“You wanna learn how to hit real fuckin’ hard?!”

  Satoshi Ren took a moment to stop pummeling a dumb tree to the ground to pay attention to the bug woman that had spoken. The same bug woman that had helped him out when he had been swamped by all those weird dog-things.

  Hibana Teira. Of course he’d remember her name. She was strong after all. Stronger than him, definitely.

  His eyes glistened. “Hell yeah!”

  000

  “I’m about to deliver a private sermon on how to hit harder.”

  Hibana Teira’s Juchū spoke to Jun as he was studying up on mathematics in one random classroom he had picked out to do some after-class studies in. Just from reading the syllabus, he could tell that high school was liable to kick his ass. Mercilessly.

  None of this made any sense to him whatsoever. And some of those tests would ban calculators altogether. What manner of injustice was this? All the other classes were trivial, but math? That was still the bane of his existence, no matter what.

  Why, God, do I have to be so damn untalented? Why must you heap so many trials on me?

  Because to God, Kobayashi Jun was his favorite punching bag. God hated him. And Jun could only accept that hatred, and try to deal with it in any way that he could.

  As the class rep—nay, as the smoothest, slickest guy in his class, he had to ensure that he remained unruffled by anything academic. Soon, he’d be risking his life fighting curses. Curses! He couldn’t let math get the better of him!

  “Cursed Energy Manipulation is already something that’s being taught,” Jun said.

  “Satoshi is already coming to watch. If you don’t show up, you’ll be behind him. And he’ll beat your cowardly ass—“

  “Who’s a coward?!” Jun roared as he shut his book and stood up. “I’ll thank you not to repeat such a baseless accusation, Hibana-san. You may be stronger than me, but you don’t get to decide my nature!”

  “Of course not!”

  000

  “So, are you interested?”

  Aomori Sakura was just on the verge of inspiration in deciding the last few edge-cases of the potential interactions that a player might have with a minotaur. She had modelled every behavior perfectly, but still there was more complexity to be had.

  She kept scribbling away without pause.

  “So?”

  “Leave me alone, Hibana,” Sakura replied. “I’m busy doing something important.”

  “What about crit damage?” Hibana replied. “That’s what the Black Flash is! Crit damage! Seriously, you should—“

  Sakura stood up with a groan. “Fine. You’ve piqued my interest.”

  She quite liked Hibana, truth be told. She made an effort to include her, which Sakura greatly enjoyed.

  Sakura wasn’t… good with people. She had given up on trying to be, after figuring out her passion. She always did have a habit of saying the wrong things, of “implying” the wrong things. Apparently, her words had a habit of saying things that she didn’t mean to say.

  Still, Hibana…

  She tried. And Sakura liked her very much for that.

  She wanted to hang out with her even. Be her friend. But she knew that if she tried, she would have to give up her passion. She would be forced to spend more time on hanging out than just… doing her thing. It was unfair, that she had to decide between those things.

  She’d rather be summoned into something.

  She’d rather other people call her on, even if she didn’t always call others on. She wanted to…

  Her comfortable levels of socializing were quite tyrannical. It was wrong, but she wasn’t ready to change her ways. After all, as a Jujutsu Sorcerer, her days were likely numbered. Or something.

  Crit damage…

  She was curious.

  000

  “I said a hip, hop, hippity, has

  I’m gonna shove my fist up your ass

  Then I’m gonna knock your ass down

  Then I’m gonna take you to pound town

  I said I’m gonna skin you alive

  Then I’m gonna make your insides into a beehive—“

  Nakamura Daiki stopped writing in his book, while he sat in a hill near the outskirts of campus, as he felt a swelling of disgust at the beetle-thing’s bars.

  Seriously.

  She was clearly trying to emulate the style of Sugarhill Gang, but it was done so poorly that it could do nothing but disgust him.

  He had been busy writing things down in the beautiful nature, just as Teira’s tiny bug shikigami had started to stalk him. He had offered, jokingly, a rap from her, to hear her out.

  She had obliged. Horribly.

