"... And that's about it, yeah. Sorry that you had to come back to such a mess…"

Sonzai could feel his stomach grumbling from both a lack of food and the uneasiness he felt as he finished relaying everything that had happened to him in the last 24 hours or so to his mother. After his at-gunpoint enrollment in Jujutsu High Kyoto, he quickly passed out from both the stress of the situation he was in and the adrenaline of it all wearing off and letting him really feel his dislocated shoulder.

It had been fine when he had woken up, however, so it seemed like someone had let themselves into the room he had been given and reset it back into place. That was nice of them, but also… Deeply disconcerting. Maybe he could ask that they don't do that in future.

"A-a-and you're sure that you're alright with this? I d-don't like you putting yourself in danger like this, Sonzai."

His face scrunched up into a guilty frown as he heard the sheer panic in her voice as she worried for him, as she always had. "Yes, I… I may not be entirely enthusiastic about this whole thing, but as long as I don't flunk out or get expelled, we'll be safe from these crazy ass wizards hunting us down."

He winced as he said that part again. She had really panicked when he had explained the whole "Gojo saving their lives by throwing his weight around" situation -including why Gojo had done it- and it hurt to hear her in so much distress.

Just another thing that Satoru Gojo would have to pay for, later on.

"Right, yes, you said that already… But are you sure you can't decline, and agree to not use your power anymore or something? We have a good financial situation already thanks to you, Sonzai. We could move out of the country, away from these people…"

Sonzai just let out a sigh as she shook his head. "The idea did come to me, but… Mother, these people can teleport. Or at least the kid I told you about -Ui Ui- can teleport. And who knows what else the rest are capable of? There might not be anywhere we could go that they couldn't track us down eventually."

He had to force himself to keep the anger out of his voice at the situation they were being forced into, something that was made especially hard when he heard sniffling on the other side of the line as his mother's tears finally broke.

"I… I'm so sorry, Sonzai. If I just hadn't been with your father, so many of the things that have happened wouldn't have, and you wouldn't have had this 'Cursed Technique' that forced this situation on you. I-I can't imagine how terrifying this all must be…"

Sonzai frowned at that, shaking his head even if he knew she couldn't see him. "No! I… Sure, there are things that I would have preferred not to have happened to us, but if things were different, then you wouldn't be you, and I wouldn't be me. And then who'd protect you? Haha!"

The confidence in his voice at the end was so fake that any acting coach in the world would have given up on him in that very instant, but right now in the moment where both of them were being thrust into a new world with no idea what they were doing… It was more important to seem confident than to be confident.

Fake it till you make it, and all that jazz.

He knows that his mother knows what he is doing, this blatant attempt to decrease the stress she felt about this whole thing, and at the very least, she decided to play along, laughing softly at his joke.

"You're right, I suppose. Could you ask Miss Utahime for the school's phone number when you have the chance? I'd rather live closeby to your new school in case of emergency if you're being forced to attend."

A grateful smile filled his face at her words and her reflecting the fake confidence he projected, and he nodded… Before remembering again that she couldn't see him. "Oh, yeah. Yes, I can do that. This place is massive, but hopefully there's like, some houses near the complex, at least?"

He heard her about to say something when both of their trains of thought were interrupted by an alarm on his phone going off. Checking it, he saw an alarm that he hadn't set himself on his phone with the words [Class Starts at 09:00 AM] in bold writing.

He didn't know how they were adding alarms to his phone, but there were other issues to be focusing on right now. Checking the time and spotting [08:15 AM], Sonzai let out a small groan.

"I have to go now, Mother. Classes start in 45 minutes and I don't know the layout all that well, yet."

It sounded like such a normal, pedestrian sentence, but when the context was that he didn't know which magic classroom he needed to go to to learn how to fight monsters, the sheer absurdity of the situation hit him once again.

"Oh… Alright then. Uh, should I tell you to do your best?"

Her earnest question actually did drag a genuine bark of laughter out of Sonzai, putting a small smile on his face. "Yeah. If I'm gonna be forced to do this anyway, I may as well excel at it, right?"

A happy-sounding hum came through the phone. "That's exactly right. Now then, go get ready, and do your best at your new school!"

She hung up on him first after that, and it left Sonzai holding his phone in silence for a moment, considering the option of creating a duplicate to go take his classes for him while he called her back, but…

This was a school where everyone there knew more about Blue Fire -Cursed Energy- than he did. They might be able to tell that his duplicates were duplicates and he didn't want to get in trouble on his first day when the punishment for getting expelled was a quick dose of 'execution'.

So instead he just sighed, taking off his clothes from the day before, and stepped into the shower to do a quick scrub.

For someone they had only press-ganged into enrollment the day before, Jujutsu High Kyoto was remarkably prepared for his presence there.

