Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Sometime between then and now and always

A family of stars chase each other, their sparkling lights refracted in the rippling waves of the pond. Life sits at the edge amongst the mire, galoshes covered in mud, creation, and possibilities, and casts an envious eye above. Never a day off for her, unlike some beings. She grumbles and stretches her feet out to knock the muck off as she watches over her pond. Someone has to do it, after all.

Beneath the pond, the souls loaf and coalesce as one. Damned, blessed, stripped of all their complexities in this little sea of opportunity, breathe in. Out, they exhale eternities. They shift, always moving together, closer and closer into tightly wound currents.

Except for one.

Life peers beneath the surface, squinting until she glimpses the little rebel. A stone against erosion, he stands, rejecting this distillation, this forceful molding. The current brushes against him and he shies away, and when they persist he spews enough hate with each breath that the currents of souls diverge around him.

All alone. Always. Just the way he likes it. He plops down and waits. And waits and waits and waits and waits.

Life, always partial to the ones with a flare for drama, sets her bait.

She is usually more egalitarian about the matter—she casts her rod, snags a lucky (or unlucky, depending on how one views these sorts of things) curious soul, and tosses it back into the cycle without another glance. But one must be allowed some favoritism every once in a while for sanity reasons.

So she casts a lure she knows this particular soul can't refuse: a second chance. It lands in the water with a loud plonk. Right above his head.

A few souls break away from the current to take a look. She shakes the rod just slightly enough so they scatter. Except for him. There is no fear in him, only curiosity powered by too much damn entitlement. For all his sins, he should wait multiple eternities before he's born again. Which makes her chosen lure the perfect bait.

His curious entitlement is his undoing. He breaks away from his spot, swimming up to the dazzling with greedy hands. It's only when he's too close that he sees the pointed end of the hook, then he's ensnared, hoisted out of the water before he can even process what's happening.

Hands cupped around him, Life looks down at the little soul screaming obscenities. She's never held a soul with quite so many prickly parts, so many jagged edges carved in from a previous life. She smooths some, leaves others, and even embellishes some new ones because it's always more fun that way. Then she tosses him back in the cycle.

When he next opens his eyes, the world burns. Screams. His own, maybe. But there is also laughter and hushed voices and whispering quiet excitement. He curses divinity and warns it to put him back, but the more he breathes in the air of this new life, the less of the old one he remembers, leaving nothing but a cold vat needing to be filled.

It won't be for years to come.

* * *

Splatters of white foam hit the report, blurring the text. Yuji took more caution as he stirred the foam of his latte, but some of it slipped over the edge, dribbling down the side; he brought the cup to his mouth to lick, enjoying the sugary concoction melting on his tongue.

It was the kind of drink Megumi, a virulent black coffee fanatic, would scrunch his face at and furrow his brows. "Less sugar is good for you. Especially at this age," he'd said once, and Yuji had damn near thrown his mess of a drink at him for the frightful reminder of the precariousness of time.

Not that he minded too much. The being old thing. Not when there was a time he couldn't imagine seeing seventeen, let alone thirty-five. How wholesome would it be now, to die from "sugary sweet crap" instead of a malcontent curse?

The waitress returned, a woman who looked too young to know Japan as anything other than the curse-infested metropolis. She studied the swirling button of his work jacket that denoted his occupation before asking if he needed anything else. Yuji ordered a scone overflowing with frosting and some healthy vegan bar crap to take home to Megumi.

The waitress wrote this down, and hesitated, before squaring her shoulders and asking, "Anything in the area we should be worried about?"

Yuji laughed lightly as he shook his head. "Just stopping in for a quick snack."

Her shoulders relaxed marginally. She scurried away with a quick apology.

Yuji flipped through the file, wiping away the remnants of foam splatter. The notes from the Sorcerer Trade Commission were, as always, sparse and lacking in details. There were reports of a curse possession far out of the city. The possessed was young and displayed abnormal aggression.

Yuji passed a tired hand down his face. It could have been something. Or it could have been some unruly teen acting out on hormones. The people of Japan after the Reveal were even less kind to those who operated outside the norm. More and more, the general public could not determine if the baby who cried non-stop was harboring a violent spirit or if it was, well, a baby.

The waitress delivered the pastries with a bow. Yuji took the folded brown paper bag with a smile and left money on the table. Outside the shop, the smug glare of the sun zoomed in on him, squinting at his neck. He tugged on his color and loosened the buttons of the stiff uncomfortable work suit to allow for better airflow. The only relief was the ever-wandering clouds that provided minimal cover. Summers in Japan were always miserable.

The streets were crowded—there were always fewer curses in the summer when Seasonal Affective Disorder was slain with the forceful injection of vitamin D and families sprung for vacations. The overwhelming sentiment of finally was a stronger curse deterrent than any protection spell or innate technique.

He would have to take the train out there. If it was nothing, he might be able to catch it back. More than likely, he would miss the last train and have to book a room somewhere. If the town was even friendly to strangers.

A sharp gasp drew his attention. A group of white tourists plopped themselves in the middle of the sidewalk, drawing the polite ire of natives and well-trained transplants. Despite dripping sweat from the layers of their colorful kimonos, their smiles were light. Given the way they eyed Yuji, he could imagine what had caused their shock. A real Japanese sorcerer in Tokyo. Everything their guided apps had promised. He was proven right when they approached. A short woman with a flag sown to the front of her ball cap—Yuji admittedly was shit at geography, but knew it wasn't America—spoke.

"Hello," she said. Then she spoke into her phone. A moment later, a polite, robotically feminine voice leaked from the speakers: "Shaman Fighter delights in tour experience?"

"Oh…"—why why why? When Yuji had failed every year of English—"No?" he said in English.

The woman pulled out her wallet, fishing for bills, and Yuji held up his hands. "Sorry…busy?"

The family looked at each other, their disappointment palpable. The woman held up a wrinkled yen and Yuji shook his head. "Maybe there?" He pointed to a shop with a bright green veranda and dozens of neon flashing sign both in Japanese and English. He spied one for cursed charms.

When they turned their heads to observe the shop, he used the opportunity to slip away, merging with the Tokyo crowd. But even in these dense streets, he was never invisible. People shied away. Maybe they thought his bad luck would leak out, latch onto the bottom of their shoes, tracking to their home, following them home. Sorcerers were bad luck, after all. Until you needed one.

Smog from a distant factory drifted in on a rolling wind, filling his lungs with acrid smoke as he stepped off the train. He'd been dropped off here: sprawling green open fields, small, gray buildings painted into the landscape. He made his way down the train platform, stepping over concrete cracked with weeds, and followed the path to the town.

This far out, without the defensive shield from the towering skyscrapers, the sun was even more fearsome. Yuji rubbed the back of his neck, pulled his hand away slicked with sweat. The upside was that most people hid in their homes, seeking relief in the shade, so the streets were ghostly. Still, his skin prickled as he imagined the eyes following him, watching from their windows the strange sorcerer that had graced their village.

The address on the file belonged to the most dilapidated little house at the end of a road. Just past the road was wild forest, tangled, humming with cicadas. Yuji blinked at it and the forest blinked back. He knocked on the door, three quick raps, then listened. Behind the door came the muffled shuffle of feet trying to be discreet.

The window next to him drew its curtain, a small face popping out. Yuji waved. The face disappeared in a flurry of fabric.

Yuji cleared his throat. "Ms. Tadashi? It's Itadori Yuji with Tokyo Jujutsu High. You filed a request with us?"

The click of a latch slid out of place, and then the door cracked open, tired black eyes squinting, taking him in.

"You're with the school?"

Yuji nodded. He pulled out his wallet, showed her his ID—Yuji Itadori, Special Grade Sorcerer—let her hold it. It slipped through the door. Yuji imagined her turning it over, looking for tells to give away the fakery. Out in the sticks, anyone with a marginal talent in Jujutsu could cosplay as a sorcerer for a quick buck. Years ago, the government had put out a guide online on how to spot a fake ID, but it only served to make criminal operations more appraising with their quality checks.

The door opened fully. The woman handed the ID back with a muttered apology and welcomed him in. Yuji passed through the front door, leaving his shoes in the genkan.

Ms. Tadashi was a slight thing whittled down by time. It carved up the planes of her face, all converging toward the purple hollows beneath her eyes. She fiddled with the ragged edges of her nails as Yuji surveyed the house.

It was modest, clean, with little in the way of affection or personality. No family pictures, no trophies, no trinkets. Sterile as a dental office. Yuji tried to picture the kind of curse brewing between the shades of gray. Maybe it was the curse of dull interior decorating.

"Thank you for coming," she stuttered out.

Yuji smoothed the distaste from his face. "Well, sorcerers are supposed to protect non-sorcerers," he parroted the official mission statement from the school. If he repeated enough, the masses would actually believe it.

Post-Shibuya, Post-Culling Games, sorcerers owed the public.

She picked at her nails, not quite meeting his gaze. "It's just, I've made numerous requests over the years to the local chapter, and they've hardly paid me any mind. I even resorted to someone…less unaccredited, but they claimed they found nothing."

Even a curse-user, usually happy to phone it in for paranoid people for extra cash, had not found anything when looking into this. And the local chapter of sorcerers hadn't thought this was worthwhile. He definitely had time to catch the last train back to Tokyo. Yuji opened his mouth to question her further, but he was cut off by a loud clanging that rattled the walls.

"Mom!" came a high, strained voice.

When Yuji glanced at the woman, he was taken aback to see a thin smile stretched across her face. "You came at the right time. He always put on an act the other times. Now you'll see the real him."

A cord pulled taut in Yuji's stomach. He followed behind the woman. The banging came again, followed by swearing that would have made Kugisaki look amateur.

Upstairs, they stopped before a wooden door plastered with seals and omamori. Some of them were flecked with blood. Yuji directed the woman behind him and, with a sigh, opened the door.

The scene unfolded like this:

Two small bodies tangled together. The one pinned to the ground bared his teeth down on his bottom lip, pain and fear warping his features. He raised one hand and punched furiously at something pink latched onto his arm.

With a start, Yuji realized the fuzzy pink mass was a head. The boy slapped at it, swung his arm to the side to shake him off. They rolled and Yuji saw the boy's teeth clamped down on the other boy's forearm, like how Divine Dog would latch onto its victims.

The one being chewed up locked his legs around the other's waist, flipped them so he was on top, and used his position to drive the other boy's head to the floor. Beside Yuji, Mrs. Tadashi watched with a muted expression.

"Oi! Knock it off," Yuji said.

The boys—young boys, Yuji realized with a slight annoyance—stilled. Only for a moment. Then the one on top used the hand not being used as a chew toy to backhand the other; he would have had more of a response from a boulder. The one that was part dog, part boy pushed up, shoved them to the nearby wall with a crack that sounded above Yuji's healing skill set.

A headache settled at the base of Yuji's skull.

Yuji was quick. In a blink, he gripped a pink head, pulled it back to reveal the contorted face of a kid, teeth bared, eyes scrunched. Red flecked his teeth. He let go and clawed at Yuji's arm. Fucking hell. The kid had a pair of nails on him. Yuji grimaced and held the kid out as far as possible.

With the focus off of him, the other kid weaseled away. "Mom!" he cried. "He tried to kill me!"

"Liar!" Yuji had turned the kid's head away, pressed it against the wall, careful to avoid that bite, so his words came out muffled. "You always fucking l—" he choked, but Yuji couldn't tell if it was from rage or the amount of force he was applying to keep him in place.

"Calm down," Yuji muttered. He winced as sharpened nails scratched at his wrist. The aimless flailing reminded Yuji of the grade four curses he disposed of when there was nothing too big going on: that desperate, animalistic strength that only appeared as a last ditch effort against an overwhelmingly stronger force.

With a sigh, Yuji lifted the kid, then slammed him against the wall. The shock of it knocked the wind out of him because the kid gasped once, then went still. Yuji, quite used to curses playing dead, only loosened his grip marginally.

The other boy clung to his mother's arm. "You see how he attacked me? He's crazy."

"And I'm sure you've done nothing to provoke it…" Yuji said, just loud enough that the other boy ceased his whining.

The kid's head was turned away, face obscured by curling pink locks. "Oi, kid, you alright?" Yuji shook him slightly.

The kid's breathing stilled. His head turned up stiffly, and two pairs of deep red eyes glared up at him through pink strands.

Yuji reared back, letting out a startled yelp. The kid fell back with a thump before springing up and scuttling away to the farthest corner of the room. He was light on his feet—the practiced movements of one used to making himself scarce at a moment's notice.

Something knocked furiously in Yuji's ribcage. The thudding was so loud it filled his ears, overtook the rest of his senses. Ms. Tadashi said something, but she was too far away, trapped underwater, every word coming out muted.

Yuji shook his head. He was cracking, wasn't he? He should have taken that vacation Kusakabe had offered a month ago. Too overworked. That was the only possible reason why he saw…

The kid trembled. Yuji thought from fear, but then he spoke, every word barbed. "Brought someone new to kill me, bitch?"

Red splotches spread across Ms. Tadashi's face. Her eyes found Yuji's; rage and helplessness swirled like the eye of a storm. Yuji breathed, gathered himself. He was a sorcerer, dammit. One too old to be choking on the job.

"That's no way to talk to your mother."

"Who the fuck are you?"

Yuji mustered his best grin. Always light, always easy-going. Even in the face of family drama that was none of his goddamn business.

"Itadori Yuji. I'm a—"

"You're some bitch ass sorcerer my mom hired to exorcise me."

Yuji couldn't help it. The laugh came out fast and quick. This kid had a mouth on him. "Do you need to be exorcised?"

The kid chewed on this. He was quick to anger and spoke fast and harsh in his own defense. Probably used to being his only supporter. "It's what everyone thinks."

"I didn't ask what everyone else thought. I asked you."

His face still obscured by unruly hair, Yuji couldn't discern the kid's true thoughts. Finally, the boy shrugged.

"Ms. Tadashi," Yuji said pleasantly. "What the fuck is going on?"

With each kid confined to his own room, Ms. Tadashi and Yuji move to the living room.

The story was this:

One night, fourteen years ago, after months of sleepless nights growing something inside her, Ms. Tadashi gave birth to a baby boy and a curse.

The boy came out healthy, normal, Ms. Tadashi's own small sun. But the light only shined briefly before the curse followed after, swallowing up the light and splitting her open.

"I knew it wasn't right from the beginning. It came out deformed. Its first act was to try and kill me, but no one believed me. They said some kids were just not right after the Reveal. Certain defects are common now," Ms. Tadashi whispered, not quite meeting his gaze." It was always only supposed to be Jin. That…thing latched on like a parasite. You don't know how many times I tried to get rid of it. How many times I left it outside. But it keeps surviving and I can't…I can't do it when it looks just like him. So I tried to live with it. After all, if a curse was born from my body, it was my responsibility, right?"

The sincerity in her words cut through him like a knife and he didn't know why. This was what he had suspected, right? That's what these calls always were. People living in fear of the monster they created. Desperate for it to be taken off their hands by the sorcerers they blamed for its existence.

So why did disgust unfurl in his stomach as Ms. Tadashi's story washed over him? He cut her off mid-ramble. "What do you want me to do?"

She blinked. "Get rid of it, of course."

"I don't kill kids," he said.

Ms. Tadashi flinched. "I thought you sorcerers would see. I thought you could see. It can do things—" she stopped, fingered the scar near her cheek, continued, "It's not normal."

Iori had once confided in Yuji years ago, during those early years post-reveal, that maybe it was for the better if the public knew. If young sorcerers didn't have to grow up being ostracized because everyone knew why they were different.

Ieiri, overhearing that, had laughed. "People will always scorn what they don't understand."

Yuji had wanted to believe Iori then, but as the years passed, Ieiri's words became truer and truer. A sorcerer not in service to the public was a thing to fear.

"Sorcerers kill curses. What else are you here for?" Ms. Tadashi whispered.

Yuji stood without a word. Upstairs, he heard the shuffling of footsteps as ears that shouldn't have been listening rushed to hide.

Just as Yuji passed a door on the second floor, it cracked open slightly and a small, thin voice called out to him. "Wait."

Yuji paused, listening.

"You're not really here to kill him, right? He's…" the voice wavered. "He's still my little brother."

"I don't kill kids," Yuji repeated.

Another pause. "And if they aren't a kid?"

Yuji continued to the sealed-off room at the end of the hall.

The room was dark inside. Yuji flicked the switch, flooding the room with harsh fluorescent lighting. The boy was still huddled in the corner, arms wrapped around drawn knees, faces buried. The only indication he was aware of Yuji's presence was the corded tenseness of his muscles, the stiffness of his posture.

Yuji approached with the measured slowness one would a wounded wild animal. The boy shrank into himself. Perhaps this retreat, the nakedly plain fear, was why Yuji almost didn't dodge the attack.

An invisible knife sliced through the air, hurtling toward Yuji. He moved, only narrowly avoiding it. It cut through the wall behind him, thin, delicate.

The hairs on Yuji's neck stood up.

"I thought I was the only one good at slicing and dicing," he tried to joke.

The kid raised his head, eyes obscured by the messy, overgrown bangs.

"Jin said you were here to kill me."

God, he sounded so young.

Yuji raised a placating hand. "Nope. I don't kill baby sorcerers. Well, maybe at Smash Bros."

The kid lifted his head, bangs falling to the side to reveal four deep red eyes that cut through him worse than any technique. It was the same gaze that had once looked at him from atop an impossibly high throne propped up by bovine skulls.

His breath shuddered. "Hey, kid. You got a name?"

The kid's face was thin, taut, eyes far too hard for someone his age.

The kid mumbled something. Yuji strained to hear it.

"Gonna have to speak a little louder. I'm getting old. "

The kid lifted his chin, a defiant glint in his eyes. "Sukuna. Like the King of Curses."

With trembling hands, Yuji reached inside his jacket pocket, found the smooth-cornered box, pulled out one cigarette, and brought it to his lips. It was the one habit Megumi despised more than anything. More than the sugary snacks and the hours of binge-watching shitty horror flicks. One of the few secrets Yuji kept staunch to himself, lest he be on the receiving end of a twenty-minute lecture on the absolute idiocy of inhaling cancer dust. Like Yuji didn't spend a year entangled with the most toxic poison known to man. Like the poison didn't still leak out of him.

He pressed the cigarette to his lips, took a slow, deep drag, the smoke filling his lungs, the rough burn sliding down his throat. Slowly, he exhaled.

It couldn't be. It shouldn't be. He'd done this for too long to know that ignoring the obvious only resulted in more misery, heartache, and death.

So it was. Because he'd long come to understand that the universe wasn't Itadori Yuji's biggest fan. That was fine. Most of the time, he wasn't either. But this, Yuji thought, was a particular sort of cosmic "fuck you."

Yuji called Kusakabe three times. It was on the fifth ring of the third call that he finally picked up.

"What?" Came Kusakabe's gravelly voice.

"Did you know? When you gave me the report," said Yuji.

The line was silent. Yuji listened to Kusakabe breathe.

"Did you kill him?"

"Fuck you."

Yuji ended the call, pressed his hands to his forehead, his breaths coming out short and fast. He waited five minutes before calling Kusakabe back. The bastard picked up on the first ring.

"If you haven't killed him, bring him to campus. We could use more promising sorcerers. Last year's crop was dismal." Kusakabe hung up.

Last year's crop hadn't even made it to Christmas. There were too many death notices Yuji had signed.

He stood on the stoop of the little gray house smoking his cigarette. He finished it, stubbed it out with his shoe. He wanted to call Kugisaki. She handled the hard choices with a cool, methodical efficiency that Yuji had always envied. Kugisaki could kill a kid with barely a wrinkle in her sleep schedule. But she was off somewhere in China and not answering her phone.

He headed back inside. His questions to Ms. Tadashi were minimal—"Do you remember eating anything weird while pregnant? Anything…finger-shaped?—" and he was left unsatisfied.

Upstairs, he lurked outside the sealed room, taking note of how poorly drawn some of them were. Like something Ms. Tadashi had grabbed off the Internet in desperation.

He entered. The boy—man? Curse? Demon?—had moved to the bed. He laid on his back, aimlessly flipping through a manga. Yuji recognized the title—it was one he'd read last year about a zombie prince's quest to regain his humanity. Ironic.

Red eyes studied him quizzically.

Yuji didn't smile. Couldn't smile. "Pack a bag. We're making your mother's dream come true."

Yuji missed the last train. After consulting with Ms. Tadashi, who was now in good spirits, he was directed to a small rental car company running out of someone's house; it was the little sibling of a large Tokyo branch, owned by a wrinkled old man who spat at Yuji, then charged him a price that was far too astronomical, but Yuji didn't care to argue. He just wanted to get out of the town, away from all of this, as quickly as possible.

The rental car was too cramped. Behind him, the kid sat with his feet up on the seat, unbuckled. Yuji should have told him to buckle up. But maybe he hoped for a miracle in the form of a wild animal or a fallen tree or a curse darting in front of the small sedan. Maybe he hoped to jerk the wheel suddenly, for that small body to go clear through the window. An easy way for Yuji to wash his hands clean of the matter.

This late at night, the highway was mockingly empty. Not even a rock was out of place. Yuji readjusted the rearview mirror and caught four eyes reflected back at him. His grip on the steering wheel tightened.

The darkness outside seeped through the cracks of the interior. Yuji hardly saw anything beyond those deep red pools.

"Everything alright?" Yuji's voice was all wrong. Too high. Too false.

The kid blinked a few times. "Yeah."

The silence was punctuated by muffled chewing. Upon hearing the kid's stomach growl, Yuji had offered him the bag of pastries from the coffee shop, which the kid devoured without another word.

Yuji took the car around a bend. Just as the car crested over a hill, a crack of thunder boomed. Thick droplets of water hit the windshield. Yuji activated the wipers.

"So how are you going to kill me?" the kid asked.

The front tires wobbled slightly—whether from the water pooling on the highway or from the shock of Yuji gripping the wheel, he couldn't say. He eased off the gas to steady it.

"Uh, what?" Yuji said dumbly.

The kid leaned forward. Yuji could feel the heat emanating off him.

"You passed a lot of good spots. I'm just curious. We're getting closer to the city. More people. Harder to kill and stuff."

Yuji cleared his throat. Why? he cursed for probably the hundredth time that day. Why did he have to deal with this? "I'm not going to kill you," said Yuji. It was the truest thing he had said that day.

"Really?" the kid said.

If it were anyone else, anything else, Yuji's hurt would have broken over the skepticism.

"How old are you?"

"Eleven."

Eleven and he was already sure Yuji was planning to take him somewhere and put him down. His throat constricted.

"You're a little too young, but we're going to Jujutsu High. It's an alternative high school for sorcerers."

The rain let up a little just as they caught up to city traffic. Yuji slowed as he merged on the crowded highway of evening workers rushing home.

"A school for sorcerers…" the kid said doubtfully. "But I'm a curse. Don't sorcerers kill curses?"

A vice-like grip circled around Yuji's heart. He sighed, tapping on the steering wheel. "You're not a curse… you're just a kid with shitty luck."

The kid squinted at Yuji in the mirror. He seemed to hesitate before he spoke. "Do I know you? You seem… familiar."

Yuji's heart clenched. "No," he said gruffly. "You don't."

They didn't speak for the rest of the ride.

Yuji crossed the threshold of the small apartment, and the weight of the day fell from his shoulders, leaving them oddly light. He rolled them back, stretched the crick in his neck.

He hadn't bothered to stay at the school for long; simply dropped the kid off with a confused manager and fled.

Now, finally back home, the clock on the mantle showed 1:27 a.m.. The scent of something warm and savory wafted over and caressed his senses.

He found Megumi in the kitchen, leaning over a hot pot. His head was bent in concentration, the steam from whatever he'd whipped up clung to his spiky locks, made them droop just ever so slightly.

Yuji came up behind him, wrapped his arms around his waist, dropping his head on Megumi's shoulder.

"That bad?" Megumi said dryly.

Yuji marveled at how easily they fit together. It hadn't always been that way. In the early days, when both of them still woke covered in sweat from the nightmares, physical touch hadn't been freely given. Megumi tensed whenever Yuji had tried to drape an arm around him or curl a strand of black hair around his fingers. And sometimes, when Yuji was lost in a haze of memories, Megumi's sudden appearance would cause a well full of dread to bubble up. Megumi dead. Megumi possessed.

But the years did what they did best—dulled the memories, soothed the mind. One of them would sleep through the night, then the other, until one morning, they would both open sleepy eyes and realize they couldn't recall when they'd closed them.

Yuji peered over Megumi's shoulders at the bubbling pot: ginger meatballs. He couldn't name the bright sensation blossoming inside of him. Neither of them were a fan of labels. Whatever it was they had, it was a fragile thing. The best course of action was to let it be.

("Say it with me, 'L-O-V-E.' Kugisaki had teased years ago, to both of the men's horror)

Yuji dropped into the hard plastic dining chair while Megumi ladled soup into the bowls. Over the delicious steaming bowls, Megumi listened quietly as Yuji rambled. Hearing it out loud, it sounded crazy, and the more he spoke, the more Yuji began to grasp the idea, take hold of it between scarred fingers.

PTSD. That's what the therapist Kusakabe had hired for them had said. Severe trauma and whatnot, that could rear its head in unexpected ways for the rest of their lives. That explained why Yuji thought he saw Sukuna in the kid. It had to be.

But as he finished his story, Megumi's eyes studied him carefully, like he was considered his next words. Maybe he thought Yuji was too delicate of a flower—a brittle dandelion easily destroyed by the wind.

"It's possible," Megumi said slowly. He stirred his soup a bit before taking a sip. "We know reincarnation can be done."

"But that was through Kenjaku," Yuji protested. "Whatever bullshit bargain he set up," he paused. "Is this more of his mess?"

Megumi shrugged. "He was crazy. Plans upon plans, apparently, so who knows?"

A smudge of pepper had fallen just below his bottom lip. Yuji had the sudden urge to lean across the table and lick it. He remained rooted in his seat. Disapointment bloomed when Megumi wiped his face with the back of his hand.

