.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.
In Satoru's not-so-humble opinion, he'd been ridiculously efficient that morning.
Not even ten, and he'd already, chronologically:
Dropped off Kaoru's entire fabricated identity package, complete with a non-existent transfer order, and by dropped off, he meant abandoned it in front of her door to avoid the human interaction. Grade 2, Fukuoka Branch; perfect. No one ever remembered the Fukuoka Branch existed, and Grade 2 was high enough not to be questioned, low enough to be ignored. Yes, she'd blend in fine, though he had a feeling it was only a matter of time before Kusakabe had a full mental breakdown, but that was a problem for future Satoru. Future Satoru would be very tired. Then, he had stopped by Jujutsu High and pestered Yaga until his former teacher had handed over what few Edo-period records still survived. Dusty, half-burned, brittle with age; but if Kaoru really was who Satoru suspected, since she hadn't exactly denied the name Zenin, then something had to be in there. No Zenin and surely no Ten Shadow prodigy just disappeared without leaving a trail. So now he had a bundle of those records tucked under his arm; they probably shouldn't be rattling around in a plastic bag.
Eh. Too late.
Then, he'd picked up Megumi's favorite snack, the one he remembered the kid once called "tolerable," which, by Megumi's standards, basically meant five stars. So, Satoru had filed that away; it wasn't much, but surprising Megumi with food he liked made Satoru feel like he was doing alright, at least for five minutes. After all, parenting was mostly showing up and not dying. Then he'd also exorcised two mid-grade curses on the way back out of boredom; that, and because every time he slowed down, that voice echoed inside his skull—
"What, you want us to fall like camellias? Together?"
He scowled at the memory, shoving his hands deeper into his coat pockets. That damned mask of Murasaki-something. Ever since he'd touched Kaoru while she wore it, her voice had taken up residence behind his eyes. The same line, over and over again, whenever he got too tired. Three days of her voice, her blurred face. It was annoying. What was it with her? He shook the thought off. Focus, Gojo. Scarlet Mist. That's the mission. Kaoru was but a temporary asset, an ally with excellent intel and a tendency to disappear mid-conversation. They had a deal: she'd help him get rid of Scarlet Mist, and then she could vanish back into whatever cursed antique drawer of history she'd crawled out of. No entanglements, no blurred memories, no fixation; he definitely wasn't about to get a soft spot for an unregistered immortal archivist with the deadliest poker face he'd ever seen.
Still, her cursed energy shouldn't be unfamiliar at all. He scowled, then grinned, then scowled again.
Whatever.
Time for the fun part: introducing Kaoru to the Dream Team.
He adjusted the white bandages over his eyes; an emergency measure since the cursed basement Kaoru had dropped into Megumi's bedroom had been screaming at his Six Eyes for weeks now, and the migraines were getting worse. Still, worth it, probably. With one hand ruffling his hair into a more heroic disarray, he turned down the sleepy residential street. Quiet and suburban, Saitama was aggressively normal, making it the perfect place for a meeting. No one asked questions, no one wondered why a bunch of suspiciously beautiful people with dangerous auras were sharing a house and ordering delivery at midnight.
As the house came into view, even with the wrap dampening his perception, Satoru could feel them: five adult sorcerers, one immortal, a Megumi, and a cursed comb. He had counted at least dozens of ways it could go wrong before breakfast, seven of those ways involved Kusakabe snapping a nerve, three Haibara being Haibara, and the rest… well, Kaoru would probably surprise him; she always did, and he was looking forward to it.
Satoru stepped onto the porch and threw the door open with the enthusiasm of a main character. "Your local disaster is home~!"
Silence. Not peaceful silence, no, no, the awkward kind of silence that meant someone had already said something wildly inappropriate, and nobody knew how to recover.
From the kitchen, a voice like a half-panicked angel: "Welcome back, Gojo-san!" Tsumiki poked her head around the corner, smiled too wide, what the hell is going on out there written all over her face, then vanished like a civilian fleeing a hostage situation.
That wasn't encouraging.
Satoru took off his shoes, set the bag in his hand, and turned the corner where a familiar mop of black hair intercepted him. Megumi, hands tucked in the sleeves of his hoodie, stood stiff, guilty, and listening to the adults in the living room from a shadowy hallway.
Satoru grinned at him. "Megumin," he said, fishing in the plastic bag. "I grabbed those rice crackers you like. The weird ones with the chili glaze you said were 'not disgusting' that one time."
Megumi blinked very slowly. "…You remembered that?"
"Of course I did." Satoru handed the pack over with fake nonchalance. "I'm just that generous."
Megumi took the snack and muttered something in the realm of thanks, and Satoru reached out and ruffled his hair just to seal the deal. The boy recoiled. "Don't."
"Oh?" Satoru gestured vaguely to Megumi, "Your cursed energy's steadier today. More controlled flow, less static. What happened? Found a new training schedule?"
Megumi scowled away with a faint flush on his face. "...It wasn't me."
"What?" Satoru tilted his head. "Is someone helping you out? Should I be jealous?"
