Archive of Our Own ^beta

PART I

The Gojo Clan of the Modern Age has been led by Gojo Shohei, the 33th Head of the Gojo Clan, since 1999. He is not only the 33th Head of the Gojo Clan, ascending at a rather young age of forty-five to the distinct position, but father to the first Six Eyes User born in approximately four-hundred years, Gojo Satoru (aged 14 as of 2003), which certainly factored into the decision of Gojo Shohei ascending to Clan Head over other favored, as well as distinct sorcerers within the Clan. Gojo Shohei descends from the conservative faction of the Clan. Thus, his leadership style has been characterized by a distinctly hostile and expansive behavior, especially in regard to the long-standing rival, the Zen’in Clan.

— from “Chapter Seven: The Big Three in the Modern Age.” in Part I: The Big Three Clans of Japan in A History of the Jujutsu World (2003) by Aizawa Riku, edited by Kurogane Haruki.

Satoru is still awake when the call comes at three AM. His phone vibrates on his nightstand and he uncurls from his fetal position to roll on his back, reaching for his phone. They couldn't even wait until the morning before assigning him a new mission now, could they?

“What?” he answers, snappish. “Can you people not—”

“This is Gojo Akio speaking.” Satoru sits up, blanket pooling around his waist. The cool air of the night blowing into his room through the open window dances over his skin. “I am the Gojo Clan's Affairs Manager. Gojo-sama, I am calling to inform you of your father's passing and hereby extend to you the notice of his funeral which will be held on the sixteenth of March. Please—”

Satoru hangs up the phone. For a moment he doesn't move, phone hovering by his ear. The line is dead. His father is dead? His father is dead.

He mulls the words over in his head. His father is dead. His father is dead. His father is dead. No matter how many times he replays the words in his mind it doesn't conjure a reaction from his body like the connection between his mind and body is simply cut. No dull sadness that spreads from his ribcage to the rest of his body, no tears spring from his eyes, no wet sob is pulled from his body. There is something hollow in his chest and it has eaten everything else whole, leaving him unable to cry over this, or even feel particularly sad. Satoru wonders if that is the destiny of jujutsu children—to never mourn their parents’ deaths.

Instead, Satoru registers the information, processes it and stores it away. His father has died. Funeral on Saturday. Find a babysitter for Megumi and Tsumiki. He puts the phone back on his nightstand and sinks back into the covers.

What this means is: he'll become Head of the Clan and his mother has become a widow. He missed the wake or is about to miss it anyway. He’ll have to get someone to watch Megumi and Tsumiki during the weekend (Shoko or Yaga). These are the logical deductions and the only things relevant he keeps thinking about as he falls into a commonly uneasy sleep.

They’re definitely going over the speed limit as Satoru propels the car over the intersection at the last second of orange just five hours later.

“Why are we always running late?” Tsumiki asks innocently, sitting on the passenger's side, while Megumi makes the effort to groan loudly as if Satoru had them sitting through an illegal car chase and caused them three concussions by now. With her hands Tsumiki grabs her shoes that she rests on the seat even though Satoru tells her not to, pushing her legs apart. Her bony knee knocks into Satoru's right arm, which he has pillowed on the arm rest between the two seats. He makes a mental note to feed her more.

“It's Gojo's fault,” comes Megumi's apathetic voice from the backseat. “He always takes too long in the bathroom brushing his hair.”

Megumi has this incredibly charming habit of talking about Satoru as if he weren't in the room with them. If Satoru were to guess, he’d guess that it's a habit his late father surely possessed as well before Satoru had put him six feet under. Tap. Tap. Tap. Satoru drums his fingers against the steering wheel. His fingers begin to itch at the memory of carving a hole into Fushiguro Toji’s torso and the urge to do it again and again. He still doesn't feel bad about that. He doubts he ever will.

“You have very pretty hair,” Tsumiki, always the mediator, offers.

“Thank you, Tsu—”

“You do take very long in the bathroom though,” she then goes on. “Like a girl!”

Satoru snaps his mouth shut whereas musing over her words, Tsumiki turns to stare out of the window. Through the rearview mirror Satoru steals a glance at Megumi, who without knowing, has mirrored his sister’s movement. His eyebrows are drawn together, an ever-present frown on his small face.

“More like a loser,” he mutters against the car interior. And Satoru doesn't comment on that. There's no use in trying to bargain with Megumi, at least not when the subject of bargaining is his character.

He pulls the car into a side street where Saitama Elementary School lies. It's a fancy elementary school which Satoru had thought was a good idea, education being key and all that, until experiencing first hand that the small size of the school made the teachers and parents prone to prying. They all annoyed him to no end. When the teachers made him come in for talks over Tsumiki and Megumi they would not only examine the kids but him too like he was a student of theirs in need of chiding. It drove Satoru up the walls and he always left those conversations with a mood only comparable to those he had after coming out of the meetings with the Higher Ups. In the end they were all asking the same thing, jujutsu sorcerers or not: why on earth were Megumi and Tsumiki with him and what qualified him to do this? The simple answer was nothing, but it’s not like things could’ve gotten particularly better for them.

The car comes to a screeching halt right in front of the gates and Megumi makes a point to groan very loudly again when his body jerks forward, almost hitting his head against the back of the passenger's seat.

“Everyone has everything?” Satoru asks.

Tsumiki unbuckles her seat belt and grabs her school bag from the leg space beneath her. She glances over to him while getting the door open.

“I have an art project due Thursday,” she says, smiling a little sheepishly at him because clearly she has known about this for longer. She climbs out of the car and turns around to him. Mischief shines in her big brown eyes.

“Oh and Megumi got into trouble in P.E. again!” she says, grins brightly and waves him goodbye before running off.

Satoru makes eye contact with Megumi through the mirror, who is still in the car because he had refused to let Satoru tie his shoelaces when they were running late and of course had not gotten it done during the ride. The kid offers no comment before finally getting it done, grabbing his bag and running after his sister. The back door slams shut and Satoru sits alone in the car. Tap. Tap. Tap.

He takes out his phone and texts Shoko.

can i see you? like now?

Shoko

Only if you come here.

Not commuting for two hours.

Have to study.

xx

on my way

Satoru pockets the phone, and turns the car around. It's a forty minute drive to Tokyo–Satoru hates Saitama—and does not want to be alone with his thoughts right now. So, he presses down on the pedal. He can make it in twenty-five. It's surprisingly easy when you have no children in your ear complaining about your driving as if he could ever get into a car crash. Satoru sees quite literally everything.

After exactly twenty-seven minutes Satoru pulls into a parking spot near the café he's supposed to meet Shoko at. It's close to Medical School as she never fails to remind him that she's studying for her final exams and that she needs to take it seriously if she wants to graduate in June. It's not even like she needs to graduate—Jujutsu High is in no place to reject her whether she's a real doctor or not. When he steps into the café Shoko isn’t there yet. Unfortunately, other people are.

Usually, Satoru enjoys the surface-level attention strangers bring to him on a daily basis. Whether they’re attracted to him or not—they all stare and turn their heads towards him even with his glasses. Today, Satoru wants nothing more than all if them to leave him the fuck alone.

“Hi, I've seen you around here before,” a young woman says to him, approaching with a cup of coffee to go in her hand. Well that can't be, he wants to tell her, because Shoko is very adamant about keeping him away from her perfect normal life at Medical School. He's not bitter about that. He wouldn't want to spend more time than is required around a bunch of righteous college students anyway. The woman looks like it—like she studies law or something, attempting to make the world a better place. Even though he doesn't reciprocate in the slightest she hands him a piece of paper.

“Call me,” she shrugs. “If you want to.”

And with that, she brushes past him and out of the café. Boring. She would probably want to debate the inherent injustice in society with him. It makes Satoru think of him. And he doesn't really want to go there. It's the only time the hollow in his chest makes way for something different—a kind of hurt that makes his chest ache.

“Why are you just standing there, idiot?”

He turns around just as Shoko nudges her shoulder against his upper body.

“You could've ordered already,” she goes on. “I'm on a tight schedule.”

“You know how it is with the ladies, Shoko.” He flashes her a grin. “My irresistibility and charming demeanor—”

Shoko makes a sound of protest as she ushers them to a table and taps away on her phone. It's one of those modern cafés where you order online. It's rather advanced and therefore the only one in the area. Shoko likes it because it limits her contact with the waiters.

