Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

The hit from the cursed tool Geto Suguru wields sends Yuuta flying through a few walls and all the way to the inner courtyard of a building he didn’t even know existed.

Rika’s cold hands hold him, protecting him from the full force of the impact. Yuuta pats her finger and forces a smile.

“It’s okay, Rika-chan,” he assures. “Thank you.”

“Y-u-u-u-t-a-a-a.” She nuzzles into him, as if curses can be happy. But she hopefully can. He doesn’t want her to be sad.

He dusts off his uniform as he gets up. With narrowed eyes, Yuuta tries to locate the curse user. The man is scary powerful and looks to be a tiny bit insane, but Yuuta doesn’t care either way. That Geto hurt his friends, so he has to die.

Tightening his hold around the handle of his katana, Yuuta steels his resolve.

Crunch.

Huh?

The sudden noise makes Yuuta quickly snap his head right, though he’d rather not turn away from the enemy.

A man bites into a yuzu cookie. Crumbs dot his grey sweatshirt and his shock-white hair falls in messy bangs over his black rectangular glasses. He leans on the pillar of a wooden arch and watches Yuuta with a curious tilt of his head.

“Huh?” Yuuta lets out a sound of surprise. “Gojo-sensei?”

Chewing, the man who is definitely, probably his sensei waves him off dismissively.

“I tol’ you sho many ‘imes—” he swallows the food, “—don’t call me that, Okkotsu.”

Yep, that’s his voice. And did he? Yuuta can’t remember a single instance where Gojo-sensei ever reprimanded him for calling him sensei. If anything, he had quite a big smile when Yuuta addressed him as such for the first time.

“Is he that mad?” Gojo-sensei then asks in a hushed whisper, nodding at the hole in the wall Yuuta crashed through.

“Huh?” Yuuta repeats. What is Gojo-sensei even asking? And why is he dressed like that?

Satoru wakes up with a start, then feels his head throbbing. His eyes practically screech at him, all six of them.

The hangover. Right. He got really drunk last night.

His body instinctively tries to perform RCT, but Satoru fights it off. The pain and oversensitivity are a sure barrier between him and conscious thought. He’d rather deal with a half-lobotomized brain. Only for an hour. Maybe two.

Blissfully blind, with his senses dull and Six Eyes glitching, Satoru burrows deeper into the couch cushion and tries to fall asleep.

Fails. Blinking his eyes open, he glances at the clock—it’s already well into the evening.

Suguru didn’t come to wake him up. So they’re still fighting.

Once again, because he instinctively wants to check on Suguru’s cursed energy, his body wants to do RCT and fix the hangover. And once again, he refuses. He doesn’t want to know where Suguru is.

If he’s not here, then fine. Let him pout. Satoru can out-pout him any day of the week. And to make sure of that, it’s vital his Six Eyes don’t show him every trace of Suguru’s residuals and lead Satoru to him.

It’s incredibly childish, but he needs to show he is serious about the whole thing. Suguru can’t persuade him just because he throws a hissy fit.

Thankfully, the dull pain in his frontal lobe spikes and cuts off that train of thought.

The fading sun beams into the room through a half-curtained window and lands squarely on Satoru’s face. He grimaces, momentarily blinded, and finally gets up.

The guest room looks a bit different than usual. He must’ve taken the wrong one in his drunken haze. He blames Shoko.

Popping a few joints, Satoru stretches his hands up to the ceiling and sighs, content in his misery. At least his clothes are clean and the sweatshirt still smells somewhat nice, so that’s a win—he didn’t barf. Though his mouth smells terrible either way.

Spurred by the sudden realization, Satoru stumbles to the bathroom.

Definitely the wrong guest room. His has his extra toiletries in a small bag under the sink.

Plastic rustles as Satoru rips open a spare toothbrush—the cheap, one-time-use type littering crappy motels on the outskirts of Tokyo. Is Jujutsu High this poor? They need to change suppliers; this is abysmal.

Shower. The artificial lavender scent of equally cheap shampoo almost makes him hurl. He should really bring it up with Suguru—Jujutsu High needs to put more effort and funds into guest accommodations.

The hangover is a bit easier now, but thankfully, the Six Eyes still malfunction enough to prevent him from tracing cursed energy flows. Even better once he puts his glasses back on.

