Chapter Text
The Thousand Eyes Lakes were spread between two mountains in the northern regions. The valley was filled with puddles with diameters no bigger than a man but with a depth no shallower than six men. The water was as blue as the sky, but the depth made it so that if one was to look from above, the centre of each puddle was pitch black. Those features earned the valley the name Thousand Eyes Lakes.
Due to the myriad of lakes in the valley, low altitude and mountains blocking the wind to the east and the west, the Thousand Eyes Lakes was never free of mist that covered it like a warm white blanket. It made the terrain treacherous, limiting one’s sight to a couple of metres at best.
It was exactly why Yuuta kept close to the man in front of him, afraid that if he looked away for a second, he’d lose sight of Satoru-sama.
“Satoru-sama,” Yuuta called, stepping up closer to the adult. “What are we doing here?”
The humidity was getting into his clothes, making his kimono sticky and his muscles heavy. In front of him, Satoru didn’t look bothered at all.
“You doing here,” Satoru corrected without turning around. He continued walking expertly on the narrow ridges between the puddles, confident as if he had drawn the patterns of the lakes himself and knew how to navigate them.
“What am I doing here then?”
“I’m glad you asked,” Satoru said and suddenly stopped as if he had just been waiting for the question. He turned around but didn’t look at Yuuta but beyond him, at the seemingly endless expanse of the valley. They had walked for so long that they couldn’t see the northern end of the valley anymore. They couldn’t even see much further than a few metres. But Satoru looked as if he could see more than that, as if he could pinpoint exactly the gates of the Gojo Estates.
Yuuta waited and looked behind him and then looked back at the Patriarch of the Gojo Clan. Perhaps Satoru had forgotten the plot of their conversation again.
“Huh … Satoru-sama?”
“Oh, right,” Satoru said and looked at him again. “I’ve been gone for a while, haven’t I?”
“Huh … like five seconds?”
“No, I mean in the Prison Realm.”
“Yeah, sure,” Yuuta chuckled at his blunder and scratched the back of his head in embarrassment.
Satoru had been gone for exactly ten years. Yuuta hadn’t been there, being only four at the time, but he knew every detail of the ordeal as if he had witnessed it with his own eyes. He had heard so much about it to the point that he could even dream of it and tell the story from different points of view. The Zen’in Clan always said it was for the good of the world, the Kamo Clan always assured it was for balance, and the Gojo Clan claimed it was utter betrayal. Yuuta was from a minor branch of the Gojo Clan so he was just glad Satoru was back.
“You’ve got the most cursed energy of the bunch since I came back,” Satoru said. Yuuta smiled, embarrassed by the compliment. “They even say you could be as strong as me. Don’t worry I’m not mad about it. But I want to test it.”
Yuuta tensed even more after those last words however. He had made progress, he thought. And it was nice of the Clan to acknowledge it to the point of talking about him to the Patriarch. However, he didn’t want to be tested. Did that mean he would have to fight Satoru, the strongest sorcerer alive?
“Here?” Yuuta asked and looked around. The Thousand Eyes Lakes was reputed to be a great conductor of cursed energy for the feelings they inspired in anyone who ventured in its mist. However, it was a treacherous land where a misstep could end in death. The Eyes of the valley would suck in anyone who fell in them, and the ridges were slippery.
“Here,” Satoru gave him a little nod. “I heard you beat a Zen’in last year?”
“They’ve been testing the boundaries,” Yuuta said, on the defensive. It might sound like a compliment in Satoru’s mouth, and he knew that the people in the Clan like to brag about it too. But Yuuta had beat up someone and that to him still sounded like something bad to do, even if she was a Zen’in. Even if the Zen’in had been not-so-subtly multiplying attacks in the past ten years.
“So I heard. They won’t dare anymore now that I’m here,” Satoru said with confidence. “Regardless, I want to see those skills of yours. Will you indulge me, Yuuta-kun? After all, I also heard that they’ve produced a Ten Shadows user.”
“Those are just rumours,” Yuuta said.
Satoru hummed. It was indeed just a rumour, but rumours had to start from a sliver of truth. But he couldn’t deny that if a Ten Shadows user had been born within the Zen’in, they would have no doubt used it against the Gojo Clan already. And yet, the gates had remained unreachable to them, despite their attempts. The Clan had been thoroughly shaken in Satoru’s absence but it had withstood all attacks in ten years.
“Still. I’d like to see you at work,” Satoru said. He extended his hand out of his sleeves and pointed to the south. “Three special grade curses are waiting for you a mile away south. I will unleash them. Your job is to eliminate them.”
