Chapter Text
Fushiguro Megumi's earliest memory is of shadows painted in vague shapes across the wall, and a distinct sense of joy and love.
See, Megumi's parents weren't the particularly affectionate type, and him and his sister were frequently left to their own devices. Neither did the Fushiguros have a lot of excess money for toys (nor did it occur to Fushiguro Toji to prioritize such things). So, it was Fushiguro Tsumiki left to the task of finding ways to amuse a child so small he barely comprehended "boredom" beyond the fact that he abhorred it, without much to work with.
What Tsumiki found was shadow puppets. At the time, she found it funny, how her little brother would be absolutely enraptured by something so simple as the fuzzy silhouette of a wolf's head, and a few half-hearted sound effects.
She curled her thumb over and angled it just so, casting a vaguely canine shape with a glowing white eye. It barely looked like a dog, really, but Tsumiki's little brother was hardly a critic.
"Look, Megumi! A wolf!"
The boy in question gazed wide eyed at the wall, giving a little wordless gasp of wonder. One tiny hand reached out, grasping at nothing. Tsumiki smiled. She waved her hand, the 'wolf' bobbing its head, and the tilting back. Her fingers parted in a small mouth.
"Awwooo!" She fought to not let the howl dissolve into giggles as little Megumi joined in with his best, much louder, echo.
The game continued as they grew older, Megumi's hands joining her own, shaky imitations of birds and rabbits with shorter wings and clumsier movements. Tsumiki had only found it endearing.
After their parents disappeared, money became tighter than ever before, and Tsumiki had to learn hard and fast how to manage it down to the cent. Shadow puppets cast from lamps changed to flashlights, then moonlight through windows. Megumi didn't seem to care for the medium, so long as the shadows existed, he was satisfied.
Tsumiki worried over a pair of lunch bags, flitting anxiously between the fridge and the counter, as if opening the door once more would somehow change its contents. There just wasn't enough for even Megumi to have a full lunch, let alone both of them…
In the square of sunlight that dawn cast on the cabinets, a bird took shape. When it 'landed' on Tsumiki's shoulder, she turned around to see Megumi leaning over the back of the couch the room over, hands held over his head.
He gave her a gap-toothed smile. "Tsumiki! It's Nue! Say hi to Nue!" The bird on the cabinets fluttered off of her shoulder again and stayed beside the shadow of her head.
It was a recent development in their shadow puppet 'game', not that Tsumiki has had the time to join in recently. Megumi had kept telling stories to himself, sometimes she heard him talking aloud through the ceiling, and he seemed to have named all the animals: the bird was "Nue", the rabbits were always simply called "Escape", the snake "Orochi", and the wolves were "Shiro" and "Kuro". Tsumiki still wasn't sure how she was meant to tell the wolves apart. She only guessed right about a third of the time, but Megumi would get terribly upset when she said she couldn't tell.
Tsumiki tried her best to plaster on a genuine smile. "Hello, Nue." The shadow flapped its wings happily.
Megumi laughed.
Tsumiki had grown more worn, money slowly slipping through her fingers as she tried to make ends meet month after month. She sheltered Megumi from it the best she could, but he could tell something was wrong, and she knew he wasn't oblivious either.
It was then that the strange white-haired man showed up.
Nothing could be articulated, except that he had this aura about him. Like a monument on the horizon that only appeared small in the distance, as if just a trick of perspective that made it appear he walked among them, and he was really miles away and a thousand feet tall. Tsumiki never met him face to face. The one and only time she saw him had been through a window, down the street.
Apropos nothing, the floor fell out from under her, and she nearly hit her head on the counter as she stumbled.
Dragging heaving breaths through her lungs, Tsumiki looked around, one hand clamped like a lifeline on the back of a chair as the dizziness subsided. A vertigo spell… should she be worried about that? Perhaps she hasn't eaten enough lately, but this wasn't just the usual faintess of hunger. If it was, she could do nothing about it: she'd starve before she took more from Megumi. They had little enough between them as it were.
Speaking of, Megumi should have been home by then. Trying to brush off her lightheadedness, Tsumiki went to the window to see if he was just a few minutes down the street.
It was then she saw him, cutting through the air like a monolith. She couldn't say anything specific about him was off, yet the earlier vertigo returned full force just from looking at him. There was something otherworldly about him. It reminded her of looking up at skyscrapers her first and only time in the city centre; her mind struggled to comprehend what was before her and filled her with something between wonder and fear. Her nails dug into the wooden frame of the window.
