Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

She wakes up in the aftermath of a brutal car crash. Which is like the opposite of every isekai manga she’s ever read. Wasn’t she supposed to die from a car crash first, and then land in the body of a newborn or something? Wait, she’s literally in a car crash, why is she thinking about an isekai manga of all things? 

“This one’s still breathing!” a voice calls out, and she feels herself being pulled out of the passenger side window, and then, darkness. 

The next time she wakes up, she’s covered in bandages and there’s a cast on her leg.  She’s not dead, but more importantly, she’s not in her own body. The hands, for one, are too small and way too pale. She doesn't know what her hands are supposed to look like, but something tells her it’s not this. 

“Alright, brain,” she says, voice very hoarse and very high. Whoa. She sounds like a small child. Creepy. “What the hell is going on?” 

Her brain, of course, offers nothing. She knows she was just in a car crash, and she knows this body isn’t hers, but beyond that, it’s like her brain is trying to tell her look, I’m just trying to process all the trauma that comes with being in a car accident, and also you jumping into someone else’s body, so please don’t ask me to figure out where the hell you are, I don’t know, man. 

“Damn,” she murmurs. “I don’t deserve you.” 

“Amanai Riko?” a voice says, and she turns to see a doctor holding up a clipboard at her. 

“Who?” 

“Oh dear,” the doctor murmurs, and she notes something down. The doctor gently explains to her where she is, which is some hospital in Tokyo. She explains that she’s got a broken leg, a sprained wrist, and potentially a concussion which might be why she is so confused right now. 

“What about my parents?” she asks, because she figures this body’s got a couple of those, or maybe a guardian. Who knows. 

The doctor looks down at her clipboard. “About that, Amanai-chan. We can, ah, talk about that when you’re feeling a bit better, alright?” 

Oh, shit did they die? Wait. Wait, wait, wait. Amanai Riko, parents dying in a car crash, and Tokyo. Her brain must be Simone Biles because the mental gymnastics going on right now are gold medal worthy. She couldn’t have, like, taken over the body of a character in Jujutsu Kaisen, could she?  Wait, wait, wait, hold up. Hold up. How could her brain know that she’s potentially in a manga series, but not offer up any details of her previous life? Actually, hold up, why the hell is this a reasonable line of thinking for her to have? 

There’s a faint voice in the back of her head that hisses do you want to be even more traumatized? 

Right.

Right.

OK. 

Yeah, I think I’m Jujutsu Kaisen, she thinks, as she stares at two men, one who looks plain and another who looks unhinged, and a woman who has beady eyes. She’s already forgotten their names so she decides on a whim to call them Bland Man, Unhinged, and Beady-Eyes. They claim to be members of the Time Vessel Association. They use words like Star Plasma Vessel and Master Tengen and she sees an image of Amanai Riko in a sailor uniform being shot in the head, and yeah, she’s in Jujutsu Kaisen and she’s going to get shot in the head. Great.  

“You’re a match,” says Bland Man excitedly. He talks like she’s been matched with a new family, or an organ donor. 

“Are you guys, you know, a cult?” 

Bland Man frowns. “Pardon me?” 

“You keep saying merge,” she says, thoughtfully. “What does that really mean? Is that, you know, a euphemism for s—”

“Please, stop speaking,” Beady-Eyes begs. 

“We should kill her now,” Unhinged says. “Look at the dead-eyed stare of hers, she’s already there. We should ju—”

“Listen, we can’t, because what if we can’t find the next vessel before Master Tengen?” Bland Man says. 

Why does that sound ominous? she wonders. Oh, right, they’re going to hire someone to kill Riko. 

“Or worse,” Beady-Eyes adds. “What if the next vessel is actually strong?” 

Wow. Rude. 

“You’re right,” Unhinged says. 

“So, look,” she says. “I’m not interested.” 

The three cult members stare at each other in silence. 

“Well,” Beady-Eyes says, tone thoughtful. “We didn’t exactly plan for her to say no.” 

“She can’t say no,” Unhinged says. 

“No,” she says, and Beady-Eye has to restrain Unhinged. 

“Kid, you’re an orphan,” Bland Man says. “At least with us, you’ll get a guardian, a place to stay, and an education.” 

“I’m good,” she says. 

“Well, we’re already your guardians, technically,” Beady-Eye, who is still restraining Unhinged, says. 

“Yeah, you brat, we’re your father’s relatives here to take you in,” Unhinged says. “We forged the paperwork and everything.” 

“Wait, how did you even know that I’m a match in the first place?” she asks. 

“Master Tengen,” they say in unison. 

“Why couldn’t it have been a Studio Ghibli movie?” she wonders aloud, and ignores the strange looks she gets from the cult members. 

The next person to visit her ends up being Master Tengen, though she doesn't realize it at first. It's in the middle of night when she's startled awake by the feeling of someone, or something seated in a lotus pose at the edge of her hospital bed. Her brain has difficulty processing what she's supposed to be looking at. Honestly, the only recognizable thing is the monk robes the person—or being—wears. After struggling to understand what she's looking at, her immediate thought after is why is her sleep paralysis demon dressed like a monk? 

“Hm? I’m not a monk,” the being says, and she notes the intentional avoidance of the sleep paralysis demon part. “I am Master Tengen.” 

“What’s a Master Tengen?” 

“Not a what, per se, but a who, a him,” he clarifies. “I am you. Or I will be, anyway.” 

“You’re going to become me?” 

“We will become one,” he says, and then in some corner of this new brain of hers she hears a girl group crooning a song about two lovers making love for the first time. She feels her stomach do backflips and forces down the bile that crawls up her throat. Her brain is supposed to be helping her process her trauma, not create more. “Not immediately, but soon. When you are of age—child, what on earth are you singing?”

She blinks. Wait, so, it wasn’t just a voice in the back of her mind, it’s actually her that is singing When 2 Become 1 off-key. The mind—or, perhaps her soul—is truly an incredible thing. Wait, did they even have the Spice Girls in this universe? Well, if Yuuji references Jennifer Lawerence, surely the Spice Girls exists here. She shakes her head a little at the thought of Jennifer Lawerence being used as an example of a tall woman with a big ass. She’s, what? 5’9, at most? Now a real tall woman with an amazing ass is Megan The—oh, wait, what is Master Tengen saying right now? 

“As of today, you are to become my Star Plasma Vessel,” he says, and this is confirms fully that she is in fact inside a damn manga. “The ritual will not take place until you are at least sixteen, but rest assured until it is time, you will be—” he stops suddenly, and turns away from her. “Do you hear that?” 

“Hear what?” 

“The stars, my child,” he says. “They are telling me that you have a full day of discovery ahead of you.”  

She blinks slowly. If by discovery, they mean coming to terms with her new life as someone stuck in a bad isekai fanfic, then yeah. Totally.

“In any case,” he continues, facing her again, “we will take you in and you’ll have a caretaker look after you until it is time.” 

As if that is her cue, a woman in a full-out molly maid outfit enters the hospital room. 

“No,” she says immediately.

“You would like another caretaker, hm?” 

“No, why is she wearing that?” 

“It’s my uniform,” the woman says, mildly. 

“You can’t wear that,” she says. “Why did you even agree to wear it?” 

“Oh, well, it—” the woman starts to say. 

“No,” she cuts in. “And we’re going to review whatever contract you’ve got signed with this cult—”

“Cult?” the woman whispers quietly to herself. 

“Because if you think that it’s ok for  a—” how old is this body again? Like, what five?  “—uh, a small human to be around that, you’re wrong.” 

“Very well,” Master Tengen says, and then he’s gone. 

 “Did he just disappear?” the woman asks, bewildered. 

“We’re reviewing the terms of your contract together and then renegotiating it.” 

“With all do respect, miss,” the woman says, “you’re seven years old.” 

Ah, so this body is seven years old right now. 

“Yeah, well, at least I’m not a dumbass who agreed to work for a cult,” she counters. 

No, she’s a dumbass who somehow ended up in the body of a character that’s destined to die in a few years.

From the ages of seven to fifteen, the inter-dimensional being who has now taken up residence in Amanai Riko’s body has done a number of things to a) avoid her imminent death or b) momentarily forget about her imminent death and enjoy what the early to mid-2000s has to offer her. This includes, but is not limited to: 

• Forging a passport and attempting to flee to Brazil only to be caught while boarding the plane
• Calling the police to tell them a cult kidnapped her, only to be admonished for wasting their time, and thereby reminding her why she rejects the institution of policing in the first place
• Setting fire to her elementary school’s gym and getting expelled
• Running away to Nagano and being found with a snow monkey she named Tengen that the cult seized from her (she’s never forgiven them for this)
• Writing and publishing a damning exposé about the Time Vessel Association being a cult only to have said cult manage to wipe it off the internet
• Renegotiating the contract of her caretaker, Kuroi Misato, to give her a yearly pay increase of 10%
• Attending Destiny’s Child Japan 2002 Tour Concert in Tokyo
• Running away, again, this time to Okinawa only to be found ten days later  
• Stealing all the Time Vessel Association’s clothes during laundry day and setting fire to it
• Running away  for a third time, but to Osaka and immediately returning home after spending an hour there
• Setting fire to her middle school homeroom and getting expelled  
• Attending Destiny’s Child Destiny Fulfilled... and Lovin' It 2005 Tour Concert in Hiroshima and crying for the first time in her short life because she realized this would be the last time the group would perform together
• Setting fire to her principal’s toupée during her high school entrance ceremony and getting expelled 

Now here she is at age fifteen, about to attend her new school a few weeks after the start of the new school year, she has very little to show for her attempts at surviving. At this point, she’s ready to give up. After many failed attempts to run away, it appears that there is not a lot that she can really do. At least she can finally die having attended several Destiny’s Child concerts.  She’s well aware that she’s using both Western and Japanese pop culture as a distraction to avoid confronting the fact that she’s in someone else's body and she’s going to die soon, but hey, at least she’s got a great soundtrack for her short life.  

“Morning ladies,” Riko says to the wall of golden pothos plants across from her bed. She reaches for her plant mister at her bedside and begins her morning routine of misting them.“I just realized something, when I die, who gets you? Misato can’t care for plants for shit.” 

She still doesn’t understand the terms of her existence. She can’t remember anything from her previous life aside from, well, the odd pop culture reference here and there, and the plot line for Jujutsu Kaisen. With the latter, it’s starting to feel like she’s referring to smudged text on her hand whenever she tries to recall things outside of the circumstances of her death.  Like, take the Time Vessel Cult, for instance. She assumed their involvement with Riko only starts when they try to kill her or whatever. She isn’t sure if Riko had to deal with constant threats to her life by them in the original series. 

Riko squints at the fishtail cactus that sits on her desk. “You’re right, maybe the original Riko didn’t harass them.”  

The worst possible thing about the situation, aside from her impending death, is that she has to live through the 2010’s again, which means she has to deal with everyone wearing hammer pants or wedge sneakers and, like, dip dyeing their hair blond. At least bold lips are popular again. 

“It’s the first day of high school, again,” she laments to her snake plant. “One more year and then it’s all over.”  

“Riko-chan!” Misato’s voice calls out from the hallway. “Time to get up!” 

“I’m up!” Riko calls back. She turns back to her snake plant. “Alright, time to, you know, face the music.” 

She’s been expelled by two private elementary schools, four private middle schools, and now one private high school. The amount of all-girl private schools in Tokyo is a little alarming, but what’s even more alarming is  the fact that they are willing to accept Riko despite her tendency towards arson.

The cult insists her attendance at ritzy, all-private schools because the vessel for Master Tengen shouldn’t hang around commoners. They don’t explain their reasoning around why the schools have to be all-girls, but honestly? Riko doesn’t want to know. It’s bad enough that the cult is classist. 

“Riko-chan!” Misato calls again. “Try doing a single braid! I think it’d look cute!” 

She looks at the sailor uniform hanging in her closet, and tries to not think about the fact that in a year and a few months she’ll be in that uniform, with her hair in a braid, getting shot in the head. 

She turns to face her fishtail cactus again. “You’re totally right.” 

When she heads into the bathroom she retrieves an electric razor and shaves off all her hair. Huh. Her head shape isn’t too bad, she notes, staring at her in the mirror. Shout out to original Riko for the cute, round head shape. She brushes her teeth, takes a quick shower, and then gets to work on her makeup. With her shaved head, a bold eye look is in order. 

“Ooh, let’s do a cut crease,” she murmurs. 

She grabs her eye makeup brushes and decides on a rich pink as the base colour. She applies it just above the natural crease of her eyes, and then uses concealer to cut the crease. She applies a bit of powder before applying soft pink eyeshadow to her lids. Because she’s feeling extra, she adds a bit of glittery hot pink eyeshadow on top. She finishes with thick, winged eyeliner and a coat of mascara on her lashes. 

She exhales, feeling a bit settled, and feeling like she has some semblance of control in her hands, no matter how small it is. 

When Riko enters the kitchen, Misato nearly drops the plate in her hands. “What the hell happened?” 

“What?” Riko asks. “Too much pink glitter?”  

“Your hair, Riko-chan!” Misato cries. “What happened to your hair?” 

“Oh,” Riko pats her head. “I shaved it. What’s for breakfast?” 

“Oh, well, you like traditional Japanese brea—no!” Misato shouts suddenly. “Riko-chan, are you OK? This isn’t like you.”

She looks past Misato, thoughtful. “What would the real Riko think about this, huh?”

“Riko.” 

“I’m fine, really,” Riko says with a shrug. “Just wanted to try something new.” 

Before Misato can say anything, Perfume’s song One Room Disco blasts loudly from her phone.  

“New text from Master Tengen?” Misato asks. 

Another thing that she doesn’t remember from the manga is the exact relationship between Riko and Master Tengen. The eldritch abomination sends her daily texts about what the stars tell him about her. Oftentimes they’re vaguely threatening. She gets messages like the stars say that no one is too young or too old to be humbled. She’s long since stopped asking what he means and just rolls with it. Maybe one day the stars will tell him some winning lottery numbers. 

In any case, she also decides to give him a personal ringtone that is the bubblegum pop and disco song by the girl group Perfume. Despite their vast differences with him being, well,  billions years old, and her being stuck in the body of a fifteen year old plot device, they find a common understanding when it comes to Perfume. They even attended a private concert together, although it was a pretty uncomfortable experience for Perfume to have to perform exclusively to stone-silent cult members eagerly watching a being that is a mockery of natural laws bopping his head to their technopop musical stylings. While he did make it so that they never remembered the concert, Riko feels like sometimes the members have nightmares about it like she still does.   

