A/N: this chapter was rushed so it's quality might be a bit low.
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The silence in Principal Yaga's office was thick enough to choke on. Gojo-sensei wasn't lounging. He was standing, arms crossed, his usual playful grin replaced by a thin, sharp line. The blindfold was off. The full, unsettling weight of the Six Eyes was fixed on the scroll in Yaga's hands.
"...And therefore, Special Grade Conditional Sorcerer Kaito Ishiguro is to be placed under heightened observation," Yaga read aloud, his voice a gravelly monotone. "All off-campus missions are hereby suspended pending review by the Security Council. His… unique technique requires further study to determine its long-term stability and threat to jujutsu society."
He set the scroll down. The official seal of the Jujutsu Higher-Ups glared up from the paper like a malevolent eye.
"Heightened observation," I repeated. "That's a fancy way of saying 'house arrest while we figure out how to dissect you,' right?"
"Essentially," Gojo said, popping the 'p'. He snatched the scroll from Yaga's desk. In a flash of blue, the paper was shredded into confetti, which he then casually ignited with a spark of cursed energy. The ashes drifted to the floor. "Denied!"
"Satoru," Yaga warned, but he sounded more tired than angry.
"Nope! My student. My rules. He's not a lab rat, he's a valuable asset!" Gojo's grin returned, but it didn't reach his eyes. "Besides, Geto knows about him now. Locking him up here just makes him a sitting duck. He needs to get stronger. Fast."
The name 'Geto' hung in the air. Suguru Geto. The man who wanted to build a new world on a mountain of non-sorcerer corpses. And he was interested in me.
[Political analysis complete,] Great Sage chimed in. [Faction: 'Jujutsu Elders'. Designation of host: 'Asset-Risk'. Primary motivations: Fear of the unknown, preservation of traditional power structures. Probability of covert assassination attempt within next 30 days: 42.7%. Recommendation: Accelerate host's combat viability exponentially.]
"Great Sage agrees," I muttered.
"Your… internal consultant is wise," Gojo said, tapping the side of his head. "You survived a probe because you're weird. Next time, they'll send something meant to capture or contain. You need to be more than weird. You need to be sharp."
He leaned in, his blue eyes boring into mine. "Your control is garbage. You have the finesse of a tsunami. You rely entirely on that nifty mouth of yours. What happens when you can't eat something? What happens when you need to protect someone without consuming the threat?"
I didn't have an answer.
"Exactly," Gojo said, straightening up. "So, homework! Figure it out! Your little voice and you need to have a come-to-Jesus meeting about cursed energy fundamentals. I'll handle the old farts. You handle not being a liability." He waved a dismissive hand. "Dismissed! Go contemplate your navel or whatever!"
As I left the office, the weight of it all settled on my shoulders. Geto wanted me. The higher-ups feared me. I was a first-year who'd stopped a falling crate by eating its momentum, and now I was on everyone's radar.
I found myself in the empty training hall, the echoes of my own frustration bouncing off the wooden walls.
"Alright, Sage," I said aloud. "You heard the man. My control is garbage. How do we fix it?"
[Query acknowledged. Host's current Cursed Energy manipulation is rated: 'Instinctual, Wasteful, Aestheticly Pleasing Only In Its Chaos'. A complete restructuring is required.]
A flicker in my vision. Then, the world changed.
It was like putting on high-tech augmented reality glasses. A shimmering, luminous blue network overlay my own body, my Cursed Energy pathways. I could see the flow, bright and thick around my core, but becoming erratic and sputtering as it reached my limbs. Leaks appeared as faint, dissipating wisps from my shoulders and knees. Waste.
[Visualization Module: Online. This is your energy, host. Currently, you are hemorrhaging 34% of your output as inefficiency. Observe.]
A simple command from my brain to channel energy to my fist resulted in a wild surge through the blue network, like a firehose with no nozzle, spraying power everywhere before a weak coating finally settled over my hand.
"It looks… stupid," I admitted.
[Accurate. Now, we begin Project: 'Sparks Will Fly'. Phase One: Precision.]
For the next five hours, Great Sage put me through hell. It wasn't physical. It was mental, spiritual torture.
· Geometric Imprisonment: I had to shape my cursed energy into perfect, rotating cubes, then spheres, then tetrahedrons, holding them stable in my palm. The first hundred attempts looked like angry smoke clouds. Great Sage offered color-corrected holographic models for me to match.
· Flow Regulation: I had to maintain a specific, low-level output of energy, a steady hum, while walking, jumping, doing push-ups. Any spike or drop resulted in a piercing mental chime from Sage. [Variance exceeding 0.5%. Focus.]
· Barrier Weaving: The simplest of barriers, just a pane of reinforced energy. Mine flickered like a bad neon sign. Sage forced me to analyze its structure at a microscopic level, to see the weak points where my will wavered.
It was tedious. It was maddening. But something shifted. With Sage's real-time feedback, I wasn't guessing. I was debugging my own soul. I could see the problem and correct it instantly.
