somewhere as far out as Tokyo even more-so. Reigen wasn’t stupid. Or at least he wasn’t anymore. There were enough psychics in the world for a couple of at least mostly capable names to spring up in a business hub as huge as Japan’s capital city. The fact that the ticket had come through to him of all people was a sign of two things. One: either the client had tried one of those other psychics and they’d proved unsatisfactory, or simply wanted the best of the best as their first choice. And two: his new ads were working a treat!
It turned out their new client was actually a fairly wealthy real estate broker in the big city who’d had to give up on one of his rented office buildings when the companies that tried to move in were quickly scared off by ‘evil ghosts’. Only recently had he been able to convince another potential start-up company to move into the building, but even though he didn’t personally believe in all the spiritual stuff people talked about he figured he still needed a second opinion to make sure he wasn’t still wasting his money on a near-decade-old building.
Wealthy clients meant big pay-outs if you knew how to spin things, and Reigen knew he could spin like nobody’s business.
That was only step one of the situation, though. The next problem at hand was making sure that his assistant could come with him just in case there was actually a real spirit involved in all this.
An assistant that was still in middle school. On a cross-city trip with a guy that the kid’s parents had never met before. For completely understandable if not slightly annoying reasons, that was a complete and total roadblock until an easy solution appeared in the form of Shigeo’s brother, Ritsu. Shigeo was a great kid – one of the best people Reigen could honestly say he’d ever met – but he didn’t exactly have what most people would call ‘good social sense’. Ritsu was the opposite. Their parents might have been able to doubt Mob on his own, but with his brother vouching for the self-proclaimed psychic as well, they didn’t stand a chance.
A few hours of arguing that a con man would have been proud of later, and Shigeo was packing his bags for a trip to Tokyo. Well, just the one bag, and it was small enough to be carried easily with only one arm through the straps. But Shigeo, being himself, still wore his backpack as properly as possible.
The only thing left after that was to reassure Serizawa that no, there wouldn’t be any unexpected customers and yes, the only thing he had to do was hang around the office all day and make sure nothing randomly caught fire or anything. And then he’d been quick to take Dimple aside to make sure that if Serizawa fainted at any client who managed to ignore the two layers of ‘closed’ signs on the doors to the office he would be ready to take over and turn them away.
Either way, they got there in the end.
With any other kid, Reigen might have expected to lose a ton of time thanks to his charge getting distracted by all the gaudy neon lights and eye-catching signs of all shapes and sizes, or at the very least getting drawn in by street food that smelled enticing enough for even Reigen himself to feel his will falter.
It was honestly a little disheartening to see Mob just hop off the train without a word, walk past all of that, and only stop to ask where their destination was. But he was well used to Shigeo’s little quirks by now, even if he thought the kid needed to enjoy himself every once in a while. The only things capable of drawing him out of his shell were his friends, and none of them were there in Tokyo with them.
But after all of that, they’d stopped in front of the building they were meant to be exorcising only for Shigeo to turn to him with a completely nonplussed expression and inform him that he couldn’t sense a spirit in there, only something, quote, ‘kind of weird’.
‘Kind of weird’ could mean a whole host of things in Mob terms. It covered anything from an odd colour of gum on the sidewalk to an evil spirit that had to float upside-down at all times while singing the American national anthem in order to channel its power.
Basically, it wasn’t a helpful description.
Reigen didn’t get to where he was without being able to think on his feet, though. He was hired to do a job and with Mob as his witness he’d make damn sure he did it. The customers who came looking for his services very rarely had actual spirits to deal with either way, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t leave them feeling satisfied with his work. So what if this place didn’t actually have any spirits in it? All he had to do was survey the damage sustained by the building over time, get Mob to use his powers to remove the dirt and grime as well as fix up any of the obvious loose parts that might sound like a ghost in the night for someone who didn’t really know what ghosts acted like, and that would be that.
When the client came back and found his abandoned office building ready to be put to work again, without any of the ‘spooky’ activity that scared them or their clients away way back when?
A satisfied customer, a satisfied Reigen, and Mob! Just like old times.
Luckily, the office space did turn out to be properly abandoned, for the most part. Who knows what kind of explaining he’d have had to do to Mob’s parents if he let him come across some creepy homeless people or something?
In the end, the only thing like that they’d needed to deal with was accidentally frightening off a kid who’d been lurking about the place – a kid even younger than Mob! Honestly, didn’t children have hobbies anymore?
“Master?” Shigeo’s voice broke Reigen from his musing, his head turning to glance back over his shoulder to his protégé, who’d stopped moving. “Did you hear what I said?”
Whoops. It looked like he got a bit distracted by how dull this whole trip had turned out to be. “Nope, not a word. Sorry, I was just… keeping an eye out for spirits that might have been hiding from you.”
Mob looked relieved. “Oh. That’s good. I thought I would have to warn you about the spirit I just sensed.”
Wait, there was actually a spirit here?! Oh well. With Mob here with him, it wasn’t anything to worry about. “Attaboy, Mob! I was wondering if you’d spot it in time. Pop quiz for you! What kind of spirit do you think it is?”
“Well… just a normal spirit, I guess.”
“Huh. That’s odd. If it was so normal you’d think you’d have picked up on it while we were still outside. You sure you’re feeling alright?”
“Yes, I’m fine. Now that we’re close to it I don’t feel any difference between it and any other spirit. But I feel like there’s something else that’s making it a little difficult to detect its presence.” Shigeo didn’t seem too concerned about the quirks of his psychic detection, so Reigen couldn’t say he was worried either. “Can you feel it too?”
The con-artist chuckled, sweeping a wave of blonde hair from his eyes and snapping his fingers at the apex of the motion to end up pointing at his disciple. “Ha! Mob, Mob, Mob. Of course I can pick out all of the spirit’s precise movements. This is another test for you. Getting some field experience away from home. It’s important stuff!”
A moment passed where Reigen thought that Mob was about to call him out on his bluff, what with how intently Mob was staring at him. Had he said something wrong? Was there something else he was supposed to know? Damn, if only he could do more than just see Dimple and other low-level spirits.
And then Shigeo’s blank gaze broke into the slightest of smiles – a huge expression for him, comparatively speaking. “Okay.”
Well, that was as good as he was going to get.
The two of them kept moving through the building, the adult of the two keeping at least a stride in front of Shigeo, but no further - just in case something attacked them from the back and picked him off before the little esper could do anything about it.
It wasn’t called being scared; it was called being smart! His career had ridden that fine line since Mob first walked into his office, and he saw no reason to get off that particular ride any time soon.
A sharp scent reminiscent of damp cardboard hung in the air, and if not for the fact that Shigeo wasn’t showing any reaction to it whatsoever he might have been forced to walk around with his sleeve over his nose. Seriously, it was like someone left a pile of firewood in a basement right under a leaky part of the ceiling and just forgot about it for five years! And tossed in some eggs for good measure!
Reigen went completely still when a rapid tapping sound ran across the other side of the walls around them and then – in the ceiling?! Rats. It was just rats, that was all it was. Never mind that there were way too many of the sounds happening at once and in synchronisation for it to be something as mundane at that.
“Um… Master? This is kind of uncomfortable.”
He glanced down and realised that not only had he ended up behind Mob precisely as he hadn’t intended to, but his fingers were really digging into his shoulder. Even though he was quick to let go the moment he realised what was going on, he knew that his attempt at a confident laugh was one of his weaker ones. “O-Oh! Don’t worry about that, Mob, I was just protecting you from the… the other spirit that I sensed, in the walls! It felt like it was thinking about pouncing right at us!”
So absorbed in covering up his fear was he that he didn’t quite clock the fact that Shigeo was looking not at him, but past him. “Master.”
“I mean it’s not that I don’t trust you or anything but I just wanted to make extra sure that nothing bad happened to you-“
“Master!”
“- because can you imagine what would happen if I had to take you home after you got hurt? Your brother would be super mad at me, and your parents too!”
“Hey, you guys are alive, right?”
“I’m your senior and I have a responsibility to-“
“Master Reigen!” Mob finally rose his voice to a volume that pierced through his master’s rambling, bringing the man’s impromptu speech to a halt.
Reigen cocked his head aside, hands settling on his waist. “Yeah, what is it?”
All Shigeo had to do was gesture vaguely over his teacher’s shoulder for Reigen to notice what the client could only have referred to as ‘the problem’ hovering right behind him, inches from his face.
It was a large, disembodied man’s head that looked like a child had painted it the same shade of blue you’d see in slushies and then made it swallow an incredibly bright bundle of light. Perhaps calling it disembodied was something of a misnomer. It possessed a body, but not a human’s. From the back of its head jutted a giant centipede’s exoskeleton, complete with all the legs that were tipped in dangerous looking points. Despite all that, the spirit bore a strange expression almost akin to worry behind its eyeless sockets, which was something easy to ignore when its entire body kept circling and coiling in on itself. It made the inflated head duck and sway like a snake being charmed
In layman’s terms: creepy as all hell.
