Chapter Text
The special grade was not a special grade.
Satoru found this deeply insulting.
Classification errors were not unusual in jujutsu. A curse could grow stronger between its discovery and its exorcism. Witness accounts were unreliable. Residuals could overlap. Sometimes the frightened civilian reporting a monster had seen three curses and mistaken them for one. Sometimes the auxiliary manager conducting the preliminary investigation simply had terrible luck.
Sometimes, however, someone looked at an ugly grade one squatting beneath a rural shrine, panicked, and wrote special grade on the paperwork.
Which was how Satoru had traveled all the way to Nagano to flick apart something that had spent the last three days feeding on people’s fear of divine punishment.
“Well,” Satoru said, standing in what remained of the shrine’s courtyard, “that was disappointing.”
The curse dispersed into nothingness.
Several nearby trees had not survived the exorcism. Neither had the stone lantern closest to the main hall, although Satoru maintained that its destruction had been aesthetically necessary.
The auxiliary manager assigned to this mission stared at him when he emerged. Tablet clutched against his chest.
He looked at the crater.
Then at Satoru.
Then back at the crater.
“Is it…. finished?” he asked weakly.
Satoru stared at him. The curtain had already lifted. The curse was gone. The air was still.
“No.” Satoru said.
The man stared back, his mouth opened a little, then closed again. His eyes flicked helplessly towards the crater, as if the obviously resolved situation might suddenly reconsider itself.
Satoru let the silence stretch for one beat.
Then two.
Three..
Then he smiled.
“Just kidding!” Satoru sing-songed. “Of course it’s finished.”
The man stared at him.
Satoru smiled wider.
The man looked down at his tablet and began typing with the desperate concentration of someone pretending the last ten seconds had not happened.
The mission had been scheduled to occupy most of the day. Travel time included, Satoru had expected to return to Tokyo sometime in the early evening. Late enough for his students to complain. Early enough to take them somewhere with decent food before Nobara declared war on him.
Instead, it was barely noon.
Rain had followed him out of Tokyo, thinning into a damp mist that silvered the mountain roads and softened the distant slopes. The air smelled of soaked cedar, moss, and the faint burnt scent left behind by cursed energy.
Satoru stretched his arms over his head and started walking.
There were several respectable ways to use the unexpected hours.
He could inspect the surrounding area for residuals.
He could contact the higher-ups and politely inquire how an obvious grade one had been elevated to special grade.
He could complete the report himself.
Satoru considered each option with the seriousness it deserved.
Then he turned towards the nearest shopping street.
Sightseeing after a mission was tradition.
Satoru had been sent all across Japan since he was a teenager, and he made a habit of treating every mission like an excuse to raid the local gift shops. Bakeries, shrine stalls, regional specialties. If a town had a famous sweet, Satoru found it. If it had ridiculous keychains, he bought three.
Usually, he took his time.
Today, he didn’t.
The shopping street was small, roofed in faded plastic awnings. A shop near the entrance sold chestnut sweets shaped like little leaves. Further along, an elderly woman arranged trays of steamed dumplings behind a foggy window.
Satoru bought both.
Then he bought candied apples because Nobara would either love them or complain they were tacky, which was almost the same thing.
For Megumi, he chose a packet of salted rice crackers. Megumi pretended not to like gifts, particularly gifts from Satoru, but he always ate them eventually. Usually while scowling, as if every cracker were personally responsible for his circumstances.
For Yuuji, Satoru bought too much.
A box of chestnut dorayaki. Strawberry mochi. Two brightly packaged chocolate bars with cartoon monsters on the wrappers. A bag of gummy sweets shaped like tiny fruit. A regional soda that tasted vaguely of melon and mostly of sugar.
Unfortunately, Satoru did not find any mittens.
It was June, which apparently made shops unreasonable about stocking winter accessories, even when a certain fifteen-year-old had a severe case of corpse fingers and was promised a pair.
Instead, he added another bag of gummies to the growing pile on the counter.
Satoru looked at it for a moment.
The shopkeeper started putting everything into paper bags
Satoru paid, accepted the bags from the shopkeeper, and lifted one hand in farewell.
Outside, the rain had softened to a thin drifting mist.
Satoru could have wandered longer. There was a temple farther up the slope and a café famous for mont blanc. He had finished early enough to do both.
Instead, he stood beneath the awning with several bags of sweets hooked over one wrist and thought about three teenagers sitting somewhere on campus without supervision.
Megumi would be pretending he wanted solitude.
Nobara would be demanding entertainment.
Yuuji would be asking whether anyone wanted to watch a movie, spar, cook lunch, explore the school, find a curse, find a cat, or discover whether Yaga’s cursed corpses could be taught dance routines.
The image made something light shift in Satoru’s chest.
He teleported back to Tokyo.
Not because he was eager.
He was simply preventing property damage.
A responsible adult.
Practically heroic.
⋆˚꩜｡ּ
The school grounds greeted him with rain.
Satoru appeared beneath the cedar trees near the main gate, paper bags intact and blindfold dry because weather was something that happened to other people.
For a moment, nothing seemed wrong.
Then he noticed the car.
Ijichi’s black sedan sat in the small parking area beside the entrance in its usual place.
Crooked.
Not by much. Most people wouldn’t have noticed. Most people would have called it perfectly acceptable.
But Satoru knew Ijichi.
Ijichi parked with the grim determination of a man trying to earn approval from the Department of Transportation. Every angle was measured. Every wheel was straight. If the laws of geometry had feelings, they would have felt respected.
This?
The front bumper sat just a little too close to the line.
Satoru’s smile stayed exactly where it was.
“Huh” he murmured.
He shifted the bags to his other hand and started up the long path towards the school.
The stone walkway wound uphill through the trees, past moss-covered lanterns and old wooden buildings. Beyond them, tiled roofs peeked through the greenery while swallowing everything else.
The campus was quiet. Tokyo Jujutsu High held far fewer students than its sprawling grounds suggested. Most classrooms sat empty. Long hallways gathered dust between footsteps. The old buildings creaked and settled around the handful of people living inside them.
Silence here was ordinary.
This silence was not.
No Nobara shouting.
No Yuuji shouting back.
No Megumi telling both of them to shut up while somehow sounding louder than either.
Satoru tilted his head.
Rain tapped against the leaves.
Satoru slowed, ever so slightly.
