Chapter Text
“Over and over, I keep going over the world we knew
Once when you walked beside me
That inconceivable, that unbelievable world we knew
When we two were in love.”
- Frank Sinatra
The morning light filtered through the glass panes of Yaga’s office casting pale, shining rays onto the floorboards. Suguru glanced back at the principal, hunched over the desk, fingers pressed together, his heavy gaze settled over the pair like an iron blanket.
“You’ve been called in for an assignment.” His voice resounded throughout the room, laced with darts of nostalgia. Flying through the thick, early morning air of the room, they struck Suguru. If he tried, he could almost imagine that this was another time, not so long ago, when he had met a boy, in this very room, with eyes as vast and deep as the sea yet as bright and shining as the sky above, and had prepared for his very first mission. He could feel the anticipation rising in his stomach, coiling like a snake up through his chest.
The feeling deflated soon, though.
This wasn’t that time.
This time everything was different. The boy was familiar, so was the scene. He supposed the storyline was familiar, too, but less so. He hadn’t been on a mission with Satoru since it had happened.
It had changed everything. After, Satoru hadn’t been just a boy any more, he had truly become ‘The Strongest”, he had left the ledge on which they had stood together and had continued the climb, higher and higher and Suguru had been left behind with nothing left to do but gaze up at his shining light or to brood at the darkness inside of him.
He wasn’t strong enough and sometimes the light got too blinding.
There was so much dark, it was drowning him. Sometimes, when he lay awake at night, Suguru could almost hear it whispering to him, dismembered voices of curses that told him of humans’ worst desires. He had tried, desperately, not to listen.
It hadn’t worked.
The more he listened, the more he wondered. Who was he really doing this for? Was this who he was doing this for? Was this who people were dying for? These disgusting creatures whose foul desires sprang up like hives in the world to torment him? To torment his friends? These disgusting creatures who had cheered and clapped as an innocent girl’s corpse had been presented to them. These disgusting, repulsive creatures that swam in his stomach, whose foul stench swam into his mind like a pollution and corroded him from inside out.
These…monkeys…?
Was that really what they were? What his parents were? He couldn’t be sure…
Nothing made sense anymore.
Suguru was so tired.
The summer had barely begun and he had already been sent out to exorcise a curse everyday this week. On occasion, even more than one. A pattern was beginning to form.
Excorise. Absorb. Over and Over. Again and Again.
The taste of a cursed spirit that no one else knows.
Like swallowing whole a rag that was used to wipe up vomit.
Excorcise. Absorb.
The things he’d been telling himself ever since that day.
Ever since that day.
In the back of dingy alleys missing the sound of Satoru’s lighthearted voice as he called to go to some sweet shop or cafe to distract him from the taste, to bring him back to a normal world where the rising of the sun didn't feel like torture.
He was alone now.
Excorcise. Abso -
“Sensei! I can’t believe it took you this long to finally get us a mission together again! It was getting so boring excorcising all on my own…It was boring for you too, right, Suguru?” The voice pierced through Suguru’s thoughts, bringing him back to the office, the comforting smell of old books.
Suguru glanced at the figure beside him, all the tall, gangly limbs and cocky smiles that had been missing from his life since the death of Riko Amanai. The limbs were still gangly, the smiles a bit less cocky, more plastered on, like a mask.
Suguru felt his own mask slip over his face, (Easily. He had been wearing it almost constantly for the past few weeks.) and nodded, the ghost of a smile appearing on his face.
Satoru opened his mouth, as if to speak, studied Suguru’s face and falteringly closed it, turning back toward Yaga.
The man cleared his throat and continued. “As I was saying, you’ve been assigned on this mission together because we have reason to believe that this curse is a tricky one - there have been reports of people acting strangely after coming into contact with it.”
Suguru hummed, of course, to dain to put them together again, the curse had to be “tricky”. There was no need for it otherwise, to waste the valuable sorcerer manpower that was running on so low a supply. He looked up at the shining figure above him, Satoru didn’t need him to exorcise regular curses anymore, after all.