“‘S’not like I get texts from anyone else,” Riko mutters, ignoring Misato’s sad expression. She pulls out her phone.  

master tengen: The stars say that today is a good day for throwing coffee at a man, because every day is a good day for throwing coffee at a man.  

“Well,” Misato says. “He’s not wrong.” 

“That’s a waste of coffee,” Riko grumbles. “I can’t believe people actually worship him.”   

“You shouldn’t be drinking coffee,” Misato chides. “You’ll stunt your growth.” 

“Yeah, well,” Riko shrugs. “S’not like I’m living past highschool, so.” 

 “Riko," Misato says, looking pained.  

Misato, bless her soul, is possibly the only good thing to come out of her situation. The woman is kind, patient, and, on several occasions, her co-conspirator on a few of her escape attempts.  

“It’s cool,” Riko says. “Let’s eat?” 

On her walk to school, she goes to grab her coffee at the café around the corner from her apartment building. On her way there, a small, ugly-cute Curse smashes into the barrier around her. It hisses in pain, and Riko almost apologizes until it latches onto the leg of a salaryman speeding by her. She shrugs and continues her way to the café. 

One thing about Master Tengen is that his barriers are top tier. He put a barrier on her when they first met, unbeknownst to her. Despite the many attempts of her life by curses and people, she’s ended up unscathed thanks to it. The only downside is as he approaches the end of his vessel’s life, his barriers weaken, and, in the case of hers, disappear altogether. 

As she orders a large black coffee, she suddenly remembers that it’s  Fushiguro Toji who kills her because the stupid cult paid him a lot of money. Could she potentially hire him first to protect her? Well, Master Tengen is rolling in yen thanks to his cult. She’s not sure what exactly they do, maybe money laundering, but it’s enough to afford her a nice apartment and pay the tuition of several elite private schools, so surely she can get Master Tengen to give her the money needed to hire Fushiguro before the cult does. 

Wow. Why didn’t she think of this, like, five years before or something?

You are still working through your traumas, her brain supplies. 

Right. 

When exits the café with her coffee in hand, she pulls out her phone to shoot him a text. 

riko: i need money 

riko: like several billion yen

master tengen: No. 

riko:  it’s so I won’t die

master tengen: No. 

riko: isn’t your money technically my money? 

master tengen: No. 

bargain master splinter: Why did you change my name in your contacts? 

Riko stops walking, and the person walking behind her nearly walks into her. God. Master Tengen could be so creepy sometimes. Also, what the hell? Didn't the stars have something better to do than tell him she's changed his name in her contacts?

She continues walking.

riko: because you’re a rat

riko: and not the cool kind who takes in mutated turtles and raises them 

riko: and teaches them martial arts and ninjutsu to save New York City

bargain master splinter: I can arrange for you to learn martial arts. The stars say it is good if you learn how to defend yourself. 

“I guess, I’ll die,” Riko mutters, putting her phone away. Maybe she can live out of the rest of her short life doing a bunch of different things, like bungee jumping, or grand larceny. 

She’s in the middle of thinking up her bucket list when she suddenly slams into someone and is nearly knocked to the ground. A hand comes up to grab her by the shoulders and steadies her. Her coffee sloshes precariously in its cup, and a bit of it spills onto the lid, but she manages to not drop it. 

“Are you alright?” Riko looks up to see Getou Suguru staring down at her.  

Oh. 

Oh no. 

As she stares at his badly layered side bangs and black pants that are reminiscent of MC Hammer, she comes to terms with horrifying realization that the sole purpose of her existence is to serve as the catalyst for this man’s villain story. 

Wait. 

Wait. 

Hold up. 

Now, why the hell does she get to serve as one of the inciting incidents in this guy’s life of villainy? Poor, sweet little Riko who serves as a major casualty in the senselessness that is the world of sorcerers? That’s all she gets? That’s all she deserves? Hell no. 

“I said, are—gah!” Getou releases her to instead deal with the hot coffee she just dumped on his pants. “Why did you do—”

Riko doesn’t catch the rest of what he says, because she’s already speeding down the street towards her new school. 

“Yo, I’m Amanai Riko.” 

She’s calmed down a bit, but she guesses she’s still looks angry from the way her classmates avoid her eyes. Or maybe it’s her haircut. Who knows.

There’s a pause as her teacher awaits for her to add further details, but Riko just stares straight ahead until she’s told to sit down. 

She settles into the empty seat in the third row.  There’s no window for her to stare forlornly out of, but then again she’s not the main character of this story, that’s Yuuji. How old is that kid now? Five? Six? Wait, if Gojo is twenty eight when the series starts, and Yuuji is fifteen, that would mean—

“Alright,” the teacher’s voice brings her back to reality, which is a good thing because she could feel complex equations floating around her head as she struggled through the basic math needed to figure out the age difference between Gojo and Yuuji. “Free period.” 

The teacher mutters something about being too underpaid to teach a bunch of snivelling rich brats before shuffling out of the classroom, which wow, if she, a private school teacher, is being underpaid, imagine the poor public school teachers? 

The girls burst into excited chatter once the teacher leaves. Riko pulls out a manga edition of the 1929 proletarian novel Kani Kōsen and tunes out her classmates. As she reads on about the economic oppression faced by crab fishermen, she feels something poke the middle of her back. 

Riko turns around to see a bespectacled girl with short dark hair nervously holding out a sheet of paper to her  “Um, sorry, but we have to fill the attendance sheet.” 

“Oh,” Riko says, taking the paper from her. Damn, the teacher couldn’t even be bothered to mark the attendance. What a school. “Thanks.” 

“I’m—I’m Kobayashi Sumiko!” 

“Oh, cool,” Riko turns back around, filling out the sheet. She passes it to the girl sitting in front of her. She’s about to return to her book when she feels another poke. 

Kobayashi, who looks oddly determined but also very frightened, is about to say something until another girl interrupts her. 

“Amanai-san, what’s up with your hair?” Riko looks up to see a girl with long black hair and thick, blunt bangs staring down at her. Damn. Being short really sucks. Maybe if Riko actually lived she could eventually grow to be taller than Gojo. “Do you have lice or something? Or, gosh, are you a delinquent perhaps? How scary!” 

Riko blinks once, then twice. Is this girl serious? She’s got hair like Chigusa Takako—wait, but she was really hot in both Battle Royale and Kill Bill so that’s less an insult, but still. 

“What’s up with yours?” Riko asks. 

This remark causes their class to titter. The girl’s face goes bright red, and she glares daggers at Riko. She’s about to open her mouth to offer some sort of retort, but Riko beats her to it. 

“Look, I’m not interested in whatever weird-peeing-to-mark-your-territory-because-you're-threatened-or-whatever that’s going on here,” she says, waving a hand between herself and the girl. “I’m just trying to not, you know, die.”  

The girl furrows her brows in confusion, but thankfully says nothing else. She flips her hair, huffs dramatically, and then stalks back to her desk to loudly whisper to her desk-mate about how weird Riko is and how unfortunate it is that their school allowed a delinquent to attend. Riko pulls her book right up to her face and tunes her classmates out once again. 

She blinks, the words of her manga blurring out of focus as she registers her own words. She doesn’t want to die. She likes living  with Misato and would like to continue doing so. She wants to see her snake plants grow up to four feet. She wants to see a solo Beyoncé live in concert. She wants to listen to Perfume’s fourth, fifth, and sixth albums. She wants to live past the age of sixteen.

She sets her book down. 

OK, so how does she not die? Master Tengen ends up finding another vessel after she dies, which wow, rude. If she doesn’t mess this up, she can still have Getou and Gojo help her not become his vessel.

But there is still the problem that is Fushiguro Toji. Maybe she can still find him before the cult hires him, and what? She’s got no money. Well, not yet, anyway. Maybe she can still achieve her goal of grand larceny. OK, so she’ll find him first, and figure out the money stuff later. Yeah, that’s a problem for future Riko.

Now, she’s pretty sure that after his first wife died, Fushiguro Toji went back to living with random wealthy women. A thought strikes her then. Her classmates are wealthy teen girls who are, likely, the offspring of wealthy women. Maybe even lonely, desperate women stupid enough to house and pay for the lifestyle of Fushiguro. 

“Hey, Kobayashi,” Riko says, turning around to face the girl again. “What’s it called when a man is financially supported by a wealthy woman and the conditions for this financial support are super sketchy?” 

“That is, um,” Kobayashi avoids looking at Riko, opting to stare down at her desk, her face beet-red.  “That’s really specific, Amanai-san.”

“A kept man?” Riko wonders aloud. “You know, like the movie Pretty Woman, but more like Pretty Man. Wait, no, I guess it’s more like Muscled Man?” 

Steam starts shooting out of Kobayashi’s ears, but Riko does not take any notice.  

“Damn, well, anyway,” Riko says, much to the relief of Kobayashi. “You know anyone in this school who’s got a mother or guardian desperate enough to house and financially support a tall muscular man with black hair and a scar over the right side of his mouth?”

Kobayashi slams her head face-first into her desk. 

OK, so maybe she’ll try setting up some lost posters in the rich neighbourhoods of Tokyo instead. Yeah. 

The rest of the school day passes on relatively normally. They don’t learn a whole lot, which Riko isn’t surprised about, nor is she complaining about. She doesn’t remember if she completed high school in her previous life, but to be honest, she doesn’t care.

Kobayashi, despite their rocky start, takes to Riko like a duck to water. The girl talks a lot, which Riko doesn’t mind because she mainly tunes her out to stare out into space and think. Sometimes she’ll chime in a few words here and there, but mostly she’s silent and contemplates how to find Fushiguro. 

As they exit school together, Kobayashi is in the middle of detailing some very elaborate drama between some popular third years at their school when Riko spots Getou standing by the school’s gate, looking annoyed and slightly murderous. Girls giggle and smile flirtatiously as they pass by him, but he stares ahead at the onslaught of exiting students. 

Shit, is he looking for her? Is he actually that petty? 

“Hey, Kobayashi,” Riko says. “Can I leave through the field in the back?” 

“No, why?” 

“Damn, I’ll have to book it, then,” Riko mutters, adjusting the straps of her bag. “I’ll see you tomorrow, probably.” 

“What—” 

Riko bullets past Getou who takes a few seconds to realize that it’s her before he spins around and chases after. Riko, who has stupidly short legs, is easily caught up to by Getou. He grabs her arm and pulls her to a stop. They’re in the middle of a busy sidewalk, and Riko almost considers screaming for help until she realizes people are not only ignoring them, but they’re walking around them in annoyed passive-aggressive way. It’s like dramatic confrontations are commonplace here. 

Oh, well, better deal with this now, she thinks with a tired sigh.   

“What’s up, MC Hammer?” 

He blinks. “What?” 

Oh, shit, did they not have MC Hammer in this world? It was an absolute trip to learn that while Digimon was very much a thing here, Pokémon did not exist for reasons she could not understand. Maybe copyright infringement? Who knows.  

“Anyway,” Getou says, when she does not offer an explanation. “You owe me an apology.” 

“You somehow found my school, came all the way there, and then waited for me to leave so you can get an apology?” 

The tips of his very large ears are red. “Well, when you put it that way, it sounds—”

“Very creepy?” Riko cuts in. “If I believed in the police, I’d call them, you know.” 

“You don’t believe in the po—no. No, look,”  he says. “You poured hot coffee on me. I deserve an apology.” 

“Yeah, well,” Riko pauses, struggling to find the right excuse. What would Misato say? She’d probably apologize, so no. Who else did she know? Master Tengen. What would Master Tengen say? “The stars told me to do it.” 

Getou blinks slowly. “The stars told you to dump coffee down my pants?” 

“Do you identify as a man?” 

“What does that have to do with anything?” 

“Well, do, you?” 

“I do, but—”

“The stars said today’s a good day to throw coffee at a man, so.” 

There’s a long silence after that. So long in fact that the same Curse she spotted earlier this morning floats between them, and while she’s not really sure about the brain capacity of Curses, she’s pretty sure the thing gives her a glare as it passes by. Riko and Getou watch it disappear down the street. 

“Aren’t you going to, you know, go exorcise it?” Riko asks, breaking the silence.

“You can see it?” Getou asks, bewildered.  “Wait, what did you just say?”

“You’re wearing a Jujutsu High uniform,” Riko says, slowly. “Aren’t you a sorcerer-in-training?” 

“How do you know that?” 

“I’m the Sun Vestibule Plaster,” Riko says, and then frowns. “Wait, no, that’s not what it’s called. I’m a—look, I’m going to merge with Master Tengen in a year and some change.” 

“You’ll do what with who?” 

“You know, the guy who’s barriers protect all jujutsu schools?” Riko says. “He’s like a billion years old? Every 500 years he needs to merge with a compatible Orb Magma Basal to reset his immortality technique, or else he’ll, like, kill or eat everyone, or something.” 

“What happens to you?”

Riko shrugs. “I’ll just die, probably.” 

“I don’t believe you.” 

Wow, rude, she just told this guy her life story and he doesn’t believe her? No wonder he ends up killing an entire village of people. Huh, well, maybe while she’s here she could prevent the unnecessary death of those villagers by steering him away from, like, genocide a response to his inner turmoil about the world of sorcery.

“Try to hit me,” she tells him. 

“What?" Getou shakes his head. "No way, I can’t hit a middle schooler. ”

“We’re the same age.”

“You’re lying.” 

Riko reaches over and smacks his face. He tries to smack her back, but he gets pushed back by the barrier. He blinks, surprised. 

“See?” Riko says. “It keeps, like, curses and people trying to hurt me away, but once Master Tengen’s old body starts to, you know, rot or whatever, it goes away.”

Getou goes quiet. There’s some pity and respect shining in his eyes, and whatever weird shit he’s projecting on her right now, he needs to stop immediately. Oh, no, is he going to be doing what she thinks, is he? She literally dumped coffee on him. He can’t be serious—

“Let’s be friends,” he says. 

“Uh, no thanks.” 

“What’s your phone number?” Getou continues on, as if she did not just reject his offer. He thrusts his phone forward. “Wait, what’s your name?” 

“I just told you I’m going to die in like a year and a half, but whatever, man,” she says, but she punches in her phone number anyway. Somehow she feels like if she didn’t give him her actual number, he’d just stake out her school again. He's petty like that like, probably. “I’m Amanai Riko. You?” 

“Getou Suguru,” he says, and he smiles at her. “Good to meet you.” 

"That's debatable." 

