"Exchange event, huh..."
In front of the vending machine at the school building.
Yuji Itadori muttered to himself while inserting coins to select a drink, sounding somewhat preoccupied.
"Fushiguro, do you know what the Kyoto students are like?"
"I've heard some things."
Megumi thought for a moment before responding.
"First-years and fourth-years aside, Kyoto has three second-years and three third-years. Since the exchange event is for second and third-year students, those six would be our opponents."
Yuji nodded in understanding.
"So on our side, we have four second-years and four first-years, making eight people total. Just looking at numbers, we have a huge advantage!"
According to Maki-senpai, because the third-years were suspended, they had to bring in first-years like them to make up the numbers this year.
For Tokyo Jujutsu High, the second-years included Maki, Yuta, Panda, and Inumaki—four in total. The first-years had Yuji, Megumi, Nobara, and Bocchi-chan—another four. The sheer numbers alone overwhelmed Kyoto's side. That was a major advantage!
"Not necessarily."
Megumi opened a can of ginger ale, took a big gulp, and let out a satisfied sigh as his body absorbed the hydration.
"What do you mean? Is there some change this year?"
"Yeah, a pretty big one."
Under Yuji's curious questioning, Megumi recalled the intel he'd heard.
"You know Yuta Okkotsu-senpai from the second-years, right?"
"That super famous guy? Of course I know him! I heard he enrolled last year and immediately got a Special Grade rating. He's insanely strong!"
"There were some complications, and he dropped back to Grade 4. But this March, he climbed back up to Special Grade. He's super busy overseas right now—no idea what he's doing. Probably won't make it back for the exchange event. If he were here, it'd probably be a repeat of last year where he swept Kyoto single-handedly."
Yuta Okkotsu had enrolled last June.
By the time the exchange event rolled around in September, his Shikigami—the Special Grade Cursed Spirit Rika Orimoto, the Queen of Curses—had wiped the floor with Kyoto's students, leaving them with zero chance to compete.
Though on Christmas that same year, during Suguru Geto's Night Parade of a Hundred Demons terrorist attack, Rika helped Yuta resolve his emotional burdens before finally passing on. However, she left behind the shell of the Special Grade Cursed Spirit, which became Yuta's external cursed technique and energy reserve.
With the Special Grade Cursed Spirit Rika, Yuta could endlessly mimic others' techniques. Within just three months of Rika's departure—which had dropped him to Grade 4—he climbed back to Special Grade thanks to his near-infinite cursed energy and copy skills.
If Yuta were still here, Tokyo's victory in this exchange event would be a foregone conclusion.
But this time, the bug where Yuta would keep participating had been patched—successfully banning him from the event.
"Bocchi-chan is also a problem. She's just a newcomer, and regardless of her actual strength, her mentality makes it nearly impossible for her to fight opponents. If this issue isn't resolved, I think Roy-sensei probably won't let her participate in the competition."
Megumi continued, though these were merely speculations he'd made based on the information available to him, not necessarily entirely accurate.
"So that means it's still six against six, right?"
Yuji counted on his fingers, murmuring to himself.
Eight people minus one, Yuta Okkotsu, and minus one, Bocchi-chan, leaves only six—exactly the same number as the opposing side. There's no numerical advantage at all!
But Yuji didn't feel discouraged in the slightest. Instead, his blood boiled with excitement.
"But that's fine too! We'll crush them head-on with our strength! After all, we've endured two months of Roy-sensei's hellish training. A good, satisfying battle is exactly what we need to prove ourselves!"
"Having that kind of drive is good, but it's best not to be blindly confident."
Megumi shot Yuji a glance, frowning slightly at his eager expression.
To prevent a repeat of the issues from their last mission at the juvenile detention center, Megumi looked at Yuji seriously and warned him.
"Even though it's six against six, the disparity in sorcerer grades between the two sides is huge!"
"The other side has one Grade 1 sorcerer and two semi-Grade 1 sorcerers, while on our side, only Inumaki-senpai is semi-Grade 1. Sorcerer grades are generally tied to strength—you understand the difference, right?"
"The gap is that big?!"
Yuji was genuinely shocked.
He had thought their overall strength was superior!
Turns out it was the opposite—Kyoto Jujutsu High was stronger?
"By the way, what's my grade? Why has no one ever told me my grade?"
"You don't have one. You fight using cursed energy from the cursed object inside you."
"That's so unfair..."
Yuji's lips immediately drooped, his face full of dejection.
No grade? That's even lower than Maki-senpai's Grade 4!
But Yuji wasn't the type to care much about titles, so he quickly brushed it off.
Still, doing the math—Tokyo Jujutsu High's six members: Inumaki is semi-Grade 1, Panda is semi-Grade 2, Maki is Grade 4, Megumi is Grade 2, Nobara is Grade 3, and Yuji has no grade.
Meanwhile, the other side has one Grade 1 and two semi-Grade 1s, with the remaining three likely being Grade 2 or 3.
Wow, the power gap is really huge, huh?!
Megumi lowered his gaze slightly.
Unlike Yuji, who still didn't even understand the opponents' strength, Megumi had done his homework thoroughly. He had gathered almost all publicly available intel—not just their sorcerer grades, but also their names, techniques, and fighting styles.
Because he understood the gap between the two schools so well, he couldn't feel at ease at all.