He'd gotten out of the shower -which had his preferred brand of Shampoo and Conditioner- and when he'd opened up the dressers and cupboards around the room, he'd found socks, undies, and what looked like multiple copies of his school uniform within them.

The uniform was fairly simple. A white dress shirt and dark navy-blue pants made out of a pretty heavy-duty feeling material at least looked like your standard fare for a uniform, but it also came with a long almost trench-coat-length overcoat that had padded shoulders and elbows, as well as a plethora of velcroed-shut pockets and connecting loops of cloth within quick arms-reach on his hips.

He didn't quite understand why that was part of his uniform, but he put it on over the rest of it anyway, not wanting to cause a scene on his first day by being out of uniform or something. He'd once seen a clone get in trouble for wearing his pyjamas to school because he forgot to tell it to get changed once, and he refused to find out so early what detention was like in a monster-fighting school.

He slipped his sneakers from the day before over the comfy black socks he'd been given and tied up the laces, stuffing them back into the shoe to help them not get caught on anything throughout the day. A glance at his phone showed him the clock sitting at [08:37 AM] and he let out a small breath he had been holding as he realised he had slightly more spare time than he had thought.

Now fully dressed, he does his best to try and remember where he was meant to be going. For the first time in a long while, Sonzai headed towards the direction of the classrooms, locking his door behind him as he went to school in his actual body.

He makes his way through the vaguely maze-like hallways of Jujutsu High Kyoto until eventually he finds the door with a sign on it that just says [Year 1]. That was the sign that Utahime had told him to look for right before, so he stepped forward and knocked on it gently.

"Is that you, Sonzai? Come on in!"

He slid open the door, his focus mostly on that as he was still getting used to the fragile paper doors this building seemed to almost exclusively use and was greeted by Miss Utahime at the front of the classroom, followed by…

A meagre three students sat in front of her. A boy the size of a bodybuilder, another boy who seemed to just be sitting there with his eyes closed, and a girl with two giant, spiky, tube-like pigtails.

He hadn't known how many people he had been expecting to attend such a school, but if he had never seen someone else with powers out in public, maybe they were just really rare, and this was a normal-sized year class.

Whatever the case was, he had been starting for a moment too long, snapping back to attention as he saw all three of his new classmates getting to their feet.

The first one to reach him is the boy with his eyes closed, who extends his hand out to Sonzai with such perfect form that as he reaches out to grab it and shake the boy's hand, he kinda feels like he just went through a job interview.

"Welcome to Jujutsu High Kyoto, Sonzai Fukusu. My name is Noritoshi Kamo, future heir to the Kamo Clan."

They seemed to know his name already, so Utahime had likely filled them all in on the fact that they were getting a new classmate. At least this guy seemed fairly cordial. "Right, it's nice to meet you. I look forward to, uh, studying together, yeah."

Sonzai's hesitation during his introduction caused Noritoshi to raise an eyebrow, but he didn't mention it any further. The absolute giant of a boy almost introduced himself second but was practically shoved out of the way by the girl with the spiky, tube-like pigtails.

"Wait 'til last, Todo, or I won't get the chance to introduce myself until he's out of the infirmary!"

Sonzai's eyes darted to the boy, who had nothing but a ponderous look on his face as he stared at him, before returning to the girl in front of him, who stuck out her hand lazily and barely participated in the handshake.

"The name's Momo Nishimiya. Nice to meet you, new kid. Hope you're not as annoying as these two here, or I might just go insane."

Sonzai just nodded and smiled at the girl. "Nice to meet you too… And, well, I don't really know what to say to that. I don't think I'm annoying?"

Nishimiya just looked at him for a second before shrugging. "Good enough for me for now, I guess we'll just have to see as we go… Alright, Todo, you can go now."

As Nishimiya returned to her seat and whispered something to Noritoshi, Sonzai's vision was cut off by the giant torso of 'Todo' stepping in front of him. Sonzai extended a hand out to the boy, flashing his best smile as he readied to shake the boy's hand…

Only to come up surprised when the boy instead asked him a question, his expression gravely serious.

"Tell me… What is your type of woman? Mine is tall girls with big butts."

Sonzai froze at the question. None of the mental preparations he had done for today had included being asked such a question or being freely given information like that… And it caused him to completely blank out on an answer.

"I… Uh, I'm not sure. I've never really thought about it definitively."

He heard Nishimiya let out a small hiss from her seat at his answer but he couldn't see anyone past Todo's bulk, and the boy was staring at the ground as he… Wait, was this guy crying?!

"I see, I see… That's a terrible answer! How have you never thought about it?!"

It was only his recent experience with getting suddenly attacked that gave Sonzai any sort of pre-warning as Todo darted forward, seemingly attempting to cave his chest in with a punch.

