With heavy footsteps crossing the moss-covered stairs, Kaede and Nobara slowly emerged from the abandoned building.
The noon sunlight outside was almost too bright. Because of the large amount of cursed energy he had burned through, Kaede's body had shrunk by roughly a third compared to before entering.
The deep blue uniform that had once fit him now hung loosely from his shoulders, the pant legs bunching around his ankles and brushing softly against the pavement as he walked.
The wet fabric clung to his back, droplets running from the hem and pattering onto the asphalt.
His head was slightly lowered, black bangs shadowing the tired dark red eyes beneath. Both hands were tucked into the oversized pockets, and he walked beside Nobara in a way that was steady but strangely light, like he was still carefully preserving his balance.
Nobara held the little boy's hand, his sobs finally starting to fade, while her other hand twisted hard at the soaked hem of her uniform.
Under the sun, faint threads of steam were rising off her orange hair.
The moment she stepped fully out of the shadow and saw the people waiting outside, the tightness in her shoulders finally eased.
Yuji Itadori was the first to spot them.
He had been squatting by the roadside with Megumi, killing time by counting ants on the ground. Now he shot to his feet and started waving both arms, shouting at full volume.
"Hey! You guys done over there too? Whoa. Nobara, why are you completely soaked?"
Yuji came running over at full speed. But the second his eyes landed on Kaede's dramatically reduced size, the excitement in them turned at once into confusion and concern.
He stopped a few yards away, scratching the back of his head, his eyes lingering on Kaede's now-empty sleeves.
"And Kaede... why do you look so much smaller? Did you run into some kind of monster in there that eats people's bones or something?"
"It's nothing too serious. Just think of it as a side effect of my technique," Kaede answered calmly.
Megumi walked over too.
He did not react as loudly as Yuji, but once his dark green eyes swept across the residual curse hanging over the building and the battered state of the two of them, his expression hardened immediately.
He sharply caught the broad, pure traces of cursed energy still lingering in the air, something no normal Grade 3 curse should ever have been able to produce.
"The veil dropped a lot faster than expected. Judging by how you two look, whatever was hiding upstairs was nastier than the report said."
Gojo Satoru was still leaning lazily against the black assistant supervisor car parked nearby.
He lowered his sunglasses slightly, and behind the lenses the pale blue Six Eyes flickered, silently dissecting everything in front of him.
In his sight, Kaede's current condition looked like a dense cluster of cursed energy slowly evaporating, unstable, and yet somehow still holding together through a very delicate balance.
He pushed off the car, a smile full of impossible-to-read amusement already on his face, and clapped once.
"Welcome back. Looks like I'll have to rewrite the evaluation for this field test.
Nobara rescued the hostage, very nice. As for Kaede, sure, he's turned into a mini version of himself...
but seeing a technique with that kind of output from someone your age? Even your teacher was impressed."
Gojo strode forward and casually dropped a large hand onto Kaede's damp black hair, ruffling it once as if by reflex, while neatly blocking the line of sight from Megumi's searching stare. His tone stayed light, but there was no room to argue with the decision beneath it.
"All right. The kid's been rescued, so the rest goes to the assistant supervisors.
The immediate priority now is this: we're all going out to eat. Because this is officially the first team outing now that this year's class is finally complete."
"I really hope this time it's an actual normal place..." Kaede let out the comment almost like a sigh.
Gojo laughed brightly, his hand still resting on the boy's head, trembling slightly with the force of it, as though he found the wish for "normal" genuinely hilarious.
He withdrew his hand, slipped it into his pocket, and headed first toward the black luxury sedan waiting at the road, his long stride easy and unhurried.
Sunlight skipped off that bright silver hair, stretching his tall shadow out across the ground.
"Kaede, hearing the word 'normal' from a student who used a domain on his very first mission is not convincing at all."
He glanced over one shoulder, the smile behind the sunglasses curving into something openly teasing.
Still, rather than answer where they were going directly, he turned his attention toward Nobara, who was still wringing out her skirt hem.
"But since you two are both soaked like river ghosts dragged straight out of the Tama, I guess your kind and merciful teacher can choose someplace with premium drying service and first-rate wagyu."
The assistant supervisor, Kiyotaka Ijichi, who had been waiting by the car, quietly pulled the rear door open.
The moment he noticed the change in Kaede's size, the hand gripping the handle visibly twitched, and cold sweat immediately started rolling down his temple.
But under Gojo's silent gaze, he wisely said nothing at all, only bowed even lower in nervous respect.
"Hey, Kaede, if walking feels rough, I can carry you, you know. You look light as a feather right now."
Yuji said it with complete sincerity, still clearly worried.
"That won't be necessary. My condition only looks worse than it really is. I'm actually fine."
Inside the oversized uniform, Kaede's figure looked a little lost, but his steps remained even, though each one came with the soft sound of damp fabric moving.
Nobara climbed into the back seat first. While glaring in disgust at the sleeves still dripping water, she rolled her eyes at Yuji, who looked ready to help.
"Give it a rest, Itadori. He's just low on cursed energy, not missing both legs.
Instead of offering to carry people, maybe think about how you're going to explain the fifty plates of meat you're about to inhale."
Megumi stood beside the car door.
He did not get in right away. Instead, once Kaede came closer, he raised one hand and held it against the edge of the roof to keep him from bumping into it.
He looked down at the boy's noticeably diminished profile, and something thoughtful flickered through those dark green eyes.
A condition that let body size, and even physical mass, change according to cursed energy reserves felt less like a technique and more like some kind of full reconstruction of life itself.
"Get in. The heat's on inside. You'll dry faster."
Megumi's tone stayed as controlled as ever. He only got in after Kaede had climbed inside, taking the seat nearest the door and leaving most of the open space to the classmate whose body had shrunk so dramatically.
With the heavy thud of the car door closing, the sedan slowly pulled away, carrying this group of young sorcerers, fresh from a fight with death and now resting in some strange fragile balance, deeper into the noisy, glittering heart of Tokyo.