"So, that rumbling today was because of him?" Said Atsuya Kusakabe, sitting upright with his katana resting in the fold of his arm.
"I guess so," Shoki Ieri replied with a sigh, arms crossed across her chest, "I'm not surprised, there aren't many capable of causing destruction like that, Gojo aside."
"Hey, hey, you two, are ya talkin' 'bout me~?"
"Shut it, Satoru," The burly voice of Masamichi Yaga halted the boyish sorcerer before they could impede on the conversation, and brought Ijichi's tablet up into view, adjusting his sunglasses and clearing his voice.
"We're here to discuss the boy's admission into Jujutsu Tech, are we clear?"
The remaining members of the faculty in attendance, Kento Nanami, Kiyotaka Ijichi, and contracted sorcerer Mei Mei, all nodded and said,
"Yes."
"Y-Yes!"
"Mmhm~."
"Right, moving on." Yaga moved to read from the dossiers organized by the auxiliary manager, saying;
"Name: Suoh Yuuya. Age: Claimed as 17, recently turned. Cursed Technique: Innate Technique,"
"Three Poisons."
"Buddhist kleshas, mh?" Satoru muttered absentmindedly, looking up to the ceiling of the faculty room, "Reeeal creepy..."
Yaga continued. "Second Poison, Greed: manifests as the ability to firmly suspend a sorcerer in place. As opposed to forcible paralyzing of the body, certain outward forces still apply; Panda spinning perpetually in the air, suffering symptoms of vertigo and whiplash due to the shock, yet ignoring any form of wind resistance, gravity or energy loss through heat exemplify the effects of this technique."
"Technique Reversal manifests as imbuing this 'suspension' onto the self, acting as an absolute defense from being blown back by incoming attacks, as Suoh Yuuya claims."
Kento Nanami and Atsuya Kusakabe displayed similar grimaces of displeasure in response to Ijichi's findings, whereas Mei Mei and Gojo smirked.
Yeesh, talk about playing dirty with that one....~
"Third Poison, Hatred: manifests as blades of rose-gold cursed energy condensed to points on his body, namely his fingertips. Packed into a hyper-dense state, Suoh Yuuya releases this cursed energy, causing devastating explosions,"
"And the final poison, Delusion; Absolute Technique Nullification."
For a moment, everyone barring Yaga and Ijichi perked up; Satoru Gojo himself peeled his eyemask to the side, tilting his head back over to his superior in speaking.
"Oi!" Atsuya was the first to blurt out, leaning forward with his jaw hanging slack on his face, "No way a kid can do something like that!"
"We've seen more eccentric techniques than something like that, Kusakabe," Ieri quickly cut off the forever-less-than-composed Grade-1 so casually, "Just have a look at Kinji and Yuta."
"Regardless of whether or not this surprises you, Kusakabe," Nanami then spoke up, "there's bound to be restrictions on any technique, and this must be no exception,"
The blonde-haired Grade-1 turned towards Yaga and continued, "Am I right, sir?"
The muscle-bound Jujutsu principal put down the tablet, and crossed his arms, nodding firmly. "Umu."
"I met with the boy myself, and he's spoken on the specifics of his techniques further."
"Firstly, He made it clear that Delusion works to nullify a technique's effect at the point of its manifestation, and only for that single instance; he doesn't possess the ability to permanently take away someone's technique. His second restriction is that he dissipates the technique, and releases the energy used to manifest a technique back into the environment."
"Ouf," Gojo leaned off of the wall and leaned his head on his hand with a smile on his face; now evidently interested. "Kind of like setting newspaper on fire, and watching the ashes go up in smoke, huh?"
"I guess so," Yaga replied, "The boy waved his fingers around in the air and made some awkward faces while we talked this over.....maybe that's what he was trying to tell me..."
"Does he possess a Technique Reversal of that which must be taken into account, sir?" Nanami asked.
"The forcible reactivation of one's given cursed technique, regardless of the intention of the sorcerer." Yaga said.
"And based off of the damage caused by his third technique, there must be something of a restriction on that as well, sir?" Nanami asked further.
"Umu. The boy gassed himself out with that attack. Hell, just the amount of cursed energy necessary to condense such an attack to a singular point would be more than what is released in the attack itself. It's definitely powerful, but efficient is the last word I'd use for it."
"Hm. Noted."
Ieri let out a drawn-out sigh and pulled a cigarette out of her pocket, letting it rest on the edge of her lip as she moved to her feet and towards the door, "Well, in any case, I don't think I'm needed here any longer."
Turning to Yaga on the floor, she said, "Just send him over sometime for a medical, and I'll-
"Hold it, Shoko."
"Mh? Why?"
"...You haven't thought much about what I have just described to you, have you?"
"Eh? Why would I?"
Yaga held his hand up in a fist, then held up a finger.
"One: the boy is adept at using Technique Reversal for Greed and Delusion. He dissipated Panda's Gorilla Mode and Inumaki's Cursed Speech without any issue, and forced Panda to use Gorilla Mode again just as easily."
"It is reasonable to assume that, to a certain degree, the boy is more than capable of using Reverse Cursed Technique on himself, leaving your role as doctor more or less redundant when it comes to the boy."
"....so why did you call me here?"
"Because you need to listen to what else I have to say," Yaga replied. The veteran sorcerer let out a brief, shaky huff, before holding up another finger.
"Two: With everything laid out on the table, it can also be reasonable to assume that, with his arsenal, Suoh Yuuya possesses-"
"Something akin to 'Anti-Sorcerer Techniques', eh, Yaga-sensei~?"
Contrasting the grim, firm expressions on Kusakabe and Nanami, Ieri looked off towards Gojo in the corner, eyemask still pulled off of an eye, grinning in anticipation.
"...Umu." Yaga stiffly nodded.
It was Gojo's turn to hold up his hand in a fist.
He held his index finger up.
"One, Delusion; Dissipate your enemy's technique, catching them off-guard with the sudden dispersal, or, in the case of an enemy recognizing and understanding the boy's technique, leaving them defenseless regardless of pre-determined knowledge."
He held his middle finger up.
"Two, Greed; Suspend your enemy in place, preventing further escape."
Lastly, his ring finger.
"Third, Hatred; Deliver an attack of hyper-condensed cursed energy, bypassing defenses due to his sheer mass and violent, explosive makeup."
