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When Nanami Kento decided to leave sorcery behind, it wasn’t on good terms.
To be fair, no one truly leaves a profession like that because new opportunities have come along, or because they’re looking to challenge themselves more, or whatever such drivel he’s offered up in hiring interviews now and then. He doubts a spreadsheet could prove more difficult to wrestle than a two-tonne monstrosity with a thousand legs, no matter how tricky the data set.
The reasons people usually leave sorcery have to do with all the death and destruction, of both themselves and others. The powers that be don’t take kindly to those who are perceived to have abandoned their duty, so any declaration of such intent would inevitably be received with acrimony. One would think that to be the reason why his departure from sorcery was less than friendly.
Alas, no. When Nanami Kento left, he did so on bad terms because he took you with him.
Maybe it really was selfish, like all the accusations said. He wouldn’t know; back then, anything seemed an improvement over killing a hundred people and absconding to start a cult. He didn’t throw that fact in Gojo’s face when confronted, even though he could have. In the days that preceded his departure, he’d had both the disposition and the excuse to be just a little bit cruel, and he’d spent all his years as a teenager abstaining from such indulgence. In the end, though, he said nothing, because Geto Suguru was not the origin of discord at the time.
For Nanami, the defection of his upperclassman hadn’t exactly been the final nail in the coffin. Neither had the premature death of Haibara Yu, despite what everyone seemed to think. In truth, he’d been harboring thoughts of leaving even before death started taking his friends.
Nanami hadn’t ever been under the impression that sorcery was anything but a bloody and ruthless occupation, but that fact was outweighed by how good he was at it. Not many would assume it of him, but Nanami was a bit of an absolutist when it came to his principles. He wanted his life to be spent doing something he was good at, whatever that thing happened to be. Half-measures just wouldn’t cut it. He liked strength. He liked precision of intent. He liked knowing what he wanted.
Somewhere along in his life as a sorcerer, that changed in subtle ways.
Sentimentality wasn’t Nanami’s modus operandi. Not really. Neither was self-sacrifice. That was reserved for gods and fools, and he, thankfully, was neither. Unfortunately for him, though, he had eyes. And against better judgment, he used them to watch you.
His incurably hopeful classmate.
He saw your sunny disposition, your unerring strength of character, your determination to take on tasks many times exceeding your capacity. He saw your gentle nature for what it was: so stabilising, so endless, so warm.
So fit for purpose in a world that hungered for fools like you.
It had swallowed up so many already. It would take many more.
Nanami could say it was a snap decision, if he felt inclined to engage in self-deception. But in the days that preceded his curated exit from sorcery, what he wanted above all else was to bring you with him, and there wasn’t much that anyone could do once Nanami Kento had decided what he was going to do.
It was Ieiri Shoko who called it selfish first.
When word reached her that he was planning on leaving jujutsu society altogether, her initial response was lukewarm. However, when the passage of time revealed his intention to convince you to join him, her reaction seemed to change.
Nanami didn’t have a good grasp on the sort of person she was, owing to how little time they’d spent interacting directly. A year and change isn’t enough to get to know a person, especially when that person is pulled from the field and relegated to the safety of the school’s medical wing. He didn’t blame Shoko for it. He understood that she was still seeing her fair share of death within the confines of the morgue. Her role was to be a witness to the aftermath, seldom able to intervene, forever meant to understand and catalogue the effects of destruction. So no, he didn’t blame her for it. But he also didn’t think she had any right to weigh in on the decisions of those who witnessed death first-hand.
Shoko wasn’t there when Haibara took his last breath. The only witnesses were Nanami himself, and you.
The look in your eyes wasn’t seared into her brain. Your scream didn’t echo in her ears.
Her assertion that it was selfish of him to keep you from ever feeling like that again was not something Nanami accepted with grace.
Cold and detached were not words he’d have associated with Shoko up until that point, but they were what he veered at her face when she approached him to talk. To her credit, she didn’t insist, which fit the impression of her that Nanami had constructed in his mind. Shoko tried hard when she wanted to, but she wouldn’t let it consume her.
The next person who approached him was not so lenient.
He’d been in the process of clearing out his belongings from a bedroom that was too big for its remaining occupant, when the door flew open with a resounding crack.
—----------------------------------------
“No.”
Nanami could only sigh at the impromptu declaration, letting the battered backpack fall onto the bed half-zipped, its abundant contents spilling out. He’d been meaning to return all the books and CDs Haibara had borrowed from the metropolitan library for weeks, and he supposed there was no better time than now. Or rather, now was the only time left.
He’d be out of here by the end of the month, but apparently, that wouldn’t happen without the pride of sorcery shoving his nose into Nanami’s business. As expected, he held all the tact of a cornered animal. Gojo was so used to telling people what they could or couldn't do that he didn’t even think he had to explain himself.
