A/N: "Gege Akutami writes characters like: 'Oh you like them? My bad.'"
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The next few days passed in a blur of surreal normalcy. I attended classes in a building that smelled of old wood and existential dread, ate meals prepared by a panda who took culinary arts suspiciously seriously, and tried not to stare at Maki Zenin during weapons drills.
Mostly, I failed at that last one.
[Host's ocular fixation on Subject Zenin has increased by 18% during today's training session. Pupillary dilation suggests admiration for her form. Specifically, the 'Reverse Grip Disarm, Variation Three'. Or possibly her legs. Data inconclusive.]
"I'm analyzing her technique," I muttered under my breath during a lull in Jujutsu History. "For survival."
[A likely story. Your cortisol levels suggest otherwise.]
I was saved from further internal roasting by the door sliding open with a dramatic whoosh. Gojo Satoru leaned against the frame, a white-haired monument to casual chaos.
"Kaito-kun! Teacher time! Let's go have a little chat about your… dietary habits!"
Every head turned toward me. Maki's eyebrow arched. Panda gave me a sympathetic look. Toge muttered, "Okaka…" which Great Sage translated as ['He's in for it.']
Yuta, sitting two rows over, offered a small, nervous smile that said, 'Good luck, we'll mourn you.'
I sighed, gathering my untouched notebook. "Do I need to bring anything? A waiver? A stomach pump?"
"Just your adorable self!" Gojo chirped, already bouncing down the hall.
I followed him to a sparse, sunlit room that looked more like a meditation chamber than an office. He flopped onto a cushion, gesturing for me to sit opposite. He'd removed his blindfold, and the full force of his Six Eyes was unnerving. It felt less like being looked at, and more like being scanned, down to my molecular structure.
"So!" He clapped his hands together. "Let's talk about what you shouldn't put in your mouth."
"This is not the talk I expected to have with my sensei."
"Life is full of surprises! Rule number one: Fingers." He held up his own index finger, waggling it. "Specifically, any finger that looks like it belongs to a thousand-year-old curse king with a bad attitude and worse interior decorating sense. Sukuna's fingers are a no-nibble zone."
[He is correct. Based on data from Subject Yuta's attached spirit, a single finger contains cursed energy density comparable to a low-yield tactical curse. Full integration would require a host vessel of exceptional durability or a binding vow. Your current durability is rated: 'Crunchy'.]
"Noted," I said. "No cursed king digits. What else?"
"Sentient Special Grades. Not because you can't, maybe you could take a bite, but because they have personalities! And memories! Eating one would be like chugging a gallon of someone else's trauma. Messy. You'd probably start speaking in their voice. Imagine walking around saying 'The beauty of humanity's extinction…' all the time. Weird."
"So, no evil monologues via indigestion. Got it."
"Exactly! Also, cursed objects with strong wills. Some swords are grumpy. Some ropes are clingy. It's a whole thing." He leaned forward, his playful tone dropping a fraction. "Most importantly, Kaito… people. Sorcerers. Curse users. Even if they attack you with a technique. Consuming a human's cursed energy… that's crossing a line even this world has. It makes you something they'd have no choice but to label a 'curse' themselves. And then I'd have to kill you." He smiled, and it was the least friendly thing I'd ever seen. "And I'd really rather not! You're amusing!"
The message was clear: there were lines. And he was drawing them for me.
"Understood, Sensei."
"Great!" The manic energy returned. "Now, the fun part! I've told the old geezers upstairs about you! Framed it as a revolutionary new waste management system! They're… concerned. Some want you dissected. Some want you sealed. I told them to take a number and get in line behind my lunch plans." He waved a dismissive hand. "Don't worry about them. Just don't give them an obvious reason to come after you. Like eating a person."
"Noted."
"Your official classification is 'Special Grade Sorcerer – Conditional'." He grinned. "Fancy, huh? It mostly means you're too weird to fit in the other boxes. Now! Your first real mission!"
He tossed a scroll into my lap. It was old-school, tied with a black cord.
"Simple reconnaissance. A series of curse manifestations in warehouses near the docks. Low-grade stuff, but the pattern is odd. You'll be going with Yuta. Good for you two to bond! Freaks of a feather!"
My stomach did a weird flip. A mission. With Yuta. The guy with enough power to accidentally flatten a city block if he sneezed wrong.
[Mission parameters accepted. Partner: Yuta Okkutsu. Advantages: Immense power reservoir. Disadvantages: Emotional volatility, poor control, attached super-powered ghost girlfriend. Suggested strategy: Let him take point, provide support, analyze everything.]