Megumi didn't answer directly, but his black eyes flicked meaningfully in the direction of the living room. Satoru followed his gaze; it landed on Kaoru's cursed energy. Ah. So, that's how it is. Satoru grinned, genuinely pleased. Apparently, Kaoru had seriously taken Megumi under her wing. He liked it; if Kaoru was going to stick around, the least she could do was help turn Megumi into even more of a problem for the world.
"Good taste," said Satoru as he padded onward down the hallway until he poked his head into the living room.
The living room was tense, polite chaos.
Slouched like a corpse was Atsuya, Kusakabe-senior. Grumpy, perpetually done, possibly asleep. He had his arms crossed over his sheathed katana as if it were a therapy dog and a Shonen Jump magazine half-fallen over his face.
Uzuya—his sister, younger, scarier, Kusakabe-junior—was kneeling on the floor with her beret neatly in place, all warm smiles and steel eyes, clearly the only person preventing the room from descending into physical violence. How she always managed to radiate inner peace while sitting in the middle of a minefield, Satoru would never understand.
Using her lap as a pillow, Shoko was eating Pocky sticks and gazing at the ceiling as if waiting for the apocalypse to pass.
Haibara was kneeling on the floor like a penitent samurai, head bowed, visibly trembling, and whispering something between an apology for existing and a declaration of love.
And Kaoru, poor Kaoru.
Kaoru was sitting on the couch in front of the kneeling Haibara, barefoot, legs crossed, and wrapped in her brand-new Fukuoka Branch uniform. She was staring at Haibara as if she were a daimyo, seriously debating how fast she could kill him and get done with the day.
She turned her gaze toward Satoru, full of betrayal, murder, and confusion. Her eyes slid once toward Haibara, then back to him, as if screaming telepathically: Why is this boy worshipping me? Fix it.
Satoru held in a laugh. She was blushing, not much, just the tips of her ears, enough to be noticeable if you'd been watching her for a while, which he definitely hadn't been. He leaned against the doorframe. He couldn't blame her; Haibara's devotion was a lot to take in when deployed at full blast.
Kneeling in front of her feet, Haibara's voice rose in the background. "—You saved me, I was seventeen and foolish and bleeding and screaming and there was the Red Ward and the Scarlet Mist—"
Kaoru's eye twitched in a silent plea: Help me.
Yeah. This was definitely the dream team destined to stop a legendary Vengeful Spirit with a history of genocide and tuberculosis.
Satoru pushed off the doorframe with all the confidence. "Wow," he announced himself brightly. "I leave for one morning, and we're already in the devotional apology phase." Hands in his pockets, he came to stand squarely between Haibara and Kaoru. "Yu-kun, my guy, try not to stare at her too long, will you? She's shy."
"I'm not shy," Kaoru deadpanned from behind him.
"See?" Satoru drawled. "Painfully shy."
Haibara, clutching a box of mochi, looked up at Satoru with the eyes of a man who'd seen a miracle. "Gojo-senpai, she's—seven years ago, I remember, the Red Ward, she—"
He tried to lean around him to get another glimpse of Kaoru, but Satoru shifted perfectly in sync, blocking the view like a bodyguard.
"I said," Kaoru's voice came clipped, "I have no idea who you are."
The words landed with a thud, and there it was: Haibara's heartbreak. The mochi trembled in his grip as Satoru stole a glance behind him; Kaoru was so stiff that he could practically hear her thinking. She wasn't looking at Haibara; her black eyes were fixed just past Satoru's shoulder, distant and trying to place a distant memory. Her lip pressed between her teeth. She really didn't remember him, apparently. Oh, right. That. Kaoru had mentioned—casually, like one might mention forgetting to buy soy sauce—that memory became less linear the longer you lived, things blurred, names fell through the eras, and the mind only kept what mattered.
But still. Oof.
"You're breaking his heart, Kaoru," Satoru whispered cheerfully. "At least pretend you care."
Her eyes snapped to his. You could've warned me.
Satoru shrugged. I could've. But come on, the boy thinks you descended from heaven. Humor him. It'll make his whole year.
She sighed with the expression of someone who'd been caught in social dread for the first time in centuries. Slowly, almost painfully, she leaned just far enough to peek past Satoru's side like a suspicious cat. "You…" she started slowly and warily. "What did you say your name was?"
"Yu! Haibara Yu!" Haibara shot up a little, eyes lighting up. "Semi-grade 1! I brought these for Gojo-senpai, but… if you want them..." he held out the mochi box, burning with sincerity. "It's not much, I know, but as thanks for saving my life seven years ago—"
Kaoru stared at the box, then at him, then back again; she reached around Satoru's side— and plucked it from Haibara's hands with a speed that made Satoru's jaw twitch slightly.
Food. So that's what it took.
"…Much appreciated," she said finally, like a general accepting tribute from a vassal lord.
