Impostors?
A transformation technique?
No... it's really them!
Shoichi Kano's expression shifted several times before he simply extended his cursed energy to probe the two people across from him.
Sure enough, the boy with the bun had a dense, pitch-black cursed energy signature, like an amalgamation of countless cursed spirits. The short-haired girl beside him, meanwhile, felt warm, like a little sun radiating white light. Just what he would expect from a jujutsu sorcerer capable of an advanced technique like Cursed Technique Reversal: Output.
These two really were Suguru Geto and Shoko Ieiri. No doubt about it.
Why were they here?
Of course, Shoichi Kano and the Slit-Mouthed Woman's cursed energy signatures hadn't escaped their notice either. To them, one resembled a large venomous spider, while the other was like a pair of razor-sharp scissors gleaming with cold light. Both were quite distinctive.
And so, Kano's group and Geto's group locked eyes.
"Why are you here?" Suguru Geto had clearly recognized Shoichi Kano and the Slit-Mouthed Woman, and his gaze shifted slightly.
Kano shrugged, shuffling forward with the line as he said, "I was about to ask you the same thing."
"Who are they, Geto? Do you know them?" asked the short-haired girl beside him.
"Trouble," Suguru Geto answered without hesitation.
"That's pretty hurtful, you know?" Shoichi Kano raised his voice a notch.
Their little exchange attracted the attention of quite a few other tourists. But since the other tourists couldn't understand what they were saying, they simply assumed some foreigners had gotten into an argument.
"Then tell me honestly. What are you here for?"
Shoichi Kano rolled his eyes. "Are you a cop? Is this an interrogation?"
"See, Shoko?" Suguru Geto turned to the short-haired girl beside him, though his hand remained firmly pointed at Kano. "They're hiding something."
Shoko blinked a few times, her face full of curiosity.
"Huh?" It wasn't until she noticed the Slit-Mouthed Woman that her gaze changed slightly.
"A jujutsu sorcerer... no, a cursed spirit. But this cursed spirit's cursed energy signature..." She instinctively began turning over the possibilities in her head.
The Slit-Mouthed Woman was getting uncomfortable with Shoko's gaze too. The girl looked as though she wanted to dissect her. "Young lady, don't you know it's rude to stare at people like that?"
What Miss Miyano failed to realize, however, was that the way she looked at Toji Fushiguro wasn't much better.
"Sorry!" The short-haired girl pressed her palms together in apology, the cigarette at the corner of her mouth bobbing with the movement of her lips.
At this point, Shoko wasn't yet the world-weary, cigarette-smoking woman Itadori would meet after enrolling. Still a student at Jujutsu High, she hadn't witnessed too many "improper deaths," so she retained some of a young girl's gentleness.
"Stop dawdling and get your tickets checked!" The middle-aged woman at the ticket gate was clearly rather short-tempered. Noticing that Kano's group still hadn't moved up, she immediately called out in Mandarin with a Northeast China accent.
So Shoichi Kano and his companion had their tickets checked and boarded. Afterward, Geto and Shoko boarded another sightseeing bus from their own line.
The sightseeing buses followed the road along the Morigler River, with several stations along the route. Tourists could get off whenever they wanted to admire the scenery, then use their tickets to board another bus to the next stop, much like a bus service within the scenic area.
As the bus slowly pulled away with the rumble of its diesel engine, the view outside naturally changed from the parking lot at the departure point to a winding river and lush green grass.
Here and there, stations and recreational facilities built for visitors dotted the grassland, adding touches of different colors to the unbroken green, like a few stars in the night sky.
If you wanted to describe the depth of night, you shouldn't write about how black the sky was. Instead, you could try describing the scattered stars. The wooden station buildings near this "most winding river under heaven" served as those "stars."
Surrounded by such pure natural beauty, Shoichi Kano soon put their earlier encounter out of his mind.
"We have arrived at Morgen Station. Passengers getting off, please exit through the rear door and remember to take your belongings!" The diesel bus eased to a stop beside the platform as the announcement played.
"Let's go, Mom." Shoichi Kano lightly patted the Slit-Mouthed Woman's shoulder. He wasn't sure what her cropped T-shirt was made of, but it felt silky, like some sort of synthetic fiber.
