Chương 7: Arrival
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Having cleared out the entire tin container that was once filled to the brim with delicious goods, Ginko let out a satisfied burp as he turned his attention to the drinks stand.
"Ooh! I haven't seen any of these before."
Normally he'd only be allowed to drink water, stomach-churning protein shakes, and tea back at the compound. However, now that Yamada wasn't here to restrict his pallet, Ginko fully intended to indulge himself to his heart's content.
Licking his lips like some sort of cartoon character, he proceeded to wrap his arms around a random collection of chilled drinks, and brought them to a table that hadn't been covered in chicken grease as a result of his sorely lacking table manners.
"Then is your technique something that produces speed as a byproduct? Like making yourself lighter perhaps?" Shoko on the other hand, still seemed intent on uncovering what Ginko's technique was.
Even though sorcerer's normally wouldn't divulge their technique unless it was to their benefit, Shoko had the sneaking suspicion that Ginko wasn't exactly the tight-lipped type. As shown by his immensely outspoken demeanor earlier.
"Hello?"
But to her dismay, Ginko was currently too enamored by all the foreign beverages in front of him to pay her any heed. Like a child who had just gotten a set of new toys.
Shoko rolled her eyes, reluctantly approaching his table and sitting opposite him in an attempt to snap him out of his binge-drinking trance.
"Did you hear what I just said?"
"Yeah." Ginko finally set his drink aside momentarily, looking at Shoko with a strange glint in his eyes. "Is my technique that interesting to you?" He dipped his head like a confused German Shepherd.
"Well, I already know the techniques of all the other students here as well as Teach's which as you might know isn't a whole lot of people. So I'm just curious as to what yours is, but if you don't feel like telling me that's fine too I suppose."
Even Ginko could figure out that her last sentence held a bit of disappointment in it.
But truth be told, he had no qualms about having his technique known by others. After all, it wasn't one you could counter just through knowing its mechanics, especially if you didn't have a technique suited to doing so.
"It's called [Galebreathe], or wind manipulation if you want to put it bluntly."
Shoko hummed as she nodded to herself with added interest.
"Fascinating, you normally don't come across techniques that broad."
"Is that so?"
"Mhm, but I have to ask, does your technique just manipulate the already existing wind or are you able to create your own?"
"Both, but manipulating natural wind is pretty pointless as it not only requires me to use up more cursed energy, but it's significantly weaker than the wind I produce."
When it came to talking about anything Jujutsu related, Shoko noticed that Ginko actually came across as a normal person. Which was yet again another result of his upbringing.
"And before you ask, what I did back there was from my own wind. It's a movement technique I was taught, pretty useful."
Shoko continued to listen along as she went ahead and picked up one of the drinks from Ginko's pile, to which he surprisingly didn't mind.
"Sounds handy." Shoko took a moment to ponder in an attempt to see what else she could gain out of their conversation. "I take it you're not exactly new to using your technique. Let me guess, you're from some kind of Jujutsu family or something?"
"Haha, you're spot on." He shot a thumbs up her way. "I'm from the Kyofu clan, we're pretty small."
"Kyofu?" She tilted her head, feeling as if the name rang a bell of sorts. "Do you know someone named Kasai by any chance?"
"Kasai?" Ginko scratched his chin as he tried to recollect. "Oh, I think that's my mom."
"You —think?" Shoko grimaced.
One's mother wasn't someone you "kind of remembered".
"I dunno, my mom and dad only lived in our household when I was young. I don't really remember much about them, my gramps is the one who raised me up till now. He's super strong!" He declared with pride.
"Wait wait wait, you're telling me they just dipped on you?"
Ginko didn't seem to quite comprehend the reason behind Shoko's disbelief.
"Uh, I guess? I don't really mind, I'm sure they're decent folks. I have gramps so I don't really need them." To Shoko, his perspective was considered rather cynical in a way. "According to him they didn't like the clan environment or something so they decided to leave."
"And they didn't take you with them?"
"I ended up awakening the same technique as gramps, so he decided that I should stay with him and train, and now I'm here!" He smiled, completely unbothered by his supposedly grim explanation.
"But you're their child, doesn't it make more sense for you to go along with them?"
Now it was Ginko's turn to tilt his head in confusion.
"Of course not, gramps is stronger so why would they get to decide that?" He said as if his logic was completely flawless.
"Wha —" It was then that it finally clicked for Shoko, even though Ginko was from a smaller clan, it was still a clan at the end of the day. Its principles were still that of traditional Jujutsu Sorcerer families, regardless of how scornful they might be. "You know what, forget it." Realizing that diving any deeper would be more of a headache than it was worth, she smartly decided to cease her prying for the time being.
Furthermore, she concluded that a change of topic would probably be for the best.
"There's still quite a bit of time before the others get here, want me to take you on a tour around the site?" Even if he was a certified weirdo in her eyes, she still needed something to do in order to kill time before her classmates got back.
"Sure." Ginko got up from his seat, placing a few drinks that he had taken a particular liking to and stuffing them into his pockets.
…
She took her time bringing him around the various buildings that made up Tokyo Jujutsu High, explaining the functions of each of them in detail alongside making sure he knew the locations of all the particularly important places.
Namely the classrooms, as anyone who was late to Yaga's lessons would suffer at the fate of his "fist of guidance", which was known to sting for at least a few hours after it had been administered.
As they strolled the scenery, something lurking in the back of Shoko's mind had gradually begun to irritate her ever so slightly.
