A/N: This takes place back when Hiyori and the others are still first-years (shortly after the events of the Night Parade but before the confession).
"We're going on a field trip?" Yuta asked in confusion while playing with his bracelet. Satoru nodded his head excitedly. The first-years narrowed their eyes at their teacher except for Hiyori who continued to sip the strawberry milk she got from Principal Yaga earlier when he stopped by the classroom. There was something just not right about how excited Satoru was...like there was a catch to all of this. There was no way this was a simple field trip.
"That's right! For today's afternoon practical jujutsu class, we're going on a trip to an abandoned snack factory!" Satoru cheered.
Yep, there was the catch.
The white-haired man's enthusiastic announcement was greeted by silence. It was so silent that Yuta could hear the crickets outside loudly chirping. "Lame" Tsuki said, shaking her head in disappointment. She wanted to go on an actual trip to somewhere nice and sunny so she could nap all day under the sun, not to some janky old factory. Yuta sweat-dropped at Hiyori's familiar's blunt response. Satoru pouted.
"I spent all day yesterday scouting this place out for all of you! I even did stuff like eating the rivaling snack brand's food in the factory and played loud advertisements from other snack brands in there too just to lure all the strong curses. What do you mean lame?!" Satoru whined.
"It's not that bad. Maybe we'll come across a mysterious crime scene" Hiyori offered cheerily, wondering if they would come across a mysterious dead body at the abandoned factory like in one of those mystery novels she always read. Satoru smiled, happy that at least someone was looking forward to the trip he planned.
"So we just have to exorcise the curses in there?" Maki asked, picking up her weapon bag. She grabbed Hiyori's empty milk box and tossed it into the trashcan. Toge, Tsuki, and Hiyori clapped when it landed effortlessly into the rubbish bin. Satoru shook his head and wagged his finger.
"Wrong!"
"Today's field trip is just a demonstration. You're all going to be watching except for Hiyori-chan. She'll be the one doing the exorcising!" Satoru explained giddily.
"Eh?"
Yuta looked around the abandoned factory building. It really was creepy. He could feel the abundant amount of curses waiting to crawl out of their hiding spots and wreak havoc. The only reason they hadn't already was probably because of the presence of Satoru and Hiyori.
"There's only two special grades so it shouldn't take that long. The rest are only first-grades and below" Satoru said. Maki, Panda, Toge, and Yuta turned to look at their sensei in shock.
'T-Two special grades?!' The only special-grade cursed spirits Yuta had seen so far were Rika and the two Suguru tried to kill him with during the Night Parade. This would be the first time he would be seeing a curse after Rika's soul was released. He got demoted to fourth-grade sorcerer right after that and hadn't been on a mission since. He stayed back with Maki since she was considered a fourth grade just like he was now, after his demotion, even though her skill was way beyond that level, while the others, mainly Hiyori, continued going on mission after mission.
"Okay" Hiyori said, one hand reaching for the hilt of her katana only to be stopped by Satoru. He smirked and shook his head. Hiyori looked at him in confusion.
"No katana today. You're only allowed to use your CE and these" Satoru reached into his pocket and pulled out a pair of sharp brass knuckles.
"You've got to be kidding me" Maki said in disbelief at their sensei. Hiyori's main form of combat was her katana and she would have to do without it for not one but two special grades and who knows how many other lower-level curses? Hiyori nodded her head in understanding before taking the brass knuckles from Satoru.
"These are cursed tools right?" Panda said, examining the brass knuckles Hiyori slipped on. Satoru nodded.
"That's right! I got them while I was in Brazil for an overseas mission!" Hiyori examined the brass knuckles and flexed her fingers.
"The sizing isn't that bad but I haven't used hand-to-hand combat against curses in a while. I might be a bit rusty" She commented. She reached into her jacket pocket to pull out her white ribbon.
"Hand-to-hand combat against curses...?" Yuta asked in confusion. Hiyori nodded.
"Not every sorcerer uses a cursed tool. Panda, for instance, uses hand-to-hand combat most of the time" Hiyori explained, slipping off her haori and handing it to Maki. Tsuki hopped onto Maki's shoulder.
