Chapter Text
The most interesting day in Satoru’s life begins with a summons to the Shibuya downtown to the tune of tens of thousands of human hostages. From there, there’s just been one highlight after another: a point-blank Purple leveled at his least favorite colleague; two Unlimited Voids thrown at his (now favorite, sorry Rika-chan!) cursed spirit; and an insanely fast-paced combat with an eleven(-turn-sixteen)-finger Sukuna that got cut short when Yuuji managed to grab control again.
Beyond that, he’s also figured out what’s been going on with his dreams, and fixed them! Satoru is probably never going to have a day as productive as this ever again. It’s almost demoralizing to think about, haha!
But even the best day can’t necessarily stick the landing, and in this particular case it’s because Satoru is still stuck with things like ‘elders’ and ‘orders.’ Because as fun as Shibuya was, the aftermath of it all goes so predictably that Mei Mei has already started a game of bingo over it. The only point of contention in drawing up the bingo boards, from what Shoko says, was whether the free space should be that jujutsu society lays low, or that the jujutsu council calls for a special-grade execution. The latter apparently only barely wins out.
And what do you know? The execution order for Muta Kokichi gets issued about an hour after the clean-up crew sets off. The fogeys make such a big deal out of it, too — the kid’s haggard face immediately gets sent alongside a public notice that titles him as the main conspirator of the day’s ‘great tragedy.’
The funniest thing, even funnier than picking out the only enemy special grade sorcerer under a thousand as a “main” anything, is that the tragedy wasn’t even over yet when they sent that. In their scramble to do damage control and dodge every angry government summons possible, the council elders then completely miss the following outbreak: hospitals all across the nation suddenly report long-term comatose patients waking up and proceeding to rack up large body counts and also massive amounts of structural damage.
So yeah, it’s really lucky that Mei Mei decided on the execution and not jujutsu society going into hiding. It sure is going to be hard to hide after all that.
Satoru wonders, with no small amount of schadenfreude, whether now is a good time to use up all those vacation days he’s been racking up.
But although the thought of bringing his new passenger and hopefully Shoko with him overseas to see the sights is really nice, Satoru does still have this thing called ‘responsibility’, being a teacher and all that. It’s even why ‘Gojo Satoru Stops Special Grade Execution’ is a square on the bingo board. This part, Satoru’s pretty okay with — man, these students sure do have it rough!
Even so, they put up a good showing, and that applies to all of them. Most of them still won’t make much more than semi first-grade ranking — actually, most of them probably still won’t even make it that far — but Satoru’s already learned long ago that cursed energy levels aren't the most important thing.
These are good kids, you know? Satoru’s delightful kids, definitely, but even the Kyoto ones.
Like, for example:
“G-Gojo-san!” says one Miwa Kasumi, out of breath and just barely able to rise from her hunch over her knees. Satoru has just watched the girl force her way past the assistant managers and then sprint up the stairs. “That — Kokichi — no, Mechamaru-kun. Is it true that — they have him?”
Satoru says, cheerily, “They should still, if they're not incompetent!” He feels Shoko side-eye him at that, for some reason.
Miwa pants, finally straightening up. She looks at Satoru and seems too tired to fluster this time. “And, um — I heard someone say that… he's going to be on death row?”
“Oh yeah, for sure,” says Satoru. He grins. “What's up?”
“Gojo-san,” Miwa begins, and then she sharply bows her head. “Could you please… not interfere with that ruling?”
Satoru immediately looks to Shoko, who looks pretty taken aback. Tsk tsk, he should have known that Utahime was too stuffy to be a good gossiper. Never mind that Satoru has only eavesdropped on those conversations; they should speak quieter if they don't want others to hear! Satoru turns back to Miwa, delighted. “Could it be? A jilted lover?”
“Um, sorry?” Miwa says.
Satoru opens his mouth to explain, but something — someone — pinches his ankle, sliding effortlessly through Limitless to do so. “Nah, don’t worry about it. You just don’t want me to spring him out of jail, right? Sure, can do.”
