"Shut up, idiot," Maki's voice crackled through the speaker. She sounded exhausted, but there was that familiar, fond edge to her tone that she only ever used with him.
"Did you make it home from your new job? And more importantly, did you actually eat a real dinner, or are you back to inhaling convenience store onigiri?"
Ren smirked, stepping into the lobby of his apartment building. "I'll have you know I bought a very premium, high-quality bento box. It had real vegetables in it and everything."
"I'll believe that when I see it," she scoffed. A heavy, metallic clank echoed through her end of the line—the distinct sound of her dropping a heavy cursed tool onto a weapons rack.
She let out a heavy sigh that sounded like it carried the weight of the entire world. "Listen, Ren. I'm calling because... my schedule just got completely wrecked."
Ren paused at his door, sliding his key into the lock. "What's wrong? Track coach on another power trip?"
"Worse," Maki grumbled. "The school administration is forcing us to participate in this massive inter-school tournament thing next month. It's against the Kyoto branch campus, and their principal is a total hardass."
Ren pushed his door open, flicking on the living room lights. The Goodwill Event.
"Because our upperclassmen are either suspended or useless, it falls on me to whip our first-years into shape so we don't get completely embarrassed," Maki continued. "Extra training, sparring, tactical reviews. I'm going to be practically living on the training field."
Ren tossed his keys onto the kitchen counter, exactly where they had been the night before. "So... you're not going to be able to sneak away for a while."
"Yeah," Maki muttered. The fierce, demanding sorcerer suddenly sounded incredibly small and hesitant. "I'm sorry. I know we just... you know. Last night. I didn't want to just dip out immediately after."
Ren's chest tightened slightly at the genuine guilt in her voice.
He leaned back against the kitchen counter, letting out a soft, reassuring chuckle to completely mask the lingering adrenaline from his near-death encounter in Shibuya.
"Hey, don't apologize," Ren said, his voice dropping into that warm, easy register that always seemed to soothe her.
"You've got a tournament to win and first-years to terrorize. I get it. You have to go be the boss."
He could hear a soft, relieved exhale through the speaker, the tension bleeding out of her end of the line.
"Though..." Ren continued, a slow, familiar smirk spreading across his face despite the empty apartment. He tilted his head, leaning into the teasing persona.
"I really don't mind you sending me your cute photos during this... time, though? You know, just to tide me over until you break out of lockdown."
The line went completely dead silent for a full three seconds.
Ren could practically feel the temperature spike through the phone. He could perfectly picture the violent, brilliant shade of crimson currently overtaking her entire face, from her cheeks all the way to the tips of her ears.
"I—you—" Maki sputtered, her tough, demanding persona instantly and completely breaking. "I'm in a combat training camp, idiot! I don't have time to take... to take cute photos!"
"Tragic," Ren deadpanned smoothly. "Guess I'll just have to rely on my memories of that new sweater. Or what was underneath it."
"Shut up!" she hissed, though the lethal edge was entirely ruined by how breathless and incredibly flustered she sounded.
The sound of her aggressively shifting her heavy weapon bag echoed through the receiver as she clearly tried to hide her burning face from whoever might be walking past the armory.
She hesitated for a split second, the heavy silence stretching between them.
"...I will try," she mumbled, her voice dropping into an impossibly small, painfully shy whisper.
Before Ren could even formulate a response to that absolute victory, she immediately panicked and stabbed the 'end call' button. The line clicked dead with a sharp beep.
Ren pulled the phone away from his ear, staring at the 'Call Ended' screen. A genuine, bright laugh escaped his lips.
The laughter slowly faded into the quiet hum, leaving Ren staring down at the darkened screen of his phone.
He tossed the phone onto the low green sofa and dragged both hands down his face, letting out a groan that sounded entirely too exhausted for a seventeen-year-old.
I have a massive problem, he thought, staring blankly at the ceiling.
His mind violently flashed back to the Shibuya crosswalk. Jogo's suffocating heat. Hanami's towering, monstrous frame. The eerie, stitched smile on Geto's face. He had survived purely on dumb luck and the Wraith's Fang.
But his luck was notoriously terrible. If he just happened to bump into Kenjaku's crew on a random Tuesday, who was to say his bad luck wouldn't have him crossing paths with Mahito tomorrow? Or worse, stumbling into Sukuna's line of sight once the Shibuya incident actually kicked off?
A half-completed Heavenly Restriction was a massive step up from being a fragile civilian. It gave him the physical specs to run away, maybe even survive a glancing blow from a Grade 1 curse. But it wasn't enough. Not even close.
If he wanted to actually protect Maki—if he wanted to survive the impending meat grinder of their world—he needed Cursed Techniques.
He needed versatility. He needed to exploit the absolute hell out of his System.
"System," Ren murmured.
The translucent blue panel materialized in the center of his vision. He focused on the very first notification he had received yesterday.
[CORE ABILITY UNLOCKED: INHERITANCE VIA INTIMACY]
Description: The User possesses the unique ability to permanently copy and assimilate the innate Cursed Techniques, Cursed Energy traits, or Heavenly Restrictions of others.
Condition for Activation: The User must engage in the deepest act of physical intimacy (sexual intercourse) with the target.
Ren stared at the floating blue text.
Cheating was entirely off the table. He couldn't do it. He had just spent months breaking down Maki's walls, getting her to trust him enough to let her guard down.
The idea of sneaking around behind her back and using another girl—like he had briefly considered with Nobara—just for a power-up made him feel physically sick.
Which left only one, terrifying, borderline suicidal alternative.
I have to ask her permission.
Ren let out a hollow, completely unhinged chuckle, burying his face in his hands again.
He mentally tried to script the conversation. Hey, Maki. Crazy day at work today. Also, I have a magical video game screen in my head that copies superpowers, but only if I sleep with the sorcerer who has them.
Anyway, to make sure you don't die next month, do I have your blessing to hit on your female classmates?
He would be dead before the sentence finished. She would just strangle him with her bare hands, or maybe run him through with the very spear she was doing maintenance on right now.
But what other choice did he have? The Jujutsu world didn't care about their romance. only respected absolute, overwhelming power.
"Okay. Think, Ren," he muttered, pacing across the hardwood floor of the living room, his new combat-honed muscles moving with restless energy.
He couldn't just drop this on her out of nowhere. First, he had to drop the "clueless civilian" act. He had to show her his new physical strength, let her see that he understood her world, and prove that his ability is real.
If he approached it purely as a tactical necessity—a completely clinical, emotionless strategy to build an arsenal capable of killing Special Grades—she might, possibly, consider it without immediately castrating him.
Maki was a pragmatist. She understood sacrifice and survival better than anyone.
But she was also a fiercely proud, intensely territorial Zen'in who had just given him her virginity. Sharing him wasn't going to go over well, even if the fate of the world depended on it.
Ren stopped pacing, looking at the spot on the sofa where they had spent the evening. He let out a long, heavy breath, the crushing weight of the coming weeks pressing down on his shoulders.
"I'm going to need a miracle," he whispered to the empty room.
...
Across the city, safely secured within the walls of Tokyo Jujutsu High, Nobara Kugisaki was currently fighting a brutal, exhausting battle of her own.
She was sitting cross-legged on her dorm room bed, fresh out of the shower. The sleek crimson cropped jacket she had bought earlier was draped carefully over the back of her desk chair, looking every bit as expensive and aggressively chic as she had hoped.
But right now, her attention wasn't on the jacket. It was entirely focused on the sleek black business card resting in the dead center of her mattress.