Haibara took this as a clear signal to go on, launching into a breathless recounting. "I didn't want to overwhelm you, but seven years ago, you were so cool! I was bleeding and screaming and vomiting blood, but you walked right into the Red Ward and told me to stop crying, you idiot—"
Kaoru raised one hand, and Haibara stopped as if someone had hit pause on his soul. "You are," she said carefully, "not as intolerable as I expected."
He made a small, delighted noise. "Th-thank you—"
"However!" she continued, adjusting her seating posture like a queen, "if you ever kneel at my feet again without reason, I will assume you are attempting to lick them and respond accordingly."
A beat. "…Got it," Haibara squeaked.
Satoru almost choked laughing. He slipped the bandages off his eyes and tilted his head toward her. You're welcome, he mouthed. Then, because he couldn't help himself: Nice uniform, by the way.
Kaoru glared at him. She mouthed back, You did this to me.
"Guilty," Satoru said brightly, then dropped onto the couch between her and Kusakabe with all the grace of a sack of laundry.
Kusakabe, whose face had remained blessedly covered until now, let out a grunt; he yanked his magazine off his face and immediately scooted to the side, putting as much distance between them as the furniture allowed. Kaoru, for her part, even when Satoru's weight tipped against her side, just shifted the mochi box slightly in her lap and began inspecting it like it was a cursed artifact. Satoru stretched, arms up and over the backrest; one arm behind Kaoru, one behind Kusakabe. Instant tension from both sides.
Delicious.
"Right. Dream Team assembled! Handpicked by yours truly to save Japan, the Jujutsu society, and probably the world." He crossed his legs, bright and shameless. "Our mission: to exorcise Scarlet Mist. Once and for all."
Kusakabe let out a sigh long enough to qualify as a prayer; Shoko popped another pocky into her mouth without breaking eye contact with the ceiling; Haibara went pale in a way that screamed past trauma.
Only Uzuya looked calm; she raised one hand like a soldier. "Gojo-san," she said steadily. "Scarlet Mist, as in… the tuberculosis curse? That doesn't appear more than once every few decades. The fact that it's returned twice in seven years—"
"—is an anomaly," Satoru finished. "Which brings us to our secret weapon."
He turned, dramatically, and pointed to the top of Kaoru's head. Poke. She blinked up at his finger.
"This," he said, "is Kaoru. Grade 2, Fukuoka Branch. She's been studying this case for years and already predicted the exact time and place of the next manifestation." Poke. "She's the expert." Poke. "You're gonna love her."
Kaoru humored him and raised her chin half a degree. "I'm Kaoru. Just Kaoru," she said, perfectly poised. "Grade 2. Fukuoka Branch. Specialization in cursed weaponry. Pleased to work with you."
And somehow—just like that—everyone sat up straighter.
Shoko, damn her timing, chose that exact moment to stir. She didn't even look at them. "What? Fukuoka Branch?" she mumbled from Uzuya's lap. "Wasn't she that immortal archivist you've been obsessing over for months—"
"Shoko," Satoru shut it down fast, "let's not. "Come on. No one lives over a hundred years and still looks that—" he waved vaguely at Kaoru, "—pretty."
He poked Kaoru's head again, and she solemnly nodded, playing along as if they'd practiced it. Nobody looked convinced. Shoko narrowed her eyes but didn't press; Haibara, meanwhile, was clearly trying to do the math and failing, but no one pressed, not with Satoru in that mood.
Uzuya, saint that she was, broke the tension. "Uzuya Kusakabe," she said warmly, tipping her hat over her short hair. "Grade 1. New Shadow Style, sword-user. I look forward to working with you, Just-Kaoru."
"She's the team mom," Satoru added. "Also, the only one Shoko listens to, and that can stop her from smoking."
Uzuya tipped her hat again and offered a sunny smile.
"And this grump," Satoru jabbed a thumb toward the far end of the couch, "is her brother. Kusakabe Atsuya. Grade 1. Same deal, just older, angrier, and less charming."
Kusakabe didn't even bother to look up. "Drop dead."
"As I said, charming," Satoru echoed cheerfully.
Shoko finally rose, pokie between her teeth, arms draped over her knees. "Shoko Ieiri. Jujutsu doctor. That's the whole bio. Also—" she offered toward Kaoru, "I'm sorry you got stuck with him." She peeled herself off Uzuya's lap and padded to the window, still munching, wrapped in her jacket, and never looked back.
"And last but not least—" Satoru gestured to the one still kneeling, "—Yu-kun. You've met."
Haibara practically radiated joy. "Kaoru-san!" He pointed enthusiastically to his own chest. "I might not be the strongest, but I'll do my best to help this time!" A beat. "My technique isn't really mine—it's everyone's. I'm here to help people shine!"
Kaoru blinked. "That's… a very peculiar phrasing."
Satoru leaned in, close enough to speak in her ear. "Empathic Assonance. Yu-kun's a walking empathy bomb. Not just metaphorically." He pulled back with a grin and raised his voice. "He's also the centerpiece of my entire plan to destroy Scarlet Mist."
That, predictably, wiped the smile right off Haibara's face. "...I'm what?"
