Chapter Text
The first thing he remembered was pain – true and excruciating. The type of pain that doesn’t make you scream, but in opposite makes you go silent, eyes wide opened to a bright light and voices around mixing into a disturbing white noise. If it was death, he thought, it better hurry up and take him red-handed in a way that a traitor like him should be taken. If it was death, he thought, then why the light felt so real?
“Double the dose.” The low female voice broke through multiple layers of sound. “Triple if needed, we don’t need him jumping around the table like a windup doll.”
But he was a windup doll. Just a usual broken windup doll.
(if it was death, he thought, wouldn’t it feel less like a punishment and more like being forgotten in the end of an empty shelf?)
***
“I want to introduce to you a person, who’s going to assist closely on our missions till the end of the crisis.”
Utahime was the only one standing in the room full of people. Through a half-closed door Kokichi could have seen students of Kyoto Jujutsu High scattered around the floor, all looking good ten years older than they actually were and extremely, extremely tired. There was Mai, sitting down with a heavy book in her hands, Noritoshi prepping his back against the wall with his eyes closed. Momo and Aoi were getting along surprisingly well, now being far away from being concentrated on a card game that was ongoing right in front of them. There was a person missing.
Miwa wasn’t there.
“Due to safety reasons – ours and theirs – their location should stay disguised till the seal on Satoru Gojo will be broken. I suppose I state clear the intention behind these words, don’t I?”
Everyone nodded. Mai tilted her head slightly. “Using leadership privileges to hide someone from witch hunt that’s unravelling outside?”
“It’s more of a personal matter.”
“How is it?”
Utahime smiled politely and continued unbothered. “They are also a student of Jujutsu High and right now it’s better for us to accept any help offered, especially from strong allies with proven worth.”
The silence that suddenly appeared inside of the room made Mechamaru feel like he was about to threw his own guts right in front of this fucking door. It was a weird feeling, a feeling of having an actual alive and functioning body, a feeling that he hadn’t have for so long he was struggling to remember the last time it happened. He put a hand on top of his chest, feeling his heartbeat echo right through his bandaged skin. How could he do this after all? How could he just show up, alive and well, after leaving them all behind and for what? For his own purely selfish reasons, for his own purely selfish traumas, for his own wicked purely broken body. Was it ever worth it, after all?
(Where’s Miwa?)
Was it?
“Their name is Kokichi Muta, a semi-grade one sorcerer,” she took a step aside, opening the door without a warning. Light hit Maru’s eyes with already known sharp pain. “Previously known to you as Mechamaru.”
He heard Mai dropped the book she was holding and it was all it took for the hell to unravel.
“You don’t get to bring back people who almost got us killed!” Momo jumped on her feet, flipping the cards right in Todo’s face. “You know what he got us though, you know what he got Miwa…”
“The decision was made due to higher forces lacking perception right now.”
“With all the respect, isn’t this decision the exact thing that is lacking perception?” he saw Noritoshi scan him up and down several times, stopping every time his gaze brushed against a new pair of tight bandages. “We may be in need of help, but the help itself can’t be coming from a source that will be separating the group.”
People were talking about him as he wasn’t even in the same room. New and new arguments, each one more and more cruel, were popping up like crazy, and the noise started to put his head though a new wave of pain. Was it really worth it, coming back, if no one could ever treat him like a friend again?
Utahime was way more resistant than Kokichi. She was standing tall and strong, not flinching even once at her student’s outbursts. It was chaos, pure chaos, and yet somehow his teacher seemed to be as sure in her decision as ever. It took Iori some time to get annoyed by all the noise. She raised a hand in the air, but surprisingly it wasn’t the gesture that made everyone go silent.
Mai was.
“He can take a binding vow.” she said. “A binding vow that will make him stay true to the teacher. The school itself is a shaky ground, we can’t surely say that we’ll follow its path till the end right now. But a person, especially a trusting person in power – it could work.”