But even if Tokyo Jujutsu High lost this exchange event, it wouldn't be a big deal.
After all, it was Tokyo's first and second years against Kyoto's second and third years—a full year's difference in experience and training. Even if they lost, people would just think, "Well, that's to be expected," or "That makes sense." No one would mock Tokyo Jujutsu High, so Megumi wasn't particularly worried.
But Yuji Itadori looked deeply conflicted, as if pondering how to defeat his opponent.
"Do you really want to win that badly?"
"Isn't that obvious?"
Upon hearing this, Yuji Itadori immediately flashed a fiercely determined grin.
"Of course I want to win! After all the training we've put in, we've got to show our teacher how much we've grown!"
Such enthusiasm.
In contrast, Megumi Fushiguro felt like he couldn't muster the same fire.
Though this guy was naive, there were times when Megumi envied his simple, carefree personality.
"Impossible. No matter how you look at it, you're only going to end up beaten to the ground by us."
At that moment, an unfamiliar voice abruptly cut into their conversation.
"Leaving aside the genius Fushiguro, who enrolled as a Grade 2 sorcerer—someone like you, a monster like Yuji Itadori, shouldn't even have the right to attend Jujutsu High in the first place!"
"Huh?! Who the hell are you? Talking such big talk!"
Yuji, who had been inexplicably labeled a monster, instantly flared up.
His eyebrows furrowed like twisted ropes, his eyes burning with irritation as he glared in the direction of the voice.
It had come from the end of the hallway.
There, two figures had appeared unnoticed, standing in the shadows of the school building, silhouetted against the setting sun, making it hard to discern their features clearly.
"These two are..."
Megumi's eyes narrowed slightly as he studied the pair at the far end of the hallway.
It was a male and female duo.
The man was tall and burly, his straight back as sturdy as an ancient pine. His black hair was tied into a spiky ponytail atop his head, his broad shoulders and thick waist giving him the imposing presence of a bear or tiger. Even standing silently, his sheer physical dominance was overwhelming.
The girl was slender and tall, her short dark green hair giving her a sharp, spirited look. Her face was strikingly beautiful, but her expression carried an air of arrogance and disdain.
Both wore Jujutsu High uniforms, the buttons on their chests embroidered with spiral patterns, marking them as students of the school.
"No wonder they felt familiar—you kinda look like Maki-senpai!"
Yuji stared at the short-haired girl for a moment before suddenly realizing, smacking his palm and pointing at her with a laugh.
Though their styles and demeanors were completely different, he could still see traces of Maki Zenin in her.
Their facial features were strikingly similar, as if carved from the same mold.
Megumi had noticed the same thing.
But unlike the oblivious Yuji, alarm bells instantly rang in Megumi's mind.
"These two—they're students from Kyoto Jujutsu High!"
Come to think of it, today was the day students from both schools were gathering.
And that guy next to her—
Wasn't that Aoi Todo?!
"You should really sew your mouth shut with a needle!"
The dark-haired girl's face darkened instantly at Yuji's words, her glare so icy it seemed she wanted to devour him alive.
"No, no, what am I doing? I shouldn't get so emotional. After all, he's just a monster."
Suddenly, she caught herself.
With an exaggerated sigh, she spread her hands in mock resignation, plastering on a deliberately magnanimous smile.
"Given the fancy title of 'vessel,' you're just a half-cursed monster at the end of the day. Wouldn't it be better if a freak like you just dropped dead? Calling yourself a jujutsu sorcerer—how revolting! I should be more magnanimous, really. Getting worked up over a monster? Tsk tsk, I ought to reflect on myself."
Yuji's smile slowly faded.
His expression grew cold, his gaze losing all warmth.
"You've been throwing around words like 'monster' and 'drop dead' since earlier. Don't you think you're crossing a line?"
"What's wrong with calling a monster a monster?"
The girl flicked her short hair behind her ear and let out a derisive chuckle.
Her dismissive expression made it clear she didn't regard Yuji as human in the first place.
"That's enough, Mai Zenin!"
Suddenly, Megumi cut in, interrupting their exchange.
His demeanor was far more direct than Yuji's, his eyes hardening with icy disdain as he glared at the dark green-haired girl—as if he had no intention of being polite from the start.
"Just because he became a vessel doesn't mean he should be lumped together with the curse inside him. He swallowed that cursed object to save me. There's nothing to criticize—if anything, it was a brave act worthy of praise."
"If you're going to slander someone without knowing the facts, trampling on their dignity, then you're the one who needs to reflect—on exactly where you fall short compared to your sister!"
The hallway fell into abrupt silence.
A suffocating tension spread among the four of them, the air thick with the scent of impending conflict.
"Megumi Fushiguro, I thought you, as a fellow member of the Zenin clan, would understand me."
Mai's eyes turned dangerously sharp.
Her gaze narrowed like a hawk's, her anger manifesting as cursed energy surged violently from her body.
"The jujutsu world operates on strength alone. Let's see which of us is right!"
In one fluid motion, she drew a revolver from her waist.
Cursed energy pooled in her palm before flowing into the gun, condensing into a bullet of pure malice—its barrel now trained squarely on Megumi.
Yuji was annoying.
But in this moment, Megumi—who dared say, "reflect on where you fall short compared to your sister"—was infinitely more detestable. She wanted to crush him right then and there.
"Megumi!"