Chapter Text
“What’s the update?” Maki asks as soon as she hits the receive call button on her phone.
It’s been a week since Panda showed up and inadvertently caused Maki and Nobara to have one of their biggest fights. Even their initial breakup didn’t quite feel like that. She’s been living in this apartment on borrowed time; it’ll be a month before she knows it. The tension from that fight began to dissipate as the days went on at the very least. Maki doesn’t feel unwelcomed, but she definitely feels awkward from the fight that woke up Sayaki.
“Hi Maki-san,” Yuuta greets on the other end. “We’ve put up a barrier now that we’ve cornered him. He can’t run away now.”
“How long?” Maki asks hastily.
“End of the week, or sooner. Are you itching to leave? Panda-san mentioned he ‘pushed things along,’ but we all know what that means.”
Maki sneers in response. “If by pushing things along he means he made Nobara and I get into a screaming match, sure.”
She hears Yuuta let out a disapproving sigh. “I’m sorry things aren’t easy, Maki-san. It sounded like it wasn’t too bad before that.”
“It wasn’t—it’s still not…” she mumbles. “No matter how much help I provide—I can’t help but feel like I’m making things harder for her—emotionally I mean.”
“Yeah, Kugisaki-chan has always been pretty stubborn.”
“No…I mean, she is—but, Yuuta…what if I don’t want to leave?”
“Oh—oh… Maki-san, do you mean…?”
“I don’t know, I just care about Sayaki…”
“And what about Kugisaki-chan?”
“She doesn’t seem all that happy about us getting along, if I’m being honest,” Maki says, though she knows that Nobara is just being protective of her daughter.
“That isn’t what I’m asking.”
Maki groans. “Things are weird. Sometimes it feels like I’m where I’m supposed to be. Other times—everything feels so different. Obviously I want her to get better, but then I leave when she does. I don’t know if she’d want to see me after all of this.”
“Do you really think Kugisaki-chan dislikes you that much?”
Maki scoffs. “I keep saying and asking stupid things about Sayaki.”
Yuuta hums on the other line. “So the rest of us have gathered.”
“Great, glad to know I’m the laughingstock.”
“No, no. It’s more like…” Yuuta sighs. “You’re not an idiot, Maki-san.”
His delivery makes Maki’s heart pound. After Nobara’s reaction to their last fight, towards Maki’s accusations…
Yuuta interrupts her thoughts. “Aren’t you just asking questions you already know the answer to?”
Maki closes her eyes and lets out a sigh. She’s been avoiding that, or at least trying to. The Megumi theory was easy, probably because Maki knows how ridiculous it is, the other thing—well, Maki’s not sure she’s ready to acknowledge that.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She’s pretty certain she can hear Yuuta slapping his palm to his face.
“Fine, back to Kugisaki-chan disliking you. Maki-san, do you eat dinner with her and Sayaki-chan?”
“Yeah? We all eat at the table usually.”
“And you’ve been the one cooking?”
“It’s not like Nobara was much of a chef before the accident,” Maki scoffs.
“Uh-huh, it’s just—if Kugisaki-chan really can’t stand you, I don’t think she’d be eating the food you make or sitting with you.”
“You’re too much of an optimist; she’s only doing that because it makes things weird for her kid if she wasn’t.”
Yuuta chuckles. “Is that right? Well, I’ll let you think about that. Time’s almost up.”
And with that, Yuuta hangs up on Maki. She stares at her phone, bewildered at the conversation she just had.
Maki tosses and turns later that night. Her mind has been racing all day replaying what Yuuta said to her. She can’t get comfortable on the couch, no matter how hard she tries. Her back aches, and her skin itches from the rough texture of the couch she’s been sleeping on the last several weeks.
She should just get a futon at this point—or maybe not, if Yuuta is correct with his assumption. Maki will only have to sleep like this for a few more days. Then the mission will be over.
Her heart sinks at the thought. If there were any truth to the theories Maki has put together regarding both Nobara and Sayaki, she should want to leave as soon as possible. A normal person wouldn’t want to be around any of this.
