Chapter Text
Footsteps. Of all people…
He turned and looked down. Yuka looked up at him, in her hiding spot below the sink, with bated breath... Hold on.
How had Yuka ended up in this situation below the sink, you may be wondering?
Well…
"What time is it, Yuka?" Cross had asked her, once he'd finished everything he wanted to do.
"About 11pm."
"Ugh.. that's way later than I'd want it to be. I'm going to start getting ready to sleep."
"Anything else I can do for you?" Yuka asked, surprised at how much energy she still had left over.
"No, you can stay curled up in that little corner of yours beside the desk."
She had her own corner! She'd practically moved in already!
"Actually," Yuka turned to look at him, "could you get me a glass of water?"
"You really did work yourself to the bone, huh?"
"Tell me about it…"
"Okay, where exactly is the sink?"
"Once you leave the room…" Cross went on.
That was, conveniently, exactly when Yuka zoned out.
So here she was. After at least 15 minutes searching, she'd finally found a sink. Now came the new problems.
The bigger glasses seemed to be in a cupboard above the sink. As she was a cat, and a lot smaller than the size of who this sink was designed for, she couldn't get as big of a cup as she'd want to. That meant she'd had to resort to a smaller cup, of which there were none drying outside of the cupboard. Just her luck.
Below the sink, there were no cupboards, just a stool in an empty space. She could use that to her advantage. She dragged the stool from where it was and managed to put it in position perfectly, so she could jump from the floor to stool to the counter.
She gave herself a run up, making the jump from floor to stool. She readied herself on the stool, just about to reach the counter—
Then she heard footsteps.
She leapt off of the stool, scrambling to drag it back below the sink and hoping whoever was coming her way wouldn't notice her where the stool was supposed to be.
The footsteps were getting louder now. All she could do was wait.
The footsteps stopped. Their owner had arrived. He turned and looked down, Yuka looking back up at him with bated breath.
Of all people…
...thank God it was Jabaloma.
He was one of the better, if not the best person here she could've encountered here (besides Cross, of course).
Her situation could've been a lot worse. She could have encountered a bystander who may have accidentally leaked her secret. She could've come face to face with someone who couldn't care less if she got caught or not. She could've been coming face to face with Osuki, or someone worse than him.
Or… she could've come face to face with Maru.
She did not want to think about that. Nope. Definitely not about how he'd called 6 times, and she'd hung up half of those. She didn't care. Not at all. Nope...
She didn't regret it, she knew that for certain. The uptick in curse user groups had caused her to have basically been stuck to Tsurugi and Maru like glue since the beginning of February. She was tired of that.
But… it did seem callous, in her eyes. And she knew for a fact that coming face to face with a disappointed Maru would hurt way more than coming face to face with anyone who wanted her out.
Her mental monologue was interrupted by Jabaloma, who had moved the stool from where it was in front of Yuka.
"Hello there," he told her, in Japanese. That confirmed that he knew she was a cat. He must've overheard Cross from earlier. Okay… I can work with that.
He was silent for a few moments more, contemplating how to go about communicating with someone who couldn't respond to him verbally.
"Are you… here for a walk?"
Yuka shook her head.
"Here for food?"
She shook her head again.
"Here to explore?"
No, but that was a great idea, and she would definitely do it tomorrow. She shook her head again.
At that point, she got an idea. She tapped the floor with her paw to try to convey her brilliant idea to Jabaloma.
"Are you— are you trying to mime why you're here?"
Yuka nodded.
"Alright then. Why are you here?"
Yuka looked up at the sink.
"Water."
Yuka put her paw near her mouth, and tilted her head up.
"Ah, erm… drinking water. A person drinking water."
Yuka nodded, and made an X shape with her front legs.
"You were trying to get water for Cross?"
Yuka nodded.
"I can help you with that."
Yuka vigorously shook her head. That would ruin her chance at performing a feat previously considered impossible for a cat! She needed to do this on her own so she could make cat history!
However, thinking about it… it would be a lot cooler if her feat had witnesses.
