Birds of a feather flock together

Masamichi Yaga watched, his pencil hovering over his clipboard without writing anything for a long while.

Behind his sunglasses, Satoru Gojo narrowed his eyes.

Through the Six Eyes, Yan Si's movements were not continuous, but a series of jumps. He vanished from one point and appeared at another, the process in between compressed until it almost ceased to exist.

This was not just speed. It was anticipation.

He already knew where each wooden pole would strike before it sprang out.

Suguru Geto fell quiet as well.

He had seen Yan Si fight cursed spirits. Back then, Yan Si had been like a lunatic (an affectionate nickname born of sincere love for a classmate).

With a boning knife in hand, his attacks were extreme, direct, and utterly without defense. Even when a cursed spirit's tentacle lashed his shoulder hard enough to send blood spraying, he did not dodge. He simply turned and chopped the cursed spirit apart.

It was as though injury did not factor into his considerations at all-or rather, getting hurt was part of his plan to begin with.

Yet now, without a cursed tool or taking hits head-on, his evasions were still breathtakingly beautiful.

Suguru Geto: ...

So you actually can dodge those attacks you take on missions?

Yan Si's evasions were not like Satoru Gojo's casual movements, born of an innate ability to see through everything. Satoru Gojo relied on the Six Eyes.

Nor were they like Suguru Geto's solid, steady precision. Suguru Geto relied on grueling practice, on a foundation built with every drop of sweat.

Yan Si's movements were more like a dance.

Languid, light, and beautiful in a way that almost defied reason.

Of course, he enjoyed showing off a little~

Every turn landed precisely in a gap between attacks. Every backward lean let a wooden pole skim his Adam's apple or the tips of his hair, so dangerously close it was almost provocative, yet he never actually took a hit.

He even found time to yawn between the dense barrage of attacks.

He did not open his mouth very wide.

He covered it briefly with the back of his hand.

But the ease of that gesture made an absurd contrast with the wooden poles flying around him.

It was as though he were not taking a test at all.

The testing mechanism gradually sped up.

Wooden poles sprang out from every direction, increasing in both speed and density, their whistles through the air overlapping.

In the third round, the poles no longer fired individually, but in pairs. One pair barely passed before the next arrived, leaving almost no room to breathe.

Yan Si shifted his footing and spun out, his body skimming two attacking poles that crossed each other's paths.

The sand rasped beneath his feet. He turned, the wind lifting the ends of his hair into a black arc beneath the sunlight, then landed steadily.

It looked like an elegant step to the side, not an evasive maneuver that had narrowly saved him from a wooden pole.

Satoru Gojo suddenly laughed.

It was not loud, but it carried an unmistakable excitement, the sound of someone thoroughly entertained.

He pushed his sunglasses all the way onto the top of his head, revealing his entire face, and blinked his sky-blue eyes.

The Six Eyes took in the full stream of information from the field.

Yan Si's movements, the wooden poles' attack paths-he saw them all.

Then he realized that Yan Si predicted the poles differently from him. The Six Eyes relied on visual information, while Yan Si seemed to rely on something else.

Instinct? Experience? Something else entirely? He could not tell yet, but at least one thing was certain: this guy definitely did not only know how to trade damage taken for damage dealt.

"Now this is interesting. Looks like my classmates are pretty good after all~"

A second later, a wooden pole at the edge of the testing field sprang out at a slightly wrong angle because its mechanism had aged.

The attack that should have skimmed past Yan Si's shoulder tilted fifteen degrees upward and swept straight toward his face.

At that speed, a direct hit to the bridge of his nose would probably draw blood.

Suguru Geto instinctively leaned forward, his brows knitting as he prepared to call out a warning.

Yan Si had Reverse Cursed Technique, but the pain was still real.

Yet Yan Si seemed to have noticed long before.

When the wooden pole was less than twenty centimeters from his face, he tilted his head, the movement small but just enough to let the pole sweep past the wisps of hair beside his ear.

But a rough splinter on the pole happened to catch the elastic tying his hair back.

Under the pull, the black elastic snapped with a pop and flew onto the sand.

His long hair spilled loose. Black strands spread over his shoulders in the April sunlight, flowing all the way down to his waist.

Yan Si stood in the center of the field, the wind gently lifting his hair.

He blinked slowly, his eyelashes casting two faint shadows across his cheeks, as though he had not quite registered what had happened.

