Discord: discord .gg /eHuxNeZfyS [Come chat with me]
pat.reon: Keanu_Eugene [Read ahead & support me]
You.tube: @KeanuEugene [Giving away all my writing knowledge]
CHAPTER START---
"I wonder what the uniform looks like," Taiyo mutters as he pulls on a pair of black tracks, some red running shoes, and a white t-shirt. "I hope the school uniform isn't one of those suits. Fighting in that would be weird."
With that, he steps out of his room, refreshed and cleaned after having breakfast in the dining hall and completing his morning run, giving himself a full tour of the campus in the process.
Scrolling through his phone, he sees some new emails about sponsors and some events he's been invited to, and takes the time during his walk to Principal Yaga's meeting hall to respond to a few.
After the short walk, he enters the main building and is directed to a large hall, reminiscent of the shrine his family once guarded.
There was nothing in this hall aside from piles of stuffed animals lying around in neatly stacked bundles.
'Is this some kind of gift shop?' Taiyo wonders as he walks through the pathway in the middle of the stuffed toys and knocks on the large ornate doors.
"Enter," Principal Yaga's stern voice calls out from the other side, and Taiyo easily pushes open the large door.
Inside, he sees Principal Yaga sitting on a cushion around a short table. Behind him is a Panda playing with a large rubber ball, and opposite him is a young man drinking coffee.
The man wears a simple pair of black dress pants and a white shirt and a green tie, but what draws Taiyo's interest is the Katana resting across the man's lap, safely in its sheath.
"Good morning," Taiyo says, to which the man simply turns away, looking out at the courtyard beyond this area with a large pond in the middle of it.
"Good morning," Principal Yaga says as Taiyo approaches after closing the door behind him. "How was your first night?"
"I got lots of reading done. Your library sucks."
"I warned you," Principal Yaga says before nudging the Panda.
"Good morning!" the Panda says, which surprises Taiyo enough to make him stop and stare at it.
"This is my son, 'Panda', he's a Panda," Principal Yaga says, as if that explained anything.
Taiyo nods, "I'm a wizard who fights monsters, so I'll pretend this is normal too."
"Jujutsu Sorcerer," Principal Yaga adds, "now take a seat so we can get started."
"Sure," Taiyo sits facing the courtyard, with Principal Yaga and Panda to his left, and the other man to his right.
"This is your teacher, Atsuya Kusakabe," Principal Yaga gestures to the man, who continues to ignore Taiyo. "He's a bit grumpy because he doesn't want to teach you, but he's one of the few people I can trust with what we're about to discuss."
"Is he a good teacher?" Taiyo asks.
"Speaking professionally, he's the best possible teacher any student can have," Principal Yaga says. "He doesn't have an Innate Technique, but regarding all universal applications of Jujutsu, he's second only to Gojo and Master Tengen, and Shoko -she's our top doctor-, in their respective categories."
"Great, that's all that matters," Taiyo says. "He doesn't have to like me, just teach me."
Hearing this, Kusakabe mutters something.
"Huh?" Taiyo asks.
"I said," Kusakabe turns to face them. "Teaching a Special Grade is a pain in the ass. They're gonna send you to all sorts of dangerous missions, and because I'm your teacher, I'll have to go with you. Don't think I won't ditch you if I have to, got it? Because the first rule of being a Jujutsu Sorcerer is to survive, by any means necessary."
"Well, let's just hope it never comes to that," Taiyo says. "Thanks for being my teacher. I'll do my best to learn everything I can from you."
Kusakabe sighs and sips his coffee. "If you do anything stupid, I'll just let you die…"
"Don't mind him," Principal Yaga says. "He's the strongest Grade 1 Sorcerer we have, so anything less than a Special Grade Cursed Spirit can't threaten his life under normal circumstances. He's also a big softie."
"Tch," Kusakabe looks back at the courtyard. "Make the pact so we can get to the important stuff."
"Right," Principal Yaga turns to Taiyo. "Gojo told me he made a Binding Vow with you last night. We'll need to make another one before we continue properly."
"What are the terms?"
"Simple, you aren't allowed to share any of the secrets I'm about to tell you, and you aren't even allowed to hint or tell anyone that you know of them," Principal Yaga says as he extends his hand, cloaked in neutral Cursed Energy.
"Sure, gossiping isn't my style anyway," Taiyo says as he accepts the Binding Vow.
"Wow, that one felt different," Taiyo says. He feels the energy between them connect.
"That's because the secrets I'm about to tell you are more important than my life," Principal Yaga says. "So I don't have to tell you what could happen if you break your promise."
"Got it," Taiyo nods.
"Right, well, I'll keep things as simple as I can," Principal Yaga says, taking out a few papers and placing them on the table. "These are your payment documents that you'll have to fill out. But the actual important information is these medical documents I've uncovered."
"That quickly."