Maki rolls her eyes; she’s never normal, even by jujutsu standards. Maybe that’s why she’s still here, or maybe she’s just hoping being here will give her some answers. Real answers.
One of the bedroom doors creaks open. Maki expects to hear the awkward gait Nobara’s had the last few weeks, but the footsteps sound far too soft and quiet.
Maki rises up by her elbows to peer over the couch’s arm. A small figure stumbles in the dark, and now Maki can hear it—a sniffle, then a whimper.
“Sayaki?”
There’s a louder sniffle, followed by a snort. “Mhm…”
Maki fumbles for the lamp, flicking it on and illuminating the living room.
There’s Sayaki; her eyes are filled with tears, and her cheeks stained with them. She has a death grip on her blanket.
“What’s wrong?” Maki slides off the couch. She moves over to the child.
“Bad dream,” she murmurs, before launching at Maki’s leg. The blanket falls to the floor abandoned as she clings to Maki. Maki’s pretty certain she’s wiping her tears and her snot on her flannel pajama bottoms, but she finds she doesn’t care.
Instead, she leans down and picks Sayaki up into her arms. “It’s okay.” She rubs her back as Sayaki clings harder, arms wrapped around Maki like she might disappear at any second. Her soft cries are muffled now that she’s burrowed into Maki’s neck. “It was just a nightmare.”
Sayaki hiccups and nods.
“Do you want me to wake your mom up?”
The little girl hastily shakes her head, clinging harder to Maki.
“No!”
“Okay, okay.” Maki pats her back. “I’ll tuck you back in.”
“No!”
“Sayaki… You need your sleep,” Maki chastises. She sounds more like Nobara now—she’s not sure how to feel about that. Is she just playing house?
“You were gone…” Sayaki mumbles quietly. “And the bad man came back and hurt Mama.”
Maki pauses. She’s not very good at comforting people. Even when she was a child with her sister, Maki felt like she wasn’t great at giving comfort to Mai. The only time Maki felt like she did a decent job at making Mai feel safe was when she would hold her sister's hand and tell her to close her eyes whenever Mai saw a curse. She feels like a fish out of water now.
Still, she has to put some effort in. The argument from last week, the lingering tension—none of that mattered to Maki. Sayaki’s lineage doesn’t matter, what matters is making her feel safe.
“That won’t happen,” Maki says. She pulls away from Sayaki so they can look directly at each other. “Okay? I’m not leaving. And I’ll protect you and your mother.”
“Promise?”
She lifts up her hand, pinky finger extended out. Maki sighs softly, shifting Sayaki into one arm so their pinkies can intertwine.
“Promise.”
When Maki wakes up the next day, she can feel an eye watching her before she even has the chance to open her own. She feels the extra weight of Sayaki on her chest; the young girl refused to go back to her room last night and instead curled up in Maki’s arms.
Maki blinks her bleary eyes open. Ginger hair fills her vision; Nobara’s been watching them.
“How long have you been there?” Maki mumbles, rubbing her eyes. She shifts up, careful as to not disturb Sayaki.
“I just got up,” Nobara answers. She looks down at Sayaki and then back up at Maki. “Did she give you trouble last night?”
“Nah.” Maki shakes her head. “She just had a nightmare and she didn’t want to sleep alone.”
Sayaki groans and stretches against her, beginning to wake up. “Maki?”
“Mornin’.”
“The couch isn’t comfy,” she informs her. Sayaki then turns to Nobara, her brows furrowed. “Mama, why doesn’t Maki have a bed?”
“Uh—well Maki was only supposed to be here for a little bit,” Nobara says as she awkwardly scratches her head.
Was. Maki blinks, wondering if she misheard her.
It’s the late afternoon; Maki returned to the apartment with Sayaki in tow just a few hours ago. This was her regular schedule now, making sure on weekdays Sayaki would get to kindergarten and making sure she safely returned home. The child is in the corner of the living room, focused deeply on her coloring book. Nobara is in her bedroom, making an attempt to nap. Maki hopes she’s actually able to get some sleep for once.
