Jujutsu Kaisen: Tragedy Life Simulator-Chapter 98 - Absolutely not

[Rewind a bit.]

[While Shinjuku was drowning in blood and fire, Jujutsu High sat out in the Tokyo suburbs under a silence so thick it felt hard to breathe.]

[The classroom was dark. No lights. Yuta Okkotsu sat alone at his desk, slumped back in his chair, staring up at the dim ceiling with empty eyes.]

[Back during the Night Parade of a Hundred Demons, he’d already been marked as suspicious. The higher-ups were convinced Suguru Geto’s real target was him, the boy at the center of it all. Worse, if Rika, his Special Grade Vengeful Cursed Spirit, lost control in the middle of a large-scale battle, Tokyo itself could go up in flames.]

[So the order had come down, hard and final.]

[No deployment. Not to Tokyo, not to Kyoto. He was to stay inside the school’s barrier like a prisoner and wait.]

[Maki Zenin got the same treatment.]

[She’d been born without cursed energy. Couldn’t even see Cursed Spirits on her own. So the school dressed it up as "protection" and barred her from the fight too. Transparent garbage, but that was the excuse.]

[Yuta’s thoughts kept circling back to the same scene.]

[That day on the training field. The fight between Touma Hayase and Suguru Geto.]

[It had been so fast, so brutal, it still didn’t feel real.]

["Hayase sensei... his file only says Grade 1 Jujutsu Sorcerer."]

[Yuta muttered it to himself, still sounding like he didn’t quite believe it.]

["But when it came down to it, even against a legendary Special Grade, he never hesitated. He just threw himself in. Some of the techniques he used were basically suicidal. He’s always felt different from the other teachers. Even from Gojo sensei..."]

[Bang!]

[The classroom door flew open with a violent kick before he could finish.]

[Maki stood in the doorway with her long-handled naginata slung over one shoulder, lit from behind by the hallway. She snorted and picked up right where he’d left off.]

["Obviously he’s different."]

[Something unusual flickered in her eyes. Not softness exactly, but close. A memory she couldn’t fully hide.]

["Back when Hayase sensei was only Grade 2, he stormed the Zenin compound by himself. Aside from the current clan head and that old bastard, he tore through the Kukuru Unit and most of the Hei on his own."]

[Yuta had been at Jujutsu High long enough to understand what the Big Three Families meant.]

[The kind that sat on the whole jujutsu world like a mountain.]

[He straightened so fast his chair creaked.]

["But... the Zenin Clan is on the same level as Gojo sensei’s family. They’re basically nobility in the jujutsu world. Why would Hayase sensei do something that insane? That’s practically treason."]

[Maki walked to the window and looked out at the darkening sky.]

["He went to take back a kid the Zenin Clan had forcibly seized. Grabbed his sword, kicked in the front gate, and walked straight in. But the scary part wasn’t that he fought dozens of elite sorcerers at once. It was that he controlled every strike perfectly. He didn’t kill a single one. Left them all in critical condition and stopped there."]

[She paused, expression turning complicated.]

["Since nobody died, and because of a few other factors, the fallout wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been."]

[Yuta blinked, then caught on the detail that mattered to him first.]

["A kid...? Hayase sensei still looks young. He already has a child?"]

[Maki scratched at her hair, clearly trying to compress that messy history between Touma Hayase, Megumi Fushiguro, and the Zenin Clan into something Yuta could follow.]

[In the end, she went with the shortest version.]

["Not his biological kid. Legally, he wasn’t even the guardian. At most, he was the boy’s teacher. That’s all."]

[Yuta just stared.]

[For a student, he’d gone straight at one of the Big Three and cut through an entire branch of the clan without blinking?]

[Maki glanced at him and wasn’t surprised by the look on his face. He hadn’t been around Hayase long enough to really understand what kind of person he was. Honestly, even most veteran sorcerers would’ve called that story absurd.]

[She looked back out the window.]

["Hayase sensei is a good person. A ridiculously good one. To the point it almost feels warped. I only really understood that recently. That kindness of his doesn’t extend to people who slaughter innocents. And as for why he keeps you at a distance, why he treats you colder than everyone else... you’re smart enough to know, right?"]

[Yuta’s hand drifted down to the ring on his finger. His eyes lowered. A long breath slipped out of him.]

["Yeah. I know."]

[Of course he knew.]

[Touma Hayase hated any kind of violence that put civilians at risk. And Rika, the spirit bound to Yuta, was basically a walking disaster. If she went wild, tens of thousands of ordinary people could die. Whether he liked it or not, the harm Rika had done was part of the burden he carried.]

[That thought kept chewing on him.]

[He’d been labeled Special Grade, but when things really mattered, he was useless. Trapped inside Jujutsu High. Unable to help anyone. While Hayase, already battered half to death, had gone to the front lines and fought in his place.]

[The shame of it sat in his chest like a weight.]

[He wanted, badly, to be more like Hayase. To be the kind of person who stepped forward when it mattered. The one who stood in front of everyone else and held the line.]

[And right as that thought took shape, the sky turned black.]

[An ocean of cursed energy poured down from above like ink. It spilled over the campus in a single breath and hardened into a massive hemispherical barrier that swallowed the entire school whole.]

[A Curtain.]

[But before it could finish sealing, two sharp screams tore through the air overhead.]

[Boom!]

[Two figures dropped like meteors and blasted through the Curtain at its weakest point. Stone and dust erupted as they slammed into the training ground outside the building where Yuta and Maki were standing.]

["Who’s there?!"]

[Maki’s hands tightened around the naginata as she stared into the smoke.]

[When it cleared, her eyes widened.]

["Panda? Toge? Weren’t you supposed to be on the front lines? Why are you back? And what the hell is this Curtain?"]

[Panda dragged himself out of the crater, dirt shaking loose from his fur, while keeping a wobbling Toge Inumaki steady beside him. He looked up toward the second-floor window and shouted, urgency ripping raw through his voice.]

["It’s Geto! He came here himself! Those two thousand Cursed Spirits were a fake-out! His real goal was getting Gojo and Hayase sensei away from the school! He’s after Yuta and Rika, the ones left behind! Gojo used his technique to throw us back here! We have to hold Geto off until he gets here!"]

[Maki’s face turned cold in an instant.]

[Without another word, she flipped the naginata, vaulted out the second-floor window, and landed cleanly below.]

[Yuta’s blood surged. He grabbed the sill, already about to jump after her.]

["I’m coming too!"]

["Stay where you are!"]

[Maki didn’t even turn around. Her voice cracked like a whip. She was glaring toward the darkness deeper in the school grounds, jaw tight.]

["Are you stupid? You’re the whole reason he’s here. Running out now is exactly what he wants. Stay hidden. Don’t waste everything Hayase sensei and the others are risking their lives for!"]

[Panda turned and gave Yuta a firm, serious nod. Beside him, Toge pulled down his collar slightly and shook his head.]

[No. Absolutely not.]