Chapter Text
6 days since the death of Rokuhira Kunishige.
Jab. Jab. Block.
“This is going to be a difficult time for him, Panda.”
Feint. Cross. Jab. Jab again.
“I can’t get a read on Rokuhira no matter how hard I try. But if I had to bet, I’d say he’s scared shitless.”
Lead right. Parry the blow, then jab.
“I want him to do well here at Jujutsu Tech. I’ve failed enough students over the years; I don’t want to fail another.”
Feint. Down. Hook.
The caught blow rattled its way through Panda’s fist, up his arm, and shuddered all the way down his spine. Masamichi smirked, easily holding Panda’s fist in a clean block. Panda’s lips pulled back to reveal sharp fangs, an almost-snarl yet also not dissimilar to a smile. It was a thoroughly strange and unnatural expression, seeing as the average panda is incapable of smiling.
Slowly releasing Panda’s fist and shifting out of his boxer's stance, Masamichi marked the end of their spar with a proud nod. Panda immediately matched Masamichi’s casual posture, fur bristling pleasantly at the look of silent approval.
Cutting his way to the other side of the training room, Masamichi reached a bench where he unceremoniously sat down. The slightest creak of his knees caused Panda’s ears to twitch, but Masamichi was quick to shoot the bear a sharp look over his tinted glasses. Rather than comment, Panda lumbered over quietly as Masamichi cracked open a water bottle and began to drink. A bead of sweat trailed down the man’s temple, and he swiped the heel of his palm alongside his cheek to wipe it away.
After lowering the half-drank bottle to the ground at his side, Masamichi kept his weight shifted forward, balancing his elbows on his legs. With the heart-pounding thrill of their spar already dying down, his face began to fall. It was a slow and gradual thing, but all too noticeable to the only other sentient being in the room. The hard line of his brow and steady downturn of his lip; Panda wasn’t the best with human emotion, yet it didn’t take him long to identify the expression as somber.
“Do you understand why I’m telling you all this, Panda?” Masamichi asked.
Panda blinked slowly, mulling over each of Masamichi’s words only to come up short. “No,” he eventually answered with a shake of his head. “I don’t really get it.”
Masamichi didn’t look upset or disappointed with Panda for his answer; he never did. Ever the teacher, he always took these moments in stride as he sought to educate Panda on aspects of human nature. Curiosity and respect always made Panda eager to listen, the fundamental differences of Panda’s instincts being fascinatingly at odds with the strange and conflicting values of humanity.
Removing his glasses to meet Panda’s eye, Masamichi spoke. “Rokuhira’s father was killed in front of him, and the sorcerers who committed the deed are still out there.”
Panda’s reaction was sudden, and it was visceral. His hackles immediately rose, fur puffing out slightly as hostility burst underneath his skin. Brother and Sister woke up at once, attuned to his distress. The soothing warmth of Sister's core nuzzling closer to Panda’s, as if scared they would be separated. All the while Brother began to rage with fiery passion, his drumbeat kicking to life in Panda’s chest.
Panda stared intently into Masamichi’s eyes, those eyes that had been watching out for him ever since his creation.
Panda may not understand much about human nature, but if there was anything he was certain of, it was that fathers were important.
“I see,” Panda said when the thrum of his cores began to recede into a soft, comforting pulse.
Masamichi hummed, a pleased sound. “What Rokuhira needs is time. So, for now, I’m asking you to wait a bit before you meet.”
“Do you think a talking panda would be too much for him?”
The question was as much a joke as it was genuine, and Masamichi huffed a small laugh under his breath. “I think a lot of things will be too much for him, talking pandas included.” His slight amusement brought on by Panda didn’t last long. All too soon Masamichi’s frown pulled a bit lower, a sense of frustration bleeding through. “The boy grew up incredibly isolated. He was homeschooled and only a select few people knew the location of his family home, let alone visited. Even being around other kids his age could prove overwhelming, at first.”
