January 3rd, the third day of the New Year holidays.
Zenin Naoya had not slept a wink the entire night, painstakingly drafting a restrained and carefully worded letter, hoping to have it delivered into Gojo Satoru's hands.
However, the Gojo clan refused to accept it.
Zenin Naoya's control over his expression was, at the very least, passable—it did not twist into anything unsightly. He did not take his anger out on the servant who delivered the letter; instead, he went to the cursed spirit vault to vent, treating those hideous cursed spirits as stand-ins for the blind fools of the Gojo family and bullying them thoroughly.
By the time Zenin Naoya emerged, his emotions settled, he resumed participating in the clan's daily training as if nothing were amiss.
Once the meeting of the Three Great Families concluded, the outside world, as usual, was flooded with news of the Gojo family's arrogance—of the "Six Eyes" looking down upon the other two great families, holding no one else in regard. Not a single word, however, appeared regarding Gojo Satoru's beauty that surpassed ordinary men.
The Three Great Families worshipped strength above all else, believing that praising a man's looks was an insult; thus, no one dared to gossip about Gojo Satoru in that regard.
Yet this year's inter-clan exchange was exceptionally different, stirring the stagnant waters of the jujutsu world into rare excitement.
First came rumors that the current Zenin clan heir was secretly in love with his cousin.
Then followed rumors that Zenin Toji harbored feelings for the "Six Eyes," and that he had defected from the Three Great Families for the sake of the "Six Eyes."
Finally, there were rumors that the Zenin heir had a change of heart, falling for the young master of the Gojo family instead, utterly captivated by the "Six Eyes," only to be met with the other party's utter disdain.
After three explosive scandals, each involving the Zenin family, surfaced in succession, the Zenin clan was thrown into complete chaos.
The higher-ups of the "Hei" squad found themselves utterly unable to focus on training.
Every Semi–Grade One sorcerer, as if instinctively enlightened, began to slack off, their minds replaying Zenin Naoya's conduct over the years, and—quite suddenly—feeling a trace of sympathy for their own clan's lofty, sharp-tongued, unbearably arrogant young master.
Zenin Ranta stared blankly ahead.
"Brother Toji…"
Ever since Zenin Toji had beaten everyone senseless and defected from the clan, they had all come to understand just how terrifying his strength truly was.
Below Special Grade, he had no equal.
The Zenin family's so-called elites could barely last more than a few exchanges under his hands.
Aside from Zenin Naobito—who at least had a chance of confronting him head-on—the slightly inferior Zenin Ogi and Zenin Jinichi would only end up being sent flying the moment they faced Zenin Toji.
After all, the Zenin family's rules were ironclad:
"Those who are not Zenin are not sorcerers; those who are not sorcerers are not human."
Because of this, the sorcerers of the Hei squad never dared to mention Zenin Toji's name. They treated him as though he were invisible, deliberately erasing his existence. It was only after Zenin Toji completely severed ties with the jujutsu world that things eased somewhat, and they finally dared to reveal their deep-seated wariness of him.
For the longest time, they had believed that Zenin Toji defected because he could no longer endure the clan's discrimination against non-sorcerers.
What did that have to do with the "Six Eyes" at all?!
When the gossip first exploded, no one believed it—but precisely because it was so absurd, it acquired an oddly convincing air.
Zenin Jinichi could no longer hold back and asked the group, "Did Toji ever even meet the 'Six Eyes'?"
"Does anyone actually believe this?" Zenin Chojiro said in disbelief. "When he left the clan, how old was the 'Six Eyes' back then? Even if they'd met once, there's no way he'd be captivated by a child."
Zenin Ranta—whose technique was tied to the eyes—hesitantly spoke up. "I… I know a little…"
In an instant, the younger Zenin Ranta was subjected to the burning, intense stares of his Hei squad companions.
