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Shoko is a great witch.
That being said, being a great witch does not go hand in hand with being a good witch; she would argue what ‘good’ even means. Is a good witch just an altruistic one, who gives and gives without demanding payment? Is a good witch just one who keeps her nose out of human affairs and focusing on her magic? Is a good witch merely one who keeps her promise?
Shoko keeps her promises, and she minds her own business. She demands payments but she doesn’t consider them high demands. There are others who ask for far more for far less. Shoko, a girl with an eye for shiny things, likes to haggle and horde. Can’t do that with no repeat customers, so she makes every single deal with a firm handshake and a smile. She can honestly say she’s never had a customer who didn’t leave without getting what they asked for.
-ah but she supposes she starts to lose a few points when there is bone ash staining her finger tips black. Or when every handshake is done in wet, hot sticky blood under full moons and over mutilated corpses. Again, ‘good’ is a relative term she finds too wobbly to adhere herself to.
Shoko is a great witch of immense power, she defies the will of the fates, she can bring back the dead and heal the impossible with merely a touch; but there are prices to those hungry demands. None of which are pretty or kind. You don’t make a bargain with a witch like Shoko unless you’ve run out of options. Unless you’re desperate.
Desperation tends to lead people to all sorts of wicked places and new lows. None of which Shoko outright demands, but here they all end up anyways. Wrecked and ruined at her doorstep, willing to offer up their own beating hearts and twisted souls if it means they can get what they want.
For the records, she wants neither.
Shoko is a witch not a demon, hearts are only useful when fresh and souls tend to be tricky things. Shoko does not demand fealty or first born sons, she does not ask for moons and stardust. She has bills to pay on this mortal plane of existence, and so she’ll take her ounce of pretty flesh in the form of gold thank you very much.
She never thought this would be the biggest problem she has to deal with daily.
“It will be fifty gold coins.” Shoko tells the old man in front of her. His muted shock turns swiftly into anger as he looks to his dead son and then to his last remaining daughter. A young, meek thing that looks like she’s been the one carrying the dead boy across the woods by herself. Maybe she has. It’s no business of Shoko’s, her business is on the body and the man who seems pissed that his offer of his daughter isn’t cutting it.
“That’s too much.”
Shoko grins, “Ah, but you said you’d be willing to pay any price. Your poor dear Henry . Killed before his time. He deserves life, at any cost.” She turns around as she speaks, washing her hands after examining the body. Its preservation is better now that she’s involved but it won’t last forever. “The price is fifty gold coins. Sixty if you make me wait a week to pay.”
“Sixty!”
“Fifty.” She corrects, “Unless I have to keep him fresh.”
The old man stomps his foot, grumbles and tries again.
“The girl is worth more than that.”
“Is she? Then you are better off keeping her.”
This is not the first time someone has knocked on her door, expecting to trade one soul for another. One unwanted child for a wanted one. They assume she’ll bend the laws for them just because she’s a witch, just because that’s how the fairy tale goes.
“You can do what you like with her!”
“I’d like nothing to do with her, or you or this dead boy either if it’s all the same. I want my gold and if you can’t pay then you’re welcome to dump his body next to my fire pit. I’ll burn it for free for the sake of gaining a bit more bone dust.”
“Witch!” The man says in a tone that implies he’s really saying a different word, one with less respect.
Shoko doesn’t react. Grief drives people to say things they wouldn’t normally dare.
“This is robbery!”
“This is a deal with me. Either you pay or you don’t.” Shoko corrects, sweet as candy floss but the look in her eyes is sharp as a dragon’s tooth. She is a witch and her best skill might be in raising the dead, but that doesn’t mean she can’t spell your blood to pour out of your ears. She can kill him for nothing at all and it would be as easy as clicking her fingers.
The old man's ego concedes that haggling with her is not an assured win and eventually accepts her price.
They tend to.
He hands her a thick purse of gold coins and Shoko thanks him. Just because she’s a witch doesn’t mean she isn’t polite.
The truth is, bringing back the dead is the easy bit.
The hard put is making sure they fit like they used to. The complications of the state of the body, the healing and getting all the pieces to work as they should. That takes work, and usually Shoko never works twice a moon cycle but as soon as the old rude man and his family leave, a raven flies into her home. Around its delicate ankle, a letter. With bloody hands she rips it open.
It's a request.
One she can’t ignore.
She touches the wax mark of blue. The raging lion pressed in the hard wax is the sign of the king. There are many kings, and few that she bothers to remember but this one is not an ordinary mortal idiot with a crown. He’s a clever fox who has more than one magic user in his court, and he knows exactly how to make her life hell if he sees fit to start.
