Before the Gears Turn

Tokyo Jujutsu High, the corridor leading to the first-year classroom.

Mizuki Makoto leaned against a vermilion pillar, idly tossing a coin whose pattern had nearly worn away. Before that heavy cursed energy, enough to freeze the air, even approached, he had already caught the scent of trouble.

"Oh my, Mizuki. You came all the way here to greet the new arrival? Teacher's so touched."

Gojo Satoru's cheerful voice came from around the corner. Right after that, a boy in a white uniform, dark circles hanging heavily beneath his eyes as if he might collapse from anemia at any moment, cowered behind the white-haired giant like a startled deer.

"Yuta, this is Mizuki Makoto, the one I told you about." Gojo patted the boy's shoulder. "He's a very... cheerful senior."

"Hello, Mizuki... I'm Okkotsu Yuta..."

Mizuki adjusted the monocle on the bridge of his nose. Rather than return the boy's greeting, he put on an extremely grave expression, carrying three parts pity and seven parts despair.

"You're Yuta, right? I suggest you turn around immediately and run out through the school gates. You might still be able to save the rest of your life—and the lower half of your body."

"Huh?!" Okkotsu Yuta froze.

With a long sigh, he walked over to Okkotsu's side and lowered his voice mysteriously.

"Since you've already stepped through this door, it's my duty as your senior to tell you the truth. Your three new classmates... are all monsters in the literal sense."

Mizuki Makoto raised a finger and began his utterly deranged fabrication.

"First, there's that woman named Zenin Maki. She's a banished combatant from the Zenin Clan, known as the 'Asura Princess.' She hates pretty-faced boys the most. Last time, a transfer student nearly had his ribs taken apart and turned into an instrument with a cursed tool just because he stepped forward with his left foot first. In the end, he had to be carried sideways into Miss Ieiri's office."

Okkotsu Yuta's face turned a shade paler, and his Adam's apple bobbed with difficulty.

"Then there's that Panda." He shook his head, his tone becoming even more horrifying. "Don't let its cute appearance fool you. It's really a beast wearing panda skin. It has a strange habit: whenever it gets hungry, it loves eating weak-looking, tender little kids like you. Half the bones in the ash pit behind the school are leftovers from its meals."

"...!!" Okkotsu's legs had already begun to tremble.

"And finally, Inumaki Toge. He's a descendant of Cursed Speech users. The moment he opens his mouth, someone dies. He usually doesn't speak because if he says the word 'die,' not a blade of grass within a hundred meters will survive. His favorite pastime is making people pole-dance with Cursed Speech until they dehydrate."

Mizuki patted Okkotsu's shoulder, his tone so sincere it could have won an Oscar. "Oh, Yuta, you look so innocent. I'm really worried you won't make it through the night."

Gojo squatted nearby, watching him spout this utterly straight-faced nonsense that was somehow also entirely true. The corner of his eye twitched wildly behind his sunglasses, and he stood on the verge of collapsing between wanting to laugh and having to hold it in.

Hey, hey, Maki nearly tore your ribs apart not because you called her 'Maki-chan' and tried to touch her abs? And those 'tender little kids' were the premium chicks you tricked Panda into helping you steal and roast last time, right? As for Inumaki... you coaxed that innocent Cursed Speech user into yelling 'Strip!' at Panda just to satisfy your perverted curiosity about a Cursed Corpse's anatomy. How do you even have the nerve to frame someone else without changing expression...?

He took a deep breath, looked at Okkotsu's face that was about to fall apart, and secretly curled his lips into a smile identical to Mizuki's.

Seriously... this kid. Could it be that, back then, Utahime, Shoko, Nanami, and Haibara all saw me as this much of a bastard too?

Thus, when Okkotsu Yuta entered the classroom with a persecutory delusion that the whole world was out to get him, things naturally went completely off the rails.

Because Mizuki Makoto had planted the seeds of fear in Okkotsu's heart beforehand, Rika behind him also received a powerful sensory shock.

"...No... Rika... They'll kill me... I'll get eaten..." Okkotsu muttered despairingly, clutching his head.

"—Don't... bully... Yuta!!!"

The violent resentment of Rika Orimoto, the Queen of Curses, exploded in an instant. Maki, Panda, and Toge had originally only reacted defensively after sensing Rika's threat, but in Rika's eyes, these three perfectly matched Mizuki Makoto's descriptions of a "violent woman," "man-eating beast," and "cursed killer."

And so, the restrained "welcoming ceremony" turned into a one-sided "renovation project."

Boom!!!

Two minutes later, Mizuki Makoto slowly pushed open the classroom door.

The classroom was a complete mess, and the blackboard had been smashed to pieces. Up on the high ceiling beam, three familiar figures were posed in an extremely artistic manner.

Maki's long staff had been twisted into a spiral by Rika and used as a rope to bind her firmly to the beam. Panda had been wrung into a ball by cursed energy, swaying around like a stuffed ornament. Meanwhile, Inumaki Toge had had his mouth sealed with tape Rika had somehow found, and was hanging upside down from the blades of a ceiling fan, rotating a full 360 degrees with remarkable regularity as the fan spun.

"Bonito flakes... Help me..." Inumaki's voice was thick with dizzy despair.

"Oh my, this is truly tragic."

Standing amid the wreckage, Mizuki Makoto did not rescue anyone immediately. Instead, he pulled the latest phone model from his pocket, adjusted the angle, and began snapping shots of the three "art pieces" on the ceiling from every possible direction.

"Panda, turn a little to the left. Yes, that angle catches the despair in your eyes. Maki, stop glaring at me. If I post this photo on the school forum, it'll sell for at least twenty thousand yen each."

As he pressed the shutter, he gave a thumbs-up to Okkotsu Yuta, who was still cowering in the corner and apologizing.

"Good job, Yuta. See? I told you so. They really are enthusiastic. Look, they're already taking you on this kind of high-altitude acrobatics ride."

"I-I'm sorry! I really didn't mean to!" Okkotsu wailed.

Gojo Satoru poked his head in through the doorway. Looking at the three students swaying in the air from the ceiling, all on the verge of throwing up, then at Mizuki beside him, busy editing photos for Twitter, he let out a deep sigh.

"Makoto, while teacher does enjoy a lively atmosphere, isn't this kind of 'welcoming ceremony'... a little beyond the limits of human morality?"

Without looking up, Mizuki Makoto swiped across his screen.

"Teacher, this is called 'deepening bonds.' By the way, would you like a copy of this Panda fan photo too? Only one thousand yen, shared copyright."

Gojo Satoru fell silent for three seconds, then decisively pulled out his wallet.

"...Deal. Remember to send me a high-resolution original too."

From the ceiling came Maki's hysterical roar.

"MIZUKI MAKOTO!!! Once I get down, I'm chopping you up and feeding you to the fish!!!"

He smiled, casually tapped send, and gracefully left the classroom.

"Oh my, another day full of classmate camaraderie."