Chapter 41: Excuses for Skipping Class
A week earlier.
Inside the faculty office at Tokyo Jujutsu High, sunlight spilled across stacks of documents and half abandoned paperwork, painting the room in lazy afternoon gold.
Satoru Gojo sat in his chair with one leg crossed over the other, a pen spinning idly between his fingers. Even with his blindfold on, the amusement in his expression was impossible to miss.
"So," he said, dragging the word out on purpose, "that's your excuse for skipping practical training for an entire day?"
Yami stood in front of the desk with his usual guitar case slung over his shoulder.
His face was calm as ever, but Gojo's Six Eyes had already picked up something unusual.
Blood.
Not Yami's own.
Mixed in with it was the lingering residue of something twisted, sticky, and deeply unpleasant. A cursed presence so warped it felt like rot given shape.
"It wasn't skipping class," Yami said quietly.
He straightened his slightly rumpled collar. His hanafuda earrings swayed faintly with the motion.
"I just went to watch a movie."
"A movie?"
Gojo arched a brow and leaned forward, suddenly interested.
"What kind of movie could make a model student like you ditch class? The Bug Man 3?"
Yami lowered his gaze for a moment, as if replaying the scene in his mind.
"No. It was a documentary about life."
For the first time in a while, Gojo stopped joking.
The air in the office shifted.
Because whatever Yami had seen a few hours earlier, it had left a mark.
And not a small one.
Three hours earlier.
Kawasaki City, Gideon Cinema.
It was an old theater tucked away in a quiet part of town, the kind of place already halfway forgotten by the city around it. The facilities were outdated, the carpet smelled faintly of dust and stale popcorn, and the lighting in the lobby was dim enough to make everything look tired.
Yami had only been passing by.
But ever since his synchronization rate had risen to fifteen percent, his senses had become absurdly sharp. Even through the heavy walls of the theater, he could hear something wrong in the silence.
Faint sounds.
Broken sounds.
Soft moans that should not have existed.
Yami stopped walking and slowly raised his head.
Above the building, the sky looked wrong.
A dead gray haze clung to the cinema like a second roof, leaking down in strands too filthy to mistake for ordinary cursed residue.
This was not the leftover aura of some common Cursed Spirit.
Ordinary curses were born from negative emotions. Ugly, cruel, murderous, yes, but still instinctive.
This was different.
This felt deliberate.
Desecration disguised as art.
Yami stared at the theater entrance for a few seconds, then quietly changed direction.
"Let's have a look," he murmured.
The ticket gate was empty.
No staff, no customers, no sound except the dull hum of electricity and the occasional flicker of an emergency light glowing an unnatural green in the hallway.
The deeper he went, the stronger the smell became.
Blood.
Not fresh. Not entirely old either.
And woven through it was that same nauseating cursed aura, like something that had reached into human flesh and kneaded it out of shape with joy.
Yami's hand unconsciously tightened around the strap of the guitar case on his shoulder.
Technically, carrying a cursed tool outside of formal missions was against school policy.
In practice, Yami had never developed the habit of being unarmed.
In this world, his sword was still the closest thing he had to peace of mind.
He stopped in front of Theater 3.
Dark red liquid had seeped from beneath the door, drawn into strange lines by the pressure of lingering cursed energy.
Yami stared at the crack beneath the door in silence.
Then he rested one hand against the handle and pushed it open.
The heavy, soundproof door creaked inward.
Inside, no movie was playing.
The screen was blank. Pure black.
Only the projector continued to whir pointlessly behind the empty rows, casting useless light into nothing.
In the back corner, three figures sat motionless in their seats.
At first glance, they might have passed for sleeping students.
At first glance.
Yami's eyes narrowed.
They were wearing high school uniforms.
Their bodies, however, had been reshaped into grotesque mockeries of human form. Heads had been forced down into their chests. Limbs bent backward at impossible angles. Their skin was mottled with purplish black bruising, the kind left behind when a soul itself had been seized and twisted.
Even death had not erased the terror on their faces.
That familiar, revolting handiwork made something cold settle inside Yami's chest.
