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Fushiguro Megumi is no man for surrender.
He is no man for war either—God, who is—but quick legs and a knack for strategy go a long way in surviving, and the rest he chalks up to being an awful person. You have to be somewhat awful to crunch forward under the rain, shooting poor wretches on the other side and thinking, yes, all right. To watch them fall, blood soaking the mulch black, and think: better his than mine. To hear the rattles and blasts, smell metal‑wine mud, feel the damp ache down to the bone and cling to a rifle, the helmet tossed somewhere because the goddamn rain was pitting his skull—will it ever stop?—and simply not go mad.
Megumi trusts his mind. He is one of the few who still has one.
“Up,” he says, yanking a man off the ground. The sky is scorched red, or maybe that is the direction from which death is coming; either way, he drags the man back. “Where’s he?”
The man blinks through grime. “W–who?”
“Something—that Division. He should be there already.”
The man keeps blinking, and as a second round of blasts shakes the air, Megumi regrets large chunks of his life. “Our reinforcements,” he says.
“Oh. I, ah—I don’t know.”
“They sent no one?”
It must have come out as a shout, because the man shrinks. The line of command has been fraying ever since Gojo’s defeat, capture, whatever. He’s alive, Megumi thinks at night. He has to be alive, he repeats while marching—but the man with the big voice who picked up the field phone days ago promised reinforcements. A miracle. Megumi believed him, because what else can he do but believe men with big voices when he is holding a past-hope line, and here he is.
Soon, that man said. A special division—a Vessel something—the liar.
“Take cover there. Regroup the men,” Megumi says, and looks for the men. He finds only trees. “We’re pulling back.”
“But… the orders?”
Megumi looks at the man, who seems, slowly—what is it with those eyes, always blinking?—to remember who he is. “Captain,” the man says. “The orders were to stay. Hold.”
“They were.”
“There are still people in the eastern quarter.”
There are people everywhere. They were people, are people—some of them at least—and Megumi does not like how the scorched red keeps advancing. He likes even less how his fingers curl tighter around the rifle, how his legs feel lighter, how his mind whispers: go there—run there—you can do it.
But no.
Quick legs and a knack for strategy. Later, he can shout every curse that claws and pierces and gathers in ragged folds inside him at big-voice on the phone.
“Take cover. Regroup the men,” he repeats, and stalks off.
Megumi trusts his conscience. He has butchered it until it is dead silent.
***
With hindsight, Megumi would’ve done better without the reinforcements.
The Vessel Division meets his on the outskirts of Yokohama in what might be morning or the scraps of an endless night, and it’s a loud lot of soldiers. They tend wounds, pin tents, give each other nods, and can’t help themselves from asking, the instant Megumi comes into view if he is Captain Fushiguro of the Second Division.
“Yes,” he has to say because, responsibilities.
“Captain’s waiting for you. Third tent on the right.”
Three hundred places Megumi would rather go than the third tent on the right, but there he is, limping through the driving rain, back straight inside a ragged jacket. Captain is the problem. Megumi knows Captain. He hadn’t even gotten the chance to yell at the big-voice on the phone about the choice. The Vessel Division of Captain Yuuji Itadori is the best of the reinforcements and he should be grateful, of course—the Tiger of Sendai and whatever that means. But he and Itadori trained and enrolled in the same intake when they were cadets, ran a couple of missions together, and Megumi thinks him an idiot. You catch them by the eyes, the idiots. They all believe they can save a grenade by throwing themselves at it.
“Your pullback back from Tama,” Itadori starts inside the mold-wet tent.
Rain drums against the flysheet, the filament bulb swinging and throwing refractory light over pink-mingled hair. It used to be shorter back at the cadets’ camp, and he didn’t have that scar slashing across his brow, nor the circle of men orbiting him as though he were some kind of morning star. Or maybe he did. Itadori has always shone too bright, and his eyes are the same, clear brown. Are they judging him?
“It was risky,” Itadori concludes—judging, definitely.
It was risky without cover. Who does Itadori think he is to say it was risky? It’s not that from that calculated risk Megumi carries a small consequence that forces him to lean harder against the tent pole.
“Reinforcements were late,” he says.
Shoko warned him, don’t move for the next few days.
