Chapter Text
“...oge…an you…er me…”
“...ime to –ke up… Toge…”
“...en your eyes…e need yo…”
“...eathe…ke a bre–...”
“...ust us…ome –ck to us…”
“Come on… ou…ed to wake –p… Please…”
A husky “hey,” is what he hears as white light forces its way between his eyelids.
“There you are,” the voice murmurs, pressure intensifying on his shoulder as whoever it is must squeeze it. “Good morning.”
He shifts slightly, then blinks, and of course, he immediately recoils at the harsh brightness.
“Sorry, here,” they whisper, and the bulb is quickly dimmed.
“You can open your eyes now.”
He inhales slowly, as if gathering all the trust he can from the atmosphere, then slowly, but surely follows instructions, as always.
“Hey.” The blurry face leaning over him is all too familiar. “You with me?”
It’s the same face he’s been greeted with practically every day since October. It’s the same face that drags him out of bed to perform occupational and rehabilitative therapy. It’s the same face that administers his assortment of medications thrice a day. And it’s the face that took a bone saw to his arm after telling him there was no saving the remaining mass of ground flesh.
“S-s–” He tries, but it catches in his throat, ending up as more of a stifled click.
“Just nod,” Ieiri tells him.
So he does.
It hurts, changes in tension tugging on the open abrasions still lining his larynx, but he manages.
She doesn’t acknowledge it.
“Okkotsu’s awake,” she informs him. “He’s still pretty frazzled since that’s one hell of a ride for the brain and body, but for now, he’s looking fine, speaking relatively.”
Toge just stares at her.
The last thing he remembers is passing out in a puddle of his own blood.
They’d talked about Yuta’s contingency plan beforehand, but going through with it? Even if he survived, that’s… that’s…
“Bo- B–” He starts.
“Don’t,” Ieiri warns, adjusting the oxygen mask over his face.
“Sorry, I should’ve gone over it all again,” she continues. “Sukuna’s reverb did a number on your throat, so the anesthetic I have you on is strong. You aren’t going to remember the first few times you woke up.”
He has no option to respond.
The fullness in his ears bursts at that very moment, allowing tinnitus and the beeping monitor on his left to crescendo in tandem. He can hear the drip of saline, and the thicker plops of blood flowing into his arm, and the AC on full blast, and the steady airflow pushing its way through his sinuses into his lungs…
But most of all, he can hear the whistle of autonomic friction across his own vocal cords, teetering on the edge of a real noise as a warning he has no means to share with others.
“We defeated Sukuna a week ago,” Ieiri explains. “You’ve been in and out of consciousness; mostly out after I had to go back in and operate on your throat a second time when it wasn’t healing. The stitches have been holding steady since then, but I expect you’re still in a lot of pain.”
He would nod if he thought he could handle it again.
“I thought you’d like to know how Okkotsu was doing, and I don’t want to test your limits, but he’s okay with visitors, so if you want to go see him–”
He nods.
“You sure?” She confirms. “The only reason I’m here is because he insisted I at least check. Personally, I wouldn’t–”
He nods again.
She exhales in reluctant acquiescence as she stands up straight again, then turns the light up to its full brightness again.
Toge can’t bring himself to care about the ice pick it sends shooting through his skull right now.
Ieiri’s footsteps pad away as she leaves him there, too weak to even try to look away from the fluorescence, the clinically white ceiling tiles, or the fuzzy tubes and wires and fancy machinery hooked up in his peripheral vision.
She’s talking in the distance, a deeper voice joining the mix as well, but he can’t make out what they’re saying from here over the roaring drill grinding into his eardrum with each surge of fieryness that rises from his chest.
“...elp me…it –m up…” He catches as two soles squeak back across the linoleum.
“Are you sure he’ll be okay upright?” The guy asks, and suddenly, Toge wants to die.
There’s nothing as humiliating as your very professional, very private, and very cold teacher gently maneuvering your limbs (halved and whole) around various lines as Ieiri disconnects and reconnects whatever she has to.