Humming the melody from the latest soda commercial, Satoru decides to take a stroll to the vending machines for some snacks. He’s not creating opportunities for Suguru to “accidentally” run into him. He’s not.

And even if the vending machines are by the student training grounds, he’s not. He just prefers these ones.

Hands in the pockets of his pants, Satoru takes a deep breath and enjoys the quiet.

It’s pretty empty on his way there. Almost too quiet, actually.

The dusk burns orange, painting the walls and roofs of various buildings and temples golden red. The trails curving around them steadily lead Satoru to his destination. And not a single soul crosses paths with him.

Yeah, their fight took a really nasty turn. Looks like everyone got the memo.

Not that there are many people who actually want to seek Satoru out first, but they usually just freeze up when he passes through. Not hide from him right away.

Genuinely, it’s quite refreshing to see the school so empty. Also, it only proves Satoru’s point further.

While he feeds coins into the vending machine, Suguru lowers a veil over all of Jujutsu High. Drama queen. The Coke and yuzu cookies rattle as they fall to the bottom, and the white dome settles down, painting the horizon grey.

The can of soda sizzles and cracks as Satoru opens it, idly looking up at the shifting ripples of Suguru’s veil. He doesn’t need his Six Eyes to know whose work it is, after all.

Tough luck. He won’t bite. He will out-pout Suguru today. So he settles on a bench and refuses to move. If Suguru wants to lure him out with such a grand gesture, then he miscalculated. Satoru shoves down the urge to use RCT—he won’t fucking bite.

Who knows why Suguru felt the need to put up a veil? Not Satoru, no. He’s not curious. Suguru is perfectly capable of dealing with whatever; there’s no force in this whole world strong enough to threaten him. While Satoru willingly nurses his hangover, at least. Afterward, maybe out of spite, Satoru would be fine with trading a few blows. That last Special Grade Suguru consumed had some lava-volcano type of technique and could talk, so that would be fun.

But that’s only if Suguru recognizes the faults in his ways and apologizes. Because Satoru is decidedly not gonna be the bigger person on this one.

Maybe just big enough to leisurely make his way to that huge explosion that shook the ground.

“I mean, yeah, I knew he would be a bit mad…” Gojo-sensei takes a sip from a can of cola and wipes his mouth with the back of his sleeve. “But, damn, this much? If even his favorite is not spared, what’s gonna happen to poor old me?”

Squatting down as if that can somehow make his huge frame smaller, Gojo-sensei sets his soda down and beckons Yuuta to come closer.

Yuuta follows the request and sits back on his shins next to his sensei.

“What is it, Gojo-sensei?” he wonders, sending a quick look to ensure Geto is still nowhere close enough. His sensei must have a plan on how to beat him.

“I told you not— I swear to god, one time, you give kid a hand one time and he bites the whole arm— This saying doesn’t work in the context, come to think of it,” Gojo-sensei muses under his breath. He looks paler than usual, Yuuta notices now that he’s so close. “So, Okkotsu.”

Yuuta refocuses his gaze on the black glasses. It’s a bit unusual after the bandages, but maybe it’s more practical.

“Yes, Gojo-sensei?”

There’s a pause where Gojo-sensei visibly tightens and relaxes his jaw. Then he rubs the bridge of his nose and groans.

“Whatever, I’m too hungover for this,” he mumbles. “You need to stall him some more, okie?”

Yuuta feels a bead of sweat roll down his temple. Stall him some more? He’s not sure he can without one or both of them dying. Rika is restless. Her cursed energy coils around Yuuta in a constant reminder of just how hateful Yuuta is feeling now, to be so in tune with her. Yuuta wants—truly, desperately wants—to see this man dead.

“But Gojo-sensei…” Yuuta trails off and doesn’t finish his protest. His sensei trusts him to stall, so he cannot betray Gojo-sensei’s trust. Still, he needs to warn about—

“I know, I know, he’s, like, super pissed and he’s scary like that,” Gojo-sensei assures as he pats Yuuta’s shoulder. “Just use Rika-chan, mh? She loves him, she will keep him entertained, okie?”

“HATE HIM!” Rika roars, the black fog around her blasting with a fresh spike of cursed energy.