Miwa flusters. “No, I mean, of course I don’t want Ko — Mechamaru-kun in jail! Or dead! It’s. Ah, how do I explain…?” The student’s hand instinctively reaches for her side, and as soon as it comes into contact with her sword, the girl takes a deep breath. After a short pause, Miwa Kasumi says, “Gojo-san… there are many, many things you can do that I cannot. And as for me… I’m sure that anything I can do, you will be able to do it faster and better.”
Satoru doesn’t really have anything to say to that. He just shrugs, smiling.
“But that doesn’t mean I can’t do it, right?” Miwa continues, as she tightens her grip. “It doesn’t mean I’m incapable, and it doesn’t mean I can’t contribute! So please, give me this chance! Let me prove myself and let me be the one to convince the council to take Kokichi-kun off death row!”
-----
“I’ve been asked to pass a message,” Shoko says, before stopping to yawn. She blinks tears out of her eyes. “You’re supposed to report to the council elders, they want to talk to you.”
In the corner of her eyes, the spinning blur finally starts to resolve into her remaining contemporary, and Shoko begins to have hope that her swivel chair will make it through the night. “Yeah?” asks Satoru, as he makes another loop around before stopping to face her. The chair creaks miserably. “Why? What do they want?”
Shoko doesn’t even have the energy to roll her eyes, so she instead drops her head into one hand and uses the other to wave up the annoying paper she’s been working on, on-off for the past week. She’s been deliberating between ‘divine intervention’ and ‘freak lightning’ as causes of death, and which one would get her the least amount of questioning. Maybe she should just claim the brain accidentally fell out? “Oh, I don’t know. Take a guess, Gojo. Maybe your mission report? Your brand new cursed spirit that’s been setting off our alarms?”
Satoru gasps in mock surprise, but then he grins. “Nah, it can’t be the first one. I submitted that thing days ago!” And then he braces his unfairly long legs against her clean resin flooring, clearly ready to go off spinning again.
“Stop it.” Before he can kick off, however, a pale hand climbs out of the shadows and grips the seat so tightly non-existent veins start bulging.
Despite being thwarted, Satoru’s grin only widens.
Shoko says, disbelieving. “You submitted your report on time? You?” Then she narrows her eyes at the cursed spirit unsteadily pulling itself out of Satoru’s finally stationary shadow and the world makes sense again. “You’re not supposed to write it for him, you know. He’s never going to learn like that.”
“Aw,” says Satoru — whines it, honestly. “But I’m being good! I didn’t even let Miwa-chan write it for me!”
Shoko clicks her tongue. “First of all, Miwa didn’t offer it to you to begin with. Second, Utahime would kill you if you accepted —”
“Nuh-uh! She can’t get me!”
“ — and thirdly,” Shoko pushes on, eye feeling a familiar twitch, “how does that help your case if someone else writes it for you anyway?”
Satoru says, in a reasonable tone, “Well, Suguru lives in my shadow! If he writes it, it’s basically like I wrote it! We’re one!”
Shoko turns imploring eyes onto the other occupant in the room, who has stayed silent since fully materializing into the infirmary. The earlier irritation he had from being spun like a shirt in a dryer is nowhere to be found, and after a long moment under Shoko’s steadily more judgemental stare, Suguru smiles, a touch repentant: “Would you like me to write yours too, Shoko-chan?”
Bah. That’s on her for having expectations. Shoko waves him off, turning back to her desk. “Go away. It’s not like you know what I did.”
“But you’re making up a whole bunch of stuff anyway.” There’s suddenly a presence at her shoulder as Satoru, now standing, lowers himself to stare down at Shoko’s paper. Shoko doesn’t even question how fast it takes him to come to that conclusion. “Just let Suguru do it! He’s great at this stuff!”
A different presence shows up at her other shoulder. “It’s really no trouble, Shoko-chan.”
Shoko doesn’t even think about it for another second and gives up resistance directly. Who’s she to complain if someone else wants to take on the work? She sets her pen down with finality and pushes herself away from that godforsaken desk. She doesn’t run into anyone, and she doesn’t expect to.