Something was wrong.
The second thing he noticed was the cursed tool lying on a bench outside the equipment room.
Satoru stopped.
Yaga did not tolerate weapons being left unattended. Every tool had a designated place, and every student had received a lecture on returning them there. Nobara had once left a hammer on a windowsill and been subjected to twenty minutes on responsibility, discipline, and moisture damage.
This one had been used recently.
A faint residue of unfamiliar cursed energy still clung to it. Weak. Fading. Not dangerous.
But recent.
Satoru glanced toward the principal office.
“Yagaaaa,” he called, drawing the name out until it echoed through the courtyard. “Your students are leaving dangerous objects lying around again.”
No answer.
He wandered into Yaga’s office without knocking.
Empty.
Satoru’s smile remained in place.
He checked the first-year classroom.
Empty.
The engawa where he had left his students that morning was damp and abandoned.
“Megumi?” he called. “Nobara? Yuuji-kuuun?”
His voice carried brightly across the grounds.
Nothing answered except the rain.
Satoru stood still for a moment.
Then he turned toward the administrative building.
“Ijichiii!” he shouted, loud enough to frighten birds from the trees. “Where did everyone go?”
The smile on his face felt suddenly decorative.
Satoru rounded the corner into the administrative corridor and found Ijichi standing beside a vending machine.
He was not buying anything.
He simply stood there, staring at the illuminated rows of canned coffee as though one of them had personally offended him.
His tie was slightly crooked, one sleeve of his jacket was damp, and a faint streak of dust marked his shoulder.
Satoru approached without making a sound.
Then he leaned over Ijichi’s shoulder.
“Boo.”
Ijichi jolted so hard his glasses slipped down his nose.
“G-Gojo-san!”
Satoru beamed. “Wow. Your reflexes are terrible.”
“You startled me!”
“I said one word.”
“You appeared behind me without warning.”
“That sounds like a skill issue.”
Ijichi pushed his glasses back into place and drew a careful breath.
His gaze dropped to the paper bags hooked over Satoru’s wrist.
“You have returned early.”
“Miss me?”
“I was not aware you were gone long enough to…”
“That hurts.”
“I apologize.”
“Apology rejected.” Satoru bent until his face hovered beside Ijichi’s. “Now,” he said brightly, “where are my students?”
Ijichi looked away.
There.
A tiny movement. Nothing most people would notice. A slight shift of the pupils. Too much tension gathering at the corners of his mouth. His fingers flexed once against his trouser seam before going still.
Satoru straightened.
“Ijichi.”
“Principal Yaga took them on a mission.”
The answer came too quickly, clipped and rehearsed.
Satoru tipped his head. “What kind of mission?”
“A grade three.”
“And?”
Ijichi swallowed.
His gaze darted toward the vending machine, then the corridor, then anywhere that was not Satoru.
Satoru waited.
He was very good at waiting when he wanted to be. People mistook his constant movement for impatience. Mistook noise for an inability to tolerate silence.
Silence was useful.
It made nervous people hurry to fill it.
Ijichi did.
“The documented curse was exorcised without incident.”
The paper handles pressed harder into Satoru's wrist.
“Documented curse?”
Ijichi looked like he wanted to crawl inside the vending machine.
“There was another presence inside the curtain.”
“What grade?”
“We cannot be certain. Principal Yaga estimated upper grade two, perhaps semi-grade one.”
Satoru did not ask why Yaga had brought three first years, one almost entirely untrained, into a building containing a curse that strong.
That answer was obvious.
No one had known.
“What happened?”
Ijichi hesitated.
The fluorescent light above them hummed.
“Gojo-san…”
“What happened?”
His voice was still light.
It no longer sounded playful.
Ijichi’s shoulders drew tight. “Itadori-kun was hit.”
Everything inside Satoru went still.
Not the peaceful stillness of Infinity.
Something older.
Sharper.
His Six Eyes caught every detail of Ijichi’s face at once. Sweat at his temple. Uneven breathing. Dust from the abandoned building on his clothes. No blood. No visible injuries. No sign that he had been crying.
None of it answered the only question that mattered.
Hit.
Sorcerers were hit every day.
Hit could mean bruised.
Hit could mean dismembered.
Hit could mean there was no longer enough left of a fifteen-year-old boy to bury.
“And?” Satoru asked.
Ijichi blinked.
“And… what?”
The last trace of Satoru’s smile vanished.
Ijichi went pale.
“Where is he?”
“The infirmary.”
“Is he alive?”
Ijichi’s mouth opened.
For one terrible second, no answer came.
Satoru was already moving when Ijichi found his voice.
“Yes! Yes, he’s alive, Gojo-san.” He rushed out.
Satoru’s next step faltered.
Only slightly.
Air returned to his lungs all at once, thin and cold and insufficient.
Alive.
Yuuji was alive.
The words struck somewhere beneath his ribs, loosening something that had drawn painfully tight.
He did not stop walking.
Alive did not mean unharmed.
It did not mean conscious. It did not mean whole. It did not mean that the boy would grin when Satoru entered the room, or complain about missing their outing, or reach immediately for the bags of sweets still biting into Satoru’s wrist.
But he was alive.
For now, Satoru held on to that.
He crossed the corridor toward the infirmary without looking back.
The paper bags rustled softly against his leg.
Strawberry mochi.
Melon soda.
Gummies shaped like fruit.
He should leave them somewhere.
He did not.
Satoru tried to reconstruct the morning.
Yuuji laughing beneath his weight.
Yuuji’s hand in his.
Cold fingers resting trustingly against Satoru’s palm.
'Are you gonna be okay?'
The kid had been here for four days.
Four.
Satoru had known him less than a week. Barely enough time to learn the rhythm of his laughter. Barely enough time to discover he hated bitter tea and loved action movies. Barely enough time for Yuuji’s presence to begin changing the shape of the campus.
These things happened.
Sorcerers died.
That was the plain truth beneath every lesson, uniform, mission assignment, and ridiculous speech about protecting people. Sorcerers died young and badly. They died before they learned enough. They died after doing everything correctly. They died because reports were wrong, because curses evolved, because techniques had hidden conditions, because civilians were nearby, because someone hesitated.
Yuuji had been sentenced to death before he had ever become a sorcerer.
The execution had only been suspended.
Everyone knew his life was temporary.
Satoru knew it better than anyone.
