I'll take the gamble!

Kanagawa Prefecture, Ritsu High School.

"Whew... you little punk." Ito wiped away his sweat, looking relaxed and satisfied.

He shook out his aching wrist as though he had just finished a warm-up set.

"Junpei, being a man isn't about acting tough."

Junpei looked up at Ito, his eyes brimming with hatred.

Ito gave a disdainful smile, his gaze falling on Junpei's hand.

It held an old black videotape, which Junpei was clutching tightly.

The label had yellowed, and the writing on it had become illegible.

Noticing Kenta Ito's gaze, Junpei instinctively drew back his right hand, still gripping the videotape.

"This is... m-my... mine." His voice was faint.

"I want to... take it home."

Ito froze for a moment, then his lips curled into a cruel smile.

"Sure. Last another three minutes, and I'll let you take it home."

Junpei lowered his head, but his right hand tightened around the videotape.

The air reeked of sweat and malice, stifling enough to make it hard to breathe.

Through the window came the faint whistle of a PE class out on the field, as though it had slipped in from another world.

Creak-

Just then, the door opened with a grating noise, instantly drawing everyone's attention.

The pain he had expected never came. Junpei Yoshino couldn't help opening his eyes and looking toward the door.

As the clubroom door swung open, a handsome boy appeared.

The light behind him traced his silhouette with a faint golden edge.

The boy stood six feet tall, with a delicate-looking face beneath his tousled hair. His school uniform was impeccably neat, and there was an unmistakably youthful air about him.

"It's Rihito Sato! What's he doing here?"

Rihito had both hands in his pockets, his handsome face expressionless.

He looked away from Kenta Ito and surveyed the clubroom.

Faded club posters hung on the walls, a layer of dust coated the windowpanes, and several videotapes lay scattered across the floor.

Junpei was curled up in the farthest corner.

Yeah, just like the scene in the anime. Looks like I'm not too late.

"Let him go!" Rihito's voice was calm, leaving no room for argument.

Ito's breath caught.

Let him go?

Me?

He was about to say something defiant, but the sight of Rihito's calm face made him swallow his words.

"Who the fuck are you? Who said you could come in?" a student beside him shouted.

Rihito didn't answer. He simply watched Ito, then pulled his right hand out of his pocket.

That single movement drained all the color from Ito's face.

"Fuck, you..."

Smack!

"Shut your damn mouth!!"

Ito slapped the student hard across the face, his expression ugly.

Last month, he had personally witnessed Rihito Sato put three delinquents from outside the school in the hospital after they came looking for trouble. Afterward, they hadn't dared utter a word.

He didn't think he could beat those three delinquents, let alone Rihito.

"We're leaving!"

Ito's expression shifted several times. He gritted his teeth, then headed for the door without looking back, not even daring to lift his head and glance at Rihito.

The others had no idea what was going on, but with their leader giving the word, they could only slink after him.

Only when the last of them disappeared from view did Rihito let out an almost imperceptible breath of relief.

"Th-thank you!" Junpei struggled to get up from the floor. Even those simple words made him grimace in pain.

He braced himself against the wall, his knees trembling several times before he barely managed to steady himself.

Then he raised his head and looked at the handsome boy by the door, his eyes full of confusion.

Rihito Sato, the school's famous heartthrob and star student.

Not only did he get good grades, but he was also very popular with the girls.

Although he didn't usually talk much either, his quietness was completely different from Junpei's.

I guess... that counts as a good thing too.

At that thought, Junpei's gaze drifted away of its own accord. He didn't dare meet Rihito's eyes.

Rihito walked into the room. Rather than comfort Junpei, he bent down and picked up the videotapes scattered across the floor.

"These aren't broken. They should still work if we wipe them off."

But when his fingers touched a bloodstain on one of the tapes, he suddenly paused.

Then he continued wiping it as though nothing had happened.

Junpei watched Rihito pick up the videotapes and even take it upon himself to wipe off the dust.

His nose stung. "Th-thank you!"

Without stopping to wipe away his tears, he crouched down and helped Rihito clean up.

The videotapes were arranged on the shelves by year, as though no one had ever touched them.

Only the cracks in a few of their cases bore witness to what had just happened.

"Thank you, Rihito." It was the third time Junpei had thanked him in half an hour.

"Remember, you have to learn to fight back. The less you dare resist, the more they'll bully you."

After saying that, Rihito ignored Junpei's stunned expression, turned, and left without looking back.

The sunlight in the hallway was much brighter than in the clubroom.

It fell warmly across Rihito's face, making him look even more youthful.

As Ritsu High School's famous heartthrob, Rihito was the center of attention wherever he went.

Just then, several first-year girls approached from the opposite direction. At the sight of him, their steps noticeably slowed.

But Rihito didn't notice them. He was thinking about something.

The Night Parade of a Hundred Demons.

The Shibuya Incident.

Those two phrases kept surfacing in his mind, like two ropes drawing ever tighter.

In the original story, did the civilian death toll in Shibuya run into four digits or five?

He couldn't remember.

He remembered only one image.

Ruins, flames, and the jujutsu sorcerer standing in the middle of the wreckage.

Three days ago, he hadn't belonged to this world. Three days ago, cursed spirits and jujutsu sorcerers had been nothing more than concepts in a manga.

But now, he was Rihito Sato, an... ordinary person.

For an ordinary person in the world of Jujutsu Kaisen, the likeliest fate wasn't becoming the protagonist's friend, but becoming another

entry in the casualty figures.

So becoming a jujutsu sorcerer was Rihito's only option.

But the original story had presented only two ways for an ordinary person to become a jujutsu sorcerer.

Wait!

Wait for the disaster that would engulf all of Shibuya. Wait for that thousand-year-old monster to begin his "game."

Wait for him to turn ordinary people into sorcerers en masse, as casually as molding clay figures.

Never mind how far away that moment might be.

The word "wait" alone meant that until then, he would remain an ordinary person with no way to protect himself.

So the first option is out!

And the second...

Rihito's steps slowed, and that horrifying face covered in stitches immediately surfaced in his mind.

Mahito.

A special grade cursed spirit.

The power to touch souls.

If I let Mahito reshape my soul and turn me straight into a sorcerer...

It was theoretically possible. That was how Junpei had obtained his cursed technique in the original story.

But how did Junpei end up? The thought turned over in his mind, leading to only one conclusion:

A slim chance of survival!

Why would a curse that delights in toying with human souls help me? Why wouldn't he tamper with something during the transformation? Why would he let me leave his domain alive?

But... there's no reason he would. This is a gamble.

Rihito stood where he was, silent for a full minute.

He remembered lying in bed the previous night, staring at the ceiling, unable to sleep all night.

He remembered the flames in Shibuya, remembered the ordinary people reduced to numbers.

He remembered that if he did nothing, he too would become one of them in three months.

He drew a deep breath, suppressing the fear churning inside him.

I'll take the gamble!