He's a ghoul!

Cicadas chirped in the height of summer.

The sun sank amid the evening glow.

After more than thirty hours, the tightly shut Dormitory door finally opened.

"Jiahao, you're finally awake! I thought you'd passed out in your room!"

The vessel boy was brimming with energy.

Itadori held a can of chilled soda, with a middle-aged professional standing half a head taller beside him.

His blond hair was meticulously combed, and he wore round sunglasses without temple arms.

A light-colored suit jacket, a dark blue shirt, and a neatly knotted yellow polka-dot tie.

Clean and tidy, he looked less like a corporate wage slave and more like a rigorously educated member of high society.

"A pleasure to meet you, Jiahao."

The blond professional bowed slightly, impeccably polite. "I'm Kento Nanami."

Jiahao said, "Hello, but today I'm not Jiahao. I'm Kaneki Hao."

"Kaneki Hao?"

"That's the protagonist from Tokyo Man-Eater, right? I've seen it!"

Realization dawned on Itadori's face. "No wonder you only dyed your hair white today and wore your Jujutsu High uniform."

Crack!

Jiahao cracked a finger joint and corrected him. "Not Tokyo Man-Eater. Tokyo Ghoul."

"And for the record, I'm currently in the white-haired phase, right after the Aogiri Tree incident."

"I know, I know!"

Itadori eagerly jumped in. "The Kaneki Hao right after Jason finished torturing him! A thousand minus seven, right?"

Jiahao nodded coolly.

Watching the Jujutsu High freshmen discuss a cannibalistic plot, Nanami couldn't help recalling Satoru Gojo's assessment earlier that day.

"There are plenty of weirdos among jujutsu sorcerers, and Jiahao is in the weirdest tier."

"Don't treat him like an ordinary jujutsu sorcerer..."

"Just treat him like a lunatic."

Those were Satoru Gojo's exact words.

Still, from what Nanami could see so far, there wasn't much of a problem.

It was normal for young people to indulge in adolescent fantasies. That hardly qualified him as a lunatic.

Satoru Gojo must have exaggerated.

Seeing the two grow increasingly animated, Nanami raised his wrist, checked his watch, and reminded him, "Itadori, don't forget we have a mission."

"Sorry!"

Itadori snapped back to his senses. "Jiahao, let's talk next time!"

"The police have sealed off the cinema where the incident occurred. The killer is unknown."

In the car heading toward the cinema, Nanami studied the photographs on his phone. "Given the horrific state of the bodies, we can essentially rule out a human perpetrator."

"They're still checking the surveillance footage, but this is most likely a curse-related incident."

Nanami put down his phone. "Itadori, I have two requirements I'd like you to follow."

"First, acting on your own during the mission is strictly forbidden."

"Second, if I'm not with you, you're forbidden from entering crowded areas."

"Because you still have the ticking bomb called Sukuna inside you, and we don't know when he'll go off."

"If something happens and Sukuna takes possession of you, I'll attack you immediately. I hope you understand."

Nanami had read the mission report from the Juvenile Detention Center incident and knew that Itadori, as a vessel, couldn't always suppress the King of Curses' consciousness.

Looking at the boy's strained expression in the rearview mirror, Nanami continued bluntly, "Satoru Gojo arranged for us to work together. I had no choice in the matter."

"If possible, please prove that you're a qualified jujutsu sorcerer going forward."

At that, Itadori lifted his head and answered earnestly, "Even if you hadn't said that, I'd still make you acknowledge me!"

Nanami said, "You're not proving yourself to me, but to the Higher-Ups who fear the King of Curses will take over your body."

"To be blunt, I don't care either way."

Pitter-patter, pitter-patter!

Raindrops struck the car windows with crisp taps.

Itadori glanced at the gloomy sky outside, inexplicably reminded of...

"Hi!"

A fourth voice suddenly rang out inside the enclosed car!

Catching a white-haired head slowly rising from the back seat out of the corner of his eye, Itadori shuddered and almost screamed.

Ijichi slammed on the brakes, screaming as the car drifted.

"Get out! Don't fight in an enclosed space!!"

By the time Nanami finished shouting, he had already rolled several times across the grass outside.

The front passenger door swung open, and rain splattered over half the seat.

