Curse

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Yuta Okkotsu was found in a place destroyed beyond recognition by the aftershocks of battle. At the time, seeing him lying motionless on the ground frightened the others. After checking him, they realized he was only asleep from exhaustion.

After they shook Yuta awake, he opened his eyes and saw everyone gathered around him. The first thing he did was worry about their injuries.

"Is everyone... all right? Ren, you are back too."

Ren helped him sit up. "Everyone is fine. I came back with Gojo-sensei. Something happened over there and delayed us."

Panda smiled beside them. "Yuta, you did great. You drove off that Special Grade curse user all by yourself."

Yuta looked at Panda's left arm, half of which was missing, with fluffy cotton bursting from the break.

"Panda! Your arm..."

Panda waved the cotton-filled arm. Cotton had burst from his chest too, but he looked relaxed.

"Don't worry, Yuta. My arm is different from yours. We can fix it another way later."

"Thank you for saving us."

"Salmon."

Panda's serious words and Toge's agreeing nod made waves rise in Yuta's eyes. Beside them, Maki, perhaps because her hairstyle had changed, no longer looked as sharp as usual. Her voice was gentle.

"Congratulations, Yuta. Your wish has started coming true."

Yuta gave his friends a sincere smile. His heart seemed to fill with something warm. Then someone called his name from behind them.

When they turned, they saw Rika, whose appearance had changed somewhat. Her head, which originally only had a mouth filled with fangs, now had a vertical eye. She was very calm at the moment, but her presence seemed even stronger.

Yuta froze for a moment, then stood and walked toward Rika. Panda asked in confusion behind him, "What is it, Yuta?"

Yuta's steps halted. He turned halfway around, unable to look at them, and said awkwardly, "Um... I asked her to lend me her power. In exchange, I promised Rika that we would leave this world together."

"Huh? That's suicide! What were you thinking, idiot?"

Maki, now sounding much more like herself, immediately froze Yuta in place with that shout. He stammered, unsure what to say. At that moment, Ren suddenly waved a hand in front of Maki's face. Her brows rose in anger, but following Ren's signal, she saw what he was pointing at. She, Panda, and Toge all froze together.

The savage figure that had stood there was dispersing into black vapor and flowing away. In its place was a small silhouette.

A girl.

"Rika."

Clap, clap, clap.

A crisp round of applause rang out. Everyone looked over and saw Gojo walking toward them without his blindfold. Maki and the others immediately said in unison, "Who are you?"

Gojo's smile stiffened.

"I am your extremely handsome teacher, Satoru Gojo."

After clearing his throat, Gojo continued, "Yuta raised an interesting idea earlier, so I had someone investigate your family backgrounds. Rika's was completed quickly and showed nothing special, but Yuta's could not be confirmed for a while. Only afterward did we learn..."

"It turns out you are a descendant of Sugawara no Michizane. In other words, even if the bloodline is distant, Yuta, you are my relative."

Looking at Gojo's childish smile, Yuta was a little stunned.

"Who is Suga...?"

Maki and Panda explained it to him. Sugawara no Michizane was one of the legendary three great vengeful spirits. In the jujutsu world, he seemed to have been a real jujutsu sorcerer and was an ancestor of the Gojo family. Only after hearing them did Ren recall some impression of the name.

"So Yuta's idea was right," Gojo said. "Rika did not curse you. You cursed Rika."

That bone-deep scene appeared before Yuta's eyes again. Blood splashed across the road. A twisted body collapsed before him. And the young him, nearly broken apart.

"Don't die!"

Gojo looked at Rika, now appearing as a cute little girl, and said quietly, "When the one who placed the curse removes the master-servant restriction, and the one who was cursed has no intent to punish them, the curse is broken. Though looking at Rika, that much is already obvious."

Yuta felt something clutch his heart. His legs softened, and he sank to his knees. Tears fell onto the ground beneath him.

"It was all my fault. I am the one who made Rika become that. The people who were hurt because of me, Geto targeting us, everyone almost dying... all of it was..."

Yuta, nearly sobbing, sank into deep self-blame. It turned out that everything from Rika onward had been caused by him. Even Panda, Maki, and Toge, whom he already saw as friends, had almost "died" today because of him.

And the person he had wronged most was Rika.

Being forced to remain by his side in that form must have been so painful.

"Yuta... thank you."

A pair of small hands rested on Yuta's head. Rika, in the form of a young girl, leaned in and hugged him.

"Thank you for giving me the chance to stay with you. These six years were even happier than my life before."

Yuta's eyes widened slightly. Tears spilled again, but this time they were no longer only self-blame. The tiny figure hugged Yuta for a while, then let go. When he raised his head, he saw Rika smiling sweetly. Her whole body seemed to emit faint light.

Rika placed her hand on Yuta's face and wiped away his tears.

"Yuta, take care of yourself. You are not allowed to come find me too soon."