He was the one who had proposed the delay.
The one who would eventually be expected to stand across from Yuuji and make good on the sentence.
Perhaps it would be easier if the boy died on a mission.
Natural, by jujutsu standards.
Convenient, by the higher-ups’.
Satoru’s vision sharpened until the raindrops beyond the walkway seemed suspended in the air.
No.
The paper handles bit deeper into his wrist as his hand curled tighter at his side.
He did not run.
There was no need to, Yuuji was alive. Ijichi said so.
Satoru held tight to the words and walker faster.
⋆˚꩜｡ּ
The corridor outside Shoko’s examination rooms was crowded.
Yaga stood nearest the door, arms folded, expression carved from stone. His uniform jacket was missing.
Nobara paced several steps away, arms wrapped tightly around herself. Mud stained one knee of her skirt. Her hammer hung at her side.
Megumi sat on a wooden bench.
He held Yuuji’s uniform in his lap.
Satoru saw the red hood first.
Then the dark jacket folded beneath it.
Pants.
Belt.
The shape of empty clothes in Megumi’s hands.
His heart dropped.
It did not race.
It dropped, heavy and clean, into a place without sound.
Megumi looked up.
Nobara stopped pacing.
Yaga’s jaw tightened.
No one appeared to be grieving.
That fact reached Satoru distantly.
Nobara’s eyes were dry. Megumi’s expression was strained, not shattered. Yaga was tense, but there was no fresh death hanging from his shoulders.
Satoru stopped several paces away.
“Well, this is festive.” he said loudly. "Who died?”
No one answered.
Satoru’s smile returned, bright and empty. His gaze dropped the uniform in Megumi's lap.
Megumi gripped the uniform tighter.
“Where’s Yuuji?”
A soft thump came from inside the examination room.
Then Shoko’s voice.
“Stop moving.”
“I’m not moving!”
“You are actively moving while denying it.”
“I’m trying to help.”
“You are making this harder.”
Satoru turned toward the door.
Yaga stepped into his path.
“Wait.”
Satoru stopped.
For a moment, neither of them moved.
The black fabric of Satoru’s blindfold gave nothing away, but his head tilted slightly, attention fixed on the room beyond Yaga’s shoulder.
It was a strange thing for Yaga to say.
Wait.
As though there was an explanation that could be offered before Satoru saw it himself.
As though Satoru might choose to hear it.
From inside came the unmistakable sound of scissors.
Then Yuuji’s voice, pitched strangely high.
“Are you sure that’s going to work?”
“It’s a shirt.”
“It’s a really big shirt.”
“That’s why I’m cutting it.”
There was a brief pause.
“Do you know how to make clothes?”
“I’m a doctor.”
“That doesn’t sound like a yes.”
Satoru stopped outside the door.
The voice was Yuuji’s.
The cadence was Yuuji’s.
The tone was unmistakably his too, all earnest concern wrapped around a question that somehow managed to sound insulting without meaning to.
But it was small.
Too small.
Yaga placed one hand against Satoru’s shoulder.
“Gojo.”
Satoru opened the door.
“Don’t!” Nobara snapped.
Too late.
The room smelled of antiseptic, cigarette smoke embedded in fabric, and old coffee gone cold.
Shoko stood beside one of the examination beds with a pair of medical scissors in one hand and an oversized white T-shirt in the other. Several strips of cut fabric lay on the floor. Her expression contained the specific exhaustion of a woman whose medical training had not covered whatever nonsense had entered her infirmary.
On the bed stood a naked child.
He was balanced on the thin mattress with both arms out, little feet sinking into the white paper covering. His back was turned toward the door. A familiar tuft of pink hair stuck up from his head.
He turned.
Big brown eyes.
Round cheeks.
Small nose.
Tiny body.
And beneath it all, buried deep under soft skin and baby fat, was the unmistakable weight of Sukuna’s presence.
Yuuji.
Yuuji, compressed into a body no older than four.
For perhaps the first time in his life, Satoru Gojo’s jaw dropped.
The paper bags slipped an inch down his wrist.
Yuuji’s face lit up.
“Gojo-sensei!”
Satoru stared.
He had seen the grotesque, the miraculous, and the impossible. He had walked away from disasters that became cautionary tales and stood before curses that could level cities. Very little surprised him anymore.
He had experienced death, briefly, and found it inconvenient.
Yet, somehow, nothing had prepared him for Itadori Yuuji rendered fun-sized.
Yuuji took one small step forward on the mattress.
The paper beneath his foot crinkled.
“You’re back early.”
Satoru looked at Shoko.
Then at Yuuji.
Then at the tiny pink head.
Then down at the rest of him.
A laugh escaped.
It tore out of him, loud and helpless and immediate.
Satoru doubled completely over, one hand braced against the doorframe as he burst into breathless laughter.
Behind him, Nobara made a furious noise and turned so sharply her shoes squeaked against the floor.
“Close the door!”
Megumi lifted Yuuji’s folded uniform in front of his own face.
Yaga sighed with the depth of a man being forced to reconsider every professional decision that had led him here.
On the bed, Yuuji’s delighted expression collapsed into mild offense.
Then into a pout.
“Sensei!”
Satoru tried to speak.
Nothing coherent came out.
Yuuji planted both hands on his hips.
It should not have been possible for someone so small to look so betrayed.
“Stop laughing!”
That made it worse.
Satoru made a sound that was almost an apology and absolutely not one. He straightened halfway, then doubled over again, one hand lifting to wipe beneath his blindfold as if there were tears there to catch.
“I’m sorry,” he managed, sounding profoundly insincere. “I’m sorry, Yuuji-kun, it’s just…”
He gestured helplessly at all of him.
Yuuji’s pout deepened.
Satoru laughed harder
Yuuji looked down at himself.
“Sensei, this is serious.”
“I know” Satoru said, which would have been more convincing if his shoulders were not still shaking.
“I’m still fifteen.”
Satoru made the mistake of looking at him again.
Shoko dropped the altered shirt over Yuuji’s head before Satoru could start laughing all over again.
Yuuji vanished into white fabric.
A muffled voice came from inside. “Whoa.”
“For modesty.” Shoko said.
“I can’t see!”
“That happens when your head is inside a shirt.”
“I can’t find the arm holes.”
