Satoru Gojo stared at the boy's file. A photograph was clipped to the inside cover. He unclipped it and scrutinized the image. It was a teenager. The file noted he was only a first-year high school student from a single-parent household, raised by his mother following a divorce. He had founded a cinema appreciation club at the start of the school year, but for unknown reasons, it rapidly declined and was recently disbanded.
The boy in the photo offered a timid, awkward smile. He had medium-length hair with parted bangs framing his face.
His name was Junpei Yoshino.
Having confirmed the file's contents, Gojo looked up.
"Pfft—"
"You laughed! You definitely just laughed!" The teenage girl shot him a vicious, feral glare, like a cornered beast. Under normal circumstances, it might have been a highly intimidating look, but with fat tears welling in her eyes, it only made her look pitifully adorable.
"Pfft, pfft..."
"You bastard—!" the girl shrieked, displaying absolutely none of the timid awkwardness from the photograph. Or rather, she could never be that timid, awkward teenage boy from the file ever again.
She was a remarkably pitiful girl. Her long bangs completely obscured one eye and nearly half her face. She glared at Gojo with her visible eye, the bottom lid heavy with unshed tears that threatened to spill over like a broken dam. She was wearing a male high school uniform, but it didn't fit her altered frame at all. The shoulders drooped loosely, and the sleeves swallowed her hands completely.
She was huddled in the corner of the holding cell bed, hugging her knees, her face buried so deeply between them she looked like a balled-up hedgehog. She had only looked up when she heard someone approach. Anyone with eyes could see she was teetering on the absolute edge of a mental breakdown.
Satoru Gojo fought down his laughter. He tried. He really tried.
But this was just too damn funny. How could anyone hold it in?!
"Pfft—hahahaha! What the hell is this?! What is actually happening?! Do Cursed Spirits seriously have sick hobbies like this?! Instead of butchering people, it violently gender-swaps them?! How... why is this so weird?! Ahaha! Ahahahahaha!"
Gojo was howling with laughter, but beneath his manic amusement, his mind was calculating a terrifyingly high threat assessment regarding the girl in front of him.
No, 'threat assessment' wasn't quite right. To Satoru Gojo, there wasn't a single human or Curse on the planet that warranted true 'caution.' He had been the undisputed pinnacle of the world for so long that his baseline paranoia as a Jujutsu Sorcerer had completely atrophied. That was exactly why, even when confronted with this bizarre anomaly, he could still laugh so brazenly.
He shouldn't be laughing. As an expert, as an adult, he absolutely shouldn't be laughing. But he literally couldn't help himself. So, he laughed.
Triggered by his laughter, a horrifying torrent of power erupted from the girl. Gojo's severely dulled combat instincts gave a sudden, involuntary twitch under the sheer pressure. It was like feeling the familiar sting of bloodlust after a long hiatus—a primal instinct screaming at him to lock onto the girl and prepare to kill her.
To kill her, before she could kill him.
The reason was devastatingly simple: Cursed Energy. An oceanic, catastrophic volume of Cursed Energy.
—Cursed Energy so dense it felt like it could blot out the sun.
Before Gojo had even stepped foot inside the police station, he had sensed this colossal mass of energy. Even a completely normal civilian with zero Jujutsu talent would have felt a frigid, unnatural chill caressing their skin in this building. But for a Sorcerer of Gojo's caliber, the Cursed Energy radiating from the girl was practically visible to the naked eye. It expanded outward in all directions, surging like an erupting volcano violently expelling magma.
If Gojo hadn't visually confirmed she was human, he would have instantly categorized her as a Cursed Spirit—an undeniable Special Grade.
Her total Cursed Energy reserves actually eclipsed Gojo's own. Yes, strictly in terms of raw volume, she possessed more than him. It immediately reminded him of Yuta Okkotsu.
Yuta Okkotsu was widely considered to have the largest Cursed Energy reserves in recorded human history. The girl's reserves hadn't quite reached Yuta's apocalyptic levels, but to be fair, Yuta was technically a distant relative of Gojo. No matter how distant the bloodline, Yuta was born from Jujutsu Sorcerer lineage.
This girl had absolutely zero Sorcerer blood in her veins.