When she turns her chair around, a shadow remains at her desk while the other pain in her ass is already back on the swivel chair, grinning at her. “See?” says Satoru, like the irritating little know-it-all he is. “We wrote Nanamin’s paper too! I thought Haibara-chan was going to be next, but I guess Suguru’ll do yours first.”
After who knows how many lifetimes later, Shoko still cannot fully comprehend the depths of this one man’s douchebaggery. “We?” Shoko asks, pointedly, but it’s a futile endeavor because Suguru is the one who laughs. What a complete loser. “And how did you get Nanami to agree? Does he remember something?”
Satoru’s cheery smile turns a bit softer. “Nah,” he says, and he lets the moment sit. And, well. It’s not that Shoko particularly prefers the opposite, but she still feels… regretful, possibly. “And who knows? Ask Suguru what he said. He’s the one who really wanted to.”
Suguru laughs again, but more sheepish this time. “Ah, well. I think I rather owe him for what he’s had to put up with.”
Oh, right. Shoko remembers Nanami’s visit to her infirmary not too long ago, and the frankly terrifying cursed technique that he came in with, to the point where she could barely figure out how to fix him. In contrast, there had been nothing Shoko could do for the horde that Suguru unleashed onto the underground tracks.
Shoko frowns at the thought, and for more reasons than one. “Oh, right. I guess I’ve been meaning to ask, but how does your cursed technique work? Are the souls of humans linked to their shadows?” What a strange thought. What about a human in a paraglider? If a shadow isn’t touching its respective human, how does it make sense that that’s where the soul is stored?
“No, no, no,” Satoru says, interrupting the thought. “Soul transfiguration was the ability of some curse named Mahito. We’re not sure who that is yet, but he’ll probably pop up within the next decade. I’ll exorcise him then.”
“... What?” asks Shoko.
Satoru says, blithely, “Yeah, Suguru committed identity fraud! I guess if the general body of cursed energy says you’re a duck, then you’re a duck. Or something like that. You know, like with last time’s Utahime.”
Shoko reflexively tenses at the memory. “What are you saying?” she asks. “Ge—” no, hold on, does that still work? “— Suguru can’t transfigure souls anymore?”
“That’s no longer my innate technique, but I likely can do something similar. In theory,” Suguru answers, though he sounds a bit distracted. “I don’t really care to find out, but I’m sure there are people who do. That’s probably why they want to see you, actually, Satoru.”
Satoru says, “Oh.” Then he adds, slouching grumpily. “How lame. And here I thought it could be for something actually important. And hey, how come he gets to be Suguru now, Shoko-chan?!”
“What else am I supposed to do?” says Shoko, tilting her chin up. “It’s not like he has a last name.” She then turns towards Suguru, ignoring Satoru’s answering wail. “Are you saying your cursed technique changed? How is that possible?”
The wailing stops as Satoru drops the dramatics. “Because Suguru got caught,” says Satoru, sing-song. “Heaven and Earth realized he wasn’t actually the right guy, and so he can’t use Idle Transfiguration anymore! We haven’t really figured out what he can do though.”
“But then what is he the curse of?” asks Shoko.
At that, Suguru straightens up from his shadowy hunch over her desk and her report. He glances at Satoru, who’s already looking back at him with a smile, and then they both turn to Shoko. The cursed spirit’s lips twitch up, amused. “Guess, Shoko-chan?”
-----
She’s already there when Shoko steps through the shoji doors and Satoru follows her in with an uncharacteristic somberness. Suguru almost makes a comment on it, something to the effect of Satoru finally offering some respect for the dead. That is, until he sees her as well. A familiar back with an unfamiliar hunch, with greying strands of hair brushing against the dark fabric of her clothes.
He doesn’t know what he thinks of it, exactly. Maybe that there’s a certain amount of irony to meeting your ghosts at funerals. To being the ghost at a funeral not your own.
Shoko frowns, minutely, and takes a half-step forward before stopping. Satoru doesn’t move at all, and instead stares him down as he drags himself out of Satoru’s shadow, already wreathed in mourning colors.
He should probably take a moment to pause, to think over the next steps. But if he doesn’t go now he may never go at all, and that would be regretful, possibly. It’s hard to say if he truly needs to meet her, but at least in this moment, he thinks she needs to see him. And so, is there a difference?
