The silence that descended upon the classroom was heavier than any shout. It was a thick, suffocating thing, pregnant with the residual killing intent of a Special Grade curse. Rika's monstrous hands had receded into the shadows, but the sheer, overwhelming pressure of her Cursed Energy still clung to the air like a foul miasma, a stark reminder of the monster lurking behind Yuta Okkotsu's terrified, tear-streaked face.
Maki was the first to recover, her shock quickly morphing into a white-hot fury. She was breathing heavily, not from exertion, but from the adrenaline of a near-death experience. She stared at Yuta, not as a classmate, but as a bomb that had almost detonated in her face.
"You… you bastard," she seethed, her hand tightening on the Cursed Tool at her waist. "You brought that thing here?"
"I-I'm sorry," Yuta stammered, curling in on himself as if to physically disappear. "I didn't… She just… I can't control her!"
"Then you don't belong here!" Maki shot back. "You're not a sorcerer, you're a menace waiting to happen!"
"Okaka," Toge said sharply, stepping slightly in front of Maki, a warning in his single word. 'Knock it off.'
Panda nodded in agreement, his usual cheerful demeanor replaced by a serious caution. "Maki, that's enough. Gojo-sensei brought him here for a reason. And… did you feel that power? That's not something you just get by accident."
Satoru, who had been watching the entire exchange with an unnerving, analytical cheer, clapped his hands together. "Exactly, Panda! That's Rika-chan! She's a little overprotective, but her heart's in the right place. Probably. Anyway," he said, turning his attention to all of us, "this is a perfect teaching moment. The world of Jujutsu isn't about stable, controllable Cursed Techniques. It's messy. It's dangerous. And now, Yuta is your problem to solve. Your mission, as his classmates, is to help him learn to control Rika, and your other mission is to not get killed by her in the process. Team-building exercise!"
With that, he vanished, leaving the four of us in the tense, Cursed-Energy-thick air with the weeping new student. The message was clear: sink or swim, together.
Maki just scoffed in disgust and stormed out of the classroom. Panda and Toge exchanged a worried look before following her, likely to try and calm her down. I was left alone with Yuta, who was still trembling, his apologies now just quiet, broken sobs.
For a long moment, I just watched him. I saw the pathetic, terrified boy, but my Stygian Eyes saw the truth beneath: a maelstrom of Cursed Energy that dwarfed my own, a soul so potent that it had inadvertently shackled the ghost of his lost love to the mortal coil. He was a paradox, a vessel of unimaginable power who possessed zero confidence or control.
I walked over and sat down at the desk next to his. He flinched, expecting another verbal assault.
"It's okay to be scared of it," I said softly.
He looked up, his tear-filled eyes wide with surprise.
"Power you can't control," I continued, my gaze distant as I thought of my own struggles. The terror of seeing the world as a cracked and broken thing. The difficulty of mastering Gray without accidentally manifesting a nightmare. "It feels more like a curse than a gift. I understand that."
This small offering of empathy seemed to do what Maki's hostility and Satoru's flippancy could not. It cracked his shell of fear. "She… she wasn't always like this," he whispered, his voice hoarse. "Rika-chan was… she was a sweet girl. We were going to get married. And then the accident…" His face crumpled. "It's my fault. I'm the one who did this to her. I'm the one who cursed her."
"No, you're not," I said, my voice firm but gentle, echoing the words Satoru had once said. "Love is the most twisted curse of all. You didn't curse her, Yuta-kun. You just didn't want to let her go. And she loved you so much, she refused to leave. That kind of bond… it creates an immense amount of power. It's not your fault. But," I added, my crimson eyes meeting his, "it is your responsibility."
He stared at me, a dawning understanding on his face.
"Running from it won't work," I told him. "Trying to die won't work. She won't let you. The only way forward is to get strong enough to face her. Strong enough to control that power. Strong enough to unravel the curse yourself. You can't do it alone. But we can help you."
It was the first time since he'd arrived that anyone had offered him a solution instead of scorn or a clinical diagnosis. For the first time, a flicker of something other than fear appeared in his eyes. It was a tiny, fragile spark of hope.
A few days later, Satoru decided our "team-building" needed a practical exam. He assigned us our first mission as a five-person group.
"There have been reports of children disappearing from an elementary school in the area," he explained, pinning a case file to the classroom blackboard. "The building is crawling with low-grade curses. The mission is simple: go in, exorcise the curses, and rescue any missing children. A perfect warm-up!" He then grinned. "I'm partnering Yuta with Maki!"
The groan from Maki was audible from across the room. "You've got to be kidding me. I'm not babysitting this guy."
"Think of it as a challenge!" Satoru chirped. "You, who has no Cursed Energy, and him, who has too much to control. You can learn from each other! Toge, Panda, you're one team. Aki," he said, his tone shifting slightly, "you're with Maki and Yuta. Your job is to make sure they don't kill each other before the curses do. You're the supervisor."
