Hidden Inventory Arc (II)

"Satoru Gojo!"

Utahime glared furiously at the white-haired boy towering over her at more than six feet tall. "I wasn't crying!"

"I came to save you, you know!" Satoru Gojo continued teasing Utahime, who insisted on calling herself his senior.

The teenage Satoru Gojo was wild and unrestrained, his eyes and expression brimming with confidence and the pride of being one of the strongest.

"Just look at how pathetic you are..."

"Would you comfort us if we cried?"

Mei Mei stood to one side. Unlike the disheveled Utahime, she remained as elegant as ever.

"Please, we'd be counting on you."

"You wouldn't cry, would you, Miss Mei?"

Gojo seemed to be hinting at something. "After all, you're strong. Unlike a certain someone..."

"That's right..." Mei Mei chuckled.

Below them, Utahime grew angrier with every word. Her face flushed as she scrambled to her feet. "Gojo... I don't need you to save me..."

Before she could finish, an enormous cursed spirit appeared behind her. Utahime turned around in fright.

A Sand Dune Worm promptly burst out of the ground and swallowed the cursed spirit in one gulp.

Suguru Geto emerged from the shadows with one hand raised. "Don't swallow it all the way. I still need to tame it later..."

Geto then looked at Gojo, mischief in his eyes as well. "It's not nice to pick on the weak!"

"What idiot would pick on the strong?"

"You're just trying to rile her up, Geto!"

Listening to the two boys above her, Utahime's expression grew darker and darker...

Then she heard a lazy voice. "Utahime-senpai! Are you all right?"

"Shoko?!"

"I was worried about you!"

Looking endearingly vacant, Shoko had a lollipop in her mouth. "You haven't contacted me for two whole days."

Of the strongest quartet, Shoko was naturally one of the people Utahime was least likely to dislike. In fact, she was her best friend.

Utahime's face lit up with joy. She rushed over and hugged Shoko, rubbing her cheek against hers.

"Shoko! Whatever you do, don't turn out like those two scumbags..."

"I'd never become a scumbag like them!"

Shoko smiled helplessly and reassured Utahime as she clung to her.

Meanwhile, Gojo said to Geto with a wicked grin, "The places Utahime walks through are going to collapse!"

"Shut up!" The sunny, righteous Geto stood with his hands in his pockets, unbothered.

"By the way..."

Mei Mei looked at the three younger students before her and spoke with a hint of disappointment. "Didn't that cold fellow come with you?"

"Huh?"

Gojo patted his head. "That guy hasn't come to school for a whole day...

We don't know what he's up to either."

"Right..."

Geto spoke slowly. "We still don't know whether that thunder yesterday afternoon had anything to do with him."

"It did seem to come from the direction of the Zenin Clan..."

Gojo feigned shock. "You don't think he got struck by lightning and died, do you?"

Geto: "..."

Mei Mei: "..."

Utahime: "..."

Shoko: "..."

Finally, Geto pressed a hand to his forehead in resignation and said:

"Aren't you afraid that old bastard Ze will hear you and give you some electrotherapy?"

Gojo's eyes smiled behind his sunglasses. "That's why I'm saying it behind his back!"

"Wait... two days?!"

Utahime suddenly caught on. "But we only..."

"That's right."

Gojo spoke casually. "It's rare, but that cursed spirit's barrier must have had a time difference."

"That does seem to be the case."

Coming back to her senses, Mei Mei folded her arms across her chest and said calmly:

"In other words, I actually worked for two days. I think an additional appearance fee is in order."

"You're still thinking about money?" Gojo quipped.

"By the way... where's your Curtain?" Mei Mei smiled at their bewildered faces.

A short while later, in a classroom at Jujutsu High.

The television was showing a report about an explosion caused by aging gas pipes.

Three people sat in front of the television: Gojo and the others, who had just returned.

Facing them was their homeroom teacher, Masamichi Yaga.

"One of you was supposed to put up a Curtain."

Yaga looked at the three of them and spoke slowly. "Instead, you forgot the Assistant Supervisor, and then you forgot to put up the Curtain..."

"Own up. Who was it?"

Suguru Geto and Shoko Ieiri silently pointed at Gojo, who looked like a goofy husky.

"Sir!" Left with no choice, Gojo raised his hand first. "Can we stop hunting down the culprit?!"

"So it was you, Gojo?!"

With Gojo having given himself away, Yaga wasted no words and drove a fist into his head.

"Anyway..."

A little later, on the basketball court, Gojo picked up a basketball with a large lump on his head.

He took a casual shot. "Do we really need to put up a Curtain?"

"Does it even matter if ordinary people see us? They can't see jujutsu or cursed spirits anyway."

"Of course it matters!"

Geto leaped high and caught the ball Gojo had thrown. "The most important part of preventing cursed spirits from forming is keeping people's minds at ease..."

"That's why we need to conceal even invisible threats as much as possible!"

"I get it, I get it!"

Gojo snatched the basketball from Geto's hands, then took three strides and sank a layup.

"Looking after the weak is such a pain!"

"Supporting the weak, caring for the weak..." Geto held the basketball. "Listen, Gojo!"

"Jujutsu sorcerers exist to protect non-sorcerers!"

Gojo's tone was scornful. "That's what passes for a proper, reasonable argument, huh..."

"I hate preachy bullshit."

"Huh?"

"Forcing reasons and responsibilities onto someone else's power is what weak people do."

Gojo threw the ball. It brushed past Geto's chilling face and dropped through the hoop again.

"Don't dress it up just because that's the position you're in!" Gojo pretended he was about to throw up.

"You just love forcing responsibilities on yourself."

Finishing his retching act, Gojo turned to Geto and teased him. "We jujutsu sorcerers aren't bodyguards..."

"Let's take this outside, Gojo." Geto summoned a cursed spirit behind him.

"Are you lonely? Go by yourself."

Young as they were, they often argued over whether protecting weak non-sorcerers was worthwhile. Though their ideals differed, it never affected their friendship.

"Pfft..."

Just as the two were about to come to blows, Shoko laughed from the sidelines.

"If Ze saw you two like this...

He'd shoot down both your arguments without a moment's hesitation."

"We could be called the most insignificant people in this world, or the most important...

Because we exist, the balance of yin and yang in this world is kept stable.

But we're still only a drop in the ocean of human history. Even now, someone more talented than either of us might be coming into the world somewhere..."

Ze Zenin's calm voice echoed in Gojo's and Geto's ears.

"Ze!"

Gojo and Geto suddenly whipped around, as though Ze Zenin had appeared beside them.

But in the end, it was only a memory.

Geto fell into thought.

He had always believed he belonged among the special few, which was why he clung so fiercely to those lofty principles.

"I say we go to the Zenin Clan later and see what that guy's doing! Geto?"

Geto froze for a moment, then looked at Gojo's face. "Sure, I've got no objections."

"What about you, Shoko?"

"No objections here either." Shoko lazily propped her chin on her hand, looking listless.

"Let's go!"

But just as the three were about to leave, a tall figure blocked their path.

"Looks like you three have something planned?" Yaga narrowed his eyes. "Unfortunately..."

"The Higher-Ups specifically requested you for a mission."

"It's about the Star Plasma Vessel..."