The Devils of Jujutsu

Chapter 17: Encounter Under The Demon Skull

(Yuji's p.o.v.)

Me and Todo have been walking for a week after meeting Asta's former comrades, and honestly, after Noelle's big speech, I changed my opinion of her. Noelle wasn't like other aristocrats, she actually cared about Asta, I could tell from the look in her eyes. But the one thing I don't get is why didn't she help Asta at his trial? Perhaps the other nobles and royals conspired to make sure no one could help him. Anyway, after another week of traveling we arrived at a remote village, not very developed but what really caught my eye, was a gigantic skull with three eye sockets and two horns, each on the side of its head. I heard about it from Asta, the ancient demon that was defeated by the first Wizard King, 500 years ago. I looked at Todo and said, "Todo, I think I know where we are." "Where?", he asked. "We're in Hage village, Asta's hometown." I answered him. He then remembered what Asta had told us about his former home.

As we were viewing the secluded village from on top of a nearby hill, Todo and I noticed that the sun was going to set in a few hours, also the clouds were darkened, meaning that it was going to rain later, so we thinking about where should we make camp for the night, then I made a suggestion, " Hey Todo, why don't we camp under the demon's skull? From what Asta told us no one goes there normally, plus it gives us shelter from the rain." Todo thought about it for a couple seconds and looked at me and said, "Yeah, that sounds like our best bet." With that decided we both started running toward the giant skull. With all of our training, we were able to move at almost superhuman speed, because of that we reach the skull in no time flat. When we got there, there was a young red haired boy training under the skull, does physical exercises, practicing his magic, etc. We would've chosen a different camp site but there wasn't any time to go and look. So, we walked in and I called out to the boy. "Yo, what's up?" I said to him. He turned toward us and said, "You're not from around here, who are you guys?" He seemed a bit wary, but I couldn't blame him, two outsiders just came up and started talking to him. Todo answered him to get the boy to ease up. "Easy kid, we're just travelers passing through. It was starting to get late so we decided to camp under here to get out of the rain, and also not to bother people." He seemed to be less on edge now. Then, suddenly we heard a loud boom that surprised us. When we turned around, we saw that it was starting to rain. "Apparently that storm rolled in quicker than we thought, Todo." I said. Todo agreed. I said to the boy, "Well, looks like no one is going anyway until this storm passes. So, all three of us are gonna have to wait it out until then." The kid nodded in agreement. With that settled, we decided to gather up some firewood. Fortunately, there was some brush under the skull, so we cut up some of that to use for the fire.

When gathered enough, the boy volunteered to light the fire. A small flame ignite on his finger tip, he brought the flame to the firewood and the campfire ignited. After that, we began introducing ourselves, "My name's Yuji Itadori, and this is friend Aoi Todo." Todo asked the kid, "What's your name, kid?" The boy replied, "I'm Nash." "Sorry to pry, but what were you training for, Nash?" Todo asked him. "So that I can get a grimoire, and become a magic knight." Nash answered. "Why do you want to become a magic knight?" I asked. "I want to life easier and give hope to everyone in the village especially the church, just like my older brothers." Nash's answer was a noble one, but the aristocrats of this country will make that difficult. "This church must mean a lot to you, huh?" Todo asked Nash. "The church is my home, the people there are my family, so of course I mean a lot to me." The boy replied. "I understand. By the way, I noticed that you were also doing physical training earlier, mages normal train their magic, and not their body. So why are you?" I asked him. He replied, "Not many people have much mana, so I training my body to compensate for my low magic power, plus my older brother trained physically to compensate for his lack of magic." When Nash brought up that he live in a church here in Hage, I had a suspicion that I knew who he was, but after he said his brother had no magic power, my suspicion was confirmed. "Your brother who doesn't have magic power, his name is Asta, isn't it?" Nash was surprised at what I asked him. He lunged at me and said, "Are you serious?! You actually know Asta?! Where is he now?!!" I grabbed ahold of him and said, "Calm down, kid. We'll explain how we met him." And we did, we told him the same stories that we told Noelle and her group, except the part about Asta's resentment towards Clover Kingdom. We couldn't bring ourselves to tell him his brother now hopes for someone to burn his homeland to the ground.

After a couple of hours, the storm finally stopped, and Nash was finally able to head home. Before he left, I said to him with a smile, "I hope you achieve your goal, Nash." He smiled back and waved goodbye.  Shortly after he left, we decided to go to sleep, but seconds after we lied down, we heard a scream from a distance, and we both could tell who it was: Nash.