The crisp, spring air brushed gently against the nape of Midoriya's neck. With everything that had happened, the end of winter had felt as if it had lasted five times longer than it actually did. It made the first true burst of warm weather feel all the better as a result.
A quick punch to the face tore all of that asunder. Two months ago, getting punched in the face the way he just was would have knocked him flat on the ground, or at least made him want to cry. Now, however, he could not only stand his ground and keep his face dry, but he could send his own punch right back at his opponent. Maki dodged it with ease, but he was still happy that he could even give her chase and keep throwing punches at her.
All of the work Gojo had put into teaching him about curse energy was paying off. Once he finally understood what it was that he was feeling, he could repeat that whenever need be to bring out his curse energy; watching All Might: Rise of Justice to completion brought him to tears not just because it was a great movie, but because it was the first time he could watch it in weeks without getting punched in the face.
Midoriya's continuing grasp of curse energy was further enhanced by the training Maki was giving him. Two months of extreme exercise and physical training didn't do a lot in the grand scheme of things, but it made him more physically fit than he could have possibly imagined for himself. Maki almost made Bakugou seem tame by comparison, but he was beyond grateful to have her spend so much time teaching him the ropes, even as she laid him flat on his ass for the fifth time in a row.
"You wanna call it a day here?" Maki asked, not appearing to have broken a single sweat.
"Yes, please," Midoriya said with a groan. Maki helped him off the ground as the onlookers, minus Fushiguro, cheered him on for his efforts.
"You've managed to last a whole three minutes against Maki before giving up, Midoriya. That's the best you've done, yet!" Panda said.
"Futomaki," Inumaki said; Midoriya chose to assume that he was also congratulating him.
"I thought I'd be able to get at least one hit in, though," Midoriya said.
"Learn how to not fight like a dumbass, then," Maki said. Midoriya kept looking at her for elaboration, but it didn't take long for him to realize that it would never come.
"Maki-senpai is referring to the improper way in which you use curse energy." It was Yanagi who ended up explaining things to him. "Whenever you decide on which part of your body you will strike with, you make your curse energy flare up too much in that area, thus telegraphing your next attack. It's not an issue for weak curses, but for opponents who have a high degree of intelligence, especially humans, it can be highly detrimental."
"Am I really doing that? I just thought I was bad at fighting, in general," Midoriya said.
"Well, there's that, too," Fushiguro said. "With or without curse energy, if you're going to telegraph your attacks so blatantly, you need to at least make sure they're too good for your opponent to do anything about them."
"Right, sorry. The last time I ever threw a punch was when I was four, and getting completely pulverized for it wasn't much of a motivator to learn how to do it better. Never thought having to fight for my survival against curses would be what pushed me to do it, but I guess it had to be something, right?"
"That's the spirit, kid!" Hakari said with a thumbs up.
"You can do it, Icchan!" Hoshi said with his hands in the air. "I believe in you, so you can do it, one hundred and seventy-seven percent!" His enthusiasm almost made him believe that without reservations. Positive reinforcement was truly a wonderful thing, as it turned out; it made him wish he had put in more of an effort to get some before his life had been upended so thoroughly.
"Hey, kids, it's me, Gojo!" Gojo suddenly appearing in the middle of the field next to Midoriya to say that nearly made him fall over. Everyone else started shouting at Gojo, and Hakari even threw a soda can at him that somehow flew right back into Hakari's hand.
"I see you're all having fun here, and what's the best thing to add to that? Homework!" Gojo said. "Izuku, Megumi, Reiko, school's officially in session, so we've got a double whammy of things to do today: pick up your last classmate in Harajuku, and go on your first official assignment of the year!"
And there it was. Midoriya's first official call to duty, the first mission as a sorcerer he would undergo in the limited amount of time he had left on Earth.
At least he sort of knew how to fight, now.
Midoriya's seniors saw him off with varying degrees of encouragement, the biggest being Hoshi's enthusiastic wishes of good luck and the smallest being Maki saying that she'd kill him if he died. Midoriya took it all in stride as Gojo drove him, Fushiguro, and Yanagi into town to meet up with their last classmate.
Before they left, Gojo gave Midoriya something he had been waiting weeks to receive: his Jujutsu High uniform. It was the same black gakuran that Fushiguro and Inumaki wore, but unlike theirs, his uniform had a dark green hoodie with rabbit ears sewn into the collar. Gojo said that students were allowed to customize their uniforms if they put in a request, but the fact that he took it upon himself to do it without telling Midoriya sort of defeated the purpose. The hood looked nice, it bore a resemblance to All Might, and the uniform left enough breathing room for what he had on underneath, so it was a rare moment of him not complaining about something Gojo did.
