Morning sunlight slipped through the thick blackout curtains that had not been fully drawn, casting a sharp rectangle of light across the wooden floor.
The air still held traces of the dampness left by last night's rain, mixing strangely with the dry, climate-controlled atmosphere of the room.
On the bed, Kaede shifted slightly onto his side, black hair spilling across the white pillowcase like silk.
After three days of deep rest, his body had gradually returned to its usual long-limbed proportions. Even so, whenever his fingertips brushed the cold air, a faint tremor still ran through them.
He half-opened his dark red eyes, his gaze searching through the blurred morning light for something to anchor himself to, only to catch an unusual flash of color in the shadow at the foot of the bed.
A tall woman sat by the window with one leg crossed over the other.
She wore a dark purple high-collared dress tailored so precisely it looked expensive at a glance. Her pale blue hair was braided into a thick plait that fell over her left shoulder.
In one hand she held a stack of crisp bills still smelling faintly of fresh ink, and as her fingers moved over them, the clean rhythm of counting money sounded unnervingly clear in the quiet room.
"You are...?" Kaede asked, puzzled, quickly searching through his memory. But confusion was not all he felt. There was surprise too.
He had spent the last few days resting to recover, yes, but not to the point where he should have failed to notice a person entering at all.
If anything, because of his Heavenly Restriction-like constitution, he was usually more sensitive to the presence of others.
And yet the woman before him felt as though she had simply appeared out of thin air.
Noticing the small movement on the bed, she stopped what she was doing and turned her head slightly. In her narrow eyes shone a smile both elegant and fox-like in its sharpness.
"Sleeping through a time this golden is a terrible luxury, Kaede-kun."
Mei Mei folded away the cash and slipped it into the refined leather bag at her side. Then she stood, the heels of her shoes striking the wooden floor with crisp, measured taps.
She walked to the bedside and looked down at the newly awakened boy the way someone might assess a rare work of art about to go up for auction.
"Gojo-kun paid a deposit substantial enough that I simply couldn't refuse for exclusive use of your time today.
He described it as just showing a newcomer the ropes, but in my experience, any job expensive enough to require me personally is never that simple."
She reached out a gloved hand and lightly brushed aside the damp strands of hair that had fallen over Kaede's forehead. The motion was gentle, yet there was something in it that did not permit resistance.
"Up you get. The car's already waiting at the front gate.
Your first practical sparring lesson will be taught by me personally."
Soft footsteps sounded in the corridor outside, and Megumi Fushiguro appeared in the half-open doorway.
In his hand was a paper-wrapped breakfast, the smell of curry rice balls rising warmly from it.
The moment Megumi saw the woman in the room, his steps stopped abruptly, and his fingers tightened slightly around the handle of the bag.
"So Mei Mei-senpai really is here. I thought Gojo-sensei was making some weird joke again."
Mei Mei... a Grade 1 sorcerer... Kaede thought, piecing through the memory at last.
Megumi walked inside and set the breakfast on the small table near the window.
Then he turned toward the bed, dark green eyes carrying an unusual seriousness.
He knew perfectly well that if Gojo had paid to bring Mei Mei in as a sparring instructor, then this was nowhere near some "ordinary practical lesson."
"Senpai wants you to train close-quarters combat. Your technique is heavily geared toward large-area control, but your close-range defense is still basically a blank.
The space here's too cramped, so we're meeting at the training ground by the gate."
Hearing that, Kaede let out a quiet breath. "I understand... Thanks for breakfast, Megumi."
He ate as he hurried through the basics of getting ready, then changed clothes and headed out to the training ground.
This was a good thing.
At his current stage, improving his hand-to-hand combat ability would help his real combat performance enormously.
After all, Jujutsu Kaisen had a reputation for being less about sorcery and more about throwing hands, and there was a lot of truth to that.
Cursed energy output, cursed energy efficiency, reinforcement...
Even Domain Amplification, the tool Kaede currently handled best, still depended on striking range to get the most from it.
A sorcerer could rely on a technique, but having no method of fighting outside that technique was unacceptable.
Kaede understood that very well.
Mei Mei stood in the middle of the training ground, casually holding that massive broad-bladed axe wrapped in old bandages in one hand, the tip dragging a deep groove through the gravel.
At the sound of approaching footsteps, she tilted her head slightly, her braid swaying across her chest.
"Eating is the cheapest and most efficient way to restore stamina. It seems you understand that already.
Since I accepted Gojo-kun's very expensive 'tuition fee,' I won't be offering any cheap sympathy for the next three hours."
She turned slowly, the dark purple skirt tracing a graceful arc in the wind.
She did not even raise a fighting stance. She merely stood there, yet the very air around her seemed to grow heavy.
Megumi stood under the shade of a nearby tree with both hands in his pockets. The hand that had been holding breakfast earlier was now clenched tight.
His gaze moved between the two figures in the field, his muscles drawn tense on instinct.