“The curse seems to target pairs and at this point there have been several-“
“Blah Blah,” Satoru’s lilting voice chimes over the principal’s, who fixes him with a hard stare “Sorry, Sensei, but I’m not sure we need the low down.”
A pause, a familiar steely glint arriving in Satori’s face.
“After all, we’re the-“
And the wave of nostalgia that rises from within him is so great it threatens to choke Suguru. An order like the venom of a dying snake bursts from his lips.
“Don’t…Don’t say that.” His words pollute the air. “Just, don’t.”
Satoru’s smile vanishes from his face like a kicked puppy and Suguru swears another part of his rotten heart dies with the look on his face. He hates himself, but it’s just too painful to listen to him talk like he used to, like everything’s the same, like they’ll go on like nothing changed. Because everything has.
Suguru turns to Yaga, ignoring Satoru, whose head is now firmly fixed to the wall, staring resolutely.
Suguru doesn’t miss how slightly his lips tremble and his brows furrow.
“We’ll do the mission. I’ll look over the casefiles…later.”
Yaga stares at him for a second with an expression Suguru can’t quite read, then shakes his head and sighs.
“Okay, okay, just be ready at 5:00 tonight. I’ll have someone send you the details.” He turns over the file in his hands, almost contemplatively. “Good luck.”
Suguru nods and rolls the cracks out of his shoulders before walking toward the door and almost instinctively, glances back at Satoru, he’s still staring, brows furrowed in confusion. Suguru swallows his guilt like bile and walks out the door, heading toward his dorm.
He wonders how many more times he can walk away before he’s past the point of return.
He stops at Shoko’s along the way, mumbles something like “Don’t feel like talking.” and takes a pack of cigarettes, ignoring the look of worry plastered across her face and her attempts to talk to him, just as he’s been doing for the past week.
He slumps down on his bed.
Buries his face in the pillow.
Mind empty.
Ever since that day…
.
.
A text alert.
His arm flails, reaching for his phone, he pulls it towards his face.
Ah, the case info…he should probably read it.
He pulls himself up into a sitting position and reads through the document. There’s not a lot of information, but there’s enough for Suguru to realise that this is indeed, a tricky curse.
The curse is a special grade, obviously, and works over a distance. The curse targets pairs of people and after exposure to the curse the pairs would experience drastic personality changes, almost as though they had become an entirely different person, all memories of their previous life completely replaced by those of another. The curse doesn’t seem to have any malignant intentions, the only lasting effect is the personality changes and so far the 4 pairs of people involved have not recovered and are being taken care of by jujutsu officials.
So, a non-malignant curse that only reveals itself to pairs of people…it's definitely not a normal curse…is it even a curse at all?
Another explanation for the joint mission.
Suguru checks the time on his phone, 4:30 huh? He really had zoned out for a long time.
He pulls himself out of bed and wanders to his bathroom, pulling the loose strands of his hair into a knot and dusting the creases out of his uniform. He haltingly looks at himself in the mirror.
He looks awful.
Deep, hollow circles under his eyes, sunken cheeks and pale skin. He meets his own lifeless eyes.
Is this really what you’ve come to, Suguru?
Sighing, he splashes his face with water and leaves his room.
.
He’s waiting on the steps of Jujutsu High, silently smoking a cigarette, late afternoon sun drenching the world in its thick honey.
Satoru appears from the building and walks up to Suguru, eyes shielded by the circular frames of his sunglasses but Suguru can feel their fire on him like blue flame; hot enough to burn him alive.
Part of Suguru wishes that they would. Maybe it would be for the best, his death along with the filth inside of him. There would be worse ways to go than being consumed by his fire.
A final exorcism.
“You ready?” Satoru says, slowly, as if he isn’t sure about what he’s saying, or, there’s more he wants to say, but isn’t.