"Ah~, a kid with powers like that," Almost comically, the white-haired sorcerer threw his hands out to his sides, leaning backwards until his back hit the wall again, "He could take any of us out~!"
The air in the tatami-matted room suddenly grew ever so hazy as Gojo spoke, with Kusakabe furrowing his eyebrows and scratching his chin, whereas Nanami and Ieri held stoic, yet uncertain expressions; Mei-Mei only grinned as ecstatically as Gojo, hiding her smile behind her thick braid of hair hanging in front of her.
It took a moment, but Yaga finally nodded again. "That's what's so concerning about this boy."
"He's got the makings of a powerful sorcerer on his own, and has strength beyond his years. He shows promise so early, but the baggage he carries is what makes this such a difficult topic to navigate."
Only compounding the serious nature of the meeting further, Yaga turned his eyes down to the ground, and his voice grew deeper.
"This boy....is wanted by Jōdo, and the sum they are asking for, is, well...."
For the first time in the meeting, Mei-Mei spoke.
"Seventy-Five Million*, for his location alone."
*Disclaimer: 75,000,000 = JPY*
Collectively jerking their heads all towards the silver-haired sorcerer-for-hire, the sorcerers in attendance- barring Gojo- tensed up beneath their clothes.
Unfazed, Mei-Mei continued with a smile. "An open contract from Hōnen themselves, offering an added bonus in the millions for bringing the boy to their doorstep unharmed."
"Quite the payday for a boy like that, am I right, Yaga-sensei~?"
"Hmmm," Kusakabe muttered, "Hōnen, huh? Isn't that-"
"An elite group of mercenary curse users belonging to the secluded, remote miniature society of outcast sorcerers known as Jōdo," Yaga cut the grade-1 off firmly, "I've had a run-in with them before when a contract for a higher-up was opened a decade or so back, bodyguarding and such."
"Manila, correct, sir?" Nanami said, to which his superior nodded sitffly.
"It...didn't end well."
The sorcerers collectively glanced towards Mei-Mei again, who, resting against the wall, didn't return the courtesy of eye contact, only staring off to the blank wall in front of her.
"Sounds tough, Masamichi~."
"Agh, it was," From behind his sunglasses, Yaga's sharpened as he crinkled his nose at Mei-Mei, "But your encounter with Hōnen was much more fruitful, was it not?"
Mei-Mei turned, facing Yaga with a playful smirk.
"That it was."
She continued further; "There was a contract on the table; 10 million for a head, 15 for an unharmed body. Naturally, I eagerly took on the bonus, and the challenge, only to find the neutral meeting spot of what I believed to be a blooming work relationship instead rife with Jōdo guards, led by," She paused, holding her finger up with a chuckle, "Just one man, standing above the rest in sheer caliber of sorcerer."
Mei-Mei then let out an exasperated sigh, cocking her head to the side and sticking her lip out in a pout. "Barely made it out with my life, let alone the beautiful stack of unmarked bills I was due..."
"Hah~! Learned your lesson, then?" Gojo chimed in.
"Nope~!" Suddenly shrugging and smiling all over again, Mei-Mei cheerfully replied, "My little scuffle with that man earned me an even better contract, so it all worked out in the end~!"
"However," Flipping through emotions like pages in a book, Mei-Mei slipped back into a coy smirk, standing upright; the air in the meeting room grew cold, tensions rising.
"Seventy-five million for a little ping of some coordinates.....easy money, by any stretch of the imagination...~"
Yaga, Nanami and Kusakabe leapt from their seats; the knowledge of the less-than-stable relationship of the facility with Mei-Mei rose straight to the top of their mind.
The Jujutsu Tech principal sneered internally. He knew too well of his junior's open greed, and tendency to view those around her with different price tags hanging over their head. For the right amount of money, Mei would do pretty much anything; doing something as easy as releasing the location of a boy for millions (unless the threat of having to deal with Gojo was thrown down onto the table) would absolutely fall into the realm of actions she'd take for the sake of financial gain.
He had to reel her in, by any means necessary.
His eyebrows furrowed behind his sunglasses, taking a step in towards the younger woman, leaning into her with a sneer growing on his lips.
His voice was quite clear, for bitter words spat through shut teeth.
"Don't. You. DARE."
A heavy silence broke out; Nanami's fingers twitched at his sides, while, katana in hand, a lump formed in Kusakabe's throat; Gojo remained seated, and couldn't be more obvious in his enjoyment of the situation.
Though, it wasn't long before Mei-Mei broke eye contact with Yaga and held her hands up with an amused sigh. "Ah, I didn't say I would do anything, Yaga-sensei~!"
The silver-haired woman moved past the larger man, though not before putting her hand on his chest, and glancing back up to him once he was in earshot. Leaning in ever so slightly, she whispered, "So long as you convince me that keeping him is worth more than what Hōnen are offering, I'll look the other way, got it...~?"
"Tch...!" Yaga stepped aside, as Mei-Mei took her leave, sauntering past Ieri, who only scoffed once the other woman left the room, closing the sliding door behind her with an abrupt slam.
"Ouf, man!" Gojo suddenly sprung up himself, clapping his hands together in delight, "That was tense, eh, sensei?"
"Thought you'd have to get settle things with her right away, I really did!"
"Ugh, no more talking, Satoru," Yaga let out a sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose, visibly drained. "Just...let me think, here, erm...."
"Sir, with respect,"
Nanami took a step forward into his superior with a stern look in his eyes. Gojo, suddenly intrigued again, stepped back and waved the blonde sorcerer closer.
"While navigating a situation as volatile as holding a boy sought after by Hōnen is difficult in any context, it can be handled with both discretion and as little intervention with the higher-ups as possible, from my perspective."
"Mh? And what do you suggest?" Yaga said.
"Offering a significant contract to Mei to determine Jōdo's location with her crows will suffice as a means of income for her in the short-term, while, through regular missions, this 'Yuuya-kun' will prove his mettle and resourcefulness to her, appeasing her demands of seeing for herself whether or not he is so useful as to ignore the sum of his contract," Nanami explained, "That will take care of Mei's greed, and her fickle nature with the value of the boy at the same time."
"Hm," Yaga scratched his chin in thought, before nodding, "Sounds reasonable."
"That settles it then."