“Well, I’m not late anymore,” Itadori says, and he must think he’s declared something grand, because he taps a finger onto the maps pinned to the table, his voice picking up pace. “We’ll face it together now. How’re your numbers?”
“Do you want me to count the survivors with one arm or both?”
That was not meant to earn a grin, but apparently.
“One is fine,” Itadori says. “They’re alive. We’ll make sure they stay that way. Get them back on their feet.”
“So you don’t,” Megumi realizes mid‑sentence, “plan to station here.”
“Sort of.” Another grin, another tap on the map. Someone should really fix Itadori’s jaw. “Plan is to move slow. The more time we buy, the better for the… civilians.”
He looks around; his men nod, and a word lingers.
What word?
Lately it’s all words lingering, like a taboo game where Megumi’s the one designed to lose. There have been rumors about moving, sure, but not a name to the destination they’re supposed to reach, some promised land of salvation—really, it beggars belief they would actually reach anywhere. The Tokaido road they’re traveling is muddy, the men tired; Megumi bets a river has already flooded. Ask him, and this war is feeling more and more like a sprint with a sprained ankle meant to save more men than the ones he has already lost. That’s the catch. They gain time from the deaths of his people, and no one is telling Megumi the truth.
Not even Itadori. What is he hiding?
(Lying?)
“Anyway.” Itadori says, beckoning Megumi closer. “We got the troops’ updated location. The enemy’s gathering on all sides, see?”
Megumi, who doesn’t move on principle, sees… blots, mostly. A land, a swarm of black, thin clouds of blue. At the massive black Itadori points like it’s New Year’s Day.
“Word,” Megumi corrects, “is they’re surrounding us.”
They must be three times their number. Maybe four.
“Doesn’t matter.” Itadori traces down the coastline, stopping on a sad place called Hiratsuka. “We hold here first. Protect the area, give civilians enough time to move south.”
“South.”
Even Itadori’s shrug is energetic. “Things are getting messy in the north.”
Getting. Not the tense Megumi would’ve used. “How’s Sakurajima?”
“Evacuated,” Itadori says, bright—too bright.
“Sendai?”
“Successful.”
But Megumi is an awful person. “Shibuya?”
It’s the small bite at Itadori’s lip, the way those eyes flicked, if briefly. Ah. Checkmate.
It shouldn’t hurt more than Megumi’s flank does, but—oh, the magic. Rumors of the Shibuya disaster have reached him, but confirmation tastes better, bitter. It urges his hands to clutch the rifle, his legs to spring toward that red-scorched wall, wherever it is. Megumi presses his elbow into his sore side. The combination makes him want to throw up.
Itadori is watching him carefully now, and Megumi is tempted to get another eye-flicker and ask the stupid question—why hasn’t Nobara’s unit reached them yet? He shoves it down. Shibuya.
“And you plan to both stall the enemy and…” Megumi says, shifting again against the pole. The snort of pain turns into a flat, “Whatever.”
“We’re planning to save…” (another lingering) “…people,” Itadori finishes, and his voice—the steadiness of it—sicks Megumi as much as the wound—wound, he admitted it’s a wound—in his flank.
It hasn’t changed since the cadet days. Itadori speaks in forward bursts, keeps using “we,” says he sent someone ahead for reconnaissance, then repeats they’ll move slow, and before Megumi can blink, he’s come closer to him, this morning star. This fireball slicked with rain and command.
Why did they send him reinforcements? He can deal with it on his own.
“It’s all right?” Itadori asks. “You look pale.”
Megumi flicks the rifle straight up his shoulder. “Fine.”
The moment stretches, miserable, Itadori pushing a hand through his hair like he hasn’t bought it for a second. Then hesitates. Megumi expects an order to relinquish grades and rifle, a disciplinary note, a work of hypocrisy—we should collaborate, Captain; equals in hell; etcetera, etcetera. He hopes for it. He can fight those. But Itadori turns into a soft grin and an outstretched hand, and Megumi stares at it. All his awfulness countered—paralyzed—by something lurking in the corner of Itadori’s eyes. He can almost hear it:
I’m happy to see you again.
“Yes?” is what eventually comes out.