The four of them made their way into Harajuku and headed for the train station, only ever stopping six times so Yanagi could get food from various stalls. Midoriya didn't know what the last student would be like, but there was a disproportionate amount of crazy people among the sorcerers he knew, so he was sincerely hoping she skewed more towards normalcy. Midoriya didn't know where, exactly, they were supposed to be meeting her, and as he looked around for someone who could be the new student, he saw a young girl continually being harassed by an older man about being a model. At worst, it was a trap for something perverted and illegal, and at best, it was a scam to rob her of all of her money, but either way, Midoriya couldn't let it continue.
"Hey, you!" Just as Midoriya was getting ready to discard his uniform and spring into action, a girl grabbed the man and pulled him away from his intended victim. Midoriya felt he could rest easy knowing that someone was already handling things. "What about me?"
Or maybe this is getting worse? Midoriya thought.
"Come again?" the man asked.
"What are you, deaf? If you need a model, then I'm way better than this chick, you know," the girl said. "I'm taller than her, I'm skinnier than her, my face is prettier, so why not pick me, huh?"
"Excuse me?" the first girl asked.
"Quiet, this isn't about you. This is about this bozo not understanding what he's missing out on!" The first girl stomped off in a huff, and the older man ran away in the opposite direction. "Hey! Come on, man, I'm the total package! Your loss, asshole!" The girl shook her fist in the air and started kicking a garbage can while muttering obscenities under her breath.
"Our final compatriot certainly has a unique disposition," Yanagi said while working her way through three chocolate crepes. Midoriya turned his head around so fast that it nearly flew off of his neck.
"What? She's our classmate? Are you sure there isn't some kind of mix-up?" Midoriya asked.
"Yeah, I'm with you on this one," Fushiguro said. "Maybe if we just leave quietly before she sees us—"
"Hey! Over here!" Gojo's yelling put an end to Fushiguro's plan and quickly brought the aggressive girl over to them. With the girl in front of him, Midoriya could see that she was wearing the female variant of their uniform, but unlike Maki's, the jacket only went down to her midriff, with that space being covered up by the belt of her skirt. She had a short crop of auburn hair with a rose blooming out of the left side of her head, most likely a mutation from her Quirk, and her eyes were glaring at them from the moment she joined them.
"Way to keep a girl waiting," she said. "Well, anyway, I'm Nobara Kugisaki, and now that I'm here, this group is finally worth a damn." Midoriya didn't like any of that.
"I-I-I'm Izuku Midoriya! N-Nice to meet you, Kugisaki-san!" Midoriya said.
"Reiko Yanagi. A pleasure to make your acquaintance," Yanagi said between bites of her fifth crepe.
"Megumi Fushiguro," Fushiguro said with notable disinterest. Kugisaki said nothing as her eyes darted back and forth between Midoriya and Fushiguro, and after a few seconds, she let out an exasperated sigh.
"Just my luck, getting saddled with a couple of losers like you two," Kugisaki said; Midoriya didn't like any of that, either. Kugisaki then turned her attention to Yanagi, and her eyes began to light up a little. "Wait, are you a girl?"
"That is what my gynecologist has told me, yes," Yanagi said. Yanagi wiped off large splashes of chocolate against her sleeve before Kugisaki picked her up in a hug.
"Oh my God, yes! I'm so glad I'm not gonna have to spend my golden years stuck in a sausage fest! Thank you so much for being a girl, Yanagi, even if you're a slobby girl who needs to know when you should and shouldn't be eating!"
"You're welcome, now please release me." Kugisaki did just that, and Midoriya couldn't help but think that it was good that Kugisaki was getting along with someone, even if it wasn't himself.
"Okay, now that we've all gotten to know Nobara a little, I think it's time to give her a little sightseeing tour of our wonderful city," Gojo said.
"Really? Then I want to go to Disneyland!" Kugisaki said with stars in her eyes. "My shithead brother went last year with all his friends and his awesome wife and won't stop bragging about it, so I wanna stick it to him and have a good time, doing it!"
"Yeah, that's something you're gonna have to do on your own time. For now, let's head on down to Roppongi." Kugisaki jumped with glee, but Midoriya was certain that there wasn't just cause for her to be so happy about it.
Once Gojo brought them to Roppongi, Midoriya became completely certain that there wasn't just cause for Kugisaki to be so happy. Rather than the fancy, tourist attractions of Roppongi Hills, they were brought to a decrepit, abandoned building that was oozing with negative energy. Kugisaki was cursing Gojo out for lying to them, which was promptly ignored by everyone.
"There's a huge cemetery down the block. That, combined with this creepy building, has drawn out some curses," Gojo said.
"Right. I guess that makes sense, what with it being a cemetery and all," Midoriya said.
"It's not explicitly because it's a cemetery so much as it's because people associate cemeteries with fear," Fushiguro said. Kugisaki stopped her ranting and walked up to Midoriya.
"Hey, how do you not know that? That's basic stuff, right there; even a country bumpkin like me knows about that," Kugisaki said. Yanagi stepped over to Kugisaki and whispered into her ear. By the time Yanagi pulled away, Kugisaki's face had gone pale and she had jumped five meters away from them. "No way! He's the one who ate Sukuna's finger? Gross! Super nasty! Give a girl a heads up about something like that!"
