Maki and Mai packed light and headed outside.
It was a one-night, two-day stay at Kyoto Jujutsu High.
On the first day, the team battle would begin the moment they arrived.
On the second, each school would hold matches agreed upon in advance, though it was usually individual bouts.
"I'm worried. Do you think I can really do this?"
Okkotsu muttered from his seat on the train.
Fear and tension were written all over his face.
"You're a Special Grade, so why are you this cautious? Just go in thinking you'll tear through all of them. Too much humility is poison too."
Hoshi, seated beside him, let out a sigh.
Since he was a man too, sitting shoulder to shoulder with Okkotsu didn't bother him in the slightest.
Hakari and Inumaki sat in the row behind them.
Mai and Maki were farther back, catching a bit of sleep.
At the very front sat their supervising teacher, Geto, leading the group.
Yaga was seated beside him.
"Suguru. How do you think this year's exchange event will go?"
"We'll crush them."
Geto answered after taking a long swallow from the bottled drink in his hand.
It was oolong tea.
"Crush them?"
"Kyoto Jujutsu High's main force is Todo, and that's about it. The girl who uses the broom, the Kamo clan's next head, and Muta is talented too, but..."
Geto trailed off and glanced back for a moment.
Special Grade Jujutsu Sorcerer Okkotsu.
For one-on-one combat, they also had Maki, Mai, Hakari, and others. The lineup was dazzling.
Maki and Mai in particular had received, and were still receiving, specialized training without interruption.
Count the years, and it was nearly ten.
Yaga understood that point at once and nodded.
The logic was airtight.
"Then starting next year, we won't need to make the trip to Kyoto anymore."
"Right. I think we can relax for at least the next two years. Good news, really."
"Business trips always make you watch yourself."
"They're all precious comrades, but nowhere's as comfortable as home."
Geto faced forward again and took another drink.
He knew it was necessary.
He was confident he could do it without complaint.
Even so, that didn't mean he had no grievances.
It was a pain.
"Kids. Please pull this off."
The stars of the exchange event were the students.
As a teacher, earnest prayer was about all he could do.
Right after arriving at Kyoto Jujutsu High,
they took a short break and then went straight into the exchange event.
The theme of the team battle was search.
The deciding factor was who could find the teacher hidden somewhere in the designated area first and subdue them, but...
"Yeah. I figured this would happen."
Maki muttered as she looked over the fallen Kyoto Jujutsu High students.
It had been a perfect slaughter.
Todo Aoi. Kamo Noritoshi. Nishimiya Momo. Mechamaru's puppets.
And even a few upperclassmen on top of that.
Every last one of them was sprawled across the ground, unable to get back up.
In front of them, Okkotsu stood there rolling his eyes in helpless confusion.
He was the main culprit behind the one-sided violence.
At close range, he used the techniques Maki had taught him.
At long range, summoning Rika and simply unleashing her had solved everything.
He had used copied Cursed Techniques too, but only a very small portion of them.
He had bulldozed through the match on raw fundamentals alone.
Todo had held out the longest, but even that had not been enough.
Rika's durability and monstrous strength were simply too overwhelming.
Thanks to that, the team battle ended in a landslide.
Before the individual matches could even begin, most of Kyoto Jujutsu High had already forfeited.
Standing out at the exchange event meant earning strong evaluations.
Everyone had intended to give it their all for that reason, but the opponent they had drawn was just too awful.
Only Todo stepped forward, muttering a rather long-winded speech to himself.
His first opponent was Maki.
"As expected. He's even bigger than my brother."
Maki muttered as she looked up at Todo.
She was tall herself, absurdly so by most standards, but Todo still towered over her.
"Then let us begin."
They stood atop a stage fit for some old ceremonial duel before a lord.
From the spectator seats, Gakuganji gave the signal to start.
"This is bad for me."
Todo surveyed the broad stage and thought to himself.
His Cursed Technique, Boogie Woogie, swapped his position with "something that possessed a certain amount of Cursed Energy."
The wider the space, the more useful it became.
Of course, that didn't mean it was unusable in a narrow area, but...
He was clearly at a major disadvantage.
And on top of that, his opponent was Maki, who had no Cursed Energy at all.
She wasn't even a valid target for his technique.
"What a pain. I'm not exactly thrilled about fighting a woman who's my type, but my luck with the bracket was rotten."
"I'm your type?"
"Mm. Well. Going by looks alone, sure."
A beautiful woman, tall, with wide hips.
Maki matched Todo's ideal type perfectly.
And with her chest on top of that, there was even less to say.
Even so, he felt no romantic interest toward her.
More precisely, he had started to, then stopped himself.
"She's my brother's woman."
He had heard the rumors about Maki and Mai. He had gathered information too.
He had even seen their faces in photographs.
If that had been all, he might have developed a fair amount of interest.
He might even have treated them with the same courtesy he reserved for Takada, the idol he adored.
The fiancées the Zenin Clan had sent to Kadoc as proof of goodwill.
If only he had not known they were, in truth, little more than tribute.
"Lucky bastard."
As if that weren't enough, Kadoc already had four women who fit Todo's ideal.
And their looks were exceptional even by harsh standards.
Then there was Maki standing before him, and Mai sitting in the stands with a bored expression.
It was enough to make him weep blood with envy.
At the same time, it made him respect Kadoc all the more.
