So Akira lay back down again. "Then wake me at nine. I was thinking about things last night and slept late."
"What about first period? You are skipping it?"
"Mom, you know Satoru Gojo. When has he ever been on time? We cannot leave the transfer student alone and go to class first. Yawn."
"That makes sense. I will take a short nap too," Maki Zenin said, lying down as well.
"Little brother, come here." Panda quietly glanced at the two lying down and waved a paw at Pancham. "Let us go check the small woods. Inumaki, you come too."
"Salmon." Inumaki nodded.
Akira's eyelids twitched. Was this really how students behaved? When she was a student, she had been far more obedient.
"Everyone come back. This transfer student is not ordinary, and Gojo-sensei will not be late today. And Little Sha, why are you joining them in fooling around?"
It turned out that Gardevoir had noticed Akira was uncomfortable without a pillow, so she moved his head onto her lap. At the same time, she summoned two blankets and covered both Akira and Maki Zenin.
She truly was Akira's thoughtful little helper. In Akira's view, though, this was just adding fuel to the fire and enabling them.
This could not go on. She could not let these students keep messing around.
Correcting the school atmosphere at Tokyo Jujutsu High was a duty she could not shirk. Lost in this sudden sense of mission, Akira did not realize that the Tokyo Jujutsu High she remembered was the one in Kyoto, while this was Tokyo.
Because of the Zenin and Kamo Clan, Kyoto had always been traditional. Tokyo, with Masamichi Yaga and Satoru Gojo, was far more free and open. The difference was like the regional divide between eastern and western Japan, something seen in any country.
In the end, Akira still got up. Once his mother became stubborn, he could not outlast her, and there was no need to.
When Satoru Gojo finally appeared, it went just as expected.
"Uh, Linmei-sensei, why are you looking at me like that?"
Even with his strange way of thinking, the white-haired broomhead knew that Akira had the best temper at Tokyo Jujutsu High. If she was glaring at him like this, something serious was wrong.
"You are thirty minutes late," Akira said slowly, word by word.
"Just that?"
Yes, Satoru Gojo was still late, but he did not understand why Akira was so angry. When had he ever been on time, except on the battlefield?
"I promised the students that you would not be late today, because a very important transfer student is coming."
Akira was furious. Where was her authority as an elder? Where was her dignity? There was not much left to begin with.
Satoru Gojo realized the severity of the situation. "Sorry, but this time it really is not my fault, Makoto. It is Yuta. He threw a tantrum and refused to go to school. I finally cured his transfer anxiety, so can you all please perk up and welcome the new classmate?"
Akira: "ZZZ…"
Maki Zenin: "ZZZ…"
Yes, they were sleeping together, each occupying one shoulder of Gardevoir.
Pancham: "Ora ora ora…"
Panda: "Muda muda muda…"
The two brothers were playing a punching game. Toge Inumaki held two cartoon Panda cards, raising the one belonging to the winner.
Under his brother's careful teaching, Pancham had learned other sounds. In short, human or not, not a single one gave Satoru Gojo any face.
This should have been the kind of scene Akira hated most. But after her authority had already collapsed, the honor student who graduated from KyotoTokyo Jujutsu High chose to give up and stood quietly in a corner.
So Satoru Gojo also gave up. He raised his voice and called toward the door. "Come in."
The door opened, and a boy shorter than one point seven meters walked in. He wore a white coat, and from his face to his build he seemed weak and easy to bully. Even his self-introduction sounded timid.
Yet this timid boy made Maki Zenin jolt awake. She grabbed a weapon and slammed it into the blackboard beside him, less than a centimeter from his neck.
At the same time, Panda raised his fist, and Inumaki pulled down the collar covering his mouth. They each stood on one side of Maki Zenin.
Only then did the boy manage to finish the first sentence of his introduction. "I am Yuta Okkotsu. Please take care of me."
Facing something like this right away would overwhelm anyone. For the already timid Yuta Okkotsu, his legs shook and he almost collapsed onto the floor.
The fiercest of them, Maki Zenin, glared at Satoru Gojo first, then spoke directly. "Hey, you are cursed, right? This is a place to study curses. What is a cursed guy doing here?"
"Maybe Okkotsu himself does not know why he is here," Akira said calmly as he opened his eyes. He gently helped Gardevoir tidy her clothes and hair, and among the whole classroom only the Ake Clan family had not moved.
"That is because Gojo-sensei is lazy," he continued. "So lazy that he cannot even be bothered to explain."
"Bingo. As expected of my assistant, Makoto, you really get me," Satoru Gojo said, his thick skin matching his strength. "Then I will leave the explanation to you. Keep it short."
"Got it." Akira stretched lazily and explained amid the usual looks of contempt aimed at the broomhead. "Do you know that in Japan, the number of abnormal deaths and disappearances exceeds ten thousand each year? Only a small part are accidents. Most are caused by negative emotions overflowing from the body as curses, and some are even malicious incidents caused by Curse User. Only curses can defeat curses. This is the place where we study curses to exorcise them, the Tokyo Metropolis Jujutsu High School."
Yuta Okkotsu was still shaken and could not speak, but his expression said everything. He clearly wanted to shout that this should have been explained earlier.
"And also, you should step back right now. Maki Zenin, put on your glasses. The Cursed Spirit attached to Okkotsu is not ordinary."
The moment Akira finished speaking, a furious roar rang out. "Do not bully Yuta!"
In an instant, a pressure like a pitch-black swamp covered the entire room. At the center of the swamp was a pair of pale giant hands, which casually grabbed the blade stuck in the blackboard and twisted it into scrap.
At the same time, Akira heard a familiar prompt. "Detected Pokémon meme."
Maki Zenin knew a Cursed Spirit had made a move and pulled back at once, putting on the glasses as Akira had told her. After a long period of harsh training, she could sense the presence of a Cursed Spirit within a certain range even without glasses, but only its rough direction. Details like shape and size were still out of reach, so she needed the help of Cursed Tool Glasses.
Then she saw it. A huge presence stood behind Yuta Okkotsu, almost filling the entire blackboard. It had humanlike hands, a chest caved in as if struck hard with ribs clearly visible, and its upper face was blocked like Satoru Gojo's, except his was a blindfold while this one was a mass of flesh.
The lower half of its face was a gaping mouth full of sharp fangs, like a demon. Even without fully manifesting, its sense of existence, pressure, and scale of curse far exceeded anything Maki Zenin had ever seen, including the giant caterpillar that had nearly killed her when she first met Akira. No explanation was needed, because instinct alone gave the answer. Special Grade.