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The nurses are calling it a miracle.
It started a few hours after Yuuji left for the day, golden flowers set up on the windowsill to cradle the last of the sun's evening light. Wasuke had been so sure he was going to die with his grandson in the room; his heart had been growing weaker, the nurses had noted his slowly but steadily falling blood pressure that morning, and he'd felt much colder than normal. He'd been told he had a couple of days at most, if that.
However, once the sky grew dark and the shifts changed, Wasuke suddenly felt as though he has more energy in his body than he has in years. His vitals are still rising, even, settling into rhythms akin to when he'd first been admitted, back when Yuuji had been a primary schooler.
Much to the chagrin and scolding of the nurses, he sits up on his own and drops his legs over the side of his hospital bed. His breaths are deep and steady— "Oxygen is normal?" from a baffled new-hire nurse— and his heart seems strong according to the influx of professionals. There's a small 'team' that's familiar with Wasuke and all his body's idiosyncrasies as a stage IV lung cancer patient: the night shift collective starts filtering into his room, making him lie back down so they can check him over all proper-like.
He would be amused yet irritated at all the attention if he wasn't equally baffled. They cart him to get a CT scan as soon as possible, muttering to each other the entire way. Hell, they even call his oncologist back in to check things out as well. The most he can do is lie back, breathe easier than he has in damn near a decade, and complain about all the noise and fuss.
Wasuke lies beneath that damned donut of a contraption for entirely too long, hands folded over his stomach. He fiddles with the rough fabric of his hospital clothing, fingertips pinching and worrying the fabric while his doctors go over whatever results the machine spat out at them. Breathing so well all of a sudden is jarring; he's gotten used to thinking about breathing, sucking in forceful lungfuls before roughly expelling them in squared cycles.
His oncologist— lovely woman, just as surly as he is but about thirty years younger— shows him the scans, looking equal parts befuddled and amazed. "Well, Itadori-san, without any treatments whatsoever beyond the minimum to keep you comfortable, your cancer has gone from stage IV to… well. Stage zero, just about." She shares the world's most confused look with him, which he returns tenfold. "Your cancer had made it outside of your lungs, into your liver and bones, as you're familiar. But after these CTs… we can't find anything except these two tumors, one in each lung. They're quite small, and comparing the scans, they seem to be shrinking by the minute."
Wasuke idly rubs at his chest, that constant, dull pain of existing entirely gone. It still lingers, like the need to hiccup after getting rid of them for a few minutes, but it doesn't return in full. It's like a weight has been lifted off his body, physically.
"I'm cured?" He croaks, fist twisting the fabric of his shirt. "The hell?" What else can he say? Things like this don't happen to people like Wasuke. Fuck, things like this don't happen in general. He's been staunchly against any intensive treatments, and it's not like they could've done anything to him in his sleep. His medications weren't anything out of the ordinary fare, either.
The attending nurse wobbles her hand from one side to the other. "Not quite, but this amount of improvement is unprecedented in an untreated patient. We want to keep you here for a couple more days, to see if it regresses any further and to monitor you while this happens." She wrings her hands together and shares some sort of glance with the oncologist. "I hesitate to say it, truly, but it feels like we're looking at a miracle."
Wasuke scoffs on principle, but what the hell can he say to refute her statement? He situates himself against his pillow and draws his blanket up a bit farther, dropping his head back to look at the ceiling. "Well. Shit. Yeah, may as well. But no longer than a couple of days, if nothing's wrong anymore!" He jabs a finger at both of them, lip curling. "And don't you go buggin' my grandson about all this either, he's got school. No visitors 'til I'm standing on my own two feet or back to dyin' on-schedule. You hear me?"
They both nod— his oncologist isn't looking directly at him, still baffled by his results. They leave him alone after his little speech, dimming his lights as they exit.
He breathes in. Breathes out. Flexes his hands again and wonders why his near-constant arthritis isn't acting up too. While his physiology has always been unique— a bit too dense for his frame, monstrous strength hidden beneath old age and lifelong ignorance— it never helped him with any kind of major change or illness. He'd still contracted cancer, still became familiar with the same arthritis his pa developed in old age.
What the hell was going on?
Over the next couple of days, Yuuji doesn't visit. He thinks his "last words" must've knocked some sense into the kid, because his nurses don't tell him about turning the boy away or about any phone calls. Funny how his grandson chose to keep his peace at the same time as Wasuke's miraculous recovery. It makes him snort.
By the end of the week, the hospital staff can't find any trace of his cancer left in his body, not even in his mucus, after the tumors disappear from scans and imaging. He's in complete and total remission, as far as medical malarky goes. They hesitate to say he's cured, of course, but he knows the word dances hopefully on the tip of his oncologist's tongue even if she doesn't actually speak it aloud. He doesn't poke or prod, knowing he's incredibly lucky. Luckier than his wife, Ayame, had ever been. Luckier than his best friends got to be. He tries not to think about Niko and Yutaka and their slow deaths.