The Jujutsu Tech principal turned to Ieri, still in the doorway, "Shoko, I want you to conduct a medical on this boy, go over his knowledge on Reverse Cursed Technique. Gauge his affinity for it, and if we're correct to assume he's capable on his own, without your support, and, if he so pleases, aid him in understanding how to heal others with Reverse Cursed Technique, as well."
The brunette with the eyebags only saw a means of getting out of the musty room and going for a smoke outdoors, however, and quickly hurried off with a wave of her hand in acknowledgement.
Yaga turned over to the remaining three sorcerers, "Kusakabe, I don't believe that you'll need to go on that mission with Suoh, so head out and complete it on your own. Dossier's in your quarters, it shouldn't be more than a day-and-a-half's work."
"Got it." The swordsman said, exiting the room.
"Nanami, Likewise, your encounter with him isn't needed, either. I'll schedule a mission for you in the coming days, but in the meantime, go have a meet with him. See what he's like for yourself."
"Right," While being forced to introduce himself to a boy by his superior as if he were a new kid in the neighborhood in need of friends was more than a bore and way down on his list of things Nanami wished to be doing at this time, he was still on the clock, so getting paid to sit around with a kid for a half-hour wasn't the end of the world, in fairness. So, the blonde Grade-1 exited the room, closing the door behind him.
And, to his displeasure, Yaga was left with a grinning young man with far too much power at his fingertips, looking (figuratively speaking) his way expectantly.
Gojo snickered, shuffling around in place, "Fufufu.....say, say, sensei, you ready to let me mentor this new stu-"
Yaga immediately shut him down.
"No. Absolutely not."
"Why?!"
"You will not turn another priceless sorcerer like this into a rampaging goofball, Satoru!" Yaga barked, jabbing his finger into Gojo's chest, "Under your tutelage, Kinji's gotten himself suspended, Yuta's been chucked overseas, and don't get me started on Sukuna's vessel which you somehow managed to pick up last night!"
Gojo looked crushed, slumping over and whining, "Ehhh, but-"
"No! Enough!" Yaga waved his student off with a huff, "Attend to that boy first, before you even try and pick up another one as a student!"
"Hey! I didn't make Yuji-kun eat that cursed object, he did it all on his-"
Cutting Gojo off with the sound of the door being slammed shut, Yaga excused himself, leaving Gojo pleading his case to a blank wall, and Ijichi sitting on the floor, feeling like quite the background character in the face of the events having transpired before him.
Walking out of the meeting room and down the hallway, Yaga mulled over courses of action, furrowing his eyebrows in thought.
Mh....Nanami's suggestion works out in dealing with Mei, and proving Suoh's worth is taken care of through sending him on missions in the meantime....however, in the long run, dealing with Jōdo's contract on him sooner rather than later is preferrable by any stretch of the imagination.....
Suoh Yuuya.....no matter how you look at it, is going to stir something up in the balance of this place.....
"...So, you were roughed up recently too, huh, Zenin-senpai?"
"Don't wanna hear it, Megumi..."
Sitting in a chair facing Megumi Fushiguro in his dorm room holding one ice pack on her jaw and another pressed up against the welt on her stomach, both exiled Zenin clan members sat together in a very awkward silence the afternoon following Suoh's introduction to Jujutsu High.
".....so that explosion I heard earlier-"
"Yeah, him. He blew up the running track."
"Ah. I see."
The Zenin girl managed to find it in herself to check up on her friend / fellow Zenin outcast after being pummeled into the ground just a few hours prior, if only to forget about how humiliating it was to lose so convincingly at the hands of Suoh.
Pretty much everything immediately following the destruction of Suoh's final attack flew by her in a blur: Suoh getting thrown over Yaga's shoulders and off to his dorm after falling asleep on the ground; Sitting in silence alongside Panda as they waited to be treated by Ieri in the medical centre, with Toge sitting in wait being damn near untouched; Stumbling out with a couple packs of ice and bandages wrapped around her waist, finding herself plopped into a chair right next to Megumi with a pizza in hand to share; everything skipped right by her, until reality caught up to her, and all she could feel was-
"-Angry!" Maki threw the ice for her face down onto the ground, suddenly stomping onto it and immediately regretting her outburst when a shot of pain ran through her torso. "Aie..!"
Megumi only watched with a blunt expression and a raised eyebrow at Maki's antics.
"...you done?" He finally said.
"Ugh, whatever...." Maki sat back down, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning back in her seat in a pout. "You didn't see it for yourself, so don't judge...."
"You know," Megumi replied, leaning forward from his position up against the backboard of his bed, "in the twenty minutes or so that you've been here, you haven't told me much about what happened out there."
Maki furrowed her eyebrows, because how could she? What was she to say, that a boy her age invaded the Technical College, got nothing but a glare and a cold shoulder his way at first, only to befriend her in a matter of hours that same evening? That he then proceeded to turn her beet red several times, gloat about his strength, then immediately back up his words by wholeheartedly throttling Maki and Panda into the dirt, barely breaking a sweat in the process?
Heck, just thinking about him was putting another bad taste in her mouth, how was she going to spill out everything about him without making a hash of it now?
"E-Erm," She spazzed suddenly, "No clue where I'd start, to be honest."
"Well, from what Gojo-sensei told me when I got here this morning, is that he was a new student, correct?"
"Oh, no, no," Maki said, shaking her head, "it was decided yesterday that Yuuya would be on the payroll as a full-time sorcerer."
"Ah, like Ino-senpai?"
"Mh, minus the graduating. Doesn't look like he'll be a freelancer like Mei, either."
"I see." Megumi sighed, "Hm, then, what's your issue with him, then?"
Maki flinched from Megumi's question, frowning as she stuck her eyes to the floor in between them.
Was she just going in circles now, just reaching out into space for a reason to be upset with Suoh?
Once again, she was feeling like there was a disconnect between the feelings in her chest over the seaweed-headed newbie and the feelings she should probably be feeling more than others; instead of being constantly spiteful about his strength, why is it so difficult for her to swallow her pride and accept it?
Maki let out a sigh, and crossed her arms over her chest.
Am...am I really this stuck-up...?
"Mh. Thought as much."
"Uh?" Maki slipped out of her frowning at the floor and glanced up at Megumi, to see him looking back with a blunt expression, practically outing her with nothing but the look in his eyes.
"Oi, what're you talking about?" Maki said, a slight feeling of understanding where Megumi will go in the span of a few words;
The ravenette boy pointed at her, and said, "You're looking for a reason to hate him, aren't you, Zenin-Senpai?"