The pressure hit him hard. "Don't look at me like that. Brother Toji and I barely exchanged more than a few words. The only two times he ever spoke to me—one was to ask whether I could use my eye-based technique to immobilize him, and the second time was…"
He paused, then continued, voice tight.
"Not long after a gathering of the Three Great Families ended, he passed by me and glanced at my eyes. I was so frightened I didn't dare move. Then I heard him speak…"
Zenin Ranta swallowed hard.
"Brother Toji asked me, 'Can your eyes see what's behind you?' I answered, 'No.' After that, Brother Toji said, 'So geniuses really are different,' and then he just… left."
The sheer amount of information packed into those few lines of dialogue made everyone's heads buzz.
"After a gathering of the Three Great Families?"
"Seeing what's behind you?"
"Wait—given his standing in the clan, did he even have the right to attend a Three Families gathering?"
"Someone like Toji would never rigidly obey clan rules. Maybe he snuck off to see the 'Six Eyes,' hid behind the 'Six Eyes'—and was then spotted anyway?"
"If that's the case… then it's not hard to understand."
The jujutsu world had produced many prodigies, but among the Three Great Families, there was only one universally acknowledged genius: Gojo Satoru.
The lowest rung of the Three Great Families, Zenin Toji, driven by curiosity, goes to see Gojo Satoru at the very pinnacle of the Three Great Families; he receives an overwhelming shock, his mentality collapses, and he falls in love with those vast, sky-blue eyes that could see straight through his presence??
Compared to the idea of Toji falling in love with an underage Gojo Satoru, the Zenin clan's sorcerers found it far easier to believe that Toji had fallen in love with those eyes.
A "Six Eyes" that appeared only once every five hundred years was more than enough to dazzle the world.
They exchanged glances in silence, until one person finally sucked in a sharp breath and asked, "Does Naoya know about this?"
Zenin Jinichi quietly turned his gaze away.
In the corner of the room—
Zenin Naoya had already turned to stone.
So this was the reason the Gojo clan had refused to accept his letter?
They thought he was sending a love letter?!
Naturally, the power-holders of the clan would not overlook rampant rumors. Zenin Naobito sat alone in his room; even while resting, his clothes were in disarray, his yukata hanging loosely over his shoulders. He drank as he laughed without restraint, taking these pieces of gossip as nothing more than entertainment and never letting them reach his heart.
"Naoya should've reined himself in a long time ago," he said with a chuckle.
If he hadn't gone around shouting Toji's name all day, how would outsiders have ever come to believe that "the Zenin heir is secretly in love with his cousin"?
Zenin Naobito prided himself on being a decent judge of character.
His son simply didn't have that inclination; his orientation was perfectly normal. At most, it was the admiration of a youth drawn to strength—after all, he had never seen a man more masculine than Toji. Give him a few more years and he would come to his senses. The world of jujutsu had no place for someone with zero cursed energy.
As for that whole business of Gojo Satoru crossing paths with Zenin Toji… that had been genuinely unexpected.
Naobito took another swig of alcohol. Liquor spilled from the corner of his mouth as he spoke, his words blurred by drink.
"Toji… so even you would have a day like this."
The Zenin clan's mighty Heavenly Restriction, driven to defect after being shaken by the Gojo clan's still-young Six Eyes?
Heh—interesting. Far too interesting.
The final straw that broke Zenin Toji's back was the Six Eyes.
Unfortunately, Zenin Naobito had no chance to witness that fateful encounter with his own eyes. Had the news come from the Gojo clan? He found himself mildly curious.
Not only did Zenin Naobito have no intention of stopping the spread of the gossip, he actually wanted it to travel even farther—straighten out Zenin Naoya's "problem" in the process, and give Zenin Toji, who had already severed ties with the Three Great Clans, one last bout of disgust for good measure.
Naobito took it all in stride.
"Anyway, Naoya was never going to work out with anyone."
What was there for a man to fear in same-sex rumors? To have one's youth brushed against the Six Eyes was already an amusing anecdote worth keeping.
