The second Touma gave that halting, half-yes answer, all the pain on Gojo's face disappeared.
What replaced it was worse.
Excitement. Raw, hungry, and way too Gojo.
He did not explain. He did not even pretend to. One smooth turn, and he was gone, white hair and long limbs blurring down the corridor with a sharp rush of air before anyone had time to blink.
The gust he left behind slapped across the group.
"Oi! Satoru! What the hell is wrong with you now?! Where do you think you're going?!" Yaga's roar cracked down the hall, a vein jumping at his temple as he shouted after the silhouette already vanishing around the corner.
Gojo's voice came back from somewhere far ahead, loud as ever and completely shameless.
"I need to stop by the Gojo Clan main house first! Gotta dig up some good stuff...!!!"
Yaga breathed out. Exhausted in the way only a teacher of problem children could be.
He pinched the bridge of his nose.
He had no idea what fresh brand of nonsense had grabbed his student this time. The only comfort was that Gojo seemed to be aiming all that destructive energy at the Gojo Clan estate.
For now, at least, Tokyo Jujutsu High was not the target.
Small mercy. Very small. Still, he'd take it.
Once Yaga confirmed Touma's plan was just live sparring with Kusakabe, he stopped objecting. He waved them through without much thought.
As their homeroom teacher, Yaga had not dealt with the lone Grade 1 sorcerer all that often, but Kusakabe's reputation was pretty clear. He hated trouble with his whole soul, but when things mattered, he got the job done. Add in the paid contract Mei Mei had arranged between them, and Yaga had no reason to worry.
Certainly not compared to letting Gojo spar with Touma.
That option sat somewhere between "property damage" and "international incident" in Yaga's head.
---
A few minutes later, two people and one tiny bear arrived at one of the school's outdoor training grounds.
The field spread wide under an empty sky. Plenty of space. Plenty of room for someone to break something.
Kusakabe stood with both hands shoved into his trench coat pockets, wearing the face of a man who had been dragged to work on his day off.
Then he watched Touma draw a single weapon from his waist.
A short blade. Old-fashioned. Plain, but not cheap.
Kusakabe's already unenthusiastic expression tightened. His brow dipped.
He cleared his throat, and when he spoke, his voice had lost most of its laziness. It turned clipped and businesslike.
"Listen, kid. I'll set this straight now. Ms. Mei Mei hired me to fight seriously and use everything New Shadow Style has. No holding back. So don't expect me to stop in the middle and teach you the basics like one of your teachers."
He paused, eyes running over Touma's calm face.
"And don't expect me to go easy."
Another beat.
"I heard you're the weird one who can use Reverse Cursed Technique. So if I cut you and you start bleeding, fix yourself with that. Don't complain afterward that I was too rough."
The words came out cold. Pure work mode. No warmth at all.
His actual thoughts were a lot less harsh.
At the end of the day, this kid is what, a first-year? He joined a few months ago? From what people are saying, he only awakened his technique right before enrollment, too. So he's been a sorcerer for... what, a few months total?
Kusakabe sighed inside.
No idea why some rookie who hasn't even been graded yet is paying good money to get smacked around in live combat. But I'm an adult. His senior, technically. I'll ease up when I need to. At least make sure I don't actually cut off an arm or something.
Tch. What a pain. This is just babysitting with swords.
Touma did not flinch at the warning, even though it sounded strict on the surface and was secretly much softer underneath.
He lifted the miniature Panda off his shoulder with both hands and set the Cursed Corpse on a bench at the edge of the field.
Carefully, even.
Then he turned back.
He breathed in, slow and steady. His right hand closed around Asakirimaru's grip. His knees bent, his weight dropped, and in one smooth motion he settled into a stance so clean it looked copied out of a textbook.
Except the pressure coming off him was not textbook at all.
Those dark eyes fixed on Kusakabe. Touma's face was serious, his tone sincere.
"Don't worry about that, Mr. Kusakabe. None of those concerns apply. If anything, if you happen to get injured during the spar, I'll take responsibility and heal you with Reverse Cursed Technique."
"...Huh? Heal me?"
Kusakabe's mouth twitched.
Rationally, he understood the boy was probably just being polite. Some earnest, respectful-to-your-elders kind of thing.
Emotionally, though?
Being told, don't worry, I'll heal you if I hurt you, by a kid who had been a sorcerer for five minutes felt... strange. Not quite insulting. Not quite funny. More like it had lodged sideways in his chest and refused to move.
To hide the awkwardness, Kusakabe looked past Touma toward the bench.
The tiny Panda had already given up sitting properly. It had flopped onto its side with no dignity whatsoever, one stubby paw propping up its fuzzy head like a bored spectator at a cheap theater.
Kusakabe pointed at it.
"Hey. If controlling that Cursed Corpse is part of your fighting style, send it in. Forget one-on-one rules. Use whatever you've got. I don't care."
Wait... I have to fight too?
Panda, who had been fully ready to enjoy the show, froze.
Its round little body went stiff. It turned to Touma, raised the paw that was not supporting its head, and pointed at its own nose. The black rings around its eyes somehow made the expression even clearer.
Me? Seriously?
Touma glanced over and smiled faintly.
"You're fine. Stay there and watch. This is only a simple spar between Mr. Kusakabe and me. It's nowhere near the level where I'd need to bring you in."
Nowhere near that level?
Kusakabe turned the words over in his head, frowning harder.
Is he looking down on me? Does he think he doesn't even need to go all out? Or is he actually just trying to keep things casual?
He decided he did not care enough to untangle it.
He had been hired. He had given the warning. Whatever lesson came next, the kid had paid for it himself.
"Hoo..."
Kusakabe breathed out.
The laziness drained from his eyes all at once, leaving something cold and sharp behind.