  Still, Daiki couldn’t help but grin. She really was a sweet person. Not soft, of course. Sweet.

  Daiki decided that he liked her.

  Not the way a boy would like a girl, of course. She wasn’t really… his type. At all. She was kind of a freak of nature after all.

  No, he just liked her style was all.

  He could coexist with her.

  “Your rap sucks,” Daiki said. “But I’m coming, alright?”

  “My man!”

  “Don’t ‘my man’ me! You stink!” Daiki laughed. “And between you and me? Girl, you better get those bars right, or I’d slaughter you in a fight.”

  “You say that, and yet you have no Domain Expansion! No Simple Domain! No extension technique! And when was the last time you hit a Black Flash? Never! Daiki! My guy! I know your bag! And I know you ain’t nothin’!”

  Shit. Whatever. He guessed that he’d come and see what all the fuss was about.

  000

  “I guess I’ll come,” Takumi replied to one of Teira-chan’s bug shikigami. She had appeared in his room, while was just about to finish the last portrait of his classmates.

  He was just about to finish the portrait of Satoshi Ren. Currently, it was just in sketch form. Still, he felt a certain amount of pride on it. Specifically the pose that he had captured him in. He looked downright ferocious in that sketch, probably exactly as he wanted himself to look like.

  “I like your drawing of me,” Hibana’s Juchū stated. It looked like a beetle, only fist-sized, and it even had a mouth!

  “Thank you!” Takumi grinned. “Boy, I love to hear that! Do you have any feedback or anything?”

  “Well, I did come into your room without any notice, so I don’t know if I even have the right to comment on your work—”

  “Nonsense!” Takumi replied. His room had so many artworks plastered about that he barely had any room for more. “I appreciate that you reached out to me. I do.”

  “Ishikawa—”

  “Call me Takumi, please.”

  “Takumi-san,” Hibana Teira’s Juchū said. “Thank you for the drawing. And not just mine, but everyone else’s. I’m sorry that I saw them by intruding on your privacy, but—”

  “Eh. That’s just what your innate technique does, right? I don’t really mind at all!”

  “…Okay. Well. Thanks.”

  000

  “I’m definitely in the top-three,” Suzuki said as she backtracked in front of Hana and Aoi. She grinned widely as she boasted about her power, like she usually did. In Hana’s opinion, she behaved more like a boy than a girl. Then again, maybe that was an outdated way to view things.

  Still, a girl should fight with elegance rather than brute force.

  Maybe she was the only girl who thought that way? Hibana certainly didn’t seem to care about elegance, even a little. She was all about appearing as monstrous as humanly possible in the interest of appealing to no one at all. Rather, she wanted to be feared.

  “I don’t care what anybody says,” Suzuki continued. “Geto isn’t stronger than me.”

  “Who says that?” Hana tilted her head. If there was any such gossiping, then Hana would have heard of it very quickly. She prided herself on being at the center of all chatter.

  Suzuki grimaced. “Well… nobody, really.”

  So she was just projecting.

  “I mean, Geto’s strong,” Suzuki said. “He’s faster than me, which says something.” She rubbed her fiery red hair in irritation, like she was trying to scratch an itch. “Dammit. He’s already psyched me out. I don’t… I don’t know where I stand with regards to him. Everyone else, though? Hell, even Satoshi and Kobayashi. I think I could make their faces touch the backs of their heads.”

  Hana winced. Aoi, as usual, just hummed in acknowledgment.

  “You’re strong, Suzuki-san,” Aoi said.

  Suzuki grinned. “Heh. I know.”

  Hana, however, was more curious about a different subject. “Are there any boys you might like, Suzuki?”

  Suzuki missed a step, and almost fell. She righted herself just in time, though. “The heck? Why’d you ask me something like that? Even if it hadn’t just been two days since we arrived—who even is there to like? All of them are awful, weird, or just plain nerdy.”

  “What about Gojo-san?” Hana asked. He was… impetuous to say the least. Still, that didn’t mean that he couldn’t get better with some house training and a little bit of motivation. Then, he’d make an ideal bachelor.

