Fighting Curses and Changing Genders

"I'll once again give a final briefing." the manager said.

"Kamogawa Elementary School has been abandoned for years after the Principal of the school was arrested for blackmailing the children's parents and extorting money from them. Apparently, he was also involved in various other cases.

Slowly, after his arrest, the maintenance of the school degraded and after 2 years, it was closed. As the owner was the Principal himself, the school was not given proper care thereafter. Later, the Principal was killed in the prison during inmate fights and the school was completely abandoned.

With time, various rumors kept spreading and several gangs around the area started having their meetings here and started hanging out. Eventually, fights happened here and a few were killed. Soon, the curses kept increasing and here we are now." As he was explaining, all four of us loitering around the school.

Mai's high senses already picked up the Curses. He could feel the presence far better than others. The strongest one he felt was somewhere around Grade 2. Observing his other two classmates, it seemed like they didn't pick up on it.

It was certain. His sensing abilities were far better.

As he was planning on fighting it, he needed them to not be near it but not too far away from it to not witness and help him/her later.

After all, he's too weak right now.

"Alright then. I'll cast the curtain." The manager said and stepped out of the school gates.

"Emerge from the darkness, blacker than darkness. Purify that which is impure," he muttered, and soon, a transparent black barrier formed around the school.

Before Mechamaru said anything, Mai already 'suggested' where they should start.

"I'll take upstairs. Why don't you guys start from there and we'll meet here and take a look at the Gymnasium at last." Mai pointed them away furthest from that semi-second-grade curse.

"Alright, then. Let's complete this quickly and get some takoyaki on the way. We can get some for Momo-san." Miwa responded quickly. Mechamaru looked at Miwa and nodded his head.

As both of them started walking, Mai also took the stairs while taking out the Rewards from the System.

The Rewards were in the form of cards. Taking out the cards for smoke bombs, Cursed Energy Pills, and the Gender Bender Potion, he asked the System,

'Can I keep them inside System again?'

[If you let them stay in the form of cards, yes. If you change them into items, they won't revert back to card again.

You can take them out and keep them in mentally with a thought. To use the card, just imagine using it.]

"Alright. Let's hope it works out well."

The timing for what Mai needed to do was important. Since he could sense almost all the Curses throughout the school shows that his senses were on a different scale.

Taking out the revolver, Mai applied a bit of Cursed Energy and started blasting bullets into the Grade 3 curses. Unlike the previous self, he didn't go for long range.

These things although grotesque and disgusting, he was used to them through those memories. He was still a bit afraid disgusted but moved on.

In his past life, as Saiki, he was afraid of bugs. Very very much. But with Mai's memories and life experience, it was a lot less. Otherwise, he wouldn't even be here.

Exorcising a few Grade 3 and Grade 4 curses, he moved towards the place where the concentration of Cursed Energy was highest in the school excluding Mechamaru.

Getting near it, it was an 8-legged creature wobbling with several eyes on different parts of its body.

'This much won't be enough. It needs to be at least a semi-first-grade.'

Taking out the Cursed Energy Pills, he popped one into his mouth. The moment he gulped in, his Cursed Energy Reserves went back to full.

That increase in Cursed Energy also leaked out residue energy causing the Curse to turn toward him.

Instantly, Mai took out his revolver and shot two bullets at the Curse's eyes. All the other eyes turned towards Mai and the Curse reacted quickly by sprinting weirdly with its eight legs.

Mai started running and got down the stairs all the while shooting one or two bullets at it coated with Cursed Energy. After getting it down to the first floor, he sensed that both Miwa and Mechamaru were getting near.

'This is the moment.' He took out the rest of the pills and ate two of them at once. His Cursed Energy that he was wasting away unnecessarily was completely restored.

For the other two pills, he let the Curse come nearer to him with its mouth wide open, and at that moment, he threw both the pills into its mouth.

The moment it gulped them down, it made an earsplitting screech.

*SCREEECH*

Mai backed away instinctively and shot as many bullets as he could. He could already feel Mechamaru just a few meters away from the corridor. When he makes a turn, they both will be visible to him. Timing just at the perfect moment, Mai took out Smoke bombs and the Gender Bender Potion at the same time.

[Gender Bender Potion: Swaps the gender from male to female and vice-versa. The effects are permanent. There may be slight physical changes other than gender-swapping changes.]

Drinking the potion in a gulp, throwing the potion bottle far away, and smashing all the smoke bombs on the ground. He did all these simultaneously.

With too much smoke, Mai coughed.

*cough**cough**cough*

Mechamaru turned the corridor only to look at the Semi-first-grade Curse. It looked like it spewed some purple-colored gas at Mai.

He didn't waste any time and started blasting beams at it.

