Chapter Text
Yuuji stares up at the castle before him. He’s still standing just outside of the castle town Transcendise, so there’s still a bit of a walk to reach his destination, but the view from here is beautiful enough. He rummages in his bag until he takes out his flask, immediately unscewing the cap and taking a sip once he finds it.
“Fushiguro castle,” Yuuji says out loud with a lop-sided smile.
Home to the Zenin Clan’s least favorite child, Toji Fushiguro. Given his own castle and people to look over, it’s far enough away that King Zenin can keep tabs on but far enough away to make Toji happy. It’s not a bad looking castle, and the people he’s seen walking around so far don’t seem unhappy. Yuuji adjusts his bag on his shoulder, and then starts making his way through the gate.
From what Yuuji gathered from the townspeople from the last town he visited, it was that Toji is widowed and has a daughter and son. A lot of people had stories to tell about Toji, from on the battlefield to even ones about Toji venturing into neighboring places to gamble with the townsfolk. There’s never any money exchanged, but nonetheless it’s still caused Toji issues. At least it doesn’t seem that he’s gambled his castle away, right?
Sukuna’s off to meet up with Uraume in the Gojo kingdom, doing whatever it is his brother does when he’s away. Yuuji doesn’t think he needs him for this. It should be an easy job. Just get up to the rooms and look for anything expensive, and then leave. While he has heard the tales about Toji, he doubts most of them are true, so he thinks this will be quick and easy.
The town is bustling with people going about their day. A few look at him curiously, but mostly don’t pay him any mind. He finds an inn pretty quickly. A short, older woman is behind the counter reading a book when he walks up. Setting a handful of coins on the counter, Yuuji gives the woman his best smile.
“Just one night’s stay,” Yuuji says sweetly, nudging the coins forward.
The lady looks between Yuuji and the money, shaking her head with a laugh. “Sweetie, you don’t need to do all that. As long as you have money, you can rent a room.”
“Oh, alright,” Yuuji says. “Thanks.”
“Fourth room on the second floor. It’s just at the back of the hall,” she instructs, scooping up the money.
Yuuji heads upstairs and finds his room pretty quickly. It’s nothing much; just a bed and a small dresser. Dropping his bag on the floor, Yuuji falls face first on the bed, relishing in the fact he’s finally able to lie down. The last few weeks he’s been traversing the forests and sleeping in either the hollow of trees or setting up a somewhat proper camp. He doesn’t think a blanket and two sticks is much of a tent, but hey, it works for him. Sukuna’s the one with most of the tools and supplies they need for camp, but he’s been off doing who knows what all over the varying lands.
“Tomorrow,” Yuuji says as he turns over, staring up at the ceiling. Tomorrow he’ll make his way up to the castle, get in and steal whatever expensive item he finds, and then get out. With Toji Fushiguro being widowed with a daughter, he’s sure they still have some expensive jewlery in her room.
Before he knows it, he’s falling asleep.
–
Getting onto the castle property proves to be almost too easy. He doesn’t know if he’s gotten lucky, or if the Fushiguro’s are just bad at keeping their castle protected. There’s vines on the side of the castle and with a gentle tug, he realizes they’re pretty steady enough to climb. He has to do a little configuring with the bag he has and his footing, but soon enough he’s scaling up the side of the castle.
It leads to a balcony. Carefully, he tosses a leg over the ledge and starts making his way into the room. He definitely made the right choice, because the room he enters definitely belongs to the princess. Grinning, Yuuji rubs his hands together as he looks around, before setting his eyesight on the necklace lying on the vanity.
“Gotcha!” Yuuji exclaims, almost too loudly for the room. He doesn’t think anyone is around, but he knows that’s not always the case, and he can’t take any chances that someone could be walking by. If Sukuna was here, he’d be scolding Yuuji for being too noisy.
Quietly, he makes his way over to the vanity and snatches the necklace up. It’s gold with bright blue crystals. It’s going to fetch him quite a lot of money, and maybe Sukuna will finally stay off his back. It doesn’t matter if Yuuji made a name for himself across the land as the Tiger of Heian-Kyo. Sukuna still expects a lot from him and holds him to higher standards. But this is a big job, one that’s proving to be easy up to this point, so Sukuna has to give him credit for that.
Yuuji huffs out a laugh as he stuffs the necklace into a small sack, tying it up so that it stays nice. Now he just needs to get out of here, and who knows if there’s knights outside now. He manges to get his leg over the ledge. But right as he’s starting the climb back down, a hand grabs at his tunic, stopping him. Gulping, Yuuji tries to remain calm.