Then she saw Megumi, standing before him. His back was to the window, he looked up at the white-haired man in what Tsumiki would bet anything was defiance, though the wide set of his feet and the set of his shoulders betrayed his tension to her. She wondered if that man could see it too.
She had caught what appeared to be the tail end of a conversation. The strange man grinned, sunglasses glinting as he handed Megumi something Tsumiki couldn't see. Megumi accepted it with a nod. The man turned away, shouting something to Megumi from halfway down the road that Tsumiki did not hear.
She rushed downstairs, vertigo forgotten. The front door opened with a creak.
"Are you okay—"
"He said we don't have to worry about money anymore," Megumi said. Flat, disaffected, but not scared. Tsumiki stopped.
"What?"
"He said we don't have to worry about money anymore, I told you." Tsumiki just stood there, baffled. Megumi sighed. "And he said to give you this."
Megumi handed her a slip of paper, which must have been what the man had given him earlier. It simply read "GOJO SATORU. FOR DIRE EMERGENCIES ONLY" followed by a phone number. Tsumiki stared dumbfounded, trying to reconcile her instincts with the strange man's (... Gojo Satoru, she guessed) actions.
"I'm going up to my room," Megumi said, after she remained silent too long.
Tsumiki didn't think the warning was necessary. She would certainly never contact that number if she didn't absolutely have to.
Though she kept a wary eye out since that day, Tsumiki never saw Gojo Satoru again. What he had apparently said held true, however. Letters stopped arriving about utilities and school fees. Cheques appeared in their place, made out to Tsumiki and Megumi specifically, and envelopes of cash.
The slip of paper and phone number had been tucked away in the deepest drawer of Tsumiki's dresser, hidden, but not forgotten.
Life continued on. Tsumiki and Megumi went to school. Tsumiki kept her head down, and got decent grades. Megumi got in trouble. She would scold him, and he would act as though he learned a lesson and then turn right around and keep doing it. No matter how many times Tsumiki tried to confront him.
"You don't understand, Tsumiki! Someone has to teach them a lesson, or they won't stop!" Megumi shouted. His chair scraped against floors as he shot to his feet.
"Megumi," Tsumiki tried to placate him, "that's what adults are for, you can't just go around beating people up—"
"Who says I can't! The teachers are useless! If they weren't, they would stop them and me!" With that, Megumi stormed upstairs, the door to his room slammed shut so loudly Tsumiki flicnhed. With a sigh, she stood and pulled plastic wrap from the cupboards. She was loath to waste any food, even if they weren't as tight on funds as they once were, and hopefully Megumi would appreciate it once he calmed down. Hopefully.
Lately, Megumi had become much more withdrawn from Tsumiki. More spiteful, snappy, the whole mess. She hadn't seen a single shadow puppet on the walls in months, though she still heard him muttering to himself from the other room, some nights. It's not that Megumi had stopped playing, just that he no longer wanted Tsumiki involved in it. And that— that was fine. Tsumiki had pulled away first after all. And Megumi was growing up, it was normal to not want to spend time with his sister so much. That was normal.
It still hurt, though.
A rift had grown between them. Megumi sealed himself away into his room on afternoons, and Tsumiki afforded him that space. He came home from school late, he left home early to avoid walking there with Tsumiki, he barely spoke to her when they crossed paths in their own home.
Tsumiki figured it was a rebellious phase. She kept her head down, same as at school, and kept the house from falling apart, same as she always did.
Megumi snatched the lunchbag from the counter and jammed it into his backpack without a word.
"Good morning." Tsumiki wouldn't let him claim that she didn't try to talk to him. He took the slice of toast she had made between his teeth as he nodded in acknowledgement. The backpack was zipped up with a harsh tug, a pair of abused sneakers were shoved onto his feet.
"You could at least say something back—"
The screen door already rattled on its hinges. Tsumiki sighed.
She had to remember. It was just a rebellious streak. It was something he had the luxury of, that she didn't at his age; too busy worrying about making it to the next month with the heat and lights still on, and with no one to rebel against anyway. Tsumiki may not be perfect, but at least she was there. At least the most Megumi worried about was her being too overbearing, and not how to keep their lives from falling apart.
And she was his older sister. What else could she do but try to protect him?
