The black sedan passed through the ancient torii gate and into the grounds of Tokyo Jujutsu High, wrapped in the dense haze of its barrier.
Touma watched the familiar wooden buildings slide past the window, the moss-covered stone paths, and something distant flickered behind his eyes.
In the simulation's memories, he'd walked this road hunched and subservient, broom or paperwork in hand. Fetching Kikufuku for the white-haired young lord who propped his feet on every available surface. Handing towels to the bun-haired boy with the polished smile that never quite reached his eyes. .
Now he sat in the back seat of a private car, escorted here with deference by the Windows themselves.
Touma adjusted the glasses he wore as part of his cover, thumb tracing the hilt of Asakirimaru where it rested against his palm.
"This time," he murmured, too quiet for anyone else to hear, "I get to walk down the middle of the road."
No lights burned in the wide training hall. Cursed Energy pulsed through the air in slow, oppressive waves.
Masamichi Yaga sat with his back to the entrance, surrounded by a menagerie of dolls in every shape imaginable, each one uglier and more bizarrely endearing than the last. Needle and thread moved steadily in his hands as he stitched up a pink kappa plush.
"Touma Hayase, is it." Not a question. Yaga didn't turn around. His voice filled the room like granite settling. "I read the Windows' report. Fifteen years old, wild awakening, first fight and first kill. Impressive talent. But Jujutsu High isn't here to polish your ego. This place is the mouth of hell."
He spun around. Behind his dark glasses, his eyes cut like searchlights.
"Tell me why you're here. If it's for the thrill of power, or some half-baked sense of justice, turn around and get out."
No pause for reflection. No window for a composed answer. The moment Yaga's last word left his lips, the pink kappa Cursed Corpse erupted.
Its fist, cotton on the outside and crushing force beneath, tore through the air with a scream of displaced wind, hurtling straight for Touma's face.
Cursed Energy Allergy fired. The faint currents of Cursed Energy in the air magnified a hundredfold in his perception.
In the instant before knuckles met nose, Touma twisted sideways. The blow missed by a hair's breadth.
He didn't retreat. He closed the gap instead, left hand shooting out like a striking snake, and clamped down on the kappa's shoulder.
Phantom Night Parade. Activate.
[Analyzing...]
[Target: Masamichi Yaga.]
[Detected: technique identical to Sato's. Both utilize puppet panipulation. Comprehension significantly upgraded.]
[Simulation memory cross-reference: analysis depth significantly upgraded.]
The Cursed Energy threads that had looked like incomprehensible tangles before now resolved into sharp clarity. Sato's Puppet Manipulation served as a foundation, a low-resolution map that Phantom Night Parade could now overlay onto the real thing. In a flash, Touma identified the critical Cursed Energy nodes Yaga had embedded inside the Corpse's body.
"Answer me!" Yaga barked, fingers twitching as he prepared to send the Corpse after its target.
"The reason's simple." Touma's voice was so calm it clashed against the violence of the moment. Even as he spoke, his Cursed Energy gnawed furiously at the Corpse's control circuits. His gaze never left Yaga. "It's because I've seen..." He paused, deliberate, and that half-finished sentence hooked Yaga's attention exactly the way he'd intended. A Grade 1 sorcerer's instinct to listen, exploited for one critical heartbeat.
Now.
"...that the weak don't even get to choose how they die."
The words left his mouth and his eyes went cold. The Cursed Energy he'd been building slammed through the Corpse's control pathways like a flood through a dam.
The kappa's fist, mid-swing toward Touma, seized up.
Then, as Yaga watched with open shock, the Cursed Corpse wrenched itself around and drove that same Cursed-Energy-laden fist straight at its master's face.
Wind ruffled Yaga's cropped hair. One centimeter from his sunglasses, the fist stopped.
Yaga raised an eyebrow. One finger curled.
An ocean of Cursed Energy crashed back through every circuit, grinding Touma's crude intrusion to dust. The kappa went limp, arms dropping to its sides like a marionette with cut strings. Obedient once more.
The attack hadn't landed. It didn't need to. Touma had made his point.
He let go, stepped back half a pace, and straightened his rumpled collar.
Yaga studied the young man in front of him. Silence held for a long moment before the corner of his mouth twitched, barely perceptible.
"The Windows' report mentioned your technique seems capable of replicating others' techniques. And the last one you replicated was the Puppet Manipulation belonging to the Assistant Manager who died. You used that foundation to decode my Corpse's structure in an instant... and while answering my question, you used your words to divert my attention and tried to hijack my own Cursed Corpse against me?"
Yaga pushed his glasses up. The edge in his voice had softened, replaced by something warmer. "Greedy. Audacious. You'll make a fine sorcerer."
BANG!
The door to the principal's office flew open, kicked clean off its courtesy.
"Ha ha ha ha! Yaga! Did that ugly thing just try to punch you?! I saw it! It totally tried to deck you!" A voice barged in, brash and young and loud enough to shatter the gravity of the room.
Touma turned.
Three figures in Jujutsu High uniforms strolled through the doorway.
The current first-years. The generation they called the strongest.
"Satoru, we should be polite to the new student." Geto's tone was mild, but his gaze had already locked onto Touma with an intensity that belied his manners. "That moment just now... your Cursed Energy wavelength shifted to match Yaga-sensei's. What a fascinating technique."
"Who cares about that!" Gojo closed the distance to Touma in three long strides and shoved his face forward until their noses were practically touching. Offensively handsome up close. He pulled off his sunglasses, and those pale blue eyes, the Six Eyes, blazed like twin gems, scanning Touma from every conceivable angle with zero pretense of subtlety.
"Hey, new kid." The grin widened, laced with challenge. "I heard you can copy techniques. So how about you try copying mine?" One finger rose between them. At its tip, the warped haze of the Limitless coiled and shimmered.
Touma stared into those eyes. In the simulations, he'd never dared meet them. Not once. But now he held the gaze and let the technique unfold.
Phantom Night Parade.
Activate.
[Analyzing...]