Yuuta felt his blood run cold in his veins even though the summer humidity of the Thousand Eyes Lakes clang onto him. Special Grades were the most malevolent and powerful curses. They were powerful enough to have sentience and be able to make informed decisions, although those decisions always started and ended in massacres and unbound violence. Their power was such that only Special Grade sorcerers were tasked to eliminate them, or at least a bunch of First Grade sorcerers. But Yuuta was one First Grade Sorcerer. His Special Grade status was pending approval; approval from the man before him.
“Is this a grading test?” Yuuta asked. Three Special Grades seemed like an overkill of a grading test. Especially for a single sorcerer.
“Oh no,” Satoru said and grinned. “It’s just an assessment test. Anyway, good luck.”
And then he disappeared. Yuuta almost stumbled.
“What? Satoru-sama?” He called. Yuuta looked around frantically but Satoru was nowhere to be found.
Yuuta was so not ready for this. How did he go from beating a Zen’in – who was a Grade 3 even though the Zen’in notoriously undergraded their female sorcerers – to fighting three Special Grade curses? He had never even faced one!
“I’m so fucked,” Yuuta whispered under his breath for no one to hear. Well, he was pretty sure that Satoru must be somewhere. Right? He couldn’t just leave a teenager to die out here for an assessment, right?
To be fair, Yuuta knew very little about Satoru. For all it was worth, Satoru could indeed leave him to die out here. He had heard stories about the man, stories of awe and stories of horror both within and outside his Clan. He had heard that Satoru Gojo was ruthless. He had heard that his power was such that people even toppled gods to replace them with statues of him instead. So, what was Yuuta’s pitiful life to a man who was god?
But Yuuta couldn’t run away. Despite the fear, he wasn’t a coward. And the curses would come after him anyway. There was no other breathing human miles and miles around aside from him and curses latched onto the nearest cursed energy producer; namely him.
Yuuta took a deep breath and slowly released it. With that breath, he centred his cursed energy within himself, making it as small as possible. He had to be the one who chased, not the one who is hunted. He unsheathed his long sword and advanced south.
His steps weren’t as assured as the Patriarch’s but he made them as light as possible as he ran south. Before he could reach the one-mile mark, he paused.
Yuuta slowed his breathing and bent in an attack stance, his torso almost like the arch of a bow about the snap, his sword like an arrow. He could feel them, the curses. Their cursed energies were so potent that they filled the mist and Yuuta could smell them and taste them on his tongue, spicy, sour, bitter.
He felt the curses approach faster and faster. They had probably felt his presence as much as he had felt theirs. They were entirely silent however, and among the mist and the humidity he could hear even the slight ripple of the water.
And then, suddenly, a curse lunged at him. Yuuta felt its overpowering cursed energy before he could even see him but it was enough for him to dodge just in time. He slid on the ridge, kneeling to keep his balance, sword planted in the earth for stability. The ridges were slippery and a single mistake could plunge him to his end.
The curse in front of him was a grotesque imitation of a human, its skin white with oozing blobs of dark fluids here and there. Its fangs tore through its own flesh, and its claws were just as sharp. The evil aura coming out of it couldn’t be ignored though, filled with killing intent and malevolence. That aura made Yuuta’s hold on his sword weaker. It was so thick now that it overwhelmed the mist itself and settled in his lungs like tar. He wanted to puke.
Yet Satoru had managed to capture it along with two others and sealed it to wait for Yuuta, and now it was very mad.
The curse sped toward him again and this time Yuuta was ready for it. He tightened his grip on his sword and countered the attacks. Curses rarely preferred close combat. This one must have been selected specifically to showcase Yuuta’s cursed technique abilities and his martial arts skills.
Every blow made his wrists shake but Yuuta held on. He targeted the curse’s head and torso, left right, left right. He dodged the blows as best as he could. The curse seemed to know where to step on the ridges not to fall, but Yuuta had to exert twice the effort to keep balance. The water around them rippled and splashed with the recoil of clashing cursed energies.
And suddenly Yuuta was blown to the side.
He screamed in pain as his body cut through the mist dozens of meters away like an arrow. It was far enough however for him to regain focus quickly and he planted his sword down into a ridge to stop his hurtling and find stability again.
By all gods, what was that?
In his fight against the first curse, he had forgotten there were three of them and the second had also found him. Yuuta was lucky that all he had now was a bleeding arm and a torn kimono. Or rather, the curse had been merciful, like a predator playing with its prey before devouring him. The two auras now flattened the mist to the ground.
