Before Gojo could even laugh, Maki blurred. She didn't bother unsealing her weapon—she just launched herself at him with pure, Strength, aiming a devastating roundhouse kick directly at his smug head.
Naturally, her shin stopped exactly one millimeter from his cheek, completely halted by the invisible barrier of his Infinity. Gojo didn't even flinch. He just reached out and patted her ankle affectionately.
"Such violence!" Gojo scolded lightly, effortlessly pushing her leg away. "But we really should get down to business! Since Ren-kun here is now walking around with a Heavenly Restriction, we can't exactly just let him go back to Harajuku, can we?"
Maki landed gracefully, though she was still glaring daggers at him, her chest heaving with exertion and lingering embarrassment. She crossed her arms, fiercely trying to rebuild her shattered pride. "That's why I brought him here. He doesn't know how to control his output. And if the higher-ups or my... family... find out about him, they'll target him."
"True, true," Gojo hummed, finally dropping the goofy act as he looked at Ren. The piercing blue eye peeking out from under the blindfold seemed to weigh Ren's entire existence in a single second. "The Zen'in clan would absolutely love to get their hands on a brand new, male version of Maki."
Gojo stood up, stretching his long arms above his head.
"Well, luckily for you, I'm a very generous guy," Gojo declared, pointing a thumb at his own chest. "Consider yourself officially under my protection, Ren-kun!"
A wicked, highly unhinged smile spread across Gojo's face.
"Alright, that's enough trauma for one morning," Gojo said, waving a hand dismissively as he hopped off the desk. "Maki, show him to the spare room on the second-year floor. I need to go annoy Principal Yaga into approving a completely unprecedented transfer."
Maki didn't argue. She just grabbed Ren by the sleeve and pulled him toward the door. "Let's go."
"See ya!" Gojo called out as the sliding door shut.
Out in the open-air corridor, Maki finally let go of his arm, rubbing her temples. "I'm transferring to Kyoto. I swear."
Ren offered a sympathetic smile, keeping his voice low as they walked. "Hey, at least I'm officially under his protection. It worked."
Maki just grumbled, looking straight ahead.
Ren was about to reply when the hairs on the back of his neck stood up.
It wasn't a conscious thought. The Zen'in tactical instincts simply overrode his brain. Ren dropped his center of gravity, shifted his weight, and tilted his head a fraction of an inch to the right.
Crack.
A piece of classroom chalk streaked past his ear, embedding itself deep into the wooden pillar ahead of them with the force of a bullet.
Maki whipped around instantly, her hand flying to the strap of her weapons case.
Gojo was leaning casually against the classroom doorframe thirty feet away, his hand still raised in a flicking motion. A slight, knowing smile rested on his face.
"What the hell is wrong with you?!" Maki barked, stepping in front of Ren. "He's a civilian! He barely knows how to hold a cup without breaking it, and you're throwing things at his head?!"
Gojo slowly lowered his hand, shoving it into his pocket. Through the blindfold, his gaze remained locked on Ren. Maki was too angry to notice, but Gojo hadn't missed a thing.
The lack of panic, the perfect weight distribution, the zero-wasted motion. That wasn't just the luck. That was the reflex of a seasoned fighter.
"Just testing his durability," Gojo called back cheerfully. "Gotta make sure my new student isn't made of glass. Carry on!"
With a wave, he turned and strolled back inside.
Maki let out a frustrated breath, turning back to Ren. She glanced at the chalk embedded in the wood, then at him, her brow furrowing. "How did you dodge that?"
Ren forced his muscles to relax, burying the adrenaline spike. He rubbed the back of his neck and let out an awkward, shaky laugh. "I didn't. I literally tripped over my own feet right as it flew past. Just got lucky."
Maki stared at him for a second. Her mind was still completely anchored to the idea that he was just a normal guy who had caught her anomaly yesterday. She bought it.
"Idiot," she muttered, though the tension left her shoulders. She grabbed his hand, pulling him down the hall. "Come on. Let's get to your room before he decides to test you again."
Ren let her lead him away, letting out a quiet, slow breath. He glanced back down the empty corridor.
...
The piece of chalk remained embedded in the wooden pillar, a tiny crater of splintered cedar radiating outward from the point of impact.
Satoru Gojo stood casually in the classroom doorway, his hands shoved deep into his pockets, a cheerful smile still plastered across his face as he watched Maki drag her newly-minted 'civilian' boyfriend down the open-air corridor.
To anyone else, it looked like the eccentric teacher was just playing a cruel, slightly dangerous prank on a helpless kid.
But behind the black fabric of his blindfold, the Six Eyes were working in overdrive, processing a tidal wave of visual and kinetic data.
The smile slowly slipped from Gojo's face.
Gojo tilted his head, replaying the exact sequence of events from three seconds ago frame by frame in his mind.
When he flicked that chalk, it wasn't a playful toss. He had infused a tiny, undetectable pulse of cursed energy into the throw, propelling the small white cylinder forward with the velocity of a low-caliber bullet.
A normal human brain wouldn't have even registered the sound of it cutting through the air before it struck.
A civilian who had miraculously woken up with a Heavenly Restriction—possessing raw, untrained superhuman reflexes—would have reacted, yes.
But they would have panicked. They would have overcompensated, jerking their entire body out of the way, or flailing their arms to block something they couldn't fully track.
Ren did none of those things.