The quiet life, Grandmaster Kenji often thought, tasted vaguely of cherry-flavored instant ramen and overly sweet energy drinks. It was a flavor profile built on intentional, profound laziness.
He sat cross-legged atop a rusted, three-story water tower, a sun-drenched perch that offered both a panoramic view of the city's endless sprawl and maximum distance from the Interdimensional Accountability Bureau (IAB) headquarters. The IAB—a gray concrete fortress dedicated to managing the delicate balance between the human world and the magical—was Kenji's least favorite place on the planet.
As the highest-ranking Enforcer still technically "active," his job should have been complex, demanding, and utterly impossible. Instead, his current assignment was a self-designated, simple task: monitor a minor, distant Mana anomaly that the regular Enforcers couldn't even bother tracking. He saw it as the perfect excuse to consume his third instant ramen of the morning, shielded from the tyranny of paperwork.
He peeled the lid off the tub, sighing dramatically as the cheap steam hit his face. His ubiquitous straw hat, slightly tattered and perpetually shading his eyes, tilted down just enough to conceal the focused intensity that lurked beneath his bored facade.
The Physics of Laziness
Kenji perceived the world not just as light and sound, but as an intricate, flowing tapestry of Jujutsu Mana. While other Enforcers relied on flashy elemental spells or blunt force, Kenji had cultivated a singular, personalized discipline: Absolute Mana Efficiency.
This power wasn't brute force; it was the surgical minimization of energy waste. For him, motion wasn't about kinetic muscle; it was about channeling the absolute minimum amount of Mana needed to achieve a physical result. This meant he could move faster than the eye could track, hit with the paralyzing precision of a specialized weapon, and remain utterly untired. He was a Jujutsu Grandmaster whose greatest trick was making his magic appear non-magical, a feat he accomplished specifically to facilitate his goal of eternal peace.
His focus was broken not by an explosion, but by a chilling subtlety: the sound of accelerated spell displacement—a specific distortion of the Mana field that indicated an Enforcer was using high-level movement Jujutsu at recklessly high speeds.
Kenji froze, the chopsticks halfway to his mouth. This was the anomaly the low-grade Enforcers had missed. It wasn't dangerous yet, but it was noisy, chaotic, and dangerously close to a public nexus. His face tightened with pure, unadulterated annoyance. "Dammit. Now I have to move. I hate it when people are inefficient."
In a micro-second that stretched into a small eternity for his enhanced perception, Kenji calculated the trajectory, velocity, and Mana signature of the incoming object. It was a standard-issue IAB hover-scooter, moving at top speed, carrying a frantic Enforcer who was clearly panicking. The rider was breaking every rule of covert operations, and worse, was heading straight for Kenji's quiet zone.
He placed the ramen and energy drink neatly on the ledge. His job was to prevent magical catastrophe, but right now, his focus was entirely on reclaiming his schedule.
The Surgical Interception
Kenji initiated a micro-cast of his most refined Jujutsu, a movement spell so efficient it was invisible. He didn't waste energy jumping; he simply pushed off the air with a rapid succession of perfectly focused Mana pressure points—a subtle technique that converted his fall into a silent, focused line of momentum.
He landed silently, not on the rider or the seat, but with surgical precision on the exact geometric center of the hover-scooter's nose. The force of his landing, surgically stabilized and neutralized by his Mana control, didn't crush the vehicle. Instead, his presence instantly and harmlessly nullified the Mana spell powering its anti-gravity engine. The high-speed scooter turned, in the blink of an eye, into a gentle, inert glider, coming to a smooth, controlled stop a foot before the edge of the water tower.
The Enforcer—a trembling 4th Grade whose eyes were wide with a mix of terror and exhaustion—gasped, pulling the non-functioning controls. He immediately recognized the mismatched sandals and the shadow cast by the Grandmaster's ubiquitous straw hat.
"Grandmaster Kenji! Thank the Bureau!" the Enforcer stammered, shaking as he caught his breath. "I was running the surveillance loop, and they just... vanished! I've confirmed it—it's a Code Delta! They've taken five people!"
Kenji, still looking utterly bored, adjusted the brim of his hat, leaning slightly against the handlebars of the inert scooter.
"A Code Delta before lunch? That's utterly unprofessional," Kenji deadpanned, masking the surge of cold, professional recognition that ran through him. A Code Delta meant a former IAB asset had committed an act of hostile betrayal, an act that threatened the exposure of the entire magical world.
"Who, specifically, caused this egregious breach of my scheduled relaxation?"
The Enforcer swallowed hard, his voice dropping to a terrified whisper. "It's Akira, sir. The Master Enforcer from the Tactics Division. And his accomplice, Haruka, the 2nd Grade Portal Specialist. They went rogue. They used her Warp Jujutsu and his specialized Mana stabilization to kidnap five of our own 3rd Grade Enforcers."
Kenji's eyes narrowed slightly beneath the shadow of his hat, a miniscule motion that nevertheless betrayed the shift from laziness to lethal focus. Akira was one of the IAB's best, a 1st Grade Master known for his perfectionist, ruthless approach to Jujutsu combat. His defection meant the IAB was facing a threat of unprecedented precision and malice.
"Master Enforcer Akira," Kenji repeated, the name flat and devoid of emotion. "The one who always complained that our Jujutsu techniques were 'sloppy' and 'inelegant.' And he partnered with Haruka, the fastest portal user in the Bureau. I'm going to need a very detailed explanation, starting now, on why the former Master Enforcer and his accomplice decided to interrupt my perfectly good cherry ramen. This is officially going to be a long day."
He hated long days. And he hated being reminded that, despite his best efforts to hide, the forces of chaos always found a way to drag the Special Grade Grandmaster back into the conflict.