Chapter Text
Limitless was one of four legendary cursed techniques.
Some would say it was the most powerful technique but since all four techniques had never directly competed against each other, it was all just speculation. And wouldn’t it be normal for the Gojo Clan to spread the rumour that their most prized technique was the most powerful anyway? If one was to ask a Zen’in, they would boast that the most powerful was definitely the Ten Shadows. If a Kamo deigned to answer one’s question, they would go on and on about how Blood Manipulation was the most powerful technique.
But there are four legendary techniques, and not because four sounded better than three. The last technique was the Six Eyes. It was the rarest one, so rare that one could count on a single hand how many users it ever had in history. And because the most blessed people were never blessed sparsely but always with unfair abundance, the Six Eyes technique also belonged to the Gojo Clan.
It was a fearsome technique that allowed its user to perceive reality beyond the capabilities of mere mortals. And right now, Megumi felt that he was being deciphered to the very core of his being.
It was an absolutely terrifying thing for someone to see you so thoroughly, to see more of you than you are even capable of seeing yourself.
He wondered if the man hovering above him could also read his thoughts. Long, uncomfortable silence had settled between them, the kind of ominous silence that happened right after all birds had flown away ahead of an earthquake.
He was almost compelled to deny reality and close his eyes again as if none of this was happening to him. Or perhaps he could try to flee ( haha, where to? How? What even for? ) or he could just play dumb ( when in doubt, play dead or play dumb , Toji once said).
'Who are you?' Megumi settled on playing dumb, as playing dead probably wouldn’t work.
Satoru Gojo, for it could only be him, pinned him with his very blue eyes, but his handsome, youthful, face seemed to soften slightly. Frankly Megumi had imagined him much older, but the youthfulness of his face did not match the famed extent of his power and authority. It was a strange thing to think that someone just a few years older than him could be the head of a whole Clan. Naobito seemed ancient compared to him (then again he was ancient compared to most living beings).
'Do you not know me?'
'I don't even know myself, my Lord,' Megumi answered and for better effect he coughed and shuffled on his side. He put his arms around his middle, wincing at the sharp pain that shot through his body as soon as it moved even in the slightest.
There was a pause.
'Is that so?' The man leaned over him and Megumi flinched in the bed. Would the man hear his heart thump so loud in his chest? The man’s face was so close, his oh-so-famous eyes fluttering left and right under the wings of his eyelashes to study Megumi. He held himself still, curled and small. It seemed like an eternity passed and just as suddenly as he approached, he suddenly retreated. Megumi didn’t know what the man saw in him but he spoke again. 'You’re one of my disciples. Do you not remember, Megumi?'
Megumi couldn’t hide his emotions this time, clear surprise etching on his face. Was this some sort of sick game? He had heard a lot of things about Satoru Gojo, most of them stories of how cruel and horrible he was as a person, but this was just very confusing.
The man knew his name even though Megumi had never met him. How could he? Satoru Gojo had been sealed for ten years, everyone knew that. Even secluded in the confines of the Zen’in compound, Megumi had known.
For his own safety, he needed to play along though. In these unfamiliar walls, he didn’t know what traps might lie ahead.
'Your disciple?'
'My disciple! A ward of the Gojo Clan. Ah silly Megumi, you must have hurt your head pretty badly if you don’t remember,' the man said, his tone now less severe, almost cheerful. He was still looking down at Megumi with those terrifying eyes. 'Rest for now. We will talk more later.'
The man turned away, his robes billowing around him as if moved by some energy created from within. He left the room, and left Megumi both confused and panicked.
Megumi waited until the doors closed. He pushed his cursed energy outward but when nothing happened, he remembered the cursed shackles. Oh right. That happened too. He counted to a hundred and, hearing no further sound and perceiving no signs of life around him, he lay on his back again and stared at the ceiling.
A disciple, huh? Was Satoru Gojo taking him for a fool to test him or was he actually deliberately lying to him? He knew who Megumi was, apparently. Whether he had done his research — and Megumi had been out of it long enough for him to do so — or someone here knew him. Megumi had left the Zen’in Compound a handful of times and had never encountered anyone from the Gojo Clan, so how could it be?
