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Y/n groaned and held her side, warm, sticky blood seeping through her fingers and pouring out onto the floor. She slumped against the wall and slid down slowly, wondering how it got to this point.
It was supposed to be a simple grade 3 curse, a simple grade 3.
"Fucking special grades." She muttered to herself.
She had exorcised it in the end, but not without consequences. The consequences being her, sitting on the damp and dirty floor, bleeding out of a hole in her stomach.
The mission was supposed to be easy, a simple in-and-out. Some people had gone missing in the area recently, so they sent y/n out to take care of the curse. The investigation had already been completed before they sent her, they swore it wan't very dangerous, they'd promised.
Y/n immediately knew that the higher-ups did this on purpose. They'd never been fond of her, and that was because she outwardly opposed them. She tended to not listen and just do whatever she wanted, and they did not like that. They didn't like that they couldn't control her, so it was just best to get rid of her.
It was a gamble, though. It had to be perfect, it couldn't raise any suspicion, and that was because Satoru Gojo was her partner.
It really was planned perfectly, y/n had to say. It wasn't suspicious in the slightest, not until she actually arrived at the forest. She could feel the cursed energy thrumming in her veins, it was intense. Too intense.
Then, it appeared. It was right in front of her in seconds. It was disgusting, grotesque, and huge. Multiple arms, humanoid, an unsettling smile on its face. Its claws immediately swiped at her face, and y/n barely managed to dodge its insanely quick attack.
Y/n was fast, but so was the curse. She unsheathed a dagger from her thigh, imbuing it with cursed energy as she flung it at the curse. It lodged into the curse's shoulder, making it let out a loud screech. It yanked the dagger out of its shoulder and threw it back at y/n, lodging it in her thigh.
Y/n hissed in pain, but she didn't have time to stand there, the curse was back in front of her in a second.
It was a hard fight, and y/n sustained more than a few injuries. At the last second, one of the curse's smaller hands sharpened and it punched a small hole through her side. Y/n coughed up some blood, watching as it fell to the concrete floor with a 'splat!'. She jumped up and locked her legs around the curses waist as it wriggled and screeched.
She grabbed two daggers in her hands and hacked away the curses neck, watching as it fell to the floor with a disgusting 'thwack'. Its body disintegrated and y/n stumbled a bit.
That's how she got to where she was now, bleeding out in some broken-down concrete building.
The higher-ups had underestimated her, assuming she would die immediately. That was a mistake on their part, really. However, they were almost right in the end, given the severe injury she was sporting in her torso.
Y/n coughed up some more blood onto the floor. "Fuck." She hissed as she stumbled to her feet. "I'm not dying here." She said shakily.
She managed to get to the edge of the veil and pressed her hands against it. "Of fucking course they locked me in here."
She took a shaky breath and closed her eyes, focusing on absorbing the veil. This was something the higher-ups didn't know she could do, she'd always kept it a secret for reasons exactly like this. She could easily absorb other peoples cursed energy, and she had never been more thankful for that ability than she was in that moment.
As the dark veil absorbed into her palms, she started to heave a little as she tried to breathe evenly. She fell to her knees and clutched her side with one hand, using her other to pull her phone out of her pocket.
It was known that whatever Satoru was doing, he would answer her calls. Always.
She shakily hit his contact and the phone started to ring. It didn't take long for him to answer.
"Hey princess." His happy voice filled y/n's ears as she slumped forward a bit.
"Satoru." She mumbled, loosing the strength to even speak. "I'm... hurt."
"What?" His voice sharpened.
He had just finished off a few curses, and was excited to hear from y/n. But this? He was immediately worried. She didn't sound okay, it didn't sound minor, it sounded bad. Her voice rough and low, it was fading.
"Special.. grade." She managed to get out before coughing again.
She managed to send him the location before she fell onto her uninjured side, eyelids becoming heavy.
"Just stay awake, okay?" He said, hands shaking.
He was there within a few minutes, eyes wide and wild. He spotted y/n, curled up on the ground, blood pooling in the grass and almost lost his mind with fear.
He was by her side in a second, shaky hands pressed against her clammy face. "Y-y/n, look at me." He sounded desperate, terrified.
And he was. He was terrified. He was terrified of loosing another person that meant everything to him. He couldn't do that again, he couldn't lose his world again.
Y/n was one of the only people who didn't treat him like a weapon, like an object to be pulled out of their pocket. She was warm and kind. She was sunshine itself, something he sought out on a daily basis. She was soft, but not afraid to speak her mind. She could be downright scary, but he loved her.
He loved her.
When they met, it wasn't love at first sight or anything like that. It was slow, a gradual build until the dam broke. Y/n was secure in her feelings and had no problem expressing them, but Gojo wasn't. He had been in denial at first, and didn't want to drag y/n into his chaotic life.