Panda moved his weight to the toe pads of his paws, his neatly trimmed claws clacking on the polished, hardwood floor. Gently, he pulled off one knuckle bracer, then the other, cradling them with care.
Careful. Gentle.
When Panda finally nodded, his entire head bobbed with the motion, his snout dipping and rising through the air. “Right! No scaring the new kid.”
“Good,” said Masamichi. “We can see about introducing you two in a few weeks, before the school year begins. Having someone in his corner as things kick into gear may help Rokuhira adjust.” Masamichi rose to his feet, shifting to stand his full height. It had been some years since Panda had grown taller than the human, yet even now Panda felt as though he were looking up to the man.
Pulling back his shoulders, Masamichi battled away any of that creeping doubt and exhaustion to settle into a look of resolve. He extended a hand out to rest on Panda’s shoulder, fingers carding kindly through his thick fur.
They were a sorcerers’ hands, tough and rugged. Yet those hands were in many ways deceptive, for they were also the hands of an artisan, dexterous and built for careful needlework. They were hands to be trusted; kind hands.
“In any case,” Masamichi advised. “I think a friendship could be good for the both of you.”
Friendship.
Panda wasn’t the most familiar with friendship, but he also knew he couldn’t rely on Brother and Sister for everything.
He could be patient. Friendship could be good.
Avoiding Rokuhira wound up being quite the easy task.
Rokuhira had been moved into the student housing after his arrival at Jujutsu Tech and had not left his room for the first several days. This was more than fine with Panda who lived in the staff housing building with Masamichi; he wouldn’t consider moving into the student dorms until he became a student himself and—after endless debate and negotiation with the higher ups by Masamichi on Panda’s behalf—his first year as a student wouldn’t be for another year anyway.
Days one through seven following Rokuhira’s arrival were as typical as they were mundane. Panda was able to continue with his life uninterrupted by their newest resident.
His first sighting occurred on day eight.
Panda didn’t go out of his way to pass by the student housing, but with how centrally located the building was, it was hard to avoid. That day while walking by he spotted the entrance to the dorm swing open. A blond man dressed in a sort of attire reminiscent of Nanami’s uncomfortably corporate style stepped out with clear, confident movements.
According to Masamichi, the man was a jujutsu sorcerer by the name of Shiba Togo. Panda was warned that he would see more of him from now on; the man had been named Rokuhira’s guardian and had officially retired as a sorcerer to spend more time with the boy. When Panda asked Masamichi how Shiba had gotten the higher ups to approve, Masamichi’s face had scrunched up with distress.
It turns out, picking a physical fight with the higher ups was a good way to fall out of favor with jujutsu society, and an even better way to earn Panda’s undying respect.
With the man’s relation to Rokuhira in mind, Panda wasn’t at all surprised to see Shiba step through the doorway of the student housing.
What was surprising was the smaller figure at his side, standing a careful arms-width away.
It took Panda several seconds to make sense of the human, to place this new face within the context of his familiar and consistent world. The small figure, the slumped shoulders, the fresh bandages wrapped around half his head-
With a dramatic lurch, Panda threw himself backward several steps, frantically looking one way then another for a suitable hiding spot. Scrambling on the stone tiles underfoot, he hefted his weight to duck around the corner of a nearby building, pressing his back flush against the wall. It made the towering, black-and-white panda feel slightly less noticeable, and in these cases it was the thought and effort that counted.
Several seconds passed as two sets of footsteps approached.
“-ask the principal about it.” Shiba’s voice, Panda had been quick to discover, typically had a blustering and loud edge to it. Yet the way he spoke now was something a bit softer, just the slightest bit more subdued. “You need something to keep yourself busy while you’re spending time on campus, don’t you think? This could be good for you!”
“What I need is to train.”
An unfamiliar voice. Young, still in the throes of puberty and achingly raw. But beneath it all, there was a resolved edge to his tone as sharp and cutting as a blade.
Shiba clicked his tongue. “I know.”
“You promised you’d help me.”