They were silent, the only sounds the slurps from their soup. Then Yuji broke it and said, "What would you have done? If you'd been sent instead of me?"

Megumi tilted his head, inky black strands falling into his face. "Run away." He scowled at the sharp bark of laughter from Yuji who recovered quickly.

"Sorry, I just didn't expect that. I mean, he's quite…small. And you're usually more levelheaded."

"If it was anything else, sure. But I don't think I could even stand to be near it." Megumi set his chopsticks down, his bowl empty.

Yuji had noticed over the years that Megumi had taken to calling Sukuna "it." He wondered if it was one of those coping mechanisms the therapist had mentioned. Maybe thinking of Sukuna as a thing, a mere phenomenon akin to a natural disaster, was better for him. Yuji had been too intertwined in him to think of him as anything other than a monster, but he was undoubtedly a man.

Megumi moved to gather their bowls pausing only when Yuji wrapped a hand around his wrist.

"Leave it. I'll get it in the morning."

"You won't," Megumi said dryly, but he allowed Yuji to tug him away to their bedroom.

* * *

Yuji wasn't avoiding anything, no matter what Kusakabe said. He simply strategically picked with how he used his time. The fact that hanging around Jujutsu High didn't figure into his surprisingly sparse schedule was merely a coincidence.

"He's a quiet kid," Kusakabe said over the phone. He was debriefing Yuji on another mission. Some low grade curses were terrorizing a college dorm. It was completely beneath Yuji, but as of late, he had been volunteering for any mission that would keep him away.

"Interesting," Yuji said. He was sitting in the booth of yet another unnecessarily kitschy-themed cafe, swirling a coffee with enough sugar to make an entire football team diabetic.

"He's not timid just…careful. Doesn't seem to trustworthy of adults. Makes sense given the bullshit he's been through."

Yuji wondered, distantly, if Kusakabe even cared about the bullshit he went through.

Yuji hummed in response.

Megumi read in the paper that Jujutsu High was starting an accelerated program for younger gifted sorcerers. Anyone aged 11-14 could apply.

"Please don't kill your sorcerer kids when you could dump them with us," Nobara mocked once Megumi finished reading the article.

They were all huddled around the dining room table in the Tokyo apartment. It seemed noticeably smaller, Yuji thought, with three people.

Nobara was back from a long mission abroad, some infestation of curses that had hid on a ship to Beijing and overrun the locals. The minute her feet had landed back on Japanese soil, she had phoned Yuji and demanded to be caught up on certain rumors she'd caught on the wind. Yuji, so far, had been quite the boring gossip.

Megumi folded the newspaper, his slender fingers making neat lines. Megumi would read a physical newspaper, Yuji thought. His allergy to modern tech conveniences got worse with each passing year. "There's nothing wrong with something tangible," he'd said once, when Yuji was a little too cheeky.

"Not a bad idea. Curses get worse every year. There's hardly enough of us to handle it. It's better to get another generation trained as soon as possible." Nobara loudly slurped her noodles. She hummed over the steaming cup, the jewels of her eyepatch twinkling in the light. "Raise another group for the slaughter."

Yuji chased a naruto in his cup with his chopsticks. He pouted when Nobara swooped in deftly with hers and snagged it before Yuji could even fish it out.

"Where do you think they'll get teachers for all those brats? They better not ask us."

They did ask.

Well, Kusakabe did. It was over fried-battered fish and vegetables at an izakaya near their apartment. Yuji should have known that an offer for a free dinner was never truly free. Not when it came to Jujutsu High.

"Nope," said Yuji. His appetite fizzled. Not even the takoyaki looked good.

Beside him, Megumi ate his steamed veggies in silence. Kusakabe turned his tired eyes to him.

The years had not spared Kusakabe's feelings, with the strong streaks of gray in his hair and the harsh lines running down his face. Becoming the principal, it turned out, didn't come with many days of relaxation.

Megumi finished chewing before he said. "I don't plan to ever return to the school. No offense," he said the last part as almost an afterthought.

Yuji hid his smile behind his cup. It had been almost ten years since Megumi had severed his association with the school. They had discussed it only once, under the covers one wintry night.

On the geography of Megumi's skin was an impressive network of scars. Yuji traced the path of Megumi's upper thigh with a lazy hand, marveling at how the pale white lines connected.

"I never wanted to be a sorcerer," said Megumi. Most of the time, when Megumi spoke, it was distant, like he was organizing his thoughts in a far-off land. One Yuji could never explore. But as Yuji moved his hands to trail along his stomach, Megumi had finally docked along Yuji's shores.

"After Tsumiki…after sensei…I thought I should continue. It wasn't like I had any other skills. I've only been trained to kill."

Yuji pressed his face to the crook of Megumi's neck and listened to the gentle rise and fall of his breath.

"I still want to help people…I just don't want to do it with the school."

"Okay," said Yuji, and he meant it. "That's okay."

In the dark, Yuji couldn't see Megumi's face, but he felt the sear of those blue eyes on him.

"You're not mad? The school…" he trailed off.

Yuji didn't need him to finish his thoughts—the school meant too much to Yuji for him to ever abandon it.

"You should do what's best for you. My connection with the school is my own."

Yuji thought they would have fallen into that comfortable silence like that had for so many nights. Megumi broke the streak by winding his fingers through Yuji's hair and pulling him up for a hot, heady kiss.

Nobara's laugh pulled Yuji back to the present.

"You must be desperate if you're asking me to care for children," she said between mouthfuls of tempura.

Kusakabe scratched his chin ruefully. The beginnings of a gray beard poked out through the stubble. "I don't have a qualified army of sorcerers at your level."

If Kusakabe thought flattery would ingratiate him with Nobara, then he was even more sly than Yuji thought he was.

Nobara grinned widely. "Just don't go complaining about my methods."

"As long as you don't actually hit them, you won't hear much from me."

"I make no promises."

Chaperoning a bunch of brats wasn't her life's calling, she later told Megumi and Yuji. They were back at the apartment, cozied under the kotatsu Yuji had sprung on sale. Nobara had removed her sparkly eyepatch, revealing the taught ruined skin beneath. Yuji liked her better without it.

She'd been seeing someone for the last few years—a non-sorcerer working at an office in the heart of Tokyo. Yuji had met him once. Nice dude. Argumentative as hell, which made him the exact sort Nobara loved tearing down. The constant overseas missions was putting a strain on her relationship, but, like Megumi, it wasn't as though she had many other career prospects. A permanent gig close to home was exactly what she'd been looking for.

"Besides, I've been curious about him." She turned, fully facing Yuji.

There was no need to clarify who he was. Yuji decided not to comment.

On her first day of teaching, Nobara blew up the group chat.

Eyepatch: 7. I have 7 brats I'm supposed to keep alive UGH

Eyepatch: I met your brat. He's so SMALL.

Eyepatch: he's about as scary as a marshmallow.

Eyepatch: LOOK AT HIM

Yuji's phone dinged again and he opened up the picture Nobara had sent.

Nobara took up a large portion of the screen. She'd opted for a red eyepatch this time. Her cheeky smile stared back at Yuji as she held up a peace sign. Her other arm was looped around the kid.

He scowled at the camera, his red eyes narrowed just enough. His skin had taken on a more pleasing tone, and he didn't look so starved—his cheeks were actually chubby.

He closed the photo quickly.

Not even a minute passed before it dinged again.

Eyepatch: I'm going to ruin him.

* * *

When the last of winter cleared and spring rushed in with the bloom of cherry blossoms, Yuji patrolled the streets of Tokyo, searching.

Alley after alley, he wasn't sure what he was really looking for.

He stared intently into the faces of strangers who passed. Most of them were tired in the way that city folk could be and they glanced away quickly when Yuji caught their eye.

He patrolled parks; a favorite spot for curses. Not even the joy of children was enough to stave off the social pressures, the exhaustion from tired parents, the anxiety that curses bloomed in.

So he watched. Still not sure of what. Maybe he was looking for bright blue eyes and white hair.

Yuji really couldn't say.

After three weeks, Megumi was the one who put the ban on Nobara's frequent updates.

"He killed my sister," was all Megumi had to say.

Nobara huffed only once, but gratefully, Yuji stopped fearing every ding from his phone.

Yuji became a ghost at the school. He lurked in the hallways, disappearing at the slightest sound of childish rumblings.

"Some of the kids think you're the ghost of a manager who died at the school," Nobara told him once.

Yuji knew it was silly, the sneaking. But he couldn't overcome the need for caution. There were people he'd rather not see.

Over the next four years, Nobara only broke the embargo once. It was around the time when the kids she'd been responsible for had finally graduated to high school level and were being passed along to Maki and Panda. It had just been one text.

Eyepatch: Saw the incoming freshman. By god there are two of him.

Neither Yuji nor Megumi had ever bothered to clarify what she'd meant.

"No."

Kusakabe was trying his old tricks. They were at an izakaya famous for its okonomiyaki. Yuji had topped his with every seafood imaginable, doused it with sauce, and he couldn't even enjoy it because Kusakabe's request left him positively nauseated. The chunk he'd gobbled down sat in his stomach like a stone.

Kusakabe rubbed his chin. He'd given up the fight and a well-trimmed gray beard peppered his face. "I have two special grades. I need to put them in the care of someone on their level. With Yuta abroad, you're the only one left."

Yuji shook his head, his throat tight. "I'd be a shit teacher."

"I have a stuffed Panda teaching. You can't be worse," Kusakabe said dryly.

"Wanna bet," Yuji grouched. He touched the nub of a finger on his hand. It usually only ached when the temperatures got too low, but in the swampy haze of summer, it throbbed.

"I could easily double your pay." At Yuji's silence, Kusakabe pressed harder. "Triple it? I'll even throw in an early retirement."

"I thought the only retirement sorcerers got was death."

"Well, just don't die before I can put together your retirement package." Kusakabe tipped his bowl back, then lowered it. Flecks of soup were in his beard.

"You told me once, after Shinjuku, that you wanted to carry on Gojo's will."

Yuji jabbed his chopsticks. "Invoking sensei? That's dirty."

"I'm desperate," said Kusakabe. "The twins are good kids. God, never thought I'd say that about the King of Curses, but it's true. They're a little childish, but they haven't experienced much of the real world. I need someone who could rein them in on missions. Minimize destruction. You have the same technique. It's the only option that makes sense." Kusakabe raised his hand, called over the pretty young waitress and ordered another round of sake. "You want to change Jujutsu society? This is how."

"If the worst happens, it's my wish and my dream that you carry on in my absence."

Yuji could have smacked Kusakabe right then and there.

"You said you thought the best course of action would have been to kill me. I didn't disagree with you. What changed?"

"Who says I've changed? If the situation changes, I want you to rectify it immediately."

They were silent for a long time, the only sounds the drunken laughter around them.

Kusakabe said, "Something has to give. The way sorcerers get twisted. The way they die. Something has to change."

Yuji stabbed his chopsticks into his pancake. "I liked it better when you hated me."

Chapter Text

Kusakabe's offer festered in Yuji, the spores spreading, attaching to the interconnected roots and branches that made up Yuji, until he was certain he was rotten to the core.

"Just think on it."

Yuji stood in the small shower, the lukewarm water drizzling over him as he pressed his head against the wall. Damn Kusakabe. Damn the King of Curses. Damn the universe. Everyone knew Yuji wasn't meant to think this hard about anything. What if he pulled something up there?

A knock on the bathroom door pulled him back to reality. Megumi's voice filtered in, muffled by the rush of water. "Existential dread again?"

Yuji suddenly could not think of anything better than Fushiguro Megumi and all of his loud oddities and quiet perfections. He shut the water off, toweled himself lazily, before wrenching open the door. Megumi leaned against the wall, arms folded as he scanned Yuji from head to toe. Yuji didn't know what he was looking for. Maybe outward signs of the trauma Yuji half-assedly stuffed somewhere deep down. Or maybe he was simply taking all of Yuji in. Yuji wanted the latter at that moment.

He draped the towel over his shoulders. "And what do I get if it is?"

"A smack on the head for running up our water bill. "

Megumi's scowl was decidedly unsexy, which Yuji took as a sign that he was uninterested in the form of Yuji that was sad and horny. Yuji sighed and fixed the towel around his waist.

"You know—"

"No sad times with the utilities," Yuji finished. "As if you're not loaded." He followed Megumi to their bedroom.

"Tell that to the environment," said Megumi. He sat on their bed and scooted over to make space for Yuji, who flopped down after him. "Now tell me what's going on so I don't have to listen to you sigh throughout the night."

The clock on their nightstand told Yuji it had only been three hours since Kusakabe had decided to ruin his night, but in that interim, he had thought he would keep this a secret from Megumi. There technically wasn't any reason for him to know when Yuji's answer was a definite no, right?

Right?

"Puppy first," said Yuji.

Megumi arched an eyebrow as though to say, 'That bad?' but summoned his shikigami without question. Kuro appeared out of a shadowed corner, tail wagging as he leaped between, nosing his head under Yuji's palm.

"Kusakabe wants me to mentor…you-know-who."

"Are we in Harry Potter?" Megumi said with a wry grin. "Gonna call him 'He Who Shall Not Be Named' next?" He reached out a hand and scratched behind Kuro's ear. The dog barked appreciatively. "And you said yes, right? Or you're going to."

"What? Of course not. I wouldn't—" he stopped, deflating a little under Megumi's appraising look.

"If the answer is no, why are you taking hour-long showers?" Megumi curled in on Kuro, resting his head atop the shikigami's back. Kuro's tail thumped furiously. "Or is this you cosplaying as the greedy sugar baby ruthlessly spending my money?"

Yuji looked helplessly at Kuro for support, who had chosen in that moment to be more dog than Shikigami, and stared back with a startling lack of sentience. What pets did to a creature…

"I should say no," Yuji started. "I mean, I'm going to, right?"

Megumi, face obscured in Kuro's fur, hummed, which was not the affirmative Yuji needed. It was the hum of 'If you say so.'

Yuji regretted being naked. The red on his face spread in terrible splotchy patches around his body. He wanted to burrow under the covers and hide. But Megumi and Kuro were quite comfortable on top of it, so he floundered in the open.

"Because. Because…fuck that. Where does Kusakabe even get the nerve? I mean, what am I, Sukuna's keeper?" Indignation flooded him, but it wasn't even directed at the bastard. All of his anger molded into self-hate, like always. Because Megumi was undoubtedly right and simply waiting for him to work through it. But like hell was Yuji going to make it easy for him.

"Very presumptuous of him," Megumi murmured.

"Damn right. He already asked once and we said no. What makes him think I'm going to change my mind? You know he had the nerve to bring up Gojo, the bastard."

"Fuck him," said Megumi.

"Fuck him," said Yuji with an added fervor. He liked it when Megumi swore. "You should have seen it. Suddenly he's all about changing society. He wants to save sorcerers. Which means saving the kid. He talked like I was supposed to be some…some sort of guiding light. If having him nestled in my soul didn't make the asshole good, what good will playing sensei do?"

"I understand everything you're saying, brat. And yet…it stirs no emotion within me."

Hadn't Yuji tried the good guy thing? Hadn't he tried to appeal to what he thought was the smallest speck of humanity left in the King of Curses and found it woefully inhuman? Wasn't it the case that some souls were simply rotten?

And yet.

And yet.

Kuro's whine pulled him out of the well he attempted to drown himself in. He hadn't even realized he'd crumpled in on himself. Kuro's wet nose pressed against his knee. Across from him, Megumi sat up, his blue eyes boring into Yuji, expertly pulling apart everything that Yuji desperately wished could be a secret, but never was to the other man.

Megumi cupped Yuji's face, pulling him close enough that their breaths mingled. When he spoke, a pleasant buzz hummed against Yuji's cheek. "The problem, Itadori Yuji," he said. "Is that you're achingly, irritatingly good."

And the bigger problem was, Yuji didn't want to be. They were so close, skin on skin. So close that Yuji desired nothing more than a technique that would let him meld himself into Megumi's being, slide under his skin, so he could be Fushiguro Megumi, calm, practical, and maybe a little selfish. Better than Itadori Yuji, Sacrificial Good Guy.

"Is the universe trying to punish me?" he murmured.

"That would imply you've done something that needs punishing."

"Haven't I?" Somewhere in Yuji's mind was a crater, bottomless, the corners eating away at a derelict cityscape. Nothing ever stopped the expanse; not late nights under the covers. Not the clinical extermination of curses. Not the pitiful number of people saved that always looked spectacularly small against the number of dead. The crater ate and ate.

Megumi pulled away. Yuji hated the pathetic no that escaped his lips, but Megumi rectified the situation by resting his forehead on Yuji's. They were eye-to-eye.

"No. You haven't."

Yuji woke the next morning with a crick in his neck. They had fallen asleep in a strange tangle of limbs and paws. Megumi didn't stir once as Yuji quietly unwound himself from the cluster. Usually, the other was up far earlier to start the work day, but a quick consultation of the calendar in the kitchen informed Yuji this was one of the mandatory off days Megumi received from the Commission. Joys of working for the government. Kuro watched, tail wagging, as he dressed quickly. Yuji gave him a quick pat on the head and whispered, "Tell him I'll be back in an hour."

Outside was gray overcast and sputters of rain. People hurried along the street with their heads bowed beneath umbrellas. Yuji pulled up his hoodie and made his way to the nearby coffee shop where the baristas didn't flinch at the sight of him and always knew his order. Huddled in the plushy green booth, he took a few sips of his impossibly sweet latte, then he pulled out his phone.

It rang once, twice, before Kusakabe answered. "Yes?"

"How nice is this retirement package?"

The line was nearly silent. Yuji could hear the sound of Kusakabe's toothpick sliding between his teeth. "We can talk numbers in person, but how does stopping at sixty sound? Come by the school around four and—" A shout came from somewhere in the distance, followed by a crash.

Yuji listened carefully and heard the high-pitched whine of koucho-sensei followed by the sound of broken glass. Kusakabe released a long-suffering sigh. "The twins," was all he said. Then the line went dead.

Yuji sat in the booth, staring at the blank screen of his phone long enough that the black began bleeding around the edges and obscuring the brightness of the coffee shop. He blinked the darkness away and the world returned.

Not even ten minutes later, as he exited the shop with a paper bag filled with extra scones, his phone dinged. He juggled the bag with one hand as he pulled out his phone.

Eyepatch: so….co-workers?
Eyepatch: don't be too nice or they'll eat you alive.
Eyepatch: the twins can smell fear

* * *

In early April, morning rain shifted to sleet and back again with a long-suffering frequency. Yuji, bundled in a black puffer that made up the winter version of his sorcerer uniform, walked into Jujutsu High with the air of one going to his death.

"Chin up," Nobara barked. She met him at the front gate and punched his arm as a greeting. She donned a pretty blue eyepatch that matched her uniform. "It's just the Welcoming Ceremony."

"Since when did we start doing those?" Yuji muttered.

"Since we started having more than eight students at a time. We're up to fifty-two."

Who would have thought Jujutsu High would ever see those numbers? And it only took the destruction of a few cities to make it happen.

Nobara took it upon herself to give Yuji a tour as if he hadn't attended and worked for the school for the last twenty years. Still, there were enough subtle changes that Yuji needed to pay attention to—the row of cubbies where the younger students stowed their shoes before sparring, the areas the older students tended to goof around in, the not-so-hidden spot couples escaped to on the second floor behind a Buddha statue.

"If you want to preserve your eyeballs, I suggest you ignore any sounds coming from up here after nine."

Yuji nodded. Nobara led him to the teachers' office, which was a new feature he definitely didn't know about, to Nobara's smug pleasure. Five pairs of desks were scattered lazily through a brightly lit room. Each desk was covered in stacks of folders, spilled pencil containers, half-empty cups of coffee, and clumps of fur (that one had to be Pandas). Nobara led him to one in the furthest corner covered in an overflow of file stacks. At the edge of the desk, someone had messily scribbled the characters for his name. Nobara guiltily scooped a few folders and dumped them on a nearby desk he assumed was hers.

"It's been a mess getting everything prepped for the beginning of the year," she said by way of apology.

She showed him the back room office that was little more than a closet but managed to fit in a desk, office chair, and small ottoman. "Counselor's office, but you can use this for one-on-ones with the students after school hours."

Yuji raised an eyebrow. "We have counselors now?"

"A counselor, but yeah." She grinned. "We're almost legit."

In that tiny closet with the walls bending in so close Yuji could brush against either side with his shoulders, he wondered what sort of secrets students spilled. Maybe it was the small pains of growing up, of teenage crushes, and too many homework assignments. Or maybe it was darker. Maybe students vomited all the specters that haunted them late at night; the curses they could never shake.

The sliding door to the staff room opened, the forms of Maki, Panda, Kusakabe, and a few others Yuji didn't recognize spilling in. Yuji bowed deeply, asked the staff to take care of him, and was rewarded with a promise from Panda to do anything but.

Anxiety was a small thread Yuji picked at, unraveling in neverending spools. He only had half an ear to Kusakabe's coffee-deprived words—classroom assignments, new policies from the Commission, incoming problem students. The new program for young sorcerers was undoubtedly a success, but it also meant an unprecedented amount of students at the school. Higher enrollment meant more students to keep alive.

Kusakabe passed out folders with dossiers of the students. Yuji's folder was the only one suspiciously light. Kusakabe ended the meeting with a promise to treat the staff to sushi later. Yuji hardly thought he would stomach it.

The Opening Ceremony was blissfully short. Yuji sat on the makeshift stage in the gymnasium with the other teachers, a light layer of sweat forming on his skin. Someone had turned the lights up, despite warm, yellow streaming in from the large windows that surrounded the gym. The metal folding chair dug uncomfortably into the back of his thighs as he sat forward, back straight. Beside him, he thought Nobara muttered, "Relax," but he couldn't quite hear her over the thumping in his ear. His heart was dangerously close to spilling out of his mouth.

The students sang a short song to usher in spring and savor beginnings. Afterward, two class leaders gave lukewarm speeches that only served to gather a few yawns and obligatory applause.

With the bright lights baking him, it was hard to see the crowd, but Yuji felt their eyes on him, picking him apart, sizing him up. Nobara's teasing words from a few years ago come back to him: "The kids think you're the ghost of a manager who died at the school."

Kusakabe's speech was brief and full of warnings for the upper-classmen, who only tittered. Then Kusakabe swept a hand back to the teachers sitting behind him, some (meaning Panda) already dozing.

"Let's welcome the newest edition to our faculty, Itadori-sensei, a Special Grade Sorcerer."

That, at least, was worthy of excited whispers and the scraping of metal legs on the gym floor as the students straightened up.

"We'll now reveal classroom assignments, starting with Itadori-sensei."

Yuji swallowed. There was only a moment to collect himself as he approached the microphone. The overhead lights were behind him now, and he could finally see the students—compared to any other Tokyo high school, it was a pitiful amount. But things were different at Jujutsu High. He didn't think he'd seen that many people gathered on campus since the days following the end of the Culling Games.

His eyes swept over them. Chubby cheeks, well-slept eyes, not a single gray strand in sight. They wore different variations of the sorcerer uniform, though there were already some students in white tops. Problem children. His problem children.

Yuji squared his shoulders. He was Itadori Yuji and he wasn't scared of children.

Much.

"I'm happy to be welcomed back at my old school. I'll be teaching an advanced course this year for students of a higher rank." He fiddled with the small envelope before flicking it open. The names were already engraved in his mind, but he read them aloud as though he were seeing them for the first time. "First-year and first-grade sorcerer Hayashi Hitomi…" A tall girl in the front row startled, her body pitching forward. "First-year and special grade sorcerers Tadashi Jin and Tadashi Sukuna." One of the white-clad figures whooped, drawing Yuji's eye as well as Kusakabe's frown.

"Settle down Tadashi, unless you want detention on the first day," said Kusakabe.

The rest of the students giggled and the boy slid back into his seat with an embarrassed smile. He was practically vibrating with excitement.

The only other student in problem child attire sat on the opposite end, one row back from the rest of his peers. He was tall, lanky, and wrapped in a cloak of teenaged sullenness. Big bulky sunglasses shielded his eyes, but Yuji could feel all four of them pinning him in place.

Yuji coughed to clear his throat, then read off his room number. Kusakabe called the next teacher, Zen'in-sensei, up.

Yuji took his seat. Nobara clapped him on the back. "Was that so bad?"

Yes, Yuji wanted to say. He swallowed his words. The students once again became a faceless blur, though he heard loud girlish whispers coming from the front.

"Lucky, Hitomi-senpai! You get Jin, Sucks about Sukuna."

Yuji wanted to agree.

After the Ceremony, students and staff alike were supposed to head to their homerooms for the first lesson of the day. Yuji broke from Nobara and rushed to the bathroom, barely making it in time before the sugary latte he'd had earlier forced its way up, spilling into the toilet.

Once he was sure nothing was left in him, he rinsed his mouth vigorously under the faucet. He splashed his face with water, then peered at his reflection in the mirror. Right. Right.

He was Itadori Yuji and he wasn't scared of children. Maybe if he repeated that enough, it would one day be true.

What a strange thing, a door. Simple in its construction: wood, nails, and metal all work together harmoniously. Yet, always on the other side was a possibility that interrupted that harmony.

Yuji lurked outside the door to the room that was to be his home and personal hell for the next twelve months. His legs had become tree bark, rooting him in place as seconds ticked by. No need to rush. He was already late. The long route he'd taken from the bathroom had added six minutes to his time. He could run down the clock like this, then Kusakabe would hear about how he'd missed his first lesson and realize what a mistake it had been to hire Yuji. By the evening, he could be back in the small apartment eating ginger meatballs with Megumi.

The problem was, Yuji was something of a people pleaser. With a sigh, he hooked his finger under the latch, pulled the door open, and walked into his new fate.

The room was almost empty—one figure sat hunched over her desk in the very first row, long legs bowed awkwardly as they tried to fit themselves under a desk meant for people much smaller. Hayashi Hitomi, taller than most of her peers and still growing, carried herself with the air of someone not used to their own body. One arm hung stiff to her side while the other rested on the desk, elbow down, cradling her chin. A faint black smudge quivered on her desk. At Yuji's sudden appearance, it whipped around, white eyes narrowed, and hissed.