Sonzai didn't trust his arms not to break from taking a direct hit from the giant of a boy, so instead of blocking himself, he hastily threw out a clone in between them, getting thrown back out through one of the paper windows and receiving a sharp headache from the destruction of his duplicate.

It did its job, however, and he hadn't been impacted directly by the punch, only thrown back. He landed with a thud into the courtyard outside the window, coughing slightly as he checked himself over for injuries.

There were none, thank god. He had only just gotten his shoulder dislocated yesterday, and he would appreciate not being injured like that more than two times in 24 hours. He'd only just gotten to his feet when he heard yelling from inside the classroom -it sounded like Miss Utahime's voice- before Todo jumped out after him, landing with a THUD across from him.

"Dude! What the fuck is wrong with you?!"

Todo didn't say anything for a moment as he stretched out his arms and legs, but once he was done, he let out a shaky breath and tore off his shirt while he spoke, sounding like he was on the verge of crying again as he met Sonzai's eyes.

"A person's tastes… They reveal everything about the person. If you have boring tastes, then you're a boring person. If you are indecisive about women, then you will be indecisive in battle."

Todo crossed his arms in front of him and stared down at Sonzai as if he had spoken some kind of wise, hidden master-esque knowledge, and Sonzai was shocked as he realised that Todo was completely serious.

The boy's eyes narrowed at Sonzai, and his muscles tensed, the only warning Sonzai could expect for the boy's surprisingly fast movements. "And there is nothing I hate more than boring and indecisive people. So if you're going to have a boring personality… I may as well get an exciting fight out of you!"

The boy rushed forward again, but this time Sonzai had been given a little more time to prepare while the boy had been talking, and before Todo could reach him, eight duplicates were spun into existence around Sonzai, darting forward to tackle Todo.

Sonzai himself still had to dodge out of the way of a terrifying haymaker that even three of his duplicates working together weren't able to stop from being swung. Was this his Cursed Technique, to be super strong? Or was this just the basic Cursed Energy reinforcement he had heard Ui Ui's sister mention?

Whatever the case, Sonzai didn't know how to do that quite just yet, seeing as he hadn't even started his classes yet, but while he might not have quality, he certainly had quantity. Burning through some of his Cursed Energy reserves, he spun another 10 short-lived duplicates into existence around Todo, all of them launching wild attacks at the boy's unprotected back-

CLAP!

Sonzai winced as a headache shot through him as the short-lived duplicates he had spawned… Attacked another one of his duplicates? Somehow, Todo had been replaced by one of his duplicates, right before Sonzai's attack landed.

Was that his power? To teleport things around? That was actually really fucking awesome!

CLAP!

His awe was short-lived, unfortunately, as the brief hesitation he had to think allowed Todo to appear right in front of him, appearing in the position that one of his duplicates had been standing, and land a hit square to Sonzai's face, albeit one not quite as strong as the fully-wound up one from before.

CRUNCH!

Still, it sent Sonzai reeling as he felt his nose break, blood rushing down his face and into his mouth. He grumbled at the metallic taste and wiped it on his sleeve, the blood soaking into the material and blending in well on the dark navy blue.

CLAP!

Sonzai heard the clap and immediately dropped to one knee, not caring which one of his duplicates Todo had swapped with as he reached out and dispelled them all the moment he felt Todo's fist sail harmlessly over his head. Instantly -right when Todo went to clap again- he was only met with confusion as nothing happened when he did so.

CLAP!

THUD! CRUNCH!

That moment of confusion was enough for Sonzai to reel back and throw his best punch forward, landing squarely in the middle of Todo's face and crunching the other boy's nose with his attack as well.

It was right as Todo recovered from the shock of the punch and was about to swing back again that a whip-like sound echoed through the air, and then both of them were wrapped up and handcuffed by ropes of red… WAS THAT BLOOD?!

Sonzai struggled against his new bindings for multiple reasons, but the foremost reason was the fact that he was currently being held in place by solidified ropes of blood by Noritoshi Kamo, with Utahime holding her hand onto his back and doing… Something to him that made them both glow slightly.

"Aoi Todo. I have told you four times now that starting fights on such a basis is unacceptable behaviour. You will have detention with me for the rest of the week. Sonzai Fukusu… Are you hurt?"

Sonzai was a little shocked at the sudden turnaround in attitude towards him and Todo, but if he had already done something like this four other times… He could imagine that Miss Utahime might be a little sick of the larger boy.

Motioning to his broken nose, she sighed and walked forward, grabbing it between two fingers and with a sickening 'crunch!' reset it back into place. Sonzai just let out a grunt of pain at that, but it did feel a little better after she reset it.

She then went over and did the same to Todo, who was still staring at Sonzai… But there was something different in the boy's eyes now. If he didn't know any better that Todo was batshit crazy, Sonzai might have thought it was a glint of respect for him.

