Japan 4

None of them sensed his approach, they were too engrossed in whatever it was they were talking about to take notice of Hector stalking towards them.

The two boys were sitting on the fence facing away from him, and the girl was leaning on one of the wooden support beams that held up the porch's roof. All of them in perfect position for being snuck up on.

Exactly what Hector intends to do.

"Where's Gojo sensei? He was supposed to be here half an hour ago." the pink haired boy wondered, impatiently swinging his legs in the air.

"No surprise there" The other boy murmured, clearly knowing about Gojo's bad habit.

Cocking his head towards his male compatriot, pinky asked, "Fushiguro, is he always like this?"

"Mn, we just got lucky yesterday. Normally he's messing around on the job" The now named Fushiguro complained about his sensei's lack of tact.

"Gojo sensei, seems like an idiot. In more ways than one." The girl frankly stated. A completely accurate description if Hector had to be honest.

The only time he's seen him serious was when Gojo peered through his blindfold during their fight, and even that seemed to be done to get a reaction out of him.

In fact, calling that a fight is disgraceful to the term. For him it was a struggle for survival, to Gojo it was probably a joke. Just take a look at these three, Hector was fully intent on taking him down with him, and here they are the very next day without a scratch.

Wanting to vent some of his inner frustration, Hector started to mess with them. There was a lot of plant life integrated into the campus, and nearby where the students conversed was a nice area filled with trees and foliage, perfect for hiding.

Making sure he was far enough away, Hector takes a couple things out of his pocket. He only had a small amount on him right now, and because of Jujutsu Tech's barrier, he can't summon Mimic to his location without triggering all sorts of failsafes the school has in place.

In the palm of his hand were a couple small sized capsules, they looked like homemade smoke grenades… and they were.

Hector came up with this idea when he was a kid and had a hefty pranking streak under his belt. They're pretty simple to make as well, ideal for having fun, as well as having many practical uses for combat.

All you need to make them are a few easy to acquire materials. For the colour, he used oil pastels, they come in a wide variety of colours so that gives him a lot of options to work with. Add a bit of potassium nitrate, sugar, a pinch of baking soda and mix them in a heated pan to create a fine coloured powder.

Powder which he stores in these small capsules.

Pulling out a short tobacco pipe, Hector crushes each of the capsules above the pipe's champer, allowing it to be filled to the brim with the multicoloured powder.

With everything primed and ready, Hector got to chiefing.

It tastes horrible, like genuinely grotesque. It tasted like liquorice dipped in shite, and that was only on the tongue. The concoction does irreversible damage to human lungs if smoked over time, and Hector, being a human and all, struggled to fight the urge to cough the smoke back up.

Normally he'd whip out the bong or something similar to get it over and done with quickly, but his bong is still inside Mimic, so fat chance of getting that.

With a bit of perseverance mixed with determination, Hector finished smoking. Putting his pipe and lighter away, he discharged the freshly stored smoke for his arm gashes.

Initially the colourful smoke just wisped around in front of him without any rhyme or reason, but some urging, and a fair bit of artistic talent the smoke was forced to shape into an exact copy of himself.

Giving his creation a quick one over to still if he still had it after not doing it for a while, he gave a nod of approval. On his command, the smoke clone dispersed into the wind and carried itself towards the trio of students.

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

"Fushiguro, will we be fighting curses again today?" Itadori tilted his head to the side and asked him yet another question.

Beginning to become annoyed by his constant questioning, he exhaled a tired sigh before answering. "I don't know, we might-", looking at Itadori through his peripherals, he noticed the distinct lack of trousers hanging around his classmates waist. Deadpanning, he shakes his head, "Itadori, you're not in your room."

Sukuna's vessel initially shot him a confused look, a look that seemed to be his default expression for the most part. Itadori's neck tilted downwards after seeing Kugisaki nursing a similar expression to himself, only to see his trousers crinkled around his ankles, leaving his white polka dot boxers left on full display.

Quickly grasping the band of his trousers and yanking them back up in an attempt to cover up his blunder, just as Itadori was about to retort something in his defence, Itadori looked directly at him, "What the hell, Fushiguro look!" Itadori yelled, pointing to his feet.

Fushiguro looked down and grimaced. Someway, somehow, his trousers were dropped to the floor.

Kugisaki was staring down her nose at himself and Itadori with a look of sheer disgust mixed with a tinge of pity. At first he thought Gojo was the one responsible, but this isn't his style of doing things.

If Gojo was the culprit everyone would have already heard the manchilds manic laughter from somewhere nearby.

Pulling up his trousers, he ignored Itadori's nonsense filled comments about his choice of underwear, and Kugisaki's tangent about how she always knew there was something wrong with the boys in Tokyo.

Then out of nowhere, a replica of Kugisaki appeared behind the real Kugisaki, hammer in hand swinging for the back of her skull. The only reason he could tell the difference was because the copy eyes were devoid of life, giving it an eerie, curse-like air.

Already forming a hand sign to summon one of his shikigami, Fushiguro urgently warned, "Kugisaki move!"

Before his divine dogs materialised, Kugisaki had already taken her hammer and slammed through her copy's face. Strangely, her hammer passed straight through her copy, doing nothing to it other than distorting part of its body into a wispy smoke.

Smoke.

His mind flew back to yesterday evening when they had a run in with that foregin curse-user. He used smoke, and could manipulate it in ways that he'd never seen before. The control he must've had over his cursed energy to make different shapes so easily was impressive to say the least.

Making the connections in his mind, he automatically assumed that was who they were dealing with.

Didn't Gojo say he was going to deal with him? And how did he manage to get inside Jujutsu High, the barrier should've made the school night impossible for him to find. Nevermind infiltrate without setting off any alarms.

As the shadows collected from two dog-like shikigami between himself and the ever changing humanoid smoke. Fushiguro inwardly debated if he should send one of the dogs away to call for help, or ask Itadori to do it.

That was when someone threw an arm over his shoulder.

All of his thoughts froze, as did his body. Goosebumps formed all across his body, and his muscles refused to budge as his mind struggled to comprehend what was going on.

With much difficulty, he managed to look out of the corner of his eye, just to see the same curse user from yesterday grinning in a playful manner.

'Shit'