"Yo, if it isn't Suguru Geto! How'd you get so pathetic in just a few days?"
Since the Star Plasma Vessel incident, the smiles on Suguru Geto's face had become few and far between. In his downtime, he was usually seen wandering the campus with his head down, face clouded in a dark, inscrutable gloom.
Today, as he sat on a bench near the school pavilion, he heard someone calling his name. He looked up, startled.
Standing before him was a white-bearded old man with only one arm and one leg. He wore a blue-and-white patterned haori and shorts, with the kanji for "Heart" printed in red on his chest. Leaning on a crutch, the old man stared at him intently.
"And you are...?" Suguru was bewildered. This old-timer had zero sense of personal boundaries.
"Oof, I'm beat." The old man tossed his crutch aside and collapsed onto the grass. "It's me, Hasegumo. Hurry up and help me untie this." He slapped his right leg as he spoke.
Following his gesture, Suguru realized the "amputated" leg was actually bent back and bound tightly with thin, translucent wires.
"What on earth are you doing?" Suguru knelt down to help unravel the restraints. "Why would you tie your leg behind your back?"
"The Akihabara Comiket, obviously! Don't you know about it?" Hasegumo ripped off his fake beard and eyebrows. "I went as Isaac Netero."
"Uh..." Suguru was momentarily speechless. Even if he didn't read much manga, he knew who Netero was—mostly. "That's... quite the commitment. You even shaved your head."
"It's cosplay! You have to give it your all for the sake of accuracy. Everyone was so enthusiastic when I got there." Finally free, Hasegumo wiped the sweat from his brow and sprawled across another bench. "But man, the crowds were insane."
"Is that so?" Suguru's voice remained low, still tinged with melancholy.
"Don't be so gloomy." Hasegumo threw an arm around Suguru's shoulder. "How about you come with me next time? There are plenty of lively, pretty girls there, you know."
"I think I'll pass." Suguru clearly had no interest in women at the moment. "Actually... I've been meaning to ask you something."
"What is it? A smart guy like you actually has a question for me?" Hasegumo rubbed his bald scalp next to his braid; the texture was surprisingly satisfying.
Seeing Suguru's dead-serious expression, Hasegumo dropped the playful act. "Go ahead. I'll give you an honest answer."
"It's just..." Suguru struggled to find the right words. "How is it that you're always so... happy?"
Sensing he hadn't quite made himself clear, he added, "I don't mean to offend you, but I want to know: have you ever experienced anything truly tragic?"
"Of course," Hasegumo answered without a second of hesitation. "Plenty."
"Back before I was a sorcerer, when I was just a kid, my grandfather was killed by a curse." He gently rubbed his thigh. "It was probably just a weak curse. Back then, all I felt was terror—the desperate urge to survive. But afterward, the sadness set in. Sadness at my own weakness. Sadness watching a life wither away right in front of me."
Suguru didn't speak. He just watched him silently.
"After I met Uncle Ijichi, I started training," Hasegumo continued, not particularly caring if his answer was "healing" enough, simply letting the story flow. "That feeling was great. You didn't have to think about anything; you just had to work hard."
"Once, while exorcising a curse, I met a boy named Kiyotaka. He was adorable, and a natural genius at martial arts." A shadow of a smile flickered on Hasegumo's face before fading. "He trained with me and Uncle Ijichi for about a year."
"He had an incredibly powerful technique. At the same age, he definitely would have been stronger than me."
"But because of a group of ignorant 'monkeys'—non-sorcerers who couldn't understand us and wanted to destroy a shrine—his grandfather ended up dead."
"And then?" The story had hooked Suguru's emotions. He couldn't help but press for more. "What happened to him?"
"There is no 'then.'" Hasegumo snapped out of the memory, his voice returning to a calm, flat tone. "The boy sacrificed his own technique and died."
"It was a hell of a fight," a bright smile returned to his face. "After Kiyotaka sacrificed his technique, he resurrected the curse his family had worshipped for generations, but it went berserk without a master. Tetsuya-senpai and I were almost killed."
"Luckily, I grasped the Maximum Technique of Cursed Energy Liberation just in time to save our skins." Hasegumo flexed his arm, showing off his muscle. "Pretty impressive, right? That was a Special Grade."
Suguru didn't play along. He stared into Hasegumo's eyes and asked the question that was truly eating at him: "After experiencing all that, what do you think the relationship between sorcerers and non-sorcerers should be? Is it... truly 'right' for sorcerers to have to protect them?"
It felt less like he wanted an answer and more like he was looking for validation. Hasegumo, however, refused to lie just to comfort him. He answered earnestly:
"Of course not. What a sorcerer chooses to do is their own business. Being a 'sorcerer' is just a specialized profession. The only 'mandatory' part of the job description is exorcising curses."
"As for the relationship? You're asking if those ignorant 'monkeys' are worth protecting, right?"
