His height alone made him look imposing, and every step radiated the pride and cutting disdain of one of the Three Great Families.
The black-and-gold wide-sleeved haori set off the broad-collared white shirt beneath it, while the light hakama fell in perfectly ordered lines. Not a single fold was out of place. Every movent was flawless, as precise and crisp as clockwork.
His dazzling blond hair was styled to perfection. The naturally lifted sweep of his eyes, together with the silver studs lining both ears, gave him a striking beauty that could turn heads at a glance, yet every edge of that beauty carried a poisonous sharpness.
Naoya Zenin.
On him, the very concept of [arrogance of nobility] seed to be embodied to the absolute extre, without the slightest trace of gentleness.
His gait, the way he lifted his eyes, the faint sneer curling at the corner of his lips. Every detail revealed the spoiled yet sinister presence unique to this young master.
"That bastard..."
And yet, in so people's eyes, that perfect exterior was nothing more than a disgusting shell.
"Hah..."
From the mont Mai Zenin noticed Naoya Zenin appear at school, she had been suppressing the fury boiling inside her.
And it was not only in her expression. Her body was reacting just as violently.
Her fists were clenched so tightly she was nearly drawing blood, and she was biting down hard on her lower lip.
Ever since she was born, Naoya Zenin had bulldozed his way through her life and stolen it from her.
From childhood onward, he had kicked and beaten her, ordering her around like so lowly servant to be summoned and dismissed at will. Even now that she was older, she still dread of him in nightmares in the middle of the night, dreaming of Naoya Zenin yanking her by the hair and laughing out loud.
What broke Mai down even more was that there was no one she could tell about that humiliation and grievance.
Her father treated her and her sister as stains on his life. The mont their eyes t his, it was enough to trigger his rage.
Her mother, anwhile, demanded that she and her sister serve Naoya Zenin properly, because he was the next Clan Head. The sisters did not need to think about anything else. From the day they were born, they existed only to serve Naoya Zenin.
The only person she could share her joys, anger, sorrow, and happiness with was her sister, Maki. But Maki seed to have grown a heart of stone. She had never once shown weakness. Every humiliation suffered in the Zenin Clan hid a asure of hatred in Maki's eyes.
That hatred was the fuse that shattered the bond between the sisters.
Mai had never once thought of resisting.
No matter how badly she was wronged, she would only bow her head and obey. Even though the resentnt inside her had long been pushed to its limit, she never dared to get angry. She only swallowed it all down.
A father was a father. A mother was a mother. A cousin was a cousin.
Mai Zenin carried the blood of the Zenin Clan, so it was only right that she devote herself to the Zenin Clan until death.
But Maki was different.
To that cold, rciless woman, anything could be abandoned without hesitation, even her own twin sister.
She had left the Zenin Clan because of hatred, and sooner or later, she would return to the Zenin Clan because of hatred too.
And Mai?
All she dared to do was stare at Naoya Zenin from the shadows. Looking at the sharp arrogance in her cousin's eyes, she wanted nothing more than to pull out a Cursed Tool and gouge them both out on the spot.
But...
That was all it could ever be. A fantasy.
For her sister, learning stronger Cursed Techniques was for the sake of killing Naoya Zenin with her own hands.
Reaching a higher station was for the sake of erasing Naoya Zenin from society completely.
The longer that revenge fernted, the sweeter it would beco.
Maki could live for that sweet mont. Enduring a little longer ant nothing to her.
But her younger sister, Mai, could not do the sa.
She knew very well that no matter how hard she tried, she would never be Naoya Zenin's match.
Revenge without proper preparation would only make her suffer more.
So the angrier Mai felt toward Naoya Zenin, the more terrifying her fear of him beca.
"...Mai, what's wrong? You're sweating so much."
Her classmate Kasumi Miwa noticed sothing was off about Mai Zenin, so she turned and asked with concern.
"It's nothing. It's just hot."
Mai forced herself to stay calm, trying to brush it off.
"Uh... Mai, you're in really good shape."
Kasumi Miwa thought to herself that Halloween had only just passed, and with the cold rain from not long ago, it should still be freezing today no matter how you looked at it.
But Mai was pretty close with Todo-senpai, so maybe she had gone through so special training with that muscle-obsessed maniac too?
"That guy is your cousin, right, Mai? I'm so jealous. You've got such a handso older brother!"
But Kasumi Miwa had no intention of dwelling on that question for long.
She looked excitedly at Naoya Zenin in the distance, grabbed Mai's arm, and started chattering nonstop. "Wow! He's insanely hot! Is he a transfer student?! What's his na?! I really hope he transfers into our class! I want to sit right next to him!!!"
"...Naoya Zenin."
chamaru spoke in a low voice from the side.
"I've heard of him. He's a Special Grade 1 Sorcerer, and he used to be a famous prodigy in the Jujutsu World. People often compared him to Satoru Gojo. But once Satoru Gojo beca the strongest sorcerer of the modern era, people basically stopped making that comparison."
"Uh... what do you an by that, chamaru?"
Kasumi Miwa was baffled.
How had the conversation suddenly jumped to her idol, Satoru Gojo?
"At his age, there's no way he's a transfer student."
chamaru analyzed calmly.
"He's most likely here to be a teacher."
Kasumi Miwa blinked several tis.
She stood on tiptoe and looked Naoya Zenin over again and again through the crowd. With that youthful, dangerously charming face of his, she really could not picture Mai's cousin as soone from the sa generation as the famous Satoru Gojo.
She had assud he was only a year older than her at most.
At the sa ti, just like the stunned Kasumi Miwa, Naoya Zenin was also completely bewildered.
"So you an... I'm going to be a teacher at Kyoto Jujutsu High?"
"Exactly."
Yoshinobu Gakuganji, the principal of Kyoto Jujutsu High, nodded.
"Naobito told you wanted to co to Jujutsu High to temper yourself, but as a Special Grade 1 Sorcerer, there's no one on Kyoto's faculty capable of guiding you at that level."
Principal Gakuganji was already putting it tactfully.
To put it bluntly, Kyoto Jujutsu High did not even have many Grade 1 Sorcerers among its teachers.
If Naoya really wanted soone at his level to teach him, the only option would be to go ask Satoru Gojo to take him as a student.
But there was no way the young master of the Zenin Clan could go bow his head to the Gojo Clan and beco their disciple.
That would make him nothing less than a traitor to his own family.
And so the cruel reality was this.
In the current Jujutsu World, there was simply no one qualified to dare call themselves Naoya Zenin's teacher.
To be fair, part of the bla lay with the original owner himself for always having been this way.
Even a monster like Satoru Gojo had obediently gone to Jujutsu High as a student.
But Naoya Zenin had been raised from childhood under an elite noble education. As one of the Three Great Families, the Zenin Clan had its own way of teaching. They had never thought much of the Jujutsu Sorcerer certification issued by Jujutsu High in the first place. The Zenin Clan could issue its own diploma if it wanted to.
The reason a Special Grade 1 Sorcerer was called a Special Grade 1 Sorcerer was because it was a ranking system unique to the Three Great Families. It did not require recognition from Jujutsu High at all.
If Naoya Zenin had been ten years younger, Principal Gakuganji might have reluctantly agreed to let him enroll at Jujutsu High.
But now he was already in his twenties. What was the point of coming here as a student?
Was he supposed to compete with high schoolers for their place?
If all else failed, they might as well open a Jujutsu University for him and satisfy his thirst for knowledge that way.
Realizing that, with his current status, he really could not be a student, Naoya Zenin could not help frowning.
Damn it, what happened to the overpowered transfer-student storyline where he ca in and ruled the campus?
Not that he had planned to crush people by fighting down a level when they were all about the sa age.
But becoming a teacher was way too insane, wasn't it?!
After all, this transmigrator himself did not even have a solid foundation as a Jujutsu Sorcerer. He just happened to possess top-tier theoretical knowledge. How was he supposed to teach students properly?
But the matter was already settled, and he had no room to refuse, so he could only accept the post.
At the very least, it was the first step toward changing the original storyline.
If he taught in Kyoto, then later, through the school exchange event and friendly competition, he could still build connections with the main cast from the Tokyo school.
It was just a bit forced, that was all.
Naoya Zenin slowly climbed the steps.
As Kyoto Jujutsu High's new teacher, he still had to give an inaugural speech in front of the entire school.
The auditorium was packed with over a thousand people.
Students, nobles, teachers...
Their gazes gathered on him, shrouding him on the stage like a spotlight.
Whether they hated him, envied him, or admired him...
Those looks beca a tangible weight, as if they wanted to crush the spine of this transmigrator.
Naoya Zenin faced it all alone.
Before transmigrating, he had never once stood at the center of the world, let alone given a speech before a crowd of this size.
And yet sothing strange happened.
He did not feel nervous in the slightest.
If anything, he had expected himself to be extrely nervous.
But as he stood bathed in everyone's gaze, the transmigrator found that all of it felt perfectly natural.
Because in Naoya Zenin's life, this kind of attention was nothing more than everyday routine.
It was not pressure.
It was a display of status.
Because Naoya Zenin was heaven's chosen one.
There was no need to be surprised, and even less reason to be awed.
Heaven's chosen one was ant to stand above everyone else.
"Greetings, everyone. I am Naoya Zenin."
Although Naoya Zenin was extrely uneasy inside, he still began his speech with perfect composure.
He had just closed his eyes and rehearsed the contents several tis. On top of that, thanks to the astonishing mory he had honed through [Projection Sorcery], his delivery was not affected in the slightest. His voice was elegant and clear.
"I was born into the Zenin Clan, one of the Three Great Families of the Jujutsu World. I am also the heir to the next Clan Head, the leader of the [Hei] organization, and a Special Grade 1 Sorcerer recognized by the Jujutsu World."
That line alone was enough to make the students below stop breathing.
One of the Three Great Families, the Zenin Clan.
The leader of the [Hei] organization.
A Special Grade 1 Sorcerer.
Any one of those titles, taken on its own, would have been explosive enough to shock the entire hall.
And yet the noble young man on stage possessed all of those dazzling distinctions at once...
In an instant, the students below were filled with intense anticipation for their future life at the school.
With a genius like this presiding over Kyoto Jujutsu High, their future accomplishnts could only rise higher and higher!
On top of that, Naoya Zenin's unique aristocratic aura made many of the female students below flush red, already stirring with feelings they could not put into words toward this instructor.
Yet unlike the crowd, who were brimming with excitent, one green-haired girl in the noisy audience frowned.
Her fists were clenched so tightly she was nearly drawing blood, and the fury she could barely suppress was on the verge of swallowing her whole.
The girl suddenly lifted her head. Her eyes, full of killing intent, were like a gleaming blade stabbing straight into Naoya Zenin's heart.
That sharp gaze naturally did not escape Naoya Zenin's notice on stage.
The transmigrator's mood, which had only just relaxed, instantly plunged to the bottom.
Mai Zenin.
Maki Zenin's younger sister, and also the original owner's cousin.
In the original story, it was Mai Zenin's death that led Maki Zenin to fully awaken [Heavenly Restriction], which ultimately ended with the extermination of the entire Zenin Clan.
In other words...
This green-haired girl would directly lead to his death in the near future!
...No, this was the middle of his speech. He absolutely could not let soone at that level affect him.
There were far too many people capable of killing him. A weakling like Mai Zenin did not have the right to cut the line.
Naoya Zenin quickly steadied himself and continued with his speech.
"Jujutsu is a miracle that distorts the world."
"Jujutsu Sorcerers can rely on certain techniques, and through certain ans, alter reality."
They were words steeped in mystery and the unknown.
"As far back as the Heian era, Jujutsu Sorcerers, under the na of onmyoji, chanted incantations, ford seals, and borrowed the power of gods and spirits to rewrite reality. In those days, Cursed Energy flourished. Even monsters, demons, and evil spirits had to bow their heads before onmyoji and fear them!"
"Abe no Seii, Ashiya Doman, Kamo no Tadayuki..."
"Generation after generation, those who stood at the pinnacle of Jujutsu left behind bold and unforgettable chapters on this land, chapters that belonged only to the strong."
Naoya Zenin paused, then swept his gaze over the students below. A mocking smile curled at the corner of his lips.
"But what about now? In today's Jujutsu World, there are far too many pieces of trash living off the Techniques left behind by their ancestors, wasting away and staining the honor that belongs to Jujutsu Sorcerers!"
Those arrogant words instantly threw the auditorium into an uproar.
It was not just the students who were stunned speechless. Even the important Kyoto figures seated in the front rows could not help frowning.
What the hell was the youngest son of the Zenin Clan playing at?!
Inherited Techniques were part of the Jujutsu World's history, a legacy every Jujutsu Sorcerer had every right to take pride in.
And yet he was calling the Techniques left behind by their ancestors a ans to coast through life?
Had he not reached his current position by relying on the Zenin Clan's inherited Technique too?!
But Naoya Zenin paid no attention to the dissatisfaction below. He simply went on speaking.
"In my view, Jujutsu must never beco a monopoly held by the great clans. Ancient Jujutsu has already reached the point where it needs to be cast aside. What will rule the Jujutsu World next is modern Jujutsu!"
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