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The truth that you discovered after graduating from Tokyo Metropolitan Curse Technical College: magic goes hand in hand with loneliness.
Nanami believed the thing is that the jujutsu sorcerer's life slowly drove them insane. You eliminate the curses, the curses do not want to be eliminated, so they try to kill you. Like Shoko, he was born into an ordinary family, so shamanism was never something natural for him.
After Nanami's resignation he became a stockbroker, but they still went out from time to time.
Shoko used to love to go to the bar with him. He was a great drinking companion, moderately sarcastic, and he could drink much more than the others. Well, not her. He probably owed his resistance to alcohol to his Scandinavian genes inherited from his Danish grandfather.
Nanami switched his black uniform to a business suit. He didn't calculate the seven-to-three ratio with his blade, but the odds of the stock exchange. However, he looked just as tired and bored as ever.
One night they were sitting at the bar, and he said:
"I'm fed up with everything. I want to go to Malaysia".
She could tell him that he would feel the same way anywhere in the world. That he was tired of it all because he would always see curses, and he could not get away from it by hiding in an air-conditioned office and working twelve hours a day. She could tell that Nanami wouldn't have left if Haibara hadn't died.
But instead, Shoko smiled:
"Then don't forget to apply a lot of sunscreen on your face, Snow White!" and they did a couple of tequila shots.
Shoko had her own theory - the thing was the cursed energy. She often thought about it as she performed autopsies. She rolled these thoughts around in her head in an absent-minded way as her gloved hands carefully did the familiar work.
All jujutsu sorcerers are like particles of equal charges. Identical charges repel each other. Perhaps the harder you try to reach, the harder you're pushed away.
Everyone coped as best they could.
Almost always three students entered the school for a new course. It was a little bit strange, but convenient, because the fighting trio is the best.
A couple of people is often not enough to do the job. A fighting foursome is also out. The number four is the worst, pronounced like "death". It's really bad to play with that when you're already constantly walks on the edge. A group of five people makes a mess.
Three is a lucky number, but when Shoko saw three new first-year students, her heart skipped a beat.
Two boys and a girl with a bob haircut. They reminded her so much of her own trio: Satoru Gojo, Suguru Geto, Shoko Ieri.
On the fateful day of Riko Amanai's death, Shoko stared mesmerized at the edges of the wounds on Suguru's chest. They were inflicted with a razor-sharp weapon, and the man who inflicted them knew exactly what he was doing. Just as he knew the wounds were not fatal.
"He killed Satoru," Suguru said, lying with his eyes closed.
Her hand started to tremble. "Bullshit."
He didn't open his eyes.
"There won't even be any scars," Shoko said awkwardly when her work was done.
Suguru's mouth twisted painfully.
"I have to finish my mission," he said, and headed to the House of the Child of the Star.
She did not tell him that the mission had failed anyway, and in general there was nothing to finish. You don't have to tell people everything that's on your mind.
Satoru Gojo was dead. The Star Plasma Vessel was dead. Even Geto's favourite curse, his beautiful powerful Rainbow Dragon, was dead.
By the time her mobile phone rang to tell her that Satoru was alive, Shoko had smoked a pack and a half of cigarettes.
He no longer needed her help ("Shoko, sweetheart, I have finally got your reverse cursed technique"), but she still insisted on his medical examination. She probably just needed to touch him to make sure he was real and alive. Yaga-sensei supported her strongly - Satoru Gojo looked absolutely stoned.
You might think that the non-drinking Satoru had skipped the alcohol stage and gone straight to drugs if you didn't know what had happened.
"I thought I would kill them all," he said carelessly as Shoko tested his pupillary light reflex with a torch. Responding was abnormally slowed, pupil was constricted.
"So why didn't you kill them?" she smiled tenderly.
"Suguru stopped me. He said it didn't make any sense."
If bets had been taken on who would commit mass murder after the failure of the Star Plasma Vessel mission, Shoko would have put all her money on Satoru Gojo.
Everything changed too fast after that. Previously, Suguru was a model student and Satoru was an insufferable pain in the ass, the living embodiment of the word "narcissism".
This was quite understandable, as he has been spoiled terribly and treated like a deity by everyone around him since his early childhood. After all, he was the first shaman born with the gift of six eyes in centuries.
But it's so easy to forget when you're sixteen and spending all your time together. In front of Shoko the mighty deity ate sweets like crazy. He teased everyone so offensively. He treated those who were weaker than him with slight contempt. And like an ordinary mortal, he was slapped on the back of his head.