Naturally, Reigen found himself stepping back in-line with Mob again, holding his eyes shut and fiddling with his tie to hold on to at least some shred of his respectable persona no matter how fake it might have been in that moment. “Aha! So you’re the spirit, are you? I knew you were there all along, and I prepared something special just for you.” At this, he reached into his pocket and grasped a handful of small sachets hidden there. “Take this! Salt Spl-!”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever dude, but you’ve got to get out of here!” The ghost promptly blocked the con-man’s attempt at an attack by jolting forward and forcing Reigen’s hand back in his pocket with one insectoid leg. Then the ghost had to soldier past the man’s sudden panicked yell to keep talking. “You’re going to get hurt if you stay.”
“Why? Are you going to attack us?” Mob asked, oblivious to the rapidly deteriorating composure of his master, who despite having mustered the will to grab onto the centipede leg with his free hand still couldn’t get it away from him.
The Problem looked at the boy like he was crazy. “What? No! Heck no! Why would I do that?”
“The energy surrounding the building was giving off a dangerous feeling. It wasn’t you?”
“No, that’s what I’m trying to tell you! That creepy vibe’s not from me, it’s-
“Like hell it’s not you!” Reigen gibbered, finally getting his hand free from his pocket and stumbling back quickly as a result. “Creepy-ass bug!”
He didn’t even like the Human Earthworm movies!
The spirit reared back, crossing its two foremost legs over its chin. “Well, if you’re gonna be like that, I guess you can stay! My name’s Tatsu, by the way, not ‘creepy-ass bug’! Tch. People these days. That’ll teach me to help out the handicapped. ”
“Handicapped?!”
“Well yeah.” The ghost did its best impression of a shrug, which was a deeply concerning gesture to see on a creature without actual shoulders. Stranger still was that it actually looked accurate “You’re mortal and I’m not. Seems like a handicap to me.”
“At least we don’t have to look like-“
Shigeo decided to cut off his master’s indignance before it could side-track them even further. “What were you saying before? About where the, um… ‘creepy vibes’ were coming from?”
“Oh, that?” The spirit turned to look at the boy and opened its mouth, only to pause and lean in closer, head cocking to one side – which, considering that its head was about eight times broader than a normal one, looked awfully strange – until eventually it clicked its tongue. “You’re a psychic, you’ll probably be fine. Cursed spirits are kinda nasty, though, so I’d watch out anyway.”
Then it was Mob’s turn to look confused. “I thought you were a cursed spirit.”
“Me? One of them? No thanks!” Tatsu scoffed. “Just a regular old spirit, sure. An ‘evil’ spirit if you really want to be rude, but not a cursed spirit. Those are different things.”
All of a sudden Mob wished that they didn’t have to leave Dimple behind, because he felt like this was going to start getting confusing quite quickly. The former evil spirit would probably know about this and be able to explain it in simple terms. It was still surprising to hear that there was a whole classification of spirits that he didn’t know about, however. “Different?”
“Oh yeah, you know.” The ghost said to the boy who clearly didn’t, “Even the weakest of us regular spirits can usually still talk, or think like humans would, even if we’re not people exactly. And usually we’re just leftover remnants of the dead. Cursed spirits… well, I’m no expert. But I don’t think they were ever human to begin with. Not necessarily stronger than us normal ghosts as a rule, but more dangerous for sure. Because you can’t reason with a cursed spirit – all they can do is repeat one thing forever, if they can talk at all. They’re not like most spirits who’re just looking for a specific thing to satisfy the wants they left behind. Almost all of them are only out to harm people and get stronger.”
It made sense, in a roundabout sort of way. Most of the spirits Shigeo had ever had to exorcise usually only wanted one or two things, often violent, but even they had a chance to be talked down from being completely monstrous. From the sounds of it – unless he was being lied to, and what reason did mister Tatsu have to lie about any of this? – cursed spirits were vicious by nature and lacked even that little spark of humanity that most spirits had.
How sad.
“Alright, I’ve heard your story.” Reigen interjected, straightening his tie and clearing his throat before affixing the spirit with an accusatory finger, “But there are some things that don’t add up. Haven’t you ever heard of the first law of thermodynamics? You can’t just make something out of nothing! Ergo, these ‘cursed spirits’ have to come from somewhere. Ergo, it seems to me like you’re not giving us the full story. Er-go…! What’s up with that?” The man chuckled privately, pleased to have found a use for the phrase on that morning’s ‘word a day’ toilet paper.
“How d’you expect me to know that? Everything I know about ‘em I only figured out because there are like three of them here. I haven’t left my office more than twice since I died! I’m a telemarketer, not a scientist!”
‘That explains the appearance.’ Reigen thought. There was a tangent to be had there about whether he himself might have ended up that way if he’d been a sad enough loser to bite the dust in his old workplace, but it was better for his health not to go down that road.
“The Dragger.” Mob’s voice broke the sudden quiet that had fallen on them, uncharacteristically severity in his tone.
“The Dragger? What about… oh. Wait, you don’t think…?” Reigen trailed off, pretending to follow Shigeo’s line of thought in the hopes that he’d elaborate.
Luckily for the senior of the two, the little esper did. “I always was a little confused about why The Dragger felt so different from all the other spirits we’ve dealt with. Growing stronger the more you and mister Shinra got scared of her, not being able to talk except for her one phrase… she was dangerous. It fits.”
The con-man’s brain was starting to catch up with the stuff that had been flying way over its head up until now. In its natural fashion it gave him just enough information to look like he knew what he was talking about. “You’re right, it was the only one that was like that. Totally different to everything else we’ve dealt with. So… cursed spirits are just another name for the urban legend spirits? The ones that came about from people’s fear?”
And he remembered. That cold, sickly terror which had gripped him in that swamp back then. It was the same kind of feeling he got from watching a horror movie, but magnified ten times over. A really good horror movie, not one of those cheap jumpscare-fests. Hearing that, all that time, they’d been fighting something terrible… well, it made him feel a little better about how frightened he’d been back then.
“Hey, yeah, that might fit!” Tatsu snapped its ‘finger’ – ‘Don’t think about it, Reigen, don’t think about it!’ – “You’re actually smarter than you look. I thought you were just some sham! Guess that salt thing was just a bluff.”
“I guess you’re a smarter than you look, too. You’d be surprised how many spirits fall for it!” Reigen chuckled, fully cognizant of the punctured sachets spilling salt all over his suit pockets. He sighed internally. That was going to bug him all the way until he could get home.
“So where are these cursed spirits?” Mob piped up.
“There’s three here in total.” Tatsu paused in its constant coiling to raise three of its legs on the same side of its body, but it still looked more nervous than it was a moment ago. “There’s one that’s taken over a mannequin in the old storage room, a big, disgusting one that looks a little like a scorpion with a melted-looking guy fused to it, and a weird gremlin thing with a beard.”
The con-man rolled his eyes. “Man, all that build-up for that. Only one of those sounds as scary as you were making it out to be, and we’ve dealt with way worse.”
“Alright, see for yourself then. Go get ‘em if you want, but I’ve gotta get out of here! Behind you, by the way!” The Ghost spoke quickly, already beginning its retreat before finishing its sentence. It was quite something to see something as bulky as that thing disappearing down the stairwell.
“Do you… need a rec…iept?”
Both psychics turned on the spot.
A scything talon ripped through the air where Reigen stood only a moment ago, the man spared only by virtue of being pushed away via telekinetic force.
The man skidded to a halt, gathering enough of his wits to not shout anything that might distract his charge.
Mob stood exactly where he had been, that same claw having turned in mid-air after missing its original target, now scraping for purchase against a translucent barrier. The boy glared dispassionately as it trembled in place and dragged a line of sparks along his shield.
He didn’t care if people attacked him. He could handle it.
That attack had been aimed at his master. Aimed to kill, not merely injure or dissuade like the majority of spirits they’d faced. Shigeo wasn’t angry, not yet, but he definitely wasn’t happy either.
None of it would stop him from trying the impossible, regardless. “Can you talk?” He asked, in his normal soft tone.
“Need… receipt!” The cursed spirit gurgled, flesh-that-wasn’t-flesh pulsing, undulating with its sickening mimicry of speech. It drew itself back and tried to swing again, this time with both of its claws.
Mob continued to stare when the attack was halted once more, content so long as its attention was on him. Not even the monster’s growing anger culminating in it slamming its open mouth on the barrier made him flinch.
What did finally break his concentration was a rush of rancid air breezing through the empty corridor and the sensation of another presence approaching. The esper let his barrier drop, instead holding the scorpion-esque spirit in an invisible grip while he looked to his teacher. “Master, there’s another one coming from that way.”
Reigen was on the move immediately, knowing far better than to doubt his student when it came to matters like this. He sprinted closer to Mob, only pausing to look back over his shoulder when he was sure he was close enough for Mob to easily cover him. When nothing came into view, he looked the other way, and then even to the ceiling, just in case.
