09. | i'm something else
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Standing beneath the vast expanse of the clear, azure sky, a sense of tranquility welled up within him. Brilliant blue stretched endlessly, unmarred by even a single cloud.
The sun's warm rays bathed him in a comforting embrace, and a gentle breeze whispered from beyond the forest in the distance.
He closed his eyes briefly, letting the sunlight wash over his face before a sound broke through the peacefulness.
"Well, well, well. Suguru, look who it is!"
"Satoru," Suguru forewarned, but it lacked any sincere concern.
Opening his [e/c] eyes, he turned his head at the group approaching them. The Kyoto Team had arrived at Tokyo Jujutsu High's grounds. Even from the distance, he could see three familiar silhouettes among the crowd.
Gojo laughed sardonically at them, his blue eyes taunting their very existence.
"I spy, with my Six Eyes, a pretentious, whiny brat approaching us, Suguru!"
With a large frown, Utahime immediately yelled out, "What was that?! Be respectful, Gojo. Damn you!" A playful tongue stuck out of his lips. "I wasn't even talking about you, Utahime~," he pointed to the person behind her. "I was talking about the piss-colored hair Zenin over there."
"Hah?!" An irk mark appeared on Naoya's face, and he gave a strained smile at Gojo despite the sour expression on his face.
[Y/n] sighed and turned his head upwards again, enjoying the scenery of blue as chaos and more yelling ensued between the two teams. The clock had just struck nine, but everyone seemed to have so much energy to waste.
Besides him, he could feel footsteps approaching, and tilted his head to look at Nanami.
"Did you sleep well?" Nanami asked him, blonde hair fluttering in the wind.
"Yeah. I slept like a log. Had a weird dream though..."
"About?"
"Saw a one-eyed cat eating Gojo-senpai for fun in my dream. Strangest dream I had, to be honest."
Nanami looked perplexed. "Perhaps it's because you thought of him too much. Specifically, that bet you talked about yesterday."
"Hmm, yeah. That's probably it." He shifted on his foot unconsciously. Nanami replied, "Don't push yourself too hard, [Y/n]."
He gaped slightly at the words of his classmate.
Was that a semblance of worry... from Nanami? He's kind of surprised. It was just... rare. He could count with his fingers the number of times Nanami and him even interacted since the start of the semester.
[Y/n] was slightly intrigued by him when they first met, but made no move to get close. Their cursed techniques were, to put it simply, quite similar. At first glance, anyway.
Nanami's innate technique allowed him to divide his target into ten lines, forcibly creating a weak spot at the ratio point of seven to three. Applicable to non-living objects, he could freely choose with his technique which parts of the target to divide.
And [Y/n]'s... well...
The cursed eyes of death perception was the inherited technique of the [L/n] clan that never again appeared since its height of power in the Heian period of Japan. It gained quite the reputation, from how easy it was to kill with them, and from what it could kill instead.
With these cursed eyes, and a bit more experience, the question of whether something was alive or not was irrelevant.
His eyes could show him the death of things. The weak points where everything would most easily be broken, the imperfection that will break down one day.
The fate of all things.
It allowed him to see the future and see the death of a person or even an object. No exceptions.
Perceiving the very threadbare nature of this run-down world. It was no wonder that his clan was regarded highly once again when it was announced that he had received these cursed eyes of his.
"There's no need to worry, Nanami. I'll be fine. Honest."
Nanami nodded. "Just do as you always do, and you'll be fine. If you win the bet against Gojo-san, that'll be more than fine too."
He laughed softly. "When I win, you mean?"
A small smile became visible on Nanami's face. "Yes. I believe in you." He felt his breath shorten a bit when he saw that smile, but he moved on immediately from the thought.
From the edge of his vision, he could see Naoya pointing at Gojo and doing his best to deliver a good insult to the stronger sorcerer. Gojo gave him a middle finger in return, making his old friend much more furious it seemed.
In the middle of their squabble though, Yaga-sensei seemed to be the more furious one. His eyes were practically glaring daggers at the white-haired sorcerer.
Well, everything's off to a great start.
Leaving Gojo to get chewed out, Suguru walked closer to [Y/n] and Nanami instead. "Haha, let's go to somewhere more private. The Wacky Spirit Bash Race is taking place at noon. We still have time to discuss a plan."
"Ah, we're not participating actually," Nanami voiced out, then pointed at Haibara and Ijichi at the back as well. Haibara gave a friendly wave when he saw the three looking at him.
Suguru waved as well before saying, "It's fine. More the merrier. You guys can keep [Y/n] company as well."
[Y/n] arched an eyebrow but didn't say anything about it. Instead, he spoke out on a different topic, "What about Gojo-senpai?"
As he turned to look at the currently scolded Gojo, his eyes locked briefly at Naoya's. They stared intently at one another before [Y/n] broke it off completely, turning his head back towards his classmates.
Was Naoya participating too, he wondered. He was powerful, but he was also an ass. Who would recommend him...
It was probably Mei-senpai. Naoya must have paid her, no doubt.
Suguru continued, "Ah, he'll join us later after he's done being scolded."
"Serves him right," Ieiri said, laughing at the end.
"Well, let's get going then."
Suguru led the way, patting his underclassmen's shoulders as he guided them away with him.
"EH?! You guys are really gonna leave me?" Gojo shrieked as he did his best to escape the chokehold Yaga was so kindly giving him.