  What other boy could match up to the strongest male sorcerer of today?

  Which made it somewhat regrettable that Hibana had already laid her claim over him. Perhaps Geto would make for an adequate replacement?

  Suzuki stuck her tongue out at her. “No. Bratty rich boy like him, from one of the three great families? He’s basically jujutsu royalty, and royalty are all the same, wherever you go. Whether they’re the children of CEOs or bigshot politicians. Just spoiled rotten, and deep down weird as hell. Only Gojo isn’t even weird deep down. He’s just weird.”

  Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  Ugh. Sometimes, Hana felt like she was the only grown-up around.

  Suzuki rubbed the back of her head, looking at Hana in concern. “I mean… isn’t it a waste to think about boys right now? We’ve got monsters like Gojo and Hibana in our class, and we’re way behind as it is. Soon, they’ll be sending us on missions, too.”

  Hana didn’t understand. “Isn’t that exactly why it’s not a waste? According to sensei and the principal, we could still die at any moment. Shouldn’t we be allowed to live a little quickly?”

  Suzuki shrugged. “I guess you’re right. Still, that doesn’t change the fact that all the boys stink. Ishikawa isn’t my type, Nakamura is weird, Gojo is super weird, Satoshi is insane, Geto is… hmmm. Well, he hangs out with Gojo, which makes him weird by extension. Plus, he’s got a liar’s face. I bet he likes to cheat on girls. And Kobayashi is a nerd.”

  Hana slumped over in defeat. Perhaps she was forcing herself to see Gojo in a more positive light than not. Suzuki had hit the nail on the head with the rest. “What am I gonna do?” Hana muttered.

  “Train!”

  A new voice had said that. From above. Suzuki nodded. “Yeah, exactly—huh?” She jumped up in surprise and looked up.

  There was a beetle with a strangely human mouth floating above them. “It’s me, Teira.”

  “O-oh,” Suzuki said.

  “Gojo is weird, don’t worry about that,” Hibana continued. “In fact, I encourage backtalking him. He deserves that and more. Anyhow, you three should come to the basketball court. I have something nice to show you. A jujutsu technique that will amp up your prowess.”

  “What, really?!” Suzuki’s eyes sparkled. Hana felt intrigued as well.

  “Yep. Of course, there’s no guarantee whatsoever that you’ll be able to master this technique at all, but it won’t hurt to show you the heights of Jujutsu from up close.”

  “Wow, boss! Thank you so much!” Suzuki bowed. Hana bowed her head, chuckling a little awkwardly as she did. She hoped desperately that she hadn’t shown her hand too much regarding her interest in Gojo. She could do without such a powerful rival.

  For a moment, Hana wondered if this was a trap of some kind. Perhaps Hibana had taken umbrage at them badmouthing Gojo?

  No… that doesn’t make sense. She’s too strong to resort to such pettiness.

  Too strong. But perhaps not too petty.

  Hana felt unsure as she followed Suzuki. She didn’t like this at all.

  000

  “No cursed energy, no techniques?” Gojo asked. He stood a few feet away from Teira, who was on the tip of the arc painted on the floor that surrounded the basket. It probably had a name, but Shoko didn’t know it.

  She didn’t actually know how basketball worked at all, truth be told.

  “No energy, no techniques,” Teira assented.

  “That’s a relief,” Suguru sighed. “One less thing to worry about.”

  Without techniques or energy, they would just be moving like normal humans did.

  Wait, non-sorcerers, not ‘humans’. Suguru’s ridiculous verbiage had already rubbed off on her.

  “First to thirty?” Teira suggested.

  “Sounds good to me. And no fouls. Seriously, no fouls.”

  “What are you implying?”

  “That you’d cheat without hesitation to get a win, of course. Don’t deny it. You’re insane.”

  “…Fine. No fouls. Let’s swear this binding vow, then. To follow these conditions, and to agree on the stakes.”

  “You win, I wear a dress for a month. I win, I get to listen to you explain your understanding of the Black Flash, in excruciating detail if need be. You’ll leave nothing behind.”

