In the front seat, the stressed, pale-faced assistant director cleared his throat loudly. Ijichi adjusted his glasses, his knuckles white where they gripped the steering wheel.
He was currently chauffeuring the Vessel of Sukuna and Satoru Gojo's mysterious, unregistered anomaly. The poor man looked like he was one traffic jam away from a cardiac event.
"Um. Excuse me. If we could focus, please," Ijichi stammered politely, his eyes darting to the rearview mirror. "We are approaching the drop-off point in Kawasaki. I need to brief you on the operation regarding Junpei Yoshino."
Yuji instantly straightened up, his playful demeanor vanishing like a flipped switch. The golden retriever energy morphed back into the focused, determined stare of a sorcerer ready to work.
"Right. Sorry, Ijichi-san," Yuji said, nodding sharply. "What's the plan? Nanami-sensei said we have to test him."
"Yes," Ijichi replied, sounding immensely relieved that they were back on a professional topic. "I have a low-grade, harmless curse—a Flyhead—contained in a wooden box in the trunk. The objective is to release it near Yoshino-kun without him noticing us."
Ijichi pulled the sedan onto a quieter residential street, the tires crunching softly against the pavement as he slowed down.
"If he is a normal civilian, he won't be able to see it, and it will simply buzz away," Ijichi explained, shifting the car into park. "However, if he tracks it with his eyes... it means he possesses the aptitude to see cursed energy. At that point, you are to make contact and interrogate him regarding the incident at the cinema."
"Got it," Yuji said, cracking his knuckles. He looked over at Ren, offering a solid, dependable nod.
"We find the kid, release the fly, see if he looks at it. Easy."
"Let's hope so," Ren agreed, pushing the car door open and stepping out into the cool afternoon air.
He stretched his shoulders, glancing down the quiet street toward the coordinates Ijichi had provided.
He already knew exactly who Junpei Yoshino was, and he knew perfectly well that the bullied kid could see curses.
The real trick today wasn't going to be testing Junpei—it was going to be intercepting him before the disaster with Mahito escalated beyond the point of no return.
Yuji hopped out of the other side of the car, slamming the door shut. He grabbed the small, sealed wooden box Ijichi handed him through the window, holding it carefully.
"Alright, Ren!" Yuji grinned, his bright yellow hoodie practically glowing in the afternoon sun as he gestured down the sidewalk. "Let's go stake out a high schooler!"
Ren shoved his hands deep into his denim jacket pockets, falling into step beside him. "Lead the way, kid."
Yuji took exactly three steps down the sidewalk before he suddenly stopped in his tracks.
He pivoted on his heel, his bright pink hair catching the afternoon breeze, and leveled a surprisingly scrutinizing look at Ren.
"You know," Yuji pointed out, tilting his head slightly. "You keep calling me 'kid'."
Ren paused, pulling his hands out of his pockets. "Yeah?"
"We're basically the same age," Yuji stated matter-of-factly, gesturing between the two of them. "You're a first-year transfer student, right? You can't be more older than me right?. Can you stop trying to act so cool and old? You're starting to sound like Nanami-sensei."
Ren just stood there for a second, staring at the boy.
He froze for a moment. Between the Heavenly Restriction giving him the physique, his pre-existing knowledge of the entire Jujutsu world, and the sheer mental weight of having a literal System, he had completely defaulted to acting like the hardened, older mentor of the group.
He had genuinely forgotten that, on paper, he was literally just a high schooler.
Ren looked at Yuji weirdly, the carefully constructed, aloof persona cracking for just a fraction of a second as the reality check hit him.
"...."
"Yea..." Ren muttered quietly, rubbing the back of his neck with a sheepish exhale. "...you are right...."
"See? I'm just Yuji!" the boy beamed, completely satisfied with his victory. He turned back around and continued marching down the sidewalk. "Come on, classmate. Let's go find our guy."
...
The sterile, chemical scent of the morgue hadn't changed, but the room felt significantly heavier now that Yuji, Nanami, and Ren were gone.