"Sorry," Midoriya said with his head lowered a bit.
"Pretty sure I told you about that, Nobara. Sure, I like to keep things from people to screw around with them, but there's nothing all that funny about this," Gojo said.
"Well no one here was looking like they fit the bill, and even when I try to think about it, I would have put more money on it being him," Kugisaki said, pointing at Fushiguro. "Just look at those cold, dead eyes that have never seen an ounce of luster. If you're telling me that he's not possessed by something, then he has to be a serial killer, right?"
"I could start," Fushiguro said.
"Now, now, save the killing for the curses, kiddies," Gojo said. "Nobara, Izuku, you two go exterminate the curses inside the building. Megumi, Reiko, and I will stay out here to keep an eye on things." Kugisaki stuck out her tongue.
"Mr. Gojo, would it not be better for all of us to enter?" Yanagi asked.
"The curses here aren't so strong that all four of you need to work together to beat them. More importantly, I already know what you and Megumi are capable of, so now it's their turn to show me what they've got. Hope you're up for it."
"Hey, don't ask me, ask—" Kugisaki suddenly stopped talking, and if Midoriya had to guess, it was for the same reason everyone was staring at him: they had all caught sight of his Hero costume.
The day that everything started, Gojo had told Midoriya that sorcerers disguised themselves as Heroes in order to go about their business unimpeded, so that meant that they had to wear costumes, too. If it was okay for sorcerers to wear costumes, then that meant it was okay for him to wear a costume, too, so he wore the costume his mom had made him under his uniform and had now stripped down to it. Looking around made him feel out of place, but he was still confident in his decision.
"Well, that's certainly a choice. A stupid choice, but it's still a choice," Fushiguro said.
"I must admit that the initial charm of the outfit is highly accentuated when it is actually being worn," Yanagi said.
"T-Thanks, Yanagi-san," Midoriya said as pulled his mask out of his pocket and put it over his head. Things appeared to be going better than he thought they would.
That thought was swiftly abandoned when Gojo and Kugisaki started laughing like hyenas.
"Oh man, oh man, oh man, oh man, oh man, you look stupid!" Gojo said through his laughter. "I can't believe you looked in the mirror this morning, saw what you look like, and thought that you didn't look like a dumbass!"
"What are you trying to do, kill curses through secondhand cringe?" Kugisaki asked as she wiped a tear from her eye. "God, and to think I even thought about being afraid of you! Hard to be scared of a guy who decided to make himself some bunny pajamas to fight in, you know!"
"Actually, my mom made this for me." The instant Midoriya said that, Gojo and Kugisaki both stopped laughing.
"Yes, well, I think it's nice that you have a mother who would provide you with so much support," Gojo said with a fake cough.
"A mother who would go to such lengths to support their child deserves all the admiration and respect in the world," Kugisaki said. Midoriya was willing to take whatever he was given.
"Anyway, Izuku, take this." Gojo tossed Midoriya a small parcel of some sort, and he unwrapped it to find a dagger with fur wrapped around the hilt. "That's the cursed tool Slaughter Demon; doesn't do much besides slice up curses, but it should be good enough for this kind of mission. You've gotten a good handling of curse energy these past couple of months, but you're still pretty green, so this should help you out."
"Oh, wow," Midoriya said. He waved the Slaughter Demon around in the air; it felt light in his hand, and he could almost feel the energy contained inside of it.
"Also, this goes without saying, but don't bring out Sukuna. The danger he poses to others is one thing, but he could wipe out the curses in this building in a nanosecond, so that'd make it hard to test you."
"Don't worry, sir. It's not like I plan on letting him out again." That was the one promise he wanted to keep, above all else.
Nobara Kugisaki used to believe that she was blessed in life, what with her good looks, powerful Quirk, and humble personality, but for the first time in her life, she was starting to think that she was legitimately cursed. Barely off of her train ride into Tokyo and she was already being put to work by her school, and worst of all, she was being forced to work with a total wimp of a man who just so happened to be possessed by Ryomen Sukuna; it was a double whammy of absolute awfulness. She could only imagine how much her brother would laugh at her when he heard about her misfortune, and she wouldn't even be able to punch him in the face right away because the last thing she wanted was to cause a scene in front of her sister-in-law.
"Man, this whole thing is a pain in the ass to end all pains in the ass," Kugisaki said as she and Midoriya traversed the abandoned building.
"Isn't this our job, though?" Midoriya asked. Kugisaki barely turned to look at him, partly because she still felt a little unsafe around him, partly because she knew she couldn't look at him in his costume for too long without cracking up.
"I wanna be outta here as soon as now, so let's split up. I'll start up top and work my way down, so you start at the bottom and work your way up."