Satoru sat forward, elbows on his knees, as if that had been the goal. "The centerpiece!" he said, launching into full Jujutsu-nerd mode, the kind that usually made Yaga leave the room and Nanami groan in real time. "Yu-kun's cursed technique creates connections and threads made of cursed energy. He can link them to anyone he chooses." He lifted a hand, fingers flicking through the air as if tracing strings. "Like glowing wires, pulsing between him and everyone else. The smallest thread let him feel your emotions, sense incoming danger, sync like you're sharing a brain, and if you get hurt—" He snapped his fingers. "—he reroutes the damage to himself. Think co-op game, but he's got everyone's controller wired through his nervous system. A Digimon support class."
Kaoru tilted her head. "...Digi-what?"
"Digimon," Satoru clarified, like that settled everything. "You know. Agumon digivolves when Tai believes in him. Same thing."
Haibara made a noise as if his soul were collapsing. "Not even remotely the same thing."
This time, Kaoru gave him her full attention. "And you can... maintain these connections over distance?"
Haibara nodded quickly. "The thinner the thread, the more fragile it becomes, but when they are so thin that you can't see them, they can cover enormous distances. Once I'm linked to someone, the connection can hold until one of us breaks it."
"And you can transfer the pain to yourself," Kaoru added, already folding the idea into some internal analysis.
Satoru flicked a finger in Haibara's direction. "Not just pain, the whole damage. Bone fractures, organ rupture, the works. Little masochistic."
Kaoru folded her arms, gaze narrowing slightly, not at Haibara, but at Satoru, as if to say that's an awful lot of pain to be joking about.
"…Explain," she said finally, tone cool.
Satoru grinned. God, he loved it when she said that. "Well, Scarlet Mist knows you. And it definitely knows me. We're high-priority targets, which means the second it senses both of us, it'll sense the trap and vanish. So we let it think it's winning, we let the Red Ward activate at a distance, without us inside."
"That's possible," Kaoru nodded, thoughtful. "A Red Ward traps people inside, not out. But a few seconds of delay is enough to kill any civilian caught inside, and if we breach late, we risk Scarlet Mist fleeing before we reach it—"
"—which is why," Satoru said, throwing an arm over the backrest, "someone's already inside when it starts." He gestured toward the Kusakabes. "They'll be inside waiting for it. Scarlet Mist won't suspect two Grade 1s with swords. Perfect bait."
Kusakabe groaned as if he'd just been condemned, which wasn't entirely wrong. "Great. Bait duty for tuberculosis. This can't get any worse."
"I figured," Satoru added, "if Scarlet Mist is a prodigy from the Bakumatsu, then we'll send in the best swords-prodigies of our time."
Uzuya nodded with quiet confidence. "We'll stall it until you arrive and neutralize it. That's the idea, right?"
"Stall it?" Kaoru's voice had flattened again. "Scarlet Mist was an exceptional swordsman even in life. It won't be a fair fight, and without a strong RCT, you won't last long inside a Red Ward."
"Bingo! Enter Yu-kun," Satoru said, finger raised.
Haibara sat up straighter, not sure whether to be proud or panicked. "Me...?"
"He links to the Kusakabes beforehand, stays outside the Red Ward. As long as the tethers hold, any damage they take—" he snapped again, "—goes straight to him."
Haibara paled. "Wait—"
"He'll die in under thirty seconds," Kaoru cut in, matter-of-fact.
Satoru gestured toward the window. "And that's why we have her."
All eyes turned to Shoko, who blinked lazily and removed the pocky stick from her mouth like it was a cigarette. "Mmh?"
"You've treated this kind of damage in 2007," Satoru leaned sideways, chin in hand. "Can you keep him alive long enough?"
She considered, tilting her head like a philosopher. "Pulmonary hemorrhage, necrotizing alveoli, full systemic inflammation…" She paused, tapping the pocky against her lips. "If I maintain active RCT in a continuous loop via direct contact and start reinforcing his lungs before the actual exposure... Might even pre-oxygenate his bloodstream to delay collapse. Five or so minutes after exposure starts. After that, I'm not responsible if his lungs explode."
Haibara looked like he was about to throw up.
Kaoru's brow furrowed. "Five minutes might not be enough."
"It'll be enough for me," Satoru said smoothly, no room for doubt. "Trust me, I'm the strongest."
Kaoru's gaze swept across the group, and a strange stillness came over her. Surprise, not just at the plan, but at the people enacting it; the ragtag mess of a so-called Dream Team. They were listening, paying attention; even Kusakabe-senior, who looked like he wanted to crawl out a window, hadn't objected yet. Her eyes lingered on the siblings. "Scarlet Mist was a prodigy of swordsmanship in life. He'll engage. Think you can manage it?"
Kusakabe stood with a groan, stretching his back like a pensioner. "We're not miracle workers," he muttered, rubbing his eyes as he began pacing the room. "But with Haibara's technique buffering us, and five minutes of breathing room…" He trailed off, grimacing.