Yuji arched an eyebrow. Hayashi reddened and dispersed the shikigami. "Sorry, Sensei," she said mollified.

He shrugged. There was a large wooden desk at the front of the room. Yuji dumped his folder and surveyed the room that failed to produce two extra teenagers. "Where are your classmates?"

"Ah, right. Well, one wanted a snack and the other followed…that was ten minutes ago. But they're not very productive together, you know? They fight, like, all the time." Hayashi leaned in, an air of gossip taking over. She leveled an accusing eye at him, as though Yuji was the one who'd paired such disasters together. Blame Kusakabe, the bastard.

"Is that right?"

Hayashi nodded furiously. "Sukuna's not so bad. Everyone's scared of him because of the"—she paused, waving one hand in front of her face—"but he mostly keeps to himself and I don't even think the eye thing is that weird. Everyone overreacts too much. And I'm not saying they're cute, but he kinda has that mysterious, eldritch vibe, if you know what I mean? Kinda evil, kinda stylish?"

Yuji leaned on his desk, quite sure he had no idea what she meant, but amused by the open teenaged girlness of it all.

"Most boys here are just so unsophisticated. It's nice when one is just quiet. But Jin"—here, her eyes narrowed—"is so obnoxious. All the girls think he's cute and he's clearly got a bighead because of it. If you ask me, he's kind of an attention-seeker. And he's not even that cute. I'm too busy to be into boys like that, but Sukuna is obviously the cuter—"

"Aw Me-chan you mean that?"

The door slid open. Two tall figures stood shoulder to shoulder in the doorway. Hayashi's face took on the unpleasant shade of a ripened tomato as she beheld the subjects of her gossip.

Tadashi Jin pressed a palm to his chest, mock hurt flashing across his features. "I'm the cute one. Everyone says it. You're a weird one, Me-chan."

Hayashi's eyes were trained on the ground as though willing it to open up and swallow her away.

The boys pressed through the doorway. Neither would give, which resulted in them spilling into the the room in a tangle of limbs and loose potato chips.

"Fucker." One clammered to his feet, clutching the ripped open bag of chips. His bulky sunglasses sat askew on his nose, revealing one pair of narrowed red eyes. "You owe me." He balled the bag and pelted it at his brother, who ducked before scrambling to his feet.

"Maybe if you weren't such a brat, this wouldn't have happened." Jin pushed his rectangle glasses up his nose. He had a couple of centimeters on his brother; the shit-eating grin as he stared down his nose told Yuji it was a point he was strongly aware of.

Sukuna pushed past him, potato chips crunching under the thick black combat boots he wore, and threw himself in a rickety desk at the back of the classroom. Jin followed suit, pulling his desk ever so slightly over. Sukuna's mouth set into a snarl.

"Fuck off."

"No, you."

Hayashi eyed Yuji from her safe corner on the other end of the room, a clear "I told you so" in her gaze. The Problem Children in their natural habitat. If he didn't establish order now, the rest of the year would be more of the same.

"Enough." Yuji's voice was loud enough it cut through the twins' bickering. There was a eerie syncrocicity to the way their heads turned, pinning Yuji in place.

"Sensei," Jin said. "Long time no see."

Yuji was pulled, ever so briefly, back to that day. Back to the gray house and the sealed door and the small, frightened thing huddled in a corner.

"You shouldn't act so familiar with the teacher!" Hayashi admonished.

"But we go way back don't we, Sensei?" Jin kicked his feet up on the desk, tilting the chair on its back legs. "You didn't kill this little weasel, so I'm eternally in your debt."

Beside him, Sukuna huffed, folding his arms on the desk and burying his head down.

Yuji closed the door on that memory and stepped back into the present. The twins were a far cry from the skinny, frightened children he had come across years ago. They were taller and filled out from years of adequate meals. Yuji still had enough height on them but figured puberty would close the gap soon.

Sukuna. Puberty. The clash of these words was comedic enough that something unwound in him. His shoulders loosened. "Don't mention it," he said. "I'll be your teacher for the next year, so—"

A hand shot up from the back corner. "Er, yes, Hayashi?"

"Hitomi is fine. You were in the same year as Kugisaki-sensei when you were students, right?" At Yuji's hesitant nod, she continued, "Does that mean you fought in the Culling Games? Were you at Shinjuku?"

Jin straightened in his desk, feet down as he leaned forward. Even Sukuna lifted his head. Yuji truly felt the weight of his students' attention then. He tugged at his collar, suddenly too tight around his neck. "Yes. But that's ancient history—"

"Cool history," said Jin. Across the room, Hitomi looked loathed to agree with Jin on anything, but she bobbed her head.

Sukuna sniffed as he crossed his arms. "So what? Were you just canon fodder like the rest?"

No. I was too busy kicking your ass as a crucial feature of the plot. Yuji coughed into his fist. "Fun stories for another time. There are more important things we need to get through today."

There was some grumbling, as expected, but the students shifted their focus.

Jin asked, "So, what's our first mission?"

"Mission?" Yuji stared down at the open folder on his desk. Someone had gone through the effort to type up a neat lesson plan for the semester. "You could call writing an essay a mission. Two pages on how to dispose of a curse."

The corners of Jin's lips tugged into a slight frown. "Oh come on. We've been going on missions since we came to Jujutsu High."

Yuji was well aware. He had spent the previous evening nursing a cup of gin while pouring over their files. Kugisaki and then Panda could be rather colorful in their reporting.

"The Tadashis show ease in the disposal of low grade curses, but are still elementary when minding themselves or the environment." Yuji read the yellow sticky note stuck to the top of the folder.

"Did Panda-sensei write that? He's still mad over—"

"Lack of care is written all over your file," Yuji said with maybe a bit more force than necessary. "It isn't like how it was before the reveal. The public pays attention to sorcerers now. They notice the discrepancies. It's not enough to just throw a curtain and call it a gas explosion." He closed the envelope and laid it on the desk. The three were silent now, hanging on to his words. "As representatives of the high school, it's imperative that you act in accordance with the highest standards of Jujutsu."

When he finished speaking, the three exchanged looks.

Jin said, "Kugisaki-sensei said you'd be fun."

Something had swallowed the children's ward of the hospital. Gone were the sterile white walls peppered with children's drawings, good well notes, and progress charts. Gone were the stiff hospital beds, the beeping medical equipment, and perhaps, most importantly, the children. In its place was a pulsing, red, fleshy corridor, wide like the throat of a beast.

Yuji stood at the edge of this hallway, his students crowding behind him. The hospital was still operating normally, all things considered. Only this floor had been affected, and the curse had worked overnight when all visitors were ushered away so the children could rest. The only casualties listed so far were three night nurses, their bodies discovered in the very spot they stood, sans skin. The curse didn't seem to have a hankering for adults. All things considered, the death toll was barely worthy of a mention in the evening news. Yuji wanted to keep it that way.

He'd already decided this would be nothing like his first mission. Once they were brought up to speed, he would hang back, observing, but ready to step in if anyone was in danger of losing an appendage.

"What should be your first course of action?" Yuji asked. An eager hand shot up just in his peripheral. "You don't need to raise your hand, Hitomi."

Jin snickered as Hitomi reddened. She lowered her hand. "We need to secure the outer premises and make sure there aren't any non-sorcerers lurking around." She clapped her palms together, summoning a handful of the black smudges that were her shikigami. She ordered them to search the stairwells leading up to the floor and hold off any intruders. They bounced away with determined squeaks. One came near Yuji, eyes narrowed in the same way as the one from their first meeting, but Hitomi hurriedly redirected it.

"Excellent. What's next?"

"Veil," said Jin. "Not that we really need it, but it's annoying when streamers try to peak in during a mission."

Yuji nodded.

"Sukuna, how many kids are missing?"

Sukuna stilled, eyebrows creeping indignantly above those black frames. Yuji focused on a spot to the left, just above his forehead. When Sukuna didn't immediately answer, Hitomi began fidgeting, her arm quivering at her side.

"Looks like she knows," Sukuna said brusquely.

"I didn't ask Hitomi. I asked you."

Sukuna bristled, shoulders rising. "We should…go…and get the kids?"

"How many?"

"…nine?"

"You don't sound sure."

"You know the answer. Why ask me?"

"Because this isn't my mission, it's yours. Did you actually read the report?" Yuji turned away and faced the endless corridor. The air shifted as the boy behind him released a steady flow of Cursed Energy. "Throwing a tantrum on your first mission?" Maybe he was being unfair, but this mattered. Getting Sukuna to take being a sorcerer seriously. Reining him in. It all mattered. Yuji couldn't afford to go easy. "If you can't get a hold of yourself, you're more than welcome to take a zero for this and hang out with the manager."

Jin whispered, "Bro, chill." The sound of flesh on flesh followed, then a sharp yelp. There was a big swell, then at once, the Cursed Energy abated.

"Good. You're responsible for finding twelve kids. Alive if possible. If not, retrieve their bodies. That's more important than exorcising the curse. Don't forget that. I won't help you with anything unless your life or theirs is in danger." Yuji looked over his shoulder. "Well? What are you waiting for?"

A grin split Jin's face. He cracked his knuckles. "Don't be afraid, Me-chan. Sukucchi. I'll keep you safe."

Hitomi winced as Sukuna let loose a string of impressive insults. To Yuji, they sounded like something Nobara taught him. He would have to talk to her about not corrupting him further.

"I can kill a curse on my own, fuck face."

"Not if I get to it first." The boys bickered as they moved around Yuji, taking the lead.

"Wanna bet?"

Hitomi trailed after them, casting one last look at Yuji before jogging to catch up to the boys. "Um, Sensei said we should focus on rescuing…" Her words were drowned out by the senseless arguing.

Yuji waited until he could no longer see them, only hearing the distant sound of their retreating footsteps before following. The surface was springy, each step accompanied by a small rebound. He'd spent a considerable amount of time inside the digestive tract of various curses, so walking steadily was easy enough. The corridor was long. Longer than the hospital floor plan suggested, courtesy of whatever technique the curse was using.

Eventually, silence took over the group as they moved deeper and deeper. Yuji understood why—it was unnerving in the belly of a beast. Enough that even the cockiest lost their words.

After what seemed like hours, the students came into view again. They stood, shoulder to shoulder, their backs to Yuji, as they observed a pulsating red sac. Gore and mucus spilled out, coalescing at their feet in small streams.

Yuji moved to lean against a fleshy wall and watched.

"Bleh," Jin said. "Why are curses so gross?"

Sukuna's scowl deepened. "It's a curse what do you expect? A fucking red carpet of roses?"

Jin thumbed his chin, cocking his head to the side. "This isn't it, though. The curse, I mean. It's somewhere else."

Hitomi began picking at her fingernails. She glanced behind her and spotted Yuji leaning against the wall. "U-um Sensei? I think these are the children."

Yuji followed her gaze and saw it: near the bottom of the sac, a small foot stuck out. The sock had pink polka dots.

Jin crouched down, poking at it. It wiggled in response. A wave of relief washed over Yuji. "Good catch. Your priority is…" he trailed off, looking pointedly at the group.

"Save as many human lives as possible," they intoned in unison.

"Good. Now get to work."

With the boy's technique, it should have been relatively simple to cut through the mass, but they were both still clumsy and imprecise. From the sidelines, Yuji barked repeatedly for them to take it slow, lest they cut right into someone.

Slowly, they began pulling out bodies. Hitomi checked the first one, a small boy with ruffled brown hair and a crumpled hospital gown. Blue crusted his lips, but she found a steady pulse and sent Yuji a hurried thumbs up.

One by one, they recovered all twelve children. Dripping in unnamed gore and liquid, unconscious, but thankfully alive.

Jin was all smiles. "How's that for no casualties?"

Yuji's lips twitched.

"Sensei?" Hitomi's voice hitched. "Where's Tadashi?"

Jin's head snapped up. "Yo, Sukucchi!" he called the cursed nickname that never failed to incense his brother. Except now there was nothing.

"Here's another important lesson every sorcerer should know: never celebrate too early," Yuji murmured. He instructed the others to stay put and on guard. Since the children were safe, Yuji would handle the curse.

The walk back was long and quiet, his footsteps dulled by the flesh-like material and his own careful footfalls. The dark curled around him, wanting, tugging, pulling him further, like a Pied Piper.

The bouncy house flooring faded, giving way to something thick that shuffled and squirmed under his feet. He peered down: millions of thick, long black thread. Moving forward was like wading through a shallow pond, but Yuji knew this was the furthest thing from water.

A cool voice cut through the dark like a knife. "It's rude to step on a lady's hair."

The curse flashed in front of him. Yuji dodged backward, putting distance between them.

The curse swayed like the branches of a leaf-ridden tree. The head belonged to that of a woman, black-haired, with a smile like a baked roll. Black hair flowed down down down, writhing. Yuji felt the shift under his foot. He stood firm.

"Sorry, but I think you have someone I know." After a moment, he added, "M'am."

The curse pursed its lips. "No accounting for manners nowadays." Its honeyed voice dripped out, each word landing like a splat.

Yuji saw him then, beneath the shifting waves of hair. Sukuna was curled, body fetal, against the curse's body, eyes closed.

The curse bit out, "I've taken him in. He's my son now."

Sukuna almost looked…innocent. It came, a thought like a knife tearing through flesh—he could be half a second too late. One step off. With the boy this intertwined with the curse, could anyone blame him? After all, sorcerers died every day. The curse swayed, the edges of its face shifting, dissolving, struggling to stay together. Yuji gripped that knife with some difficulty and pulled it. Out came those terrible thoughts, trickling out like a fountain.

'I don't kill kids.' He'd said that once, hadn't he?

The curse's next words came like a chant. "My children, my children, my children. So lovely. Marked by death. I saved them." Its eyes flickered down. "And now you've damned them."

Yuji glanced back the way he came. If he strained his ears, he could hear the quick breathing of Hitomi and the erratic pacing of Jin.

"Saving kids. I didn't know a curse could be so noble."

The face stilled. Serene; a picture of femininity. "But of course. They'd be happier with me. Never dying from illness or accident. Preserved, like the delicate flowers they are."

Oh great, a curse that was a helicopter parent. Typical of curses born in hospitals. The perfect mother to save all the children.

The floor ripped away. Yuji jumped, narrowly dodging the thickened strands of black hair that whipped at him with fury. He ducked as another bundle came in from the left.

"Tadashi, wake up! That's not your mother," Yuji barked. The boy did not stir and, to Yuji's great irritation, seemed to curl further in.

"He knows who his mother is," the curse gloated, her waxen face splitting into a horrid grin. "Someone like you cou—"

Yuji's fist landed, sinking deeper, until the face burst open, blood, teeth, muscle exploding outward like confetti.

The kid pitched forward like a ragdoll. Yuji grabbed him with one arm, threw him over his shoulder with a grunt, then faced the weakened curse.

Yuji punched again. And again, until there was nothing left but a quivering pile that shrank back as Yuji loomed.

"No, wait—"

Yuji stomped out the last remnants. It disappeared in swirling mist.

The dark fell away like petals, revealing the bright white of a hospital ward. Light spilled in from a broken window, the rays scattering like jewels amongst the shards.

"Sensei!" Jin and the rest of the kids huddled together at the end of the hallway. The kids were beginning to wake up.

Yuji readjusted his grip around the kid as he met Jin halfway. Behind him, Hitomi soothed the waking children. Tearful faces called out for their parents.

"Damn, I was hoping to defeat it," Jin said when he was only an arm length away.

"Maybe next time," Yuji said.

Jin poked at his brother. "Oi, still alive, idiot?"

He received a stilted groan in response.

"Come on," Yuji said. "The manager will handle the cleanup. It's time to introduce you to the second most important part of being a sorcerer: paperwork."

Yuji bit back a laugh as the boy swore.

Yuji huddled at his desk that evening, going over his students' reports for the mission. They weren't half bad. Certainly better than the ones Yuji made when he worked alone.

Hitomi's report, typed neatly on flowered stationery, gave a clinical play-by-play of the mission. Her response to Yuji's extra credit question, which asked the students what they could improve, was written with that same detachment: "As I contributed nothing to this mission, I need to improve on being a valuable member of the team."

Yuji wrote a large A in the top right corner, along with a small note, "Don't be so hard on yourself."

Jin's report, by comparison, was far more exuberant and written almost entirely with exclamation marks: "I need to improve on beating Sensei to the curse!" Yuji laughed as he scribbled feedback in the margin.

He heard the click of the door to his office unlatching. He lifted his head, lips curling as Megumi stepped through the door.

"Whoa, I thought the world would have to explode before you stepped foot on campus again."

Megumi shrugged, a few black strands falling in his face. Warmth spread across Yuji's chest as he realized Megumi was bundled in one of his hoodies. He carried a large blue bento box Yuji remembered buying for him on a trip to Akihabara.

"Yeah well. I thought I should bring you some real food before you eat the rest of our chicken nuggets."

He dropped the box on the desk, leaned down, and pecked lightly at Yuji's lips.

"You know I get all warm and fuzzy when you do domestic shit like this." Yuji popped off the top and was greeted by the mouthwatering sight of onigiri packed neatly and ready to be devoured.

Yuji slid out the chopsticks. "Salmon?"

"You don't eat anything else."

Yuji grinned, biting one, savoring the warm, salty flavor that spilled on his tongue. He thanked Megumi through mouthfuls.

Megumi sat in the chair opposite the desk, plucking one of the reports as he did so. "Having fun?"

"No. Who the hell made me a teacher?"

"Did anyone die yet?"

"One unconscious."

"That's better than most. You got your hand chopped off on our first mission."

"It grew back." Yuji wiggled the appendage.

A slow smile spread across Megumi's lips.

A knock on the door interrupted their teasing. Yuji called them in. A pink head poked in. Yuji could feel Megumi tense beside him as the kid shuffled in. His sunglasses were missing; dark circles etched themselves under four eyes. A bandage wrapped neatly around his head.

"Sensei…" Sukuna started at the sight of Megumi. His lower eyes squeezed shut, and he trained the top ones on the floor.

Yuji waved his nervousness away. "Just a work friend. Shouldn't you be in the clinic recovering?"

"Ieri said I could finish recovering in my room." He held out a hand, showing a white paper. "I finished my report. There wasn't much to write." The lines on his face deepened. Yuji knew that look all too well. He had seen it enough times over the years through various mirrors. That look of deep disappointment with one's self.

Yuji nodded and accepted the paper. "You should get some rest. Classes resume on Monday."

The boy did not take leave.

"Was there something else?"

Sukuna lifted his head. He looked as though someone had painfully wrenched a limb. Finally, he spat, "Thanks…for saving me."

Yuji did a poor job of hiding his shock. "Oh, er, no problem. I wasn't going to let a student die."

This seemed to be a satisfactory enough answer because the kid nodded and left.

Megumi and Yuji sat in silence. Beside him, Megumi was a tightly wound ball Yuji feared would unravel at the slightest touch. Yuji risked it. He lightly traced the hard lines along the palm of Megumi's hand. Slowly, the other man loosened, shoulders slumping.

He said, "I don't know how you stand it."

"My talent of never addressing my own emotions finally comes in handy," Yuji tried to joke. Megumi didn't laugh.

Yuji released a sigh. "I did think about it briefly. When he went missing during the mission. How the problem would solve itself if I just… didn't try too hard to get him back. That's awful, right? I mean, he's just a kid."

Megumi's eyes were hidden behind a curtain of bangs. He pulled his hand away, and leaned in, closing the distance as he rested his head in the crook of Yuji's neck. Yuji turned into him.

"I'm glad you didn't. It would have broken something irreparable in you," Megumi murmured.

They stayed like that for a long time.

Chapter Text

I am in pieces. Scattered amongst butchered bodies. Tender meat falls off the bones in slivers. Threaded gore, rotted skin speckled green, black, a kaleidoscope of earthly colors. I am just one of many woven together until I can no longer tell where I end and another begins. The butcher stands above, bloodied, cleaving, teeth gleaming in the dark.

He carves me because he is bored. Because I have done something gravely insulting. In his world, I only exist to be punished. Severs the ankle. Pulls out the spleen. Because he can.

Every night is the same, then put back together, over and over, just before dawn. Each stitch holding me together carries the knowledge of nightly horrors.

Every night more of the same. I cannot scream for he has taken my voice. No one can help me. I am no longer human.

Consciousness bloomed in layers. Slowly, vestiges of a nightmare he wouldn't remember were covered in petals. A dream. A bed. He blinked once, twice, breath coming in ragged chunks. Something smothered his body, pressing down, and for a moment, an unexplainable fear gripped him.

Then the world came into focus and the weight on him was only Megumi, his head resting on Yuji's chest. He was awake, murmuring something soft, soothing. They were both naked, skin pressed on skin, warmth between them, dripping in sweat, and Yuji knew it was because of him, always him, because he was the only one, years later, plagued with nightmares.

They stayed tangled in one another in the small diorama of a bedroom that made up their entire world until something resembling sleep overcame him. When he woke in the morning, alone, he was no more refreshed. Breakfast was a silent affair. Yuji stared at his miso soup so long that it cooled. Without a word, Megumi picked up the cup and reheated it in the microwave. Yuji accepted the steaming cup, his fingertips buzzing from the warmth.

"Want to call out?" Megumi said at last.

Yuji chewed on bits of tofu, swallowing before answering. "And do what? Mope around here all day?" He shook his head closing the matter. "Although…you know what would make me feel better?" Yuji leaned forward and captured Megumi's face, bringing it close to his.

"You sure? Wouldn't want to throw your back out before work."

"I'm forty not eighty-two. I'm still spry." To prove it, Yuji ducked down and picked Megumi up by the waist, throwing him over his shoulder. And if he did feel a slight twinge in his lower back, well, that was none of Megumi's business.

* * *

Late April meant detestably chilly mornings followed by warm afternoons. Sitting on the park bench, Yuji shrugged off the jacket that had gone from cozy to torturous in the span of a few hours. He used the sleeve to dab at the sweat cooling on his neck.

Situated in the middle of Tokyo, the park he lounged in wasn't too busy; kids were suffering in classes and adults labored at their jobs. This left the park filled mostly with mothers with young children and the elderly. Wildlife was more plentiful without the deluge of humans. He'd stopped by a nearby bakery for some bread and sat on a bench, feeding the pigeons. It was peaceful. He finally understood the old men who rested in the park.

A shriek and hurried whispers cut that peace short. The pigeons took off with flapping wings as three figures approached. With a sigh, Yuji tucked the last bit of bread back in its wrapper and regarded his students.

They were dirty; actually, dirty seemed too clean of a word for them. Grimy might work. Filthy too. Head to toe, they were covered in some sort of brown substance too runny to be pure dirt. Debris clung to the muck—sticks, leaves, food wrappers. The only indication there were even humans underneath it all were the squinted, white eyes staring at him with despair.

"Sensei." This mudpile must have been Hitomi. She held out her hand. "We retrieved the cursed object." Her voice was faint. She must have been dazed. Or maybe she was trying to avoid speaking in a way that allowed the fluids to get in her mouth.

The object slipped from her fingers, rolling until it stopped by Yuji's feet. Using a napkin to pick it up, he turned it over a few times. Even through the grime and years of rust, he recognized the familiar shape of an old Gameboy. An evil Gameboy, if the bad energy it emitted was anything to go by. He nodded approvingly as he slipped it into the clean ziplock bag he retrieved from his messenger bag.

"Any casualties?"

"No…just us."

"Excellent. And it only took you two hours. That's an hour faster than I was expecting. I suppose this calls for a celebration." Yuji rummaged around his pocket, fishing for spare change. "Here," he said, handing the coins to the nearest mudpile. "There's a coin shower two blocks up that doesn't ask many questions from sorcerers. Get cleaned up and I'll treat you to pizza."

One mud pile quivered—Yuji didn't know if this was Sukuna or Jin—and the three appeared to have some mental meeting before, at last, they turned away, shambling up the sidewalk that led out to the busy Tokyo streets. Mothers clung to their children as they made their way out of the park. Yuji smiled reassuringly at one who nearly tripped trying to get away.

"Don't worry, they're sorcerers," he called after her scuttling form. It explained everything and nothing at all.

Forty minutes later, three fresh-faced teens returned to him donned in colorful yukata he assumed had been provided by a generous attendant. Their skin held the pink hue of vigorous scrubbing.

He led them to a quiet pizza place several blocks away. The neon sign above read: らロひレ＊アエここム^[1]

His students stared at the sign.

"Am I having a stroke?" Sukuna jammed his finger up.

Jin squinted his eyes. "Rarohire aekokomu," he sounded out. "Is this Japanese for the mentally insane?"

"Do you want free pizza or not?" Yuji held the door open and the three shuffled in one by one, contritition marring their faces.

The inside, true to its name, sported the dim orangish-yellow of flickering candlelight, giving it a peculiar cavernous quality. They chose a booth in the back corner. A crystal ball containing swirling blue mist made up the centerpiece. Beneath it, a glass tabletop showed jumbled tarot cards.

"Trust me," Yuji said. They weren't world-class, but Yuji couldn't say he'd ever had a bad slice. And they were one of the few places that did dessert pizzas justice.

His students crammed into the seats opposite him, arguing over the menu. Something about how Jin wanted olives on his and how Sukuna found that disgusting. Hitomi berated them both for their lack of manners. The sound of their bickering washed over him as he briefly skimmed the menu. He usually got the same thing, but it never hurt to look.

Behind the kitchen counter, an elderly man, a foreigner, bent low over a hot stove. At the sound of the children's bickering, his gaze flicked up. "Charlotte, customers!" he barked. He grumbled something else about useless women that Yuji did his best to tune out.

A small crash sounded, followed by the appearance of a petite woman with dark brown skin who stumbled from around the counter. Her green apron was crooked, curly hair sticking out of her netted cap in tuffs, and there were bits of flour dusting her chubby cheeks, but she smiled at them as she approached the table.

"Great to see you, Yuji. Will it be the usual?"

Yuji put his menu down and nodded. Nothing else had caught his eye and the mochi pizza here was the best he'd had.

She jotted down on her notepad before turning to the students. "And you brought us new customers! What'll it be, darlings?"