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An hour later, Yuta and I stood at the edge of a dilapidated industrial district. The air smelled of salt, rust, and something faintly metallic, cursed energy. He looked even more anxious outside the school grounds, his shoulders tense, eyes darting to every shadow.
"So," I said, breaking the heavy silence. "Reconnaissance. We look, we maybe exorcise some small fries, we report back."
"Right," Yuta said, his voice soft. He kept glancing at the ring on his finger. "I'm… sorry. If I'm not much help. Rika… she's calm right now, but…"
"Hey," I said, surprising myself. "No apologies. We've both got weird stuff going on. I've got a voice in my head that critiques my life choices. You've got a… super-powered guardian angel with separation anxiety. It's fine."
He blinked, then a faint, real smile touched his lips. "You call Great Sage a voice in your head?"
"He's like a really judgmental GPS. Currently, he's calculating the probability of us getting ambushed in the next five minutes."
[Probability: 34%. Rising. Detecting multiple low-grade cursed energy signatures converging on the third warehouse to the left. They are… herded.]
"Scratch that," I said, my voice dropping. "He says they're being herded. Towards us. That's not normal curse behavior."
Yuta's expression shifted from anxious to focused. The air around him chilled slightly. "A trap?"
"Or a welcome party." I cracked my neck. "You wanna go say hello?"
He nodded, and we moved toward the warehouse. The large rolling door was slightly ajar. Inside was cavernous, dark, and full of the skittering, chittering sounds of multiple curses. As our eyes adjusted, we saw them, a dozen or more small, malformed Grade 3 and 4 curses, crawling over stacked crates and rusted machinery. But they weren't attacking each other. They were moving in a sluggish, coordinated way, like puppets.
In the center of the space stood two figures. They wore dark, mismatched clothing and had the sharp, hungry look of predators. Curse users.
"Well, well," the taller one, a woman with hair shaved on one side, drawled. "The little birdies said Geto-sama might get a two-for-one special today. The Vessel… and the Glutton."
My blood ran cold. Geto. Suguru Geto. The guy who wanted to exterminate all non-sorcerers. The mastermind behind the upcoming Night Parade.
[Hostiles identified. Curse Users. Utilizing low-level manipulation technique to herd minor curses. Threat level individually: Grade 2. Threat level together with controlled curse swarm: Semi-Grade 1. Objective: Capture or eliminate.]
"They know about me," Yuta whispered, horrified.
"And me," I said. "Great. My fame precedes me."
"Geto-sama is very interested in you, eater-boy," the second curse user, a lanky man with a sneer, said. "A sorcerer who consumes curses? He thinks you might see things his way. Or, you know, we just bring him your body to study."
"Hard pass," I said.
The woman snapped her fingers. The herded curses, their eyes glowing with compelled rage, surged toward us in a screeching wave.
"Yuta!" I yelled.
He didn't hesitate. He stepped forward, hand outstretched. A torrent of raw, dark cursed energy erupted from him, sweeping through the front line of curses. They dissolved into smoke with pathetic wails. The sheer, effortless power was still terrifying to witness.
But the curse users were ready. While Yuta was clearing the swarm, the man lunged at him, a cursed energy-enhanced knife appearing in his hand. The woman came for me, her hands moving in a complex seal.
"Let's see what you can eat, glutton!" she hissed. The shadows at my feet erupted into grasping, whip-like tendrils of cursed energy.
[Technique: 'Shadow Bind'. Cursed energy given malleable, semi-solid form. Recommended counter: Predator, localized.]
I didn't try to eat all the shadows. I focused, as Great Sage guided, on the "core" of the technique, the point where her energy manifested into the first tendril. I opened my mouth and bit down on the empty air in front of me.
There was a horrible tearing sensation, and the shadow tendrils reaching for my ankles flickered and dissolved. The woman staggered, her technique disrupted.
"What?!"
I didn't give her time to recover. I charged, channeling cursed energy into my fist the way Gojo had vaguely demonstrated. It felt clumsy, but it was something. She parried with a forearm block, hissing in pain as my energy crackled against hers.
Meanwhile, Yuta was holding off the other user and the remaining curses. He was powerful but… messy. His movements were defensive, reactive. He wasn't using Rika, just his own vast reserves, and he was wasting energy with wide, unfocused blasts.
[Subject Yuta's efficiency rating: D-. Power output to effect ratio is disastrous. He is attempting to boil the ocean to kill a fish.]
"Yuta! Less ocean, more spear!" I shouted, ducking under a hook from my opponent.