"We'll hold the line until you arrive," Uzuya finished for him like they'd rehearsed the timing. "You can trust us for that, Kaoru-san. We've dealt with worse, my brother and I."
"Not much worse," Kusakabe clarified.
"But worse," Uzuya confirmed.
Kaoru looked between the Kusakabes; she didn't argue verbally, but her gaze shifted to the window, locking briefly with Shoko's.
Shoko held her eyes with half-lidded eyes. "What? Relax. No one dies under my supervision. Especially not Mushroom Boy."
Kaoru hummed. "You sound very sure." She turned toward Haibara. "What about you? You've faced it once, so you know what it does. Even with a looping RCT, it'll hurt. A lot. Trust me, I know what I'm talking about."
Haibara lowered his gaze for a moment, pale and visibly remembering his last encounter with Scarlet Mist. His fingers clenched at his knees.
Satoru didn't interrupt; he had every right to be scared. He remembered how they pulled him out of the Red Ward, seven years ago, covered in blood and gasping like a drowning child. "As I said, you're the heart of this plan. But if you say no, we will rethink the plan. No shame in it."
Haibara looked at both of them. "If it's something only I can do," he smiled, shaky but determined. "Then I'll do it. If I can ease even a little of the weight my friends carry… that's enough."
Satoru conceded the kind of grin that made his whole face shift softer. Satisfied, he stretched further into the couch and turned toward Kaoru, resting his cheek against his palm. "So? Come on, admit it, they're dependable beneath the chaos."
Kaoru watched all of it, and Satoru watched her, watched it happen, the understanding that maybe after centuries, she wasn't alone in this. The plan held, no fatal gaps: Uzuya was already whispering battle timing to her brother. Haibara had crawled to Shoko's feet and was now half-kneeling, half-begging. "Please, please, please don't let me die."
"I'll think about it," Shoko muttered, bored.
Which left just them—Kaoru and Satoru—quiet in the eye of the storm. She glanced sideways at him. "You planned all this."
"Told you. Dream Team."
Her fingers tapped idly against the mochi box in her lap. Between strands of her black hair, the cursed comb pulsed content. Mame, apparently, agreed with the plan.
Satoru caught the pulse of cursed energy. "See? Even Mame's on my side this time."
She shook her head once, but her smile tugged at the corners. "I suppose," she murmured softly. "I may have underestimated you. I didn't think you were the strategy type."
"Oh?" He pouted, scooting closer along the couch with dramatic flair. "Rude. I am a strategy type, I'm just usually too strong to need one."
She gave him a slow, unimpressed look. "I pictured you more as the 'leap into a misty forest full of cursed locusts and detonate tree just to make a point' type."
"That's—" he paused, nose wrinkling. "Unnecessarily specific."
"It's also accurate," she replied, allowing herself a small, foxlike smirk. "Still. The plan's good. Well done."
His chest did something small and stupid, it really shouldn't have; that was real praise. From her. No teasing. And he hadn't even asked for it. He wasn't trying to impress her, but if he had been… "Wait. Was that a compliment?"
"I just said—"
"No, no, no," he waved her off. "Don't ruin it. You said I've been good. Come on. Scale of one to ten?"
Kaoru narrowed her eyes. "Don't push your luck."
"I'm not pushing, I don't need praises, but I wouldn't say no." He slouched further, cheek smushed into the couch like a dog who just got head-patted. "So? Was I good?" he repeated, mock-pouting.
She gave him a slow once-over, as if she knew exactly what he was doing and found it vaguely annoying. "...Nine," she said, the word escaping on a soft laugh. "You've been good."
"You too." Satoru nodded toward the door. "Megumin," he said simply. "His cursed energy. More stable than usual."
She blinked, startled again. "…Maybe," she muttered.
"You gave him a few tips. You're helping him, and you're not subtle. So," he said, mimicking her tone with exaggerated reverence, "Well done."
Kaoru stared straight ahead and blushed faintly, which, in his professional opinion, was better than victory.
Satoru finally leaned back. "Don't worry. I won't tell the others." He watched, beneath his bangs, the curve of her profile, the way, when her guard dropped, she looked less like a small general, more real and existing in parallel with him. Maybe he didn't need the old scrolls; he should just ask her: who she really was, about the vision, why she looked like a memory he never had, or what she saw when she looked at him like—
"Say what, Kaoru—"
Before he could even start, someone cleared their throat behind them with the passive-aggressive force of a declaration of war, and the temperature in the room dropped by several degrees. Standing in the doorway like a painting of repression come to life was Hisanobu, still in his formal black suit, long hair tied back with brutal precision, and a tray of tea cups balanced in one hand. The other rested close to the hilt of his nodachi as his eyebrow twitched dangerously. His eyes dropped to the frankly ridiculous amount of space Satoru wasn't giving Kaoru, then locked on him as if he had just now decided homicide was acceptable if it involved Satoru Gojo getting his face off his Ojousama's shoulder.
"The tea is ready," he announced flatly.
