Chapter Text
Kaori held tightly onto her husband’s hand, her body convulsing as sparks of pain shot through her nerves. Idly, she noted that her cursed energy would briefly rise in tandem with these spots of agony. She dared not channel any cursed or positive energy lest it accidentally taint the vessel that she had so painstakingly tried to bring to reality.
Coming across the reincarnation of Ryomen Sukuna’s twin brother was a stroke of luck that she could not afford to squabble as it was another way to introduce chaos into the era of the latest Six Eyes user and the Star Plasma Vessel. It was unfortunate that he had been too old to properly mold and manipulate by the time that she did meet him.
The reincarnation had a son, however, one that was pliable and possessing of more… weaknesses. It was simple enough to arrange for a surrogate to produce a suitable vessel for experimentation. Unfortunately, it also ran the risk of contamination. Furthermore, the son was also married, so a blatant kidnapping or assassination would be more high-profile than she was willing to risk. It was obviously the superior choice to simply supplant the wife as less resources would be needed to form the necessary connections.
All of these things, Kaori knew, were simply a distraction from the novelty of the labors of childbirth as a scream nearly escaped her lips. Her vision turned blurry as she closed her eyes and tried to focus instead on her breathing. The little that she could hear and understand of Jin’s reassurances were amusing, but ultimately did little to help.
After several more minutes of agony, she had finally completed the delivery. Sweat dripping from her brow and exhaustion suffusing her entire being, she shakily sat up onto the bed and reveled in the tangible accomplishment of her goal. Some moments later, she was called by Jin, prompting her to open her eyes once more.
There he was, the naive simpleton holding the vessel towards him so that all she could see was a full head of fine pink hair. He slowly made his way to her side with a gentle and loving expression on his face as he slowly gave the child for her to hold. She received it calmly, mind buzzing with so many different plans and contingencies should this vessel perform according to expectations. She slowly turned its body to review its body and facial features.
Eventually she saw its face, and Kaori Itadori was left breathless.
ooOoo
Jin knew that he might not be the best husband he could be nor the filial son that he should have been. He knew that he should have been more suspicious when his dead wife one day walked back through the door of their house as if nothing was wrong while sporting several stitches across her forehead. He knew that he should not have been so dismissive of his father’s concerns when he reintroduced her to him.
He knew all of that, but he could not bring himself to face the reality that his beloved wife was truly gone. Kaori was the love of his life. He could not imagine spending a single second of his life in the future without her. At the time, all he could think about was the relief that he could continue to be with her.
Over the past year, however, he did notice some disquieting discrepancies. For one, Kaori, who had once been an endless font of excitable positivity, had turned detached, cold even if he were inclined to be less generous. Sure it wasn’t as if she would ignore him or became less intimate with him, but calmness replaced exuberance and habit replaced spontaneity. Even during their love-making, it had been a lot more clinical than passionate. She was still Kaori, but she was, somehow, more muted.
Guilt continued to grow in his mind as the differences he noticed slowly grew and piled into a looming shadow within his marriage. The news of her pregnancy was a breath of fresh air, a much needed reprieve that he fiercely clung onto with all his strength. He had given an ultimatum to himself. If he saw that Kaori acted the same towards their son as she did around him, he would leave her and raise his child with his father.
When he finally held his son, he nearly forgot all of his worries then and there. His tiny hands immediately sought the warmth of his arms and chest as he slowly leaned in closer to fully appreciate him. His delicate head was crowned in the same color of hair that he possessed. His closed eyes were almost the same shape as his own while the lashes were visibly shorter. His face was nearly identical to his own with only some features softened by Kaori.
He looked back to her, eyes closed, resting upon the bed with an air of satisfaction. Making his way to her, he called out and made to give his dear son to his wife, silently firming up his resolve and watching like a hawk at all of her expressions and reactions.
And then he saw it.
Pure and unadulterated wonder. Kaori’s face relaxed into a shocked expression that he hadn’t been able to see for years now. None of the near-frigid aloofness that had become so commonplace was there to be found upon her. Deep within her eyes, Jin could see the same spark of warmth and tenderness that she used to get whenever he surprised her with her favorite sweets after he had clocked out as a salaryman.