Regarding the tale of "the Zenin heir transferring his affections to the Gojo heir," the head of the Zenin clan burst into hearty laughter. He waved off the servant who came to report it and said cheerfully, "Bring me more stories like this when you hear them—I'm not some stuffy old fossil."
The Gojo clan spread the gossip, the Zenin clan turned a blind eye, and the Kamo clan fanned the flames.
And so, within a short span of time, the three strands of rumor swept through the entire jujutsu world. With each retelling, they grew more and more outrageous, until they became the greatest source of entertainment of the New Year.
When the curse users heard the news, they too felt that the inner workings of the Three Great Clans were nothing short of utter chaos.
"Who is Zenin Toji, anyway?"
"They say he's the Zenin heir's cousin—some Zenin clan sorcerer with no reputation to speak of, someone nobody's ever really heard about."
"How did he manage to fall in love with the Six Eyes and dump the Zenin heir in the process?"
"Is that really the latest version of the story? That's getting a bit too ridiculous…"
Among curse users and assassin brokers alike, Kong Shiyu's first reaction was, How did I not know about this? He immediately smacked his forehead in annoyance, forcing himself to clear his head, and muttered to himself,
"That little bastard is a rich-women killer—there's no way he likes men. Otherwise he'd have sold his ass ages ago… tch, what the hell am I even thinking? Should I tell him about this or not?"
Kong Shiyu hesitated for a moment, unable to decide whether Zenin Toji would burst out laughing when he heard the rumor, or darken on the spot.
"Forget it," he sighed. "It's the New Year. I won't add to his headaches."
Thus, the so-called Heavenly Tyrant received a rare flicker of pity from the very broker who made his living off dirty money.
From Kong Shiyu's perspective, no matter who Zenin Toji set his sights on—or who dared set their sights on him—it was bound to be nothing but trouble.
As for someone who could truly bring him good fortune and happiness—
There wasn't a single one.
On January 5th, with the lingering taste of the New Year still in the air, Asou Akiya headed off to an intense, high-pressure "cram school."
Through an introduction from the principal of the Kyoto campus, he met a swordsmanship instructor renowned as the foremost master of New Shadow Style · Simple Domain, and began a month-long training program under that man's guidance.
If his guess was correct, this instructor would also become Miwa Kasumi's teacher in the future.
The teacher, who had stepped into the role on short notice, possessed an easygoing and open temperament. He did not look down on Asou Akiya for his civilian background; on the contrary, he held high expectations for him, offering comprehensive instruction in barrier techniques, swordsmanship, and the application of Binding Vows. He stated plainly,
"Simple Domain is a skill every ambitious jujutsu sorcerer ought to learn. You can't give up just because it looks difficult. That said, this school requires each student to swear a binding vow not to pass the technique on, in order to prevent it from falling into the hands of curse users."
Asou Akiya had no intention of spreading it anyway, so he readily chose to enter the binding vow. At the same time, he quietly assessed the difficulty of the training and began to consider dragging Shoko along to learn with him—after all, among their class, Ieiri Shoko was the only one who had yet to come into contact with Simple Domain.
If they were going to grind, then everyone would grind together. No one was allowed to be left behind.
And then—
Asou Akiya was trained half to death, once again experiencing firsthand the vast gulf between an ordinary person and a true genius.
The downside was that his confidence took a heavy hit.
The upside was that his beginner-level swordsmanship improved at a visible pace, and he mastered an iaijutsu technique capable of killing with a single decisive strike.
The iaijutsu of New Shadow Style · Simple Domain leaned toward defense rather than offense.
However, Asou Akiya deliberately sought out this accommodating instructor to learn a more traditional form of iaijutsu from classical swordsmanship, adding another lethal trump card to his arsenal.
By the time he reached this stage, he finally gained a sliver of confidence about ambushing Zenin Naoya.
