Morning light slipped through a gap in the curtains and laid a pale stripe across the dorm floor.
Hayase lay on his back on the narrow bed, staring at the tiny cracks in the ceiling. His eyes were unfocused, but his mind was busy picking apart one question.
Why had Yaga gone that far last night? Why force him into a mandatory break like that?
In the quiet, the answer came faster than he expected.
He still hadn't really adjusted to this timeline. Not deep down. Not in the part of him that reacted before thinking.
This was a world where things could still be saved.
But after that long, hopeless simulation, he'd dragged the pace of the endgame back with him into reality. That constant pressure, that feeling that every wasted second meant another person dead, was still stuck to him. He'd been living like the clock was already at zero.
Too tight. Way too tight.
The problem was, when he examined it logically, he still couldn't find anything wrong with the way he'd been acting.
Because he knew something Yaga didn't.
In the Simulator, failure meant a reset.
Here, if things went bad, they stayed bad.
If someone died, that was it. No loading a previous save. No second run.
He'd seen hell once already. Of course he clung to every second of the real world like a starving man.
"Hah..."
He let out a long breath and pressed the back of his hand to his cheek.
"Looks like I'll have to start using that around them," he muttered. "At the very least, I need them to think I'm a normal, well-adjusted student."
Still, mandatory leave wasn't really a problem.
Yaga had only banned him from working on school grounds. He hadn't said a word about what Hayase did elsewhere.
Which meant the answer was obvious.
Find somewhere quiet in the city. Rent a basement if he had to. Keep working.
Even Panda's construction could keep moving. The core materials were locked inside Jujutsu High's workshop, sure, but the body framework and cursed energy channeling paths could still be done outside. Everything except the core itself.
"A vacation..."
Still flat on the bed, still staring upward, Hayase asked himself the question honestly.
Do I actually need rest?
What would I even do with it?
Games? Shopping? Amusement parks? Normal teenager stuff?
None of it appealed to him in the slightest.
But once he followed the thought of "leaving Jujutsu High" a little further, something clicked.
If he was going outside the barrier's watch, there were things he could do out there that he couldn't do inside.
Things that needed privacy.
He got up, washed his face, changed clothes, and headed out.
Before leaving, he stopped by Yaga's office and calmly told him he planned to use the two-day break to go on a short trip.
Yaga frowned from behind his desk and immediately asked where he was going and what he intended to do.
Hayase had expected that.
His expression dimmed a little. His voice softened, touched with just enough grief to sound real.
"I want to visit my hometown. And... stop by the cemetery. See my family. The ones who died in the cursed spirit attack."
That did it.
Yaga's suspicious look eased almost at once. Guilt flashed through his eyes. He didn't ask any more questions. He just opened a drawer.
Before Hayase could leave, Yaga pulled out a slightly worn black wallet, counted out a thick stack of ten-thousand-yen bills, and pressed the money into his hand.
One hundred thousand yen.
"Yaga-sensei, this..."
Hayase felt the thickness of it and blinked in real surprise. He gave a helpless little smile and tried to hand it back.
"I really can't take this much. Please, keep it."
He wasn't being polite.
Registered jujutsu sorcerers got paid for exorcism work, even low-level jobs. The exact amount depended on the mission, but compared to an ordinary salary, sorcerers made very good money.
Of course, that money came with the minor inconvenience of maybe dying horribly.
On top of that, Hayase barely spent anything. Aside from basic necessities like food, he had almost no personal expenses. Over the past month, his account had built up a respectable balance all on its own. The projects that would really need cash hadn't started yet.
But Yaga covered Hayase's hand with his own and pushed it shut.
His rough face was set in that stubborn, adult way that made it clear refusal was pointless. Behind the sunglasses, his stare was steady and dead serious.
"I said take it, so take it. For these two days, don't think about jujutsu. Don't think about your plan to save the world. Eat something decent. Buy clothes a kid your age would actually wear. Waste it all at an arcade for all I care. Just spend every last yen."
It was painfully sincere.
He just wanted this kid, this kid who'd been grinding himself down to the bone, to act his age for two days. To waste money on stupid things and enjoy it without feeling guilty.
The warmth of that hand made Hayase pause.
He looked at Yaga's face, at the concern plain as day in the part of it visible beneath the sunglasses, and sighed to himself.
Then he stopped resisting.
He folded the bills neatly and slid them into the inside pocket of his jacket.
Because he knew accepting the money would at least let Yaga feel a little better.
Like, Fine. The kid finally listened for once.
Too bad Yaga was wrong.
That money, handed over with so much honest concern, was never going toward food, clothes, or games.
---
Once he was outside the layered barriers of Jujutsu High, Hayase headed straight for the crowded streets of Shinjuku.
Using faded memories from the Simulator, he found an underground shop so forgettable it almost looked fake, then paid extra for an anonymous overseas SIM card, the kind that was a nightmare to trace by normal methods.
After that he doubled back through a messy route, taking enough turns to shake off cameras and casual eyes, until he finally stopped in a deserted alley that smelled faintly of mildew.
He popped open the back of his phone and swapped the card in with practiced hands.
Before he dialed, he took a slow breath.
Under the control of Voiceprint Analysis and Mimicry, the vibration of his vocal cords shifted completely.
When he spoke again to test it, the voice that came out belonged to someone else.
An adult man. Calm, steady, a little rough around the edges.
Once he was satisfied, he dialed a number burned into the deepest part of his memory.
A heavily classified one.
Ring.
Ring.
Ring.
The monotonous tone kept going. Long enough that he briefly wondered if the call would connect at all.
Then, finally, a click.
The line opened.
No greeting. No words.
Just the faint sound of someone breathing, held low and careful.
Hayase didn't wait.
In that fabricated baritone, utterly certain and carrying just a little pressure, he spoke first.
"Am I speaking to Special Grade Jujutsu Sorcerer Yuki Tsukumo?"
"..."
Silence.
Then a woman's voice came through.
Lazy on the surface, but only on the surface. Underneath it was clear confusion, and a sharp edge of caution.
"Who are you? I don't know what gutter you crawled out of, but I am very curious how you got my private number."