Chapter Text
Megumi is looking for the classroom where Nanami said Yaga was waiting for him when they crossed paths earlier. Too many empty rooms in this school, or not enough students, perhaps. Always short of hands.
"I’m sorry I’m late," he says coming in, when he finally hears Yaga and Suguru’s voice behind one of the closed doors.
"You’re not late, really," Suguru tells him.
He’s sitting, legs spread open, on one of the chairs, half turned to watch Megumi come in.
"It’s fine, Megumi. Sit down."
"Where’s Shoko?" Megumi sits next to Suguru.
"She’s helping the fourth years—"
"I didn’t call her in," Yaga interrupts. "I’m assigning this mission to just you two."
Megumi and Suguru look at each other.
"There will be an observer, as well. But first things first. This mission comes directly from Master Tengen, it’s the escorting and erasure of Master Tengen’s new vessel. A middle school girl named Amanai Riko."
"Erasure," Megumi says, his voice low. He feels Suguru looking at him.
"Why the need for us to escort her?" Suguru asks.
"She’s being targeted by the curse-users of the Q Group, on one hand, and the Time Vessel Association, a cult built around Master Tengen. The erasure should happen in two days but her location’s been leaked and we can’t be sure of the threats she’ll face. We can’t even be sure those are the only groups after her. Keep her safe until the merger and we won’t have a disaster on our hands."
"Understood."
Both Megumi and Suguru make to stand. Yaga’s briefings are always short and to the point and he gives their driver, whoever’s on shift that day, the practical details and the short report, if there’s anything else of note. But Yaga places a hand on both their shoulders and pushes them back down onto their seats.
"It won’t be just the two of you," he says, trying to look threatening. After his divorce, he’s been looking for a new angle. That, and his dolls.
"Oh, you did say an observer was coming," Suguru says. "Who is it?"
Yaga rubs a hand over his face. "This also comes from Master Tengen himself, but not just him. It’s more or less a test."
"For us?" Megumi asks. Won’t be the first time his Ten Shadows gets tested, or Suguru’s Cursed Spirit Manipulation is under review.
"No. For Gojo Satoru."
Again, Megumi and Suguru look at each other.
"The kid with the Six Eyes? Isn’t he like ten?" Suguru asks.
"He’s six," Yaga says. "Officially, this would be his first mission."
"Unofficially?" Megumi feels uneasy. Not even his father’s family sent him on missions that young.
"Since he started a year ago, this would be his—over ten, I believe. I don’t keep count for him. I’m not privy to that information, anyway."
"Why’s he coming?"
"The Jujutsu world rests on his shoulders. That’s the official reason, said the higher ups. What better way to see if he can carry it than this? If it were up to me, I wouldn’t have this, but it comes from the top."
"So, he won’t be a simple observer."
"It’s not like you can or should leave things to him. Treat him like an observer even if he thinks he isn’t."
Suguru slouches towards the vending machine that’s at the east corner of the school.
"I’ll get you a black coffee," he says, coin already in the slot.
"Thank you."
"So tell me what’s on your mind."
"Huh?" Megumi, who was looking at the sunlight reflected on the windows of one of the empty buildings, turns to Suguru.
"You’ve barely said a word since we left Yaga," the can clatters through the machine then drops with a clank. Suguru retrieves it, crouching, hands it to Megumi without standing back up. "We’re supposed to meet the Gojo kid and his escorts in an hour."
"Just thinking about the way sensei put it," Megumi takes a sip. He watches Suguru choose a drink for himself. "Erasure." She liked strawberry milk. She might be the same age. No, older. She would be the same age as Megumi. Only three months older.
"That bother you too, huh? I suppose he can’t be honest about this. What do you wanna do? Become an enemy of the jujutsu world?" Suguru looks up at him and flashes a smile, his eyes narrow. Another can rattles, drops. He gets it.
Megumi looks up at the blue skies. The orange trees in the garden are already heavy with fruit, branches hanging low. Her favorite season was the non-season period in between, before one of them came in full. Suguru’s thoughts are always a step ahead of his, and sometimes he’s fine following them.
"It makes me wonder if they’re not sending Gojo Satoru to keep an eye on us," he says.
"A six year old child babysitting high school second years."
"A Gojo keeping an eye on a Zenin." Megumi turns to look at Suguru.