He knows Kusakabe was there in Shibuya too, but the fact that he’s witnessed him in such a state multiple times doesn’t help; it actually makes it worse. If there were still higher-ups to rescind promotion recommendations from, he’s sure he’d have him knocked back down to grade three for this pathetic shit.
It would be different if it were Gojo, who, for as egotistical and dramatic as he is, always has the kind of practiced words you’d expect from a parent at the ready.
Except Gojo is…
Gojo’s…
Gojo was…
Gojo was.
“Try to use your core,” Ieiri’s suddenly instructing. “We’re gonna sit you up, but it’ll hurt less if you help us out.”
“At the very least, don’t fight it,” Kusakabe supplies.
They all but crush his biceps, knuckles rubbing against the side of his ribs in a way that almost smarts more than his severed hand, which has been lit ablaze by an imaginary fire as the residual nerve that no longer has anywhere to signal for is compressed.
What has to be ring yanks on his armpit hair, and births the realization that he’s wearing very little clothing; merely sleeveless, paper-thin fabric over his front, while his spine is openly exposed to the elements.
He gasps sharply when the change in elevation registers in his equilibrium. A small, hardly audible yelp escapes immediately after, followed by a forceful contraction of the muscles in his torso that has him curling in on himself, which only hurts more.
“You’re okay,” Kusakabe says quietly.
“Breathe,” Ieiri reminds him.
He lets out something like a sob, only silent, cool saline already repurposed as hot tears running down his cheeks.
“Do you need to lay back down?” She asks, subtly overenunciating each word like she doesn’t trust that he’s listening.
He shakes his head with as little movement as he can, but it’s not minute enough.
His vision lags behind proprioception, the scene around him wobbling only once he stills. It triggers vertigo with the force of a wrecking ball, clammy sweat and nondescript discomfort breaking out like an aftershock.
His lips go numb as a ring of contact-gathered sweat goes cold around his mouth and nose. He opens his mouth to suck in vital oxygen while grey sparkles fall like a blizzard in his sight, but nothing moves.
He doesn’t feel the gag before milky liquid’s splashing out his mouth, hitting linen with a disgusting plop and splash. He’s surprised he doesn’t feel anything on his lap, unsure if Ieiri and Kusakabe had the foresight to reposition him ahead of him, or if they just cut off his legs too.
He remembers that it’s supposed to burn half a second before a delayed sting grows behind his tongue, the taste of iron spreading over it as he retches again.
Something distinctly smooth, flavorless, and curved grazes his uvula this time, and in turn, he dry heaves with an echoing scrape so loud, he wishes he could crawl in a hole and die before the volume’s peaked.
“...old this…” He vaguely hears Ieiri command. He doesn’t know if it’s meant for him, since his eyes are clamped shut again, desperate for any level of relief.
“Yeah, yeah…” Kusakabe replies. “...ot it…ust –lp him over…”
Toge whines and vomits again as his bare feet momentarily tap the floor as cold hands take the brunt of his weight under his arms, hauling him some unclear distance between an inch and a mile before he touches down on a barely padded seat.
The trickle of bile hits cardboard this time; probably a disposable emesis bin. He knows he’s gotten used to the sound, now that he’s hearing it again, definitely from all those miserable days recovering from a field amputation.
A speck of light briefly assaults his pupils through their cover as it passes downward and his jaw is pried open.
“Swallow,” Ieiri demands with a click, then the return of near total darkness and breathable wind. “You dislodged your NG tube a bit, and I don’t want to have to place another one.”
He tries, if for no other reason than the complacent nature that got him in this situation in the first place.
Air catches in his throat, having inadvertently rushed into his esophagus via the mask’s pressure, so his gulp reverses halfway down and reemerges as a nauseous burp that also brings up a mouthful of thickened spit.
“Keep swallowing,” Ieiri insists, tugging his chin down with her thumb to reevaluate. “Just a couple more times–”
“B–” He tries, but flecks of overflowing saliva splatter on the close range barrier of the non-rebreather, so he has no choice but to comply, lest he end up with drool all over his face.