He saw Itadori sitting with his head lowered and the window rolled partway down, while Jiahao smiled and waved beside him. "Yo, Nanamin! Long time no see!"

I was too quick to judge. Satoru Gojo was right...

This guy is absolutely not normal!

Nanami took a deep breath, removed his grass-covered suit jacket, then plopped onto the soaked seat and closed the window.

As the car started moving again, Nanami removed his glasses to wipe them and kept repeating to himself.

Hold it in. There's no point getting angry with a lunatic!

Hold it in. There's no point getting angry with a lunatic!!

Hold it in!!!

"Wang Jiahao!!"

Unable to hold it in any longer, Nanami's voice darkened, and he opened his mouth.

He's a lunatic. He's a lunatic. He's a lunatic jujutsu sorcerer!

Taking another deep breath, Nanami lowered his voice. "Jiahao, please don't appear so suddenly next time."

"Appearing without warning in an enclosed space like this can easily be mistaken for a curse attack."

In the back seat, Jiahao made a hand gesture. "Okay!"

Seeing Jiahao's utterly unconcerned expression, Nanami felt powerless.

He tucked the used tissue into his pocket and put his glasses back on. "Jiahao, is there something you need here?"

"Once again, my name is Kaneki Hao."

Slipping into character in an instant, Jiahao pressed his fingers.

"Nothing major. I just woke up hungry and wanted to go out for a meal, so I figured I'd hitch a ride. Hmm... and buy a brick phone while I'm at it."

You have a spatial cursed technique. Can't you go yourself?!

What the hell is this about a brick phone?!

Do his episodes really start this suddenly?!

Nanami pressed his brow and sighed helplessly.

Forget it. Talking to a lunatic is a complete waste of time.

Just looking at Itadori's expression told him this definitely wasn't the first time...

And most likely wouldn't be the last.

"Huh?!"

Itadori suddenly cried out.

Ijichi, whose heartbeat had yet to settle, jerked the steering wheel and almost sent them down the mountain in three seconds flat.

If Nanami hadn't reacted quickly and grabbed the wheel, Ijichi would have nearly driven them off the cliff, sending them straight to their own funeral feast.

"People are complicated, and rainy roads are slippery."

Jiahao folded his arms, as cool as ever. "Ijichi, calm down."

"Y-yes!"

Pale-faced, Ijichi nodded and gripped the wheel tightly, crawling ahead at ten miles an hour.

"Yuji Itadori!"

Remembering that Itadori had Sukuna imprisoned inside him and hardly counted as normal either, Nanami reconsidered.

Nanami sighed and softened his tone. "Itadori, what are you shouting about now?"

Hearing the suppressed anger in Nanami's voice, Itadori hurriedly waved his hands. "N-nothing!"

"I just heard Jiahao say he was going out for a meal, so..."

Nanami secretly gritted his teeth. "What, are you hungry too?"

"No!"

Itadori hastily explained, "Mr. Gojo said yesterday that Jiahao has a cursed technique called Dimensional Copy."

"By copying anime characters' clothes, appearance, and personalities, he can learn entirely new cursed techniques."

"And?"

Nanami was baffled.

"Jiahao is copying Kaneki Hao right now. He's a ghoul!"

Itadori turned toward Jiahao and asked cautiously, "Jiahao... when you said you wanted a meal, you didn't mean... people, did you?"

After all, the ghouls in the anime couldn't eat normal human food. They needed to eat people.

Granted, the protagonist, Ken Kaneki, barely managed to overcome his innate need to eat humans through his powerful will and half-human bloodline.

But that was Ken Kaneki in a normal mental state!

Not Kaneki Hao in a delightfully deranged mental state!

At those words, Ijichi's teeth began chattering, and the car entered a mild drifting mode.

In the passenger seat, Nanami produced a blunt blade half an arm's length long from somewhere.

"My cursed technique is the Ratio Technique."

"No matter what opponent I face, my cursed technique can forcibly create a weak point."

"By dividing the target into ten sections, I can land a critical hit by striking the point at the seven-to-three ratio."

Jiahao said, "..."

A trembling Itadori, an Ijichi having a bout of Parkinson's, and a Kento Nanami who had fast-forwarded straight to revealing his cursed technique.

Jiahao glanced at all three in turn and flatly spat out three words.

"Bunch of dumbf*cks!"