Shoko keeps to herself, minds her own business, but there is a price to pay even for her.
She does not bother to wash her hands before she leaves. There’s no point, if they are calling for her it’s not because it will be clean work.
The second she arrives at the castle beyond the edges of her world, she is whisked away by an old friend, a wave of ravens welcoming her in a violent storm of cawing black. One second her feet are touching hallowed, sacred stone the next it’s plush white fur.
“Hello darling. You didn’t waste a second did you?” Mei Mei coos, forever pale and beautiful. They’ve known each other since they were little girls, since before this castle stood and before the stars paid attention to this section of the world.
Where Shoko is fair and just a bit messy, Mei Mei is vicious and clean. Different as they might be, there’s an understanding.
“Your raven, the King’s seal. I figured it was important.”
“Clever girls get clever prizes.” The witch slinks closer. Everything about the movement is seduction. She moves slowly, carefully to Shoko. Posed to use her height to loom, gently she reaches out and uses her thumb to pry open Shoko’s mouth. The way she not-so lovingly shoves a piece of oddly flavored chocolate is less so.
Shoko chews on it regardless. It’s a test of sorts, to see how pliant Shoko can be.
They are different breeds of witches, and there is an understanding but it will always boil down to this. The two of them on a high wire act of wills. Testing and pulling, trying to see where the weakness is. Mei Mei feeds on blood to keep her youth and Shoko is a walking fountain. Fondness keeps them smiling at each other, but Shoko isn’t fooled. If the act drops, Mei mei will go for her throat.
-but as a witch, it’s hard to make new friends so you tend to work with what you’re given.
“Good?”
“Disgusting.” Shoko replies. Spitting the bits out like a fussy toddler, into her hands and then out a window. A handful of ravens chase it down.
The other witch laughs, delighted.
“You always did have weird tastes.”
“Mine pale in comparison to your own.”
The white-haired witch licks the chocolate off her finger. “You just need to get out more dear.”
“I’m fine.”
Mei Mei huffs but drops the line of conversation to take a seat. Gesturing Shoko to do the same, as she waves her hands in the air. The room busts into movement, ravens leave the room in a massive wave. Books fly off the shelves to land out and open before them while a gold tea set starts to pour hot pink tea into a cup that later floats into Shoko’s waiting hand.
“As I’m sure you’re unaware of, the war in the north has been going badly. Obviously that wouldn’t matter too much to me, but the King’s heir ran off to be a hero or something without telling anyone and ended up dead as a doornail a week in. It wouldn’t be a big deal if he went out in a fit of glory or whatever but the idiot ended up in a lover’s spat and choked on some fried chicken while he was crying.”
“Are you serious?”
“I know, utterly undignified. Absolute embarrassment.”
Shoko does her best not to laugh, “There are worse deaths.”
“I told the king I would fix this. I know it’s more custom to bring the body to you, but he’s a bit far out and dragging his body would gain a lot of attention. We need this to be done in secret. Obviously whatever number you’re thinking of you can double. Price is no object.”
“...a week is a long time. The spirit might not be willing.”
“ Still, you will try?”
Shoko nods, it’s not like she’s got anything better to do and a job is a job.
The raven storm dumps her outside the war zone. It’s raining and it still somehow reeks of death, men and blood. She pushes onwards, up the hill. Mud gets between her toes and stains the bottom of her dress but it’s not like anyone will care. They are expecting her, and witches rarely show up looking pretty. She spies the royal tent, the muddy blue lion on the flag and heads towards it. Outside the tent, a trio of little birds await her.
“Hey. Hey you. Where are you headed?” The brightest colored bird demands, it flutters and hops. Knocks into the deep black colored one. “You can’t go inside! No one is allowed.”
Shoko, who isn’t surprised by the talking bird, merely answers. “I am.”
“Liar! Liar! CAW CAW GOD DAMN IT I HATE BEING A BIRD.” It squawks angrily.
The black bird smacks the noisy one with a wing. “It’s your own fault. You tried to fix him yourself and it backfired and now we’re all paying for it.”
Ah. Well that explains the talking bird situation, you can only mess with magic so much before it decides to mess back. They’re probably unaware how lucky they are that it decided to make them birds instead of taking their lives or worse. Shoko ignores the two bickering birds for the soft pink one that sits silently away from the others looking miserable. She bends to gently pick it up. It doesn’t fight her touch, tilting its delicate head to lean against her thumb.