No. This is no place to grin, to be happy. It’s no place for an outstretched hand either, and so Megumi pushes off the pole instead, skirting past him. “I’m going to count those with one arm.” Bright. Too obnoxiously bright.
***
Megumi doesn’t count those with one arm, and Hiratsuka is lost before they start moving again. The news spreads like bad morale, forcing Megumi to act surprised as if the whole country isn’t falling in real time before their eyes. To fall is an evergreen word. It applies to men, to hope, to the damn rain—even to their tactics.
Officially, they are “falling back,” but Megumi doesn’t even know where, or if this fall will ever reach an end. He should probably pay more attention during meetings, but he’s skirting them as much as the hospital and Shoko’s smoke-screened gaze.
“Take some codeine, at least,” she suggested.
I’d rather fall, he could have joked. He hadn’t.
The wound may not be a good shade of red, but Megumi is still on his legs, marching with his soldiers through a forest of twisted spruces. The damp clings to his back, stitching at his lungs. His legs drag through terrain that feels more like quicksand, and maybe sometimes he has to clear green spots from his vision, but again—he’s walking. For how long, who knows.
Through a small village, he searches for civilians.
(No one. When was the last time he saw civilians?)
Past a wide clearing, he keeps his eyes on the sky, urging his men faster—let’s try not to sleep on your feet, please—then ducking behind the first tree, no enemy in sight, but him. He’s not avoiding Itadori, of course.
To turn away every time the guy waves at him is not avoiding, and the rest of the time trying not to be spotted by him is… preemptive. Politeness. Brilliant cohabitation.
The easiest way to—
“Ah—Fushiguro!”
Shit.
Megumi makes the choice not to turn toward Itadori’s voice, but he is there before Megumi can pretend he’s in any shape to speed up and vanish among the column of men. Itadori is a punch through the raindrops. A red hood wraps around a muddied uniform, shielding his smiling face as he flaps a paper sheet as though it were a winning lottery ticket.
“What’s that,” Megumi says. “More enemies on more sides?”
“Mm.” Itadori clicks his tongue. “I knew you wanted to hear more about it.”
“Really. No.”
“Well, I was right. A few weeks and they’ll pinch us.”
Megumi is sure there must be a reason for this enthusiasm. Maybe. He waits. When nothing comes except Itadori’s unceasing smile, he gives up. “Do you… work for them, perhaps?”
Itadori’s laugh bursts so loud Megumi checks the trees, in case the enemy heard it for miles and charges out of spite. It’s a tingling sound, out of sync. Having already exhausted the word bright, Megumi settles on the paragon of a crystal tray falling from a balcony.
“No, Fushiguro, no.” Itadori keeps flapping the map. “But advantages comfort them. They’ve slowed down because they think they’ve won.”
“I have to admit, I was under the same impression.”
“Don’t be a catastrophist. I told you, I’m here. I won’t let them.”
Megumi raises a brow, half‑indignant, half… just indignant. Itadori’s squad is among those that could’ve already evacuated the land. He hadn’t. At some point, Megumi will have to admit he’s just groping for excuses to hate him.
“Hate to break to you,” he lies—he loves breaking it. “But you’re still one man.”
“And the enemy is?” Itadori counters, which has to be some bravado‑bold jab Megumi is too basic to understand. “I know it’s a stretch,” Itadori continues. “March is long, but mountains will shield us.” “They have aircraft.”
“Which I can feel.”
“Like everyone with a pair of ears?”
Itadori hums, tilting his face to the sky as if it weren’t falling on them. It’s a dangerous pose, the hood slipping, dimples deepening, and Megumi fears he’ll have to endure another ‘happy to see you’ when—
Itadori chuckles like a spring. “You haven’t changed a bit, have you?”
That should be easy. “Neither have you.”
“Why? Do you remember?”
Remember. Megumi’s next step slows, then stops.
The word spills with needles through his chest—remember, remember—a gurgling, liquid thickness in his left ear. He blinks, touches—blood?—and he’s about to ask what this means when black sweeps behind his eyes. His leg gives way, and then there’s Itadori steadying him, hands staunch as a crutch.
(Is the world shaking? Something bubbling and caving?)