“I’m hungry,” Sayaki announces to Maki, before spilling out more crayons from their carton to sift through.
“Well, you already had a snack,” Maki says pointedly, earning a small huff.
“But!”
“Dinner will be done soon,” Maki states. However, she makes eye contact with Sayaki, and the girl pouts. Maki grumbles; she finds her conviction falls whenever Sayaki gives her that look. “If you’re good, you can have ice cream after dinner.” Maki settles on.
Sayaki perks up at that. It seems the offering worked, as the girl returns to coloring haphazardly. She’s not very good at keeping her colors in the lines.
The air shifts slightly; Maki doesn’t think much of it. She’s used to this feeling; there must be a cursed spirit nearby. She shrugs to herself—it’s a large apartment complex, curses are bound to manifest and roam—Maki’s off duty, her focus is the Kugisaki family anyway.
The pan sizzles as she adds the breaded pork to it. The aroma wafts through the apartment, but that feeling from earlier hasn’t dissipated. Sayaki is still humming in the corner as she doodles outside the lines of the coloring book. There’s not a peep from Nobara’s room, so she must have managed to fall asleep for once.
“So cold…cold…so cold,” a raspy voice chitters. Maki rolls her eyes; of course some low-grade curse managed to get in. She turns down the burner, preparing to investigate.
A terrified shriek rips through the apartment.
Sayaki.
“Monster!”
Maki spins, her eyes wide. She can’t see it, but she can feel it. Sayaki is trembling in the corner.
She saw it.
Sayaki saw her first curse.
“Maki!” Sayaki cries out for her. She extends her arms towards Maki, even though there’s a significant amount of distance between them.
Maki freezes.
Because it isn’t just Sayaki crying out for her, reaching out for her—Maki can see Mai as well. Even though Sayaki shares traits with her mother, Maki cannot unsee the Zenin.
There’s a clatter from Nobara’s bedroom and the sound of the door being swung open.
It only takes a second before she’s moving. She moves at a speed the normal human eye would struggle to register. She leaps and grabs her katana—the one Mai created for her all those years ago. In a matter of seconds she’s in front of Sayaki, acting as a human barrier.
“Mai, get back!”
She raises her sword and slices, instantly cutting the cursed spirit in half, exorcising it.
Maki drops her sword, it clanks against the hardwood floor. A small body collides into her, hugging her like a lifeline. Finally, her own words register in her head.
She hadn’t meant to call Sayaki that. Shit.
“You’re safe,” Maki says, before she wraps her arms around Sayaki. Maki can hear Nobara’s crutch and foot as she hurriedly makes her way over.
“It didn’t have eyes,” she says, trembling. She starts to wail after that. “A-and its lips were blue and—“
“It’s okay.”
“What happened?” Nobara demands. Maki looks up at her while soothingly rubbing Sayaki’s back. She’s out of breath, her hair a mess from sleep.
“Sayaki saw a cursed spirit,” Maki says softly. She stands up, adjusting her arms to hold Sayaki more securely. Nobara lets out a sigh of relief. She sinks down onto the couch, and Maki follows her.
“It was scary…” Sayaki mumbles from Maki’s chest.
“But Maki got rid of it,” Nobara offers. The child looks up from her spot on Maki’s lap and crawls over to Nobara.
Her mother picks her up, holding her close. Maki watches the scene, and she can’t help but feel relief. She’s not even sure why—just the sight of the two of them seems to put her at ease.
Sayaki squirms, shifting to stare at Maki.
“Who’s Mai?”
Maki’s heart sinks. Nobara’s eye goes wide, and she stares at Maki. “You don’t have to—“
Maki stands up and walks over to the discarded sword. She picks it up, her shoulders relax.
“She was my sister,” Maki answers. She stares down at the Split Soul Katana, looking at all the scuff marks it’s earned over the years. “This sword was a gift from her.”