A short rabble occurred over who went first that Yuji cut short with a pointed cough. Hitomi went first, followed by Jin who ordered like Yuji was made of money. He tried his best to hide his pained expression.

"And you?" she asked Sukuna.

He brooded over the menu for another moment before coming to a decision. When he glanced up, the resulting chain reaction occurred faster than Yuji could process: Charlotte yelped, dropping her notepad, which caused the three to flinch. The elderly man stuck his head out the window to yell about the noise. Sukuna raised his hand, fingers ghosting over the spot where his missing sunglasses usually sat. He stood abruptly, pushed past Charlotte who clutched her hand to her chest, and disappeared out the front door with only a quiet ding in his wake.

Yuji's brain finally caught up when Jin stood, clamoring over Hitomi to get out of the booth. "Sit," he said.

Jin froze. His eyes flicked between Yuji and the open door.

"I don't feel like chasing both of you. I'll get him." Yuji slid out of the booth.

Sense returned to Charlotte. Already, an apology looked like it was forming on the tip of her tongue. She picked up her notepad. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to offend. I was just surp—"

Yuji cut her off with a smile he didn't mean and words of comfort that tasted like charcoal in his mouth. Outside, the lunch hour filled up the streets of Tokyo. Yuji brushed shoulder to shoulder as he moved against the crowd. Sukuna's cursed energy leaked out in spurts, leaving an easy trail for him to follow. It didn't take long for him to catch up; Sukuna was several yards ahead, pink head poking out over the crowd. Because of his volatile energy, the crowd subconsciously parted like water around him.

Yuji followed at a distance until Sukuna cut through a side street. Yuji rounded the corner, and Sukuna leaned against a stack of bottle crates neatly stacked outside the back door of a business. A mouth-meltingly sweet aroma drifts through the small crack in the door.

At Yuji's approach, the line of Sukuna's shoulders curved, his scowl deepening. Half of him was bathed in the shadows of the alley, red eyes hanging like lanterns. He didn't say anything. Neither did Yuji. They regarded one another, letting the general ambiance of the city wash over them. Then Yuji, as always, made the first move.

"You good?" Yuji stuffed his hands deep in his pockets.

Sukuna shrugged. "Yeah, sure."

Yuji didn't want to broach the subject. Everything in him screamed at him to leave it alone. But he always was too curious for his own good. "Does that happen a lot? People…" he trailed off.

"What, completely flipping their shit when they see me?" Sukuna pushed off the wall. "It's whatever."

Then why did you run off? Yuji wanted to ask. Why are you in the alley, so clearly, so obviously bothered? Bubbling beneath the surface, words he never dared say aloud simmered. Like: Why do you think you deserve the right to be upset? Such venom curling in him, infecting his thoughts, unnerving him. He stamped them down, shoving them to a place hidden deep within.

Instead, he nudged Sukuna with his fist. "Come on. We can eat somewhere else."

Sukuna leaned away from the contact. "I'm not hungry. I'll wait with the manager."

Yuji, in all honesty, had completely forgotten about the manager. They had left the man idling the car in a parking lot near a train station before setting out on their own. "You sure?" The idea of Sukuna moving on his own throughout a city of millions left him oddly hollow. He saw the crater. Heard the ghostly echo of laughter.

"I'm not such a country bumpkin that I don't know how trains work," Sukuna said as he made his way down the alley. Sukuna paused once he reached the end. "I came with you because I thought it would be different in the city. Turns out, people suck everywhere." The crowd swallowed him, whisking him away before Yuji could ask what he meant. Not that he needed to.

Sukuna's words stuck with him all the way back to the restaurant. Hitomi and Jin sat cross-legged in the booth, multiple entrees spread across the table. At Yuji's raised brow, they had the decency to duck their heads, sheepish grins painting their faces.

"I'm bringing some back for Sukucchi," said Jin.

Charlotte assured him everything was on the house. When his slice of pizza arrived, Yuji couldn't bring himself to finish. The sauce had an unsettling resemblance to blood.

* * *

Tadashi Sukuna was not quite a shrinking violet. He was far too thorny and his coloring was the vibrant type that signaled danger in the wild. But he was quiet in a way that unsettled Yuji. Quietness had always been followed by a plan designed to fuck him over.

In class, Sukuna rarely spoke out of turn or voiced his opinion on anything unless specifically called on ("I think it's a puberty thing. You know how they get all moody," said Nobara.) Maybe it was moodiness. Maybe it was the early signs of an antisocial personality disorder. The only times he became particularly animated were when Jin was involved.

The wildflower that was Sukuna did not fit into the pristine garden of Jujutsu High. Sure, Yuji wasn't the most thinking-type, but it didn't take him long to notice how students moved around him in wide circles in the hallway or the way he always took his meals alone, or even the snide giggles that followed when Sukuna passed.

Yuji asked Hitomi about it one evening when she'd stayed behind to ask about her grade. She pressed one finger to the corner of her mouth. "There's that stupid rumor going around that his mom did…I mean, you know…" Hitomi's face reddened slightly. "…that with a curse which doesn't even make sense because his brother looks normal enough and they're twins," Hitomi rambled for a few minutes about the stupidity of the student body before Yuji redirected her back to the original question.

"Oh right. Well, it was more when he first got here. He was a little shrimp, so I think the big kids thought they could bully him, but he would go berserk until they were covered in bruises and bite marks. One time Ota Ryou called his mom a—well I'm not going to repeat it, but it was rude—and Tadashi stabbed him with a fork during lunch. It barely broke the skin but you know Ota's such a crybaby. Everyone left him alone after that. Plus, Kouchou-sensei was a lot stricter on bullying. But ostracizing is still bullying, right, Sensei?" She finished without taking another breath, and simply gazed at him expectantly.

Yuji jolted. "Right. Er, have a good evening, Hayashi."

"Hitomi," she reminded him as she flounced out the room.

Pondering alone hurt his head, so he found Nobara in her classroom marking up student essays, her face pinched.

"I don't remember having real homework when I attended. Kill curses, rinse, and repeat," she grumbled. When Yuji didn't immediately respond, she looked up from her work. "Spit it out. I can hear you thinking from here."

As Yuji vomited out his worries, the creased lines of Nobara's face smoothed. She shrugged away his concerns. "They're kids. Sometimes you talk shit and get stabbed with a fork. It happens. Hardly the warning signs of a serial killer."

Yuji knew this was as far as the conversation would go. For some inexplicable reason, she was fond of Sukuna, meaning most of Yuji's concerns were met with an eye roll.

On his way out, she called after him. "You know, you could just get to know him. He's practically a big baby."

He should not have let those words eat away at him. Then Yuji wouldn't be in his current predicament: stuffed uncomfortably in the unused counselor's office with Sukuna across from him looking overly large and squished in the rickety chair. Since it was after school, he'd switched out of his designated Problem Child uniform into jeans and a black band-tee that was far too modern for Yuji to recognize.

Yuji shifted in his seat, shoulders brushing against either wall. Minutes ticked by without a word, both eyeing each other. Sukuna fidgeted with something on his wrist; a woven black bracelet, by the looks of it. The kind Yuji had seen on Nobara.

"So…" Yuji trailed off.

Sukuna lifted his head. "Am I in trouble?"

"No, nothing like that. As your teacher, I thought I should… check in?" Yuji cringed at the way his voice raised at the end. He hadn't meant it to come off as a question. "You know, get to know you."

"Get to know me," Sukuna said flatly. He leaned forward, placing his palms on either knee, and Yuji leaned back instinctually. "Did that hag put you up to this?" At Yuji's bewildered look, he clarified, "The nosy, one-eyed freak."

A sharp laugh escaped Yuji, which he quickly hid with a cough. "Not at all. Well, kinda, but I'm not reporting to her if that's what you're asking."

Sukuna leaned back, all four eyes narrowed. "Fine. What do you want to know? You don't want to talk about feelings do you?"

"God no." A shudder passed through both of them. "As long as you're fine with the semester. Starting high school and all that."

"Same old same old."

"Good good." Yuji rapped his knuckles against the edge of the desk. He'd left the door open, but the closet office had an unbearable stuffiness. "Play any good games?"

"I don't game."

"Right. What do you do exactly?"

Instead of answering, Sukuna turned slightly in his seat, eyeing the open door behind him that led out to the staff room. Perhaps he was calculating how fast he would have to run to make it out of the lounge before Yuji caught up with him. The calculation couldn't have been in his favor because he settled back in his seat with a sigh.

"I read. Books, manga, whatever." His shoulders hunched as he picked at a loose thread on the knee of his jeans. With the way his head was angled, the overhead light caught on Sukuna's face and Yuji spied the small gauge in his ear. Who had approved that?

"Anything I'd recognize?"

Something in Yuji felt monumentally small as Sukuna gave him a once-over. He snorted. "Doubt it."

Okay. Ow. Just then, the lilt of girlish giggles floated through an open window in the staff room and the gears working Yuji's mouth spun faster than he could interpret. "What about girls?"

Sukuna closed his two bottom eyes as he tilted to look up at the ceiling. Hastily, Yuji added, "Or boys." His breath hitched as he chuckled. Balling his hand into a fist, he pumped it in the air. "Go rainbow."

Sukuna lowered his head. The look he sent seared Yuji's soul. "Can I leave?"

And Yuji, feeling very overdone, nodded.

Later that evening, Yuji waited ten minutes for Nobara to stop laughing after he recounted the exchange. They were at a random izakaya temporarily overtaken by rowdy college kids, so Nobara's temporary hysteria didn't draw a single curious glance, save for the pleasant-faced grandmas who cast indulgent smiles as they sipped their sake. Yuji pouted into his mug.

"Holy shit," she gasped out between giggles. "Were you always this socially inept?"

* * *

"You did not say, 'Go rainbow.'"

"I did."

Because running away was how Yuji recovered after particularly trying events, that weekend, he kidnapped Megumi and retreated to Onjuku Beach.

They built sandcastles. Well, Megumi built a sandcastle. A rather impressive one at that, with spires and a moat. Yuji regarded his crumbling mound with a frown. Kuro lay on his back, tail flicking, staring at the mound with an equally quizzical expression.

"You wouldn't have been able to do it even if you had thumbs," said Yuji.

Kuro whined. He rolled over on his paws, clamped his mouth down on the seashell Yuji had placed at the top, and took off.

Yuji, faced with the crumblings of his own failed creation, did the only sensible thing: he began prodding at Megumi's.

Yuji spoke as he ducked underneath and disturbed the stability of a cathedral that jutted out from the bottom left. "I'm never going back. I'll shave my head and go live as a monk in the country."

Megumi leaned down to bat Yuji away from the cathedral. His hip brushed against the moat, and it crumpled, sending up plumes of dusty sand.

Megumi tackled him, driving Yuji's head into the sand. "I thought we agreed no work-talk on vacation? You know this means you forfeit your right to choose the movie tonight. No Human Earthworm 19 for you."

Yuji turned his head, and spat out a mouthful of sand with a pout. "I thought I got one freebie?"

"Nope. We're watching Terrace House."

"Kill me, why don't you," Yuji muttered. He hooked his legs around Megumi's waist, spun them so they flipped, then pressed down. "Fine, then I get to complain all I want and you can't do anything about it."

"I could stick pencils in my ears," Megumi said dryly. He reached up, caressed Yuji's face, and pulled him into a slow kiss. He tasted like sand and the strawberry margaritas they had for lunch.

Something fuzzy pressed between them. Kuro wiggled his way in, forcing them apart to rest his head on Megumi's chest. What a cockblock, Yuji thought.

Later that evening, they returned to the resort, showered, and tucked themselves into the couch. Megumi pulled up the dreaded show on streaming. Yuji decided to make good on his promise and proceeded to complain throughout the entire thing.

"Nobara acts like it's so easy when she didn't have the guy muttering threats in her head for months."

They were sharing a bowl of buttered popcorn (Yuji had to take over cooking duty to make this happen). Megumi chewed on a handful as Yuji ranted.

"And you know what? It actually pisses me off how unremarkable he is. How do you talk so much shit and get reincarnated as a guppy? He and Jin are terrible together. Whose bright idea was it to put them on the same team?"

"Don't their techniques complement each other?"

"Yeah, but Jin's much better suited for fighting curses. Sukuna's technique would be better applied to fighting other sorcerers, but he keeps trying to force it to act like Jin's which gets you—"

"Akabane."

"Don't even mention Akabane. Apparently, the public doesn't like it when we level buildings."

"Can't imagine why."

Yuji continued ranting. At some point, Megumi reached for the remote and pressed pause.

"And don't get me started on Jin. He's overeager. Needs to be the star of every mission. At this point, I'm positive Sukuna's destruction is accidental. Jin just doesn't care."

When they reached the end of the popcorn bowl, Yuji paused his ranting to look pointedly at it. Megumi rolled his eyes.

"Get it yourself."

"You don't even love me," Yuji said with a sigh, disappearing into the kitchen.

He returned moments later with a new steaming bowl of popcorn. The buttery flavor melted on his tongue.

"Kusakabe's theory about twin synergy makes sense. The original Sukuna could use both techniques…but these two are totally dysfunctional."

"You have thirty minutes more of complaining before I smother you."

Yuji raised his hands. "I'm done. No more jujutsu, no more stupid kids. Promise."

"You'll break that," Megumi said as he leaned his head to rest of Yuji's arm.

For the rest of the vacation, Yuji only broke it once or twice.

Or three times.

Who could really say?

* * *

Yuji didn't have long to brood over his social inadequacies. He had more pressing matters: his students were terrible. Fancy techniques, sure, but no sense of how to employ them, no battle IQ…he needed to prepare them for when they inevitably faced stronger opponents.

Wednesdays belonged to Sukuna, who was currently face down in the gravel. Yuji pressed his foot down, muffling whatever obscenities Sukuna screamed. "Mind getting serious?" A large clock hung on the outside wall of the courtyard. "You only have twenty minutes left to show me something impressive."

Sukuna, by way of response, sent a cut aimed at Yuji's face. Yuji sidestepped, reached down, and coiled his fingers through Sukuna's tangled hair, wrenching his head back. Crimson bore holes in Yuji. He gave that contemptuous head a shake, loose gravel unsticking and falling like raindrops. "Too obvious."

Sukuna tried to flip them with a sudden pushup, but Yuji countered. He followed the propulsion, lifting Sukuna above like a ragdoll before tossing him. Sukuna landed meters away, skidding across the ground before coming to a stop near the steps leading out of the courtyard.

Jin sat there, observing the training session while munching on a protein bar. When Sukuna rolled over to him, he peered down, teeth on full display. "Sukucchi, you're going to let that old man kick your ass?"

"Like you've done any better," Sukuna gasped out only a moment before Yuji appeared behind him and kicked his ass to the other side of the courtyard.

"I've done way better than you," Jin yelled over the smacks of flesh on flesh. Who knew if Sukuna even heard this? His arms were raised and curled protectively over his head to lessen the damage from Yuji's assault.

Yuji paused just long enough to say, "Be serious, Jin. You fight like you left your brain in your dorm room."

Sukuna lowered his guard. "Ha! Shit—oof!"

Yuji drove his fist into Sukuna's open face. The teen crumpled, falling on his back. He stared up at the sky, expression dazed. Yuji sighed. "Lesson over. Jin, take your brother to the clinic. I'm pretty sure he's concussed." He stepped back, wiping his dirty knuckles on the hem of his shirt.

Jin downed the rest of his drink in one gulp, then hopped down the steps. It was odd, seeing how they were so alike, yet completely different. Jin lumbered like the big boy that he was, all clunky steps and squared shoulders. Sukuna, by contrast, skulked about like a cat with his shoulders raised in preparation for something.

Jin looped an arm under Sukuna's and heaved him up with ease. Sukuna leaned against him, blinking a few times. "Aww. You're only this cuddly when someone beats the shit out of you."

The pair disappeared up the steps, leaving Yuji alone in the courtyard. He went about smoothing the holes today's training had made in the gravel. Kusakabe was peculiarly anal about maintaining the school grounds and brought it up often enough at staff meetings that Yuji didn't feel like being the cause of yet another ten-minute lecture the next morning.

"Man, you're brutal."

Yuji, crouched down and filling in one of the holes he'd created with Sukuna's face, glanced behind him. Nobara floated down the steps, one hand on her hip.

"I don't even think Maki goes that hard on her students." When she was within reaching distance, Yuji saw the big grin splitting her face. No eyepatch today, just puckered, ridged skin and an empty hole. At the staff meeting that morning, she'd told Yuji it was because she was in a Scare Children kind of mood. "You working through something?"

Yuji shrugged. "If I don't, some curse user certainly will."

"Is it fun?" She leaned down so they were eye to eye. "It must be. Getting these easy wins over the King of Curses." She said the last part in a fake whisper.

Still, Yuji cast a quick look around; they were alone. Still, the students tended to lurk in the oddest places. She held out her hand for Yuji and he took it, climbing to his feet.

"Come on, be honest. This has to be so therapeutic."

Yuji dusted his hands. He churned over her words. "Better than therapy." Maybe he should convince Megumi to spend some of his lunch breaks here to get in on it. He imagined the horrified reaction of the therapist they saw once a year when she found out they bonded through beating up a teen.

"Knew it. Don't let the counselor hear you. She's a Commission drone just waiting for a reason to file a grievance report on us." She offered her elbow and Yuji accepted.

They walked arm and arm through the school. Since it was nearing the evening, most students were in their dorms or the cafeteria for dinner, leaving the main building blissfully quiet. A young girl with a wild mane of curly hair, settled down behind a statue with a book in hand. When Yuji and Nobara passed, she let out a little gasp, her eyes widening as she considered them.

"Don't go getting any dumb ideas. My man is much finer than this." Nobara thumbed at Yuji, who shrugged.

"So is mine," he said dryly.

With a giddy laugh, the girl pulled out her phone, presumably to text her friends this newest nugget of gossip about her mysterious teachers.

As they disappeared around the corner, Nobara said, "That'll break so many hearts. You're not supposed to play for the same team."

"The only team I play for is Megumi."

"Could you try not being so disgustingly in love in front of me? It does weird things to my stomach."

In the staff room, they were completely alone. Wednesdays were one of the few days most of the staff, barring Yuji, left when classes ended. Nobara started up the coffee maker; while the little machine buzzed, she retrieved two mugs from the cabinet above. Yuji sat at his desk, feet kicked up as he leaned back. Nobara returned with two steaming mugs, and he accepted one. Disgustingly sweet, just the way he liked it.

Nobara hopped on his desk, shoving his feet just slightly out of the way. "So, what's your ultimate goal here? Karmic justice? Just working off steam?"

Yuji finished half his drink in one gulp. The sudden rush of sugar revitalized him. "I'm teaching him."

"No, you're beating the crap out of him. There's a difference."

Yuji shrugged. "It's how I learned."

Nobara considered him. Yuji matched her gaze. After a beat, she gave a small laugh. "Yeah, we never got any real instruction, did we?" She leaned forward. "Just a little advice, though—that's not going to work on him. It works on Jin because he's not one to dwell on things, but Sukuna is different. He's a little shapeless ball of anger and anxiety. Keep beating him down and he'll just deflate."

Yuji finished the rest of the drink. "Hm." For a brief moment, the room whipped into a frenzy—wind from an open window stirred the papers up before settling down again. "I didn't expect him to be so…"

"Delicate? Sensitive?" She laughed. "He'll put up a good fight, make no mistake. But there's always a point where he gives up and simply retreats to whatever dark space is in that moody head of his." She hopped off the desk. "Careful Yuji. The curse of good intentions would be a powerful one."

The thunk of her footsteps faded away, leaving him alone. He stayed unmoving, thinking, for a long while. Only when large shadows started spreading across the room did he finally decide to end his brooding session. With a sigh, he tidied his desk, shut off the lights, and made to exit the room. He barely put one leg out when the star of all of his sleepless nights and anxiety strolled by.

Sukuna lurked in the hallway, tall and so so so painfully awkward with his long limbs and hunched shoulders. He looked far better than he had an hour ago, so Ieiri-sensei must have worked her magic. The collar of his white uniform was undone again, his backpack slung over his shoulder as he fiddled with a small white box. Yuji's sudden appearance must have been equally as unwanted for him given the way he froze. Then the spell broke. He shoved the box behind his back with absolutely zero subtlety. Those bulky sunglasses hid his eyes, but the flattening of his lips told Yuji he was less than excited to see him.

"Is that hag in?" Sukuna asked.

"You just missed her. Anything I can help with?"

Sukuna shook his head, then made to move on, but Yuji stepped out, blocking his path. Yuji held out his hand. "Hand it over."

Sukuna's lips curled. "Hand what over?"

Yuji's hand didn't waver. After a beat, Sukuna huffed, withdrawing the white box from behind him. He didn't move the extra inch to hand it over, so Yuji plucked it out of his hands.

"Careful!" Sukuna barked. He teetered from one foot to the next, anger and nerves falling off him in waves.

Yuji popped off the lid. Inside, lay something small and fuzzy. A bird, Yuji realized with a start. Some kind of sparrow maybe, so still that he assumed it was dead, but then he saw the rises of its chest, shallow and slow. One wing wrenched awkwardly in the wrong direction. The words tumbled out before Yuji could stop them. "What did you do?" He hadn't meant for them to come out. Now they hung in the empty space between them. The trembling that set in his hands steadied, his forehead cooling. The cruelty of those words stitched him back together.

Sukuna ceased his shuffling. "I didn't do anything. I found it like that outside. I've been practicing Reversed Curse Technique, so I thought I could fix it but—" he stopped. "You don't believe me."

Yuji couldn't understand the hurt behind Sukuna's words. Or rather, he could understand them, they just made no sense coming from the teen. Not with everything Yuji knew. Sukuna didn't get to be upset by a valid qu—

The box was snatched away. Sukuna hugged it to his chest. "Fuck you. I-I'm, just because I look—I'm not a monster." His breathing was ragged, the words wet-sounding to Yuji's ears. "You're just like the rest.

Sukuna side-stepped around him and Yuji made no move to stop him, just listened to the heavy footfalls until they faded away.

* * *

Yuji sat on Jin's back, the teen sprawled face down beneath him. Above, light blue bled pinks, oranges, and reds. The moon was only just a wink in the sky, but he stifled a heavy yawn. He'd extended the students' training sessions into the evening, to the detriment of his nap schedule.

Hitomi rested on the stairs, a long katana resting on her lap. She alternated between watching the fight and polishing the blade. Yuji had idly suggested during a practice session she pick up a weapon and practice close-range combat, and without wasting any time, the girl had gone to the best weapon expert on campus: Maki-sensei. The sword was lent on the condition that she treat it like her child. Now seeing how Hitomi cradled the blade like an infant. Yuji wondered if Maki knew how literally her words would be taken.

Sukuna sat further up the steps with his shoulders hunched. He wore an overly large hoodie with the hood drawn up, and even with his face obscured, Yuji sensed that petulant scowl locked in on him. A few days had passed from what Nobara mockingly referred to as The Incident—"No seriously, way to go, Itadori! Great teaching skills. Very nurturing and kind of you."—and this was possibly the first time anyone had seen Sukuna. He supposed Hitomi deserved some praise for dragging him here.

Though the solo training sessions were supposed to be just that—solo. But the students had taken to watching each other's session with a critical gleam.

Yuji stretched his legs out. "Tadashi, do you know what it means to be a sorcerer?"

Yuji drew himself up; Jin saw the opportunity to escape, but Yuji crushed his dreams. In the next second, he had Jin by the scruff of his collar pinned against a nearby tree. "Well?" Yuji's grip tightened as he waited for a response.

Eventually, Jin huffed. "Kill curses. What else is there?"

"Wrong."

Yuji raised his arm and the kid flinched, eyes shut, body braced for a blow that never came. Instead, Yuji released his hold with a sigh. Jin blinked up at him, confusion and mistrust written all over his face.

"Gather round children. I'm getting bored of whooping you all, so it's time for a quick story."

Yuji squatted to the ground, crossing his legs. Jin bounded over, Hitomi close on his heels. Sukuna hovered at a distance, but at Yuji's arched brow, he stomped over and sat down, drawing his knees to his chest.

"Shinjuku…" It was like someone had yanked a string; the students sat straighter, backs tense. "I'm sure you've heard the details from your other teachers—"

"Hardly. All of the adults are so tight-lipped. I only learned bits and pieces from newspapers. Though Kugisaki-sensei did say she was the linchpin. Is that true?" asked Hitomi.

The sun sank beneath the tops of the school buildings, leaving behind swaths of deep dark blue in its place. Yuji rubbed his chin. "We probably would have—no we definitely would have lost without her." Hitomi and Jin made an O-shape with their mouths.

"Kugisaki-sensei's so cool," Hitomi said reverently.

Sukuna rolled his eyes. "Don't let that egotistical weirdo hear."

"Truth be told, it took everyone going all in, sacrificing themselves, to chip away at him."

Jin leaned over to his brother, who scooted away. "Your namesake's a loser. Do you think it'll rub off? I'm already seeing the signs," he said in a sing-song.

Sukuna made like he was about to launch himself at him, but a curt look from Yuji had him grumbling but otherwise remaining still. "I don't see how being the strongest sorcerer in history makes someone a loser."

"Doesn't matter how strong you are if you lose," said Jin.

Hitomi shifted as she glanced between the brothers. She must have realized her precarious placement between them because she inched back, just out of the scuffle zone.

Yuji, not eager to deal with another brotherly spat, continued. "The King of Curses would probably agree with you, Jin."

"Ha!" Jin smiled smugly.

Sukuna's permanent scowl deepened. "That's not a ha-moment, dumbass. He's the bad guy. You're not supposed to agree with him." Sukuna tilted his head, gaze cutting like a laser through Yuji as they considered each other. The lights strung up around the courtyard flickered on, casting a soft amber glow. Red eyes glittered iridescently in the muted lighting.

The sound of a window sliding open cut through the silence. "Shhh. They'll hear you!" A chorus of soft giggles followed.

Tilting his head up, Yuji spotted the tops of a few heads pressed against a second-floor window. Voices drifted down. "Ryou! I'm not inviting you next time if you don't shut up."