Before he met Suguru he wouldn’t have considered it, that Gojo Satoru was there as failsafe—if you dare try and upset the order we’ve worked millennia to maintain the only human who can kill you will—because he wouldn’t have considered a middle school girl’s choice in all of this. He wonders what she would think of him. Would she say no one considered mine? Half of Suguru’s face is shaded by the shadow cast by the vending machine, the other half illuminated, bright and clean.
"You know, if she’s against it, we’ll escort her to safety, as requested of us. It’s her we’re supposed to protect, not Master Tengen," he smiles.
Megumi nods. It’s her he was supposed to protect.
"Besides, the Ten Shadows can beat the Six Eyes, can’t it? That child soldier. What should we do about him?"
"It’s up to him." Megumi finishes his coffee and throws the can into the recycling.
"Have you ever met him?"
Megumi shakes his head. "There wasn’t any reason to."
"Clan politics are absurd."
Megumi nods. He can’t disagree.
It’s an oppressive, disquieting, eerie feeling that strikes them—they look at each other so they can be sure the other felt it too—as they walk away from the vending machine. The day is cool and there’s nothing changed about the weather, and the birds keep their song hanging in the air like nothing’s different but everything’s changed, like night has fallen and only for the two of them. There’s something distinctly childish about this feeling, this energy, like listening to a grade schooler talk about a frog they smashed with a rock, tone flat and bored, saying they did it just because they could, or a toddler that calls you over to show you the flies and the larvae eating at the eyes of the dead cat in the garden, expressionless and not all that into it, either.
In front of them stands a child, no taller than their hips, in shorts, with his hands stuck inside the front pocket of his hoodie. He’s looking up at them with large skyblue eyes and long snowlashes. Other than the size of his eyes, his expression is as muted as could be, displeased even.
"Zenin Megumi," he says.
"That’s me," Megumi says.
"It wasn’t a question. I knew from your energy. We should leave."
"I’m Geto Suguru," Suguru says. "Nice to meet you, kid."
"Your bangs are weird. I know who you are, too. You eat cursed spirits."
Suguru smiles at the kid. His eye twitches like there’s dirt, like there’s cinder caught between eyelid and eyeball, brought in by the wind, by the night that fell for him and Megumi.
"They’re not weird. Your clothes—"
"We need to go," Satoru sighs, impatient, and turns to start walking, fully expecting they’ll follow.
"What about your escorts?" Megumi trails behind the small child. He can sense a kind of chilling energy rise and fall with his steps, like he’s playing yoyo with the world.
"I don’t know what the Zenin taught you or what they teach you at this school, but I’m the strongest sorcerer alive. Any escort would be a hindrance. Other than you two, any person would be a hindrance."
"Did you ask for us, then?"
"Of course not," Satoru takes a hand out of his pocket to wave it in the air like he’s had enough of his meal, please take it away. "Jujutsu is done alone. It’s stupid not to. I have no choice but at least you two can hold your own."
"He pisses me off," Suguru, eye still twitching, cinder still caught, tells Megumi, who nods back at him.
That the child is like this is unsurprising, considering, but Megumi still wishes he could feel less empathy for him instead of more. What would she think about this kid who holds the world up on his back? Atlas, at last. They follow behind the child and Megumi fully expects he’ll ride the car with them but there’s a different one for him and so they meet up again under Amanai Riko’s apartment.
Except the balcony to Amanai Riko’s apartment is up in flames, burst open from the inside, and what looks like a life sized doll is flying out the window in an arched trajectory. A beautiful shot. Megumi summons Nue and catches Riko’s body in Nue’s wings. She lies on Nue’s back, unconscious but alive.
On the ground, Satoru flicks his fingers and a series of knives thrown at him and Suguru crash against thin air and fall with the clatter of metal to the ground.
Suguru summons one of the cursed spirits he’s been holding and restrains the man who threw the knives—half his face covered by a neckerchief and wearing a military style uniform—and pretends to be deaf when the man starts a long tirade on himself, or something to that end.
"They’re from Q Group," Satoru says, eyelids lowered like he’s had enough of this charade, like this theme park isn’t as exciting as he thought it’d be. "They’re curse users. There’s one up there," he’s pointing towards the wreckage of the apartment, one hand still in his pocket.
Nue, and the girl have landed, and Megumi takes her off Nue and into his arms. Suguru looks at her, small and frail in her school uniform, and he and Megumi nod at each other. Up where Satoru pointed, a man is standing on the edge of the building, torn concrete surrounding him. His hands are at his hips and he seems to be trying to look down at them, trying to speak.