Very suddenly, one of the lights flares. Her shadow strikes out, unwitting, and it curves into his palm just right. With the imitation of a cursed technique he once had, more gently than he’s ever known he was capable of, he dimples it ever so slightly.
She straightens a bit as the pronounced footfalls of his steps grow louder. When he reaches her, and she turns to him with her haggard face and dark eyes, he bows deeply and murmurs, “Hello, Auntie.”
“Hello,” says the elderly lady.
Suguru asks, “Can I get you something to drink, Auntie? You must be tired.”
“No, that’s all alright.”
Suguru nods, and then clasps his hands gently together. He looks down into the open casket, where a young man with pale skin and short, dark hair lies, eyes peacefully closed. Shoko has done a good job at covering up the scars on his forehead; if he hadn’t known where to look, he would have missed them entirely.
And now that he knows where to look for these, too, he can see other things on this face. A familiar nose, a familiar chin. The same thin mouth of the woman he now stands beside.
It’s a mouth Suguru has, too. Or used to.
The woman says, with that mouth, “Were you and my Hideaki close?” She seems to have taken his quiet observation as a deliberate moment of silence.
He says, “I don’t believe he knows me very well, but I’ve always seen and heard a lot about him. Geto-san was a very influential and respected member of our community. He’s taught me a lot, personally. I admire him very much.”
The woman says, “Oh. Is that so?” She sniffs, once. “Thank you. I’m happy to hear someone speak so highly of my son.”
“It’s the least I can do.” Then he holds out a hand, distant but steady, and says, “Auntie, would you like to take a seat? At least for a little while? You’ve been standing vigil for a long time.”
The woman glances once at him, and then at Geto Hideaki’s unmoving body. Then she glances again at him, and whatever she sees has her eyes soften, ever so slightly. “You’re a kind young man. Thank you.”
She takes his hand, and he leads her to the bench. When she sits, slightly slumping, he sits at a careful distance from her. “I hope I’m not being too forward, Auntie,” he says, voice soft and quiet, “but… is your husband with you today?”
The edges of the woman’s mouth tightens. “Hideaki’s old man is dead, unfortunately.”
“... I see.” Suguru reaches under the bench, where he had seen the case of unopened waters. He takes one, opens it slightly, and then hands it to her. “I brought up bad memories. I’m sorry.”
She takes the water from his hands. “Thank you. It’s fine. There isn’t… much to say about it. It was lung cancer. My husband loved to smoke. It was inevitable.”
“Whether it was or wasn’t, that couldn’t have been easy for you or him. You must have grieved a lot,” Suguru says. “I’m sorry that you had to go through it.”
The woman stares at him. After a moment, she asks, “What’s your name, child?”
He says, “It’s Suguru.”
“Suguru,” the woman repeats. The plastic water bottle crinkles a little bit under her hand. “Su-gu-ru… the character for ‘excellence’?”
“Yes.”
“Small world,” she mutters. “Small world. Hideaki is named like that too, you know. ‘Outstanding brilliance’.”
He says, “I did notice that. I always thought it was a neat coincidence, to resemble someone like him.”
The woman shakes her head at him. “Not that.” But she doesn’t explain further, and instead says, “Hideaki really was a brilliant child. He was speaking full sentences before he turned two. And not a child’s babble either — even when he didn’t know every word, he still understood me and his father. He could hold a conversation. Every single one of his teachers told me he was the smartest child they’ve ever taught, and the most social, too. He was a very popular boy, and every day it seemed like another one of his little classmates wanted to come home with him because they liked him so much.”
“How interesting,” he says. “So he’s always been very impressive since he was young. You must have taught him well.”
The woman says, self-deprecatingly. “Me? What could I do? I’ve never even attended college. That was all Hideaki’s own brilliance.”
“Auntie, please don’t joke about that,” he says, smiling lightly. “Please take some credit. Children don’t grow up in a vacuum, and parents are our greatest role models. Everything good in him could only be from you and your husband.”