"I still can't believe they're considered advanced. Jin, I can kind of believe, but Hitomi? She must have sucked Kouchou-sensei's dick. Bet she learned it from that mom of hers. And the freak…he's not even human—eek!" The speaker, a thin boy with black hair, fell back from the window as Yuji peered inside.

The rest of the group, two boys and two girls, scuttled away with wide eyes. Yuji leaned through the open window, getting a good look. He flicked a finger at the first boy. "Name?"

"O-Ota Ryou.."

One by one, the rest gave up their names—Hada Akemi, Niwa Yua, Oyama Nao, Satou Riku. Yuji nodded after each name, committing them to memory. "Right. How does a week of detention sound? I heard Kouchou-sensei say the gardens are drowning in muck."

At once, a collection of voices surged in protest. Yuji grimaced, a throb settling at the base of his neck. He held up one hand, and the students fell silent. "Why don't we make it two weeks?"

"That's not fair—" An elbow to the rib cut Ota off.

"Want to make it three?"

The students shook their heads furiously. One of the girls bowed her head and the rest followed suit, all exclaiming their apologies in tiny voices.

"Good. A word of advice: don't make enemies of people who will be your colleagues when you're adults…if you live that long. Now get out of my sight."

They practically tripped over their own feet trying to escape, disappearing down the hall. Yuji leaned back and dropped down to the ground floor. A sharp twinge hit his knee when he landed, worsening when he pushed himself to a standing position.

His Problem Children sat unmoving, bodies stiff with poised nonchalance. But they were young and thus hadn't mastered apathy. Hitomi's eyes were red. When she made eye contact with Yuji, she tried to rub them, which only made it worse. With a sniffle, she turned away, putting her back to the group. Sukuna's head lowered, staring at something intensely fascinating on the ground. He plucked at the thin weeds poking through the gravel. He went about it methodically—when he deemed an area perfect, he shifted slightly over to the next.

Jin turned his head to both of them, then glanced up at the vacant window as though torn between comforting his teammates and going after the cause of their distress. Yuji patted his head once as he passed, plopping back down before them.

"Now, where was I?" He rubbed his chin before snapping his fingers. "Right, Shinjuku. Everyone going all in." Yuji rested his hands on his knees. "Everyone there was a true sorcerer. You want to know why?" His students didn't speak. "They were all fucking insane."

This, at last, got a reaction out of them. A startled laugh escaped from the twins. They had the same laugh, a weird, choking sound. Sukuna quickly masked his with a cough, scowl falling back into place while Jin guffawed. Hitomi turned around, scandalized.

"That's the only explanation I've been able to come up with over the years. It's not like sorcerers are pure-hearted. As much as I wish that were true, back then, most were motivated by their ego. Everyone at Shinjuku was a massive egotist—and fucking psychotic to continuously throw themselves at an opponent they had no chance against. We watched sorcerers get cut down, one after the other, and we still got in line for our turn." He leaned forward. "You get what I'm saying, right? Do I need to spell it out?"

The three exchanged looks.

"But Sensei, we can't possibly beat you," said Hitomi.

"I'm not expecting you to. What I do expect is for you all to activate that crazy chip embedded in every sorcerer's brain and come at me one hundred percent. I'm tired of fighting frightened rabbits."

That statement did what he intended—Sukuna shot to his feet, hands balled into fists. "I'm not afraid of you."

That only makes one of us. Yuji tilted his head to look up at the looming teen. "Oh? You throw half-assed attacks, then flinch before I've even reacted. You're so obviously afraid of me it's a bit funny."

He diverted the incoming punch with one hand, grabbed Sukuna's wrist, and flipped him, once again landing him face down on his stomach. Using his free hand, Sukuna made the sign for his cutting attack, but the aim was so poor that Yuji didn't even need to dodge as the slash whizzed past him. He pressed his knee into Sukuna's back. "Only frightened animals make desperate attacks."

Yuji heard it a second too late—the snapping of a wood. He released Sukuna to avoid the falling tree branch. The teen scuttled away with a triumphant smirk.

Yuji bent down to pick up the branch, tossing it from one hand to the other. It was actually fairly large and might have given him a concussion if it'd landed.

"Better, though I don't want you to have to rely on blind rage to get you motivated." He glanced at the other two. "Don't worry. It's my job to cultivate the crazy. Even if I have to beat it out of you." A wide grin split his face as he swung the branch.

Hitomi brought a hand to her mouth as her eyebrows knitted together in a horrified scrunch. Jin hooted clambering to his feet. He stood shoulder to shoulder with his brother, knuckles cracking.

"Let's have some fun. Three-on-one and I'm not letting you leave until you show me something impressive."

The clock in the courtyard showed the minute hand just a little past midnight. With what little energy they had left, his students shambled by it: Hitomi supported Jin's hulking body, her skinny legs quivering under the weight. The few shikigami she had left crowded around him, attempting to lighten the load of the nearly unconscious boy. Sukuna was no help. He crawled up the steps on all fours. A massive purple bruise rippled across his head.

Yuji leaned against the tree, arms folded as he watched them go. "Same time tomorrow," he called after them. He received horrified groans.

He waited until they disappeared up the steps before he dropped his arms. Hurriedly, he stuck his hand down his pants, feeling for—aha! His inner thigh stung as he pulled it off: Hitomi's shikigami squirmed in his clenched hand. The loner bared its teeth, bits of Yuji's flesh between pointed teeth. This close, it looked like an evil Soot Sprite. And it had come this close to biting Yuji's goddamn dick off. Well…he had told them to show him something impressive.

He tossed the shikigami with more force than necessary. It sailed up and over the steps, vanishing with an indignant hiss.

The blood seeping out crusted against his skin. Slowly, Yuji began the journey back to his small apartment. It was late, but maybe Megumi would be up and willing to play doctor.

* * *

A few weeks passed with Yuji back in the same spot, in much the same situation. The kids formed a pile of tangled limbs in the center of the courtyard, bodies battered and bruised. New bruises formed on top of older ones that hardly had time to heal in between these all-out training sessions.

Seeing that the clock neared midnight, Yuji called it for the day. "Get some sleep. We'll pick it up again tomorrow." This time he didn't wait for a response; it would have been impossible to interpret through the groans of pain anyway.

He headed to the staff lounge to grab his bento box before rushing off campus. Tokyo at night was as lively as ever. Kids and their parents may have tucked themselves away for the night, but club crawlers and salarymen were only just getting started.

Yuji shouldered through a rowdy crowd that had clearly started the night early. He was almost free of them when a voice rang out, "Sorcerer!"

He shouldn't have, but it was a habit; Yuji glanced behind him, looking for the source of that voice. A group of young women wearing matching miniskirts waved at him. One clasped her hands together, eyelashes fluttering. "Oh big strong sorcerer, won't you save me?" She pursed her lips. Another girl batted at her with a laugh. "Help! This curse is attacking me!" The whole group descended into a fit of giggles.

Yuji kept his smile lukewarm as he moved away. When one group got bold, it tended to attract others, and the more people that gathered the greater potential things would escalate to violence, and the local police rarely took the sorcerer's side.

Once he was free from the crowd, he hit up a konbini. Megumi was on another health kick and had rid the apartment of chicken nuggets and French pastries and basically all that was good in the world, so Yuji had taken to eating the forbidden food on his walks to and from campus.

Tonight, he kept it simple with an egg sando dripping with barbecue mayo and a bottle of tea with enough sugar to keep a dentist happily employed. Outside the konbini, Yuji peeled off the wrapper of the sandwich, took one mouthwatering bite, and almost died from bliss. Cholesterol be damned.

The orange neon sign of the konbini crackled overhead, the hum audible on the quiet street. The stillness was unusual for Tokyo, but then again, the path to the konbini involved taking one of the concerningly narrow side streets only used by locals with some sense. Visitors and commuters usually avoided darkened areas for fear of curses. The locals simply gripped their protective charms a little tighter and went about their business with cool efficiency.

Except the street was eerily empty. No college students trolling for late-night snacks in their pajamas, blissfully unaware of the leering gazes from the old men who did nothing but watch the young women of the city all day. No taxis or cars. No drunk salarymen. There wasn't even the prone form of a commuter who'd missed the last train sleeping against a wall. The cross street at the end of the alley bustled with nightlife. But here was…nothing.

Yuji hated wasting food, so he finished off his egg sando, chasing it down with the tea. He swiped the crumbs from his mouth with the back of his hand. "This isn't going to go the way you think," he warned. Curse or curse user, Yuji didn't care. He just wanted to get home and wasn't in the mood to play around.

The alley said nothing. Yuji took another swig of his tea. Before he could even bring the bottle down from his lips, the world went black. Pure black. His tea was ripped away and he mourned the loss as he floated through an abyss. No, not an abyss. An abyss was empty. This was very much full of something that lifted Yuji up, crawled around his body in a frenzy, poking and prodding. It rippled around him like a wave.

Yuji listened intently; that's when he heard it: the squeaks. Almost mouse-like and angry. The nibbles certainly felt familiar enough. The sides of his lips curved. "Hitomi," he said but it was lost in the void her shikigami created around him. There had to have been millions of the little bastards swarming him, pinning him in place. When had she learned to summon that many?

Nice try. It was certainly bold, but bold wasn't enough. But maybe it called for a pizza party.

Something else moved through the shikigami abyss. Hitomi. She was the only one who would have been able to weave through her shikigami with such ease. He concentrated on her cursed energy, picked up on her speed and—

A pale face broke through the darkness. Hitomi, teeth gritted, silver glinting by her face. Maki-Sensei's sword. It whistled through the air, fast, but Yuji was faster. He focused his cursed energy into his right hand and tore away from the shikigami. Yuji caught Hitomi by the throat. She choked, the sword falling into the dark as she raised both hands and tried to pry Yuji off, but his grip was firm.

Yuji smiled as Hitomi gasped for oxygen. He didn't intend to kill her—God the paperwork—but a little unconsciousness would probably get these damned shikigami off of him.

"What flavor of pizza do you like? I could spring for some tomorrow—"

"Domain Expansion."

What the fuck?

Light exploded around Yuji. He fought the urge to shield his eyes, instead focusing as the world came rushing back. The shikigami reared back, one giant horde, then descended in one fell swoop. With a vicious yank, the horde ripped Hitomi away and scurried off.

Yuji hardly paid this any mind. He was too busy trying to fit together the last piece of a puzzle that didn't damn fit. There was no way any of his students could pull off a goddamn Domain Expansion. Not at their current level. Not when they hadn't truly been challenged. Yuji was going easy on them.

The light dimmed as his vision cleared. The first thing he noticed was that his feet were wet, soaked up to mid-calf level. He was standing in water, stagnant, if the musty smell was anything to go by. Cracks in the ceiling above allowed pitiful streams of light to filter in. It was enough for Yuji, who'd always been good at seeing in the dark, to get an idea of what this was.

A train station. Cracked curved ceiling tiles, rusty exposed metal beams. Yuji chanced a look down and saw train tracks partially obscured by standing water.

Approaching footsteps echoed down the tunnel. Jin appeared, face cocky as he held up a hand sign Yuji had never seen before. He leaned casually over the edge. "Not bad huh, Sensei?" He preened like a peacock.

A bubble of laughter welled up in Yuji. He cocked his head. "Not bad," he agreed. "What are the rules?"

"Trying to give me a power-up? Generous, but I don't need it. Hope you're ready to run." Jin curled his fingers, weaving together a familiar sign. "Cleave."

A storm of slashes rained down. Yuji dashed to the left, then leapt off the tracks, landing only a few meters from Jin. The kid's domain really was incomplete; Jin was unable to shift his focus and redirect his attack in time. Yuji brought his index fingers together. Jin's eyes widened.

"Let me show you a real domain. Domain—"

Maybe Megumi was right: Yuji really was an idiot. The moment he should have suspected something came a split second too late. He craned his head over his shoulder, eyeing the real threat.

Sukuna crouched low, torso taut like a pulled cord, feet steady, right foot in front of left. Quite unshakeable. His eyes were the wide, starved look of a lion, and they were locked on Yuji. No, not at Yuji, but at the end result, the final goal. Blood wicked down his arm, staining his white school uniform, and for the briefest moment, Yuji thought it was his, but Sukuna hadn't struck yet. Sukuna wrapped his hands around the hilt of a sword—Hitomi's sword again—and drove it upward. It pierced Yuji's right shoulder, dragging him back and sending him crashing toward the pavement.

Someone inhaled sharply. "You weren't supposed to actually stab him, idiot!"

Hurried footsteps trampled over cracked cement. Yuji fluttered his eyes, then pushed himself into a sitting position. The scene unfolded like this:

Jin slapping the back of Sukuna's head while the other boy stared down at Yuji with a dazed expression. Like an apparition, Hitomi popped into view, one hand cupped over her mouth. Oh, and there was a sword sticking out of Yuji's shoulder. He tapped it and winced. It was lodged in there, alright.

"We'll be expelled," Jin said miserably. He gripped his brother's chin and gave him a shake. "Are you brain dead?"

Sukuna blinked a few times, the fog clearing in his mind. His brain seemed to actually process the situation. The situation being Yuji with a damn sword in him. Something akin to horror splashed across his features. He backed away.

"I-I didn't mean…" Sukuna shuddered a little bringing his arms together. Blood still slicked down his hands.

Yuji almost wanted to laugh. He was in a bizarro world, one where Sukuna, even a pale version of him, fretted over the idea that he'd hurt Yuji. "I've had worse," he said dryly.

The three stopped their handwringing and eyed him.

Yuji did his best to focus his breathing. "Didn't think you guys had it in you to pull off something like this." He raised an eyebrow at Jin. "Domain Expansion?"

Jin rubbed the back of his head, a sheepish grin replacing the worry. "I was faking it, sorry."

"And we're…" Yuji glanced around.

"In an abandoned train station under the city. My shikigami moved you down an open manhole when they swarmed," Hitomi supplied. She tore off a chunk of her skirt and moved to apply pressure to Yuji's wound. It wasn't bleeding much, thanks to the sword, but it stung when she pressed down. "We were just the distractions. Tadashi was supposed to only corner you." She cast an evil eye over her shoulder.

Sukuna shrank into himself. "I zoned out, I swear!"

"More like zoned in." Yuji took over pressing down on the wound, careful not to slice his fingers around the blade. "Did everything go fuzzy except for what you were aiming at?" Sukuna nodded. "You were probably close to a Black Flash."

"No way." Jin gaped at Sukuna. "This shrimp?" A minor scuffle occurred when Jin tried pinching Sukuna's cheek, only to be furiously batted away. Sukuna gnashed his teeth at him.

"The distractions were good, but that still doesn't explain how you snuck up behind me."

"Oh, it was the sword!" Hitomi exclaimed. "Well, it's a cursed tool that eats cursed energy. You know all our signatures pretty well, but Sukuna thought—"

"I wouldn't notice someone without cursed energy approaching." Yuji regarded the bloody sleeve of Sukuna's school uniform. It had begun to dry a dark-brown red color that crusted and stuck to the skin. Finally, he nodded. "Brilliant."

Sukuna cast a startled look at Yuji, red pooling on his cheeks. He tapped the toe of his shoe on the ground. "Whatever," he mumbled. "You're gonna bleed out soon if we don't heal you. I don't have any energy left for RCT." Sukuna spread his hands apart, demonstrating his lack of cursed energy with the empty space between them.

"Neither do I," Yuji said, gaze flickering down to the sword that slowly leeched from him like a parasite. "Pull it out."

Hitomi wrung her hands. "I don't think—"

But Sukuna was already moving, hand gripping the hilt, a shock of pain coursing through Yuji as the sword slid up up up until it withdrew with a sickening squelch. At once, energy surged through him. His head rushed. "Okay, that's good. I can heal this way if—"

When Yuji woke, cold seeped through his skin. Someone had thrown a thin sheet over him, itchy, that scratched at him. He struggled with it until a soft voice cut in.

"You'll reopen the wound that way."

Yuji ceased his struggles as he looked for the source. The world was a blurry mess, coming together in featureless blobs until he blinked away the last vestiges of sleep. Two figures stood on either side of him: Ieiri-sensei and Megumi. Ieiri-sensei leaned against the wall, an unlit cigarette between her lips. He was in the clinic on campus.

Megumi's face came closer and Yuji could see the deep heavy lines set under his eyes as he studied Megumi. After a beat, Megumi murmured, "Good morning."

Yuji glanced at the windows; the blueish white light that signaled early morning spilled through slatted blinds. "How long was I out?" His throat felt dry and scratchy. Megumi, always the mind reader, handed him a small cup of water which Yuji guzzled down gratefully.

"All night." The bed dipped as Megumi sat on the edge. "There I was, thinking you'd got eaten by a curse, but Ieiri-sensei was nice enough to give me a call and inform me you were jumped by fourteen-year-olds."

Memories arrived in snatches. Yuji brought his hand to his shoulder where the edges of the would pulsed. His goddamn Problem Children. "You're never letting me live this down."

"Of course not." Megumi patted his knee, which had to twinge, to make the moment worse.

Ieiri-sensei pulled out the cigarette. "Your little monsters are going to be my special helpers for the next month, which seems more like a punishment for me than them, but who am I to argue with the principal?" She shook her head in disgust. "You're on bed rest for the morning. That sword had some nasty cursed energy to it, so it wasn't easy sewing you up. Don't let my hard work go to waste." She gave a brisk wave, then disappeared.

Megumi squeezed himself on the hospital bed. The two of them together were a tight fit, but Yuji liked the closeness. He rested his head in the crook of Megumi's neck, listening to the distant thud of his heartbeat.

"I knew your kids were annoying. You never told me they were absolutely insane," said Megumi.

"They're awful. But I figured you weren't interested." Yuji's eyes grew heavy. The threads of RCT wound through him, pulling him away from consciousness for more rest.

"I'll allow you fifteen minutes to share the craziest stories."

"Daily?"

"Weekly."

Megumi said something else, but Yuji slipped away. The next time he woke, the room was cast in deep orange from the sun. Megumi curled up in the armchair beside him, a book in hand. From the brief glimpse Yuji got, it was something old and stuffy.

Megumi spared him the briefest glance before returning to his book. The silence was amicable. Yuji almost drifted back to sleep but the loud voices drifting through the opened window put a stop to that.

"Ow! Motherfucker! And after I just fed you?"

"Good job, Bullet. You're making Daddy proud."

With a sigh, Yuji forced himself upright, swinging his legs off the bed to rest his feet on the floor. He knew the sound of his brats. The long sleep had returned most of his energy, so he stood, padding over to the window. The evening cast long shadows in the garden. His students were alone in the garden; not the most unusual. Yuji had long noticed their pariah status with the rest of the student body.

Sukuna and Jin sat on opposite ends of a bench, heads bent toward each other. Hitomi was cross-legged on the ground before them. All of them attentively looked at something Yuji just knew would give him a headache. He was rewarded with the answer when Hitomi shifted slightly. Sukuna's hands cupped around something small and brown and…feathery?

The little fluff ball quivered. Furrowing his brow, Yuji squinted until the incomprehensible blob took shape. The bird from the box, Yuji realized with a start. Its wings fluttered as it chirped eagerly in Sukuna's palm. Hitomi held out her hand, fingers pinched around something small, to the bird's beak, who swallowed it with a greedy vigor. Hitomi cooed.

"They have a bird," Yuji said, quite unnecessarily. He cast a glance to the side at Megumi, who merely flipped to the next page of his book.

"Oh?" said Megumi.

Outside, Jin pouted as the bird hopped from Sukuna's palm to Hitomi's. "I can't believe you named it Bullet."

Sukuna, face carefully blank, said, "What can I say? She shot through my heart."

Jin parted his mouth. "Did you just tell a joke?" He readjusted his glasses, then leaned down to Hitomi and said in a loud whisper, "Little Sukucchi's gaining a personality."

At once, the blank look on Sukuna's face vanished, replaced by angled brows and gritted teeth. "I'll hit you."

Jin interlaced his fingers together, bringing them to his chest. "Not in front of the child. What kind of mother are you?"

Yuji turned back to Megumi just as Jin's startled cries echoed through the garden, followed by the indignant squeaks of Bullet and Hitomi's irritated sighs. He ran one hand down his face. "They have a bird named Bullet."

"Looks like you'll need to put in a request for another white uniform." Megumi ducked as Yuji swatted at him.

"Being funny is supposed to be my thing. If you take that from me, what's left?"

A brief scuffle occurred, more akin to fumbling in part due to Yuji’s injured state and Megumi not being one to bully the sick. In any case, Yuji landed a few well-aimed hits he hoped would straighten Megumi out before he returned his attention to the courtyard.

Four eyes squinted back at him, mouth set in that familiar scowl. While Hitomi and Jin were devoted to their new bird companion, Sukuna and Yuji regarded each other. Following a sharp whistle, Bullet hopped back to Sukuna's hand with a happy chirp. Sukuna angled himself and held up the bird in one hand, giving Yuji a better view. Sukuna's grin was ear-splitting and absolutely nasty. The other free hand made a gesture that Yuji, still groggy, took a moment to register—he was being flipped off.

It didn't take long for his teammates to spy the victim of this hostility. Jin covered his face. "We're never getting out of detention," he moaned.

Yuji pressed a thumb to his forehead. Even against the echoes of a headache, he laughed.

Chapter Text

Yuji lied to himself often, but even he could admit one thing: he liked teaching. Guiding youth, cultivating their talent, all that fluff suited him. A sense of purpose did a man good, he supposed.

What he couldn't abide by, however, was all the damn paperwork. And the homework assignments. And he knew Kusakabe had to be fucking with him, because why the hell was Yuji expected to write quarterly evaluations?

"Recommendations from the Commission," said Kusakabe, which didn't explain anything.

When the stack of evaluation forms reached him, Yuji plucked three from the stack and skimmed over them. A brief overview of the student's progress this quarter. Three lines down, Instructor suggestions for improvement with actionable insights. Five lines down, Noted accomplishments. This took up ten lines.

Across from him, Nobara was already writing the names of students in the top right corner of the paper. At Yuji's questioning look, her eye crinkled at the corner. "Just write some bullshit and make it saccharine. Should be easy enough for you. You barely have a job."

The snark bordered on tepid. At least once a week, someone would grouch about how lucky Yuji was to have such a small class. Strangely, no one had yet taken his offer to switch seriously. Jin and Sukuna together were worse than any big class.

A cough cut off the response on Yuji's tongue. A small man leaned against the coffee station table, his smile showing too many teeth. "Quarterly evaluations are an opportunity to connect with the students through positive reinforcement. They're not bullshit." He made a face like the word hurt.

"Rion, relax," Nobara said with a laugh.

"That's Nakamura-sensei. The more we model professionalism, the more we'll exemplify the proper values to the students." A beat of silence followed as Nakamura clasped his hands. The longer the silence dragged on, the more obvious it became that he expected a response from Nobara. He would wait forever. Nobara had already turned away to organize her papers.

Yuji's desk faced forward, so he became the main recipient of a furrowed glare. Nakamura curled his lip as they assessed one another. No surprises there. Yuji had made an unexpected enemy of the counselor when news of his training methods had spread amongst the students and staff.

Kusakabe sat on a desk at the center of the room, face pinched. "Thank you, Nakamura-sensei, as always, for your helpful advice."

The pointed sarcasm in his voice was either imperceptible or simply negligible to Nakamura. Just the compliment was clearly enough as he preened.

Nobara mouthed, Bitch, and Yuji choked on a laugh. The warning in Kusakabe's gaze was clear. Behave.

"Have the forms filled out and delivered to the students by Friday morning. That will give them time to review it with their parents before conferences. Extra sheets will be here at the front if you mess up." He dumped the stack of papers on a small cabinet.

If this were a world in which Kusakabe was allowed any fun, he would end every uninspiring morning staff meeting with a lazy, 'fuck off.' But fun was probably outlawed by the Commission.

Nakamura bowed deeply. "Thank you, Koucho-sensei, as always, for your guidance."

On the other side of the room, Panda made googly eyes, and Maki snickered.

With nothing left to discuss, Kusakabe tried to make his escape, but Nakamura barnacled to him.

"Have you given any more thought to the weekend enrichment programs—" the sentence cut off with the slam of the door.

"Weekend enrichment? Like I don't see these brats enough," Nobara said at last. She scooped her papers up and dumped them haphazardly in her briefcase. "I'll file a case for wage theft."

Yuji raised one of the papers. "How seriously do I take this?"

"Depends. Kusakabe doesn't give a shit, but it's required by the Commission. And the students and parents love them."

Another thought stirred in Yuji. "Right. Parent-teacher conferences?" he asked skeptically.

"Commission again. Apparently, they didn't like the old method of abandoning students at a private institution in the mountains with no checks and balances. So now parents are invited up once a quarter to check in."

"Weren't most of these kids dumped here? Isn't it…insensitive?"

"You'd be surprised by how many deadbeats show up. I think most of them just want to gawk at sorcerers. But the kids don't know that. They're just happy their lazy, bigoted parents remembered they existed." She batted her eyelashes. "Just breaks your heart, doesn't it?"

Yuji tapped his pen against the desk, thoughts scattered to the wind of some imperceptible storm.

Twenty minutes later, when he exhausted the brief bit of morning quietness he got before classes began, he left the staff room, only to be accosted before he'd gotten one toe out of the room.

Nakamura readjusted the bottom of his suit jacket, eyes roaming over Yuji with cool appraisal. "Itadori-sensei, a word?"

Yuji idly wondered what consequences, if any, would come about after a refusal. Then he smiled his easy-going smile, shifting the heavy messenger bag from one arm to the other. "Sure."

They moved through the hallways bustling with sleepily frazzled students rushing to their homerooms. Many bowed as they passed, hurried greetings on their lips.

"I know you're new, so I just wanted to reiterate the importance of these evaluations. I can assure you, it's not just busy work. These are critical for the students' development."

"Of course."

Nakamura tucked a stray hair back into his neat bowl cut. "If I can speak frankly, I worry that your teaching methods are not conducive to the type of positive environment the Commission hopes to establish here. I understand you sorcerers have had your own ways of doing things up until the Reveal. But things are different now. We want to prevent something like that from ever happening again. You understand what I'm saying?"