Mahito.
Of all the fragments of the original story that memory had blurred over time, this was one thing he could never mistake.
"Is this what you call art?" Yami asked softly.
His voice carried through the dark theater.
No answer came back.
The one responsible had already left.
What remained behind felt almost intentional. Like a signature. Like a display piece left for anyone perceptive enough to find it.
Yami walked down the aisle toward the bodies.
He did not flinch. He did not recoil. He did not vomit.
He only looked.
And in his vision, the situation was even worse than it appeared.
Their souls had not dispersed.
Mahito's technique had twisted them so completely that even in death, something remained trapped inside the wreckage of their bodies, unable to pass on, left to suffer in silence.
For the first time, a visible chill entered Yami's eyes.
"This really is unforgivable."
He crouched in front of the nearest body and gently rested a hand on its forehead.
Warmth flowed from his palm.
Not Cursed Energy. Not Reverse Cursed Technique.
Just the steady, pure force born from the Breath of the Sun.
Golden warmth spread through the corpse like dawn touching frost.
Sizzle.
The ruined flesh softened, blackened, then crumbled away into ash.
From that ash, a thread of pale white smoke rose into the air, circling once above Yami's hand.
It felt like gratitude.
Then it vanished.
Yami did the same for the other two.
When he finished, the back row of the theater had become quiet in a completely different way.
Still.
Clean.
He rose slowly to his feet.
The projector continued whirring. The blank screen remained blank. And yet the place felt even emptier now.
Yami turned toward the exit.
That rotten smell still lingered in the air, faint but unmistakable.
Mahito's scent.
He fixed it in his memory.
"No matter who you think you are," Yami said, voice low and steady, "anyone who tramples on life will be rejected by life itself."
He walked out of the theater and into bright sunlight.
The day outside was warm, almost offensively normal, but the aura around him had turned sharp enough to cut.
Since arriving in this world, he had already decided one thing.
Some tragedies would not be allowed to happen a second time.
Not while he was here.
Yami took out his phone.
On the screen was a blurred still image he had pulled from a nearby security camera. A long haired figure. Stitched face. Frivolous posture. Wrong in every possible way.
His thumb brushed lightly across the image.
"Found you."
A faint golden red light flickered in his eyes.
"You are absolutely unforgivable."
In the original story, no one had managed to save Junpei.
But this world had already changed.
And from the moment Yami stepped into that theater, the roles of hunter and prey had reversed.
The memory ended there.
Back in the faculty office, Gojo rested his chin against one hand and studied the boy standing before him.
He could still feel the residue of it.
Not just the cursed aura.
The intent.
Yami was not merely angry.
He had already made up his mind.
"Sounds like you ran into something unpleasant," Gojo said at last, his usual playfulness dimmed beneath something more serious. "Do you want your teacher's help?"
"No."
Yami shook his head once.
His voice stayed calm, but his eyes were clear and unwavering when he looked up.
"This is something I have to handle."
Gojo watched him for a few seconds.
"Because you ran into it?"
"Because I ran into it," Yami replied. "And because I can cut it down."
For a beat, the room fell quiet.
Then Gojo smiled.
Not his usual silly grin.
Something smaller. Sharper. More genuine.
"That's a pretty cool line."
He opened a drawer, pulled out a leave slip, signed it without hesitation, and flicked it across the desk.
"Go."
Yami caught it cleanly.
"I have no idea what exactly you're planning," Gojo said, leaning back again, "but as your teacher, I'm approving it."
Then he raised one finger.
"But remember one thing."
His voice turned dry.
"Handle it cleanly. Don't create extra work for Ijichi."
Yami bowed his head slightly.
"I will."
He tucked the leave slip away and turned for the door.
Then, after a pause, he added without looking back,
"After all, dealing with garbage is the cleaner's job."
When the door closed behind him, the office returned to silence.
Gojo leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling.
"That look..."
He let the words trail off, then smiled to himself.
"Like a hunter spotting its natural enemy."
He tapped the pen once against the desk.
"How interesting."
It seemed there would be a good show before the exchange event after all.
.....
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