Shigeo frowned. Something wasn’t right. He had a difficult enough time picking out cursed spirits from regular ones, but that time he’d been certain something was about to attack. Now the presence felt murky. Unclear, like it was entangled with something else that got in the way.
He didn’t have much time to ponder that discrepancy.
“Mob, there’s another one!” The boy in question looked to see Reigen pointing at the door at the end of the hallway, where something loomed from the side of the frame.
A blank face peered from inside the room, twitching and trembling with some unspeakable emotion. Wooden hands without fingers clasped onto the surface hard enough to break splinters from it. Snapping and creaking echoed like gunfire in the hectic corridor, and if there was one thing that got an adult moving in a dangerous situation it was a comparison along that vein.
Reigen bolted down the corridor towards the new arrival before Shigeo had time to enact any kind of warning. The rattling sounds intensified as he approached, drowned out only by the clacking of formal shoes on the hard floor. The mannequin reached out a quivering hand, an even more visceral cracking sound serving as Reigen’s last warning just when its flat palm split apart.
But before it could do what it had planned…
“Anti-Possession Jumping Knee Strike!”
Freakily enough, a bloodshot eye opened off-centre on the mannequin’s head when the senior esper crashed into its chest with his knee. Whatever attack the cursed spirit had been about to unleash was cut short. Not even the legendary Keiji Mogami could resist the full power of Reigen’s special move, so it was no surprise that a simple old evil mannequin stood no chance of measuring up to it.
Reigen landed with his usual flair while the cursed spirit was sent flying backwards into the much vaster space, toppling over a stack of empty boxes in the middle of the room.
The attack didn’t have the effect he’d hoped it would have – ejecting the spirit from its object – but at least it made breathing room for Mob. He spared one last look over his shoulder at the mannequin that had yet to get up before he decided it was safe to make his way back.
At least, that would have been the case if not for the floor choosing that moment to start rippling like a disturbed pool of water. Against all odds, two gnarled, pallid hands rose from the concrete puddle and grabbed hold of Reigen’s legs.
“Master!” Mob called, just then realising why the spirit’s presence felt so strange. It wasn’t that it was being interfered with by the building, it was that it was moving through the building. That was why mister Tatsu was hard to detect from outside as well.
63%
“It’s alright, it’s not doing anything yet! Just get rid of that one you’ve got and-“ Reigen paused, the sentence trailing off into a nervous laugh when he turned as best he could to see the same spirit he’d just thrown across the room start to stand up, crackling so much with its movements that it sounded almost as if it were on fire. Each little burst of motion sprouted a new eye somewhere on its body, every single one rolling in its wooden socket until it found the current object of its hatred as they all lumbered towards him like a zombie. “O-On second thought, if you could lend a hand that’d be great!”
He had to wince as the claws belonging to those monstrous hands dug through his trousers and threatened to draw blood by the second. No matter how much he tugged away, there was no room for him to move to avoid the murderous mannequin as it drew closer.
72%
A huge shape flew right over his head right as he could start to pick out individual red streaks lining the creature’s eyes. Whatever it was knocked the dummy clean off the floor for a second time, and only then did Reigen recognise the interference as the spirit that Mob had previously been holding still.
Seeing Mob standing there with his body lit up in a psychic aura, hair flowing in a non-existent breeze, it never failed to send relief right through him. Usually it meant that whatever they were dealing with was about to have a real bad time.
This was no exception.
86%
All of a sudden the things holding onto his legs were gone, and Reigen took advantage of that by running to stand closer to Shigeo in a not-entirely-dignified manner while the creature that had just had him in its grasp was unceremoniously ripped from the rippling floor and thrown against the ceiling with a satisfying crack.
It was part-way to falling back to the ground when another flare of telekinetic force struck its midsection and blasted straight back into the pile of spiritual bodies. They both heard something break upon impact, and they could only assume it was something on the mannequin finally giving way.
Mob’s aura began to permeate the room when the boy stepped forward, hand outstretched. Shudders began to wrack the entirety of the building as his focus intensified – each of the cursed spirits absolutely wreathed in his psychic power. They struggled in the ethereal grasp to no avail, all of them letting out various chitters and groans of discomfort when the pressure squeezed inwards. The bearded one’s eyes bulged on their stalks, and each of the mannequin’s were rolled upwards, some closed tightly shut in defiance of the pain.
This was new.
There were people in the world who wanted to cause harm to others.
There were spirits that attacked people out of lingering resentment or anger left by their past lives, or spirits that were just incredibly territorial.
But it was rare for anything to be so ready to kill people. That thing scrambling against his hold was just moments ago keeping his master in place so that its ally could do any number of things to him. The big faux scorpion had no qualms with cutting someone in two if they weren’t on their guard. And the mannequin… he’d rarely felt hatred like that. The only thing that he could compare it to were the hordes of spirits held at bay by Mogami’s soul. It wouldn’t have been out of place among that number.
90%
Why was he so angry? It didn’t make sense. He’d been in bad situations before. He’d seen friends in bad situations before. Very few of them could get this kind of negativity flowing through him. It was like something was compelling him to be this way. Something he didn’t even notice.
Something wasn’t right. He had to put a stop to this.
The building’s rumbling stilled for just a fraction of a second before power ripped through the air; light brighter than the sunlight filtered in through grimy windows ignited in the enclosed space.
He’d purge every last one of the evil spirits here, make sure that they could never come back or reform. That would be enough.
88%
82%
71%
65%
More. More and more of his power ran through the sickly veins of corruption that had laid spread throughout the office, taking with it all traces of the cursed spirits’ presence and the animosity that had been building up inside himself as the battle continued.
He could feel the flow of his emotions in an almost physical sense as it coursed through him, the burning in his heart doused with each flood of energy that shot from his fingertips.
The convulsing forms of the spirits were barely visible beneath the tide of light that poured from him, not made easier by the fact that they grew smaller by the moment. Whatever noises they may have made were drowned out just as thoroughly.
46%
30%
25%
23%
20%
At last the blaze inside him quelled to a manageable smoulder.
Shigeo let the energy go with a quiet exhale, paying little heed to the sudden sound of rubble raining down to the floor outside. Most of the block had been abandoned already, and it wasn’t hard to tell why; there wouldn’t be anyone to worry about accidentally hurting.
As expected, there wasn’t a single remnant of the spirits to be found. He didn’t know whether to be proud of that or not, but settled firmly on the latter.
They were always going to be exorcised, but it shouldn’t have happened like that.
A hand landed comfortingly on his shoulder, and he met the proud smile of his master with a slightly troubled look of his own.
“Great job, Mob!”
Was it? It didn’t feel that way. Things could have gone a lot worse if they weren’t careful “Were you hurt?”
Reigen glanced down and stood one foot on the tip of its toes, peering around all the sides of his leg. “Hmm… nope, don’t think so. Why, were you worried about me?” At that, the man’s smile turned conspiratorial. “You know you don’t have to do that. I can handle anything some low-grade spirits have to throw at me. Those things weren’t so tough.”
15%
Right. Of course. Master Reigen was a strong person. He could handle himself. He wasn’t in any danger.
So why could he still feel something bubbling beneath the surface?
It was dying out now that the battle was over, to be sure, but even the fact that he could feel it eking away was cause for concern.
“I think I’d like to go home now, Master.” Mob said eventually, no trace of such introspection present on his face.
Reigen clapped the boy’s shoulder once more. “You said it! After a job like this I think we both deserve a little R&R. We can stop by somewhere and grab ramen on the way back if you want. Hey, I’ll even let you buy some extra pork cutlets for it. My treat!” The words had just enough time to register before the man cut himself off again. “Actually… it’s probably a good idea to check in on Serizawa first. Who knows what could’ve happened while we’ve been out.”
“I’m sure he’s okay. He’s getting a lot better.”
“You say that, and I get what you’re putting down, but on the other hand… I don’t think the insurance company’s gonna be so willing to fix us up again if the office explodes a second time. We barely got away with the first one, and I think they might have my phone number written down somewhere under a little ‘do not speak to under any circumstances’ column.”
“That seems a little unfair.”
“Yeah, well, espers coming to burn my office down for no reason wasn’t fair. The insurance guys not believing me wasn’t fair either. Man, you should’ve heard the earful I gave them after we got back from the whole Claw thing. Er… maybe not, actually.” If he taught Mob bad language, there’d be a whole queue of people fixing to kick his ass. And if there’s one thing he didn’t need, it was that group of muscleheads that comprised Mob’s club breathing down his neck for anything.
Mob paused. “I meant it wasn’t fair to Serizawa.”
“Oh, right.” Reigen snorted, brushing his suit down of some loose dirt that had clung to it and starting towards the way out. “Yeah I knew that. I was just making a joke. I have complete faith in your understudy!” Then, under his breath and spoken so quickly it could have been disguised under the breadth of a single cough, “Note to self: don’t ever let Serizawa deal with insurance.”
The boy smiled, already following along in lockstep with his teacher. “That’s good. He’s grown a lot.”
