Chapter Text
As Nobara finished up with a little shopping before meeting her other classmates for the first time, she overheard a modelling gig scout trying to convince some young woman into working with him. Now this was interesting, and definitely something she could do.
She crossed the street, not really paying attention to any potential cars coming her way, and put her hand on the scout's shoulder to get his attention. "Hey, you." He turns around, and she points to herself using her thumb. "How about me?" He gets sweaty, and she realizes that he might not know what she wants. "For that modelling gig. I'm asking what you think about me."
"Oh, well, uh," he starts walking off, "I'm in a bit of a hurry at the moment ..."
But she refuses to let him go so easily. What did that other girl have that she couldn't do? He grabs him by the back of his tux and yanks him back towards her, "what the hell? Don't run, just tell me what you think?"
He tries even harder to escape, even apologizing, but not at all giving her a single compliment.
However, a different voice catches her attention. "Hey, we're over here!" She lets go of the scout, and he scampers off to never be seen again. She turns to face the direction of the noise, back across the street, to find Gojo and who she presumed were the other two first-years. Her classmates. She knew Gojo from the few two times she'd ever seen him before, which helped immensely with letting her know that he was her teacher, and not just some creep.
"Oh, it's you." She comes up to them, then walks past them. "I'd like to put my stuff away before making any introductions."
"Then it's a good thing I know where some lockers are. Come with me!" He grins. As he walks away, it's just then that she realizes there's a fifth person with them; a girl even shorter than her who was holding her teacher's hand.
She shoots you a glare, unnoticed by you, but doesn't say anything. She can wait for introductions to be made.
Nothing is said on the short walk to the lockers, where Nobara pays for one and carefully stacks her things inside, save for her equipment, then locks it up so she can return to it later.
"Okay!" Gojo outstretches his free hand to her. "Let's hear it."
She puts a hand on her hip, trying to look independent and professional. "Kugisaki Nobara. Consider yourself honored, boys." She then looks at you again, timid with an arm in a cast, hiding behind Gojo. "I was supposed to be the only woman on the team, but I guess that's not the case anymore."
"But you are the only woman! (Y/N)'s just here for sight seeing!" The pink haired boy, the student who she was just told of last night, speaks up.
"No, she's here because I promised her ice cream after today." Gojo points out.
He puts on a thoughtful look, but then shakes his head. "Anyway, I'm Itadori Yuji! I'm from Sendai!" He finally introduces himself.
The boy with prickly hair beside him only gave his name, and in such a blunt manner too, "Fushiguro Megumi."
Gojo then steps aside to show you off a bit more. "And this is (Y/N). She'd be our mascot if she wasn't so shy." He teases.
Nobara stares between the two boys, mostly ignoring you. First Itadori. More like potato-dori. He definitely ate his boogers as a kid. And then there was Fushiguro with his high-and-mighty type attitude. He probably sets oiled seagulls on fire for the heck of it. And to her, you were just some sort of mouse waiting to be toted off by some curse. She probably would've liked you if you had any ounce of confidence, but just like your amount of cursed energy, there was none. Your name wasn't even worth her memory.
She sighs, avoiding looking at the others any longer. "I'm stuck with these people? Just my luck." She complains to herself.
Itadori frowns. "She took one look at us and sighed. That can't be good." At least he could take a hint.
"Are we going to go anywhere else?" Fushiguro turns towards the teacher, who chuckles.
"We do have the three of you together now." He then looks between her and Itadori, and she feared the worst. "But since two of you are from the country, that means we'll be going ... to tour Tokyo!"
Okay, this was infinitely better already! "Tokyo! Tokyo! Tokyo!" She began chanting with Itadori and gathering around Gojo. This frightened you off and you darted to Fushiguro's side to get some space. "We love Tokyo!"
"TDL! I want to go to TDL!" She fought to be heard over Itadori's shouting, as he let go of Gojo's neck and began to argue.
"No, idiot! TDL's in Chiba! Let's go to Chinatown instead!"
"Chinatown's in Yokohama!"
"Yokohama's part of Tokyo! How do you not know that? Look at a map!"
"The hell? Quit spouting nonsense!"
Before the fight could escalate any further, Gojo speaks up. "I'll announce the first destination." This caught both of their attention, and they each got on one knee, eagerly awaiting. "Roppongi!"