They'd reached Yuji's classroom. With the door cracked open, Yuji saw his students lounging at their desks: Hitomi, face buried in a book, Jin, feet kicked up on a desk, and Sukuna, head bent, arms folded, resting on the desk. Before him, Bullet fluttered indignantly, hopping back and forth across the desk—she considered lack of attention to be the highest crime.

So different compared to the start of the year, when they'd scattered themselves like leaves. Now, their desks brushed against one another near the front of the room.

Nakamura studied Yuji closely like he was trying to sniff out the lies and malcontent that branded him a troublemaker.

"Got it." One finger hooked under the latch, Yuji slid the door open. The students snapped to attention. Even Sukuna lifted his head, his perpetual frown lacking its usual heat. His sunglasses were folded neatly on the desk.

"Yo," Yuji said.

"Itadori-sensei?" Nakamura called.

Yuji glanced behind him. Nakamura's lips flattened, all false cheer left behind. "Please put in as much effort into your evaluations as you've put into…other methods."

"Wouldn't dream of doing anything less."

* * *

The slap of the folder hitting the desk wrenched Jin from his nap. The boy jerked up, bleary eyes blinking as he took in the situation.

"Welcome back to the land of the living, Tadashi," Yuji said as he breezed by the desk. In his arms were two hefty folders. As he passed by Hitomi's desk, he dropped the next folder, the loud thunk ricocheting.

Hitomi immediately began flipping through the papers. "Evaluations?" A touch of awe colored her words.

Yuji nodded. He dropped off the last folder on Sukuna's desk. The boy eyed it as though it might bite back. Nestled in the crook of his neck, Bullet chirped cantankerously.

"Formal class is canceled today. It'll give you the time to go through your evaluations ahead of the conferences this evening. If you want to discuss anything I've written, I'll be in the staff room."

Jin turned the folder around, inspecting it. "Teachers never write this much."

Yuji smiled as he slipped on his jacket. "What can I say? I'm really invested in my students."

* * *

Yuji lounged at his desk, enjoying the emptiness of the staff room as he sipped hot chocolate from one of his favorite mugs. It was one Megumi had found during his travels, a simple little thing shaped like a duck.

Barely an hour had passed before that peace was shattered with the slam of a door. Sukuna was a raging tiger, trampling through the staff room with a frenetic energy that would have made a lesser teacher tremble.

Yuji took a sip as he evaluated the boy before him. Face so scrunched his sunglasses slipped down his nose. Wrapped securely in pink locks, Bullet let loose a warning chirp. 'Watch yourself, bub,' she seemed to say. Flurried footsteps came again; Jin poked his head into the room.

"Dude," he whispered. He entered the room with a nervous lilt to his walk.

Yuji set down the mug. "Yes?"

"You…" Sukuna struggled for words. "You think I'm incompetent?"

"Is that what I wrote?"

The folder wavered in Sukuna's hand, and the boy looked torn between ripping it to shreds and throwing it at Yuji. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, then flicked it open. "'You demonstrate a worrying lack of control over your own cursed energy, possibly due to emotional immaturity. Whether you can overcome this remains to be seen.'"

Behind him, Jin winced.

Yuji dropped the mug on the coaster. "Do you think you're proving me wrong right now?" Cursed energy leaked out of Sukuna in waves, hot and bitter.

Jin placed a hand on Sukuna's shoulder only to be rebuffed as Sukuna jerked away and spun on his heels, leaving behind the acrid taste of cursed energy.

* * *

In the northernmost corner of the school grew a patch of ginkgo trees. They formed a small enclosure, limbs blotting so much of the sky that light only pittered in barely perceptible streams, kaleidoscoping the ground. It wasn't a place for contemplation; the rotted smell from the seedlings was stomach-churning to most. But Yuji found comfort amongst ugly and unpleasant things. The ginkgo trees, in their infinite wisdom, made great contemplation buddies. He liked to believe these trees, thousands of years old, watched over the school through the thousands of eyes they bore. That they were more than just pretty fossils from a time lost to history, cold, dead, utterly inert. Yuji liked believing lots of things.

He leaned against the trunk, a napkin full of steamed buns he'd swiped from the cafeteria in his lap. Slightly too chewy and lacking the delicate texture they had when Megumi made them, but they were still tasty. The taste of red bean reminded him of childhood.

A wind rushed through the trees, bringing with it foul odor and lumbering hesitation. Through the trunks of the trees, Jin emerged. His nose scrunched against the putrid stink and he brought his hand up to cover it with the sleeve of his uniform.

"Kugisaki-sensei said I'd find you here, which is weird. No one likes coming here." He said it in a way that implied he couldn't understand why Yuji didn't fit into the category of no one.

Yuji swallowed the remnants of the steamed bun. "It's not so bad when the seedlings don't fall." He patted the patch of grass next to him. Jin rushed over eagerly and sat down, legs crossed. Greedy eyes watched the steamed buns and Yuji offered with a wordless shrug.

Jin wasted no time, shoving an entire bun in his mouth. "Ta-nk ya," he said, words broken between the chews.

"Want to talk about your report?" Yuji guessed.

Jin wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, smearing a streak of red up his cheek. "Sort of. Well, not just my report. I know you're really honest, Sensei, but I wanted to ask…" The words caught in his mouth, stalling. At last, he spat them out. "Do you think you could chill a little? With Sukucchi?"

Huh. Yuji chewed on another bun. Beside him, Jin rocked ever so slightly.

"You know how he gets all"—here Jin's hand took over the conversation, waving at something imperceptible—"moody," he finished.

"I noticed," Yuji said dryly.

"OK, and you know he's super sensitive. He takes everything personally."

Tadashi Jin was something of a lump of a boy, one Yuji hadn't anticipated liking so much. Being twins, Yuji had expected them to be one and the same. One soul, two bodies. In Jujutsu society, they were considered to be the same person. But Jin was as different from his brother as one could get. Social, affable. Even their physical features were like night and day. A few years of decent-sized meals couldn't make up for the strange hollows carved into Sukuna's face, a sharp contrast from the chubby cuteness that stubbornly clung to Jin's features. His sins, if any, were his overly familiar manners and the way he clearly cared more about his brother than his brother cared about him.

A leaf floated down, landing gently on Yuji's knee. He plucked it up and turned it over a few times to admire the delicate, smooth veins of the leaves. "My job isn't to be nice to you," Yuji said almost as an afterthought. What wasn't said hung in the infinitesimal space between them. Society won't be. Barely had the thought floated by his mind's eye, a small, inconsequential thing, when he was overcome with shame. When had he become so jaded?

Jin opened his mouth, body stiff like he was gearing up for an argument, but Yuji cut him off. "It's good that you care for your brother. I'll be more considerate with my feedback." He met Jin's gaze. "You know, caring about others is a good trait for a sorcerer to have."

Red crept up from beneath Jin's collar, spreading in uneven, splotchy patches across his face. He mumbled something Yuji couldn't quite hear.

Thunder rumbled in the distance, miles away, but Yuji said, "Come on. Before we're both soaked." Standing, he pulled Jin to his feet. Yuji dusted the bits of leaves and grass stuck to his pants; no doubt Nakamura would crow on about cleanliness and setting an example if he saw the disreputable state of Yuji's uniform.

They made it back to the school right when the lunch bell rang. Students poured out of class in swarms, all converging on the cafeteria staff. Most of them carried the evaluation forms—innocently small sheets compared to the tomes Yuji had written—and showed them to friends from other classes. Nakamura had been right. The students did look forward to them.

Sukuna's towering form was absent from the crowd, as was Hitomi's. Maybe Hitomi had dragged them to a practice room so she could begin remedying the list of weaknesses Yuji had noted. Or maybe Sukuna had disappeared to his room to brood and be sensitive as Jin had suggested.

Yuji nodded his goodbye to Jin, only to be stopped by a hand pinching at the fabric of his elbow. Jin looked even more embarrassed as he dropped Yuji's sleeve.

"I know you're busy, but could you give me some extra training sessions? Anytime is fine," he said in one breath.

Yuji's brows raised. The request wasn't surprising; he'd expected something like it to happen after he'd handed back evaluations. But he'd expected it to come from Hitomi. He had to write practice humility on Jin's evaluation.

More training sessions meant more time away from Megumi. Their time together grew smaller and smaller.

"Monday mornings, 5:30 in the west training room."

Jin nodded his head so hard Yuji thought it might pop off. "I promise, I'll work hard, Sensei. You won't regret it."

A voice called out, one of Jin's friends from another class.

Yuji waved him away. "Go."

Jin eagerly moved to join the gaggle of boys waiting in the corridor. Before he disappeared inside, he yelled over his shoulder, "See you tonight!"

Right. Tonight. Parent-Teacher Conferences. Something not quite like dread settled like a hard stone in his stomach.

* * *

Day winked out of existence, rolling black clouds blanketed the sky and obscured the moon and stars. Occasionally, lightning would crack, thunder would rumble, but the edges of the storm were still far off. The depressing turn in weather did little to dampen the excitement in the air. Students anxiously counted down to the final bell. When it rang, the students tore into the hall. Rooms needed to be tidied, decor hung, and outfits picked out for their parents' arrival. The excited chatter of students as they stomped through campus was enough to drown out any distant thunder.

Six-thirty came in the blink of an eye. Yuji fiddled with his outfit, an uncomfortably stiff white dress shirt, black slacks ironed within an inch of their life, all accompanied by a choking blue tie. Only after Nakamura's insistence for three weeks straight did Kusakabe finally give up and order the staff to don business casual for the conferences. Yuji had heard Nakamura's reasonings—professionalism again—but he'd much rather deal with these uncomfortable face-to-faces in clothing he liked. He would have even been willing to concede and find his least tattered uniform. At the desk in his homeroom, Yuji tugged again at the tie.

At exactly a minute passed, the door to the classroom flew open, startling Yuji from the game he was playing on his phone. Hitomi buzzed in, red-faced, with a large woman trailing behind her.

"I'm so sorry, Sensei. Someone insisted on a tour even though I said everything's pretty much the same and we lost track of time." Hitomi wrung her hands, then cast an evil look over her shoulder.

Having raised her and thus probably used to her daughter's high-strung nature, the woman responded with a big shrug.

Yuji pocketed his phone as he stood, giving a small bow that was returned with an inclined head from the mother and a low bow from Hitomi. He directed them to the two plastic chairs on the opposite side of his desk and waited until they took their seats before dropping into his own.

Hitomi's mother gave him a once-over. "He's as handsome as you said," she said in a loud whisper.

Warmth spread across his cheeks.

"Mom!"

The woman only laughed. "Please, a good-looking guy like him is used to it."

Yuji chuckled, some of his nerves evaporating. "Mrs. Hayashi—"

"Oh please, I'm happily not married, so Ito is fine. Sayuri is even better."

Hitomi shrank into herself, looking like she wished for nothing more than a tactical missile to take her away.

Like her height, Ito Sayuri had a demeanor that begged to be noticed. She gave her daughter a good-natured nudge and Yuji caught a glimpse of calloused hands stained with the remnants of something black. Unlike some of the other parents Yuji spied wandering the campus from his classroom window, she was not done up in her best clothes, choosing simple beige overalls splattered with paint and grease. She'd come straight from work.

Sayuri threw her head back when she laughed at her daughter's despair, her mushroom bob bouncing with her. A startling contrast from her daughter who Yuji was positive ironed her school uniform every morning. And though Hitomi had traded in her school uniform for a pale pink dress and loafers, this evening was no exception.

The twenty-minute meeting flew by with Sayuri doing her best to embarrass her daughter while simultaneously giving her proud looks when Yuji complimented her studiousness. When Yuji noted issues he hoped she would improve on, a thoughtful smile graced her features.

"With the way you boss me around, who would have thought you had performance anxiety?" Sayuri gave Hitomi's hair an affectionate tousle.

At the end of the meeting, Yuji and Sayuri stood and shook hands. Instead of pulling away, Sayuri held on, an absentminded look flitting across her face.

"Thanks for looking after this one. I wasn't so gung-ho about her continuing high school here. What mother wants their daughter away in the mountains for the school year? And all she complained about in middle school was how her classmates were—what did you call them?—oh yeah, classist cunts. She never used the word bullying, but I'm not entirely brand new.

"You know the Commission opened the first-ever after-school sorcerer program near our house this month? Now that's convenient. I know us city folk aren't the nicest to sorcerers, but I'd be a lot happier having her at home after hearing one too many stories of kids being returned to their parents in urns. I was going to wait until the end of the first quarter and these conferences before withdrawing her."

It was like someone had put a white, plastic bag over Hitomi's head and pulled the strings taut. "Mom! You ca—"

"But, I guess I'll let her finish up high school here, thanks to her competent and handsome teacher." She took a step back, dropping Yuji's hand. To her daughter, she said, "Alright, let's go, kiddo. I want to meet these twins you think are unfairly pretty."

Hitomi's face went to lemons. "I'm never inviting you back." Her heels clopped out of the room, Sayuri laughing after her.

The grin plastered on Yuji's face hurt as he was once again left alone. Luckily for the muscles in his face, the smile didn't last long. Ten minutes later, the door to the class slid open again, and a woman who could only be described as Ito Sayuri's antonym walked in—small, wrapped in a plain black dress free from stains, shoulders slumped down in a way that warded rather than invited. Still, Ms. Tadashi looked a far cry better than the last time Yuji saw her. Hollowed crevices filled in and the pallor of her skin held a pleasant tan that suggested she'd gotten plenty of sun in the last few years.

They locked eyes. Yuji fiddled with the end of his tie, words jumbled in his throat. What did he say to this woman who'd so many years ago begged him to kill her child?

The door slid open again and Jin poked his head in, a grin plastered on his face. "Yo, Sensei! Nice tie."

Jin was a breezy gust of wind that disturbed the soured atmosphere. He practically prodded his mother in and the woman feigned irritation, but Yuji didn't miss the soft affection in her eyes as she was steered into the room.

Yuji bowed in greeting, the gesture only returned by Jin. Ms. Tadashi knelt to her knees, spine-curling as she brought her forehead to the floor. Yuji stared down, mind blank, as his eyes struggled to make sense of the scene.

Jin scratched his head, messing up the neat, gelled style Yuji assumed his mother was responsible for. "Mom," he said in quiet embarrassment. There was something else there too, an aged thing that made Jin sound far older than he was.

Finally, Ms. Tadashi lifted her head, black eyes tiny like pins pricking Yuji. "Jin," she began in that small voice. "This is how you show proper respect to someone whom you're indebted to. This is how I choose to thank the man who lifted my curse." She drew herself up and smoothed out the wrinkles of her dress. She took her seat, twisting to look back at them with only the slightest raised eyebrow at their still forms. Well, that face said, shall we begin?

With little fanfare, Yuji began the meeting. He ran through the list of talking points he'd made for himself while Ms. Tadashi sat quietly, hands folded in her lap. She made no interjections, no quips. The other half of the conversation was carried by Jin, who'd managed to work past his initial bout of nervousness. He peppered in gaps in the conversation with jokes that didn't quite land.

A sensation Yuji hadn't felt in decades washed over him; the sense that eyes that weren't his own were seeing through his, meticulously inspecting the world, picking the meat off the bone for their own amusement.

Those eyes peered down, pulling apart this pathetic scene.

It had to be obvious to Ms. Tadashi. When Yuji's stories veered too close; when they alluded to an unnamed someone integral to the story of Jin. "He's young, so a little immaturity is normal, but I want him to conduct himself like he's a full-fledged sorcerer. More focus on the tasks given to him and less on competing with his teammate." Teammate. Not teammates. Because Jin rarely tried to show off for Hitomi's sake.

In the words not said, in those impossibly small spaces, Sukuna had wormed his way in, burrowed deep like an infestation, the wood rotted to its foundation.

Just as Yuji made no mention of Sukuna, Ms. Tadashi made no inquiries. When the meeting concluded, she thanked him with another low bow, albeit this one standing. Jin laughed, but the gesture was a hair too loud, and the way his body jerked reminded Yuji of a ventriloquist puppet, all the joints moving incongruently.

On their way out, Yuji caught the last snippet of a conversation: "They added a new garden since the last time you came…"

Now alone, Yuji felt like a tipped box with all the contents spilled out. He spent the next thirty minutes idly tidying the classroom, but eventually, he concluded that there was nothing left to dust and the desks could not be straightened anymore. No one else would be coming, so he pulled on his jacket and slipped out of the room.

The staff room was empty; all the other teachers with bigger class sizes were still conducting conferences. There was a planned special dinner later for students and parents, but Yuji had not been ordered to stay and with the way exhaustion dripped from him, he'd rather spend dinner eating whatever Megumi whipped up. He spent five minutes filling out Nakamura's post-conference sheets. Yuji placed them little too forcefully in Nakamura's inbox, then grabbed his empty bento box from the fridge, flicked off the lights, and tried to make a quiet escape.

He made it halfway down the hall when a figure clothed in pink burst from around the corner—Hitomi, pale face flushed, eye as wide as a frightened rabbit. She did not allow Yuji a word in as nimble fingers clutched the hem of Yuji's sleeve. He was pulled down the hall, out an exterior door, and into the warm, humid night. Their feet made no noise over the grass, lightly soaked from afternoon showers.

Because of the explosion of kids attending Jujutsu High, two brand new buildings had been added to the campus, one each for the girls and boys to live separately. They were modest three-story buildings with flat facades and sloping roofs. Yuji had never been in before, but from what he remembered of the photos Kusakabe had shown him during his "orientation," the rooms were small, so each student could have their own space. However, with the way attendance rose each year, they were starting to explore building another building for shared housing.

Hitomi buzzed by the girls' dormitory, making a beeline to the adjacent building. Every light was on but unlike the girls' dorm, no idle chatter drifted out of open windows. It was completely silent. Through the large glass windows surrounding the genkan, Yuji saw no students or parents lingering.

They paused outside the door. Hitomi turned to him with an expectant look as she gestured at the door. There was a black doorknob with no signs of a traditional key entry. Instead, a small black square was stuck to the side and Yuji stared at it quite stupidly until Hitomi huffed and, without a word, fished around his pockets. She found what she was looking for in his left pocket: Yuji's staff ID. She held it to the black square and it gave a pleasant beep followed by the flash of a green light and the sound of a latch unlocking. It was only when Hitomi pushed open the door that he remembered his ID gave him access to the dorms in case the students were ever in danger, whether from each other or an external threat.

Inside the entryway, Yuji bent to slip his shoes off, the action thwarted as Hitomi, a frustrated growl in her throat, yanked him up and pulled him down the hallway. A sense of wrongness overcame him, as he trampled through the pristine hall in his wet shoes, leaving large Yuji-sized tracks trailing behind him. He noticed then that Hitomi was shoeless, her pink frilly socks stained brown with muck. She hadn't even bothered to put on shoes before she went in search of him.

Alarm rose in Yuji as they dashed up a flight of stairs that led to a crowded hallway. Students and parents alike stood silent, their backs to Yuji as they watched something he couldn't see. It was like something out of a b-horror movie where the crowd had been bewitched.

Hitomi shoved a path forward for them to the end of the hall, to the last room on the left with its door propped open. On the right side of the frame, someone had doodled on a name placard a small, chubby, fire-breathing dragon with a long tail curled lazily around squiggly characters that read: Tadashi Sukuna.

The inside of the dorm room was similar to how it'd been during Yuji's time, with a twin bed pressed against the wall and a desk underneath the window. Sukuna's room was normal. A jacket lazily tossed over the edge of the bed frame and manga stacked on the desk in neat piles next to a half-eaten bento box from the cafeteria. Plastered on the walls were a couple of posters, a few Yuji recognized from horror movie franchises he'd begged Megumi to watch with him. So…normal. What had Yuji expected? A baby's head for a vase? A woman's leg as a curtain rod? The spines of puppies used as tasteful wall decor?

In that disappointingly quaint normal room, an abnormal scene unfolded:

Bullet's small body made furious circles around the room, each flap of her wings punctuated by an angry squawk.

Ito Sayuri in her paint-stained overalls, hunched over a smaller, struggling figure. Ms. Tadashi. Sayuri had her arms around her waist, and despite her obvious size advantage, struggled to keep Ms. Tadashi in place with the way the other woman twisted viciously in her grasp.

Ms. Tadashi shrieked something, but the pitch was so high it came out garbled, though he caught snatches of freak and monster. Standing a little ways away, Jin stood, face drawn in a grimace, as he watched Sayuri attempt to restrain his mother. His baby face looked even younger as his eyes flicked helplessly over to Yuji.

In front of Jin, another figure sat on his knees, back curved, face pressed to the faux vinyl flooring—Sukuna. For such a large boy, he looked incredibly small hunched there. He clutched at his face and beneath, Yuji saw splatters of blood flecking the floor. Shards of a broken lamp littered the space between mother and son.

With Hitomi pushing her way in, there were too many bodies in the room. Even with the open window, petrichor trickling in on a warm breeze, there wasn't enough air to go around. Yuji tugged at the edge of his loosened tie. The next bit happened so quickly that Yuji would only recall them later in still frames, like the ream of a camera roll.

Sayuri, more used to keeping a firm grip on a paint brush, lost her hold on Ms. Hayashi and the woman rushed at Sukuna with a speed that surprised Yuji. Her arm was raised above her, fist balled, and her thin face alight with a hate that took him aback.

Sukuna lifted his head. A gash cut through the top of his right eye, straight down the middle of his cheek. Most of the initial bleeding had stopped, only thin rivulets pressing against the seam. There was nothing on his face. No sadness. No anger. An empty canvas.

But even a canvas revealed potential, and Yuji saw it right then. Maybe it was a glint in Sukuna's good eye. Or maybe it was just old memories unearthed. But Yuji understood the moment Ms. Tadashi's fist landed, Sukuna would take her head off. Neatly cleave her where her neck met her shoulders and stain the room red. A room finally fit for the King of Curses.

Contact never came. Ms. Tadashi got one step more before she was jerked back, legs kicking out beneath her. Yuji didn't let her regain her footing as he pulled her along, her feet dragging across the floor. He had only one hand clamped on her wrist, but unlike Sayuri, he had a few good years of experience in the field of restraining things.

Her free hand came up, those sharp nails raking against his wrist, and Yuji twisted just slightly enough that she cried out in pain. If she tried to get away again, he would pull her arm out of its socket.

Yuji leaned down to her ear, voice low. "You're acting this way in front of your son?"

His hand found her chin and he twisted her head, not at Sukuna, but at Jin. His face was pale, but he made no move to help his mother, quietly resigned to her fate.

At the sight of Jin, Ms. Tadashi deflated, her body slumping down, breath ragged.

"Jin!" Yuji barked. "Escort your mother off of campus." The boy made no move. "Now," Yuji said in a tone rarely shown to his students.

This was enough to spur Jin into action. He surged forward, shame clouding his face as Yuji handed him his mother's wrist like she was a bad dog. Jin took hold with a light hand as though afraid he would break it and led Ms. Tadashi out of the room. They disappeared down that clustered hallway, now full of curious whispers.

With two people gone, the stuffiness vanished and the air became hospitable again.

Sayuri grimaced as she rolled her shoulders. "That bitch."

For once, Hitomi didn't scold her mother. Her eyes were only on Sukuna, still hunched on his knees. Yuji closed the distance between them, stopping when his feet brushed against the boy's knees. Sukuna blinked up at him.

"You good?" Yuji asked.

Slowly, Sukuna clambered to his feet, legs wobbly, so Yuji placed a hand on his shoulder to steady him. Somehow in the last few weeks, Sukuna had gained more centimeters. They were now nearly eye to eye. Yuji gripped Sukuna's chin and turned his wounded right side toward him for inspection. The lamp had sliced neatly through his eyebrow but miraculously avoided his eyes before splintering down his cheek.

"Not too bad. I've given you worse."

Sukuna didn't laugh. He looked as far from laughing as one could get, all wide eyes (all four of them) and slow, ragged breaths. The rims of his eyes edged closer and closer to red as his breathing picked up at once.

Something tugged at Yuji's jacket. Sukuna held the hem between his pointer and thumb so lightly that it was more the ghost of a touch. He wouldn't have believed it if he hadn't been staring directly at the hand in question. And was Sukuna sniffling?

Sukuna took a tentative step forward and every cell in Yuji's body woke at once— Run. It spread like a contagion. His therapist had once said fear buried itself in the DNA, forever entwined with him. Yuji had thought it was a load of shit at the time, the idea that he was destined, that his descendants were destined to carry some unexplainable fear was too depressing to take seriously.

Yuji broke contact, wrenching away until a sizeable gap returned between them. Sukuna's hand hovered in the space Yuji once occupied.

Yuji's heart hammered so loudly that he barely heard his next words. "Heal yourself once you've calmed down. If you can't, go see Ieiri-sensei."

Sukuna no longer stared at Yuji, but at the vacant space between them like he was trying to dissect it. When no new answers arose, he dropped his hand, spun on his heel, and walked to his bed, disappearing underneath the covers. Bullet fluttered down onto the mound.

Sayuri made a noise in her throat, breaking the painful silence that had descended. The bed dipped as Sayuri sat on the edge. She placed a comforting hand over the lump that was Sukuna. "I see what you mean now about him having the empathy of a mollusk," she said.

It took a moment for Yuji to realize that this statement wasn't addressed to him but to Hitomi, who nodded at her mother. It took another for Yuji to realize that he was the "him" in question.

Yuji couldn't get out of the room fast enough. The crowd parted easily around him the same way the sea pulled back before a tsunami. If he lingered any longer, they would descend on him. The last image he saw when he chanced a look back was of Hitomi crouched down, picking up the pieces of lamp strewn about. They locked eyes; disappointment glimmered in hers. What did his reflect back?

Yuji silently apologized to his therapist and his descendants. There was enough fear in his blood to poison generations to come.

Jin loitered outside the front entrance of the dorm, head bent as he kicked at the ground, a listless air about him. At the creak of Yuji opening the door, Jin's head snapped up, eyes wide as a fawn's. He calmed when he realized it was only Yuji.