Their eyes met for a quick second. Zenin didn’t look too happy with his return, but also wasn’t as mad as Momo or as suspicious as Noritoshi. She kind of just… was there. In a room with all of them, picking her book back up, searching for the page she lost with a straight face. It seemed like it couldn’t bother her less if there was one person more in their group, and somehow it was the best reaction Mechamaru could have ever hoped for.
“The structure of a binding vow will take some time to build. For now you all will stay here until further notice.” Utahime spared Mai a knowing look. Zenin didn’t look back. “We will need all of you to fight against the Culling Game when the time comes. Beware of the consequences your actions towards each other may have on the battlefield.” She turned around. “Dismissed.”
“We weren’t even gathered.” Momo spitted back angrily.
“Then you are just free to go. Does that one suit you better?” Utahime smiled politely before propping her hand on Kokichi’s back. “Now please excuse us, there is some business that needs to be taken care of.”
Just after the door slid closed behind his back, Mechamaru felt his heart start beating again.
“They hate me.” He said. “It was useless to think it could be otherwise.”
“They don’t hate you.” Utahime answered. “Momo may seem a little on edge, but it’s just because she was the one staying by Miwa’s side since Shibuya incident. She may seem quite careless at first, but she has this unbelievable bond with the girls… it hurts her physically to see them struggle.”
Was Miwa hurt then? He never had a chance to ask anyone directly about her, he didn’t feel like he had the right to do so. Not after he caused her so much pain, not after he let her down so badly. If it felt so wrong to be allowed as a part of the group again he could only imagine how hard the sickening feeling will struck when he gets to see Kasumi.
“Why didn’t you just let me die?” he asked the question that was stuck in his head from the first time he opened his eyes.
Mahito killed him, he remembered it too vividly to forget. He died and it wasn’t like a light in the end of the tunnel or any poetic metaphor he had ever lied his eyes on. Death that came for him was slow and painful, like a cut that kept bleeding till the blood began to look dark red, almost black, dirty with all the sins that were done with his own cursed hands. It was a death he deserved after getting too wrapped up in racing evil for his own selfish desires. It was a painful, slow and humiliating torture, but at some point.
At some point he could have sworn that he saw Miwa got down on the bloody grass next to him, caressing his hair with light motions. He could have sworn he saw her stay by his side, but when sorcerers arrived there was no one else besides his own bleeding corpse. His heart stopped beating, but he was too ill-fated to just leave. So they brought him back.
They stitched back his mutilated body with needles and threads and cursed energy, they bandaged his bleeding wounds, they started his heart again for the reasons that still remained unknown to him. Kokichi Muta died and was brought back by jujutsu sorcerers to be hidden inside the school till the unsealing of Gojo Satoru. A choice made for him by others, the one that had put a red mark on Utahime’s forehead with nothing in return. Why?
Why?
“Because I know better than leaving one of my students to die.”
Kokichi suddenly found it very hard to keep walking. He stopped, looking at his precious teacher slowly walking farther and farther away from him. But how could she still do it? How could she still consider him one of the group after all he had done? Was it just pity for his scarred destiny, or was it something more? Something meaningful, something warm, something that feels like a noisy family dinner or like being silently covered with a fluffy blanket when you accidently fell asleep on the couch?
Almost like being able to read his mind, Iori turned around:
“You don’t threw your kids away after they make a mistake. You punish them appropriately and make sure they won’t fall into the same trap again. That’s how you teach and that’s how they learn.” She tilted her head slightly. “You are a selfless person who happened to make a selfish mistake, Kokichi. There is no reason for me to banish you from my list of students. I will protect you with all I have as long as it will be humanly possible, but the rest is left for you. Do you think you can manage it?”
Suddenly he felt like throwing his guts up on the floor.
“I… I think I can try.”
“You think?”
“I will try, Utahime-san.”
He could have sworn that he saw a shadow of a warm smile slip through Utahime’s serious facade. “That’s a nice way to start.”