“Sorry,” Megumi breathes out. “What have you said?”
Itadori doesn’t answer at first; the column of soldiers keeps walking.
(Pat, pat, squelch, and double pats.)
“Let’s rest,” Itadori says, quiet, prodding. “I’ll give the order.”
Megumi shakes his head, temples flashing like buzzsaws. “No, I—”
“You’re not fine. Could be a fever.”
“Really.”
Megumi slips his arm free, wiping his ear, the ringing sound, the stupid impression that the ground is churning beneath his feet. “I still—can take decisions on my own.”
It comes out horribly, and the ‘still’ militates little in his favor. Still. Who cares.
“Of course. You can.”
“And I’m sorry—” God, why is he still speaking? “For the tent. How I—” am a complete asshole.
“No worries,” Itadori says, but he’s speaking slower now, gentle, like Megumi’s the idiot—worse.
He’s watching him again, like in the tent, like Megumi is the tray fallen from the balcony, big doe eyes that make dawn on their own, and Megumi can’t stand it. Does get crushed under cars. Deep in his bones, Megumi knows he’s already stood before eyes like those, caught them smiling at him, then watched them darken. Maybe it rained, maybe not, but Megumi never speaks about this.
“Yet you should know,” he remarks, like he’s both the car, the tray, the balcony, and an outright mess. “I don’t need your help.”
Itadori’s eyes finally crinkle, and Megumi takes the point. Crinkle, crinkle, crinkle. “I know,” Itadori whispers. “But I’m here anyway.” No, Megumi never speaks about his dreams.
***
(No chance. He won’t speak about his dreams.
What? They’re not dreams?
Well, fine.)
***
Megumi’s dreams aren’t dreams, that’s it. They’re the horror marketplace of nightmares.
He doesn’t remember when they started, nor when he’s entertained the idea to ask Shoko for some horse tranquilizer before resorting to just staying awake as long as he can. Not as hard a thing when blasts, booms, and ra-ta-tas crowd the sky, but at some point, the body betrays. Shadows fall and beasts arise.
Those aren’t even the worst, shadows and beasts; he mostly fights, runs, dies, rinses and repeats. But people. He can’t escape people. He’s watched hundreds of times his sister laughing madly—and then Tsumiki was dead. Trains rushing past. A sweet, crooning voice. A man he doesn’t know stabbing himself, the hint of a satisfied smile.
In those nightmares, Megumi can’t fight, can’t move. His body is congealed, curled in a puddle of gray, his mouth locked open in a scream that can’t get out. He tries, every time. He blows and blows through an empty channel, like his vocal cords have been severed, his voice ripped out; he squeezes his lungs until his throat aches, raw, then fills with something metal that gurgles and chokes him— —and that’s when he wakes.
Trembling and sweaty and clutching at his chest.
Alone?
(He can’t tell.)
***
“I’m going to vouch for your hospitalization,” Shoko says, butting a cigarette into her desk. There’s a graveyard of them at this point, and Megumi focuses on their smoking threads instead of the moans and discreet reek of sanitized death drifting through the curtains. A genuine regret when Shoko picks up a half-smoked stubs and drags it, adding:
“Two weeks out of the field. Antibiotics and all its friends.” Megumi’s dying on that chair. “Forget it.” “One week.” “I’m fine.”
“It’s not that.” Shoko leans back. “And you’re not.”
If that’s the game they’re playing.
“I am,” Megumi says, a year’s worth of calm. “And that’s not even a hospital.”
A moving tent, maybe. A menagerie of sickness where someone higher than Megumi daily plays eeny, meeny, miny, moe to select those ‘not able to keep pace’. It’s been ten days since they left Tokyo. They had eeny, meeny, miny, moed quite the extensive lot.
If the reminder hurts Shoko, she doesn’t show it; just takes another drag.
“It’s not that,” she repeats. “And you can be of some help here.”
Be, not needed. Shoko doesn’t need help, and Megumi couldn’t care less about being somewhere he isn’t needed—but at least he catches the shift.
“That’s about the higher-ups, isn’t it?” he says, asks, nearly curses. “They want me out because I disagree with them. Because I’m—what?”
An extension of Gojo’s shadow? A leftover Zen’in crust? A captain who should’ve been upgraded seven failed missions ago?