They release him on Saturday, once there's no longer a reason to keep him confined to the hospital. He doesn't have anything to pack except for a couple of books and a few pages from a word unscrambler, so he ends up leaving with a single bag and the vase full of yellow flowers from the last time his grandson visited.
As Wasuke stands on the side of the road, breathing in fresh, unhindered air, he admits to himself he's a little worried about Yuuji. He'd heard from the radio about some damage done to his school; some structural collapse overnight in one of the wings, weakness from years of earthquakes and storms, and such was taking its toll. Hopefully, Yuuji's been hanging around that Iguchi and Sasaki while school's been out for repairs. If he's stayed cooped up at home the whole time, Wasuke will have words.
Yuuji's not home. It doesn't seem like he's been home, either. There's more dust on the floor than there should be if someone had been in the house every day. The plants haven't been watered, and the trash in maybe half-full of week-old garbage with nothing new on top. What makes him truly worry is the single plate and pair of utensils next to the sink that have been washed, but are bone-dry on top of the towel. Similarly, the greens in the fridge have long wilted. Nothing's expired yet, but the fresh stuff doesn't look like it'll keep much longer. It's odd because Yuuji is a damn black hole when it comes to food and has to run groceries at least once a week.
When he hikes up the stairs and opens up his grandson's room, he truly freezes. It's not empty, not entirely, but it's been stripped of character. Yuuji's posters and desk supplies are gone. After checking his closet, most of his clothing is absent, too, as are two pairs of shoes.
It's times like these he regrets not getting Yuuji a phone for his fifteenth birthday, instead of planning to buy one for his sixteenth. He can't call the school since they're not open, and he doesn't know the numbers of any of Yuuji's friends or acquaintances.
He hates himself for the comparison, but by sunset, it starts feeling like Jin all over again.
No notes, undisturbed home, nobody to call, a handful of clothes and necessities disappeared. In his soul he knows Jin is dead and gone, but— and he's kicking himself for this— he has no idea if Kaori actually bit the dust at any point in the last ten years. It's foolish as hell, but he entertains the idea that she caused his grandson to disappear just like his father.
Fuck, he can't ask if anyone has seen Kaori around. Everyone thinks she's as dead as his son, they both went missing together. What he'll do tomorrow is ask the staff at the grocers if they've seen Yuuji, maybe stop by the park and ask anyone he recognizes. If there's nothing, he'll file a missing persons report. He has a plan. He still needs a long, long while to calm himself on the couch, trying to scrape himself together.
Please, God, don't take my boy from me again.
Yuuji has been missing for a month. The helpful but meaningless calls and check-ins have turned into pitying looks as people stop searching for his grandson. His grandbaby. The only fucking thing he's got left.
The whole deal makes Wasuke angry. How dare they stop looking? How dare they pass on their condolences? How dare they? It's an old ache fueled by an ancient sort of rage. The same shit happened with his son, now it's happening with his grandson.
Grotesque flies and broken birds start flitting around his house, trying to find ways to sneak inside. Against his better judgment, he digs out the old senjafuda; little paper charms an unpossessed, well-meaning teenage Kaori had made for Jin and Wasuke both. He may have ignored the monsters with all his might in his youth— just like he ignored Kaori's odd energies, both from Before and After she died— but they were becoming nuisances.
He plastered them in discreet places outside, sneering when one would swoop too close. A daring fly-headed monster tried to alight in his hair; Wasuke swatted the shit out of it for that, spitting a curse at it under his breath.
It startled him, then, when it split into two perfect halves and fell to the ground in a puddle of ash. When that dormant energy deep inside of him shot outward like a blade from the dark. His eyes widened as he bristled, the razor-sharp energy scraping through his muscles, chipping at his bones. Something like a cradle of embers settled in his gut, fueled by his worry and rage from the last month. It sputters and claws at his esophagus, eerily familiar.
He shoves the dreams of four limbs and two mouths away, pressing a hand to his stomach. The energy roils for a few moments, then settles down once the fire realizes it will not be fed more than the minimum of its due.
He stays staring at the spot where the little monster halves had crumbled for far too long and curses his own soul to hell. He recalls the single piece of advice Kaori ever gave him before she died, words from the heart of a city-born girl with wide eyes and unmatched earnestness.
He books a train ride from Sendai to Tokyo the next day, ignorance from his youth be damned.
Kaori had neglected to mention the several hundred steps that lay in front of him. Wasuke looks up, and up, and up, then looks down at the directions written on a twenty-year-old slip of paper. This was the place, supposedly. Tokyo Prefectural Jujutsu High School, hidden in the woodland foothills of Mount Mushiro by a barrier, but easily located if you knew or were told where to look.
