Chapter Text
Spring never comes quietly in Tokyo. The shifting of the seasons, from a bitter cold winter that cloaks the city in endless white, to a gentle warmth that fills that same city with blossoms and arrant petals, calls in the winds from the mountains and festivals that sprawl along several districts. The bustling city streets bloom with celebration, a fanfare of spring that marks the beginning of the spring solstice, Shunbun no Hi.
Inumaki Toge finds himself pulling up the collar of his jacket higher these days. It’s his reliable semi-permeable membrane that lets him see out into the world, but stops the world from looking into him.
He knows that once he steps off the grounds of Jujutsu High, he enters a realm where he stands out far too much for his liking. A realm where people are blissfully unaware of the curses that mar their city and clans are an ancient relic of the past. A world where the Inumaki clan’s distinctive serpent and fang seal steals glances from on-lookers, who then whisper nonsensical things like, “that child is way too young to have a face tattoo, don’t you think?”
A world that Inumaki exits as soon as he enters, following his beacon of light that dances nimbly before his eyes. He trails after the blinding white of Okkotsu Yuuta’s back for miles, a sight that promises to lead him away from the narrow, packed streets where Shunbin no Hi processions were underway—
—and into an idyllic picture of what spring should be like, miles away from the city. Inumaki walks beside Yuuta on a stone path so quiet that they can finally hear their own footsteps, once the buzzing in their ears subside. The air is crisp and the ground clings to their feet in the form of mud and wet grass, the sign of a recent rain, and their path is lined by weeping cherry blossoms with branches outstretched as if to grab them and root them in their places.
Inumaki thinks it’s like one of those transient sceneries in the movies that Gojo-sensei has him watch. He looks at Yuuta, who’s staring out at a place far beyond the mountains in front of them. If Inumaki could speak outside of his limited vocabulary, he’d imagine that now was a perfect time to crack a joke.
“Yuuta, is this your domain expansion?”
Inumaki smiles to himself. A smile that no one will ever see, tucked behind the folds of his jacket.
They walk only a few minutes longer, when Yuuta stops walking for a moment. A string pulls his gaze from some faraway, distant land and latches onto Inumaki, of all things.
Yuuta is the one to break the silence.
“Ah, Inumaki-kun! I’m sorry about forgetting how busy the city gets, I hope our little journey back there wasn’t too much trouble,” Yuuta’s voice comes spilling out, realizing that he’s not alone. Inumaki had been so quiet, dwelling out of his line of sight for miles. “I’m glad I didn’t lose you in the crowd.”
“Shake. ”
Jujutsu High had offered up a driver to escort them to their mission, but Yuuta (an enigma, even to someone as mysterious as Inumaki) insisted on walking. Inumaki heard Yuuta mumble something under his breath about now wanting to miss the beautiful spring day and prolong the time he could spend with his newfound comrades, and no one had the heart to deny Okkotsu Yuuta the chance to “be a boy”— as Gojo-sensei affectionately puts it— for once.
Inumaki understands. He gets it, more than anyone else does. It’s why they understand each other, more than words can capture. Two cursed boys, childhoods denied. Living without freedom, protected by cage bars forged from endless restrictions.
So it’s these moments when Inumaki is with Yuuta, and Yuuta seeks out Inumaki, that they feel like they’re reclaiming some of that lost childhood together. It’s why, at the sound of Yuuta’s voice, Inumaki lowers his collar so that he can share his smile in hopes that it reassures Yuuta, too. After all, he needs it.
“So much has happened the past few months, it feels like a dream. And just right when I think I’ve found my place, Sensei tells me that in two months, I’ll be leaving Japan with Miguel and going...” Yuuta rambles, placing his hands behind his head. “Somewhere. Somewhere far from here.”
“Tuna-mayo,” Inumaki replies, unsure of what to say. He tries to imagine being in Yuuta’s situation, and his mind drifts off. Would his curses work in another language?
His train of thought is interrupted by Yuuta who pipes up again, too loudly against the serene landscape surrounding them for miles. “But I’m glad that one of my last missions will be with Inumaki-kun. Even though I miss Panda-san and Maki-san, I’ll never forget that one of my first missions was with you,” Yuuta’s face brightens up, to which Inumaki feels relieved. “It just feels right that one of my last missions here would be with you, too. Just Inumaki-kun.”
The edge that once existed between the two of them has completely disappeared, with Inumaki confident that Rika wouldn’t burst out of Yuuta and attack their friends, and Yuuta knowing that Inumaki would never mean any harm.
Right, the mission. Inumaki fishes out some mission notes that Gojo-sensei had given him prior to leaving Jujutsu Tech. He pulls on Yuuta’s sleeve, uttering a quiet, “tuna-tuna” to get the boy’s attention. Yuuta scans the mission briefing, picking out the key words.
「 Minimum grade, 2. Aichi-mura Village on the outskirts of Tokyo. Potential curse that activates at the solstice of each season, killing an indiscriminate amount of villagers. Villagers prior to death complained of unexpected heart palpitations and “weight” in the chest area, but had been relatively normal otherwise.