“And I am!” The two figures walked past the corner where Panda was hiding, thankfully not noticing him. Their conversation continued without pause as they walked away, giving Panda a view of the backs of their retreating heads. The teens’ scent was as unfamiliar as it was distinct; coal and steel.
“I am helping, Chihiro,” Shiba reaffirmed as the two continued to walk. “This isn’t me trying to get in your way. The teachers will feel better if you start going back to what you were doing before.”
“What does it matter if I can’t even use my technique-”
“It matters because everyone will stop looking at you so closely.”
A pause in movement, followed by a tense, dragging silence. It lasted so long Panda began to wonder if they’d already left his range of hearing.
“...We shouldn’t talk about this here,” Chihiro finally said, his voice low and unreadable.
Shiba let out a tired sigh. “Yeah.”
As the two resumed walking and began to travel beyond eavesdropping range, Panda bodily slumped against the wall to his back. What he’d heard wasn’t for his ears, that much was obvious. Their conversation made little sense to him, and that in itself should have made it easy enough to shake off.
Yet Panda couldn’t ignore his growing sense of unease.
Soon after, construction at Jujutsu Tech began.
The campus of the Tokyo Metropolitan Curse Technical College was a historic site, with long standing architecture dating back centuries. Its existence long predated its role as a place of education for sorcerers, once serving as a Buddhist temple. This created a groundwork for Master Tengen’s protective barrier, making the school one of the safest places in all of Japan.
But the memories of prayer echoing through its halls, the wards built into the school's foundation, made it so that the school grounds hardly changed over the years. The occasional update for new appliances, sure, and they’d finally implemented school-wide wireless internet just two years prior. But in all his years of existence, Panda had not seen a single new structure added to the campus, and judging by old photos he’d seen from decades past, no one else had either.
And yet construction commenced at a rapid pace. On one of the far corners of campus a clearing touching close to the woods served as the building site for a small structure. Panda didn’t push the matter himself, merely observing the construction progress with mild curiosity every other day. Support beams were accompanied first by warm toned walls, then a tiled, gabled roof, giving the structure a sense of cohesion with the rest of the buildings on campus.
It was small, almost comparable to a shack if it weren’t designed so well. Yet during the week-long construction Panda couldn’t figure out the building's actual purpose.
Not until the ventilation system and furnace were installed.
“A forge?” Panda asked Masamichi one day.
Masamichi blinked from behind his glasses. “Yes,” he answered before lowering his paperwork onto his desk. He directed his full attention to Panda who hovered in the open doorway of his office. “Rokuhira is a swordsmith; I’d figured you were already aware.”
Panda snuffed under his breath, a derisive sort of sound. “Every sorcerer knows about Rokuhira Kuneshige, so it’s pretty obvious that his son would be a swordsmith, too.” He then averted his gaze, tapping a claw against the doorframe where he stood. “I was just surprised, is all. This seemed real sudden.”
“Everything about this is sudden,” Masamichi admitted with a tired look. “But this is one of the few things Rokuhira’s asked for since agreeing to stay at Jujutsu Tech. And in this case, I’ll be damned if I don’t try to meet his request.”
This only served to confuse Panda further. Did Rokuhira really want to get back to smithwork, or was it at the insistence of Shiba? Why did Rokuhira insist he couldn’t use his technique? Was something wrong with it?
…Or was he overthinking this?
“Panda?”
Panda’s ear twitched as he was addressed, and he focused on Masamichi with an uncertain question on his tongue. “Hey, have you ever seen Rokuhira use his Cursed Technique?”
Masamichi’s brow furrowed. “I haven’t. The Rokuhira household was quite secretive in regard to their process of forging Cursed Tools. Why do you ask?”
‘What does it matter if I can’t even use my technique-’ Panda shook his head back and forth as though to physically shake away his errant thoughts. “It’s… nothing.”
Yet even as Masamichi continued to talk about the construction team's progress, Panda couldn’t keep his thoughts away from Rokuhira.
It’s nothing.
At least, he really, really hoped it was nothing.
Three days. The forge had been finished for three days.
Three days sitting cold, unoccupied, and untouched.
