Chapter 69: Post Battle Statistics
The Event ended in a way no one had imagined.
No final match.
No clean winner.
No chance for either school to keep showing off in front of the other.
What remained instead was a battlefield torn apart by Special Grade Cursed Spirits, a ruined forest, and a result that would echo through the entire Jujutsu world for a long time to come.
An invasion by Special Grade Cursed Spirits inside Jujutsu High.
That alone was enough to be recorded as a major incident.
But strangely, the thing people spoke about most was not the invasion itself.
It was the fact that those two Special Grade Cursed Spirits, monsters that should have pushed everyone into a desperate life and death struggle, had fled in utter ruin.
And one of them had already been driven to that state before Gojo Satoru even made his move.
"What did you just say?"
"You mean Hanami and Jogo were both cut down by Yami?"
"And Hanami was injured so badly it could not even regenerate?"
The news spread like wildfire.
Sorcerers, assistants, informants, and clan members all heard some version of the same story before the day was even over. A first year student from Tokyo Jujutsu High had gone head to head with a Special Grade Cursed Spirit, carved through it, protected his allies, then stood on the same battlefield as Gojo Satoru without being overshadowed.
That alone was enough to make countless people lose sleep.
At first, many assumed the report had been exaggerated.
Rumors in the Jujutsu world had always liked to grow legs.
But once more details emerged, the room for doubt began to shrink.
Gojo's Hollow Technique: Purple had indeed been terrifying. It had ripped through the forest and nearly erased everything in its path. No one denied that.
Even so, any sorcerer with a trained eye could tell what mattered most.
By the time Purple arrived, Hanami had already been cornered.
Yami had done that.
Using the special grade cursed tool Shiranui, he had forced a Special Grade Cursed Spirit into a state where even survival had become a question mark.
That was no ordinary combat record.
That was the kind of feat that made old men in high positions suddenly remember they had hearts.
Inside the infirmary, the air was thick with antiseptic, bandages, and the faint smell of burned flesh.
Shoko Ieiri moved from one bed to the next with practiced ease, one hand in the pocket of her white coat while the other continued her treatment. Her expression was calm as always, but the slight narrowing of her eyes betrayed what she was thinking.
"What a monster," she muttered.
Megumi Fushiguro lay on one of the beds while she worked on his wounds. Around him were the other injured students from both schools. They looked rough, covered in cuts, dirt, and dried blood, but once Shoko finished checking everyone over, the result was almost absurd.
No one had died.
No one had even lost a limb.
Most of them were walking away with bruises, lacerations, and exhaustion. Serious by ordinary standards, maybe, but laughably light compared to what should have happened when Special Grade Cursed Spirits appeared.
It felt unreal.
Shoko had seen what these kinds of encounters usually cost.
Blood.
Screaming.
Bodies that arrived too late for treatment.
This time, somehow, all the students were still breathing.
That alone was close to a miracle.
And miracles, in her line of work, usually had a name attached to them.
Yami.
Shoko exhaled a stream of smoke to the side and glanced around the room.
Even the students from Kyoto Jujutsu High, the ones who should have taken the heaviest losses, had survived with nothing beyond moderate injuries. Mai Zenin had cuts and bruises. Kasumi Miwa was exhausted and shaken. The others looked no better. But they were alive.
Because at the most dangerous moment, someone had stepped forward and taken the pressure that should have crushed all of them.
Mai leaned against the raised head of her bed, turning an empty magazine over in her fingers. Her face was as sour as ever, but her eyes were elsewhere.
She kept remembering that back.
That figure standing in front of everyone without moving an inch.
At the time, she had genuinely believed she was dead.
She knew exactly how cruel the Jujutsu world could be to people who lacked talent. She had grown up in that cruelty. Being ignored, belittled, and cast aside by her own family had taught her not to expect salvation from anyone.
And yet, when that moment came, someone had protected her anyway.
Not only her.
Everyone.
The students of Tokyo Jujutsu High.
The students of Kyoto Jujutsu High.
Even her.
