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Gojo Satoru stretched with a grin in his cushy first class seat and popped a mochi into his mouth. He was on the way to L.A. to exorcise some stray curse, one of the few that would spawn outside Tengen's barriers every once in a while. His phone on the little table beside him buzzed. Flipping it over, he grinned when he saw that the caller I.D. read Megumiiiiiiiiiiiiii! :3.
"Heeeello," he dragged out as he answered the call.
"Sensei!" the voice on the other end took a frantic tone unusual to the toootally not emo boy. "The higher ups, they grabbed Itadori, They're going to execute him! Me and the others aren't going to be able to get there in time, there are a bunch of sorcerers blocking the way."
Satoru ended the call, a flare of anger flashing within him as he teleported. He should have known after Eishuu that they'd try something like this. His student didn't deserve this, none of them did. And Yuuji-kun... he was sunshine incarnate, a younger, pinker version of his deceased kohai. and he knew Nanami saw it too. If anyone tainted that smile...
He touched down in the midst of a battle. He was taken aback for anly a fraction of a second by the brutality with which his students fought. Megumi bashed in a Zen'in's skull with a lone Tonfo while his sword buried itself in another sorcerer's gut, his demon dogsbringing limbs and hair to nobara, who cackled as she fought. The second years also fought ferociously, felling sorcerers and ignoring their own wounds. In that lone second he took to notice their ferocity, pride bubbled up within him. He grinned as he saw Nanami leading the charge towards the room in which they could sense Yuuji-kun's cursed energy. Satoru flared his own cursed energy then, letting it loose to flow and whirl around him in opressive waves, knocking ouut anyone who tried to stop him as he broke into the room where Yuuji was. He saw the sword swing down, and stopped it. The executioner blanched as he stared at Satoru.
"Nanamin, you want him?"
"Itadori-kun, please, avert your eyes."
Satoru grinned at his kohai as the executioner learned exactly what made someone Grade 1. He patted Nanami on the back as the man shook the blood from his hand. And in that moment, barely more than a few seconds long, Naobito Zen'in made a decision, one fueled largely by the sake in his system. He activated his technique and shot foreward, plunging a cursed tool into the chest of the smiling first year as he walked toward the door to freedom, where his classmates stood. Satoru whirled when the technique was activated, just a moment too late, as he watched his student's eyes blow wide open. red shot out, obliterating Naobito and a few others out of the higher ups, Satoru wasn't really paying attention.
He caught his student as the pinkette fell. "Yuuji!" the name fell from the lips of not only himself but his students and Nanami. He hoisted the 15 year old in his arms and warped to Shoko's office. She looked up in surprised, breaking away from a blsuhing Utahime. The brunettes adapted quickly though, Utahime helping to position Yuuji on an exam table and Shoko's hands settling over the wound pulsing with positive energy. Nothing happened. She frowned and pushed her RCT harder.
"What stabbed him?" she asked, hurrying to switch tactics as she pulled out surgical equipment.
"some kind of cursed tool," Nanami answered for him, dropping the bloody cursed tool on her desk as he entered. Yuuji groaned as Shoko bent over him, trying desperately to repair what she could, adding a steady flow of RCT.
"I think the cursed tool disrupts RCT," the woman said.
"What?" his students entered the room behind Nanami. Nobara looked like she couldn't decide between killing someone and crying as she walked towards Yuuji.
The boy flashed a bright smile, strained agains the pain. "It'll be okay, Kugisaki! Thank you for being my friend."
"idiot," she hissed, frantically wiping away tears. "You're not going to die. you can't...you..."
Yuuji glanced up at Satoru, his amber eyes wide. Yuuji trusted him, and him exclusively with something as he pulled down the blindfold. The flash of fear over his features as he faded, superhuman body dragging out the process of dying. Is that how Riko looked when she died? Or Haibara? A young face, so full of life, fading away? Satoru forced his mucles to comply, to smile, to offer Yuuji comfort as he faded. Yuuji glanced around the room. "Live a long life, okay guys?"
A moment passed
The labored breathing stopped.
the silence stretched until Nobara broke it, falling to her knees with a sob.
Satoru felt... nothing. He felt hollow, as though the pinkette had taken something with him, something Satoru couldn't name. He reached out, closing the glassy amber eyes with two fingers.
What was Yuuji to him?
That was easy.
He was a student, right?
No, something else too.
Yuuji was like Megumi, Satoru realized.
He felt then. Like a physical stab in the heart, one that reminded him of a certain Fushiguro we don't talk about.
Had he always seen Yuuji as a son? He pressed his eyes shut, a tear squeezing free.
A moment and a half passed. Satoru stood stiffly, grabbing the bloodied cursed tool and handing it to Nanami. Their eyes met, and an unterstanding passed between them. They both saw Yuuji the same way, and, judging by the way Nanami's jaw set as he took the tool, they both agreed on the fate of those who'd hurt him.
Shoulder to shoulder, the men made their way out the door, passing Shoko as she smoked in the hallway. An involuntary shudder when she saw their faces. Suguru, she thought. They look like him, after...
It was then that Ieiri Shoko realized her friend, Satoru, was gone, and in his place was something she couldn't exactly name.