"Roppongi?!" She spoke in sync with Itadori, and they both shouted excitedly and jump about.
"Well? What are you waiting for. Follow me, students!" Gojo smiles and waves them forwards, then puts his hands in his pockets and leads them to their first stop of the tour she's excited about.
As she walked directly behind him, head full of thoughts on what to do first, she couldn't help but overhear bits and pieces of your conversation with Fushiguro.
"Why aren't you this excited? Isn't this your first time in Tokyo, too?"
"No." That caught her off guard; your voice was so delicate. "Maki took me out to buy clothes, remember?" Your voice then faded into a pout. "Then she and Panda teased me afterwards because I got separated from them and cried."
"Is your arm okay?"
"Yeah. I'm just a bit tired still, and the crowds make me nervous, but it's fine."
"Idiot. You shouldn't have let Gojo lure you out with ice cream."
"Sorry."
"Don't apologize."
"... Sorry?" So you really were the mouse type of person. Timid, weak, and she just hoped that you weren't the type to stand there and wait to be hit if you were told to run. Maybe you were Gojo's daughter? You didn't look a bit like him, but you could be adopted. Then again, what would someone as strong as him want with someone like you? Those were probably the type of questions she could ask when she knew you better.
It didn't take long for Gojo to find the first stop on the tour, but both she and Itadori were confused by the crumbling building before them, littered with cursed energy. Both students fell into shouts of "you liar!", and "you lied to us!".
"This isn't even Roppongi!" Itadori put his hands on his face in mental agony.
"This is a cruel joke to toy with us country folk!"
Instead of going "you're right, I'm sorry," or even a "just kidding!", Gojo turns this into a mission for them. "There's a big cemetery nearby. Since it's next to an abandoned building, a curse was brought out."
"Who does he think is responsible for the rice he gets to eat, huh?!" She shouts, still humiliated and enraged at the scenario.
Fushiguro starts explaining something to Itadori. "The issue isn't with the cemetery itself, it's because people associate cemeteries with fear."
"Oh, it's the same for schools, isn't it?"
What the -? "Hold up, he doesn't even know that yet?" What kind of sorcerer was this idiot?
"To be honest, he didn't even know about curses until just a few days ago, when he ..." his face darkened. "He swallowed Sukuna's finger."
Ew. Ew, ew ew ew ew!! "He swallowed a special-grade cursed object?!" She took several steps back, and covered her nose, "gross! Disgusting! That's so unsanitary; I think I'm going to hurl!"
"Hey, that's not nice." Itadori frowns.
Fushiguro shoots back at him with an, "I agree with her." And you echo it with a sheepish "yeah".
"I want to know what both of you are capable of." Gojo speaks up, gaining the attention of his students. "Just think of it as a field test. Now, Nobara, Yuji, I want you to go in there and exorcise the curse in that building."
"Geh." Nobara grunts tiredly, not wanting to do this after being tricked into thinking she was going to go touring.
Itadori speaks up, causing her to look back at him, "I thought only curses could exorcise curses. I can't use any jujutsu yet."
Gojo points at him, "you're already half a curse, so you've got cursed energy in your body. Though learning to control it isn't something you can do overnight, so use this for now." He hands him a sheathed weapon, which Itadori takes out immediately to inspect it in awe. "The Slaughter Demon. It's a weapon imbued with cursed energy, so it'll work on curses too." With approval, he sheathes it back up, and gets ready to head inside.
"Lame." Nobara scoffs, buckling her supply of nails around her waist and sauntering off into the building.
"One more thing," Gojo adds, although it's not directed to her, so she can ignore it and inspect the graffiti on the doors, figuring out how to open it.
She turns back to the group, annoyed, and shouts at Itadori. "Hurry it up already!"
He sheepishly replies with, "alright, alright! I'm coming!" He jogs up to her and helps pull the doors up so they can get inside.
The idiot is treating it like some sort of spy mission, sneaking around when she knows that curses can tell he's in here just by sensing his energy. There's no point in trying to be stealthy unless you're hiding. He opens a door, peeks inside, then moves onto the next, and the next.
It's obnoxious. All of this is. "What a pain." She hisses. "I come all the way out here and still have to deal with curses?"