There were a lot of questions he couldn’t answer. Running away from the Compound was bound to be life-changing, for sure, but this was more changes than he had expected. Nothing was going to plan. He didn’t know where his father was and couldn’t even ask, and he didn’t know if he was truly safe here. He had inadvertently roped himself into some theatrics in hope to protect himself, and ended up as a disciple of one Satoru Gojo.
And added to all of that, his cursed energy was heavily restrained. He could feel it thrum beneath his skin, like a snake slithering in his veins, looking for an escape. It wasn’t painful. On the contrary, it was quickening his healing.
Megumi needed to be smart about all of this. Toji always praised him for how smart he was, how good at surviving. And Megumi would be damned if he had gone through the last few days being chased by the Zen’in just to die at the hand of the Gojo.
First thing was to make sure to stick to the script. He was a Gojo Clan disciple. If he played amnesiac for long enough, he would eventually figure out how to be one of those.
After a while, the door opened again and a woman came in. Her kimono was printed with the Gojo Clan’s typical patterns and colours. Red-crowned cranes flying high in a blue sky, looking down upon the world they inhabited as if they weren’t really part of it but reigned on it from divine will. The bottom of her kimono faded into blue and then purple. Megumi could guess from the quality of her clothing and the patterns that adorned them that she held high ranking among the Gojo, even though her layers were less extravagant than what he would have expected, making her outfit more practical. She came to him with confident and easy movements, unhindered in her steps.
'As you are awake, I’ll have a more thorough check,' she said. 'Satoru-sama said you don’t even remember your own name. What’s the last thing you remember?'
Up close, Megumi thought she was rather pretty, but the dark circles under her eyes dulled the charm of her face. Unlike many of the Zen’in women he had seen at the Compound, she wore no makeup and no jewellery.
‘I just remember falling,’ he said. It was always preferable not to stretch a lie so as not to get oneself lost in the web of deception.
The woman gave a non-committal hum. ‘Can you stand?’
Megumi shuddered at the pain that shot through him as he slowly moved to stand. His head lolled as his vision blurred and he could swear he heard a rib or two crack. Megumi whimpered.
He felt the woman’s hands on him. ‘You could have just said no,’ she said and forced him back on the bed with a sigh. Megumi closed his eyes to will the pain away. ‘I need you to use your words so I can heal you. You have a cursed shackle, so I cannot use cursed energy to find your injuries and heal you. Do you understand?’
Megumi nodded, eyes still closed. It was so embarrassing to be seen like this by a stranger. He was stronger than this and if she just gave him time, he could probably stand.
‘Words, Megumi. Use them,’ she said sternly.
His eyes opened in surprise but when he saw her eyes severely staring him down, the shame and embarrassment at being scolded like a child quickly replaced that of being seen like a weakling.
‘I understand, onee-sama,’ he said lamely.
‘Ieiri. That’s my name,’ she said with a softer tone and started examining him by asking questions and touching him. Megumi tried to answer each question to the best of his ability and he found out that she was a very competent healer.
It turned out that Ieiri was a lot like him. She wasn’t one to waste words on unnecessary chatter, she was efficient and to the point. Her touches were gentle and kind, and as time passed, it almost felt as if they had indeed known each other before Megumi’s injuries, making him doubt his own memories.
He had hurt himself in several places, mostly his ribs and his head. She had bandaged up the most obvious injuries already during his time of unconsciousness. Now, she pulled ointments and potions out of her satchel and put them on the side of his bed.
‘We healed the most critical injuries when you were unconscious but you need to be careful for some time. Spells and external cursed energy can’t get to you but potions and ointments work, so I’ll need you to take them as prescribed,’ she said and showed him the vials, with clear labels that told him what and when he needed to use each.
He nodded. A part of him was aggrieved that Ieiri-sama couldn’t use her famous technique on him. Her technique was even more enviable to the Clans than any other. Sorcerer healers were already hard to come by but Ieiri was the only one who had healing as a technique , not as a side skill that one acquired.
And the Gojo Clan had won her over, much like they had won pretty much every good sorcerer for the past thirty years.
‘Thank you, Ieiri-sama,’ he said and bowed his head as much as he could manage while lying down. She was about to leave when he decided that her probing him to the most intimate parts of his body was enough acquaintance for him to ask. ‘I think – I remember someone else was with me and they were injured too. Do you perhaps know if they are well?’