Reigen didn’t have the heart to point out that the former shut-in still ended up on the verge of therapy whenever he had to speak more than two words to any given person he wasn’t already familiar with, but still nodded along solemnly to what Shigeo was saying. “He has.”
“We should get him a souvenir.”
“Eh. Sure, why not? Guy could use a little something.”
Unfortunately for Reigen’s wallet, Shigeo wasn’t done. “I want to get Ritsu something as well. Oh, and Hanazawa. And I think Kurata would get mad if I didn’t get her something as well.”
“Yeesh. That the girl who runs that bogus telekinesis club or whatever?”
The boy nodded. “Mhm. And it’s the telepathy club.”
“That’s what I said, right?”
“No, you…” Mob took a second to consider if it was worth expending the energy to correct his teacher on that front. “Never mind.”
“Well if you wanna get something for everyone, it’s coming out of the ramen fund. I’m not made of money.”
“Oh…”
He couldn’t help but laugh at his junior’s sudden ruefulness. “I’m just kidding. But man, she’d really get mad at you for not bringing her something? I didn’t think you two were that close.” Reigen said, purposefully putting emphasis on the final word on top of waggling his eyebrows down at his protégé.
Predictably, Mob’s cheeks took on a slightly pinker tint. “We’re not. That’s just the kind of person she is.”
“Uh-huh. Sure, sure, I get you. I was your age once, too. But hey. Want my advice? Make sure you treat her right while it counts. The only thing scarier than a middle school girl with a vendetta is a high school girl with a vendetta.” While Reigen could have quite easily kept up the teasing beyond that, he knew that all he’d accomplish was getting the kid to clam up and close himself off again, so he decided to simply let it go for now. Getting to see the reticent boy flustered was enough of a win for now. All bets would be off if Shigeo finally brought a girlfriend to the office, though. He had so much material ready for whenever that day might come.
Whatever the case, he’d be happy to be on the train back home in short order. Tokyo was great and all – not that he’d been given the chance to experience much of it – but there was nothing he wanted to do more than make sure his office was safe and sound, and to make sure that the insurance guys’ number was blacklisted on the landline phone. In retrospect, he really should have gotten around to that sooner when he decided to hire an ex-quasi-villain. That moniker wasn’t exactly fair to the guy, but it was what it was. And what it was was a huge legal landslide threatening to go off if anyone worth their salt caught the smallest hint that his newest hire was one of the people who’d been set to take over the world.
But that wasn’t likely to happen. Serizawa had never made a public appearance, and his entire stint in the battle had been spent inside the tower at the epicentre of it all. The only way that info could leak would be if he went around bragging about it. And, seeing as neither the ‘went around’ nor ‘bragging’ parts were likely to ever apply to the nervous psychic, Reigen figured they were pretty safe on that front.
A crash from close by brought them to a stop as they glanced first to each other and then all around the area. There wasn’t any sign of instability in the building that they could see, so they weren’t in danger of important parts of the building falling off. Mob’s exorcism had been overly potent this time around for the level of spirits they were dealing with, but his control was better than that at least.
They spent a few seconds in silence until they were certain that nothing else was going to happen. To them, it must have just been an already loosened chunk on the outside taking a while to tumble to the ground. Nothing to worry about.
The subsequent quiet was discomforting in spite of that. Worse still, it wasn’t total silence, something that would have given them more time to think. There was a dull tapping sound that grew nearer by the second, and the gaps between the noise shrank at the same pace. Whatever it was… was getting faster.
“Uh… Mob?”
“It’s not a spirit.” Shigeo said, unconcerned. Now that he’d heard as much, Reigen was too. Probably just that kid they scared off earlier coming back thinking they’d left already.
Except, as the sound grew to a fever pitch and several quiet sets joined it, the source of the commotion crested the top of the staircase at full pelt with her hand wrapped over the top of the banister to support her sharp turn around the corner.
And it was, indeed, a girl. A ginger-haired girl wearing a weird looking uniform. A ginger-haired girl wearing a weird looking uniform who was, more to the point, sprinting towards them at full pelt brandishing a vicious looking hammer. A girl that was gritting her teeth so firmly that a dentist would start crying.
Reigen began to get concerned again when two giant nails punctured straight through the wall just to the right of the door frame he was currently standing in.
Gojo had barely reacted as she’d shoved past him and started sprinting upstairs. She thought she might’ve heard Itadori yell something about sticking together just before she disappeared up the first level of stairs, but confirming that would have involved listening to him in any capacity and she wasn’t in any kind of mood to do so.
All that their teacher had done in response was smirk privately to himself. ‘Oh, sweet. She’s crazy.’ He thought, not showing any signs of urgency in his casual walk.
“Shouldn’t we, uh… stick with her?” Yuji piped up, stepping forward to match his pace with Gojo’s.
“Hm…” The blindfolded man thought for a second – just long enough for Nobara’s footsteps to peter off into the upper levels of the stairwell and likely run into whatever or whoever they were looking for. He nodded, and gave his usual blasé smile. “Probably!”
Yet none of the men made any move to hurry themselves, even as they heard a muffled sound from above them and a subsequent male yell.
Megumi just rolled his eyes.
Nobara, for her part, was already starting to feel just a little bad for her particular brand of initiative when she saw that one of the two people she’d set out to intimidate was actually just a little kid. Even if the boy didn’t seem overly bothered about what had just happened and only regarded her with curiosity, it was just the principle of the matter.
She felt less bad about the older guy who’d leapt about a foot in the air when she’d embedded her nails in the wall nearest him, for two reasons. One: He was dressed like a guy who really wanted to pretend to be a proper salaryman, despite leading a child through an abandoned, curse-infested building. And two…
“What the heck’s wrong with you? You can’t just go around hitting nails at people! I mean… what if you’d hit Mob?!”
He was loud. She had the capacity to not strangle maybe up to a single loud guy per month, and Itadori had already drained that well of strength from her.
If there wasn’t a kid present, the salaryman would have tasted the business end of her rubber mallet already.
“She wasn’t going to hit you.” The boy she could only assume was called Mob pointed out, drawing a raised eyebrow from her. It was weird how level-headed he was about what just happened.
“You’re sure?” Loud guy asked. Upon seeing his companion nod, he exhaled heavily and set about straightening his tie, which had flipped over his shoulder with how hard he’d jumped away from the nails. “Geez. What’re they teaching college kids nowadays? You’d never see stuff like this back when I was your age.”
Nobara would normally have felt a surge of pride at being seen as mature. Somehow, coming from someone who’d already annoyed her, all she could focus on now was the fact that some random person thought she looked older than she was.
She grit her teeth again. “College?! I’m in high school, dumbass.”
Whatever the man was about to say died in his throat, replaced by a noise that sounded suspiciously like a disbelieving snort getting cut off when he realised that it wasn’t helping his situation.
“What? Something funny?”
The boy beside him looked contemplative for a second, then seemed to come to a realisation. “Is this what you meant, Master?”
Loud guy coughed. “Let’s not talk about that right now.”
“She doesn’t seem scary to me.” Mob stated plainly.
‘Just a kid, Kugisaki. Just a kid. Save it for the other guy.’ Nobara took several deep breaths before she was forced to add ‘threatened a child’ to her resume as a sorcerer. Instead, she let the hand holding her hammer fall to her side, brushing some loose strands of hair from her eyes.
“I think we all need to start over for a sec.” The one in the suit decided, waving his hands in a nonthreatening manner. First, he gestured at himself. “I… am Reigen Arataka! Greatest psychic of the 21st century!” Then he jerked a finger towards his companion. “That one there is my acclaimed student, Shigeo Kageyama. And you are…?”
Well, if that wasn’t the most stuck-up title she’d heard in a while she didn’t know what was. Still, a psychic? As in… ‘psychic power’ psychic? The kind you’d see in a lame kids’ manga? It was… well, actually fairly believable, all things considered. Perspective was a funny thing like that. One day you could be a regular kid who still pretends to believe in Santa because the rest of the kids haven’t caught up just yet but you still want to keep the illusion going, and the next you learn that cursed spirits are real along with everything that goes with them, until eventually you’re left wondering whether or not there really could be a fat guy who flies around the world every Christmas delivering presents. When you accept one reality-altering fact, you just start going with the flow – it gets easier to change your perception when your perception has already been altered once before. You never really lose that malleability.
But she’d be damned if she was going to let some washed up salaryman do any kind of altering to her.
“Uh-huh. Sure. Let’s say I believe that. Care to prove it to me?”
Reigen shrugged. “Well I’d love to, but we just finished getting rid of all the cursed spirits hanging around this place, and I refuse to use my powers on other people – moral thing, y’know? – so I guess you’ll just have to take my word for it.”
