Chapter Text
Masamichi Yaga’s voice was a steady, suffocating drone that echoed off the chalk-dusted walls of the first-year classroom. He was currently deep into hour two of a lecture detailing the foundational pillars of barrier techniques, a subject so profoundly dry it could turn a cursed spirit to dust out of sheer boredom.
In the back row, Gojo Satoru and Geto Suguru were locked in a silent, high-stakes battle of idiocy.
Geto, utilizing a terrifying amount of precision and fine cursed energy control, had smuggled a tiny, utterly hideous low-grade cursed spirit past the school's perimeter wards in his pocket. It looked like a deformed beetle with entirely too many eyeballs, and he was currently making it do a tap-dance across Gojo’s open notebook.
Gojo narrowed his eyes, his tongue poking out slightly in concentration as he meticulously aimed his mechanical pencil like a sniper rifle. He flicked the cursed bug with the tip. The bug backflipped, dodged the pencil, and scurried up Gojo’s thumb to bite him directly on the cuticle.
"Ow, you bastard," Gojo hissed under his breath, shaking his hand to dislodge the hideous menace.
"Skill issue," Geto whispered back, not even looking at him, his dark eyes fixed innocently on the chalkboard, his posture that of a perfect, attentive honors student, even as he mentally commanded the bug to do the macarena on Gojo’s pencil case.
Sitting squarely between these two titans of immaturity, Ieiri Shoko looked like a hostage actively praying for the sweet, merciful release of death.
She rolled a cherry lollipop from one side of her mouth to the other, the plastic stick clicking against her teeth. With the stealth of a seasoned criminal, she slid a fresh volume of a shojo manga out of her bag, wedging it perfectly behind her upright textbook.
"I'm going to squish it," Gojo muttered, leaning dangerously far over Shoko's desk to glare at Geto. "I'm going to obliterate your stupid little bug with Blue, Suguru. I'll blow up this entire desk."
"I'd like to see you try, Satoru," Geto challenged softly, a polite smile on his face that did not match the menace in his eyes. "But if you miss, I'm feeding your favorite sunglasses to a Grade 2."
"If either of you breathes in my direction again, or if one speck of that thing gets on my uniform, I will dissect you both while you sleep," Shoko deadpanned. She didn't look up from her manga, turning the page with a sharp snap. "I'll harvest your organs and sell them on the black market to buy better cigarettes."
At the front of the room, Yaga was drawing a complex, circular diagram. "And if you miscalculate the cursed energy output of the veil's outer radius by even a fraction of a percent-" Yaga suddenly stopped. The piece of chalk snapped loudly in his massive grip. He didn't turn around. The silence in the room became incredibly heavy.
"Gojo. Geto."
Gojo’s thumb lashed out with precise speed, crushing the tiny curse between his fingers. The bug instantly dissolved into a puff of harmless gray ash that drifted down onto his desk. Gojo leaned back so fast his chair lifted off its front legs, flashing a picture-perfect, innocent grin. Geto simply folded his hands on his desk like a model student.
"Care to share the joke with the class?" Yaga growled, turning slowly, a vein throbbing on his temple.
"Just admiring your teaching methods, sensei," Gojo lied flawlessly, kicking his feet up onto his desk. "Truly inspiring stuff. Mind-blowing. Suguru was just whispering to me that your diagram makes him want to build a better, stronger barrier around his heart."
Geto disguised a snort as a violent coughing fit, thumping his own chest. Shoko let out a heavy, suffering sigh that echoed in the quiet room.
Yaga didn't speak. He simply picked up the heavy, wood-backed blackboard eraser and threw it with the velocity of a major-league fastball aimed directly at Gojo’s face. Gojo didn't even blink as it struck his Infinity, halting suspended in mid-air before dropping harmlessly to the floor, leaving a cloud of chalk dust. Yaga stared at the chalk dust, then at Gojo’s smug face, and finally buried his face in his hands, wondering for the hundredth time that week why he hadn't chosen a peaceful career in accounting.
Half an hour later, the trio was finally set loose into the sprawling, traditional corridors of Tokyo Metropolitan Curse Technical College. The afternoon sun was warm, filtering through the wooden slats of the walkways.