The woman laughs, a barely there sound. “You’re a sweet kid,” she says, and she reaches over one hand to clasp one of his. “You’re not from the city, are you, Suguru-kun?” When he shakes his head, she continues. “I see. You look young, did you just start attending high school here? The city must be a big change for you, huh?”
He says, “Yes, quite a bit.” He thinks. “I… do miss home sometimes.” He doesn’t, but he can. He can, and so he might. If that’s the case, then he does.
The woman says, “Ah, is that so… you must be very new then, Suguru-kun. Once you become a big city kid, you won’t anymore.” She laughs, dull and flat. “You’ll probably think you’re too good for your folks at home.”
He says, softly, “Why do you think so, Auntie?”
“Ah,” says the woman in some sort of realization. “No, no, I didn’t quite mean it like that. It’s not a bad thing! It’s just that the city is so big, isn’t it? So interesting. There’s so much to do here, you won’t have any time to spare for a small town granny. That’s just how it is.”
“I’m not sure I would say that,” he says. “For one, I haven’t met any grannies from a small town yet, just a very strong and admirable woman who raised a very smart and cheerful man who did so much for this community. And for another, I think… there is no place quite like home. I think so long as I had one, I would always return to it.”
The woman stares at him for a long, long time, before her lips quiver and her eyes redden. She sniffs, once, and quickly tries to stem the tears that slip free, dabbing at them with her free hand. “Hideaki hasn’t been home for nearly a decade. The last time I saw him, it was at his old man’s funeral. Not even for very long, just a few hours. And now… and now…” She chokes up.
He puts his free hand on hers, and turns both hands so he can cup it. “I’m sorry,” he says. “That is unfair of him, and unfair of the world. We always think we have more time for our loved ones. He must have thought the same.”
She clutches at him. “I never wanted him to come out here,” she whispers, almost like a hiss. “Maybe I… maybe I just knew that something like this would happen, that he wasn’t safe out here. I said, ‘Hideaki, sweetheart, let’s think about it, the city is dangerous’ but he wanted to go no matter what. He had such big dreams, he’s been wanting to go to the city since he was in primary school, but I knew, maybe I knew — !”
He releases her hand, and outstretches an arm. The elderly woman reaches over almost immediately, and presses her face into his shoulder as she sobs. He brings the arm back around to pat her back. “I’m sorry. It’s very unfair. You’ve endured a lot, Auntie.”
She keeps crying, now wordless sounds of anguish, and he holds her through it, patting her back at even intervals;
thump,
thump,
thump,
until at last she quiets, and draws away. She takes a long sip of the water he offered her earlier, and her eyes can no longer quite meet his. He doesn’t say anything, patiently watching her. When she sets down the water and he offers her tissues, she says, finally, “Ah, how embarrassing. You shouldn’t take anything I say seriously, Suguru-kun. We can get so unreasonable in our old age.”
He says, “No, Auntie. You’ve been standing here all day, and it’s a deeply unfortunate day, too. You don’t give yourself enough credit for how well you’ve been holding it together. I’m the one embarrassed that you don’t feel supported enough.”
The woman looks at him with soft eyes. Familiar eyes. “You’re such a polite, thoughtful young man. Whoever raised you has done a very good job.”
“Thank you,” he tells her, genuine. “My parents have always done their best for me.”
The woman smiles and repeats, “They did a very wonderful job. Really. And to be named ‘Suguru’... what a wonderful name. I almost had one too, you know. My own Suguru, before… anyway. I hope he could have turned out like you.”
Suguru smiles, and says, “I’m very honored, Auntie. I think my mother would be very, very honored to hear such high praise from someone like you.”
-----
It’s a bright and sunny day, and the students and teachers of the two jujutsu schools are gathered in an open field that doubles as the baseball field. On paper, it’s another cultural exchange. Shoko sits on a weathered bench, watching all the kids as they romp around the grass. She takes a lollipop out of her mouth and says, “I’ve been thinking about it a lot, are you actually a psychopath?”
“Hm?” says Satoru. “Me?”
“No,” says Shoko with an eye roll. “You, I don’t need to wonder about.”
The mass of shadows sitting in the shade says, “Ah, then you mean me?”