The Zenin girl couldn't help but click her tongue at the bitter truth being thrown in such a blunt manner by Megumi's words, and she cast her eyes off to the side and bit the inside of her cheek.
Megumi didn't hesitate to lay it on even thicker to Maki, though.
"You know, you have a bad habit refusing to accept help when it's offered to you."
"...tch."
"You did this with Okkutsu-senpai, as well," Megumi said, taking a bite of pizza in between words, "When he showed up, you gave him the cold shoulder for having a weak conviction, and still put on a tough-girl act even after accepting him, when he's always been a good friend to you. You trained him, but didn't seek out Kusakabe-sensei for pointers on swordsmanship, or even Okkutsu-senpai himself once he had honed his skills, even slightly."
"Hmph, are you trying to suggest that Yuta's better with a sword than I am, then?" Maki muttered, turning her gaze back Megumi's way.
The boy only shrugged and bluntly said, "Yup. You have to master several cursed tools, he only needs to master one. It was inevitable that he would get stronger than you with a blade."
"But you know that's deflecting from the point I am trying to make, right?" Megumi continued, reducing Maki's ability to spurn the truth any further with a huff, "You were beaten decisively by someone far stronger than you. Maybe you can learn something from him if you simply accept that you're not able to do everything on your own."
It took a second for Maki to properly respond in any meaningful manner to Megumi's words, with little more than the additional huff and head cocked to the side, mulling things over internally.
In some ways, Megumi was quite right; piggybacking off of, or getting stronger with the guidance of others...that was never her goal. She trained Yuta to the brink of exhaustion day after day, wanting to see him grow into his own sorcerer alongside her, but the thought of being trained herself just didn't come up.
However, with the way Suoh moved and fought; the seamless transitions between defensive parries and offensive counters in his footwork, the spatial awareness to keep pace with both her and Panda at once, the variety of blows and strikes at his disposal- It felt like he was untouchable, and not simply due to his cursed technique.
She could absolutely learn a thing or two from his battle awareness, at the very least.
Shuffling in her seat and planting her chin on her arm propped up on her knee, Maki caved in with a sigh.
"Agh, fine. You might be right, y'know. Think I should at least give the guy a chance, at least."
Megumi only gave a curt nod. "Yup, I know."
"Oi! Quit the attitude, before I-"
"Mh?" Maki cut herself off. She glanced behind her, towards the door, raising an eyebrow at the sound of a rapidly-approaching pacing, only getting louder and more frantic with every second.
What's that...?
It wasn't long after hearing the commotion did a muffled ".....MAAAAAAKIIIIIIII-CHAAAAAAAAN......!!!!!" erupt through the halls, forcing Maki to abruptly gasp, choking on her spit instantly afterwards.
Megumi remained unfazed, though. "Friend of yours?"
"KHE-..! S-Shut it!"
"Ka-BLAM!"
With a kick to the door of Megumi's room and a mighty leap into the air, Suoh made his entrance with a smile as bright and obnoxious as the ray of light peeking through the first-year's curtain, stamping his feet down and jamming his thumb to his puffed-out chest.
"Guess who just got their I.D, Maki-chan!"
"Huh?! So fast?!" The girl in question gawked, pushing her glasses back up her nose. She quickly shook her shock from her shoulders and squinted at him, though, asking, "But you were just sleeping, weren't you?"
"Mh?" Suoh cocked his head, confused, before popping back up with a snap of his fingers, "Oh! Yeah, I blacked out! That was when Yaga and those other guys set me up with my grade and salar-"
Suoh paused, raising an eyebrow and tilting his head, focusing in behind Maki before him, over to the frowning ravenette sitting in bed. "Oi, Maki-chan," He leaned in to whisper behind his hand, "Who's the gloomy-lookin' twerp?"
Before Maki herself could reply, and, with an expression as blunt and unimpressed as the ravenette could pull off, the boy in question muttered, "Megumi Fushiguro, first-year, Grade-2 sorcerer."
"Mh, what he said," Maki added, pointing behind her with her thumb.
Suoh almost flicked up like an alert deer at the Fushiguro son's words, eyes flickering in delight.
"Oh?"
He took a step past Maki, hands shoved in his pockets.
"Oh~?"
He took another step in, lips curling in a coy smile.
"Ohhh~??"
It wasn't long before Suoh leapt in, throwing his arm around Megumi's shoulder (to the boy's disgruntled annoyance) and bursting out laughing.
"Hah~! Say, say, Maki-chan~!" The boy called out, shaking Megumi every which way, "Got myself a lovely Kouhai, now~!"
"Oi, be nice, Yuuya!" Maki stepped in to detangle a carefree Suoh from the first-year with stitches that had yet to set in entirely, "Quit getting distracted all the time!"
"O H! Right! My card!"
The Yuuya boy rummaged in his pocket for a moment, and as Maki and Megumi waited for him to finish, the Zenin girl in particular stood with baited breath; the very sorcerer she had a direct hand in grading, being one of the three test variables to decide not only his grade, but salary and position in the Technical College, just what would his future be?
There was a certain sense of hope in her chest, that he'd not only have his strength recognized by the system and get what he's worth (something she had yet to be awarded), but there remained the outlier, that awkwardness at the prospect of being immediately seen as lesser than this brainless idiot, and then having to swallow her pride and seek him out for training advice, to get stronger herself.
Too many unknowns, too much anticipation for a damn piece of laminated plastic.
"Ah-!"
Suoh unsheathed his I.D, the time had come- her breath hitched in her throat.
"Here we are!" The Yuuya boy flicked the card out in front of her face, and, with a bright smile, he said,
"Check it out, Maki-chan~! You're looking at the Suoh Yuuya,"
"Special Grade-1! Second-best grade in the system, ain't it cool~!?"
"Huh?!"
"Hup!"
With a stiff and quick tug on his trademark blue bandana, and a quick check in the mirror of the dimly-lit, down-trodden lavatory, Akio Hakuchi, future Hōnen legend in the making and sorcerer supreme of the Jujutsu world, was ready.
Brandishing a confident smile and readjusting the gel-lathered auburn spike of hair he keeps as his signature style and giving the collar of his weathered black jacket a shake and tussle, he picked at his teeth in the mirror before snatching his bag off of the toilet tank, and stepping out into the one place he could truly call home,
Jodo, and its beating heart, the Five Precepts.