Suguru shrugs and puts out his cigarette.
“I guess.”
The air between them is heavy with the weight of words unsaid.
A car rolls toward them and they sit at opposite ends, staring out of opposite windows.
They’re driving for a while, two hours later and the sun hangs low in the sky, golden sunlight dripping like honey over the world. They arrive at a small crater, the middle of nowhere. Nestled in its folds is a small shack, a faint aura exudes from the area, but it’s something other than cursed, more like something ancient, something quietly, but firmly, powerful.
“We’re here.” The driver turns to glance at the pair. “I’ll be waiting for you to finish. Good luck.”
They nod.
.
The pair slowly walk toward the shack, surveying the large, flat space carved out in the landscape by a meteor that had supposedly fallen to earth a few years ago. Now this site was regarded with superstition by many local people as well as on online forums and websites. Rumour was that coming here could forge deep, celestial connections between people even across generations and throughout time and that this process was random, utterly irreversible and life changing. The amalgamation of this superstition led to this cursed spirits formation, apparently.
The closer they get to the house, the more Suguru feels as though this isn’t the work of a cursed spirit, this is something much deeper, woven into the earth itself, something that they shouldn’t be messing with.
“Hey…Satoru, I feel like we shouldn’t-“
Satoru had been quiet the entire car journey, glasses placed firmly over his eyes, body turned away from Suguru, he turns to him now.
“Huh? You’re not scared or something, are you, Suguru?”
His voice is bitter, charged with hurt and frustration.
Suguru sighs, he supposes it’s better not to push it.
“Nevermind.”
Gojo looks at him for a long moment, then just carries on walking, hands planted in his pockets.
They approach the shack and give it a quick once over before heading inside. It’s small, and looks as though abandoned for a number of years, cobwebs hang in crevices, dust and disrepair permeate the space. Faded seals are plastered on the walls and intricate, faded drawings of people are etched into the wood. In the centre of the room lies a small table, like a shrine for offerings, and upon it, two tiny sake bowls filled with a clouded liquid. Contrary to everything else in the room, these bowls are squeaky clean, as though they’d just passed out of some industrial dishwasher. He points this out to Satoru who walks toward the table.
“There’s some sort of inscription here…’ He mutters, kneeling down beside the table.
“I think it says something like ‘Drink to Understand’.”
Suguru glances at the small plaque mounted with the familiar Kanji.
“...This is such a pain, couldn’t the cursed spirit just appear like normal? Or just, like, entrap us in their domain? What’s with this creepy hut place anyway…There’s no way I’m drinking whatever's in those bowls” His face twitches with disgust.
Suguru studies the plaque for a moment longer. “Perhaps it’s some sort of ritual, and the cursed spirit will only appear once we’ve finished the toast?” He suggests.
“Ughh…could this day get any worse?” Satoru sighs.
“Who knows? Maybe we could be fighting an assassin and watching as a 14 year old girl gets killed.” A mirthless laugh escapes from his mouth.
Satoru scowls in his direction. “That is so not funny.”
He’s right, it isn't. He doesn’t even know why he said it. Suguru seems to have developed a twisted sense of humour, to go with the rest of him.
“Y’know, Suguru, what the hell is wrong with you!” Satoru seems to have finally snapped, brows furrowed angrily toward Suguru, teeth bared in a snarl. There’s nothing Suguru can do but watch him, dumbstruck, how can he answer when he doesn’t even know himself?
“You’ve been acting weird ever since…ever since…y’know…” He glances at the ground. “You aren’t even here anymore! You’re like a robot or something! You never smile, you're always grumpy or tired or…too busy to hang out! I know the mission was bad…it was awful,” Raw emotion bleeds through Satoru’s voice like blood on white cloth. “But it’s like…I don’t even know you anymore…I don’t know what to do, Suguru. I can’t lose you, I-”
“Just…shut up.” Suguru’s heart is wooden as he spits out words with no meaning. “Maybe you never knew me, maybe you know absolutely nothing about who I am.”