It was clear from the very beginning that Suguru and Satoru were going to be an incredibly powerful duo. Two jujutsu sorcerers of such power in one year is a great fortune and an impossible rarity. "Both of them will become a special grade," Shoko heard once in the corridor. They both heard it too, and oh gods, what braggarts they were.
Shoko had watched their testosterone-fueled fights and clashes throughout the first year, but later she always left the scene without a moment's hesitation. She'd seen it all before. And the air was too sparkling.
They generously let her bossed them around, called them idiots and never responded in the same way. The rules of the game were set, the personal boundaries were defined. Perhaps there were the only boundaries they respected at the time.
An outside observer might say that she had eventually dropped out from their trio. The principal had decided that sending her on combat missions was a waste of her resources. She studied medical textbooks and tried her hand at being the school's in-house healer. Sometimes she didn't even have time to eat.
But the truth was something different: Satoru and Suguru were like two blocks of stone, pressed together in such a way that no knife could stick between them. Trying to get in was stupid, senseless, and simply impossible. Shoko decided to revolve around their orbit.
She was once asked in a teasing way - which one of them is she in love with? Or are there two of them at the same time?
"Mei Mei, what a spoiled girl you are."
Mei Mei chuckled with amusement - she was always flattered by the slightest hint of her immorality, so she let it go.
Shoko could love and still have no desire to claim. Perhaps that was another special cursed technique of hers, not recorded in her personal file.
The gaping abyss between Suguru and Satoru opened up after Riko Amanai.
To be honest, it opened up between Satoru and everyone, but the others had never been so close to him.
It was at Shinjuku Station that Shoko last saw Suguru Geto. She was happy to see him and their conversation flowed easily. As if nothing had ever happened. As if she would finish her cigarette and they would go to play game machines, worrying about wins and losses as if they were real.
He found her to say goodbye, but Shoko hadn't even really talked to him. She pulled out her phone and called Satoru. Not because Suguru was wanted or because she was too afraid to be around him - she was convinced that he wouldn't hurt her without a reason. She simply knew who Geto really needed to see.
Everything he was trying to prove was not meant for her.
He finally looked good. He wasn't the sickly type he'd been last year - terribly thin, with dark under-eye circles and pale, earthy skin. Looking back, Shoko cannot explain why they did nothing. Maybe if she had studied psychiatry instead of histology, she would have paid more attention. But they were too young, and such obvious things were not obvious to them. Even Satoru Gojo did not notice despite his six eyes.
Out of decency, she asked if he had really killed one hundred and twelve inhabitants of that village. And Suguru confirmed it with the same soft, condescending smile he gave to everything.
The man who committed the massacre had once been the kindest person she ever met.
If he'd done it a few years later, Shoko would have had to examine every body. Back then, she only used her the reverse cursed technique to heal and didn't do autopsies. Lucky her.
"Your hair has grown. It really suits you."
He tilted his head to one side and said soflty:
"If you decide to let your hair grow longer, that would suit you too."
She didn't ask about his parents. Everything was clear enough. She wanted to remember him like that - relaxed and happy, lighting her cigarette as in the old days. The ghost of their past carefree life.
They were so young, but they already had their own huge gap between before and after. The sun glinted in the leaves of the trees. The world seemed unbelievably calm and beautiful, as if painted on a watercolour postcard.
Sometimes she thought about it - what would she say to Suguru if she realised that this was the last time they ever met.
For ten years Suguru Geto was condemned to die.
"That damned Naobito asked me why I didn't kill him."
The bright white light of the autopsy room disfigured all the people. Angry, exhausted Satoru was an exception. Like he was immune to the cold, merciless rays - no greyish-yellow skin, no wrinkles, no bags under his eyes.
"In the middle of the Tokyo crowd? It would be another mass murder," Shoko said.
It wasn't about the amount of collateral damage, as both Shoko and Naobito Zenin knew very well. So for the next ten years, no jujutsu shaman came close to Suguru. He was wanted, but no one looked for him.
Life was quietly running its course.
"I went to see Toji's son after all"
"What's he like?"
"He looks just like his damn father, it's creepy, " Satoru grimaced. "He lives with his little stepsister and doesn't want to hear anything about his father. "
Satoru was so enthusiastic telling about his encounter with six-year-old Megumi Fushiguro. It was thought-provoking. Shoko took out another cigarette and took a puff of it with an undisguised sense of pleasure.
