Cephalalgia.
A catch-all medical term that encompassed everything from tension headaches to migraines and thunderclap headaches. The second her brain began its processing of her new surroundings, Yuriko diagnosed herself with cephalalgia. Normally, she preferred to be precise in her designations, but there was no way of telling which specific agony it was, when she felt like she had every type of headache simultaneously.
Pain shot behind her eyes, as the white ceiling came into focus. Linen sheets rubbed like sandpaper against her skin. A bed? The air tasted dry; sterile, if it weren't for the smell of smoke.
Yuriko slowly sat herself up, until her back was resting against the headboard? How? Why? For once, her recollection was failing her. She remembered Kamo, and his arrows, but beyond that the memory blackened at the edges of her inquiry as a sheet of paper might when prodded by an orange poker. Maybe that analogy only sprung to mind because the spots in her vision gave way to an amber glow.
A cigarette?
She stared beyond it and into the eyes of a woman who had clearly given up on better days.
"Oh," said Ieri Shoko. "You're finally awake."
"Wh-what?"
"And you're not slurring. Good, that's... A good sign. Your name?"
"Y-Yuriko," she replied after a spell of dizziness. "And, please...not so loud."
"I've been whispering," Ieri whispered. With the benefit of a will to live, she might have even smiled a little. "Now. I'm going to ask you to keep your head still and to follow my finger with just your eyes."
To the left, Yuriko saw wires. Rows of empty beds. The geometry of the room settled in, as she spied greenery beyond an open window. To the right was a sink, and a selection of medical paraphernalia. Ieri's finger stopped at her nose, centring the most critical piece of the mise en scene: the doctor.
An infirmary. An infirmary in the Kyoto campus, if she had to guess.
"Damn," sighed Yuriko over the booming headaches. "Did someone get hurt?"
At that, the good doctor released a sigh. "Shiiit." Ieri took on more, reluctant puff of her cigarette, then threw the fucker down the drain. "What's the last thing you remember?"
Last thing... Last thing?
Her hands slap together. Euphoria grafts her smile. "pIerCiNg BloOd."
"Kamo..." Yuriko muttered. "Kamo Noritoshi... I attacked him, and—" The memory burns blue. Pain erupts as an ugly bruise across her stomach. A silver eye beholds—a sharp pain terminates the images in her head. "Ugh... Did I lose?"
Ieri stayed silent, simply retrieving a notebook from her pocket and scribbling away on a random page.
"But he had such a simple technique!" Embarrassment bubbled over a layer of envy, as she bit her thumb. Pain, pain. How were the fucking Higher-Ups supposed to take her seriously now? It was a spectated match! Had she played around too much because Kamo had seemed cordial? "How did... unless? Did he expand his domain?"
Ieri raised an eyebrow and scribbled harder.
The balance of power in the Jujutsu world was centred around the Three Great Clans. Of course, a clan heir would have such an essential tool in their kit as a sure-hit attack. It wouldn't make sense if the clans—and the higher-ups, implicitly—could only maintain their influence through soft power, after all. She'd underestimated them, critically. Why would they be intimidated by a little girl who barely knew what she was doing? Fuck! She slammed her face into her palms.
"Hm." The scritching of Ieri's pen stopped. "Hate to break it to you, kid, but you destroyed Kamo-kun."
"Huh?"
"Yeah...Mei Mei made bank on that betting pool. Boring fight. Wasn't worth the pay-per-view in my opinion."
Pay-per-what? Wait. "Destroyed..." Yuriko peeked through her fingers at her sheets, "Then why—"
"Eh," Ieri shrugged. "Don't hurt yourself thinking so hard. Really. Doctor's orders. With that ridiculous brain of yours, you'll probably remember in no time... Or maybe you won't?" She mumbled that last part while tapping her chin. "It's not like I've had many opportunities to study the aftereffects of Unlimited Void. There isn't usually an 'after'."
Yuriko blinked. Unlimited Void. The words ran a feather along her hippocampus. They lingered in her ear, and she must have mouthed them because Shoko waved the query away before it could be verbalised.
"I have one more question, though. This one's just to make sure you were of sound mind before you made that decision, so uhm" The woman paused, her face the very picture of professional irritation, like a boxer who was paid to pull their punches. "What the hell possessed you to challenge Gojo?"
"...What?"
***
4 hours ago, POV: Suzushina Yuriko
"Was... Was that too much?"
Pindrop silence. For a perfect instant, a snapshot of a moment, nobody moved. Not in the stands, not in the glade. Kamo Noritoshi's face went so white, she had to wonder if he was redirecting the blood with his technique. The older boy's eyes went wide with... well, it wasn't horror, but...
All the while, Yuriko awaited his reprisal. More, she bade. Curses were dull, unthinking creatures, and so too had been the Hasaba sisters. Countering their 'tactics' had been a matter of course: take a hit, deal a hit. Because, until Sukuna, nothing and no one she had ever encountered could land a hit that mattered. And because, until Sukuna, nothing, and no one she had ever fought could take the punishment she was capable of.
Show me more. Her eyes burned like red dwarves as Kamo's mouth hung open.
Yuriko would never say it aloud—least of all to that monkey of an ancient sorcerer—but fighting him had been...refined exhilaration. For Yuriko, there was simply no substitute to learning. There was no substitute to poring through textbooks, and esoteric research on topics that did, and did not have anything to do with her school curriculum. No substitute, until Ryoumen Sukuna.
Objectively—and damn, was it a labour of will to be objective—she had learned more about Jujutsu in that brief confrontation than she had in four months. On paper, Sukuna with his knives should have been no match for her vector control. Yet, reality had seen her grasping her head to make sure it was still attached to her body.