A Semi-Grade Two sorcerer, launching a surprise attack, had every chance of suppressing a distracted Grade Two sorcerer.
When the swordsmanship instructor happened to pass by during his practice, he paused and reminded him,
"Your draw carries an obvious killing intent. Rein it in a little."
Asou Akiya wiped the sweat from his face, accepted the criticism with a smile, and formally added "restraining killing intent" to his list of key training objectives.
The swordsmanship instructor then asked, "Have you ever used a sword-type cursed tool before?"
"I have," Asou Akiya replied.
The instructor examined the calluses on his palms, then squeezed the muscles in his arms to gauge his progress, and spoke with careful consideration,
"The use of cursed tools is different from conventional swordsmanship. You'll need to think it through on your own. My advice is this: you are a jujutsu sorcerer, not a swordsman. The essence of learning swordsmanship for you is to increase your combat power and strengthen yourself."
Across Japan, the traditional schools of kendo had long since declined.
The emergence of New Shadow Style · Simple Domain allowed swordsmanship to continue flourishing within the jujutsu world. However, every sorcerer must remember one thing—there are no true swordsmen in the jujutsu world. The sword is merely a weapon; cursed energy is the foundation.
In the blink of an eye, January 10 arrived.
So immersed was Asou Akiya in his fervent study of Simple Domain that he completely forgot it was his sixteenth birthday in this lifetime.
By the time he realized that the day held special meaning, he was already under attack by a cursed spirit.
The Special-Grade Imaginary Cursed Spirit, "Kokkuri-san," shamelessly ambushed him.
He was abducted.
Surrounded by darkness, he sank into sleep without resistance, as though he had returned to the amniotic waters of his mother's womb. The exhaustion in his muscles was gently soothed. When he raised a hand to block the light and opened his eyes again, it came as no surprise to see the smiling faces of three classmates.
After Geto Suguru kidnapped him, he slept soundly.
Ieiri Shoko treated him, repairing the bodily damage he had accumulated during his training.
Ieiri Shoko treated him, carefully repairing the physical damage he had accumulated during his training.
Gojo Satoru kept shaking him nonstop. "Wake up already—don't sleep anymore!"
Leaning close to his ear, Gojo shouted, "It's your birthday today!"
Once he was surrounded by his classmates, Asou Akiya felt an odd sense of unreality wash over him. People often said that the Japanese valued maintaining social distance; in his previous life, he had only ever celebrated his birthday with close family. A birthday was just a birthday—was there really anything worth making such a fuss about?
"Are we eating cake?" Asou Akiya blinked, looking around to his left and right, but he didn't see a cake anywhere.
"No," Geto Suguru denied it outright. "You and Shoko don't like sweets. Only Gojo actually enjoys cake."
Realization dawned on Asou Akiya.
Everyone's tastes were different, and disliking sweets was perfectly normal—yet in his past life, hardly anyone ever took that into consideration on a birthday.
Even close friends and relatives would follow convention and order a cake, usually one eight inches or larger, suitable for sharing among many people.
As though only by doing so could a person feel happy on their birthday.
When he was young, he had once hidden away by himself and quietly wiped away his tears.
The year he wanted to eat his birthday cake right away, his parents forbade it, saying that relatives' children would be arriving soon. Before the people who had come to celebrate him arrived, the birthday cake was an important prop that could not be touched.
After an evening of polite small talk with relatives, when he was finally given a slice of cake, he returned to his bedroom with a smile plastered on his face. Once the mask came off, he had no appetite at all, and desperately wanted to hurl the neatly cut slice his parents had given him straight out the window.
His own birthday!
Why did it have to be decided by others, without his consent?!
Yet he didn't dare. He couldn't bear to waste food, and he didn't want to make everyone angry on his birthday. Clearly, he was someone who disliked tradition and despised rigid conventions, and yet he lacked the courage to shout his resistance aloud.
