Gojo Satoru looked at the boy in the file.
A photograph was clipped inside.
He pulled it out and examined it carefully.
It was a teenage boy.
According to the file, he was only a first-year high school student.
He came from a single-parent household and had been raised by his mother after his parents' divorce.
At the beginning of the school year, he had founded a Film Appreciation Club, but for some reason, it had quickly declined and was later disbanded.
The boy in the photo wore a shy smile, with medium-length hair and bangs parted to reveal his face.
His name was—
Yoshino Junpei.
After confirming the file, Gojo looked up.
Pfft.
"You laughed! You definitely laughed!"
The girl glared at him fiercely, like a wounded beast.
Ordinarily, it should have been an intimidating look, but with tears still shimmering in her eyes, it only made her seem more pitiful—and, strangely enough, cute.
"You bastard—!"
the girl screamed, sounding nothing like the timid boy in the photograph.
No.
More accurately, she could no longer be called the timid teenage boy from the file.
She was now an exceptionally delicate and pitiable girl.
Long bangs covered one eye and nearly half her face.
She looked at Gojo with her uncovered eye, tears layered within it like a spring on the verge of overflowing.
She was still wearing a male high school uniform, but it no longer fit her at all.
The shoulders drooped loosely, and the sleeves nearly covered half her hands.
Curled up at the foot of the bed, she hugged her knees tightly, almost burying her face between them.
She only looked up when she heard someone approach.
Anyone could tell that she was on the verge of collapse.
Gojo tried to suppress his laughter.
He really tried.
But how was he supposed to hold back something this absurd?
"Pfft—hahahahaha! What is this? What in the world is this? A cursed spirit actually has a twisted hobby like this? Instead of harming people, it turns them into the opposite sex? How… how can it be this bizarre? Ahaha—hahahahaha!"
Gojo burst into loud laughter.
Yet deep down, he felt a profound sense of caution toward the girl before him.
No—
"caution" wasn't quite the right word.
For Gojo Satoru, there was no human or cursed spirit in this world capable of truly making him wary.
He had been invincible for far too long—
so long that he had nearly lost the instinctive vigilance that a jujutsu sorcerer should possess.
And so, even when faced with this abnormal situation, he still laughed it off.
He shouldn't have laughed.
Neither as a professional nor as an adult should he have laughed.
But he simply couldn't help it.
Then, along with his laughter, a terrifying force erupted from the girl.
Even Gojo's nearly dulled sense of vigilance instinctively stirred.
It was as though a long-forgotten killing intent had brushed against him, warning him to keep a close eye on the girl before him.
Warning him to be prepared to kill her at any moment.
To kill her before she could kill him.
The reason was simple.
Cursed Energy.
Powerful cursed energy.
Overwhelming cursed energy.
Cursed energy so immense that it was almost enough to blot out the sun.
Even before stepping into the police station, Gojo had already sensed this massive presence.
Even an ordinary human with no talent for jujutsu at all could feel the chill in the air brushing against their skin.
But for a jujutsu sorcerer like Gojo, the sight was far clearer.
From the girl at the center, cursed energy radiated outward in all directions like a raging volcano spewing lava.
Had Gojo not already confirmed that the girl before him was unquestionably human, he would have assumed she was a cursed spirit—
and not just any cursed spirit.
A Special Grade Cursed Spirit.
In terms of cursed energy reserves alone, she actually surpassed Gojo himself.
That's right.
Measured purely by volume, her cursed energy was even greater than Gojo Satoru's.
The sheer amount reminded him of Okkotsu Yuta.
Yuta was a human who could be considered one of the greatest in the history of the jujutsu world in terms of cursed energy quantity.
The girl hadn't quite reached that level.
But to be fair, Yuta was a distant relative of Gojo's.
No matter how distant, he still carried the bloodline of a jujutsu sorcerer.
But this girl did not.
She had no sorcerer lineage at all.
In Tokyo, there were many people whose lives had been violently altered by encounters with cursed spirits.
Naturally, there were also many like this girl—people who had survived such encounters by sheer luck.
Most of them gained a slight ability to sense or control the cursed energy within their bodies after being stimulated by cursed spirits.
But that was all.
Most could only spend their lives working as support staff for jujutsu sorcerers, at most capable of using extremely simple barrier techniques.
Only this girl was different.
Without any sorcerer bloodline, she now possessed an enormous amount of cursed energy.
Although it hadn't reached Yuta's level, even now, her reserves could easily rank among the top five humans—
perhaps even the top three.
Gojo suspected this was the result of a Binding Vow.
At the cost of her physical body, she had gained a vast amount of cursed energy.
While it still couldn't compare to Yuta, it was enough to place her power at the level of a Special Grade Cursed Spirit.
No—
even among Special Grades, her output would be exceptional.
That was precisely why Gojo himself had come.
No one else was capable of handling her.
With power like this, even a single careless word from her could give birth to a new curse.
If she were to die in this state, there was no doubt that a new Special Grade Cursed Spirit would be born.
Indeed, only Gojo—
a Special Grade Jujutsu Sorcerer—
could handle this.
Gojo pondered silently, but his mouth remained as merciless as ever.
He laughed for a full half-minute before finally calming down.
Then he carefully observed the girl before him.
Although she was releasing a tremendous amount of cursed energy, theoretically, if she had even the slightest control over it, she could already attempt to curse him.
Gojo had long since prepared Limitless in case anything happened.
But there was nothing.
Not even the slightest sign of a curse.
Judging by the girl's obvious indignation, if she had the means, she would definitely have retaliated already.
That left only two possibilities.
The first was that she was simply too kind to harm anyone, even in this situation.
Gojo dismissed that possibility immediately.
Judging from those tear-filled eyes, if she had even the slightest ability, her cursed energy would already have been flung straight into his face.
Which left only one other possibility—
She truly had no idea how to use cursed energy at all.
She was a complete amateur in the world of jujutsu sorcerers.
In other words…
she wasn't a spy sent by the cursed spirits.
Right?