The way he adjusted his output to soak those few strikes he couldn't avoid entirely. Masterful. It was something Kamo had helped her test—though she couldn't quite get it right. The ruthless efficiency with which he severed any body part she could touch, and the ease at which he recovered them with RCT.
Basics. Sukuna had weathered her storm with just the basics. Techniques that every sorcerer could learn, in theory.
Yuriko had gained a great deal from his near-successful attempt on her life.
It became clear to her why Satoru had been sending her on those extermination missions. Why he hadn't wanted her to use Accelerator, unless she was in real danger. And she also understood why it had had limited success.
Jujutsu was a sky that rewarded those who leapt without a net.
When Kamo had struck, she disabled reflection. When his arrows surged from her blind spots, she mapped out their trajectories and shattered them with tailor made calculations. Every attack had the scope to reach her, if she didn't take the initiative to defend herself. And so, she began to feel what Sukuna had made her feel.
Her back against the wall. Her toes standing at the precipice of exhilaration.
What are you going to do next? She wondered. What more could he show her? What more could she learn?
I'm going to understand it all.
Yuriko's eyes caught a spatter of motion. It was slow, gradual as it rippled his now tattered shozoku.
Would he unleash a shower of blood? Spring a trap he'd set up while he had her pinned? No. That wouldn't make sense! The basis of techniques was cursed energy, and Kamo hadn't placed any of his in her immediate vicinity. Kamo raised his hand into the air, and—
"I surrender."
"You what?"
Kamo bowed his head, "It's your victory, Suzushina-san."
No. No! Yuriko's face fell flat, "You're shitting me?"
"That was my best move." He sighed. "I'm... It's regrettable, but I can't give you a better fight than this. I'm not even sure Todo could."
"That's it, then? It's over?"
"It's over."
***
POV: Zenin Naoya
"Blood manipulation...?"
That...that wasn't what she did to him at all. Was it you, then? Naoya threw the pink-haired boy a withering glare that he didn't notice. Instead, the little guttersnipe was caught somewhere between an unseemly round of applause and his feverish whispers to girls sitting next to him. Humiliation was still humiliation, but some pills were less bitter to swallow.
"Son... Does that look like the Kamo technique to you?"
Naoya rolled his eyes, "I ain't dumb. But what else would ya call it?"
"December twenty-fourth." Zenin Naobito had an uncharacteristic edge to his voice. "An unidentified sorcerer arrives at Shinjuku, then levies an attack that devastates Geto Suguru's horde. They leave, unidentified."
And? Naoya studied his father's expression. Really took a moment to examine the creases of his face. He couldn't remember the last time the man had seemed so sober.
"Nine days prior, you were 'assailed' by an unidentified sorcerer in Sendai. You failed to report this at the time."
Embarrassment twisted into the clan heir's scowl. Was he the head of the Hei, or a child being lambasted in front of his peers? "I don't—It doesn't."
"That girl, down there... Can you identify her?"
And now disbelief was making his mouth droop open. "Ya don't think..."
"I do, boy, and I wish you would too. Like I said, discernment. I was informed that in that same month, little Yuriko encountered Geto Suguru. Connect the dots. This is how you must think as a clan head." Naobito whined, while pinching the bridge of his nose. "Because of your arrogance, or was it shame...? We nearly lost another potential Special Grade to a brat that can't even hold his liquor. "
"Teehee."
"Tch." Truthfully, Naoya didn't care. What did the strength of irrelevant outsiders mean when the clan had him? So, she (maybe) killed a couple of curses—he could do that in his sleep. Any sorcerer worth the air they were breathing could. And the Kamo had always been the participation trophy of the Three Great Clans. So what if she could best its heir?
Like clockwork, Naoya saw Kamo Noritoshi raise his hand in that oh-so universal gesture of surrender. Ordinary.
"The hell do you mean, nearly?"
The voice, petulant and unladylike came from his right. It was the brown-haired girl. If her eyebrow were raised any higher, it'd float off her face entirely. Satoru had to put a hand on her shoulder to stop her from getting up.
Instead of answering, his father simply stroked the antenna that he called his moustache. "Seeing her... Yes, she's the spitting image. If you ignore the palette swap..."
By now, the Kamo heir had already made himself scarce. This 'Yuriko', jerked in the field alone, her shoulders trembling with feminine rage. Then her head snapped toward the stands. Those same ̷u̷n̷n̷e̷r̷v̷i̷n̷g̷ hideous irises framing the intensity of her gaze. Naoya broke eye contact first. And yet, the stare persisted.
He forced the shudder down, "What're you blabberin' about?"
"Tell me, Kugisaki-chan," Naobito smirked. "That's Hatsuko's girl, isn't it?"
Huh? Who?
"...Ask her yourself, Zenin."
What? But then the next question Naoya asked was how.
A blip. That was the extent of the warning. A spark of cursed energy, before the inferno. Then red. Red so near, he could hear her breathing. Red so near, that everywhere he looked was eye contact. Because instead of on the grassy plane—soaking in the evaluative glances—she was standing on the railing right in front of him. The subtle clink of rubber on metal was his only indicator that she'd gotten there by moving.
"You," whispered Yuriko. "Me. Fight."
"I—" His arm throbbed. His nerves burned like the injury was new. Indignation burned hotter, "Who do ya think you're talking to—"
"Sure!" said another voice that rang out from his right. Except instead of an unremarkable girl of middling strength, it was the strongest sorcerer of the modern era who had spoken.
Naoya only noticed then that those eyes had never been focused on him.