"Jujutsu Tech has priority within the government," he says. "And medical facilities record much more than they tell the patients, but much of that information is exclusive to us."
"What did you find?"
"Before you were born, your parents were expecting twins."
"Mom told me about that," Taiyo says. "But she got sick and almost died while she was pregnant, and my sibling didn't make it."
"Yes, and the records say you reabsorbed your sibling. However, the soul had already formed."
"The soul?"
"Yes, and because no matter how compatible or how long it's done for, two whole souls can never become one. Your souls are now both within your body."
Taiyo looks at him with wide eyes, "That's…a lot to process."
"Yes, and I'd like to study this a bit," Principal Yaga raises his hands in surrender. "Nothing strange. I'd just like to closely observe your Cursed Energy as you progress as a student, and see how it interacts with your souls."
"Once you aren't going to try and hook me up to machines or cut me open."
"Honestly, I didn't even need to ask your permission for this, since all I'd do is focus on you, because I can sense souls."
"Will this affect me in any way?"
"It's already been affecting you, a lot," He says. "Jujutsu is a mix of many things. Mind, body, soul, spirit, desire, will, mental fortitude, ego, and intuition. Yesterday, when you made progress against Infinity, your souls had a resonance for a moment, and you intuitively learned Domain Amplification, which is a very advanced technique."
Taiyo snaps his fingers, "So that's why replicating it was so difficult, because I already had it, so the resonance didn't happen to help me."
"Exactly," Principal Yaga smiles, thankful the boy was such a quick learner. "The resonance gives you some sort of enhanced intuition regarding Jujutsu, and who knows what else it can do? Which is why I'd like to observe you."
"I see."
"Now we get to the part you cannot share with anyone," Principal Yaga says, taking an even more serious tone. "Panda is my son. He is a Cursed Corpse, which means I imbue a doll with my Cursed Energy to control it, or set it on autopilot by programming commands or a copy of my will into it.
However, this is temporary, as without constant refueling, these dolls will return to their normal inert forms. But officially, Panda is an anomaly, a mutation that nobody, including myself, could replicate or expect.
He is a Cursed Corpse that is entirely self-sustaining, capable of independent thoughts and emotions, and he generates his own Cursed Energy to fuel himself. He is the world's first artificial lifeform."
"You brought a doll to life," Taiyo mutters as he stares at Panda, who stops playing with his ball for a moment to wave at him. "That's insane."
"You can't be a great Jujutsu Sorcerer without being a bit insane," Principal Yaga says. "If the higher-ups knew this, they'd promote me to Special Grade immediately and try to learn how I did it, to make themselves an army of Cursed Corpses, and I will never allow them to have that."
"Special Grade," Taiyo mutters. "That's what I'm supposed to be, but what does it mean aside from being above Grade 1?"
At this point, Kusakabe speaks up, "It means you can threaten all of Japan on your own, assuming no other Special Grade Sorcerer intervenes, and under the right circumstances, of course."
"Like having a self-sustaining army," Taiyo says. "Or heating the atmosphere and igniting the air itself."
"Hopefully, you never do that," Principal Yaga states. "But back to the topic of souls. The resonance between souls within Panda is what gives him life. I raised him, his big brother Gorilla, and his big sister Triceratops.
They both love and protect Panda, so when I placed their Cursed Cores into Panda, all the cores turned inward and began watching over each other. This creates a resonance that's similar to that of a naturally occurring human soul, but is ultimately much weaker than if it were three human souls, or even two."
Taiyo looks at Panda with an expression of amazement and concern. "His siblings are in him, damn."
Panda turns to him and smiles, "Big sis and big bro love Panda, and will protect me, always. I can feel them. Their love keeps me alive."
"I guess there really is nothing stronger than family…" Taiyo mutters.
"Precisely," Principal Yaga says. "The resonance of Panda's Cursed Cores mimics that of the resonance between human souls. So I'm curious about what a person who naturally has two human souls, and can make them resonate at will, can be capable of."
"How the hell do I even train that?" Taiyo asks. "I've never even felt my soul…my souls."
"We'll figure that out together, after all, that's what teachers are for," Principal Yaga says.
After almost an hour of talking, Principal Yaga finally has all the information he needs to begin studying Taiyo and gets up from the table.
"As soon as something changes, please inform me immediately," he says, earning a nod from Taiyo before he leaves the room.
Now, only Taiyo and Kusakabe sit at the table.
"Alright, let's get started, show me what you can do so I'll know what we need to work on first," Kusakabe says as he gets up and walks toward the exit, heading to one of the training fields, Katana in hand…
Hearing this, Taiyo hops up and falls into step behind his teacher, a broad smile on his face as he's finally about to learn some true Jujutsu…
END CHAPTER---
Discord: discord .gg /eHuxNeZfyS [Come chat with me]
pat.reon: Keanu_Eugene [Read ahead & support me]
You.tube: @KeanuEugene [Giving away all my writing knowledge]