It was irritating.
Deeply irritating.
Mai clicked her tongue and looked away.
"So damn annoying…"
But the bitterness in her voice was thin. Buried beneath it was something she did not want to admit.
Respect.
Maybe even gratitude.
The entire Kyoto group had fallen into a strange silence.
Earlier, they had still been full of energy, thinking about beating Tokyo and proving themselves in front of the higher ups. Now all of that bravado had dried up.
Nobody was talking much.
Miwa sat quietly with her hands in her lap.
Momo looked distracted.
Kamo had his eyes closed, clearly replaying the battle in his head.
Even Todo, who normally treated silence like a personal enemy, was not around to fill the room with noise. He had wandered off somewhere after meeting Yuji, probably to continue whatever bizarre friendship ceremony the two of them had started.
The quiet made the truth even clearer.
Kyoto had come here ready to compete.
Instead, they had been saved.
Mechamaru, observing remotely through his puppet and receiving the footage back through his real body, stared at the screen in silence.
He was not someone who liked underestimating others.
Still, Yami's performance had gone far beyond any estimate he had made before the event.
That was not the strength of a talented student.
That was the strength of something approaching a calamity.
His metal fingers tightened slightly.
If Yami kept growing at this pace, then the scale used to measure students would soon become meaningless.
Meanwhile, elsewhere within Jujutsu High, the atmosphere in the conference room was much less restrained.
"It seems the Event can no longer continue."
Principal Gakuganji sat with one hand on his cane, his face dark enough to curdle milk. His expression had not improved since the invasion ended. If anything, the longer he thought about what had happened, the uglier it became.
He had come here with plans.
Yuji Itadori was supposed to die.
Gojo was supposed to be checked, if only a little.
Tokyo was supposed to be reminded that the world did not move according to Gojo Satoru's whims.
Instead, everything had gone wrong.
Yuji was still alive.
Gojo had become even more impossible to deal with.
And Yami, the unexpected variable, had exploded into public view in the worst possible way.
The most infuriating part was that Tokyo Jujutsu High's performance in the incident was spotless.
No casualties.
A decisive battlefield contribution.
And a student whose combat record was so outrageous that even people who hated Gojo would struggle to criticize it with a straight face.
Yami had fought a Special Grade Cursed Spirit alone.
Protected his own allies.
Protected Kyoto's students.
And nearly killed Hanami before Gojo arrived.
How was Gakuganji supposed to attack that?
Accusing Tokyo of poor security would be correct in theory, but in practice it would sound like the desperate whining of a man whose own students had been carried.
His fingers tapped the cane once.
Then the door opened.
"Talking about me behind my back already?"
Gojo walked in wearing a smile that practically radiated trouble. Behind him came Yami, looking calm as ever, followed by Yuji and Todo, who were still in the middle of a heated argument.
"I'm telling you, brother, the soul is what matters."
"No, no, no. You cannot separate the question from physical truth, Itadori! Taste begins with shape!"
"You're talking nonsense!"
"That is because your heart is not yet fully open!"
The room grew even quieter.
Gojo ignored all of it and strolled in like he owned the place, which, in spirit, he probably believed he did.
He perched himself on the edge of the conference table and looked at Gakuganji with open amusement.
"You don't look too happy, old man."
No one answered.
Gojo tilted his head.
"What is it? Are you upset your little assassination plan failed?"
The temperature in the room dropped.
Then he added, with a smile far too bright for the mood,
"Or maybe it's because your students were saved by mine, and now your face hurts?"
The silence that followed could have been nailed to the wall.
A vein pulsed on Gakuganji's temple. His beard quivered.
Everyone present knew Gojo had just said the thing no one was supposed to say aloud.
Which was exactly why he had said it.
"Satoru Gojo," Gakuganji said, voice hard with anger, "watch your mouth."
He struck the floor with his cane.
"This is a meeting of the higher ups, not a stage for your insolence."
Then, seizing the only line of attack still available to him, he pressed on.