“So what am I ditching my lunch break for?” Shoko asks. Her fingers fidget with one of the packets of sugar the café provides on the table. She's been trying to quit smoking, it's going so-so. “No offense, you made it sound like a booty call which can't be… because we're in a public place. Or did you? Anyway,” she shakes her head as if to discourage herself—that's what Satoru likes to think at least—and says, “I'm not going there with you.”

Satoru fiddles with the piece of paper, with a phone number scrawled onto it, in his hand. There's some part of him that wants to flash Shoko a bright grin, tell her “Oh, nothing. I just wanted to see you!” and watch her get angry over him wasting her time. Maybe she would see through him—maybe not. She knows him, more than other people certainly ever will, and yet they are divided by one hot summer where their shared past diverts their paths from each other. Satoru taps his fingers against the table. He itches for his blindfold. The glasses are fine but they don't protect his eyes like the blindfold does.

“Satoru—”

“My father is dead.” Satoru looks up to face Shoko, who now seems mildly concerned. She's accustomed to death, to a certain degree—after all she performed her first autopsy at seventeen—or she should be, especially now that she's in Medical School and all that. Even saying the words out loud doesn't actually do anything.

“Jesus fucking—okay, Satoru. Couldn’t you have led with that?”

He probably could have. But he’s not as bothered as he should be. Satoru knows most people get upset when their parents die—unless one killed them themselves, or had accepted abandonment to such a degree it no longer mattered whether one’s father was present or not; could be as well dead. (Fushiguro Toji was in fact dead.)

“They want me to come to the funeral,” he says just as a waiter sets down Shoko's black coffee and a sweet monstrosity, as Shoko refers to it, for Satoru. She has long stopped asking for his orders, and only regularly sends him requests to pay for it because he's the rich friend, as she likes to remind him. He’s about to get even richer, he notes sourly. “And they want me to bring Megumi.”

He doesn't miss the pitying look the waiter shoots his way before taking the tray and taking his leave. Satoru wants to glare at him.

“And are you going?”

“They have been very clear about wanting me there,” he says and extends his phone to her.

He had woken up to an additional Email signed by the Clan Elders. It said nothing more than that his attendance was non-negotiable and he was to bring “the Zen’in boy” or else they would schedule a visit themselves. They didn't offer any condolences. Maybe they knew better than to do something as foolish as that—something entirely unlikely to have any real impact.

“Would this be your first time going back since… or…?”

Since Suguru came with him that one time, is what she means. At first Suguru had tried to be polite, polite like he always was at a surface level before everything went to hell, but his patience had worn thin eventually with his family just like it had with Satoru in their first year of school. Rightfully so. Satoru’s family was horrible. Though, his patience towards Satoru only extended afterwards. Suguru had peeled back a layer of Satoru back then, and Satoru let him. He almost wishes he didn’t now—almost six years after. Satoru had developed a particularly nasty habit of abandoning time in favor of regarding Suguru as his sole anchor point of time. It didn't necessarily help with coping, as Shoko referred to it. Instead, there was during Suguru and most devastatingly after Suguru. In hindsight it had been stupid of him to assume there would never be that time.

“It’s fine,” Satoru says quickly. I wasn’t in love with him… that much, he doesn't add. She would see through that lie and then she would pity him for it—for catching him in a lie and then for knowing the truth. He doesn't want pity because it's not going to actually do anything. Shoko gives him a doubtful look, raising an eyebrow at him.

“Are you free, though?” he asks and takes a spoonful of whipped cream, continuing while it's still in his mouth. “To watch Tsumiki during the weekend?”

Shoko frowns at his obvious display of childishness in order to deflect.

“I can't,” she answers. “I have to study. Sorry, Satoru. You should ask Nanami though. If you ask nicely, he'll do it. And if he's not free, I'll do it.”

Nanami. Actually, he'd rather not. Nanami left two months ago, choosing to become a salary man out of all things. And yet Satoru was jealous, if anything. Nanami made a choice when he left, to leave, a choice that can never be Satoru's. Suguru had put things into perspective and Satoru thought he had accepted this reality of his. He had. Truth to be told, it had never occurred to him to do anything else. Until Nanami. Until Nanami, nonchalant and stoic, had casually mentioned that he was leaving come January first. After Suguru, the thought of leaving had never occurred to him. And now Nanami was gone, working as a salaryman and Satoru hadn't seen or talked to him since. Shoko, it seemed, had. Otherwise, how would she know that he'd be available? It was unlike Shoko to have blind faith.

“Fine.” Satoru doesn't want to talk about Nanami. But he supposes he shall trust Nanami not to walk out on Tsumiki before the weekend is over. He only does that with the people he went to school and subsequent hell with. Then, with a flick of his wrist, he extends the piece of paper to Shoko. “Interested?”

She regards him with an intentionally blank stare. “No.”

The deep purple color of his clothes makes the blood stains of the curses nearly invisible. Satoru supposes it's rather beneficial—he'd like to keep Megumi's and Tsumiki's delusions about the potential dangers of his work going for as long as possible. Even though they probably got the gist of it already. It's not like they're real dangers to Satoru, to anyone else maybe but not to him. After meeting with Shoko he had gone on a mission, exorcized a bunch of curses, crashed through the grocery store and had made it back the time he said he would be. Because he had dinner plans with the two children which unfortunately wound up in his care.

One thing Satoru noticed is that the siblings liked the evenings where they cooked together better than when Satoru took them out to eat. He's not sure why they prefer the mess the kitchen turned into whenever they cooked, as if a bomb went off near the center of it. Gyoza were always an astonishingly bad idea. There was filling and dough and steaming. If it were only Satoru making the gyoza, things would be fine because Satoru would handle it perfectly. He had perfected—among many other things—the art of making gyoza. However, once the siblings got involved things got messy. Satoru had to resist the tempting itch in his fingers to throw them out of the kitchen and get it done by himself in record time. Instead, he let Tsumiki overfill her Gyoza even though it would get filling on the counter and he would turn a blind eye to Megumi feeding dough to his dogs, whose last purpose on earth was the purpose of a pet, who'd pretend to take it from his small and nimble fingers before dropping it to the floor because their diet consisted of curses and not human food. But Megumi showed his care and affection that way—he dropped the dough for the dogs, just like he would leave peeled mandarins to find for Tsumiki, who didn't like peeling them because the skin would get under her nails and that bothered her—and the dogs knew that so they indulged him. Satoru didn't know why they preferred this mess to going out for dinner. Satoru liked going out for dinner.

“So, there's a thing,” Satoru starts once they’re all seated at the table by the big window through which the evening sun paints long streaks across the hardwood floor. There's a total of five plates of gyozas stacked up on each other sitting between them. He’s not even sure who is supposed to eat them all. “I have to go home during the upcoming weekend. It’s kind of short notice.”

“Like to Tokyo?” Tsumiki asks, angling for the plate that holds the gyoza with the cilantro. Satoru doesn't like cilantro—it tastes like soap. She’s a weird child because neither does Megumi, instead he likes to go for the plate with the ginger infused gyoza. He doesn't know what's wrong with these children and their eating habits. While apparently Tsumiki likes the taste of soap, Megumi enjoys setting his mouth aflame. Satoru dips a misshaped gyoza, from the looks of it: Tsumiki's hard work, into the soy sauce in front of him before popping it into his mouth.

“No,” he says. “More far away. I have to visit my family, and they would like you, Megumi, to come too.”

The kid stops his movement midair, gyoza hovering somewhere between his plate and his open mouth, as he stares at Satoru, as if trying to decipher whether Satoru is fucking with him or not. Knowing Megumi, he'd probably ask him exactly like this and then in two weeks time Satoru will get a call from his school, informing him that Megumi was using quote unquote bad words and Satoru would have to reign him in immediately.

“Is Tsumiki coming?” he asks, and sets the gyoza down. “Because if she's not coming, I'm not coming.”

Megumi abandons the chopsticks in favor of crossing his arms over his chest. Brat.