Shoko Ieiri sat at her cluttered stainless-steel desk, a fresh cigarette dangling between her lips as she aggressively stamped a red 'CLASSIFIED' seal onto the autopsy files of the three transfigured high schoolers.
She exhaled a long stream of gray smoke toward the ventilation grate, rubbing her temple. Humans warped by cursed energy until their souls broke. It was a messy, ugly business, and Nanami was right to take it seriously.
Just as she reached for her half-empty mug of lukewarm black coffee, her phone vibrated against the metal table. The screen lit up, accompanied by an obnoxiously loud pop-song ringtone she had explicitly tried to delete from her phone three times.
The Caller ID simply read: The Idiot.
Shoko let out a heavy, suffering sigh. She picked up the phone and pressed it to her ear.
"I am currently forging medical documents for a secret execution cover-up and analyzing warped human souls," Shoko answered flatly. "If you are calling to complain about the local bakery in Kyoto running out of strawberry mochi, I am going to hang up on you."
"Shoko! You wound me!" Satoru Gojo's overly dramatic, entirely too-cheerful voice echoed through the speaker. There was the faint, stuffy sound of traditional koto music playing in the background on his end of the line.
"I'll have you know I bought all the mochi before the bakery even opened. I'm calling because I'm dying of boredom! Kyoto is suffocating. These conservative elders talk so slow I swear I've aged five years in a single meeting."
"Then hang up and pay attention to your meeting."
"Can't. Principal Gakuganji is currently lecturing me about 'respecting tradition.' It's a great time to check in on my favorite doctor," Gojo chirped, completely unbothered. The sound of a candy wrapper crinkling came through the line. "So? How are my cute students doing? Nanami hasn't killed Yuji yet, right?"
"They're fine. Nanami took them to Kawasaki, they ran into a trap, and brought the bodies back here," Shoko summarized dryly. "Yuji was definitely shaken up. But your other stray... the anomaly. Ren."
"Ah, yes. The boy who stole my title of Jujutsu High's Most Handsome," Gojo mused, the playful tone masking the razor-sharp curiosity underneath. "How did he handle a live combat zone? Was he shaking in his boots? Did he beg to come back to campus?"
Shoko paused, taking another drag of her cigarette. She looked across the room at the empty examination table where Ren had been casually sitting just an hour ago.
"Hardly," Shoko replied, a faint, dry smirk pulling at her lips. "In fact, I'd say he's entirely too comfortable. He didn't even flinch at the bodies. He just waited for Yuji to leave, hopped onto my table, told me my dark circles were terrible, and offered to buy me coffee."
There was a dead, absolute silence on the other end of the line.
The traditional koto music kept playing.
"...He what?" Gojo's voice finally came back, completely dropping the cheerful cadence.
"He told me I need to sleep more and offered to take me out for coffee," Shoko repeated, her smirk widening just a fraction as she flicked her ashes into the tray. "Honestly, Satoru, the kid is dangerously smooth. I completely understand why Maki is guarding him like a dragon with a hoard. If you aren't careful, he's going to charm the entire faculty by Tuesday."
"Unbelievable," Gojo huffed, sounding genuinely offended. "I leave him alone for one day and he starts making moves on my doctor? The audacity! I should have sent him to Hokkaido! Wait... you didn't say yes, did you?"
"I told him the offer stands," Shoko said smoothly, thoroughly enjoying messing with him.
"Traitor!"
Shoko chuckled, but the brief moment of levity faded as she leaned back in her chair. She tapped the ash from her cigarette, her brown eyes narrowing slightly at the ceiling.
"Jokes aside, Satoru," Shoko murmured, her voice dropping its dry humor, replacing it with the sharp, clinical curiosity of a veteran doctor.
"What is your actual read on him? Because medically and fundamentally, his existence makes absolutely zero sense."
The line went quiet again, but this time, the theatrical annoyance on Gojo's end vanished. The faint koto music in the background seemed to fade out.