"I am losing my mind," Gojo groaned, dramatically draping his entire, lanky frame over Geto's shoulder as they walked, forcing Geto to bear half his body weight. "When do we actually get to do something? I didn't leave the Kyoto estate to sit at a tiny wooden desk and learn geometry. I want missions. I want to fight things. I want to blow stuff up."
Geto effortlessly shoved him off, side-stepping so Gojo stumbled. "Patience, Satoru. They aren't going to send first-years out to the slaughter on week one. We have to learn the basics. If you mess up a veil in the city, normal people will see curses. It's a logistical nightmare."
"I am the basics," Gojo scoffed, deciding to walk backwards so he could face his friends, completely ignoring the fact that he was taking up the entire hallway. "I'm a prodigy. I have the Six Eyes. I am the strongest. I shouldn't be in school, I should be out living my youth to the absolute fullest. Which brings me to my highly detailed, foolproof five-year plan.
Shoko physically recoiled, pausing mid-step to pull the lollipop from her mouth. She pointed the sticky red candy at him like a weapon. "Please, I am begging you, do not subject us to this again."
"No, no, let him speak," Geto chuckled, his eyes gleaming with malicious amusement. "I love hearing about Satoru's delusions of grandeur."
"It's not a delusion, Suguru, it's a schedule, a life goal," Gojo said, holding up a hand and counting off on his excessively long fingers. "Step one: Become the undisputed strongest sorcerer in the world. Basically already done, check. Step two: Experience a beautiful, cinematic high school romance. Step three: Get a ridiculously hot girlfriend with a big ass and big tits. Step four: Lose my virginity by my second year. Tops. Step five: Eat a premium, limited-edition parfait in every ward of Tokyo."
Shoko stared at him with a look of blank, unadulterated disgust. "That is the grossest, most pathetic thing you have said all day, and you literally spent breakfast daring Suguru to describe the exact flavor profile of a sewer-dwelling cursed spirit. You are fifteen. Keep your raging, unchecked hormones to yourself."
"You're just jealous of my ambition and clear life goals, Shoko," Gojo teased, wagging a finger at her.
"Ambitious? Sure. But practically speaking, Satoru, let's look at the statistics. Aren't there only three of us in this entire grade? The dating pool is practically non-existent. Unless you're planning on asking out a cursed spirit. I could summon a nice, low-level grade 4 for you? She has tentacles, if you're into that."
"I have standards!" Gojo defended indignantly, adjusting his round sunglasses. Then, he looked around the empty, eerily quiet campus. "Which brings me to my next point. Where the hell is everyone else? Seriously, is this a ghost town? Do they just build these massive schools to house three teenagers and a very stressed-out guy who makes plushies?"
"The upperclassmen are rarely here," Geto explained, playing the role of the infinitely informed student, a role he relished. "They mainly focus on missions. They only really come back to sleep, restock on cursed tools, or file reports. I saw the student roster sitting on Yaga's desk when I went in on the first day."
"How many are there?" Gojo asked, suddenly intrigued.
Geto shrugged, running a hand through his hair. "I only recognize a couple of names from the third-year list. There’s a third-year named Mei Mei. And another third-year named Iori Utahime. Actually..." Geto paused, a smirk playing on his lips. "I passed a second-year that day by the vending machines who was practically crying about this Utahime girl."
"Crying? Why?" Shoko asked, mildly interested now.
"He was just sighing about how she flat-out rejected him," Geto laughed. "Apparently she's really pretty, but she didn't even give him the time of day. Just told him she was busy with a mission report and walked right past him."
Gojo scoffed loudly, waving a dismissive hand in the air. "Eh. Pretty? Please. They're just girls. What's the big deal? You guys act like they're some rare, mythical species of cursed spirit. I bet she's totally average. Guys just get desperate when there are only three women in a five-mile radius."
It was a masterful, Oscar-worthy performance. On the outside, Gojo looked like the epitome of untouchable, teenage-boy cool. He slouched, he smirked, he looked like a guy who had girls lining up around the block just to breathe his air.