Now, aside from batting some nails into a wall – something that could easily be mistaken for raw strength – the girl hadn’t done anything to prove to Reigen that she was anything other than an ordinary, if not excessively cranky, high schooler. And high schoolers were sceptics by universal law. Nobody wanted to be seen as ‘that person’ who still believed in ghosts and all that crap, they’d get shunned faster than you could snap your fingers. He may have been profiling slightly, but the girl clearly wasn’t an unpopular type. So with any luck, the situation would resolve itself if this random girl decided that two boys in an abandoned building weren’t worth worrying about.
Nobara’s arched eyebrow told a different story, as did the trio she’d left behind choosing that moment to stroll around the top of the stairs to join up with her.
“Yo, Kugisaki, everything good here?” Itadori called out, waving at her as if she couldn’t blatantly hear that he was there. Then, shortly after, “Holy crap, did you attack those guys?!”
She didn’t think it was possible, but in that moment she could have sworn she heard her teacher’s grin widen. Or maybe it was just his stupid giggle. Seriously, what man his age giggled?
“Oh, you guys’re with this girl, then?” Reigen asked.
“Sure are!” Gojo shot back with an upturned thumb before Nobara had time to deny any kind of connection with their band of idiots.
“Yeah, okay, that’s great. Mind explaining why we’re being attacked for doing our job?”
In the brief time he’d been at the scene, Gojo’s mind hadn’t been idle. In spite of the lackadaisical mask he wore on the surface, he’d begun piecing things together the moment he’d turned the corner, assessing the situation as it was. Despite the fact that Kugisaki had clearly shown antagonism towards them, the older of the two strange men seemed pretty nonplussed about being attacked. That spoke to either extreme foolishness, or confidence in one’s ability to get out of the situation unscathed. Having been on the latter end of that scale more times than he cared to count, it was fairly easy to recognise the signs. Whoever this was, he was capable. Or at least believed himself to be.
Also of note was the fact that he could sense a huge well of something coming from the kid just next to him, along with something else he couldn’t quite put his finger on just yet. And he didn’t even think he was close to being able to feel out everything the kid had to offer! It helped that the strange energy still permeated the room in minor amounts, so he was sure that the boy was indeed the source of the exorcism they’d all felt a little while ago. Strangely, he could only pick up on the tiniest spark of whatever this was from the man himself. Was the boy the one to look out for? That didn’t explain the confidence. People who relied solely on underlings to do their dirty work were rarely bold enough to stand up to danger without flinching.
And what was that about a job? Sorcerers didn’t really consider what they did a job, at least not in the traditional sense – Nanami did, but he was weird. Yet here this guy was, talking about exorcising curses like it was a totally natural part of his day. Had someone ordered them to do it? Or worse, were they like curse users, who just took whatever job they were offered? ‘Nah, can’t be that.’ He thought, ‘Curse users aren’t ever this well-adjusted. One’s clearly a school kid, the other’s dressed like he works 9-5 in an office, with overtime! Man, this is fun!’
For once, Gojo could honestly say that he was having a tough time figuring out what was going on.
It was all so exciting!
All that introspection amounted to the faintest of pauses before he replied. “Attacked? I’m sorry to hear that. Kugisaki here is a new hire, you know how it is.” He sighed with a shake of his head, once more trying to put a hand on her shoulder only for her to shift away yet again. So his hand fell through the empty space to rest on his hip, as if he’d intended it from the start.
Reigen rolled his eyes. “Yeah, tell me about it. We’ve got a troublesome newbie of our own, but he stayed back at the office for this one. Bit of a long trip.”
‘So they’re not local. Interesting.’ Gojo noted. “Oh really? Where’re you guys from, then?” He said aloud.
“Seasoning City.”
Gojo whistled. That was a fair distance to go, especially on the behest of someone else.
“Psst, Kugisaki.” Yuji whispered from behind, enough to catch the girl’s attention without distracting the two unknowns from the conversation. Their teacher pretended not to hear. “Who are these guys?”
The girl shrugged dismissively. “I dunno. Kid on the left’s called Shigeo Kageyama, and the guy on the right is his master, Reigen Arataka. That’s all I got out of them before you showed up.”
At that nugget of information, the second newest member of their motley crew took on a pensive look. “Reigen, huh…? I feel like I should recognise that name, but I dunno where from.”
“He said he was, ugh,” Nobara scoffed and made air quotes, “The greatest psychic of the 21st century, or whatever.”
“Hmm… yep, that’s familiar. Can’t place it though, sorry.”
“Well aren’t you a real bundle of info?” The girl muttered.
Meanwhile, Gojo was processing that incredibly important bit of knowledge that Kugisaki had neglected to give to him directly. It changed the whole dynamic of this conversation. A lot of people would discard obvious boasting like that out of principle – something it was clear that his student had done – but not him, oh no. Something that had been bugging him suddenly made sense. He’d wondered why he couldn’t pick up any of that mysterious energy from the supposed senior of the two, and the answer was painfully obvious in hindsight. It was like the difference between a novice sorcerer and an expert. The former would let their energy leak all over the place while they learned their talents and how to control them, whereas the latter could perform high level feats while leaving barely a trace.
The man was simply that skilled. Skilled enough that even the Six Eyes technique couldn’t pick up on the traces of his power beyond a light flicker.
Even without properly understanding the magnitude of power that the kid might’ve had he could tell that it was pretty vast, and if he was willing to call the older man his master, then that only lent credence to that comment that most people would dismiss as bragging.
This whole thing was getting more exciting for him by the second!
“So, you guys exorcised all the curses in the building, huh?” Gojo commented, cupping a hand to his ear like he could hear some spirits left over if he focused hard enough.
Reigen chuckled. “Oh yeah, no sweat. Mob here did all the work; I didn’t have to lift a finger.”
“Impressive stuff. I was gonna use the spirits as practice for my students, but it looks like I’ve gotta search for another set of targets Oh, right, where are my manners? From left to right, there’s Kugisaki, Fushiguro, and Itadori.” Gojo said, gesturing to each of his students in turn. “Try to go easy on them, ‘kay?”
“Aaah, a teacher, then?” The psychic said, looking sympathetic all of a sudden. “I have a tough enough time wrangling one. Can’t imagine what three would be like. Sorry for stealing your thunder, but a job’s a job.”
Mob glanced up to his master, wondering whether or not he should mention that trip to the hot spring resort they’d taken with Teruki, Ritsu, and Serizawa. Or maybe the time he’d led the ex-Claw espers into battle. But he decided against it. If he wasn’t bringing something up, he usually had a good reason for it.
Just then, something caught his eye, and he frowned. “You shouldn’t carry knives around.”
Itadori, who’d been following the exchange between instructors, broke away from the conversation and saw the kid he’d mostly ignored pointing a finger at his waist. He looked down and immediately remembered that he was carrying the weapon that Gojo had given him just before everything went off the rails. Still, he was a boy, right? In his experience, boys that age would’ve spent whole lunchtimes admiring a weapon like that. “Why not?” He asked, hand coming to rest idly on its pommel.
“Someone could get hurt. Knives are dangerous.” Shigeo spoke, clear and level in tone while carrying a reproachful hint in his eyes.
“Aww, don’t be like that.” Yuji smiled easily, “I know what I’m doing with it. Plus, I kinda still need it.”
“Need it?”
He pointed to himself. “Yeah! I can’t use cursed energy yet, so I have to use this cursed tool instead! Without it, I wouldn’t be able to get rid of any curses. I only got it a few minutes ago anyway.”
“Oh…” Mob frowned, before letting his expression slide into a faint smile. “I’m sorry for assuming.”
A cursed tool? What was the benefit of cursing tools? Curses were for putting on people – not that he condoned that sort of thing at all. It didn’t make much sense to Shigeo until he remembered mister Sakurai and his weapons. The former Scar mentioned that his sword and his gun were as powerful as they were because of how often he imbued psychic curses into them. It wasn’t a stretch to assume that other people who could do that sort of thing existed out in the world. But Sakurai had always said that there was nobody better at it than him.
Then again, the espers he met were always fairly quick to say that they were the best at something, even if it wasn’t true.
“Hey, ‘s all cool! It is pretty dangerous, you’re not wrong about that.” Yuji laughed.
Megumi had been content up until then to let everyone else do the talking, but now that Itadori had found an in with one of the two mystery exorcists, he took the chance for what it was. “So you really exorcised those curses?” He asked, stepping out from behind Yuji.
“Mhm. Yes, we did.” Mob nodded.
“How’d you do it?”
There was a pause. “With my psychic powers.”
“That’s not what I meant.“ Megumi groaned with a roll of his eyes – and, really, he’d been doing it so often as of late that you could probably draw a map with the mileage they’d done. “The only way to get rid of curses is with cursed energy. Are you sure you’re not just using cursed energy and calling it something else?” Even if he hadn’t picked up anything when the wave of power went off, it was worth figuring out if they were just able to hide their signatures or not.
It wasn’t that he doubted that there was something different about these two strangers, but unlike the rest of the people he was stuck with he might as well be the one to do any real verifying if nobody else would.
Plus, the one called Reigen being unable to show off his supposed powers was suspicious no matter how he spun it.