By the time the dinner bell rang, I was mentally exhausted, drenched in sweat. But I could hold a shimmering, stable cube of cursed energy in one hand and a crackling sphere in the other. The leaks from my joints had reduced to barely visible trickles.
[Efficiency improvement: 28%. Acceptable progress for Day One.]
As I stumbled into the communal dining area, I must have looked like a zombie.
Panda sniffed the air. "Whoa. You smell like… ozone and a mental breakdown. New cologne?"
"Training," I grunted, collapsing at the table.
Maki eyed me from across the table as she neatly ate her rice. "You're moving differently. Less… flaily."
"Thanks. I think."
Toge nodded. "Salmon." (Smoother.)
Yuta gave me a sympathetic look. "Gojo-sensei's special training?"
"Something like that." I shoveled food into my mouth. Great Sage had already calculated the optimal caloric intake to replenish my spent energy. [14 more grams of protein required. Consume the fish.]
The next few days fell into a new rhythm. Morning classes. Afternoon Hell-Sage Bootcamp. Evenings trying not to fall asleep in my soup. My perception kept evolving. I could now, with concentration, see the cursed energy of others as a colored aura. Maki was a void, a fascinating blank space surrounded by the sharp silver of her weapons' imbued energy. Panda was a warm, pulsing golden core. Toge had a vibrant, speech-bound green aura around his throat. Yuta… Yuta was a howling, dark sun, constantly swirling, with tendrils of that deep purple energy leaking out and being gently pulled back by the faint, sorrowful pink aura that was Rika's bond.
It was beautiful and terrifying.
One Week Later - The Courtyard
"Again," Maki said, hefting her staff.
We were sparring. But this time, it was different. With my new perception active, I could see the minute tensing of her calf muscle a fraction of a second before she moved. I could see the flow of her intent, if not her energy. It wasn't prediction anymore. It was precognition.
I didn't just dodge her first strike. I slipped inside its arc before it fully developed. Her eyes widened. I didn't have a clean shot, but on pure, optimized instinct, I flicked my index finger forward, launching a needle-thin beam of condensed cursed energy.
It wasn't an attack. It was a punctuation mark.
Thwap.
It hit her squarely in the center of her forehead.
She froze. I froze. Panda, who was spotting, dropped his weights with a ground-shaking thud.
Slowly, Maki reached up and touched the spot. There was no damage, not even a red mark, just the lingering tingle of concentrated energy. She looked from her fingers to me.
Then, she smirked. It wasn't a friendly expression. It was the smile of a shark that had found something worth biting. "Okay," she said, her voice low. "Now you're interesting."
My heart did a traitorous somersault.
[Physiological response noted. Heart rate increase: 40%. Pupillary dilation. Social bonding event 'Shared Martial Respect' logged. Designation for Subject Zenin updated from 'High Threat' to 'High Threat / Primary Ally (Romantic Subtext Parameters: Active).']
"Shut up," I muttered internally.
"What?" Maki asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Nothing! Your… form was good!"
She rolled her eyes and reset her stance. "Don't get cocky. You still hit like a kitten."
But the next bout was different. She stopped holding back. She came at me with a speed and ferocity that pushed my new perception to its limit. I wasn't winning, but I was surviving, parrying, redirecting, using minimal, hyper-efficient movements. We moved in a furious, silent dance of wood and energy, the thwack of her staff against my forearms the only rhythm.
Afterwards, panting and bruised, I sat against the wall. She tossed me a water bottle.
"Your efficiency's better," she stated. "You're not wasting movements. Or energy."
"Had a good teacher," I said, drinking deeply.
She sat down next to me, not too close, but closer than before. "This Geto thing," she said, looking out at the fading sunset. "It's serious. He doesn't send flunkies for no reason. He's scouting you."
"I know."
"When he comes," she said, her voice flat and certain, "you're going to try to eat something you shouldn't. Something too big, too clever."
"Probably."
She turned her head, her glasses glinting in the orange light. "Don't die doing it." She paused, then added, almost as an afterthought, "It'd be a waste of my training time."
The subtext was clear as day: Don't die.
Before I could formulate a non-idiotic response, the emergency alarms blared across the campus, a harsh, electronic wail that shredded the evening calm.
Yaga's voice boomed from the intercom. "All students to defensive positions! Unauthorized curse incursion at the perimeter barriers! This is not a drill!"
We were on our feet in an instant. Maki snatched up her spear. Panda and Toge burst from the dorm. Yuta emerged, his face pale but set, the ring on his finger glowing faintly.
The attack wasn't subtle. From the forest edge, a wave of curses, Grades 3 and 4, dozens of them, scrambled, slithered, and flew toward the school grounds. But they moved wrong. Not with mindless hunger, but with a horrible, coordinated purpose. They were being herded. Directed.
[Analysis: Curse manipulation on a mass scale. Technique signature matches previous encounter. This is a coordinated probe. Objective likely: Distraction or testing of response.]
"They're testing the barriers!" Panda yelled, readying himself.
"They're testing us," Maki corrected, her spear held ready.