“Tsumiki wasn’t invited.” Satoru has learned how to talk to the siblings over the years. Separating them was a touchy subject, not to be broached lightly. Even at ten years and eleven years old they still didn't like to be apart any more than they did when Satoru had picked them up from their rundown dumpsite of a home four years ago.

“But don't you worry!” He grins brightly and claps his hands together. “I will get you the bestest most magnificent babysitter in the whole wide world!”

Tsumiki, too perceptive for her own good, has almost been uncharacteristically silent. She’s a chatterbox, getting her to be quiet was as tedious as getting Megumi to answer with what contained more than one syllable.

“Why do you have to go home though, Gojo?” Without sparing a glance, she taps one of her chopsticks on Megumi's plate and he picks up his again. “You haven’t told us anything about your family ever.”

“My father is dead,” he says bluntly. There's no need to be soft about this. He doesn't know what happened to Megumi's mother but he supposes: dead. Tsumiki's biological father: likely to be dead as well. Her biological mother: what difference would it make if she weren't? Their father? Their father, whom Satoru had ripped apart with his own blood-stained hands and a truth lingering at the tip of his tongue (he enjoyed it, he would do it again), carving a mass of void into one side of his body? Dead. Whether they know of their father's death, the siblings have encountered many other instances of death already. They know of it. “I have to attend the funeral. And they want to meet Megumi because—”

“Is this because of the Zen’ins?” Megumi interrupts, words sharp and puncturing the silence that follows his question. Smart kid. Sometimes a little too smart for his own good. Interrupting the adult talking shouldn’t become a habit, he notes. The school would be nagging him about this forever.

“Yes.” Satoru nods. “Which is why it won't be negotiable that you come there with me.”

“Why?”

“Because I said so.” Satoru hates how authoritarian he sounds. The words bear too much resemblance to the authoritarian tendencies of the higher-ups he so abhors. And yet, it's the best thing he can come up with.

Apart from that he wonders if they’re happy like that. Satoru has the urge to spoil them by throwing money and whatever materialistic stuff at them, which was the standard Gojo Clan approach to raising children. To a certain degree it worked with him until Satoru had realized that stuffed animals and books couldn’t substitute for embraces of love and warm words of affection. Satoru was a ticking time bomb, not to be coddled, just to be used. Twenty-three years later and he was still waiting to blow.

“You’re stupid,” Megumi hisses and sometimes it astounds Satoru on how much venom a small child like him can fit into his voice.

Megumi glares at him and he wants to laugh. If Satoru had ever dared to say something like that to his father the man probably would’ve backhanded him across the face—as long as he still had the option to do so. But Satoru is not, and never will be, his father so he doesn’t backhand Megumi across the face. Violence was his father’s favorite language, Satoru likes to pretend he’s never learned it.

Instead, he drags a hand across his face and says, “That’s fine. I think you’re stupid too.”

Ultimately, Satoru takes the high road and after contemplating whether Tsumiki couldn’t just stay on her own for the weekend (after all Tsumiki and Megumi managed for months) and deciding against it, he called Nanami, who actually, as Shoko accurately predicted, had picked up the phone. Which brings them to: Tsumiki and Megumi hovering at the end of the hallway just as a pointed knock hits the door at 7:00 am sharp on Saturday morning, sixteenth of March, the day of his father’s funeral. When Satoru pulls open the door, twenty-two year old Nanami Kento with a desk job in normie world comes to his face. At least he isn't wearing a suit. A half-zip forest-green knit pullover clings to his broad chest and it’s kind of ironic for him to have gotten broader after leaving the business of jujutsu sorcerers. He looks good or whatever. Satoru will not say this to his face because he simply doesn’t deserve that.

“Good morning, Gojo-san,” Nanami says, politely, stoically like he always is. The worst thing about Nanami bordering on being an alcoholic is that one can’t even get him drunk to instill in him some sense of humor. Nanami just gets tired when he gets drunk, which is not particularly different from any other time. Satoru rolls his eyes and grabs Nanami by the wrist to pull him in, pushing him forward in one fluid motion so he can sling one arm across Nanami's shoulder.

“This is ex-sorcerer Salaryman Nanami Kento,” Satoru chirps, just as Nanami releases a deep sigh, directed at Tsumiki and Megumi, whose only indication of being there is their heads stuck around the corner. “Say hello, Kento-kun.”

“Don't call me that.”

He then turns to Tsumiki and Megumi and bows. “Hello. It's nice to make your acquaintance. I'm Nanami Kento.”

“I didn’t know Gojo had normal friends,” Megumi says, unpromptedly—after absolutely no one asked for this—as he steps around the corner with Tsumiki in tow. Nanami’s face doesn’t move a muscle. Oh, this is going to be a horribly boring weekend for Tsumiki, Satoru fears. She’s too fun for someone stuck up as Nanami. She might have to do things like math homework. He shoos Megumi away.

“Go get your back,” he calls, “or we’ll stay a day longer.”

Not that Satoru would ever do that to himself but how is Megumi supposed to know that? The fun thing about “being a guardian” was that he could just say those things. How would the child know any better? For once in his life, Megumi listens to him, dragging Tsumiki along with him, to get his stuff. With that Satoru turns to Nanami. The first thing he remembers is that he didn’t clean the apartment beforehand. Heavens, Nanami is going to give him shit for this.

“Just let her do whatever she wants,” Satoru says.

“I certainly will not. And I hope that's not the approach you take, Gojo-san.” Nanami crosses her arms over his chest and levels him with an unimpressed gaze. Satoru just grins sheepishly at him. “Of course you do.”

Nanami doesn’t seem particularly surprised nor disappointed as if he had pre-grieved what he assumed would be Satoru’s sub-optimal responsibility- and ‘taking care of little children’-skills. It’s not like Satoru deludes himself either. Honestly, it's not even like he attempts. Because the siblings’ family lines are cursed either way—Tsumiki’s runaway mother, Megumi’s monster incarnate father and the rest of his bloodthirsty family—how much more can Satoru really and realistically fuck up that’s not already fucked up before he even put one foot into the children’s lives?

“I’m sorry for your loss, Gojo-san,” Nanami adds after a few moments of punctuated silence between them. Satoru blinks. It’s the first time someone said that. Shoko probably knew better than to give him those empty words. But Nanami is prim and proper and most importantly polite, so of course he would say this.

Satoru merely grins and says, “Oh, don’t worry it’s fine! He was an asshole as you surely won’t find too hard to believe.”

If Nanami wants to object, he doesn’t. Just in time for him to entirely avoid the statement, Megumi and Tsumiki round the corner again, Megumi with his backpack on his shoulders. No doubt because Tsumiki intervened or he would carry it on one shoulder only until the strap ripped. Then he’d probably use the other one. They look like someone dressed them up for a misguided halloween interpretation of dread and beautiful flower field—Megumi in the black suit that Satoru got him specifically for this occasion which Megumi only accepted begrudgingly, whereas Tsumiki is in a green dress, accompanied by a yellow long sleeve she wears underneath.

Satoru claps his hands together, making Nanami slightly jump from the sudden noise. Hah! Still attuned to his sorcerer senses at least.

“Alright,” Satoru chirps, “Megumi, hug your sister goodbye for me! Tsumiki, be nice. Don’t antagonize our dear Kento-kun too much.” He puts a hand over his heart in fake mockery. “He’s an old man at heart.”

Nanami rolls his eyes so hard Satoru fears they might jump out of his skull any second now. Naturally, Megumi only begrudgingly allows Tsumiki to hug him, frowning hard as if this is the worst thing that ever happened to him when just a few days he was complaining about having to go without her. Satoru gives Tsumiki a questioning thumbs up to which she responds with her own thumbs up. Ready for anything, she calls it.

“Call me,” he tells her. “If Mr. Boring over here doesn’t do enough fun stuff with you and then,” he slaps Nanami on the back, which—as Satoru notes with a certain level of satisfaction—makes Nanami cough, “I’ll have a word with him.”

Tsumiki only smiles her perfect little darling smile and tilts her head to the side.

“I’m sure it’ll be fun, Gojo,” she says. She turns to Nanami and bows. “Thank you for watching me, Nanami-san.”

All the while she pushes Megumi forward until he starts moving on his own to go stand next to Satoru. He has to tilt his way all the way up to be able to look Satoru in the eyes. He doesn’t look particularly happy about this but he can hardly blame Megumi for that.

