Slicing melons

The next day.

In the cafeteria at Jujutsu High, Yang Jian sat in a corner with a bowl of miso soup.

Two cans of cola, a blackened croquette, and a small dish of pickles sat on the table.

The cafeteria lady's cooking was as inconsistent as ever. The croquette was so dark it looked as though it had been dredged out of a ghost domain.

The croquette on his plate had been fried pitch-black, its deep color making it no different from a hard lump fished out of a rotting swamp. Beside it were a small dish of pickles and two room-temperature colas. The main course was a bowl of miso soup with two pieces of kelp floating in it.

Yang Jian lifted the bowl and took a sip. The warm liquid slipped down his throat, but it could not warm this shell of his, colder than an ordinary human body.

"Carbonated drinks first thing in the morning? Got a death wish?"

A chair pulled out across from him. Shoko Ieiri sat straight down with her coffee. Under her white coat, she wore a rumpled nurse's uniform. The dark circles beneath her eyes had sunk a little deeper since last week's checkup, making her look exactly like a morgue's night-shift forensic examiner who had worked three days straight.

Yang Jian ignored her jab and picked up the blackened croquette, biting into it. It was hard enough to scrape his mouth.

"Sugary carbonated drinks help maintain neural activity. You're a medical student, and you don't know that?" He chewed twice and swallowed.

Shoko sneered and took a sip of coffee. "All a medical student knows is that a normal person with a resting heart rate of fifty-two should have been in the ICU long ago.

"Your body temperature stays two degrees below normal, and several protein markers centrifuged out of your blood fall completely outside the bounds of human, carbon-based biology.

"If I put your constitution in a report, I'd have to write an entirely new research proposal overnight."

She held her chopsticks and casually stole a slice of pickled radish from Yang Jian's plate.

Yang Jian raised his eyelids slightly and did not stop her.

"I held back last week's blood sample. Didn't send it upstairs," Shoko said indistinctly as she chewed the radish.

"Why?"

"A constitution with a body temperature that stays ten degrees below normal, a resting heart rate of fifty-two, and blood markers so bizarre I don't even want to put them in a report." Shoko took a sip of coffee.

"If I submitted it, they'd strap you to a lab table and take you apart for research. Though I'd quite like to take you apart myself."

Yang Jian's expression remained placid as he pulled the tab on a can of cola. Gas escaped with a hiss.

"How did Jujutsu High classify the Adachi Ward incident?" He changed the subject.

"Official statement: a special-grade wild cursed spirit caused a localized magnetic-field disturbance. Special Grade Sorcerer Satoru Gojo exorcised it on-site in the early hours of last night." Shoko recited the official line as though reading an elementary schooler's half-assed summer journal.

"What about me?"

"You don't exist." Shoko stared into Yang Jian's eyes. "Gojo went to have tea with the higher-ups, and your existence was completely erased. Even the apartment buildings corroded by the Ghost Wall were written off as structural deterioration caused by collateral effects of jujutsu."

"The higher-ups bought that?"

"What they believe in is Satoru Gojo's fists, not this report." Shoko swirled her coffee cup. After a brief pause, she abruptly added, "Drop by the infirmary when you have time. I want another two tubes of blood."

Yang Jian stopped drinking his cola.

"You took three just last month."

"Don't bring up last month." Shoko set down her cup and tapped the table with her knuckles. "That whole-blood sample sealed in the refrigerator at a constant four degrees sat there for three days. When I examined a smear under the microscope, the red blood cell count had increased instead of falling.

"With no nutrient solution supplied, it completed cell proliferation all on its own inside a sealed glass tube."

That flatly contradicted basic biological knowledge.

Shoko stared at him. "Your blood is fifty times more alive than your body."

"Thanks."

A sound came from the cafeteria entrance.

Satoru Gojo walked in, bobbing his white-haired head, a large bag of convenience-store purchases in his hand. A small black-haired boy followed him.

Megumi Fushiguro wore a set of clean old clothes and an expression like he owed three million in loans.

"Yo-morning, you two."

Satoru Gojo strode over, thumped the huge plastic bag into the middle of the table, and pulled out a chair to sit.

He stretched out those long legs he was so proud of, taking up the space beneath Yang Jian's seat with perfect accuracy.

Yang Jian's eyelid twitched. He lifted his foot and delivered a vicious kick to the shin of one of those long legs.

"Ow-you really don't hold back!" Satoru Gojo cried out theatrically. He was not angry, though, and drew his legs up with a grin.

"What? I'm just maximizing the use of the cafeteria's floor space."

He turned and pulled Megumi Fushiguro out from behind him. "Come on, say hello to everyone."

Megumi Fushiguro stood where he was and surveyed the three people at the table.

"...Good morning."

His voice was as faint as a mosquito's buzz.

Shoko set down her coffee cup and looked the child over. "This is Toji Fushiguro's son?"

"Yeah." Satoru Gojo opened the convenience-store bag. It was full of snacks and juice. "I put him in a guest room at Jujutsu High last night for now. Tsumiki's still in the hospital, but it's nothing serious."

Yang Jian glanced at Megumi Fushiguro.

He had been trapped by the Ghost Wall for almost an hour last night, and his Divine Dog had lost half its body. An ordinary child would have broken down long ago.

Yet he stood there, his eyes constantly moving, studying his surroundings, the people present, and every possible exit.

"Sit." Yang Jian pushed an unopened can of cola toward him.

Megumi Fushiguro looked at the cola, then at Yang Jian, but did not take it.