Panda had a strange relationship with sleep.
Not all Cursed Corpses require sleep. But where a simple Cursed Corpse might merely enter a state of inactivity reminiscent of resting, something with a more complex core construction may develop a need for sleep organically and instinctively.
The latter applied to Panda.
Yet that didn’t make sleeping any easier. Panda’s are the kind of animals to sleep on and off throughout the day, typically eating then sleeping for a several hour period. They did this during the day and night, their sleep habits more like a series of longer naps. This does not mix well with the circadian rhythms maintained by the average human.
So, while Panda did require sleep, he often found himself vacillating between his more animal-adjacent instincts and wanting to maintain a similar sleep schedule to the humans around him. Unfortunately, he was equally prone to both and yet neither.
This was how Panda found himself walking the grounds of Jujutsu Tech a full hour before daybreak.
In his defense, when he’d realized sleep was evading him so early he’d first made his way into the kitchen for enrichment in the form of food. Dexterous and suited for cooking his paws were not, so he settled on popping a bag of popcorn in the microwave and taking it outside to keep the noisy snack food from waking anyone else up. It was nice; the dark sky may have been hard on humans, but a panda’s vision was well suited to the night, and his thick fur worked hard to stave off the early morning chill.
By the time he’d finished eating, he’d trekked partway across campus to the training field without even realizing.
With the bag emptied of everything but a few stray unpopped kernels, he tossed it into the nearest trash and meandered his way to the top of the stairs before the track field. A cool breeze cut through the stillness of the air and he found himself leaning into it. While he was never truly alone thanks to his Brother and Sister, in the not-quite-night-not-quite-morning, Panda felt at peace.
He could ignore the sudden snap of a branch in the nearby woods.
Maybe even ignore the sight of movement through the treeline.
But even Panda had to give in at some point, and that point happened to be a sudden, punched out sound of pain.
Despite his hefty form and the sedentary reputation of his species, Panda could move with surprising agility when he wanted. A few rapid leaps and bounds brought him to the bottom of a wide stairway where he was quick to rush out across the practice field, directly toward the sound. The shout had been human, he was certain of that, but it was unfamiliar in a way that had his trio of cores thrumming with energy.
If someone got past Tengen’s barrier without setting the entire campus into a frenzy, then there could be danger. Danger that he really should warn an adult about, but that hardly crossed his mind when he was so distracted by the building drumbeat of Brother and the anxious shifting of Sister.
No, whatever it was, Panda could handle it with his siblings at his side.
Barreling forward without reservation, Panda broke through the treeline on the far side of the field and forced himself to slow down before coming to a complete stop. He began to turn in place, listening for any more sounds while carefully sniffing the air. He knew this forest as well as the patterns of his own fur, and knew exactly what did and did not belong.
Hiding amongst the soft rattle of branches were quick breaths, fighting to be quiet. Buried by the smell of dry wood cut through by earthy undertones was the piercing scent of sweat, mixed with coal and steel.
Coal and steel.
Panda knew that smell.
Turning toward the smell and sound, his well-adjusted eyes still had a hard time catching a shadowed figure carefully hidden amongst the trees.
“Rokuhira?” Panda asked of the darkness.
Silence. Such silence and stillness that Panda almost doubted the boy had ever been there to begin with. His presence was as fleeting as it was haunting, more comparable to a phantom than a human; the remnants of a soul left to mar and taint the earth.
There was a soft sigh followed by slow and methodical movement. A boy finally emerged from the dark underbrush, his posture straight-backed and eyes filled with fire.
Rokuhira was small for his age, the kind of young man just shy of a growth spurt that would be coming any day. Yet that didn't mean he appeared weak; beneath his baggy, dark clothes was a compact, muscular build, no doubt suited to handling heavy tools and metals on a daily basis. There was pure strength even in the way he held himself, from the solid set of his shoulders to the unwavering grip on a blade which he held lowered at his side.
The blade was concerning. The look in Rokuhira’s eye, even more so.
