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Suguru’s dorm light was flickering again. Satoru stared blankly at the foot of the bed, his mind a million worlds away and his body hovering in that plane, too, cocooned in cosmic hum. His fingertips were warm against his thigh, thrumming with his pulse, unsteady and skipping, racing to match his newfound power, thicker blood—red.
“—toru,” Suguru poked him, and Satoru was swept back into reality.
“Huh?” he turned. “What is it?”
“Look at this.”
Satoru, though his eyes had felt strained recently, hadn’t needed to rest them today, so he peered over his frames and watched as Suguru coughed up a curse. “You’re gonna set off the alarm,” he said mildly, though he figured no one would really care, too used to the alerts of foreign cursed presences due to Suguru’s wayward usage; that had been part of the problem, actually, the reason no backup had arrived until too late. Satoru shook the thought off.
“Everyone’s too distracted,” Suguru shrugged. He held out his hand, and the black sphere organized itself into a smaller one, which unfurled into—
“The curse,” Satoru said, startled, “the one that Zenin had.” It sat still, an ugly thing, mouth pursed and drooling a little. “You took it?”
“I found it afterwards, when I came to get you,” said Suguru. He looked excited when Satoru glanced his direction, hair somewhat greasy, bun messy, but eyes gleaming in a way Satoru hadn’t seen in the past two weeks, since. “Now look.”
He held his hand out, and the curse obliged, spitting a sword up hilt-first, which Suguru grasped and pulled out slowly. The weapon teemed with cursed energy, glaring to Satoru, who shifted to look at it from behind the safety of his glasses. Its glint cut across the ambient cursed energy of the room, a too-bright streak, the same blaze that’d broken from Suguru’s curse as Zenin Toji emerged unscathed from its insides.
“All his weapons?” Satoru asked. He peered closer only to flinch back when a too-familiar spear tip began emerging from the curse. He could see the odd dip of energy around it, an absence distorting the air, and suddenly Infinity felt paper-thin, the air thinner. Satoru shifted closer to the edge of the bed, eyeing it. “That one—”
“It messes with techniques, right?” Suguru reached for it—Satoru stared, unblinking, breath caught in his throat—and when his hand was near enough the blade, the curse began squirming, bleating unhappily. Suguru tossed the weapon to the foot of the bed, where it landed near soundlessly, and the worm fell quiet, once again obedient.
They both stared at the black hole sitting innocuously on the rustled sheets. Satoru’s scar ached, neck to waist, the phantom sensation of being flayed, of determination gouged out leaving only desperation behind. He touched it, the raised skin where Toji had stabbed him blind, and felt his jaw clench. “We should destroy it.”
“Destroy it?” Suguru considered. “It could be useful, if we ever need to nullify a technique.”
Satoru shook his head, gaze stuck on the weapon. “No, no, we should,” he said. “It’s—dangerous.” The words stung his throat, the admittance unwieldy.
Suguru didn’t argue further. “Can you even?” he only asked.
“Why not? I don’t need to use a technique, just my cursed energy.” Sliding from the bed, Satoru stood over the weapon, feeling its odd aura buffeting his own. He felt a nauseating swirl of perhaps anxiety, a bite of anger collecting with it in his chest, and when he channeled cursed energy to his palm, it was all bundled there, a storm of dense wrath and agitation.
The blaze of cursed energy was so bright that Satoru squinted even behind his glasses. He ignored Suguru’s shout, “Not on my bed!” as he thrust the torrent at the weapon, and upon meeting a moment of resistance, pushed further, saw the blade’s integrity pop, and then it was gone—disintegrated. So was the corner of Suguru’s mattress.
“I hate you,” Suguru sighed after a second.
Satoru heard himself in the silence, breathing heavier than he should have been, before he gave a harsh exhale of his own, forcibly quieted, and shoved a grin to his face. “It’s on my side of the bed anyway.”
Suguru rolled his eyes with a fond huff but didn’t respond, already pulling two more knives from the curse’s depths. One was a cursed tool and the other not, but both set Satoru back on edge, reminding him of the one he’d drawn from his skull as he healed. It was too easy to envision a reality in which Toji had stabbed him with one that kept Satoru slain—though, perhaps nothing would be changed other than his own death; he’d killed Toji when it was all already over.