His left thumb pressed against the tsuba, easing the katana a fraction out of its sheath. His right hand settled on the hilt. Dense, refined cursed energy began moving through his body, the kind that only came from years of Grade 1 combat experience.
One last warning.
"All right then. Here I come."
The last syllable was still in the air when Touma moved.
BOOM.
The ground under Touma's feet burst apart.
He launched forward like something let off a chain, no feints, no testing, no careful approach. Just straight at Kusakabe, Asakirimaru cutting a tight corridor through the air as he charged full speed.
Something flickered in Kusakabe's eyes.
Disappointment.
Too eager.
He shook his head inwardly.
He did not know how much Touma had learned about New Shadow Style beforehand. Maybe a little. Maybe nothing. But even against an unknown opponent, on a wide-open field, with a short blade against a full katana, this was not the answer.
You circled. You tested. You looked for the opening.
You did not sprint straight into range like an idiot.
Might actually clock out early today.
Kusakabe spread his feet and nhaled. Cursed energy flooded paths he had drilled into his body ten thousand times.
New Shadow Style: Simple Domain: Batto.
The stance settled, and an invisible domain snapped into place. A perfect sphere centered on him, two meters in every direction.
Touma felt the shift immediately through his cursed energy perception.
Inside that Simple Domain, Kusakabe's output had climbed to a genuinely nasty level.
The moment Touma's leading foot crossed the two-meter line, the kill zone...
Kusakabe's hand moved.
Fast.
Too fast for normal eyes to follow.
It was the strike he had used to end fights before they started, body and cursed energy working at their limit. A draw cut that could shear through steel. His little thought about clocking out early, turned into silver light.
The katana screamed out of its sheath, a pale arc aimed straight for Touma's chest.
In Kusakabe's muscle memory, the next moment was already decided. Blade biting into flesh. Heavy resistance. Pull back at the last instant, keep the wound serious but not fatal.
Instead...
CLANG!!!
No flesh split.
A metallic crash exploded across the field, loud enough to sting the ears. White-hot sparks scattered into the air.
Two cursed-energy-laced weapons had met at point-blank range, both carrying real force.
Kusakabe's half-lidded eyes flew open.
His whole body locked for half a beat.
He had held back at the very last instant to avoid killing the boy.... sure. He would admit that much.
But even with that, it had still been a real Grade 1 killing stroke at normal combat output.
And it got blocked?
Worse than that was how it got blocked.
Touma had not thrown Asakirimaru up in a panicked guard. The short blade sat at a clean, precise angle, catching the katana at the weakest point in its arc.
Too clean.
Too calm.
The message came straight through Kusakabe's hands.
From the first step of that reckless-looking charge, Touma had already read the speed, angle, and path of the draw.
Reality did not give him time to be shocked.
Within a tenth of a second, the muscles in Touma's right arm swelled under his uniform. Veins rose like cords.
At that crushing range, he wrenched upward.
Clang.
Kusakabe's longer katana was forced three inches higher, its leverage stolen cleanly away.
In the same breath, Touma slammed a foot down and cracked the paving stone under him. He rode the recoil and accelerated again.
One heartbeat later, he had punched through the katana's defensive arc and appeared directly in front of Kusakabe.
Close enough to feel his breath.
Each movement flowed into the next, and together they broke Kusakabe's rhythm completely.
New Shadow Style's Simple Domain had an automatic counterattack built in. Anything entering the domain triggered an instant response. That was the point.
But Touma's impossible parry had not just blocked the strike. It had interrupted the whole sequence and ripped Kusakabe's stance open.
At this distance, a full-length katana was a problem. There was no room to draw back for a proper follow-up.
Grade 1 instincts took over.
Kusakabe gave up on the slash without hesitation, flipped his wrist, and drove the reinforced pommel of the katana toward Touma's temple. A rough counter, just enough to force space.
That was also already in Touma's calculations.
Without even looking at it, Touma raised his left hand. His palm, wrapped in dense cursed energy, caught the pommel with a clean smack and stopped it dead.
At the same time, Asakirimaru had already moved.
The blade stopped against Kusakabe's neck, right over the carotid artery.
Not touching enough to cut.
Close enough that it did not need to.
One tiny push, and the Grade 1 sorcerer would be dead.
A breeze moved through the training ground, lifting a few fallen leaves from the cracked stone.
For a second, nothing moved.
Touma did not press the blade in. He stood perfectly still, Asakirimaru steady in his hand, his expression unchanged. Calm. Almost mild.
As if that exchange, where life and death had been separated by less than a coin's width, had been a warm-up.
Then he withdrew his cursed energy.
With a clean twist of his wrist, Asakirimaru slid back into its sheath.
The whole thing had lasted only a few seconds.
Touma stepped back half a pace, bowed slightly, and spoke in a tone so polite there was no good way to get angry at it.
"Much obliged, Mr. Kusakabe."
Then he turned and walked toward the bench, where the miniature Panda was clapping its stubby paws with real enthusiasm.
Kusakabe stayed where he was.
For a while, he just watched Touma's back.
Then his gaze dropped to the ground two meters away, where Touma had launched that final burst of speed. Cracks spread through the granite paving like a broken windshield.
His hand moved on its own.
His fingers touched the side of his neck, right where the blade had hovered.
The cold was gone, but his skin remembered it.
He replayed the fight in his head. That one blinding instant where every move he'd made had been read, countered, and shoved into a corner with nowhere to go.
A fat bead of cold sweat broke from his hairline.
It slid down his cheek and fell.
Kusakabe swallowed.
Inside his skull, something was screaming.
Hold on. This isn't how this was supposed to go, right?!
What happened to the rookie?
I'm a battle-hardened Grade 1 sorcerer and I just got one-shotted? Inside New Shadow Style's domain? By a first-year with a short sword?!