Examination

"I don't normally expend cursed energy. It gets used up..."

Satoru Gojo walked ahead with both hands in his pockets, his white hair faintly gleaming under the dim corridor lights.

"Probably when I'm attacked or activate my cursed technique. It's just that I can't reliably control this passive effect yet."

Feng followed at an unhurried pace, the old wooden floorboards creaking softly beneath his footsteps.

As Feng moved forward, the slightly damp moisture in the air followed him step for step, leaving a barely visible film of mist on the cold, hard walls.

"It's like a water balloon with its surface tension at the breaking point."

Gojo spoke without looking back, his analogy delivered with a touch of nonchalance.

The motion-activated lights at the end of the corridor switched on one after another as he approached, stretching his tall shadow far behind him.

"As long as you don't poke it, it can keep that perfect round shape forever.

But the moment something damages it from outside, or you try to force it into a different shape yourself, the 'shell' maintaining that balance bursts, and the cursed energy inside pours out like water.

If you can't reliably control the passive effect, that means a passing mosquito could make you explode into a puddle at any moment."

"Surely it's not that bad..." Feng was somewhat speechless, but continued following quietly.

Gojo stopped in front of a heavy metal door.

A red cross marked the door, and the smell of disinfectant grew stronger here. He turned around, his azure eyes sweeping over Feng above the rims of his sunglasses.

Feng stopped a few steps away, his dark blue uniform jacket looking a little dull under the cold fluorescent light.

He stood straight and still, the reflection of the metal door resting calmly in his dark red eyes.

Gojo raised a hand and banged on the metal door without the slightest restraint.

"Shoko! You awake? Come on out, you've got a customer! I brought you a really interesting medical specimen!"

A dull thump came from inside, followed by the grating screech of a chair dragging across the floor.

Several seconds passed before the metal door slid open to either side with a low mechanical hum.

The strong smell of coffee mingled with tobacco wafted out. Shoko Ieiri wore a slightly wrinkled white coat, her trademark dark circles beneath her eyes, and held half an unlit cigarette between her fingers.

She irritably ruffled her messy long brown hair, her gaze passing over Gojo's annoying face and settling directly on Feng behind him.

"What are you making such a racket for in the middle of the night? And don't talk about a new student like he's something to dissect in the morgue, you scumbag."

Shoko exhaled wearily. The instant her languid gaze fell on Feng, her instincts as a top practitioner of Reverse Cursed Technique made her brow crease almost imperceptibly.

She sensed none of the vital signs of a normal human body in the boy before her. Instead, there was a strange, immense flow of cursed energy, like a deep pool.

"...A heavenly restriction?"

Shoko casually tucked the cigarette behind her ear and stepped aside to clear a path, tipping her chin toward the room beyond, filled with precision instruments.

"Come in. Lie down on the examination table over there, and I'll see what's going on. What do you need checked?"

Gojo strode straight inside without ceremony, pulled over a swivel chair, and sat down with his long legs casually crossed.

"Mainly his total cursed energy output and the evaporation rate of this 'water body' at rest.

Also, it'd be best if you could figure out how his soul is bonded to a body made entirely of cursed energy.

If we don't get a handle on the basic parameters, we could easily have an accident during class later."

Shoko walked over to the examination table and expertly switched on the Cursed Energy Wavelength Analyzer beside it. Blue lines began flickering across its screen.

She turned to look at Feng, who was standing in the doorway.

"You heard him. Get up here.

My Reverse Cursed Technique probably won't work on you, but the equipment here can see right through you, underwear and all."

"Seriously...?" Feng was somewhat speechless, but cooperated with the examination anyway.

His dark blue uniform jacket was neatly draped over the back of a metal chair.

The cold stainless steel examination table reflected the harsh lights overhead.

Shoko attached several black patches with metal contacts to the side of the boy's neck, his chest, and the inside of his wrist.

The moment her fingertips pressed against that pale wrist, the school doctor, who had seen more than her share of life and death, paused ever so slightly.

There was no pulse.

None of the warmth of blood flowing through a human body.

Shoko pressed down a little harder. Rather than the resistance of flesh and bone, she felt a strange, slight pushback, as though she were pressing against the surface of a high-pressure stream of water.

Cold, yet containing an undercurrent so immense it made her heart tremble.

"Beep-beep-beep!"

The comprehensive Cursed Energy Wavelength Analyzer beside them suddenly let out a rapid alarm.

The blue lines that had been drifting smoothly across the screen began thrashing wildly the instant it registered the data, shooting upward and smashing through the yellow threshold marked "Grade 1."

They continued climbing madly toward the red warning line at the top, finally converging into a glaring mass of red at the upper edge of the screen.

"What is this supposed to be?"

Shoko's eyelid twitched. She took the cigarette from behind her ear and irritably twirled it between her fingers.

Her heavily shadowed eyes left the instrument's screen and looked down at the black-haired boy lying on the examination table, quietly cooperating with every scan.

"I can't detect any of the physiological responses a human should have. Heart rate, blood pressure, even cellular activity-all zero.

Rather than a 'human,' this body's physical structure is closer to some highly concentrated cursed object that has undergone 'incarnation.' And..."

She turned around, braced her hands on the console, and began typing rapidly, pulling up one intricate data chart after another.

The light reflected from the screen made her face look somewhat pale.

"His total cursed energy is frighteningly high. If I had to find a point of comparison in the existing database..."

Shoko paused and turned toward Gojo in the swivel chair behind her, a note of gravity she could not quite hide entering her voice.

"It's roughly equivalent to the combined cursed energy contained in three of Ryomen Sukuna's fingers.

And its purity is unusually high. There's almost no residue from mixed negative emotions, like a source of pure water that's been filtered countless times."

"That much?" Feng was a little surprised. That was equivalent to three-twentieths of Sukuna's total cursed energy, though it was still far below Yuta Okkotsu, who possessed enormous reserves according to the original setting.

Still, compared with others his age, it was enough to secure third place and contend for second.

Sitting in his wheeled office chair, Gojo gave the floor a light push with his long legs and rolled smoothly over to the examination table.

He clasped his hands behind his head and studied Feng through his pitch-black sunglasses, taking in the patches and cables surrounding him as an unrestrained grin spread across his face.

"That's why I said he was such an interesting, rare specimen. Because his body itself is a 'heavenly restriction' made of cursed energy and a cursed technique, there's no risk of his brain overloading through 'cursed technique burnout.'

When he suffers fatal physical damage, he instinctively expends cursed energy to liquefy the struck area and negate the injury..."

Gojo leaned forward slightly, his tall shadow covering one corner of the examination table.

His azure Six Eyes seemed capable of seeing through those layers of water masquerading as human skin, straight to the core.

"But the price is fair, too.

Once that enormous supply of cursed energy runs dry, or he's unable to access a natural water source to replenish himself, he won't even leave an intact corpse. He'll just 'evaporate.'

Right, Shoko?"

"Yeah. Reverse Cursed Technique works by multiplying negative cursed energy to convert it into positive energy and repair the body."

Shoko snapped a paper medical chart shut, opened a drawer, and disconnected the cables from the patches one by one.

"But for a non-carbon-based life-form, a liquid structure made purely of cursed energy, my treatment is completely useless.

If you get hurt, I can't save you."

She bent down and peeled the final patch off the side of the boy's neck, the hem of her disinfectant-scented white coat brushing lightly against the metal table.

Her tired yet sharp eyes calmly met the boy's dark red gaze.

"Do you understand, new kid? You're hard to kill, but you're also incredibly fragile."