That faint, half-hearted defiance was a voice so weak it was always ignored.
The gap between the weak and the strong was not only a matter of power, but also of a fragile mindset.
He remembered clearly that later on, he stopped liking birthdays altogether. After turning twenty-nine, he came to regard his birthday as a day he never wanted to see again.
Even when he received birthday wishes, he would only smile faintly, utterly unconcerned.
All he wanted was to buy a single-serving birthday cake, to savor the loneliness meant for one person alone, and to make a selfish wish meant for no one else.
Last year, Asou Akiya had spent his birthday exactly like that.
Ieiri Shoko poked his cheek. "Asou, stop spacing out and hurry up—tell us your birthday wish."
Gojo Satoru sat beside him, more resolute than anyone. "You can eat whatever you want."
Geto Suguru rested a hand on his shoulder. "It's on us."
Asou Akiya lowered his head, his eyelids aching and swollen. A birthday he had grown tired of long ago still refused to come back to life.
"I… don't really have any wishes. I don't like birthdays. I'm a boring person…"
"Huh?" ×3
His classmates had never expected an answer like that.
"You're not boring at all. Thank goodness we listened to Shoko and asked you directly," Getou Suguru said with lingering unease, as though a narrow disaster had just been averted. "We almost went and threw you a birthday celebration you would've hated."
"Asou, that's a good habit—efficient and hassle-free," Ieiri Shoko said, giving him a thumbs-up.
"Then wasn't this trip a total waste?" Gojo Satoru ruffled his short hair, unwilling to accept that he had come all this way for nothing. Behind his sunglasses, the Six Eyes observed Asou Akiya closely, and he realized that Asou genuinely felt not the slightest fondness for celebrating his birthday.
Asou Akiya gathered up his lingering negative emotions and said with quiet gratitude, "It's fine. Just being able to see you all already makes me very happy."
When he was younger, he had once had enthusiasm and drive, had been willing to play the role of the birthday star with earnestness. Later, he grew tired of it.
Indifference, he thought, was better than numbness.
He did not grow numb to birthdays—he simply chose to ignore them. He lived each day properly, earnestly, only lacking anything that might ignite true fervor within him.
Getou Suguru asked considerately, "We can skip the birthday thing, then. What do you want to eat? A Sichuan place?"
Asou Akiya realized that his past life still clung to him, difficult to shake off. He smiled bitterly and said, "I don't really have an appetite."
Let alone cake—today, the more ordinary the food, the better.
Gojo Satoru stared at him for a long moment.
"How about we go eat fucha cuisine[1] together?"
"What's that?" Asou Akiya asked.
Three faces went blank at once—not only had Asou Akiya never tried it before, neither Getou Suguru nor Ieiri Shoko had even heard of it.
"If you haven't eaten it before, then think of it as an experience," Gojo Satoru said lightly.
He offered no explanation of what the food actually was. Instead, he pulled out his phone, tapped away at it for a moment, and sent a flurry of messages to the Gojo household.
Soon after, a car from the Gojo family arrived and picked up Gojo Satoru along with his classmates.
In Japan, Kyoto Prefecture, Uji City—inside a temple—Asou Akiya finally saw the so-called "fucha cuisine."
"Isn't this just… Buddhist vegetarian fare?" he blurted out.
For someone with no appetite to speak of, being faced with a meticulously prepared, entirely vegetarian temple banquet was like the perfect prescription, tailored exactly to his condition.
As he listened to the temple practitioners explain that fucha cuisine was a vegetarian banquet tradition passed down from the Ming dynasty, Asou Akiya found himself absorbed in this quiet exchange between two culinary cultures. Almost without realizing it, his appetite was subtly stirred awake.
He turned his gaze toward Gojo Satoru.
Gojo Satoru moved his chopsticks a few times, eating in a perfunctory, half-hearted way; he was clearly not someone who truly enjoyed vegetarian temple food.
