Chapter Text
Desolation. An endless domain of nothingness extending from the innermost of her core to encompass every limb in its eternal vacuum. Tissue. Flaps of skin hanging loosely, draping the unfitting frame of a broken body, flesh torn and remade to hold the remains together. Aches. All-consuming, mind-numbing pain overtaking her every nerve and tendon, puppeteering the hollow shell she once knew as herself.
Eyes rove over every sliver of exposed skin, cataloguing for that innate wrongness that exists within her, exuding from every pore, shadowing her every move. How is it so painful to exist?
She spends a long minute staring at the uniform that hangs across from her mockingly, its mundane appearance hiding its true malevolence. She wishes to burn it, or maybe herself.
She begins the monumental task of getting ready, slowly dragging her trousers up, looking away from her glaring reflection. Every pull and tug of the cloth against raw skin is a painful reminder of the body that ensnares her. The inescapable reality of what she is.
She finishes getting dressed, the fabric neatly wrapped around her, perfectly moulded to her body yet still too tight. It's still early enough, she deduces, glancing at the peeking rays of sunlight, but she didn't want to be late for her first day.
She makes her way out of her room. No point awaiting the inevitable. She has no clue who her other classmate will be, but the sooner she gets this day over with, the better. The day has barely begun; still, exhaustion clings to her like another skin, weighing her chest with every breath.
She begins the slow trek towards the main pavilion, where Gojo told her to be the day before. The guy was big on introductions, had made a big show of how important it was for them to be on time and get to know each other.
She still didn't know how to feel about this new world she'd become a part of ever since she got recruited; uncertainty swirled in her gut any time she actually stopped to think about what this meant. The things she'd seen were real and the things she could do… well.
Gojo-her new teacher? Was alright from what she'd seen, although she had the unnerving sense he liked to toy with people, relished in watching them squirm. Then again, if everything she'd heard of him was true, then it made sense for him to be so detached from his humanity.
As she arrives, she's not surprised to see she's the first one there; she is a few minutes early after all, so she decides to wait under the shade of a nearby tree.
Early spring sunlight cascades through the leaves, painting the landscape in soft greens with its warmth. The gentle breeze is a nice distraction from her thoughts as it strokes her hair with idle ease.
For a few instances, she feels weightless, detached from her body, existing beyond her physical self. For a few instances, she's with the trees, leaves, and breeze; they are one, and she is nothing. Another speck of dust in an endless universe.
“Hoshi! There you are!”
And then she returns to her body, and he is Hoshi again.
She watches Gojo smiling casually as he walks up to her, attempting a smile of her own as she greets him back. She debates waving at him but takes too long to decide before he's standing in front of her, instead choosing to bow respectfully.
“Hope I didn't keep you waiting.” He's 30 minutes late “Now we just need…” Gojo looks around as if trying to spot something in the open field, a slight furrow to his brow before an overly enthusiastic smile breaks across his face. “Ah. There he is”
Kirara turns around and can just about make out a hulking figure in the distance walking towards them. Notably, he doesn't appear to be wearing the same uniform she adorns, rather choosing to wear a large dark hoodie and a scowl on his face.
His umber hair is shaved slightly along the sides, with the big bulk of it resting primarily on the crown of his head in a disorganised nest. As he gets closer, she can make out his eyes, a splotch of ink that makes his pupils and iris indistinguishable.
She can't take her eyes off him, but he barely spares her a glance, eyes trained on Gojo as he stops a few feet away, arms crossed over his chest.
“Great! Now you're both here and have had time to settle in and all that stuff” Gojo waves his hand around dismissively “I thought we could do the usual, a tour, maybe some icebreakers or something, given you'll be stuck with each other for the next couple of years”
The guy's scowl somehow deepens whilst she just stares at him blankly. Gojo watches them expectantly for a few seconds, but when it's clear neither of them is gonna speak clears his throat and continues.
“Well, I'm Saturou Gojo, the world's most powerful sorcerer capable of the impossible, completely unstoppable to-”
“Aren't you meant to be teaching us or something?” The guy questions, masking his irritation as indifference.
