At Tokyo Jujutsu High, unease arrived before evidence did.
It lived in the pauses.
In the moments where Satoru Gojo stopped smiling for no obvious reason. In the way Masamichi Yaga, who had long experience with bad instincts turning out to be correct, had started watching the school grounds with more attention than usual.
The two of them stood in one of the halls, the late afternoon light lying thin across the floorboards.
Gojo's hands were in his pockets.
His voice, when he finally spoke, was lighter than the subject deserved.
"I think Suguru is preparing to do something not so good."
Yaga's gaze shifted toward him immediately.
That phrasing, coming from anyone else, might have sounded unserious.
Coming from Gojo—
it meant the opposite.
Yaga frowned.
"What makes you say that?"
Gojo looked out through the open corridor.
"When Yuta was attacked," he said, "I found traces."
Yaga's expression darkened.
"Geto's?"
Gojo nodded once.
"Old enough that he wasn't just passing through. Fresh enough that he wanted to be close."
The lightness in his voice had thinned now.
"He's planning something."
Yaga folded his arms.
That troubled him.
Because Suguru Geto was not the sort of man who moved randomly. If he positioned himself near Yuta Okkotsu, if he left traces instead of erasing them completely, if he allowed even that much to be noticed—
then whatever he was preparing had already advanced beyond the uncertain stage.
Yaga exhaled slowly.
"…I was hoping we had more time."
Gojo smiled, but there was no humor in it.
"So was I."
Far above the city, the Star Religious Group traveled through the air.
The curse carrying them was large enough to blot fragments of the sky whenever it passed over buildings. A massive birdlike thing with ragged wings and an anatomy only loosely committed to avian logic. Its body convulsed slightly with each beat of its wings, as if flight itself offended it.
Standing and seated across its broad back were the gathered members of the Star Religious Group.
Miguel.
The twins.
Others who had already cast their lot in with Suguru Geto.
And Oden, hood up, blindfold in place, balanced near the rear with the same quiet stability he brought to almost everything.
The city rolled beneath them.
Tokyo was beautiful from this height.
Cold, sprawling, luminous.
Oden looked down at it through the senses of the snake curled around his neck and thought, not for the first time, that bird curses were a terrible mode of transport. The smell alone was suspicious.
Ahead of him, Geto stood near the front, robes moving in the violent air, posture calm.
Too calm.
That calm had begun bothering Oden.
Not because it was frightening.
Because it was secretive.
And Oden hated being involved in things without being told what they actually were.
Still—
Miguel was here.
That was enough, for the moment.
So Oden remained where he was and watched the city approach.
And eventually—
watched the grounds of Tokyo Jujutsu High come into view.
Elsewhere on those same grounds, Yuta, Panda, Maki, and Inumaki were walking together.
The afternoon had been ordinary by jujutsu standards, which meant only a mild amount of threat hung in the air and no one had yet needed to sprint toward possible death.
Maki carried her weapon as usual.
Panda talked as usual.
Inumaki contributed in the quiet, efficient rhythm unique to him.
Yuta, however, had grown increasingly distracted.
Eventually Panda noticed.
"What's with you?"
Yuta looked up.
"…I don't know."
Maki glanced sideways at him.
"That's reassuring."
Yuta hesitated for a moment.
Then admitted:
"I just feel like something bad is going to happen."
Panda tilted his head.
"A bad feeling?"
Yuta nodded.
Maki clicked her tongue softly.
"You've been tense since that blindfolded guy showed up."
"That's not it."
"Then what is it?"
Yuta frowned.
"I don't know. It's just…"
He looked toward the sky without meaning to.
"…something feels wrong."
Panda opened his mouth to tell him he was overthinking it.
He never got the chance.
A shadow swallowed the ground around them.
All four looked up.
The birdlike curse descended from above in a violent rush of air and black wings, dropping toward the campus so suddenly and so unnaturally that instinct overrode thought at once.
Maki moved first.
Weapon raised.
Panda widened his stance.
Inumaki's cursed energy sharpened immediately.
Yuta stepped forward.
Then the curse dropped low—
and from its back, a figure fell.
Robes.
Long hair.
A smile.
Suguru Geto landed lightly, almost elegantly, as if descending into enemy territory was merely another sort of greeting.
The four students froze.
Instant alarm.
Total.
Then, as their eyes flicked upward to the curse still hovering above—
they saw another figure.
Hooded.
Blindfolded.
Still.
Oden.
