TSCJTTM CH12 Dominating the Event

As the day of the event arrived, Rudra made his way toward the designated location to meet the students from Kyoto School of Jujutsu. When he arrived there, he was greeted with the awkward scene orchestrated by Gojo.

Kyoto Students were completely absorbed in examining the souvenirs given by Gojo and Tokyo students were speechless seeing the 'resurrected' Itadori, who was revealed by Gojo sensei as being a 'local product from his business overseas'.

The only one who seemed to be reacting properly to the situation was the old principal of Kyoto, who seemed to be angry enough to breathe fire on seeing Itadori still alive. Gojo was having the time of his life, taunting the old man who was head of the conservative Jujutsu Sorcerer faction.

"Hmm, this seems like a place to have some fun," Rudra said as he walked towards the Tokyo Group. The tension among the Tokyo Group relaxed a bit while the Kyoto group seemed to look at him with curiosity and slight wariness.

Rudra then turned to Itadori and gave him a high five. "You took your sweet time coming back huh?" Rudra told Itadori.

"Hey, I wanted to come long ago. It was Gojo sensei who made me participate in his 'Surprise everyone and reduce global warming plan'." Itadori whined.

"Surprise everyone and reduce global warming plan?" Rudra asked.

"Yeah. Gojo sensei said everyone will be so surprised that they will cry enough tears of happiness to bring down the planet's global warming level." Itadori said with a proud expression.

"Is that even something that is possible as a human?" Rudra asked as he and Itadori turned to Gojo, who looked away and whistled with a fake innocent expression.

The tomfoolery went on for a while before both principals intervened and decided to announce the format of the first competition in this event. While punishing Gojo using an armbar-like wrestling hold, Principal Yaga explained the rules of this year's annual Kyoto Sister School Goodwill Event, which would be held across two days.

The first event was decided to be a Team Battle - Wacky Spirit Bash Race. In this event the Tokyo and Kyoto teams students would compete against each other to exorcise a Grade 2 spirit and many other Lower Grade cursed spirits within the enclosed area designated jointly by the two schools.

As it was a competition, they were allowed to hinder opponents in any manner as they please as long it didn't kill the other person or cause them unrecoverable damage.

Each team converged to separate buildings they had been assigned for a strategy meeting and rest. At the Tokyo Team meeting, Nobara punished Yuji, by making him kneel and pose while holding a memorial photo frame, for not telling the rest of them that he survived.

Panda and Inumaki Toge defended Yuji, but Itadori got confused due to their unique characteristics and needed an explanation about that. In the end, Panda and Megumi both explain to Yuji that Toge talks funny because of his powers and that he limits his vocabulary to avoid cursing people accidentally.

Soon after, Maki demands Slaughter Demon, the cursed weapon Gojo gave him, back from Yuji. However, Yuji had broke Slaughter Demon in his fight against the Special Grade cursed spirit in the detention center long ago. Nervous, he decides to lie and say Gojo sensei still has it, leaving Maki to be annoyed.

After watching all this, Rudra stepped forward, "Yuji, I have a present for you. Treat it as a welcome gift for coming back to us."

"A present? *Waku Waku* *Waku Waku*" Itadori turned to Rudra with shining eyes.

"Here, catch it." Rudra threw a cloth-wrapped object to Itadori. Itadori saw that it was an object wrapped in cloth bindings that were covered in sealing runes. Curious to see what it contained, he began to unwrap it.

Megumi saw the cloth wrappings and his mind went to a time a few weeks ago when he had first seen it.

"Hey! Isn't that.." Megumi started to say but by that time Itadori had already finished unwrapping the package and a wrinkled demonic-looking finger, preserved in grave wax, rolled out from the cloth bindings and onto Itadori's hand.

Before anyone could stop and understand the situation, a mouth sprouted from Itadori's palm and swallowed the finger. Itadori and others could only watch that in stunned silence.

"Rudra!! What did you do?? That was Sukuna's finger wasn't it!!" Megumi shouted.

"Yes," Rudra replied calmly.