She paused. He looked at her and she looked back at him straight in the eyes. He fought any instinct to squirm under her intense gaze as he waited with a bated breath for her answer.
‘Okkutsu-kun is fine,’ she said and then paused as if she too was waiting for a reaction from him; perhaps the hint of recognition or the hint of ignorance. But when Megumi just stared back at her, she was the first to break eye contact and turned to leave the room.
He released his breath. Then he was alone again.
Okkutsu, she had said. A name he didn’t know and a face he couldn’t remember, and yet she spoke about him as if Megumi was supposed to know who that person was.
He had run from a bunch of Zen’in hunters, all of them nameless faces. Perhaps it was one of them he had fallen with? Then again, why would the Gojo Clan keep a Zen’in hunter around? Okkutsu had to be someone of the Clan.
This was yet another question without answers, a puzzle that lost its pieces the more Megumi tried to gather them. Did he really lose memories of days, perhaps even weeks or months, between his fall and him being in bed? Did he become a Gojo Clan disciple during that time? That seemed impossible. Megumi didn’t feel that enough time had passed for that to happen. His last memory was him running north, then falling down the valley.
He needed answers to his questions or at least clues. His father had told him that the Gojo Clan would be his salvation but years of lectures within the Zen’in Compound impressed upon him that the Gojo were the enemies. Megumi couldn’t let his guard down on the account of getting healed and being treated like a disciple.
He realised then that he was utterly alone, if they hadn’t found Toji. He twisted on himself again despite the pain and brought his arms around his knees, burying himself in the soft blankets. He was alone. He had no Clan he could go to, having made an enemy of the Zen’in, and he couldn’t really count on the Gojo Clan either. He had had no one else even back when he still lived within the walls of the Compound but at least the Zen’in would have fought for him if only for the blood ties that bound them, or to keep his technique to themselves. But now he had no one who would fight for him because he was him, and he had no one to fight for him because he was family.
Megumi sniffled and shut his eyes tight to keep the tears within. His heart beat fast in his chest and soon his breathing started to quicken, hitching into little sobs. His hands felt clammy and he played with his fingers, twisting them into familiar shapes that yielded nothing but silence and absence. But he couldn’t cry here. He couldn’t be vulnerable here. But wasn’t he so vulnerable already, unable to fight, unable to hide, unable to even stand?
Megumi didn’t realise he had fallen asleep until he woke up again, the headache he got from his crying throbbing against his skull. He reached for the vials on the side of his bed and read each label carefully and found one that was probably meant as a painkiller. He took a swallow and then let himself fall back on the bed again, half-empty.
The day seemed to have morphed into late afternoon as the shoji let in the orange hue of the waning sun. Megumi slowly moved into a sitting position again, deciding that wallowing wasn’t going to bring him answers. The pain had dulled somewhat, enough for him to sit upright.
Taking a step out of bed was a more complicated affair. With difficulty, he made it to the centre of the room, and sat on the chabudai to catch his breath. He realised that the shackles inhibited his cursed energy and therefore a lot of his physical strength too. He wasn’t as strong as he felt, and every motion was heavy. Even walking felt as if he was running through thigh-reaching mudwater instead.
But Megumi made it to the shoji tiles and the beautifully ornate doors and pushed them open. As he had hoped, they opened up on a karesansui, with a single rock. His kimono was thin and single-layered so when the chill of dusk filtered through, Megumi shivered. He sat outside though, his toes in the white gravel, disturbing the flow of cursed energy imbued in the circular patterns traced in the sand. The cursed energy, weak and only meant to bring benevolent health and peace to the pavilion, rearranged itself and the patterns slithered around like thousands of thin snakes, until they settled anew around Megumi’s ankles.
The residential pavilions of the main branch at the Zen’in Compound also had such gardens within them. Even Naobito didn’t dare disturb the peace and solemnity of them so Megumi often found refuge within the inner courtyards of Toji’s and his pavilion.
The evening discreetly settled in by the time he got another visit. Megumi turned slightly to look as the doors opened and closed to let Satoru Gojo in. He forced himself to turn fully and tuck his legs under him despite the awful pain that brought along in his injured limbs, and he bowed deeply, forehead to the floor, as he would have bowed to Naobito and as he thought was expected of him before the Patriarch of the Gojo Clan.