"Don't like cola?"

"...That's not it."

"Then take it."

Megumi Fushiguro reached out and took the cola. He did not open it, only held it in his hand.

Satoru Gojo watched from beside them, his expression behind his sunglasses hard to read.

He tore open a bag of rice crackers and stuffed one into his mouth, speaking around it. "Oh, right, Yang Jian, that beat-up knife of yours last night-"

"The Chopping Knife," Yang Jian corrected.

"Fine, the Chopping Knife." Satoru Gojo gestured in the air with a finger. "It really doesn't mess around when it cuts. I analyzed your final movements with the Six Eyes. You dismantled that gray wall with six consecutive slashes.

"The point where each slash landed lined up exactly with the joints in the main body's cursed energy... no, the joints of that thing's puzzle pieces. Six fragments, without wasting energy on a single extra slash."

"Cutting it apart lowers its degree of revival."

"What I'm curious about is how you calculated it so precisely. Can those red eyes of yours see through things?"

"No need to see through anything." Yang Jian picked up his half-finished cola and tapped the pull tab with a fingertip. "Once you've cut up enough ghosts, the feel comes naturally. Practice makes perfect. It's just a matter of having a practiced hand."

Satoru Gojo's jaw stopped mid-chew.

Shoko could not hold back a snort of laughter and sprayed coffee all over the napkins beside her.

"The way you describe it makes it sound as mundane as a market lady slicing watermelons."

"Easier than watermelons. With watermelons, you still have to check whether they're ripe. With ghosts, you just cut," Yang Jian replied.

Megumi Fushiguro sat on the edge of his chair, his back ramrod straight, listening to their conversation the entire time.

A layer of droplets had formed on the aluminum cola can in his hand, trickling down between his fingers.

Megumi Fushiguro remained silent in the chair across from them.

He had held the cola can for so long that the condensation on its surface trickled slowly between his fingers and dripped onto his trouser leg.

Suddenly, he spoke.

"Um."

The conversation at the table stopped instantly. All three turned to look at him.

The little boy chose his words with unusual precision, without the vagueness typical of children. "Last night, that gray thing that could eat shadows took part of my shikigami." He looked up, his black eyes fixed on Yang Jian. "That... ghost. You locked it in a bag?"

"Yes."

"Will it come out again?"

"No."

Having received that definite, one-syllable answer, Megumi Fushiguro lowered his eyes and nodded.

He showed no surprise, did not ask what exactly was inside the bag, and did not offer even a single word of thanks.

"This kid's pretty cold." Satoru Gojo crumpled the empty rice-cracker bag into a ball, tossed it into the trash, and leaned back in his chair.

Yang Jian did not respond.

He was reviewing last night's battle in his head.

The Ghost Wall's paranormal strength was A, and it had the ability to grow by devouring other ghosts.

They had been lucky this time. There were no other vicious ghosts from a paranormal invasion nearby. Otherwise, if it had eaten two or three, six slashes might not have been enough to deal with it.

The first paranormal invasion had been B-grade.

The second had been the Ghost Wall, A-grade.

The escalation was a little too fast.

If the third one jumps straight to an S-grade-

"What are you scheming about?" Shoko's cool voice interrupted his thoughts.

"Nothing." Yang Jian swallowed the last mouthful of soup, pushed his chair back, and stood. "I'll come for the blood draw this afternoon."

"Why does it have to be the afternoon?"

"I need to sleep this morning."

Shoko glanced at the wall clock. Seven thirty in the morning. "You didn't get back to your dorm until after three yesterday morning, and you still need sleep?"

"Sleep deprivation affects how fast I draw my knife."

Yang Jian walked out of the cafeteria, pausing for a step as he passed Megumi Fushiguro.

"If you're not drinking the cola, put it in the fridge. Don't waste it."

Megumi Fushiguro looked down at the aluminum can, which had already left his palm drenched in moisture, and finally pulled the tab.

Sweet.

He frowned slightly.

Satoru Gojo lay over the table, his head tilted as he watched, his chin resting on his folded arms.

Shoko stood with her empty coffee cup. "Are you serious? You're really going to raise this kid?"

"When have I ever not been serious?"

"You've never been serious about anything for a single day." Shoko snapped at him irritably. "Raising a living person isn't the same as fighting and demolishing buildings. He needs food, clothes, and schooling."

Satoru Gojo could not find a reply for a long moment. He scratched his messy hair. "I'll handle all the paperwork with the Zenin Clan. If those old fossils have a problem with it, they can pick a time and place to take me on."

Shoko could not be bothered with him. She pulled open the cafeteria door and left, tossing back one last remark. "Careful you don't choke on all that bragging. I bet you can't even remember where you left your own dirty socks."

The door shut tight, completely cutting off the breeze from the corridor.

Beside the long table in the vast room, only Satoru Gojo and Megumi Fushiguro remained, staring at each other.

Megumi Fushiguro drank most of the cola, set the empty can on the table, and looked up at the silver-haired man across from him.

"What's your relationship with that person from yesterday?"

"You mean Yang Jian?" Satoru Gojo thought for a moment. "Coworkers? Neighbors? Hard to define."

"Is he stronger than you?"

Satoru Gojo's smile froze for a very brief instant.

"Good question." He adjusted his sunglasses, and the corners of his mouth rose again, though his smile was not quite the same as before.

"It's hard to say whether he's stronger. But the things he deals with are things I can't fight."

Megumi Fushiguro did not fully understand what that meant.

But he remembered it.