“I'm doing introductions”, Gojo responds innocently, though a coy smile tells her he's just trying to rile them up. “But fine… The point is me, Saturou Gojo, will be your teacher, your mentor for the following year. It is now my job and sole responsibility to teach you all you need to know to reach your fullest potential!” he seems genuinely excited as he speaks, but it doesn't put her at ease in the slightest.
“You're both here because you have the ability to manipulate cursed energy-”
“You already went through this. I told you I don't care. You said you could make me stronger”
“Now, now, no need to get ahead of ourselves; there's tons to get through, but we've got time. I'm trying to welcome you! I got in trouble last time for just throwing the first years into a mission with no prior knowledge…” he winces slightly and mutters to himself, “Shoko did not agree…”
He bounces back quickly, excited smile back in place. “Anyways, I've introduced myself; now you guys go”
He's met with two equally blank stares and deflates slightly “Neither of you is much of a talker, huh…” He sighs slightly like some petulant child who isn't getting their way. “Fine. Hoshi Kirara,” He points at her, “and he's-”
“Doesn't matter. This isn't what I agreed to. I'm going back to my dorm” The guy goes to turn around but stops suddenly, slamming into empty air. He tries again but is met with the same invisible wall and whirls around, eyes narrowed in Gojo's direction.
“Now come on, Hakari, that wasn't very nice”
“Screw you!”
“No thanks! Now come and play nice-”
“Fuck you! let me leave!” he goes to punch Gojo, who is now grinning almost ferally, but his clenched fist stops inches from his face and unable to do any actual damage. He growls as he tries again, only to be met with the same result.
“Hakari-” Gojo tries.
Kirara, who has just been standing there frozen watching the altercation, seems to finally catch the guy, Hakari's, attention. “What the fuck are you staring at?!” She flinches slightly and takes a step back, eyes wide on him. “Do I have something on my face? What's your-”
“Hey, leave him out of whatever temper tantrum you're throwing”, Gojo intervenes with a slight frown. The diversion works, however, as Hakari turns back to him sharply, anger radiating off him in rivulets that taint the surrounding air sour.
“Temper tantrum?!” Kirara can see the undulating waves of anger-cursed energy as Gojo called it-cascading from the hulking figure in front of her. His fist ignites with so much concentrated hatred and spite, tainting the air with a choking bitterness that seems to excite a manic gleam in his eye. It's terrifying. It's exhilarating. It's too much.
So she leaves.
They don't notice her turn around and walk off, though she sticks near the shadows in some modest attempt at cover. Behind her, she hears the screams of a rage-filled Hakari as he battles an untouchable enemy, fists falling against thin air.
***
She returned to her dorm and collapsed onto her bed, scrolling on her new phone for a few hours, when Gojo knocked on her door, requesting she join them for lessons at noon.
Unsurprisingly, Hakari doesn't show.
Gojo goes over some basic information surrounding Jujutsu, though he gets sidetracked more than once, making it difficult to take in the rapid influx of information. He shows no mark or sign of the earlier altercation, going on as if nothing were out of the ordinary.
By the end of the lesson shes got a pounding headache that began with Hakari and worsened with Gojo's overly enthusiastic lesson. All she wants is to crawl into bed and forget herself for a few blissful hours.
She heads to the shared common room in search of one of her overly sugary sodas that will hopefully help the splitting headache she has. That and she thinks she deserves a reward after the day she just had.
She freezes when she gets there because not only is the room not empty as she had hoped, but it's occupied by the one asshole she'd been trying to avoid. Her drink in his hand.
“That's not yours” She tries for a calm tone, but her irritation clearly bleeds through.
“Hmm?” he barely spares her a glance, drink still in hand as he takes another sip. “Didn't see your name on it”, he states simply.
“Well, it obviously wasn't yours, so you shouldn't have taken it” She wants to cry. Why can't the universe give her a little mercy after the day she had?
“It's just a soda. Get over it,” he dismisses her, turning around like she's not even there. Like she's nothing.
“But it was mine-” Her voice breaks and-Oh god, she's actually gonna cry over a soda.