Satoru, to his credit—or complete lack thereof—didn't move, only smiled shamelessly, stretching deeper into Kaoru's side. "Ah!" he chirped. "The final member of our dream team. Hisanobu Kashimo. Polite, punctual, and terrifying. He's also got a sword named after Sailor Moon. Yu-kun, Shoko, if anything escapes the Red Ward before we're out, he's the wall."
"Hmm." Shoko lifted the Pocky from her lips. "…So. Personal bodyguard?"
Kaoru nodded with something suspiciously close to maternal pride. "You can count on him. 'Nobu's a great sorcerer. I trained him myself since he was six."
Very slowly, Satoru turned toward her, one hand covering his mouth. Oh, no. Wrong move, Kaoru.
She immediately stiffened, sensing the error. "I mean—at the Fukuoka Branch. As part of the staff," she added quickly, clutching the mochi as if it might save her from math.
No one believed her.
Shoko walked forward and circled Hisanobu like a shark, eyeing him from top to toe. "So? Can we call you 'Nobu too, Mr. Bodyguard?" she asked, cocking her head.
Silence; he did not answer. Shoko didn't blink. She kept staring, and staring, and staring with infinite time and no shame. Hisanobu stared back, jaw clenched, posture stiff; if not for the faint redness blooming at the tips of his ears, he would have looked untouched.
"…So? You gonna answer, or do I have to guess?" Shoko repeated, impatient.
A long, terrible pause, and finally, after what might've been the longest three seconds in recorded human history: "...You may."
Satoru and Kaoru turned in opposite directions at the same time to muffle their laughter.
A very cursed dream team indeed.
.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.
December 2014, Saitama, Tokyo
"Too many people, Pretty Boy. This isn't a secret anymore. It's an information leak. And leaks get people killed."
The words echoed again as Kaoru opened her eyes to the bite of morning cold. Her nose twitched; she sneezed, soft and undignified. Annoyed, she tugged the scarf tighter around her neck and blinked up toward the pale sky, listening to the muffled rustle of wind through the leafless branches beyond the garden wall. She hated this weather; even more, she hated the dream that had come with it.
The others sat on the edge of the veranda in various poses of attention and disinterest. Kaoru, standing in the garden, watched like a teacher at morning roll call: Shoko slumped with her hood half-falling over one eye, poking frozen moss with her boot; Haibara crouched in some physics-defying position, nodding like an eager dog; Uzuya, alert as ever, cap still perfectly snug; and her brother behind her, arms crossed as if awaiting a dental procedure.
"Too many people, Pretty Boy—"
It had started as a comfort, that dream; that white-haired man, that voice that knew too much, those eyes, that face. That face. It had felt like home, until it didn't, until the tone shifted into a warning. Her scowl deepened. Of all the things buried deep, that one had no business resurfacing on the eve of a dangerous mission. Kaoru told herself she wouldn't look, but of course, there he was: Satoru Gojo, lounging against the doorframe with all the indifference in the world, sunglasses tucked into that ridiculous white hair.
After days of rehearsals, of mapping the hospital corridor by corridor, anticipating every response and possible breakdown, it was time. Today, they prepped the Kusakabes for frontline contact, against Scarlet Mist, no less.
Kaoru's stomach knotted just thinking about it.
She didn't like trusting others with her life and certainly not with his life, Satoru Gojo's life. Not that she believed his life was really at risk, but still.
The plan depended on everything working. Everything. The Kusakabes delaying long enough. Haibara holding his connections. Shoko keeping him breathing. No one freezing, no one panicking. The Kaoru from centuries ago would've called it reckless optimism, but—
She glanced at Satoru again. He hadn't hesitated once in handing them this plan, not a shade of doubt, and strangely, no one had questioned it, not even the most absurd part; entrusting a walking empathy circuit to act as a human failsafe. That part of him—that Satoru—was just like him. He dragged others into his orbit, made them believe in impossible things, and smiled like it was easy. Still—
"This isn't a secret anymore…"
No. That voice didn't matter, that past didn't matter; she wasn't that Kaoru anymore, and he wasn't that man anymore.
Her grip shifted on the bokken resting against her shoulder, and she raised her chin slightly. She'd made her vow, always on the same side; and now… they had a team. The thought was terrifying and also a little exhilarating.
She caught herself smiling at him, just a little foreign feeling on her mouth, and it must've lasted too long, because Satoru tilted his head at her in confusion, that knowing little grin starting to curl. She looked away quickly before it bloomed into full-blown smugness.
"Alright," she said crisply, breath fogging the air in front of her. "You know the theory. Now let's discuss what's going to actually try to kill you." She shifted her stance, the bokken tapping against her shoulder. "The mist isn't your first problem. It's the weapon. Scarlet Mist doesn't begin with mist. It starts with the halberd, a golden-bladed naginata. That's what activates the kekkai that triggers the Red Ward. The mist only floods in after the kekkai is complete." Kaoru pointed the bokken at the Kusakabes. "That gives you one window. Small, between activation and full manifestation. After that, the killing among civilians starts. Your job is to delay that as much as possible." She twirled the bokken once, catching it halfway. "In life, Scarlet Mist was Okita Sōji. Master Jujutsu sorcerer and swordsman. Katana, bō, naginata. Deadly even before death. If he were classified now by your regulations, he'd be special grade."