When Riko heads home, Misato is ecstatic to learn that she’s made two whole friends. She’s so excited that she tells Riko she’ll make her favourites for dinner, which Riko feels she deserves because befriending Getou is a terrible mistake that will haunt her for the remainder of her days. The guy keeps sending her inspirational messages for some sick, twisted reason. She has to set her phone to vibrate due to the frequency of his messages.

getou suguru: tomorrow is another day! 

getou suguru: it’s ok to not be ok! 

getou suguru: forget about your life situation and pay attention to your life! 

getou suguru: it is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves 

getou suguru: even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise

getou suguru: also i googled mc hammer and i don't look like that 

riko: you’re right, the pants actually look good on him

“He’s, uh, really positive,” Misato says evenly, as she peers down at Riko’s phone. "Does he actually wear hammer pants?” 

Riko nods. “It’s his school uniform.”

“His school uniform?” Misato whispers to herself. “Also, is there something I need to know, Riko? Are you doing alright?" 

Her phone buzzes before she can answer, and this time the message Getou sends is an image that is painfully from the 2010’s. It’s a heavily filtered, overexposed and oversaturated image of a girl looking away with the following text overlaid it: 

Drake said it best: Sweatpants, hair tied, chillin' with no make-up on that's when you're the prettiest, I hope that you don’t take it wrong. 

“I’m going to kill him,” Riko decides. 

Misato, wisely, says nothing. 

Her phone buzzes again, and Riko is ready to block Getou’s number when she sees that this new message has come from Master Tengen. 

bargain master splinter: You will be trained by Zenin Maki. 

Riko and Misato share a look. 

riko: isn’t she like eight years old?

bargain master splinter: She’s six. Your training starts tomorrow after you finish with your studies.

Chapter Text

It starts, as all things do, with a call in the middle of the night. Riko is lying on the floor star-fish style while listening to Britney Spears’ magnum opus Blackout at a respectable volume so that Misato doesn’t storm into her room and tell her to go to sleep. She’s been up all night trying—and failing—to remember something. She knows it’s important, but her dumb brain offers her nothing. It’s then that her phone vibrates. 

She glances at it. Misato is asleep, Kobayashi seems like the type to be asleep at this hour, and Master Tengen never calls her. That leaves only one person. 

“Hello?” 

“Hey,” Getou says.

“Why are you calling me?” 

“How are you?” 

“Don’t avoid the question.” 

“I can’t check in on a friend?” 

“It’s been less than twenty-four hours, and we are acquaintances at best.” 

“Is that Britney Spears playing?” 

Riko pauses. “You listen to Britney Spears?” 

“No, my friend Shoko plays her stuff a lot,” he says. “It’s not bad, but I’m not a huge fan of pop, to be honest.” 

Riko spends the next hour trying to get him to eat his words, and the two end up arguing over whether Western-style pop music is just another form of cultural imperialism. Eventually the conversation shifts to their respective schooling journeys. 

“You’ve been expelled how many times?” he asks, sounding very much like Misato when she’s disappointed in her. “What the hell, Amanai-chan?” 

“That’s besides the point,” she says, and she quickly tries to change the subject before he can lecture her. “What do you do at your school? Do you just fight each other all day or something?” 

He explains the basics of his school day: a mix of in-class lessons, training, and the occasional mission. He proudly tells her that now that he’s ranked special-grade, most of his missions are solo. 

“What’s your Cursed Technique?” 

“I absorb and control Cursed spirits.”

“Absorb? So you, like, eat them?” 

There’s a pause. “Yeah.” 

“What’s it taste like? Chicken? Goat? Alligator?” 

“It tastes—wait, did you’ve tried alligator?” 

“Yeah, don’t recommend it.” 

They spent the next few hours just talking about random subjects which, admittedly, isn’t too bad. She unwillingly learns a lot about Gojo Satoru, mostly things about him that makes Getou want to fight him. She learns that Getou something of a home cook, which is good because it potentially means free food for her. He tells her about his parents, and then asks her about her own family. When she tells him she is an orphan, he goes quiet for a really long time. 

Now, as she sits in the kitchen with Misato over breakfast, she realizes that perhaps in that moment he was projecting onto her again. 

“What do you do when someone is trying to become your mother?” Riko stares thoughtfully at the toast in her hands.

Misato, who is in the middle of taking a sip of her tea, starts choking. “What?” 

“Getou is trying to become my mother, I think,” she says, taking a bite out of her toast. 

“I thought you met him yesterday?” 

“I did.” 

“Well, are you uncomfortable with it?” 

Riko shrugs. 

“If it starts to bother you, tell him to back off,” Misato suggests. 

“Somehow I feel he wouldn’t.” 

“Well, I’ll happily make him stop if it comes to it.” 

“I don’t deserve you.” 

“Please don’t say things like in a deadpan tone,” Misato says, sighing tiredly. 

“I mean it, though.” 

“Who can tell?” 

“I didn’t ask for this voice.” 

“Mhm,” Misato says, smiling. “Anyway, no makeup look today? Did Getou-kun get to you or something?”  

“No, I’m wearing makeup.” 

Misato tilts her head and squints at her. “Hm. Blush? And—oh, no, are you getting pink-eye, Riko-chan?”  

Today, given her lack of sleep, she goes for a low effort, glowy look. She put on a sheer, dewy concealer underneath her dark circles, a creamy blush to give a soft wash of colour to her cheeks, and a swipe of highlighter on her cheekbones. To finish off the look, she put on a dab of pink lipgloss, and a clear gloss over her eyelids for a gleamy lid look. Yet here is Misato telling her she looks like she has pink-eye or something. It truly sucks to be a trend-setter. 

“It’s called a glossy lid look,” Riko says, frowning.

“Sorry,” Misato says, her smile turning sheepish. “But, hey, aren’t you training with Zenin-san later today? Should you even be wearing makeup?”  

She drops her toast. This is what she was forgetting last night. 

“Shit.” 

“Alright,” the homeroom teacher mutters. “Free period.” 

Riko watches her shuffle out of the classroom muttering something about how the working class needs to come together and rise up against the rich, or at least these pretentious brats she has to teach.  

Amen, sister, Riko thinks, and then frowns. Wait. She’s included in this statement, isn’t she? But wait, it’s technically not her money. So she’ll be OK if a class war ever breaks out. Maybe? 

“Ugh,” loudly groans the girl with the Chigusa Takako haircut. “Guess who’s back?” 

A tall, muscled girl with long, wavy hair turns to face her. Riko should probably start learning her classmates’ names. “Your mom’s boyfriend?” 

“He’s not even her boyfriend, not really.” 

“What do you mean, Rin?”

Ah, so the girl’s name is Rin.  

“I don’t even think they’re dating,” she says, her face contorting in visible disgust. “He just sleeps at our house, eats our food, and disappears for weeks at a time—wah! What the hell do you want, Amanai?!”  

Riko gets right into Rin’s face. “What is the man’s name?” 

“Back off, Amanai,” the muscled girl says, standing up and walking over to lift Riko by the collar of her uniform. 

”What is his na—hey, hey! Put me down!” Riko cries, wiggling uselessly as she’s carried back to her desk. 

“Oi, Kobayashi, tell your friend it’s rude to interrupt people like that,” the girl says, and she deposits Riko into her seat. 

“S-sorry!” Kobayashi squeaks. When the girl heads back to her seat, she turns to Riko. “Are you OK? What was that about?” 

Riko is despondent, too overcome by the fact that a teenage girl lifted her up like she was a small, unruly kitten. She spends the rest of the school day like this. 

Sounds a Napoleon complex, her brain unhelpfully supplies. 

Once class lets out, as Riko gathers her things, she gets a text message from Master Tengen, which is odd because he usually sends his texts first thing in the morning. 

bargain master splinter: The stars say to beware any sudden feelings of elation this week. It will only end in pain. 

“Wow, so just forget happiness, huh?” Riko mutters, staring down at her phone in disbelief. 

“Who’s that?” Kobayashi peers down at Riko’s phone. She’s already packed and ready to leave. 

Well, Riko couldn’t very well say this is the man who will take her body and use it as a vessel to avoid becoming something that could very well destroy humanity, so she settles on, “He’s my...grandpa.” 

“You must be really close to have a fun nickname like that for him!” Kobayashi beams at her. 

Riko blinks down at the name Bargain Master Splinter (they have The Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles here, she’s checked) and considers, for the first time, that perhaps Kobayashi isn’t as normal as she first thought her to be. 

“So,” Kobayashi says suddenly, and it looks like she is attempting to appear really casual. Instead she just comes off as really nervous, with sweat dripping down the side of her face. “So, um, what are you doing after school, Amanai?” 

“I’m going to get beaten up by a six year old.” 

“Because I was thinking we could—” Kobayasahi stops short, and her eyes widen.“What?” 

“Yeah,” Riko says. “I’m going to get beat up by a first grader. Wait, does her family even allow her to go to school? Damn, that’s a sad thought. ” 

“You’re—you—what?” 

“Ah, I better go or I’ll be late,” Riko says, tucking her phone into her bag. “See you tomorrow, probably.” 

As Riko heads towards one of the many dojos that Master Tengen’s cult oddly owns, she feels her phone buzz. 

getou: you free today? 

riko: no i’m about to get beat up 

Her phone buzzes again. It’s Getou calling her. 

“What?” 

“Where are you?” 

“What?” 

“I said, where are you?” 

“I’m not actually getting beaten up,” Riko says, frowning. “I’m being trained by the Zenin kid.” 

He pauses. “Don’t text things like that, Amanai-chan.” 

“My bad.” 

“Wait, you’re getting trained a Zenin clan member?” he asks. “Are you sure you’ll be OK? I heard they can be brutal.”

“She’s, like, six.” Riko frowns at his loud laughter that follows. “Thanks for the support, Getou.” 

“I’m—” a voice cuts him off, and she can hear him pull the phone away.

“Who’s making you laugh like that?” the voice asks. “Don’t tell me you’ve finally gotten a boy—” 

“Satoru, don’t—get away from my phone, Satoru!” Getou hisses, and there’s the sound of a scuffle happening. 

“Well, you’ve been on the phone for too long,” he whines. Wait, Gojo Satoru? Holy hell, he sounds annoying. “Let’s go see the Shinjuku Incident.” 

There’s a pause. “The new Jackie Chan movie?” 

Riko wonders if maybe she should just hang up at this point. 

“Yeah,” Gojo says, and then he proceeds to spoil the entire plot of the film. No wonder Getou wants to fight him half the time. She would, too.  

“What the hell, Satoru?” Getou mutters. Then, as if realizing he’s still on the phone, he says in a low voice, “Sorry, I gotta go. I’ll call you later.” 

The phone line goes dead. 

Riko makes a small request to the stars to keep her from meeting Gojo Satoru as long as possible. Her phone buzzes. 

bargain master splinter: The stars say that they cannot accommodate such a request. 

Wow, rude. 

Zenin Maki is an adorable child with her short hair, big eyes, and tiny traditional yukata. Riko, who is finally looking down at someone for the first time in her short life, feels oddly pleased. She ignores the voice in the back of her head that shouts you’ve got a total Napoleon complex, kid! 

The moment is ruined when Maki rears her fist back and punches Riko right in the stomach. She doubles in shock. 

“What the hell?” 

“Master Tengen said your carrier won’t be on when we’re training,” Maki says, smiling wickedly. 

“You mean barrier,” Riko replies, and falls flat on her face when Maki does a leg sweep. How a small, skinny six year old child is able to do a clean leg sweep against her is, well, embarrassing. 

Riko lies, face down on the floor of the dojo, hoping that maybe she can pretend to be passed out for the next three hours she has to be here. She feels something grab her legs and the next thing she knows, she’s been lifted off the ground and thrown through a wall. 

“That was fun!” Maki gushes, as if she didn’t spend the last two and a half hours beating the living shit out of Riko. “Hey, I’m kind of hungry, can we go eat?”  

Riko, who lies in a painful heap on the ground, lifts her bruised and swollen head up to stare at Maki scornfully. “No.” 

“Please?” 

“You have food at home.” 

“Yeah, but I’m not ‘posed to eat a lot of it.” 

A long silence follows. Right. Maki lacks Cursed Energy or whatever, and so her clan mistreats and shuns her for it. Or is it because she’s a girl? Maybe it’s both. 

Riko manages to stagger to her feet. “Let’s go to McDonalds.” 

“Really?” 

“Yeah.” 

“You know,” Maki says, skipping ahead towards the door. “You look really stupid, but you’re kinda nice!” 

“Nevermind,” Riko says, turning back around. 

“Wait, no!” 

At the McDonalds Maki orders enough to feed a small army, which is a bit concerning because holy hell, do the Zenin just not feed her, or what? In any case, it appears that food is the way to Maki’s heart, or at least her life story. When Maki finishes her first burger and fries, Riko learns that the kid isn’t allowed to leave the Zenin estate. This is actually her first time ever venturing outside of it. 

When Maki polishes off a milkshake, Riko learns that among all the chores she has to do before being homeschooled, she hates cleaning the floors the most. 

After Maki demolishes her second burger and fries, Riko learns that the men in the Zenin household always eat first, then the women, and then the servants, which includes Maki. 

As Maki eats an ice cream cone, Riko learns that she is considered useless by her entire family first because she has no Cursed Energy, second because she is a girl, and third because she is a twin and twins are considered bad luck. 

“The only reason I'm allowed to be here is ‘cuz of Mister Tango,” Maki says between bites of her ice cream, which is horrifying because even her teeth are abnormally strong. What the hell. 

“Master Tengen, you mean,” Riko corrects, reaching for a fry. 

“That’s what I said,” Maki says. “He’s super important or somethin’. The carrier around the grounds will disappear if I don’t teach you how to be strong.” 

“Barrier, not carrier,” Riko says, nibbling on her fry. Huh, who knew Master Tengen is capable of threatening one of the three big clans. Then again, if his barriers are on the jujutsu schools, it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to have it also be places like the Zenin home. “That’s shitty though. Why don’t you just leave?” 

Maki levels her with a flat stare. “I’m six.” 

“Oh, right.” 

“What about you?” Maki asks around a mouthful of burger and fries. Riko has lost count which burger she’s on. Wait, wasn’t she just eating an ice cream a second ago?

“Me?” 

“Yeah, what’s wrong with you?” 

“Oh, well, a lot,” she says, and she launches into a quick rundown about her life with Master Tengen and Misato.

Maki sets her nearly finished burger down. “Do you want that?” 

“Huh?” 

“Do you want to be his pestle?” 

“Do you mean vessel?"  

“That’s what I said,” Maki says. Riko briefly wonders if this child is even literate. “Anyway, do you want that?” 

“No, I don’t.” 

“Then don’t.” 

Riko smiles at her. “You should take your own advice, kid.” 

“What do you mean?” 