"He’s small fry," Satoru says, both hands back in the pocket of his hoodie. He didn’t think it would be this dull. "One of you can take him. I’m going back."
Suguru summons a separate curse and hitches a ride on its stingray-like back. He easily disarms the opponent—who introduces himself but Suguru can’t hear him, there’s too much wind and the guy’s face is covered—and wraps him in a tree-like curse inside the apartment, moss growing at his roots, mushrooms clinging to his sides.
"Going back where?" on the ground, Riko still in his arms, Megumi asks Satoru.
"Home," the kid shrugs.
"The merger is in two days," Megumi says. "We have to stay with her until then."
"You have to. I’m just here to observe."
Megumi’s phone rings loudly.
"Can you help me with that before going, please? It’s in my left pocket."
Satoru lets out a long sigh. "Shoulda known the Zenin would be a creep."
"Please get me my phone."
Satoru steps forward and, using only his front and middle finger, he retrieves Megumi’s phone from his pocket, flips it open, and looks at it. Geto Suguru, the caller ID says. He wonders how old the phone is.
"Answer it, please. You can put it in my ear."
"Are you always this polite?" he asks but he presses the phone to Megumi’s ear anyway, standing on his toes.
"Okay,” Megumi says into the receiver, knees bent. “Yeah. Got it.” He moves his head away from the phone in Satoru’s hand. “You can hang up, Gojo-kun," Megumi says and Satoru flips the phone closed and puts it back inside Megumi’s pocket. "Suguru says to go upstairs. To her apartment."
"I’m going back," Satoru’s already turned around, his back to Megumi.
"Don’t make this difficult for us, please."
Megumi watches the kid’s small back, unmoving. His small shoulders barely hidden by the oversized hoodie.
"Fine," Satoru puts his hands on the back of his head, elbows folded, and turns around, expressionless as before.
He walks behind Megumi into the building and onto the elevator. He watches Megumi’s straight back and the way he casts no shadow, even under the strobe light of the elevator where everything is limbed by a large, slim shadow. When they step off, he speaks, because he feels he has to say something to wash away that feeling of losing.
"I still haven’t seen you fight, so I’ll stay. That’s why I accepted to come, anyway."
"Thank you."
"I told you you don’t need to be so polite. It’s creepy."
"I think you could stand to be more polite," Suguru says, opening the door.
"What for? And eavesdropping isn’t polite."
Riko wakes as Megumi’s crossing the threshold with her and shrieks, jumps off his arms and slaps him square in the face. She takes a defensive stance, fists raised, and starts.
“If you want to kill so bad, why don’t you go ahead and start with yourself?”
“Riko, we’re here to help you,” Suguru says. “Not kidnap you.”
“Liar, you look like a liar! And what’s with those bangs?”
“She’s not wrong,” Satoru says, scratching his ear with his pinky, lip curled. “Anyway, listen, we were sent by Master Tengen. I don’t care about you at all, but try not to make things hard and we won’t have a problem.”
“Why is a little child here?” Riko asks. “Who are you, kid? Are you lost?” She crouches to be at eye level with Satoru who frowns.
“My lady,” Kuroi Misato says. “They’re from Jujutsu Technical School. They’re our friends.”
“They sent a child?” Riko looks up at Kuroi.
Satoru sits on a chair and looks up at the ceiling. He should’ve just gone back, he wants to say, instead he says, “They surely sent too many people to take care of just one noisy brat.”
“Who’s the brat? Listen, I’m Master Tengen, and Master Tengen is me. Show some respect.”
Suguru and Megumi look at each other.
“You’re spunky, huh?” Suguru says. “You’re okay with the erasure?”
“It is my destiny,” she says, posing dramatically. “You say erasure, like it’s death, because you don’t understand it. As I said, Master Tengen is me, and I am Master Tengen—Ah! What time is it, Kuroi?”
“Um, almost noon.”
“I should be at school!”
“Um, my lady, that’s a little—”
“It’s fine,” Megumi says. “We’ll be on guard outside the school. Yaga sensei already told us we should allow Amanai do as she requests. That was Master Tengen’s order.”
Satoru looks up at him. “Seriously? We should just take her back to your school, what’s the point otherwise?”
“The point is that we do what she wants to do.”