"How is he?" Jin craned his neck, as though Yuji might be hiding Sukuna behind him.

Yuji closed the door. "He'll live. What were you thinking?" he asked though he knew the answer. Jin's actions were always painfully obvious, even to a mollusk like Yuji.

Jin ran a shaky hand through his hair, messing up the neat style. "I'm so fucking stupid. I thought—it's been years. I thought she'd be happy to see him. She should be happy. She's our mom." Jin rambled a little, his breath hitching the longer he went on.

Caught in the amber glow of the entrance light, Yuji saw the streaks leaving wet trails down Jin's face. Jin wiped at his face but once uncorked, the tears couldn't be stopped.

Yuji sighed. "Trauma doesn't work that way, kiddo."

Through his tears, Jin leveled Yuji with a contemptuous frown. "What trauma? I mean, he's a little weird-looking but he's not bad. He's not. He never did anything to her growing up and she still acts like a psycho bitch."

Yuji threw an arm around Jin's shoulders, steering the boy down the steps. "Don't insult your mother. Even if she deserves it."

"I'll call her whatever I want. I hate her."

The nighttime showers had picked up again. Without the protection from the terrace, raindrops splattered down, soaking through their clothes, but Yuji found he didn't mind the sensation of the warm droplets on his skin.

"You don't. But I suppose you feel like you do, so it makes little difference." Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Jin make the face all kids make when given an unwanted lecture. "Even when parents do bad things, we still end up missing them in the end, so don't waste your time cursing her." Yuji saw his grandfather lying on a hospital bed, forever still.

They slowed to a stop. Jin lifted his head, not to look at Yuji, but at something behind them. The dorm was still in view in the distance. Most of the windows cast yellow light in the rain, but they were empty, save for one on the second floor, where a large figure lurked in the window. Yuji was far enough away that he couldn't pick out the minute details of Sukuna's expression, only felt the searing touch of his gaze blistering his skin.

* * *

Yuji made it to the top of Nobara's shit list.

Morning staff meetings had already been unbearable with Nakamura's increasingly absurd requests and policy changes, but one of the key things that stopped him from walking to the microwave and sticking his head in was the shady smiles and whispered barbs he exchanged with Nobara.

Now she sat across from him as uninterpretable as a wall. Not even an exaggerated sigh when Nakamura brought up his damned enrichment program. And her eyepatch began favoring louder colors with bedazzled spikes.

A week of this was all he could stand. Once Monday's meeting wrapped up, Yuji grabbed Nobara's hand before she could escape out of the room and shoved her into the tiny office closet. At Nakamura's questioning look, Yuji smiled. "We need to discuss a possible joint training session for our classes. For student enrichment."

The magic words did their thing; Nakamura nodded his approval. Yuji slammed the door behind him. Nobara leaned against the opposite wall of the cramped office, arms crossed, mouth twisted into a frown.

Yuji, having prepared his speech on the train ride over that morning, opened his mouth to speak first, but Nobara cut him off before he could get a word in.

"Don't even try to therapy-speak your way out of this one. I spend years trying to earn the trust of this angry little raccoon, getting him to open up a little, and you go ahead and just shit all over that. Would it kill you to give the kid a damn hug?" She threw her hands up. "'No Nobara, that's impossible because I'm a forty-year-old man having beef with a child. Wah wah my trauma.'" She attempted to pace, but given there was two feet of clearance, gave up pretty quickly. She returned to glaring at him.

The little speech Yuji prepared fizzled away like a popped balloon. Under Nobara's angry stare, Yuji felt ten inches tall. "I handled his mother, what e—"

"Yes, you always make sure you only ever do just enough when it comes to him." She squeezed past him and wrapped a hand around the doorknob. "A word of advice, even though you deserve to flounder: Children know when you don't like them. If you're going to work here, you might want to give subtlety a try. God knows there are plenty of brats I don't like and you don't see me advertising it with neon flashing signs."

She pushed open the door. Outside, Maki, Panda, and Kusakabe had all clustered together near Yuji's desk, bodies bent toward the door. At Nobara's sudden appearance, they hastily straightened up. Nobara made a noise of disgust as she whizzed past them and disappeared from the lounge.

Yuji drifted through the office, but the other teachers moved around him like he was a murky puddle they didn't want all over their crisp uniforms.

Class wasn't any better. Whatever camaraderie that had built up since the beginning of the year had vanished as quickly as it'd come. Jin and Sukuna avoided one another; well, Sukuna seemingly avoided Jin, and Jin, sensing this was not something that would fix itself overnight, rolled with it. He kept his distance in class. Around campus, it became more common to spot Jin hanging out with the other boys than it was to see him hounding his brother for attention.

Sukuna returned to sitting at the back of the class, head resting in his arms for most of the lecture period. Maybe Yuji should have said something as a teacher, but Sukuna continued to perform well on weekly quizzes, so the kids must have been listening, even if he was doing everything in his power to suggest he wasn't.

Bullet always accompanied him, but Yuji swore even the damn bird cast evil eyes at him.

Hitomi's irritation was mostly displayed through clipped speech and probing stares that made Yuji feel like bacteria under a microscope. After two weeks of this, the lab results must have come in because she returned to her usual high-strung manner.

Jin was the only one who could be classified as behaving normally, still mostly jokes and smiles, but even he couldn't shake the air of glumness surrounding him. He often filled the new morning sparring sessions with anecdotes about his brother, always said in a wistful tone. If Yuji taught him a new move, he expressed a desire to try it on his brother.

"When he stops being mad at me," Jin would say. He seemed to have no doubt Sukuna would come around eventually, it was only a matter of when. However, the longer "when" stretched on, the gloomier he became.

And Yuji couldn't talk to anyone about this. Nobara was freezing him out. The other teachers weren't any better and Yuji would sooner eat a shoe than talk to Nakamura about anything. Megumi was a hard no; the man only tolerated so many of his work rants and Yuji could just imagine that flat stare as he explained the crux of the issue revolved around him not giving the weird demon child a hug. And maybe a tiny part of him was worried Megumi would side with Nobara.

Yuji resorted to visiting the Gojo family grave for answers, but the stone monument only stared back in muted silence.

Missions were…fine. Better than fine because the twins were avoiding any interactions, including bossing each other around. This left Hitomi to take charge and the rate of incidences dropped to zero. Nakamura left a congratulations card accompanied by an organic chocolate bar in his mailbox when the biweekly shenanigans report came out and Yuji's class was nowhere to be found on the incident log. The chocolate bar and letter had been regifted to Hitomi, the rightful recipient. Hitomi accepted the gift with a rueful smile.

Yuji never thought he would find a calm classroom so boring.

* * *

A month later, Yuji received what should have been the worst possible email from the Commission: they were to aid with the Restoration efforts.

Should have been because, at that point, he was looking for anything to break up the pained monotony of his class.

Yuji read off the email in class. "The project's current focus is Sendai. It received the least amount of structural damage from the games, but the infestation makes it unliveable." The name of Yuji's hometown was a beacon for unwanted memories he'd worked hard to bury.

Jin leaned forward in his seat, excitement so potent he nearly vibrated. "So we're fighting curses?"

"That's what sorcerers do, dumbass," Sukuna muttered. From his usual spot in the back, Sukuna rested his head in one hand, the other making lazy loops Bullet attempted to fend off.

The news of a possible away mission had already improved Jin's mood considerably. This barbed comment from Sukuna who had not spoken a single word since the incident produced an indelible cheer in the boy that couldn't be quelled even by the overall rudeness of the comment.

Yuji cut in before Jin could grasp the lifeline Sukuna had thrown. "It's likely we're helping clear the area, but they might just want us to protect the restoration crew."

"Bo-oring!"

Hitomi huffed. "Getting Sendai back would mean a million people could return home—"

"Boring." Jin twisted in his seat to face her. He leaned over until his elbow rested on her desk. "Say Me-chan, when we get there, we should share a sleeping bag. I'm very soft and cuddly."

Hitomi jerked her desk back, sending Jin flailing forward. He caught himself with a sheepish grin.

Yuji coughed to regain some semblance of control. "They're requesting our presence for two weeks, then they'll rotate us out with the Kyoto students. We'll leave tomorrow. Remember to pack practically."

Sukuna looked more awake than he had in weeks. "Trapped with us for two weeks. Bad luck, Sensei." The edges of his new scar flared out like lightning from under his sunglasses. Yuji grasped the warning tightly to his chest, observing but ultimately helpless to do anything about it until the boy made his move.

Yuji dismissed them without the additional homework the lesson plan had recommended, mostly due to his own laziness. After all, extra homework for them meant more work for him.

When he returned home that evening, he searched for twenty minutes, checking every nook and cranny of the tiny apartment, before arriving at a conclusion that was both horrible and true: Megumi was not home.

He returned to the kitchen, where a small folded note previously undiscovered suddenly caught his eye. Megumi's neat handwriting greeted him as he unfolded the note: Called in for a mission. Gone for a few weeks. Chicken nuggets are in the freezer. Please eat a reasonable amount. -M

* * *

That following morning, Yuji trudged up the steps of the school, only a little confident that he'd packed more than three pairs of underwear.

His students lounged at the top of the steps with their luggage.

"You're late, Sensei," Hitomi admonished.

Yuji shrugged an apology. Jin sat on the top step, head resting in his hand, as his feet tapped impatiently. Sukuna leaned his shoulder against the fence, as far away as he could be while still technically being considered in range.

Outside of the gates, a man leaned against a sleek back car—the manager, a man with stylishly cut bangs, a neat suit, and a baby face that looked only a few years older than the students. Yuji could place the face but not the name. He'd worked with Yuji on at least two missions before.

Yuji rubbed his head sheepishly. "Sorry to make you wait. You're…"

"Ohara Shinsuke," the other man supplied.

"Right, right."

They deposited their luggage in the trunk. Yuji took the passenger side seat, while Hitomi, without a word to the boys, took the window seat directly behind him.

Yuji sensed the rumblings of disaster approaching as the brothers stared at the two seats left. He opened his mouth, intent to actually fulfill his role as an authority figure before this trip spiraled out of hand. They hadn't even pulled off school grounds. "You have five minutes before I'm throwing your asses in the car."

The manager huffed at this language.

"I'm not riding bitch," Sukuna said.

"Rock, Paper, Scissors," Jin replied.

Sukuna bent to scoop up a sizeable rock. "Good idea. I'm going to beat you with this rock and then you can have middle."

Bullet chirped.

Yuji cast a pleading look behind him to the one solution to the problem. With a sigh that didn't quite betray her annoyance, Hitomi slid to the middle. She spared a wistful glance at the trunk like she'd much prefer being tucked in with the rest of the luggage.

Crisis averted (for now) Jin came around to the passenger side while Sukuna slid behind Ohara, rock still in hand.

"Seatbelts," Ohara intoned.

Jin pushed himself between the gap in the front console. "What about Bullet? Is she supposed to just die?"

Ohara squinted at the rearview mirror. "She'll be fine. She has wings."

Yuji decided then that he liked this manager. In the back, Sukuna tucked Bullet under his hand.

* * *

"Why do curses hate humans?"

"Humans create curses."

"But why? Why haven't we evolved to…not?"

Sukuna shrugged and leaned back on his throne. Four eyes pinned Yuji. "Why does the sun rise in the morning just to be thwarted by the moon every night? Yet the sun refuses to cower in fear and faces each final call. Perhaps the sun isn't afraid because it knows it will rise again."

Yuji rubbed his forehead, feeling that old familiar ache that settled in when he tried to understand something out of his depth. "That doesn't make sense. I might be shit at science, but I'm pretty sure the sun doesn't go anywhere—"

Yuji jerked awake, searing pain across his face; the ghost of the cut Sukuna had sent his way still sent shockwaves all these years later. The Toyota bumbled along the rocky, dirt-covered highway. His students were too silent in the back seat, and years of distrust made him turn around to eye them.

Jin slept with his head against the window, mouth wide and a sliver of drool drying on his chin. Hitomi flipped through a book, the front cover an image of two men kissing who didn't appear to be born in the same decade, let alone century. Sukuna read over her shoulder and with the way his eyebrows inched up, the book's contents must have contained what Nakamura called "corruptible influences". Yuji did the best possible thing: he minded his own business.

Sendai was a six-hour drive. Yuji tried to play a game at one point before the harsh stares of teenage judgment from the back row occupants shamed him to silence.

They stopped once at a gas station to refuel. A little rundown thing off the side of the hallway with a large sign that proclaimed it was the last chance to get gas before heading into no man's zone. Ohara produced two gas canisters from thin air and got to work.

Yuji sprung out to stretch his legs. "Any snacks? My treat."

Inside, Jin enthusiastically grabbed several bags of fish-flavored chips, while Hitomi picked out a small drink and a muffin. Sukuna refused to get out of the car, so Yuji picked out a brand of cookies that were almost universally loved and a pack of sunflower seeds for Bullet. Jin plucked the cookies out of his hand, redirecting him to a selection of onigiri before.

"He hates sweets," Jin said.

This seemed unthinkable to Yuji, but he'd do what Nobara was always going on about and listen. He dropped the rice ball and seeds in Sukuna's lap when they returned to the car. Twenty minutes in on the road Sukuna sat up and peeled back the wrapping on the onigiri like it killed him. Hatefully chewing had to be a skill only Sukuna excelled at. Bullet too poked her beak into the bag in a way that could only be described as contemptuous.

Sky-high metallic buildings and colorful neon signs slipped away in a blur. Gray became sparse green, and dense foliage crept up along the edges of the highway, gnarled and reaching. In fourteen years, the Japan Restoration Project had done what it could to salvage the ruins of Japan, but most of its attention was directed to clearing the highways and immediate surroundings of Tokyo. The destruction from the games was hard to quantify. Many areas were still uninhabitable.

At the fourth hour, the Toyota slowed to a large sign with large Japanese and English print: TURN BACK! WILD SPACE AHEAD. NO HELP WILL BE GIVEN. Below, someone had inked a sketch of a cute anime girl wearing a hard hat and the signature bright green vests of the Japanese restoration workers.

The Toyota roared as Ohara pressed on the gas. Beyond the sign they only encountered buildings crumbled with rot and moss. The road was littered with abandoned cars, bicycles, backpacks, and belongings. Yuji made a game of counting the unidentified splatters over the pavement—was it blood or something else? It kept his mind off the guilt that ate away at him. The roads were cracked so heavily in some spots that Ohara was forced to slow down so he could maneuver the car.

The vehicle slowed so suddenly that Yuji was dragged away from his game. "Close your eyes," he ordered.

The teens stirred. Hitomi obeyed immediately, tilting her head down. Jin opened his mouth as if to argue, but was silenced with a glare from Yuji. He huffed, closing his eyes.

Sukuna lifted his head from his prone position. Yuji did not bother to tell him twice. He should see it. Someone else to bear the guilt.

A large tour bus lay on its side, taking up most of the road. Bodies posed along the top—no, they were little more than decorated skeletons, most of their clothes ruined because of the elements. Someone had taken care to pose them carefully, like they were all merely sitting, waiting.

Ohara cranked the wheel sharply, squeezing the Toyota through a narrow gap left behind. As he did, Yuji spied a small figure leaning upright against the bus. Unlike the others, this skeleton was freshly clothed in a Japanese school uniform. One arm was propped on a cardboard box mid-wave, while the other cradled a small sign.

Yuji leaned out to read it; the sign was frustratingly written in English.

"Ow. Sensei said not to—" Hitomi's voice was muffled.

Sukuna had unbuckled his seatbelt to get a better view, which meant climbing over Hitomi, one knee planted uncomfortably on her stomach, and his brother. He smothered Jin's mouth with one hand as he leaned out the window.

"It says, 'Welcome to Sendai, the happiest place on Earth,'" Sukuna read. "Sounds fun." He leaned back in his seat.

The other two opened their eyes and peered at the young corpse. In another life, it could have been their peer.

Something hot and black bubbled up in Yuji, threatening to spill out. "I told you not to look."

Hitomi removed her glasses to clean them with the edge of her shirt. "We'll see worse, Itadori-sensei, won't we? You don't need to protect us."

What could Yuji say to this? He wanted to argue, but as usual, the girl was frustratingly correct. Adults protected children, but things were different for sorcerers. They were supposed to grow up quickly and die young in service of the Japanese public. That was the way of things.

He hated it.

* * *

The restoration project set up a base in a Uniqlo in an abandoned outdoor mall. Once the Toyota had rolled to a gentle stop, its occupants spilled out, glad to be free of it. While they stretched, they took in the bustle around them.

Workers milled about in various states of disrepute—green vests slicked with grime and sweat, frayed at the edges, faces smudged. They looked to be right at home in the unseemliness of Sendai. As the group made their way to the entrance, smudgy, hungry faces followed them like loose change rolling across the floor.

One of them blocked the path to the door. "This ain't a school field trip. Scram." He had a voice gruff from years of smoking and a grimy beard that covered most of his face. Yuji could only make out the black eyes that glared at them.

Yuji pulled out his wallet and displayed his badge. "We're with Tokyo Jujutsu High. We've been requested to man the worksites. Seems you got a curse problem."

The man released a short laugh as he scratched at his beard. Yuji saw it then, the festering cut on the back of the man's hands. Instead of blood, tiny black dots with eyes bubbled out. Somewhere behind him, Jin made a "bleh" sound. Yuji agreed.

"A curse problem? Yeah, you could say that." The hand fell away. "If any more of these idiots disappear in the middle of the night, I'm going to be manning this whole project by myself." With a shrug, he jerked his shoulder and motioned for them to follow. "Still, surprised they sent me a bunch of school kids."

The inside of the building wasn't any better than the outside, but at least Yuji could feel the remnants of A/C circling the air, cooling the sweat gathered on his skin. The few workers around about mostly napped in dirty sleeping bags against the walls, their backs turned away.

The Uniqlo, even in this rundown state, was invitingly, if not a little eerily, familiar—mannequins, no longer white, lay on their sides, strewn about in pieces; ripped displays showed smiling young models several decades out of fashion; sale signs with deals no store would honor hung from the ceiling.

The man led them down a small hallway. They passed a notice board still rife with flyers calling for donations to local sports teams that no longer existed. At the end of the hallway was a room that seemed to function as an office. The desk at the center of the room was brimming with stacks of paper that detailed architectural plans for the city.

"Another government-appointed sorcerer arrived yesterday. A first-grade. Whatever the hell that means. But he took over the night watch and it was the first night since we arrived that every member of the crew could still be accounted for once the sun came up."

Yuji nodded. "Because of the curses."

"Because of the freaks. You saw the welcome crew when you came in?" At Yuji's nod, he continued, "That was them. The government sent military personnel accompanied by some of your kind in months ago to deal with them before my crew was supposed to start. I don't know what happened to them, but the freaks are still here and now I've lost five men. So sorry if I was hoping for a little more than some kids." The man held his own against the gnashed frowns from Sukuna and Jin.

Ohara coughed and offered the things disgruntled citizens always wanted to hear from sorcerers: We're so sorry. It's our duty to protect. We'll make sure everyone's safe and blah blah blah. Yuji tuned most of this out as he started mentally strategizing how to ensure his students survived the next two weeks with this new revelation that it was people they needed to watch out for.

It was hardly surprising. During the Culling Games, many regular Japanese people got accustomed to the brutal way of life. Some even thrived on it. When it all came to an end suddenly, there were more than a few who preferred their lifestyle in the unregulated cities versus Tokyo stuffed to the brim with people who'd lost their homes. Now that the Japanese government sought its land back, they were hardly going to roll over and let it happen.

People were unpredictable, but not unbeatable. It was less than ideal given the skill level and temperament of his students but…

Yuji puzzled over this so hard that he missed when the door opened and a new figure stepped in the room.

"Fushiguro," the Ohara said with mild surprise.

That did drag Yuji out of his stupor. He looked up sharply, and it was like someone had draped a warm, fuzzy blanket over his shoulders. Fushiguro Megumi stepped into the room looking ill-slept and irritable.

"What are you—" Yuji choked out.

"I take it you're the government-appointed sorcerer on this project?" Ohara asked.

Megumi nodded, spiky black hair falling into his face.

Thus far, Yuji had done a meticulous job of keeping Megumi and Sukuna separate in his life. Megumi's domain was home, where he provided the ever-burning life-sustaining light Yuji selfishly hoarded for himself. Sukuna was meant to remain as a concept; theoretical, not quite proven. Though plenty of evidence of his existence, if Yuji's work rants counted as evidence.

Now, the neat delineation in this experiment had come to an end; his subjects were occupying the same space, observing each other in a way they were never meant to.

Sukuna jutted out his jaw. "Who the fuck are you?"

Megumi blinked once, twice, before he said to Yuji, "I didn't know your students were so polite, Itadori."

Hitomi glanced between them, trying to fit the puzzle of them together. "You know each other?"

Heat pooled in his cheeks. What was the professional way to say, This is my emotional support boyfriend. I will die without him?

Megumi, once again, saved the day with his rationality. "We were classmates. We've worked on quite a few missions together."

Jin perked up. "Does that mean you were involved with Shibuya? Shinjuku?"

Yuji envied the steel mask Megumi wore. He only hummed his acknowledgment, eyes cutting back to Yuji.

"Itadori, I'll update you on what I've found after surveying the area." He made a small motion with his head. Come.

Yuji's students made to follow, but he redirected them to conduct their own survey of the surroundings with the manager.

Megumi led him to a small room that seemed to double as a cleaning supply and uniform closet.

The door shut behind them and Yuji moved like liquid, melding into Megumi, whispering frantic apologies. "I'm so sorry. I didn't know this was your mission. I'll keep them away—"

Megumi silenced him with a finger to his lips. He took Yuji's hand in his. Yuji was ashamed at the way he trembled.

"Breathe," Megumi murmured. "I'm not going to fall apart if that's what's worrying you. I've had a lot of time to come to terms with it." He drew lazy circles in Yuji's palm.

And like that, the storm blew out. The sea was calm as the sun poked through the clouds. Yuji leaned in and rested his forehead against Megumi's, closing his eyes.

He murmured against Megumi's skin, "Have I told you you're fantastic?"

"Yes, but continue."

Yuji took Megumi's face between his hands and squished his cheeks together, delivering a big sloppy kiss. "Oh Fushiguro Megumi, always smarter and more rational—"

"And better looking."

"Okay, debatable!"

Megumi twisted around, getting enough wiggle room to tick off his fingers. "Better cook. Better at doing laundry. Better at—"

Yuji pressed their lips together, then drew back. "But never better at being humble." Yuji took a quick glance at his phone. They'd been gone for ten minutes. Any longer and who knew what the students would do without real authority? He threaded a hand through Megumi's hair. But the manager would be fine for a little while longer. Probably.

* * *

There were gangs to the east and the west of the project; the smallest was still twenty-strong, according to Megumi's survey. They were mostly non-sorcerers, but still, Yuji didn't like those numbers. He hated fighting humans.

The sun dipped below the crumbling skyline, casting broken shadows across the mall. With the sun fading, the temperature dropped. Yuji and his students huddled at the entrance. Megumi hung on the peripheral, sitting on a pillar that had collapsed, Kuro napping at his feet.

"We'll do two shifts. Hitomi, I'm putting you with Fushiguro and Ohara for the first shift." He caught her nervous side glance at Megumi. "Don't worry. Fushiguro is a big softy." Megumi made a face that Yuji chose to interpret as happiness.

"Jin, Sukuna, you're with me."

Jin whooped. Sukuna's eyebrows arched above the big, blocky sunglasses, but otherwise showed no reaction.

"Now, do I need to go over basic safety?"

Jin scoffed. "We're not babies."

"So that's a yes. First, no one goes off on their own. If I have to go looking for you, it'll be a bad time for both of us. Second, don't touch anything that looks like it doesn't want to be touched…"

The first night passed without incident. During the night shift, Yuji had wisely placed Sukuna and Jin on opposite ends of the perimeter. Despite this good thinking on his part, on two separate occasions when Yuji went to check in, Jin was nowhere near where he was supposed to be. Yuji later found him hovering around Sukuna like a gnat. That Sukuna hadn't tried to squash him was more surprising.

The twins said nothing to each other. Sukuna sat with his legs crossed on a broken pillar, Bullet settled on his knee. Something in the far distance had his attention, but when Yuji looked, a cold city stared back.

"Anything I need to be worried about?" Yuji asked. He had Jin by the ear, and the boy whined about this treatment.

Sukuna said nothing for a long while. Or maybe it was a short while, and the fatigue was getting to Yuji.

When Sukuna finally spoke, it was clipped and flat. "No."

The second time Yuji found them together, a new boldness found Jin as he leaned one hand on his brother's shoulder. He peered into the darkness with a shiver. "It reminds me of what my room looks like when I have sleep paralysis. Doesn't it give you the creeps?"

Sukuna didn't get a chance to answer; Yuji put Jin in a headlock. Given it was the second time finding him where he wasn't supposed to be, Yuji was done being lenient. In the morning, he would make the kid do handstands until he threw up.

From where he sat, Sukuna watched them, eyes sliding between Jin and Yuji's arm around his neck. Though it had been weeks, the scar covering his right eye still looked irritated, the lines where the skin had been forcibly knitted together like a red trench. Yuji wondered why Sukuna hadn't bothered to heal it or gone to Ieiri. Was it a badge of honor?

Sukuna's next words were quiet. Jin, too busy struggling against the hold, missed it. Yuji didn't.

"It reminds me of freedom."

* * *

On the third night, Yuji woke to a rough shake. He blinked up, bleary-eyed, catching the pale, looming face of Megumi. In that state of half-dream, half-reality, he almost forgot where they were: a dirty Uniqlo using tattered jeans for pillows in a ruined city. He cupped the side of his hand to Megumi's cheeks as he yawned. "What a cute face."

"Er, Sensei?"

Megumi pulled the hand away, instead tugging Yuji upright, where he finally tore away from the needy pull of sleep. When the world became clear, it painted a damning picture—Hitomi stuck to Megumi like one of his shikigami. The moonlight filtering through the window illuminated her face, which reddened as her eyes darted between, considering.

