Megumi was still leaning against the Divine Dogs, trying to steady his breathing.
Touma crouched in front of him and asked softly, in a tone gentle enough to calm a stray animal and serious enough to feel like a vow,
"What do you think, Megumi? If you don't mind... I can teach you how to use these powers. A little at a time. Want that?"
For a child who'd spent his whole life ignored and left to scrape by on scraps of security, that offer was irresistible.
Power.
Companionship.
Somebody staying.
Megumi didn't think. The answer came out before he could stop it, breathless and shaking and bright in a way he hadn't been earlier.
"Yes!"
Touma smiled.
From his inner pocket, he pulled out a slip of paper he'd prepared beforehand. A fresh anonymous phone number was written on it in neat print. He pressed it into Megumi's hand and lied without hesitation.
"Keep this with you. Your father... because of some special kind of work, nobody really knows where he's gone. He probably won't be back for a long time. If you ever run into trouble you can't handle, or somebody gives you a hard time, call this number any time."
Megumi looked down at the digits in his palm.
The excitement drained out of his face almost immediately. In its place came that same chilly quiet, the kind no child his age should've worn so naturally.
He stared at the paper without saying anything.
Touma lowered his voice.
"What's wrong? Has it... been a long time since you've seen him?"
Megumi crumpled the slip a little in his fist. He turned his head and stared at a dim streetlight off to the side. When he finally spoke, his voice was flat and empty.
"I haven't seen him in years. I can barely even remember his face anymore. So whatever happened to that man, whether he's dead or alive, wherever he is... it has nothing to do with me. I don't care."
The words landed like ice water.
Hearing something that final from a boy who wasn't even ten yet made Touma's chest lock up.
He looked at Megumi's stubborn profile, at the way the kid was trying to use indifference like a weapon, and for a second nothing came out.
His lips moved.
In the end all that escaped was a whisper too quiet for anyone to hear.
"I'm sorry..."
Megumi couldn't have understood how much weight those two words carried.
It was grief for a child thrown away by his own father like dead weight.
And it was also a confession buried so deep it would never surface, because only a few hours earlier, the man standing in front of him had slit Toji Fushiguro's throat and buried the body in a remote mountain forest.
Touma cut that line of thought off before it showed on his face.
He noticed the flicker of confusion in Megumi's eyes and shifted the conversation cleanly.
"If he's gone, then how are you living right now? What does that actually look like?"
Megumi frowned, thinking it over.
He still didn't fully trust this stranger. That much was obvious. But the Divine Dogs had already tipped the balance. He answered honestly.
"I live with Tsumiki. Her mom used to stop by sometimes and bring instant food and check on us, but... she's been coming less and less. I haven't seen her in weeks. Those two are probably off somewhere together, doing whatever they want while pretending we don't exist."
It was too sharp. Too bitter. Too accurate.
Way too grown-up.
All it did was confirm what Touma already suspected.
These kids had been abandoned completely.
When it was finally time to part ways, Touma didn't hesitate.
He reached into his pocket and took out the thick stack of ten-thousand-yen bills Masamichi Yaga had shoved at him earlier that day, along with instructions to go waste it on vacation. Aside from the little he'd already spent on the prepaid phone card, every bill went straight into Megumi's backpack.
"That's too much. I can't..."
Megumi panicked and tried to refuse. He'd probably never seen that much money in his life.
Touma caught his hand and stopped him.
When Megumi looked up, the softness in Touma's face was gone. His eyes had turned hard, and every word came down heavy.
"Take it. This is what keeps you and your sister alive."
He didn't give the boy room to argue.
"Now listen carefully. If you've got spare time, you can try calling the Divine Dogs out through the shadows and build up your connection with them. But don't manifest them where other people can see. Most normal people can't see them at all, but some can."
Megumi went still.
Touma took a slow breath, set both hands on the boy's shoulders, and spoke with the weight of an oath.
"And one more thing, Megumi. This matters more than anything else. Burn it into your head and don't ever forget it. Even if one day you gain enough power that nobody can stop you, you must never use it to crush people weaker than you. You understand? Power exists so you can protect the people you want to protect. It is not something you use to bully the helpless."