Those close to the victims mention “erratic behavior” in the days leading up to death that is simply excused by the words “in the name of love.”
Possibility that when afflicted, curse victims are either unable to mention that they are affected, or that they do not know that they are affected until deceased.
Curse also affects livestock, who exhibit aggressive courting behavior. Less lethal in animals than humans. Villagers who lived alone had higher risk of dying during the season equinox. Death is violent; tree emerges from the deceased and begins emitting spores.
Village shamans created barriers around the trees to prevent potential spread of contagions.
Gojo Satoru has recommended Okkotsu Yuuta (Special Grade) and Inumaki Toge (Semi- Grade 1.) They departed at 9:15 AM, March 20th by foot. 」
“Seems like a passive curse,” Yuuta sighs, relieved as he can’t imagine the need for Rika to intervene here. He rolls up the piece of paper and sticks it in his pocket, and Inumaki too, releases a sigh of relief. “We should be able to take care of it as soon as possible and then head back home.”
“Shake, ” Inumaki agrees. From the description alone, Inumaki imagines a weak curse that manifests like those mind-controlling spores he sees in nature documentaries, commanding animals to mate and turning humans into trees. He thinks it’s silly, imagining a tiny heart-shaped mushroom protruding from the top of the infecteds’ head, and pictures a horde of hopeless love-zombies.
It’s comical right? Love. A force that’s supposedly so powerful that it’s turned Yuuta’s innocent childhood love into the Queen of Curses and makes people in the movies act so painfully stupid that Inumaki has to purse his lips together to stop laughter from escaping. Some say it’s scary, but Inumaki would never go that far.
Love is funny. At least that’s what Inumaki Toge thinks, as he locks in place every muscle around his mouth to stop himself from bursting into laughter that would surely send the halcyon spring wonderland around them into chaos.
The second that Okkotsu Yuuta enters the grounds of Aichi-mura Village, Inumaki senses danger. Within seconds, the night sky paints itself an impenetrable vantablack and the earth below them splits with a sudden rumble, fracturing the path beneath their feet.
A curtain!?
There’s no time to hesitate. Inumaki rushes to Yuuta’s side, grabbing the boy’s arm. If they’re going to be sealed into an area, he’d rather be sealed together with Yuuta than separated, looking in helplessly. Gojo trusts him with Yuuta, and Inumaki refuses to even imagine the consequences of dishonoring that promise. They haven’t known each other for long, but Inumaki knows that Okkotsu Yuuta is someone he can’t lose.
“Inumaki-kun!” Yuuta’s voice is tinged with fear, his hands searching wildly for Toge in the dark. “Inumaki-kun!”
Inumaki knows that Yuuta’s impossibly strong cursed energy has triggered some kind of trap, bringing out the latent curse that’s been festering under the village grounds. He pulls Yuuta by the collar of his white jacket, removing him from harm’s way.
“Takana,” Inumaki’s voice trails off. Stay calm, Yuuta. “Okkaka…” I’m here.
Inumaki already knows that somewhere along the line of mission assignment procedures, someone had grossly underestimated the difficulty of this mission. He’s used to it, of course, as a first year who’s been sent on plenty of solo missions before. The stronger the cursed spirit, the more variable its abilities are, and the more difficult it is to class anything past grades 3 and 4.
He’s had to face special grade curses before, barely escaping with functional vocal cords. All part of occupational hazards, of course.
Except, Inumaki isn’t alone this time. He’s with Yuuta, who still shows all of the signs of inexperience despite emerging victorious from his legendary showdown on the Night Parade of a Hundred Demons. Yuuta, who’s either the world’s greatest trump card when Rika emerges from within him, or the world’s greatest liability when it’s just Yuuta. Inumaki doesn’t even know if Rika, whose curse was lifted at the end of that night, still manifests the same way.
The curse emerges from the cracks in the ground, a phoenix rising from the dirt-ash, more human than beast. A cursed spirit in the flesh; its many heads a conglomeration of its victims’ faces on display and its hands a series of splintered branches that slam into the ground in front of them, sending seismic waves through the earth.
“Aiiiiiiiiiiiiiii,” the cursed spirit’s many heads let out a discordant symphony of cries, presenting itself before the boys. A spirit who displays nothing but the ugliness and desperation of love, Inumaki thinks, briefly reminded of Orimoto Rika’s manifestation.
None of the boys expected to face such a powerful enemy so soon, and within a curtain no less. Inumaki spares one glance at Yuuta, whose hands are shaking around the handle of his sword.
One glimpse, and Inumaki is instantly reminded of the small, fledgling birds that he and Panda often see during the springtime, writhing in the comfort of their mother’s nest. Yuuta, who looks just as young and vulnerable, despite being the boy-wonder of a sorcerer who’s caused bigger fusses in the jujutsu world than he’ll ever realize.
Inumaki sees a boy who’s scared and lost in the world of monsters, despite being the greatest monster of all due to a stroke of misfortune. All of the power at his fingertips that he can’t even call upon without a huge risk to himself and his surroundings.