“What's up with you?”
“I ate a worm.”
“Ew.”
The other two birds laugh. “Haha Yuji ate a worm!”
“I’m a bird! I can’t help it!”
“Nuh uh. We’re all birds and no one else went for it! You’re just more bird-like than the rest of us because of your bird brain!” The loud one needles and then the pink one flaps over to tussle with it. The black one hops out of the way. Shoko sighs, she doesn’t normally do freebies but she figures she can add it to the cost list when she gets back.
With a wave of hand, the birds explode and in their place are three messy looking teenagers. Not knights by judgment of their white robes, which means they aren’t witches either. Witches don’t wear white as it tends to be pretty useless when you work with such messy material. The only fools who go out of their way to mark themselves as special as with white is-
“Oh. Oh no . You’re wizard apprentices.”
Wizards and Witches are not separated by gender as much class.
Witches are born, they are children of fates. They are cut out of the fabric of nature itself, they come in so many shades, so many forms; hungry and powerful. Is it any wonder they cause mischief just for the sake of it? They adhere to laws only when it’s convenient, only when they choose. Some of them play with humans like Mei Mei, some of them only do it for money like Shoko.
(A very select few do it because they are just that nice.)
Wizards are what happen when mortals get nosy and want to get their grubby little paws in magic. They are born of audacity. Of sheer will power and usually very bad mistakes made around solar events that involve very little clothes. Only the mad, determined and very wealthy set out to become wizards. The most powerful are usually the most big-headed about it. Wizards for all intents and purposes are the annoying fungus of the magical world and should be avoided at all costs.
It helps that most of them live and study in secret.
Shoko hasn’t had to deal with one in a century and she’d like to stick to that.
“I changed my mind. I don’t want to help.”
“You gotta! Our teacher needs to live!” One of the students begs, the girl one. She’s got a sharp haircut and a sharper tongue. Bird or girl, she isn’t afraid of Shoko and drags her by force into the tent despite the older woman literally dragging her heels.
“You owe me. Let me go and pretend you never saw me.” Shoko tries, looking over at the other two boys. They’ve seemingly turned deaf. Helping to light candles and tidy the tent up.
“Lady M said she would send help! I never thought it would be a powerful witch! Is it true you guys eat babies and dance naked under full moons?”
“That’s just Mei Mei and only when the weather permits.”
“Cool!”
Shoko frowns, “Listen, kid. There’s been a mix up. Thought I was just helping a prince. As a favor to a friend. A very rich friend. I didn’t sign up to help a wizard. That’s like…breaking the witch honor code. I can’t be seen helping your lot out.”
“...I thought witches didn’t have to follow rules.”
Damn it.
She doesn’t have much of a defense, and truthfully it’s not like she’s got much of a choice. Mei Mei’s ravens are going to ignore her until the job is done, and any chance of her getting home is still going to take her forever because she doesn’t know where she is. With a deep sigh, she pushes the girl off and heads to the body herself. They’ve done their best to hide his state, pulling heavy blue curtains around his bed. The candles hide the scent of death while at the same providing very little direct light. All in all, one could almost assume the prince (wizard?) is just asleep.
Shoko moves the heavy curtains. She’s only mildly shocked to see a handsome looking man with snow-white hair. Despite claims of his death, there’s no trace of a half-eaten meal. His long limbs are posed carefully and it’s clear his students have been trying to do their best to take care of his body. After a quick exam, it’s in better condition than she expected for a week after death.
“You worked on the body?” She asks the students.
The pink haired boy answers, “Megumi did a charm or two.” He’s pointing to the silent dark haired boy who lingers near the door. “Lady M said there wasn’t a lot we could do but to keep everyone else away but we had to try.”
Shoko eyes Megumi. Not many wizards deal with death in any form if they can help it. There are a lot of laws against it for them, and rarely does their magic even work. Hence whatever spell they tried before that bounced off and turned them into birds as punishment.
“Good work. It will make this easier…for what that’s worth.” She tells them and pushes her cloak off. There’s work to be done and it must be done quickly if she doesn’t want to bring back a zombie like some kind of novice. She curses Mei Mei’s name, the kingdom and her own greed before telling the kids to leave and accepting her fate.
Helping a wizard…she was going to drain the kingdom of gold.
Shoko spends most of her time preparing the body. She cleans and fixes what she can with only a hint of magic. Bits and pieces that the students missed until he’s glowing like some sort of sleeping fairy tale princess.