“Call Shoko if it gets too horrible with him,” Satoru calls over his shoulder as he guides Megumi out of the door.

“I’m sure it won’t,” Tsumiki calls back right before the door falls shut. They get the elevator to the basement floor that holds the garage of their building. It houses the car Satoru uses the most. It was technically supposed to match that whole eligible bachelor vibe he had going for him until he acquired two scrawny children and now he just looked irresponsible driving them around in that car.

Megumi heaves his backpack on the backseat once he’s seated on the passenger seat. It shouldn’t take much longer before inevitably the two dogs would show up somewhere in this car. Oddly enough, it just occurred to Satoru now that they are about to spend three hours on their own with just each other—no Tsumiki or Shoko buffer between them. Not even his horrid family. Satoru taps the steering wheel as he maneuvers them out of the parking spot and the building. Thankfully, Megumi is a silent child, who unlike many his age, doesn’t find entertainment in meaningless conversations and speaking for the mere sake of filling silence. From the corner of his right eye Satoru glances at Megumi, who stares out of the window, with his chin pillowed on his little hand. He still makes him nervous sometimes. Too much resemblance. When Megumi scowls, it etches itself between Satoru's ribs, a knife dragging itself slowly and achingly from his collarbone to his hip, burning when he thinks of Megumi's father. He dreads the day Megumi will kill a curse and a grin will spread out over his face and it will look exactly like Toji's and Satoru will still be doing penance for daring to have the selfish, desperate need to live and kill whatever harmed him. But for now they’ll be fine. They'll only be in this car for three hours. It’ll be fine. Knowing Megumi, he probably won’t say a single word in those three hours.

“They probably won’t like you,” Satoru says once they’re out of the garage and in the open streets of Saitama. The only good thing about this place is the fact that they don’t have to drive through the entirety of Tokyo.

“I don't care if they don't like me,” Megumi says. “You didn't like me either. I will be fine.”

They fall silent again. Satoru doesn't dispute him. He knows better than to lie to them both. Megumi fiddles with his hands, fighting the itch to summon his dogs, Satoru assumes. Probably, Zen’in Naobito would be going mad with rage if he knew Megumi treated those dogs like pets—like little puppies to be coddled. To be fair, Satoru also tried to stop him from doing that. The first time he was going to lose a Shikigami, because in their business it was inevitable that at one point he would lose some of them, it would hit him unnecessarily harder than it had to.

“Why do they want to meet me though if they don't like me?” Megumi asks after a while. Long after they have left Saitama and Tokyo's far-reaching outskirts behind. Now, only green and golden fields pass by their windows.

“It's politics,” Satoru says. “Don't listen to anything they say. It's all crap anyway.”

It’s funny. Because his father used to tell him that perceptions and politics were everything in their world. Their clan survived the last four hundred years they were without a Six Eyes User by playing politics and by managing perceptions and if Satoru were any smart, he used to say, he would learn how to play this game. Satoru found out rather quickly that there was no sense in treading lightly on the shaky grounds of politics because he could just say things and no matter whether people disliked what he said, they couldn’t do anything about it anyway. Megumi raises a critical eyebrow but continues staring straight ahead. If he's content with Satoru's answer he doesn't let it show. At some point Satoru turns up the music when it becomes clear that they're not going to talk. Megumi doesn't complain.

At some point, after almost two hours of driving, they stop at an intersection. Their first red light. They left cities long behind them. Satoru's family resides somewhere in the mountains far far away from the rest of the world. They stop at the red light.

“Want me to run it?” Satoru asks, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel. Megumi's head snaps around.

“No,” he says. "Why are you—don't do that.”

There are no cars approaching. Satoru knows. So, he presses down on the gas pedal and propels them across the intersection.

“You're an asshole,” Megumi snaps, and Satoru doesn't dispute him. The rest of the car ride is silent.

PART II

The Gojo Clan has a particularly long history of worship—way more extensive than any of the other clans. For hundreds of years the Gojo Clan has hailed the Six Eyes Users as the divine brought to earth. They believe to have captured godhood in their hands, something the other clans will never be able to replicate. In contrast, not even the clan’s only viable rival—the Zen’in Clan—dares speak of godhood in relation to the 10 Shadows User, referring to them exclusively as herald. However, the Gojo Clan worships their Six Eyes Users; their perfect tool and gift from the heavens for hegemony.

— from “Chapter Six: On Godhood and Worship in the Gojo Clan.” in Part II: The Gojo Clan in A History of the Jujutsu World (2003) by Aizawa Riku, edited by Kurogane Haruki.

Satoru had almost forgotten what his childhood home looked like since the last time he visited. The estate is perched atop a lonely mountain in the woods, far far away from any lost wanderers that might intrude. It lays in front of them like a sleeping beast, beyond the gates. The estate closer to Tokyo, the one that’s meant to be kept safe and intact by him, is nothing more than a drop of water on a hot stone compared to the monstrosity of the estate that thrones in front of them.

He parks the car at the foot of the mountain. They're already high up in the mountains, the forest has gotten a little lighter already with less air up here to suck in.

Megumi hops out of the car only after Satoru has long gotten out and rounds the car to stand next to the passenger’s seat door. He cranes his neck to stare up at the mountain. A small, steep and windy pathway of stone leads up to the estate.

“This is where you grew up?” Megumi asks with a tone that implies this is all the necessary information he needed in order to deduce why Satoru is the way he is. In Megumi’s eyes, nothing more than a rich snob. And annoying too.

“It’s not as big as it looks,” Satoru lies. Megumi only scoffs. Well, for someone who spent years living in a run-down shoebox it most definitely is.

“Is everyone as weirdly looking as you?” he asks then. “If you mean the hair,” Satoru says, putting a hand on Megumi’s head simultaneously to steer him into the right direction. “Then no. It comes with the eyes. And technically inbreeding.”

“What’s inbreeding?”

“Nothing to concern your little head with,” Satoru chirps. Megumi frowns once more. There truly is a perpetual rain cloud over his head whenever he’s in close proximity to Satoru. He’d be offended if he’d truly cared because in fact, he was a delight to be around. And maybe, he didn't find it so horrible that Satoru wasn't the only one suffering in their relationship. If for vastly different reasons.

A servant approaches them. They always annoyed Satoru—already had done so back in the day when they tried to involve him in their political games as members of that faction within the clan that held the least amount of cursed energy, as well as talent to utilize it. He bows once he reaches them, way more deeply than is strictly speaking necessary.

“Gojo-sama,” the servant says, “we are so pleased to welcome you today. Your mother is already waiting for you.”

Satoru sighs, which promptly makes Megumi look up to him. Not having Megumi with him would’ve made this whole ordeal somewhat more bearable because at least no one from the outside world would’ve been around to observe this. Great, Satoru thinks. His mother is waiting. He hasn't spoken to his mother in literal years—they didn't even speak after the whole Toji thing went down, not even after Suguru defected. For the most part his mother liked to pretend Satoru didn't exist.

Satoru and Megumi walk behind the servant through the estate's garden. At the end, buried into one side of the next mountain sits the clan's main estate building. The front garden is lined with smaller trees, streams and a stoned pathway that connects all the houses of the estate. He remembers all of this being buried in meters of snow in the winter. The streams would freeze over and they could go ice-skating around the entirety of the estate. That is, before the Six Eyes manifested in him.

The main building is not the one where Satoru grew up in but it houses most of the members who live on the estate and features the guest rooms, dining halls and prayer rooms. At least the garden grounds are deserted, everyone undoubtedly already awaiting the funeral in the temple. They're led into the main building that’s curiously just like Satoru remembers it to be—very light, almost white, wood, unnaturally sterile while being packed with their triumphs all the same—where their delegation of doom awaits. The main hall is decked with impossible high ceilings and makes his mother look smaller than she is. He catches her attention immediately. Two of the elders loom by her side—their entire focus pooled around Megumi, who has taken a step to stand behind one of Satoru’s legs. Oh, that’s new. They come towards Satoru and Megumi, while the servant has silently excused himself and slipped away into the shadows of safety.