Gojo-sensei cocks his head at that. He gnaws on his lower lip, pondering. Yuuta doesn’t dare interrupt while someone more experienced assesses the situation. Gojo-sensei surely senses now how agitated Rika is.

“Meh.” He eventually shrugs it off. “I’m not in the mood to deal with all that.” Gojo-sensei gets up. With a spark of Blue, the yuzu cookie wrapper is sucked into a tiny, bullet-sized ball that drops onto his open palm. “You got me, right, Okkotsu?” Gojo-sensei clutches his fist around it and grins at Yuuta.

Following suit, Yuuta straightens up, but the confusion is still very much present on his face. Was that some battle-strategy metaphor? He’s ashamed to admit he can’t pick up on Gojo-sensei’s cues right away.

“Should I just stall him for your sneak attack with Blue or…?”

Mouth half-open, Gojo-sensei raises his eyebrows so high they’re visible over the frames of his glasses.

“Ha? Sneak attack?” he asks with matching confusion.

A bit self-conscious about how he probably misread Gojo-sensei’s plan, Yuuta bites his lip. Another drop of sweat rolls down his nape.

“If not that, then what do we do? You need to intervene, Gojo-sensei. He’s too strong—he beat up Maki-san and Panda-senpai and—”

“So you want me to help you?” Gojo-sensei asks incredulously. “No way. If he’s this mad to level all of you, I’m out of here.” The soft fabric of Gojo-sensei’s sweatshirt rustles as he dusts himself off in demonstration. “He’s at least fond of you; my ass is on the line here. And you’re too young to understand it, but I mean it quite literally.” Gojo-sensei shudders.

The leather of the katana’s handle creaks under the force of Yuuta’s clutch. Is Geto so strong that even Gojo-sensei is afraid of him? But how…? Yuuta is a rookie, of course—only six months of actual training—but he saw how his sensei talked to this man back at the school gate. There was no such fear.

Unless… Is Geto so skilled he can conceal his own cursed energy? Did sensei put on a performance for the sake of his students?

His sensei looks too pale and sickly now; he looks genuinely distressed.

“I understand, Gojo-sensei,” Yuuta acknowledges, voice unwavering. “I will take care of this for you.”

Beaming, Gojo-sensei gives him both thumbs-up.

“Yay! You’ve got this, Okkotsu! Just don’t mention me and he should calm down soon!” Gojo-sensei then steps closer to Rika and pats her. The gesture is so natural that Yuuta is not sure whose shock actually prevents Rika from thrashing out—his or her own. “And you, too, Rika-chan! As cute as always. Feeding you my arm was so worth it,” he coos. Then he turns to Yuuta. “Oh, and don’t use my technique against him! He’s still pissed about that whole thing.”

Maybe—and Yuuta is not completely sure—his sensei is a bit overworked. That’s why he’s here at the school. Maybe they sent him back because he sustained a concussion. Or was cursed. In any case, this sensei surely can’t fight. He’s too out of it.

“Okkotsu! I believe I gave you enough time to recuperate!”

More than enough, actually. Was Geto deterred by Gojo-sensei’s presence?

“Oh, that’s his pissed-off voice for realsies,” Gojo-sensei whispers to Rika, still patting her in the most bizarre show of affection.

In the next moment, he’s already on the opposite side of the courtyard and waves Yuuta goodbye.

“Good luck, kid!” Gojo-sensei sends him one last grin and turns around to open a small door concealed in the wall. Once he does, Yuuta’s eyes grow wide.

“Sensei!” he yells, but it’s too late.

Gojo-sensei steps outside and right into the gojou-kesa of that crazy monk.

“Satoru,” Geto greets. “I thought I sensed something weird.”

Taking a few steps back, Gojo-sensei almost falls on his behind but catches himself at the last moment.

“Oh,” he stutters and fixes his glasses. “Hi, babe.” A nervous chuckle.

Babe?

Even Geto reacts strangely—arches an eyebrow into a skeptical curve. He steps into the courtyard and Gojo-sensei stumbles back, as if hellbent on keeping a measurable distance between them. Yuuta has never seen his sensei so awkward and fidgety.