"W-Wait, don't you think we should stick together?" Kugisaki could practically taste the lack of drive in her partner.
"This isn't a horror movie or a Scooby-Doo cartoon, you know. Splitting up isn't a death sentence."
"B-But curses are strong, aren't they? It'd be dangerous to get cocky and underestimate them!"
"Excuse me? You've been a sorcerer for what, five minutes, and you think you get to treat me like an amateur?"
"That's not—"
"Shut up, bunny boy! Don't go around mansplaining the job to me just because you're too scared to fight on your own!"
Midoriya did the smart thing and said nothing before splitting off from her. That was good. Now that Kugisaki was alone, she could finally get things done and hopefully have enough time to do something fun before nightfall.
All by herself, Kugisaki made her way to a room on the top floor of the building. There were a few mannequins in random poses; innocent enough from a cursory glance, but there was an underlying creepiness to them that extended beyond the inherent creepiness of mannequins.
"Hey, you in the middle. You planning on hiding in there all day, or do I have to come and get you?" Kugisaki asked the mannequin standing in the middle of the bunch. "Okay, guess we're doing it the hard way."
Kugisaki reached into her belt and pulled out a hammer with a heart on it and a pair of nails. She tossed the nails into the air like a baseball and slammed into them hard with her hammer. The second the nails jammed into the mannequin's head, a multitude of eyes popped out, and when Kugisaki snapped her fingers, curse energy flowed out of the nails and shattered the head, and the curse living inside of it, to bits.
Just like she thought, Midoriya was worrying over nothing. If the curses in the building were weak enough to go down that easily, then even someone as wimpy as she assumed him to be had nothing to stress over.
Kugisaki's continual belittling of Midoriya in her head was interrupted when she heard some rustling in the distance. She stepped past the disintegrating corpse of the curse to find a little lizard boy cowering against a wall. The most likely explanation in her mind was that the boy was playing in the building when one of the curses spooked him and sent him into hiding. Kugisaki tried to be a responsible adult and get him to come over to her now that it was safe, but the boy wouldn't move. She should have expected as much; children always had trouble interacting with beautiful people like her, after all.
"I guess bunny boy's gonna be good for something, after all," Kugisaki said. "Just stay here, kid. I'll be back in a sec."
"Wait, no! Don't leave me here!" Kugisaki turned around to berate the lizard boy for not being able to commit to anything, but before she could do that, she saw a large, furry curse with stumpy eyestalks phasing through the wall behind him. Before Kugisaki could react, it had already grabbed the lizard boy by the head and pointed a claw at his throat with a disgustingly toothy grin on its face.
Taking a hostage—This curse is intelligent! Kugisaki said. Curses back home in the country only know how to run around like animals, but here—Shit! This thing is just a grade 4 curse, grade 3 at best, so I could kill it without even trying! It knows that, and that's why it's pulling this stunt! Goddammit!
The furry curse's objective was obvious: Kugisaki had to surrender herself if she wanted the lizard boy to live. She couldn't do that, of course. Even if she were half as noble as her brother's friends, there was no guarantee that the curse would let the lizard boy go. Between the two of them, her life objectively counted for more, so it made the most sense to prioritize her own safety, even if it came at the cost of someone else's.
In spite of that, Kugisaki still threw her hammer and belt to the ground and raised her hands up high.
"I'm unarmed. Let the kid go and do what you want with me," Kugisaki said. The furry curse said and did nothing, only chuckling to itself as it maintained its position. "Yeah, figured as much. I'm betting a part of this test was to see how this little country mouse reacts to the big, scary dangers of the big city. Yeah, I guess curses out here are smarter than the ones back home, but guess what? I'm still way above all of you."
As the furry curse kept leering at Kugisaki, Kugisaki tilted her foot up at an angle, and from her shoe burst out a long, thick needle. It flew into the furry curse with such speed that it couldn't do anything and with such force that it made it drop the lizard boy, who started crying as the curse's blood spilled onto his scales.
"This right here? This is why I wanted you to let him go," Kugisaki said, retracting the needle back into her foot to bring the furry curse closer to her. "I could have always done that, but the last thing I needed on my plate was traumatizing some poor kid! So, are we gonna keep doing this the hard way, then?"
The furry curse turned and ran for the wall; the hard way it was, then, just what she was hoping for. As the furry curse headed for the wall, it ran past the nails Kugisaki used to kill the other curse, and that made things so much easier for her. On the surface, the nails were just normal nails, but pieces of her hair had been mixed into the iron, meaning that her nails could be used to activate her Quirk from a distance.
"Rupture." With a single command and a snap of her fingers, the nails exploded and released a stream of needles at the furry curse. All of the needles hit their target, and by the time it got to the wall, it looked like a giant piece of rotten swiss cheese. It only took another second for it to completely fade away into nothing. "That'll teach you to mess me. Kid, are you—"
The lizard boy ran up to Kugisaki and hugged her, and Kugisaki just patted him on his head. Despite how she had been acting, there was a small part of her that was worried she would have messed up. Maybe she would have been too slow, maybe her attack wouldn't have been strong enough, whatever it was, there was an inkling of doubt in her mind that didn't fade away until she saw everything play out.