“Satoru,” his mother says with her lithe voice. He doesn’t look anything like her. His mother’s hair is pitch-black silk across her back and her eyes are so dark no light is able to escape them. The only thing they share is fair skin that almost makes them look translucent when sick. Hers is exacerbated by the black dress that adorns her body. And of course, Satoru hasn’t been sick in years.

It's the only thing she gets out before Gojo Hajime steps forward. Satoru never liked the man. He was, essentially, his father’s mentor and undoubtedly the one who molded Satoru’s father into the harsh and unforgiving man he eventually became, who taught him his favorite language. He turns to Megumi, eyes expectant and carefully watching him, and Gojo Asuka, up until a few days ago undoubtedly the third most important person within the Clan's hierarchy, follows along.

“I am Gojo Hajime, son of Gojo Daigo,” he introduces himself. For a split second Megumi’s eyebrow quirks up before he composes himself. They’re weird, Satoru agrees with him on that.

“And I am Gojo Asuka, son of Gojo Takumo.” He nods at Megumi with a stern expression on his face.

“Fushiguro Megumi,” he says, glances at Satoru, and clears his throat a little. “Son of no one.”

Hajime scoffs, and Asuka draws his eyebrows together in annoyance. They never liked anyone who didn't comply with their norms and expectations. Megumi is quite possibly their worst nightmare in more ways than just one.

“You know I’m his official guardian,” Satoru says, teeth clenched to keep barely controlled annoyance at bay. Barely controlled annoyance that within the next few hours will turn into barely controlled rage bubbling under the surface of his skin, pricking and proding. It will take days upon his return to Tokyo to get his skin to feel normal again. They know very well of the fate that befell Zen’in Toji.

“An ill-advised decision for sure,” Hajime replies casually. “But we shall see. After all, your last guest turned into a stain on our society so let us see how this one will fare.”

Satoru's jaw twitches before blinding rage hits him right into his solar plexus, setting his body aflame. From behind his back Megumi makes a small noise of confusion. What would they even do if Satoru killed a man right here and now? Chances are, they would do absolutely nothing because they can’t afford to do anything because they need him, if they don’t want the Zen’ins knocking on their front door come tomorrow asking about their treasured doom-bringing foreboding for greatness.

Instead, Satoru does not kill a man, he composes himself enough to banish the anger into some far back corner of his mind, and then smiles, in a way he hopes is vaguely threatening.

“Don’t you worry,” he chirps. “Megumi here is a very well behaved child. How couldn’t he be? He’s under my magnificent care after all!”

He doesn’t even believe himself as he tastes the words in his mouth, and Megumi’s blank stare must give the clan enough of an impression to come to the conclusion that Satoru is outright lying to them. His mother just sighs at him, as though disappointed with his sheer everything. Normally, Megumi would chime in as well but for once in his life the boy seems intimidated and unsettled enough to keep his mouth shut. Thankfully so.

“Enough of this insolent behavior,” Hajime sneers. “The funeral is about to start. I am sure you wish to attend this one at least.”

It’s not exactly Satoru’s fault that he missed his father’s wake, but maybe they expected him to get up and teleport here in the middle of the night, leaving the two creatures in his care to wonder where he was the next morning. Not that Satoru doesn’t leave them alone but he makes at least an effort to inform them about his absence, seeing as Tsumiki got real antsy over this sort of thing—ready to slip right back into crisis management.

Hajime holds out his arm for Satoru’s mother, who takes it as they begin to walk ahead. It’s customary for one’s mentor to lead the funeral in their clan. The chief mourner of his father. Satoru sure as hell isn’t. He is more than happy to take a backseat in all of this. He is sure that no one will be stupid enough to demand he spare some last honorary words for his dead father. His mother should know better than to let something like this happen.

Asuka follows suit behind Hajime and his mother, whereas Satoru puts his hand on top of Megumi's spiky hair peers down.

“Best not speak, unless spoken to,” Satoru says to him.

“I wasn’t planning on,” Megumi huffs. “What’s wrong with them?”

Satoru laughs.

“Oh,” he breathes the word out, and gives Megumi a slap on the back, which makes Megumi cough. “Everything, really.”

He stuffs his hands into the pocket of his suit, and stares up into the sky.

“They make me want to flatten this whole thing sometimes,” he says to no one in particular. He only told him once. A long time ago, after that one time they had visited his family together and Satoru couldn’t hold in his contempt any longer. Back then, he didn’t judge Satoru for this. Megumi on the other hand, does. His critical eyes work themselves into Satoru’s skin like they always do.

Before he can get any words out, Satoru pushes him forward so that Hajime won’t feel the need to start yapping about insolent behavior again. Those are his favorite words, and he likes to use them often when Satoru is concerned.

His father’s funeral is held in the family temple, and regrettably, Megumi and him are the last to walk in. Everyone turns to stare at them, as Satoru leads Megumi to the front where they are expected to take place. Well him at least. He’s sure the majority of the clan would prefer for Megumi to have stayed outside, as they regard him with their typical scrutinizing stares. They will probably cleanse the temple after they leave again, fearing that Megumi brought unwanted Zen’in presence onto their sacred grounds. Not like it isn’t there already.

Funerals are very strange to Satoru. After all, he’s hardly accustomed to them—oftentimes the bodies of his fellow jujutsu sorcerers will be mangled beyond repair, nothing to burn left. But he keeps it together, he moves when he’s expected to move. He steps forward when it’s time for him to send his father away from the lands of the living. Tears are hardly shed. It’s not the clan's style, and first and foremost they know better than to create a place of mourning. Everyone is perfectly controlled in their emotions. His father’s passing over into the nothingness of death is more like a mild inconvenience because now the clan has to become bureaucratically active. They always knew that the leader title was going to pass over onto Satoru at some point so it’s all very civilized—no bloody fights for the honor of bearing the title like the Kamo clan likes to deliver.

He catches Megumi staring nearly throughout the whole thing. He keeps watching as if he expects Satoru to break apart at any given moment. He doesn’t. His father’s passing is hardly a cause for mourning. And so the ceremony continues, and Satoru keeps on half-heartedly listening and feeling the searing gaze of Megumi on his skin, who seems keen on burning a hole through his upper body through sheer willpower alone.

After the ceremony is over and his father’s body is attended to by the clan’s flameholders in order to prepare him for cremation, they step outside of the temple again. Outside, it’s a sunny day, the sky is entirely blue with no single cloud in sight and the birds have begun to chirp again after enduring, and surviving winter. Without having to be told Megumi attempts to stick close to him, and in his rare moment of insecurity Satoru feels compelled to call Nanami to check in on Tsumiki. He pats Megumi’s head once, as some of Satoru’s younger cousins come up to Megumi, eyeing him with a curiosity that speaks of a lack of complete indoctrination into the Zen’in hating ways of the Gojo clan. Satoru takes it as his cue to step away from them for a moment, more than sure that if it were to come to any physical altercation, Megumi could stand his ground against Satoru’s cousins whose cursed techniques, as far as he’s aware of them, pale in comparison to Megumi’s. Once again, he feels Megumi’s lingering gaze on him as he steps away from the turret in front of the temple and on one of the many paths that opens up into the grand garden of the estate.

Satoru fishes for his phone in his pocket, dimly aware that Hajime would throw a fit if he knew that Satoru brought a phone into the temple. He dials Nanami’s number and then waits for him to answer.

“Hello,” he says, once Nanami picks up the phone. A little belated might he add. “How is Tsumiki doing?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be watching the boy?” comes the dry response of Nanami, who already sounds like he regrets picking up the phone even though Satoru hasn’t even done anything yet to warrant such a response.

In the background on Nanami’s side, Satoru can observe some shuffling and the faint sound of small feet across the floor. Poor Tsumiki—stuck with a guy who could as well be sixty.

“He’s fine,” Satoru dismisses. After all, Megumi is with him. What is supposed to happen to him here? His relatives might be terminally stupid, but not suicidal. His younger cousins might needle him a little bit, but who’s to say Megumi doesn’t need a little bit of needling? He can be terribly unmotivated. “Now. How is she?”

Tsumiki, on the other hand, might die from sheer and utter boredom. Her footsteps have vanished in the background of the call. Now there is only Nanami, who sighs at the end of the line.

“She’s a very nice girl. A little bit spoiled, she demands a lot of attention. Do you spoil them, Gojo-san?”