The silence that suddenly falls over this small open space is suffocatingly thick. Yuuta isn’t sure how to describe the emotion he feels as he watches his sensei shift in place, the textbook picture of nervous jitters.

Second-hand embarrassment?

Pity?

Shame?

Gojo-sensei rubs his nape and smiles weakly at Geto.

“What’s with the get-up, hm? It suits you, of course,” he quickly adds, “but I couldn’t have pissed you off all the way to religious rage, right?”

Geto stays silent, glaring at Gojo-sensei with careful but no less seething eyes.

“And, like, actually!” Gojo-sensei taps his right foot, kicking up a faint cloud of dust. “I’ve been here since morning, and you never came to find me either! I’m mad at you, too!”

Yuuta sends Rika a questioning glance. He knows she can’t help here, but he’s not sure how else to even react.

The frown on the monk’s face deepens.

“What are you talking about, Satoru?” he asks; there’s a very thin edge to his voice. He flicks a look at Yuuta and Rika, then sets it back on Gojo-sensei.

Geto reacts to his sensei as expected—on guard, measuring each of his actions, but with the faint air of familiarity Yuuta noticed the first time he saw the two interact. But Gojo-sensei? He surely is overworked.

It’s not like he’s a different person, but something is very different about him.

“Oh, come on!” Gojo-sensei exclaims, the fidgety anxiety replaced by exasperation and flashing annoyance. “You’re an asshole, too! You nag me all the fucking time and when I bite back once or twice, you blow it way out of proportion!”

Now, somehow, Yuuta finds himself exchanging confused glances with Geto of all people. The lack of context behind Gojo-sensei’s outburst is the sole common ground they found to serve as a foundation for this momentary peace. Yuuta shrugs, signaling that he, too, has no idea what is happening. Geto nods slightly.

“And stop double-checking it with the kid! I told you a gazillion times that I’m fine!”

The thing is—he’s not. Yuuta is not the most proficient at reading cursed energy, sure, but Gojo-sensei taught him the basics using his own as an example. His output is the epitome of efficiency and control. Yuuta has never seen any other sorcerer so in tune with himself.

But this Gojo-sensei—who complains about being hungover and wears his hair down over black glasses—he feels like a volatile substance so unstable it may spontaneously self-combust. Even that crazed monk never came close to this level of mess in his cursed energy flow.

And if Yuuta can see it, then Geto surely can, too.

He tightens his hold on the three-staff weapon and shifts his stance.

“You being here is a hindrance,” he says, a hint of annoyance in his voice, “but it looks like Miguel roughed you up pretty well.”

Gojo-sensei blinks, confused.

“Miguel?”

“Huh?” Miguel turns around.

The wall of curses separating him from Gojo is a flimsy excuse for a protected rear, but it does give him the luxury of one off-beat, shocked lapse of focus. The noises of ongoing battles, the multivoiced gimmicks of curses—all these distractions fade into the background compared to the soft, slightly bewildered call of his name. Miguel tightens his hold on his rope. He has ten more minutes to go. But it is undeniably Geto’s voice.

He is not supposed to be here. The whole plan revolves around buying time for Geto to consume Orimoto Rika while they distract Gojo Satoru—and all of the Jujutsu world as a byproduct.

“Why are you here and fighting Satoru?” Geto asks, both perplexed and morbidly curious.

There’s a lanky, purple-green curse behind him with a spiraling swirl of colors gaping where the guts are supposed to be. Its aura indicates it’s a Special Grade, but Miguel doesn’t know this one.

A gentle gust of wind rustles Geto’s long hair. His bangs fall over his eye as he tilts his head—a silent gesture indicating he’s still waiting for an answer.

Before Miguel can even return to processing the question, he follows the cascade of black locks and realizes that… what is Geto wearing? Plain black fabric, loose pants, and a high-collared jacket awfully similar to the one Gojo has on. He looks good in all black because Geto looks good in everything, not like he never discards his monk clothes. But he surely would come to the Night Parade of a Hundred Demons dressed appropriately for the occasion.

This is against their plan. Something must’ve happened.

“What are you doing here?” Miguel, finally finding his wits, asks Geto instead. “Have you consumed Orimoto’s curse already? Do we withdraw or press it?”