"Cool," Uzuya murmured, the corner of her mouth twitching upward.
Kaoru made a mental note of that; it was always the quiet ones. She tapped the ground with the tip of the bokken. "His weapon is called the Calamity-Binding Halberd. One of the Three Heirlooms. Alongside the Void-Severing Shaft and the Inverted Spear of Heaven." A glint of obsession peeked through her lashes. "Did you know? Once… they were a single weapon, forged back during the Golden Age of sorcery," she added, lowering her voice a bit too fast, too breathless. "A perfect trinity of cursed weaponry, able to nullify any cursed technique, creating and destroying powerful kekkai. It nearly shattered the balance between the Big Three during the Toyotomi-Tokugawa—"
"Ah. She's doing it again," Shoko deadpanned. "She's totally obsessed with history."
Kaoru did not answer, but her face stiffened into something perilously close to shame. She cleared her throat and shifted the bokken back to her shoulder. "Anyway. A lot happened."
"You really... like cursed artifacts, huh?" Haibara blinked with genuine wonder. "What happened to the weapon?"
Kaoru looked like she might launch into a full lecture. "It couldn't be destroyed. No matter how hard anyone tried," she said, tone already slipping into museum-guide cadence. "So, during the Keichō period, it was divided into the Three Heirlooms through a Binding Vow. Each piece was given to a different clan to stop it from ever being whole again. Guess which one this one belonged to."
Haibara shot his hand up like a child in school. "The Kamo clan?"
"Ten points," Kaoru said flatly.
From his usual corner near the back wall, Satoru made a small, interested sound. Kaoru turned as if sensing it before it fully left his mouth; he opened his mouth, then stopped. Doubt crossed behind his blue eyes, almost a wince of terror; it lingered in the crease of his brow, in the faint downturn of his mouth. He looked as if he were weighing something potentially catastrophic.
Like he was trying to decide whether to ruin her day.
Then, just as quickly, the moment was gone, and he raised a hand like a schoolboy. "Kaoru-sensei!" he drawled. "Anything else we should know about his combat style? You know… something like his signature technique or the angle of his footwork?"
Kaoru's brow twitched. "Now you're fishing."
"I'm curious," he said innocently. "Surely you studied it. I know you did."
Of course, he knew, and yes, she had tried to replicate Okita's style, once. Maybe more than once. After all, there had been something fascinatingly brutal about watching that boy move like a goddamn comet in a blue haori.
Kaoru exhaled. "Fine. But I haven't used this in years, so I'm not promising anything," she muttered as she tapped her cursed comb. "Mame," she warned, "don't interfere." The faint buzz of cursed energy stilled. She turned, raising the bokken to a diagonal guard and tilting her weight onto the back foot; her stance dropped, centered. "'Nobu. You're up."
From the sidelines, Hisanobu hesitated just a second before nodding stiffly like a man walking toward his own death. His nodachi was exchanged for the bokken now resting flat in his palm. "...Yes, Ojousama." He mirrored her stance, graceful and resigned to his fate.
They squared off, and the garden held its breath.
Haibara whispered, "Her form's perfect."
Uzuya hummed, equally interested, "No wasted motion."
Kaoru didn't hear them; she was already somewhere deep in focus. "This," she said, eyes never leaving Hisanobu's, "is Sandanzuki. Okita's triple-point thrust that earned him the title of Kyoto's Swiftest Blade." She smiled faintly at him. "Just try to survive."
Hisanobu tensed, but he didn't have time to react. The earth beneath her feet exploded at once, and Kaoru was inside his guard before he registered the step; one blink and she was already low across the frost-bitten earth, slicing up in a rising diagonal arc. He stepped to intercept; too slow. Her bokken whispered past his block and tapped once, twice, thrice. Not really fatal, but potentially. Hisanobu stumbled back, and there was a crack of impact.
Kaoru pivoted behind him with a skid, landing in a low crouch, bokken raised behind her head in a perfect line as if catching the ghost of her own momentum.
Hisanobu hit the ground hard, palm braced against the ground, the other clutched over his chest, and wheezed audibly; his pulse scrambled to catch up, once, twice, then folded forward, breath escaping him, and a cold sweat broke across his temples.
Satoru whistled. "Oh, damn."
Kaoru relaxed, tapping her bokken lightly against the ground. "Not bad, 'Nobu. But you still pull your right knee back before you block," she exhaled with a touch of fondness buried under the critique. "It's inefficient." Then she finally noticed his wheezing. "...Also, your heart stopped for a full three seconds. Ieiri-san, if you will?"
"Ah. Right. He's dying." Shoko uncoiled from her perch and made her way over without urgency, boots crunching on frost. She crouched beside Hisanobu, activating RCT like she was microwaving leftovers, and patted his back. "Up you get, handsome drama king," she called flatly. "I'm not losing my bodyguard to sparring injuries."