Fire had been an apt descriptor for those eyes. While the bandages which still wrapped their way around his head concealed one eye, the other pierced through the darkness, a red that glowed with the luminescence of a burning coal. It made his unrelenting gaze all the more intense and sent a shudder down Panda's spine.
Pandas, while passive by nature, were not prey animals. Yet in that moment, Panda understood what it felt like to be stared down by a true, natural predator.
The two figures observed one another in the dark, what couldn’t have been more than a mere few seconds yet dragged with the weight of millennia. Their stalemate was finally broken by Rokuhira relaxing his posture, and whatever hostility that had seemingly frozen Panda in place thawed all at once.
Rokuhira’s free hand raised to rub blearily at his eye. “A panda...?” he questioned aloud in confusion. He had a soft voice.
Panda's ear twitched. Then he chuckled a bit, an awkward sound. “Hey, there,” he offered with a wave of his paw.
Rokuhira's eye blew wide, mouth dropping open, leaving him with an expression caught between dumbfounded and off put. It was the most youthful he'd looked that whole night. Panda found Rokuhira’s expression deeply amusing.
The tightening grip on Rokuhira's blade was a lot less amusing.
“Sorry, but we haven't been introduced yet!” Panda jumped in, refusing to give the other boy enough time to consider the merits of attacking the talking panda in self-defense. “Masamichi wanted to give you some time to adjust before we met.”
“Masamichi?” Rokuhira tested the name in his mouth, searching for familiarity. It took several seconds before his face settled into something more neutral. “You mean the Principal.”
Panda bobbed his head. “That's right.”
Neither moved nor spoke after that, stewing in the uncanny silence of the early morning. While Rokuhira was left to rationalize the existence of talking pandas, Panda contemplated a mountain of questions he didn't yet know how to climb.
Masamichi led Panda to believe that Rokuhira would be... Sensitive. Vulnerable. Someone to be treated with care. Yet the person before him now was anything but. He was a boy with piercing eyes and a dark expression far too mature for his age. A kid who snuck out of the Jujutsu Tech dorms while everyone slept and got away with it. Someone who wielded a sword in the dark for indecipherable reasons.
Rokuhira didn't look like a boy who was grieving—he looked like someone out for blood.
Panda's eyes trailed away from Rokuhira's stony face and cutting eyes, taking in the trampled leaves underfoot and the array of slashes marring the bark of a nearby tree.
Rokuhira’s strange insistence on training was making both more and less sense.
“I knew you were a swordsmith,” Panda remarked, desperate for a conversation starter. “But I didn't know you were a swordsman, too. That's cool!”
“I'm not a swordsman,” Rokuhira shot back, so fast it seemed more reflex than genuine answer.
Some form of surprise must have been visible on Panda's face at the sharp response because Rokuhira deflated all at once. “Sorry,” he muttered, raising a hand to run through his short black hair. He let himself lean backward till he hit the battered tree behind him, then he slid down to sit on the ground. The sword lay in his lap where he handled it gingerly, trailing the side of his thumb along the sharp edge of the blade, causing Panda to cringe.
“You're a lot more reckless than I expected,” Panda observed.
Rokuhira's endlessly red eye snapped up to watch him. His thumb dug deeper into the blade, and Panda waited with bated breath for his skin to be pierced and for the blood to flow. Yet the biting smell of iron and flash of red never came.
“It’s been dulled,” Rokuhira said. “The blade; it's been blunted for practice purposes only. I’m not going to hurt myself.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Panda responded without elaborating further. releasing a soft snuff under his breath, he trudged a few steps closer. He then turned himself, sinking down to lean against the tree as well, careful to keep an arm’s length between him and the other teen. Sharp or not, a sword could still hurt plenty.
“You haven’t tried the new forge yet, right?” This was, apparently, the wrong question. While Rokuhira's expression didn't change, the hostility that radiated from him made Panda's fur bristle.
“I don’t want to,” Rokuhira bit out. “Everyone wants me to just get back to creating Cursed Tools like nothing happened. But everything happened.”
