Chapter Text
It starts with Utahime cornering him.
“My, my, Utahime,” Satoru says when she drags him over to an empty stairwell. “A clandestine rendezvous with little ol’ me? How forward of you.”
Utahime only presses her lips tightly together in response. Everyone is tense with the month’s preparation before his showdown with Sukuna, and it speaks volumes that she doesn’t even bother to rise to the easy bait that he tosses. No words about respecting his elders. No words about propriety. Only a thin line where her mouth is.
Satoru wishes that she would rise to his teasing, only to bring some sense of the former normal.
“I have a favor to ask of you,” Utahime says.
“Sure,” he agrees easily. “What is it?”
The easy agreement takes her off-guard slightly, but she forges on. “There is an artifact that may be of help in the upcoming battle. It requires the input of a vast amount of cursed energy as part of the ritual summoning. I was wondering if you could provide it.”
It’s unlike her, to be so stilted and formal, and Satoru keys in on how her eyes are trained low and her fingers fidget in those billowing shrine maiden robes. “I can. But before I agree, you have to tell me what this artifact does. And show me it,” he says.
Because wouldn’t it be grand if the two of them accidentally summoned another threat while messing around with whatever ancient relic Utahime got. She’s from a line of priests and priestesses, shrine maidens and monks that maintain ancient temples across Japan, and while Utahime isn’t the type to be so careless despite her weakness, Satoru can’t risk a wrench thrown in the plans to battle Sukuna.
Utahime nods. “Come. Let me show you.”
Once she retrieves the object from her rooms, the two of them relocate to an empty training field outside. Even before Utahime unveils the contents of the talisman covered box, Satoru’s eyes have never seen a cursed energy flow like it before. Or perhaps it’s not even cursed energy that radiates from it? A completely different power that is unlike anything that Satoru has ever encountered.
How curious for Utahime to possess an item like this. He knows that the higher-ups (that he killed) would be absolutely wroth over an unknown item like this, even from a family as respected as Utahime’s, but he says none of this as she slowly opens the box before him.
“A sakura branch,” he breathes out. “Yet it’s not just that, is it?”
Even without the vision the Six Eyes grant, an unearthly blue glow emanates from the branch, the petals eternally blooming despite its detachment from the main tree. Something about it sends a wave of calm through his body against his will, and the gentle glow soothes his eyes like a balm. Absolutely nothing malicious or cursed about this object at all. If anything, he wants to snatch it up to use as eye relief.
“My ancestors were able to establish a contract with a long-gone deity. In a time of need, we could use a burst of cursed energy to summon them for aid,” Utahime explains, before setting the box on the ground reverently. “However, the conditions were that this branch must retain this glow before it could be used.”
“I’m guessing that this thing only glowed just recently?” Satoru guesses.
“Of course,” she snips, as she starts to set up a neat barrier circle. “Otherwise, I would’ve used it sooner. It only served as a pretty thing to look at until just this morning.”
“If you let me use it as an eye soother before, I would’ve been much sweeter to you. That thing feels like a warm compress.”
Utahime bristles, and Satoru delights in her ire. “This is a sacred object passed down my family to be used in times of dire need. I would never let you use it for such sacrilegious reasons. Now, will you provide the cursed energy for the summoning ritual? Or shall I go get Okkotsu-kun instead?”
“Now, now, no need to go to my students that are training hard,” Satoru replies flippantly, taking a careful look at the branch sitting innocuously in its box. “Besides the fact that this object doesn’t resemble cursed energy in any shape or form, I can’t sense any malice in it. It’s like a purifying source, if anything, so I don’t see the harm in helping you.”
“Helping us. If this ritual works as intended, the summoned beings could help us in the fight against Sukuna and Kenjaku. I don’t have the cursed energy stores to fully work this. So, it’s up to you.”
Satoru is not prideful enough to deny any edge that could help in a fight, no matter how much faith he has in his own abilities. Not when there are so many lives at stake in this particular fight.
“Of course,” he agrees. “I’ll do it.”
Utahime prepares the summoning ritual, using talismans filled with cramped script that he recognizes as hers. The sakura branch sits in the center of the circle of talismans, still in its box and letting out its soothing glow. For a sacred object of that caliber, the ritual is surprisingly simple, but Satoru leaves her to it as she finishes the last touch to the circle.
At the last talisman placed, Utahime seals her hands together before giving him a nod.
Satoru releases his cursed energy.
Whatever amount he estimated before is far below what the relic needs, and Satoru strains his energy more to give the summoning circle what it needs. This is the sort of relic summoning that would require a horde of people, priests chanting and priestesses dancing to gather enough energy to fill the needs of this sakura branch. A desperate call for the deity that the sakura branch would summon, a final attempt at salvation.
Yet Gojo is the strongest, the honored one, and he alone is enough.
“From the Plane of Euthymia to the ends of Eternity,” Utahime chants. “We beseech Imperatrix Umbrosa and their servant to aid in our plight.”
Using the incantations and Satoru’s cursed energy, Utahime makes a series of hand signs before slamming the ground with her open palms.
An omnious rumble waves throughout the training field, and Satoru focuses to not pay attention to the alarm that must be going through the rest of the sorcerers back at the school. The branch glows an unholy blue, just as blue as his own eyes, before it trembles and bursts in a glow of light. What’s left of the ritual circle shreds under the sheer power of the summoning, and a cloud of smoke blooms in the air.