“Once or twice more and you should be good,” she says distractedly, already moving on to transferring bags to the mobile IV pole and switching out the oxygen canister.
“Here.” Kusakabe tucks a much needed blanket around his lap, hiding everything one needs to hide, plus the small bag of yellow liquid Toge’s just noticed is linked via a tube to a certain place it now occurs to him strangers have had their hands all over.
His cheeks tense like he’s blushing, but his blood is all pooling in his feet, low BP losing an uphill battle against gravity.
“We can clean up and put you back in bed if this is too much,” Ieiri says, crouching in front of him. “Yuta can wait.”
His head’s too heavy to lift, hung over the receptacle Kusakabe must’ve settled in his grasp. His only arm is wrapped around it, clinging like it’s a life preserver. His legs are heavy as iron, his dick’s on a leash, and verbal communication was a no-go from the start, so that’s all he’s got.
He’s at the mercy of her interpretation of his silence.
“Okay,” she huffs. Her knees crack as she stands back up.
“Groan twice if you need to stop,” she says quietly, but not softly; a harsh, grating timbre weighs down her tone, amplified by the scent of cigarette smoke that wafts over him as she pushes the chair from behind.
“...ou Jerk!!” Toge can hear her before they’re at Yuta’s door, even over the rhythmic thumping of his heart.
“It’s not okay just because you’re back in your original body,” Maki lectures, perched on the edge of the hospital bed identical to his own.
Ieiri shuts the door behind him. Kusakabe slides out the additional privacy curtain as she wheels him through the entry channel and into the main space.
Through all the firing nerves, and all the swirling nausea, and all the ringing deep in his inner ears, and all the bitterness sticking to his tongue, and all the hazy layers of fog clouding his corneas, and every mismatched, muddled overlap of sensory information, the image before him is crystal clear as he’s turned around the corner.
Yuta’s awake and aware, judging from how guilty he looks as Maki berates him, if only a bit tired, which isn’t unusual. All that’s really changed with his appearance are the stitches across his forehead. He’s also wearing a hospital gown, only its opening is tied in the front, a slim gap sharing a glimpse of the gauze bandages around his abdomen. He’s on oxygen too, but only nasal cannula, and a good number of IVs and monitors.
The idea pops into Toge’s head to count and compare their individual numbers, then laugh about it. That’s something he would’ve done last year, but now he’s struggling to remember what he would’ve found so cheery.
“Oh, hey, Toge,” Maki says, glancing over her shoulder. “How are you?”
“You’re up!” Yuta exclaims breathlessly, yet with exponentially more excitement.
“Is it… okay for you… to be here though?” He backtracks, pausing to pant every few words.
“Briefly,” Ieiri replies. “He wanted to see you.”
“He’s not looking so good though,” Panda comments from his place on the nightstand.
“Yeah, we know,” Kusakabe says stiffly.
“Sorry…” Yuta rasps. “I’m… really grateful for… what you did out there…”
It’s all Toge can do not to throw up again as improper regret stirs in his gut.
“You really stole the show for a moment there,” Kirara adds with a smile and OK sign, leaning against Kinji in the corner.
Ino’s playing third wheel closeby, and the lawyer guy is hanging around all by himself a few feet away from him, while Utahime, Todo, Miwa, and Nishimiya have grouped up, and Mei Mei’s getting to know the foreign sorcerers, Ui Ui at her feet.
He only now realizes how many people are staring right at him.
He also realizes that the oxygen mask is clear, and that his seals are, at best, mildly clouded, and more likely than not in plain view.
Pulling the gown or blanket up to cover the lower half of his face then scrambling out of here would be his usual move, but he only has one arm that’s busy holding the puke bucket, and the rest of him is too busy trying not to puke to make a run for it.
So all he can do is breathe a little faster and heavier to signal distress.
Which no one seems to care about.
“The issue is that if you had acted properly, we could have won more easily.” Maki turns back to Yuta, uninhibited.