  “…Fine.” They shook on it. “I swear.”

  “I swear.”

  Shoko found it rather odd that Gojo would trust Teira now, just because she had made a promise, when he was already concerned that she would play foul in the first place.

  Teira… passed the ball to Gojo. “Check,” she said.

  He bounced the ball back to her. “Let’s go,” he said.

  She began bouncing the ball.

  “What did you mean, Shoko?” Suguru asked her.

  “About what?” she replied distractedly, as she was too busy watching Teira play. It was art in motion.

  “Good people don’t do good things, for fear of doing bad things.”

  Ah.

  She had just said those words on a whim. They had come from somewhere inside of her, deep down, though she hadn’t seen fit to check where. Upon being prompted for the meaning of her words, she remembered easily.

  It was teachers. Child protective services. The police. Any of those good people who looked at her situation at home, and said that there was nothing they could do.

  Because doing something could have caused her more harm than not.

  I need a cigarette.

  “Look, Suguru,” Shoko said as she grinned mildly at Teira performing a picture-perfect shot from beyond the arc, for a moment looking like a professional basketballer. Satoru hadn’t jumped high enough to reach the ball to block it. “Sometimes, when you’re in a pinch, and there’s all these guard-rails and boundaries of decency in the way of your own safety, you need a villain to tear them down. Someone to just… disregard the pointless concerns and help you. That’s all I meant.”

  “That’s not right,” Suguru said quietly. “Society can’t function if we just tear things down at the slightest hint of trouble.”

  That was a cute way to look at it.

  In that doctrine, she would have been obliged to continue suffering in silence as her mother abused her in every way but the physical, working day and night to chip away at her ego like the chipped-off chunks of self-esteem could be traded in for money.

  “Maybe a society like that doesn’t deserve to exist?” Shoko suggested idly. “One that demands that certain people suffer without end.”

  Like women.

  That hadn’t even been her intention to communicate: women’s issues. The disadvantages of being a woman, to Ieiri Shoko, were so ingrained into her psyche that she couldn’t always perceive them. Instead, they became a background noise, a chronic pain that forced her to maintain a state of constant tension. She didn’t rebel, because doing so was futile.

  But Teira did. She rebelled. And she did it in the most satisfying way imaginable: by being a monster.

  For when society was implicitly in the right, then to defeat it, you simply had to be wrong.

  “Can’t it just change instead of being destroyed?”

  Teira dribbled past Satoru, jumped, and smacked the ball into the hoop like she was tossing away trash. She hung from the rim, sending Satoru a cocky grin.

  “What if it doesn’t change?” Shoko asked. “What happens then? Should the little guy give up?”

  “It’s not right to—”

  “Nothing is right. Or wrong. All there is, is whether or not you’re getting yours. You can’t expect people to suffer for a system that doesn’t give them theirs.”

  Gojo stole the ball from Teira and scored.

  Dangit. One step away from seeing him in a dress.

  “I have nothing to say to that,” Geto said. “Except… I don’t like the premise of it. At all. There’s room for much evil in such a way of thinking.”

  Shoko playfully bumped his shoulder with hers. “Okay, superhero.”

  Geto chuckled a little. “Just an upstanding citizen, really.”

  “I don’t think you’re wrong, either,” Shoko said. “The world does need lackeys. Like you.” She stuck her tongue out at him.

  Gojo scored again. Dammit.

  “Alright, screw this!” Teira shouted.

  Then she grew.

  Her legs and her arms lengthened visibly, until she terminated at about seven feet. Maybe even more. Gojo looked up at her in despair.

  Then she grew two extra arms.

  “NO! NO! NO! STOP IT!” Gojo roared.

  “I’m not breaking the vow!” Teira shouted back. “This isn’t a cursed technique! I’m not using cursed energy!”

  “Didn’t take her long to cheat,” Shoko chuckled.

  “She’s not… cheating,” Geto said.

  Shoko grinned. “Sure.”