The young man couldn't help but take in a deep breath of fumes bellowed from the lungs of the miasma of grease-goblin curse users, along with the hints of cheap cologne, sweat burned into the walls and floorboards, and the rife stench of alcohol permeating the air.
Violence and manic frenzy surrounded him every which way as he found his way to one of many worn-down high tops dotting the vast establishment: scantily-clad women smothering a bright-blue power into their gums and prodding their thighs and arms with hypodermics in one of several booths lining the furthest end, a shakedown of a scraggly old hag by two suit-wearing goons on the landing of the stairway, unfortunately blind to the glimmer of a blade in her back pocket, a quartet of nomadic bandits twirling a variety of knives in the air with their techniques, flinging them at the opposite wall- regardless of passersby; each and every group, coalition, private militia, solo curse-using mercenary, all living in their own cramped bubbles, with a glancing eye on the others.
Ah, Akio sighed, swinging his bag over his shoulder, Home...!
"W-Woah...!" It didn't take long for an empty bottle to fly his way, however, pulling him out of his reverie at the sights before him as it shattered against the boards behind him.
Akio rubbed at the nape of his neck over the close call, though, with experience you could only find in the Five Precepts, he shrugged it off; you were bound to be struck by a stray projectile coming your way, whether it be a fist, rock, or bullet, so long as you stayed in Jodo.
"Ngh, could at least try to keep the peace here, you all..."
Peace; without a doubt, an incredibly fickle concept for Jodo's inhabitants, Akio included. On one hand, the town of several hundred (give or take an undisclosed plethora of curse users, passing through in between contracts) will rarely ever go a few hours without witnessing a shakedown, beating, bludgeon, extortion, assault of the most inhuman nature- you name it, and, with a stroll down the wrong block, you'll come face to face with it.
Yet, Jodo persists, and remains firm as one of the figureheads of the underbelly of Sorcery, namely due to one law, upheld in absolution;
No Transactions within Jodo's Borders.
With a Veil serving as officially designated boundaries of Jodo's reach, a rule which has never been broken without immediate consequence is this unequivocally powerful forbidding of Contract fulfillment the very moment you take a step through the boundary, through the mountain range protecting the village from the outside world.
Any contract at all; Dead, Alive, Either or, Neither: Extortion, Kidnapping, Transport of contraband; will be met with extreme violence, by the most powerful collection of curse users this side of the planet;
SLAM!
Akio perked up, as did the vast majority of criminal sorcerers in the tavern, turning towards the large wooden doors, suddenly slamming against the wall, wide open.
...Ah, there, they are....~!
In an admiration only a young dreamer like Akio could glow with, he watched as the familiar all-black garms entered the tavern in uniform paces, two at a time, invading the room with broad shoulders and bare fists exposed, symbols of the Dharma inked onto the back of their palms. They shoved and sectioned off the now-silent and alert Five Precepts, being met with little to no resistance- something Akio himself gawked in the face of.
A-Ah, look at them...! He geeked to himself with an awkward grin, They're so freakin' cool...!
The boy watched as two-dozen of these physically-imposing brutes with blanked visages with a mass of cold steel shielding their faces from view pushed off the many bandits and curse users towards the far corners of the tavern; in doing so, from the large wooden doors of the entrance down towards the back corner of the establishment, towards the back rooms, a blank path was formed, with a dead, stiff silence keeping all in attendance from moving a muscle.
Akio tensed with excitement; he knew what was coming.
They're....They're here!!!!
The first to step in: a tall, stoic young man with a black gas mask stapled onto his temples, jawline and cheekbones, black hair tied up with loose bangs draping down his front, sporting a beige tank and several belts braced around his forearms, finger gloves, and baggy cargos over a pair of steel-toes. Circles under his eyes, blackened with soot, contrasted the blood-shot/vermillion hue of his iris, his slouched posture failing to hide the man's sheer stature from the fellow mercenaries on the periphery.
Akio, among everyone, seemed to be the only one without a sneer, quaking lip, or look of disinterest on their face; he only fanboyed like crazy.
AHH! There he is, the fabled Black Snake leader, Gigeiten!
Next: a scrawny, disheveled-looking old man, draped in long beige robes over his entire body, eyes firmly stitched closed, a lengthy black bag slung over his shoulder.
Owa~, the blind sniper, Mi-Ogu!
Two voluptuous, tan-skinned twin women with opposing braids on either side of their head, sporting black tube tops with military-grade belts with several pockets keeping their heavy parachute pants above their designer sneakers; one, the one with the braid on her left side, continuously flipped a coin as she took a step; the other, hands shoved into the deep pockets of her oversized bottoms.
Drool dripped and puddled onto Akio's table.
The Brazilian beauties, the luck-based Nunes twins...! God, I wish that one would just drop a damn coin one day so I could-
He cut off his lewd thoughts with the entrance of a stark contrast to the bombshells having just strut past, as a buff, damn-near square-shaped African man stomped his way into the tavern; with tattered beige bottoms, bare feet and a distinct lack of shirt (most likely because there was none which could contain his enormous shoulders and tree trunk of a waist) almost made him look homeless; the whittled tusk pierced through his septum and ceramic disks stretching the man's earlobes that contrasted heavily with the vibrant gold jewelry around his neck and wrists reminded all- Akio included- that this man was as much of a merc as any other.
Moreso, even, earning the man the epithet of-
The goddamn Man-Slayer, Hitokiri!
H-Holy hell, each and every legend is coming home, all at once?! Akio shrieked to himself, They even brought Hitokiri out of that long stint in Somalia to oversee the war efforts, what's the occasion?
All of a sudden, with the daunting man moving towards the end rooms of the tavern, the Jodo guards flocked to the exit, in a fashion as orderly as they took the room over, the doors slamming shut behind them. Business as usual resumed almost immediately, with everyone turning back to their own interests, with the occasional comment on the Jodo guard's entrance, and their distain for the mercenaries of note having just entered the back area of the tavern.
With that, and a slight look of disappointment on his face, Akio turned to the flask in his chest pocket, slumping in his high-top seat.
Tch, though, a few didn't turn up, at all....what a shame, too....
The young curse user reached for his phone in his pocket, turning to his contacts; his mom, a few work associates he owes 'favours' to, a few embarrassing messages sent to the young woman he rents above, and-
"Yeesh, bunch of posers, the rest of Honen are, huh~?"
