"Jujutsu High is the best place for students to improve their strength. The outside world's too chaotic, and as a student, you're still too young, Hayashi. Sure, you've got some skill, but don't get too full of yourself," Yaga Masamichi said.
His words were fair—neither putting Hayashi down nor overly praising him. He spoke like a teacher addressing a student.
After all, Hayashi was still young and couldn't fully grasp certain things or understand their weight.
Yaga didn't want to see a student with so much potential meet an early end.
"I've got a way to safely boost everyone's strength, but not right now. I'm just throwing this suggestion out there as a reference," Hayashi replied. He genuinely didn't plan to shake things up this soon. At the very least, he'd wait until he got his hands on the Dimensional Time Mirror—or after he powered up again.
Of course, before that, he could take everyone to other places to train together. Hayashi would just need to land the finishing blows while letting his classmates and seniors handle the fighting.
"Let's put this matter aside for now. Next, let's recap this incident. If anyone has questions or anything to say, feel free to speak up," Yaga Masamichi said. As the principal of Tokyo Jujutsu High, he naturally held authority.
Even though Gakuganji Yoshinobu had more seniority, Yaga was still the one leading this discussion.
The conversation shifted to a summary of the enemy attack, along with some additional details.
Though they'd come out of this incident with a big win, they couldn't let their guard down. Who knew if the next time would be this easy?
"Hanami… Is Hanami dead?" Jogo muttered, his expression gloomy. Compared to hanging out with Mahito and the others, he'd always preferred Hanami and Dagon. They were the first to band together, and they'd spent a good chunk of time as a group.
Now that Hanami had died at Jujutsu High, Jogo couldn't accept it. He knew Hanami's strength—there was no way it could just die like that.
Unless Gojo Satoru himself had stepped in, no jujutsu sorcerer should've been able to take Hanami down. If Hanami wanted to escape, nothing could've stopped it.
That was a fact. Hanami wasn't some run-of-the-mill cursed spirit—it was among the elite.
In today's jujutsu world, aside from hypothetical cursed spirits or ancient curses like Ryomen Sukuna from a thousand years ago, which were impossible to compare to, Jogo and his crew were basically the ceiling of cursed spirits. At least in Japan, they were the absolute top tier.
But for Hanami, with all that strength, to just vanish like that—how could Jogo accept it?
"Hayashi… Did I underestimate him?" Jogo had never felt such a strong urge to kill someone. Even Gojo Satoru didn't rile him up this much.
The thing with Gojo was his strength was on a whole other level—way beyond Jogo's league. Getting hung up on someone like that wasn't smart. Gojo was the kind of special human you needed a meticulous plan to deal with.
But Hayashi? Some wet-behind-the-ears student—since when did he get to lord over them?
If Jogo could tolerate something like this, he wouldn't deserve to call himself a cursed spirit.
Mahito lounged on a beach chair, staring blankly at the horizon over the sea, his face devoid of any expression.
This mission had failed, and they'd lost several special-grades. Sure, their team was growing, but losses like this spelled a dark future.
Hanami's death was something Mahito hadn't anticipated. He'd already maxed out his estimation of Hayashi's strength, but he'd still missed some critical intel, which led to Hanami's demise.
Being able to use a Domain didn't necessarily mean much. Hanami's Domain could absolutely overpower Hayashi's—that was the consensus they'd all reached.
Strength might not be tied to age, but it's not like age was completely irrelevant either. There were still a lot of factors at play.
Hayashi, as such a young jujutsu sorcerer, was already this strong and could use a Domain. But that Domain had to be rudimentary at best—it couldn't possibly be that powerful.
Shingo and Hanami weren't even in the same ballpark strength-wise, so it made sense that Shingo could die by Hayashi's hand. But Hanami? That's what no one could wrap their heads around.
According to Shikami's intel, after Hayashi went all out to take down Banko, he'd then fought Hanami. That meant Hayashi had taken on two special-grades with just his own cursed energy.
No matter how you sliced it, that seemed impossible. Hayashi wasn't Gojo Satoru—how could he have that much cursed energy?
Yet the facts proved Hayashi's cursed energy reserves were massive—greater than even a special-grade cursed spirit's.
Though Mahito's expression stayed neutral, in his mind, he'd already imagined remolding Hayashi a few hundred times over.
Dagon's head surfaced from the sea then, tears still shimmering in his eyes.
"I… I want to avenge Hanami!" Dagon forced out after a long pause, his body slowly drifting toward the shore.
"You're sad for it too, huh?" Jogo murmured, glancing at Dagon.
Creak~
The door swung open, and Geto Suguru, Shikami, and brain stepped inside.
"Don't be too down, everyone. Yeah, this mission failed, but Hanami isn't dead. It can still be revived," Geto said the moment he walked in.
"What do you mean?" Jogo's gaze locked onto Geto. Hanami was definitely dead—revival should've been impossible.
Back then, if Jogo hadn't still had his head, he'd have ended up like Hanami—dead. Even now, he hadn't fully recovered from the damage Gojo Satoru had dealt him.
"Brain's role in our team is actually huge. Beyond just invading people's minds, it's got an even weirder ability: it can preserve a portion of a being's spirit and soul. Sure, Mahito's the best and most unique when it comes to soul manipulation, but this trick of Brain's? He can't do it," Geto explained.
His tone sounded casual, but inwardly, he was on high alert around Brain. Like him, it was an old monster with strange, specialized tricks.
If Geto could get his hands on Brain's ability, though… heh, the future would be unimaginable.
"Is that true?" Jogo's eyes lit up. If Hanami could come back, then this plan wasn't a total bust. At the very least, they'd scoped out Hayashi and the others' strength.
It wasn't a complete loss.
"Of course," Brain said, lumbering over with its gooey brain-like form. "Of the ones we sent out this time, I preserved a piece of Hanami and Banko's spirits and souls. It might've weakened them a bit, and maybe that's why they died—something I didn't fully account for. But with Gojo Satoru over there, if I hadn't left a backup, Hanami and Banko would've been gone for good."
"Out of everyone we deployed, I only set up contingencies for Hanami and Banko. Even Shikami didn't get that privilege—though it survived anyway," Brain continued. "This isn't easy, you know. It takes a toll on me. I can't store too many spirits and souls at once, or I'll overload."
"So you're not totally useless, huh, brain goo? I thought you were a waste of space, but I'll take that back. You've actually got some use," Jogo said. He'd looked down on Brain at first—a cursed spirit with such pathetic combat power, he could crush it in seconds.
But Brain had a unique ability he didn't, one that most cursed spirits couldn't replicate. That made it valuable.
So Brain wouldn't fight on the front lines. It'd stay in the back, setting up safety nets for their side—capable of turning the tide at critical moments.