“But–”
“First, consider the surprise attack on Kenjaku,” she says. “I should’ve done that.”
The world tips maddeningly with both all the warning in the world and none at all, leaving Toge holding his brow bone, shielding his eyes from the glare of the blue-white clinical lamps shining all around.
“Then there’s the plan involving Higuruma’s sword–”
That’s his name. Right.
They hardly included him in the planning stages, since he spent most of that time relearning to walk and perform simple tasks, so he didn’t get to know anyone particularly well. A recording was all the use they could get out of him.
“Combined with Toge’s Cursed Speech, we’d have one instantly,” Maki continues. “We should’ve had Higuruma carrying a recording.”
“But it had reduced recoil because of the timing,” Panda argues. “If we’d used it when Sukuna were in better condition, it would’ve been fatal.”
He actually may not have minded that so much, if it meant he wouldn’t have had to put up with this.
It’s childish and flippant to think that way though.
“I just mean that Megumi’s condition is still unclear,” Maki says, her words dampening. “Resuscitating and getting him back was far riskier than it should’ve been. We hesitated out of unsureness, and that could’ve cost him his life.”
“I understand you’re worried, and critique helps you process it in retrospect,” Todo pipes up. “But my Boogie Woogie couldn’t have targeted you, Maki. Even Okkotsu pulling off the…”
He keeps talking, but Toge stops paying attention as his missing hand submerges itself in imaginary scalding water, invisible blisters bubbling up as layers of his skin separate. Pus oozes out, probably smelling just like the rest of him, since he doesn’t know when he last showered. His fingertips have lost all sensation already, the intricacies of the human hand long forgotten on his left.
A year ago, he would’ve cried and prayed to whatever’s out there that they just chop off his arm. That’s still his instinct, but now there’s just that one little issue.
Sparkles spread across his field of view, audio static proliferating in tandem, then translating into a visual glitchy, satellite TV type of noise that flickers and swirls in the electric snow as he goes deaf in a hot flash, just before dimensional processing short circuits and bodiless freedom crashes over him.
“...ere… I foun… Toge… he…”
“Is he...eathing…–ve a pulse…?”
“Tourniqu…op the bleedin…is arm’s go…”
“Ieiri… she ca–… get hi…”
“–ere’s...othing she can d… he’s…”
“...eed to amputa… infection cou…”
“...ld him dow–…eep his mouth shut…”
“...ry to –ss out…ow it hurts, I kno…”
“...ite on this…oge… Toge…”
“Toge.”
He wakes up gasping and choking on his own breath, clutching at his sternum with a hand that isn’t there.
Burning rubber and tar clog up his nostrils, spouting from the mask clamped tight on his face. His right arm jerks like he’s going to tear it off, but he’s been tethered, twisted, and held down at so many points, he can’t raise it more than an inch off the bed.
He lets out a primal whine as agony of trying strikes a moment later, labored, full-body inhales quickly replaced by violent writhing.
The monitor cries out with him, beeping like it’s seconds from detonation as adrenaline skyrockets his heart rate.
“Calm down,” Ieiri barks as she materializes over him. “Breathe–”
“Aah–”
“No,” Kusakabe interrupts. “Don’t talk.”
He wasn’t trying to.
“I’m getting you more pain meds,” she tells him. “Try to hold still–”
“Quickly–” Kusakabe demands.
A rush of cold suddenly shoots into the crook of his elbow, quickly spreading.
“First one’s in, I pushed it,” she declares as an iron band welds itself around Toge’s head. “One more and it should knock him out–”
He can’t tell if his skull’s expanding or if the metal’s tightening. Blackness collapses from the outside in, facets of reality flopping into loose tabs of outer space like the closure flaps on rotted shipping boxes.
Tunnel vision is one thing, but everything else is caving in too, from the minute sensation the tips of his arm hairs can pick up the very core of his sense of identity. It’s all disappearing on him by the millisecond.
“There you go… It should…ick in about now…” Ieiri soothes. “Close your eyes…ust rest…t’s oka…”