"Goodbye."

The light around Rika grew brighter. Parts of her body had already begun turning translucent. Yuta forced himself to smile and nod. In the next instant, Rika's figure transformed into countless glowing beads and drifted into the sky.

Everyone looked up at that beautiful sight. Whether their eyes were drawn by the scenery or their thoughts were caught in the story between those two, all of them remained silent for a time while the faint rainbow light shone overhead.

Yuta stood and watched the trace vanish into the horizon. Tear tracks still marked his face, but he wore the most genuine smile he had shown.

On the other side, Ren asked Gojo, "Sensei, is love really a curse? Yuta unintentionally cursed Rika because of love, but in the end, the two of them were also saved by love. Does that mean this needs to be understood dialectically-"

Ren stopped mid-sentence and changed direction.

"Oh. I forgot. Sensei, you do not have a girlfriend or anything, right? Then of course you would not understand this kind of topic. Totally reasonable."

Gojo's smile cracked.

"Hah? You little brat."

The war was over. Naturally, all kinds of cleanup came afterward.

The damaged buildings in Shinjuku, Kyoto, and Jujutsu High had already begun to be repaired. Casualties on their side were not high. Geto, the principal evil on the opposing side, had been killed. The remaining followers withdrew quickly from the battlefield. Most of the dead were cursed spirits.

After Shuten-doji was exorcised, Naone Minamoto's occupied body was properly preserved by Jujutsu High. Once healed, the body looked as if it had returned to normal, but Naone could not immediately reenter it.

In theory, returning to her body should not have been too difficult with her technique. She had experienced leaving her body and returning before. But according to Naone in her soul state, her body seemed to have undergone some kind of change, making the return difficult.

That also interested Miss Shoko. Under her arrangements and Gojo's, research into the situation had begun. Many cursed tools, barriers, and talismans were being used to stabilize Naone's soul state. No one knew exactly how much they helped, but they were precautionary measures.

Judging from the current situation, Naone's return to her body was only a matter of time. They could leave that side to Miss Shoko.

Maki and the others recovered quickly thanks to Yuta's healing. Panda returned to Principal Yaga to have his body repaired. Later, when they heard about Ren's performance on the battlefield and learned that he had exorcised another Special Grade cursed spirit - the legendary Shuten-doji, no less, who could even use Domain Expansion - their expressions became hard to describe.

Yuta had driven back and severely injured Special Grade curse user Suguru Geto on his own. Ren, on the other hand, had killed a Special Grade cursed spirit inside a Domain Expansion. Just thinking about it put pressure on the others.

"No. We cannot let those two leave us far behind. Panda, Toge, we are going to train."

Maki dragged them toward the training field. Ren looked toward Gojo, who had just finished talking with Yuta and had returned the student ID Yuta had lost.

"I was not the one who picked it up," Gojo said. "It was my best friend. My one and only."

With bandages wrapped over Gojo's eyes, Ren could not see what expression they held. Yuta did not understand the story behind it, but Ren more or less understood the meaning in those words.

Gojo-sensei's best friend.

Ren was not the kind of person who was good at comforting others. In truth, he also felt Gojo did not need anyone to comfort him. Some matters and some emotions could only be held and endured alone.

The joys and sorrows of people were not always connected. Sometimes that was more than a joke. The emotions empathy produced in response to another person's circumstances were often incomplete. Even when facing the same event, different people could feel entirely different depths of emotion.

What one believed was shared pain might not amount to even a fraction of what the person involved carried. Those things could probably only be left to time. What time could not erase, it would eventually bury, as long as no passing wind brushed away the sand above and exposed it again to stab someone until they bled.

"Right. Ren, your Grade 1 authorization has been approved. From now on, you are a Grade 1 jujutsu sorcerer."

Hearing Gojo, Ren did not look excited. Instead, he casually asked, "By the way, sensei. Those rotten people did not interfere with Miss Shoko's handling of Naone, did they?"

Wrapped in the cold air brought by the surrounding snow, Gojo said calmly, "No. Everyone there was personally assigned by me. Nanami is there too."

His gaze, like Ren's, fell on the three cursed blades at Ren's waist. After the curses attached to them were exorcised, the three cursed blades, aside from their ancient aura, revealed blades clear as autumn water. Even if they were not cursed tools, they would still be rare and precious swords.

"Since they lost this blade," Ren said from behind him, his expression cold, "it should be mine as spoils of war now, right?"

When he thought of that so-called strict protection failing almost immediately, losing Dojikiri, causing Shuten-doji to reappear in the human world, and also becoming the reason for Naone's current condition, anger rose in Ren again.

Gojo did not look particularly affected. He agreed with Ren and said he would handle what came next. Anything more would have to wait until Naone, the person most involved, woke up. This matter was not over that quickly. There was also Hakari and the others.

It seemed those old men needed to be "repaired."

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