Jin let out a long sigh as he looked at the professor, his expression carrying the mild annoyance of someone who had just been denied the opportunity to make a perfectly good joke. "You're no fun, professor." He adjusted himself against the edge of the desk before continuing, his expression becoming slightly more serious, although the amusement never completely left his eyes. "Anyway, the gist of the matter... What I can actually tell you is that you sealed away Jean's memories when she was a kid, and coincidentally or maybe intentionally, a pretty strong entity was minding its own business inside her."
Xavier's expression tightened slightly at the mention of Jean's sealed memories, but it was the strange logic of Jin's statement that seemed to catch his attention next. "How do you mind your business in another's body?" the professor asked, his brows drawing together as he tried to understand how Jin could describe an entity living inside another person as though it were simply a tenant who had been paying rent on time.
Jin stared at him for a moment before deciding that explaining the finer details would probably take far longer than he was willing to spend. He glossed over it with the ease of someone who had no intention of answering a question simply because it had been asked. "Don't ask me. I don't know, but anyway, with the memories were Jean's negative emotions, and they were boiling and boiling inside her, and the catalyst was that big bad wave that hit us up there during the mission."
Scott listened intently, but Jin quickly noticed that his attention was divided between the explanation and Jean. Every time Jin mentioned something that sounded even remotely dangerous, Scott's eyes instinctively moved toward the couch, checking on her as though she might suddenly disappear if he looked away for too long. It was almost impressive how transparent the man's concern was, and Jin couldn't help thinking that Scott was one worried glance away from picking Jean up and carrying her straight out of the room himself.
"Anyway, I beat the negative emotions out of her," Jin said casually, and Scott immediately turned to glare at him.
Jin met the glare without the slightest hesitation, apparently finding it more amusing than intimidating. Scott's expression said quite clearly that he wasn't appreciating Jin's choice of words, but Jin had never been particularly good at resisting the urge to make things worse when someone handed him such an easy opportunity.
"...And had a chat with that entity and we are cool now," Jin continued before Scott could do anything about it. He paused briefly, then added, "For most of the part."
That did absolutely nothing to reassure Scott.
If anything, his concern seemed to double.
The way Scott looked between Jin and Jean made it painfully obvious where his priorities were. He could have been listening to an explanation involving sealed memories, a powerful entity, and negative emotions that had apparently been "beaten out" of Jean, yet somehow he still looked as though the most important thing in the room was whether Jean had suffered another injury while unconscious.
Jin found the whole thing hilarious.
Xavier, on the other hand, looked like he was beginning to question whether agreeing to become a teacher had been worth it.
For about half a minute, the office fell into an awkward silence. Jin stood there, Scott remained beside Jean, and Xavier sat quietly while seemingly attempting to organize Jin's explanation into something coherent. The professor's expression suggested that he had reached the point where he understood the individual words but was beginning to doubt that they belonged together in any meaningful sequence.
Jin considered breaking the silence, but even he recognized that there were moments when making another joke would be pushing his luck.
So, naturally, he waited.
After about half a minute of awkward silence, the professor finally spoke up and asked him, "Is there any chance of it happening again?"
"No, no really, but you gotta prepare yourself for when she wakes up," Jin replied, glancing toward Scott before continuing with a grin that immediately made it clear he wasn't done causing trouble. "That she isn't gonna go all Godzilla on you."
Scott's expression tightened at the warning, while Jin looked completely satisfied with himself. Xavier, meanwhile, had the weary expression of a man who had just realized that the person responsible for explaining the situation was also the least qualified person in the room to provide a reassuring explanation.
As he spoke the last word, Jin moved toward the door and stepped out, apparently deciding that he had contributed enough to the conversation. He shut the door behind himself and started walking toward his room, and despite the seriousness of what had happened, there was a noticeable spring in his step as though he had just successfully escaped a meeting before anyone could assign him additional work.
Back in the professor's office, Scott watched the door for a few moments before turning toward Xavier. His concern hadn't disappeared, and judging by the way his eyes kept drifting toward Jean, it probably wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. "What did he mean professor?" Scott asked, clearly expecting Xavier to translate Jin's particular brand of nonsense into something that actually made sense.
Professor Xavier could only sigh.
The professor had spent years dealing with powerful mutants, psychic phenomena, dangerous situations, and problems that could potentially threaten the entire world. Somehow, none of those experiences had adequately prepared him for having to decipher Jin's explanations while simultaneously watching Scott practically hover over Jean like an anxious boyfriend who had forgotten he wasn't supposed to be obvious.
