The room fell into a stillness so heavy it was almost dead.
Kaede remained in that half-crouched position. His right arm, wrapped in a high-density film of water, held Hippo-maru by the neck like an iron vise.
Water flowed silently over the boy's arm in slow circles, catching the faint light. Through the black hair hanging over his face, those dark red eyes watched the two men ahead of him with calm focus.
"Even if the danger's over now, the second I stop using Domain Amplification to neutralize its technique, that puppet will start attacking me again."
That was the thought running through Kaede's mind, and so he did not let go. He kept the output of the amplification steady.
No extra movement. No sound. On the wrecked tatami, that body built from cursed energy displayed an inhuman stillness.
Gojo Satoru took a few long steps forward and stopped directly in front of him.
The tall man showed no concern for the stuffing and debris scattered across the floor. He bent one knee and crouched down right there.
Then he tugged his sunglasses slightly lower along the bridge of his nose.
Those Six Eyes, like reflections of an endless sky, openly studied the blue film of water wrapped around Kaede's right arm.
"What a beautiful, dangerous construction."
There was only pure curiosity in Gojo's voice. He raised a long index finger and held it a few millimeters away from the water film.
He did not touch it. The Six Eyes were already breaking down the flow of that power at terrifying speed.
"You peeled away the guaranteed-hit effect from the innate domain, kept only the neutralizing and repelling properties, then layered it over your body like a membrane.
So now you're not just a fragile glass bottle, you're a hedgehog covered in retaliatory spikes."
Masamichi Yaga stood a short distance away.
As he looked at the boy quietly waiting for judgment, the hard lines of his face finally eased, if only by the slightest degree.
The weathered educator slowly loosened his grip on the sewing needle in his right hand.
With that motion, Hippo-maru, still caught in Kaede's grasp, lost the last thread of technique holding it together and sagged like real torn fabric.
"Put your power away."
Yaga's voice was low and steady. Stepping around the wreckage on the floor, he moved behind the wide desk and looked down at Kaede from above.
"When faced with a lethal threat, you did not panic blindly, and you did not lose yourself to madness. You used reason and instinct, and the answer you gave was well beyond merely acceptable."
Yaga pulled out his chair with a dull scraping sound and sat down again, folding his hands beneath his chin.
The stare hidden behind his sunglasses was still stern, but it no longer carried that openly hostile edge of testing and suspicion.
"But don't think that means you can relax.
A constitution like yours, one that dies the moment your cursed energy runs dry, means you're never going to fight drawn-out battles the way other sorcerers can."
His voice echoed through the open room, carrying the kind of authority that left no room for argument.
"Tokyo Jujutsu High welcomes you. I'll have someone assign you a dorm.
Now get out of here and go rest."
Gojo rose to his feet. He pushed his sunglasses back into place, and the smile on his face widened at once.
Looking down at Kaede, still crouched on the floor, he spoke in an easy tone.
"Congratulations, you passed, new kid. If there's anything you don't understand, you can always ask me, your strongest teacher.
Though right now, shouldn't you let go of the principal's precious doll first?"
"All right." Kaede answered softly, then released his grip on Hippo-maru.
With a heavy thump, the cursed corpse, no longer supported by any force, hit the cracked tatami and fully collapsed into a ruined heap of green stuffing and torn cloth.
The oppressive chill in the air, born from that compressed water membrane, finally began to break apart, leaving only a fine layer of moisture clinging to the paper panels of the sliding door.
Gojo turned around, hands tucked into the pockets of his black uniform, and stepped lightly over the debris scattered across the floor.
He did not look back, but beneath the constant flow of Limitless, his pale blue Six Eyes clearly tracked the subtle movement of water in the air behind him, along with the steady footsteps following after.
"All right then. First stop for our newest student, the infirmary."
When he reached the damaged doorway, Gojo paused slightly and turned half his face back over his shoulder.
"Shoko's reverse cursed technique probably won't do much for something like you, a 'body' built purely from cursed energy and water.
But as a responsible homeroom teacher, I should at least let the school doctor confirm exactly how close you are to the point where one bad slip might make you evaporate."
Yaga still sat behind the broad desk like a tower of black iron.
Through the dimness, he watched the tall white-haired figure standing beyond the threshold. His rough fingers slowly curled inward, winding the broken invisible threads of cursed energy back into his palm inch by inch.
"Gojo."
Yaga's low voice cut through the night, carrying the unmistakable weight of an elder's warning.
"Do not place him in the regular student dorms tonight. Until he learns to fully contain that unstable liquefied constitution of his, find him a side room with an independent barrier.
If he runs out of cursed energy in his sleep and seeps into the floorboards as a puddle, I have no intention of submitting a death report that absurd to headquarters."
"Yeah, yeah, you really do worry too much, Principal."
Gojo dragged out the words lazily without even turning around, only waving a hand backward as if he had not taken the stern instruction seriously at all.
Then he started walking again, his shoes tapping out a crisp, even rhythm on the old wooden hallway.
"Keep up. The barriers inside Jujutsu High are pretty sensitive to unregistered cursed energy anomalies."
His tone was light, like he was talking about tomorrow's dessert, but his tall figure cast a long, narrow shadow in the moonlight.
"If you wander off and the barrier mistakes you for some unknown invading curse and dices you into a few thousand little water droplets, that's going to be a real headache for your teacher."
Farther down the corridor, the night wind moved through the old wooden walkways.
The lingering trace of cursed energy that belonged to the strongest spread quietly ahead through the dark passage like an invisible guide.