There is no one else around them, the other teachers and staff members having not quite warmed up to the new addition to Satoru’s shadow. Yaga, for example, had staunchly refused to turn off the alarms that signified an enemy cursed spirit until a missive finally came down from the upper levels certifying that Suguru was clear to pass the wards.
Though privately, Shoko thinks Yaga would have given in after another day of the sirens wailing. Suguru had already stood before the assembly of students and staff to apologize and swear a non-aggression binding vow completely unprompted, and also the noise was really fucking annoying. At one point, a sleep-deprived Maki had kicked down the door to the teachers cafeteria with her sword in hand and a gaggle of her classmates and underclassmen trailing her.
But anyway. “Yeah,” says Shoko. “I’m talking about you.”
“... Why are you asking me this now?” Suguru asks her, clearly amused. “Were you not able to ask me during any one of the lives where I defected? Or is it because this time, I’m a cursed spirit?”
It had been a very, very strange conversation, to stand before these two idiots and tell them that however bad they were in this life and the previous, Shoko has seen so much worse out of them. Mass-murders and property damage and cults galore. Whether to their credit or not, they both seem to accept Shoko’s recountings without any fuss.
On second thought, maybe this was a stupid question. But it hadn’t been anything Shoko thought about before, even during the lives Suguru went well and truly off the deep end. But Suguru in those lives never went ahead and sat down in pleasant conversation with the mother he killed. Or, wait. He didn’t kill his parents last life, did he? But that didn’t make the optics of it any less off-putting. “The way you were talking with your mom,” Shoko says, because she wasn’t raised a coward. “It was like you were talking with… well, not a stranger, but also not your mom. Who knows. It was kinda creepy, if I’m honest.”
“Cursed spirits don’t have moms, Shoko-chan!” offers Satoru, fake-helpfully.
Shoko rolls her eyes again. “Thanks, genius.”
“Well, if I’m also honest, she didn’t feel entirely like my mom either,” says Suguru. “The little memories I have are so… muted. The emotions, too. But I do remember loving them.” He catches her blank face and smiles. “Is that scary? I can’t quite tell you why I did the things you saw in our past lives, and likewise I can’t tell you what my relationship was like with my parents, especially near the end, but…” The gold of his eyes soften. “My parents and Auntie Geto… they’re not perfect people, but they’ve lived tough lives and they’ve tried their best. So I hope what I did wasn’t out of hatred. I hope… I was still kind to them, in the end.”
Shoko doesn’t even need to say what she wants to, because Satoru says, brightly, “Man, Suguru, you really are so messed up.”
Suguru smiles again. “Guess that makes the three of us?”
“Hey now,” Shoko complains. “I’m normal, okay? I’m a well-adjusted, productive member of society!”
Satoru gasps. “No, don’t leave us, Shoko-chan! What will we do without you?”
Shoko opens her mouth, ready to say something like ‘die and give this world some peace, hopefully’ but then from further away Megumi is snapping, “Don’t say that.”
A little surprised that this is coming from the arguably quietest kid out of Satoru’s batch, the three of them turn to see a huddle of first years. Fushigoro looks ticked off, Itadori looks confused, Yoshino looks flustered, and the darker-haired Hasaba is standing before the first of the boys with her hands on her hips. “Why not?” Hasaba says, as the adults listen in. “Your sister said it. We heard. You can ask the nurse.”
“Wait, Megumi!” says Itadori, suddenly looking pleased. “Hold on! Doesn’t this mean I can become your brother-in-law? We can be brothers, for real!”
“You shut up,” says Fushigoro, before whirling on Hasaba. “Tsumiki does not want to marry Itadori, the sorcerer that sometimes possesses her wants to marry Sukuna. None of this is a funny joke.”
Hasaba appears to consider this, before saying, “It’s funny.”
“It is not.”
Meanwhile, Itadori says, “Megumi, do you think your sister and I will get along?”
“You are not marrying my sister!”
Yoshino takes this chance to say, “Um, speaking of sisters, how is uh… Nanako?... doing…?”
Hasaba glances at him and says, “Better. She can sit, so I can wheel her around now.”
“Oh! That’s good to hear!”