So Jabaloma watched as she got out from under the sink, took the stool right back where she had it initially, jumped from the floor to the stool to the sink, and opened the cupboard.
And now came the moment of truth.
"Are you sure about this? It could be dangerous." came Jabaloma's concern.
Yes, yes she was! She could do it!
She slowly but surely opened the cupboard, got up to the lowest, and got a glass. Now what?
How could she get the glass down from there without it breaking?
She looked back at Jabaloma. His expression conveyed a mixture of complete awe and immense concern for her safety.
She looked back down at the sink, and at the drying rack right next to it. The rack was placed in such a way that part of it was directly under the left side of the cupboard. There was her method.
She pushed her chosen cup all the way to the left end of the cupboard, and knocked it right off.
Jabaloma watched, as it fell right onto the rack, intact. Yuka jumped into the sink, got out and closed the cupboard.
Now it was time for the tricky part. And the hygiene concerns. From the drying rack, she got the cup and knocked it gently enough so that it would land right side up into the sink.
And then, she turned on the tap. Waited. Closed the tap. This just became a whole lot harder.
She then had 2 realisations:
-
She wasn't able to push the glass of water anymore. If she did, it would spill.
-
She had no clue how to get back to Cross' room.
Crap. Was Jabaloma still watching?
"You're going to need a bit of help with the rest of this process, aren't you?" Yes, he was.
Trying to clarify, Yuka crossed over her paws.
"What about Cross?"
With her best uncertain cat face, she tried looking around.
"Did you forget where his room is?"
Yuka nodded.
"I can take you. Come on." Jabaloma told her, picking up the cup.
When she said Jabaloma was one of the best people she could have encountered, she meant it. She leapt down from the sink to the floor, and managed to convey that she wanted Jabaloma to give her the cup.
"You want to be the one getting the water there?"
Yuka nodded.
"Alright then, but if you knock it over, you'll be the one cleaning it up."
Yuka tried to give him pleading eyes to potentially get out of having to clean.
"Ah, ah, ah, don't give me that! If you were able to get that cup and fill it all by yourself, then you can definitely clean your own mess." Jabaloma responded, his tone lighthearted.
Welp, she tried.
As they were walking, Yuka was thinking. Jabaloma was a really kind man. From what she knew, he'd never advocated for hostility in any way since the Rumelians first showed up in Japan. He cared a lot about maintaining peace between people, nations, during debates, just in general. She'd heard from Maru that Jabaloma had that tendency to ask about others' well-being, especially if they were younger. It made her kind of curious.
"You know, in some ways," Jabaloma spoke, starting conversation, "that reminded me of my daughter."
Of course. That made sense. That explained practically everything.
"Granted, she was less reckless," Was. Past tense. "but she had that exact same… spunk. Wanting to do everything she could on her own."
Now, wasn't that something.
"Nostalgia really does appear in the strangest of places," Jabaloma remarked.
Hm. That was funny. Thinking about it, Jabaloma had also reminded Yuka of someone close in some ways. The care he'd shown, the lenience and concern… it reminded her, in some ways, of her grandpa Yuta.
If there was any downsides to being a cat, it's that cats can't wear rings.
Her thoughts must've shown on her face, as Jabaloma made a noise of understanding, and changed the subject.
"You really have been a good influence on Cross."
Yuka bowed her head in thanks, almost getting it in the cup.
"It's honestly heartwarming to have seen him warm up to you and your people, and people in general. You did really well."
She agreed with that statement so much. He'd changed a lot from the first time she'd met him, and he seemed much happier these days.
She liked spending time with Cross. It was quiet and calming, fun in different ways from spending time with Tsurugi, and Maru. That sort of balance in her social interactions was something she needed, and she felt she'd been sorely lacking it lately.
After that, they reached the door.
"I think I'll leave you to it," Jabaloma told her, opening the door just a slight so Yuka could enter.
"You fucking idiot," were the first words Yuka heard as soon as she stepped foot in the room.
What happened? Who is he talking to?
"You actually told a cat to get you a glass of water? What the hell were you thinking?!"