“They want everyone out,” Shoko says. “But yes.”
“I don’t need a shelter.”
“You’re not even going to the meetings. ‘Difficult’ is the word they’re using.”
Megumi’s hand clenches, then relaxes. Clenches again. It’s like one of those squeezing balls for cardiopaths. “If it’s my rank they’re after, they can come take it with their hands. Any time. Why be subtle.”
Suspects range from the fact he is the shadow of a maybe-not-dead Gojo to the fact that crusts of clans are still clans. He’s a captain too, should anyone forget.
“Your men don’t complain about you,” Shoko explains, and with a little bit of translation it could be a compliment. “But then, they noticed… there’s this matter.”
“Will you go on speaking in binary?” Megumi snaps, and then realizes she’s hesitating. She’s in the ‘lingering word’ band and Megumi sniffs what this matter might be.
Snapping meets the concept of inadequacy. Throwing the chair might be easier.
Shoko must read this too—maybe because Megumi has sprung on his feet, stiff as termite-eaten wood—and her purple rimmed eyes don’t waste a blink. They hold him, flat. His head spins dizzy for the sudden movement, but he’s half-sure it doesn’t show. Stalemate. Is it not?
If it wasn’t, she would declare aloud: it’s Yuji Itadori. She would make jabs about their cadet years, tease him with remember?, and admit it, he’s strong—he can take on your duty, so you can rest, and—no. God’s sake, no. Shoko doesn’t joke. That was Gojo. Would’ve been Gojo. It’s been a while since Megumi heard someone joke.
(And where is Itadori, anyway? Yesterday, Megumi found his canteen freshly refilled, a note tucked under the strap: Not help, just hydration.He didn’t read it with Itadori’s voice, no.)
“I’ll write them and state you’re unfit for battles,” Shoko says, and she’s Shoko.
The sentence carries the commitment of a breath; she takes the next one and it’s gone. Sometimes Megumi wishes he could handle grief as well as her. Now, he wishes he understood why she’s still looking at him—everyone is, recently.
“You won’t,” he says, and walks out.
He is fine. He doesn’t need protection.
***
“Well, shit,” Itadori says.
“What’s this?” Megumi asks.
A dark, grimy liquid licks the side of the road, a sort of blackish swamp that stretches and disappears through the curtain of rain and trees. The rain itself has warmed, thick as soup, brownish drops pattering circles into the surface. Pollution, maybe. The clouds are curdled yellow.
At any rate, it doesn’t look like an overflowed river. Or water.
“Don’t know.” Itadori crouches, letting his hand hover over the liquid, a thick reflection of his finger. “Spilled oil?”
“What kind of oil do you know that smells like…”
Overripe pomegranate. Copper so long forgotten it started weeping rust. Pain, had pain learned how to stink.
“And there goes any chance of fishing,” Itadori says.
“Idiot.”
“No, I mean—look over there.” He nods east. “Level’s rising.”
Megumi narrows his eyes at the inky roots spreading along the bank.
“Maybe it’s a ritual,” Itadori goes on. “Spooky folks.”
Megumi’s arms fold around his torso. Is that a bunny blobbing along the edge?
“Don’t touch it!” he snatches Itadori’s wrist. “It can be a chemical weapon.”
“I’m good—”
“Don’t be dense.”
Megumi pulls him up, wincing at the pain beneath his uniform. He bites back a curse and dusts off his palms, turning his gaze to the swamp with what hopes looks like a contemplative expression—because if he only hears another person suggesting him to sit and rest, he’ll take a dive straight into that liquid and do laps.
(To go where? Maybe there’s another here out there)
“We can’t change our route,” he says, pointing at the road blurring in sick greens. “That’s the only direction. There should be a bridge a few kilometers ahead.”
“Hakone,” Itadori offers.
“That’s it. Otherwise we can…”
Turn back. Turn to the red-smoky mirage and charge. What would the higher-ups chide Megumi for? Not his fault the ground has started bleeding.