Satoru sat unsteadily on the bed again. “What else—” He swallowed. “What else is in it?”
“Let’s see,” Suguru said. A sword emerged next, followed by a long kama-yari that they propped against the wall. One by one, the curse delivered Toji’s weapons to Suguru’s waiting hand: a tanto, blade glinting in the flickering light, a red three-section staff that Satoru thought he recognized vaguely, a pistol, a pair of jitte flaring with an embedded fire technique.
“Where did he get all these?” Satoru asked. “None of these are Zenin weapons.”
The curse drooled a metal chain loop into Suguru’s palm, and Suguru hooked it with his finger, slowly withdrawing link after link. “There’s more to sorcerers than the three clans,” he said, then his expression contorted. “Besides, he used a fucking gun anyway, nothing at all like a sorcerer. It was—he killed Riko like—like a fucking—barbarian. What was the point?”
“The point…” Satoru echoed blankly. “Money, I guess, right?” But then, why had Toji stayed to fight when Satoru found him at the Time Vessel Association hideout, afterwards? Why hadn’t he run, if his job had been complete? Why had he looked like that, at the end, that haunted, sad expression?
“I guess.” Suguru shoulders slumped, and he was still distractedly pulling—
“That chain,” Satoru said, and Suguru paused. They stared at the coils of metal on the bed, a large pile now. Satoru had to bite back a smile, morose as he was. “Doesn’t look like you’re gonna find the end.”
Suguru huffed a laugh, the sound striking Satoru as odd; it felt like ages since he’d heard even a whisper of joy. “Is that all the weapons, then?” Suguru asked. He fed the pile of chains back into the curse before cocking his head at it, gaze keen. “My sense of it…it feels like there’s more.”
“A bunch of flyheads and other common curses,” Satoru warned, making a face. “I’m not helping you clean them up if they get everywhere.”
“He probably spent all of them fighting you.” Suguru held his hand out, but instead of the flare of cursed energy, Satoru saw instead a cloth. With a yank, it came free and unbundled: a sweater.
Satoru looked over his glasses. “What’s that?”
“Looks like the bastard got cold sometimes,” Suguru scoffed.
But the next item to come from the curse was another sweater, then pants, old boots that might’ve once been sturdy, then a zip-up jacket. Satoru and Suguru shared a quiet, confused look before Suguru continued. Largely, the curse contained clothing, mainly bulky winter-wear, the type that was difficult to store, most of it a little threadbare and worn down, washed ragged, along with some books, a pillow and blanket, an empty duffel bag, a Walkman.
Satoru sat back, feeling something sickly crawling under his skin, a beetle squirming at the pit of his stomach. It was…intimate, wrongly so. These were a dead man’s belongings. His gaze caught on the Walkman, scratched and well-used, headphone wire tangled. What was the last song Toji had listened to? Which had been his favorite? …Why did Satoru care?
He tried to calm his twitchiness, but— “Suguru,” he said.
“Hm?” Suguru pulled out an expensive-looking watch and dropped it carelessly on the sheets. Something about the disdain in that action made Satoru clam up. “What?” Suguru asked again and this time looked at Satoru’s expression, which brought pause. “Is it too improper? To handle his things like this?” He looked chastened for a moment before his frown deepened. “If there’s anyone to hate, it’d be him,” Suguru sighed, “but I guess you’re right.”
Satoru didn’t know how to say it, that it wasn’t even about propriety or hate or anything but the odd swirl lodged behind his ribs. He couldn’t stop looking at the Walkman. He imagined Toji, the man who’d grinned while stabbing him, listening to music as he…did what? Satoru didn’t know. The image of Toji in Satoru’s mind was stuck as flashes of the battle. It was—discomfiting to think of him outside those terms, wearing these worn sweaters and reading books and changing the cassette on his player.