“Megumi,” Suguru starts but he’s also watching the expression on Riko’s face, the bright spark of anticipation, looking up at Suguru like she wants to ask, so badly, but can’t bring herself to because she already said they wouldn’t get it. Her hands are gripping the hem of her skirt and she’s biting her lips. “Alright,” he exchanges his complaints for a sigh. “Let’s go as soon as the clean up team gets here.”
Suguru puts his hands inside his pockets and smiles at the Q Soldier still firmly rooted to the ground while Riko does small jumps of joy.
Satoru’s kicking pebbles into the school pool. He infuses them in cursed energy and watches them part the water before sinking all the way to the bottom without getting wet. Once there he lets the water drown them and starts the process again. When the water drowns a pebble, bubbles rise to the surface and explode soundlessly, letting cursed energy back outside. He used to play this game at the estate before they drained the pool for him to practice Blue in.
“What do you think?” Suguru asks, some steps away.
“I’m not sure.” Megumi glances at Satoru then back at Suguru. “Growing up with a purpose, it’s hard to see beyond it, fully get all the consequences.”
Speaking from experience? Suguru wants to ask but doesn’t. “Even if she says that, she won’t ever see her friends or family again.” Suguru can still see the spark in her eyes when Megumi agreed to let her go to school.
Kuroi grips at the staff she brought along. “Lady Riko doesn’t have any family members. It’s just her and me.”
“Doesn’t that make you her family?” Suguru smiles at her.
Satoru strolls closer to them.
“Are we staying here all day?”
“Until school lets out. Geto's cursed spirits are keeping the area secure. They’ll let us know if anything happens.”
Satoru sighs and he crouches. Once more, Megumi’s struck by how frail his shoulders look.
He’s not sure what he was expecting, the kid is six after all, but it somehow wasn’t a child. Gojo Satoru has been in this world for six years and Megumi’s heard his name far more times than he’s ever heard his own father’s, his own mother’s (he doesn’t know that one, even.) Gojo Satoru is not just a person, it’s a name, it’s a title, it’s an idea the mention of which puts an end to conversations, blows wind over them and overturns everyone’s cards, face up, so they all forfeit. It turns words into whispers, and whispers into myth, and myth into devotion. Gojo Satoru was born and a bounty was set on his head the same day and no one even tried to claim it and countless curse users hung their gloves, or whatever it is they hang when they’re done for the day and for the rest of their lives, for as long as they and Gojo Satoru shall live.
Megumi’s not sure what he was expecting, but it wasn’t someone that looked like a child, even if his demeanor, and his cursed energy, are anything but, there’s no denying it, this is a child, petulant and dismissive and wearing an expression unsuited his age, but a child regardless. He’s heard his name pronounced in all manner of ways, steeped and dyed in all manner of emotions, and always tied up with his own, a vague, nebulous fate Megumi thinks not even the Zenin family members who speak of it like they’re reviving a dead language, a forgotten prayer that’ll restore balance, their rightful place, actually know what it is, what it represents, other than the reason they hate the kid. He was biased from the start, it seems. From the first time he heard Gojo Satoru’s name and it rhymed with his own.
“Isn’t this job just babysitting? It’d be more fun to exorcize actual curses.” He looks up at Suguru, who’s laughing behind his hand. “Why are you laughing, bangs?”
“Nothing, nothing.” Suguru crouches too and Satoru glares at him. Suguru tries patting Satoru’s head but Satoru flicks his fingers and Suguru’s unable to get his hand any closer. He keeps on smiling.
“Do you go out to exorcize curses often?” Megumi asks.
“They won’t let me if it’s a special grade. They call you two in for those. Or Yuki.”
“That doesn’t answer my question,” Megumi says.
“How old were you when you had your first mission?”
“Who, me?” Megumi points at himself.
“Either of you,” Satoru waves his hand in the air.
“Last year,” Suguru says. “My family are civilians. I didn’t grow up in this world.”
“And you?” he looks up at Megumi.
“When I was ten, I think? My father’s—the Zenin took me to some of the head’s missions to observe. I didn’t have one of my own until a couple years later. What about you?”
“This is my first mission,” Satoru says and stands.
Suguru watches him go, then he connects his vision to that of the cursed spirits positioned around the school. Two of them give back nothing but darkness and frayed edges—Suguru thinks that’s probably what death looks like. He’s seen it before, and every time he swallows a curse, he thinks he gets closer to forming a full picture, in his stomach first, pieces of the puzzle arranging themselves against his stomach lining, his intestines, maybe he’ll get it in his mind one day.