“Rika,” he whispered and spat blood in the nearby lake. The Eye swallowed the red fluid as if it had never existed. “Lend me—”
There was a piercing howl further south, like a wolf call. Both curses looked in that direction at the same time as Yuuta, and quick, they were off.
Yuuta frowned. “Wait,” he called, dumbfounded by the situation as the curses were already out of sight.
Curses would never run away from a human that they could take on. They feasted on cursed energy even that of a sorcerer. The only thing that was more appetizing to them than a sorcerer’s cursed energy was that of non-sorcerers.
Yuuta sheathed his sword and quickly followed, this time he expanded all of his energy outward, letting it sift through the landscape and probe the valley. He ran as fast as he could, his kimono billowing around him. His footing was slippery but his speed made up for it, and before he could fall, he was already onto his next step, onto the next ridge.
He couldn’t see the curses but he followed their lingered stench and the cursed energy they left in their wake.
Please, let me make it on time.
Non-sorcerers couldn’t see curses until it was too late for them. They wouldn’t even feel or see the danger they were in. However, that didn’t mean they could defend themselves from curses. Non-sorcerers couldn’t access their own output of cursed energy.
Yuuta felt a dip in his web of cursed energy. That direction! His energy had touched something – someone – and the dip was minimal but Yuuta knew from experience it must be from a non-sorcerer.
“Leave him alone!” He screamed at the top of his lungs when he saw a bundle lying at the foot of the eastern mountain range and the curses were heading toward it.
Yuuta was catching up to them. His heart was throbbing in his chest but his breathing was still controlled. He unsheathed his long sword once again ready to lead the attack this time.
Before he could lunge at the curses three different flashes of purple lights whistled through the mist and directly into the three curses. Yuuta stopped in shock as the curses burst into dust with nothing left, not even an arm, not even an eye. If it weren’t for the lingering malevolent energy, it was as if they never existed. Not even the ashes remained.
“Go have a look,” Satoru’s voice came from behind him. Yuuta jerked and looked at the man. Where did he come from? Yuuta couldn’t even feel him a second ago. He didn’t dare contradict the Patriarch. He had just been saved by him after all, even though he was the one who put him in such danger in the first place.
Three Special Grade curses! He had been a bit rough handled by two already before he could even call for Rika. And then Satoru just obliterated them to dust as if they were nothing more than a stain on his impeccable white kimono sleeves.
Yuuta bowed slightly and jogged up to the bundle. He could sense no cursed energy coming from the bundle, so he had been right in thinking it was a non-sorcerer. They were the easiest but best targets for curses. The bundle wasn’t moving.
“It’s a boy,” Yuuta called when he was close enough. The boy seemed to have fallen from the high mountains. His limbs were bent at an odd angle and he had scratched.
Yuuta sheathed his sword and knelt next to him. If the curses had been interested in him that meant that he was still living but just to make sure, Yuuta carefully placed two fingers under his nostrils.
The breathing was faint but still there. “I don’t think he’ll survive,” Yuuta said when he heard Satoru’s footsteps stop next to him.
“Non-sorcerers wouldn’t survive such a fall,” Satoru agreed with a non-committal hum. The cliffs were rugged, high and sharp. There was a single road on the mountain side but it was a dangerous one and few non-sorcerers, or even few sorcerers would dare walk it. If the boy had fallen from that height, it was a miracle he hadn’t died already.
“We can’t leave him here,” Yuuta said and looked behind him, up at Satoru.
“What do the Clan rules say?”
Yuuta pursed his lips and looked at the boy again. He had dark hair that spread around his bleeding head like a sea urchin. His body seemed lithe, and his skin was pale. He had been lucky that his fall didn’t make him tumble into a lake. Or perhaps that was the unlucky thing. Now instead of instant death, it was just pain and broken bones.
According to the Clan rules, no non-sorcerer was allowed within the Gojo Estates. First because it was more dangerous for non-sorcerers to be within and around the Estates, as illustrated by the current situation, and second because the Gojo clan just didn’t want them around, dead or alive.
Yuuta recited the rules, dejection filling his voice. “But we can’t just leave him here, Satoru-sama. He’s in pain and even if he won’t survive, he deserves dignity and peace.”
He looked at Satoru with determination. He knew it was disrespectful of him to say such things to Satoru. How could he tell the Patriarch what to do with the rules of the Clan he was the head of?
To his surprise, Satoru broke into a wide smile. “Sure,” he said dismissively. “You can use a paralysis spell on him, can’t you?”