Wasuke is already a bit tired, but not nearly as fatigued as he would be traversing this distance before his diagnosis— hell, even when he was in his forties, he'd have had more trouble than now. And he'll be damned if he goes another day without answers.
The hike is, ultimately, not as bad as he thought it would be. There are plenty of resting places along the ancient staircase, especially by the occasional torii gates that are constructed along the route. The energy around the place is very, very old, but it's nothing foreboding. It's almost… serene, yet watchful. It reminds him of childhood dreams, the ones without the taste of iron.
He finally makes it when the mountain levels out entirely, a few minkas spread out some distance away, with sets of taller buildings and towers placed much farther back. It's completely quiet, save for the chattering of birds and cicadas when he crosses the last torii gate.
That serene energy seems to wash over him more thoroughly, pressing in on his lungs like his cancer, poking and prodding his mind. Against his better judgment and manners, he gives the caressing hand and mental swat. The air almost tastes of amusement, and the pressure relents, only to be subsequently replaced by an aura that can't be described as anything other than suffocating.
"Oh? And who do we have here! You lost, old man?" God, what an annoying voice. Wasuke pivots and turns to give its owner his age-old stink-eyed, lip curled with distaste at the lack of care or manners, not that he was any better in those departments. He does take a second to balk at the young man in front of him— just a little taller than Wasuke had been in his prime but tall as hell to anyone else, with a shock of snow-white hair the man's got done up like a paintbrush for some godforsaken reason. His eyes are covered by a blindfold— why?— but it still feels like Wasuke's being pinned like a dead bug to a board even as the man sports a wide, amused grin.
"Not lost, kid," He snips, holding up the piece of paper. The burning energy in his gut wants to lunge, baring fangs and claws like knives against the oppressive force surrounding him. "I'm looking for someone who can help me find my grandson." He rolls his shoulders and juts his chin out at the young man, unafraid of the kind of confidence kids his age like to heft around, no matter how warranted it may be.
The man's expression turns curious now, no longer as guarded. His grin remains in place, but it's lost its edge. "I see! Hmmmm… curious! Your grandson wouldn't happen to be Itadori Yuuji, would he?" His voice is still infuriating, but a touch of inquisitiveness softens his consonants and rounds out his vowels. There's a sliver of fondness when he speaks Yuuji's name, like he knows him.
Wasuke fully faces the man and takes a step forward, feeling the first flicker of hope in a month with change. "Yes, yes, that's him. My name is Itadori Wasuke."
"Gojo Satoru," The young man responds in kind, gesturing lightly. "You do kind of look like him, I'm not surprised. But last he knew, you were dying, so how is it you're standing here with not a thing wrong with you?" The man— Gojo— looms over Wasuke even as he stands at enough of a distance to still be considered respectful, though it's borderline. He seems to stare through him, through that piece of cloth covering his eyes. Wasuke is still so close to choking on the man's oppressive presence. "Ahhh, wow. That's actually even more hilarious, haha! Say, have you ever heard of a sorcerer called Sukuna? Your cursed energy is practically identical. If I didn't have eyes like mine, I'd say you are identical."
Wasuke squints and sneers, brow furrowing. What the hell is this guy talking about? Sorcerers, curses, cursed energy, fuck does any of that mean? Weird little shit; reminds him too much of Kaori. "Can't say I have the slightest clue what the hell you're talking about. What's any of this got to do with Yuuji?"
"Oh, you're for real!" Gojo laughs like he hasn't got a care in the world. "How the hell are you twinning with the King of Curses but you've got no idea what jujutsu sorcery is, huh?"
Wasuke's sneer grows sharper, and his fists clench at his side, crumpling the paper in his hand. He sets his jaw and looks down at the ground, eyeing Gojo's eerily clean shoes against the dirt and tile walkway. "You can explain all this to me later or whatever the hell you want, but please. Please let me see my grandson, even for a moment. Everyone thinks he's dead except for me. He hasn't called, and the house was just empty, and things from his room were gone. Just tell me my boy is okay, Gojo-san." Never let it be said that Wasuke is one to beg, but he is at the end of his rope.
He bites his tongue to stop himself from speaking more, so hard that he tastes the familiar metallic tang of iron. He raises his head to look Gojo in the eyes, a one-sided interaction. The man's smile hasn't dropped, but it's not as big as it was moments ago.
Gojo seemingly stares at him for a moment, aura crushingly intense like the eyes of everyone in the world are on the old man in front of him. Then, his smile widens again. "Don't worry, Itadori-san. Yuuji's alive."
With the way he stresses alive, Wasuke isn't inclined to believe that's the same as being okay. He squares his shoulders.
"Take me to him."