“We have to go, Megumi. Two of my spirits have already been exorcised.”
“Kuroi,” Megumi turns to her once she gasps, loudly. “Where is Amanai?”
“Either the chapel or the music room.”
“Gojo, come with me to the chapel. Geto, you and Kuroi go to the music room. Keep your phones at hand.”
They find Amanai at the chapel and before she can complain—she did tell them to stay away, not to show their faces in front of her friends—the expression on Megumi’s face lets her know this is the end. The last time she’ll get to hear her friends’ loud voices, their asking who the hell is this guy, and what’s with this kid, and the teacher trying to get them to settle down. So she lets Megumi run her out of there, her hand in his hand, and she lets him stuff her inside a weird looking frog without a second thought.
“A paper bag on his head?” Riko asks no one in particular. She’s looking at the curse user following them through the rooftops of school buildings she’s never stepped foot in. She never will, she figures. No time to think of that, though.
Only her head is sticking out of the giant weird frog head and she’s seen worse, including the curses the other student with the bangs keeps around, and she’s also Master Tengen herself, so she just watches. But a paper bag to cover his own head. That’s too much like a manga. If she’s gonna get taken out, it better not be by someone like this.
“He can create clones of himself,” Satoru tells Megumi as they stop on one rooftop, surrounded by five of the same man. “He switches bodies if one of them is about to be destroyed.”
“How do you know about my technique?” one of the clones that has come right up to them asks Satoru.
“Don’t address me so freely, scum,” he says, and flicks his fingers.
Nothing happens.
“Sometimes it doesn’t work like I want it to,” he looks up at Megumi.
He’s blushing, like he’s embarrassed. Megumi smiles a small smile before he punches paper bag man in the face, fist infused in cursed energy, and when the man is thrust backwards, flying, a dark hand that comes out of thin air grabs onto his ankle and slams him into the ground. Megumi looks at Satoru again. Satoru can still see traces of that small smile and he feels like he has to look away.
“Tch.”
On another rooftop, Megumi’s dogs are sinking their fangs into the flesh of paper bag man while Riko wonders vaguely whether all the bodies feel the same pain. It doesn’t seem like it, going by the way the other three are still standing, surrounding them. She hopes Kuroi and the other guy haven’t met anyone worse.
Satoru trails a circle around two clones as they come closer to Megumi and him and he lifts his hand. He’s practiced Blue enough times he thinks it’ll work with certainty. It doesn’t. He hates this, hates this, hates, this, so much, so much. That all his power isn’t a match for his body, for his inexperience, for his impatience, for his lack of time, that there isn’t much more he can do, and whatever they want to ask of him, he’ll do that and more, knock them off their boots, on their asses, but his body doesn’t always cooperate, and he hates that, hates that, hates, that, so, so much. He flicks his fingers at the clones in front of him and it works, it works. He smiles. Finally. Until he hears Megumi shout his name like it’s a warning and he realizes, too late, they’re in the range of Red. He’s done it again.
Megumi’s shadows swallow Riko and himself and they step out of the rooftop and the range of Satoru’s technique, which just sent two of the clones flying, crushing their organs, fusing skin and bone and hair, and onto the ground below. Above, Satoru’s looking down at them and the expression on his face has Megumi clench his fist like something inside his chest is clenching too. Whatever he was going to yell at the kid—push him away, if he can’t control it, he’s weak, if he’s weak, he’s worthless, not even his own words but ones he’s heard so many times they might as well be—dies wordlessly. He looks at Riko who’s looking at him, confused. There’s no time to explain.
His dogs reach the last of the clones and he can feel them swallowing death—Suguru has told him it feels blurred, frayed at the edges, a black darkness that’s devoid of sound and smell and taste—and his phone rings at the same time.
“There’s a bounty on her head on some website,” Suguru says at the other end of the line.
“Some website? What website?”
“Does that matter?”
“Not really. But—”
“Yeah, I think it’s funny too. They have a whole webring for stuff like this, apparently.”
“Who pays for website maintenance and all?”
“I think it’s a free site. Anyway, you okay there? I’m heading over.”
All of Megumi’s shikigami return to shadow and Riko stands next to him, looking up at Satoru, still on the rooftop.
“Someone put a bounty on your head,” Megumi explains. “It’s safer if you come with us to our school, or this’ll just keep happening.”