  “No, I mean: she can’t cheat. Binding Vows are a part of Jujutsu. Gojo explained this to me a while ago. You can’t break them even if you want to, or something terrible may happen to you. Usually, it results in death.”

  “Teira, you’re rotten to the core,” Gojo grimaced in utter disgust. Then, he grinned manically. “Which will make it so much more satisfying when I dunk on your beanpole ass!”

  The game restarted. Teira’s additional arms and height made her look like some kind of mutant genetically engineered to be good at basketball. She could steal the ball with ease, and barely had to jump high at all to dunk the ball. “Bucket!” she shouted.

  “Bucket!”

  “Bucket!”

  Shoko’s grin widened. Gojo in a dress. Gimme. Gimme. Gimme!

  Gojo tossed his sunglasses away. “Alright, screw this!”

  Then, he moved.

  000

  This was bad.

  Gojo was way, way, way better than I expected. Pound for pound, I knew that I had a better body than him. I had bled for this body. I had shed more than just blood for this body, in fact. And that was the truth. I was better.

  He dribbled in front of me and suddenly changed his direction, taking me by surprise. His change in direction, his sheer agility, had not taken my senses by surprise. Nothing could.

  But my extended body, unable to be reinforced with cursed energy due to our Binding Vow, had been entirely unable to keep up.

  I fell like a tree, and he dunked the ball.

  He offered me a hand. I reached over to slap it, but he retracted it quickly, slicking his hair back as he did.

  Damn him!

  I quickly stomped up to my feet and bounced him the ball.

  But it was the same story.

  For every goal I scored, he scored two more. Not even the sum total of my preternatural perception in such a short range could make up for one simple, yet infuriating fact:

  He had played basketball before.

  He was experienced. Moreover, he had worked hard alongside his talent to achieve this level of effortless ability.

  I could sense the end already, and no matter how much I rebelled against it, my body could not keep up without cursed energy.

  I wasn’t Toji.

  By the time the match wrapped up, the whole class had arrived.

  “Boom!” Gojo threw his hands towards me. “That’s how you ball! Watch out, Michael Jordan! Watch out, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar! Watch out, Larry Bird! There’s a new all-star in town! A new MVP!”

  Meanwhile, I was shrinking down to my usual five feet and nine inches, and was rapidly considering using my Domain Expansion on him again.

  “I’ll kill you,” I said.

  “After you explain the Black Flash, of course!”

  Dammit.

  Michiko opened some portals, and I summoned a few humanoid Juchū who retrieved my clothes from the portal and dressed me up quickly. “Hello, class! Thanks for showing up, all of you.”

  They had taken their seats on the bleachers to watch the match. I had kept an ‘eye’ on their reactions while we played, until it was obvious that Gojo was beating me.

  Truth be told, I didn’t know how to handle this humiliation at all.

  It was meant to be Gojo’s.

  I lifted my legs up to step into my hakama while walking towards the bleachers. “I don’t know how helpful this will be—”

  “It won’t be at all!” Gojo laughed as he ran up to the bleachers to sit besides Geto, whom he then gave a one-armed hug to while chuckling. “Awesome, right?”

  Geto chuckled, but rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah.”

  “Why not?” I asked Gojo, since he seemed so eager to take point.

  “The Black Flash is basically the hardest a sorcerer could possibly hit. It’s not meant for beginners who barely know how to manipulate their cursed energy, which is why it won’t be helpful to anyone but me. You have to time your strike to a millionth of a second, and if you do, you can multiply the power of your strike to the power of two point five.”

  That was almost certainly not true. Neither did it make sense at all.

  “Have you ever hit a Black Flash?” I asked Gojo. “Not counting the one you landed during the fight?”

  He raised his finger. “If we’re not counting that, then once.”

  I summoned a Juchū, in the shape of a humanoid grasshopper. I called these Helpers because I mostly only used them for labor. They cost a hundred thousand to make, and were hopeless in combat.

  I punched it in its chest, destroying it instantly in a flash of black lightning. Then another one. Again. And another. Again. “Three. Without effort, even. So shut up while I explain myself, idiot. Shut up. Just. Shut up!”