“What about his stepmother?”
“She disappeared recently. Either she was killed because of Toji's debts, or the Zenin clan was one step ahead and got rid of her just in case.”
”So there are two children living alone, without adults? Pretty soon the neighbours are going to notice. What's gonna happen to the kids?”
“Megumi asked what would it be like for his sister if the Zenins take them. I told it should be pretty shitty for her.”
A woman's place in this clan was defined once and for all - to keep quiet and please. To stay at home and bear children. To know her place. Shoko had no kind words for the Zenins, remembering recent visit of Naobito's son to Principal Yaga.
“If they would mercifully raise his sister in their hellhole, they won't let her go when she grew up. They will marry her off to one of their own, and the game is over.” There was a nice ring of smoke on the exhale. “So you didn't answer my question.”
Satoru's eyes shone triumphantly behind the dark glasses.
“He doesn't want to go to them. Megumi seems to be very protective of his sister. He got so angry when he heard she would be unhappy with them, you should have seen him!”
“Satoru, come on. I feel you're onto something.”
“Fuck the Zenin clan. I will take kids under guardianship.”
Shoko looked at her nineteen-year-old friend and imagined that instead of saving Japan, he would pack bento lunch boxes for school. And he would definitely wear some funny apron.
Then she remembered that Gojo's family had plenty of money, so he could afford to hire even five nannies. The idea didn't seem so wild anymore.
“Megumi”. A beautiful, affectionate name that is usually given to girls. "Blessing".
So this was it.
"It should suit you to be a daddy," Shoko said snidely, knowing that he would like it.
Satoru smugly grinned:
"That's what I thought. I'm so good at everything I do."
He really turned out to be a great guardian.
"You look tired, Shoko," said Yaga Masamichi.
"I just have to work too much. The overtime pay is on you."
She never took offence at his remarks. When Yaga was the sensei of her class, he nurtured her like a flower. He was the one who got her into Tokyo Medical University. He used his connections, paid bribes, and forged documents to get her to pass her medical exams in two years instead of the required six.
"It's not enough for me to just go blind with cursed technique. I want to understand how things work,” - her stubborn words were enough for him to begin unfolding this special operation.
After graduating from medical school, her growth as a jujutsu shaman has increased exponentially.
And Satoru was growing too, even though it had seemed hard to go any further before. They didn't say it out loud, but it was clear that his power was bordering on the divine. Shoko told him to change his glasses for a blindfold. He saluted jokingly - " All right, Doc," and surprisingly followed her advice.
Suguru must have been growing up in there somewhere too. As a curse manipulator. As a cult leader. What advice would she give him? See a shrink, mate? Don't eat curses, Suguru?
It was rumored that he had already absorbed thousands of cursed spirits. She felt sick to her stomach as she imagined him swallowing them. He never told what they tasted like, but he wrinkled his nose involuntarily when someone asked. They probably tasted pretty bad.
Did you go insane because you absorbed curses, or did you absorb curses because you were insane?
Ten years after their last meeting, Suguru Geto appeared at the barrier of the college with his followers ("family" as he called them) and declared war on the jujutsu sorcerers.
Shoko was not there. She had not even seen him out of the corner of her eye. Though she was at the general briefing to plan the upcoming operation on Christmas Eve. Both Tokyo and Kyoto were expected to be attacked by the Night Parade of a Hundred Demons, so it was going to be a total nightmare. Principal Yaga shouted that Suguru Geto must be executed.
She slipped out of the room quietly, but Satoru found her in the lab half an hour later.
"He won't stop. You know he made a choice," her voice sounded muffled because her face was buried in her palms. There was no work to be done, nothing to distract her.
"I have made my choice too, Shoko."
The millstones of the demon parade were grinding the jujutsu sorcerers in Tokyo that night. Shoko healed the shamans in the field hospital and hoped things would be better in Kyoto.
There were too many cursed spirits. There were too few shamans, and too many of those few were inexperienced. They were simply not up to the task; they were supposed to be dealing with low-ranking lone spirits, but instead these fledlings were thrown into this meat grinder.
Shoko was not enough to help everyone. To be honest, it was impossible. Maybe if the strongest Satoru Gojo would learn to heal others, he might be able to add a pinch of infinity and make a whole living person out of scraps of flesh, bones, brains and hair. Shoko simply couldn't.
How fortunate that the reverse cursed technique still worked on the same cursed energy fueled by negative emotions. If she had to heal people with the power of kindness, everyone would surely die.
