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CHAPTER START---
"Damn, I almost forgot what the classrooms looked like," Taiyo mutters as he walks through the halls of Jujutsu Tech Tokyo.
Moving across the hardwood floor and sliding paper doors, he makes his way to where his formal Jujutsu education began one year ago, the first-year classroom.
He doesn't bother to knock, abruptly sliding the door aside and stepping into the room to see two younger boys sitting at one desk. Between them are a pair of dice and a set of cards. One of them has wild black hair, unkempt, with his uniform untucked and a pair of sneakers on his feet.
At a glance, he's an inch shorter than Taiyo, with a leaner build. The other boy is much shorter, with short and neat black hair and a perfectly tailored uniform. Taiyo notices the black nail polish on the boy's fingers, along with the single lip piercing and the half dozen piercings in each ear.
'Ahh, this is what Kusakabe was talking about,' Taiyo thinks as he walks over to them. But the smaller boy leaps out of his seat, scrambling for his phone.
"You're Taiyo Daburu!" he fumbles around and takes out his phone. "Can I get a picture with you?!"
"Sure," Taiyo says. "I'm here to meet the new students and introduce myself. Being polite and all that."
The taller boy scoffs, dropping his hand of cards onto the table and leaning back in his chair. "I'm Hakari, she's Kirara."
Taiyo glances at the boy taking the selfie with him. "Well, I see why the higher-ups hate this one. What about you?"
Kirara continues taking pictures while they talk. "Some crap about technology and Jujutsu needed to be separate. I don't really listen when old fossils start running their gums."
"Oh yeah, I know all about those useless people. So, mind showing me that Innate Technique? I heard you awakened your Domain Expansion first and learned everything in reverse. That's interesting."
Hakari frowns. "Is that all you're here for?"
"Nothing else here is interesting."
Kirara returns to her seat, not used to being so blatantly ignored, but appreciating his disregard for her outlook on life. "What about my Innate Technique?"
"Oh, sorry. I didn't even know there was a second student until I got here. What is it?"
"Love Rendezvous. It's based on the Southern Cross."
"The what?"
"It's a constellation," she says. "Five stars, and I get to make five objects or people. You have to follow the sequence, otherwise, they repel you. So if you're 'one', I'm 'two', and Hakari is 'three', you can't get to him without first walking to me, get it?"
Taiyo nods a few times, then turns to Hakari. "Anyway, can I see your Innate Technique now?"
"Hey!" Kirara hops out of her seat and stomps over to him. "Mine is super cool, don't you want to see how it works?"
"It's like magnetism and polarity, so not really."
Kirara looks like a kicked puppy as she walks back to her seat. "I hope Hakari kicks your butt."
"Unlikely, I'm Special Grade."
This gets both of them to sit up and focus on Taiyo.
"What, they didn't tell you?"
Hakari shakes his head. "We didn't even know you were a Jujutsu Sorcerer until right now. Gojo did mention there was a strong student, but we didn't expect Special Grade."
"Yeah, the higher-ups don't really like how public I am. They really wanted me to retire and commit to Jujutsu or drop it and keep my career, but fuck 'em."
Hakari and Kirara laugh, thankful they aren't the only ones who dislike the higher-ups.
"For the record, my Innate Technique is called Immolation. It lets me raise the atomic heat of things my Cursed Energy touches. So I can melt and disintegrate things if I really want to."
"Wow. That sounds dangerous," Kirara says. "Does that mean your Cursed Energy feels hot?"
"Yeah, that's my Cursed Energy trait."
"Hakari's feels like barbed wire smacking you," she rubs the side of her face. "Not fun."
"And Kirara is a shitty sparring partner," Hakari mutters.
"Hey! I'm Grade 4, how the hell was I supposed to take a hit from a Grade 1?"
Hakari snickers. "Man up."
"Fuck you!"
Taiyo and Hakari start laughing while Kirara pouts. Then, Taiyo flares up his Cursed Energy to get their focus back on him.
"Alright now, how about you show me what that technique of yours is? We can think of this as a little training session."
"What, for free?" Hakari asks. "If I'm doing this, it's going to cost something."
Taiyo frowns, not understanding how an opportunity to learn advanced Jujutsu isn't invaluable to everyone else. "Alright, what do you want?"
"Concert tickets. You're friends with some idol groups my girlfriend likes. Can you get me some tickets?"