“And what if I do?” Satoru retorts. “I basically picked them out of the trash.”

If one were to ask Megumi, he would in all likelihood point toward the fact that living with Satoru was enough for there to be no spoiling possible. Like he was suffering instead. He watches for Megumi in the crowd—then hums when Nanami doesn’t retort anything.

“What are you doing?”

“We’re doing a puzzle. Ages thirteen to fifteen.”

Satoru, stuck here with his awful family and the child with the perpetual rain cloud over his head, while Nanami gets to do puzzles with Tsumiki. It’s rather unfair, to say the least. And it’s not even like he particularly likes to do puzzles with Tsumiki. Most of them are too easy—boring.

“She’s a smart girl.”

This time Nanami hums in agreement.

“Thanks for watching her,” Satoru adds and he must sound genuine enough for Nanami to huff out a quiet: “It’s no problem, Gojo-san. She’s pleasant enough to be around.”

At least one of the siblings had to be. Content enough with the information he gathered, and knowing that Nanami was not likely to entertain him for an eternity on the phone, Satoru hangs up. Just as he is about to turn back and save Megumi from his cousins, his mother gets the job done for him, placing a slender hand on Megumi’s shoulder and steering him in Satoru’s general direction, when Hajime and the manager of their clan’s financial affairs, Gojo Masao ambush him, indicating for him to accompany them. His mother and Megumi walk ahead of them, a path linear to the one Satoru finds himself on but distant enough for them to not overhear whatever Hajime and Masao are keen on discussing with him.

The southern part of the grand garden is all private paths between bamboo that has been growing for decades and black pine trees lining the paths’ edges. Shadows are everywhere and sunlight never fully reaches the stony paths anymore. In the summers it was the only place where one could escape the heat.

“So,” Satoru chirps, jamming his hands into the pockets of his suit pants, “haven’t you gotten on my nerves enough already?”

A deep scowl etches itself into the lines on Hajime’s face. His clear blue eyes are deep set and unsettling—always have been. The thing that has always bothered Hajime the most about him is that Satoru can get away with almost anything and he knows that. The Gojo clan would be trapped in a maelstrom of diminishing power dragging them down further and further for every year that they are without a Six Eyes User. And they’re aware of that too. After all, there is a reason why his genpuku ceremony was held very publicly with all the more important clans invited to come and see, and marvel at the new Six Eyes User.

So, Hajime really can’t say or do anything substantial to Satoru, or he’s going to regret it sooner or later.

“We need to talk about your finances, Satoru,” Masao chimes in, his voice less stern than Hajime’s but no more warm.

“My finances?” Satoru repeats, feigning innocence. Oh, this is going to be good. He knows exactly where this is going. In lieu of an answer, Satoru glances towards the other path through the densely grown bamboo where his mother walks with Megumi. To his surprise, they’re actually talking to each other, in quiet and gentle tones. It’s rather unlike both of them, but Satoru supposes that Megumi’s gripe is only with him, not with his mother—his perfect darling mother beloved, and hailed, by the clan for bearing the first Six Eyes User in four hundred years.

Masao and Hajime exchange a meaningful glance between them. Satoru walks beside them and wishes he could be anywhere but here. A beach, maybe, very far away. A beach he can never return to again. Then, Hajime turns to him.

“How much are you paying for the child?” he asks bluntly.

With a sigh Satoru cranes his neck to once more stare at Megumi who somehow has seemingly managed to charm his mother, because she’s laughing at something he said. Unbelievable—to think that this boy could manage to charm someone. His mother, out of all people, who never particularly warmed up to any children at all. That’s what Satoru likes to think at least. If not, the only reality he is left with is that his mother doesn’t particularly mind children, but never warmed up to him.

“One million yen,” Satoru says and clenches his jaw, before he adds, “A month.”

He knows that Hajime and Masao are about to blow over this. After all, Satoru is channeling money directly to the very same people that Hajime, Masao and almost everyone else in the clan considers their mortal enemy and would prefer to see wiped clean from the face of the earth. Rather, they are to be forever locked in mortal combat for the utmost authority to make any and all great decisions that need to be made.

“With the clan's money?” Masao exclaims. “We knew you were misappropriating the money—but the Zen'ins? Heavens, are you completely out of your mind?”

“With my money,” Satoru argues. He tries not to raise his voice, for Megumi to remain blissfully unaware of the conversation they're having right now. He's not sure what kind of reckoning would follow if Megumi were to find out that Satoru was paying for him. Every month.

It's been almost five years since Satoru picked up the siblings from their trashy apartment—only five months to go. Fifty-five months. Fifty-five million yen since then.

“Would you rather have him sold off to the Zen'ins?” Satoru hisses, when Hajime and Masao remain silent, unable to refute that it is his own money he's using to pay for Megumi. “Would you rather have the Zen'ins mold him into their next herald as foretold? Their perfect killing machine?”

The Zen'in's perfect killing machine just like Satoru's is theirs.

“You should not be paying for him,” Masao says. “You should exterminate him.”

He delivers the words with a serene calmness, like they have discussed this many times before. How to approach the Zen'in problem, as his father had called it in the past. Peace is fragile as is, but in the clan elders’ minds destroying it by freeing them from the ten shadows is entirely worth it. They must have monitored the Zen’in clan for years, first to see if that god-awful annoying asshole Zen’in Naoya was the one to inherit the technique and then again, when it had become clear that fate had different ideas of divine irony.

“He will become his father's son,” Hajime adds, like that will convince Satoru to kill a ten year old. No matter how much the ten year old might look like his monster incarnate father, who wields death in one hand, and chaos in the other. It's a dirty and cruel trick to play nevertheless and Satoru's finger twitch when the memories of Toji killing him, Toji wielding his spear, Toji grinning with blood running down his face, Toji laughing as he slices him in half, Toji—Satoru blinks, hears Megumi say something.

“How can you be so sure of that?” Satoru asks, defiantly, unwilling to admit to the nightmares of it becoming true that haunt him too.

“Every son becomes their father,” Hajime says and he sounds so sure of it, entirely dismissive of any other possibility. Satoru would rather die than become his father. “He's cursed by his blood bonds. And they will curse you too if you don't take care of it now.”

“He’s a child,” he hisses. “Even though I tell him not to, he treats his shikigami like pets. He's going to be miserable once he loses the first.”

Satoru rakes a hand through his hair.

“He doesn't even want to be a sorcerer,” he sighs, and whereas he doesn't like to reveal this much information about the siblings, he adds, “He's only doing it for his sister. He carries almost as much disdain for the Zen'ins as you do. He’s not going to be a problem.”

At once, Hajime stops dead in his tracks, and even though Satoru hates to admit it, takes him by surprise when he cages Satoru's chin in between two fingers and yanks him into place so that they can see each other eye to eye.

“He's not going to remain a child forever, is he now?” He snaps. “Right now Satoru, you have the chance to extinguish the one thing that could ever get to you. It's in the palm of your hands. Take it. Crush it. No one will be able to ever harm you again.”

Hajime, the one who presumes he would be a better clan head than Satoru, clears his throat, straightens, composes himself, entirely unaware that there is someone out there holding all the power in the world over Satoru—the ability to hurt him every waking minute. The clan likes to pretend he's dead.

“And besides, the Zen'in Clan's herald can never be just a child. He's the prophet of our doom. Take care of it, Satoru. Or we might.”

Empty threats. Satoru has dragged a corpse to someone’s residence before, he can do it again to get his point across. If Satoru wants Megumi to live, he’s going to live. The clan holds no sway over him, and everyone who is a part of this conversation is one way or another aware of this.

He wonders, inadvertently, if his mother agrees with their assessment. After all, she knows of children with unprecedented power, and what that means. Satoru wonders, as he watches his mother and Megumi, whether he's something unnatural to her too. Is she scared of him, or does she despise him? He never asked her whether she wanted to be known as his mother first and foremost, personhood to come only after. Sometimes he thinks maybe they could have bonded over that, but instead it cut their relationship clean in half. Only his father remained in its wake.

Later that night, after Satoru has tried falling asleep many times and failed all of them, he's alerted by a familiar cursed energy roaming around where it shouldn't be roaming around. Sighing, he gets out of bed, gets dressed and goes to find the disruptive element.