I guess not having that kind of confidence is why I'm a sorcerer and not a Hero, Kugisaki thought. She looked back at the lizard boy, who was now smiling at her, and thought, Must be nice that Heroes get to do this, though.
Midoriya had a lot of problems with Kugisaki. He had known her for less than an hour, but she was loud, she was brash, and worst of all, she was able to see right through him.
For the most part, Midoriya was being honest about how things would be better if the two of them worked together, but she wasn't wrong when she accused him of being scared. He had spent a lot of time training with Gojo, Maki, Hakari, and everyone else, but he still had no practical experience fighting curses. He had no idea what he could truly expect; he had no idea if his strategies would be enough; he had no idea if his attacks would be able to do what he wanted them to do.
Worst of all, he had no idea if he could keep to his promise of not bringing out Sukuna. Even now, as he made his way through the halls, he could hear Sukuna in the back of his head taunting him with the promise of killing every curse if he just let him out for a little bit. He knew that was wrong in every sense of the word, but what if it actually came down to that? What if the fight was too much for him and Sukuna was his only option? What if he wouldn't have the strength to resist bringing him out if it meant saving his own life? The thought of it all tightened his grip around Slaughter Demon to the point that he was sure his hands were turning white underneath his gloves.
Very unfortunately for him, the only thing that brought Midoriya out of his head was a pair of insectoid claws making their way towards his neck from above. Midoriya just barely avoided having his head lopped off and rolled hard into a wall.
"Here… Is your… Receiiiiipt." Midoriya picked himself up just in time to watch his assailant climb down from the ceiling. It was a monster that towered above him with a lower-body resembling a bug, very fitting with the claws, and an upper body that looked like a human with an ugly, distorted face. Just from looking at it, Midoriya could feel exactly what he felt that day two months ago, so he knew without fail that it was a curse.
Okay, gotta think, Midoriya thought. Given its size, it's probably not too fast, so I should be able to overwhelm it if I'm quick enough. Oh, but what if I'm not quick enough, though? And it has a lot of mobility with those legs, so it can get me at a lot of different angles? What if it comes at me from above again? Maybe I should find Kugisaki-san and get her to help? But after what just happened between us—
Before Midoriya knew it, he was being flung across the hall from a powerful swing by the bug curse. He wasn't paying full attention, but even with that, it had moved far faster than he had expected. That gave him a better idea of what he was working with, but he still didn't have a plan in mind.
It all got worse when Midoriya picked himself up and saw something drip onto the floor. Red, small, blotchy. It was blood. The first second he thought about it, he could feel that it was his blood, and the second second he thought about it, he could see a diagonal gash tearing through his costume and into his chest. He could have sworn he had brought out his curse energy in time, but either his timing was off, the bug curse was just that much stronger than him, or some combination of the two.
"Order up… Beef stew… Side of grits…" The bug curse charged at Midoriya, and Midoriya lost his nerve and ran. He now knew firsthand that curses could hurt him, and every part of him was pushing him to not try and let it happen again. All thoughts of fighting it had vanished, and it was taking all he had to run and dodge its attacks.
Midoriya eventually managed to catch his breath from ducking behind a corner as the bug curse ran the other way. He had a moment's reprieve, but no idea what to do with it. The bug curse was bigger and stronger than him, and he was too rattled to try and properly see who was faster. The second he tried to attack it with Slaughter Demon or his own fists would probably just lead to him getting cut up again, and he didn't want that. It was the first time in his life that he had been hurt like that, and there was nothing that made him want to do it again.
And yet, it was so quick to happen again. As Midoriya let panic set in, the bug curse found him and went back to assaulting him, getting two hits across his stomach and leg before he could get back to running. The only reason he wasn't screaming from pain was because of the adrenaline pushing him to flee, but he had no way of knowing how long even that would last.
In the middle of his run, Midoriya tripped and fell flat on his face, so it evidently didn't last long.
"Order… Up…" The shadow of the bug curse fell over Midoriya as it raised a claw up to strike him down. Midoriya's body froze. He couldn't come up with anything to do, couldn't push himself to launch any sort of counterattack. All he could do was lie there and stare at the bug curse like a deer in the headlights, readying himself for what came next.
Midoriya didn't expect what came next to be a large lance-like object flying through the air and stabbing the bug curse through its shoulder. It screeched in pain as the object stuck it against the wall, and that was enough for Midoriya to recollect himself, if only enough to wonder what was happening.
"Well isn't this a pretty sight?" That question was answered when Kugisaki stepped into view. "After all that yarn you were spinning about how I wasn't taking this seriously, here you are pissing your pants over what? A grade 3 curse, at best? Meanwhile, not only did I just finish getting rid of two of these things, I even saved a little kid."