Riko sighs, and grabs another fry. It isn’t her place to rush Maki’s character development, right? This becomes something like a mantra for her as their post-training outings become commonplace. After Maki beats her up, they go to McDonalds, or some other fast food joint. Maki unloads on her latest grievances about the Zenin clan, and Riko fails to provide any comforting words. Maki will get out eventually, she reminds herself. Still, as they talk, Riko feels like an odd, sad feeling planted in her stomach. 

Once, after a particularly tiring session, they go to the convenience store for ice cream. As Riko watches Maki bite into her ice in mild horror, she follows Maki’s intense stare and sees that she’s looking at the ritzy sushi shop across the street. 

“You know,” Riko says. “That place has conveyor belt sushi.” 

“What’s that?” 

“There’s a conveyor belt that runs across the restaurant that carries plates of sushi past you,” she explains. “You can take whatever you want to eat.” 

Maki’s eyes glimmer. “I can eat how much I want?” 

“Yeah,” Riko says. “I’ll take you there sometime.” 

“You mean it?” 

“Of course.” 

After a couple weeks, Maki introduces Cursed Tools into their training. Riko is pretty adept at using a bō imbued with Cursed Energy. Although, at first she uses more like a Majorette doing a baton twirl. It takes a couple days, but Maki manages to literally beat the Majorette out of her. 

After their training session, she decides to get them some ramen. When the server compliments Maki’s yukata, Riko realizes that this entire time she’s been getting her ass kicked by a kid in a yukata. 

“Do you always have to wear a yukata?” Riko asks. 

“Yeah,” Maki says, making a face. “I hafta look like a lady.” 

“Do you like wearing it?” 

Maki blinks. “Huh?” 

“Do you like wearing it?” Riko repeats. “Because if not, I can get you something else.” 

“Really?” 

“Yeah,” Riko says. “Why do you sound so surprised?” 

“Because that’s really nice!” 

“I am nice,” Riko says, frowning. “I buy you food every day.” 

“That’s different,” Maki says, but before she can expand on her point their meals arrive. 

After eating, Riko takes Maki to a nearby mall. There is an adorable look of excitement on her face as tugs on Riko’s sleeve and steers her into a candy shop, an electronic shop, and then, finally, a children’s clothing shop. She buys Maki a few pairs of athletic skirts with shorts underneath, long and short sleeve workout shirts, and a pair of running shoes.

“Actually,” Maki says, when the store clerk heads to the backroom to grab a box of the shoes. Riko has never seen the girl look this hesitant before. “Can we get two? If that’s OK? My sister’s the same size as me and, um, I mean, if you don’t, one is fine, too, we can share, but—” 

“Maki,” Riko says. “It’s cool. We can get as many pairs as you want.” 

“Really?” 

“Yeah, sure,” Riko says, turning to go call the store clerk. 

Maki insists on carrying the bags and as they walk back to Riko’s place. She stops suddenly, a look of realization on her face. 

“What’s up?” Riko asks. 

“I can’t accept these,” she says, sadly. 

“Why not?” 

“‘They’ll just take it,” she says, staring down at her feet. “‘I’m not ‘posed to have stuff like this.” 

That feeling in the pit of Riko’s stomach not only comes back, but she swears it starts to take root. 

Riko takes the bags from Maki. “You can keep these at my place then.” 

“What?” 

“These will stay with me until you can take them home with you,” Riko says, and starts to walk ahead. “C’mon, we still got time before your ride gets here. How about some dessert?” 

Later on, after Maki leaves, she sends Master Tengen a text. 

riko: i’d like to request maki train me in the mornings too 

riko: you know to build up my stamina and speed 

bargain master splinter: Very well. 

Now, in retrospect, her idea is a terrible one. Riko feels like her lunges are on fire. Maki, the small tyrant, keeps turning back to yell at her to keep going and stop acting like a baby. 

“Let’s,” Riko bends over, huffing loudly. “Let’s take a break, Maki.” 

“No way!” Maki shouts at her. “Master Tengen said I’m the explainer, here. So we’re gonna run five miles!” 

“You mean trainer,” Riko corrects between gulps of air. 

“That’s what I said!” Maki cries. “Now, let’s go, you big baby!” 

Riko is barely alive when they return to her place for breakfast. She almost asks Misato to spoon feed her. Maki, the small demon, is the picture of health as she downs her third bowl of rice. 

“You’ve got a great appetite,” Misato gushes, as she spoons the small demon child her fourth serving of rice. 

“You’re a great cook,” Maki says between mouthfuls. 

Misato beams. “Riko-chan, is there a way we can keep her?” 

Riko gives Misato the most withering glare she can muster. 

“Hey, now, you asked to be trained in the mornings, too,” Misato clucks. 

“Wait, really?” Maki asks. 

“You didn’t know, Maki-chan?” Misato smiles brightly at her. “You’re such a good trainer that Riko-chan here asked for even more training.” 

Maki looks over at her in astonishment. “Really?” 

“Don’t let it get to your head now,” Riko says, and avoids Misato’s knowing gaze. 

 Soon after, Riko no longer feels like her lungs are on fire when she runs with Maki. In fact, she’s even able to run closely behind the kid after a couple weeks. She’s not able to run alongside her yet, but she’s getting there. 

“Your mom is really nice,” Maki says one morning as they run. She slows down to jog next to Riko.  

“Misato? She’s not my mom.” 

Maki stops running. “What?” 

“Yeah, she’s more like my guardian, I guess?” Riko decides, coming to stop. “She’s been taking care of me since I was around your age.” 

“You—” Maki stops short, looking down at her shoes. “You, um, don't live with your real family?” 

Riko almost tells her that she is an orphan, but remembers Maki’s family situation, and sighs. She shouldn’t get involved. 

That feeling in the pit of her stomach comes back, this time she feels it rapidly grow into a spindly seedling. 

“You know you can make your own family right?” 

When Maki looks up at her, there’s a heartbreakingly hopeful look in her eyes. “Really?” 

“Yeah, family isn’t limited to blood, you know,” Riko says, and she ruffles Maki’s hair. “Your family can be made up of people that you choose. Me and Misato? If you want, we can be your family, too.”   

“I want that.” 

“Good,” Riko says, and then she shoves Maki back and breaks into a full sprint. “Loser carries the winner home!” 

“That’s—hey, that’s cheating!” 

At their latest training, Maki seems more rushed to get the training over with. Forty minutes into their session, she stops suddenly and says that they should finish early today. Riko, eager to avoid further bodily harm, is fine with it. 

“You gotta take me to that sushi restaurant today, too,” she says, oddly pleadingly.“OK?! ” 

“What’s the rush?” Riko asks, as Maki tugs on her hand. She follows along until she spots a familiar figure a few feet ahead. It’s Rin walking home. This is perfect. She can follow her home, stake out her place, and hopefully find Fushiguro. 

Training with Maki has left her far more exhausted than she anticipated. She’s barely able to keep up with trying to find ways to get further details from Rin about who she's pretty certain is Fushiguro crashing at her place, instead opting to sleep in class because she’s so tired. She even tried enlisting help from Kobayashi, but the girl went bright red at the prospect of asking Rin about her mother’s sugar baby or whatever their bizarre relationship is. 

“Hey, wait,” Riko says. “You see that girl?” 

Maki squints at her. “What about her?” 

“We’re going to follow her,” Riko says. “You know, to practice stealth or whatever.”

“What’s that?” 

 “You know, hiding and stuff?” 

“Why would you want to hide from Curses?” 

“To sneak attack them and stuff?” 

“That’s stupid, you should just fight them head on.” 

“Well, you can do that because you’re strong,” Riko says, and she cracks a small smile at how Maki preens at the praise. “Me, though? I need stealth on my side, or else I’ll die.” 

“What about sushi?”

“We’ll still get it, and we can even do dessert after,” Riko promises. “I just need to know where that girl lives.”

“Why?” 

“Because I’m looking for a man.”

“A man?” Maki scrunches her face. “He lost or something?” 

“Yeah, in a sense.” 

“How do you lose a man?” 

“You forget to cherish him,” a voice behind them pipes up, and they both turn to see Getou sauntering up to them. “Good afternoon, ladies!”  

“Getou.” Riko nods at him. “Why are you here?”

“I was taking a stroll,” he says, and somehow that feels like a lie. “Oh, who is this little one?” 

“‘m not little,” Maki says, frowning. 

“She’s the six year old who’s been beating me up,” Riko explains.

“Wait, this is the Zenin that’s been training you?” 

“No, she’s just Maki,” Riko says, and she misses how Maki looks up at her with wide eyes. 

“Ah, my mistake, Maki-chan,” Getou says, smiling down at her.

“Your hair looks really dumb,” Maki says flatly, and then she turns to Riko and tugs on her shirt.“Let’s go already.” 

Getou’s eye twitches. “Hey you brat, you can’t just tell—”  

Riko glances at her, brows furrowed. “What’s up with you today?” 

“Excuse me,” Getou tries to cut in. “I said you—”

“It’s—I’m—” Maki looks torn. “I’m hungry!” 

“Hello?” Getou waves his hand between them. “Am I not—” 

“We’ll eat soon,” Riko says, and turns her attention back to Rin who is—gone. “Damn, did you see where she went?” 

“You both are seriously not just ignoring me, that is so—” 

“Who cares!” Maki cries, stomping her foot. “It’s our last day!”

Riko blinks. “What?” 

“I’m only s’posed to train you for a month, that’s the deal!” Maki’s lips wobble and tears spill down her face. “And—and then I gotta go back. But you said we can go get sushi, but—but now we can’t because you’re a stupid liar! I hate you!” 

Riko watches the small girl take off at top speed. She should go after her. But she shouldn’t interfere with her character growth, right? That isn’t her place. And yet, the sad, unsettled feeling in the pit of her stomach grows from seedling into stalks and with small buds.

“Kids,” Getou says with a shake of his head, pulling her from her thoughts. “What can you do?” 

Riko turns to him. “You’re still here?” 

Getou reaches over and pulls her cheeks. Damn, she forgot the stupid barrier is still gone. 

When Maki doesn’t show up the next morning, the feeling in the pit of her stomach starts to flower. She’s not able to focus on anything. Her hands feel clammy. Is she sick? 

She asks Misato what’s up. 

“It sounds like you’re worried about Maki-chan,” she says. “I would be, too. She’s a good kid and that clan of hers isn’t right.” 

Riko scoffs. Worried about a kid who beats her up on a daily basis? And sure, thanks to this kid she now knows how to throw a punch and how to use a Cursed Tool, but still.  Plus, Maki gets out on her own eventually. Why speed up the process?

Still, she isn’t able to shake the feeling. She’s barely paying attention at school, and at lunch Kobayashi suggests she go home and get some rest. She does, but when she gets home all she thinks about is Maki. Nothing works to distract her, not even her favourite albums. That same night, she lies in bed, unable to sleep. She just keeps seeing Maki, her wobbly lips and teary eyes. That feeling in the pit of her stomach blooms into a flower made up of what she now knows is guilt and worry. Damn.

“Caring for people is exhausting,” she says to her fishtail catcus. She kicks off her duvet off and makes her way to her closet to change into something decent. “I’m going to limit my capacity to care for others to, like, five people.”

When she’s dressed, she calls Getou. 

“Hello?”

“Hey,” she says. “You busy right now?”

”It’s 2am, Amanai-chan.”  

”Cool, can you tell me where the Zenin estate is?”

It’s 2:15am when Suguru waits for the saucepan filled with coconut milk, ground turmeric, ground ginger, cinnamon, and black pepper to warm up. He can’t sleep again. The taste of the curse he’s acquired is still fresh on his tongue despite it happening hours ago. He whisks the mix of ingredients, and once it’s warmed up enough, he pours it into his mug. 

His grandmother swears by the medicinal benefits of the Ayurvedic drink. He just needs something to get the taste of curses out of his mouth and this is something strong enough to do it. He’s moves quietly through the moonlight-lit kitchen as he heads outside with his drink. He stands by the doorway, the cool night air hitting him. He takes a long sip, the sweet and slightly bitter flavour rolling over his tongue. He stares down at the sunshine drink and sighs heavily. This is the ninth night that he can’t sleep. He needs a distraction. Lately that’s been Amanai, but she’s been busy with the Zenin kid all month. 

He smiles around his mug as he takes another long sip, thinking about a small child beating Amanai up. Suguru isn’t sure what he feels towards Amanai. Maybe it’s the pity he feels towards her. Or maybe it’s admiration because she is a true testament to what he thinks a sorcerer should be: protecting those who cannot protect themselves. She’s even willing to die for it.

(Sometimes in the quiet of his dorm room, while everyone is sound asleep, he wonders whether it’s worth it? Consuming these curses?) 

Maybe he wants to be around reminders that he’s making the right choice, too. So when she calls him to ask him how to find the Zenin estate, he invites himself along. It strikes him then, as he quickly finishes his drink and goes back to the kitchen he washes his mug, that this is probably a bad idea. He’s got a mission tomorrow and he needs to manage to get some sleep, and yet, something compels him to go with her.

(He’s making the right choice, right? This is what it means to be strong, right?)  

From what Satoru has told Suguru about the Zenin clan, they’re traditionalists in an extreme sense. Women were only recently allowed to become sorcerers, but even then, they are never taken seriously. And apparently if you lack any Curse Energy, you are as good as dead to the clan. He wonders if that's the case with Maki. He wasn't able to detect any Cursed Energy on the girl, but even he could see that she's strong. In a different way, but strong nonetheless. 

He sneaks out of the dorms undetected, and finds a taxi waiting outside the school grounds for him. 

“We’re going to get Maki back,” Amanai explains as he gets into the taxi.

Suguru frowns. “Why?” 

“She looked like she needed help.” Amanai shrugs and turns to face the window. 

“Why didn’t you do anything when she ran away crying?” 

“I’m helping her now, aren’t I?” Amanai is still facing the window. “Why did you even want to come?”

“To help.”

“Yeah, that’s always been your problem, hasn’t it?”

“What are you talking about?” Suguru’s frown deepens. “How is that a bad thing?” 

“Do you help people weaker than you because you genuinely want to?”

“Well, what about you?” he counters. 

You and I signed up for the same things goes unsaid, but is heard all the same. 

“I don't want to die,” she says, quietly. “I'm starting to come to terms with that. The role I was told to play in order for everyone to be safe doesn't have to be the only way."

She looks over at him finally, and Suguru finds himself at a loss for words. They stare at each for a long moment until the taxi comes to a stop at the large, traditional estate that houses the Zenin clan.  

“What’s the plan?” Suguru asks. 

“No, clue, we’re winging it,” Amanai says. 

Suguru blinks slowly. “What?” 

“We're winging it,” she says, and then walks over to an open window and climbs into it. 