“Oh…”
“Maki’s special,” Nobara tells her. “I can see curses, and now you can see curses. But Maki is different. She feels them.”
Maki turns to watch the exchange, a sad smile forming.
“How come?” Sayaki asks.
“I don’t have special powers like your mom or your uncles. When I was younger I couldn’t sense curses at all.”
“But—you got rid of the monster-curse!” Sayaki exclaims. “That’s special powers!”
“Maybe—in its own way.” Maki chuckles. Sayaki pushes herself off of Nobara’s lap. Once she’s in front of Maki, she reaches out and touches the cold steel of the blade.
“Your sister made it?”
“Yes.”
“Where is she?”
Maki swallows hard. “She was taken from me.”
Sayaki frowns at that answer. “By a monster?”
Maki finds herself leaning down. She brushes a strand of hair out of Sayaki’s face. “Something like that, but I got rid of the monsters after… No one will get taken again.”
“Oh Maki…” Nobara lets out a sad sigh from the couch.
Maki smells something burning. “Oh shoot!” She exclaims, rushing back to the kitchen.
“I want to fight monsters like Maki!” Sayaki announces to her mother, as if she wasn’t just crying over a cursed spirit five minutes ago.
Maki smiles to herself as she attempts to save dinner.
“Well—when you’re older,” Nobara tells Sayaki before sneaking a glance over at Maki.
“Maki.”
Maki’s eyes snap up. She's been sitting on the chair in the living room for a good while now, deep in thought.
“I called out to you twice,” Nobara says. She’s leaning against the wall, dressed in a tank top and sleep shorts.
“Oh…” Maki looks back down at the sword sitting in her lap.
“You’ve been sitting here doing nothing for almost two hours,” Nobara adds.
Maki makes a noise before she shrugs. “I didn’t realize.”
Nobara lets out a sigh. “Come on then.” She beckons Maki with her hand. Wordlessly Maki stands up; she sets the Split Soul Katana on the chair and follows Nobara as she limps down the hall. Nobara opens the door, and Maki follows her inside.
“It’s annoying seeing you act like the couch isn’t killing your back,” Nobara says with a huff. She gestures at the bed. Maki blinks at her and looks back and forth. It shouldn’t surprise her that Nobara still knows her tells for when she’s in pain; Maki finds that to be a little annoying. There’s no hiding from her.
Maki manages to make a noise of affirmation before she walks over to the bed. She makes sure to sit on the side where she didn’t see Nobara use the last time she was in her bedroom. The relief is almost instant; she had forgotten what it felt like to sleep on a real bed.
“Get comfortable,” Nobara mumbles before she shuts the door and limps to her side, setting the crutches against the wall before she sits down.
Maki’s heart pounds. Her mind has been a mess all day, and being in her ex’s bed is not helping in the slightest. Maybe she should take one of the extra pillows and build a wall between them. She can imagine Nobara doing that—she can also imagine her being pissed off if Maki makes a move like that.
But Maki would rather focus on something like this than on what occurred earlier. She had called Sayaki—Mai. She squeezes her eyes shut. It doesn’t help that Sayaki has the general face shape of a Zenin.
“What’s going on inside your head?”
“I—I shouldn’t,” Maki stammers.
She hears a deep sigh and feels the bed dip as Nobara shuffles closer to her until she can feel the warmth of her body next to her side.
“Maki… I’m not going to be mad at you; no one is.”
Maki takes a deep, shuddering breath.
“I saw Mai—when Sayaki reached out for me.”
Maki hadn’t even realized she had begun leaning into Nobara until a well-manicured hand tangled into her hair. She relaxes at the touch, slumping into the affection.
“Yeah…” Nobara says quietly. “I heard you say her name,” she admits.
“I know—I know she isn’t Mai, but I—“
“I know,” Nobara whispers back. “She’s someone you want to protect.”