It’s a little less cute when she uses her magic touch to reach into the body -through the skin and tissue, pass the bones and fluid directly to the heart. It’s just a hunk of dark meat at this point, but she whispers her spells to wrap her fingers around it. With care she squeezes.
“OW!”
“Hello.” Shoko calmly tells the spirit before her. The prince, anchored by his heart into the mortal realm once more, is nothing more than a shadow to even her but he stands as he did in life.
Far too tall and with too much wizard-born arrogance. His blue eyes, a sign of his peerage, seem to glow in an unnatural manner. Perhaps it’s just a trick of the light. Or his own magic? This is her first dead wizard, the rules were probably different. “Satoru Gojo?”
It’s always good to double check what spirit shows up. Never know who might try and sneak in.
“What?”
“Is your name Satoru Gojo? The first prince?”
“Maybe. What’s it to you?” The brat answers, Shoko just for fun, squeezes and watches as the spirit twitches. “Are you doing that? What the hell! Yes I am Satoru Gojo! Stop that!”
Shoko gives him her patented, trademark smile born of customer service.
“Great. Now. I’m here on a mission from your father to bring you back to life. If you could just reach for your heart, I can get you settled and we can both get back to our lives.”
“...no.”
“What do you mean no ?”
“Just that. I don’t want to.”
Shoko has lived a long time, she’s met plenty of dead. None of which outright, denied a second chance. She stares at him for a long time, blinks and tries again. Maybe it’s been a long day. Maybe traveling thousands of miles by ravens messed with her hearing.
“I don’t think you understand what is happening here.”
“I understand better than you think. I'm a wizard so not totally clueless. You’ve called up my spirit without my permission mind you and are trying to shove me back into my body without my consent. Gross. I knew you witches were weird, I mean look at Lady Mei Mei. Pretty sure she eats babies, but there are some lines even your lot shouldn’t cross.”
It takes a lot of self control for Shoko not to simply clutch the heart in her grip until it pops.
“Do you really want to insult the witch who literally has your heart and soul in the palm in her hand right now? I might need your acceptance into replacing your back in your body but in the meantime I can store you where I like. How would you like to be a pillow? An ugly little sock puppet for a few years instead?”
“Mean!” The man shouts, “How dare you threaten such a great wizard as I!”
“I’m sorry, great wizard? Or loser who died crying and choking on ye ol’ chicken drum?”
Gojo gasps dramatically and presses a hand to his chest like he’s got a beating heart.
“...you are very rude.” He says it and means it, but he’s also smiling so she doesn’t know what to make of that.
“And you are very dead. I’d like to get this over with if it’s all the same.” She snaps a bit flustered and then shuts her eyes. She tries again, “Come on, don’t play hard to get. We both know you didn’t mean to die like this. Who the hell does? Just be a good little ghost and get back to where you belong.”
The prince is silent as the grave he refuses to crawl out of. He’s half-shadow, half dream but even she can see the pain etched across his features. He doesn’t want to go back and there’s a thread of fear, of understanding wrapping around her own heart. Tightening it until it skips a beat.
He doesn’t want to go back and she can’t make him .
She’s never been put in this position. Normally the dead are almost too eager. Normally even the scared and worried only need a gentle push, a reminder of loved ones waiting on the other side to take the leap.
She doesn’t know what to do with a lonely boy who carries a broken heart and a crown.
Oh don’t make this hard , she mentally begs. Hearts are terrible, complicated things. Whole hearts are one thing, broken ones are another and Shoko’s lived a long life but she’s been careful. She doesn’t know how to handle something so delicate when it’s already done bleeding. Her best work is on the edge, when it doesn’t matter, when if you come out breathing then all is well.
What does she do? What does she do?
Billions of stars in the sky and not one answers her.
(They rarely do, but just this once, Shoko really wishes they would.)
“Would it help to…talk about it?” Shoko tentatively asks, unsure as she had never been in a hundred years. Like it’s her first time. Like she’s seconds away from failure.
She doesn’t know what to do, she’s stuck holding this dead man’s heart and begging for him to let him help her. There is no choice but to sit still and try. She can’t let go, and risks losing him to the void. Nor will her powers last forever. She’s never tried to extend this process for more than a handful of moments, but then again she’s never had to. She’s worried what will happen when she reaches zero and when that might be.
“Maybe.” The prince mutters. Laying down next to his body and her. “Are you going to listen?”
Hand around his heart, she nods.
“Sure.”