Nanami turned to face him, the enthusiasm with which one listens to a broken record clearly etched onto his face.
“What?”
If the Strongest was going to confront him, Nanami wouldn’t make it easy for him.
“You heard me. No. You’re not taking her with you.”
Ever adept at keeping things brief, Nanami fixed the wild-eyed sorcerer with an impassive stare.
“She’s made her decision.”
He got the impression his words were not well received, if the subtle movement of the furniture was any indication.
“You are so fucking selfish,” Gojo spat. “Her decision? You mean the decision you coerced her into making?”
As if Gojo knew anything about manipulation. That was more his best friend’s territory, wasn’t it? Nanami didn’t say it. He could have, but he knew that the dust had settled over Geto’s diverging trajectory. No sense in dredging things up. Just as there was no sense in Gojo attempting to change them.
Nanami was going to leave. And he was going to leave with you.
But what he wasn’t going to do was explain it to Gojo in more words than necessary.
“I’ve already found us both jobs. Good pay. Reputable company. Yaga-sensei helped with our backgrounds and resumes. My aunt has an apartment in the city that she’s letting us rent for cheap until we get our bearings—”
The pressure inside the room spiked. One infinite moment passed where he wondered if he might get to leave it.
“You think I care about your plans? You’re not leaving with her, Nanami—”
“Satoru.”
It was the first time he had referred to his upperclassman by his first name.
“I’m getting her out. If you want to be responsible for her death, then convince her to stay.”
It was a gut punch, and it was cheap.
It was also the plain truth, one that Nanami wanted Gojo to accept, or to at least not struggle so much against, flailing his arms and gasping endlessly as he lost one more friend.
Even if he knew that wasn’t what you really were to Gojo.
—------------------------------------------
Nanami won’t deny that he used every argument he could think of when convincing you to leave with him. He knew the sway he held in your relationship, because he knew how much you valued him as a friend and teammate.
And he knew he’d have to use every bit of his influence if he wanted you to go against what your heart might’ve otherwise told you.
Because when Nanami watched you, he didn’t just see you. Forever lingering nearby, he saw the world’s strongest sorcerer orbiting helplessly, pawing at the warmth you gave off, drinking up your kindness and reveling in your gentle disposition.
He didn’t blame Gojo. It was impossible not to care for you, not to be drawn to you in a world like theirs, a world that had voraciously devoured the kind and gentle, again and again.
And maybe that’s what was so selfish about what he did.
Maybe Nanami didn’t want to save you. Maybe he just wanted to take one thing from the world that had taken so much from him.
In that process, however, he ended up taking not just from jujutsu society.
He took from Gojo Satoru.
Thinking the matter settled was, admittedly, a mistake Nanami didn’t anticipate.
—-------------------------------------------
Returning to sorcery was only slightly less idiotic than continuing to work for a company that saw him as a cog, his sole purpose the growth of its bottom line.
At least, that’s what he tells himself.
These days, Nanami finds himself more exhausted than he ever knew he could be, and after four years as a salaryman, he thought he’d seen and experienced the upper limit of what a packed schedule could do to a person.
But he hadn’t counted on Gojo Satoru’s vindictiveness rearing its head.
Maybe that’s why his first reaction when Nanami called him was to laugh. And oh, did he laugh. Copious and mean, his chortle almost made Kento hang up right then and there. It was only your pleading eyes that kept his finger away from the button that would’ve mercifully ended the call.
Just like it was your deteriorating health that made him pick up the phone in the first place. Physically, you were fine. After all, that had been the entire point behind extricating you from a profession that frequently resulted in death and catastrophic injury.
Mentally, however, life was taking its toll. At only twenty-two, you were being stifled in a job that demanded everything and gave back nothing but money that wouldn’t satisfy the craving for a meaningful life.
It was just the sort of person you were. Sorcery may have been dangerous for the body, but working for a ruthless company was breaking your spirit. It was plain to see, and Nanami has never been one for ignoring what was right in front of him.
Truth be told, he himself was having second thoughts. There was no satisfaction to be gained from his job. He was chasing money every minute of every day with frightening efficiency, and it was with the same efficiency that the process hollowed him out. He began to wonder just how many jobs there were out there that paid much worse and held no supposed prestige, but that were imbued with purpose. One by one, he observed them on his way to the apartment he’d shared with you, one that you stayed in when he moved out two years ago.
Transportation. Entertainment. Production.
A patient bus driver smiling at gasping children that made it just before the doors closed.
A theoretically friendly clown shaping balloons for brave and curious children at the park.
A tired yet kind woman from the smallest bakery he’d ever been in.
All these people with jobs much more important than his were examples of the possibilities he’d declined for himself, and the ones he might have taken from you.
Much to his distaste, sorcery was also one of those possibilities.