Suguru didn’t seem bothered though and kept removing items from the curse, and soon there were gambling slips, two umbrellas: one black and the other child-sized and froggy-themed, rolled wads of cash, and a few boxes of cigarettes all piling into a stack in the center of Suguru’s bed. Despite himself, Satoru shifted closer, curious at the array. “I guess having an inventory curse is convenient,” he murmured.
A calendar notebook—2003—was next, and when Suguru put it on top of the pile, it slipped down to land near Satoru. Tentatively, he opened it, flipping to January, seeing written in sloppy handwriting: grocery sale; horse race; 1-month well-check visit, perhaps for the kid; date night - buy ice cream?? rent DVD, underlined twice, on a Saturday. In February, Satoru found a second well-check visit, more store sales, and at the end of the month, Mika - hospital. In March were more entries, none frivolous—Mika - hospital, Mika - hospital, pharmacy pick up, pack for hospital, Mika—only a few days apart until there were none at all. It was a morbid sense of…not curiosity, but maybe penance, in some form, that made Satoru turn the page again, then another, finding only blank calendars. An empty April stared back at him, empty May, empty June, like the world had ended then for Toji.
Satoru felt sick. He snapped the notebook closed, shoving it into the pile, and sat back again against the headboard, rolling his shoulders to give himself something to do, to appear casual, as though that could help. The back of his throat tasted bitter, an aching sympathy that didn’t quite fit, that felt wrong to feel; it didn’t staunch the bleeding anyway, the sense of something—everything—slipping between his fingers.
“Look at this,” Suguru said, and even he’d gone a little somber now. Satoru didn’t want to know, but Suguru leaned over and showed him. To Megumi, from Mom, 5th birthday; To Megumi, from Mom, 6th birthday; To Megumi, from Mom—
One of them was open, 14th birthday, and Suguru held it out to Satoru who skimmed it reluctantly: Happy birthday my sweet son!—Are there flying cars yet?—Makes sure your dad celebrates his birthday, too, instead of just the New Year, okay?—Stay warm. Good luck. Love, Mom
Satoru was silent. “Suguru,” he said eventually. He stared blankly at the heap of Toji’s effects. In the time he’d been distracted, more had appeared—a folded photo of the woman, Mika, smiling brightly wearing gardening gloves, a locket that Satoru didn’t dare open, a knitted scarf—and it washed over Satoru like acid at high tide, up to his neck and the burning scar there, how much there was and how this wasn’t even all of it probably but only the things Toji had been able to keep.
“So he had a kid, huh?” Suguru said, voice grim. He was holding a pair of child’s shoes, light-up sneakers with velcro straps, that looked nearly brand-new.
“Yeah,” Satoru said, so faintly he wasn’t even sure the word left his mouth. Those letters, those shoes, these toys that Suguru was now drawing out of the curse—they were made of…love and hope, for someone Mika wouldn’t see grow up, for someone she wanted to instill with courage and fortune, for someone Toji had been trying to take care of. For—
A child, Satoru thought to himself, feeling shattered. He’d known, of course, as Toji had said as much, that there was a kid, but Toji had been so nonchalant then, his words apathetic even as he used his last breath to speak them. Satoru had not considered that kid a child, one who’d been cared for like this, one who’d lost his mother and now his father, too.
“Do as you please,” Toji had said, so what was this? Crayon drawings of a family, some with only a father and son, others with a woman and sister, too. Action figures and toy fire trucks. A well-worn dog plushie with a carefully sewn button to replace a missing eye. Coloring and handwriting books. Dinosaur-patterned band-aids. What were these mementos, these memories? Satoru picked up the photo of Mika from before and ran a thumb along it, tracing the path of the person who’d done the same a thousand times before. He tried to envision Toji gazing at this picture, at her smile, after her death, and all Satoru could conjure was the same expression Toji had worn at the end.
At the end, when Satoru had killed him—a person, who in life had loved: Toji. He’d killed Toji.
Satoru went to his room later thinking nothing at all. “Night,” he’d said vaguely as Suguru showed him out, and his feet had led him down the hallway. He found himself in the bathroom, glasses removed, staring at himself in the mirror. Lost, shaken eyes, six, looked back. Satoru watched as his hands slowly undid his uniform jacket. His reflection blankly removed its clothing, the pieces dropping to the ground, out of sight, and when entirely naked stood still. The long raised line of the scar twisted up its torso, neck to hip—a second spine, it felt like, new scaffolding built on blood for his awakened power.