Geto frowns. He runs his gaze up and down Miguel’s stance, focusing on the cursed rope for a beat. It’s impossible to understand what he is thinking behind that unreadable mask. And the wall of curses separating them from Gojo is growing thinner with each second. They don’t really have time to deliberate. Geto is too flippantly calm. Did he consume the Queen of Curses? But he would’ve announced it right away.

Ready to call out to Geto to get on with it already, Miguel finds himself unable to speak.

Geto’s lips are pressed into a tight, straight line. He’s displeased. Deadly so. There’s another moment where Miguel recognizes Geto using his technique to sense his curses, and the shadow crossing his face only grows darker.

“What the—” Geto mutters under his breath and heaves a sigh. “Yeah, no,” he then says, louder. “I can’t do anything with this mess all around. What a tasteless display.”

He raises his hand, puts the pad of his thumb against his middle finger and—

Snap.

Cold, oppressive waves engulf the streets of Shinjuku. They’re invisible, non-destructive, but potent—could only be felt by those intimately attuned to the flow of cursed energy both in and outside their bodies.

Ringing silence. The stench of curses disappears. It’s quiet.

A crackle of electricity from broken cables. A car siren. A scream of pain.

His hearing gradually comes back. An outburst of cursed energy produced by the instant release of a technique of that caliber is disorienting, to say the least.

“There,” Geto sighs. “That’s better.” His voice is more mellow than usual, softer—though maybe it’s because Miguel’s ears still ring from oversensitivity.

“Satoru, come here.”

The name forces Miguel to reflexively clutch the rope, a fresh drop of sweat on his temple.

“What are you doing, Geto?” Miguel growls. His ribs are probably fractured and each breath stings, but he would continue the fight. For Geto to be the King, he would fight to his very limit and then more.

But why is Geto calling on Gojo Satoru of all people so casually!? After releasing all of the curses they spent years collecting, just for this opportunity?

A slight breeze sways Miguel’s left earring, sending a shiver down his spine.

“Suguru.” That albino beanpole materializes out of thin air.

Miguel grounds his feet and rolls his shoulders. The rope crackles in his hands with its curse.

Gojo and Geto, though, only stare at each other. Geto furrows his eyebrows as he shamelessly scrutinizes each shift and fold of Gojo’s clothes, then taps the Infinity as if it were a glass divider.

Dejectedly, Miguel glances at the half-destroyed rope the sorcerers of his country spent years and years weaving. It feels a bit insulting to their collective effort—watching Geto so casually treat Gojo’s technique. That, according to his own words, was one of the most sophisticated examples of Jujutsu out there.

“I mean,” Geto hums, “you do know how pissed this party trick makes me, and yet you’re still using it on me. So…”

Gojo shifts his shoulders. His sole visible blue eye glows brighter than it ever did in the whole duration of the Parade. He runs his technique on a far higher level now, calculating each of Geto’s moves.

“You’re not my Satoru,” Geto eventually says.

“And you’re not my Suguru.”

The wail of a car siren somewhere down below on the street dies down.

Miguel is not sure if it’s appropriate, but he really would like to advise them to get a room.

“Walk and talk?” Geto offers. It’s unnerving how much familiarity each of his actions carries when he addresses Gojo.

Gojo, in contrast, is ready to jump back into the fight at any moment; none of his defenses are down. And yet, he gives a slow nod.

“You didn’t release all of your curses,” he states, both a warning and a question. His feet don’t make a sound as they touch the grainy surface of the rooftop.

A little puzzled frown finds its place on Geto’s forehead. “Obviously,” he confirms. “Some protect the kids, others minimize public damage. You know, there’s a metro station about to get flooded.”

Each step of Gojo’s is a methodical, well-calculated risk. His Infinity all but sizzles around him—something Miguel only learned to see thanks to clashing with Gojo and using a cursed tool that distorts Limitless. The progress of his own control and understanding of cursed energy manipulation after that fight is unbelievable. Gojo Satoru, truly, is a beast in his own league.

He’s wary now, sure, but it doesn’t trick Miguel at all—Gojo is absolutely aware the risk he takes is a danger to others, not to him. The presence of more than a few dozen other sorcerers is what forces him to entertain Geto’s antics. The silent threat that Geto can return to wreaking havoc at any moment forces civility.