"Oppression, lack of empathy, stupidity, a refusal to learn... those traits exist in both sorcerers and non-sorcerers alike."
"At the end of the day, sorcerers aren't special. We're just humans with a specific talent. Just like a mathematician can solve complex equations, a sorcerer's ability is exorcising curses. That's it."
Hasegumo stood up and patted Suguru's shoulder. "Kid, thinking too much only leads to misery. Don't act like an old man, obsessing over 'meaning' all day. Use your brain less. Some things you'll only understand after you've lived through enough of them."
"Life and death, huh?" Suguru murmured, lost in thought.
"Speaking of which, I see a lot of potential in you, young man! Want to practice martial arts with me?" Hasegumo was always looking for ways to expand the Shingen-ryu.
"I..." Just as Suguru was searching for a polite way to decline—
"Hey, tell me, how do you run so fast with a crutch and only one leg?" Satoru Gojo's annoyed voice rang out from behind them.
They both looked up. Even in his existential state, Suguru couldn't maintain his composure. His facial muscles twitched, his "cool" facade crumbling instantly. "You... what the hell happened to you?"
Satoru immediately caught Hasegumo in a headlock. "You bastard! We agreed to stick together, and the second I got cornered, you ditched me and ran back alone?"
"I'm dying! I'm dying!" Hasegumo wheezed, tapping Satoru's thigh in a frantic surrender. "I was wrong! I'm actually dying... can't... breathe..."
Satoru let go, and Hasegumo collapsed onto the bench like a dead dog, gasping for air. "I'm alive..."
Hasegumo glanced at Suguru. The gloom on his friend's face had lightened significantly. "You mean this?" Hasegumo pointed to the lipstick marks covering Satoru's face. "I went to the convention with Satoru. We were supposed to move as a unit, but a swarm of enthusiastic 'older sisters' surrounded him."
"And despite having the Limitless active, someone seemed to be enjoying himself quite a bit." Today, Hasegumo took over Suguru's usual job of exposing Satoru's nonsense.
Satoru kicked Hasegumo off the bench with a roll of his eyes and continued, "Shut up. I just wanted to look around, and this guy insisted I cosplay with him. Silva Zoldyck."
Satoru did a slow pirouette. "Well? How's the accuracy?"
"I have no idea who that is." Looking at the two of them, Suguru found it impossible to maintain his high-and-mighty brooding act. "It's only been a few days, right? I have to ask... why did you suddenly get so... uh, buff?"
Satoru's current physique was easily a match for Toji Fushiguro's. At 190cm, he was wearing dark grey martial arts robes, with his chest, abs, and biceps all on full display. He wouldn't have looked out of place in a bodybuilding competition.
"I told you, it's cosplay! Has all that brooding rotted your brain?" Satoru reached down and suddenly yanked at his chest, peeling off his clothes.
"What are you doing?!" Suguru's mind went into a tailspin. He thought, Hasegumo is right there, if you want to be a degenerate, go find him!
With another tug from his chest downward, Satoru revealed the truth. "If you're going to cosplay Silva, you need his physique. His muscles are his trademark." Satoru tossed a massive, rubbery heap at Suguru. "It's a fake muscle suit. You seriously didn't know about these?"
Satoru's tone was so condescending that Suguru actually began to wonder if his ignorance of fake muscle suits was a cardinal sin.
"Who would want to know about that? You're both grown men, yet you're totally immersed in your 2D world. Your parents would be worried sick."
"I don't have parents." This was the invincible orphan, Hasegumo.
"I'm the Clan Head." Satoru, now the leader of the Gojo family, pointed out that he was the one who made the rules.
Gently tossing the muscle suit onto the bench, Suguru stood up. A mischievous, slightly sinister expression crossed his face. "By the way, you're both Grade 1 sorcerers now. Instead of working hard to exorcise curses, you're sneaking off to conventions. I wonder what Yaga-sensei would think?"
Crap. Hasegumo and Satoru locked eyes. Simultaneously, they lunged forward, each grabbing one of Suguru's arms and rubbing their heads against his shoulders like needy cats.
"Suguru~! Don't treat your best friend like this!" This was the perpetually shameless Satoru Gojo.
"If you tell Yaga-sensei, I'll probably never be allowed outside again..." This was the (seemingly) honest Hasegumo.
"Woof! Woof!"
Hachi had somehow untied his leash in the dorms and came bounding up to the trio, barking softly.
"Are you hungry? I'll go get that new dog food I bought for you in a bit."
Suguru shook off their hands and knelt to scratch Hachi under the chin. Hachi leaned into the touch, squinting his eyes in pure bliss. "Whimper~"
"Two sets of the 'Extra Large Soba Special' from Rengetsu-an," Suguru declared. "Otherwise, no deal."
"Copy that!" "Consider it done!"
"And one more thing."
"What is it?" "Just say the word."
"Next time you go to a convention... take me with you."
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