"I'm—not—being—dramatic—" Hisanobu wheezed.
Kaoru huffed and rolled her shoulder. "Too slow. I'm out of shape."
"Uh-huh." Kusakabe crossed his arms. "You nearly killed him."
She waved that off. "Sandanzuki's a diagonal cut. It targets the heart, lungs, and throat. If it cuts, you're cursed with tuberculosis regardless of the presence of a Red Ward, so you'll want to reinforce them beforehand and stay in motion and don't let him pin you."
Kusakabe looked vaguely offended by the logistics. "Understood," he said, already writing his will in his mind
Uzuya, meanwhile, grinned as if she'd just been handed a new toy. Then—
A soft melody chirped from her coat, and her entire face transformed from war general to doting mother in a single breath. "Ah! One sec!" She fumbled her phone from her pocket, eyes lighting up as she tapped the screen. "Takeru! Mama's almost done!" She cradled the phone to her chest, bowed lightly to Kaoru, and walked off down the veranda.
Kaoru blinked, mildly stunned.
"She's one of the strongest Grade 1 in Japan," said Satoru beside her. "I've seen her solo a special grade curse, but she turns to goo-goo the second her son calls."
Kaoru glanced again toward Uzuya, who was now cooing sweet nonsense into her phone, gesturing wildly with one hand as if she hadn't just been planning a battle five minutes ago. Her joy was so sincere that it made Kaoru's chest ache in places she thought long buried; the strength it took to smile like that, to stay soft after everything. Her eyes shifted to Kusakabe, who was very obviously pretending not to watch his sister with a familiar sort of helpless resentment.
"Told her to quit, after Takeru was born," he grumbled. "Too stubborn. Says she's doing it for him. Idiot."
Kaoru didn't answer as her hand tightened once around the hilt of the bokken, then released. She had no right to judge that kind of strength. "Fighting for the people you love isn't really a choice," she murmured instead. "It's the only thing you can do."
Absently, her gaze drifted downward and landed on Haibara, still crouched near her feet. He was staring up at her with open admiration, all shining eyes and dumb loyalty, hair flopping just slightly with the breeze. He really reminded her of Tatsuhiro, her younger cousin, before the genocide of the Zenin Clan took innocence away from him. She squinted. And damn, that mushroom cut really did look soft, unreasonably so. Before she could stop herself, her hand moved, impulse overriding caution, and she ruffled his hair; it was disgustingly fluffy, and she hated how satisfying that was.
Haibara yelped, high-pitched. His mouth opened and closed like a fish as he sputtered.
"…What?" Kaoru recovered quickly, tilted her head, dead serious as if humoring a scared child. "Wanna try it next?"
Haibara waved both hands. "Absolutely not!" he said cheerfully, smiling up at her. "You're terrifying!"
"I wanna try it next," came the inevitable voice
Kaoru didn't have to look; she already felt him there, heat against her side, wearing the world's most punchable smirk. Of course he wanna try it next. Kaoru turned, and there he was, halfway into her personal space. Satoru slung one arm lazily over her shoulder as if he were some kind of house cat with boundary issues, smug as a sunrise. She exhaled. Damn it. This was her life now: babysitting the world's most powerful apocalypse.
"Ka-o-ru," he sing-songed again as the grin stretched further. "I said I wanna try it next!"
Five full seconds of unimpressed silence. Then: "No."
"Why not?" he gasped. "I'll even hold back."
"Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of." Kaoru turned on her heel, stepping down from the veranda and stalking into the frost-tinged garden, her scarf fluttering behind her like a war banner. She was too old for this nonsense. No, absolutely not, she had zero interest in sparring with—
"What? Scared to lose?"
Her steps halted mid-grass as the words hit her back like a rock. That cadence, that tone, that exact pitch, damn him, that unmistakable Gojo pettiness that had haunted her since the Keicho period. For one unbearable moment, she saw another him in his place. Same hair. Same grin. Same infuriating arrogance. Her eye twitched. All that was missing was—
Kaoru turned slowly and stared at him over her shoulder, expecting—half-dreading—that the next words out of his mouth would be Pretty Boy, because at this point, he might as well have been him. Always calling her Pretty Boy. She scowled at his face; if there was one thing able to silence four hundred years of discipline and tactical restraint, it was her stupid pride, especially when poked by white-haired men with too much cursed energy and too little survival instinct.
"I don't see the point," she said tightly. "Infinity would block a slash from Scarlet Mist anyway; this demonstration would be useless."
Satoru hopped down from the veranda and closed the distance until they were toe-to-toe. He bent forward slightly to meet her gaze close enough that she could count the silver strands of his hair. "Then I won't use Infinity, duh," he whispered, cheerful. "Promise. Just taijutsu, no cursed energy. Still afraid to lose?"
A pulse throbbed at her temple. Oh you little—
"Fine!" Kaoru snapped. "'Nobu! Give him your bokken—"
"Don't bother. I don't need it," Satoru interjected, maddeningly smug.
That did it. She was going to kill him, or at least severely bruise his ego.