On the inside, Gojo Satoru was hyperventilating into a metaphorical paper bag.
The terrifying truth was that Gojo Satoru, the strongest sorcerer of his generation, had absolutely zero experience talking to women.
Because of his powers, he had been isolated since birth, heavily guarded in the Gojo clan estate in Kyoto. The only women he had ever interacted with were his mother—who was kept at an emotional and physical distance by the clan elders—and the elderly, terrifyingly strict clan attendants who bowed when he walked into a room and constantly yelled at him about his posture and his duties.
He had never hung out at a mall. He had never texted a girl. He didn't know what a 'date' entailed beyond what he read in a shojo manga.
He didn't want to tell Geto, who had grown up in a totally normal public middle school environment, knew how to read a room, and probably knew how to talk to girls without sweating. Gojo had money, power, and every video game on the market, but zero idea how normal teenagers functioned. The idea of admitting his absolute lack of social skills to his new best friend was deeply, agonizingly humiliating.
When Gojo had first met Shoko, he had a fleeting moment of panic, A girl. A girl my age. But within five seconds he realized she possessed the soul of a cynical, chain-smoking middle-aged man. He had actually been genuinely, deeply shocked the first time he caught her casually sharing a cigarette with Geto behind the dorms, completely unbothered by the rules. She didn't giggle or act coy; she just blew smoke in his face and calmly asked if she could keep his eyes in a jar if he died on their first mission. She was definitely just one of the boys.
But a pretty older senior? He was sweating under his collar just thinking about it.
“Just girls, huh?" Geto smirked, completely seeing right through Gojo's fragile bravado but deciding, graciously, to let Gojo dig his own grave. "Well, let's hope your legendary charm works on them, Mr. Five-Year Plan."
They turned the corner, stepping out from the covered walkway and into the main outdoor training courtyard.
And suddenly, the world ground to a total, screeching halt.
There she was.
She was standing near the wooden weapon racks at the far side of the courtyard. She wasn't wearing the standard dark Jujutsu High uniform. Instead, she wore the traditional miko-style uniform of a shrine maiden. It wasn't pristine; the sleeves of her white kosode were rolled up unevenly, and the hems of her brilliant red hakama pants were lightly dusted with dry courtyard dirt from training.
Her dark purple hair was gathered into low, loose pigtails that rested at the nape of her neck, secured by bright red ribbons. One bow was tied just a little bit tighter than the other, like she had done it in a hurry. Clean, straight bangs rested across her forehead, but a few stubborn flyaway strands were sticking to her sweaty temples. She was intensely focused, her lower lip caught between her teeth in concentration as she meticulously wrapped the hilt of a wooden bokken sword with fresh grip tape. At one point, she huffed out a breath to blow a stray hair out of her eyes.
The afternoon sunlight caught her, forcing Gojo to take in every single tangible detail. She had large, dark eyes that were currently narrowed in sheer stubbornness, a delicate but set jawline, and cheeks flushed a deep, natural pink from the heat.
Boom.
The Six Eyes fed Gojo an infinite stream of atomic data about the universe; the exact temperature of the wind, the cursed energy output of the grass, the velocity of the clouds. But right now, his brain blue-screened. All he could process was: Girl. Pretty. Panic. Danger.
"Oh," Geto said softly, noticing exactly where Gojo was staring. He grinned like a shark smelling blood in the water. "Well, what do you know. That must be Utahime-senpai."
Say something cool, Gojo’s internal monologue screamed in a blind panic. Assert dominance! Be casual! Show Suguru you aren't a sheltered, clan-raised loser!
"Watch and learn, Suguru," Gojo whispered, his voice cracking ever so slightly on the last syllable.
Gojo swaggered forward. He shoved his hands deep into his pockets, adopted a slouching, arrogant posture that he had practiced in the mirror to look cool that he had spent hours practicing in his bedroom mirror to look 'cool', and plastered on his most obnoxious, punchable smirk.
Utahime heard the footsteps. She turned around, blinking in surprise at the towering, white-haired boy marching toward her. Recognizing the uniforms, she offered a polite, gentle smile.