"Huh?" Itadori listens in on her rant, "didn't you come here to exorcise curses?"
She didn't want to talk about this right now, so she flat out ignored his questions. "Let's split up and save some time. I'll start from the top and make my way down floor by floor. You can start from the bottom, okay? The faster we get this done, the sooner we can grab some sushi from Ginza."
"Hey, wait." He stares her down, not liking this idea. "Let's be a bit more serious; curses are dangerous."
How ... dare he? Someone like him lecturing her? Her eye twitches with annoyance as she takes those few steps down the stairs necessary to get within range of kicking him to the floor. "I don't want to hear it from someone like you! Someone who was a clueless normie until now! Now get moving!" She snaps. And with that, she leaves him to his business, and gets to the top of the stairs.
"Why are your emotions all over the place?!" He shouts, irking her just that little bit more.
"This is why girls don't like you!!" Of course, she didn't really know that until -
"How do you know they don't like me?!"
Bingo. Now that she can't hear him anymore, she can focus.
She's nearly at the topmost floor when she comes across a floor with an overwhelming presence of cursed energy. She puts a little more concentration into detecting the exact location of the curse, when she spots the mannequin in the room right in front of her. On the outside, it looks like any of the other ones it's settled with, but she can feel it. "Hey, curse." She scowls. It doesn't move, but she can feel its energy shift. It's still trying to hide, but she knows it's there already. "You in the middle. Do you really think you've hidden yourself?"
And yet, nothing happens. Irritated, she draws out her hammer and two of her nails. "Fine. If you won't come out, I'll just have to exorcise you from here." She tosses her nails, smacking them hard with her hammer, directly into its head. It stumbles off its stand, and bends unnaturally backwards, resisting physics by not yet toppling over. Nothing else happens for a good few seconds, before it finally realizes it will have to fight, and too many eyes open on its head as it stands back up in choppy motions.
She takes a more relaxed pose, leaning her hammer against her shoulder. "Y'know, you should probably pull those out," she snaps her fingers, and the curse creaks as she uses her energy to drive her nails deeper into its head, "or my cursed energy will flow into you." And with that, the head of the nails meet their limit, and explode, killing the curse instantly. She bows at her performance, smiling to herself. Nailed it.
A noise snaps her out of it; was there another curse? She couldn't detect any, so what was happening? A board falls over from behind a pile of boxes, revealing a young boy with dark hair hiding in fear. A kid? He must've snuck in to play but encountered the curse. She sighs and approaches him to try and coax him out of there.
"Hey, it's okay, you can come out now." He shakes his head fearfully, and she inwardly groans. Clearing her throat, she thinks of something else. "I guess he's intimidated by my beauty. I'll just call Itadori."
"Wait!" He sounded panicked, and she turns around to see something emerge from the wall behind the kid. "Don't leave me here!"
There's no time for her to react as the curse fully comes out of the wall, grabbing the kid by the head and lifting him up. It dangles him around like a toy, laughing at her and mocking her. She wants to fight back, and even draws her hammer and two more nails, but there's something different about this curse compared to the other ones. It's intelligent. She can recognize a hostage situation when she sees one, but she doesn't like it. It holds the kid to the side, and threatens to cut open his neck with one of its sharply fingernails.
"Damn it!" She yells, repeating the phrase a few times before trying to think of a solution. She knew the curse was weak, but it seemed to know that she knew that too. There was the obvious choice; let the kid die so she can kill off the curse, but that seemed too cruel to do to someone so young. Was there a chance that it would let the kid go if she proved she wasn't going to hurt it? What should she ... She drops her weapons, then takes off her pouch of nails and drops that too. Maybe this way, no one would get hurt. "Let the kid go. I'm unarmed."
Nothing happens for a good while, and the curse only continues to smile at her, still mocking. She realizes her mistake; curses aren't reasonable like humans. That's why it wasn't letting the boy go. It was waiting for her to drop her things so it could kill them both. She stares down at the floor blankly. "I just wish I could've seen Saori one last time."
Just then, a hand bursts through the wall, startling her. A human hand?
"Huh? I missed?" That was Itadori's voice! He comes through the wall fully this time, taking the curse off guard.