"What?" That got Midoriya's attention more than Kugisaki's save.
"Yeah, brought him outside so Mr. Gojo could take him to the police, and that's when I found out you were still having trouble with this asshole. You're not making the best first impression on me, you know."
"Sorry," Midoriya said under his breath.
"Whatever. I'm here now, so I might as well lend you a hand." Midoriya's body twitched. "You clearly can't do this on your own, and I got stuff I want to do today, so let's just get this over with, okay?"
"No!" Midoriya finally stood up and faced Kugisaki, just so he could say that to her face.
"What? You're the one who wanted to work together, and you're the one who's losing here."
"I know! I-I know," Midoriya said. "I'm not an idiot, I know that I'm biting off more than I can chew here, but still! This is my first fight as a sorcerer, so if I give up now, then I'll never be able to fight on my own! More importantly, I can't stand it! No one else here cares about being a Hero, yet you're saving kids while I'm getting destroyed by something weak! I can't keep wearing this costume that my mom worked so hard on if I can't even try to match up to that! So, please! Don't step in unless I'm being torn apart, limb from limb!"
Kugisaki put on the same disgusted look she had when they first met. "All of this wishy-washy crap is getting on my nerves. All this sounds like is you finding another to act like you know better than me, and I'm sick of it!" That was probably what was running through her mind, and he couldn't blame her for it, but he would keep fighting her for as long as it took.
"Fine, whatever. I'm gonna hold you to that, though, so don't go crying for help unless you're bleeding out of three stumps, at least." It took less time than he thought it would, and a part of him was frazzled because of that. Nevertheless, this was what Midoriya wanted, and he needed to follow through on it, especially when the bug curse had finally freed itself from Kugisaki's attack.
"Eggs… Over… Easy…" Blood poured out of the bug curse's shoulder, but it was still able to charge at Midoriya. Midoriya wasn't any less scared than he was before, but now his resolve was beating out his fear, and that was enough to get him to raise Slaughter Demon up high and parry its attack. Midoriya was able to stand his ground, and when he looked closer, he saw a cut on the bug curse's claw.
I hurt it. I hurt it! Midoriya thought. I can do this! I can fight! Midoriya's curse energy flared around his fist as he charged at the bug curse. It dodged his punch, but he had expected that. Maki and Yanagi had just told him that he telegraphed his attacks too much with how poorly he used curse energy, and that wasn't the kind of thing he could fix in an afternoon, but he could use it to his advantage. He knew that the bug curse would dodge his fist, and in doing so, it wouldn't notice him kick his front legs and trip him over. The second it fell over, Midoriya grabbed its arm and used all of his strength to toss him into a wall, and before it had a chance to recover, he punched it in its stomach.
"Medium or… Well done…" Unsurprisingly, the bug curse didn't go down from that attack, and it readied itself to attack Midoriya once more, but Midoriya's attack was far from over.
"Divergent Smash!" The second part of his attack kicked in right then and there as a wave of curse energy flew out of his fist and exploded into the bug curse. Its body rippled like water against Midoriya's power, and the second impact sent it flying through the wall and out of the building. It screeched in agony as it crawled about on the ground.
"We're not done here!" Midoriya put curse energy into his legs to jump in an arch onto the bug curse. He was seated right on top of its ugly face, and he was quick to go at it with Slaughter Demon. Over and over and over again, he drew his knife in and out of the bug curse until it was harder to find places it wasn't bleeding from. The bug curse eventually threw him off hard onto the ground, but when it moved to strike him once more, Midoriya was quick enough to slip through and jam Slaughter Demon into its chest.
This is it. This is where it starts. This is where I go beyond my useless self! Midoriya thought.
"Plus Ultra!" Screaming at the top of his lungs and from the depths of his heart, Midoriya drew Slaughter Demon at an angle across the bug curse's body and drew a large splash of blood. Midoriya dropped his weapon and clutched an aching shoulder as the bisected halves of the curse fell to the ground and disintegrated.
With his long-awaited victory realized, he was going to just let himself fall over and slip into unconsciousness, but he found his body being lifted off the ground before that could happen.
"You should try and remain conscious, Midoriya-kun. Losing consciousness is not healthy for you." Naturally, it was Yanagi lifting him up with her levitation Quirk. He had forgotten that everyone else was outside.
"Well, that sure was something; makes me wish I caught more than just the end of it," Gojo said. "Megumi, mind filling me in?"
"Well, Midoriya did something to blast that curse through the wall, and then the next thing we knew, he just kept stabbing it over and over again. Don't know how they got outside, though."
"I saw it," Kugisaki said after joining them outside. "He did this weird thing where a bunch of curse energy shot out of his arm a few seconds after he punched the curse. That's not your curse technique, is it? 'Cause that doesn't look right."