A strong, sturdy voice and a grip on his shoulder alerted Akio of a presence at his back, and, rather than the immediate sneer that comes with a man picking a fight, he beamed and jerked himself around in his seat.
"Haha, should've known you'd come eventually," Akio exclaimed,
"Sen!"
"Hu-Hu, in the flesh, buddy!" Putting his hands on his waist, the man in question broke out into a grin himself, bejeweled bracelets clinking against his wrists.
"Pf-haaaah~, that hits the spot~!" Leaning back in the seat opposite to Akio, the man known as Sen downed what remained of his fourth drink of the night, letting out a sigh of satisfaction as he clanged his bottle against the others laying out on their table.
Akio, on his fifth, mimicked the fellow curse user's mannerism with a sigh of his own, getting a belch out with a few taps of his chest with his fist, lining up his empty bottle with the others.
"Phew, long day like this," Akio said with a grin, "this's exactly what I needed, boss."
"Good to hear, buddy, good to hear," Sen replied with a smirk.
The cursed group of sorcerer mercenaries known as Honen, the cream of the crop of sorcerers not aligned with the registered sorcerers of Jujutsu society who use their sorcery for the excising of cursed spirits from humanity; ten in all, each and every one absolute monsters in their own right. Posing as a militia-for-hire to those unaware of the underbelly of sorcery and using their techniques and knowledge of cursed energy to complete the absolute impossible, Honen are renowned for their efficiency and adaptability to every situation their employers place on them- with specialty in relation to their techniques respectively.
Akio's always heard the stories: high-stakes thievery, assassination of governing bodies in the dead of night, overseeing of smuggling operations, annihilation of entire guerrilla rebellions with absolute lethality in exchange for favor and riches from the world's elite- all with photo evidence and documentation of records of every hire and identity of employers, for further...'negotiation' of fees and future leverage in any later deals. There's never any question as to who truly holds the power when work with Honen; however, success is damn near guaranteed, a necessary risk for secrecy and completion.
And, right across from Akio's table, was their Second-in-Command.
This tall man in his late-thirties, with a clean-shaven face nicked with flecks of scars and blemishes, thick, black eyebrows, had the visage of a war-hardened veteran of sorcery. Contrary to his face, however, was a shameless degree of flashiness to his attire; a tight sand-toned tee and matching silk khakis accessorized with three golden chains- adorned with a gold and silver pendant, and massive pearl an inch in size- and a heavy fur coat. It didn't help appeal to his maturity that he added four rings of polished red, blue, maroon and beige stones to his hands, and sported a pair of red-bottom loafers whose golden chimes jingled with every step. Top it off with a childish hairstyle of a tussle of cropped wavy maroon locks with six braids rolling down from the back of his head, dyed a combination of deep, bloody maroon and platinum blonde in twisting strands leading to his shoulder blades, and you have the goofiest looking sum-bitch this side of Jodo.
A man who's seen it all- pleasures of the world, and its pains- is the only way Akio could summarize the enigma he knows as Sen.
"So, a member of the Kukuru, huh?" Sen said, hands on the table, "That was who was guarding your target?"
Akio, reaching into his bag with a prideful huff, nodded and revealed his bounty; a pair of black eyes in formaldehyde in a glass cylinder sealed on both sides, and a patch of skin vacuum-sealed in laminate plastic, bearing a tattoo of a sharpened broadsword in full-black.
"Ah, here, lemme take a look, kid." The older sorcerer squinted a bit as he fiddled with the container, with a beaming Akio saying, "Whatcha think, eh? Took a whole lot of effort to bring him down, I have to say!"
"Mh, not bad, not bad. You'll have to pick things up if you really want to meet me and the rest of Honen at the top, y'know," Sen said, handing back the eyes with a smirk, "But you're a smart kid, doubt you didn't realize that on your own."
"Nah, I getcha, Sen!" Akio, with a healthy dose of unwarranted confidence, stuck his thumb to his chest and exclaimed, "Watch me, I'll make it there one day, you'll see!"
"Mh? That so~?" Sen slid off of his chair and moved to leave with an amused look on his face, though, before walking off, bumped his fist with that of the young sorcerer and tapped it against Akio's chest himself.
"Keep at it, we'll be waiting, y'hear~?"
"Ah- y-yeah, you got it, Sen!"
Watching the man's back as he snatched a bandit's glass from a table in his way and downed it in one gulp, Akio could barely contain himself.
W-Waah, he totally sees potential in me, I just know it!
The remainder of his flask gone in seconds in a drunken flash of courage, Akio slammed his fist into the table, feeling a fire burn in his gut- that wasn't just acid-reflux.
He looked back, past the fight going on by the bar top, already being broken up by the barkeep on standby; past the men hitting on a waitress on her break, visibly uninterested in mashing tongues with their booze-sudsy beards; towards the back of the tavern, where the back rooms lay.
Never having gone there himself, he did know that those belonging to the Jodo guard, Honen included, use those rooms to negotiate fees and contracts with clients desperate enough to meet in-person for a deal to be made, instead of a secure connection overseas, bypassing the hassle of middlemen travelling overseas and finding their way into Jōdo.
Despite drunken pleas for his buddy to spill, however, Sen never told him why he was back in Jodo; nor did he mention why the rest of Honen put all ventures on hold to gather together at once, something he himself had never known to occur more than once a year. Yet, on one seemingly benign night, he had just seen six of the ten walk through the main entrance together.
His eyes narrowed as Sen disappeared from view, behind a wall and down the halls; just what was going on?
Before he knew it, with a swipe of his sleeve over his lip and a turn of his hips, he had slid off of his seat, and taken a step forward.
Another, another.
With a fourth;
Cursed Technique: Cloak.
Flask clattering to the ground amidst the noise and hussle of the Five Precepts, Akio may as well have never been there in the first place;
with his presence unnoticed, and a lack thereof the very same, he was gone.
"Oumph..! W-Woah, stairs..!"
Stumbling down a couple steps down the dimly-lit stairway at the end of the hall, the oak wooden composition of the tavern walls swapped to a dim, musky cement caked in dew, with little more than a handful of lights strewn together by black wires hanging on the sides of the concrete walls. Sen, hand ever present on the steel railing as he multi-tasked his drinking and descending further down underground, let out a stifled grunt as he dropped his bottle with a crack.