He let out a breath that he didn’t even know that he had been holding, relief coursing through him. He subtly gripped the bedframe and laid a comforting hand upon his wife’s shoulder as she continued to be enraptured by their son, her hand gently caressing his small face and cradling the small body upon her bare chest.
Silently thanking all of the gods and his ancestors, Jin promised to himself that he would try once again with Kaori for the sake of their son.
ooOoo
It had been a little over two weeks since Kaori was in recovery within the OB ward with various doctors and nurses continually checking after her post-partum health and that of her newborn son.
“Yuji,” Kaori thought with uncharacteristic endearment as she slowly made her way around her room. Across the centuries of her long life, no experience had been able to prepare her for the risks of this particular project. Intellectually, she knew that mothers often underwent physical and mental changes in order to support the development of their offspring. Even the medical advances of the past few decades had made it more clear that there were certain physiological alterations that the brains of animals underwent whenever they gave birth.
Despite knowing all of these, she figured that there was no way that she would fall victim to any of these new impulses as she could have always reverted the changes through careful cursed and positive energy manipulation. Just making a quick examination of her own brain revealed the chaotic mess that it had undergone. Massive amounts of grey matter was missing, certain connections between specific regions were strengthened, hormones in a constant state of flux. She could see in real time as the childbirth rewired and remodeled her brain.
This should have been a major cause for concern. She knew intimately how catastrophic these structural changes could be for the longevity and efficacy of her plans and goals. Fortunately, she found that she was still as committed as ever to seeing the eventual ascension of the human race and that she was still able to access the relevant memories, skills, and techniques that would be instrumental for its fruition.
However, once she thought of the chaos that it would bring and the kind of environment it would create for her son, suddenly her heart clenched with an indescribable emotion. This was certainly…not ideal. Not only would she waste several decades of preparations, but she would have to wait for the next merger to even begin forming the framework of a new plan and wait for centuries once more.
It was stupid. It was inefficient. It was asinine that her new condition, one that she hadn’t done the necessary research before commencing, was somehow introducing competing motivations to her noble aim. Perpetuating self-sabotage would be the height of folly after all of the unnecessary risks she would have to go through. She should reverse these physiological changes to her brain immediately and nip this problem in the bud.
But I don’t want to.
Kaori struggled with herself, her cursed energy almost rebelling against her control as she fought to subdue and channel it towards her fingers. She had to fix herself at once!
I want to feel more of this.
This was illogical. There was no point in not restoring herself to her previous state and capabilities. She wasn’t even done with this particular experiment. She still had that finger in her possession. It would have been best to implant it as soon as he was born.
My precious son.
Centuries! Centuries of playing proverbial chess against Tengen, the Star Plasma Vessel, and the Six Eyes. Advantages and handicaps traded back and forth. Experiments decades in the making simply for a single moment of a lead. There was nothing that she wasn’t willing to do in the name of satisfying her curiosity.
My poor baby.
…no. This wasn’t as bad as it appeared to be. She had been looking at it all wrong this entire time. Sure it may result in the total collapse of her plans for this round of the merger, but she could instead observe something more interesting. The development of the perfect vessel. Not just for the King of Curses, but all curses.
Yes, indeed. Waiting a few centuries for decades of studying the ultimate vessel was a fair trade-off. It would become the foundation for a new knowledge base that would help her further corner the troublesome Six Eyes and make it easier to accomplish the merger.
Satisfied with the restructuring of her immediate goals, she finally deigned to pay attention to the new cursed energy signature that had been waiting with her husband and son in the waiting room outside.
Wasuke Itadori. He could potentially become a problem, but one that is easily neutered by her constant presence. She concluded her short walk and finally made her way to the door. As she turned the knob and swung it open, she managed to catch some of their conversation.
“I know you wanted a child and that didn’t happen with Kaori. But her death was-”
“Father-in-law,” she said while walking into the room, “what are you talking about?”