A boy like Toge had once been, except his immense power pooled at the tip of his tongue and condemned those who listened to his words. Inumaki gets it. He really does. In that moment, he squints his eyes and Yuuta’s entire future flashes before him.
Yuuta will become strong. There’s no doubt about it.
Inumaki sees a fledgling who’s destined to take his place in the skies as the greatest eagle. A jujutsu sorcerer of near immeasurable strength, second to only Gojo Satoru himself, with pure white wings of an angel and eyes that reflect a curse’s sins right back at them.
But he’s not ready yet.
And that’s why Inumaki has to buy him more time. He makes his decision in a split second, his resolve flaring as he zips down the front of his jacket, revealing his parted mouth.
“Yuu-ta,” Inumaki commands, drawing his energy out with each syllable. The next words scrape against his esophagus on the way up. “Run away.”
Inumaki has been fighting for almost two hours. His throat is parched, and blood streaks the sides of his mouth, where it coagulates and dries on his chapped lips. They’re battle scars that he’s all too used to by now, marring him from within. Unseen.
He’s figured out how sound propagates within this domain — the waves travel slower within the confines of the curtain and he’s only able to curse a batch of the hundreds of heads he’s facing. He’s crushed, twisted, and crumbled more than he can count, and yet the curse is a resilient overgrowth that persists in the face of fire.
Inumaki isn’t surprised. A curse born from love can’t be destroyed so easily, he’s surmised.
With Yuuta on the other side of the curtain, Inumaki puts his faith into his partner’s hands to protect the villagers of Aichi-mura while he fights an enemy that he can only sense with his keen sense of hearing. Behind the opaque black veil that surrounds him for miles, all forms of light are suffocated as soon as they reappear.
But Inumaki Toge doesn’t need to see his opponents to curse them. He knows he’s on his last limbs, fatigue crawling up his muscles as he channels his remaining strength into a single word, a prayer riding on a gamble that leaves his lips with a strength that threatens to tear his mouth open.
“Explode. ”
Inumaki’s final curse echoes throughout the pitch black chamber, reverberating throughout the enclosed space trapping him with this monster of a curse. The certain walls shake, fracture, and crack at concentrated points while the ground shudders so violently, Inumaki can barely stand.
The curse rears its ugly heads at Inumaki for what he hopes is the last time, all of its faces contorted into nightmarish portraits of horror, letting out a final blood curdling shriek that sounds through the night, and bursts.
Bursts in a flash of light as bright as the death of a star millions of miles away, a brilliant supernova that sears the back of Inumaki’s eyelids before his raised wrists can protect him. The curse explodes like a shattered glass ball that’s been shot by a bullet. Fragments fly out from the epicenter of the blast, and Inumaki, too exhausted to run, is caught in it.
Inumaki is struck by a shooting star, square in the chest— a shard lodged in his heart.
The last sight Inumaki remembers is Okkotsu Yuuta ripping a hole through the once-impermeable black shroud— how the hell did he do that? — screaming his name as he begins falling, without a single care for grace, into a darkness that engulfs him whole.
When Inumaki opens his eyes, he’s in a completely new dimension, standing in a pool of viscous ambrosia that traps him around his ankles. He faces the same many-headed curse of love that now stares down at him condescendingly with far too many eyes and spells out his fate with its wicked tongue.
Its name is Lovefiend. A sentient curse born from the anxiety of dying alone, who visits the afflicted in dreams and feeds off the negative energy that comes with unrequited love, isolation, and the anxiety that precedes inevitable death.
See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil — a curse that knows how to hide itself from sorcerers by tucking away into the chambers of a victim’s heart. A curse that when spoken about, kills the host immediately.
There’s a “love seed” the size of a baby’s balled up fist that’s nestled itself in the folds of Inumaki’s heart. When it blooms, it rips him apart from the inside out and becomes a splendid tree that emits spores that infect those who come near it. A “love bomb,” the spirit explains with far too much candor.
Love and be loved — a powerful curse with a balanced, “simple” undoing. If the victim falls in love and that love is returned before the solstice of the next season, there’s nothing for the curse to feed on. The shackles on his heart will fall away, dissipate into nothing as if they’ve never existed in the first place.
A lonely death —Inumaki’s fate if he doesn’t follow the restrictions set before him.
A death that he might even choose, Inumaki already thinks, so that he doesn’t burden anyone else with such a curse.
Inumaki wakes up a second time, a familiar cursed energy humming over his body, stitching together the skin over his wounds. He feels a surprising wetness splash over him, fat droplets of hot rain that slide down his cheek despite not coming from his eyes.
“Please… please help me save Inumaki-kun! I’ll do anything. Rika, please.”
Ah. Inumaki’s eyes flutter, his lids growing heavier by the minute as the feeling of safety washes over him. Though there’s a new weight in his head that’s as heavy as lead, he feels someone’s hand tighten around his, searching for a pulse.
Yuuta.