"No, it's not. Also, could you put me down now, Yanagi-san?" Midoriya asked. Yanagi put him back on his feet and he continued talking. "Apparently my control over my curse energy is so bad that the majority of my curse energy takes a while to come out with each hit. I've already been told that it's not a curse technique, just poor application of curse energy, and Mr. Gojo laughed when I got excited about thinking that it was a curse technique. Still, it's definitely useful in a fight, as I can use it to disorient enemies by essentially hitting them twice with a single attack. Of course, that's assuming that I'm able to keep them connected to my fist long enough for my Divergent Smash to activate, but I could use Slaughter Demon to keep them in place, or maybe Yanagi-san can use her Quirk to help with—"
"Okay, okay, shut up!" Kugisaki interjected. "Well, I guess I'm the one who needs to shut up, though. You know, 'cause you managed to put up, and whatnot."
"Yes, congratulations on not dying, Izuku!" Gojo said. "Seriously, though, good job. I was wondering if a kid like you had the kind of mental fortitude to be a sorcerer, but just looking at you and hearing about what you did, you can be pretty batshit crazy if you put your mind to it."
"And that's good?" Midoriya asked. Fushiguro shrugged his shoulders while Yanagi nodded her head.
"It means that even if you end up a bloody pulp in the process, you've got what it takes to be a part of this. Good job, bunny boy," Kugisaki said, smacking Midoriya hard in the back. It felt like his back was going to split in two, but that wasn't on Kugisaki as much as it was on him. For the first time that day, he felt like Kugisaki wasn't acting like it was a chore to be around him. If that wasn't a sign that he truly belonged in the world of jujutsu, then he didn't know what was.
Even with all of the pain he was feeling, he still found it within his power to feel happy.
Satoru Gojo had very few requirements for what he looked for in acquaintances, mostly because of how rare it was for his terrible personality to not push people away, so the people who got close to him tended to have little overlap in their characters. For example, there was the Hero he met on a trip to America nine years ago, Star and Stripe. She had an intoxicating enthusiasm that was rare for even Heroes, and just being around her when he was at such a low point in his life helped to bring him out of his funk.
There was also his little sort-of cousin, Yuta. Yuta had started out as a gloomy boy just wanting to be left alone, and in a little under a year, he had grown into a gloomy boy with lots of friends. There was a subtle, yet vital, difference between the two, and Gojo was happy that he could watch him grow so much when so many people would have rather, and still did, wished for his death.
That brought him to the latest person to be stupid enough to not run away from him: Izuku Midoriya. Izuku was similar to Yuta in a lot of ways: both boys had their lives upended by powerful monsters for reasons beyond their control; both had become sorcerers to keep themselves alive when they would have rather become Heroes; both were growing more from bonding with the friends they were making at Jujutsu High than they probably ever could have with the people they knew beforehand.
Izuku was a lot more squeamish than Yuta, though, as evidenced by how he kept falling out of his chair whenever Shoko tried to touch him.
"For the last time, kid, I'm not gonna hurt you. If I wanted to hurt you, then I'd just melt your face off, or something." To illustrate her point, Shoko spat at a bowl of butterscotch candies on a counter, and the spit dissolved half of it in a few seconds. "Did this dumbass forget to tell you how I work, or something?"
"Is my blindfold on too tight? Because I don't see anyone else in this room," Gojo said. The room in question was the infirmary at Jujutsu High. Following the completion of the mission, everyone except Nobara, who had run off to shop and attend to personal matters, returned to the school, and Gojo brought Izuku to the infirmary so Shoko Ieiri, the resident healer and one of his few legitimate friends, could fix him up. It was usually a straightforward process, but Izuku was making it surprisingly difficult; it was fun to watch, though.
"Y-Yeah, Mr. Gojo explained how your curse technique works, but it still seems weird to me, and I don't know how comfortable I am with it," Izuku said.
"Really? Regular people have that one Hero, Recovery Girl, right? She's a healer, too, and she has to kiss people to heal them," Shoko said. "Are you saying you'd be more comfortable with that? Or does a woman touching you in any way set you off?" Izuku convulsed with every accusation, so it was hard to figure out which one was correct or, rather, what the order of correctness was.
"Okay, let's just get it over with," Midoriya said as he hoisted himself back into his chair. Shoko sighed before putting a hand on his chest, ignoring the way he twitched at her touch, and enveloping him in a pale light.
In an instant, Shoko's reverse cursed technique got to work and started healing Izuku. All the bruises and wounds he had suffered were fading away, and Gojo could even see his bones being set back into place. Watching the process was always as neat as it was gross, and the latter always reigned supreme when organs or severed limbs got involved.
"Wow, I feel completely fine!" Izuku said. "I've heard that Recovery Girl's Quirk has a side-effect of draining the patient's stamina to the point that it's dangerous to use it on severe injuries, but I don't feel tired at all! Is the reverse cursed technique even better than Recovery Girl's Quirk?"