"Alright! We'll be watching from a moderately safe distance!" Satoru said, ushering the rest of the first-years to one corner of the large factory's main floor. Yuta watched Hiyori stretch her arms before she raised her white ribbon and pressed a kiss to one end of it.
The effect was instantaneous. All the curses that had been hiding came out at once and charged at her. She slapped away a second-grade charging at her and it disintegrated immediately upon contact. "Ever since the Night Parade, the strength of curses has gone up exponentially." Tsuki mentioned while everyone watched Hiyori make quick work of tying her hair up with her ribbon before she began pummeling curse after curse.
"I think I'm starting to get the hang of using these" Hiyori commented before punching a first-grade so hard that she punched a hole through it. She wiped a bit of the curse spirit's blood that got on her face.
"In the field of jujutsu sorcery, you need to be at least a little bit crazy to deal with everything you see from mangled-up corpses to the most grotesque of curses" Satoru said, deciding now was the perfect time to start his lesson. Yuta would've turned to look at his sensei had he not been too entranced by the sight before him.
"Crazy...?" Yuta mumbled in confusion while watching Hiyori bash two curses' heads together in a splatter of gore. Her entire uniform was covered in the blood and spilled guts of the curses she brutally exorcised.
"You can't survive in this profession if you don't have a couple of screws loose. Hiyori's just as crazy as the rest of us" Maki said, watching her best friend grab a cursed spirit that was fleeing...FLEEING...and squeeze hard enough for it to explode.
"Correction, she's crazier than most. No normal person would be anywhere near calm after everything she's seen. Hiyori is a special-grade sorcerer for a reason" Panda corrected. It wasn't an insult just a fact.
"Tsukuyo? Man, her fever burns even brighter than mine when she's worked up. She's all sunshine and rainbows till she's in a fight."
Hakari had left him with those parting words while Hiyori was off to the side transferring some money to Kirara so both of the second-years would have an easier time finding a place to live after their suspensions. Yuta hadn't thought much about Hakari's words at the time but now he understood what the older male meant. He swallowed the lump in his throat while watching Hiyori swing a cursed spirit, in a fashion similar to what Panda did during training, into a group like she was bowling or something.
'Is it bad that I find this hot...?'
"Strike!" Satoru cheered when the cursed spirits fell over in a pile. Yuta saw the ghost of an amused smile on Hiyori's face before she ran a hand past each of the cursed spirits with disintegration left in her wake. All of them disintegrated upon contact.
That was all of the cursed spirits except the special grades.
She exorcised the lower-level curses, including the first-grades, like it was a regular walk in the park for her.
"Where are the special grades?" Maki asked, searching for the two special grades Satoru had mentioned earlier.
"Probably in hiding. Special-grade curses are a lot smarter than lower-level ones. They probably went into hiding the moment we arrived in order to observe us first" Tsuki explained causing Hiyori's friends' eyes to widen in shock. Curses were capable of that much intelligence?
"Come on, show yourself already." Hiyori called in a sing-song voice so reminiscent of Satoru's nonchalant behavior when he was fighting that it was almost scary. Scarily hot. Yuta wondered if he finally lost it after getting hit in the head by Maki too many times.
"All your brethren are dead. Isn't it about time you show yourselves?" She asked, stretching her arms out in a taunt to try to get the two special-grade curses in hiding to finally emerge.
Before anyone could even react, a large claw emerged from the ground and swiped at Hiyori. She jumped backward just barely in time. There were three long gashes on her black uniform jacket now but, thankfully, she hadn't been cut. "Man, I never understood why cursed spirits were so dramatic" Tsuki said, shaking her head slightly.
Two lizard humanoid-like cursed spirits emerged, more like crawled out, from the stone ground. Their tails were interlocked and they looked almost identical except for the color of their scaly skin - one blue and one purple.
"Oi, you didn't say they were capable of working together" Maki glared at Satoru who shrugged.