She looks towards where the chapel is, where her classmates might still be gathered—probably not, it’s probably time for Math now, there goes something she won’t miss, except for the way the teacher laughs at her when she can’t understand, pretends she’s not laughing at her, and her friends pat her head, and—and she nods.
“Let’s go,” she smiles at Megumi. “I better be worth a whole lot of money.”
Her phone pings and she thinks it’s probably Miki, she didn’t get to say goodbye after all, but it’s an email from Kuroi.
She opens it to find a picture of Kuroi, gagged and bound, a meeting place for an exchange, and no further instructions. Her hand shakes until Megumi takes the phone from her, puts a hand on her shoulder. The kid shows up next to them right that second too, stands on his tip-toes trying to see what’s on the screen, and says nothing, just looks away from her.
Satoru’s watching seafoam and clear greenish water come in and out of a natural pool in the rocks. There’s seaweed distinctly visible that sways with the flow of water and the bubbling of animals whose names he doesn’t know but can see clearly.
“First time by the sea?” Suguru comes up to him—Satoru lets him, he knew he was coming—and stands there with his hands in his pockets, looking at the same pool of seawater.
“No,” Satoru says. “But I’ve never been to one while having nothing to do.”
“We’re protecting Riko. Come on, we’re going to go get some clothes.”
That’s what they’re supposed to do, but Satoru finds that Megumi and Suguru get dragged into Amanai’s rhythm surprisingly easy. He wasn’t expecting it, at least not from the Zenin head, but it’s not just the clothing shops they hit, it’s every single one that might have something she’s interested in.
“I want that floatie,” she points towards a giant flamingo and Suguru and Kuroi look at each other and laugh and then Megumi’s shadows are carrying the box in which the giant flamingo is wrapped.
They end up sitting at an outdoor restaurant on the seafront inside a wooden hut, surrounded by bags of things they got to play in the sand, swimwear, and other things none of them need, but particularly not Amanai. He says nothing, though, just keeps an eye on the way Megumi’s shadows draw a circle around their group wherever they go, and the eyes of his shikigami peer out, unblinking, always on the lookout for something, someone, even when he pretends like he’s relaxed, his own eyes focused on the ramen in front of him, ears on the story Amanai’s telling them. One of the shikigami makes eye contact with Satoru and he curls his lip when Megumi pats his back. Megumi’s hand is warm in the chilly breeze even when the movement and the energy behind his action, Satoru knows, was cold, skirting on the edge of an open wound. The sun’s still high up in the sky but summer’s not fully here yet and every time a cloud obscures the sun there’s goosebumps on everyone’s skin.
Megumi holds out his hand for Satoru to take while getting onto the canoe. Satoru doesn’t, he doesn’t need it, but Amanai does, and then it’s the three of them on one canoe, and Suguru and Kuroi on the other.
“Let’s race,” Suguru says.
“I’ve got one more person.”
“The weight’s about the same, though.”
Kuroi splashes water at Satoru from her canoe. “Are you saying I’m fat?”
“Why does it matter?” he scowls. “Megumi let’s go, let’s beat these two.”
Riko laughs and she clutches a hand over her life jacket as she watches the canoe with Suguru and Kuroi be left behind, as she watches the wake of the water behind the one she’s in, foam forming honeycomb shapes on greenblue sea.
Nanami Kento calls at around 3PM to let them know the airport is still safe, nothing’s happened, and hangs up after being told thank you, and to take a rest.
“Are you taking one, Zenin?” he asks Megumi and Megumi doesn’t reply. He’s no longer at the other end of the call.
Suguru races Riko from the seafront down all the way into the sea, up to where their knees are covered by the water and they’re skipping farther in, and Kuroi, Satoru, and Megumi walk leisurely. Satoru keeps his eyes on Megumi’s shadows and the shikigami and on the people around—not many because it’s off-season—feeling for curse users and curses, feeling for the limits of Megumi’s stamina, which he’s completely unfamiliar with, but going by the way his eyelids droop shouldn’t be too far anyway. The merger is tomorrow and Megumi’s been awake for twenty four hours, possibly longer.
At some point last night, as they made plans for the flight to Okinawa—before they decided to take the Gojo family’s private plane—Satoru fell asleep so he can’t be sure but from what he sees, Megumi didn’t sleep. When they reached the meeting point, Megumi’s shadows enveloped the kidnappers and Kuroi and only she came back out again and Megumi’s eyes crackled with static electricity like a speaker, like Megumi’s dogs’ eyes do.