He pauses and turns to look at her, narrowing his eyes. “Are you actually gonna cry over a soda?” he looks back at her with blatant disgust in his gaze. “Didn't know they took in crybabies at this place. Man up. It's a Soda”
“But it was mine” She knows she sounds like a child, but she doesn't have it in herself to care. Tears burn her vision, clouding the world in splashes of indistinguishable colour. She looks away, that distinctly nauseating wrongness making itself known, the putrid rot that nestles below her skin shifting until she's acutely aware of every muscle and bone in her body, every cell of her lungs that seems intent on asphyxiating her.
She can't will her body to move as she makes an ass of herself in front of him. She wants to curl into herself, dig a hole she can bury herself in, disappear somewhere no one will ever see the vile filth that she's made of.
Thoughts are interrupted by a fresh coolness that's pushed against her fingers, and when she looks up, she sees him.
He's as far away from her as possible whilst still holding the soda to her hand, a prominent frown on his face as he waits for her to take it. “It's just a soda. Don't even like the flavour anyways…”
She stares at it intently before her eyes shift to him, noting the growing impatience in his expression. “Well, do you want it or not?” he waves it in her face slightly, and she hesitates before grabbing it.
“Thanks…” she mumbles, suddenly feeling stupid having a breakdown over such a small thing.
“Don't mention it”, he says back, not even glancing her way before he reaches the fridge, grabbing another one of her sodas, not the same flavour, though “didn't want to have to deal with whatever bitch fit you were about to have”, he says over his shoulder as he leaves. Asshole.
She takes a drink, noting that the soda is only half full anyway, and tries to ignore the mounting sense of humiliation.
He was an asshole, but still, the first impression he had of her would always be her having a complete meltdown over a damn soda. She felt like a child, completely exposed and judged. The image of his eyes filled with disgust at what she was.
She takes another sip. The soda does, in fact, help with her headache.
She heads back to her dorm shortly after and gets ready for bed. She debates just collapsing into bed in her uniform, but the relief of exchanging the stiff fabric for a loose cotton shirt is worth the effort; she feels more like herself than she has all day.
Wrapped up in the soft blanket provided to her, she can almost pretend that she's someone else, that everything is someone else's problem. The melatonin-inducing darkness deepens her building exhaustion, and within a few moments, she's softly snoring in bed. All problems were pushed to tomorrow's issue.
***
The following week finds her in a limbo of repetitive patterns. She gets ready, attends lessons with Gojo and tries to ignore Hakari as he does whatever scheme he's come up with that day. What's surprising is Gojo's lackadaisical attitude toward the buffoon she shares a classroom with, often indulging his ridiculous fits, which seems to piss Hakari off further.
Hakari's rebellious streak seems to be centred around adults specifically, disobeying their every instruction, and yet Gojo's own disregard for the rules seems to place him at an impasse.
Hakari calmed down after that first day, and whilst not necessarily giving any more effort to his studies, he's no longer starting actual fights with their teacher, which she sees as an improvement.
What's even more frustrating, however, is how he overlooks her existence entirely. He hasn't spoken ot her since her meltdown, which was a week ago. He doesn't acknowledge her; he won't even look at her. When she speaks in class, he ignores her. Any attempt by Gojo to pair them up is met by silence from both parties, so he's stopped trying, and now they just sit in awkward stillness as they await their teacher's return.
Today, like every other day, Hakari is leaning back on his chair with the most obnoxious manspread she's ever seen whilst he scrolls on his phone. Gojo, like always, arrives late with a too-wide smile that tells her today is going to be one of those days. She sighs inwardly before straightening in her chair. Hakari doesn't glance up at the new presence, continuing to mindlessly scroll through his phone.
“Hey kiddos! Wow, you guys are punctual” he sits on the desk waiting for Hakari to finally put his phone down and look up. “Today we're gonna be focusing on actually manipulating your cursed techniques. Hoshi, I wanna focus on yours especially; I sense a lot of potential in you, kid”
Hakari scoffs beside her.
“Sure, I guess…” She's still figuring out the technicalities of her technique, but she thinks she's got a better grasp of it now.
“Hakari, I want you to focus on your restraint instead. You're powerful, but you're struggling to actually channel that power into an optimum output, which means you unnecessarily waste a lot of useful energy,” Hakari glowers in response but shockingly doesn't retort back. Not that Gojo really gives him a chance, as he's already halfway across the room, already making his way out “Come on, I won't wait for you”
She stands and follows, hearing a whispered “asshole” from Hakari before he follows as well.