All in all it's a pretty boring story. (She does not say that) From start to finish, it’s not so different from a thousand others: Boy falls in love with another boy, turns out the other boy is evil and wants to start a war. One boy says war is bad and the other breaks up with him over it to start a new murder campaign across the land.
It happens to the best of them. Shoko’s pretty sure she’s got an ex or two that turned into goblins. Literally. These things happen.
She does her best to comfort the spirit.
“I’m sure he wasn’t worth it.”
“No he was. He was so hot and like, super cool.”
She counts back from ten, “There are other wizards in the world.”
“Nah. Not really. Not like him.”
Shoko bites her lip and wonders if this is punishment from the fates.
“It sounds like this was your first boyfriend or something.” She sighs. Then grows concerned when the Prince doesn’t reply. She gives him a wide look. “Oh, no. Please. Tell me. I’m begging you, don’t tell me he was your first .”
“Being a prince and a wizard is LONELY!”
An hour of further arguing against the spirit about what constitutes true love, why it even matters and if you should or should not follow your demented ex-boyfriend into his cult to end the world just because he gave you a few good orgasms -and Shoko is at her absolute limit.
“Get into your damned body now. I’m done. I quit. I’m not dealing with some emo prince unable to deal with being dumped by some equally emo edge lord wizard.”
“NO I DON’T WANT TO.”
“Do it!”
“Make me!”
Shoko has never lost her temper like she has today. Thousand of years. Thousands of humans, spirits and fellow magical creatures, none have made her want to pull her hair out. With a wave of rage flooding and blinding her vision, she will later testify to anyone who will listen that she didn’t know what happened at that moment.
One second she’s ready to squeeze his heart like the world’s worst stress ball the next she hears a pop . Her magic breezes around the tent like a wild thing. She shuts her eyes to the wind and darkness. When the wind dies down, she’s left sitting next to an empty bed. No body, no spirit.
Oh, she’s going to be burned at the stake at this rate.
“Y-you witch! YOU TURN ME BACK .”
Crawling out over the blankets where the body used to be is a very fluffy, very angry white cat.
With Satoru Gojo’s voice.
“Oops.” Shoko says just as the cat hisses and goes for her face.
An hour later, and several bleeding scratches later Shoko emerges victorious. Cradling a very angry cat wrapped up tightly in a light blue towel. Every now and then it releases a growl. She stands before his students as if giving a sermon.
“So. Good news first. Gojo is no longer dead.”
Yuji smiles, “Fantastic! Where’d you get the cat though?”
All eyes drift to the cat that makes a louder sound of discomfort. Shoko may or may not have spelled him into silence. Just to keep the bitching to a limit.
“That’s the bad news. I accidentally turned him into a cat and it will be a month before I can turn him back because I used up all my magic…by accident.”
“You said that twice. Was it really an accident?” Megumi questions.
“He’s alive and I’ll fix him when I get a chance.” The cat in her arms wiggles violently, “As soon as I can. In the meantime, I’ll take him back to my place to watch so no one takes advantage of him or kidnaps him.”
Thankfully the students agree with the plan, and seemingly so does Mei Mei as a flock of ravens appear to take her home. If the air around her is filled with the woman’s laughter, Shoko pretends not to hear it.
Hell, if she manages to get out of this mess with her sanity, gold and not burned at the stake after all this, then it will be worth it.
She tells herself that over and over all the way home.
Shoko does her best to make room for the stupid prince in her home. It helps that he’s a cat so she doesn’t have to do much more than spell the section of land outside her home (to keep him within safe distance but also protect him from bigger animals) and give him a little pile of old blankets in a crate.
Her magic is so low after it’s making her head hurt, so she has to cancel other appointments and offers because at this rate, she’ll struggle to magic herself a cup of tea.
“I’m not sleeping there.” Gojo tells her primly. Big fluffy tail swinging angrily behind him as he walks around her home. It’s a nice place, rather spacious for a single witch, if you ignore the piles of unorganized bones and screaming souls she keeps in the basement (they deserve to be there). Is it fit for a prince? Probably not. Even with her silk pillows, it’s an obvious step down, but said prince is also a fucking cat so she’s not exactly rushing to fix up a guest room for him.
“You’re a cat. You can sleep there or in an empty caldron for all I care.” Shoko mutters, sipping on her tea. She rummages around her kitchen. Finds a cracked blue bowl and fills it with water and places it on the floor before him. This too, falls below his standards as he glares mutinously at it.
“I want tea.”
“Cats don’t drink tea.”
“Cat’s don’t usually talk, so maybe I’m special.”