He sits in the sand with Megumi while Kuroi and Amanai float aimlessly on the waves and Suguru, standing with hands in the pockets of his trunks, water up to his ankles, keeps watch over them, surely sharing his vision with his curses.
Some sandflies buzz in and out of Satoru’s field of vision. He swats at them without much care but when one finally lands on the sand at his feet, he flicks his fingers and tries to gather a small amount of cursed energy, honing Blue into the tip of his finger, focused with all he’s got, and then Megumi puts his hand on his and shakes his head.
“You’re putting too much into it.”
“How can you tell?”
“I might not have good eyes like yours, but I can feel the energy. If you use that much it won’t be just the sandfly, but also the sand, what’s buried underneath, maybe more than that.”
“What am I supposed to do then?”
“Not here. Isn’t there a training compound at your family’s estate?”
“There is,” Satoru stares ahead, that same unreadable expression he had when Megumi first saw him, inscrutable, all-seeing, eyes that have seen too much and learned perhaps even more in so little time. “Where did you train?”
The Zenin estate in Kyoto includes a large secluded forest with winding, forking paths, labyrinths designed by jujutsu architects, pits and wells hidden amidst the trees and the shrubs, and a large lagoon that attracts curses as it does dragonflies. Megumi ran up and down the place trying to find a way out of the labyrinth the first day he arrived, on the day of his sixth birthday, when his father’s family told him they needed to see how strong the Ten Shadows really was, if their investment had been worth it.
“I train at Jujutsu Tech,” Megumi says and he watches Suguru trot back towards them.
“You should swim, Megumi. The water’s nice.”
“In a second.”
“What about you, kid?”
“I have a name.”
“Can you swim?”
“Of course I can. Better than you.”
“Prove it.”
Satoru looks at Megumi. He wants to show Suguru he can, actually, swim better than him, but he sees the shadows wearing themselves thin, dark, shaded hands pulling at Megumi, threatening to drown him, seal him away, if only to let him rest, to take over.
“You should go have fun,” Megumi says and smiles up at Riko and Kuroi who’ve tumbled back from the sea to lay themselves down on towels, salty and sandy. “You deserve it.”
Satoru’s never been told anything of the sort and he’s not sure there’s anything he can say that’ll fit whatever idea Megumi has in his head so he forms a line with his mouth and keeps watch over the sandflies and a feel for curses.
“Yeah. We’ll go back to Tokyo in a couple hours,” Suguru says.
“We will?” Riko asks, her voice thin, nothing like the girl who swore she was Master Tengen, and Master Tengen was her.
“We don’t have to,” Megumi looks at Suguru. “We can stay here until tomorrow.”
“Megumi,” Suguru says. “That’d be too much.”
“There’s less curse users here, right Satoru? And Nanami and Haibara are keeping watch too. It’ll be fine.”
“No,” Satoru says.
“Why not?”
“You haven’t stopped.”
“Satoru’s right,” Suguru says. “At least rest for now. We’ll keep watch.”
“We don’t need to stay if—”
“It’s fine, Kuroi. Thank you,” Megumi says. “And you two. I’ll rest. Let’s go swim, Satoru, Suguru’s friends will keep an eye out for us.”
Satoru stands and kicks at the sand like he has no choice. If this is what’ll get the Zenin to stop being stubborn, so be it.
Megumi’s a good swimmer but Satoru’s better, and though his body is smaller and he has to put in more effort, he’s able to beat Megumi. Then they lay in the sand and the sun and Satoru falls asleep and when he wakes up he’s curled up into Megumi’s chest, his hands clutching Megumi’s shirt, and Suguru laughs at him, tells him he took pictures he can give Satoru for a price, and Satoru would use Red on him—Purple if he knew how to use it already—but Megumi’s still sleeping, and though his shadows are still swirling around the perimeter of the beach and the eyes of his shikigami try seeing all like Satoru does, he’s resting, at least, Satoru can tell from his energy, so he does nothing and dozes off again tasting seasalt in his mouth.
Before closing time, they make it to the aquarium. Megumi thinks and tries not to think back to the time he went to the one in Tokyo with her and her mother and his father and she held his hand and he slapped it away. She liked the deep sea exhibit the most so he ends up staying there the longest, lingering even when Suguru and the others say they want to move on.
