"... If I call you senpai will you be merciful?" she says, to Fushiguro, eyeing the tiny aluminum weaponry that she hadn't even heard of yesterday.

"No."

Hayashi lets out a little unhappy whine.

"Off we go, out of sight of your peers, so you don't get distracted while I lecture!" says Gojo brightly, grabbing Itadori by the shoulders and leading him back inside.

Itadori also lets out a small, pitiful whine.

He is whisked away to a stuffy living room that has no view of pretty teenagers fighting each other at all.

"So! Define 'cursed energy' for me."

"...magic stuff that shouldn't exist but apparently does and comes from negative emotions?"

"Close enough! More specifically, your cursed energy comes from emotions you want to avoid. Not on a cerebral level, it's something deeper and less cognizant than that. But! People are different. I could list out emotions that are typically seen as negative, but you might not want to avoid them. So, you're the only one who can figure out what kind of emotions count as negative to you."

"That... makes more sense than I expected."

"Quite! Now, you are in this case fortunate, because you are sharing your body with a cursed energy powerhouse, that being Sukuna. Who is very, very good at making cursed energy from his own negative emotions. Which you can then use, since you're both such great body buddies. You do not, strictly speaking, have to create all of your cursed energy yourself."

"Fushiguro-kun said I didn't even have that much of it myself, anyway. Before Sukuna."

"Then in some twisted sense, for the purposes of becoming a jujutsu sorcerer, it's a good thing you have him. However! He is, quite unfortunately, a malevolent jackass that wants your utter ruination. He is not going to want to make cursed energy when you want it. Which is to say, if we were talking electricity, your power plant hates you and will turn off when it is most likely to screw you over. Fortunately for you, you are your own battery. But having a full battery and having the capacity to make more power are two different things, and the distinction is important."

"Is the electricity metaphor at all important, here?"

"It's a straightforward way to explain the concept, and some of the logic transfers, but not everything matches with how electricity works. It is a decent enough baseline to start from, anyway."

"Okay."

"Now, it was important for you to understand the basic theory behind what's going on, because you in particular will need to keep an eye on what your malevolent power plant is doing, and what your stores are like. Today, though, we'll work on outputting any cursed energy at all, because if you can't touch your stored cursed energy, you might as well not have it.

"However! I want to be very clear. Until you can output cursed energy with an understanding of how much you have left and how much you and your body buddy are making, you should not rely on dependably outputting cursed energy in combat situations. Because you're flying blind. You don't know how much is being made, you don't know how much is in there, and frankly you probably won't even have a very good idea of how much cursed energy you're using. Learning this is not an invitation to start punching people with cursed energy immediately. Stick with the cursed object I gave you until you have full understanding, yeah?"

"Yes, Sensei!"

"Good. So, beginning with outputting cursed energy is best just by directly making it and pushing it into something. It doesn't need to be particularly strong, the point is for you to figure out what outputting cursed energy even feels like. Fortunately, I have a teaching tool!" He leans over and retrieves a familiar looking sheep plushie from behind the couch. "This sheep will make a 'baa' sound when cursed energy is channeled into it." As demonstration, the sheep gives a baa.

He hands the small sheep to Itadori. "Run through emotions you find aversive, and imagine pushing them into the sheep."

"—is this the principal's? So they aren't just toys?"

He grabs the sheep and looks at it.

"Yes, it's the principal's, and no, they're not toys. They're cursed corpses. Dolls or puppets that have been endowed with a curse. Principal Yaga is the foremost practitioner of puppet jujutsu in Japan, and uses a lot of his creations as education aids."

"Huh."

Okay, feel something... negative. That should be easy, right? Hmmm...

Nnnnnope. The sheep is completely still and soundless.

"Well! When you figure that out you can come outside and show me. If you're fast enough you might get to see Akiho-chan and Inori-kun sparring!"

He then gives a little wave, and leaves Itadori with his new wooly friend.

Pout.

Fushiguro stands ready, knees slightly bent, both hands held close to each other and to his chest.

"This is incredibly unfair and mean," grumbles Hayashi, tossing one of her damnable pie weights into the air and catching it, over and over, "and I want it acknowledged that I am working with a handicap."

At 'handicap,' she throws it at Fushiguro. It moves very quickly, and just before it hits him in the face, she twists her other hand, where she holds another of the pie weights. The trajectory changes downward, towards his hands. She would like to knock them apart, but she does not have high hopes.