“Special or delusional?”
Gojo stomps his little kitty paws until she gives in and pours out the water in favor of tea. It’s only with mild satisfaction when she hears him yowl in rage when he’s puking it up moments later outside in her bushes.
When he comes back in though, she does her best to clean up his matted chin fur and sets him on her lap as she sits on the plush armchair of her living room. It’s old, but it’s set in the dimming sun and gets rather warm even in winter.
“Learned a lesson did we?” She muses, not hiding her smirk. With intent to ease his small body, she begins to pet him. He’s a brat with too big of a mouth and weirdly bright eyes -but one can not deny that his fur is soft as silk.
Gojo refuses to answer, but he does start to purr.
Shoko gets used to sharing her space with Gojo quicker than she expected. One could attest this to being because he was a cat, and therefore took up less space but Shoko would argue that as a cat he was twice as needy and prone to getting into situations that a regular human body couldn’t.
Such as getting his head stuck in a jar.
“How the hell did you manage this?” She wonders, doing her best to hold him down as he struggles. At first she had a long giggle, now she’s just a tad worried.
“It smelled good!” He yowls sadly.
“It held fish guts you weirdo.” Shoko tells him, carefully using what small amount of magic she has left to widen the jar just enough to ease his head out with a soft pop. She finds herself petting his mused fur down, “If you want treats, you need only tell me.”
“I want a turkey!”
“I have some chicken scraps.”
“This house is a prison!” He complains even as she hand feeds him the bits of chicken later. She keeps her smile to herself as he keeps nosing and licking her fingers for more.
“Gojo don’t you dare!” Shoko hisses from across the room. She’s been rather busy since she woke up. Bored out of her mind, since she is currently a workaholic on a forced magical vacation.
Today she decided to ease her mind, she would reorganize her potions. It’s delicate work but sure to eat up a few hours of the day. Her only mistake being that of forgetting she was living with an attention hungry little goblin in cat form who didn’t take kindly to her shutting herself up in the potion room for the day.
She stupidly thought if she let him in, he would get bored of watching her and walk away to chase rats or something.
Instead the little bastard swarmed in, hopped up onto the nearest table and threatened to knock every bottle down until she brushed his fur.
Now her peaceful day has turned into this. A battle of wills with a cat as his little paw taps threateningly at a bottle.
“I mean it you little bastard. I’ll brush you later. I’m busy.”
It’s the wrong thing to say, because with vicious intent Gojo’s paw swats at the bottle, sending it flying to the floor, where it shatters and starts to steam.
“Damn it!”
Gojo scampers away with meowing delight as Shoko screams.
When he first came home with her, he angrily complained about sleeping on the living room furniture. Then at the upstairs guest room beds (they hadn’t been used in decades and smelt of mothballs) and refused point blank to sleep in any sort of box, chest or container.
Cat or not, he had his pride. So the first few nights he played goldilocks, testing out each slightly comfortable surface. Each failing for some reason or another until the last one was her bed.
“No way,” Shoko, the meanest witch to ever exist, told him bluntly. She didn’t want an animal in her bed. She didn’t want white fur all over his sheets. Oh, oh and meanest of all she said she didn’t want to find fleas. As if he had fleas!
(Gojo had joyful tore up her best sweater in vengeance for that insult)
After that, it was less about finding a decent place to sleep and more about getting one over the witch who pulled him back into the world of the living and didn’t even have the decency to put him correctly into his body.
As soon as night fell, he snuck into her room (doors, he learned early on, could be nudged open if he pawed and pushed enough.) and carefully hopped onto her bed. It was by far, the best bedding in the house. Perhaps even softer than the one back in his castle. With a smug little smile he kneaded on top of her blankets before laying down.
She of course fussed at him the second she woke up in the morning. Physically picking him up and throwing him out the door. They argued for the rest of the day about it, to his great enjoyment because he knew come nightfall he would make it his mission to repeat the offense.
Regardless of punishment after (for all she threatened, Shoko rarely followed through) he decided to up the ante. Changing his position from the bottom of the bed, over her blankets to right beside her.
His body shared her warmth under the massive blankets and stole her pillow too. More than once after, he woke to her nudging him away, kicking him off the bed or throwing him across the room (Shoko could be more determined and violent when she was half-asleep) but it didn’t matter. With a prance he would be right back where he was before. Or, depending on his mood, even in a worse one.
Like on top of her sleeping head.
“Hehe.” He laughed to himself, peering down at her.