He finds Megumi outside, sitting on one of the window sills that hold the windows which are almost large enough to touch the ground. Beside him sit the dogs, keeping him company as Megumi would define it. Satoru thinks, rather they're protecting him. Undoubtedly some of the other clan members must have noticed his cursed energy too—unless sleep comes easier and deeper to them.

“Yo, why are you out here?” Satoru asks. Once he's close enough, he flicks Megumi's forehead who glares daggers at him in return. “Told you to stay in your room, didn't I?”

“I couldn't sleep,” Megumi scowls.

Which is of course nothing new. When it comes to sleep, Megumi is sort of like a pendulum that doesn't continuously swing but violently bounces from one side to the other. Either he cannot sleep at all, or sleep overcomes him so deeply and intensely one could think he's dead. More often it's the former.

“Awe,” Satoru coos, watching the fire in Megumi's eyes intensify. “Couldn't sleep without your sister?”

He's not sure why he does that. Maybe because he’s not wearing his glasses or his blindfold and his head hurts, his eyes hurt, and pressure is building behind his forehead like it’s going to explode out of him at any second.

“You suck.”

The dogs growl at Satoru as if they agree. In the dark of the night Satoru observes the way Megumi shows teeth, bared like his dogs. He notes this down in his head. Ever since he acquired the scrawny kid with doom looming over his head, Satoru has filled pages and pages of his notebook, scribbling down anything and everything on Megumi's cursed technique. The clans keep tabs on each other. It's nothing new. However, the Gojo clan's information on the Ten Shadows is rudimentary at best. As it is usually, the details are where it gets really interesting though.

“And no,” Megumi adds, crossing his scrawny arms over his chest, “it's not my fault that your home is really…” He scrunches his eyebrows together, teeth sinking into his lower lip as he ponders, “wrong.”

“Wrong?” Satoru arches an eyebrow. “What's that supposed to mean?”

Megumi stares back. Now that Satoru has engaged with him in a non-mocking way, given him transparency, Megumi almost seems… dejected.

“You don't feel it?” He asks quietly, eyes cast downward.

“You're really creeping me out now.”

Satoru nudges Megumi's head again, who attempts to swat his hand away like a bothersome fly.

“Forget about it,” he hisses with enough venom in his voice to kill a snake, or a room full of Satoru's most annoying relatives. He wishes.

“Tell me.”

In lieu of an answer, Megumi asks, “Do dead curses have a presence?”

Meeting Megumi's eyes gaze doesn't come any easier now than it did five years ago. It’s sharp and unyielding like his father's before him. Their eyes are carbon copies of each other. It unnerves Satoru deeply.

“Curses can only be exorcised, they don't die,” he says. “Once a curse is exorcised the residuals will fade over time. Naturally, the stronger the curse the longer the residuals remain.”

Satoru snaps his fingers.

“Of course that doesn't make any sense because we don't have curses around here. The estate is well protected.”

He can almost see the steam coming out of Megumi's head while he contemplates Satoru's answer. Ultimately he decides this must be important enough to engage with him further, because Megumi hops down from the window sill and starts walking. The dogs follow him like his shadows, one on each heel.

Only when he can't hear Satoru follow, he turns around and stares at him expectantly. Curiosity and suspicion engage in a tug of war in Satoru’s head. Maybe he shouldn't encourage this in Megumi—it's quasi talk of ghosts and he's weird enough as is. On the other hand, this must be related to the Ten Shadows and any information on the Ten Shadows is valuable information. Megumi is not going to get anything on it from the Zen'ins. If he wants any chance at mastering his technique, Gojo will have to provide him with the information he amassed five years ago when he snuck into the clan's archive, and then fill in the rest of the gaps with Megumi himself.

So, naturally Satoru follows where Megumi goes.

They walk towards the edge of the mountain, where a sharp downturn plummets a few hundred meters into the forest. It's like that around the whole estate, except for the one gate that leads onto the estate, where a narrow and winding road was carved into the mountain. This is when Megumi begins to slow down, changing directions to what appears to Satoru on nothing more than a whim. But he must be looking—searching—for something.

Megumi takes a few more steps until he's at the very edge of the mountain before he turns around.

“He was right here,” he says very quietly, “here I feel him the strongest.”

Something dark and worrisome churns in the pit of Satoru’s stomach. Realistically, if Satoru can't sense it, then it must be one of his shikigami. Realistically, if it's one of the shikigami, then there's only one it can be. He hasn't told Megumi about his tenth shikigami yet. They’re still working on the toad so Satoru sees no reason as to why he should be putting this kind of information into Megumi's head. The revelation will cause enough damage down the road as is.

Before Satoru gets a chance at disarming the situation, Megumi goes on, which is weird enough on its own that he does so unpromptedly, “Sometimes I dream about him.”

Satoru’s eye twitches. There's nothing on that in the Gojo clan's archives because there isn’t a singular sentence that Satoru hasn’t memorized down to every letter.

“What do you mean?” he asks, ignoring how his voice shoots up a notch. He wants to shake Megumi a little, considering that he hasn't told him about this before.

Megumi flops down on the ground, cross-legged, letting his fingers wander through the blades of grass.

“He wants out,” Megumi answers, like it's obvious, like he's had a long time to come to terms with this. “They all do. But he wants it most.”

The dogs’ tails wag nervously from one side to the other as if they get what Megumi is talking about. But that would be insane, even for a technique like the Ten Shadows. Then again, they don’t really know anything about the shikigami and how they function in relation to each other. Could they be aware of each other? Is there a collective memory of the shikigami or do they reset with every new Ten Shadows User? The black dog whines a little and puts his head down on his paws as if he wants to vanish from the face of the earth, whereas the white one lays its ears back.

He’s woefully unprepared to deal with this right now. This is the first time anyone in 127 years must have heard of this, and not even Zen’in Naobito is that ancient. The Zen’ins probably have this written down somewhere. Unfortunately there is not a singular person in that forsaken clan that will level with him about this. So, they will have to work it out together. But not now, and not here. Where other clan members could easily overhear them.

“Why don’t you try to sleep again?” Satoru asks.

Megumi huffs, and gets up. With his green eyes he shoots Satoru another critical stare.

“So you don’t know either?”

Satoru hints him with his finest attempt of a disarming charm, to go, “Nothing I haven’t conquered yet. Don’t worry, your magnificent teacher will figure it out!”

In response, Megumi only rolls his eyes, walking past him with the dogs in tow which still seem a little nervous after their owner’s little declaration. So is Satoru if he’s being honest. The main building is quiet, which is good because that means they haven’t woken up anyone who could’ve overheard them. Also, Satoru would’ve sensed them obviously.

Only when they’re back in front of the door to Megumi’s guest room, does he dismiss the dogs back into the shadows. It wouldn’t surprise Satoru if he were to summon them again as soon as the door closes behind his back and he’s alone in his room again where Satoru can’t chide him for it. It’s just a waste of cursed energy. Though, it’s remarkable that he could possibly maintain it overnight and while asleep. He hasn’t asked Megumi about that yet. Furthermore, he isn’t sure if Megumi would be honest about that with him because an admission could open the door to Satoru reprimanding him for the very same thing.

“Try to get some sleep,” he tells Megumi. “We can talk about this tomorrow on the drive home.”

Maybe it creeped him out enough to disarm something buried deep in him, because Megumi nods, only once, and then mutters, “Good night, Gojo.”

Quietly, he slips into his room. It’s only after some of Megumi’s cursed energy has ebbed away, that he recognizes the all-too familiar energy of his mother right around the corner. It’s always been soft. Like waves pooling around your ankles at the beach while a light breeze of salt air hits your face. Disturbingly different from his own he has been told. By the time he has processed the information, it’s too late to ditch even though Satoru really isn’t in the mood to deal with his mother right now.

“What are you still doing up?” he asks her. His mother is back in her yukata again, her slender hands hidden from him.

“We were discussing your upcoming ceremony,” she answers, quiet enough so that Megumi won’t hear probably, at least if he isn’t standing at the door eavesdropping. He isn’t. Satoru verified. The hallway is dark and his mother moves past him, swiftly and without much noise. Against his better judgment, Satoru follows her too.

At the end of the hallway there is a small nook in the wall where one can sit down. He hasn’t been this close to his mother in forever.