The curses hit the outermost barrier. The air shimmered. And then, in a move of shocking, intelligent malice, a cluster of the curses self-destructed at a single, weak nodal point in the barrier. The concussion was deafening. The barrier didn't fall, but it flickered, and a hole ripped open just long enough for the main swarm to pour through.
"Here they come!" I shouted.
Chaos. Panda roared, wading into the fray, his fists smashing curses apart. Toge's voice cut through the noise, "Don't move!" freezing a group in their tracks. Maki was a whirlwind of precise, lethal motion, her spear a blur that left dissolving curses in its wake.
Yuta stood back, hands raised, dark energy crackling. But he hesitated, his eyes darting, looking for the biggest threat, worried about collateral damage.
And me? I didn't charge in. I activated my new sight. The world became a lattice of blue (my energy), gold (Panda), green (Toge), silver (Maki's tools), and the swirling black and pink maelstrom of Yuta. And everywhere, the sickly, controlled yellow of the invading curses.
I saw the threads. Fine, almost invisible lines of manipulative energy leading from the back of each curse, back into the forest. Geto's strings.
My role became clear instantly.
I didn't go for the curses. I went for the strings.
Darting through the chaos, I dodged claws and fangs. When a curse lunged, I didn't eat the curse. I focused, my hand shooting out, and with a whisper of "Predator," I took a tiny, focused bite of the air behind it.
Snap.
The manipulative thread severed. The curse's eyes cleared of compelled fury, replaced by confusion and base instinct. It turned on the curse next to it.
"Maki! Three o'clock, confused one!" I yelled.
She didn't question it. Her spear lanced out, exorcising the now-isolated curse with ease.
I became a ghost in the battle, a surgical striker. Snap. A thread cut, a curse freed and disoriented. Snap. Snap. I moved with an economy of motion Great Sage had beaten into me, my energy tightly controlled, my movements predictive. I was weaving through Maki's kills, Panda's smashes, Toge's commands, turning Geto's controlled army against itself.
I saw Yuta finally unleash a controlled blast, vaporizing a cluster. He saw what I was doing. Our eyes met across the battlefield. He gave a sharp nod. He would be the hammer. I would be the needle.
We fell into a brutal, unspoken rhythm. It was working.
Then, from the forest, a new signal. A piercing whistle. The remaining curses, half their strings cut, suddenly disengaged. Not fleeing in panic, but retreating in order, covering each other.
The attack was over as suddenly as it began.
We stood panting in the suddenly quiet courtyard, surrounded by dissolving curse remnants. No one was seriously hurt. The school was intact.
But it was a message. Loud and clear.
Panda broke the silence. "Well. That was a rude welcome."
"They weren't trying to win," Maki said, wiping curse gunk from her glasses. "They were watching. Learning."
Yuta walked over to me, his expression grim. "They were learning about you, Kaito. The way you were cutting their control… they saw that."
[Conclusion: Probe successful for aggressor. Host's disruptive capabilities confirmed. Probability of targeted, high-level retaliation within 7 days: 78%.] Great Sage's tone was clinical, but the numbers were a death knell.
Gojo appeared then, not with his usual flashy entrance, but just… there, standing on the path. He wasn't smiling. "The main event's been moved up," he said, his voice devoid of all humor. "Geto's making his play for the vault tonight. This was the curtain-raiser." He looked at all of us, his gaze finally landing on me and Yuta. "You two. You're the wild cards he didn't account for. Get ready. The real fight starts now."
As he teleported away, the weight of his words settled on us. The training, the fear, the politics, it all funneled to this. Tonight.
Maki shouldered her spear and walked past me. She stopped, glanced back. "Interesting trick with the strings," she said. Then, quieter, "Don't die tonight, Ishiguro. It'd piss me off."
She continued toward the dorm, likely to sharpen every weapon she owned.
Yuta looked at the forest, then at his ring. "I… I don't want to use Rika's full power. But to protect everyone…"
"We'll do it together," I said, the words feeling true as I said them. "You're the anvil. I'll be the scalpel."
He managed a determined, if shaky, smile. "Freaks of a feather."
Back in my room, as I checked the energy flows in my body one last time, Great Sage delivered its final assessment.
[Host's Cursed Energy Manipulation Mastery: Currently rated 'Competent'. Efficiency: 89%. Control: Precise. Physical Optimization: 47% complete. Tactical integration with primary allies: Established.]
[Predator's conceptual application protocols: Updated. Ready for high-intensity conflict.]
[Final advisement: The entity Suguru Geto represents a fusion of vast power and ideological conviction. He will attempt to persuade or break you. Do not listen. Simply fight.]
[And host?]
"Yeah?"
[Remember the cube. Remember the flow. When the moment comes… do not think. Strike. The spark will follow.]
I nodded, closing my eyes, centering myself. The calm before the storm.
Outside, the moon rose, full and cold. The Night Parade was about to begin.
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Word Count: ~2,700
A/N: Yo wsg, you guys might find this chap a bit bland... And I have a excuse for that 💀. It's because I was busy and I had other work to do, also the next chap was also rushed, I apologize for any inconvenience, anyways. (throw some stones if you want to see more chapters)