Yet, Tsumiki couldn't help but feel a little jealous.
Tsumiki came closer to graduation. The strain of balancing school and home life bore down on her like the sky on her shoulders. But she held up, pulling in high enough numbers to at least make it to a decent university, not that Tsumiki would go anywhere. Sometimes she questioned the point of even trying. All Megumi's report cards, bearing grades just a scrape above failing, conveniently found their way to bushes, muddy concrete rivers, and various trash cans before they ever made it home.
"You know, you can at least thank me sometimes!" Tsumiki snapped. Megumi paused halfway up the stairs, off to avoid her after coming home late yet again. It's moments like these that it struck Tsumiki how young he was, how young they both are.
"What?"
"I do practically everything around here, not that you notice! I've done it since you were five and our damn parents walked out!" Megumi stopped and turned properly at the mention of their parents, something they had always danced around even when they did talk to eachother. A damn has broken in Tsumiki, and her words tumble out of her throat with more bitterness than she ever meant to show. "I do all the laundry! The dishes, the cooking! I clean everything and keep the house looking intact enough that no one calls child services! I kept our lights on by myself for a year before that Gojo man showed up!"
"Hey! It's not like I asked you to do all that!" Tsumiki had never been so close to just screaming in frustration.
"You don't get it , Megumi! I don't do it because you asked me to, I do this because I'm your older sister!"
"So?" Megumi looked annoyed more than anything else. He made to trudge back upstairs.
" So ?! So maybe just act like you're still my brother sometimes!" Tsumiki shouted after him.
Megumi kept walking.
"Hey, don't you just hide in your room again!" She started to follow upstairs, vision blurred in frustration. Megumi stopped at his door, and turned back to her. There was something unreadable in his eyes. It brought Tsumiki to a flat stop.
"I'm not even really your brother," Megumi said, cold and level. "Just leave me alone."
The door closed with enough force to make the lights flicker.
Tsumiki found herself on the couch downstairs, heaving in shaky breaths. Above, she still heard Megumi's voice through the floorboards.
One day, Tsumiki put her foot down. It was nearly eight pm, and Megumi never returned home from school. Resignation had become irritation, irritation transitioned to worry, worry forced her out the door and onto the streets.
Damn it all! Maybe if Megumi wanted her to leave him alone he should prove he could actually be responsible for himself first!
Tsumiki drew her jacket tighter against the autumn chill. The moon was full overhead, and streetlights cast strange shadows.
Lost on where to go once she had left, her feet carried her towards the school as a desperate guess more than anything. Streets once familiar and secure seemed strange and unnatural to her in the night.
"Ey! Fushiguro!"
Tsumiki froze. The shout had come from an alley lit by one flickering lamp hanging over a side door. Beneath it, she saw the silhouettes of three men. One pushed himself off the wall and stalked towards her, the other two following in his wake. In the moonlight, she realized she recognized two of them: Mahiru Tadashi, and Inukawa Hiruma. Both were 12th graders, Mahiru was the star of the school's track team, and he never seemed to get suspended, no matter what he did, because of that. Inukawa actually shared a math class with Tsumiki, and by all she knew he was a good student, a teacher's favourite. She had heard rumours though, that he would beat up kids outside school hours, and never got into any trouble because his family had the money to throw around and keep people quiet. With a sinking feeling, Tsumiki realized those rumours may be true. The third kid she didn't recognize at all, beyond a vague sense of having seen him around before.
"You ain't Fushiguro," Mahiru growled, stamping out a cigarette. Tsumiki flinched. Were they looking for Megumi ? Oh, what had her brother gotten himself into.
Perhaps Tsumiki should have done something more. Perhaps tried to warn them away from Megumi. Stood up for her brother.
But all Tsumiki felt was fear.
"Nope! I was just heading home—" she stuttered. Her eyes caught Inukawa's. Maybe the rumours weren't true, maybe there was some other, perfectly logical explanation for his presence here. Please, he had to help her, please .
Inukawa cut in, "Hold on just a minute. Tadashi, I know this one." Please please please please. "It's not the brat we're looking for, but she is a Fushiguro."
Tsumiki's heart plummeted straight through her feet and into the concrete below.
"Is that so?" Mahiru leaned forward like a leering bird of prey. The still nameless third cronie separated from their pack, and stood behind Tsumiki with folded arms and a smug grin. Cutting off her escape. "The little brat's dear sister, huh? Maybe he does have a weak point after all."