‘We don’t do that here,’ the man said and waved away the gesture. Megumi looked up as Satoru Gojo approached and then crouched before him.
Once again, those blue blue eyes like the colour of the sky and the sea and all that was big and infinite set on him and Megumi almost squirmed back. But he stood his ground and looked back at the adult who was now at the same eye level.
‘You are Satoru Gojo, aren’t you?’ He asked.
The man smiled. ‘You’re very smart, Megumi. What else have you deduced so far?’
Megumi looked down at his hands. His thin wrists were bandaged. He played with his fingers for a bit as he tried to think of what to say as not to give himself away entirely but make the puzzle, the game, more coherent to him, easier to control.
‘Not much. I don’t know why I fell. I don’t know where I’m from or how I came to be Satoru-sama’s disciple. I don’t think I’m a Gojo but if I am not, then who am I?’
‘Hahaha, very smart, indeed. But none of that matters.’ Megumi looked up and glared at the adult. ‘I’ve been gathering new disciples around and I’ve found you. You’re the second one, congrats!’ Satoru poked him on the forehead and Megumi slapped his hand away before he could even will to do so. He froze in mortification at his impulsive gesture but the man laughed some more. ‘Oh, feisty,’ he mocked.
Megumi hated being lied to and mocked and infantilised but he bitterly kept those feelings for himself. Satoru Gojo was nothing like he had imagined, or perhaps this was his own brand of cruelty. Perhaps he had run away from the Zen’in Compound to find himself in the den of a crueller beast. He felt burning shame and embarrassment behind his eyelids, threatening to spill into angry hot tears he could barely hold back.
‘Are you crying? For real?’
‘I’m not!’
‘But you are,’ Satoru stated and watched him cry for several seconds. If the cruelty of the situation wasn’t enough, now Megumi wished he could also slither away into the gravel behind him and disappear from sight. ‘Don’t cry,’ Satoru’s voice was suddenly softer now and he patted Megumi’s head awkwardly. ‘Come, you must be hungry. Let’s have dinner.’
The hand disappeared and now all he saw was Satoru’s sock-covered feet and the button of his white kimono where cranes flew high around his shoulders.
Megumi made to follow – he was hungry – and stood with great effort, his own feet wobbling as he took a step and then another, and then he lost all balance and started falling and falling.
‘Careful,’ a voice, deep and soft and something else that Megumi didn’t know, said as he failed to fall for real and instead fell into arms that were strong and against a body that was warm. ‘I forgot you can’t walk yet, my bad.’
He was lifted up like a child! He wasn’t a child! He was thirteen already, he should do things on his own, he didn’t need adults to treat him like a baby. Megumi tried to fight back, push the man away but he realised with growing horror and even more embarrassment that his weak fists were useless against the man. He sniffled and used the sleeves of his kimono and the bandages of his wrists to wipe away the tears furiously.
‘Let me down!’
‘Aren’t you hungry?’
‘No! Let me down!’
He was hungry though and tried to will that away too. If he stopped thinking about it, he’d stop feeling it. But it didn’t stop, especially as the man stubbornly carried him out of the pavilion and into a second one.
The pavilion was definitely more luxurious than the one he had been in. The walls and doors were painted beautiful with scenes of classic legends and stories. He could guess that many of them were of Michizane Sugawara, considering the battle scenes and scenes of meditation in endless skies. Even the Zen’in kids learned about the Big Three Vengeful Spirits that were at the origin of the Big Three Jujutsu Clans.
Megumi had stopped crying by then and could clearly see the panels. Sometimes Michizane Sugawara was surrounded by clouds, other times by cranes. Most of the scenes were either on a mountain, recounting the battles he had heard about, his long white hair like the crown of the cranes the Gojo loved so much and his eyes as blue as the man’s who was carrying him.
He was brought into a dining room and finally put back on the floor, onto a zaisu. He realised then that another boy was also in the room, around the same age he was, sitting across from him. His features seemed to be about to take the same sharp edges of Satoru’s but still had the youthfulness of childhood. His eyes were a blue so dark that they appeared almost black under the lights of the candles around the room.