Satoru appeared out of nowhere, took her gently by the elbow and said:
"I will teleport us."
"To Kyoto?"
"To the college. Suguru is there."
Except she didn't see him there. The school looked like the earthquake's epicenter, and she had to look after the students.
Shoko literally rebuilt the body of first-grade Zenin girl - a poor, broken little thing. She had lost an enormous amount of blood, her right leg was shattered by Geto's spirit below the knee, and her internal organs were injured. It's highly unlikely that even Yuta's first help would have saved Maki if it weren't for her Heavenly Restiction, which gave her incredible physical power.
Things were far easier for Panda and the boy from the Inumaki clan. Suguru had mercy on them. Maki didn't have an ounce of cursed energy. Since she was nothing but a monkey in his eyes, Geto destroyed her body without a second thought.
In a good mood, he would have narrowed his eyes and called her a little ape. But Maki was in the way, and Geto’s mood was bad. Shoko saw the blood trail in the school yard.
Satoru saw Suguru. Satoru finished him off.
She and Satoru were in the principal's office. There was an elephant in the room. The obvious question was hanging in the air.
"I have to examine him" Shoko said instead of "I have to do an autopsy."
Satoru had never spoken to her in such a quiet, terrifying voice before or after.
"Shoko. No offence. But you and your fucking reverse technique won't go near Suguru's body. I will not let you. I will not let anyone come close."
It was too late for her fucking reverse cursed technique anyway.
But it didn't matter, that words were enough for the principal to tell the Council of Elders - Satoru Gojo would bury his former best friend himself. No one would come, no one would dare to speak out against it.
Perhaps Satoru was afraid that nostalgia would overtake her, that some unknown miracle would happen. That the curses hidden in Suguru Geto's body would resonate with the reverse cursed technique and bring life back to that body. She's not crazy, she wouldn't do that.
Perhaps Satoru just wanted to say goodbye in private. To hide Suguru from all those who would spit on his grave. Or maybe he didn't want Shoko to dissect his best friend's body and pick through his guts.
Actually, she didn't want that either. He was also her friend.
She wanted to give Satoru a hug, but she'd always had a good sense of boundaries, he wouldn't like that now. She silently reached out and took his hand. Not instantly, but he turned off his infinity. His palm was cold.
She stroked it gently with her thumb. She knew that both of them remembered the same thing - how long ago, before everything had happened, Shoko and Suguru had giggled and thrown small objects at Satoru Gojo.
Pencils hit his forehead. Erasers bounced off his brow. Once upon a time, he didn't know how to maintain his technique.
Iori Utahime was an honourable second on Shoko's list of favourite drinking companions. She even persuaded her to quit smoking. She kept saying, "Come on, you're a doctor!" It was a big distraction from her favorite hobby - drinking. One might think she hadn't healed her heart and lungs with reverse cursed technique.
Shoko gave up not because she was tired of listening to this lectures, or not even because the persistent smell from her hair and fingers was irritating.
When Iori urged her to quit smoking, she looked at her with a look of deep sorrow, as if she was afraid that Shoko's next cigarette would actually kill her.
Despite the long rans about the dangers of tobacco, Iori still had a good chance of becoming Shoko's favourite drinking buddy. If only Iori would not complain about how Satoru Gojo had pissed her off every time they met. That was anger. That was unrequited love.
People around her seemed to be caught in a web of complex negative emotions. Rage, despair, fear, guilt - it was impossible to list them all.
It is said that repressed emotions lead to psychological trauma. Most of Shoko's negative emotions had been burned in the furnace of her reverse cursed technique. What was left was not enough to leave unhealed festered sores.
Shoko had spent her entire conscious life with her technique. Her earliest memory from her childhood was the moment she realized she was a jujutsu sorcerer.
She didn't know what it meant at the time. Shoko was just four years old, she had hurt her knee, and she was crying and being terribly angry. It was painful, and she also felt sorry for the torn new dress.
Shoko couldn't explain what happened next, even when she grew up. The whirlpool inside her became a steady stream that flowed straight to the graze. The skin became intact, only the dirty stains reminded of her recent trauma.
Trying to teach it to others was a failure. You don't inhale and exhale because you took “Breathing 101” course. You just breathe, that’s all.
Teachers at primary school used to tell her parents: “What a stoic girl! She is so level-headed and calm, good for her.”
Being calm didn't cost her anything. It didn't mean that life was any less painful.
She just wasn't crippled by the consequences.