"More importantly, this incident exposed a severe failure in Jujutsu High's security. Allowing Special Grade Cursed Spirits to invade school grounds is an unacceptable dereliction of duty."
There it was.
A shift in topic.
An attempt to pull the conversation away from Yami's performance and drag it toward institutional responsibility.
If the issue became one of security, then Gojo could at least be forced to absorb some of the blame.
Unfortunately for him, Gojo was in no mood to cooperate.
"Dereliction of duty?"
Gojo scratched his ear with exaggerated boredom.
"If I remember right, the invading cursed spirits almost wiped out your students."
He pointed lazily at Yami without even turning.
"If my student hadn't stepped in, you wouldn't be having a meeting right now. You'd be arranging funerals."
Gakuganji choked.
Because that was the problem.
No matter how much he hated hearing it, the statement was true.
If Yami had not intervened, Kyoto Jujutsu High would have paid in blood.
There was no argument that could erase that.
Gojo stood and walked over to Yami, then casually slung an arm around his shoulder like a proud and deeply annoying older brother.
"So instead of talking nonsense, let's discuss the real highlight of this event."
He grinned.
"Single handedly pushed back a Special Grade. Protected everyone. Zero casualties."
His voice was light, but every word hit the room with force.
"With a performance like that, wouldn't it be a little unreasonable not to consider a Special Grade evaluation?"
That was the real point.
The room stirred.
Some people frowned. Others froze. A few simply stared.
Special Grade sorcerer.
The title sat at the very top of the Jujutsu world.
There were only a handful of people in Japan who could bear that classification.
And now Gojo was demanding that a first year be placed into that conversation.
It sounded insane.
But the truly uncomfortable part was that nobody could dismiss it outright.
Not after what Yami had done.
Not after Shiranui.
Not after Hanami.
Not after the testimony of so many witnesses.
Whether it was his blade, his combat instincts, or the strange eyes that seemed to let him see through the flow of battle itself, Yami had already stepped beyond the boundaries that normally defined students.
Gakuganji's expression stiffened further.
"This matter," he said at last, each word seeming to scrape out of him, "must be reviewed and decided by the higher ups."
It was a retreat.
A clean one.
He knew he had lost ground and could not take it back here.
Yuji still lived.
Yami had risen.
And instead of weakening Gojo's camp, this disaster had given it another monster.
Watching Gakuganji pull back felt like watching a man realize too late that the pit he dug for someone else had become his own grave.
Gojo let out a satisfied whistle.
"There we go. See? That wasn't so hard."
He patted Yami's shoulder with obvious pleasure.
"Well done, Yami. Those rotten old oranges are going to have migraines for days."
Yami only gave a faint, helpless smile.
He had never cared much about titles.
Special Grade or not, his priorities would not change. What mattered was strength. Enough strength to protect the people around him. Enough strength to keep standing when it counted.
The rest was decoration.
Still, seeing Gojo this pleased was rare enough to be entertaining.
So he let the man enjoy himself.
By the time the meeting dispersed, another piece had already begun moving behind the scenes.
A sealed letter bearing the crest of the Gojo clan arrived quietly on the desks of the higher ups.
Inside was a formal recommendation.
A recommendation for Yami's promotion to Special Grade sorcerer.
And under the list of names supporting that recommendation, three signatures stood out clearly.
Satoru Gojo.
Mei Mei.
And Aoi Todo.
Yes, even Todo had added his name without hesitation.
In his eyes, Yami was already his brother. A true kindred spirit. And when Todo decided someone belonged in his world, he did not do things halfway.
The letter hit the higher ups like a bomb.
Now it was no longer just Gojo making noise.
There were other voices behind the proposal. Influential voices.
Enough to make ignoring the matter far more difficult than usual.
And with that, a thought began to spread through the stagnant depths of the Jujutsu world.
The age that had ruled for so long might finally be starting to crack.
Because once a monster like Gojo Satoru had seemed like an exception.
Now another one was appearing.
A boy named Yami.
And sooner or later, his light would become impossible to ignore.
.....
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