‘Hi, I’m Yuuta Okkotsu of the Gojo Clan,’ the boy greeted with a kind voice that teetered on the ridges of his vowels and caught themselves on time to launch into consonants. Megumi realised that the boy must be older than him if his voice was already cracking like so.
‘Oh, it’s you,’ he whispered.
Yuuta scratched the back of his head and smiled apologetically even if he had nothing to apologise for. ‘Huh – I guess it’s me,’ he said even though he probably had no idea what Megumi was talking about.
Megumi felt even more confused. ‘You –’ he trailed on in hope that the other would complete the sentence.
‘Un, I –’ Yuuta said and then looked up at Satoru, panic in his eyes.
Satoru decided to cut their misery short. ‘Yuuta-kun and I found you a couple of days ago, Megumi. The two of you are my only disciples for now, but we will find more of you younglings soon.’
Yuuta smiled shyly at Megumi and Megumi just stared back at him. He supposed he had to just play along with this game for now. Yuuta was probably in on the whole charade.
‘What do you mean find more of us?’
Satoru smiled at him in what he probably hoped was mysterious but Megumi only found it suspicious. The man seemed to think that the entire world was a game that he got to control, and the rules of which were known only to him. It was suspicious.
‘Ah, you see, Megumi-kun, the Gojo Clan is very special in so many ways. Very few are Gojo by blood, and most are of the Gojo. We either win over the most talented sorcerers or we choose them from outside the Clan. Most of those chosen accept, of course, like you did before – before all of this. Now that I’m back, it is time for me to have disciples of my choosing,’ Satoru spoke in a single breath.
Megumi stared at the man waiting to see if he was joking, as none of that could possibly make sense.
‘But I have cursed shackles,’ Megumi said, his voice sounding more pitiful than he would have hoped.
Satoru waved away his concerns with that nonchalant gesture of his wrist that Megumi was starting to hate. ‘I put that on you to develop your physical strength first. You look like you haven’t eaten in forever, kid.’
He clenched his fists and pursed his lips in what definitely wasn’t a pout. Megumi didn’t pout. At worst, he brooded.
Satoru Gojo was a liar. Megumi knew it, and when he looked at Yuuta, Yuuta looked away as if he knew it too.
–x–
At the top of the cliffs surrounding the Thousand Eyes Lakes, the forest was even more treacherous than the water below. The members of the Gojo Clan knew this, so none was surprised when a branch came to hit a young man in the stomach and he went flying into a trunk a few metres away.
‘I told you to look where you’re going,’ Suguru said with an amused smile as the whole group stopped and snickered.
‘Come on. It’s like the fourth time!’ Yuu groaned as he slowly stood and scratched the back of his head. His cursed energy had lessened the impact but damn, it still hurt. He glared at the tree that hit him. Now that he was really looking, there was indeed a concealed talisman on the tree. The spell was old but still efficient and as long as they walked at least two metres away from the tree they would be safe.
The Gojo had hidden talismans all over the forest, with different effects, cursing trees and bushes and rocks into doing their bidding. The forest was a maze where a misstep could cause harm, if not death.
The group resumed walking, spread over a strategic radius of several metres.
‘Why can’t he do this himself? This forest is huge!’ Someone complained in a low voice.
Unfortunately for him, Suguru still heard. ‘It is a good exercise to learn to expand your cursed energy to feel your environment. Perhaps if you focus more on doing that instead of complaining, it’ll go faster.’
The complaining didn’t stop but was more muffled. It made Suguru roll his eyes. He wondered the same thing though. Satoru would need less than a cursory use of his Six Eyes to spot Toji Zen’in in this place. Instead, he had sent for a search party on the eastern and western sides of the forest and they had been at it for two days now. Suguru had half a mind of using his own technique but his curses were likely to trigger most of the talismans in the forest. If he was asked, he would say that the Clan was too paranoid with its defence system.
His steps were assured however, confident in where to step, where to look at. His cursed energy was expanded to the fullest, reaching as far as it could go, sensing even the smallest changes around him. This level of perception was taught uniquely by the Gojo Clan. While most powerful Clans could use cursed energy to sense their surroundings, only the Gojo taught sorcerers to be really good at it.