That calm goes out the window when the hand moves higher, grabbing firm to his cape. A knife at his throat has Yuuji’s eyes widening. He has no choice now as he finally looks at the person in question, only to stop short at the fact he’s staring at one of the most beautiful people he’s ever seen.
“What are you doing?” the person grits out, placing the knife closer to his neck.
In the next moment, Yuuji realizes that this person is wearing a royal headpiece, which means this has to be Megumi Fushiguro.
Oh no.
“Um,” Yuuji blinks, unsure how to go about this. He’s gotten out of plenty of tricky situations before, but somehow this is leaving him absolutely clueless. Sukuna is going to be pissed, but right now isn’t the time to think about the wrath his brother is going to unleash on him when he finds out.
“I asked what you’re doing with my mother’s necklace,” Megumi says.
Yuuj looks at the sack in his hands and then back up at Megumi’s beautiful – angry – face. He needs to not be distracted by Megumi’s beauty. He needs to think up a good enough response to get himself out of this.
He has nothing. He’s at a complete loss. This isn’t good.
Oh fuck.
Yuuji smiles instead, thinking maybe he can charm his way out of this. “I was told to retrieve this for King Toji.”
“Try again, because I know that’s a lie,” Megumi says. “That wouldn’t give you a reason to scale the side of a castle to grab it. There’s a door to Tsumiki’s room.”
“I was going to get it cleaned but wanted the exercise so I climbed in instead?” Yuuji tries. He hands the sack off to Megumi. “Here, I won’t do it, I think it was stupid anyway. It looks pretty clean to me.”
Megumi narrows his eyes. “Who are you?”
“Um,” Yuuji tries to think of a good enough answer, “I am a newly hired knight for the kingdom.”
“You’re a pretty shitty knight, then,” Megumi says. “And I don’t know if I believe you, but we’ll have to ask my dad, because he’s the one who hires you people.”
“Take me to the king!” Yuuji exclaims, pointing toward the door.
Rolling his eyes, Megumi maintains an iron grip on Yuuji as they make their way out of the room and down the winding hallways until they reach the stairs. The King’s hall is just down the steps and to the right, leading into a large room with a throne. There King Fushiguro sits with one leg tossed over an arm, the look on his face disinterested and bored. There’s a few knights and advisors in the room, but nobody is talking at all.
Megumi yanks on Yuuji’s tunic. “Is this a new knight you hired?”
Toji smirks lazily. “Sure, I hired a bunch recently.”
“Yeah, well I found him in Tsumiki’s room with mom’s necklace in his hand,” Megumi says.
Toji waves a hand. “Just make the strange knight clean the stables if you’re so concerned.”
“Are you sure he’s–” Megumi starts, but Toji’s loud tsk cuts him short. The glare Megumi sends Toji’s way could cut glass.
“Change his job to stablehand, and be done with it, Megumi.”
“Fine,” Megumi sighs.
Yuuji lets himself be dragged outside into the back of the castle. A large garden greets them, as well as a pathway that leads out to the stables.
“We needed a new stablehand anyway, and that’s probably what he hired you for originally.” There’s ten horses, all of varying colors. A black one sits toward the very back and perks up at Megumi’s entrance.
“So you want me to feed the horses every day?” Yuuji asks.
“And clean up after them and keep the stable orderly,” Megumi explains. “You think you can do that?”
“Sure,” Yuuji shrugs, even if he knows he should be hightailing it out of here as fast as he humanly can. Getting stuck tending to the Fushiguro’s horses is not something he should be doing. But it’s difficult to say no to Megumi’s pretty face.
Yuuji might be a bit of an idiot right now. Sukuna’s going to be pissed and make fun of him until the end of time once he gets out of here.
At least tending to horses means he can do this charade for a certain length of time and then quit easily, right? He can do this.
Megumi holds out his hand as he starts to list all of his duties, as well as the fact he gets meals every day and paid in coins. Once Megumi is done, he shows the stablehand quarters just above the stables, and then leaves in a hurry. Well, this will either blow up in Yuuji’s face or it’ll work out, but part of him is leaning toward complete mess, especially if Sukuna shows up looking for him. Yuuji tends to fly under the raydar, but Sukuna sticks out like a sore thumb. Everyone knows what the King of Curses looks like, unfortunately.
On the positive side, at least Yuuji has a warm bed and warm meals to look forward to for the time being. It could’ve been a lot worse.