She turned around again and slowed her pace down a little so Muta wouldn’t have any problem with keeping up again. He was indeed extremely grateful for this little act of kindness, because his body still felt a whole much out of control/ His healing skin under bandages hurt and itched with every move. He felt like one of his first purely made dolls – with sloppy movements and wobbly joints all over the place.
Utahime walked for some time before stopping in front of a closed door. It was a weird placement for an unlabelled room, Kokichi thought to himself, since it was right inside of the stuff’s wing of the long old-fashioned building full with conference rooms and archives, all of which had numbers or names on them to assist in coordinating people who weren’t an everyday part of Kyoto school. Was it a place where he would be staying from now on? Far away from students’ dorms, not to disturb anyone with the fact that he is a traitor indeed and this traitor is more than alive.
“Why are we here?” he asked.
Instead of answering, Utahime knocked on the door several times. There was no answer. She shrugged before reaching for the doorhandle and sliding the door open without anyone’s permission. It took Muta a moment to adjust his eyes to a bright light that was coming in though huge panoramic windows right in from of the entrance – his eyesight still worked badly since his head was stitched up back together literally the day before. In-between the windows there was an opened door that led to the private garden of the school. He traced the room in search for some clues, but it was blank and empty and almost felt more like a prison cell than an actual room. He dragged his gaze alongside pale peach walls, wooden floors, to big sparkling-clean windows and to the little stairs that led to the garden. When he reached the end of the room with his eyes, he froze.
There was a young girl sitting down on a little staircase leading to the garden. She was silently looking at flowers, completely unbothered by unexpected guests showing up. Utahime knocked again, loudly this time, and it seemed to attract girl’s attention. She turned around quickly, putting a tired smile on her face.
Unmistakable blue hair. Same blue eyes now framed with deep dark circles. The same face he saw in front of his eyes seconds before passing out in the pool of his own cold blood.
“Hi, my name is Kasumi Miwa, I hope we will all be friends!”
“Good morning, Utahime-san!”
Iori smiled back, but the look in her eyes still was noticeably concerned. “Good morning. Sorry for showing up without a notice, I hope we didn’t disrupt any of your plans?”
“Don’t worry about it.” Kasumi tried to thin out some wrinkles on her shirt. “You know I have no plans to disrupt to begin with.”
It was the first time Kokichi saw her like this: at homely atmosphere, wearing a shirt and some fluffy house pants, looking so exhausted it was painful to watch. He didn’t remember her being so thin. Miwa always was more of a smaller completion, but now she looked bony, almost sick. It wasn’t right, he thought to himself.
“I brought a visitor with me.”
“I see.” Miwa nodded, locking eyes with Muta. The overwhelming guilt washed over his head and it felt as painful as drowning if he’d ever experienced one. “Hi. My name’s…”
“I don’t think this one will be needed, dear.” Utahime stepped inside of the room, gesturing Kokichi to do the same. She sat down next to Miwa, leaving him standing beside them alone. “He already knows you.”
“How come so?”
Iori looked up at him, silently checking again if he didn’t change his mind. Muta had a chance to say that he did, that he chose to withdraw from his selfish feelings in order to protect the peace of a person that he truly and hopelessly loved, he had his last chance to choose to act under disguise and never show his face again, but the truth was painfully simple - Kokichi Muta was never strong enough.
So he nodded.
“This young man’s name is Kokichi Muta, he’s going to be staying under our wing till situation with Satoru Gojo will be resolved. He knows your name because you have already met.”
His newly alive heart was beating so fast he swore it could broke down from the pressure, leaving him breathless again. Hands were sweaty, bandages were itching. Suddenly all of the clothes didn’t feel right, suddenly his own skin didn’t fit right over his bones. He wanted to disappear and step closer at the same time, to scream and seal his mouth shut forever, to slap himself so hard it would leave a mark and to touch Miwa’s hand as lightly it would go unnoticed.
“His old name is Mechamaru. He is back to assist us with the Culling Game.”