In Tokyo, there were countless victims whose lives were derailed by Cursed Spirits. Naturally, there were survivors who narrowly escaped death. Trauma from Curses often forcibly unlocked a person's ability to manipulate trace amounts of their own Cursed Energy, but that was usually their hard limit. They spent the rest of their lives working as logistical support for Jujutsu High, barely able to cast the most rudimentary barrier techniques.
But this girl was an impossible anomaly. No Sorcerer lineage. No innate talent. And yet, she was currently flooding the room with a tsunami of Cursed Energy.
Even if she didn't rival Yuta Okkotsu, her current reserves easily placed her in the top five—maybe even the top three—of all living humans.
Gojo suspected a Binding Vow was at play.
Sacrificing her entire physical identity in exchange for catastrophic power. It wasn't quite Yuta Okkotsu, but this sheer density of Cursed Energy easily put her on par with Special Grade Curses. Correction: even among Special Grades, her raw output was top-tier.
That was why Satoru Gojo was here. No one else could handle her.
With reserves this massive, a single stray, emotionally charged sentence from her could inadvertently birth a brand new Curse. If she were to be executed right now, the resulting negative backlash would undeniably spawn a new Special Grade Cursed Spirit.
Truly, only Satoru Gojo, a fellow Special Grade, was equipped to defuse this.
Gojo analyzed all this internally, but externally, he showed zero mercy. He laughed for a solid thirty seconds before his chuckles finally broke up into sputtering stops. He scrutinized the girl. She was passively venting an astronomical amount of energy. Logically, if she had even the slightest control, she could have effortlessly cursed him with it. Gojo already had his 'Limitless' active, fully prepared for a lethal counterattack.
But nothing happened. Not a single trace of an offensive curse came his way.
Seeing her pushed to the absolute brink of humiliation and fury, anyone with the capability would have retaliated. The fact that she didn't left Gojo with only two logical conclusions.
One: She was just pathologically kindhearted, refusing to harm others even when pushed to the edge. ...Yeah, scratch that. Looking at those tear-filled, venomous eyes, if she knew how to throw a Cursed Energy punch, Gojo's face would already be flattened.
Which left only one possibility—
She genuinely possessed zero Jujutsu technique. She was an absolute, unadulterated novice. Did that mean she wasn't a sleeper agent planted by the Curses?
Yes, the secondary reason Gojo was here was to determine if Junpei Yoshino—the boy transfigured into a girl—was a spy. It sounded absurd. Before today, the entire Jujutsu world would have scoffed at the idea. Conventional wisdom dictated that Cursed Spirits were mindless beasts driven purely by the instinct to slaughter. Intellectually, they ranked below dolphins. How could a beast mastermind a sleeper agent?
But everything had changed today. According to the testimony of this girl, Junpei Yoshino, Curses had evolved true sapience. Plural. And worse, they were actively conspiring with Curse Users to overthrow Jujutsu society.
It sounded like apocalyptic fear-mongering. Gojo fully believed that as long as he was breathing, the Jujutsu world could never be overthrown. But the rotting fossils at the upper echelons of Jujutsu Headquarters had completely lost their minds, scrambling in a panicked frenzy like cats with their tails stepped on. Part of their frantic response was deploying him personally to verify the claims of this impossibly disruptive girl.
"Pfft... hehe, hehehehe... okay, I'm sorry, I'm really sorry." Gojo sputtered, finally forcing the laughter down, though his shoulders still shook with suppressed mirth. "C-Can you tell me what your thought process was? Running straight to a normal police station to find us?"
The girl gave him a dead-eyed stare. "Isn't it obvious? If inexplicable supernatural phenomena genuinely exist in this country, it's impossible for the government to be completely blind to it. The most direct approach I could think of was going to the police, since they operate on the front lines of societal anomalies. If I wanted to find the experts, who else was I supposed to ask?"
Gojo stroked his chin. "Hmm, highly logical. You really do have talent, it's just a shame about the—"
"You're still laughing!" the girl shrieked.
It was true. They were currently sitting inside a police station. The moment the girl walked in and uttered the words 'Cursed Spirits,' the receptionist assumed she was either severely mentally ill or suffering from a terminal case of high-school chuunibyou. But after listening to her dead-serious, terrifyingly detailed account, a senior officer nervously escorted her straight into—
—a temporary holding cell.