Geto, on the other hand, looks far more content with the arrangement. He’s not the type to betray his intentions through his cursed technique in the first place, of course, but Miguel prides himself on being one of Geto’s closest confidants. He knows Geto Suguru.

And this is not Geto when he wants blood.

His gait is easy, steps unrushed but with a clear direction. The air around him is idle, reminiscent of a slow Sunday, a leisure of reading books, observing flowers bloom into their beauty. His voice is smoother, too—gentler in its cadence. There’s a seemingly eternal calmness in each of his gestures. Serenity.

“Geto,” Miguel calls.

Long black locks sway with the turn of Geto’s head. He sends Miguel a small smile.

“Can you take care of the aftermath on your end? I’m not your Suguru either, to be frank,” he softly chuckles, eyes in half-crescents.

Indeed. This man is not the Geto Miguel knows and follows. He’s far more… eerie. That little smile sends shudders of cold terror all over Miguel’s body.

The unshakable quietude makes Geto Suguru far more intimidating than the artistry of his passion, Miguel realizes.

“Fuck that,” Suguru curses from the full chest.

He hits a button under a row of milk tea bottles and a battered vending machine starts shaking. The mechanism works—a muted hum of the engine, and then a whirl of the spiral holding the drink. The plastic drops to the tray with a hollow thud. It clatters against the machine’s walls for another few moments until it settles, ready to be collected.

Satoru watches Suguru press another button—the can of Coke joins the tea with a metallic clang.

Offhandedly, Suguru throws the can to Satoru. The motion is fluent and natural; he doesn’t even stop to think about it.

The Coke stops mid-air, stuck in the slowness of Infinity.

Satoru blinks, bewildered, just a tiny bit. A pang of nostalgia threatens to rip him from within because, suddenly, it’s been ten years since Suguru last bought him something from a vending machine.

“What the hell is happening here?” Suguru asks.

What a good question. Satoru grabs the offered drink and feels its cool metal numb the tips of his fingers.

“You tell me,” he replies.

They resume their walk. Suguru languidly sips on his milk tea and uses a third-grade curse to pick up a chunk of fallen debris that blocks his way. The half-destroyed street blinks with busted street lamps and smells of churned-up asphalt. Shop windows gleam with fractured glass, and all the cars parked on the left side of the street have a dent slashing down their roofs. Suguru’s curse drops the piece of concrete by the trash can. Hilariously mundane. It looks at Suguru, waiting for the next command.

“Ugh!” Suguru stops half a step in and briskly turns around. “Those were my curses—why the hell were my curses spread all over Japan in an open assault?” His drink sloshes in the confines of its plastic; his hand shakes just a tiny bit. “And can you decrease the range of your Infinity? This is excessive.”

Satoru has a one-meter radius around him. The chilly metal of the Coke prickles in Satoru’s palm.

As a compromise, Satoru halves the range. Not the usual thin coat, but a concession enough to show he has some form of goodwill.

“Thanks.” Suguru’s voice drips sarcasm. “So?”

“You declared war against the Jujutsu world.”

They stare at each other in the wake of Satoru’s curt explanation. There’s a slight disturbance in Suguru’s cursed energy flow. Then static.

“Did I now.”

A wire snaps, and a shop sign smashes onto the sidewalk with a clatter of broken glass.

Suguru places his thumb in the middle of his forehead and presses down.

His third-grade curse prattles to the heap of plastic and sparkling neon, opens its mouth to a stretch rivaling a third of its own size, and gobbles up the whole pile.

The pad of Suguru’s thumb twists into his skin a little, his eyebrows furrowed and eyes tightly closed.

With a loud blurb, the curse spits out the remains of a broken shop sign by the row of colorful waste containers. For a moment, Satoru wonders if Suguru will force the curse to sort the garbage, too.

Suguru throws his half-finished bottle and the curse leaps to catch it—jumping from its left foot to the right in a grotesque display of happiness.

“Okay,” Suguru breathes out. He drops his hand and blinks his eyes open. “Not that I never imagined a radical solution to all my problems. There’s bound to be a world where I find enough reasons to go through with it. Or none at all not to. Either one, really.”

Satoru’s lips are a thin line. His own drink is unopened and cool in his hold.

“You keep staring at me,” Suguru then accuses, though not without a smile.