He wanted to protect her from that, even if it meant denying his own feelings. He was convinced he couldn't have happiness like that, that it was dangerous.
But y/n had a way of breaking down all of his walls, a way of convincing him he was more than just a weapon and that he deserved love, her love. She never gave up on him, even when it was hard to love him sometimes.
He didn't take certain things seriously, he did what he thought was best sometimes, even when y/n hated it and when it wasn't what she wanted. But they'd worked through it, she'd showed him what unconditional love was.
"Shit." He was trying to stay calm, but seeing the person he loved in such a state was sending him into a panic.
He saw the dagger lodged in her thigh, the hole in her stomach, the blood pouring out of her at an unnatural rate. He was scared.
"Hey, angel." He spoke, voice wavering. "You have to wake up, come on."
Y/n could hear him, but his voice sounded so far away, it was muffled like she was underwater. She knew she wasn't, she knew she was dying.
If she was dying, she wanted to see him one more time. Just once. She fought the dizziness and pain, but the weight in her chest was too heavy, the coldness was pulling her under.
This was death, cold, unrelenting. It didn't care that she wanted to live, even if it was only for a little bit longer. For him.
~
Gojo appeared in Shoko's lab, eyes wild with fear and barely holding onto his sanity.
"Save her." That's when Shoko noticed the unconscious and profusely bleeding y/n in his arms.
"What the fuck happened?" She asked, clearing a spot for her.
"Special grade." He held onto y/n's limp hand. "I wasn't there." He whispered, lip trembling.
"This is bad." Shoko said when she cut y/n's shirt off and peeled the bloodied fabric off of her injuries.
"Just fix her!" Gojo yelled, clinging to her like if he let go it would be the last time he would ever get to touch her.
Shoko did all that she could, but in the end, y/n was left in a comatose state with no timeline as to when she would wake up.
~
Y/n's eyes shot open and a strangled gasp escaped her lips. She shot up, wincing and grabbing her side.
"The fuck?" She rasped, looking down and seeing herself wrapped in bandages.
She looked around and saw she was hooked up to a few machines and in what looked like a normal hospital room, not the lab.
She checked herself over, seeing that most of her wounds had healed completely, save for the hole in her side. It was scarred deeply.
"I'm... alive?" She blinked down at her hands.
Suddenly, the door burst open and there was Gojo, blindfold lifted and blue eyes boring into her.
"Satoru?" Y/n's eyes widened, seeing his state. He looked disheveled and exhausted.
"You're awake?" He croaked, stumbling his way over to her bed and clutching her to his chest. "You're really awake?"
"I'm awake." She said, the sound muffled by his sweater that was pressed against her face. Y/n lifted her heavy arms and wrapped them around him, iv tugging a little. "How long have I been asleep?"
"Four months." He mumbled.
"What?!" She pulled back, eyes widened as she looked up at him.
"I thought you would never wake up." He whispered, long gone was his stupid, cocky smirk he always wore. What replaced it was something softer, something more raw.
"Jesus." She breathed. "Well, what happened to the fuckers that sent me there knowing it was a trap?"
Gojo rubbed his face. "I dealt with them."
"I don't even care what you did, as long as they can't do it again." Y/n reached over and grabbed his hands, placing them on her cheeks.
He seemed to relax at that, and he stroked her cheeks with his thumbs. "They can't."
"Good. Now sit down." She shuffled back a bit so he could sit next to her.
He immediately climbed into the bed, but hesitated when he was going to pull her into his arms.
"What's wrong?" She asked, scooting closer to him so she could snake her legs into his lap and rest her head on his chest.
"I don't want to hurt you." He mumbled, hesitantly wrapping his arms around her.
"It barely hurts." She shrugged. It did still hurt, obviously, but she could bear it. "And I know you missed me, so just touch me, I'm okay."
He kissed her forehead, clenching his eyes shut as he put one hand on her jaw. "I thought you were going to die."
"How could I leave you here all alone?" She smiled softly up at him.
"Can you just retire?" He grumbled, nuzzling his face into her hair.
"Before you do that, maybe I should shower." She laughed a little.
"I washed you while you were in the coma, you're fine." He ran his nose along her temple.
"You did?" She asked in surprise.
"Of course I did." He pulled back to look at her.
"Thanks, my love." She smiled and reached up to stroke his cheek.
"I'd do anything for you." He said seriously, but there was something else in his tone, something more vulnerable.
"I know." She slid her hand down his jaw. "And I love you."
He breathed a sigh of relief. "I missed hearing that."
"I've never seen you act like this." She said.
"I thought you would never wake up, that would have been the same as being dead." He leaned into her touch. "I couldn't handle it. I'm the strongest sorcerer and I almost fell apart when you called me."
"Everyone has to be weak now and then." She pulled him down to press their foreheads together. "I'm alive." She whispered. "I'm okay."
"Yeah." He breathed quietly. "You are."