Yes, the police immediately threw her behind bars. As for the reason—
Gojo coughed twice, finally purging the last of his amusement.
"Alright, let me lay it out for you clearly," Gojo said, his smile lingering, but his eyes locking onto hers. "The higher-ups want you dead."
The girl's eye twitched. She went completely silent.
"The fact that you sought out the police after surviving a Cursed Spirit proves you're highly intelligent. If you were just a standard civilian survivor seeking help, it would have been the smartest move possible. As you deduced, we Jujutsu experts coordinate closely with law enforcement. But because of that exact relationship, the police know enough to recognize when something is profoundly wrong. For example: you."
Gojo paused, his smile unwavering, his voice dropping an octave.
"To be subjected to a Cursed Spirit's soul-alteration, survive it, and emerge possessing an apocalyptic volume of Cursed Energy... you are patient zero. In recorded history, there has never been a precedent of a Curse mutating a normal human into a powerhouse Sorcerer."
"The implications of your existence are staggering. The most lethal implication is this: if Cursed Spirits can freely mass-produce Special Grade Sorcerers out of ordinary civilians, then it is no exaggeration to say the current hierarchy—where a microscopic elite rules the Jujutsu world—will be annihilated. Hell, human society itself would collapse."
The primary reason Jujutsu Sorcerers didn't actively rule humanity was their sheer lack of numbers. Furthermore, most Sorcerers were still vulnerable to conventional firearms; a bullet to the brain was lethal to ninety percent of them. Coupled with the endless, exhausting war against Curses, Sorcerers simply didn't have the bandwidth to conquer Japan, let alone the world.
But if ordinary civilians could be artificially awakened as Sorcerers—and gifted with apocalyptic reserves like this girl—all bets were off.
It was a crisis of the highest order. Naturally, Gojo understood this perfectly.
Gojo stared intently at the girl—the first-ever human mutated by a Curse, Junpei Yoshino.
"Junpei Yoshino. Let me ask you one question. Do you... stand on the side of humanity?"
The girl took a deep breath. She slid off the holding cell bed and stood directly in front of Satoru Gojo.
Her bangs were long, completely veiling one side of her face. She possessed a delicately cute face, her visible eye perpetually shimmering with unshed tears. The oversized male uniform hung loosely on her frame, looking as though it might slip off her shoulders at any second.
Looking impossibly fragile, she forced her face into a mask of absolute seriousness and met Gojo's gaze.
Gojo slightly lifted the blindfold covering his eyes. He analyzed her with the Six Eyes, observing the exact flow of her Cursed Energy, the rhythm of her internal organs, the electrical firing of her nervous system, and the micro-tremors in her facial muscles.
As long as the target was human, it was physically impossible to lie under the scrutiny of the Six Eyes. Gojo watched her. If she showed even a microscopic tell of deceit, regardless of how much he pitied her, he would execute her on the spot.
It didn't matter if she was an innocent victim. If she had strayed from the path of humanity and succumbed to a Curse's brainwashing, she had to die. This was a war of species. There was zero room for mercy.
A second later, the girl spoke.
She said, "I am human. I swear it, I will always stand on the side of humanity."
*No. Lies. Detected.*
Gojo was certain. Under the absolute authority of the Six Eyes, the girl hadn't lied. Her words were born from absolute sincerity.
Gojo smiled.
"Excellent, Junpei-chan. Then allow me to read your official verdict."
The girl swallowed hard, trembling with tension.
"Your death penalty has been commuted to a suspended death sentence," Gojo beamed.
*Whoosh.* The girl let out a massive, shuddering exhale.
"Hahaha, your reactions are the best!" Gojo laughed brightly. "Being all tense and dramatic really suits that cute face of yours, Junpei-chan!"
The girl's expression instantly flatlined into a dead-fish stare, the profound relief she felt a second ago evaporating into thin air.
She caught her breath. "But... is that really okay? The higher-ups sent you here to execute me, didn't they? Let me guess: wring every drop of intel out of me, then kill me to eliminate the threat? It's probably not my place to say this, but it sounds like you arbitrarily commuted my sentence yourself?"
Gojo snapped his blindfold back into place and shrugged. "Can't be helped. Killing you off right now would be a massive waste."