And the alarm twisted into confusion.
"What?" Panda said.
Yuta stared.
"…Oden?"
Back inside the hall, both Gojo and Yaga felt it at the same time.
Not just cursed energy.
Presence.
Specific presence.
Yaga's expression darkened instantly.
"He's here."
He was already moving before the sentence fully ended, turning sharply as he barked orders for everyone nearby to prepare for combat. His voice carried through the halls with the force of someone who knew exactly how bad this could become.
Gojo's smile vanished.
Then he moved too.
On the field, Geto wasted no time.
One instant he stood several meters away.
The next—
he was beside Yuta.
"Hello, Okkotsu," Geto said warmly, as though greeting a student he had every right to visit.
Yuta flinched but did not lash out.
He looked at Geto with that same soft, earnest confusion he always seemed to bring into impossible situations.
"…Who are you?" Yuta asked. "And why are you here?"
Before Geto could answer, Maki stepped in and aimed her weapon directly at him.
The atmosphere turned razor-thin.
Geto's eyes shifted to her.
Then he smiled.
"A monkey like you dares to point a weapon at me. Know your place you Zenin failure." he said.
Maki's face hardened instantly.
Yuta stepped in at once.
"Don't talk to her like that."
Geto's eyes returned to him.
There was no warmth in the smile now.
"Join me, Okkotsu," he said. "Come over to my side. Lend your strength to a cause worthy of it."
Yuta did not hesitate.
"No."
Geto's brow rose slightly.
Yuta's voice remained quiet—
but firm.
"You hurt my friends," he said. "So I don't like you."
There was something almost childishly direct about that answer.
Something simple.
And because it was simple, it landed cleanly.
Then Yuta looked up toward Oden.
"…What is the meaning of this?"
Oden, still standing atop the bird curse, answered honestly.
"I really don't know."
The others turned toward him sharply.
Maki's eyes narrowed.
"What do you mean you don't know?"
Panda pointed.
"You're literally here with him."
Oden frowned beneath the blindfold.
"Well, yes. I came here."
"That does not help," Maki snapped.
Oden tilted his head slightly.
Inwardly, he was thinking exactly what his tone suggested.
'What is this all about anyway?'
And because it was Oden, what came out was simply—
"I was not informed."
Panda stared.
Maki looked genuinely pained.
Inumaki said, "Salmon?"
Yuta blinked several times.
"…So you really don't know?"
"No."
Maki pinched the bridge of her nose.
"Idiot."
Panda nodded sympathetically.
"That does seem to be the situation."
And then—
Gojo arrived.
Yaga with him. Others close behind.
The atmosphere changed the moment Satoru Gojo stepped onto the field.
Everything sharpened.
The sky seemed to tense.
The students' backs straightened instinctively.
And Geto, for the first time since descending, looked like he had reached the part he had actually come for.
He smiled.
Then, before anyone could speak first, he declared it plainly.
"I am here to announce war on Jujutsu High."
The words struck the field and settled there like a blade driven into wood.
Oden blinked once.
Then turned his head toward Geto and said:
"…War?"
Maki, Panda, Yuta, and Inumaki all looked at him.
Then, almost together—
"So he really doesn't know."
"Idiot."
Gojo, however, had no time for any of that.
His gaze remained fixed entirely on Geto.
"You're not leaving," he said.
The sentence was light.
The meaning was not.
Geto's smile remained.
Then a curse rose from the shadows around him.
Ugly. Immediate. Coiled with threat.
Its presence shifted toward the first-years with unmistakable intent.
Geto's voice stayed calm.
"If you try to kill me here," he said, "I'll kill them first."
Silence.
Then tension so violent it felt physical.
Gojo did not move.
For one rare moment, even he had to stop.
Because the threat was real.
Because the distance was real.
Because Suguru Geto knew exactly which hostage to put between himself and inevitability.
Yaga cursed under his breath.
The students held their ground, but the balance had already tipped.
Geto had gotten what he came for.
The declaration had been made.
The threat had been delivered.
And before anyone could reassert control, the bird curse swept back in, wings tearing the air.
Geto moved.
So did the others.
And in that brief, perfect opening—
they escaped.
The wind from the curse's ascent tore across the field, leaving dust, silence, and the bitter shape of something irreversible behind it.
Jujutsu High had been challenged.
War had been named.
---
Find early chapters and daily updates on my patreon
[Patreon.com/tenten100?]
Follow me on Instagram [www.instagram.com/tenten100_?]