Suguru doesn’t know why he’s doing this. He looks at the person before him, Satoru, full of light and warmth and good, and he can’t allow the darkness within him to ruin that light, even if he has to destroy a part of himself to do so. There’s a path that Suguru is walking that leads to one desolate, final destination and he won’t allow Satoru to walk it with him.
“Do you really mean that?”
Suguru nods.
He won’t.
“...Well then, I guess there’s no reason for us to even be friends anymore…do you even-?” Satoru’s voice is strangled, small, and shadows cast across his face. “…I can’t do this anymore...”
His words sting, charged with venom that pierces Suguru to his core. The life has drained out of him, leaving only a soulless husk.
“Fine.” He says, though everything inside him tells him not to.
“Fine!” Satoru turns toward the table. “We finish this mission…then…It’s over.”
Their blue spring draws to a close. Faded into a bitter summer that Suguru somehow knows they won’t survive.
What they’d had, their brief spring…it’d been perfect.
But in this world, as it was now, nothing perfect or beautiful could ever survive.
Amanai had shown him that. He’d known the ugliness of the world, and he’d still chosen to protect the weak. But how many more people would die in this cycle of nothing changed? How much more suffering would be caused at their hands? If the only thing waiting at the end of the marathon game of being a Jujutsu sorcerer was a mountain of his comrade’s corpses…
Suguru had made up his mind.
He was going to do something.
…Damn Monkeys.
Suguru can feel the blood hammering in his head, he nods, faintly, and picks up a bowl and Satoru does the same.
He peers into the liquid, flat and milky like a lake bathed in moonlight. He glances at Satoru, lifts the bowl to his mouth, and gulps the liquid down.
It tastes like the earth, sweet and bountiful like the harvest, deep and cool as a mountain.
The last thing he sees before the world turns to black is the soft slope of Satoru’s nose and the rosy tint to his lips, he faintly registers reaching out to touch that perfect face, pure like the breath of dawn, and then he succumbs to the darkness.
-
Suguru brushes the cobwebs from his mind as he swims back to consciousness. He opens his eyes falteringly.
He can see everything.
It’s like seeing the world under a magnifying glass all at the same time, his eyes that used to mumble now shout in voices clear as crystal in his mind and he immediately understands that he is in the infirmary back at Jujutsu High, the third medical room and that it is approximately 3:47 in the afternoon judging from the angle of the sun in the sky. Countless, infinite details attack his mind one after the other.
Suguru immediately closes his eyes. What the hell had happened?
Slowly the past events float to the surface of his memory, the hut, the crater, the bowls.
The fight.
They must have passed out and been taken back to the school. He needed to ask someone for details.
He blinks his eyes open again…immediately the world reappears in its former technicolour, bright and unyielding. He feels the beginnings of a headache form in the recesses of his mind and he shields his eyes from the light of the world.
What the hell had been in that Sake?
Suguru was seeing colours he couldn’t even have fathomed before, that he couldn’t explain in normal words, even the monotone color scheme of the medbay seemed full of depth and interchanging hues. His eyes really could see everything, the tiniest stain on the floor, the minutest of cracks on the walls, hell, he could even probably ascertain the interior structure of the room itself. Not only that..but…
He could see cursed energy like he never had before.
He could see Tengen’s barrier settled over the room like a silver blanket, Shoko's reversed technique in erratic, fervent bursts around the room. He felt the residuals of cursed energy and saw them everywhere, woven throughout the air like the northern lights. He gazed at the projections for a while, enthralled by the new colour and vibrancy of this new world.
He closed his eyes again, feeling immediate relief when the final of the six fell shut and the assault on his mind was over.
Wait….Final of the six?
Suguru didn’t have Six eyes. In fact, there was only one person who did.
Shit.
In the bathroom mirror, Suguru was staring into the eyes of Gojo Satoru