It irked him sometimes, when he was forced to realize she was rather pretty. It was bad enough to catch himself thinking about it during the day when she was brushing his fur or making him eat her gross peasant food. It was utterly stomach turning to think, if he was human he’d probably hit on her in the quiet moments of the night.
He purposefully moves his tail into her face, swatting it against her nose to make her sneeze.
Kinda messed up when he even thinks her sneezes are cute.
Days turn rapidly into weeks and Gojo slowly gives up holding on to his anger at the witch.
Truth be, he’s always kind of sucked at keeping a grudge. It requires a certain amount of energy in the form of caring that he’s never been good at that in the first place. If he had to keep mental track of every single person who annoyed or wronged him, he’d never have the free space in his head for anything else.
Ah, the price of being so handsome and talented!
As he gets bored with tormenting Shoko for the fun of it, he starts to relax. Taking naps in sunbeams and watching her organize her gross (albeit fancy) house. He starts to look forward to his daily brushings, shared dinners and finding new places to hide in. Well, the last one only being fun because it annoys Shoko to have to find him, pull him out of whatever mess he’s been playing in and probably clean him again. Which means a bonus brushing.
All in all, Gojo is starting to enjoy being a cat.
The food could be better, and not having thumbs sucks but honestly he’s not miserable.
Being a cat means his princely duties are set aside. No one is trying to rope him into lessons or to reprimand him about his lacking manners. His father isn’t forcing him on stupid missions nor his mother nagging him about getting married. Half the reason he even went out his way to become a wizard was to use magic as an excuse to run away from all those responsibilities.
It was poor planning on his part to find out that being a wizard had just as many if not more.
The school had rules and laws, they were strict and possibly allergic to change. Worse were the old mages and wizards who ran it. If five thousand years ago some old cretin weirdo had written down that he licked his shoes and suddenly could fly, you bet they attempted to do the same and judged you when you decided pointedly not to do the same.
Then judge you twice as hard when you made up a spell that gave you the ability to fly with no foot fetish involved.
He loved magic, but really he loved breaking rules of magic more because it meant proving the old idiots wrong. The mere idea that his constant rebellion kept them up at night made his day.
-but then Geto happened. Beautiful and determined, Suguru Geto.
Gojo can’t put into words how it felt to finally find someone who understood him. Who understood without judging, what could be achieved when you pushed at the boundaries of magic. Even before he had kissed Suguru, he was in love with the sheer brilliance of the other man’s endless ambition. Unlike him, Geto didn’t want to just rebel for fun. He wanted to change their world for the better. He wanted to teach students to do more, to build a world where they could practice whatever they wanted, however they pleased.
In theory it sounded nice. In practice, the way to get that ideal society of his was steeped in blood.
Geto had spilled his plan, wrapped in a love confession. The only real reason Geto had sought him out at all was for his power, his position. A prince of a wealthy country? A powerful wizard too? It would be nothing at all for him to take the crown. To take his army and bewitch them from human to monsters, to something that could march on the wizarding society and take it by force.
Who cared if that meant murdering his own parents? Killing his fellow wizards or even students. Geto had told him that it wouldn’t matter, not if they were together building the world that best suited their needs. Everything outside of it could burn.
Gojo didn’t care about the old fools in the towers making the rules, but he had no desire to start a war about it. He didn’t want to murder his family, friends and students just because he could.
Breaking up with Geto was hard, but chasing him down to keep him from murdering his people was another level. In the bitter end it was a draw, neither able to kill the other. They had retreated to heal their wounds. Or rather, Geto did. Gojo got drunk, cried too much while eating and choked to death like an idiot.
He’d rather chew on glass than admit it, but he’s already forgiven Shoko for bringing him back to life and even his father for demanding it.
That being said, he’s not really forgiven her for turning him into a cat (he doesn’t believe it was an accident no matter what she says.) but he’s made a small amount of peace about it all. It’s been nice to take a break from the world, to have the space to mourn his messed up life and be allowed to be a brat about it. Shoko doesn’t care about his powers or his crown, and that’s nice too.
(He’s not willingly to admit he’ll miss her when this is all over.)
“Gojo. Please move out of the way, I don’t want to trip on you.” Shoko mildly asks, all whilst carrying an armful of books. Today the massive cat has chosen to rest right in front of the library floor, making it very hard for her to clean it. Instead of waiting for him to move (and bitch about moving), she simply nudges him aside. This is a mistake. Or a crime, judging by his complaints.