"See you soon, Gojo-senpai."
"OI!"
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Sitting comfortably, he heaved out a sigh as he watched minutes pass by, paying particular attention to the longer hand of the clock he was watching.
"Bored or worried?"
"Hmm?"
He tilted his head and met the eyes of Ieiri. Up close, she actually smelled like cigarettes instead of the antiseptic smell [Y/n] was expecting.
"Oh, I'm impatient, Ieiri-senpai. Why is it taking so long for the event to start?"
Ieiri laughed, then sat beside him to watch the ticking clock as well. "Ugh, Ieiri-senpai still sounds weird to my ears. Just call me by my first name, [Y/n]."
He nodded. "Okay then, Shoko-san."
She smiled, giving him a gentle pat on the back. "Yeah, that's more like it! Sometimes, I feel like you're still hiding so much of yourself from us, [Y/n]."
"Is that so? Sorry, it's probably because of how I always viewed things in the Jujutsu Society."
"Like what?"
He answered, "I don't want to... make that many deep connections, especially with the line of work we're all heading at."
Shoko looked at him with an unwavering gaze, discerning whether or not what he said was the truth. Then, she nodded. "Yeah, I understand that line of thinking, [Y/n]. You're not alone on that, but..."
"But?"
"You don't seem to be doing a good job at it, don't you think?"
He stilled as he pondered when she saw such a thing, only to realize she was talking about yesterday. "Oh, you mean the thing with Haibara?"
A hint of a smirk decorated her upturned lips. "You were so worried. It was the first time I saw such an expression on your face." She laughed. "Usually, you would just smile and nod at everything most of us said, excluding Gojo, of course."
"Hah, as if I need to worry about Gojo-senpai."
The sound of a slam cut their conversation and snapped his attention to the opening door. "I've arrived! After my friends betrayed me and left me to suffer at the hands of sensei!"
Everyone in the room owlishly blinked at him.
"Really? You guys have nothing to say for yourself?!" Gojo pouted at the silence and turned to look at Suguru for answers.
Suguru smiled. "Haha. It was my idea."
Gojo gasped dramatically.
Suguru clapped his hands together and spoke out, "Okay, now that everyone's here. Let's discuss the plan for the race against the Kyoto students."
The only people technically participating were Suguru, Gojo, and of course, [Y/n] himself. A small crowd but technically already quite the overkill.
[Y/n] heard from Haibara during class one time, that last year's event ended with a complete loss for the Kyoto students because Gojo and Suguru were a little excessive towards their opponents. Someone cried at the end.
This year though, with the added manpower of [Y/n]... Oh well. His opponent's mental health later wasn't his issue to solve.
He pushed himself to stand up and walk closer to Suguru and Gojo.
"Plan? You do know, we don't need a concrete plan, right? We're just gonna split up and kill as much as we can!" Gojo shouted with a sly smile on his face.
"That sounds good enough to me," he answered. Finally, something they both agreed with.
Suguru looked at the both of them before sighing. "Well, if that's what you two want. I'll mostly lay off and just watch as you two do most of the work. More curses for you two to slaughter for your bet, right?"
They both nodded.
Suddenly, Gojo set his beautiful blue eyes to [Y/n]'s own. The white-haired man smiled blindingly.
"I almost forgot to tell you."
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While the forest was lush with vegetation and small animals, it also contained lots and lots of cursed spirits that were released. The damp smell of earth was combined with the disgusting sinews of those accursed beings.
Those who weren't used to such a loud array of cursed energy around them would probably already tried to run away from the forest altogether.
As he searched for the highest-ranked cursed spirit for the race, he slaughtered each and every smaller cursed spirit he'd encountered.
"Isn't he underestimating me too much, giving me a head start?" he mumbled as he ran further inside the forest.
A disgusting sound of a spirit came from his right, and he sidestepped to immediately cut it apart.
His [e/c] eyes glowed as his body wielded his dagger subconsciously.
Any cursed spirit that entered his field of vision was bound to die as he reacted with frightening speed.
He didn't know how much time passed, but he was sure Gojo had started killing the other cursed spirits already by now. Running quicker, he felt the unnaturally stronger energy of the cursed spirit residing in the area.
It truly was a disgusting piece of shit.
The cursed spirit had multiple hands surrounding its body while all of its eyes stared directly at [Y/n]. It didn't have a mouth, but even [Y/n] could feel the taunting aura aimed at him. He smirked as the cursed spirit walked closer to him, walking coquettishly at him with all of its open arms.
"Haha. How horrid."
He gripped the dagger in his hand tighter. There were only a few lines on the body of the cursed spirit. The lesser sometimes means the stronger his opponent was, but he begged to differ if he ever saw the opposite.
The hideous thing ran at him, but he was ready. Surrounding himself with the cursed energy coming from the pit of his stomach, he brought his dagger forward and—
"Oh~? Look what I found."
"Hmm?"
A strong kick sent the cursed spirit flying toward his left, but it wasn't strong enough to obliterate the horrid thing.
The huge blast of wind had him shut his eyes for a few seconds, and when he opened them, he saw a familiar friend. Just his luck, right when the target that could make him win immediately was just his for the taking.
Naoya stood before him with a smirk. "Guess we both found the cursed spirit. Hehe."
"Ugh."
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