He’s still debating whether to propose this, when he turns to Itadori, and by his looks he might as well been speaking aloud. It’s happening more and more these days. They’re walking the road together—or better, Itadori doesn’t leave his side, and Megumi waits to catch the moment his grin would finally slip from his lips—and either they’re silent or Itadori’s ranting about nothing, it seems he could always tell when Megumi’s thoughts stray in the fog. When he’s tired. When the fever he pretends he’s not rising creeps down his spine in shivering drops.
Then he would slow down, drift his arm closer. Once Itadori tricked him, exchanging his own warmer jacket for Megumi’s—“Sure you don’t need it?” “Nah, it’s hot here.”—and Megumi had only stared at those fingers buttoning the collar, oxygen forsaken, the vague fear that Itadori might give his eyes away too if he only asked. He has almost asked.
(Maybe Megumi is speaking aloud. Could be the terminal stage of his fever.)
“Fine,” Itadori says as though it’s the end of a long conversation. “I’ll go ahead to check, your men follow.”
Oh, the hero.
“No,” Megumi replies, and it takes half of his breath. Those shivering drops gather again, his next step like a jerk through rusty, grinding joints. “I’ll go, you follow.”
“What kind of tactic is this—”
“Your men are fresh, mine are tired.”
It makes sense; no one can argue that.
And as Megumi drags his feet forward, he doesn’t say that he hopes to find something ahead, will it be the enemy’s army or that red-burning wall. No, sure, he knows he doesn’t.
But from the last glance Itadori cuts him, he wonders if the bright captain can indeed read his mind too.
***
Nothing lies ahead but more of this sickly swamp, where they eventually camp down to rest. Sleepbags are unfolded, bean cans screwed open and eaten; and Megumi just lies in the background, back against dank ground and eyes on the dripping canopy. What is up there to count? No gods; not a boom or rat‑ta‑ta, but the clink and tinkle of tired, scraping spoons around him. If stars still lit the sky, they’re stifled by this plastering overcast.
(And when was the last time he’s seen stars anyway? Why, the sky?)
“Something to eat?” Itadori’s voice floats down at him, his figure appearing a second later. “You’d never guess. Beans.”
The can flops onto Megumi’s stomach. He groans on cue, but after a commanding ‘eat’, he has no choice but to surrender. Supper is supper, Itadori has repeatedly insisted, even if it tastes like kidneys steeped in sweet‑and‑sour. Maybe Megumi’s developing an oral infection, because Itadori devours it like it’s the finest roasted pork. Then again, he is Itadori.
“I meant to ask you this before,” Itadori says around a mouthful, “Is there a reason you don’t like this whole idea?”
“You mean the evacuation?” Megumi scrunches his nose at the term. “I don’t like cowardice.”
“Is this how you see it? Cowardice?”
What else is there to see? It’s a retreat. That’s the plan Megumi has refused to hear about for days, weeks spent gritting his teeth in Tokyo. Leaving. Escaping, fleeing, abandoning a land where the bones of the people he knew—Gojo? still alive—lie not yet cooled in the soil. It’s his haunting thought and irresolute sin. Megumi should’ve held that line. He should’ve faced the red‑scorched wave.
(Salvation is a lie and Megumi hates being lied to.)
“It doesn’t matter, no?” he mutters. “I’m not the one in charge.”
“What if you were?” Itadori asks. “Would you choose to stay here… forever?”
It’s a long pause, the one hanging between here and forever, longer still as Megumi realizes he can’t answer that. It’s more complicated than that. He lets the spoon sink into the can, stirring in slow circles. What if he tells Itadori outright about the red and the nightmares? Would he think him mad? Wrong? Stop speaking to him?
As absurd as it sounds, Itadori’s the only thing that warms this dripping hell.
(selfish)
It’d be lovely to cook him something, anything, that doesn’t remind Megumi of bloody organs.
“What about you?” he asks, looking up. “Why are you… here?”
Itadori’s staring at the spoon with misguided sympathy, brow pinched as if he’s feeling for its drowning fate. “Someone asked me.”
“Like an order?”
“Oh, no, I mean… ah.”
Itadori scratches his neck, eyes darting as if an answer might leap out of the thicket. Well, well. A better man would probably give him a way out, but it’s not like Megumi ever entered that competition, and there’s something undeniably funny in seeing the great Itadori—flustered? Floundering. A few scratches more and he’d cut down to the quick.