Ohara was behind her sporting a knowing grin. Yuji stared up at the train of people looking down at him like he was simultaneously precious and stupid and wished the building would collapse in already.

"Shift's over. Your turn," was all Megumi said as he helped Yuji to his feet.

Face burning, Yuji asked, "Anything fun happen?"

"Do your students regularly go missing?"

"Oh fuck."

"Sensei!"

"Jin or Sukuna or both?"

Yuji listened intently as the first watch delivered a rather boring account of their shift. Hitomi's shikigami had nestled along the edges of the camp, and besides a few wild animals they tussled with, no one or thing had approached. The fun had only begun when they realized they had been paying so close attention to things getting in that they hadn't noticed when someone slipped out.

Jin was awake, sitting on the remnants of a sign outside the store with a sheepish expression as Yuji eyed him impassionately. One hand drummed the back of his head while his foot tapped rhythmically. Above him, Bullet flapped in furious little circles. The discovery that she'd been left behind had her in a frenzy.

"I swear," he began, "I didn't know he would leave. It's not like we planned anything." As Megumi and Yuji exchanged looks, he insisted, "Honest! I woke up when first shift returned and he was missing."

"So he didn't say anything to you about wanting to go off on his own? Take down the bad guys himself?" Yuji was still trying to wrap his head around the fact that he'd lost a student in less than three days.

Jin's foot stopped, eyes narrowing. "Come on, that doesn't even sound like him."

"You're right. It sounds more like you."

Jin flushed, but something in Yuji's gaze signaled a warning, so he bit down his retort. "We'll get him back."

Ohara was beside himself at the thought of having to fill out the report on this. Yuji tried his best to calm him. "We'll have him back by sunrise, and no one even needs to know."

Ohara blinked with shock as if the idea of not disclosing everything on a mission had never truly occurred to him. The glint in his eye took on a reverent gleam.

To Megumi, Yuji said, "Sorry, but do you mind?"

"I've stayed awake longer than this. Go."

Yuji wanted to say how much he loved him, how he would have lost his mind long ago without him, but his awareness of his audience caused the words to die in his throat. He settled for thumping Megumi on the back like he was just a coworker. "Good man."

There was some good news at least—one of Hitomi's shikigami had spotted a lone figure in a white uniform zipping west toward the forest.

They set off into the night. Jin trailed behind Yuji, always seeming to make sure he was not within his line of sight. Yuji had never known Jin to be this bashful, but then again, whatever one brother did, the other seemed to take as some huge moral failing. Yuji was just used to Sukuna being the one who sulked.

When they passed the downtown area the restoration had cleared, the terrain became jagged and wild, the crushed remnants of buildings entangled with creeping vines. Small black figures with an enumerable number of eyes, feet, and hands scuttled out of the path they cut. Jin amused himself by sending small slashes at the curses.

Yuji was not in a talking mood, given the circumstances, but he wasn't stupid—the brothers' gripes with one another were infamous, but no one knew the other better than themselves. They didn't allow anyone to.

"So, you want to tell me why we're out hunting for your little brother at three in the morning? And don't say he's enjoying a nighttime stroll."

Yuji's question startled Jin, breaking his concentration. One of the slashes he sent to the curses veered off, clipping the branch of a naked tree. It crashed to cracked pavement, the sound almost nuclear in the dead city.

Mouth pressed tight, Yuji pointed up to a nearby building that appeared relatively stable. He leaped and climbed, Jin following suit. They reached the top in one breath, wordlessly surveying the city from their new vantage point. This high up, the destruction seemed to span endlessly. Yuji wondered if the area would ever truly return to its former glory. Even if it did, even if it could, something would always be remiss to him. The hometown he'd grown up in with his grandfather was forever gone. Like a lot of things.

As he'd thought, the sound of the branch was a signal to the scavengers. Crouched just out of sight behind the wall of the building, they watched a small man drag himself by his arms through the street. Below his waist was a thick, purple curse that seemed to gorge itself on him. The pair moved symbiotically, in a rhythm over to the fallen branch, turning it over several times.

Next to him, Jin's practiced stillness didn't fool Yuji. He knew there was nothing the teen wanted more than to cut the hybrid down. Caution was something Jin resented. Which is exactly why Yuji considered it his duty to beat it into him. Cautious sorcerers always lived longer.

The hybrid shambled away, and the pair finally breathed. They broke up their movements after that, jumping between stable buildings, then slinking through the rotted streets. The further out they went, the more wild it became, and the more the city became aware of them and hated it.

After landing on the remains of what appeared to be a dental office, a heavy sculpture of a clean tooth and toothbrush glinting off the moon, they continued on.

Ten minutes later, Jin said, "He wanted to get away."

"From what?"

"Me. Everyone. You know how people looked at him without the glasses."

The disgusted faces of Charlotte from the pizza joint. His classmates. His mother.

Jin scratched nervously at his palm. "And you hate him, so I think he thought it would be better out here. Lots of freaks in the forgotten cities. Less people to judge him."

Something climbed up the side of the building. Yuji peered over the edge, saw it was the slow-moving hybrid, and signaled their exit to Jin. Once out of range, they took back to walking the streets.

"Do you sense him?" Yuji asked.

The hesitation was clear as day across the boy's thin, pale face.

"Great big brother you are, letting him die out here."

Jin swallowed. "That's not fair. I don't want him to hate me too." He screwed his eyes shut. After a beat, he opened them, pointing to a swatch of darkness to the east. "He changed directions. I think he knows we're following him."

"You're leaking too much cursed energy. He can probably sense you a mile away. So can everything else in this city." Yuji nodded to something behind them. Their hybrid slithered along, clinging to the side of a nearby building, watching. He placed his palms on either side of Jin's shoulders. "How do you control your cursed energy output?"

"By staying calm." Jin breathed. "But I'm not calm. I'm panicking." The boy blinked a few times as his eyes reddened and his breath quickened. "I'm fucking scared we won't find him. Or we'll find him and he's already dead. Oh god—" Jin let out a ragged breath.

Around them, Yuji sensed more than the hybrid—at least a dozen beings watched from the shadows, moths to burning porchlight. Yuji squeezed Jin's shoulders. "I'm not letting any of that happen. So relax. We'll find him as soon as you control yourself." He added, almost as an afterthought, "And I don't hate him."

This last bit served as the necessary distraction to pull Jin away from his racing thoughts. He stared up at Yuji, unbelieving. "Then why do you act like you can't stand to be around him?"

Yuji's ears burned. Had he really been that obvious? He rubbed his head. "It would take a million years and you'd never believe me, so let's not get into it right now. We're wasting time."

They picked up Sukuna's energy again, moving much slower. Now that Jin was working to mask himself, the other boy had probably thought he'd finally lost them. And they had to be nearing the edge of the city, with the way the sporadic glints of metal in moonlight dropped and the only thing beyond was a vast swatch of black that crept along the edges ravenously. If he wasn't a complete idiot—and Yuji very much had his doubts—the boy was cautious of what lay ahead.

"Got you," Jin whispered.

They were crouched atop another building. Jin pointed to a barely perceptible pink blur down below. It was inordinately still, and for one horrible moment, Yuji wondered if Jin's prediction had come true, and the boy was fatally wounded. Then he focused. Sukuna's cursed energy, while leaking out, was still steady. Too steady for someone injured.

The clouds shifted and moonlight broke through to reveal Sukuna leaning against a building. He wasn't alone.

Yuji squinted to get a good look. A man who looked more like a walking pustule than a person leaned over the kid, hand placed on the wall behind with a faux nonchalance that didn't cover his obvious excitement about his grand new find.

A little further away, another woman was bouncing on her toes. She wore a tattered T-shirt and nothing else. "Save me a leg. You know I love dark meat," she said in a scratchy voice like something was permanently stuck in her throat.

"Shut the fuck up," the Pustule said pleasantly. He used a dirty fingernail to stroke Sukuna's cheek.

They weren't sorcerers, that much Yuji could tell. Just opportunistic scavengers and dumb ones, if they couldn't sense the murderous intent rolling off their potential victim in waves.

Between one blink and the next, the finger touching Sukuna was gone, chopped off at the joint. Yuji sighed as the man stared at the missing appendage, confusion obscuring what little facial features he had left.

The man's upper body fell away, bisected at the waist, landing on the ground with a heavy thunk. Blood waterspouted out of his lower body, drenching Sukuna who stared wide-eyed at what was for once not his handiwork.

Jin descended from the building with all the righteous fury of an angry god. He reached the cleaved man. By some miracle, he was still scrabbling along the ground, trying to get somewhere he'd never reached. He only stopped when, instead of stiff pavement, he met the edge of a blue sneaker. Jin was above him, one foot raised. Then he brought it down. Again and again, on the man's head like he was a roach. The upper body stopped moving.

Yuji came up behind the woman, who stood stock still. "Run," he whispered.

The woman jolted, releasing a small whimper before galloping away into the night. She didn't spare a single glance at her companion.

Sukuna's head whipped up. The mix of emotions, from shock to fear to anger, would have been funny in any other situation where Yuji wasn't ready to throttle both of them.

"You fucker!" Jin faced his brother with bright red shoes. "You abandoned Bullet."

Sukuna tried to run, but Jin caught up quickly. The pair collided, falling to the ground in a flurry of limbs. Yuji tilted his head to the side, missing the razor-sharp slash Sukuna sent out by centimeters. The scuffle was over in a flash; Jin had Sukuna pinned, one knee pressed into his stomach, and both arms wrenched above his head.

Just because it was obvious to everyone the fight was over didn't mean it was obvious to Sukuna, who twisted and spit curses. Yuji watched silently as the brothers screamed insults and curses that could have made Panda blush, and he was a damn panda. When Jin pulled Sukuna's head forward, only to slam it back down, he thought it was time for him to step in.

He placed himself just north of Sukuna's head, crouched down until he was looming over the boy. Sukuna's face was startlingly naked. He hadn't been paying too close attention to know if he'd merely lost them in the fight, or if the boy had forgone them as a declaration to his new life free from the shackles of society. Now four eyes blinked up at him with spite and teenaged fury.

"I want a five-page paper on why we don't go off on our own during missions when we return."

"Fuck you."

"Make that seven pages. Single-spaced." Yuji stood and his knees creaked rudely. "Now, are you going to come back like a civilized person or do I need to knock you out?" He made small circles with his shoulder, loosening it up.

At this, Sukuna deflated. But the hate in his eyes didn't lessen. "Why," he practically spat. "So I can live the rest of my life being treated like a monster?"

"Sukuna…let's do it again."

It was not so easy to keep promises. Yuji had a lifetime to learn this, yet every journey to this conclusion left him with the same sense of shock and betrayal. Like the universe had lied to him. Things were supposed to be simple, yet they never were.

Yuji tapped Jin's shoulder, pulling the boy back. Jin shuffled away, mouth flattened. Sukuna, thankfully, didn't immediately spring up and flee. He laid on his back, chest rising and falling in rough heaves. When Yuji kneeled next to him, he turned his head away.

"Sukuna…why did you want to be a sorcerer?"

Sukuna's laugh was as brittle as glass. "Who wants to be a sorcerer? I did it because I didn't have any choice."

"You always have a choice." Hadn't he whispered those same words late one night? To Megumi, who saw his future as an immovable stone.

"Rot in that room forever or a warm bed and food every night as long as I promise to keep killing curses forever. What would you have picked, Sensei?" The words fell in the empty chasm between them that grew wider by the second.

"Die now, or find the remaining parts of Sukuna and die after taking them all into your body."

Jujutsu society loved impractical choices.

Yuji ran a hand through his hair. "You're right."

There was a beat. Sukuna turned his head slowly to look up at Yuji. "I am?"

"He is?"

If Yuji wasn't so out of sorts, he would have laughed at the utterly perplexed expression on Sukuna's face. The boy was quite expressive. Nothing like the cold, calculating stare of the King of Curses. How had he missed that? Had he ever tried to see it?

"Any kid in your shoes would have made the same choice. It wasn't fair. This is the first time you've actually had a real choice. And I'm sorry, but the one you want to pick is wrong."

Jin's shoulders relaxed slightly while Sukuna's stiffened.

"Being a sorcerer is ass. I didn't spend my life planning to be one. Like you, I faced a similar impossible choice and was forced into it. After doing it for so long, I don't have any other prospects. Killing curses gets tiring. Dealing with the public sucks. I'm not going to give you a spiel about how rewarding it is to help people. I have my own personal beliefs, but even I get fatigued by it all." Yuji thought this might be the most he'd ever said to Sukuna directly. Another pang of guilt hit. "It's an endless cycle: their negativity breeds curses, we exorcise them, a few of us die, and repeat. It's exhausting."

Jin and Sukuna exchanged looks Yuji couldn't decipher. Jin said, "Uh, Sensei, are you going somewhere with this?"

"Yes"—Yuji hoped so—"hardly anyone I know who's still a sorcerer does it out of the goodness of their heart. They do it because shits exciting or the pay is good or they can't do anything else or some combination of the three. So you're not alone in feeling that way. But I still think leaving it all behind for whatever life you think you're going to have out here is wrong.

"Dog-eats-dog, survival of the fittest, you probably think that's better than going back?" Yuji paused, just long enough for Sukuna to nod. "It's not. Always being on the edge of a fight, never trusting anyone—it's all draining. I think you're a little more used to society than you care to admit and you'd miss its comforts. I don't think they have Nintendo out here. Not to mention the people who care about you. Like your brother."

Sukuna turned to Jin, eyebrow raised. Jin ran an embarrassed hand through his hair. "Yeah, love you, bro," he mumbled.

Yuji ticked off on his fingers. "Hitomi will cry like hell. And Kugisaki-sensei. You know you're her favorite, right? That first year she talked about you nonstop. Maki and Panda will miss messing with you. Not to mention the managers. I mean, maybe they'll be happy they don't have to write so many incident reports, but secretly they'd be really sad. You know how they love their paperwork. Hell, Kusakabe likes you, and that guy hates everyone. And—" Yuji stuttered—"me."

Sukuna's eyebrows climbed even higher until they nearly kissed his hairline. "No," Sukuna dragged out the vowel slowly as if Yuji was a bit touched in the head. "You hate me."

The way he said it, so gently, like he was delivering bad news, produced a laugh that Yuji smothered with a dry cough. "Trust me, I don't. Why do you think I'm out here?"

"Because you'll get fired?"

"Yes. I mean, yes and no. I'll hardly be fired for losing a student. You bunch seem to drop like flies. The paperwork would be annoying. So it'd be really really nice if you didn't fuck off into the woods, but I'm also here because I care about you." Yuji checked the little box where he stored his most negative, primitive emotions, and found they were mostly okay with these words.

Yuji's awkward declaration was met with an encouraging smile from Jin and a furious headshake from Sukuna.

"No. You, you," Sukuna seemed to struggle to formulate sentences. "You're always critical of everything. I can't even step on a curse without you complaining that the amount of force in my foot was wrong or something. And if you aren't criticizing, you're ignoring me like I have leprosy. But you're always so happy to talk to Jin." Sukuna put on a false voice. "'Good job, Jin. Too right you are, Jin. That's okay, buddy, you can always try again.' But I bump into someone and I gotta listen to a lecture about social responsibility. And why the fuck does he get special lessons? He sucks."

"Hey."

Yuji listened as Sukuna listed off his many (accurate) sins. He hadn't listened before, but he was listening now.

"And you always give Jin more responsibility. And—"

"I don't hate you, but I've done a shit job of showing it," Yuji said, his words soft. Sukuna fell silent. "You reminded me of someone I knew…but that's no excuse. I'm sorry I was too harsh with you. I should never have made you feel like I don't care about you. Like I'd be happy you disappeared."

"Well—" Sukuna coughed, his eyes suspiciously wet. "Yes. Um…"

He looked impossibly young sitting there—no, he was young. A literal child. Before Sukuna could react, Yuji pulled him close into a tight hug. He felt the boy stiffen. "Relax. This is happening."

And the hug was normal. Yuji didn't burst into flames. He wasn't diced into a million tiny pieces. Planes didn't fall out of the sky and puppies weren't slaughtered in mass. "I care about you as much as I care about Jin and Hitomi."

"Bro," Jin whispered. Soon, the heat of another wrapped around him. Jin pressed in from the opposite side, effectively smooshing Sukuna in place.

He was saying something, but given that he was being smothered, it was hard to make out anything coherent. Yuji loosened his grip just enough so that he could speak.

"Oh my God, okay. I'll fucking come back. Just—stop." Sukuna's face was the color of cherry tomatoes. It clashed horribly with his pink hair. Yuji let go.

"Just so you know, I don't forgive you. I hate you and I'm telling that hag just how awful you are," Sukuna warned.

Yuji grinned. "Good. We can talk it out in therapy with your brother."

Jin made a face. "What? Why do I have to go to therapy?"

"Jin, I just watched you cut a man in half, then turn his head into baby food. I'm not ignoring that. You know that was some real serial killer shit."

Yuji threw his arms around both of them. "Now, can we head back? I'm tired of the city eyeing us like a buffet." He nodded just beyond them, where the hybrid once again made its slow wiggle over to them.

* * *

It was a miracle they made it through the next two weeks. Yuji, sure of his declaration that he cared for his students, had to make this amendment: he cared for them, but by God, he didn't need this much of them.

On the fourth evening, Yuji left Megumi and Ohara to mind the other two students and the rest of the worksite while he dragged Sukuna (and Bullet, still quite angry at being left behind) on patrol. The air was still muddy between them, full of dropped sentences and heavy silences, but it was different. Better.

At least, Yuji had thought so the day before. Now, Sukuna's nonstop fidgeting and sideways glances triggered an alarm of a nondescript variety.

"What?" Yuji bit out after twenty minutes of this. They paused on the roof of an old Daiso that looked as though it'd been picked clean; even the pink letters of the sign were gone, leaving behind a faded brown imprint.

Sukuna played with the hem of his shirt. Not because of any particular nervousness, but because he seemed to enjoy dragging things out. When he'd squeezed all of the anxiety he could from Yuji, he said, "I want extra training too."

Yuji blinked. Huh. "Is that it? You can join Jin on Mondays."

Sukuna tried to argue why exactly he needed his own training time; his strongest point was that Jin sucked, and he didn't want to be weighed down by a loser.

Yuji shook his head. "I actually have a life, you know. I do…things. And I have people I like hanging out with besides you three."

Sukuna's expression suggested this was not only an unbelievable exaggeration, but Yuji was insane for even putting forth the idea. Then he rolled his eyes. "Just bring your boyfriend along like you did for this mission."

Yuji's mouth took on a guppy-like quality, opening and closing. "That little quip just earned you detention with Kusakabe. I hope you like polishing swords."

"Punished for speaking the truth. Typical." A smile on his face as he spat the caustic words.

Better.

Yuji checked his phone; it was still early enough in the evening that he had some extra energy to spare. If Sukuna wanted more training, there was no harm in starting now.

Sukuna faced away, so committed to his shtick as the aggrieved that he failed to track Yuji's movements. He stilled when Yuji placed his foot on his back. Bullet fluttered away to safety.

Yuji leaned forward. "Let's start training now. I'll teach you why you shouldn't annoy opponents stronger than you." Then he pushed. Sukuna went tumbling over the edge of the building.

They returned later that evening, Sukuna sour-faced and limping while Yuji jauntily walked behind him.

Not good, but better.

* * *

By some miracle, Sukuna and Jin had only collapsed one building during the mission. It was scheduled for demolition anyway, so Yuji felt he didn't have the grounds to punish them. He did anyway. They did push-ups until they collapsed like that poor building.

One of the crew members had mistook one of Hitomi's shikigami for a cursed spirit and squashed it with a bento box, causing something Yuji would happily never deal with again: the wrath of a teen girl. More well-versed in explaining to Jin why harming people was wrong, he was a little out of his depth with Hitomi, who wanted to hang the man by his toes for his crime.

"Just don't do that," he'd said.

Hitomi leaned against a pillar, eyes nearly slits as she tapped her foot. "Why not?"

"Because it'll be very annoying for me. Be nice to your teacher."

The only moments of levity were the ones he stole with Megumi in the back offices. Only when he felt his students could be trusted alone, which was mostly never, but the few times he escaped was enough to revitalize his sanity.

"You teach an interesting bunch," Megumi said casually.

Yuji, who was kneeling and fumbling with the zipper of Megumi's pants, stopped. "Jesus, do not talk about them right now."

"Not so fun, is it?"

"I'll walk out of here right now. Leave you to deal with this on your own."

The last day saw Yuji counting down to the hour in which he could return them to the school dorms. When the sleek black car carrying the Kyoto students pulled up to the worksite, Yuji nearly wept. He turned to his students. "Alright. Are we packed and ready? Anything you leave behind stays here. I don't want to hear any crying later on."

"Yes, Sensei," they intoned.

"Wow, they're so polite," came a voice from behind.

Yuji turned and spied Utahime sliding out of the passenger seat. She situated the bow of her hakama. Like Yuji, she looked exhausted despite her ordeal just beginning.

"Trust me, they're anything but," Yuji said. Sukuna and Jin opened their mouths to argue but fell silent at Yuji's cutting gaze.

The rest of the Kyoto students spilled out. Yuji watched as each student assessed one another, sizing them up. He was fondly reminded of his first Goodwill event. Freaking Todo…

One of them caught his eye; a small white-haired figure tumbled out of the car. For a moment, Yuji was breathless. Could it be—the figure scrambled to their feet.

"You did that on purpose!" They said to someone still inside.

"Did not."

"Did too!"

Utahime eyed Yuji, the silent plea for a mercy kill evident in her aging features. "Please, can you act like you'll be paying taxes in two years?"

"But Sensei—"

Utahime held up her finger and made a zipping motion with her finger. The students fell silent. To Yuji, she said, "I need to retire before I do something drastic."

The white-haired figure huffed, moving around the car to stand next to the rest of their peers. Yuji caught a streak of plum across the back of their head and deflated. The student was a small girl with a disdainful, icy expression. She sniffed at her peers, turning away from them with a huff.

Right. Of course. Because every other goddamn person got a second chance.

Her eyes fell on Sukuna. "You're that guy with two pairs of eyes."

Sukuna, still missing his trademark sunglasses, stiffened. He touched his face unconsciously like he was only now realizing how exposed he was. "What of it?" he grouched.

Yuji wondered how much it would irritate the boy to know how defensive he appeared. How brittle his shell was.

She tilted her head to the side, considering. "That's cool. Must be useful. Can you see more than the average guy?"

"Nhhn," was Sukuna's intelligent reply. He stared down at the girl like she was a Rubix cube.

Yuji realized that Sukuna, who spent most of his heading from his peers on campus, probably had little experience talking to girls his own age who weren't Hitomi and her army of suspiciously furby-like shikigami.

Jin startled Sukuna by throwing his arm around his shoulder, a wide grin plastered on his face. "Of course he can. And that's not the only thing he has two of, if you know—"

"Jesus Christ, get in the car." Yuji herded his students into the Toyota, refusing the twins their complex game of Rock, Paper, Scissors. "Jin, you take the middle. No, I'm not arguing over this. Just get in."

Yuji called out to Utahime, "Maybe we should host another Goodwill Event. Let the students get to know each other. They'll be coworkers in the future."

Utahime laughed. "As if the government would allow us to waste time on anything that didn't help the general public."

She was probably right. That wouldn't stop Yuji from plotting, the gears in his head already turning.

Further away from the comings and goings, Megumi slouched with his hands in his pocket and Kuro at his heels, black smudges against the white of the building.

Much to Yuji's pent-up frustration, Megumi was on the project for another four weeks. There hadn't been time for proper goodbyes that morning, not with packing and doing one last sweep of the area before the Kyoto students arrived. Yuji had settled for a hurried kiss behind the building.

Their eyes locked. Megumi waved lazily and Yuji returned it. A strange noise came from behind and when he turned to the source, he saw his students all squished together, faces pressed against the window, making kissy noises.

"You're all running laps when we get back," Yuji warned as he slid into the passenger seat.

"Aww, Sensei wants to spend more time with us!" Jin mocked.

Yuji leaned over to Ohara, who fiddled with the GPS. "As fast as you can back to Tokyo. Break every traffic rule if you have to."

"You got it," Ohara said.

Megumi, the Kyoto students, and the white building became pinpricks in the distance. Outside the car, the ruined slipped away in a blur.

Yuji collapsed into his seat, head against the headrest, eyes closed. He would take a proper nap when he got back to his apartment, but for now, the short stints in a bumpy car would have to do.

Gojo, is this the future you dreamed of?

* * *

Sometime between here and now and always

Life lounged on the shore, soaking in the rays of existence. The fishing rod nestled between her thighs jerked and she sat up with a barely stifled yawn.

The lure was heavier than usual, but then, she reasoned, some souls were mighty like that. However, when she yanked it out of the river, it soon became apparent this wasn't the case.

On the end of the bright orange lure she'd personally fashioned was a soul, black as night. That was predictable. For some time now, she had felt it was this one's turn. What wasn't predictable, was the white soul clinging to it.

She shook the lure. "Let go will you," she said, but the tag-a-long clung like a leech.

"You'll have to wait your turn like the rest." She didn't want to shake it too hard, lest the black one lost its grip as well. Then it could be forever until she fished it out again and that wouldn't be fair. So she brought the pair to her palm, intending to break them apart.

Nestled in the palm of her hand, she made an even worse discovery: they were clinging to each other, so intertwined that she struggled to find the exact delineation where one started in the other began.

"Oh come on. You know that's not how it's supposed to work," she said, though a niggling little voice in the back of her mind chimed in to say that, as little souls, they probably had no clue how it was supposed to work. She didn't even know how it worked. Where they came from. Why she fished them out. But she did it anyway, as she always had.

The souls clung harder and it was obvious she would not break them apart. She only had two choices really; throw them back in the river or…

She huffed. "Fine. You make quite the codependent pair. Make better choices in the next life or I will separate you."

The souls sang, filling her with an indescribable warmth she almost mourned to part with. But she did as she'd always done. She reared her arm and tossed them back into the cycle. Hopefully, her aim had been good. But then again, one round was as good as any.

The End.