Playing Ninjutsu in Jujutsu Kaisen!

"Okay." Natsu Hiraku handed the watermelon to Toge Inumaki. "Sorry for the trouble, Toge. Clean the melon up, then divide it into eight pieces."

"Bonito flakes."

Toge Inumaki took the watermelon one-handed and tucked the scarf covering his mouth around his neck. Holding the watermelon with both hands, he said, "Make the surface of the watermelon clean."

"Whoosh—"

The saliva on the watermelon's rind instantly vanished.

He continued, "Divide the watermelon into eight pieces."

The watermelon in his hands did not move, but everyone, already used to this, picked up their slices of watermelon.

After washing his hands, Natsu Hiraku took two slices and handed one to his Shura.

"Cursed Speech, huh... What an interesting class."

Kento Nanami looked at the watermelon in his hand. He felt it was not right to keep letting his juniors treat him, so he said, "How about we eat out today? I know a restaurant with great food. I'll treat you, as your senior."

"There's no need for that."

Panda said, "Why don't you seniors come over tonight and try Hiraku-kun's cooking? He cooks really well—better than at least 95% of the restaurants outside, and it's safe to eat too."

Yuta Okkotsu added, "Yeah, and Hiraku-kun is about to go buy groceries anyway. Why don't you seniors come over for dinner tonight?"

Hearing his juniors say that, both Kento Nanami and Kirara Hoshi became interested.

Natsu Hiraku was flush with cash now. Hearing them praise his cooking, his nose practically tilted toward the sky. He patted his chest and promised, "Tonight, leave you two customers' stomachs to me. I guarantee the food will be delicious."

After all, he had barely touched the ten million he had earned earlier, and the school had paid him a salary too—around three hundred thousand, by the author's estimate.

He could not afford those ridiculously expensive Cursed Tools, but buying ingredients would definitely be more than affordable.

Cursed Tools were like sorcerers—some were good, some were bad. In any case, he could not forge the things himself. If he really wanted to learn about them, it would have to wait until he reached Special Grade.

What mattered most now was preparing for battle. The fight against Kyoto Jujutsu High was four days away. Training over the next few days probably would not change much; they would likely spend more time discussing tactics.

Although there was a guaranteed winning strategy—letting Yuta Okkotsu go berserk—it felt inappropriate no matter how he thought about it. Being strong himself was what truly mattered. He could worry about the rest after he found himself unable to win...

He took out his phone and checked the time. It was already two o'clock; time to buy groceries. He gently patted Shura on the head to signal that it was time to leave, then said to everyone, "I'm going out to buy groceries, so I'll be heading off first."

After saying goodbye to everyone, he left the school. Looking at the lush green trees lining the road, perhaps moved by the scenery, he could not help sighing. "Ah~! Living is so exhausting, but I don't want to die either. Before transmigrating, I studied medicine like my life depended on it. After transmigrating, I train every day. The only leisurely days I've had were probably those days when I was unconscious."

"I really want to pass out for another... Uh, forget it. There's nothing to gain from that. Completing missions and drawing rewards is way more satisfying."

After sighing, Natsu Hiraku opened his system panel and looked it over.

[Host: Natsu Hiraku]

[Cursed Energy: 850, Quasi-Grade 2 Sorcerer]

[Stamina: 20]

[Eye Technique: One-Tomoe Sharingan]

[Ninjutsu: Fire Style: Great Fire Annihilation, Fire Style: Great Fireball Technique, Summoning Technique, Substitution Technique.]

[Taijutsu: Self-Defense Techniques, Military Fist, Sanda, Jeet Kune Do, Maki Saber Technique (renameable).]

"Quasi-Grade 2 Sorcerer, huh..."

Natsu Hiraku muttered as he looked at the panel. He did not usually like checking this thing. Sometimes, it was perfectly normal for him to look at it only once a month. Why look at it when his points were at zero?

Was his heart not gambling enough already?

His body had been trained up nicely too. There was nothing worth being surprised about. Everything felt within his expectations. With his life-or-death training methods, even a skinny piece of trash could rise to greatness.

As for this Maki Saber Technique, it probably meant he had learned the saber technique Maki created herself...

Forget it. It would not sound good if he said it out loud. He should give it a new name.

"I'll call it... February Sky Saber Technique. After all, I've been learning it for over two months."

Natsu Hiraku looked at the renamed saber technique and nodded in satisfaction. He did not know whether the name sounded cool, but he personally felt that it was quite meaningful.

Maybe every time he saw that name in the future, he would remember the process of getting beaten up, reminding himself not to become arrogant. Or perhaps it would remind him not to forget this dark chapter of his past, warning himself that he had to get even someday.

Either way, Natsu Hiraku thought it was meaningful.

He opened the page that sold ninjutsu.