Satoru touched where the slash intersected with the center of his chest. Underneath this mangled skin, why did it feel so hollow? A hand lifted his hair from his forehead, and he stared at himself, the bleak bathroom light washing his skin and hair out even paler. Everything had felt so right in that moment, cursed energy aligned so perfectly with his body, a nebula lining his skin and his mind aglow. But now—
Why had Satoru killed him? Where now was the vindictive, delirious glee? The first thing Satoru had thought when he woke alive on the bloody stones had been, I did it. It hadn’t been fear then, afterwards. But there’d been a moment before, a split second of terror as the blade slid into his neck. Perhaps it was vengeance for that, the first time someone had made him afraid at all. But what had he been scared of? Death? No—failure: not being who he was meant to be, who he was, the Six-Eyed one who should have been unconquerable. So it had been a selfish proclamation, killing Toji.
Because now Satoru knew what fear of death truly looked like: crinkled photos and prewritten letters, torn out pages of baby care magazines, new child-sized winter gloves next to larger ones with holes. What happened after death? Satoru had never given it much thought, but he grasped now, at least in part, what Toji had when he’d said, resigned and mourning, “Do as you please.” In dying, you lost the ability to care for the ones you loved, who you protected.
So Toji had died as he’d lived, invisible and in grief. Satoru wanted to tell him now that he saw, that he understood what life had meant to Toji and what he’d truly lost in being killed: not himself, but his child. But this was death, after all; it was too late.
These eyes saw everything, almost too much. With them covered, Satoru had catalogued six dimensions of his past and present in infrared technicolor, flames of curses and duller echolocated impressions of cursed energy threading between grass and stone, down avenues of his clan home, the city, the school. Within it were the moments he’d truly seen, clarity cherished and haunting both: Shoko stealing his glasses and leaving fingerprints, Suguru laughing as he plucked a leaf from Satoru’s hair, late-night conbini trips, constellations from where they sat in the park that one night, Suguru’s panic when Satoru was speared by a sword, Toji’s expression at the moment he realized it was over, when the first splatter of blood hit the ground. There’d been so much, Satoru remembered, that the afternoon sun reflected in it.
It would stay with him, he knew, both the feelings of providence from that day, his body made of cosmic dust as he hung suspended in the air and converged infinities, and the penitence in the weeks after, as he realized that he’d killed someone—a person who he, in some odd, distant, instinctive way, achingly believed might’ve been the same as him, that Satoru might’ve understood—for nothing.
This technique could make him a god, a celestial body strung amongst the stars. Perhaps, in the Gojo clan, they even wished for it. But attending the school and meeting Suguru, Satoru had learned to think of protecting humans, to see them not as washes of cursed energy but as people—and Suguru had stopped him from killing the Time Vessel members, calling it pointless, and Satoru wondered and wished what it would have been like if Suguru had stopped him from killing Toji, too, if he’d asked then what reason Satoru had, to make him realize that there was none—and if Satoru wanted to remain himself, not the Strongest, then he could never allow himself such detached transcendence again.
But even the Six Eyes could not see the future. He hadn’t seen yet how how Suguru would throw that very conflict in his face, nor how Suguru would walk away from him, saying, “Kill me if you’d like. There’s meaning in that, too.” And Satoru would stand in the street with the world spiraling around him, curl his hand in the same way to form the same Hollow Purple that had killed Toji, and think of this night—how he’d looked at himself in the mirror and found no meaning at all, after the end.
Of course, there would have been a purpose to killing Suguru then, more than in hunting Toji. Satoru would have been protecting many. He would have been protecting himself. But that day, with the sun bright overhead, watching Suguru’s back as he walked away, Satoru would know with a sharp certainty that he would have to be the one to kill Suguru, eventually, but he would be selfish and scared. Not yet, not yet, he’d bargain, I don’t want to see this, and he’d still his hand as he felt, himself, what it meant to fear death.