"A waste?" The girl frowned.
"You might not realize it, but despite your forced gender-swap, the Cursed Energy injected into you by that Curse is completely authentic. Honestly, before today, I'd only ever seen one other person with reserves like yours. I have no idea what your Innate Technique is—hell, since you were artificially mutated from a civilian, you might not even have one—but strictly based on your raw energy reserves, I can guarantee you'll easily qualify as a Grade 1 Sorcerer."
Gojo pondered for a second, then added, "If you're lucky enough to actually possess an Innate Technique to pair with those reserves... hitting Special Grade would probably be a walk in the park."
Gojo wasn't exaggerating. She might not rival Yuta Okkotsu's infinite battery, but her reserves were still terrifying. With that much fuel, even the most garbage-tier Innate Technique could be brute-forced into a weapon of mass destruction. Special Grade status was practically guaranteed.
"Um... that sounds like a big deal," the girl noted.
"A very big deal," Gojo said breezily. "For context, there are only three Special Grades in all of Japan right now."
The girl's eye blew wide open in shock.
Gojo snapped his fingers. "Exactly. Which is why I said it'd be a waste."
"If someone with your monstrous reserves was executed instead of being drafted into our ranks, my heart would bleed from the sheer inefficiency."
"You probably don't know this, but Sorcerers make up a microscopic fraction of the human population. Every single one of us is constantly worked to the bone. If a brand new Special Grade pops up to share the workload, that's a massive win for us."
Gojo's casual explanation carried a hidden weight. Perhaps it was because of the girl's existence, but he felt an ominous storm brewing on the horizon.
The fact that Cursed Spirits had birthed a sapient variant—one with a twisted, sadistic personality no less—was unprecedented in Jujutsu history. Trying to predict the endgame of a hyper-intelligent Curse was practically impossible for Gojo right now.
But regardless of what this sapient Curse was plotting, as a Special Grade, Gojo only had one immediate counterplay: aggressively fortify the strength of Jujutsu society. Prepare for the unpredictable by stockpiling absolute power.
Thinking of this, Gojo suddenly asked the girl, "Going back to a normal high school would be pretty impossible for you now, right? Pack your bags. You're enrolling in Jujutsu High."
"Eh?"
"What's wrong? You don't have friends waiting for you at your old school, do you?"
"No... it's just... never mind." The girl inhaled sharply. "Can I... can I see my mom one last time?"
Gojo blinked, realizing the girl had wildly misunderstood. She probably thought Jujutsu High was some dystopian black-site training facility—a description Gojo couldn't entirely refute—but in reality, Jujutsu High was just a normal three-year high school. The only difference was that the curriculum focused on exorcising curses. Aside from that, it operated like any regular school.
Well, the staggeringly low student population was also a bit different.
"You can see her whenever you want!" Gojo waved a hand dismissively. "I said 'suspended death sentence,' but it's not as grim as it sounds. As long as you bust your ass and rank up, the execution order will automatically be revoked once you hit Special Grade. In the meantime, just treat Jujutsu High like a standard boarding school. You can go home on weekends."
"Oh." The girl looked stunned, muttering in disbelief. "Is it really that lax? From the way you were talking, I thought I was some high-risk anomaly. I assumed I'd be under 24/7 armed surveillance... and that I'd never see my mom again."
"Hahaha, it's not that dramatic!" Gojo laughed easily. "We're human too, you know. We have families. You can't force Sorcerers to bleed on the front lines and then ban them from going home. That's just bad management."
"No, I wasn't talking about the management... I was talking about you," the girl said, looking deeply conflicted.
"Oh." Gojo finally realized what the girl was getting at. He turned slightly, tilting his head to look at her, flashing a brilliantly arrogant smile.
"My bad. We've been talking all this time, and I totally forgot to introduce myself. Saying this out loud is a bit embarrassing, even for me, but if it helps put your mind at ease, Junpei-chan, allow me to give a slightly cocky introduction."
Gojo paused dramatically, then stated with absolute nonchalance, "I am Satoru Gojo."
"For what it's worth... I'm the strongest Jujutsu Sorcerer on this planet."
He smiled—a bright, blindingly arrogant smile—and added:
"In this country, I'm kind of a big deal."