“No, I’m certain. We only learned about the difference between cursed spirits and normal spirits today. Neither of us have done anything with, um, ‘cursed energy’.” The boy said, immediately blinking back his muted surprise when three heads turned to stare at him in the same instant. Reigen and the one who hadn’t introduced himself yet didn’t seem like they were paying much mind to what was going on as they kept up their own brief exchange lamenting about the life of a teacher, but Shigeo could have sworn the man with the blindfold was paying just a fraction more attention than before.
“Hold on.” Nobara waved a hand to forestall Shigeo before he could elaborate on what he thought they were confused about. “Normal spirits? What the hell does that mean?”
Shigeo didn’t answer for a few moments. “You aren’t psychics.” He eventually said, as if that were a major realisation to him.
“Uh, no, we’re not. And you still haven’t proven that you’re one, yourself.” Megumi pointed out, only to rear back momentarily when the room started to shake like it did before. The last couple of words hadn’t even finished leaving his mouth before the boy in front of them started to glow with that same off-colour energy that had encompassed the building earlier. That would have been proof enough that Shigeo was working with something other than cursed energy – with the exception of high-level techniques like the Black Flash, almost all cursed energy in its rawest state manifested as a deep blue shade offset by a brighter cyan and enclosed by black flames. Nothing at all like the rich purple-blue hues that the boy was giving off. Where cursed energy flickered and danced like fire, this new kind of energy rolled and twisted like mist caught in a breeze, with similar effects on the boy’s hair.
But that wasn’t all that happened. Piles of rubble, old wooden pallets, boxes, forgotten office chairs and other equipment started to lift into the air. They started to spin, tumbling through the air in a quick circle while simultaneously managing to avoid all of the other moving parts by ducking and weaving between one another. This mass moved as a blur centred around the impassive esper for a just long enough to get his point across until it all came to a sudden stop. The aura surrounding each item disappeared as they were allowed to fall harmlessly – if somewhat noisily – to the floor.
While this went on, Reigen did nothing except briefly wish that he still smoked in any capacity. It would really have tied together the whole ‘stoic master’ thing he thought he had going on if he was able to light one up when his student decided to show off.
The man with the weird blindfold had obviously picked up on something, however, because he’d taken a step towards Mob and was leaning down with his thumb and forefinger against his chin, just staring intently at the young psychic.
If Reigen wasn’t one hundred percent confident that they could handle some potential weirdos, he’d have made a move to interpose himself between Mob and the other man, but it seemed like it was just harmless interest for now. He couldn’t blame him, though. Seeing Mob in action for the first time always drew some eyes. Although a part of him wished still wished that people would pay more attention to how cool he was. ‘That kid with the pink hair seems to think I’m doing something right, though. Guy’s jaw is about an inch from the ground.’
Unfortunately for his ego, that wasn’t what Yuji had picked up on.
“Wait, holy shit, Reigen Arataka! The Reigen Arataka! You’re him!” He shouted, sporting an ecstatic grin as he pointed towards the man in question and kept on swinging his head around to see if any of his companions knew what he was talking about. “C’mon guys, don’t leave me hanging here, you saw it, right? That one video?” When everybody looked at him like he’d grown a second head – which wouldn’t have been outside the realm of possibility, given the nature of his passenger – he growled at his inability to get his point across and whirled around to face Nobara. “Kugisaki! You’ve gotta know what I’m talking about. It was all over YouTube! DramaAlarm, Firecynic? He was on the news!”
“D’you mind shutting up and explaining it for the people who actually have lives?” Nobara drawled, unwilling to admit that she’d heard of both online personalities he was talking about. Wouldn’t be good for her image if she looked like she was on his level, after all.
Yuji grumbled. “Fine. I knew I recognised him from somewhere, but seeing that kid do that made it all click, and… you’re Reigen Arataka!” He shook his head and smiled towards the older ‘esper’ with a starstruck expression, repeating himself for the third time.
“Yeah I think we got that part.” Megumi said, “But who is he?”
“Oh man, it was so cool!” And like that, the rookie sorcerer started to gush. “So there was this huge controversy about this one guy – Reigen – who advertised himself to be some bigshot psychic and got invited onto a TV show to interview him and another super popular psychic – Kirin Jodo, he does cool stuff too – and they ended up doing a live exorcism; some kid they said was possessed. He made this big show of all these cool looking exorcism moves that didn’t do anything, they were all, like, trying to expose him as a fraud and stuff ‘cause the kid was just acting the whole time. The internet went crazy about it! Tons and tons of people who said they were his customers came out with stories about how he’d scammed them and stuff.”
As the teenager continued, Reigen grew more and more nervous, but did his best not to let any of it show. He figured he knew where this was going, anyway, seeing how awed the kid was when he figured out who he was.
“There were a few weeks where nothing happened, but then it turned out he wanted to hold a press conference! They all tried to humiliate him there, too, but get this.” Still grinning like a madman, Yuji threw his arm around Megumi’s shoulder and leaned in conspiratorially in spite of the way the other boy tried in vain to shrug him off, “When the moment of truth came along and they asked the big question, it turns out that all of what happened was just part of his plan! All the cameras, desks, chairs, recording equipment, they all started floating up to the ceiling and everything started shaking, it was so cool – Me, Iguchi, and Sasaki all went totally crazy when it happened, and he just walked away after proving everyone wrong and can I get your autograph please?!” He finished, moving to stand in front of the man of the hour with both hands clapped together with a face that reminded Reigen of a puppy you just couldn’t say no to.
The man gave a good-natured sigh and shrugged. ‘Man, it feels good to get the respect I deserve. Shame it had to come from that whole mess, though.’
The complicated cocktail of emotions he had towards that hellish period of time were pushed aside as he whipped a notepad and pen from his pocket as if he’d been holding them the whole time. “Sure thing, kid.” He grinned, the signature already jotted down and passed over before he had finished speaking.
Megumi and Nobara still stood to one side, clearly mulling over the information they’d just been given. Once you separated the high-speed babbling from the actually useful stuff, there was a decent bit to take onboard. Seeing as they had no reason to doubt that video evidence now existed, that combined with the proof they’d all just seen that psychic powers did indeed exist… well, it would have meant that Itadori was on track before they were.
That was kind of sad.
And yet there was nothing they could do about it.
So absorbed in Itadori’s story and Reigen’s basking in it were they that none noticed Gojo continuing to stare intently at Shigeo, his interest not having receded a bit after the demonstration was over. In fact, it only magnified after he’d heard the story from Yuji.
Reigen Arataka was the real deal, then. As if there were any doubt about that. And the boy in front of him was… intriguing.
It wasn’t like Gojo was an idiot. He knew that the way he was staring should have made any kid nervous, or at least make them ask him why he was glaring at them for so long. But there was nothing. Just the same blank expression, staring right back into his blindfold.
The master may have been skilled enough to hide from his eyes, but there weren’t any such restrictions on his perception of the kid’s power.
What he saw was interesting.
Very, very interesting.
“My name’s Satoru Gojo.” He decided to start simple.
Finally, a reaction. “Hello. I’m Shigeo Kageyama. It’s nice to meet you.” The boy said, dipping into a polite bow.
“Middle schooler, huh?”
“Third year.”
Gojo chuckled. “Little young to be out exorcising curses, don’t you think?”
“I like helping people, that’s all.”
“Even so, it’s pretty risky work.”
“Master wouldn’t take me anywhere too dangerous.” Mob said.
And here was the tricky part. “You seem confident about that. Arataka must be a powerful guy, huh?”
The fact that it was then that the boy chose to smile spoke volumes to the sorcerer. By the looks of things, getting Kageyama to emote in any significant way was a real hassle, which was entirely understandable when he considered just how much power was tucked away behind those dull eyes.
It was a tale that repeated itself time and time again, centuries before his time and almost certainly centuries afterwards. He wasn’t certain about the specifics of this ‘psychic power’, but if it was similar enough to jujutsu sorcery to be able to defeat curses, then some concepts probably carried over. Like the fact that it would take a certain kind of person to channel the energy – especially energy that came in that amount. Emotion played a key part in both the formation and controlling of cursed energy.
Someone blessed with that much power before they were even fifteen years old… no wonder the kid had practically conditioned himself not to show emotion.
At the very least, Gojo could say he knew how overwhelming power felt. Definitely couldn’t relate to keeping it on the down-low, though.
“He’s the strongest person I know.” Shigeo spoke fondly, sparing a look towards where Reigen was telling some long and winding story to the boy with the pink hair, who nodded along, gasped, and commented his surprise at all the appropriate moments while the other two older students looked on and listened as well.
“You’re strong as well, right?” Gojo commented. “I can tell you’re packing some serious power. Especially if you managed to take out all the nasty stuff that was hanging around here.”
Down to the last traces of their presence, too. He’d keep to himself how impressive that actually was.
Any other child would have preened over that remark, or at least seemed the least bit pleased.
“Yes.” And there it was. Nothing more than a statement of fact.