Meanwhile, Jin had already reached his room.
The moment he stepped inside and closed the door behind him, the calm expression he had maintained during the entire walk disappeared. His face transformed almost instantly, and a crazed grin spread across his features as he looked at the system notification waiting before him.
[MOTS]
[Tainted Satoru Gojo Template]
[Complete Assimilation]
[Additional rewards available]
[Claim?]
Jin's eyes brightened as he read the message, and after everything that had happened, the possibility of an additional reward was certainly welcome. He had no idea what the system had prepared for him, but the completion of the Tainted Satoru Gojo Template alone was enough to make him curious, so he quickly sat on the bed and turned his full attention toward the floating interface.
"System show me the rewards."
The window changed.
[MOTS]
[Additional Reward]
[Soul Binding]
[Satoru Gojo & Ryomen Sukuna]
Jin's eyes widened.
The excitement vanished so completely that it was almost as though someone had physically ripped it from his face. He stared at the words in front of him, and the longer he read them, the more his expression shifted from confusion to disbelief and finally to pure, bone-cold terror.
Do you know what it meant to have two of the strongest people inside your mind?
Jin did.
Or at least, he had enough imagination to understand that it was probably one of the worst things the system could possibly have offered him.
Satoru Gojo was already enough of a problem by himself, but now the system had apparently decided that Jin needed Ryomen Sukuna as well. Two former strongest people, both with completely different personalities and absolutely no reason to respect the concept of peace and quiet, potentially sharing space inside his mind and chatting or going bonkers twenty-four hours a day.
The thought alone made Jin's soul want to leave his body.
The system hadn't even explained the reward, but if the term Soul Binding was anything to go by, Jin absolutely did not want them inside his head.
Definitely not.
He stared at the reward for another few seconds before reaching a decision. Whatever benefit the system thought this would provide, Jin wanted absolutely no part of it, and he wasn't going to wait around long enough to discover exactly how terrible the consequences could become.
"System, I reject the reward."
The system responded immediately.
[Reject.]
Jin blinked.
"Reject."
The word remained on the screen.
"Reject."
He repeated it three times, each time with increasing insistence, as though repetition itself could force the system to understand that he was not interested in whatever insane idea it had just presented. Jin remained staring at the interface, waiting for some kind of confirmation that his decision had been accepted, and slowly, as nothing else happened, the tension began to leave his body.
Maybe it had worked.
Maybe the system had finally listened.
Jin was just about to sigh in relief when the window changed.
[Rewards received]
His body moved before his brain even caught up.
Jin shot upright so fast that if he didn't have Infinity, he would have burst through the floor and ended in another room a floor above. His eyes locked onto the notification with absolute horror before his voice finally caught up with his panic.
"System, system, system! I said reject, not accept!"
The system remained silent for a moment before responding with the kind of cold, mechanical explanation that somehow made the situation even more insulting.
[The system registered four consecutive replies and deemed it necessary to make a choice for you in case you've been maimed.]
Jin froze.
He stared at the message.
Then his face slowly twisted with outrage.
"It's you that has been maimed system, your mother, your ancestors, all of em."
His frustration was entirely genuine now, because apparently the system had somehow interpreted his repeated attempts to reject the reward as evidence that he was incapable of making a decision for himself. Jin pointed accusingly at the notification, his expression becoming increasingly incredulous as he continued.
"Only a few currently on earth are still stronger than me and I haven't even seen them before so why would I be maimed?"
There was a pause.
The system offered no explanation.
Then the next message appeared.
[No comment]
Jin stared at it.
The silence that followed somehow made the answer worse.
He slowly lowered his hand and looked at the reward again, his eyes settling on the words that had started this entire disaster.
Soul Binding
Satoru Gojo & Ryomen Sukuna
The humor drained from his face all over again.
He had been excited about an additional reward less than a minute ago. Now he was sitting on his bed wondering whether the system had deliberately found the most psychologically horrifying reward imaginable and then waited patiently for him to ask for it.
Two strongest people.
Inside his mind.
Twenty-four hours a day.
Jin covered his face with both hands.
This was not a reward.
This was a hostage situation, and somehow he was both the hostage and the person who had clicked "Claim."
So this was what the phoenix meant by Unpaid tenants.
"Fuck my life"