“Huh … I don’t know spells,” Yuuta said, embarrassment and shame creeping into his body. He had learned a lot since he started training but spells were considered to be advanced jujutsu and Yuuta hadn’t learned any yet even though he was on the verge of turning Special Grade.
“Oh dear, what are those old coots teaching you,” Satoru sighed and crouched down next to him. Yuuta felt like apologising on their behalf and also chiding Satoru for using such language about them. But he did neither as he watched the other man. He was drawing complicated signs with his fingers and hands, with fast and dexterous movements. Yuuta could tell that he was practiced in the art of cursed spells.
Then again, this was Satoru Gojo, the Six-Eyed Patriarch of the Gojo Clan.
Satoru opened both palms toward the boy as if to push the spell toward him. And then … and then …
Nothing.
…
“Huh …” Satoru said curiously.
“Huh …” Yuuta said confusedly.
“It’s been repelled?” Satoru asked but Yuuta doubted that Satoru was actually asking him. In the very short time they had known each other, Yuuta had gotten used to the man doing that.
Satoru reached to turn the boy around, at the risk of worsening his injuries if not killing him. He pulled on his shoulder easily and the boy turned around.
“Oh.”
“Do you know him, Satoru-sama?” Yuuta asked. The boy was even paler now and his face had clearly suffered the damages of the fall as his nose was clearly broken and bruises and scratches marred what might have been a handsome face. Yuuta thought the boy might have been around his age too.
The most peculiar thing however was the dark symbols around his neck that formed a sort of collar. They were each an individual character but were written following a precise pattern that made them look like chains if one was to look from afar. Yuuta had heard of those but had never seen one in his life.
“A cursed shackle?” Yuuta asked in disbelief. Satoru hummed his agreement, or perhaps it was just the acknowledgement that Yuuta had spoken.
Cursed shackles were incredibly rare and required very potent cursed energy to make. It was a very ancient technique that was lost on minor clans but some of the major clans still used it. And to use it meant to seal away the person’s cursed energy for an indefinite amount of time. Who would do that? To a sorcerer that might as well be worse than death!
“Take him to the Clan,” Satoru said and stood.
Yuuta didn’t seem to hear those words, still staring at the shackles that caused horror to stir inside of him as if he had been the one onto whom they had been spelled. They were but a tattoo but they looked heavy. Yuuta wanted to wipe them with the sleeve of his kimono in the same way one wiped a mistake or a stain.
“Yuuta,” Satoru called, firmer this time. Yuuta focused back. “I said take him to the Clan,” he said as he was already retreating back, heading north.
“For real?”
“For real.”
“Of course, Satoru-sama,” Yuuta said and carefully picked up the boy. If they hadn’t dared move him earlier, it was moot now. Cursed shackles didn’t remove one’s cursed energy from one’s body, just sealed it away. The boy might just survive his injuries and the walk back to the Estates.
--x--
Even in his death, Toji Zen’in inspired enough fear to keep the crowd a distance away from his corpse. Naobito was the only one who stepped closer.
“Where is the kid?” The Clan leader asked, gruff voice resonated in the silent courtyard.
No one dared to speak but the Akashi looked between themselves as if trying to determine who was brave enough to self-sacrifice. Naobito was known for his swift punishment for failure.
“You should have sent me, Naobito-jiisama,” Nayoa spoke from where he had been standing on the dais. He sneered and he too stepped toward the corpse but remained behind the Clan leader. He had an arrogant air about him and looked down at the Akashi in disdain.
They too were of the Zen’in clan but from more distant branches and with less cursed energy. Those born with insufficient cursed energy to be deemed valuable were roped into becoming Akashi – a small private army that served all sorts of purpose, weaker individuals that found their lethal strength in their sheer number.
And perhaps Naobito shouldn’t have used them to catch Toji and his spawn. He had thought they would be up to the task but apparently not.
“I will not repeat myself a third time. Where is the kid?”
The Akashi shifted slightly among themselves until one of them spoke.
“He separated from Toji-san around the Thousand Eyes Lakes, Naobito-sama. We chased after him for a while but he slipped and fell down the valley. We thought that’s a fall he can’t survive –”
There was a sudden crack that resounded through the air, sharp and quick as a whip, and the man’s head fell from his body, splashing blood on his nearby companions.
The head rolled in the dirt and when the crowd realised this, they collectively gasped and took several more steps backward, widening the half-circle that had formed around the corpse. But even if the men knelt before Naobito wanted to do the same and cower back, they didn’t move from their kneeling position. They were like prey, staying still in hope that the predator would forget about them.