If Gojo’s grin got any wider from this point on, it would pop right off the side of his cheeks. “And you sometimes have trouble controlling all that strength, don’t you?”
Mob’s eyes widened. “How did you know?”
“I’m a jujutsu sorcerer!”
“… I don’t really get the joke.”
“Well, saying that I’m psychic doesn’t really work anymore, does it?” Gojo shrugged. “But I’m not kidding. I really can tell these things, you know?”
“I see.” Spoke the boy that clearly didn’t. He was just too polite to be contradictory. “It’s nothing all that special. And master Reigen is teaching me all about how to use my powers properly. You don’t have to worry about me.”
“It’s a force of habit. A teacher thing! You look like you could use some help, so here I am. Helping. A power like yours left unchecked could end up being dangerous not just for everyone around you, but yourself, too. I don’t doubt that Arataka’s doing all he can to guide you along the way, but sometimes one person isn’t enough no matter how strong they are. I’m only giving you some conjecture to think on for now, because it’s not like I’m all that familiar with your psychic powers. I don’t want to get your hopes up, but I think I might know a good place to start in dealing with what’s been troubling you.” It was easy to tell that he was being serious. Although that levity still lingered in his tone, his smile had thinned, and he’d lowered his volume to make sure he didn’t catch the attention of the others.
Awesome. Incredible. Amazing. Overwhelming. Those were the words people normally used when they started to get a picture of what his abilities were like. Dangerous brought to mind other things. That day, all those years ago, when he lost consciousness trying to protect Ritsu, and did something that his brother would never speak to him about, even all this time later. Dangerous was like what happened when Teruki pushed him too far, or when Mogami finally brought him to his absolute limit.
Mob didn’t want to be dangerous. Mob didn’t want to lose control of his emotions, and he especially didn’t want to hurt anyone.
He was glad that the weird feeling from earlier had mostly gone away, but just looking at the person in front of him made an uncomfortable feeling well up inside him. And again, it just didn’t make sense. Although mister Gojo was acting in a way that he knew a lot of people would find strange, Shigeo wasn’t picking up any hostility from him. So why did it feel like he wanted to lash out all of a sudden?
He really didn’t like this place.
“Will it take a long time?” Mob frowned, not wanting to spurn the offer for what it was while remaining constantly aware that he had a lot of responsibilities of his own.
“Oh, for sure.” Gojo finally stopped leaning forward and rose back to his full height with a quick stretch, his previous demeanour coming back in full force. “Might take days, might take months. Deeeefinitely not a one-and-done thing if I’m even close to being right – which I usually am.”
“I still have to go to school.”
“Right. Normal school. For normal kids. You’re not normal though, are you?” He had a feeling he’d overstepped his boundary somewhat when the kid levelled a glare at him. That didn’t stop him from channelling a bit more of his cursed energy around him as he spoke; not enough to be visibly different, but enough to gauge for a reaction.
Once more, that disturbing feeling uncoiled itself inside Shigeo and started to stir, and only a few moments later did he realise his hand had twitched as if to curl into a fist. He fought the sensation the instant he recognised what was happening. But despite that, his glare darkened further still. “I want to be.”
The man held his hands up placatingly. “Hey now, I didn’t mean it like that. You’re too young to attend the school I teach at anyway. Most boys your age would kill for a chance to cut class, that’s all.”
There wasn’t an extensive list of people who could turn down an invitation from Satoru Gojo, after all, but he didn’t say that part out loud. Even if someone might not have liked him on a personal level, his name carried weight.
“Yeah, well, getting a good education’s important, isn’t that right Mob?” Reigen interjected, strolling over to the two of them to put a hand on his protégé’s shoulder. “And what’s this I hear about you commandeering my student? You should know, I’ve got a strict no-tolerance policy for poaching members of staff!”
Two of his three students looked supremely unimpressed at him, and he didn’t think anyone would be winning any prizes for guessing exactly which two he was talking about. Itadori, for his part, just had his hands in his pockets and looked over the youngest person in the room with concern.
Sure, he was fine when he learned about curses and stuff, but he knew he’d always been a little different from other people. It rubbed him the wrong way to have someone that much younger than him involved in all this supernatural stuff – especially if the work was as bloody and brutal as Gojo had made it out to be.
“I knew you were creepy,” Nobara said, face twisted into a facsimile of disgust that was betrayed only by the hint of amusement in her voice, “but trying to go after kids? That’s totally gross.”
The snorting chuckle from beside her let her know that Itadori was still paying some amount of attention, and it also told her that Fushiguro wasn’t a fan of her jokes. Oh well; sucked to be him.
“I’m not trying to take your student’s time. Promise! I’m just a nosey guy, that’s all. And I can tell he’s had a bit of trouble because of his powers before, hasn’t he? At a guess, that’s exactly how he’s ended up in your care, right?” Gojo pointed out, both adults ignoring the girl’s comment.
Arataka gave a pause at his assumption, obviously trying to gauge just how many of his cards needed to be played. Eventually, he nodded. “Yeah, Mob here came to my office one day a couple years ago asking for my help, and, well… the rest is history. You’ve had a pretty good time of things since then, right?” He smiled, looking down at his student, who returned the smile with a nod of his own.
“Yes, I’ve been fine.”
Only after meeting his master, huh? So Arataka had his own way of keeping that kind of power in check, did he? That should have been obvious, in retrospect.
“But…”
The smile on the blonde man’s face thinned in concern when Shigeo kept talking.
“Ever since we arrived, something’s felt off. It feels strange. Like…” Mob glanced to the floor in deliberation, with everyone paying rapt attention to his potential answer. “Like I really want to use my powers on something.”
“Well, you used your powers on those spirits just fine, didn’t you?” Reigen asked.
“But it felt wrong. Like I was so much angrier than I really felt. It was… weird.”
‘Weird’. Such an innocuous term. But not ‘kind of weird’. Just weird. That was a whole level up! ‘This is really bothering him, isn’t it?’ He thought, frowning a little internally at the fact that Mob hadn’t spoken up about it to him. But then a thought occurred. “That’s why you wanted to go home earlier, wasn’t it?”
Mob seemed hesitant to answer, like he was embarrassed that he had his own things to worry about. “Mhm.”
“Mob…” Reigen sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Sorry. I should have noticed sooner.”
“It’s okay, really.”
“Only when you were dealing with cursed spirits? Hm...” Gojo mentioned solely to himself. But, raising his voice to an actually audible level, he marched on. “If you guys need to get somewhere I won’t hold you up, but hear me out for a second.”
Both espers turned their eyes to the blindfolded man, then to each other again.
“You good for a little while longer, Mob?”
“Yes. I’ll be fine.”
“Alright then, looks like we’re not in a big hurry.” Reigen decided to leave the matter for the time being. If there was something Mob needed to talk about, he’d just have to trust that he would bring it up on his own when they had the time. If not, well… he wasn’t going to let certain incidents repeat themselves. “We’re all ears.”
“My students and I are all jujutsu sorcerers. We use cursed energy, techniques, and tools to exorcise cursed spirits. I teach at Tokyo Metropolitan Curse Technical College, but you can just call it Jujutsu Tech – everyone does. At Jujutsu Tech, we can promise you a wide array of benefits, ranging from comfortable accommodations, plenty of hands-on field experience overseen by a tight-knit group of professional teachers, and plenty of free time to explore the city in-between lessons and missions! Send your applications to ‘www.Jujuts’-“
“Hey, that’s my brochure!” Nobara snapped, reaching for the slip of paper that Gojo had been reading his propaganda off of. The man whipped it out of her reach, and then did so again when she snarled and made another grab for it. “Where did you even get that? When did you even get that?”
“So yeah, anyway,” Gojo continued unimpeded, leading the girl on a merry chase all around him as he was talking, “point is, I’ve taught plenty of kids with unique powers before. I might not be familiar with psychic powers as a whole, but I reckon I’m experienced enough to think on my feet. I’m the strongest there is, after all.” He made sure to put emphasis on the ‘strongest’ part, grinning in a way that he knew made people want to punch his lights out as well – just to make sure the effect was there.
And, as predicted, Arataka didn’t even flinch or raise an eyebrow at his boasting, simply nodding along with it. ‘So he’s a self-assured type, then. Didn’t feel the need to defend his title, or insult me, or anything. Neat!’
“Itadori, grab him!”
“Wha- oh! Got it!” The rookie sorcerer sprang forward without really understanding why he was helping out the person who’d been pretty rude to him up until then, and Gojo easily sidestepped the attempt at a bear hug anyway.
Nobara growled. “Fushiguro, grab him!”
“Yeah, I’m not doing that.”
“Traitor!”
The students devolved into bickering, allowing their teacher the time to neatly fold the pamphlet and tuck it back into his sleeve. An act that made Arataka smirk slightly – something he returned in kind.