"Hey, aren't you going to ask me?"
"Ask you what?" Truthfully it wasn't particularly strange to her that Ginko remained oblivious to her supposed blight.
"About my cursed technique obviously! You explained yours so naturally you should be interested in mine!"
Ginko's face remained blank.
"Why?"
Shoko remained silent, glaring daggers at Ginko. Causing his mouth to drop into a confounded frown.
"Uhm, what's your cursed technique?"
"I don't have one."
Ginko breathed a very audible "Haaah?" as Shoko's demeanor quickly returned to normal.
"But I am capable of using [Reverse Curse Technique], even on other people to some extent. Which is why instead of going out there and fighting curses, I remain here and heal people's injuries once they come back from missions."
Shoko had purposefully left out the fact that the two other first-year's only really ever needed healing when they inevitably fought one another, and only needed recovery after a mission once every blue moon.
As a matter of fact, it wouldn't be a stretch to say that they fought one another more times than they had fought curses collectively. Quite the unfortunate feat to say the least.
"Oh? My gramps can use that too, but he says he's only capable of the most basic form of it, and can't grow back limbs or anything let alone heal other people. I'm impressed."
Learning [Reverse Curse Technique] was something that was on the top of Ginko's to-do list, as without it he would never be able to utilize [Redirection]. Only being capable of using [Galeforce] as of now.
Moreover, he fully understood the implications of Shoko not only being capable of using it at such a young age, but being at the level where she could actually use it on other people. So much so to the fact that Jujutsu Tech had made her their designated healer.
It was pretty safe to say his impression of her had just skyrocketed.
"Any chance you could teach it to me?" He queried with one eye closed.
"It's actually quite easy really." Ginko remained silent with kindling doubt. "All you have to do is just give it a hyuu! And then a hyaa! Also a bit of whirly-burly like this should do." She said as she twirled her finger above her head.
"Hyuu and hyaa?"
"Mhm."
"Whirly-burly?"
"Indeed."
Ginko made a disgruntled expression as he failed to make so much an inkling of sense out of the words that had just exited Shoko's mouth.
"Do you not get it?"
"Not at all."
"Ehhh? Even after that explanation? Maybe you just don't have the sense for it." She had the audacity to say with a finger resting on her lower lip.
"Maybe." Coming to understand that perhaps he had asked the wrong person for help, Ginko simply quietly went along with it as she continued to take him through the campus.
Stuffing his hands into the confines of his haori until they arrived at a rather enticing sight. "Now this is more my style." Ginko smiled as he looked upon a large open track filled with lush greenery and all sorts of strange equipment he had never seen before.
"We use this for training most of the time, it's open 24/7 and free for anyone to use. So you can just come here whenever you feel —" Before she could get the words out of her mouth, he had already taken off in a sprint towards the track, leaving behind a strong gust in his wake that blew Shoko's hair back. "How childish." She sighed.
"Oh well, those two troublemakers should be arriving soon. They'd probably fare better at dealing with this little crackpot."
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Night had already fallen over Tokyo as two individuals leisurely walked their way up a certain foothill, albeit one was evidently more energetic than the other.
"Hey, Suguru." One of them was a white-haired youth with long spiky hair, alongside a set of rounded shades that spoke volumes to his unrivaled ego. "Do you think Shoko's gonna be mad?" His eyes were a glistening bright blue color that seemed to match well with his darker toned uniform.
"Why?" The other was seemingly of similar age, with long obsidian hair wrapped up into a ponytail. Moreover he seemed to enjoy wearing a pair of awfully baggy slacks that one would assume were hard to move around in. Unlike his supposed compatriot, his voice was completely devoid of life as if he had just been forced to run three marathons back to back.
"I mean, didn't we tell her that we would be back in an hour tops?" The ocean-eyed youth pulled out his phone, staring at it with a slightly uneasy expression before showing it to his friend. "It's midnight already."
"Isn't that your fault Satoru? If you hadn't gone full blown foreign tourist on me, we would've actually returned on time. But you insisted that we explore quite literally every form of entertainment under the sun before we returned, so now we're in this situation because of you."
Suguru's fatigue was quite literally at a point where he couldn't even muster up the strength to express any anger in his tone.
"Don't be like that, you had fun didn't you?" The cat-like smile on Satoru's face was practically asking Suguru to give it a solid right hook. "It's important to enjoy youth whilst you still have it!" He spread his arms wide as a shit-eating grin appeared on his face.
"That's not the problem, the problem is that we're 15 and you're acting like we're going to turn 30 tomorrow. Tch, if you have so much energy why not spend it on something productive like actually exorcizing some curses?"
His white-haired partner performed an exaggerated groan, rolling his eyes whilst completely dusting the comment off.
"You're such a buzzkill! Curses this, curses that, why can't you just live without a stick up your ass for once?"
…
Their back and forth squabble continued on for a good while until they had finally arrived back at their dormitory. "We can deal with Shoko tomorrow, right now I could really go for a midnight snack."
"How the hell can you still eat after blowing out a fortune on a Yakiniku?"
All seemed to be proceeding as normal, until Satoru came to an abrupt halt right as they approached the front door.
"What's wrong?" Suguru queried, sensing a noticeable amount of apprehension from his classmate.
"Can't you tell?" Following his friend's lead, Suguru's expression also began to contort as he started to hone his senses.
"...Who the hell is that?"
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