Maki clenches her teeth and nods. Nobara’s hand adds pressure, pushing Maki closer, and Maki doesn’t resist. She doesn’t resist when her head makes contact with Nobara’s plush thigh. Instead, she lies there, her head in Nobara’s lap. Nobara’s hands card through her hair, and everything feels so familiar.
“I’m sorry,” Maki whispers, turning her head to look at the woman above her.
Nobara offers her a small smile. “For what?”
Maki sucks in a breath; she’s been meaning to talk about this for weeks now. Ever since the first time she walked Sayaki to school.
“For leaving things the way I did—back then.” Maki frowns to herself. “When you brought up us having a family, I panicked.”
“I know that,” Nobara sighs, her hand tightening ever so slightly in Maki’s short locks. “I just wish you let me talk to you.”
“Yeah,” Maki mumbles. “I—I should’ve, but I was scared,” she admits, turning her head away from Nobara.
“Of what, exactly?”
“Mai was the one with Construction,” she mutters quietly into Nobara’s thigh. “She could create things. Not just with her technique, she found her own friend group on her own, she always did well with kids and animals. I hated that we had to do chores for our family, but she was good at it—she preferred it even.”
Maki finally turns to look at Nobara again. If Maki didn’t know her, she’d assume the look on her face is pity. But Nobara has never been like that; she never pitied Maki. They both came from places that hated their very existences. Maki knows Nobara can empathize with her to a degree.
“I’m not like her. I was just born to hurt and destroy things; it’s just the nature of Heavenly Restriction.”
“That’s not true—“
“Just look at Megumi’s father. He was the same as me, stuck with a body just meant to cause harm—and that’s what he did,” Maki argues.
Nobara sighs at her. Her hand moves from Maki’s hair to cup her cheek, fingers tracing one of her scars.
“I couldn’t give you that life,” Maki continues. “My own parents? I couldn’t end up like that—the way my father treated my mother.”
“Maki… you’re nothing like him. You’re nothing like her either. You’re—you’re just Maki.”
“But still—“
“You didn’t kill Mai.”
It takes Maki a moment to remember to breathe.
“It feels like I did,” she murmurs softly. “I’m still responsible for what happened.”
Nobara lets out a deep sigh. “Maki, sweetheart, you’re not a weapon.” The familiar pet name slips out, though Nobara doesn’t linger on the words that left her mouth. “You’re not a destroyer; you’re a protector—you always have been, even now.”
“How can you say that? After everything?”
Maki shuts her eyes tightly. I abandoned you, ignored you, avoided you. I shut you out.
“Because I see the way you are with Sayaki, a monster—like you think you are, wouldn’t give her piggyback rides, or go out to get her favorite snack, or comfort her after a nightmare,” she lists off. “And a monster wouldn’t be worried about my pain…” she adds quietly.
Maki opens her eyes, staring at Nobara—at her dark undereye circles, the way her hair is askew, the gnarled scar over where her left eye should be—she looks no less beautiful than she was when they were together. That realization makes Maki’s heart twinge. She reaches for the hand caressing her cheek, intertwining their fingers together. Nobara makes no move to pull away from her.
“Nobara,” Maki sighs. The way she’s lying, with Nobara’s hand in hers, against the warmth of her body—it’s all so nostalgic.
“You’re attached.”
Maki quirks a brow, though she can’t entirely deny her. She’s attached to Sayaki, to Nobara, to this small peaceful life, the routine of it all. She didn’t think she was ever capable of such a thing.
“That’s a bad thing, isn’t it?” Maki asks.
Nobara huffs and shakes her head. “Maybe not, maybe this is what we both need, too…” She looks away from Maki to hide the way her cheeks turn pink. “I didn’t want to admit it, but you fit right in like a missing puzzle piece. And I don’t know what I should do about that.”
Maki’s eyes widen, unsure how to respond to her. “Sorry.”
Nobara snorts in response; instead she shimmies her body down so she’s lying beside Maki now.
“It’s not a bad thing,” Nobara concludes, nestling against Maki’s body.