After thinking for a moment, Natsu Hiraku decided to look at the Rasengan. Hand signs were really annoying. In a war, who had time for that? Naruto got ridiculous in the later stages too—one slap, and the hand signs were complete.

He searched around for quite a while.

Natsu Hiraku opened the Rasengan's description.

[Rasengan: 200 points. Consumes 200 Cursed Energy.]

[Rasengan: Formed from high-speed rotating and compressed Cursed Energy. It pulverizes whatever it touches, can easily break through iron plates, and creates an explosion upon contact. No hand signs required. Consumes 200 Cursed Energy points, with no upper limit.]

"High-speed rotating and compressed Cursed Energy..."

Natsu Hiraku looked at his right hand, and a feeling of I could do this too emerged in his heart. He now had enough Cursed Energy to squander. He was no longer the weakling who would be drained dry after casually using one ninjutsu technique.

The four words "Opening Cursed Technique" surfaced in his mind.

"Whether it'll work or not, I'll try it first. Shura, stand still and wait a moment. I'm trying something."

"Woo~? (What does Master want to do again?)"

Shura, who had been walking at the front, sat down where he was and turned around to look at his master curiously.

Natsu Hiraku lowered his head and stared at his right hand. As the Sharingan appeared, scarlet Cursed Energy enveloped his hand.

Looking at the flame-like Cursed Energy burning over his hand, Natsu Hiraku took a deep breath and slowly closed his eyes. His heart had to be as still as water. A technique could not be developed through passion alone.

Theoretically, he could use this ninjutsu now without the system.

As his excited heart gradually calmed, Natsu Hiraku slowly opened his eyes and exhaled the breath trapped in his chest. His scarlet pupils watched his palm as his mind wandered.

Cursed Energy began gathering in his palm. Only when it reached the size of a basketball did Natsu Hiraku stop gathering it.

Looking at the droplet-like ball of Cursed Energy in his hand, Natsu Hiraku knew it was time for the next step: molding this most basic form of Cursed Energy into what he wanted.

"Make the ball of Cursed Energy spin rapidly and compress toward the center."

After silently repeating that once, the Cursed Energy ball in his hand began spinning to the right. Nothing went wrong at first under the Sharingan's fine control.

But as the Cursed Energy ball in his hand spun faster and faster, the originally complete sphere became strands of Cursed Energy. It expanded to at least twice its original basketball-sized volume.

Although it did not seem to have any killing power, it was already almost identical to the Rasengan he remembered, except his was red.

Looking at the Cursed Energy ball, whose rotation had not yet reached its limit, Natsu Hiraku took a deep breath and silently said, "Time to speed it up and compress it."

The Cursed Energy ball in his hand grew faster and faster. Under Natsu Hiraku's deliberate compression and control, it shrank. Perhaps because it had been compressed too much, several nearby strands of Cursed Energy fused together, eventually becoming sharp blades of Cursed Energy.

Natsu Hiraku did not stop this change. He merely watched it, observed it, and committed it to memory, like a clinical trial.

Perhaps what he ultimately created would be a completely different technique from the Rasengan, but for now, he was simply accumulating experience.

With that thought in mind, Natsu Hiraku continued accelerating and compressing the "Rasengan" in his hand. The tiny Cursed Energy blades did not merge, instead producing clanging sounds as they collided.

Natsu Hiraku immediately realized something was wrong. The tomoe in his scarlet pupils spun rapidly. Some of the colliding Cursed Energy blades were directly knocked away, slicing open a cut on his face. Perhaps because the wound was too small, no blood seeped out.

"This is bad. I need to adjust the spacing between these Cursed Energy blades, or I'll be dead if it explodes."

Though he complained calmly in his heart, Natsu Hiraku had no solution at the moment. This data test seemed to have gone off the rails. He knew being nervous would not help in the slightest; it might even cause his control to fail.

If the thing in his hand burst outward, then in an instant, everything within ten meters would be devastated. In any case, he was not fast enough to escape. As for retrieving the Cursed Energy—

That was no longer possible. The Cursed Energy blades had already been compressed into solid forms. Combined with their accelerated high-speed rotation, they could no longer be retrieved. Slowing them down? He would probably be shot full of holes before they even slowed.

Honestly, it already felt like a Rainstorm Pear Blossom Needle. And his was even more insane: it fired in every direction with no blind spots, covered a ten-meter radius, and could kill its own user if mishandled.

"Whew~"

His lips parted slightly as he exhaled a murky breath. Natsu Hiraku looked at the "spiked ball" in his hand that could kill him at any moment, and his gaze gradually turned cold. At this moment, he had to treat the "spiked ball" in his hand like a patient.

Calmness and steadiness were what doctors needed to value most.