“I might be strong, but even I can’t take the entire Zenin clan,” he mutters, following after her. 

For a great clan, the Zenin are weirdly lax about security. It’s surprisingly easy finding Maki. They find in her a small, cramped room lying on a very weathered futon.

“Hey, maid,” Amanai says, and she avoids a vicious kick from Maki. 

Maki glares at her. “Whaddya what?” 

”You want to get out of here?” Amanai asks. 

“What?” 

“You want to get out of here?” Amanai repeats. “You can stay with me and Misato.” 

“You—you’re lying,” Maki says.

“I promise you I wouldn’t be here if I was,” Amanai says, her voice oddly gentle. “It’s your choice, Maki. What do you want?” 

Suguru turns away, offering what little privacy he can to the two. They talk quietly and he can’t help but think that regardless of what Amanai said earlier, they are the same.  

(The strong protect the weak, right?) 

“Alright,” Amanai says, taking Maki’s hand. “Let’s get out of here.” 

It is surprisingly even easier to take a child from the Zenin estate than it is to break into it, Suguru comes to realize as they make their way out. Barely anyone who is still awake and wandering the estate bats an eye at them, which is incredibly off-putting. Seriously, what is the deal with this clan? He’ll have to ask Satoru about it sometime. 

“Wait,” Maki says, pulling Suguru out of his thoughts. “I hafta tell the head of the clan something.”   

“Do you really?” Amanai asks. 

Maki nods. 

“Alright, lead the way.” 

Maki takes them to a grand-looking room. Maki takes a deep breath, then slides the door open and stomps inside where sits a man in lotus position in a relatively empty room. He has long light coloured hair, long thin eyebrows, and a moustache that reminds Suguru of catfish whiskers. He looks to be—no, way, is he drinking at this hour? 

“Naobito!” Maki cries. “I’m leaving!”  

The man takes another swing of his gourd. “Really?” 

“I hate cleaning the floors!” Maki exclaims, and then launches into a tirade against the Zenin’s cleaning practices. Suguru didn’t realize they made the poor kid scrub the wood floors with a single cloth. Amanai nudges Maki when she goes on a tangent about how the cleaning products they use are toxic to the environment. 

“The point is,” she says, “I’m leaving.”

“Where will you go?” Naobito asks. 

“She’ll stay with me,” Amanai says. 

Naobito frowns at her. “Who the hell are you?” 

“I’m the All-Star Vessel Miasma.” 

There’s a silence. 

“She means the Star Vessel Plasma,” Suguru says, breaking the silence.

“Yeah, that,” Amanai says. “If your stupid clan of idiots wants to keep having this place protected by Master Tengen’s barriers, you’ll let us leave quietly.” 

Oh, Suguru thinks. Maybe that's why people are so lax about security? 

“That’s right,” Maki says.  “I’ll stay with Amanai until I’m ready to come back.” 

“Come back?” Naobito repeats. “What for?” 

Maki stands tall, her chin pointed forward, as she shouts out, “I’ll become head of the Zenin clan!” 

“Do what you want.”  

With that, Maki turns to leave. Both Amanai and Suguru turn to follow until Naobito calls after Maki. 

“How about I make your life a little harder, then?” he says. “For you and Mai, too.” 

Maki stops and turns to glare at him. “Mai has nothing to do with this.” 

They leave the estate with his booming laughter echoing after them. 

They sit in Amanai’s living room watching an old 80’s anime movie about, well, Suguru isn’t really sure what it’s about. Robots saving the world? He was just supposed to help Amanai carry Maki, who fell asleep during the taxi ride, back into her place, and now he's half-way through an old movie. He doesn’t want to go back to his dorm yet, he realizes. Maybe it's because this is the first time in years that he's watching something without Satoru spoiling the entire thing. An idea strikes him then. 

“Wait, so Master Tengen can keep people out with his barriers, right?” Suguru asks, looking over at Amanai who sits next to him on the couch. “Not just curses, but specific people? Like one person?” 

“I can ask,” she says, pulling out her phone. Suguru shifts closer to lean over her shoulder and watch her text Master Tengen. Or at least he guesses it’s Master Tengen. Amanai always uses the strangest references, a lot of them very dated, too. Also the idea that Master Tengen, who is likely over a thousand years old, casually texting her sets him off in ways he can’t explain. 

riko: can you adjust the barrier on my building 

riko: to also keep one person out 

bargain master splinter : Gojo Satoru, you mean? 

Suguru and Amanai blink slowly as they read the message again. 

“That’s—how did he know that?” Suguru asks. 

“Those damn stars,” Amanai mutters, and he’s even more confused than before. 

riko: yeah 

bargain master splinter: It is done.   

“It’s done, I guess,” Amanai says, looking up from her phone at Suguru.“Why does this feel like a mistake?”  

He places his hands on her shoulders. “You don’t know what this means to me.” 

“You know,” Amanai says, leaning in even closer. Their noses almost touch. “You’ve got large pores.” 

His eye twitches. “You want to take this outside?” 

“I’ve got an overnight mask that might help with that,” she reaches over and pats his cheek. He slaps her hand away only for it to be bounced back by Master Tengen’s stupid barrier. “Oh, wait a sec, where the hell is Maki going to sleep?” 

He looks down at Maki, who sleeps soundly on the floor. “You’re realizing this now?” 

“We have an extra room.” Kuroi pops in suddenly. “I just set up the futon in there for her.” 

Amanai blinks. “We do?” 

“Honestly, Riko-chan,” Kuroi sighs in a way that reminds him of his mother, and then turns to Suguru. “I’m assuming you’ll be staying over here, too?”  

“Oh, no, I don’t want to impose,” Suguru says, getting to his feet. “It’s no worry, I can just catch the early morning train back to campus.” 

“It’s almost five in the morning,” Amanai says, yawning. “You crash here. I can take the couch.” 

“What? No, really, I—”

“It’s settled then,” Kuroi says, scooping up Maki. “We should have some spare clothes for you and a toothbrush. Riko-chan, can you get those for him?”

“Sure,” Amanai says, as Kuroi disappears down the hall with Maki. 

“Wait, but—” 

“You gotta let people take care of you, man,” Amanai cuts in, looking at him with a serious expression on her face. “Don’t be so uptight. You’re a kid, too.”

Suguru watches her leave, and he swears that he can just barely catch her mutter quietly, "Also, don’t kill people, man."

For the second time that night, he’s left at a complete loss for words. 

Chapter Text

There is something going on with Suguru, according to Satoru. For the past couple of months, Suguru has been disappearing somewhere any time they have a day off. Whenever he does, Satoru goes to tell Shoko about it. Even now while she’s elbows deep in a cadaver. 

“What’s his type?” he asks her, stretching his long legs out on either side of him. He pulled out a chair and plopped himself right next to her to talk about Suguru. For the last half-hour he’s been peddling her with his weird theories about where Suguru’s been. He started with a theory that Suguru is actually a drug dealer, and then latched onto to the idea that Suguru’s in a secret relationship. 

“I don’t care,” Shoko says, sighing heavily. She really doesn’t, especially today when she’s attempting to use her Reverse Cursed Energy technique on damaged internal organs. It’s been hell trying to figure out the right balance of Reverse Cursed Energy for more complicated organs like the heart and lungs. She’d been pulling all-nighters for weeks trying to figure it out.  But beyond that, she’s annoyed that her few moments of peace have been ruined by Suguru ditching Satoru. 

It’s always Satoru and Suguru, the strongest duo. Satoru and Suguru, once and a lifetime sorcerers. The sun and the moon. A star and a dark night. Goku and Vegeta. Jin and Mugen. Inuyasha and Sesshomaru. Any male duo in Naruto. You get the picture. And her? No celestial metaphors for her, and no manga or anime characters comparisons. She’s just Shoko, and she’s fine with it. She’s fine staying away from the frontlines and sticking to the shadows. There’s a lot to learn when you watch the centre stage from behind the curtains. Like the loneliness she sees in both of them. 

“If it’s a girl,” Satoru says, pulling her from her thoughts. “His secret lover, I mean. If it’s a girl, she’s probably a total Yamato Nadeshiko, you know?” 

“The national soccer team?” 

“No, I mean the idealized Japanese woman.” 

Shoko looks up at him. “What?”  

“If it’s a guy, he’s probably ugly,” Satoru continues. “Oh! You think he’s embarrassed about him?  That’s why he’s keeping it a secret?” 

“Why don’t you just ask him if it bothers you so much?” 

“Bother me?” Satoru scoffs. “It doesn’t!”

“Right.” 

 But, you know, lately his Cursed Energy just disappears for a few hours.” 

“So,” Shoko says, returning her attention back down to the cadaver. “You’re stalking him?”  

“It’s the weirdest thing,” he says, ignoring her. “Hey, you think he’s dating a sorcerer? Ew, do you think they got to Kyoto?” 

Shoko considers taking up smoking. 

Satoru, thankfully, is away on a mission the next time she and Suguru have a day off. Suguru disappears to either deal some drugs or make out with his secret lover, while Shoko makes good on her increasing deliberations to take up smoking. In the evening, after picking up a fake-ID, she leaves the dorms to buy some cigarettes from the convenience store in one of the ritzy districts in Tokyo. There's a couple of spots that are known for not batting at an eye at clearly underage students procuring cigarettes with fake-IDs. 

After securing her box of smokes, Shoko finds a relatively empty residential street to go smoke. But before she can even take out a cigarette, she notices a small, bald girl at the other end of the street. The girl is taping down a bright blue poster on a telephone pole. When the girl moves onto another telephone pole that is a few feet away, Shoko walks over to read the poster.  

ARE YOU A WEALTHY INDEPENDENT WOMAN WHO’S TAKEN IN A MYSTERIOUS, DARK-HAIRED MUSCLED MAN WHO SPENDS ALL YOUR MONEY ON HORSE RACE BETS? I CAN HELP YOU. CALL NOW. 

Shoko blinks slowly. The girl continues to put up posters. She’s in the right district, at least. She’s pretty sure most of the homes here go for a few million dollars.  

The girl stops suddenly, peering up at a woman down the road. The woman, who is wearing red wearing red Louboutin heels and a black dress, stops and stares at one of the girl’s posters. She stares at the poster for a long moment before walking away. The bald girl starts to follow her. 

“She’s really obvious,” Shoko mutters. The woman immediately tenses and starts to walk faster. The girl matches her speed. The woman, noticing this, breaks out into a full run. 

Shoko watches, a little impressed because walking in those heels is a nightmare, so the fact that the woman can run is nothing short of amazing. The woman bolts through a crosswalk just as it counts down to the last three seconds. The red hand flashes stop. The girl continues running after the woman, and the moment she steps out onto the crosswalk, a silver truck slams into her. Shoko nearly drops her box of cigarettes as she watches the truck drive right over the girl and continues on as if it didn’t just run over a person. 

When she reaches the girl, she’s thankfully not bleeding out. She just stares out at the darkening sky with a contemplative look on her face. 

“Are you alright?” Shoko looks down at her with mild concern. The girl is fine, just covered in a lot of dirt. 

“I’ll live,” she says, sitting up. "Probably." 

“A truck just hit you,” Shoko says. 

“Don’t take me to a hospital,” the girl says. “I hate them.” 

"Can you even walk?” 

“Yeah. You know the inside of me?” she says. “The, like, interior outline of my body?”

”Are you talking about your bones?” Shoko asks, and wonders if this girl has a concussion or something. 

”Yeah, that,” she nods to herself. “They’re really strong, but you know, I don’t drink cow’s milk.”

“Look, a truck just hit you.”

“What colour was it?” 

“I don’t know—silver, I think?” 

“Damn those stars,” the girl says, then she frowns. “How many high schoolers have those trucks killed, you think?” 

“What?” 

“The trucks,” she repeats. “How many high schoolers do you think it’s killed?” 

Yeah, she’s definitely got a concussion. 

“Alright, you’re coming with me,” Shoko says, squatting down and helping the girl to her feet. 

Shoko sneaks the girl into the school's infirmary, intending to administer some tests to see if she does in fact have a concussion. She shouldn’t be doing this to civilians, but then again the girl did insist on not going to a hospital. Shoko learns the girl is named Amanai Riko and, incredibly, she’s mostly left unscathed from being hit and run over by a large truck. 

“Hey,” Amanai says, as Shoko goes to grab her testing materials. “Do you smoke yet?” 

Shoko turns to look at her. “Yet?” 

“Hey, Shoko—uh.” Suguru appears at the doorway, his brows furrowed. “Amanai-chan? Why are you here?” 

“I got hit by a truck.”

“You got what?” 

Shoko looks at Suguru, then at Amanai. “You’re Suguru’s secret lover, aren’t you?” 

Suguru chokes. “My what?” 

“He’s not my type,” Amanai says. “Plus, he’s more like my mom.” 

“Ah.” Shoko nods. “I can totally see that.” 

“Mom?” Suguru repeats. “Why not Da—wait, no, that’s not the point. Shoko, what the hell is going on? Why is she even here?” 

“As she said, she got hit by a truck,” Shoko says, and then quickly explains how she witnessed Amanai chase down a wealthy-looking woman only to run into oncoming traffic. 

“Wait, back up,” Suguru says. “What did the posters say again?” 

“I’m looking for Misato’s ex,” Amanai says. “He left her and uses wealthy women to fund his gambling problem. Anyway, what are you doing here?” 

“Yeah, Suguru,” Shoko says. “What are you doing here? How do you know Amanai?” 

Suguru closes the door behind him and explains how he met Amanai, which brings a slight smile to Shoko's face. Turns out the girl is a vessel for Master Tengen. It makes sense then that she’s fine after being hit by a truck. Huh. Shoko would love a chance to see what makes her body a suitable vessel for Master Tengen—

“Wait,” Shoko says. “Did you just say there’s a barrier that can keep Satoru away?” 

Suguru nods gravely. 

“Satoru should be back from his mission in the next hour,” she says. Yes, she’s keeping tabs on how long his missions are. It’s what she has to do now that Suguru abandoned her to this hell. “Let’s go.” 

“Why does this feel like a mistake?” Amanai murmurs to herself. 

It’s a mistake. Getou and Ieiri take up residence in Riko’s living room. Every single time the both of them have time off, they come to Riko’s apartment. This week alone she’s found them at her place every single night watching either a historical drama (Getou’s pick) or a reality television show (Ieiri’s pick). 

Tonight it appears to be Ieiri’s pick. Riko enters her apartment to find Getou, Ieiri and, oddly enough, Maki watching a show about the daily drama experienced by wealthy Japanese housewives in Tokyo. Tonight the women are brawling in a high scale restaurant. 

“You’re a phony!” screams one of the women.

“Why are you here?” Riko asks them.   

