The next day, when sunlight streamed through a gap in the curtains, Akutagawa Shang was still not fully awake.
Anyone who knew college students' sleep schedules knew. Don't ask. If you did, the answer was that young people had healthy bodies.
He rolled over and reached out from under the covers to feel for his phone on the nightstand. The light from the screen made him squint.
Akutagawa Shang rubbed his bleary eyes and checked the time. Seven fifty.
Then he saw an unread message in his notifications, apparently just sent, from Satoru Gojo.
"Awake yet?"
Below it was another, earlier unread message, seemingly from Maki.
"Eight o'clock. Meet at the entrance. If you're late, you're dead."
Sent at seven oh five.
"Seriously, why do I still have to rush to an eight a.m. class after crossing into another world?" Akutagawa Shang clutched his head and wailed.
He sprang out of bed and rushed into the bathroom, splashing cold water on his face to force himself awake.
Then he washed up and changed as fast as he could before charging out of the dorm. It was all so practiced-so practiced it was almost pitiful.
Finally, just as the clock hands were about to reach eight, Akutagawa Shang successfully reached his destination.
Satoru Gojo and Maki were already standing there.
Maki held a long staff, still dressed in that classic school uniform, and leaned against the wall. Seeing Akutagawa run over, she looked him up and down.
"What a shame. Two steps slower, and I would've had a legitimate excuse to punish you."
"Uh... good morning?" Akutagawa Shang scratched his head sheepishly.
"Hurry up and follow me."
After checking that Akutagawa Shang was properly dressed and had not forgotten anything he should not have, she turned and left.
"Good thing you didn't come out in slippers."
Satoru Gojo stood beside the car at the entrance, already changed into a lightweight black jacket, holding a cup of coffee with 300% sugar that he had bought somewhere.
Seeing the two approach one after the other, he lifted his chin in greeting. "Today's a practical lesson. We're investigating an elementary school near Jujutsu High. Children have gone missing there-about two of them. Someone reported signs of a curse there. A cursed spirit is suspected to have taken up residence."
Akutagawa froze. "...What? Straight into a mission? I've only been enrolled for two days."
"Relax. It's a low-level mission. It won't be too dangerous." Satoru Gojo pulled open the front passenger door. "Since it's somewhere like a school, it should be a naturally occurring curse. You still remember how curses form, right?"
"Negative emotions?"
"Exactly. Places filled with lots of memories easily gather curses. Schools, hospitals-as long as people keep remembering the past, those places become breeding grounds for negative emotions. When those emotions keep building up, they produce curses like this one. The more negative emotions there are, the stronger the resulting curse," Maki added.
"Heh, a school? That really is a place full of resentment." Akutagawa Shang shuddered, seemingly recalling some unpleasant memories. "I wonder if a cursed spirit born from the negative emotions at my old school could take on Satoru Gojo."
Maki had already opened the rear door and gotten in, crossing her legs with practiced ease.
"What are you standing around for? Get in." Akutagawa hesitated for a second, then climbed into the back seat too.
The moment the door shut, he instinctively shifted to the side, leaving a small gap between them.
After about half an hour, the car reached its destination. Akutagawa leaned against the window and looked out as the car stopped in front of a school. The school buildings looked quite new, and the flower beds around them were planted with cherry trees, their petals scattered everywhere by the wind. No matter how he looked at it, it was just an ordinary elementary school.
But an eerie black aura swirled around the entire classroom building.
"We're here. Everyone, please get out." Ijichi brought the car to a stop, and Satoru Gojo was the first to step out and stretch.
"Your mission this time is to rescue the two missing children. If they're dead, recover their bodies."
"Born from darkness, darker than darkness. Purge every trace of tainted cursed residue."
Satoru Gojo extended two fingers and murmured. An invisible drape descended around them, enveloping the entire school. The bright campus instantly turned pitch-black, as though night had fallen.
"This is a Curtain, a barrier to hide you. It's easy to undo from the inside. After all, officially speaking, Jujutsu Society's existence is still kept secret from ordinary people. All right, go on in. I'll wait outside for your good news."
"...You're not coming in?" Akutagawa Shang turned to look at him.
"Of course not. It's a practical lesson. How could the teacher interfere?" Satoru Gojo leaned against the car door and waved. "If things really go wrong, you've still got Maki, don't you? Good luck. Maki, don't let Akutagawa die too horribly."
Maki had already pushed open the iron gate and headed inside. She did not answer, but waved as if to indicate she had heard, then pushed open the iron gate and walked in.
Akutagawa swallowed and followed.
The school was quiet-unnaturally quiet. The wind over the playing field rustled through the grass, sounding like something moving somewhere out of sight.
Akutagawa followed behind Maki, glancing around as he walked and trying to draw on the cursed energy inside him, which had only recently awakened.
He had tried it in the car just now. His cursed energy was still there, and drawing on it was exceptionally smooth. Although his total reserves did not seem large, he appeared able to control his cursed energy output to reduce leakage, keeping consumption as low as possible.
Could I really be a jujutsu genius?
"They're here." Maki's voice interrupted his thoughts.
Blocking their way were three or four cursed spirits that looked like white baby dragons, but their fronts were covered in dense stitches. Rows of thread sewed two pieces of skin together, making them nauseating to look at.
"...So ugly," Akutagawa Shang said in disgust.
Just as Akutagawa Shang finished speaking, the cursed spirits let out strange gurgling cries as though they had understood him, extending limp hands to tear at the stitches on their fronts. The instant the threads snapped, a huge slit split open from chest to abdomen, and a long, slimy tongue emerged from within. They seemed intent on swallowing the two of them whole.
The cursed spirits lashed their tongues and charged toward them.
"Tch."
Maki had already shot forward. She moved incredibly fast-leaping high, landing among the cursed spirits, and sweeping her long blade around in a horizontal circle. Thick purple liquid splattered wherever the blade passed. Those ugly lumps collapsed before they could even finish screaming, black smoke rising from their wounds and slowly dissipating.
"Wow!!!" Akutagawa Shang exclaimed in admiration as he watched Maki's swift, fierce movements.
She turned her head toward him. "What are you spacing out for? Keep up."
Akutagawa Shang glanced around. That one classroom building seemed to be the only one giving off a black aura, and the cursed spirits just now had come running out of it too.
The classroom building's entrance stood wide open, pitch-black inside.
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