["I think I get what you want. Probably why you came to me too."]
["But let me be honest first. Everyone's situation is different. I might not be able to give you what you're hoping for."]
["You know your body isn't like a normal sorcerer's. Mine included. The only person you really have anything in common with is Toji Zenin. You don't have a Cursed Technique, and your Cursed Energy is so low it's basically negligible. Standard jujutsu training won't do much for you."]
["So even knowing that, even knowing I may not be able to give you some huge breakthrough in physical combat, you still want to stay here and learn from me?"]
[Maki slowly raised her head. Surprise showed plainly on her face.]
[That wasn't the answer she'd prepared for.]
[Before coming here, she'd probably run through every ugly possibility she could think of. A flat refusal because she wasn't worth the trouble. A polite brush-off followed by a quiet message to the Zenin clan telling them to come collect their unwanted problem.]
[What she hadn't expected was honesty. The kind that stung a little because it wasn't trying to flatter her.]
[She looked at you carefully.]
[Time had sharpened your features, but your eyes hadn't changed.]
[There was none of that measuring look Zenin people had, the one that priced human beings like livestock. No smug pity. No condescension.]
[Just one thing.]
[You were looking at her like she was a person.]
[An equal.]
[Someone worth basic respect.]
[What you didn't realize was that, from her point of view, you were already the only choice she had left.]
[In this jujutsu world, where prejudice had soaked into everything, she couldn't think of anyone else strong enough, or willing enough, to treat her like she actually mattered.]
[After a long silence, the uncertainty in Maki Zenin's eyes hardened into something like iron. The kind of resolve that keeps slamming itself into the wall until either the wall breaks or you do.]
["Yes! Even if it turns out exactly like you said, even if I don't get anything out of it..."]
[Her fists tightened.]
["I still want to stay at Jujutsu High and learn from you!"]
[You watched her for a few seconds, then let out a quiet breath.]
[If you were being objective, you didn't think of yourself as some hand-to-hand genius, and your cursed tool skills weren't anything special either. Most of your fighting style leaned hard on your Innate Technique and all the ridiculous passive effects stacked on top of it.]
[Still.]
[She was a kid who'd clawed her way out of a place that ate people alive.]
[Looking at her reminded you, a little, of yourself back when survival had been the only thing that mattered.]
[If you could help, you wanted to.]
[Yaga didn't object. He agreed to let Maki stay and study at Jujutsu High.]
[But the second you tried to push her through the official process and register her as a first-year at Tokyo Jujutsu High, trouble started. The higher-ups pushed back. The Zenin clan pushed back too.]
[From their perspective, Maki had no Innate Technique. Her Cursed Energy was practically nonexistent. She couldn't even see Cursed Spirits on her own.]
[To those rotten old fossils, someone like her didn't deserve to be called a jujutsu sorcerer. At best she was a servant. And the Zenin clan, not wanting their family's "blemish" showing up in public, happily added more pressure.]
[The end result was simple. Maki could stay at the school, but she couldn't be officially added to this year's first-year roster in time.]
[She didn't care.]
[Not even a little.]
[As long as she could get stronger, she'd stay as an auditing student, an unregistered extra, whatever they wanted to call it. She accepted the arrangement without complaint and remained at Jujutsu High anyway.]
[That same year, the school did get two official new first-years.]
[Kinji Hakari, who looked like he'd stepped straight off a delinquent wanted poster, and Kirara Hoshi, stylish and eye-catching with a full gyaru vibe.]
[One thing worth mentioning, despite Kirara's long hair, cute feminine look, and the kind of mannerisms that practically shouted girlish charm, he was biologically male.]
[You didn't claim to understand every piece of how young people expressed themselves these days, but you had the bare minimum decency and open-mindedness expected of an adult. Unlike certain museum exhibits in the upper ranks, you never asked him anything rude or invasive.]
[At some point, Hakari and Kirara started moving as a pair. Close enough, comfortable enough, obvious enough that anyone with eyes could tell they were deep in the honeymoon phase.]
[Because Phantom Night Parade gave you that borderline unfair ability to analyze and replicate Cursed Techniques, you were the first teacher to properly evaluate both of them.]
[That analysis let you identify their techniques: Hakari's Private Pure Love Train and Kirara's Love Rendezvous.]
[Even you had to stop for a second after seeing the feedback Phantom Night Parade returned.]
[Those were the most aggressively modern Cursed Technique names you'd ever heard.]
[And Hakari's technique in particular, all gambling motifs and pop-culture flavor, sent the conservative old guard into a fit.]
[They were banging tables in council meetings, red in the face, shouting that techniques like this were "impure," "indecent," and a stain on a thousand years of jujutsu tradition.]
["Letting something like this into Jujutsu High is outrageous!" one of them barked, practically foaming.]
[That little performance was shut down on the spot by one blindfolded white-haired problem.]
["Huh? A stain? You fossils can barely use a smartphone. What would you know about modern techniques?"]
["If it kills curses, it's a good technique. And if you hate it that much, feel free to teach them yourselves. Or should we talk about this a little more... personally?"]
[Between Gojo's completely undisguised threat of violence and the fact that the higher-ups still weren't united enough to push as one block, most of them decided picking a fight with that lunatic over this wasn't worth it.]
[So they swallowed it.]
[After that, you learned Hakari could also use Domain Expansion.]
[His Domain was called Idle Death Gamble, but its effects were wildly different from Unlimited Void. Through it, you learned for the first time that a Domain Expansion didn't necessarily have to be aimed at the enemy. It could target the user instead.]
[When you compared Idle Death Gamble to Unlimited Void, a pattern started to show itself. Domain Expansions and Innate Techniques seemed fundamentally linked. Hakari's base technique and Domain both revolved around pachinko. Gojo's Limitless and Unlimited Void both tied back to overwhelming floods of information.]
[That thought snagged in your mind and refused to leave.]
[If Domain Expansions grew out of Innate Techniques in connected but non-redundant ways... then what would Phantom Night Parade's Domain Expansion look like?]
[And if the answer wasn't hidden in the techniques it copied, then where exactly was it?]