The heavy voice of a news anchor announced the morning updates from the TV in the dormitory lounge.
[On XX Month, XX Day, 2005, the unprecedented Typhoon 'Hairin,' which formed in the waters off Japan, has struck coastal cities.]
[Following closely, Typhoon 'Karen' has also made landfall on mainland Japan. Massive damage is being reported, including power outages for thousands of households and destroyed homes...]
[A typhoon warning has been issued. Strong winds and heavy rain are expected; please exercise extreme caution regarding facility maintenance and safety accidents.]
[The Meteorological Agency urges citizens to refrain from going outside and to avoid coastal areas or riverbanks.]
And then, the next morning.
Leaving behind the aftermath of last night's loud and chaotic dormitory 'Eve' party, our first-year quartet headed to class and sat in our seats.
Drrrk—
The front door slid open. Our homeroom teacher, Masamichi Yaga, walked in with an expression even darker and more menacingly stiff than yesterday. Standing at the podium, Yaga opened his mouth with a short sigh.
"Good morning. It's a shame you're already being called out when you've barely just enrolled... but an emergency request has come in."
At Yaga's serious tone, all our eyes fixed on the podium.
"Those typhoons you saw on the news today. They aren't simple weather anomalies or natural phenomena."
"Not natural phenomena?"
When Geto asked with narrowed eyes, Yaga nodded heavily.
"Correct. They are disasters intentionally triggered by someone. We believe this is the work of a Cursed Spirit equivalent to Special Grade, specifically targeting areas with high population density."
The air in the classroom instantly chilled. A Special Grade Cursed Spirit. This wasn't the kind of difficulty level you'd expect for a mission right after enrollment.
"Normally, veteran Grade 1 sorcerers would be deployed... however, the geezers in the higher-ups decided that since this year's freshmen are so 'irregular' in terms of specs, they want to see your skills firsthand and ordered you to handle it directly."
Yaga's gaze swept across me, Gojo, and Geto in turn.
"Satoru Gojo, Hachiro Zenin, Suguru Geto. You three are specifically designated for this."
As soon as those words fell, Gojo, who had been tilting his chair back, smirked and clapped his hands together.
"Oh! Our first request at Jujutsu High! I finally get to loosen up. Those old farts certainly have a charming personality~"
Yaga rubbed his temples at the attitude of the guy who didn't have a shred of tension in his body. Sitting next to him, Geto asked in a calm voice.
"So, where should we deploy?"
A natural question. We needed to know the Cursed Spirit's location to exorcise it. However, upon hearing that, Yaga cleared his throat and slightly averted his eyes.
"Ahem... This might sound absurd, but we don't know."
"...Huh?"
"No, what do you mean? You don't know the location?"
Geto and I questioned him simultaneously, utterly dumbfounded.
Without a word, Yaga picked up a piece of chalk and drew a rough map of the Japanese archipelago on the chalkboard. Then, he drew a semi-circular path of the typhoon curving from the sea toward the mainland.
"Based on the observations from the Windows and the flow of Cursed Residue, this is its projected direction of movement. Calculating the trajectory and speed of this arc... the prediction is that it will make landfall somewhere in Tokyo between tonight and tomorrow dawn."
"...."
I stared blankly at that vast semi-circular trajectory drawn on the board. Eventually, I couldn't hold back, slammed my desk, and stood up.
"Wait, Sensei! Is Tokyo someone's dog's backyard or something?!"
"What?"
"In a place this damn huge, how are we supposed to pinpoint it without knowing when or where it'll show up?! If it's a guy dragging a typhoon around, his presence will be massive, sure—but if he drops in the middle of Tokyo, the place will be a wasteland before we even find him!"
At my purely realistic and annoyed complaint, Geto also stroked his chin with a troubled look, while Shoko watched with an interested spark in her eyes.
The start of our first real mission.
In the end, our trio of first-years (Me, Gojo, and Geto) voluntarily remained at school and signed up for Night Study.
"...You boys."
When the troublemakers who had been brawling since day one stepped up to stay overnight in the computer lab to search for info for the mission, our homeroom teacher Masamichi Yaga's eyes wavered strangely.
Perhaps sensing their sincerity, Yaga readily permitted the Night Study. He left the room saying, "You'll be hungry since you're at a growing age," to go buy some snacks and late-night food.
Click, clack.
Inside the dimly lit computer lab of Jujutsu High, only the sounds of mouse clicks and keyboard typing echoed.
"Hey, Suguru. Hachiro. Take a look at this."
Gojo, who had been staring holes into the monitor, suddenly spoke up.
"I searched the Yahoo Knowledge iN boards, and it says this area over here is the most likely candidate?"
"...Who knows who wrote that on an anonymous board? You're actually going to believe that?"
When Geto countered in disbelief, Gojo tapped the monitor and replied.
"I dunno. He says he's an employee at the Meteorological Agency?"
"Hey, Satoru! Is this a joke to you right now?!"
Geto couldn't take it anymore and jumped out of his seat. His usual gentle smile was nowhere to be found.
"This isn't a simple game. Countless lives depend on every single action we take and every prediction we make!"
"Whoa, whoa. Calm down. I'm sure Gojo isn't just saying that for kicks."
I stopped Geto by tossing a bundle of papers I had just pulled from the printer onto the desk.
"But honestly, I've got nothing. We aren't weather experts, so how are we supposed to pinpoint a single expected landfall location in the middle of this massive city? Even the director of the Meteorological Agency couldn't do that if he came here right now."
"...Even so."
Geto bit his lip and lowered his gaze to the monitor.
"We have to deduce as much as possible so we're ready to deploy even a second faster once things go south."
"Then why don't you read these survivor testimonies I just printed out? The Windows pulled them from the police database."
At my words, Gojo and Geto approached the stack of papers on the desk.
In the quiet computer lab, I began to read the testimony records aloud in a dry voice.
[ Excerpt from Typhoon Damage Survivor Deposition ]
"...I went to the local supermarket because they were having a huge sale on produce today. I guess the economy really is bad; the place was so packed there was barely room to step."
"So, I was walking toward the booths to see if I could snag some cheap vegetables."
"It's not that rain and wind started pouring from the sky. Suddenly, from right under people's feet—from the ground—a horrific whirlwind erupted. After that, people were screaming and flying into the air... (omitted)."
"...."
"...."
After finishing the short survivor's testimony.
A cold silence settled over the computer lab. Neither Gojo nor Geto could find anything more to say.
A typhoon erupting from the ground.
It was an explicit and horrific Cursed Technique that thoroughly shattered the laws of nature.
But what left us speechless wasn't the bizarre phenomenon itself.
This Cursed Spirit doesn't bring clouds with it; it causes disaster to surge up as a surprise attack from the ground in crowded areas. Predicting and preventing that was fundamentally impossible.
"...In the end."
Rubbing my tired eyes, I spoke aloud the terrible truth we were all swallowing internally.
"Casualties have to occur first... Non-sorcerers have to bleed and die before the location can even be identified for us to deploy."
No matter how many nights we spent on 'Night Study' preparing.
In the end, a Jujutsu Sorcerer was nothing more than a passive corpse-cleaner—a job that only functions on the premise of someone else's death.
Under the fluorescent lights, a bitter aftertaste spread through the mouths of the boys who had only just entered Jujutsu High.
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