Pandas’ eyes went wide, taken aback by a rush of understanding, one of the many mismatched pieces that created Rokuhira finally snapping into place. To be seen as nothing but a tool whose purpose was to serve sorcerers—yes, Panda definitely knew the feeling.
“Maybe give it a try,” Panda offered. “As long as you do it for yourself, not anyone else.”
"I've never…” Rokuhira paused contemplatively. His lips pursed in internal debate before he continued, his voice lower and a bit hesitant. “I’ve never done blacksmithing alone. Not without him."
Stealing a few more moments, Panda shuffled himself back and forth, finding the comfiest position to sit in. Rokuhira didn’t seem to mind, content to wait in those dragged-out beats of silence, letting things happen in their own time.
Patient enough to not press when confronted by a talking Panda. Yet impulsive to the point of sneaking out before dawn to swing a sword he had hardly any knowledge in handling.
Interesting. Rokuhira really was interesting.
The sky began to lighten infinitesimally, no longer a deep black as it now shifted into a lighter blue-violet. Before long, reds and oranges would bleed through the trees, staining the forest in the colors of the waking world. Rokuhira remained at Panda's side as time crept on, his body loosening in minute increments as exhaustion began to set in.
“I’m sorry,” Panda eventually said. “About your dad.” He didn’t quite understand his own words but knew that they were correct in this kind of circumstance. Still, the insincerity of it all didn't sit quite right.
Rokuhira didn't respond, eyes locked on the blade in his lap as he trailed his fingers against its shining finish. The slump of his shoulders, his body, his very soul, was painfully evident.
“That probably doesn’t mean much coming from a Panda,” Panda acquiesced.
“It doesn't mean much coming from anyone,” Rokuhira shrugged without looking up.
“No wonder,” responded Panda. “Jujutsu society lost a great sorcerer. But you lost a dad.”
The breath Rokuhira took in was a sudden, shuddering thing. The small sound had almost been startled out of him, a brief lapse in self-restraint filled with pure vulnerability.
“Yeah.” The word was less of a word at all, more of a sigh, an admission.
“Dads are important,” said Panda with certainty.
“...Yeah,” repeated Rokuhira.
As the sun began its crawl into the sky and the air warmed around them, they remained in their nook carefully tucked under the shade of the trees. The morning dew dampened Panda's fur, the crisp air tickling his nose, but he felt no inclination to move.
Not when Rokuhira slowly and carefully shifted closer till they were pressed against one another, warmth flush against warmth. Not when the final dregs of the teens tension drained from his body, exhaustion winning out against pure stubbornness. Especially not when Rokuhira began to shudder, face collapsing as emotion set in.
Rokuhira didn't cry, but one didn't need to cry to grieve. The boy simply allowed himself this rare moment of honesty, trembling with raw emotions so full to bursting, allowing himself to hurt and feel in ways he'd stubbornly ignored.
A hand raised to carefully card through Panda's thick fur, an act of self-soothing that Panda wisely chose to accept. That hand was a blacksmith's hand, tough and rugged. An artisan's hand, dexterous and gifted with fire and steel.
A hand to be trusted. A kind hand.
There was a swell of emotion in Panda, a stirring from deep within. Sister cooed in a way that made Panda's insides buzz, a protective need she couldn't suppress. Brother felt an instinctive claim over the teen at their side, alert and on guard to defend the other boy in his most vulnerable moments. Their emotions bled into one another, a feedback loop so powerful that Panda could scarcely make sense of where their newfound attachment ended and his began.
Then again, their feelings always belonged to all three of them. And right now, they were in unanimous agreement.
Rokuhira didn't need another human, not at that moment. Right then, a panda was just fine.
The two had parted hours later, tired yet understanding with hardly a dozen more words passed between them.
Later that day, smoke rose from the stacks of Jujutsu High's new forge for the first time. With it, a new smell filled the air, one that would quickly grow to be a constant on the school grounds.
Coal and steel.
Pandas can’t smile, not really.
But Panda isn’t a Panda, so he tried his best.