"Both of you are going to have to live with the aches for the rest of today, and if they continue to be an issue or grow worse within the next few days I will call Shoko over and get her to heal them for you. Now, are you two going to continue to fight?"

Sonzai was quick to shake his head at that. He hadn't planned on fighting at all, and basically just defended himself, but he was also super eager to get out of the Blood Ropes Noritoshi was making. "Nope, I'm done."

Miss Utahime looked over at Todo next, who just shrugged, holding his palms facing up in front of him. "I'm done too. It wasn't an entirely boring fight, after all, so there's that at least."

They seemed to trust Todo at his words, which either meant he was a good liar or usually stuck to it and a moment later, Miss Utahime called for Noritoshi to recall his Blood Ropes. Sonzai was glad beyond words to have them finally off of him, but he was also still a little wary of Todo, who was continuing to stare at him.

Taking a deep breath and summoning his courage, Sonzai stepped forward and thrust his hand out towards the boy, wanting to bury any animosity between them right there and then. He didn't want a crazed gorilla of a classmate attacking him all the time just because he hadn't answered his question about his taste in women properly for the rest of his time at Jujutsu High.

"Sonzai Fukusu. Good, uh, good fight. And to your earlier question… If I had to choose I would say either shorter, kinda muscular girls or tall girls with some weight to them."

His words seemed to silence everyone around them, and he even saw Nishimiya slap her forehead after he spoke, but it was Todo who had the biggest reaction. A giant grin grew on the boy's face as he stomped forward and clapped his hand into Sonzai's.

It caused his hand to sting a little, but he kept a smile on his face as Todo spoke. "Aoi Todo. And why didn't you just say that earlier?! Enjoying the two extremes, the two very opposite sides of the spectrum, that's not boring at all! We could have avoided this fight altogether, y'know?"

Sonzai's eyes twitched slightly as Todo somehow turned the blame on him for not answering properly, but he was doing this in the name of burying whatever hatchet Todo had for him, and it seemed to be working.

Todo was shaking his head and chuckling softly. "I'll have to give people a little bit more time to answer the question in the future, I guess, to avoid issues like this. A few more moments and you would have had your answer for me, wouldn't you have, my new rival?"

Sonzai nodded, eager to limit the damage Todo would do to future people he asked the question to… Only to pause. "Uh, yes… Wait, what did you call me?"

Todo's grin just got wider as he clapped a gigantic hand onto Sonzai's shoulder and pointed over his shoulder to Kamo and Nishimiya with the other. "You, my friend, are my new rival! Neither of these two are very physical fighters, but you will be due to your Cursed Technique… So we'll just have to spar and train together often to get you to your maximum potential!"

All of the blood rushed out of Sonzai's face at the idea of fighting Todo again, but luckily it was then that Miss Utahime stepped in and separated Todo's hand from his shoulder by physically pushing the boy back with unexpected strength for her size.

"Yes, yes, you've got a rival now, that's all well and good. But as I explained earlier, Sonzai will need to learn the very basics before he does any proper sparring. Do I make myself clear, Aoi Todo?"

Todo honestly looked a little miffed at that, sparing a glance in Sonzai's direction. "Crystal clear, Miss Utahime. No unregistered sparring before you say he's ready."

"No sparring at all, Aoi Todo."

Todo visibly deflated at that, letting out a sigh. "Fine. No sparring until you say. Can I at least help coach him so he gets there faster?"

Both Todo and Miss Utahime looked in his direction at that, one looking hopeful for another good fight as soon as possible, and the other with the question in her eyes asking if he was okay with that.

Sonzai thought for a moment, but… As much as Todo scared him, learning as much as he could would only make him stronger. Strong enough to protect his mother… Maybe even enough strength to get revenge on Gojo for stealing his kill?

That one felt a little far-fetched of an idea, just from the sheer aura of danger Gojo seemed to exude, but… Even with that option out of the equation, being stronger could only bring benefits to his life.

He nodded -once to Todo and once to Miss Utahime- and gave a shaky smile to his new classmates, his new teacher, and now his new rival. He was still scared, and knew practically nothing about how this new world he was being thrust into worked, but…

He was prepared to take it by the reins and get strong enough that no one would ever dare threaten those he cared about again.

Hello!

Thank you for reading this chapter!

You may have guessed but we are currently 2 years before the events of JJK, and 1 year before the events of JJK:0

Sonzai, Todo, Kamo, and Nishimiya as classmates, with Utahime at the helm. What sort of funky stuff will they get up to, and how will Sonzai's inclusion push everyone to new heights? Find out next time, on Swarm Sorcerer Z!

Tell me what you think in the comments below! How did you enjoy the Todo fight? He's still a monster compared to Sonzai, but he's also just a newly-enrolled first year! I hope I wrote that difference in skill and power pretty well :D

See you all next time!