Hakari sat in the common room of the sixth squad, enjoying a bit of lunch. In the aftermath of the attack on the intersquad tournament, a lot of stuff had happened. Squad seven had been insistent on just how he could do what he could, along with the general admonishment of him fighting the main guy all by himself.
He told them what he had said to the sixth squad, that he had eaten a peach in a moment of desperation against the shuuki and had, somehow, gotten a blessing. Their arguments about how "that didn't make any sense" were rebuffed by the classic counter argument of "well that's what happened" and they left it at that.
Except, that wasn't the end of it. Since this was an intelligent, humanoid Shuuki making a planned attack on a meeting between two chiefs and their immediate staff, they had to document the incident, which meant that his abilities had been reported on. As he mixed his fried egg into his rice, he looked down at the coffee table where the summons from the Ohmyou Agency, asking for him to come by for a "physical inspection".
'It makes sense they would want to see me, since I'm the first guy with a blessing.' Hakari thought, eating quietly. 'But if they have a way to see if I actually ate a peach, I'll have to get another lie, or come clean.'
Bernard had mentioned at one point wanting to be as good as the guy who wrote that pirate manga, where they ate the fruits and got dumb superpowers. He had brought it up when he had come drinking with Kirara and him one night, and had gotten into this whole theory about it sticking in their stomachs. That was as much Hakari cared to remember, between the passage of time and fact he wasn't sober for that conversation.
If the peach acted like that, and they could prove he didn't have one in his stomach, it was a one way stop to spilling the beans on Jujutsu.
'Might not be the worst thing, though.' He continued, tilting his head as he heard a noise outside. 'It became kinda known back in my space, and it's not like they would be able to make use of any of the stuff I could tell them.'
Hakari got up, taking his bowl of food with him, eating steadily as he made his way outside. Tenka was out, in the regular world, and Sahara and Yachiho were off doing some field training, so he was all by himself. Stepping into the entryway, Hakari slid his slippers on and stepped out to see a large shuuki throwing haymakers at the barrier that protected the dorms.
While it was about three times as bigger as a usual shuuki, it had an unusual mutation of multiple small, vestigial arms sticking out of its upper chest, shoulders, and upper arms, ranging from fully formed but limp arms and hands to little more than nubs, flesh half formed and almost melted like wax.
Hakari ate some more rice as he watched it flail like a toddler having a tantrum, blows rebuffed by the barrier. After a handful of attacks, it noticed Hakari, and roared in fury, a bellow that would shake the foundations with its intensity.
In response, Hakari formed a pachinko ball in his hand, holding it so the metal orb would land on and roll along the chopsticks. It would balance perfectly down their length, where he would open them just enough to catch the ball between them. A lift of the hand, a flick of the wrist, and the reserve ball flew fast, through the air, the barrier, and into the shuuki's head, blasting out the otherside.
Its lumbering form slumped forward onto the barrier, lifeless, before beginning to slide backwards, slamming onto its ass and then onto its back.
Hakari only turned and walked inside to continue his lunch. He'd have to wait for Tenka before he could go to the Ohmyou Agency.
Thus, he didn't see how a purple haired girl rose from the ground, spying upon him for a moment, before slinking back down into opaque shadows.
/-/
Two days later, Hakari was standing in front of the shrine-like building that was the offices of the Ohmyou Agency.
As he moved to enter, he noticed the many guards the place had, each a woman and each in the Anti-Demon Corps uniform, eyeing him with various looks of stoicism or contempt. He didn't bid them more than a glance as he entered the building, looking at the traditional structure.
The place had a few women walking around within, but unlike outside, where they wore the usual uniform, the women here wore outfits for shrine maidens. One approached him and bowed respectfully, keeping her gaze down to the floor as she softly asked him to follow her. Hakari hadn't been told to wait for anyone specific, and so he did as she asked, following a few steps behind her as she led him through the vast shrine.
He was led to an empty room and asked to wait until the on-site doctor came by for his physical. As he walked the room, he noticed how the wood that made up the walls was lifted slightly, not quite sitting flush with each panel. He tried to lift one of the panels, but he felt enough resistance to not push it. Turning his attention elsewhere, he noticed the only other decoration of the room.
A dark square painted onto the floor. Roughly the center of the room, perhaps six feet on a side. He moved over to the square and rubbed his foot at it. It didn't give, or smear. Hakari was about to pop a squat and start playing on his phone when the door opened, showing a tanned brunette with shoulder length hair, a pair of glasses, and a doctor's jacket over the usual Anti-Demon Corp outfit.
"Hello, Mr. Hakari." She said, easily, smiling softly as she moved over to the sorcerer. "I'm Dr. Hayabusa Chido, I'll be handling your physical today."
Hakari was slightly taken aback, if only because he hadn't thought he would get an introduction. "Hakari Kinji." He followed suit, lacking a proper title. "What do you want me to do?"
"Strip."
Hakari gave her a look, then looked down at his clothes, then at the utterly empty room. "This is gonna be one of those physicals?"
"Precisely."
"You care where I put my clothes?"
"Not at all."
Hakari shuffled over to the corner and stripped. He watched the doctor observe him as he got naked, before he unashamedly walked back over to her.
"Most guys your age would be blushing or covering themselves." She said, giving a soft smile as she moved over, pulling a stethoscope from around her neck, affixing it to her ears, and lifting the end of it to his chest, causing Hakari's skin to blossom in goosebumps from the cold metal.
"Go ahead and take a deep breath for me, nice and slow." She said, closing her eyes to better concentrate. Hakari felt like this was some sort of test. He definitely didn't need to be naked if this was a regular physical.