“You guys are from Seasoning City, and I get that it’s a pretty long way to go, but I’ve got a proposition for you.” In saying so, with a flick of his wrist he caught a card that slipped from the same sleeve he’d stored the brochure and tossed it over to the older psychic, who caught it out of the air easily. It wasn’t a particularly flashy card: official looking black text on a blank background that laid out the school’s address and website. At the bottom was a penned-in phone number with a little doodle of Gojo’s happy face beside it. “Whenever you’ve got a couple days spare, c’mon down and ask after me! The wards around the school… probably shouldn’t turn you away? I dunno, I’ll have to go talk to the principal about that later. I’ll do my best to help Shiggy there out with his powers whenever you two drop by. And hey! If you ever need some help with something important, just gimme a call and I’ll be right there – at my latest convenience!”
He paused and looked both ways, leaning in with a hand over his mouth like a child on a playground. “Lunch counts as important, by the way.” Gojo said.
“Shiggy?” The boy spoke, and it was impossible to tell whether he was okay with the nickname or absolutely hated it.
His comment went ignored.
“Huh. I’ll admit that that sounds like a pretty good deal, but I’ve been in the business a long while, and that sounds pretty suspicious to me! Seems to me like this is a lot of benefit for us and not so much for you.” Reigen pointed out astutely, “You’re not trying anything funny, are you? Those kinda deals are way too good to be true.”
The sorcerer thought about that for a moment. “Ehh… I guess you could call it professional fascination. That, and I was hoping you’d want to turn this into a kind of… ‘I scratch your back, you scratch mine’ deal. Y’know: you call me for help, I call you to watch me solve all the problems myself, that sorta thing.”
Reigen seemed sceptical for only a short while before appearing to accept the terms with a casual shrug. ‘Hey, any excuse to visit Tokyo more often’s fine by me. Maybe I can wrangle the travel expenses to this guy instead. Now that’d be a sweet deal!’
“Alright, I’ll accept those terms. Here, you might as well have this.” He briefly wished he had as flashy a way of presenting his business card as the sorcerer guy did, and resolved to rectify that problem immediately, but in the meantime opted to simply toss his own card at the blindfolded man with a lazy underhand throw.
‘Spirits and Such Consultation. Pretty casual name for a business. I guess he likes flying under the radar.’ Gojo thought to himself, pocketing the slip after he’d briefly memorised the details written on it. He guessed it was understandable. The limelight didn’t agree with everyone.
“Wait, what’s happening?” Yuji asked as he stepped away from his two compatriots – Kugisaki was getting louder and more rant-happy by the second and he figured that Fushiguro would understand and forgive him for leaving the conversation in time. “Am I not gonna be the newest sorcerer anymore? Awesome!” He held out a hand to Shigeo, beaming. “Great to have you onboard, little dude!”
“Woah there. Down, boy.” Gojo chuckled. “He’s not a sorcerer. I mean, if he feels like joining up with us when he graduates to high school then he’ll probably be a shoo-in,” He said, shooting a pointed smile Shigeo’s way, “but for now, we’re just gonna end up as… business partners, I guess.”
It looked for a second like Christmas had come early and announced that it was here to stay when Itadori’s face lit up. “You’re saying I get to work with the Reigen Arataka? That’s so cool! Oh man, Iguchi and Sasaki would be super jealous right now!”
He only wished he could keep in regular contact with the two of them, but right now even that melancholy wasn’t enough to dampen his mood.
Reigen checked his phone for the time and hissed. They were meant to be already on the train back home by now. If they kept themselves back any longer then Serizawa was probably liable to have a nervous breakdown. He was a pretty accommodating guy, but Reigen really didn’t feel up to finding his junior customer service rep curled up in a ball with only Dimple for company.
“Unfortunately, the Reigen Arataka needs to start getting home before the trains end up going way later in the day.” He tucked his phone away and patted his student’s shoulder. “Sorry Mob, we’re gonna have to cut the ramen stop out of the trip, the time kinda got away from me.”
“Oh, that’s okay. I wanted to go home anyway.”
He sighed. And there was Mob, refusing to be disappointed like a normal kid again.
“Sorry for holding you guys up.” Gojo waved, looking only the slightest bit apologetic. “We should probably get going as well, right guys? I’ve still got to find you all some spirits to exorcise, and daylight’s wasting!”
Megumi breathed a sigh of relief when Nobara let go of his uniform’s collar and cried out in dismay to someone else instead. He couldn’t claim to be fully trusting of the two strangers they’d met today, but he was polite enough to send a wave of his own their way as they started to make their exit.
“You mean we have to do even more walking?!”
“Thaaaaat’s right!”
“Oh come on, that’s so unfair! At least take us to Roppongi first! And give me back my brochure, you weirdo!”
Progress toward Nobara’s explosion: 85%
“Hey, Fushiguro! I got you one of Reigen’s autographs, ‘cause I noticed you never asked for one!” Itadori went up to the boy he insisted was his pal and held out a small slip of paper. Megumi was about halfway to denying the offer when he realised that spurning the only relatively sane thing that had been said to him today was probably a little rude.
He exhaled. “Sure. Thanks.”
Whatever the case, he would apparently have plenty of time to form a proper judgement on mister Arataka and his student later. The school year had already started out weird with the introduction of Itadori into the fold, but he couldn’t say it was a bad thing. He wasn’t sure how he would have survived with Kugisaki as his only classmate. In that case, he supposed that an interesting year was better than a boring one.
They collectively stopped talking when the plain face of Shigeo Kageyama peeked back around the door only seconds after he’d left. “Hello. I just wanted to ask you to leave mister Tatsu alone if you see him.”
“Uh… Tatsu? We haven’t seen anyone called Tatsu.” Itadori hummed.
“He’s a good spirit. He looks like a giant head with the body of a centipede. He helped us. Please don’t exorcise him.”
“Oh, sure thing. Thanks for the heads up!”
“You’re welcome.” Shigeo smiled before hurrying to join Reigen as he began to descend the stairs.
There was a beat. Then…
Progress towards Nobara’s explosion: 100%
100% done with this shit
“Wait, what the hell did he just say?!” She shrieked.
‘A really, really interesting year.’ Megumi thought, dryly.
Today had been an enlightening experience for him. It wasn’t every day that he learned something about the way the world worked that he hadn’t known about before, see. The secrets of sorcery had always been an incredibly easy thing for him to decipher if he put his mind to it, although the presence of his Six Eyes tended to help matters along if he felt like cheating.
Still, he had a lot of work to do now that the foundations were laid out.
Arataka was definitely someone he needed to have a long conversation with at some point – hopefully over lunch like he’d offered, and hopefully he could convince the man to wear a blue shirt, a tan suit, and sunglasses as part of their deal. He seemed like a fun guy to be around either way, but there was nothing wrong with getting important information out of someone while making it entertaining for himself.
He wondered how much the higher-ups would start quaking in their boots if they heard that two people who could call themselves ‘the strongest’ were going to start working together. Call it a hunch, but he figured Arataka was someone who’d agree with his thoughts on how the world was changing.
Adaptation was necessary if the collective of sorcerers was going to keep up with the rapidly evolving underbelly of curses that clung to the world like a plague.
Speaking of adaptation…
Gojo’s thoughts turned to Arataka’s student: the real focus of his curiosity at that moment. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that the older psychic was more skilled than his protégé. It was the makeup of the boy’s power that intrigued him. The Six Eyes weren’t accustomed to prying into the foreign force of energy, as had been proven when it failed to detect any of Arataka’s power. But with Kageyama, he had an advantage that his mind had been stuck on since he’d first noticed it.
If anyone were to look into the office at that moment, they would have seen the world’s most powerful sorcerer leaning back into his couch and starting to laugh to himself – a sound that was only just beneath the verge of becoming a cackle.
Because, really, who could have ever expected that something like this was possible?
Itadori was an example that it was technically something that could happen, sure, but that was a special case born of a special grade curse, it wasn’t the same.
He wasn’t going to rush them, but the sooner he could have a one-to-one with Kageyama, the better it would be for everyone.
After all, Satoru Gojo was a man of firsts. The first Gojo to wield both the Six Eyes and Infinity. The first sorcerer to stand at the pinnacle and not be either evil or painfully boring. The only big-name sorcerer daring to stand up to the current system.
Why not be the first sorcerer to interact with a potential special grade cursed spirit incarnated from a single boy’s powerful emotions and his own fear of them, while he was at it?
The world was an interesting place, indeed.
A/N: So… yeah. That’s a thing. It was only meant to be about 3000 words when I first thought of the concept, but you know how these things go. There’s no doubt in my mind that this is stretched out entirely too long for what it is, but I hope you enjoyed it all the same.
All I wanted to do was play with two settings that had a ton of little similarities, and as you can tell it spiralled vastly out of my control.
There are more scenes I want to write, but I’m not yet certain if they’re better served as a series of omakes or as a full story. It would be the first multi-chapter story I’d have written, and that’s a big step I’m not certain I’d be able to do justice. I don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up for something that may or may not happen, is all.
All the same, as my second uploaded story, do feel free to criticise if you have the urge!