"I'd say so. Unless you wanted me to kiss you, of course," Shoko said. Gojo could swear that Izuku's mask was turning yellow around his cheeks.
"A-Anyway, Ieiri-san! Do you think you could teach me how to use reverse cursed energy? I know that it's not something only specific people can use like a curse technique, and since I still don't have one, something like this could be good to learn, I think."
Gojo laughed for half a second. He quickly covered it up and made Izuku look the fool for turning to him. That was good. He couldn't spoil the joke right away.
"Sure, why not? Takes some stress off of me, after all." Izuku's eyes lit up through his mask; it was getting too good. "So, the first thing you do is go, 'Hya!' Then you go, 'Hyo!', and you follow that up with a little 'Hyuhyoi!' Following me so far?"
Midoriya said nothing, and Gojo was trying his hardest to keep his laughter in check. The ridiculousness of it all was one thing, but the fact that Shoko was saying it all with her usual stoicism made it even better.
Shoko continued with, "There are a lot of little things to remember between those steps, though. There's a part where you go, 'Boom, boom!', and you have to offset that with, 'Bada-bong!', but only until you get as far as giving yourself a little, 'Shazam!', and a little, 'Skadoosh!' All of it has to come together with a sense of, 'Yowza yowza bo bowza,' but above all else, when you make it go, 'Bam!', you can't forget to make it all go, 'Wham!', first, because if you try to 'Wham!', but you can't make it 'Bam!', then it's no thank you, ma'am.
"And that's how you use reverse curse energy. Any questions?"
After ten seconds of Midoriya just sitting there dumbfounded, Gojo finally let out all of the laughter he was holding in. Watching people process the dichotomy of Shoko's serious demeanor and all of the nonsense she used to explain her powers was always a blast.
"Oh, so you're another idiot, then? Fine, whatever." Even better was how Shoko was completely oblivious to what she was doing, which always made Gojo laugh even more. "You're all better now, so you can go. The other kids are trying to throw you a party for today's mission, right?"
"Right, so I'll be going, then! Thank you for healing me and also, um, the other stuff," Izuku said. Izuku quickly bowed and ran out of the room, nearly tripping over himself in the process. Despite all of the teasing, he couldn't help but like the kid.
"You really do like dragging the craziest kids into our world, don't you?" was what Shoko said the second they were alone.
"I'm a pretty crazy guy, myself. Just trying to not feel so lonely," Gojo said.
"I'm serious here, Gojo. When I was healing Midoriya, I could feel that one of the more damaged areas on his body was his hand. I'm guessing he beat his opponent with that weird move he developed from working with you, but something like that should be the most effective if the person's raw power is also high. I know that Maki and Hakari have been helping him with physical training, but he could have only made so much progress after two months, and his hand was the proof.
If his punch is weak enough for it to hurt him more than it hurts the curse, then that means that his curse energy is doing most of the work. So, for him to be able to do a ton of damage to a curse, even a weak one, and blow it through a concrete wall with his curse energy alone? That kid must have a metric ton of curse energy at his disposal, right?"
Gojo didn't do anything but smile. He wanted to laugh, but that time, he made an honest effort to keep it to himself. He did that because he knew that if he laughed, it would be too easy for him to give away that there was a joke, and he wanted her to figure out the punchline on her own.
Gojo noticed Izuku's hidden potential the second he got a handle on using curse energy. It was raw and undefined, but it was still a massive thing to behold to the point that he was still only tapping into a fraction of it. The best part was the reason behind it: there was no reason. After what happened with Yuta, Gojo was quick to start investigating Izuku's family tree and uncover and potential hidden legacies, and there was nothing there. Izuku was an honest to God nobody, yet he was gifted with an insane amount of curse energy.
This was the boy who happened to unluck himself into becoming Sukuna's vessel. Gojo was always going to help him, but now he was basically obligated to do what he could to help him become one of the most powerful sorcerers around, if only because of how much a random nobody getting on Gojo's level would rile up the higher-ups until the end of time. If he could do that, then it would be the punchline to the greatest joke he could ever come up with.
Shoko started smiling in a way that made it clear she was in on the joke, too. Good. He always liked having reminders that she was the smart one in his class.
"Come on. Let's get a drink," Shoko said.
"Singular? Must be catching you on an off day," Gojo said.
"Now that you mention it, I could probably go for two glasses. Or twelve." Gojo couldn't bring himself to laugh at that, because he knew she would make him pay for it.
Name: Nobara Kugisaki
Quirk: Needle Fiber
Ability: Kugisaki can make needles come out of her body of varying sizes and thicknesses; this also includes turning her hair into needles. When needles are launched from her body, Kugisaki can control their trajectory to a certain extent.
Name: Shoko Ieiri
Quirk: Nitric Acid
Ability: Ieiri can secrete nitric acid from her body of varying acidities. Ieiri's Quirk gives her a natural resistance to acidic materials, but said resistance decreases if she continually uses it.