'If I was a few decades younger I'd probably be hard as a rock' He thought, looking at the doctor. He wouldn't lie to himself and say she wasn't attractive, she just…was too young. She may have been in her thirties, early forties, but that still made her almost a third of his age mentally. Even without Kirara's memory, he'd feel weird.
The errant thought of Kirara slipped his mind back, even as Dr. Hayabusa went about the usual acts of a physical, Hakari moving on autopilot.
The last time he had been to a doctor was…shit, the last one Kirara needed. Where they gave the verdict that they couldn't change anything. She would die. He remembered calling up Shoko, asking for her second opinion.
Cancer caused growths within the body, and she explained that the body and soul always tried to mirror each other. So as the cancer grew in Kirara, it was reflected in her soul. Reverse Cursed Technique, even from Shoko, wouldn't have done a thing, since the soul thought it was supposed to look like that.
Hakari slipped from the depressing thoughts by looking down at the small beige box he had put in his hand by Dr. Hayabusa. It wasn't much bigger than a ring box, with the top recessed into four equal square portions. He looked up at her in a silent question.
"Since you're the first male to have the powers of a peach, we need to properly catalog the ability." She said, taking a few steps to the far wall. "Please, attempt to break open the box."
Hakari looked down again at the innocuous box and pinched it between his hands. He stressed his arms, but the box didn't budge. Clenching his jaw, cursed energy filled the muscles and bones of his hands. With a flex, the box broke in half.
From within, a red substance splashed across his hands, before it and the square on the ground glowed a blinding white. Hakari tried to wipe the substance from his hands but found himself instead swinging his hands downward. The downward force of the swing, as these bright white chains shot from his palms to the floor and wrenched him to the ground, was strong enough to dent the wooden floor with his knees.
Around Hakari, a transparent, golden box sprung into form, encasing him. He frowned, looking through the plane of light to Dr. Hayabusa, who looked quite pleased. The door opened to the room, and in walked multiple shrine maidens, led by a very elderly looking woman.
Three shrine maidens fanned out across the room, surrounding Hakari's prison on each side he didn't face, while the elderly woman and two others kneeled directly in front of him. No one spoke, not until the old woman took a deep breath.
"You do not make sense, Hakari Kinji." She spoke slowly, gently, as if making sure her words could not be misconstrued.
"A man cannot have the blessings of a peach, we know that. We've given them the chance, and every time it simply doesn't happen." She continued. "This statement you have given, about gaining a blessing, by all measures, is false."
"So, you ju-" Hakari spoke, trying to say his piece, but the chains pulled harder on his hands, hard enough to stress the connections in his elbows and shoulders.
"I am not finished." She said, gaze downcast.
"We interviewed Azuma Yachiho and Wakasa Sahara, who were the first people to make contact with you." She reached into her sleeve and pulled out a folded stack of paper and proceeded to read it some before speaking again.
"You were found in an odd state of dress and even admitted to not usually wearing such clothing." She said softly. "Strange, but not the oddest thing. You also denoted that they were, as they remember, Grade 2."
"What did you mean by calling them Grade 2?" She asked, setting the papers down.
"Listen, I'm not going to be interro-" Hakari started, and was interrupted again, this time as the chains pulled hard enough that both his arms dislocated, causing him to cut himself off with a cry of pain.
"Kinji Hakari, let me be direct." The old lady said, sitting up a little straighter. "We don't believe you are human."
"T-that's fucking ridiculo-" Hakari hissed out.
"Who is the current Prime Minister of Japan?" She asked instead, sounding almost hopeful.
Hakari could only look at her. He didn't know. It wasn't anything he had bothered to look into.
"Who's the current head commander of the Anti-Demon Corps?" The old lady asked another question, and once again Hakari stayed quiet, condemning himself with inaction.
The old lady nodded gently, as if deciding on a course of action.
"You will be kept here for study. You are the most human looking Shuuki we have ever found, and as such, your existence will help us better understand them." She said, and Hakari's eyes widened as she fully prostrated herself, as if asking for forgiveness. "Thank you for your sacrifice."
Hakari couldn't believe what was happening. He had come in for a physical examination, and now he was a prisoner. They had to have had this planned as soon as they asked him to show up. As the older woman was beginning to stand, Hakari thought of something, anything, he could do.
He didn't have access to move his hands; he couldn't try to convince them. He had to break out. Sooner the better. Hakari shifted his legs back, getting his feet under him as he hunched his body over, attempting to bring his hands together to make the proper hand seal for his domain, made harder by the fact that the chains that held his arms by his side were coming from his palms rather than his wrists, being made by a blessing.
Hakari's arms stressed, veins bulging as he tried to fight the chains as they fought him. The old lady was looking with a passive, stern gaze, as if trying to will him to give up and accept his fate. Hakari let his eyes catch hers, glaring up at her, before he looked down at his hands, no closer to being in the right positions.
Within Hakari's mind, his hope of making the hand sign was strong enough to form, for him, a binding vow. Hakari could feel the will of his cursed energy shift along his hands, as if stretching to properly meet, as it needed when he activated his domain, even as his hands were pulled further and further apart.
"Our interviews also let us deduce how your technique is used." The senior shrine maiden said, turning to walk away. "Without your hands, you won't be able to esc-"
"Domain Expansion: Idle Death Gamble."
The superintendent of the Ohmyou Agency turned in shock and saw Hakari was gone.
All that was left in the barrier was a floating sphere of pure darkness, roughly double the size of a basketball.
She didn't have a chance to speak, to issue a command, when the sphere visibly cracked.
And she, along with the shrine maidens in the room and Dr Hayabusa, bore witness to true malevolence.