Cursed Energy wrapped around his left hand. Supporting the "spiked ball" with both hands, he began making adjustments under the Sharingan's fine control. Whenever a Cursed Energy blade changed trajectory due to a collision, Natsu Hiraku gently redirected it elsewhere.

The "spiked ball" in his hands was now only the size of a shot put, yet it contained over a thousand Cursed Energy blades, densely packed together. What Natsu Hiraku needed to do now was find trajectories for those thousand blades that had no fixed paths.

Amid the chaotic sounds of collision, several Cursed Energy blades would occasionally happen to fly out. Some stabbed directly into the ground, while his hands supporting the "spiked ball" were pierced straight through.

Perhaps because they pierced through too quickly, Natsu Hiraku did not feel much. He merely noticed that the Cursed Energy covering his hands had been forcibly torn apart by something.

He knew those were the Cursed Energy blades knocked away by collisions.

Natsu Hiraku swallowed, cold sweat beading across his forehead. His heart kept urging him to hurry.

Blood began seeping from his pierced palms. Red drops fell onto the ground. Seeing its master's hands bleeding, Shura's pupils suddenly contracted. Thinking his master had been ambushed, his gaze turned ferocious as he rose to his feet.

Natsu Hiraku shouted, "Stupid dog, stay there and don't move!"

The shout made Shura sit back down, lying on the ground with a wronged look.

As the seconds ticked by, Natsu Hiraku's arms, fingers, chest, cheeks, and even neck gained injuries of varying severity. The Sharingan was beginning to reach its limit as well, and warm liquid flowed from the corners of his eyes and down his cheeks.

"I wonder if my eyes will go blind too..."

Natsu Hiraku muttered softly, seemingly reminding himself that this was not the time to feel tired. Though his vision had already become somewhat blurry, his tone remained as calm as ever.

"If they go blind, they go blind. There's nothing bad about that."

"Mm... There's nothing bad about it..."

By the end, even Natsu Hiraku himself had no idea what nonsense he was spouting. Those words had left his mouth subconsciously.

A moment later.

Natsu Hiraku closed his eyes and felt the now-stable "spiked ball" in his hands. He sighed. "I'm exhausted. That almost got out of hand. My eyes have bled too much too. I don't know if I'll even be able to open them later. But... what should I name this move?"

Natsu Hiraku toyed with the ball in his hand. The Cursed Energy blades inside had all been assigned their trajectories. Unless affected by an outside force, the thing was still quite safe.

Though the process had been dangerous, at least the outcome was good. There was just one downside: what if someone interrupted him right after he finished condensing it?

Mutual destruction?

To be safe, he felt he should add another layer of Cursed Energy protection around the thing, so he would not end up trading lives with an enemy if something went wrong. Of course, this layer was only meant to guard against incoming techniques.

As for its name... he would decide after improving it.

Natsu Hiraku plopped down onto the ground and complained weakly.

"Ah, I'm so tired. I'm never messing with this thing again."

Natsu Hiraku fiercely threw the stabilized "spiked ball" in his hand. This was not a random throw; the surrounding terrain had long since been imprinted in his mind.

At the end of the path ahead was a small hill. Even if the "spiked ball" hit it, it would not explode—it would merely leave that hillside devastated.

"Shura, take me home. I think I should rest before going out to buy groceries."

Shura did not come over in response to Natsu Hiraku's call. Instead, he howled in complaint, "Woo~ woof! (Master called me a stupid dog!)"

Natsu Hiraku laughed when he heard that. "How could that be? I only said it for your own good. I had no choice. Your dad's eyes are blind now, so aren't you going to take me home?"

After saying that, he waved his hand. Before long, he felt fur beneath his fingers. After feeling around, he climbed onto Shura's back and said, "Thanks. Shura, you're the best."

Shura did not respond to his master's praise. Instead, he proudly raised his head.

Feeling Shura's joy through their connection, Natsu Hiraku smiled and rubbed his head.

Perhaps... he had truly experienced how difficult it was to be a parent. For some reason, the thought of going back to take a look suddenly surfaced in his mind.

Not returning to his original world, but visiting his deceased parents here. Though he had not felt much on the day he transmigrated, as time passed and the original owner's memories truly became part of "himself," he could not help feeling something.

"Forget it. After the exchange event ends, I'll go visit Grandma. If my eyes are fine today, I'll clean up around their graves too. It's been a few months since I last went back to see them."

Just as he finished speaking, Shura beneath him reminded him.

"Woof! (We're home!)"

"Okay, I know."

Natsu Hiraku climbed down, felt for the doorknob with his left hand, and opened the door to walk inside. He usually did not lock the door when going out. There was no one he needed to guard against, and his home was practically empty anyway. Aside from some food in the refrigerator, there was nothing there.

He only locked the door from the inside when he was home. After all, when sleeping alone, he preferred the feeling of not wearing much.