“No,” he finally says. “But it’s someone I care about. And I promised them. See? Oh, great. Now you think it’s stupid.”
Too late. Megumi tries to return to his depressing beans, but the damage’s done—damn. He’s chuckling. “Not at all. Sorry. No. I think it’s you.”
“Me?”
“Yeah, a Yuji Itadori thing. This must be… an important person?”
Itadori swallows as if some of those beans got stuck halfway down his esophagus. He nods, and Megumi nods back. Yuji Itadori, the name has rolled soft on his tongue. Why? Maybe it reminds him of care, and care it’s something he can respect. Maybe, in the fog of his mind, that’s a word he can still read.
“Then we’ll make sure you come back to them,” he says, and it’s decided.
Then pinch on Itaori’s brow smooths, and he nods again.
(Had Megumi’s mind been less foggy, would he have picked up the ghostly ‘yes’ in that nod?)
***
And the days pass, and no enemy fires, and Itadori grins, and Megumi stays.
On his feet. Here. Awake.
It’s some kind of physics, he thinks. While an object is in motion, it cannot fall.
When night spreads through his limbs (who is keeping count of time at this point?), he learns to pick up on the scuff of Itadori’s steps, the squeezing static of his voice.
“No rest?” Itadori would say.
“Go on,” Megumi would reply. “I’m doing first‑round watch.”
The scuff always gets closer, a weight flopping beside him. Then, invariable as the rain:
“Nah, I’m staying awake with you.”
***
And then Itadori commits the unforgivable. He saves Megumi.
***
It starts like any other day, morning, noon, or night; with Itadori snapping his map wider and Megumi pretending he knows head or tail of it. Yes, up the hill. Yes, the black muck is probably at their heels. Yes, so strange, right? The rain slicks in darker hues, but it’s relenting.
When Megumi hears the engine’s roar, whistles and drumming rattling the air, he gets just enough time to turn toward Itadori’s blissful eyes and shove him sideways.
The world explodes.
It’s black, and bouncing, and muffled, and whirring; Megumi is bucked and smashed and his brain splattered; each chunk of flesh carved apart and buried in twenty different places.
He’s dead.
(As if.)
Someone shakes him, shouts soundlessly, big eyes bloodshot and stung with smoke. He smells of exploded metal. His dimples are beautiful.
“....ushiguru!”
Let me alone.
“—hell with it!”
The cuff smacks against Megumi's forehead, and his lungs expand, gasping into reality. A smoky reality. Heat sears up his face as shapes bulge into reliefs, red and aflame, men shouting and running through those ripping rat-ta-ta that should’ve kept him awake.
“Fucks,” Itadori says, grabbing his arm. “You alright.”
No—God, how could he be? His legs wobble, folding under him as Itadori hauls him upright; he can’t feel them. Can’t stand the fuck upright. It takes seconds to piece together the blow that must have swept him—did he hit his skull? His vision is glossy, jelly-blurred—then a handful more seconds to realize Itadori is maneuvering him, an arm locked around his waist, Megumi’s elbow slung over his shoulders.
Through ringing ears and piercing blows, the engine roar grows louder.
“…bombers,” he mutters, slow recognition.
Itadori’s voice strains with effort. “Let’s go, captain—up.”
“…night-fighter,” Megumi keeps muttering, like he’s cataloguing the entire Japanese fleet. He squints through the heated dust—it’s even stopped raining, the fucker. “…J1N1.”
“Shit—yes.”
“…weren’t you supposed to feel it?”
A crackling detonation bursts on their left. Itadori’s arm tightens around him as the air and ground jolt. New pinnacles of pain lance through Megumi. His teeth dig into his tongue, the heels of his boots into the yielding mud. Stay here.
“Sorry, man,” Itadori swerves, “We’ll think about it later.”
But Megumi is thinking, albeit slowly. It’s something.
J1N1: twin engine, basic radar. The enemy waited—for what?—the rain to pause—why? Another chain of bullets tears over a knot of soldiers; and it clicks. The radar. It’s jumbled. They need big shapes and silhouettes. Megumi needs shadows.