"I did say cursed spirits have gotten stronger since the Death Parade" Satoru replied nonchalantly. Yuta stared warily at the two special-grade cursed spirits. Unlike the rest of her classmates, Hiyori wasn't even the slightest bit wary of the two cursed spirits in front of her. Hiyori shrugged off her torn jacket to reveal the black sleeveless top she wore underneath.
"They kind of look like Digimons" Hiyori commented while tossing her jacket to Maki who caught it with one hand.
"They do." Satoru chirped in agreement while Hiyori attempted to punch one of the cursed spirits. It dodged her attack but that gave her an opening to grab and rip its arm out with a loud squelch. Hiyori wiped the purple blood on her cheek and tossed the detached arm aside.
The cursed spirits shrieked in anger. One tried to slash at Hiyori from behind but she managed to get out of the way only to end up getting slashed in the front by the other cursed spirit while she was distracted with the rest. She didn't even flinch and grabbed onto one of the cursed spirits' heads. With a hard tug, she ripped it right off.
Yuta's breath hitched when he watched Hiyori use the now-deceased cursed spirit's head as a weapon against the other one. She ripped the mouth of the deceased lizard-like curse's head open and used its sharp fangs to decapitate its breadthen before she dropped the head-turned-weapon down on the ground just as both curses disintegrated.
'That was hot...'
"I think I'm in love.." Yuta mumbled.
"I thought you already were" Maki replied, causing Yuta to jump. His face heated up at the realization that he had voiced his thought aloud.
"Shake" Toge added.
"Yea, Toge's right. It's hard not to find that attractive." Maki said. Even after seeing her best friend in action a couple of times, she still wasn't used to how incredibly fierce Hiyori could be when she was in a fight. This was just a testament to Hiyori's strength as the strongest female sorcerer in the world. Yuta and Toge nodded in agreement.
"Humans are weird" Panda commented, a bit concerned by his friends' strange reactions. 'And I'm supposed to be the animal here....'
"How did you beat them that easily..." Maki asked while Hiyori took her jacket back. Hiyori smiled as she slipped her jacket back on.
"Well, every hit was packed with my cursed nullification ability and my cursed energy. These brass knuckles are probably around first-grade level considering the damage they were able to do, without my cursed energy imbuement added on when I was testing them out against those lower-level curses earlier." Hiyori replied, taking the dirty brass knuckles off and handing them to Satoru.
"So~ Wasn't this such an exciting field trip?" Satoru asked, clapping his hands together excitedly after pocketing the brass knuckles. There was a silent pause as everyone stared at him.
"No, it sucked. Take us to the beach next time" Tsuki dead-panned. Satoru whined and dramatically fell over from Tsuki's harsh words.
"Yeah!" Maki shouted in agreement. Watching Hiyori fight had been fun but this was definitely not a good field trip.
"Takana" (Translation: The beach means sandcastles)
"If we go somewhere secluded then I can come to" Panda said.
"BEACH! BEACH! BEACH!" Maki, Tsuki, and Panda shouted while Satoru fake sobbed.
"I want to try playing beach volleyball" Hiyori mentioned to Yuta who nodded in agreement.
"That sounds like fun" Yuta replied, thinking about how much fun a day at the beach with his friends would be. They'd make sand castles, swim, play beach volleyball, and relax on the sand. He didn't own a swimsuit though so he would have to get one. The thought of swimsuits made him remember the swimsuit Panda had gifted Hiyori as a gag gift for her birthday.
'Hiyori in a swimsuit....' Yuta blushed at the thought. She'd probably look really pretty. She always looked really pretty. The image of the bright sun shining on her ivory hair and illuminating her soft, delicate features while she splashed water at him with a bright smile on her face made his heart beat faster. 'Yeah...going to the beach is a good idea...'
"The beach would be a nice place to relax after all the work we've been doing" Hiyori said, snapping Yuta out of his thoughts. "We can build sand castles...." She looked at Satoru with a hopeful smile.
"ALRIGHT! We'll go to the beach next time!" Satoru declared, already getting over his dejected state. Anything to make his daughter happy.
"YEAH!"