“Mm.”
On the opposite side of the fields, there’s another huddle of students. This one is composed largely of the Kyoto High students as well as, surprisingly, Nobara. Muta Kokichi is also sitting among them, having been pardoned off death row by a very concerted effort from one Miwa Kasumi.
It was, in Shoko’s opinion, a really well-done job. Miwa had started off by sending in standard petitions asking for a (re)trial for Muta Kokichi, on account of the intelligence he provided as the Shibuya Incident progressed. Unfortunately, one of the inside contacts came back to report that these petitions weren’t being processed at all, and instead going straight to the shredder.
But right as everyone started to look towards Satoru, and the hopeful gamblers started looking at the ‘Gojo Satoru Stops Special Grade Execution’ square on their bingo card, Miwa changed tracks. This time, she started offering to write people’s mission reports for them. From her fellow students, to the Tokyo High students, to even some teachers. Not everyone took her up on that offer, but those who wrote it themselves, such as Utahime, still followed her plan on what to write. Over fifty different mission reports ended up referencing the very same petitions that were sent into the shredder, and did not elaborate further.
About a week after that, Miwa was granted her audience with the jujutsu council.
“ — still can’t believe this is all for a guy,” Zen’in Mai says, fanning herself in disgust. “There’s no way any stinky man is worth all this effort.”
“Preach,” says Kugisaki, with feeling.
Miwa says, flustered, “What? Mai-san, he’s literally our classmate!”
Zen’in casts the man in question a look. “Right now, all I see is bum mooching off his girlfriend.”
Muta slouches a bit in apparent embarrassment, while Miwa goes bright red and squeaks out, “I’m not his girlfriend!”
“Please.” From the distance, they can see Zen’in roll her eyes. “You think that’s what those old fogeys on the council think? Your plan was good enough to get them to see you no matter what, but it would be a much tougher battle if he wasn’t a special grade and you weren’t a woman. If there’s one thing those bastards like more than their lives, it’s having future jujutsu children die for them.”
Strangely, Miwa stops flustering. “I only used my life as a guarantee for Kokichi-kun,” she says, and next to her Muta makes a half-aborted motion to get closer. “If the council wanted any other promise from me, then I can’t know if they don’t say it.”
There’s a brief silence.
Then, Nobara says, “You’re kinda hot, huh?”
“W-Wh-What?!”
Shoko watches them all, and turns her eyes to see where all the Tokyo second years are rough-housing. She turns elsewhere and sees Utahime and Mei Mei chatting with Haibara and Nanami in a much more sedate way than the children. Ichiji is fluttering around them, not sitting down for some reason.
Then, as if sensing her, Utahime glances over. She squints, and Shoko takes the lollipop out of her mouth again to wave it in the air and prove her innocence. Utahime smiles, and gives a double-thumbs-up in return.
Shoko puts the lollipop back, and says, “Hey, can a cursed spirit be formed from regret?”
“It’s not likely,” says Satoru, but he’s grinning at her. Asshole. He’s not proud or approving, just smug, like he thinks she just proved him right. “It’s a really complex emotion to make. Usually there’s not enough of it to manifest anything before the stuff like despair or hatred or love does.”
Shoko says, “So, not impossible.”
“Nope, not impossible,” says Satoru. And then he crows, “Hah! I knew you’d be able to guess it! Suguru, didn’t I tell you Shoko-chan could?”
“Don’t say it like I disagreed,” says Suguru, amused. “I believed in Shoko-chan, too, after all.”
Shoko listens to them bicker as she leans back against the grass. The smell of freshly cut lawn drifts in from where the Tokyo second years are. Jeering is coming from the group of Kyoto students, and Fushigoro has just unleashed an avalanche of bunnies. Utahime is laughing about something, and Satoru and Suguru have broken down into their own laughs.
A curse born out of a strong regret, huh?
It fits. It figures someone like Satoru could feel something so complex so purely that a curse can be formed out of it. But maybe it wasn’t just Satoru. Maybe it had been her unspoken anguish too. And Suguru’s. Felt and stored and gathered until he could return it to them in full.
Their lost youth.