Noticing Asou's look, Gojo tilted his head. "Was lunch not good? Later, I'll take you to eat something even more authentic."
Asou Akiya: "??"
That very day, without any warning whatsoever, Gojo Satoru chartered a flight and went abroad.
Went abroad!!
Sichuan, Chengdu—inside a private restaurant renowned within local gourmet circles.
With the Gojo family's formidable network, all the visas were arranged in record time. Still slightly dazed, Asou Akiya set foot on his homeland once more, sitting in a city sparse in cursed spirits, wearing a stunned expression as he tasted the most authentic Sichuan cuisine imaginable. The master chef—an officially recognized inheritor of intangible cultural heritage—used peerless skill to conquer a palate made all the more discerning by the weight of two lifetimes combined.
Beside him were three classmates who had eaten themselves crooked with spice, bodies leaning askew, tears streaming uncontrollably from their eyes.
They weren't sniffling—not because the food wasn't brutal, but because a sorcerer's physique was exceptionally resilient, immune to the usual allergic reactions triggered by chili.
But tears?
That was purely because it was insanely spicy.
Asou Akiya smiled without realizing it and passed tissues to each classmate who couldn't handle too much heat.
Be a little happier.
Don't make your classmates worry—you're a boy reborn, not a mindless echo of society anymore.
You should… be happy on your birthday, Asou Akiya.
After they had eaten and drunk their fill, Asou Akiya finally spoke, his voice steady and resolute. "I think I know what I want for my birthday now."
Getou Suguru and Ieiri Shoko were downing milk like their lives depended on it. "Enough preamble—just say it already!"
Gojo Satoru was frantically wiping his mouth with a napkin, so numbed by the spice that he'd nearly lost all sensation. "That sounds pretty good, doesn't it?"
Asou Akiya grabbed the three of them, his eyes blazing with a brightness so vivid it was almost startling.
Gojo Satoru instantly went on guard.
Asou Akiya spoke with undisguised joy. "I've always had a dream of becoming a writer, but I don't really have much talent in that area. That's why I especially want to read novels written by people who are… different from the norm."
Then he said it outright, unable to contain himself any longer.
"Right now, what I want most is to read your novels."
Asou Akiya continued without pause, his excitement spilling over. "As for the theme… imagine a world with no cursed spirits and no cursed energy at all. In that kind of world, what sort of life would you want to live?"
He leaned forward, almost breathless. "There's no word limit. Write as much as you want, whatever you want."
Then he pressed on eagerly, unable to hide his curiosity. "Tell me! I really want to know—especially you, Gojo. Would you want to be a big celebrity? And you, Getou—would you want to get into a top-tier university? Shoko, would you want to abandon medicine altogether and switch careers to become a beauty influencer?"
They couldn't quite understand the fervor with which Asou Akiya spoke.
Yet, stirred by his words, their thoughts drifted beyond the jujutsu world, wandering freely as they found themselves outside Japan, unable to stop imagining.
There didn't seem to be many cursed spirits here.
So… could sorcerers have an entirely new kind of career path?
…
Write a book for me, sorcerers.
…
To show Gojo Satoru what the glamour of being a star was really like, Asou Akiya dragged him along to watch a local celebrity meet-and-greet, where people whose looks fell far short of Gojo's still had crowds of devoted fans screaming for them.
To help Getou Suguru understand what it meant to be a student at an elite university, Asou Akiya took him on campus tours, telling him about the struggles of examinees from all over the world, and about how seriously ordinary people regarded academics and civil service exams.
And to let Ieiri Shoko grasp the nature of a beauty influencer's career, Asou Akiya pulled her along to Chunxi Road, where a steady stream of handsome men and beautiful women flowed past, everyone impeccably made up and dressed at the cutting edge of fashion, the freshest beauty inspiration visible in every passerby's everyday life.
In that instant, the Tokyo Metropolitan Curse Technical College students who were about to advance into their second year completely let themselves go.