Building a harem in modern society was no easy feat.
Maki gave a flat nod.
That desire-laced stare.
Even the confession lines pushed at her with obnoxious boldness were all too familiar.
"Ah. Sorry. There's someone I like."
Maki rolled her shoulders as she delivered the stock phrase she always used to reject confessions.
But this time it wasn't a polite lie. She meant it.
The man she fully intended to throw herself into the arms of once she became an adult.
She had even gone so far as to sketch out a future where, if possible, she would have his child.
"Being a Jujutsu Sorcerer matters, sure, but my brother matters more."
Becoming a Jujutsu Sorcerer was Maki's dream.
It had been her unwavering goal since childhood.
But even that goal was something she could bend for Kadoc's sake.
Her priorities had changed.
As for Mai, there was even less to say.
Kadoc and Maki stood side by side at the absolute top of her list.
"Then let's begin."
"Yeah. Go easy on me. If I get knocked out of bounds, I lose."
The two stared at each other, then moved at once as if they had been waiting for this exact moment, fist and leg lashing out together.
Power crashed into power, and the impact exploded across the stage.
Maki blocked the kick driving in hard enough to cave in her stomach.
At the same time, she snapped a low kick toward Todo's ankle.
Todo evaded with a light jump.
Still airborne, he tried to whip a kick into Maki's head.
It was fast. Sharp. Brutal.
But to Maki, it was perfectly clear.
Because she could see it, she could react.
Maki dropped her guard and sank low in one smooth motion.
It was a knee-drop escape, a movement used in grappling arts.
"Huh?!"
Todo faltered as Maki vanished beneath his line of attack in an instant.
Her drop and reaction had been too fast.
When an opponent panicked, an opening appeared.
Maki's eyes did not miss that opening. She rolled at once.
Her leg shot upward like a spring-loaded blade.
The target was Todo's abdomen.
Clap!
In that instant, the sound of hands striking together rang out, and Todo vanished.
In the place where Todo had been, there was only a small stone.
And beside Maki, where that stone had been flying, Todo now stood.
His Cursed Technique, Boogie Woogie, had switched their positions.
That sudden displacement exposed a fatal opening.
"Hup!"
Todo raised his leg toward Maki's head.
He intended to smash her with an upward kick.
A lethal gap.
Anyone watching would have thought the same, but Maki's hand flashed out and snatched his ankle.
Break it.
That was exactly what she intended as she poured every ounce of strength into her grip.
Crk—
The sickening sound was just about to tear through Todo's leg when he switched positions again, reappearing behind Maki.
"Tch...!"
Todo's brow twisted.
Even though he had changed places in time, the muscles in his leg had already been torn.
That wasn't all. Even the bone had taken some damage.
It wasn't broken, but a deep ache throbbed through it.
Should he keep fighting like this, or forfeit?
By nature, he would choose to fight on without hesitation, but dragging this out left a bad taste in his mouth.
More than Maki, he wanted Okkotsu.
He wanted to fight the boy in the stands whose eyes had gone wide in shock.
"That's enough. I forfeit this match."
The moment Maki reset her stance, Todo declared his surrender.
It was a wise decision.
If he took a serious injury here, he might miss Takada's concert.
He needed to preserve his body as much as possible.
If this were a real mission and he had to exorcise a Cursed Spirit as a Jujutsu Sorcerer, that would be another matter.
But the exchange event was a place for camaraderie.
"What? You're not going to keep going?"
Maki tilted her head, genuinely puzzled.
Even to her, he had looked like he still had plenty left in the tank.
Todo shook his head and sighed.
"It's fine to enjoy the exchange event seriously, but if it starts turning savage enough to resemble real combat, that becomes dangerous. My leg is proof enough."
Todo lifted the injured leg, folding it slightly as blood ran down it.
From the outside, it looked like a severe wound.
"Maki. You're more dangerous than I expected. As a fellow Jujutsu Sorcerer, that's reassuring. But youth shouldn't turn into a bloodbath. That's why I'm forfeiting."
"Scared you'd lose?"
"Mm. Winning or losing matters, sure, but even if I won, it'd be a problem if I ended up in rags."
Besides... throwing punches at my brother's woman feels a little...
Todo restrained himself, worried that Kadoc might take a dislike to him.
Kadoc was his idol, after all.
Maki had no idea about any of that, but she didn't bother pressing further.
Her opponent had acknowledged her strength, and she respected the decision he had made.
"The winner is Zenin Maki. Next. Step up."
After that, the matches continued under Gakuganji's supervision.
Tokyo Jujutsu High had already secured the overall victory, but the schedule still had to be completed.
Hakari and Okkotsu.
Todo and Hakari, and many other combinations besides.
The point was to let as many people as possible fight as many different opponents as possible.
That was the purpose of the exchange event.
Which meant losing once did not eliminate you.
Each person went through several bouts.
Even so, the final victor was Tokyo Jujutsu High.
Most of Kyoto Jujutsu High's students had practically forfeited from the start anyway.
"We did it."
From the stands, Geto clenched his fist in secret.
He was overjoyed that there would be no business trip next year.
Beneath his sunglasses, Yaga's eyes flashed as well.
For exactly the same reason.
========================
The website for reading paid chapters is available on my Patreon. The number of chapters on Patreon: 104
Link: patreon.com/UltraMagnus_T