Would be weirder if Satoru didn’t stare, actually.

Satoru raises his eyebrow blatantly enough that he knows it can be seen even under the bandages.

To that, Suguru chuckles.

“True.”

Far down the street, one of the Jujutsu Tech assistants runs across. There’s a bloody gash on her shoulder and a small trail of blood she leaves behind glistens under the blinking stoplight.

Her ragged breathing echoes loud enough to reach them. She, though, has either no need or no time to care about her surroundings. She doesn’t notice them—only urgently keeps pressing a button on her phone and running straight ahead.

“I’m not like this where I’m from,” Suguru says. The splotches of her blood contrast against the white lines of a crossing. “This is such poor taste. So juvenile, too.” He tsks, as if disgusted. “How did you ever let me come to this?”

The question stings. Satoru tears his gaze away from the asphalt soaking in crimson and stares ahead—anywhere but at Suguru.

“Not like you left me a choice. I didn’t have a say in the matter.”

The panting breaths of the assistant dull down as she disappears into the alley. She runs to someone, of course. Someone dear to her, so important she can’t see anything else but the path to them.

His fingers make a dent in the can of soda Suguru bought him. It’s warm and damp in his hand.

Satoru hopes the girl reaches whomever she runs to in time. Or just, like, at all. Just reaching someone can be good, too, he eventually learned.

There’s soft laughter by his side. Suguru strides forward and forcefully puts himself in Satoru’s field of vision. A serene smile on his face and overflowing fondness in his eyes.

“Sounds awfully much like me,” he admits. “Must’ve given you a lot of trouble, huh? You look lonely.”

Caught by the heart-wrenching sincerity coating each word of this Suguru, Satoru can’t move. He stares and stares, and the tips of his fingers are about to dig through the thin sheet of metal and everything is about to spill out, and—fuck.

What the fuck.

Why does Suguru wear a Jujutsu High teacher’s uniform? Why is his cursed energy so potent he probably has more than a dozen Special Grades in his arsenal? Why is his smile so warm? Why is he acting so damn familiar, casual, affectionate?

Is this it? Is this how Satoru fucking dies? By finally going insane and imagining the most perfect version of his best friend snapping his fingers and ending the bloodbath the Suguru Satoru couldn’t reach left for him to deal with?

“What the fuck,” Satoru snorts. He grins wide and tears off his bandages, blinking as bubbles of laughter rip from his constricted chest. “Really, Suguru—what the fuck are you?”

“I wanted to ask you that. You have Six Eyes,” Suguru reminds, his own lips in a wide smile. “All that staring did you any good?”

Feeling lighter than a feather, Satoru shakes his head.

“Nah,” he admits and taps his temple. “Completely useless this time around. You’re just stronger than the Suguru I know, but everything else is identical.”

Satoru brings his other hand to the can and opens it to the sizzle of carbonation. The pressure release feels, somehow, monumental.

The smoothness of Suguru’s motions when he waves that third-grade curse off is achingly familiar. He used to do it—assign dumb tasks to the low-level curses because it looked hilarious. A bit like a mockery of everything wrong with this world.

Bubbles prickle at Satoru’s lips and he hides the smile in them.

“The curses here are mine, but once I release them, they don’t come back to me,” Suguru says, a contemplative look in his eyes. The silky swing of his bangs teases Satoru to check if they’re as soft as he remembers. “Which means I can manipulate them since the blueprint of the cursed technique is the same, but the arsenal is a different room, so to speak.”

His Suguru made him think about bangs, too. The locks swaying over ceremonial, flashy robes, longer than Satoru has ever seen them.

Which is… wait.

“So there are two of you simultaneously,” Satoru concludes. He makes sure to steer his gaze to Suguru’s eyes and stay focused there.

“I think so,” Suguru nods. “Any guesses as to where this warmonger version of me could be?”

Shit. Jujutsu High. The students. Satoru has gotten too much whiplash with this whole ordeal that he kind of forgot. There was a crucial reason why he was in such a rush to end his fight with that foreign sorcerer and his annoying rope.

“We need to go to the school, now.”

Completely unaware of what he’s doing, Satoru already grabs Suguru’s hand, skin to skin, laces their fingers together, and wraps them.