'What the hell? Why is there a semi-first grade here? I can't take any chances. It spouted some gas onto Mai. The gas could be poisonous. She could die at any time.' Mechamaru thought and knew that he needed to kill it as quickly as possible to get Mai to any medication.

That caught the Curse's attention but before it could do anything, Mechamaru was already prepared.

Without wasting any time,

"Mode: Albatross." His puppet mouth opened and another cannon barrel revealed itself.

"Ultimate Cannon," Mechamru said robotically and blasted from his mouth and his hands at the same time. All three beams hit the Curse's head and it dispersed away with a purple blood gore.

By that time, Miwa caught up.

"What happened?" she asked Mechamaru in a hurry.

"Take Mai with you. Hurry! She might be poisoned." That widened Miwa's eyes and she went to Mai who was fallen unconscious on the floor.

Getting nearer to Mai, Miwa was worried looking at Mai's fallen state.

"Mai-chan! Wake up."

"Mai-chan!"

"Mai-cha?? What the hell!" Miwa was stunned to speak. In front of her was a handsome guy instead of Mai. The hair that was short had also grown long.

"Wait! Wait! Wait!" She took the male Mai into her lap and checked for any distress signs but it looked like everything was fine.

Except...

"Mechamaru. We got a problem."

-----------

"So, you're telling me there was a Semi-first grade in that school that spewed out some purple gas onto her and now, 'she' turned into a 'he'." Utahime asked Mechamaru again.

"Why do I get all these problems? And it seems that her Cursed Energy actually increased. No other signs of any type of curse." Utahime started talking to herself clutching her head.

"Yes. Since there wasn't supposed to be anything below Grade 3, we were caught off-guard. I didn't know what gas it spewed. So, I took it out as soon as possible. I'm sorry." Mechamaru apologized. If that curse was still alive, it might've been used to swap the genders again.

"No. Don't apologize. You did what was best. If the gas was lethal, your response would've been the best. Now the main problem is from the Zen'in clan. We don't know how they might respond." Utahime said.

'Although his father might be happy.' she kept that thought to herself.

She wanted to win this Goodwill event, and she cared for her students.

Setting aside Mai's attitude, she actually cared for her friends and she worked hard. She had very less talent in Jujutsu and Utahime very well knew that Mai was caught up in her Clan's issues.

"Then don't tell them." A male voice unknown to them suddenly spoke.

Both Utahime and Mechamaru were startled to hear an unknown voice and quickly turned back just to see that Mai woke up.

"Mai!" Utahime widened her eyes.

"Looks like my Cursed Energy increased," Mai said looking at his new body. As he started getting up from his bed, Utahime stopped him.

"Don't get up yet. we don't know what else has happened." Utahime spoke worriedly.

"I know, sensei. The thing is, I can feel something between my legs and I need to go immediately check it." Mai said with an impassive face.

Hearing those words, Utahime blushed for a moment but,

"Are you really OK? Y-" She tried talking but Mai cut her off.

"This is why I didn't want this! This Jujutsu mess! All because of her! them! " Mai shouted not particularly at anyone. Then he suddenly calmed down and took a deep breath.

"I apologize, sensei." Saying those words, he turned back and went into the bathroom.

"*sigh*. Mechamaru, call Nishimiya and Miwa. It would be nice if you're also with them. Be with her-him for some time until she-he calms down. I'll see if I can do something." Utahime said and left.

------------

'Good job me. That should've looked OK. I didn't know I was this good at acting.' Mai said while looking at his new body. It was fair to say that this new face was pretty handsome.

"Did my height increase?" It wasn't particularly big. Just 2 to 3 centimeters change.

Now that a very uncomfortable problem was cleared, he can put his full attention on the actual problems. The biggest problem was always information.

He only knows the plot until Gojo's past. After that, there was something about Gojo taking Itadori and the other first years for some top-secret mission.

'So, the only information I have is that

1. either Geto Suguru or some other person that looks like Geto Suguru is plotting to seal Gojo along with new Special Grade curses.

2. Gojo said that Jogo was an unregistered special grade. That means either they spawned just a few years ago or they were secretly hiding for years.

3. Gojo suspects that someone from Jujutsu schools is allied with this Geto's group. That's certainly true. Most likely, it is someone from Kyoto's side or a character that wasn't introduced in the anime.'

There were still some conjectures but he thought about getting back to those things later. Right now, he needed more strength just to survive.

Looking at the System notifications, he ignored till now,

[Gender has been swapped]

[Hidden Quest: Get Back Your Pride! completed]

[You have received 3 Gacha Rolls as reward]

[Rewards are doubled for completing the first Hidden Quest]

Either way, it was good progress and he knew that this was also the time for moving forward at this pace. Any abnormal changes that happened right now would make it less suspicious.

It was time for a quick training arc.