His voice rang through the empty alley.
Those words were guidance for a child who could very easily be twisted by the world he was about to enter.
But they were also more than that.
They were Touma's answer to the entire rotten jujutsu world.
The sheer force behind them rooted Megumi in place.
He couldn't possibly understand all the blood and bodies packed behind that warning. He didn't know the scale of the hatred, the losses, the mistakes. But he understood the feeling of it.
The way a child understands thunder.
Not the mechanism.
Just the power.
He nodded hard.
"I understand. I won't."
Touma looked into those clear green eyes for another second, then slowly let go.
He knew that even if Megumi gained strength far earlier than he had in the original timeline, the boy still wouldn't become that kind of person.
Touma had already seen what sort of man he would grow into.
He stepped back.
His outline melted into the evening dark until only his voice remained, already being scattered by the wind.
"Go on. Get home before your sister starts worrying."
---
Before his short "vacation" officially ended, Touma made one last stop by himself and went back to his old home.
The place where everything in this world had started to go wrong.
No one lived there anymore. The old furniture that used to feel warm and familiar now sat in silence under cracked walls and peeling paint.
He hid the guns and ammo from Toji's Inventory Curse there, then turned around and headed back to Jujutsu High.
The dorm door opened under his hand. He had just stepped into the familiar wooden hallway and was halfway to his room when he ran into Suguru Geto, who had apparently just gotten back from an easy mission and was covering a yawn.
Geto was dressed casually today. He looked lazy in that usual way of someone who'd just clocked out. When he spotted Touma, he raised a hand.
"Yo. You're back. How was the break? Did you..."
He didn't get to finish.
Without any warning at all, Touma pulled a round object from his pocket, flicked his wrist, and sent it flying straight at Geto's face.
Geto reacted on instinct.
His eyes sharpened. Even half-tired, his hand snapped up and caught it with a clean smack.
"This is... a Cursed Spirit?"
He opened his hand and looked down.
Curled into a tight little ball, head to tail, was a weird-looking creature trembling in his palm.
The residual cursed energy leaking from it wasn't even at Grade 1 level. Grade 2 at best. A weak little thing.
Touma stopped walking and pointed at it, voice flat as always.
"Call it a souvenir. I ran into it while I was taking care of some things outside. It's ugly as hell, but its stomach opens into a pocket space big enough to store large objects. Seemed like a mobile storage unit might be useful for you."
The word souvenir made the corner of Geto's mouth twitch.
Normal high schoolers brought back snacks.
Touma brought back a Cursed Spirit.
Still, Geto understood the value immediately. For sorcerers like them, a hidden storage space you could carry around had all kinds of uses in a fight. Calling it merely useful was putting it lightly.
"I'm not like that idiot Gojo, getting excited over sweets like a little kid..." Geto let out a helpless, crooked smile. Still, there was a bit of warmth in his eyes.
He didn't waste time. Right there in the hallway, he used Cursed Spirit Manipulation. A pulse of cursed energy rippled through the air, and the Inventory Curse in his palm shrank inward with a warped cry, compressing into a pitch-black orb that smelled absolutely vile.
Geto stared at the thing. His throat moved once.
Then, fighting down the nausea he knew was coming, he tossed it into his mouth and swallowed.
Like eating a rag soaked in vomit.
Every single time.
It never got easier. Not even a little.
His face barely changed, though his brow twitched for the briefest second before he looked back at Touma.
"You really don't need to bring me extra meals as souvenirs... Still, thanks."
Touma gave a small nod.
He had no intention of telling Geto that the truly valuable contents of the Inventory Curse, the special-grade cursed tools, had already been moved into the deep shadows of the Ten Shadows Technique he'd copied through Phantom Night Parade before he ever stepped back through Jujutsu High's barrier.
What he had handed over was basically an empty bag.
As Geto forced down the last of the taste still clinging to his mouth, something else came to mind. He changed the subject immediately.
"Right. Almost forgot. Yaga-sensei told us to let you know he wants to see you the second you got back."
Touma could already guess what that careful teacher wanted to talk about. He dipped his head.
"Got it."
---
Next Target 2200PS :)