Looking at him closer, she could tell he was talking to himself. She was hearing him in Japanese, but his mouth wasn't making the movements it would if he was actually speaking Japanese.
No, Cross was insulting himself in Rumelian. And he had no clue she could hear him.
She had to stop him. Now.
She pushed the cup all the way along the floor so it was right next to his head, turned around, took a run up, and jumped.
All he was able to do in that situation was catch her. "Yuka?!"
"I told you not to call yourself an idiot!"
"You heard that?"
"Yeah! Don't do it!"
He turned and saw the cup. "Wha— how?"
"All in a day's work!"
"You just got the cup all the way here? Without spilling anything?"
"With some help from Jabaloma, yes."
"So he knows?"
"He knows."
"Got it. We can work with that."
"So, what now?"
"Well, now we can finally fall asleep."
"Wanna cuddle?"
"...Sure. So I know I won't lose you."
Yuka bounded onto the bed.
Cross slept soundly that night. More soundly than he had in a while. He couldn't quite remember the last time he'd slept this soundly.
He'd slept so soundly, in fact, that he didn't wake up when Yuka left his arms about 2 hours before his alarm clock rung.
In retrospect, he really should have.
"Morning…"
"Hey," Maru replied, rolling around in the bed. "…what time is it?"
Tsurugi checked his watch. "About 8am."
"Okay… I'm getting up."
They hadn't managed to fall asleep easily the night before. With Yuka's absence and the prospect of the higher-ups' reactions, sleep didn't come easy to them. They'd chosen to share a bed at around 2am, hoping that sleep could come easier if they were together. Maru had ended up wrapping an arm around Tsurugi so that he didn’t fall off, with how restless he was.
They debated downpaying for another night at the motel. They didn't know whether or not they'd need to be back tonight.
"I just want to get all this over with as soon as possible." Tsurugi had insisted.
"Me too… if we can." Maru had responded.
Right now, they'd left the motel and were trying to find a good place to eat breakfast. Tokyo's outskirts really weren't populated.
"So," Maru had started conversation on the way, "how exactly are we going to go about this?"
"How else? We search the city." Tsurugi replied matter-of-factly.
"Tokyo's huge. It would take days to search everywhere, and we don't have that long." Maru countered.
"Then we'll go from where Yuka was dispatched and work our way outwards. Like you said, Tokyo's huge. She can't have gone far."
"It's almost been a whole day. She could've moved to a completely different region of the city in that time." Maru fired back.
"Of course, we're assuming she can still move." The apprehension was evident in Tsurugi's tone.
Maru stopped walking, and held out his hand. Tsurugi took it. They stayed like that for a bit. Eventually, they let go and continued walking, slightly slower than before.
"If Yuka was incapacitated in any way, we would've received an SOS signal from her watch." Maru spoke, confidently, emphasising every word.
"You're right. Fuck, I'm not thinking clearly!" Tsurugi answered, frustrated.
"That's okay. I can do the thinking for you for now."
Tsurugi smiled at that.
"Look, there's a place over there!" Maru exclaimed, running over.
"Hey, wait for me!" Tsurugi said, even though they both knew he could outrun Maru.
The place they'd found was a small café that didn't have much to eat besides sandwiches. Since Tsurugi didn't feel like having coffee and Maru hated it, those were all they got. They sat on the steps to eat, still focused on finding Yuka.
"Also," Maru began, "let's not forget that we haven't been able to reach Yuka directly since she disappeared. So, either her watch is out of battery—"
"It isn't, you know what she's like about charging."
"—or it's been compromised in some way, shape, or form."
Tsurugi sucked in a breath at that.
"It's probably still functional, because if it wasn't, we'd know, but since all our calls to her went straight to voicemail, she can't access her phone at all."
"Dammit."
Tsurugi went on. "Cross hasn't gotten back to us either."
"He hasn't seen the calls. He wouldn't let 6 unanswered calls go without reaching out somehow." Maru claimed.
"Was he busy last night?"