Instinctively, Satoru puts himself in front of Utahime, who is trembling with the aftereffects of being the channel for this ritual, but before the smoke and light settle, the silhouettes of two bodies show themselves in place of the sacred sakura branch.
“How peculiar,” a woman’s voice cuts through, as the air clears. “For the sacred sakura branch to summon the both of us to this place.”
Two women stand before Satoru and Utahime, one with a luxuriously thick purple braid and the other with a loose tail of equally long pink hair. The purple one—as Satoru decides to dub them by color for his own amusement—already has a wickedly sharp naginata out that is embossed in gold and glows just as purple as she is. The pink one settles next to her with a nonchalant air.
Both keep their gaze fixed upon Satoru and Utahime. Satoru shifts further to hide Utahime from view.
“A remnant of Makoto’s will, perhaps. Or a higher power besides,” the purple one replies to her companion. “Yet this is far from Inazuma. Even further from Teyvat.”
“At least we are companions in this, no?” the pink one jests, even as her eyes never stray off of Satoru. “What sort of friend would leave you in this dimension alone?”
The two of them flick their eyes around once, twice, and disregard Satoru and Utahime even as the purple one sheathes away her naginata in a ripple of space after seemingly categorizing the two of them as a non-threat—which seems a little offensive.
“This seems like one of the plots of your novels, Miko,” the purple-haired woman says as she looks around the training grounds, at the remnants of the summoning circle used to bring them to this world. “Transmigration, was it? Or dimension traveling?”
“Dimension traveling seems to be the more prudent term,” the pink one—Miko, it seems—demurs.
Satoru isn’t sure where to look. The delightfully scandalous cut of the kimono and priestess robes they wear? The elaborate frippery on said scandalous robes? The inhuman coloring of them both?
Or even more relevant, the ominous power that comes off them in waves despite their congenial conversation.
“You’re the deities that the sakura branch summoned?” Satoru cuts in their conversation. “I was sure that that there would be only one.”
Utahime wheezes behind him and grips the hem of his pants. Probably to tell him to shut up. Or maybe be less irreverent. Who knows, she can’t even muster enough energy to say, so it’s up to Satoru’s discretion to deal with these inter-dimensional summoned beings.
At the very least, they don’t seem antagonistic or malicious. Except maybe how bastardized their clothing is. Satoru knows that there are some old traditionalists that would spit blood at how cropped the purple one’s kimono is, even with the elaborate tomoe and wave patterned in the silk, perhaps especially because the expensive pattern of such material in the cut of the clothing. And if Utahime ever wore a shrine priestess outfit as modified as the pink one’s, Satoru is pretty sure Gakuganji would roll over and die on the spot.
It’s a lot of leg. And cut-outs.
“Are you the one that summoned Eternity and her servant?” the pink one replies with a tilt of her head. The light catches on the gold tucked in her head. “Or perhaps it is the little one behind you?”
Utahime somehow manages enough will-power to teeter herself up and presses a heavy hand against him like a crutch. Satoru generously allows it.
“It is I,” Utahime gasps out. “I do not have the energy required to fulfill the ritual, so I enlisted his help.”
“How impressive,” she croons very condescendingly. Satoru knows the exact tone as he’s used it himself many times before.
The purple one frowns. “Don’t tease her so, Miko.”
“Forgive me, Ei. You know it’s in my nature.”
Before the conversation could continue in an actual meaningful direction, there is a surge of cursed energy that approaches the four of them rapidly. Ah. That ritual must have alarmed everyone back at the school. Despite the strange power coming from the two deities before them, they seem to be able to sense the cursed energy, as their heads turn towards the surge.
“We hadn’t set up a containing barrier, you see,” Satoru shrugs. “Utahime probably forgotten in her carelessness.”
Utahime stomps on his foot for the remark, and as usual, Infinity rises to meet her.
“Well,” the pink one says. “You did go through the trouble of calling the both of us. Perhaps let’s settle in for some tea, and you can tell us the reason why. Along with your alarmed companions.”
Satoru flicks his eyes towards the rapidly approaching signatures. Yuuji. And Yuta. Maybe Kusakabe chasing after them as well?
Oh dear. His students are so proactive. It gave him hope for the future.
“Sensei!” Yuuji charges into the scene. “We felt a disturbance, so we—”
Yuuji screeches to a halt. Stares at the scene, the ritual circle, and the two strangely dressed deities.
“Cosplay?” he says out loud.
Yuta immediately comes in at that moment with his sword drawn, and soon after, Kusakabe rushes in.
“You two kids can’t go running after any disturbance, what if it’s a trap—” Kusakabe immediately scolds, before also screeching to a stop at the scene.
Satoru laughs at the identical baffled looks on all three of them. It looks ridiculous from an outsider’s point of view. Him and a wobbling Utahime faced off with two odd beings colored and dressed like no other human on this planet. Said two interdimensional beings blink placidly at the newcomers, with the pink one hiding a smile poorly.
“Say hello to our new allies against Sukuna!” Satoru says with a flourish. “All thanks to Utahime!”
Kusakabe immediately rubs a hand against his face as Yuta cautiously lowers his sword. Yuuji continues to gape. “How about you start with an explanation, Gojo.”