Behind Naobito, Naoya laughed cruelly, purposefully. It wasn’t a joyous laugh but it was meant to draw attention and to shock. His face was contorted and his eyes were big and frantic. Some wondered if he had finally lost it, others thought they were finally seeing his insanity in person, but none dared to voice such thoughts.
“Hush!” Naobito ordered coldly and Naoya obeyed right away, silent as if he had never made a sound. “Burn the body. Burn his house too,” he continued and then turned around to leave. “Naoya, come with me.”
Even if he was leaving, the Akashi didn’t dare to sigh or be relieved that their lives were spared. It was just a question of time before they too would die, by the main branch’s hands or by each other’s own hands. After all, Toji was now the evidence of that. He had been one of them, so long ago. Now he was to be burned where he once knelt like them before the dais, for the entire clan to witness and to take lesson in.
Naobito had no care for such things however. Naoya had a last look at the corpse before he followed along, his steps crunching on the gravel that led to the main pavilion.
“Gather some trustworthy men and go to the Thousand Eyes Lakes,” Naobito said once they were alone inside the pavilion. “I want this to be done discreetly. You will report your findings only to me.”
Naoya barely hid his grin. Finally, Naobito was entrusting a mission of importance to him. He knew of his skills as a sorcerer, and letting him wonder so close to the Gojo Estates was a sign of acknowledgment.
But Naobito also knew that Naoya would know the brat best. He knew the signature of his cursed energy at least, after sending years lurking around him, taunting him, desiring him.
“I won’t disappoint you, Ojii-sama,” Naoya bowed deeply and left.
—x—
Megumi came to with the distinct feeling that death probably didn’t feel like this. Like a soft bed, or like the scent of peaches and plums, or like the thousand little aches that dotted his body.
“How long do you think until he wakes?” A voice that he didn’t recognise drifted to his ears in hushed whispers. Megumi remained still.
Years and years of ingrained silence and stealth had taught him to never look alive unless it was necessary. One learned many a great secret when one was suspected to be unconscious after all. People always forgot about the dead, the silent ones.
Considering the circumstances that he last remembered there were only two options anyway; Megumi was either back to the Zen’in Compound or in an unknown place with complete strangers. For sure, he wasn’t dead (too bad, too bad). He hadn’t really aimed for death though nor was he in the habit of seeking it, but he wouldn’t mind if it found him. However being alive meant he had to stay so.
“He sustained severe injuries and the shackles aren’t helping. As much as they keep his cursed energy within, they also keep any cursed energy from reaching him. On the bright side, that means all his injuries are caused by physical harm, not cursed energy. With time, he will heal.”
“I see. Keep an eye on him, Shoko,” the first voice said.
If Megumi wasn’t frozen, he would have frozen then. Shoko. He knew that name for only one female sorcerer bore it. Ieri Shoko of the Gojo Clan.
So he was among the Gojo Clan then. He had made it. Or rather they had found him, by some bizarre twist of fate.
The relief was short-lived however. Megumi’s body still aches horribly and just because he was far from the reach of the Zen’in didn’t mean he was safe. The Gojo Clan was treating his injuries but that didn’t mean it wasn’t to break him better later. Or they wanted him well enough to answer questions and then kill him.
To be fair, Megumi hadn’t considered what he would do once he reached the Clan. His main concern had been to escape the hunters and the only place he could do that was within the Gojo Estates. His father had told him to keep going north.
Father. Where was he? Had he made it too? His senses perceived no hint that Toji was anywhere around him. Both voices had left the room and there was nothing but silence, and the smell of peaches and plums, and the soft bed, and the dotted pain.
Megumi remembered when they separated, Toji going west in hope to make it easier for Megumi. They were supposed to meet here. Toji was supposed to be the one negotiating for them to be here. And here Megumi was, inside the Estates, with no idea where Toji was.
He stilled his breathing, trying to catch a sound of a second one. Without any practical use of his cursed energy, it was impossible to perceive beyond his own senses.
If he risked opening his eyes, perhaps he was being monitored and they would know he was awake. But he wanted to know. He needed to know. Just a second.
Megumi started opening one eye carefully, waiting for a backlash. When none came, he quickly swept his gaze around the room. He was on an elevated bed in an otherwise empty room. Toji wasn’t here.
Father, where are you?
The doors opened again and Megumi was quick to play dead once again, regulating his breathing to appear unconscious despite his churning thoughts.
“You’re awake.”