Tsumiki found her voice at last. "You're wrong."
"Oh?" Mahiru raised an eyebrow.
"Megumi doesn't care about me. Hurting me won't do anything." She choked back tears. It was supposed to be a desperate lie, but she feared she was right.
"I highly doubt you're telling us the truth," Iukawa said, still level, even.
"And either way, it wouldn't save you. 'Specially if we can't find the other Fushiguro brat. Be a shame to waste the whole night." Mahiru cracked his knuckles as he stepped forward. Tsumiki willed herself to move, to scream for help, to take any sort of action. But her feet felt baked into the concrete, and her lungs couldn't draw enough air. Mahiru's hand grabbed the front of her jacket, dragging her forward as the toes of her sneakers scraped the concrete. Come on Tsumiki, move, she had to move, to run, to flinch, do something— anything!
"What do you think you're doing?"
Megumi's voice carried down the alley, ringing like a tolling bell. His words were quiet, but with a controlled sort of fury. Tsumiki still knew him well enough to hear it.
"Megumi," Tsumiki whispered, voice cracking. Her eyes met his over Mahiru's shoulder. His face was completely shadowed by the moon behind him.
"Tsumiki." She couldn't see his expression, but she heard a soft shock in those words. He took a half step forward.
"Oh, look who it is!" Mahiru crowed. "Looks like he does care about big sis after all!" With a rough shove, Tsumiki was cast aside. She winced as the asphalt cut into her knees and hands. Mahiru rolled up his sleeves, now advancing on Megumi.
That was her brother! Her little brother, and he wanted to hurt him! She felt she had to do something. Yet all Tsumiki could do was press herself further back and away, until her head hit the brick behind her.
Megumi didn't move, didn't even flinch. His head turned to Tsumiki.
"Tsumiki," he said once more. " Run. "
"Aw, the brat's trying to save his sister? How touching!" Tsumiki gasped when Mahiru pulled a switchblade from his pocket. It glinted in the moonlight. Still, she couldn't find the will to place her feet beneath her and move.
Megumi brought his arms up, crossed and held slightly over his head. Though his hands shook ever so slightly, Tsumiki still recognized the shapes.
" Not from you. "
From Megumi's shadow, there were wolves. Tsumiki watched them, stretching impossibly outward from Megumi's silhouette while the light behind him never moved. She only observed in mute confusion and uneasiness, as Mahiru and Inukawa just jeered. As Megumi's shadow finally met theirs.
The flickering alley light snapped off.
A piercing howl cut the air like a knife. It sounded nothing like any dog or wolf Tsumiki had ever heard. She didn't laugh.
But Megumi did.
That night, Tsumiki witnessed something she was never meant to see.
There was blood on Megumi's face.
That was the first thing she registered. It wasn't his, and she couldn't be sure if that was better or worse.
The second was a hysterical grin, now turned her way. Bared white cut through ink-darkness, blood-darkness, and shadow. A face she recognized, except the actions taken by the body it wore was something she struggled to reconcile.
The rest, her mind was not meant to comprehend.
Tsumiki later found herself conscious once more in her own home, with no memory of getting there. She had been laid down on the couch. Megumi's shoes rested next to hers by the door.
She nearly laughed in relief. She'd been so worried over Megumi that she fell asleep on the couch waiting for him to come home, and then had that strange dream fuelled by her stress. It was all just a concerningly vivid and slightly disturbing dream—
Her hands stung. The skin was scraped raw by asphalt. Tsumiki stared at them in horror. This meant—
Megumi.
Fear for her brother overrode caution. She didn't understand what had happened, but her gut told her that her brother needed help. She had failed him once. She couldn't do it again.
Despite her feet feeling like lead weights, Tsumiki pulled herself up the stairs. She knew where Megumi would be. As she approached the door, a cold dread not her own trickled down her spine. A vague sense of familiarity stirred. There was a slip of paper still tucked into the corner of her dresser. Tsumiki had memorized the number on it. The memory of that day and that man, Gojo Satoru, was still branded into her mind. Her stomach didn't swoop, her head didn't spin, yet something felt
terribly
familliar.
She steeled herself, and turned the knob of Megumi's door. What she is met with is
a cold,
solid darkness.