It dangles the kid in his face to try and force him to make a choice too, but he's brandishing a melee weapon, so he's already close enough to chop off his wrist and other fingers. It all happens so fast - Itadori grabs the kid before he can even fall, then kicks the curse onto its back. "Are you okay?" The kid nods.
Meanwhile, the curse is clutching the end of its wrist, crying and phasing through the wall to try and escape. "It's getting away!"
"No it's not!" Nobara takes this opportunity to jump back into action. "Itadori! Hand me that arm!" He looks over dumbly at the limb before kicking it her way.
She pulls out her straw doll, creeping out both boys as she drops it onto the remnant of the curse. She pulls out one of her nails and hovers it in front of her uttering the phrase, "Straw Doll Technique: Resonance!"
Outside, spikes emerge from all over the curse's body, and she knows its finally dead as the arm she's using fades into nothingness.
"We won."
Itadori went back into lecture mode. "I told you so; this is why I said it was dangerous to go alone, and we should've taken it seriously!"
"Hey," she snaps back, "you never said it was dangerous to go alone!"
"I ... didn't?" He realizes.
"And what have you been eating that lets you punch through a wall with your bare fist?!"
"It wasn't reinforced concrete!" He argues.
"So?! Most people couldn't punch through that!"
"Really?" The kid between the two of them gets nervous, so the bickering settles down. "Y'know, you've asked me a ton of questions, but I've got one for you. Why did you come to Jujutsu Tech in the first place?"
She's a bit taken aback. "Why?" She then grimaces. "It's because I hate the country! It sucks, and I've always wanted to live in Tokyo!" She then turns around to pull off an innocent pose. "This was the only way to move in without worrying about money!"
"You'd risk your life to save a few bucks ...?" Itadori didn't sound impressed.
She straightens up. "I would." Turning to face him, she smiles. "And it's the only way I can stay true to myself." She pats down the little boy's hair as he waits patiently for them to stop talking. "As far as that goes, I'm grateful to you, too. There wouldn't have been a bright future if I had died or survived alone." She then smiles. "So thank you." And with that, she decides it's time to leave.
"Well, a more serious reason isn't better than any other, I guess." He speaks in a wishy-washy tone.
Nobara spins on her heel, "I've already given my thanks, so that part's over! We're even now!" And with that, she leads the way out of the building.
"Hey, you've made it!" Gojo greets them with a smile. You and Fushiguro stand up as well, taking place beside the teacher.
"Yeah, and this kid was in there, too! Good thing we came!" Itadori, who had picked him up, dropped him off in front of the three.
Nobara sits down on the steps outside to take a breather instead. "She has the right idea. Yuji, why don't you take a break with her while Megumi and I bring him home?"
Fushiguro turns to Gojo as he makes the suggestion. "What about (Y/N)? Are we really going to leave her alone with him?"
She furrows her brows; what kind of past did you have with Itadori? "I usually wouldn't, but she's tired and still recovering. I mean, if you want to carry her around, be my guest, but I don't want to make her walk more than she has to." There's no other arguments, so the two of them leave with the kid while you come and sit down right beside Itadori.
"By the way," Nobara speaks up, tapping her foot, "I get into a bad mood when I'm hungry." It's somewhat of an apology, and is partially directed at you.
Awkward seconds pass by, before she watches Itadori wrap an arm around your shoulders to steady you. "Are you tired, (Y/N)?" He pats his shoulder, "just lean on me and rest a bit, they'll be back soon." And with that, you were asleep nearly instantly.
"I thought you said girls didn't like you." Nobara huffs at the interaction.
"They don't ..." He turns his head back to face her with a gentle smile. "But (Y/N) ... she's special. She might not have cursed energy, might not be strong, and might not even be human, but I know that she's kind."
Might not have cursed energy. Looking at you now, she could feel it. Not just an absence of cursed energy, but just by observing Itadori's energy output, you were like a bubble of nothing in his space. She couldn't tell if you were dispelling it or absorbing it, but she realized there was more to you than she first thought. Maybe you weren't quite a mouse, but rather, a poisonous little frog. Small and cute, but able to do damage if not taken seriously.
She thinks for a moment. "And you said she's not a student?"
He shakes his head, "nope. Given her circumstances, Gojo says it could be dangerous if anyone else finds out about her."
"I see." It's quiet for a little bit longer, before she speaks again. "I hope that one day, she can be."