“Kuroi-san gave me a key,” Getou says, his eyes still on the TV.

“Me, too,” Ieiri says.

"Oh," Getou says. "Kuroi-san said she's going grocery shopping, so order dinner." 

Riko sighs. 

“The only phony thing about me,” another woman screams, and she pulls off her wig and starts swinging it at the other woman, “Is this!”  

Maki just squints at the TV in confusion. “You can beat people with your hair?” 

“It’s a wig,” Ieiri says, and Maki looks even more confused as Ieiri explains the science behind creating wigs. This is probably not appropriate television for a child, and Riko is about to say as much until her phone buzzes. 

bargain master splinter: The stars say don’t consider what the emotional equivalent to being clubbed over the head is because you’re going to find out anyway.

koro-sensei: Why did you change my name?

riko:  you allowed a truck to hit me 

koro-sensei: I did tell you that the stars said to avoid silver. 

riko: honestly at this point i wouldn’t put it past you to destroy part of the moon and threaten to annihilate the world like in assassination classroom 

koro-sensei: That’s what happens if I don’t get a vessel in time.

Riko blinks. Oh shit, is Assassination Classroom even out yet?

“Ah, well, it’s just Master Tengen,” she mumbles, pocketing her phone and sitting down next to Maki. “‘S’not like he even reads manga.” 

After the show finishes, they all notice that Maki is staring at Getou intently. 

“Can I help you?” he asks. 

“Your hair looks stupid,” Maki says, after a long moment. “Can I braid it?” 

Riko is surprised to see that he obliges. He sits on the floor, while Maki sits on the couch. He watches some historical drama while Maki gives him a fishtail braid. 

“It’s not bad,” Ieiri murmurs, watching her at work. 

Riko sneaks a couple of pictures and sends it to Misato. 

misato: Wow…...so cute!!! 

misato: Thank u….for sharing!!! 

misato: Love u…

Riko blinks. She hasn’t texted Misato in a while, so the chronic ellipsis throws her off for a second. She remembers that despite her Mommy Blogger tendencies, Misato is a practitioner of the Old People Online Stylebook. 

“Hey,” Ieiri says. “I heard you that you and I probably have the same taste in music. Can I see your CDs?” 

“Oh, sure,” Riko says, and she leads her into her room. 

“You listen to Perfume?” Ieiri asks, holding up the group’s GAME album. 

“That’s one of my favourites.” 

“Me too.” 

“Nothing beats JPN, though,” Riko says. 

Ieiri turns and stares at her. “What?”

“What, you’re not a fan of it?” Riko asks. "A lot of people didn't like the direction they took, but I mean if you're putting out your fourth album, why not experiment?" 

“No," she says, fixing Riko with an unreadable look. "I’m pretty sure they don’t have a fourth album out yet.” 

Oh, shit. She just keeps slipping up these days. Damn. That truck sure did a number on her. 

“I mean,” Riko starts to say, but then thankfully Getou walks in with Maki hoisted on his back. She’s never been more grateful for him in her entire life.  

“How do I look?” he asks, and wow, Maki's done a pretty good job with the braid. 

“Not stupid,” Ieiri says. 

“I told you!” Maki exclaims. "Anyway, Riko let's order ramen!" 

"Sure," Riko says, pulling out her phone. 

They thankfully don’t revisit the Perfume album discussion, but for the rest of the night Riko feels Ieiri’s eyes on her. 

“Are we done?” Maki asks, lowering the chalkboard in her hands that reads: first day of school!!!! 

“A couple more Maki-chan,” Misato says, still taking several photographs of Maki. 

“You said that fifteen minutes ago!” 

“I lied!” Misato beams. “Smile!” 

Riko watches the two of them with a feeling of nostalgia. Before Riko used to regularly get herself expelled, Misato would also take embarrassing, Mommy-blogger-esque photos of her on her first day. It feels like the torch is now unwillingly being passed to Maki. 

“What about Riko?” Maki asks. 

“It’s not my first day of school,” Riko says. 

“No, you’re right that will be adorable,” Misato says, turning to Riko. “Stand next to Maki-chan. Wait, let me go get you a board, too.” 

“But—” 

“Riko.” 

“Yes, ma’am,” Riko says quickly, and she stands next to Maki who stares smugly at her. “I’ll get you back for this.” 

Maki sticks her tongue out at her. 

When Misato returns, she hands Riko a board that reads: 91.2 days since I've last been expelled!!! 

At school, the only place where learning seems to take place is music class. Riko's become somewhat adept at playing the flute. Before they're left to practice with their instruments, their music teacher asks what their homeroom will be doing for the festival. 

The class is silent. 

Someone in the back calls out, “What cultural festival?” 

“Uh,” the music teacher says. “The one happening in, like, two weeks?” 

“Why is a cultural festival happening in the first quarter of the semester?” Riko whispers to Kobayashi. 

“It’s a private school,” she whispers back, as if that answers anything. 

Their music teacher uses their class time to plan out what their class will do for the festival. They vote on doing a haunted house. Then the music teacher divides everyone into different groups based on the six tasks they need to do in order to create the haunted house. Riko ends up in a group with Kobayashi, the muscled tyrant that lifted her like she was nothing, and, incredibly, Rin. They are tasked with making the costumes for their class. 

“Name’s Takashi Sena,” Muscle Girl tells them. “I look forward to working with you both.”  

"Sure," Riko says. "Amanai Riko." 

Rin sighs. “Ito Rin.” 

"K-Kobayashi Sumiko.“

“Since class is pretty much over, after school, we can go to my place to sketch out the costumes for everyone,” Rin says, and then she glances at Riko, her eyes narrowing. “Don’t be weird.” 

Riko is literally vibrating her seat. God. It’s happening. She’ll finally find Fushiguro and then—oh wait, shit. She’s broke. She’s got no money. All she has is a black card. Wait. She could give Fushiguro the black card as, like, a deposit or whatever and then figure out the rest. 

“—Amanai?” Kobayashi looks over at her. 

“What?” 

“Are you ready to go?” she asks. 

“What?” Riko blinks. “Oh, class is already over?” 

Rin’s house is really weird. It’s a very new-money kind of place with the entire home decorated to look like the salons in Palace of Versailles. There are Renaissance-style paintings decorating the ceilings and gilded wood furnitures that are in a rich, floral marquetry. The weird thing is the plushies that fill each room. Atop every single piece of the ornate furniture is a different kind of cutesy stuffed animal. 

“I feel like the eyes are following me,” Riko whispers to Kobayashi as they are led upstairs. 

Rin’s room is somewhat normal. It’s a large room with wallpaper decorated with small, blush pink flowers and cherubs playing musical instruments. All of her furniture, from her her bedpost to cabinets, are gilded in gold. 

“Alright," Rin says, leading them to her desk. "So I guess we can sketch out the costumes, and then we’ll get my mom to—” 

“Bathroom,” Riko cuts in, still standing at the doorway. “Where is it?” 

“Down the hall on your right,” Rin says. “Anyway, my mom can help us get the costumes ready to—” 

Riko walks down the long hallway in search of Fushiguro. She hears voices coming from one of the rooms at the far end of the hallway. Following the sounds, she thinks she hears a man and a woman speaking. Riko swings the door open to find a woman and a man making a teddy bear and a rabbit, respectively. The man isn’t Fushiguro, but he definitely looks familiar. He’s got a shaved head and a goatee. Who is he again? Oh, wait, the woman is saying something to her right now. 

“I’m sorry, what?” Riko asks. 

“I said, are you lost, dear?” 

“Oh, uh, yeah,” Riko says. “Lost. I’m lost. Where is the bathroom?” 

“Bathroom is down the hall on your right,” she says, and then turns the man. “Anyway, Yaga, tell me again how you do stitching around the ears?” 

Riko closes the door behind her quietly. She stands there for a few moments until she realizes that the man is Jujutsu High's principal. Or at least, he will be. 

“Damn it,” she mutters, heading off into the direction of the bathroom. 

Later that evening, Riko arrives home to find Misato, Getou, Ieiri, and Maki sit around to watch what looks like a reality television dating game show. Riko settles down next to Maki to watch. It’s apparently about twenty different women competing for the heart of Yuya Ono, a pop singer whose last charted on Oricon in the 1980’s. The women embark on dates with Yuya and, wildly enough, engage in physical and mental challenges against one another to win a chance to become his girlfriend. It’s like if the Bachelor and Survivor had a secret lovechild.  

Riko gets so into the show that she completely forgets about her failure to find Fushiguro. 

“That was exhilarating,” Misato says, once the episode wrapped. 

“It’s almost jarring not having the surprise twist be spoiled,” Ieiri says, stretching her arms.  

“Oh, shoot, I think we missed dinner,” Getou says, staring down at his phone.

“If you all don’t mind the wait, you can eat with us,” Misato says. 

Maki’s eyes glimmer. “Let’s make it a competition.” 

Allowing her to watch these reality shows is definitely a mistake. 

“How old are you again?” Ieiri murmurs. 

“Yeah,” Getou says. “We’ll split into two teams. One makes the side dishes, the other the main dish. Kuroi-san can be our taste-tester. The winner gets dessert.” 

“How old are you again?” Ieiri repeats, staring at Getou. 

“I don’t want Riko on my team,” Maki declares. “You, with the stupid hair. Let's team up.” 

“Stupid hair?” Getou’s eye twitches. “Who are you calling—”

“No, I call Getou,” Riko says, latching onto his arm. Ever since she slipped up with Ieiri, she’d been uncomfortable being alone with her. The girl notices way too many things. Riko still doesn’t have a decent enough excuse chalked up for her Perfume album slip-up, so she sticks to Getou as closely as possible when it's just the three of them. 

“Fine,” Maki hugs Ieiri’s leg. “Then we’re doing the side dishes.” 

Ieiri and Maki end up burning the side dishes and nearly start a small fire in the kitchen, so Misato cancels the cooking competition and orders ramen for them all. 

They all settle in the kitchen, and it’s a tight fit with Getou and Ieiri. 

“So,” Misato says. “How was school for you all?”

“I’ve got a school festival in about two weeks,” Riko says, between slurps of her noodles. 

“What’s a school festival?” Maki asks. 

“A waste of time,” Ieiri says. 

“Ignore her,” Getou says. “It’s an opportunity for students to put on some sort of event to demonstrate their talents.” 

Misato catches Riko's eye and discreetly points at Getou and Ieiri with her chopsticks. Riko looks away from her. 

“Sounds boring,” Maki says. 

“Well, most schools do a café,” Getou says, and Maki perks up at that. “I kind of wish our school did that.” 

“I don’t,” Ieiri says. 

Riko’s phone buzzes. 

misato: invite them to your cultural festival…

riko: why? 

misato: do it…

Riko sighs and sets her phone back down “Do you guys want to come to my school’s culture festival?” 

“Yes,” Getou and Maki say in unison. 

Ieiri just shrugs. 

“This feels like a mistake,” Riko mutters, ignoring Misato’s beaming smile. 

“I’ve decided something,” Maki announces, as Riko tucks her into bed. “I’m going to grow my hair out.” 

“Is it because of Getou?” Riko asks. 

“No,” Maki says, avoiding Riko’s eyes. 

“Alright then,” Riko says, ruffling Maki’s hair. “Good night." 

“Night!” 

When Riko closes Maki’s door behind her, she finds Misato standing in the hallway. 

“Hey,” she says. “If Ieiri or Getou ever ask, I’m looking for your ex-boyfriend who left you. He currently uses wealthy women to fund his gambling problem.” 

“I’m assuming you’re lying to them for a good reason?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Does this mystery man have a name?” 

“Yes, but I didn’t tell them,” Riko says, and she feels her heart swell with so much for Misato. Truly the definition of a ride or die. No questions asked, always ready to roll with Riko’s nonsense.

“Alright,” Misato says. “By the way, I was thinking of taking a vacation. Maybe sometime next week.” 

“Finally,” Riko says. “What took you so long?” 

“Well, things are different now.” 

“How?” Riko frowns. “Wait—no way. Misato, don’t tell me you haven’t gone on vacation because I didn’t have friends until now?”

Misato rubs the back of her head. “I didn’t want you to be lonely.” 

Riko feels her heart burst with affection. 

“I’m home,” Sumiko calls out as she enters the kitchen. 

It’s not her mother that greets her, but instead she spots Fushiguro leafing through her fridge.

“Welcome home,” he says, lazily waving a daikon at her. “You’re Kimiko, right? Kobayashi’s kid?” 

Sumiko doesn’t understand how her mother could be in, well, she’s not exactly sure about the nature of her relationship with Fushiguro. But still. It’s weird. He calls her mother by her surname, yet sleeps in her mother's room and eats all their food before disappearing for months—oh, god. Is this who Amanai’s been looking for? Sumiko feels her breathing become laborious.  

Fushiguro is looking at her expectantly. Wait, did he just call her Kimiko? What?

“Uh, no,” Sumiko says. “It’s—”

“Yumiko?” 

“No, um, it’s—” 

He points the daikon at her. “Eriko.” 

“It’s Sumiko!” she cries. “Anyway, um, I have a question for you.” 

“Shoot.” 

“Do you, um, have a child?” 

“A kid?” 

“Yeah, like a daughter?” 

“Do I have a daughter?” Fushiguro repeats, and then stares down introspectively at the daikon in his hand. “No?” 

“Do, um—do you not know?”

“Wait, no, I don’t have a daughter,” Fushiguro amends, nodding resolutely. “Is Kobayashi pregnant or something? Isn’t she using birth control?”  

Sumiko’s face explodes in red and steam shoots out of her ears. 

They can’t be the same person, she decides. It—it just can’t.  

Riko manages to convince Misato to take a two week vacation in Okinawa. Before she leaves, Misato fills the freezer up with way too many meals for Riko and Maki to defrost while she’s away. Riko would be annoyed, but then again, given that she can’t cook and Maki is, well, six, she's more appreciative than anything. 

Riko quickly settles into a good rhythm while Misato’s away. She walks Maki to school, grabs a coffee, and then heads to her own school. Her and Kobayashi pick up Maki from school and the two of them help Riko put up more posters in the rich parts of Tokyo. Kobayashi seems even more determined than ever to help Riko find Fushiguro for some odd reason. Whenever Riko asks her why, she goes red in the face. In any case, so far Riko’s provided several women with relationship advice (more specifically, she’s told them to cut their losses and leave their men), but she’s yet to find a lead. 

That said, Riko feels uneasy about how calm things have been lately. Ieiri and Getou seem to have a lot of missions lately, because neither have come to the apartment. She hasn’t even received a vaguely threatening text from Master Tengen for days now. 