For all its faults— and there seemed to be nothing but faults —sorcery was not lacking in meaning. It was not missing the service element that people like you so desperately craved.
Nanami saw you wilting. He saw the light dimming with each passing year of void employment and each hour of sleep lost to the attempt at doing something meaningful.
He thought you’d been volunteering. Maybe trying out a side gig, selling some of your work.
Until he began to really notice the exhaustion— like his own, but different. More pronounced. Leaving traces. Bruises. Scars.
And then, fresh wounds.
He didn’t even have to ask. It was clear from the residuals clinging to you like ash and soot.
He called Gojo that same evening.
And Gojo laughed in his face, until Nanami said your name. Suddenly, nothing was funny.
Arrangements were made. Accommodations provided. Details to be discussed later.
But not before he got to speak to you.
Nanami had to concede that it was the first time in a long time that he’d seen you genuinely smile, holding the phone to your ear and uttering a soft hello, Satoru.
It’d been a long time since he last saw the light in your eyes.
Maybe longer than he felt comfortable admitting.
—------------------------------------------
So, here he was. On his ninth mission of the week after returning to a job he ran away from four years ago. He had a feeling when arrangements were made without his input that it was going to be rough for a while. He hadn’t doubted that he’d be accepted back— he was a First Grade sorcerer in a hierarchy that counted very few dependable people on that level. The higher-ups might’ve scowled and turned their noses up at it, but his request to return wasn’t going to be denied. Deadlocked and agonized over under the pretense of deliberation? Sure. Nanami even anticipated a fair bit of drudgery as payback for leaving the way he did. But he hadn’t known he’d be as swamped as he is now.
By contrast, it seemed there was still a question as to what sort of assignments to allocate to you, despite your eagerness. Two weeks into your return to Tokyo Met, nothing had been put on your roster.
At the same time, and extremely suspiciously, the world’s strongest sorcerer just so happened to find himself on annual leave during those two weeks. Despite having left immediately upon graduating, Nanami was familiar enough with regulations to know that there was no such thing as annual leave in sorcery, especially for Gojo Satoru.
There were the rare days off for recuperation and periods of curse inactivity, but neither of those fell under the elusive PTO policy.
It was then that the thought occurred to him, in-between wiping purple ooze off his suit and checking the time he had left before his favorite bakery would close.
Was he… picking up Gojo’s unattended work while the sorcerer lingered at your heels like a lost puppy?
From the way you told it, it was apparent that Gojo Satoru had gone from orbiting your space to crashing into it unceremoniously, not a day going by without him inviting you to some event or other, or letting himself into your room under the guise of helping you get up to date with what had happened since you left.
He offered to help you train.
He appointed himself as your go-to guide for everything that had changed around the school and in jujutsu society.
He even used Megumi, for whom he knew you had a soft spot, in a devious plot that saw you helping Gojo cook a homemade meal that the boy had asked for in an effort to ‘cheer him up’. Nanami was certain that the sullen teenager had demanded no such thing, and when he predictably declined to join, you and Gojo were left alone for a long dinner. Nanami was pretty sure that had been the plan all along. He knew it in his bones. Gojo knew it, too. But you didn’t.
In a different timeline and under different circumstances, Nanami might’ve said something. He disliked misleading intent and he never hesitated to speak up when he noticed irritating behavior.
Now, he wondered if Gojo’s scheming truly mattered in any capacity, given the return of your smile.
And perhaps you weren’t entirely innocent, either. Kind-hearted and open with your affections? Sure. But clueless as to how badly they were desired by a certain white-haired sorcerer? Nanami wasn’t sure he could make a positive assessment. Not when you told him about every instance of Gojo Satoru suffocating you with his attention, all the while brandishing a smile bright enough to prolong the sunset.
So, maybe what he did was selfish. Maybe that was what Shoko had meant when she volleyed the accusation at him with seemingly no provocation all those years ago.
Nanami did a selfish thing, but its essence had less to do with trying to protect you and more to do with keeping you from being where you truly belonged, no matter the consequences.
And when he looked at you now, he could see that all he really did was delay an inevitable future. There was nowhere else you would shine brighter, than in this world that only knows how to take the light and dim it.
—-----------------------------------------
He corners Gojo inside a classroom after his eleventh mission of the week, but unlike him, Nanami doesn’t need to take doors off their hinges to make himself heard. He couldn’t, even if he wanted to. His energy has been sapped dry. He needs rest. He needs warmth. He could kill for it.
He understands now.
“It’s your turn.”
The sorcerer regards him through the blindfold he’s been sporting lately, its presence doing nothing to hide the confusion evident in his features.
“Huh?”
“To be selfish,” Nanami clarifies.
He doesn’t elaborate. Doesn’t need to. He can see it in Gojo’s squared shoulders and sudden uncharacteristic silence, that his message has been received.
Be selfish, Satoru.
Keep the light shining.