Two small shapes shifted under the fabric, elbows and hands bumping blindly in all the wrong directions. The shirt twisted around him at once, swallowing his head, his shoulders, and most of his dignity.
Shoko sighed, but there was no real bite in it.
“Hold still, Itadori.”
“I am holding still.”
“You are fighting a shirt.”
“I’m losing.”
“Clearly.”
She caught one tiny wrist through the fabric and guided it toward the sleeve, then the other, patient in the resigned way of someone handling a very small, very determined disaster. A moment later, Yuuji’s head popped free through the collar, pink hair even more hopeless than before.
The shirt had once belonged to an adult.
Even after Shoko had cut away much of its length and shortened the sleeves, it still fell nearly to Yuuji’s knees. The collar slipped off one narrow shoulder.
He looked like an especially confused ghost.
Satoru made another strangled noise.
Yuuji pointed at him. The sleeve fell over his hand.
“Don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You’re doing it with your face.”
“My face is naturally joyful.”
“Your face is mean.”
“Slander.”
“Gojo.” Yaga said.
The single word landed heavily.
Satoru’s laughter faded.
Not entirely.
Enough.
Yaga stood behind him, broad enough to fill the doorway.
“This is serious.”
“I can see that,” Satoru said. “Shoko has committed crimes against tailoring.”
“I used what we had.”
“We have budgets.”
“We do not have children’s underwear.”
Nobara, still facing the corridor, clapped both hands over her ears. “I don’t need to hear any of this!”
Yuuji looked down at himself again.
“Do I really need underwear right now?”
“Yes” four voices answered.
Yuuji blinked.
“Okay.”
Satoru stepped fully into the room.
The Six Eyes drank in everything.
The proportions were not an illusion. Not a transformation layered over the original body. Yuuji’s bones, muscles, organs, circulatory system, and cursed energy pathways had all been physically regressed. His center of gravity had changed. His lung capacity was smaller. His heartbeat was faster than a teenager's but normal for a young child.
Sukuna’s cursed object remained bound within him.
That, at least, had not been reduced.
The fingers Yuuji had consumed still existed as concentrated cursed energy inside his body. The vessel surrounding them had simply become younger.
Strange.
Fascinating, objectively.
Horrifying, if he examined it too closely.
So Satoru did not.
He lifted the paper bags. “Good news, Yuuji-kun. I brought snacks.”
Yuuji’s offense disappeared instantly.
“What kind?”
“Chestnut dorayaki, strawberry mochi, gummies, chocolate, and…”
Satoru drew out the bottle of regional soda.
Yuuji gasped.
Nobara finally turned around now that the shirt covered the important parts.
“You bought all that for him?”
“I bought things for everyone.”
“You’d better have.”
“Candied apple.”
Nobara’s expression softened despite herself.
Megumi lowered the uniform from his face.
“Rice crackers~” Satoru told him.
“I didn’t ask.”
“And yet I provide.”
Megumi looked away.
Satoru placed the bags on Shoko’s desk, safely distant from the collection of medical instruments.
Yuuji was already moving.
He shuffled to the edge of the examination bed, the oversized shirt tangling around his knees, and leaned forward without so much as glancing at the floor below. His gaze determinedly focused on the desk.
Shoko caught him under the arms before he could throw himself into the air.
Yuuji made a small, offended sound as she lifted him back from disaster and planted him firmly on his butt in the middle of the bed. His legs stuck straight out in front of him. The cut shirt gathered around his thighs. His bare feet did not reach the edge.
Yuuji looked at them.
Then at the paper bags.
Then at Shoko.
Then he pouted.
“I just wanted to see.”
“You were about to throw yourself off the bed.”
“I would’ve landed.”
“On your face.”
“I wasn’t going to land on my face.”
“You didn’t even look down.”
Yuuji crossed his arms.
“I knew where the floor was.” He muttered.
Shoko gave him a long, unimpressed look.
Satoru’s grin softened around the edges.
It was still him.
The tiny body had not altered the things that mattered. Yuuji was still impatient with being fussed over. Still more baffled than frightened. Still convinced that sufficient sturdiness could solve most medical problems.
This was fixable.
Cursed techniques left residue. Transformations could be reversed. Shoko had reverse cursed technique, and Satoru had enough skill with cursed energy to dismantle most effects once he understood them.
At worst, they would wait for the technique to fade.
The curse had been exorcised.
Its power could not continue indefinitely without a source.
Probably.
Satoru leaned against the edge of Shoko’s desk. “So. Who ordered the miniature Yuuji?”
Nobara glared. “Can you be normal for five minutes?”
“No.”
“Itadori got hit by a curse.”
“I gathered.”
“It looked like his grandfather.” Megumi said quietly.
The room shifted.
Yuuji went very still.
Satoru turned his face toward him.
The boy’s expression did not collapse. No fear. No grief. Just a small tightening around the mouth.
“It wasn’t really him." Yuuji said.
“No.” Yaga agreed.
“I knew that.”
Megumi’s fingers tightened around the folded uniform again.
Yuuji looked at him.
“I did.”
Megumi did not answer.
Yaga stepped into the room first, with Nobara close behind him and Megumi following last.
Once they were all inside, Yaga shut the door.
Nobara moved closer to the bed. Megumi stayed near the wall, Yuuji’s folded clothes still held tight in his arms, as if setting them down would mean accepting they no longer fit.
“The curse's technique appeared to be a form of temporal manipulation,” Yaga said. “The curse altered matter by forcing it backward through its own physical history.”
“The paint went wet again,” Megumi said quietly. “The plaster softened. Concrete turned unstable.”
“Like the structure was being dragged backward through its own history,” Yaga finished. “Not destroyed. Reverted.”
Shoko stood beside the bed, turning an unopened packet of gauze over between her fingers. The plastic crackled softly in the silence.
“That matches what happened to Itadori,” she said. “His body has returned to an earlier state.”
Yuuji looked down at himself.
Shoko’s gaze remained on him, clinical but not unkind.
“Physically, this is your body at approximately four years old. Bone development, muscle mass, organ size. All of it.”
Satoru’s smile thinned.
“And if the technique had kept going?” he asked.
Shoko stopped turning the gauze.
“Four would have become three,” she said. “Then two. Then infancy.”
No one spoke.
“And after that?” Nobara asked, although her face suggested she already knew.
Shoko’s voice stayed level.
“Eventually, there would have been nothing left to revert.”
