Suguru Geto didn't hate going on missions. If anything, he liked them. They let him observe all kinds of people and situations, and through that, figure out what direction he wanted to take in the future. The only condition was that he didn't have to swallow a Cursed Spirit Ball.
At some point, though, Satoru Gojo started dragging him along on missions more and more. Gojo was loud, sure, but it still reminded Geto of how things used to be, back before the Star Plasma Vessel incident.
"Geto, walking like this is boring. Wanna play the Sendai riddle game?"
"Sure."
"Alright, first question. What's my favorite Sendai dessert?"
"Edamame paste fresh cream daifuku."
"Huh? Then let's go to question two."
"You didn't even mention what we're playing for."
"Then let's play the Cream Daifuku Game! The rule is: whoever likes cream daifuku more wins. Okay, I win!"
"Yeah, yeah."
Suguru Geto shot an exasperated look at the "big kid" next to him.
"But seriously, next time you play a 'game' with someone, maybe look up what the word means first. If you rope juniors into this, they're going to suffer."
They kept talking as they wove through the crowd.
One of them wore sunglasses but kept flicking his eyes around anyway, swaying as he walked like his neck was messed up.
The other had his hands in his pockets, eyes half-lidded, hunched forward like his lower back was killing him.
People around them got spooked by the odd expressions and even odder way they walked, and kept instinctively giving them a wide berth.
Still, to two jujutsu sorcerers, there wasn't much on this street worth looking at. Resentment, jealousy, anger, hatred, disgust, envy, favoritism, selfish desire, all of it tangled together into a kind of surface-level chaos you couldn't really touch. Even the air felt unusually thick and grimy.
"Gojo."
"Hm?"
"What kind of assignments are they even giving you? At this point, even a Special Grade Cursed Spirit shouldn't be much pressure for you."
"Eh, this one seems like it involves a curse user or something along those lines. The higher-ups are always like that, scared of this, scared of that. They take things that don't really need worrying about and try to turn them into things they never have to worry about at all.
So ever since I started taking missions, a bunch of stuff has just… naturally landed on my shoulders."
"Sounds exhausting."
"Tell me about it. This handsome guy even had to give up his afternoon tea time!"
It wasn't often that Satoru Gojo complained. Suguru Geto chuckled softly and shook his head.
"By the way, why do you keep dragging me along? With what you can do now, you shouldn't need my help."
"To keep you from turning into 'Hollow Suguru Geto,' obviously. You need to move around more. If you sit at Jujutsu High all day, you're gonna rust. Be honest, you'd get lonely~~
Hold on. Something's happening."
Satoru Gojo suddenly dipped his head, peering through the gap in his sunglasses at something ahead.
Suguru Geto followed his line of sight. It was a man with a small child.
The man was forcing a black, mud-pill-looking thing toward the boy's mouth. The kid fought with everything he had, twisting away.
"Kazushi, be good. Eat it and the two of us will finally make something of ourselves!"
"I don't want it!"
"Don't you always say you want to raise your math grade? I can feel my brain running at full speed right now!"
"It stinks! And just looking at it makes me feel sick!"
People passing by automatically steered clear. To them it just looked like a father trying to make his son take some kind of medicine, and the kid refusing because it tasted awful. Aside from how hard the boy was resisting, nothing seemed out of the ordinary, and everyone had their own business to get to.
Suguru Geto walked over to Satoru Gojo's side.
"This man's head is giving off a strange kind of Cursed Energy. It's similar to a newly awakened Jujutsu Sorcerer, but he's far too old."
"No."
Satoru Gojo took off his sunglasses and studied him closely. Whether the glasses actually did anything was anyone's guess, but removing them still carried a certain ritualistic weight.
"It's a Cursed Corpse."
"What?"
"Part of his brain has been modified into something closer to a Cursed Corpse. Looks like some kind of computational interface grafted onto a large-scale Cursed Corpse."
Thinking back to the man's movements, Suguru Geto immediately connected it to that mud pellet. He rushed over and grabbed the man by the forearm.
"Hey! Who are you? What do you want?"
To the man, Suguru Geto was nothing more than a stranger barging into his life. Geto didn't look like an ordinary person, and for someone as ordinary as him, being pushed around by someone extraordinary wasn't worth dwelling on. As long as Geto stopped getting in his way, that was enough.
He didn't show much anger. Not calm restraint, but something closer to numbness.
"Do you know what you're feeding your son?"
"He's my nephew. He just lives with us."
Suguru Geto's face twitched slightly. How could this man miss the point so completely?
"It's poison."
To show as much care as possible to someone with no knowledge of jujutsu, Suguru Geto chose words he could understand.
"Poison? That's impossible! My head has never been this clear in my life! And I only paid after I saw results!"
Years of grinding away as a corporate drone had conditioned the man to accept what others said almost reflexively. The idea of "poison" had already taken root in his mind.
"That's because it's a drug that consumes the brain. If you gave it to your son… your nephew, there's a high chance it would cause him to die young."
"Consumes the brain? You mean my brain is already being reduced?"
"I'm an official representative. Please come with me immediately to receive treatment."
Suguru Geto expected him to latch onto this lifeline without hesitation. Instead, the man suddenly began to struggle.
"No! I don't want treatment! Give me books! I want to study! I want to become a mathematician, a scientist, anything! Living like this is worse than death! I couldn't understand before, but now I definitely can! While I still have a few days left, send me to any school at all!"
As his words grew more incoherent and his behavior more unhinged, people around them began to take notice. Suguru Geto found himself at a loss.
Satoru Gojo walked over from another direction, holding a cheese ice cream.
"Hey. Hate to say it, but that thing only boosts your surface-level calculation ability. It's not going to turn you into a mathematician or anything."
To snap him back to reality, Satoru Gojo stated the truth outright. It was necessary.
The man froze. To keep the situation from drawing more attention, Suguru Geto immediately summoned an arm-shaped Cursed Spirit and clamped it over the man's mouth, reducing him to muffled "mmph" sounds.
The moment the Cursed Spirit appeared, the quiet little boy nearby visibly trembled. Satoru Gojo crouched down in front of him, clearly intrigued.
"You can see it? What's your name?"
"Kazushi."
Satoru Gojo examined the boy more carefully.
"Ah, that's a shame. You probably don't have a technique. Just focus on school. Even if you came to Tokyo Jujutsu High, you'd most likely just end up as another casualty."
Kazushi didn't understand what Satoru Gojo was talking about. It sounded vaguely like he was being told to study hard, which made him pout.
The man with his mouth covered seemed to pass out, either because the Cursed Spirit was holding him too tightly or because his brain had reached its limit.
Suguru Geto frowned.
"Can he still be saved? Someone actually used living human tissue to make a Cursed Corpse."
Satoru Gojo walked over and casually rested a hand on Suguru Geto's shoulder.
"Relax. We're not short on medical expertise or Cursed Corpse knowledge at Jujutsu High. With Shoko and Yaga-sensei diagnosing him together, he'll definitely be cured."
Satoru Gojo turned to Kazushi.
"Hey, we're taking you and your uncle for treatment. Stick close and don't wander off."
As he reached out for the boy's hand, Kazushi suddenly darted to Suguru Geto's side and grabbed onto his pant leg instead.
To him, this high schooler who had stopped him from eating the "poop ball" felt far more reliable.
"Take me with you. I'm scared I'll get lost."
"Hey… you little brat."