"Mei Mei-senpai's hand-to-hand combat is top-tier even among sorcerers.
Even without using that axe, her cursed-energy-enhanced strikes are lethal."
Megumi frowned slightly, looking toward the black-haired boy standing in the field.
"Kaede, don't try to match her strength head-on. Her combat logic is absolute efficiency. Every hit she throws is meant to end the fight.
If things start looking dangerous, I'll step in immediately."
Mei Mei gave a light laugh. She raised her free left hand and pointed vaguely into the air.
A crow flapped down from a nearby branch and landed neatly on her shoulder.
"Fushiguro-kun, interfering in someone else's paid lesson would be a breach of contract.
So then, Kaede-kun, are you ready to prove that Gojo-kun's investment was worth the price?"
The moment the words left her mouth, her figure blurred.
That was not some illusion, but an explosive burst of cursed-energy reinforcement at a very high level, her heels scraping against the gravel with a harsh shriek.
The next second, a cold pressure of wind had already reached Kaede's cheek.
Mei Mei did not swing the axe. Instead, she brought her fingers together and drove the heel of her palm, packed with heavy cursed energy, straight toward his chest.
"So fast!"
Kaede's pupils narrowed sharply, and he immediately flooded his body with that enormous cursed energy for reinforcement.
Gravel shrieked under his shoes. His sidestep carved a dark blue afterimage through the air as he narrowly evaded the palm strike by the smallest margin.
But the instant the strike missed, a glint of cold calculation flashed through Mei Mei's pale blue eyes.
Her gloved wrist snapped over.
The broad axe that had seemed casually carried at her side tore through the air at once, driven by the terrifying rotation of her hips.
With a heavy roar, the massive blade fell from above, carving a silver-white arc of death.
"You can use cursed tools too?"
There was not even time to complain. Kaede's body folded sharply backward in midair, the oversized uniform snapping in the gust.
The blade slammed into the earth barely grazing the edge of his deep blue coat.
BOOM!
Gravel and dirt exploded outward.
A trench nearly six feet long appeared instantly where Kaede had been standing.
The flying stones smashed into nearby tree trunks with dull, teeth-gritting thuds.
"Still, this is manageable. My cursed energy reserves are huge... and if I predict the timing, my eyes can still follow her."
The instant Kaede landed, one hand shot out and seized a hardwood staff from the weapon rack at the edge of the training ground.
Blue cursed energy, so dense it was nearly visible, flared around the staff. Without hesitation, he twisted through the hips and swept it in a brutal horizontal strike toward Mei Mei's ribs.
Faced with a blow carrying an enormous amount of cursed energy, Mei Mei did not retreat.
The wind pressure from the staff made her dark purple skirt whip violently, her braid lashing through the air.
She simply lifted the axe shaft in one hand and brought the heavy metal handle upright beside her waist at the last possible instant.
THOOM!
The wooden staff and the metal haft collided with a brutal crash. A visible ring of white air exploded outward from the point between them, shaking loose a scatter of leaves from the trees around the training field.
Under the recoil, Mei Mei's heels slid back half a step, carving two shallow furrows in the gravel.
"Your total amount of cursed energy is astonishing. Lavish, even."
The muscles in Mei Mei's arm tightened beneath the fitted sleeve as she took the full sweep head-on. She tipped her chin up slightly and looked across the locked weapons at Kaede, a perfectly professional smile curving at the corner of her mouth.
"But your cursed energy output efficiency is far too crude.
Using a reserve that large to forcibly increase speed and power is like trying to pour tea into a cup with a fire hose. Most of the energy just disperses into the air.
On my balance sheet, that kind of thing counts as severe wasteful spending."
Before the words had fully settled, Mei Mei used the remaining force coming through the shaft to twist her wrist. The broad side of the axe pressed down over the hardwood staff and trapped it in place.
From the shade at the edge of the field, Megumi stared at the point of collision.
The fingers folded across his chest were unconsciously tightening hard enough for the joints to stand out beneath his pale skin.
His dark green eyes were full of focus, his mind rapidly breaking apart the situation in the field.
"This is bad... He's only barely keeping up with Mei Mei-senpai's movements by brute-forcing it with absurd cursed energy reserves. That's going to spike his stamina drain.
And there are too many openings."
Megumi's jaw tightened, and his gaze did not leave the field for even an instant.
"Mei Mei-senpai hasn't used her technique at all. She's only using pure hand-to-hand skill and precise cursed-energy control to redirect force.
The moment Kaede's offensive rhythm breaks, his defense is going to collapse."
As though to confirm Megumi's conclusion, Mei Mei, the instant she pinned down the staff, let her long right leg snap out into a black blur.
The leg, wrapped in dark stockings, cut through the air with enough force to shatter steel, striking from a vicious angle straight toward the wrist gripping the staff, aiming to disarm Kaede and cripple him in the same motion.