“Cover,” Megumi says, as if Itadori isn’t already dragging him toward the spruces. Too sparse. “Not there.” They need to break silhouettes. “Bushes.”
“What.”
“A cliff and bushes.”
Now he feels his legs, and it’s a torment. Calves, thighs, knees grinding in their joints as he slams steps into the pitching ground. Itadori bears most of his weight; Megumi knows it. That’s when a teeth-shattering whistle slices the air, and Itadori yanks him harder, forward, a mad dive that sends them rolling through shrubs and rooted knots. Edges bruise straight through bone. Blood and mud in his mouth as he blinks at the towers of flame burning around them.
It’s not his red-wall, no, it’s a fake. But it’s enough. He’ll turn out a torch. Like Itadori.
Itadori, who saved him again—again? Again. Why? Remember?—who now leans over him, asking, “Are you whole?”
As if Megumi has an answer. As if he’s ever been whole.
“Hey, here.” Itadori’s hand presses, cool against his forehead. “You see me.”
Yes, Megumi thinks. Matted, blood-streaked, the hero. Impossible not to. The infinite of Megumi’s failure once more painted before his eyes. At least he’s scaring the shit out of the hero, because—Megumi knows in vague degrees—he’s laughing.
“Why?” he chokes out. “Why are you still here?”
Itadori’s grin is finally fixed, pale lips pressed into a line.
“Why.” Megumi rolls him over, grips his shoulder. “Why?” His voice tears, his throat hurts like in the dreams that aren’t dreams. “Why!”
He wants to hurt Itadori but he can’t. He wants to slap him, punch him, erase him, but Itadori is holding him, gentle, chest heaving (but maybe it’s Megumi’s), heart thudding (still Megumi’s), a shaky, “I’m sorry,” repeating in circles.
(And this, who is this?)
“You’ve done enough,” Megumi says. “Please—you—did—”
“I didn’t.”
Itadori’s voice is pale too, a cadaverish white, his arms lulling him, and Megumi is melting. His forehead against Itadori’s shoulder, he should’ve asked who this person is he’s here for, where they are, why he hasn’t yet given up on him, and why this wretched hug feels like something he’s missing.
But should’ve is a word of regret, and the last thing he hears is another sorry as he sinks, ripples closing over his head, and thinks:
This might as well be my fault.
***
(Is it? Really?
Don’t you remember?
Someone stupid promised to save you first.)
***
When Megumi wakes up the world is a lie.
His head swims, joints and wounds echo with bandaged pain, sheets and pillow rough and prickly. A cater of people rings around him like he’s a king, offering vinegar, bowls of rice that look like eyes. Morphine? It’s black.
They say, better to dull the pain.
He asks about Yuji Itadori.
Vinegar and eyes-rice, they all make faces. They murmurs “Shoko’s warned us,” then tell him: not here. That, yes, they’re sure. Better, they can send a telegraph, get the official report. Captain Yuji Itadori died on 6 April 2018, a bullet straight into the heart, and why, no, dear—you never met.
Their eyes are black, pupils, capillaries, and sclera. Their words sing-song, convenient.
Megumi listens in silence, his chest booming like a cello chamber. He even asks them, how’s the war going? Wonderfully. A triumph. Winning.
Ah.
Did it stop raining?
They don’t understand. They don’t remember.
(Do you?)
Yes.
Megumi waits minutes, hours, days, drinks the vinegar and swallows the eyes. He waits weeks, months, years, or maybe just a few seconds, for the room to empty and for his hand to gain enough grip to rip the flebo out. He pushes his body out of the bed. The floor is slick, and he limps, slips, braces against the wall. On. Through the pain and the asphalt in his blood. On. Into the outside that bubbles and swells, the black around him caving and dripping thick leaks, the viscid air like condensed breath weighing down on him; Megumi drops to his knees.
There’s a longing in his chest: to break down and cry for what he’s missing and has lost.
It comes out as a laugh.
It doesn’t matter if on his knees, his elbows, if he has to crawl limbless and it’ll take a new eternity. The red‑wall is there, thin and stubborn and bright, and he will.
Get it all, his life—get him back.
But I have no right to tell you to keep living.
Megumi’s fingers claw through black-bloody ground.
Then don’t.
He starts moving.