"He'd mentioned wanting to work on the meeting notes before the upcoming consultation on the reconstruction of Tokyo. That must've taken way longer than he wanted it to."
"That doesn't make sense though," Tsurugi protested, watching the ground. "If he wasn't looking at his watch, then either all of the calls would've been missed, or if he'd turned on DND, they would've all gone straight to voicemail. They wouldn't have differed, not like that."
"I know. Maru confessed. "It's eating away at me."
Tsurugi looked up at him.
"I don't want to believe that he's hiding anything. I don't think if I can just do that. But I don't see any other explanation."
"Fuck."
"Yeah. Fuck."
Tsurugi got up. "Let's get going. The sooner we start, the sooner we finish."
Turns out their starting point was not nearly as easy to find as they'd hoped. Rubble littered the ground in intermittent heaps as far as the eye could see, and they'd had to go through all of it. They were at the ruins of the imperial palace, after having searched for ages and finding nothing.
Or, more rather, almost nothing.
"Hey, look at this." Maru was staring at a track on the ground, just where the stone ended.
He was looking at two sets of faint but visible footsteps, one belonging to a person, and the other…
"Those are four-legged footprints," Tsurugi remarked. "From the looks of it, probably a cat's."
"What could a cat possibly be doing out all the way over here?" Maru asked.
"No clue."
"I hope it's safe. It being alone, out here, with nothing... that would just be cruel." Maru continued, then noticed Tsurugi's distress. "Is everything OK?"
"I just realised how screwed we are."
"What do you mean?"
"We're off grid right now, and have been since Yuka disappeared. The Jujutsu world is granted permission to consider us missing if we don't report back within 36 hours since the mission began. We're getting dangerously close to that."
Maru bit back a curse word. "The elite could use that to justify all sorts of things!"
"Exactly."
"So, should we just report back to Usami?"
"Hell no." Tsurugi responded.
"Why not?"
"Someone could get a hold of what we'd tell him. We can't risk getting spied on."
Maru exhaled in frustration, and was about to respond, when they heard a new voice in the distance. There was someone else in Tokyo.
What the hell?
Getting closer, they realised that this person had cursed energy. Human cursed energy.
"Just when we were talking about getting spied on, too…" Tsurugi muttered.
"You think she's a higher-up?"
"Solid chance. Never seen her before, though."
"She could just be a sorcerer like us."
"The sorcery world is a small one, Maru. Everyone has connections to someone."
"So if she's not a higher-up, she's connected to them?"
"Exactly. We can't trust anyone outside our circle right now."
"You there." They'd been caught. "If you want to talk, you'll have to get down here."
"And if we don't?" Tsurugi asked.
"If you didn't, you wouldn't be staring."
"Can't argue with that," Maru told him, making his way down. Tsurugi followed reluctantly.
"So," the woman asked them, "what brings you two down to these parts?"
"Not much," Tsurugi tried to be as vague as possible.
"Hm. You authorised to be here?"
"What's it to you?"
"Nothing, but I guess I'll take that as a no."
"We are, actually," Maru interjected. Tsurugi gave him a look. "What about you?"
"I don't need authorisation."
"Everyone needs authorisation." Tsurugi countered.
"I don't."
"Why are you here?" Maru asked.
"That's quite a loaded question coming from a stranger."
"True, but I'd say we have something in common."
"Oh really? And what's that?"
"The fact that we're here in the first place."
"Well, yes." she responded, unimpressed.
"People don't come here for no reason. There's something important here that you want to see."
"How do you know I'm not just on a mission?" She deflected.
"Are you on a mission?"
"Are you?"
Maru didn't know how to respond to that question.
"Well?" the old woman yelled, "It's a yes or no question!"
Maru looked at her nervously. He glanced back at Tsurugi, who was doing the exact same thing as him.
She started them down for a good few minutes, until her expression seemed to morph into one of surprise.
"Since you could tell I'm a sorcerer," she started, "I've gotta say, your cursed energy's quite interesting." The woman continued, with something having shifted in her tone.
"We've established that we're all sorcerers." Tsurugi mentioned.