Among all the potential disasters that can take place while Misato is away, she does not have Meeting Fushiguro Megumi at a Parent-Teacher Conference Because Maki is Bullying Him in her bingo card. No, she’s got Death, Bodily Harm, Kidnapping as potential options, but this? A total surprise. And yet, here she is, in the principal’s office, looking at Megumi, Maki, and an exasperated principal. 

“Sorry, I’m late,” Riko says, sitting down next to Maki. 

“You’re barely a child yourself,” the principal says with a sigh.  

“Our guardian is away right now,” she says, mildly. “Anyway, what’s the problem?” 

Riko stares at Maki in astonishment as the principal lists out the various ways she harassed Megumi, all unprompted.

“You’ve been at this school for a couple weeks, Maki,” Riko leans down and hisses at her when the principal explains how Maki used him as a footrest for the entirety of their lunch hour today.  

Maki just shrugs. 

When the principal finishes listing off Maki’s long record of crimes, she looks up at Riko expectantly. 

“That is how, uh, Maki bonds,” Riko says, then frowns. Why is she defending her?  “Actually, no, Maki is a problem child. What can she do to make this up to Megumi?” 

Maki stares up at, her eyes comically wide and her mouth hanging open. “Riko!” 

Riko looks down at her and mouths, “This is revenge.” 

“Well,” the principal says. “I would like to introduce them to more productive and appropriate replacement behaviours.” 

Riko nods. “Sounds reasonable.” 

“Which is why, under your supervision, I would like for the two of them to build opportunities for them to learn more pro-social ways of interacting.” 

“So, like, playdates?” Riko asks. 

“To put it in simpler words, yes,” the principal says.  

“No way!” Maki cries. 

“No,” Megumi says.  

“Wait,” Riko says. “Did you say under my supervision? Why can’t you guys create pro-social whatever for them to not fight each other at school?”

“It often starts at home,” the principal says, sadly. 

Riko blinks. "Excuse me?" 

Despite her many attempts, Riko ends up  saddled with babysitting the two brats for the next two weeks. The principal requests that Megumi and Maki journal after each pro-social interactions. When they leave the principal's office, Riko has to stand between the two of them to prevent them from trying to hit each other. 

"Is someone coming to pick you up?” Riko asks Megumi as the three of them exit the school. 

“No,” he says. “I can go by myself.” 

Isn’t he, like, five? A voice that oddly sounds like Misato echoes in Riko’s mind. God. If Misato found out she let a five year old go home alone, she’d never hear the end of it. 

“We’ll walk you home, then,” Riko says. 

“No.” 

“Yeah, no way,” Maki agrees. 

“Well, I guess I can go inform the principal then,” she says. 

Megumi glares at her, but thankfully just mutters his address. The fact that he lives a couple blocks away from them is incredibly questionable. Somehow she feels like the stars are to blame. She'll text Master Tengen later. 

“So,” Riko says, as they make their way. “Why didn’t your parents or, uh, guardian show up, Megumi?” 

Megumi stares straight ahead, ignoring her. 

“She’s talking to you, stupid,” Maki says, and she makes a move to reach over and smack him, but Riko grabs her hand. “Hey!” 

“You know what?” Riko says. “Let’s play the quiet game. First person to speak loses and will have to carry me the rest of the way home.” 

Both Maki and Megumi stare up at her in disgust, but thankfully both say nothing. The rest of the walk to Megumi’s place is quiet, although Maki keeps trying to goad Megumi into making a sound by attempting to hit him. God, how on earth did Misato handle this? How did Misato even handle Riko? When that woman returns, she’s going to negotiate a raise that is so high—oh, they’ve arrived at Megumi’s place.  

“Oh, Megumi’s here!” Riko turns to see a small girl carrying grocery bags. “Hello!” 

“Hi,” Riko says. “I’m—”

“Leave,” Megumi says, and then he walks into the building. 

Maki runs after him chanting, “You lose!"

“Don’t be rude!” his sister calls after him. “Sorry about Megumi. He’s just shy.” 

Riko blinks at the bold-face lie. “Sure.” 

“Did you walk Megumi home?” 

“Uh, yes.” 

“Wow, thank you!” she beams at Riko. “Do you want to come upstairs? I’m going to make dinner.” 

This girl is still in elementary school based on her lack of a uniform. And she can make dinner by herself? Riko suddenly feels inadequate. More importantly though, she feels great concern for the kid. 

“You should be more careful,” Riko says. 

“Why?” she asks, her smile never fading.

“You know, stranger danger?” 

“I’m Tsumiki,” she says, pointing at herself with her free hand. “And you’re….?” 

“I’m Amanai Riko.” 

“Now we aren’t strangers!” 

Riko blinks slowly.“That’s not how that works.”

“Anyway, c’mon,” Tsumiki says, handing Riko a grocery bag. “Dinner’s waiting!” 

Oh, god, how did these kids survive for so long living alone? Riko wonders, following after Tsumiki. 

Like most things in Riko’s short life, the invitation to dinner is a mistake. The food Tsumiki prepares is delicious, albeit somehow concerning. How on earth does an elementary schooler know how to prepare the perfect donburi? In any case, both Megumi and Maki are so engrossed in the meals, most of the dinner goes on in a comfortable silence. But that’s not what makes the dinner a mistake. No, what happens is Riko’s brain realizes something. She’s in the Fushiguro home. Maybe he recently left the two of kids alone. After all, how could the two of them avoid a school administration that seemed very involved with their students' wellbeing? Well, then again, based on how the principal just left Riko to deal with the bullying situation, maybe it's easier than she thinks. 

“So, uh, where are your parents?” Riko asks. 

Megumi looks up and glares at her. 

Tsumiki’s smile wavers for a moment. “They’re gone.” 

“Gone?” Maki repeats around a mouthful of rice. “Are they dead?” 

“They left,” Tsumiki says. “My mom and Megumi’s dad, I mean.” 

An uncomfortable silence settles over the table. For all of Megumi’s prickliness and Tsumiki’s unnerving maturity, they’re still both kids who lost their father and mother. Damn it. It’s enough for Riko to deal with Maki and Getou. She doesn’t have enough emotional capacity to deal with two more people. She's already at capacity. So, Riko ignores the voice in her head that sounds like Misato saying comfort those poor children! Instead, she changes the subject entirely, which leads to her critical mistake. 

“Oh, you know, you guys are probably related,” Riko says, because for some reason her stupid mouth wants to dig her own grave. “Maki, you could be, like, his aunt or something. I don’t really know how it works.” 

She gets twin looks of disgust from Maki and Megumi. Yeah. Definitely related. 

Maki turns to frown at Megumi. “You’re a Zenin?” 

“Not any more,” Megumi mutters, and then looks at Riko in confusion. “How do you even know that?” 

Riko blinks slowly. Good god, she’s on a roll this week with just unnecessarily saying shit she should not know. 

“Anyway,” Maki says, and she’s never felt more love for the demon child than this moment. “We’re going to a cultural confessional soon.” 

“You mean festival,” Riko says. 

“That’s what I said!” 

“No, you didn’t,” Megumi says. 

“Oi, shut—”

“Ooh,” Tsumiki cuts in, her smile is back and brighter than ever. “That sounds really fun!” 

“Wait,” Megumi starts to say. “How did you know that I'm—”  

“You want to come?” Riko asks, because if there is one thing she will not do, is return to that conversation. “It’s at my school, and it’s in a couple of days."  

“Yeah, we’d love to!” Tsumiki says, and she smiles so brightly that Riko swears she can see sparkles and flowers behind her. 

Maki kicks her ankle. 

“What?” 

“You—you can’t just invite anyone!” 

“Yes, I can,” Riko says, bending down to rub her ankle. 

Maki kicks her again. 

Because the principal hates Riko, she allows Megumi, Tsumiki and Maki to miss school to attend the cultural festival. The principal uses bullshit like this being a prime opportunity to allow for more pro-social interactions between Megumi and Maki. And because the stars hate Riko, the day of the cultural festival falls on one of Getou and Ieiri’s days off. 

“I’m excited for the bread-eating contest,” Maki says, once they arrive at the school grounds. 

“You need to be a student,” Megumi says, and Riko wonders how on earth he knows that. 

“No, you don’t.” 

“You do.” 

“Shut up!” 

“Don’t tell me to shut up!” 

“Don’t tell me to not tell you to shut up, stupid!” 

“You’re stupid!” 

“Are they going to fight?” Getou whispers to Ieiri, as Maki and Megumi assume fighting stances. The one good thing that's come from Maki's constant harassment is that Megumi is quickly becoming a pretty decent fighter. 

“I’m putting twenty on Maki,” Ieiri whispers back. 

“Oh? Well, I put twenty on the boy, then.” 

Tsumiki, the only real mature person here, holds Megumi back. 

“This was a mistake,” Riko says, holding Maki back from kicking Megumi. 

“This is why you guys have been running off to?” a familiar voice from behind asks. “Some cheap cultural festival? Or, ooh, is this a front for an underground kindergartener fighting ring?” 

Riko turns around to see Gojo Satoru standing behind her. 

“Man, fuck those stars,” Riko grumbles under her breath. 

Everyone stares at Riko. 

Gojo squints at her like he’s just noticing she’s there. Megumi looks up at her in shock. Maki, Getou, and Ieiri look at her in confusion. Tsumiki looks at her like she’s just killed someone. 

“What?” Riko asks, after a long moment of uncomfortable silence. 

“You said a bad word,” Tsumiki says, her mouth forming a thin line. 

“Sorry?” 

“Just don’t do it again, alright?” Tsumiki says, releasing Megumi, who thankfully does not try to fight Maki. She goes to Riko and holds out her pinky to her. 

“Uh, sure.” Riko releases Maki and intertwines her pink with Tsumiki. Why does it feel like she’s just taken a blood oath? 

“Who are you?” Gojo asks, still squinting at Riko. “Are you—oh my god, Suguru! Is this your secret lover?” 

Maki and Megumi make a face. Tsumiki’s eyes sparkle. Ieiri stares out longingly at the two teachers smoking a few feet away from them. Getou’s eye does the twitching thing that means he wants to fight.  

“Satoru,” Getou starts to say. “This is not—” 

“With a face like that,” Gojo interrupts, tilting his head as he looks at Riko, “I can see why you’d keep your relationship a secret.” 

Absolute silence settles over the group for a solid minute.

Then Riko launches herself at Gojo. 

Chapter Text

When Master Tengen’s barrier meets Gojo’s infinity, let’s just say it’s not a good time for anyone. For a brief moment, as Riko is being launched into the air by the immense pressure of  the two forces colliding, she actually thinks she died. She feels like she is being ejected from her body and put into some dark abyss for a brief moment until she finds herself in the arms of Ieiri who has been likely trying to get her to wake up. 

Part of the school is destroyed, but thankfully no one gets injured. Apparently the school has had a faulty pipe issue for years, and so the administration just blames the explosion on several pipes bursting simultaneously. There's a lot of threats of lawsuits and parents pulling their children out the school, but the school administration just threatened to leak to the press that half of the student body bribed their way into the school and that most of the school's budget goes towards bribing for its top spot in the Japanese school rankings, so both parties end up in a standstill. The entire student body gets two weeks off as the school administration tries to figure out where to relocate the students while the school is being rebuilt.

The school festival, for obvious reasons, is cancelled. Maki, furious at the prospect of missing the bread-eating contest, shifts all the animosity she feels for Megumi towards Gojo instead. Riko encourages this and, wherever possible, tries to blame Gojo for any other problems Maki experiences. Maki’s favourite dessert being discontinued at their local coffee shop? 

“You remember that white haired bastard? Gojo?” Riko says. “His fault.” 

"Well, no," the barista tries to say. "It's actually—"

“He did this?” Maki replies, looking up at Riko in disbelief.

"Um, no, actually—"  

“Yeah, his family owns this coffee chain,” Riko says, which actually isn’t a lie. The Gojo family is loaded and owns a vast number of companies and properties in Tokyo, including, incidentally, their local coffee shop. So armed with this fact (shoutout to Getou and his inability to not mention Gojo in conversation for longer than three minutes), Riko is going to make Maki the #2 Hater of Gojo Satoru (Riko, after all, is the #1 Hater of Gojo Satoru).

"I'm going to kill him," Maki promises. 

Riko pats her on the head. "Call me when you do." 

Aside from this new project of hers, with all this free time she has now that she doesn’t have to go to school for two weeks, she decided to double her efforts to find her would-be murderer. But on her first day off from school, just as she's about to head to another wealthy Tokyo neighbourhood, she gets summoned to Jujustu High. She ends up in what she presumes is Getou and Ieiri’s classroom, kneeling on the floor in along with Getou, Ieiri, and the white haired bastard himself. Riko looks at Ieiri who, suspiciously enough, avoids her eye. She turns to look up at Yaga who's been looming over them for about ten minutes now. 

“Why am I here?” Riko asks, earning herself a smack on the head by Yaga. Well, his hand misses her entirely and hits the barrier around her, but that’s not the point. 

Riko still can’t believe that this man spends his free time making creepy dolls with Rin’s mother. What is up with that, anyway? She was so disappointed in not finding Fushiguro that she completely overlooked the sheer weirdness of that. 

“What I would like to know,” Yaga finally says, “is who is responsible for the destruction of—” 

“Why do you make stuffed animals with my classmate’s mom?” Riko cuts in, and wow, why did she say that out loud? Her mouth, because it wishes her an early death, adds, “Is it a fetish?” 

There's a stunned silence that is quickly broken by Ieiri and Getou's quiet snickers and Gojo's loud, obnoxious cackles.

“Suguru, Shoko, and Satoru,” Yaga says. “Leave.” 

The three bolt out of the classroom within seconds. 

If at this very moment you decide to note down everything that comes easy to Gojo Satoru, you’d have doorstopper. If you decide to write down a list of what does not come easy to Gojo Satoru, you could note everything down on your left hand and still have some space to write two haikus about how awesome he is. Among the few things that does not come easy to Satoru is understanding other people. Well, more specifically their feelings. While his Six Eyes tells him a lot about a person, it doesn’t tell him things like when he takes his fun jokes a bit too far. Like, how is he supposed to know that when Suguru tells him that he needs to seriously stop spoiling every single show, movie, and book he’s ever attempted to read, that he’s actually being, well, serious? So serious, in fact, that he's willing to avoid him, The Great Gojo Satoru, to hang out with some bald weirdo? 

“I can’t believe you ditched me for that,” Satoru groans into Suguru’s shoulder. 

“Don’t call Amanai-chan that,” Suguru chides, and Satoru feels, well, he’s not sure what the pang in his chest means, but he doesn’t like it. "Also, she has premium cable."   