  The others seemed suitably annoyed with Gojo.

  “Cursed energy is mostly stable in power,” I said. “But there comes a rare moment in which it spikes. You can picture this as… a crime of passion, if you will. A point in which the average person becomes capable of committing a heinous crime. A person who has never harmed anyone in their life, suddenly committing a murder. Cursed energy works under similar principles.”

  I raised one finger up high. "If you are fortunate enough to hit the Black Flash, then you would be thrust into the zone, as some athletes say. This is a moment in which your output increases to a hundred and twenty percent, and you become hyperaware of your surroundings and your own cursed energy, entering a state of heightened potential for Cursed Energy Manipulation. In this state, reportedly, the possibility for subsequent Black Flashes become all the higher. And according to reports, just hitting the Black Flash once can dramatically improve your grasp on cursed energy forever, permanently improving your Jujutsu."

  “However,” I said, “when it comes to landing the technique, it’s not just about your own energy. You’re also dealing with the world itself. The Black Flash manifests based on a variety of different factors, such as atmospheric pressure, humidity, temperature, the UV radiation from the sun, and microtremors from the earth. Essentially, every phenomenon of energy in your environment plays a part. Should you wish to control the Black Flash, you need to be aware of all those phenomena at the same time. Even then, if you wish to strike another person, it becomes exponentially more difficult, for you must also be aware of them as well. Not just their energy and mass, but also their unpredictability. For me, this manifests in being able to strike people weaker than me with a Black Flash at will, but I have trouble with those comparable to my level.”

  Most seemed confused and surprised by all this information.

  Gojo’s reaction was priceless.

  He looked horrified. “You’re joking! You’re joking! Atmospheric pressure?”

  Kobayashi raised his hand. “How do you keep track of these phenomena?”

  “My sensory perception is quite great,” I said. “I think that’s the reason why I’m able to perform them at will. Truth be told, I have no idea how to teach this skill." No matter how many times I explained it, Haruta had never been able to land one yet. "The only way that anyone else is able to perform the Black Flash is by honing their focus to a razor sharp point. Inhumanly so. You must throw away all peripheral thoughts and give yourself fully to your Cursed Energy Manipulation. Only then, may you be able to do this.”

  I summoned a new grasshopper Juchū, pulled back my fist, and unleashed another Black Flash.

  Gojo raised a hand and spoke. “So essentially, you’re just explaining it the way everyone else already does. Hyperfocus, et cetera. And your method is irreplicable. Got that right?” He looked genuinely angry.

  I sighed. “Alright, then—listen to the rhythm of the world.”

  “And what the hell does that mean?!”

  “The world’s phenomena!” I roared. “Didn’t I just explain it?! Before I figured out all the tiny factors involved, I melded them all together into a thing I call the ‘rhythm of the world’. Using that, you get to feel your way towards the few windows of opportunity in which you can use a Black Flash. Because as I once explained, you’re not the only relevant factor when it comes to performing the Black Flash. You’re hitting the world as well.”

  Suzuki raised her hand. “And… how do you do that? You just… sense real hard?”

  I nodded. “That’s precisely it.”

  “Alright,” Satoshi jumped off the bleachers and walked away. I sincerely appreciated that reaction. I had already explained everything there was to explain.

  “Any more questions?” I asked. As Satoshi walked away, I learned that he was apparently alone in how much he had taken from my initial explanation. I spent all of thirty minutes answering questions, all the while as I considered the consequences of my loss against Gojo.

  Worst case scenario, I’d have to deal with an additionally troublesome Gojo. His sensory perception was the only thing that came close to approaching mine, though he was far more suited to sensing cursed energy than physical phenomena.

  Unfortunately for him, I was far more certain that I had more room to escalate than he did.

  The Black Flash was really only the least of the weapons in my holster.

  Wednesday, 15:00 GMT+1

  Next Chapter: Interlude - Jujutsu Society Debut Part 1

  nine chapters.

  nine chapters and other content by me, check out my linktree: