[Tsukumo’s question hit with the precision of a needle finding a nerve. Beneath the still surface of your composure, a genuine ripple of surprise passed through, brief but undeniable.]
[Your Innate Technique, Phantom Night Parade, had always excelled at discretion. Across every battle in your mory, almost no one had ever sensed anything off during the passive analysis-and-replication phase alone.]
[Yet this freewheeling woman had locked onto that faint tremor of Cursed Energy the instant your eyes t.]
[Still, being called out to your face changed nothing. You made no move to shut the technique down.]
[You simply stood there, wrapped in a silence so deliberate it had weight.]
[Not because you’d frozen. Because you were using the silence, stretching it on purpose, buying seconds while the analysis progress bar ticking away inside your skull crept toward completion.]
[Beside you, Geto’s brow had drawn tight. The habitual warmth on his face had given way to open vigilance, those narrow fox-eyes sweeping over the woman who’d strolled uninvited through Jujutsu High’s barrier.
Soone who carried a motorcycle helt like a handbag, who’d wandered in asking for Gojo by na, and who’d then, in the sa breath, identified Touma Hayase on sight and seen clean through his active technique. Who the hell was she?]
[The mont Tsukumo called out that you were running a technique, every nerve in Geto’s body pulled taut.]
[He reached out with his senses, probing the stranger’s Cursed Energy, and the result hit him like a stone dropping into his chest.]
[The sheer volu coiled inside her, the pressure she held leashed just beneath the surface, was a dormant volcano. One wrong step and the eruption would bury them all. This was categorically not soone who could be brushed aside.]
[Quietly, Geto angled his body to shield Haibara behind him, then addressed Tsukumo in a voice stripped of courtesy, edged with frost.]
["Who are you, exactly?"]
[But before she could answer, the taut wire of tension strung across the corridor snapped.]
["I like girls who enjoy their food! The kind who think everything tastes amazing no matter what they’re eating!"]
[The declaration, spectacular in its irrelevance, belonged to the human standing at Geto’s side: Yu Haibara.]
[He seed entirely blind to the tension hanging in the air. So animal instinct had simply locked onto whatever frequency Tsukumo was broadcasting, and he’d responded with total, guileless honesty, bellowing his taste in won for the entire hallway to hear.]
[Tsukumo’s attention had been fixed squarely on you. The answer she’d wanted certainly hadn’t been this first-year’s. But confronted with that degree of pure, unfiltered sincerity, she arched one brow, amusent curling the corner of her mouth, and offered an approving nod.]
["Is that so... Lively preference you’ve got there."]
[Then that predatory gaze swung to Geto, still locked in his defensive stance.]
["And what about you, Geto? What’s your type?"]
[Geto winced. Haibara’s spectacular derailnt had given him an instant headache. He shot a weary glance at the junior beside him, still grinning without a care in the world, swallowed whatever exasperated comnt was forming, and ignored her question entirely. His stare stayed cold, his tone colder.]
["Don’t change the subject. Who are you, and what business do you have at Jujutsu High?"]
[Pressed for the third ti, Tsukumo showed no irritation. If anything, the smile widened.]
[She tucked the heavy motorcycle helt into the crook of her arm, raised one long finger, and tapped it against her own lightly made-up face. The words ca out wrapped in the laziest kind of authority.]
["Yuki Tsukumo. Special Grade Jujutsu Sorcerer. Once I say the na, I’m guessing it rings at least a few bells?"]
[Those five words landed like a depth charge in still water.]
[Geto and Haibara’s pupils contracted in unison, shock breaking through onto both their faces before either could stop it.]
[The na wasn’t unfamiliar. That was precisely the problem. Knowing what it ant made the shock worse, not better.]
[Geto’s throat bobbed once. The hostility wound tight through his fra dissolved in an instant, replaced by sothing far more complex, and the words fell out half under his breath.]
["So you’re the one from the rumors... The only Special Grade outside Jujutsu High’s roster, traveling overseas all this ti?"]
[But Tsukumo had no interest in basking in the awe of her juniors. The reverence, the curiosity glittering in their eyes, none of it held her attention for even a second.]
[Her gaze cut past both of them and settled on your face. On that still expression that hadn’t so much as twitched. Her eyes narrowed, sharp with curiosity, and the next question ca probing.]
["Hm? You don’t look the least bit surprised, Hayase. Is the title ’Special Grade’ just not registering, or... did you already know who I was?"]
[Under the weight of that relentless scrutiny, one thing finally crystallized with absolute certainty: Tsukumo’s rare return to Jujutsu High had nothing to do with finding Gojo. She’d co here specifically for you.]
[Your pulse didn’t change. Your expression didn’t shift. You answered as though stating the weather.]
["Special Grade Jujutsu Sorcerers are powerful, sure. But it’s not exactly earth-shattering news for . I spend every day flanked by two of them. After enough exposure, I’d think a third showing up doesn’t really qualify as sothing I need to lose my mind over."]
[Tsukumo studied your face with the intensity of soone reading fine print, hunting for the smallest tell: a flicker in the eyes, a micro-twitch in the jaw, anything that might betray what was happening underneath.]
[She found nothing. Under the absolute cover of Life is Like a Play, you were a dead lake. Not a single ripple, not a single crack in the surface.]
[And the logic of your answer held up flawlessly. You did, in fact, spend your daily life in the company of Gojo and Geto, two monsters in human skin. Claiming immunity to the shock value of Special Grade status was perfectly reasonable.]
[But your thoughts weren’t on Tsukumo’s motives right now. Not even close.]
[Every scrap of your attention had collapsed inward, converging on the final analysis report that had just materialized inside your mind.]
[Deep behind your retinas, lines of pale blue data visible to no one else stread together in a torrent, condensing into legible text.]
[Technique analysis complete: Star Rage.]
[Description: A rare Cursed Technique capable of imbuing the user and their dedicated cursed tool with virtual mass. As the virtual mass increases, the user’s physical durability and destructive power scale exponentially. Of particular note: within a certain threshold of density and mass, the user is entirely unaffected by the gravitational forces their own technique generates. The technique’s upper ceiling and immunity range are deeply constrained by the user’s mastery and total Cursed Energy reserves.]
[Your brow creased, just barely, as you scanned the intelligence.]
[What snagged your attention, what set every alarm in your head screaming, was a single word buried in the description.]
[You understood better than anyone what "virtual" ant in the context of Jujutsu.]
[It ant the technique had breached into the territory of raw concept, the kind that didn’t negotiate with physics, that simply overwrote reality by force.]
[Star Rage was blunt, brutal, and terrifying beyond asure.]
[The woman standing in front of you was, without question, a human warhead capable of punching through a mountain. The title of Special Grade Jujutsu Sorcerer wasn’t a re honorific. It was the strongest possible proof of what that power represented.]
[You pulled your focus back to the surface and let Phantom Night Parade fall silent.]
[Tsukumo was still watching you with that wild, searching look, clearly waiting for your answer to her very first question.]
[You glanced at her, sothing faintly mischievous buried so deep in your gaze that no one could have caught it, and then, wearing the flattest, most unapologetically dead-eyed expression imaginable, you answered. Right there in front of Geto and Haibara, without a shred of hesitation.]
["... and sorry. I’m into 2D won. Real ones don’t do it for ."]
["..."]
[Tsukumo, who’d been riding the full montum of her presence and gearing up for the next layer of her probe, hit a wall. That exquisitely composed face cracked wide open in disbelief. For one long, frozen mont, the Special Grade Jujutsu Sorcerer stood rooted to the floor, utterly blindsided by the most airtight nonsense answer she had ever received.]
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