Megumi's room was filled with pure black, starting suddenly just inside the doorframe. Mute with wonder and horror, Tsumiki had reached out. It was cold. It felt like passing her hand through syrup, the shadows resisted as she pushed her hand further into the space and moved it side to side. She tried to pull back, but the shadows clung to her fingers past the threshold, it took a sharp shake to dislodge them.
Tsumiki's back hit the wall, heart pounding. She didn't know what to do.
Downstairs once more, she fumbled with the landline she rarely had cause to use. Please, please, please.
A click.
"Is this Gojo Satoru?" Tsumiki said.
"Who is this? How did you get this number?" Gojo's voice was cold. That was the best Tsumiki could describe it.
"This is Fushiguro. Fushiguro Tsumiki?" Her hands caught in the phone's cord and twisted around and around in nerves. This had to work. She didn't know what else to do. Please, please—
"Fushi… Oh—" a snap "— Fushirguro! You must be his sister!" Suddenly, his tone seemed much less hostile. "Wait, I gave you two my number for emergencies only."
"Megumi— I— I didn't know what else to do—" Tsumiki willed herself not to cry. If she broke down sobbing now, she didn't know if she would ever stop, and that wouldn't do anything to help Megumi. She needed to be strong.
Gojo cursed. "What happened? Is he injured? Sick? Did someone hurt him— wait, Tsumiki, he isn't missing is he?" Something was muttered, too low for the receiver to pick up beyond the great amount of vitriol with which it was said. The weight Gojo had put on "missing" worried Tsumiki, but she didn't have time to deal with that.
"No, no. He's here. I'm almost certain of it." Tsumiki braced herself. "It was five years ago, but I still remember. There's something… not right about you, Gojo."
A long silence. Was Tsumiki wrong? No, she couldn't be. And there was no way Satoru Gojo wasn't aware of himself, either.
"Perceptive, aren't you?" Gojo sighs. "I suppose I wasn't putting too much effort into subtlety back then. But what's your point?"
"I think there's something wrong with Megumi too." On the surface, it wasn't that similar at all. But Tsumiki didn't have a lot to go on for anything… supernatural. Her encounter with Gojo was the only other experience she had.
" Shit. " Gojo's voice was once again cold. Not directed at her, this time, just a loss of any levity he previously had. "I'll be right there. Any details you can give me?"
"It's the shadows." Tsumiki's eyes found the stairwell again. The phone cord stretched out behind her as she made her way up, one step at a time. "His room is all dark, I can't see anything and it's like glue if I try and touch it—"
"You touched it ? Are you crazy? Or do you just have a death wish—"
The door was still ajar, those trailing wisps that had fallen from her fingers pooled on the ground like spilled ink.
"—and the— those shadow puppets. They— he— there was blood on his face, but not his hands— I—"
"Fuck, so he's already taken proper victims."
"Taken what? " Tsumiki nearly shrieked.
"Fushiguro, listen to me—"
Tsumiki found a steel in her voice she hadn't known she possessed. "Gojo, what is happening to my brother ."
The landline's cable had unwound as far as it could go. Tsumiki still stood several feet from Megumi's door. Distantly, she cursed herself for never caving and finding a way to get proper phones and set them up, as much of a pain as it would have been without an adult to sign off on things. Gojo took a deep breath. "He's becoming something else. As far as you would call it, a monster, something unnatural—"
"Is it hurting him?"
"What?"
"This becoming. Is it hurting him. Has it been hurting him all along." Had Megumi been hiding from her all along because he didn't want her to see him in pain, or see him cause it? Was it not just rebellion, but fear, that pushed him away? Did Tsumiki give him space when what he needed was support?
There was an audible wince in Gojo's next words: "Becoming is never easy."
Tsumiki's head spun. "And I let him drift away, I let him suffer alone this whole time—"
"Fushiguro, you're not hearing me, he's a monster , you can't just ignore that!" Gojo shouted.
" And he's my brother! That matters more! " Tsumiki shouted back. The phone hit the ground with a clatter of plastic.
"Tsumiki, wait —"
Fushiguro Tsumiki drowned the moment her face crossed the threshold.
Gojo Satoru arrived 5 seconds, 7 milliseconds too late to stop her. Just in time to see her collapse backwards, shadows trailing from her every limb and spilling from her mouth. There was nothing to be done.
He pulled the bandages from his eyes. It was time to salvage what he could.