Once they reach the track field, Gojo wastes no time in getting them started running a few laps whilst he sits on the bleachers watching them. After that, he spends a few hours on each of them, helping them apply their cursed techniques, especially Kirara's focusing on tracing remains of cursed energy and marking objects.
They take a quick break after he's exhausted them both. They both struggle to catch their breath whilst Gojo disappears to gather some ‘equipment’. Hakari seems to be doing better than she is, maintaining his composure as he takes a sip from his water bottle, glistening sweat running down his throat to just below the collar of his shirt.
She averts her gaze, cheeks flushing slightly from the heat. Definitely the heat. She feels sweat pooling under her uniform and, not for the first time, wishes she were wearing something different, lighter.
Loose hairs brush against her neck, irritating the skin and providing no protection from the beating sun up above. What an uncomfortable length of hair to have; too short to do anything with except cut it shorter.
She cards her fingers through her hair, brushing the microbangs out of her face, twirling a longer strand of hair between her fingers. She takes another drink of water, looking up to find Hakari staring at her with a slight frown before he looks away, turning his attention to the blue-eyed bastard that has made a reappearance.
“Hope you're not tired already; that barely counts as a warm-up”, the sadistic jerk says with a teasing smile. “Come on… I thought you two could practice sparring with each other, no cursed techniques and no excessive use of force. That goes for you, Hakari.”
He grumbles under his breath as he makes his way towards the pitch, Kirara following close behind. They assume positions a few feet apart and facing each other. For the first time, she has Hakari's undivided attention, eyes focused solely on her, the rest of the world fading into the background. It's intoxicating.
She doesn't hear Gojo give the go-ahead before she sees him move, and all at once her body snaps back to itself, barely in time to block the onslaught of incoming attacks. He's not holding back, and even without his cursed energy reinforcing his attacks, he hits hard.
She stumbles slightly, and he takes advantage of the new position to send a kick at her torso that has her falling back, knocking the wind out. She lies there for a few seconds, gasping for breath, before she catches a glimpse of white hair in her periphery, followed by a casual “yeah, you're fine”, and he's gone.
She spends a minute recovering before sitting up, only to find Hakari's disinterested eyes on her a few paces away, a bored expression on his face. She slowly stands and resumes the same position before he once again charges at her.
She lasts slightly longer this time, assuming a defensive position as she narrowly avoids a strike to her head that would have probably left her concussed had it met its target. She blocks the next hit aimed at her chest and attempts a hit of her own that is easily sidestepped as he strikes her again. She takes a step back as his next hit is aimed at her face, eyes widen as panic overcomes her with no way to stop it.
As his fist is about to make contact with her cheek, he's suddenly flung to the side, crashing against the bleachers just below where Gojo watches amused. There's a large dent on the wood where Hakari's head now rests, and beside it, a mark. Acrux.
Hakari stands blinking blearily. He reinforced his body with cursed energy as soon as he felt gravity tilt, but he's still disoriented as he notes the similar mark that adorns his arm.
If Kirara was panicking before, she's terrified now as he looks up at her with murderous intent in his eyes.
“What happened to no cursed techniques?!” he starts marching towards her whilst she tries to put distance between them. “What?! Can't take a hit?! I don't understand how someone as weak as you was ever allowed into a place like this”
“I-I'm sorry!” she squeaks out.
“I don't give a fuck if you're sorry! Stop running away, you coward!” She's not moving as he continues to walk towards her; she hasn't moved once, and she wonders when he'll realise he's not really moving either.
Gojo finally steps in, a smile on his face “Okay, okay, calm down both of you. Hoshi, you were meant to fight without using your cursed techniques. And Hakari, I said not to use excessive force. Now, Hoshi, would you be so kind as to release his mark?”
She hesitates before releasing the Acrux on his arm. He's stopped trying to reach her, and now they both stand in stilted silence waiting to see what the other would do.
“Well, I’d say today was a success. You’re both dismissed or whatever” he waves his hand at them before turning around and walking back.
She's about to speak, apologise maybe, but Hakari walks off before she can.
She stands in the pitch alone again.