“It’s my first time at an aquarium,” Riko says, her breath fogging up the glass—she’s so close to the strangely lit creatures, their inhuman eyes staring at her with the slow blinking of thousands of years and no time passing. Will her eyes be like those, too?
“Mine, too,” Satoru tells her. “I don’t really see the point.”
“I think it’s beautiful.”
“Good thing you got to see it before your merger, then.”
She doesn’t reply.
Kuroi disappears for a minute and when she comes back her eyes are swollen and red and no one asks her about it. Riko pretends not to notice and says she wants to look at the penguins again but they end up at the Ocean Planetarium watching self-glowing fish illuminate dark waters like swimming stars, because there’s less people, and it’s dark, and it seems like they all like their shadows best.
Riko touches her hand to the thick glass—it’s cool—and imagines the feel of coral on her skin, a feel she’ll never know. Not many people will, she understands, maybe not even Kuroi, but it seems her time keeps getting shorter. It was only a couple of days ago she thought she’d had enough experience to take with her, and just in these two days she understands—floating in the ocean, racing on a boat, laughing at sea slugs, tumbling down warm sand that catches between your toes and plays with the hairs on your legs and crawls up your butt when you sit and itches and it’s funny and eating spicy ramen under the sun with Kuroi and a couple of strangers and a child with creepy huge eyes is actually enjoyable and who knows what else is out there, sometimes Suguru or Megumi or even the creepy kid, Satoru, will say something and she imagines a whole life lived behind those words, a whole ocean, deep and dark and untouched, she won’t ever get to see—it’s not nearly enough. Strangers that become friends, meanings she ignores, worlds left unexplored floating in seafoam, bathed in saltwater, the vastness, the magnificence—a word she learned today—of a blue whale for whom time is unending, like freedom, like the expanse of the sea.
Satoru sits on the bench next to Megumi and looks away from him, ahead, towards the corals.
“I can include you in my Limitless,” he says. He doesn’t actually know that he can but he will if he tries, that he does know. “So you can rest.”
Megumi looks at him and knows Satoru can feel him looking at him but won’t look back.
“Thank you, Gojo,” Megumi says. “You don’t need to. I’m fine. We’re flying back tomorrow morning, by then the bounty will be lifted, and when we’re at the school, I’ll rest.”
“Your shikigami are tired and your shadows are running thin,” Satoru looks up at him. “At least sleep tonight,” he says and gets up. He knows when there’s a barrier, he’s an expert, so he walks towards the corals. “Let’s go look at those penguins,” he tells Amanai.
They all share one room at a hotel and while Kuroi and Riko sleep, Suguru sits by the low window and watches his curses patrol outside the building, and Satoru rubs his eyes.
“Just go to sleep,” Suguru says, turning his head. “It looks like everything’s alright.”
“I won’t be able to, anyway.”
“Why not?” Megumi asks, coming to sit next to him on the floor. He crosses his legs.
“Even if I close my eyes I can see everything,” Satoru says. “Everyone’s cursed energy if they have it, and the absence of it, if they don’t. And traces of cursed energy of anyone who’s passed by here. And the outlines of buildings and things by the way cursed energy doesn’t touch them and bends around them. Everything.”
Suguru and Megumi look at each other.
“But you fell asleep at the beach,” Suguru digs his hands into his pocket, his back to the window, one eye in the room, the other with his spirits.
“I was tired. At some point I couldn’t see all those things anymore and falling asleep was easy.”
Megumi snorts air out of his nose and Satoru looks at him.
“What?”
“Come here,” he says, but he’s already grabbing Satoru and placing him on his lap.
“Hey, stop it, what’re you—”
“Close your eyes,” Megumi says as he places a hand over Satoru’s eyes.
“What’re you doing? I can’t see anything.”
“Just rest.”
Satoru huffs, stops struggling in Megumi’s hold and relaxes his back against Megumi’s chest, trying to find himself in the darkness—a rare occurrence; even in dreams, when his mind finally gives and he passes out, there’s always the outline of cursed energy mapping out the world for him—but soon he loses himself in the darkness, stops listening, or hearing for, Megumi and Suguru’s voices, and though he wants to keep an eye out for Megumi’s shadows and his shikigami and make sure Megumi, too, is resting, he can’t find them. And his thoughts walk away from his mind. Close the door behind them. Drifting, floating. Slower each time. Coming to a halt. Wheels turning. Less and less. And then. Stop.