Yuuji stared at his covered knees.
The curse had not been trying to make him small.
It had been trying to erase him.
Yaga folded his arms. “We exorcised it before the technique could complete.”
Yuuji raised one hand.
The sleeve swallowed it completely.
Shoko stared at the empty fold of fabric until Yuuji shook his arm hard enough for his fingers to emerge.
“So I’m really four?”
“Physically, give or take a few months.”
“How can you tell?”
Shoko glanced at him. “Your teeth, mostly. But it’s only an estimate until I can examine you properly.”
Yuuji considered this.
“Oh,” he said. “Okay. That’s fair.”
Satoru pushed himself away from the desk and crossed the room.
Yuuji watched him approach, tipping his chin higher and higher with every step. By the time Satoru stopped beside the bed, the child had to crane his neck back to keep looking at him.
The height difference had always been dramatic.
Now it bordered on insulting.
Satoru reached down and settled one palm on top of the pink hair.
His hand covered nearly Yuuji’s entire skull.
Yuuji squinted up at him from beneath it.
“Why are you doing that?”
“Committing this to memory.”
“For what?”
“Blackmail.”
Yuuji stared.
Satoru smiled.
Yuuji grabbed Satoru’s wrist with both hands and tried to shove him away.
He was still stronger than an ordinary child.
He was nowhere near strong enough to move Satoru.
“This is bullying.”
“This is documentation.”
“With your hand?”
“I’m a tactile learner.”
“Satoru” Shoko said.
He removed his hand.
Yuuji immediately patted at his hair, trying to fix the flattened mess. This only made it worse. Several pink tufts stood up in alarm, as if personally offended by the experience.
Satoru watched him for a second before he turned to Shoko.
“Can you reverse it?” He asked.
The room quieted.
The question dropped cleanly through the teasing and landed somewhere heavier.
Shoko leaned against the counter, her arms folded. The unopened packet of gauze now rested beside her.
“I can try.”
Yuuji looked at her.
That was all.
No joke. No question. No visible hesitation.
Shoko pulled the rolling stool toward the examination bed and sat down.
“Lie down.” She said.
Yuuji immediately flopped backward.
The paper beneath him crackled loudly. His head landed near the pillow instead of on it, and his legs stuck straight out in front of him beneath the cut hem of the shirt.
“Ready” he announced.
Shoko stared at him.
Satoru pressed his lips together.
“What?” Yuuji asked.
“Nothing.” Shoko said.
She reached behind his head, dragged the pillow into place, and lifted him just enough to settle it beneath him.
The pillow looked enormous.
Everything did.
The examination bed stretched around Yuuji like furniture built for giants. The shirt covered most of his thighs. One narrow shoulder remained exposed where the collar had slipped loose.
Shoko placed her palm over the center of his chest.
Yuuji looked down at her hand, then back at the ceiling.
“Stay still.”
“I am still.”
“You’re fidgeting with your foot.”
Yuuji stopped.
A moment later, his toes began moving instead.
Shoko ignored it.
Positive cursed energy gathered beneath her palm.
To ordinary eyes, there would have been almost nothing to see. A faint shimmer. A subtle distortion in the air. The sense that the room had gone still around her hand.
Satoru saw all of it.
Cursed energy multiplied against itself, negative force folding into positive. It flowed from Shoko’s palm into Yuuji’s body and spread outward, searching through tissue, bone, nerves, organs.
It found no wound.
That was the problem.
Yuuji’s body did not consider itself damaged.
The bones were not broken. The muscles were not torn. The organs were small, but functional. His heartbeat kept the quick rhythm of a child’s body. His lungs rose and fell beneath Shoko’s hand, too little under a shirt that had been cut down in a hurry and still looked enormous on him.
Shoko’s expression did not change.
Satoru watched the shape of her cursed energy shift, pressing deeper.
Nothing answered.
No fractured tissue to mend.
No poison to burn away.
No injury to reverse.
Shoko increased the output.
The air tightened.
Yuuji’s fingers curled against the paper.
Satoru’s smile thinned where no one could see it.
Shoko held the technique for several long seconds.
Then longer.
Nobara’s arms folded tighter over her chest.
Megumi’s gaze dropped to the floor.
Yaga stood near the door with his arms crossed, silent and still.
Yuuji did not move.
The bones did not lengthen.
The muscles did not change.
The hand beneath Shoko’s palm remained small.
At last, Shoko withdrew.
The quiet that followed had teeth.
Yuuji pushed himself up onto his elbows.
“Did it work?”
“No.” Shoko said.
His face did not fall all at once.
It happened in pieces.
First his eyebrows pulled together, like he had misheard her. Then his mouth opened slightly. Then he looked down at himself, at the little knees under the oversized shirt, at the hands braced against the examination bed.
“But you did the healing thing.”
“I did.”
“So maybe it needs a second.”
“It does not.”
Yuuji sat up fully. His hands tightening in the shirt pooled around his lap.
“It could still work.”
Shoko’s gaze stayed steady. “Not with reverse cursed technique.”
“But you fix people.”
“People who are injured.”
“I am injured.”
“No,” Shoko said, quieter this time. “You’re not.”
Yuuji stared at her.
Shoko continued carefully.
“Your body does not recognize this as damage. As far as it's s concerned, this is the state it is supposed to be in.”
“That’s stupid.”
“Yes.”
“Tell it it’s wrong.”
“That isn’t how reverse cursed technique works.”
Yuuji looked down again.
His toes curled against the paper.
The frustration arrived first.
For the first time since Satoru had entered the room, he looked his age.
Not fifteen.
Four.
Small, confused, sitting in a shirt that slid off his shoulder, trying very hard not to let his face do something he had not given it permission to do.
Then something else slipped through.
Not much.
A shallow breath.
A quick shine in his eyes before he blinked it away.
Fear, small and bright and immediately hidden.
Satoru felt something in his chest pull tight.
He disliked the sensation on principle.
It was inconvenient.
Unhelpful.
Entirely too soft.
Satoru moved before he decided to.
“Well,” he said brightly, clapping his hands once. “Good thing that this is probably temporary.”
Shoko looked at him.
Satoru did not look back.
“The curse is gone,” he continued. “Techniques without an active source tend to unravel once the residual cursed energy burns out. Annoying, but convenient. Once the leftovers clear out, your body should snap right back.”
Yuuji turned to him immediately.