They gathered together, animatedly discussing ideas and inspiration for the novels they would write.
"If I were a huge superstar, I'd definitely have a massive fanbase, right?!" Gojo declared, brimming with confidence.
"Gojo, if you just stand there and say nothing, your face alone would carry you," Getou replied calmly, then hesitated. "But if I got into a top university… I honestly don't know what I'd do after graduation."
"Then you can be my bodyguard!" Gojo said without missing a beat.
"Gojo… I think I'm better suited to be your manager," Getou sighed.
"If I'm a beauty influencer," Ieiri Shoko chimed in, "then I could be the makeup artist for a big star, right?"
"Wait," one of them suddenly realized, "we've planned everything out—so what's Akiya's job supposed to be?"
They all turned back to look at Asou Akiya, who was standing by the roadside, taking photos of the scenery to keep as mementos. The boy had regained a sincere smile, black hair and dark eyes bright and unguarded, his handsome, lively presence blending naturally into this foreign land.
Japan had seen its snowfall delayed this year, but Rongcheng had snowed, fulfilling Asou Akiya's long-held wish.
He loved photographing snowy scenes—and his classmates.
Gojo Satoru's eyes lit up. "Paparazzo."
Getou rubbed his forehead. "Don't do that. Akiya as a paparazzo would be terrifying—he'd probably become the top paparazzo in the entire industry. At that point, he might as well be your exclusive sasen[2] fan instead."
Ieiri Shoko curled her fingers and thoughtfully scratched her chin. "Isn't that even more terrifying?"
Gojo and Getou exchanged puzzled looks. "Is it?"
Ieiri Shoko smiled mysteriously. "We'll each write our own professions from different perspectives, and then read each other's novels at the end. As for me, I'm setting it up so that Asou Akiya and I are friends in everyday life."
Her proposal immediately won the approval of the two high-school boys, and the direction of their writing was swiftly settled.
Getou Suguru said, "Then I'll be his university classmate—someone who hasn't seen him for many years after graduation."
Gojo Satoru laughed. "Hah? And what about me?"
Getou Suguru and Ieiri Shoko joined forces to mercilessly bully him. "You're a rich heir—focus on chasing your dream in the entertainment industry!"
The next day, they flew back to Japan, enjoying the treatment of a private jet. People loudly addressed him as "Young Master Gojo," so infuriating that Gojo Satoru—now psychologically traumatized by that title—pounced on them and started tickling in retaliation.
Among the four of them, Asou Akiya and Getou Suguru both seemed to have quietly resolved a lingering knot in their hearts. They smiled brightly and tacitly avoided reopening the sharp, needle-to-needle confrontations of the past.
In private, Getou Suguru diligently reviewed more ancient texts related to Tengen's barrier, developing a yearning for overseas regions where cursed spirits were scarce. Into the elite-university agent persona he was crafting for himself, he even wove in an overseas study background.
Asou Akiya, meanwhile, eagerly anticipated their forthcoming masterpieces. He grew distracted during training and was promptly rapped on the wrist with a bamboo sword by the instructor.
"Don't lose focus!"
Well then—he was just a weak, helpless sixteen-year-old DK in the world of jujutsu.
—
TL Note:
[1] Fucha Ryori/Fucha Cuisine, is a distinctive tradition within Shojin Ryori, the vegetarian cuisine of Zen Buddhist monks in China and Japan. About 300 years ago, it was introduced to Japan by cooks who came from China with the monk Ingen, the founder of the Chinese style temple Manpuku-ji, at Uji near Kyoto. This was the first temple of the Obakushu Zen sect in Japan, and since it's establishment the authentic tradition of Fucha has been handed down by devotees of the sect.
[2] Sasen (サセン), borrowed from Korean Sasaengpaen (사생팬), which is the South Korean term for an obsessive fan who invades the privacy of Korean idols, drama actors, or other public figures in the entertainment industry.