“Y-You kick me! You kick me aside! How cruel! How unjust!” He yowls, looking up at her with wide blue eyes as if she just kicked him across the room. “When I’m a human again I’m throwing you into jail. Jail for a thousand years !”
“Dramatic.” She sighs, mostly to herself.
“JAAAAAAIL!”
The night Shoko feels her magic properly return is not special. The moon is perfectly round and bright, there’s no great fanfare when she turns to Gojo and says, “So, ready to be human?”
“What? Now?”
“Yeah. I’m good to go. You?”
His tail swishes behind and she’s surprised to find him silent as opposed to jumping with joy. He’s not exactly been silent when it comes to how much he’s hated being a cat.
It takes a few pensive moments before he nods. She finds his attitude odd but honestly, as fun as this has all been, Shoko is tired of waking up with cat hair in her mouth. With no more than a flicker of her hands and a push of her magic, Gojo turns from cat to man in a blink of an eye.
“Shoko!” He shouts, darting to grab the pillow he was just sleeping on to hide his body.
“Oops.” She says when she realizes he’s naked.
“You live for messing with me, don’t you?” He accuses. He’s so pale that his whole body flushes red. Shoko smirks because it’s cute and yeah, maybe he’s got a point.
“I said oops.”
“You said the same thing when you dumped me in the bath.”
“You needed it.”
“Do you know how terrible water feels on whiskers!?”
“No. I’ve never been a cat.” Shoko answers bluntly, Gojo’s shoulders fall.
“Well…it sucks.”
Shoko shrugs, “I’m not sorry. You’re the one who decided to crawl around in the attic and get covered in spider webs, not me.”
“...maybe that’s because you need to clean more often.”
“Looking for a job? I bet I could magic you up into a little maid outfit.” Shoko offers, mostly teasing but pretending to be serious. She peers at him intently, making sure to let her eyes linger on his exposed knees and thighs. Delighting when he flushes even more darkly.
“P-Pervert!”
Shoko’s laughs hard enough to make her stomach hurt.
Eventually Shoko gives Gojo some clothes (not a maid outfit) and sends him on his way back home via a magic portal. It’s sure to dump him outside his castle where his family is eagerly awaiting. She had sent a message to Mei Mei to let them know the spell had been lifted while he got dressed in the next room.
She doesn’t look too deeply at why she feels a little sad to see him go without much more than a polite farewell.
It’s not like they are friends. He spent the whole time he was with her complaining and being generally annoying. This was just a job, and he is a wizard. By all accounts she should just be grateful it ended without a fuss. If she never sees him again, all the better.
Nothing good ever came from dealing with wizards. Or princes for that matter. The last thing Shoko wanted was to deal with all that.
Mei Mei was the only witch he needed now.
Gojo steps into the throne room, greets his weeping parents and students half heartedly only to promptly turn to Lady M with a request.
“Actually I’d like to go back.”
“...Back?”
“Yeah. I wanna go back.”
Shoko is just preparing for bed when the knocking starts. Which is weird because her house is protected by a barrier that keeps her from being bothered by customers right now, and furthermore by the woods that surround her house. It’s a hungry thing in the dark that normal mortals don’t dare enter.
Fearing it’s someone she knows in danger, she rushes to open it. Startled to instead find the annoying Prince-Wizard Ex-Cat standing on her doorstep.
“Gojo? Did the spell not work?”
“No it did.” He answers, as if nothing about this is weird. “I said hi to everyone.”
Shoko blinks in slow confusion, unsure what to do or even ask when he doesn’t exactly give her anything that resembles a normal answer. “So you went home, said hi and came back because?”
“Oh. Well. I decided I don’t want to deal with all of that. I guess being dead made me realize how bored and tired I am of being a prince. Being a wizard is more fun, but honestly everything is such a mess right now that is just as equally exhausting. Being a cat sucked, but being here with you was fun. So, I decided I wanted to come back.”
“You said my house was soul-crushingly small and all my food tasted like oppression.”
“I can magic you a bigger house and better food.”
“My house and food are fine.”
“Clearly you need my help more than you’re willing to admit at this junction, I’m going to do you a massive favor and move in.” He states, pushing his way in. Shoko could use a spell to throw him out, turn him into a toad or call on Mei Mei to raven his ass right back to his castle.
It’s a curious thing to find herself stepping aside and closing the door behind him.
Maybe she missed him too.
“Fine, but no more scratching my arm chair.”
“That was one time and hey, I’m not a cat any more!”
Shoko laughs, and Gojo pretends not to smile at the sound of it.
The end