The whole room seemed to turn with him.
“Really?”
“Obviously.”
Shoko’s gaze sharpened.
Satoru did not look at her.
Yuuji searched his face.
“Promise?”
There it was.
Simple.
Trusting.
Cruel in the effortless way only trust could be.
Something unfamiliar shifted beneath his ribs.
Not guilt.
Certainly not hesitation.
Satoru had lied to enemies, elders, officials, students, and himself without so much as missing a beat. This was no different.
It only felt different.
Yuuji sat there in borrowed clothes, hands small in his lap, looking at Satoru as though a promise from him carried the weight of fact.
Satoru’s grin widened, bright enough to leave no room for doubt.
“Promise." He said.
Shoko said nothing.
She did not need to.
Her expression was flat, but her eyes were not.
Satoru ignored both.
Instead, he sat down on the edge of the bed before she could speak.
The mattress dipped beneath his weight, tilting Yuuji slightly toward him. Yuuji swayed with it, bumped gently against Satoru’s side, and stayed there.
Satoru looked down.
Yuuji did not seem to notice what he had done. His shoulder rested against Satoru’s arm. One small hand remained fisted in the shirt over his lap, but some of the tightness had left his face.
Ridiculous.
The entire situation was ridiculous.
Yuuji sat there in a shirt that swallowed his knees, pink hair still crooked from Satoru’s hand, leaning against him as though Satoru’s presence alone meant everything would turn out fine.
Satoru looked straight ahead.
He did not acknowledge how easily Yuuji fit against his side.
He did not acknowledge the warm, inconvenient pressure beneath his ribs.
He certainly did not acknowledge the word adorable.
That seemed like the sort of thought that led to responsibilities.
“See?” he said. “Handled.”
Shoko’s eyes narrowed.
“Not handled.”
“Temporarily emotionally handled.”
“That is not a medical category.”
“It should be.”
Shoko stood.
Yuuji looked up at her.
“What now?”
“Now I figure out exactly how old your body is.”
“You said four.”
“Approximately.”
He frowned. “You keep saying that.”
“Because I’m not convinced.”
Yuuji considered this, then nodded once.
“Okay. I can do tests.”
The answer came readily. Almost brightly.
Satoru glanced down at him.
Yuuji had already straightened beside him, hands planted on the mattress as though Shoko had just announced a training exercise instead of a medical examination.
Shoko rolled the stool out of the way and picked up her clipboard.
“Get down.”
Yuuji turned toward the edge of the examination bed.
His feet hung several inches above the floor.
He stared at the distance for a moment, then shifted forward.
Satoru caught him beneath the arms before he could jump.
Yuuji lifted cleanly from the mattress.
“I could’ve done it.”
“I know.”
“You didn’t even give me a chance.”
“I’m protecting the floor.”
Satoru set him down.
Yuuji landed with his knees bent and immediately tugged the oversized shirt lower over his legs.
Shoko made a note.
Yuuji looked at the clipboard.
“What did you write?”
“That you survived being placed on the floor.”
“I landed.”
“With assistance.”
“That still counts.”
Shoko pointed toward the door.
“Walk there and back.”
Yuuji blinked.
“That’s the test?”
“That’s the first test.”
“Oh.”
He sounded faintly disappointed.
Then he grinned.
“Okay.”
He set off at once.
For the first few steps, he moved too quickly, clearly determined to prove that walking was beneath consideration.
His stride hitched.
Yuuji stumbled, recovered with a quick little hop, and kept going as if nothing had happened.
At the door, he turned sharply.
Too sharply.
His shoulder bumped the wall.
Yuuji froze.
Then he pushed away from it and walked back as though nothing had happened.
Shoko wrote something down.
“The shirt got in the way.” he said.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You wrote it.”
“I write many things.”
Yuuji stopped in front of her.
“What’s next?”
“Stand on one foot.”
“That’s easy.”
He lifted his right leg immediately.
Both arms flew out.
For one second, he held himself upright.
At two, his ankle began to shake.
At three, he tipped sideways.
Satoru caught him by the shoulder before he hit the floor.
Yuuji pulled himself upright.
“I wasn’t ready.”
“You started before I finished speaking.” Shoko said.
“I thought you were finished.”
“Try again.”
Yuuji planted his feet carefully this time.
He looked down, adjusted them, then lifted his left leg.
His mouth tightened with concentration.
One second.
Two.
He swayed.
His raised foot struck the floor.
Yuuji stared at it.
Shoko made another note.
“That one was better.” he said.
“It was.”
“I can do longer.”
“Try once more.”
He did.
This time he lasted barely a second.
His face began to redden.
“The floor is slippery.”
Nobara glanced down at the tile.
“It really isn’t.”
Yuuji shot her a look.
“I’m not used to these feet yet.”
“That may be true.” Shoko said.
The calm agreement only seemed to irritate him more.
“What else?”
Shoko crouched in front of him.
She tested his reflexes first, tapping behind his knees and watching his legs jerk. She had him touch his nose, then her finger, then his nose again.
Yuuji missed her finger the first time.
He laughed under his breath.
“Wait. Do it again.”
Shoko moved her hand.
He missed by less the second time.
His smile disappeared.
“Again.”
She repeated it.
He got it.
“There!” he said.
Shoko made a note.
Next she had him walk heel to toe along a seam in the tile.
Yuuji began confidently.
His third step landed beside the line.
He stopped.
Looked down.
Then backed up to the beginning.
“Again.”
“You don’t need to restart.”
“I stepped wrong.”
“That is part of the test.”
“I know. I’m doing it again.”
The second attempt was worse.
He overcorrected, arms stiff at his sides, placing each foot so deliberately that he lost his balance halfway across.
Megumi shifted closer.
Yuuji caught himself before anyone could touch him.
“I’m fine.”
No one answered.
He returned to the line.
Shoko lowered the clipboard.
“That’s enough.”
“I almost had it.”
“I saw what I needed to see.”
“You didn’t see me do it right.”
“I’m not testing whether you can force yourself to do it once.”
“I can do it more than once.”
“Itadori.”
“Again.”
His voice had sharpened.
The brightness from before was gone now. His shoulders were rigid, his hands hidden inside the sleeves.
Shoko watched him for a moment.
Then she set the clipboard aside and crossed to the wall.
“Come here.”
A measuring chart had been fixed beside the cabinet.