"Obviously, but Heavenly Restriction users are still rare." She added, with a sense of confidence.
"So are sorcerers with missing eyes."
She plowed on, ignoring that statement. "From the looks of it, I'm guessing you're related to the Zen'in clan?"
Tsurugi bristled at that. "I don't associate with the Zen'in clan. They had grandma's reaction coming to them."
She was now smiling. "Maki-senpai had said her grandson was a grandma's boy. I've heard quite a bit about you, Tsurugi Okkotsu."
She'd figured him out. Damn it! And he didn't have any leads on her.
Unless…
"You just called grandma your senpai. And if you're here in Tokyo for something important, then it must mean something to you."
"What's your point?" She
"You were one of the first years of 2018. Nobara Kugisaki?"
"You got that right!" She responded, "All that leaves is your friend over there."
"I'm harder to figure out than Tsurugi." Maru assured her.
"Don't get cocky!" she told him, before continuing. "Let's start with the obvious, you're one of the Simurian officials."
"That was fast!"
"You're not exactly hiding it," Tsurugi commented.
"You're quite close with Tsurugi too. Have you come into contact with other Jujutsu sorcerers?"
"A few..." Maru responded, slightly downcast at the thought of Yuka.
"Are they of political importance?"
"Absolutely."
"Any names?"
"I mean, there's these two, Usami and Mino, I met a few other higher-ups at the cultural exchange event… then there's Yuji Itadori—"
She cut him off at that. "You worked with Itadori for the ritual, right?"
Maru was taken aback by that. "How did you know?"
"He's mentioned you quite a few times. Marulu, was it?"
"Yep, that's me." He paused for a moment. "If you don't mind me asking… is he alright?"
"That's what I've been trying to find out." Nobara responded.
Before they could ask for more details, they were interrupted by Maru's watch ringing.
"It's Cross." he told Tsurugi.
"Then pick up!" Tsurugi told him, as Nobara looked on, interested.
Cross woke up slowly, groggily. He never did that. That should've been his first red flag.
What was his first red flag was the lack of a cat-sized weight in his arms. For all her excitement to cuddle with him the night before, Yuka had, apparently, already disappeared.
As far as he could tell, she wasn't in his room either. Oh no… where the hell did she run off to?
His second red flag was the time. He'd slept through his alarm clock. Again, he never did that. Damn it.
His third red flag… 6 unanswered calls from Maru, all from last night.
Maru knew how he was with phone calls. He couldn't stand getting called more than 3 times in the same hour. So what the fuck happened to make him call 6?!
He scrambled to call Maru back, wondering what could've possibly happened while he wasn't paying attention.
"Maru?" Cross asked, hoping his voice didn't sound too dazed.
"Hey!"
"What did you need?"
Maru took some time to respond to that. "Can I ask you a question?"
"Can I ask you one first?"
"Go ahead."
"How come you called me 6 times last night?"
"Did you only see those just now?" Maru asked, a lot less frustration in his tone than Cross would expect.
"I didn't think to check for any calls," Cross told him. A necessary white lie.
"Then how come the 3rd, 5th and 6th phone calls were declined?"
"What do you mean?" Cross asked, checking the call history.
"Those calls were manually declined. If it was automatic, they would've all declined. If not, they would have gone to voicemail. What happened?"
Cross took a long, hard look at the call log. So that was what Yuka had done last night...
"Oh. Oh shit."
He hung up. He needed to find her, and fast.
Screw it, I'm getting coffee.
He'd been looking for Yuka for about 15 minutes now. No sign of her. It wasn't that the Naunax was hard to navigate, it was easy, if anything, but it was huge. If Cross wanted to get anything done properly, he'd need the caffeine. And knowing Yuka, she'd definitely gone off to look for food on her own as well.
Which is to say that he wasn't at all surprised when he found Yuka under a table, where a fellow coffee enjoyer was sitting.
There was no way in hell he'd be able to talk to her like this, so he'd have to try and wait for her to get out from a distance.
"Hello there, Cross."
Too late for that.