“Be quiet,” Shoko says, her ear pressed against the door of their classroom. 

Satoru rolls his eyes. “You know Yaga-sensei can sense us, right?” 

“I know,” Shoko says, sighing and pulling away from the door. Then, without an ounce of shame, adds, “I still want to hear what's going on in there.”  

“Where did you guys even meet that pipsqueak?” Satoru asks. 

“I saw her get hit by a truck,” Shoko says. “And she dumped coffee down Suguru’s pants when he pushed her to the ground.” 

“I didn’t push—oi, Satoru, stop laughing!” Suguru grumbles, shoving Satoru off him. “You want to take this outside?” 

“I think I like her,” Satoru says, wiping the stray tears from his eyes. “Even if you have bad taste.” 

Before Suguru can threaten to fight him again, the door slide opens and the three of them scramble away as Amanai walks out of the classroom with a haunted look in her eyes. 

“Are you OK?” Suguru asks.

 “No,” she says, pushing past him, and walking down the hallway that leads towards the cafeteria. 

“That’s the wrong way,” Shoko says, and they watch Amanai turn around and walk down the hallway that leads towards the dorms. “That’s the wrong way, too.”

Amanai makes a noise that reminds Satoru of a wounded small animal, then stops and lowers herself to lie starfish-style on the ground.  

“You going to help your lover out, Suguru?” Satoru asks, and activates his infinity when Suguru tries to punch him. 

Shoko and Suguru end up getting Amanai to join them for lunch in the cafeteria before she leaves. The special today is curry rice. They sit at their usual table, and Satoru watches Suguru and Shoko talk to Amanai with a familiarity that makes him feel—well, he’s not sure entirely how he feels, but he knows that he doesn’t like it. Huh. Maybe he doesn’t like Amanai after all. 

“I’ve been meaning to ask,” Amanai says between mouthfuls of rice. “Who does the cooking here? This is really good.” 

They all grow quiet. Satoru has never seen anyone inside the kitchen before, and no one ever serves their meals. The food just appears and disappears everyday. 

“I don’t know,” Suguru says, quietly. “I’m in the kitchen all the time, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone there before.” 

Shoko looks towards the kitchen with the same look in her eyes that she gets when she’s dissecting her cadavers. “Interesting.” 

“Anyway,” Suguru says. “How’s Maki-chan doing? I haven’t seen her around lately.” 

Satoru frowns. “Who’s Maki?” 

“Good,” Amanai responds. “She’s stopped fighting Megumi now.” 

“Hello?” Satoru waves a hand in front of Suguru’s face. “I said who’s—” 

“How boring,” Shoko cuts in. "I wanted to seem them fight so I could win my twenty bucks." 

"Nah," Suguru says. I think Megumi-kun could take her. He looks strong." 

People do not ignore The Great Gojo Satoru. That is something that just does not happen. And yet, here are his alleged friends ignoring him in favour of a small, bald girl who wears way too much makeup. So, of course, it’s not Satoru’s fault when leans towards Amanai, looks her straight in the eyes, and says, “You know, with all that makeup, you look like a clown.” 

Amanai pushes her plate of curry rice to the side. Then, for the second time this week, she launches herself at him. 

“What’s wrong with her?” Megumi asks Maki once Riko meets them by their school gates. 

Maki shrugs. “Dunno.” 

"She looks like the animal in the nature doc-u-men-ta-ry," Megumi says, sounding out the word carefully. Then he launches into a very detailed description of the wildlife documentary episode he watched last night about a small deer-like creature being stalked, chased, then eaten by some kind of feline predator. 

Riko doesn't know what to be amazed by more: the fact that he willing shared a detail about his life to them, or that he aptly described her mental state. 

Jujustu High’s cafeteria ended up getting destroyed because of Master Tengen’s barrier and Gojo’s infinity meeting again. Getou, Ieiri, and Gojo all were suspended for it, which means that Getou and Ieiri are using every spare moment they can get away from Gojo to binge watch some Chinese historical drama on her TV. It also means that each and every time Riko leaves her home to attempt to find Fushiguro, she is harassed by Gojo Satoru who wants to know why exactly he can’t enter her building. There is also the underlying accusation that she’s stolen his best and only friends from him, but Riko does not have the emotional or brain capacity to deal with that right now. She thanks the stars that at least today she doesn’t find him waiting outside her building today when she leaves to go walk Maki and Megumi home from school. 

The walk to Megumi’s apartment is peaceful with neither Megumi nor Maki fighting each other. The two of them talk about, well, honestly Riko doesn’t understand exactly what they’re talking about. It doesn’t seem like they’re insulting each other, so she tunes them out in favour of  planning out what she’ll do once she drops Maki off at home. Maybe she’ll finally head to the Tokyo Racecourse today and see if Fushiguro is there.

 Her phone buzzes suddenly. It’s Master Tengen. Lately his texts have dwindled from daily to once every week.  

koro-sensei: The stars say to lean into the homoeroticism of it all. 

Riko stares at her phone for a long moment before she moves to type. 

master roshi: Why did you change my name again? 

Riko pockets her phone and continues walking in silence until they reach Megumi’s apartment. They happen to catch Tsumiki arriving at the same time again.

“Are you staying for dinner?” Tsumiki asks. “I’m making fried squid.” 

Riko almost says no, but then remembers Getou and Ieiri are in her house right now. Riko nods, takes the grocery bags from her, and follows her into the building.

She's halfway done helping Tsumiki prepare dinner when Maki and Megumi’s loud argument over what to watch interrupts her. She can hear from the kitchen Megumi insisting that they keep the channel on the local news, while Maki shouts that she wants to catch the latest episode of the reality dating show she definitely should not be watching. Riko walks into the living room and finds the two of them about to break the remote in half from the force of them pulling at it from either end. She snatches it from them, and is about to tell them to sit down and be quiet when something the newscaster says catches her attention.  

“Now, ” she says, “onto our latest investigative story: the dark web!”  

Riko watches the broadcast in a stunned silence, ignoring both Maki and Megumi’s attempts to get her attention, and, more importantly, the remote. A very image of her face with a countdown over it plastered on a laptop flashes in her mind. 

That’s it, she thinks. I’ll find him using the dark web. 

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“Hey, clown.” Riko looks up to see Gojo staring down at her. “What’s up?”

Riko turns her attention back to the screen in front her. She’s spent the last four days hauled up in an internet cafe trying to find Fushiguro's darknet market website. She knows he has one, because she's found lots of mention of a sorcerer killer on the darkweb. Today is the day she’s finally found the damn website. It looks oddly like something that would be designed for, say, a wedding planner instead of a hitman. He's even got customer testimonials that include glowing reviews like: "Organized, professional, and brilliantly creative.  Worked with me tirelessly and executed my murder commission as though they had pulled it directly out of my imagination. The perfect planners. They are client-focused, service driven and simple amazing at what they do." 

But then again maybe this just like a thing that hitmen do on the dark web to stand out. Anyway, she’s in the middle of sending her request to him when Gojo shows up out of nowhere. 

“What’s that? Are you getting married? You cheating on Suguru, or something?” Gojo asks, leaning down to look at her screen. “Wait, you’re hiring a hitman?!”

The entire internet cafe patrons turn to look at them. Riko swats him away, and then hits send on her request. She clears her search history and closes the browser.  

“Is that why you’re dressed like that?” Gojo asks.  

Riko’s wearing loose, all-black clothes, gloves, and a black cap that hides her face. Yeah, maybe she’s been watching too many dramas with Maki, Getou and Ieiri, but hey, one can’t be too careful. 

Riko walks out of the internet cafe without another word. Gojo follows her out. She's half-way to her place when she stops and whips around to face him. 

“Stop following me,” she says. 

“Hm.”Gojo places a hand on his chin and strokes it. “No.” 

“I’ll—” Riko pauses. What could she even do? Scream for help? No, from the way people keep glancing at Gojo with lust-filled eyes, she doubts anyone would help her. Maybe she could launch herself at him again and let the force of Master Tengen’s barrier blast her to Okinawa?  

No, her brain says, and it sounds suspiciously like Misato. You’ll kill people.  

Huh. What would Misato do? 

“You want to get some coffee?” Riko asks. 

Gojo stares down at her in slight confusion, and then shrugs. Riko leads him to the coffee shop near her apartment. She sits at her usual table nursing a mug of black coffee, and watches Gojo happily sip his large iced caramel macchiato with ten pumps of caramel syrup, fifteen pumps of vanilla syrup, heavy whipping cream, light ice, and extra caramel drizzle. He's taken off his sunglasses for some reason, and it's making her very uncomfortable because if once she's able to look past the hypnotic and almost eerie prettiness of his eyes, she can read him pretty well. Riko knows there's some unspecified reason for why he has to cover his eyes, but she doubts it's to hide his emotional vulnerabilities. 

“I’m surprised your blood isn’t, you know, pure sugar at this point,” Riko says. 

“You want some?” Gojo holds out the drink to her. She takes a small sip and feels her heart immediately start to beat rapidly from the sudden surge of sugar that’s entered her body. 

“Ooh!” Gojo holds up a hand to his face and actually giggles. It’s disturbing. “Indirect kiss! Suguru’s gonna get jealous.” 

Riko blinks slowly. This is the nth time he's mentioned Getou since they've arrived at this cafe. She barely likes men, and the few that she does actually like tend to look like Takeshi Kaneshiro. Women, meanwhile? Absolutely no preference needed because all women are angels. 

“Do you like Getou or something?” Riko asks. 

“He’s my friend,” he says, and the part of Riko’s brain that sounds like Misato hears the unspoken he’s one of my only friends in that statement. 

Riko already decided that she’s limiting her capacity to care for others to, like, five people. She’s already at capacity with Misato, Maki, Getou, Tsumiki and Megumi. She can’t take on this man-child, too. No way. 

The universe will often orchestrate you crossing paths with those you are meant to be connected with, her brain chimes in, this time sounding like Master Tengen. She shivers slightly and shakes her head. God, she does not need Master Tengen in her head, too. 

“It's not?” Gojo says. 

She looks up at him. “What?” 

“You and Suguru? It's not like that? ” Gojo sounds flippant, and what he says this almost feels like a call-back to a joke that hasn’t happened yet, but Riko can see behind the amused look in his eyes are…. oh no.  This sorry excuse of an overpowered being has, like, unrealized romantic feelings, jealousy, and so, so much trauma. This man has Six Eyes, how can he not be self-aware? Or maybe the trade-off for his power means that he’s just wholly unaware about the basics about himself?  She is not prepared to handle this. Where’s Misato when you need her? 

She’s getting the vacation she deserves, her brain tells her. 

Right. Riko breathes hard through her nose and does what she does best: avoid the subject entirely. 

“Where are your other eyes?” Riko asks, and feels immense relief that she didn't blurt out something that she shouldn’t know about him. Wait, is this something she should know? Getou’s mentioned this before. Maybe. To be honest, whenever he talks about Gojo, she just tunes him out because it is kind of gross to see the fond exasperation in his eyes whenever he talks about him. It's like seeing your mom on a date. Huh. Maybe he is her mother after all. 

Gojo looks at her in confusion. “Huh?" 

“You other eyes,” she says. “Getou says you have Six Eyes. Where are they?” 

“Oh,” he says, and there it is. The annoying smile that promises physical or verbal pain. “I can’t tell you.” 

Riko shrugs. “'Kay. I’ll just ask Getou.” 

Gojo looks down at his drink and takes a long sip. Her brain, which still sounds like Misato, chides her again. Look, she tells her brain. It's not my fault this guy lacks basic emotional intelligence and self-awareness. It's not my job to help him. Plus, if I don't die he'll be far less traumatized than he is right now. 

You making things worse, her brain responds. 

Yeah, well, her trying to help Gojo navigate his own emotions and coming to terms with, like, his many unrealized personal traumas is like her trying to teach him how to swim while they're in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle. 

”We can’t be friends,” she tells him suddenly. “I’m at capacity.”

He laughs, but it’s an empty laugh. ”Are you a robot or something? Who'd want to be your friend, anyway?”

“Getou and Ieiri, apparently,” she says, and immediately regrets it when he looks up at her with that stupid expression back on his face. She quickly adds, “Getou is my mom.”  

Gojo blinks. “What?” 

“He’s my mom, if my mom was, you know, still alive and had bad side bangs,” Riko says. “Ieiri is my emotionally unavailable dad.” 

“Really?” Gojo says, and looks like his annoying and slightly manic self again. He points at himself. “What about me?”

“You…” Riko trails off, staring at him in contemplation. “You are a legal offence.” 

Riko sits in on her bed staring down at the list of Ideas to Make Fast Cash that she’s jotted down in her math notebook. It’s the last day before Misato returns from her vacation and she’s thinking of ways for her to quickly raise several million dollars while she waits for her request for services to be processed. So far she’s got: 

• Robbery 
• Robbery, but specifically of the cult 
• Create a fight club 
• Put Maki in an underground fighting ring?  
• Get Master Tengen to find out the winning lottery numbers 
• Rob classmates (except Kobayashi)  
• Rob Gojo

Riko sighs. All of these options were difficult to pursue in a short time. Well, maybe not the grand larceny ideas. Actually, wait, she could just, like, scam her classmates or something. Or their parents. Or Gojo. They’re all rich enough to miss a few million dollars, right? If Fushiguro could scam rich women, she definitely could—

“Amanai.”

Riko looks up to see Ieiri’s calculating eyes boring into her soul. Oh no.

“I’ve been meaning to ask for some time now,” she starts, and Riko feels her blood go cold. She is not prepared for this conversation, not in the slightest. Where is Getou when you need him? Or Maki? Or God, she’d even take Gojo at this point. “Um. Who is that?” 

Riko blinks. “Huh?” 

“Or, what is that?” Ieiri points at something behind her. 

"Master Tengen?" Riko definitely didn’t have Master Tengen in her list of people to save her from the conversation she’d definitely never like to have with Ieiri because her small brain cannot think up a good excuse for her slip-up, but hey, who is she to deny a helping hand?  

“Greetings, children,” he says. “I’d like to talk to Riko for a moment, if you'll excuse us.” 

“Sure,” Ieiri says, getting up to leave. 

When she’s gone, Riko sighs in relief. “What’s up, Master Roshi?” 

Master Tengen observes her, or at least she thinks he’s observing her. Reality kind of warps itself around his body, so she’s never really sure.  

“Do you know that Assassination Classroom has begun serialization today?” he finally says.

“Uh, no?” 

“You first mentioned it to me some time ago, well before there were any official or unofficial announcements about it,” he says. “The stars and I would like to know how you happened to know so much about a series that was only serialized today.”