Yuuji followed her immediately, still eager to prove something.
Shoko guided him back against the wall.
“Heels flat.”
“They are flat.”
“They aren’t.”
Yuuji looked down and pressed them harder against the floor.
“Chin level.”
He lifted it too high.
“Not that level.”
He lowered it with a scowl.
Shoko rested the flat edge of the clipboard against the top of his head and marked the chart with one finger.
Satoru watched her expression.
Nothing obvious changed.
That meant something had.
“How tall?” Yuuji asked.
"Ninety centimeters."
He frowned.
“That’s short.”
“For four?" Shoko said. "Yes."
His mouth tightened.
Shoko led him toward the scale.
“Step on.”
Yuuji climbed onto it.
The machine gave a soft electronic beep.
Shoko looked down at the number.
Then checked it again.
Yuuji tried to see around her.
“What does it say?”
Shoko did not answer immediately.
Satoru felt the air in the room shift.
Yaga noticed too.
“Shoko?” he said.
Yuuji looked between the adults.
“What?”
Shoko stood.
“Your height and weight are both lower than I would expect.”
“For a four-year-old?”
“Yes.”
Yuuji crossed his arms.
The sleeves folded over each other.
“Maybe I was just short.”
“That would account for height. Not everything else.”
“What else?”
“Your muscle development. Coordination. Grip strength. Bone growth, from what I can judge without imaging.”
Yuuji frowned harder.
“I’m four.”
“Your body may be younger.”
“No, it isn’t.”
Shoko’s eyebrows lifted slightly.
“You said approximately four.”
“I know.”
Yuuji stepped off the scale.
“The curse probably just made me smaller.”
“That is what younger means.”
“No. Smaller is different.”
Satoru pressed his lips together.
Shoko did not.
“How?”
Yuuji opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
His face flushed again.
He looked down at his hands.
“They just don’t work properly yet.”
Shoko’s expression softened by a degree.
“Because they belong to a young child.”
“I know how to use them.”
“Knowing and being physically capable are different things.”
“I was capable yesterday.”
“Yesterday, you had a fifteen-year-old body.”
Yuuji curled his fingers into fists.
The sleeves swallowed the movement.
“Then I’ll train.”
Yaga’s gaze sharpened.
Yuuji continued before anyone could interrupt.
“I just have to get used to it. Balance and walking and all that stuff are easy. I already know how to do them, so I’ll practice until my body catches up.”
Shoko picked up the clipboard again.
“That is not how development works.”
“It can be.”
“It cannot.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I’m a doctor.”
“And I’m the one doing it.”
He turned toward the line in the floor again, jaw set.
“I can start now.”
Yaga stepped into his path.
“No.”
Yuuji stopped.
The answer had been quiet.
It left no room to push through.
Yuuji looked up at him.
“I can still train.”
“No.”
“I still have cursed energy.”
“You have the body of a very young child.”
“I can be careful.”
“You will not be training.”
Yuuji’s expression tightened.
The fear returned.
Satoru saw it flare before Yuuji buried it beneath anger.
“So I’m just supposed to do nothing?”
“You are supposed to recover.”
“I’m not hurt.”
“No,” Yaga said. “You are not.”
“Then I can train.”
“No.”
Yuuji’s eyes flashed.
“I’m a sorcerer.”
“You have been a sorcerer for four days.”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me.”
Yuuji opened his mouth.
Yaga’s expression did not soften, but his voice lowered.
“You will not risk this body to prove that you remain useful.”
The word struck something.
Yuuji looked away.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You did not have to.”
The room fell silent.
Satoru watched Yuuji fold his arms.
Or attempt to.
The sleeves collapsed over one another until his hands disappeared entirely.
Satoru reached over and pinched the fabric where one fist should have been.
Yuuji jerked his arm away.
“Don’t.”
“Look on the bright side.”
“There is no bright side.”
“Children’s discounts.”
Yuuji stared at him.
Satoru lifted one finger. “Train tickets. Restaurants. Museums. Theme parks. You are now economically efficient.”
“I don’t care.”
“You will when I make Megumi pay full price.”
Megumi’s expression did not change. “Why would I pay?”
“Because you look the oldest.”
“I don’t.”
“Emotionally, you’re forty.”
Nobara pointed at Yuuji. “Does this mean he gets a children’s menu?”
Yuuji’s head snapped toward her. “No.”
“They come with crayons.”
“I don’t want crayons.”
“Some places have puzzles.”
“I know how menus work!”
Satoru put a hand to his chin. “You might finally be able to finish a children’s portion.”
Yuuji looked appalled.
“My appetite didn’t shrink.”
“Your stomach did.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Anatomy is cruel.”
Yuuji turned to Shoko. “Tell him he’s wrong.”
Shoko continued writing.
“Your stomach capacity is significantly smaller.”
Yuuji’s face fell in genuine horror.
Satoru grinned. “Devastating.”
“This is the worst thing that’s happened today.”
“You were nearly erased from existence.”
“I know what I said.”
The tension in the room loosened.
Only a little.
But Yuuji’s shoulders lowered.
Shoko finished her notes, flipped the page, and reviewed what she had written.
“His vital signs are stable,” she said at last. “Coordination, strength, balance, and physical development are consistent with a young child. Possibly younger than four.”
Yuuji frowned at the floor.
“There is no sign of internal damage,” Shoko continued. “His cursed energy is present, though his output will be limited by the size of his body.”
“So what do we do?” Nobara asked.
“Wait.”
Yuuji looked up.
Shoko set the clipboard aside. “Observe him. Monitor for further changes. Analyze the residual technique if we can. For now, that is all.”
“For how long?” Yuuji asked.
Shoko did not answer immediately.
That was answer enough.
Yuuji looked at Yaga.
Then Megumi.
Then Nobara.
Finally, his gaze found Satoru.
He searched Satoru’s face with complete, uncomplicated trust.
Satoru smiled.
“As long as it takes.”
Yuuji held his gaze for another second.
Then he nodded.
“Okay.”
Shoko turned toward the bags on the desk. “You can have your drink now.”
Yuuji’s entire face brightened.
The transformation was instant.
“Really?”
“You survived the examination.”
“I told you I would.”
“You nearly fell over six times.”
“Three.”
“Six.”
Yuuji hurried toward the bags.
The shirt tangled around his knees again.
