"I do! And it is much less confusing to only have one Zen'in in the school." Pause. ".... There isn't another, right, I didn't get a student roster to read over or anything."

"Zen'in Maki-senpai's twin Mai is enrolled at the Kyoto school."

"Oh. But she's over in Kyoto, so it probably won't come up."

"Probably not."

"There is actually a yearly goodwill competition event between the sister schools, to foster good relations! But it's for second and third years only, so. Barring unusual circumstances, it'll be over a year!"

"Oh. Okay."

"We going to meet our upperclassmen soon?"

"They're away handling the last of the winter blues curses, but they'll be back within the next month. Our profession is kind of seasonal, changes with how the population's doing. Summer's usually our down time, it's why we teach classes then."

"...yet another thing that makes sense and I did not expect. Cool."

The following days are rather quiet. Gojo is absent over half of the time, leaving them to teach each other and figure things out on their own. When he is there, he's helpful in his typical idiosyncratic way. Itadori graduates from a sheep that makes noise to an elephant whose trunk uncurls proportional to the amount of cursed energy channeled into it, then eventually a metronome to go with it, to add practicing timing to the mix. Hayashi gets a promise that he'll make a request for something like fishing line-but-stronger, and is then told to go practice her sympathy technique on things she finds in the woods, or in an urban environment, instead of just what she always has with her. Fushiguro gets held back from what few and minor curse exorcisms occur, and he and Hayashi are gently prodded to start learning some close combat techniques from Itadori.

And then, almost two weeks after Hayashi's arrival, he has to go.

"I'll be away for a few days, maybe a week at most," he assures. "There are a couple of scattered curses up north that everybody's decided just need my personal attention. The downsides of being the strongest. Don't do anything I wouldn't do, and don't take my absence as an excuse to be lazy!"

"Sensei, most of our education is self study anyway. We'll hardly notice you're gone," quips Hayashi, lightly.

"Not me, I'll totally spend all day reading manga, being in one is so boring in comparison."

Snort.

"Heh. Careful, keep saying things like that, and the plot will pick up."

And then he gives a little wave and heads out.

Log: July 2018
West Tokyo City
Eishū Juvenile Detention Center
In the sky above the exercise yard

Unnamed apparition of potential special grade. Its cursed womb was witnessed by several non-jujutsu sorcerers. Due to the emergency nature, three Jujutsu High first-years were dispatched to the scene, and one died.

    "Our window verified the cursed womb three hours ago," says Ijichi Kiyotaka, assistand director at Jujutsu Tech, to debrief the students. "Once ninety percent were successfully evacuated, a call was made to seal off the center. Citizens within a five hundred meter radius have been evacuated as well."

"...cursed womb? That sounds like a plot-relevant term," says Itadori.

"I've actually never encountered one," admits Hayashi, frowning. "Don't they tend to become special grades?"

"Not all of them," says Fushiguro. "But the ones that change shape and grow often do."

    Ijichi nods at Fushiguro, looking nervous. "It is as Fushiguro-san says." He faces the three of them once again. "At present, five detainees remain in Block 2 with the cursed womb. We do not know if it is one of the wombs that can metamorphose, but you should proceed with the assumption that it is."

Itadori raises a hand. "Question, Ijichi-san."

    "Yes, Itadori?"

"What's a 'special grade'?"

"Oh no, we haven't explained it? I have been a bad senpai, I'm sorry. Classification system for curse strength. Short answer is that special is above our pay-grade. Long answer is that for conventional spirits, on a scale, four is the weakest, one is the strongest, and special is unconventional and breaks the scale. They need to be handled with extreme care and taken on a case by case basis. So. Potentially extremely bad news."

"Like Sukuna."

"Yes. So... why are we here? I'm a grade 2."

"And I," says Hayashi, sounding like this is a bit of a sore topic for her, "am grade 3. So. Yes, why are we here?"

"Wait, sorcerers get grades, too?"

    "Yes, Itadori-san. Sorcerer grades depend on what they can beat; a grade 2 sorcerer is meant to be strong enough to beat a grade 2 curse, but not a grade 1 curse."

"So how come Hayashi-senpai's lower than Fushiguro-kun? He has the cool summons, I get it, but I have seen her fight, there is no way they are not evenly matched by now, unless I don't really understand the ranks."

"It's fine," she says. It is clearly not fine. "The ranking system for sorcerers requires recommendations for promotions. A lot of my work has been hunting down sneaky curses that had flown under the radar instead of being on hand for conventional assignments that get officially graded, I'm not well connected in comparison to Fushiguro-san, and I did kind of directly upset a lot of available sorcerers that could have put in for my promotion by coming to Tokyo's jujutsu sorcery school."

And then she crosses her arms and - yep, she's pouting. That's a pout. "It's fine," she repeats.