“You will not get around this, Satoru,” she adds.

Satoru rolls his eyes.

“I’m aware, trust me. You can tell them though that I won’t bring Megumi again. One time with you all is enough for eternity.”

His mother sighs as if she’s still a freshly made mother and Satoru is three again and in need of chiding.

“They won’t like that.”

“What are they going to do about it?” Satoru asks, with more force in his voice this time. “I’m not bringing him again.”

His mother tilts her head to the side and contemplates his words. Back when he was small he thought she was the prettiest person on earth—mostly because she was warm and radiant in that short timeframe before it became clear what she had born to the world. After that she was a little less warm.

“I observed the boy today,” she says then. Even his mother, who is far less extreme than the rest of the clan, won’t address Megumi by his name then. “You can either raise him a god or a sacrificial lamb.”

His mother turns to look at him. There’s no blindfold to shield him from her gaze. What a funny thing the concept of a mother is. Usually, with the blindfold it’s the other way around.

“He’s ten. He has a non-sorcerer sister. He wants to have a normal life.”

What even is a normal life? Satoru doesn’t think he could answer that question if he tried. Normal life has evaded him, was never his to have. He’s not even sure he’d want it. Nanami would probably call him an addict over these thoughts. In any case, Megumi is going to become a sorcerer too and forsake normal life.

“Satoru, you're in their life,” his mother says. She says it like a doctor gearing up to deliver fatal, and really bad news to you. Like she’s about to say, sorry you only have three months left, make the best of it and leave him standing in the hospital. Like she’s about to pull his teeth in the most painful way and leave him with a mouth full of blood. She doesn’t do that, but she does say, “What makes you think he and his sister can have a normal childhood? You took that from them when you murdered their father.”

Satoru thinks his father took that from them when he decided to become a child-killer for pay. He is not the first wretched thing to come into their life. He is not the one who corrupted the family tree. His mother seems to think he did—corrupt hers in one way or another. And maybe he did.

“You never wanted to be my mother”, Satoru says, and it comes out as an accusation.

She regards him from her dark eyes, and gets up.

“Maybe if things were different, I would have wanted to be.”

Something that has been looking for confirmation for years screams in victory. Another thing in him dies in its entirety. His mother smiles and kisses his forehead. He almost physically recoils at the touch because he’s not sure when the last time was that someone kissed his forehead. A rather pitiful thing to say. Nonetheless, Satoru closes his eyes at the affection even though his mother doesn’t mean it as affection.

“You're sick,” she says when she draws back, and Satoru looks up at her. “You only ever craved affection when you were sick.”

Then I'm always sick, Satoru thinks. There's a desperate urge in him to shake his mother into loving and understanding him.

He doesn't tell her, instead he says, “Being here makes me, yeah.”

PART III

Only ever once did the Gojo and Zen’in clan meet in direct confrontation, even though their hundred years long rivalry. The confrontation unfolded in approximately 1599 (estimates as to the exact time of the confrontation are unknown to the general public and researchers as both the Gojo and Zen’in clan deny any requests on expert interviews regarding the matter) at the main Gojo Clan estate when leader of the Zen’in clan, Zen’in Kaoru (researchers disagree heavily on the gender of Zen’in Kaoru—some refer to descriptions that provide tentative evidence for the assumption that Zen’in Kaoru was actually a woman, whereas a lot of researchers refer to the patriarchal hierarchies of the Zenin’ clan which would have prohibited a woman from ascending to clan leader; for more discussions on this matter see Yokota and Asano (1989), Matsuda (1995), Saito et al. (2001)) entered the estate and engaged then leader of the Gojo clan, Gojo Shiori, in a duel. Both of them were killed. However, to this date it is unknown whether Zen’in Kaoru was in possession of Eight-Handled Sword Divergent Sila Divine General Mahoraga, and was able to overpower Six Eyes User Gojo Shiori or whether Zen’in Kaoru engaged Gojo Shiori in the Mahoraga exorcism, ultimately killing them both. A third hypothesis brought forward by more conservative scholars states that Zen’in Kaoru was killed by Gojo Shiori before they could attempt to invoke Mahoraga—the hypothesis fails to explain as to how Gojo Shiori was then killed. This duel constitutes the, known to us, only incident of a direct clash between a Six Eyes User and Ten Shadows User.

Note added in later editions: As of 2006 scholars with contacts into the Zen’in clan claim that on December 22, 2002 the next Ten Shadow User was born to the Zen’in clan.

— from “Chapter Three: Rivalry Between Gojo and Zen’in Clan.” in Part I: The Big Three Clans of Japan in A History of the Jujutsu World (2003) by Aizawa Riku, edited by Kurogane Haruki.

When morning comes, Satoru can still feel the burn mark left behind by his mother on his forehead. Sleep never found him after his mother had left him in the dark hallway. At least he was awake to verify that Megumi was indeed asleep for the rest of the night.

Megumi waits for him with his backpack packed when Satoru enters his guest room the next morning. Seems like someone can’t wait to get away. Makes two of them. Satoru already decided that they were going to skip breakfast and drive right back home.

“How was the rest of the night? No nightmares?”

“No, it was fine.”

The way Megumi evades his gaze tells Satoru everything he needs to know, and that is: Megumi already regrets telling him and he’ll have to push and probe even more and constantly to get anything out of him from now on. Fantastic.

At least he has already informed his mother about their departure which means they won’t have to interact with anyone beyond her before they leave, which they’re both so very keen on doing.

“Alright, kiddo,” Satoru chirps. “Let’s hit the road then and get out of here.”

As soon as the words are out, Megumi hops down from the bed, and heaves his backpack over his left shoulder. Marches right past him. So that hasn't changed.

Maybe his mother talked some sense into his relatives or they were smart enough for once in their lives to stay away, because she's the only one to meet them at the top of the pathway descending into the forest.

Megumi leads the way, while he and his mother walk side by side.

“You can get in the car,” Satoru tells him when they've made it down the mountain, and Megumi doesn't need to be told twice. He clambers into the car and shuts the door immediately.

Standing by his side, his mother remarks: “He's very small for his age.”

“He’s ten,” Satoru scoffs. “We all used to be small at some point.”

“Don't be stupid, Satoru. You were never small.”

His mother loves revisionism and to pretend that the Satoru before he turned three never existed to begin with. Maybe that made all of it easier. He turns to her. There's a wall between them that seems can never be breached.

“Goodbye, mother,” he says.

“We will be in touch,” she says.

“Of course you will.”

They don’t hug. Satoru doesn’t spare another glance back at his home, and his mother starts ascending the pathway before he’s in the car, before he gets to slam the door shut. When he does so, Megumi is already watching him.

Satoru can’t help it—he groans loudly and reclines his seat so that he can stare at the car’s ceiling. He presses the heels of his hands into his eyes until the throbbing in his skull dims a little. Megumi probably thinks he’s having a psychotic break.

“Are the Zen’ins like that too?” he eventually asks, after Satoru still hasn’t moved. He sounds tentative, like he doesn’t truly want an answer to this question.

Satoru lets his hands drop back into his lap and turns his head so he can meet Megumi’s gaze.

“They’re probably worse.”

Silence. For a bit. Satoru keeps massaging his temples as if that is going to stop the beating of war drums in his head. He’ll probably fry his eyes on the drive home.

Then, “Are you sad that your dad is dead?”

“Not particularly, no.”

They watch each other for a little while. Satoru, with his dead father. Megumi, with his dead father that Satoru killed.

Megumi’s eyes are untelling of what he’s thinking. Maybe he’s still thinking about his tenth shikigami. The only thing that might ever harm him. Satoru could end this possibility right at this moment. Maybe he’s thinking about his father, wondering what happened to him and whether he’s still alive, whether he has decided to care about him again wherever he is.

Satoru has killed Zen’in Toji, and then he usurped him. What would he do if he knew of the ghost that walks the hallways that were supposed to be his? Does it speak the same language he does? Satoru hopes not.

The birds in the forest chirp away when he puts on the radio that plays some whiny song about love, raises his car seat again, puts the car in drive, tells Megumi to strap in and maneuvers the car out of its parking spot between the trees.

He’s a usurper, like his father before him. And what always ends up happening to usurpers?

He looks at Megumi.