Satoru caught him around the middle before he could trip and lifted him cleanly off the floor.
“Gojo-sensei!”
“You’re a walking hazard.”
“I can walk!”
“I watched you attempt it.”
Yuuji kicked his bare feet in protest.
Satoru carried him back to the examination bed and sat down, setting Yuuji beside him.
The boy immediately reached for the bag.
His arm fell short.
Satoru took the soda first.
“I can open it.”
“I’m sure.”
“You never let me do anything.”
“I’m saving your strength for very important soda-drinking.”
“That’s not a thing.”
”It is now.”
Satoru twisted off the cap.
The hiss of carbonation filled the room.
Yuuji glared at him.
Then accepted the bottle with both hands.
“Thanks, sensei.”
The irritation disappeared so quickly that Satoru nearly laughed.
Yuuji took a long drink.
The bottle was too wide for his grip. Both hands strained around it, fingers spread as far as they would go.
When he lowered it, a thin line of soda slipped from the corner of his mouth and ran down his chin.
Yuuji did not seem to notice.
Satoru did.
So did Shoko.
Her eyes flicked toward him.
Satoru reached for the tissue box beside the bed, pulled one free, and leaned over.
“Hold still.”
Yuuji blinked up at him.
“What?”
Satoru wiped the soda from his chin.
Yuuji recoiled half a second too late, nose scrunching.
“I could’ve done that.”
“You didn’t know it was there.”
“I would’ve noticed.”
“It was making excellent progress toward your shirt.”
Yuuji looked down at the bottle.
“It’s too big.”
Satoru’s smile remained in place.
“Obviously the soda’s fault.”
Yuuji nodded, satisfied.
He took another drink.
This time, he held it more carefully.
Satoru watched his small fingers struggle around the glass.
A fifteen-year-old mind.
A child’s hands.
For now.
Only for now.
“You’ll need clothes.” Shoko said.
Yuuji looked down at the oversized shirt.
“I have clothes.”
Megumi lifted the folded uniform slightly.
Everyone looked at it.
Yuuji frowned.
“Those still count.”
“The jacket weighs almost as much as you do.” Nobara said.
“It does not.”
“It could wear you.”
Satoru brightened. “Shopping trip.”
Nobara’s eyes lit up.
“We’re still going out?”
“Of course.”
Megumi looked at him. “Today?”
“Why not?”
“Because Itadori was hit by an unknown cursed technique.”
“Which is why he requires tiny trousers immediately.”
“We should stay here.” Megumi said.
“For what?”
“To make sure nothing else happens.”
Shoko crossed her arms. “I said observe him. I did not say confine him to the infirmary.”
Satoru pointed at her. “Medical clearance.”
“That is not what I said.”
“It had the shape of clearance.”
Yuuji looked between them, soda bottle clutched against his chest.
“Can we actually go?”
There it was.
Hope, quick and fragile.
Satoru had promised him an outing before any of this. Before tiny hands, before temporal residue, before Yuuji had looked up at him and asked for a promise Satoru had no right to make.
Promises should mean something.
Especially to children who laughed when admitting they had never been anyone’s favorite.
"Of course!" he said. "I promised didn't I?"
Nobara looked at Yuuji.
Then at Satoru.
“Are we seriously going shopping with him like this?”
Satoru looked at her.
“Why shouldn't we?.”
“He got turned into a toddler.”
“I’m not a toddler!” Yuuji said.
“A very mature toddler.” Satoru agreed.
Yuuji elbowed him.
It did not hurt.
Satoru pretended it did anyway.
“Violence. In a medical facility.”
“You deserve it.”
Yaga stepped away from the wall.
“No one is taking him into Tokyo dressed in an undershirt,”
“Finally,” Nobara said. “Someone sensible.”
“I may have something temporary.” He continued.
Everyone turned toward him.
Yaga’s expression remained stern.
Nobara blinked. “You have children’s clothes?”
“They are for the cursed corpses.”
Silence.
Yuuji slowly lowered the soda.
“The what?”
“Some require clothing.”
Satoru leaned toward him. “You might get to dress like a haunted doll.”
“I’d rather wear the shirt.”
Yaga opened the door. “Fushiguro. Kugisaki. Come with me.”
Nobara followed immediately.
“I want to see the cursed corpse wardrobe.”
“You will choose something plain.”
“No promises.”
Megumi placed Yuuji’s uniform on the chair and moved toward the door.
Yuuji called after him. “Nothing weird!”
Megumi glanced back.
“I’ll try.”
“That isn’t reassuring.”
Yaga led them into the corridor.
The door shut.
Silence returned.
The infirmary felt larger with the others gone.
Shoko gathered her notes and moved toward the counter.
Yuuji sat beside Satoru, holding the soda carefully between both hands.
He stared at the label.
Satoru waited.
Yuuji’s feet swung above the floor.
Once.
Twice.
Then stopped.
“Sensei?”
“Hmm?”
“You really promise?”
Satoru’s smile remained in place for half a second.
Then it slipped.
Not entirely.
Just enough.
He looked down at Yuuji.
The boy was no longer grinning. He was not angry either.
He only looked young.
Small shoulders beneath borrowed fabric. Pink hair falling untidily over his forehead. Soda held too carefully in both hands.
Waiting.
Satoru lifted one hand and ruffled his hair.
Gently this time.
No teasing.
No squishing.
No joke waiting behind it.
“I promise.” he said.
Yuuji’s shoulders lowered.
“Okay.”
He leaned against Satoru’s side again.
This time there was no tilted mattress to blame.
Satoru let him.
Shoko glanced over from the counter.
Satoru did not meet her eyes.
Yuuji took another careful sip of soda.
A little still escaped at the corner of his mouth.
Satoru wiped it away with his thumb before thinking.
Yuuji blinked at him.
Satoru immediately flicked his forehead.
“Messy.”
“Ow.”
“That did not hurt.”
“It hurt emotionally.”
“Tragic.”
Yuuji huffed and settled closer anyway.
Satoru turned his head toward the rain-streaked window.
Temporary, he had said.
Probably.
Promise, Yuuji had asked.
And Satoru, apparently incapable of denying him anything when he looked like that, had answered.
He ignored the tightness in his chest.
He ignored Shoko’s silence.
He ignored how naturally Yuuji fit beside him.
For now, the boy believed him.
For now, that would have to be enough.