As the rays of the sun dimmed below the trees and small animals scattered away for the evening, they still hadn’t found any trace of a Zen’in. He wondered if Nanami’s team had more luck. They would have been told by now though.
‘Let’s make camp,’ he said and the group gathered to distribute tasks. Suguru was quick to give orders and soon they had a fire going and hunters to get some game for dinner, easy enough for sorcerers.
‘Suguru-sama,’ Yuu called, seated next to him, ‘Do you think he’s dead? We’ve been expanding our cursed energy as you instructed and it’s been hours yet we’ve found nothing. Not even residuals.’
Suguru looked at his kouhai. Yuu had grown to be a competent if not distracted sorcerer, he thought.
‘The Zen’in are very good at concealing and restraining cursed energy, as good as we are at expanding ours. But perhaps you are right, Yuu-san,’ he smiled indulgently. Yuu seemed to be happy at having his idea acknowledged and even validated. His eyes formed into crescents as he smiled back at Suguru.
Suguru realised then that Yuu was probably right. Satoru wasn’t bothering with this, not because he wanted to waste all their time – not only because he wanted to waste all their time – but because he had taken a cursory look and found nothing. Corpses didn’t emit cursed energy after a short while. And the Sixth Eyes could only perceive that which emitted cursed energy.
After the entire commotion with the arrival of the Zen’in boy, so scrawny and badly injured that the Council accepted him within their walls because they thought he would not survive his injuries and die soon, Satoru sent two teams to do a physical search of a Toji Zen’in. None of them had ever heard of a Toji Zen’in – then again there were so many of them Zen’in and they all looked the same – but Satoru had assured them that they would recognise him as a Zen’in by looks only if not by the cursed energy he carried. They really did all look the same.
The forest soon grew cold and dark around them and by the time they were done eating, the mist had risen from the depths of the valley and leached at their feet, repealing and beckoning at the same time.
‘This is like that grading assessment I once got,’ someone said.
‘Haha, I begged the council out of that one,’ another one answered.
‘I heard Satoru-sama has started to take on disciples. Those kids are so lucky. Too bad he was sealed away during our disciple years.’
Suguru cleared his throat and that person had the decency to look embarrassed, cheeks turning redder under the light of the flames.
‘I mean we are very honoured to have trained under you, Suguru-sama. You’re still a Special Grade! I mean, it –’
‘I get it,’ Suguru sighed and waved the conversation into silence.
Satoru’s unexpected release shocked them all, even the Gojo Clan he was the Patriarch of. Not that they hadn’t wanted him to come back, but just as his sealing changed the face of the jujutsu world, his comeback was even more of an upheaval. Especially for Suguru. He went from being the Special Grade to a Special Grade. And that was just one change among many others.
But Satoru re-emerged as if the world had stopped during his sealing, and because he was Gojo Satoru, the world catered to his whim and rearranged itself again to be exactly like ten years ago. Even the world outside of the Gojo Estates seemed to have complied.
As the mist grew thicker and eventually snuffled even their camp fire, the team settled in a quiet slumber. Suguru couldn’t find sleep however, no matter how often he twisted onhis side or his back and stared at the canopy as if sleep was hanging up there, mocking him.
In the quiet night, his cursed energy lingered along the seams of the tree, mingling with the mist almost like its own substance. It permeated the space between leaves and filled every burrow, and combed the grass and the moss as if searching, searching. It felt the barely-there life of insects and small mammals scurrying around in the dark. Suguru couldn’t make out what they were, he couldn’t perceive the details of them, but life was still brimming around here and it was headache-inducing.
He shouldn’t expand his cursed energy for so long. He couldn’t physically sustain to do so, not without the Six Eyes, but it was a good way to exhaust himself into sleep, if anything.
As the energy retreated, pulled back by its master like the anchor of a ship ready to depart, something unexpected happened. It bumped.
It bumped into other cursed energies, ones he didn’t recognise, ones that felt like darkness, like shadows.
Suguru sat up and shook Yuu, who had fallen asleep next to him.
‘Wake up. There are Zen’in around,’ he said, pulling back his energy faster now. If he had felt it, they had too and they were probably heading their way now. They only had a few minutes at best.