"Yes? That is all you can say?" Maki gripped her wooden spear as she narrowed her eyes at Rudra.

"Yup." Rudra nodded as he turned to look at Itadori, "Yuji, You can go ahead and eat the fingers of Sukuna as we find them. Until we reach the point of around 7-8 fingers, I should be able to stop Sukuna without worries if he decides to create trouble. Therefore, don't worry and leave it all up to me."

Rudra's statement stunned the group once again as they realized just how powerful Rudra's true ability must be at this point if he can say with such certainty that he can hold back the 'King of Curses' having the power of 7-8 of his fingers.

"Ho ho? A brat who has not even reached manhood dares to claim with such certainty that he can hold me back? Is that bravado?" the mouth reemerged on Yuji's palm and said in a mocking tone.

"Why don't you come out and dance a bit with me if you really think I am boasting?" Rudra said with a taunting look on his face, "I would love to see how you look when you are beaten to a pulp."

"Interesting.." the mouth said after some pause, "You are the third person to interest me, after that annoying blindfolded monkey I want to kill and the shadow Shikigami brat I have my eye on. It seems I won't be bored in the coming days…"

As the mouth faded back into Yuji's palm, Rudra smiled and stretched his limbs, "Maki-senpai, please don't worry about what happened in these past few minutes. As long as I am here nothing will go wrong."

"You should take the lead and prepare the strategy for the coming event instead. Let's have some fun against the spoiled brats of Kyoto School." Rudra said with a grin that Maki responded with one of her own. Following Rudra's advice, she considered Rudra and Itadori's capabilities and started assigning roles that suited them.

Soon the final plan was decided by Maki to make the best use of the scenario. According to the plan, Rudra was given the job to clean up all the Cursed Spirits while the rest of them distracted the six participants from the other team. This was the best way to utilize the uneven numbers between their teams.

'Well, this works out best for me.' Rudra thought, 'With that strong Special Grade cursed spirit that is going to invade Jujutsu High, me being alone will allow me to combat the threat more easily.'

-x-x-x-

As the time for the events to start came close, they assembled on one side of the designated area while the Kyoto team assembled on the other side.

One minute before the Goodwill Event began, Gojo introduced Utahime Iori over the loudspeaker and asked her to give a speech. However, before she finished her hesitant speech, Gojo pranked Utahime saying that time had run out, and began the event, cutting her off the microphone.

Just before she was completely cut off, they could Utahime hear her yell at Gojo to respect his elders, making all the students confused as to why their teachers were like this.

Following that, the event began and both teams ran into the area of the event. Rudra told others that he was going ahead and swiftly ran towards the Cursed Spirits he had sensed by using Curse Manipulation and Cursed Energy Manipulation together. Using those two together gave him a mental map of the whole area, highlighting the various sources of cursed energy and their movements.

Within minutes, he was able to reach his first cursed spirit, a mere grade 4 spirit. Rudra didn't even bother to stop or use a cursed technique. He just casually swiped his hand in the air and destroyed the cursed spirit with an unstable ball of cursed energy that he casually gathered together.

Just like that, he used his sensory trick to find another three cursed spirits one after the other, wiping them out in less than half a breath of time each. While he was about to go searching for more cursed spirits, he suddenly sensed fluctuations of Itadori/Sukuna's unique cursed energy signature.

He turned in that direction and used his sensing ability to the maximum to figure out what the situation was.

'Hmm, that calm source of cursed energy … one can rarely see a Jujutsu Sorcerer with such great control over Cursed Energy to make it seem like a pool of still water. I think that must be Aoi Todo. He truly deserves the reputation as the 'Monster'. I think if I was not here he definitely would be one of the candidates for the strongest student.' Rudra thought.

'I already have downed 4 curses. If I am remembering correctly, there should be around 4 more of these low-grade curses and one semi-grade 1 curse disguised as a grade 2 curse.' Rudra thought, 'I need to hurry up and finish them off as soon as possible. As for whoever dares to block my path, I am going to pulverize you.'