It was a classic Satoru move: forcing his most volatile students together in a high-stress environment and calling it education. I simply nodded. I knew this was a test, not just for Yuta, but for all of us.
The elementary school was even creepier than the report suggested. It was late afternoon, but the building was cast in a premature twilight, the windows dark and empty like vacant eyes. The moment we all stepped past the gates, the world shimmered, and a dark, semi-opaque barrier crashed down around the school grounds, sealing us inside.
"A curtain," Maki grunted, unimpressed. "Amateur hour. But it means they knew we were coming."
"Salmon, salmon." (Be careful.)
We entered the silent building, the five of us moving down a long, dark hallway. The only sound was the faint, nervous squeak of Yuta's shoes. The plan was for Panda and Toge to sweep the upper floors while Maki, Yuta, and I cleared the ground floor.
The curses were small and weak, as predicted. They were grotesque things, misshapen amalgamations of children's fears—things with too many eyes, things that scuttled in the shadows. Maki was a whirlwind of brutal efficiency. She moved with a dancer's grace and a demolitions expert's impact, her polearm a blur as she smashed, crushed, and impaled every curse that appeared. She was pointedly ignoring Yuta, showing off her skill, her message clear: This is how a real sorcerer fights. What can you do?
Yuta, meanwhile, was useless. He was paralyzed with fear, flinching at every shadow, his hands clamped over his mouth as if to hold Rika in.
"Are you just going to stand there and tremble?" Maki snapped after exorcising a particularly nasty-looking curse. "Some help you are."
"I-I'm sorry…" he stammered.
It was then that we heard it. A child's whimper, coming from the gymnasium at the end of the hall. We rushed in to find a horrifying sight. A massive curse, far larger and more powerful than the others, squatted in the center of the gym. It was a bulbous, fleshy creature, and embedded in its gelatinous body were two small, terrified children, trapped but still alive. The curse was feeding on their fear.
"Two hostages," I murmured, my Stygian Eyes instantly analyzing the situation. The lines of death on the curse were everywhere, but they were tangled with the faint, fragile life-lines of the children. A direct attack was too risky.
Maki didn't see the same problem. She saw a target. "Move, you two. I'll end this."
"Wait!" Yuta cried out. "The kids! If you attack it, you'll kill them too!"
"So?" Maki said, her voice cold and pragmatic. "We're Jujutsu Sorcerers. Our job is to exorcise curses. We can't save everyone. Sometimes you have to cut your losses."
Her words, so logical and so cruel, struck a nerve in Yuta. He stared at the crying children, at Maki's hard expression, and something inside him seemed to shift.
"No…" he whispered.
This was his moment. I knew I couldn't solve this problem for him. Black was too absolute. White was only a shield. My developing Gray was too unstable and esoteric for a rescue mission. The only one with the power to overwhelm the curse without killing the children was him. He just needed a push.
"She's right about one thing, Yuta-kun," I said, my voice cutting through the tension. He turned to look at me, his eyes wide and pleading. "We are sorcerers. And a sorcerer's power is meant to be used. You told me you wanted to live. You told me you wanted confidence. You won't find it by hiding. You want to save those children? Then you have to mean it. Rika isn't just a monster that haunts you. She is your power. So ask her for it. Not as a victim, but as her partner."
My words, combined with the desperate cries of the trapped children, finally broke through his wall of fear. His trembling stopped. He looked at the massive curse, and for the first time, there was not fear in his eyes, but a burning, protective fire. He unzipped his sword bag, pulling out the cheap katana Satoru had given him.
He took a deep breath. "Rika."
The air grew cold. The oppressive energy returned, a thousand times stronger, but this time it felt different. It felt… focused.
"Please," Yuta's voice was clear and strong. "Lend me your strength!"
"O K A Y !!"
The shriek came from everywhere at once. Rika manifested behind him, not as a chaotic mess of hands and teeth, but as a complete, horrifyingly powerful entity. She wrapped her massive arms around Yuta, her Cursed Energy flowing directly into him, into the cheap katana, turning it into a conduit of immense power.
"Let's go, Rika!" Yuta yelled, charging forward.
He moved with a speed and confidence that was utterly alien to the boy from moments before. He swung the sword, and it wasn't him swinging. It was him and Rika, a perfect union of human will and cursed power. The blade released a wave of pure, concentrated energy that struck the curse. The monstrous body was instantly vaporized, exorcised completely.
And the two children? They were left completely unharmed, gently deposited on the gymnasium floor as the curse dissolved around them.
Yuta stood over them, panting heavily, the immense power receding as Rika faded back into his shadow. Maki stared, her mouth slightly agape, completely stunned into silence. She had just witnessed the true, terrifying, and strangely heroic potential of the boy she had written off as pathetic.
He had taken his first real step. I watched him, a small, sad smile on my face. This was the beginning of Yuta Okkotsu, the sorcerer. And his journey, I knew, would lead him directly into a confrontation with the man I still thought of as my brother. The world was finally, truly, in motion.