He glanced at me, confused, then understanding dawned. He clenched his fist, and instead of a wave, he fired a concentrated beam of cursed energy, piercing through two curses and forcing the male curse user to dive for cover.
"Better!" I yelled.
My opponent was getting frustrated. "Annoying brat!" She disengaged, pulling a small, withered-looking talisman from her coat. A cursed tool. She spat blood on it, and it ignited with malevolent purple flame. "Let's see you eat this!"
She threw it. It wasn't aimed at me. It was aimed at the ceiling above Yuta, at a corroded support beam holding up a massive, rusted metal crate.
"Yuta, MOVE!" I screamed.
He looked up, eyes wide. The talisman hit the beam. There was a deafening crack, and several tons of metal began to fall directly toward him.
There was no time for thought. Only instinct.
[Predator. Maximum aperture. Target: The kinetic energy of the falling mass. The impact force.]
I didn't even know if that was possible. But I sprinted, leaped in front of Yuta, looked up at the crushing weight of steel, and opened my mouth as wide as I could.
The vortex that erupted was visible this time, a shimmering, silent distortion in the air above me. The falling crate didn't vanish. But its descent slowed, drastically. The terrible momentum, the force of its fall, was being siphoned away. It settled to the ground with a heavy, anti-climactic thud, not a devastating crash.
The strain was immediate and excruciating. It felt like my bones were vibrating apart. I tasted metal and static. I dropped to one knee, gasping.
The warehouse was silent. The two curse users stared, their faces pale with shock and fear.
Yuta was breathing heavily behind me. He placed a hesitant hand on my shoulder. "Kaito… you…"
The female curse user recovered first. "Geto-sama… will want him even more now," she whispered to her partner. They shared a look, then melted back into the deeper shadows of the warehouse, abandoning their controlled curses, which immediately began to flee or fight each other.
We let them go. We were in no shape to pursue.
After a minute, I managed to stand, my legs shaky. "Well," I croaked. "That was a thing."
Yuta was looking at me like I'd grown a second head. "You… you ate the force of that?"
"Apparently my stomach doesn't discriminate." I looked at the now-harmless crate. "Great Sage is currently having a philosophical crisis about thermodynamics."
[Correction: I am recalculating the upper limits of Predator's conceptual consumption. Also, host's caloric expenditure was equivalent to running three marathons. Recommend immediate ingestion of high-sugar food.]
"I need a burger. Or twelve."
Yuta's worried expression finally broke into a small, shaky laugh. "Thank you. You saved me."
"You would've been fine. You're basically a cursed energy fortress."
"No," he said, his smile fading into something more solemn. "I wouldn't have. I… I freeze. I hesitate. You don't." He looked down at his hands. "Rika protects me, but you… you just acted. For someone else."
The walk back to school was quieter, but the tension was different. Not awkward. Companionable.
As we reached the gates, Maki was there, leaning against the fencepost, arms crossed. Her eyes scanned us, taking in our disheveled state, my paleness, Yuta's thoughtful expression.
"You're late," she stated.
"Ran into some Geto fanclub members," I said. "They were recruiting. I declined."
Maki's eyes sharpened. "Geto?" She looked at Yuta, then back at me. "What happened?"
Yuta opened his mouth, but I cut in. "They knew about us. Both of us. They were testing." I met her gaze. "It's not just reconnaissance anymore, is it?"
Maki's jaw tightened. "No. It never really is." She pushed off the wall. "Go report to Yaga. Then get cleaned up. You look like death."
As she walked away, Yuta spoke softly. "She worries."
"She has a funny way of showing it."
"That's how she shows it."
Back in my room, lying on the futon, I replayed the mission. The curse users. The name Geto. The feeling of stopping several tons of metal with my face-hole.
[Mission Analysis Complete. Host performance: Adequate. Partner performance: Powerful but inefficient. New data on Predator's capabilities logged. Warning: Attention from major antagonist 'Suguru Geto' confirmed. Threat level: Catastrophic. Recommend accelerated training.]
"Yeah, yeah," I mumbled, closing my eyes. The image that floated behind my eyelids wasn't of the falling crate, or the curse users.
It was of Maki, waiting at the gate. Her sharp eyes checking us for injuries. Her version of concern.
[Heart rate elevated. Subject: Zenin Maki. File updated.]
"Oh, shut up," I said to the empty room, but I was smiling.
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Word Count: ~2,400
A/N: yo wsg, some of y'all need to understand that he isn't a overpowered Young Master from the beginning... He'll get stronger and stronger in time, but not from the beginning 💀. With that said how was the fighting scene? Good?, bad?, mid?. (throw some stones if you want to see more chapters.)