He raised a hand to touch his loosened hair. His fingertips found the empty spot where the hair tie had been, and he looked down at the elastic lying in two pieces on the ground.

Hahahaha.

Yan Si was laughing wildly inside.

Perfect sunlight, a gentle breeze, and this face of mine.

Oh yeah, oh yeah~

This definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely looks absolutely amazing!

Stunned speechless, aren't you~

The sidelines did indeed fall silent for a moment.

It was not the silence of people who had been frightened, but of people who needed a little time to recalibrate what their eyes were seeing.

Satoru Gojo spoke first.

He pulled his sunglasses down from the top of his head, but instead of covering his eyes, he left them above his forehead, keeping his whole face exposed.

Those azure eyes swept up and down Yan Si's figure with his hair loose. His voice carried a sincere admiration born of sheer visual impact. "Wow~"

Shoko bit down on her candy. Her tone was flat, but her assessment was anything but.

She tilted her head, studying Yan Si from another angle. "He really doesn't look like a real person."

Suguru Geto instinctively felt his pocket.

Through the fabric, his fingertips touched a small, hard circle.

Sure enough, he had brought a new hair tie today.

It had become a fixed part of his routine before leaving, as natural as bringing his phone and wallet.

Although they both had long hair, Yan Si was rather careless about it, because he never brought one.

Ever since that trip to Odaiba, he had made a habit of bringing an extra. He occasionally needed a few extra elastics to secure his own bun anyway.

Masamichi Yaga watched the new student in the middle of the field, who looked even more like a fox demon with his hair down, and his expression grew graver.

He added another line to the notes in Yan Si's file-mentally, this time: this individual's mere presence may impair the judgment of allies and enemies alike.

Then he closed his mental notebook and decided to consider that problem later.

Yan Si touched his loose hair again, sliding his fingers through it from the crown of his head to the ends, checking where the elastic had snapped.

Then he looked down at the elastic lying in two pieces on the ground and fell silent for two seconds. During those two seconds, the air around the training field was far too quiet.

He lifted his head, an exceptionally brilliant smile spreading across his face, and cheerfully blew his classmates a kiss.

"Nothing to say, everyone?"

An ominous premonition rose in Masamichi Yaga's heart.

It came on fast. "What do you want us to say?"

Yan Si pointed at his own face, his purple eyes brimming with laughter.

His tone was sincere, so sincere that he sounded as though he were seriously asking about a technical matter. "A face this beautiful-you just got to enjoy the pinnacle of beauty, didn't you? Aren't you going to drop some coins?"

Masamichi Yaga: "..."

That ominous premonition had come true, which actually put him at ease. At least now he knew what Yan Si was thinking.

"Shut up. You're not allowed to extort your classmates."

"Oh." Yan Si lowered his hand quite naturally, though his fingers curled slightly as he did.

Suguru Geto noticed. That was a sign of delight.

Suguru Geto could tell that Yan Si's delight was genuine, as though he had spotted a limited-edition dessert and successfully bought it.

Huh?

Fifteen-year-old Suguru Geto had still met too few people. For now, he was bewildered, unable to understand why Yan Si was suddenly happy for no apparent reason.

By the time little Suguru Geto was seventeen, he would have met more people, and he would point at Yan Si and declare with absolute certainty, "That's a lunatic."

Masamichi Yaga lowered his head and wrote the test result on his clipboard.

Excellent.

He wrote the word with particular force, leaving indentations in the paper several times deeper than those beside it.

Looking at that word did nothing to improve his mood.

He had now reached a preliminary conclusion. His observations from nine that morning until now were enough for him to draw up an initial assessment of these four new students.

Satoru Gojo openly refused to be managed.

Yan Si refused to be managed with a smile.

Shoko Ieiri could not be bothered to be managed.

Suguru Geto currently seemed the most normal.

However.

The pencil he was using to write his notes paused beside Suguru Geto's name.

Considering that he had spent so much time with Yan Si and not only chosen not to keep his distance...

But even taken the initiative to carry hair ties, stock snacks, throw away trash, answer calls, and go to Odaiba with him...

Masamichi Yaga reserved judgment on just how "normal" he was.

Birds of a feather flocked together.

In fact, if Yaga recalled this two years later, his face would be a picture of speechless silence.

Indeed, birds of a feather flocked together.

Two Special Grade Curse Users.