With the last step reached, he shoved his ring-laden hands into his coat pockets, walking through the concrete hallway. Short, compact, lit with nothing but dwindling lamps on the one side of the corridor, the journey never got any easier, down to the main depths of Jodo's underbelly.
With a twist and turn down a winding staircase now dozens of metres below ground level, Sen reached the basin; a birchwood door with a brass handle awaited him at the end of one last corridor.
He smirked with his next step, halting abruptly.
"Hm."
A gangly, rotting hand pressed against his chest, preventing him from moving forward in the slightest. A sudden tingling sensation swept over his body; Sen kept calm, though, closing his eyes and holding his arms outstretched to his sides. He took a deep breath, and, after a brief respite, the hand closed its grasp on his shirt. "Phssh...!" With a blistering yank right off of his feet, Sen was jerked instantly down the winding corridor, taking the breath straight from his lungs as he slammed straight through the birch door, shakily catching his footing with a vapid grunt.
"Oof..!" He winced, keeling over with his hands on his knees, breathing heavily in between gasping chuckles. "Oh, man," He said, catching his breath and standing upright, "Still don't know how to feel about that little veil you have put up just outside of here, Hitokiri!"
The man in question, seated with his hands resting on the table, only nodded with a huff.
With the lack of response, Sen found his way to his place to the table himself.
Located in a vast cavity of rock, with mining lamps illuminated the area all around the near-empty space underground, with a chandelier of bone and flesh dangling massive gourds of light over the dining table. Four seats on either side of the elegantly-decorated dining room table, with a velvet napkin folded into diamonds on the lavish china sets, a bouquet of dead flowers as the centerpiece, with one large throne at the end of either table, identical sets of cutlery and china on the opposite ends as well.
A twisted, grotesque depiction of fine dining, with the Nunes twins and Mi-Ogu on one side, with Hitokiri and Gigeiten reserving Sen's place at the seat second-closest to the throne nearest the veil's entrance.
Sen took his seat, unraveling his cutlery set from its napkin and clinking the knife and fork against his plate in a quick rhythm, until Hitokiri quickly snatched them out of his hands.
Tch, Sen sneered to himself, crossing his arms and turning towards the door, Why isn't the Head here yet, got nothin' in common with these freaks....
Psh...as always, not an ounce of communication from him, at all.....
Just as in every time he had been brought in on short notice back to Jodo, Sen received nothing more than a personal letter with the Dharma crest stamped onto the front of the note, this time, hand-delivered by one of his messengers to his boat off the coast of Mykonos. being interrupted from his post-op (not the surgery kind) vacation is his thing- the boss knows this, and Sen fully intended to chuck the letter back into the water. But, he didn't.
He leaned back in his chair, and clocked his eyes up to the endless black of the room's ceiling above, squinting in thought.
Why did he come?
Over the different private meetings called in by both Honen's leader and the head of Jodo themselves, the attendance of the seats at the table have always been slightly over half: five or six, seven at the very best. Whether this was down to being caught up in a pricey, high-stakes operation, prior commitments to another gig involving prolonged reconnaissance, simply a lack of interest in showing up, or a sudden 'vacancy' in a seat at the top, all ten members had never shown up.
Nine, counting Hōnen's leader and two new recruits, will be in attendance this time around.
Through sheer coincidence, in line with each and every member of Honen, they had showed up, each without a complete understanding as to why they had turned up:
The Nunes twins, Brazilian sorcerers who had built up a sizeable rap sheet of burglaries and political assassinations for corrupt heads of state, seemingly on a whim, booked it to Jodo the morning after having received the same letter;
Mi-Ogu, having just completed the silent killing of a Japanese arsonist paid for by families of victims lost to his flames, made his way through the trains and scaled the mountain trek without so much as a thought as to why bother in the first place;
Gigeiten, in the midst of fanning the flames of his cultist campaign of coordinated violence in the underground of Southeast Asia, demolished his shrine and scrubbed his presence from his temple completely- worshippers and all. With a snap of his fingers and a flicker of a match, he wiped his slate clean before venturing by cult-financed private jet to the Japanese mainland.
All different curse users with different motivations for aligning themselves with Jōdo, handpicked from the breeding grounds of curse-sensitive humans out in the streets of the cursed town or reined in from overseas with the prospect of power and authority unavailable to anyone but the Hōnen elite, found themselves taking this path back to where they started; no matter what coincidence brought them back, no matter what may have pulled them in, they were here, gathered together, anxiously awaiting the head, leader of the ten-man mercenary group.
It did not take long for the answer to arrive.
Sen glanced from the ceiling, the hairs on his nape prickling up on end as his eyes turned towards the entrance to the domain;
Ah.
Emerging from the entry came three distinct figures, cursed energy released in a gushing flow that thickened the atmosphere of the domain,
They're here..!
And another, wrapped in a golden Kāṣāya, and black Yukata, followed by a volcano-headed curse.
An outright declaration of war incident no less than eight months old, the Night Parade of a Hundred Demons: a terrorist attack involving thousands of Cursed Spirits unleashed across Tokyo and Shinjuku, headed by a coalition of Curse users allied under one man, the worst of all Curse Users-
Sen noticeably gawked at the man before them, the Nunes Twins' fists slammed against the table in their shock, Hitokiri's stoic visage contorted and twisted, his guard raised immediately;
Collectively, the members of Honen felt a rotten sentiment of inferiority under the gaze of Special-Grade sorcerer.
Suguru....Geto...!
W H A T ! ?
From the far corner of the room, masked under the sheer potency of cursed energy flooding the room, hid a young mercenary curse user, hyperventilating in a drunken panic, Cursed Technique active and running on all cylinders.
Akio, losing his figurative shit, stammered in a vehement regret at making the choices he had leading up to sneaking through the Domain's entrance behind his idol sitting at the table alongside all the other Honen members.
H-Hey, now....you have got to be shitting me....no way I just stuck myself into something like this....
The Suguru Geto, with a curse that rivals his strength right next to him.....
just what am I going to do?!?!?
Oof
Uh
Don't really know what to say
I know I said in like May that I would have some new chapters out within a week or something, but then life happened, y'know?