Not long after they got off, the Slit-Mouthed Woman took a compact digital camera from her shoulder bag, ready to find a good angle and take a few photos as keepsakes.
Then another sightseeing bus pulled up beside the platform, and Geto and Shoko slowly shuffled off with the crowd.
Since fire was the greatest concern in this grassland scenic area, no-smoking signs were everywhere. Shoko Ieiri had no choice but to replace the cigarette in her mouth with a lollipop.
"You two just won't leave us alone, huh?" Shoichi Kano was at a loss.
Suguru Geto still watched them with a scrutinizing gaze. Although he was wearing a very loose shirt and wide-legged balloon pants, the finer details of his posture were far from relaxed. There was a certain tension to him.
"You still haven't answered my question." Suguru Geto met Kano's eyes.
The Slit-Mouthed Woman glanced at Suguru Geto, then turned her attention to Shoko beside him. Shoko merely spread her hands, equally unaware of what her companion was trying to do.
"We're just here on vacation." Unable to stand being stared at any longer, Shoichi Kano decided to give a little ground to turn the tables. "What about you? Why aren't you in Tokyo? What brought you all the way here?"
Suguru Geto clearly didn't entirely believe Kano. "If you're here on vacation, then so are we."
Something in that seemed to catch the Slit-Mouthed Woman's attention, and her eyes lit up. "Perfect. Help take a few photos of the two of us."
With that, she thrust the digital camera into Suguru Geto's hands. He froze for a moment, then actually aimed the lens at the Slit-Mouthed Woman. When he discovered that she really could show up on camera, his expression became even more interesting.
Isn't she a cursed spirit? How is she doing that?
With those questions in mind, Suguru Geto framed the "mother and son" in the viewfinder, found a suitable angle, and pressed the shutter.
Click!
Since both parties were "here on vacation"-at least on the surface-they had no reason to remain hostile. And so the four of them joined up, each harboring their own motives.
Geto did indeed intend to follow them to keep them from trying anything. After the battle at the Tombs of the Star Corridor, his trust in Kaori Itadori and anyone connected to her had plummeted to rock bottom.
What he didn't know was that Shoichi Kano and the Slit-Mouthed Woman were just as intent on observing the Jujutsu High group's movements.
Of the four, only Shoko, who hadn't participated in the Star Plasma Vessel Incident, was out of the loop. She enthusiastically introduced everyone, trying to brighten the group's mood.
"Nice to meet you. I'm Shoko Ieiri, and this is my classmate, Geto." The short-haired girl's smile was radiant.
"Shoichi Kano." Kano's smile couldn't have been more fake. "Uh, the lady beside me is Miyano Yuko. She's my... mom."
Miss Slit-Mouthed Woman nodded slightly, a polite smile in her eyes.
Left with no other choice, Geto put on a friendly expression too and shook hands with Kano and his companion. "Suguru Geto."
But Shoko Ieiri noticed that Kano and Miyano had different surnames. Coupled with their different natures, that was enough for an entire family melodrama to spring up in her mind. It involved a jujutsu sorcerer family, a second marriage, and a sorcerer stepmother who had become a cursed spirit after death but continued to protect the family's bloodline...
"Young lady." The Slit-Mouthed Woman was no fool; she had already noticed something odd in Shoko Ieiri's eyes. "You're thinking something very rude, aren't you?"
"Ah, no, no, no!" Shoko Ieiri waved her hands frantically, stumbling over her words. "I'm terribly sorry!"
At that point, Shoichi Kano quietly let the Slit-Mouthed Woman know where he was going, then headed toward the station's public restroom.
Suguru Geto had been leaning against the railing, admiring the distant sight of cattle and sheep revealed as the wind bent the grass. But as soon as he sensed Shoichi Kano's cursed energy signature moving away, he promptly went after him.
When Shoichi Kano entered the restroom, Geto followed without hesitation-even though he had no intention of using it.
"..." Kano was utterly speechless now. How had Geto managed to spawn in here too?
When Suguru Geto realized that Kano really was relieving himself, he felt a little embarrassed. But he soon thought of another, more important matter.
So, with his back to Kano and one hand braced against the door of a squat-toilet stall, he posed a question as though he were interrogating himself:
"Is it only natural for jujutsu sorcerers to protect non-sorcerers?"
Before you continue