"Me too!" Kirara says.
"Sure, just tell me which groups," Taiyo watches as they high-five each other. "Alright, now can we get to the fun stuff?"
"Sure thing," Hakari waves his hand, surging his Cursed Energy, and two subway cart doors appear sideways beside Taiyo. They immediately try to slam shut, crashing into his arms and attempting to lock him in place. "This is the worst part of it, honestly. But…how aren't they hurting you?"
Taiyo looks down at the doors, seeing them slowly cracking while trying to make him move. "So, is your Innate Technique based on the Japanese subway system? Then the Maximum Technique is probably to summon a train to run me over, right?"
"Not even close," Hakari summons a second set of doors to crush Taiyo, and they, too, are unable to break his defenses. "Damn, you're tough."
"Well, I am training to surpass Gojo. If something like this could bother me, I'd have no chance of touching him."
"Surpass Gojo Sensei?" Hakari smiles and walks over to Taiyo, rearing back his fist and sloppily shrouding it with Cursed Energy. "That's big talk from what I hear!"
His fist crashes into Taiyo's face, barely moving his head before a surge of pain rushes through his hand.
"Damn," Hakari keeps his fist pushing against Taiyo, and the older boy simply moves his head, easily pushing it back so he can look down at Hakari. "Special Grade, huh?"
Taiyo smiles. "Yeah, but I can feel your Cursed Energy Trait. Those are really rare, so this should be fun."
Before Hakari could respond to the surge of Cursed Energy, Taiyo shatters both pairs of subway doors and palms the side of Hakari's face. He grabs the boy and tosses him through the wall connecting to the hallway.
Hakari's body demolishes the wall, smashing through the hallway and neighboring classroom before he rolls to a stop in the training field outside. He shakes his head, getting the debris out of his hair while rising to his feet, then dusts off his clothes.
"Hakari!" he sees Kirara rushing through the destruction toward him, with Taiyo casually walking behind her, with a large grin on his face. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah, it'll take more than that to hurt me." He wastes no time in handing her his sneakers, phone, and wallet. "I like this guy's style, but keep these away from us."
Kirara rushes to the side of the building as Taiyo enters the training field. "So, can you heal?"
"I don't know the Reversed Curse Technique," Hakari says. "My Domain Expansion is a trump card, even more than most people's."
"We'll work our way up to that. First, I want you to show me what you can do without it."
Hakari nods and takes an amateur combat stance, then rushes forward with speed that surpasses Nanami, but is still one step short of Mei Mei or Kusakabe.
Taiyo doesn't use All Combat, he simply leans left and right while stepping around each telegraphed strike, all while Hakari continues to speed up. "You've fought before, huh? Were you a little delinquent?"
Hakari launches a kick at Taiyo's side, which the boy steps back to avoid. He then pushes forward with another flurry of blows. "I don't get along with morons."
"That's most of the world," Taiyo says as he ducks a spinning kick.
Hakari then summons his train doors below himself, using them as leverage to grab onto and aim a dropkick at Taiyo's chest.
'So he can summon them in any unoccupied space, that's interesting,' Taiyo thinks as Hakari's bare feet are moving toward him.
He then disappears, appearing behind Hakari and grabbing him by the shoulder, flinging him to the other side of the small field.
Hakari flips in the air and lands on his feet, looking up to keep his eyes on Taiyo as the man slowly walks over to him. "Damn, you're fast."
Taiyo shrugs. "If only there were some way to, like, lock me inside a separate space where you could fight me in isolation, where my speed doesn't matter because you have a way to guarantee damage…that would be convenient, right?"
Hakari sighs. "Yeah, I get it. But I don't know if this will be as fun as you think."
"Learning about Jujutsu is always fun."
"We'll see about that," Hakari smiles and forms his mudra, using both hands and connecting the tip of his index finger and thumb of each before holding them horizontally across his chest. "Domain Expansion: Idle Death Gamble!"
'Wh—' Taiyo doesn't even have time to finish a thought before a surge of information flows into his mind. All courtesy of what everyone who ever experiences it will agree is the most obnoxious of all Sure Hit effects…
END CHAPTER---
Discord: discord .gg /eHuxNeZfyS [Come chat with me]
pat.reon: Keanu_Eugene [Read ahead & support me]
You.tube: @KeanuEugene [Giving away all my writing knowledge]