Long story short, I lost the urge to put any ideas down to my laptop (which is brand new, by the way; broke my old one so that was one reason I didn't do anything for a while in regards to story-making) and lost the urge to do much else, too
But hey, hopefully this long chapter with a bunch of worldbuilding makes up for my little absence a bit
I apologize.
aNyWhO
For this extra bit of profiling at the end of this chapter, I figured I would explain the techniques for some of Honen as well as a bit of information about them, because (spoilers) not every one of them will get their time in the sun
Not in this story, at least
So I figured it couldn't hurt to tell you about what makes these sorcerers so strong, and why they're so feared in the story
Starting off with probably the 'weakest' member, Mi-Ogu: a blind old man who's name is spelt with the Kanji for 'see' (ironic) and the term 'Ogu' - which refers to someone belonging to the Buddhist faith who has fulfilled a life to that faith, an arhat.
Mi-Ogu's technique is that he possesses millions of parasitic, flying bug Shikigami, who are intrinsically linked to his weapon of choice, a bolt-action rifle firing at velocities inconceivable to the modern-day thanks to it being fueled entirely by Mi-Ogu's cursed energy funneling into the barrel to provide additional kick to an already impressive shot. Mi-Ogu's connection to his Shikigami grants him the ability to direct them to his target and to have them latch onto them on specific parts of their body; and, when firing, the round will follow the trail of the Shikigami's flight path, directly into the insect, puncturing- and, in 100% of the cases, eliminating the target. With the Shikigami serving as a lock-on mechanism preventing a miss from ever happening, Mi-Ogu is one of the most trusted mercenaries for quick, efficient kills requiring no additional cover-up; one round from three kilometres away, regardless of rain or shine, will suffice.
Mi-Ōgu does not possess a domain.
If Megumi were to be dispatched to handle Mi-Ōgu, neither opponent would emerge unscathed.
Onto Gigeiten, an epithet the curse user has taken for himself to lead a religious cult in the Southeast of Asia's island states and parts of mainland Japan to funnel funding to his escapades, maintain power through connections of his own, and uphold a not-insignificant stake in the underground markets.
His technique is simple, but nonetheless destructive: Gigeiten possesses absolute control over gas and gaseous toxins. Preferring to flood rooms with anaesthetics, neurotoxins and chemicals to flush out groups of targets at once, and immediately dissipating them for a quick escape, Gigeiten is another 'stealth-oriented' mercenary capable of eliminating a wide range of targets, security- or witnesses.
Gigeiten does not possess a domain.
Dispatching the likes of the Death Paintings may be too tall of a task for Gigeiten, though putting up a good fight is not.
The Nunes Twins, influenced by Brazilian MMA legend Amanda Nunes, are two foreign curse users responsible for and primarily hired by the South American government officials needing any and all forms of criminal activity handled in secret; kidnappings, extortion, murder, assault, collection of blackmail are all run of the mill orders delivered to the Nunes' office desk on a regular basis.
Whereas Mi-Ōgu and Gigeiten are primarily employed for their capabilities in stealthy dispatches, the Nunes Twins are all-rounders capable of adapting to any and all caveats to a contract, or unexpected circumstances unforeseen prior to taking the contract in the first place. This is down almost entirely to their techniques, which are just as flexible and adaptive as these two female mercenaries.
The older Nunes, Amelía, possesses the Cursed Technique known as Even Odds; the ability to, with the toss of her own unique gold coin, instantly make the odds of a given event become 50% in either direction- no matter the odds of it occurring before influencing it with her technique. Even the likelihood of near-impossible events will become an even 50/50 split, such as winning the lottery, being struck by lightning, surviving a lethal blow, and so on. This ability is not limited to simple 'yes, X will occur' and 'no, X will not occur'; she can add a 'Y' factor to her technique's influence, bringing forward an additional, secondary effect into the 50/50 split in exchange for the negative of an event to occur; making it a 'X will occur' against a 'Y will occur' event. Her technique possesses three caveats;
1. The coin must be flipped: it cannot be tossed into the air without spinning over itself.
2. The desired outcome must possess an inverse of equally undesirability. 'Y' cannot be just as advantageous to her as 'X'.
3. Cursed Energy: the likelihood (or impossibility) of an outcome is directly proportional to the cursed energy pumped into the technique's output; an even split on Amelías lottery chances requires more energy to be output than an even split on a 5 to roll on a die.
The younger Nunes twin, Jéssica, possesses a near-complete inversion of her sister's technique, possessing the ability to completely randomize the odds of a given event occurring. This, as opposed to the static manipulation of probability for her sister, completely randomizes the probability into both good and bad outcomes; however, this variety allocates a degree of safety to Jéssica herself; in an absolutely dire situation, the probability of certain death can instantly be randomized into a far more desirable outcome, well away from the absolute 0% chance of a gruesome fate awaiting her.
Rule 3 applies to Jéssica, and her technique.
The Nunes Twins to not possess domains, however Simple Domain is within their arsenal of sorcery.
Personally, I wish I could find a spot to pit the Twins up against Hakari in my story, just to watch their techniques clash against each other, I think it would've been so fun to play a scenario out for that. But even still, I'm not dumb, and I know that a 2v1 jumping of the gambler would only have one possible outcome, and they would end up giving him less of a fight than Kashimo;
If only slightly.
The last Hōnen member I'll introduce in depth is Hitokiri, the 'Man-Slayer': a Kenyan warrior with a tribal name that declares him a Lion Killer, only making him more of a living legend among two spheres of sorcery. Despite appearances telling you that he is a brutish brawler capable of pummeling you into a new place of existence (which he is), that is far from his greatest strength: he serves as Jodo's barrier specialist, and upholds the veil which cloaks the mercenary town from the prying eyes of the human world. He does so through his technique, Omen; manifesting as pikes emerging from the ground with various animals skulls, feathers, beads, jewelry and hide adorning every one, Hitokiri's Omens are infused into every pike, possessing various effects based on his desires. Skulls of Buffalo are capable of paralyzing a target when coming into the range of its Omen, Lions amplify cursed energy output, Leopard reignites one's speed well beyond their original stride, and further on; his variety is one of many reasons he is so feared.
Hitokiri possesses a domain, one powerful enough to not look out of place with any other master of their techniques, who have reached the plane of manifesting their innate domains.
Aaand that's it! Five of the nine members of Honen have been introduced to you now, and the reason as to why Geto is joining forces with Honen will be revealed next time I update this story
So
I dunno
NeXt YEaR
NEXT CHAPTER