"Oh, you must be the new first-years," she said, her voice clear and melodic. "I'm Iori Utahime. It's nice to meet—"
Gojo came to a halt. He was standing way too close, entirely invading her personal space bubble. He looked down at her. He wanted to say something incredibly charming. He wanted to smoothly introduce himself, flash a movie-star smile, and casually ask for her number.
Instead, his mouth opened, his brain performed a total, catastrophic self-destruct, and the absolute worst possible words tumbled out of his mouth.
"You're the senpai everyone's crying over?" Gojo drawled loudly, his tone dripping with forced condescension. He leaned down, bending at the waist to mockingly examine the top of her head. "I gotta say, I'm underwhelmed. You're a lot shorter than I thought you'd be. Like, way shorter. Do you need a step-stool to reach the top shelf in the cafeteria, or do you just use cursed energy to float up there?"
Behind him, a solid ten feet away, Geto’s polite, honor-student facade completely shattered. He doubled over, clutching his stomach as a loud, unapologetic laugh tore out of him at the sheer, magnificent scale of Gojo’s stupidity. Shoko barked out a delighted cackle right along with him, immediately pulling her manga back out and sitting on a bench nearby. Why read a fictional romance when Satoru was out here actively destroying his own in real time?
Utahime froze. The polite, gentle upperclassman smile vanished from her face. Her eye twitched.
Gojo’s Six Eyes immediately alerted him to a massive, sudden spike in hostile cursed energy radiating from the small woman in front of him. He realized, with a sickening jolt in his stomach, what he had just said.
Abort mission, his brain wailed, sounding the alarms. You fucked it up! You fucked it up immediately! Apologize! Say you're sorry! Tell her she's beautiful and you're just a nervous idiot!
But he was Gojo Satoru. The heir to the Gojo clan. The wielder of the Limitless. He didn't know how to apologize. He only knew how to be the strongest. He couldn't back down now; it would ruin his image. He had to push through.
"And you look kind of stiff," he continued, gesturing wildly at her perfectly neat posture. "You need help stretching, grandma? Don't want you pulling a muscle in your old age out there. I hear the joints go bad when you hit the third year."
"Excuse me?" she snapped, her voice no longer melodic, but dripping with absolute, arctic ice. "Who the hell are you calling grandma, you arrogant brat?"
Gojo’s stomach plummeted into the earth's core. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
"I'm Gojo Satoru," he announced, puffing his chest out, trying to rely on the weight of his name to save him. "And you should probably remember the name, since I'm going to be saving your life out there, shorty."
Utahime glared at him with the intensity of a thousand burning suns. She looked him up and down, her expression shifting rapidly from shock to anger, and finally settling on pure, raw loathing.
"I'd rather let a Grade 1 curse eat me alive, chew me up, and spit me out than owe you a single damn thing," she hissed, her voice shaking with rage.
She turned violently on her heel, the sudden, sharp motion sending her low pigtails whipping through the air. The bright red ribbons flashed like tiny warning flags as she marched away. She didn't look back once, her loose pigtails bouncing aggressively against her shoulders with every heavy, stomping footstep. She radiated an aura of pure hostility that cleared the birds from the nearby trees.
Gojo watched her go. He didn't move. His smirk was frozen firmly in place like a stone gargoyle. He stood there for a solid, agonizing twenty seconds in total, deafening silence.
Geto walked up slowly, his footsteps crunching loudly on the gravel. He came to a stop next to his best friend and clapped a heavy, sympathetic hand on Gojo’s stiff shoulder.
"Well played, Satoru," Geto muttered softly, shaking his head in awe. "Really swept her off her feet. A masterclass in romance. I give that interaction a solid ten out of ten. The 'grandma' line? Inspired. Shakespearean, even."
"I think she liked you," Shoko called out from the bench, flipping a page of her manga lazily. "You should ask her to marry you tomorrow. I'm sure she'd say yes."
Gojo swallowed hard. His throat felt like sandpaper. His grand five-year plan was currently burning in a dumpster fire of his own creation.
"Shut up," he choked out, his voice barely a whisper as his soul slowly and painfully left his body.