Chapter Text
August, 2005.
That summer had been oppressively warm, a layer of heat trapped beneath a layer of moisture that made even the light fabric of your kimono stick to your sides. It was the kind of weather that made your body beg for relief, to lay shivering and sweltering under the barest breath of cool air.
Your mother had opened the outside screens in the room, letting you sit on the porch overlooking the small garden at the center of the expansive, traditional home. The view was lovely, overlooking a manicured garden, a small koi pond bubbling pleasantly even as the night air chirped with the sounds of insects.
The main house was equipped with air conditioners in some of the rooms— just like your parent’s own home, only a short distance away, but somehow so far removed from the atmosphere of this place it felt miles away. Centuries. The clock on the wall seemed suspended in time, halted too by the weight that fell over this place.
There was nothing to be done. When the head of the Gojo family called, even the smallest vine, hanging from the tiniest branch, curled in. Your great grandmother had bore the Gojo name before she married, a detail of minor significance that had not effected your own family until your birth. You had often heard your parents discussing the main family in hushed voices when they thought you were not listening. First with excitement and eagerness and then with worry.
There had been a phone call, an order disguised as invitation.
Gojo Satoru, heir to the name, barer of the Six Eyes, was turning sixteen in December, a scant four months away.
Six Eyes.
Two words that managed to leave the bitterest taste of bile in your throat.
It had been thought the next Six Eyes would be born in your generation, your parents hopeful at one point that you were the one so blessed. A hundred years of waiting ended by the birth of another child, honored above all other sorcerers. You had been born with the Limitless technique, that much was certain and an extra unnaturally keen ability of foresight… the signs were there. The possibility that the the massive potential of the Limitless was within your grasp if you could only prove to possess the fabled Six Eyes…
You were hailed for a short time as possibly a true child of the Gojo blood, a blessing. A boon. And then not even a short year later that boy was tested. No two Six Eyes could exist and it was him, not you, who was truly blessed.
You ran your hands up the back of your neck, dislodging the hair stuck your heated skin.
And worse yet, now you would suffer the indignity of being paraded around with every other eligible girl with a single drop of Gojo blood diluted enough to be proper for marriage.
Gojo Satoru needed a betrothed and only the best would do, naturally.
You were to be polite, courteous and docile. Laugh at his jokes, bat your eyes. Play the role of the pursued for the pursuer.
Did you even want to be selected? Once hailed as the promised child, now degraded to probable broodmare ?
You sucked your teeth, holding back a feral shriek somewhere deep in your throat. There was a knock on the wooden frame of the room, lazy and slow. The door slid open before your mother could get you to return inside to the low tables and too hot tea laid out.
You were all but deaf to the sounds of stilted, forced polite conversation, but could not ignore the sudden presence of a young man who came to sit down hard at your side.
Gojo Satoru was not an unattractive young man. He had the signature Gojo coloring, his eyelashes even as pale as driven snow. You yourself had even inherited two streaks of white in your hair, framed near your face and standing in contrast against the rest.
But that handsomeness was hard to enjoy when his expression was one of such utter indifference. He did not even bother to remove the dark glasses that shaded over his eyes, but you hardly were offended. It would have been all the worse to have to look at the very thing you coveted most in this world. Taunting you. Dismissing you.
How many girls had he been forced to sit with today? Judging by his bored expression, too many.
“This is the part where you tell me your name.” He said, voice amused, yet slightly condescending. Behind you both, his parents spoke with your own, but that too was part of the charade. All eyes were on you. All ears tuned to your words.
“You know my name.” You said with a thinly veiled sigh. His attention shifted just a fraction and you noticed with an indignant flush he was wearing his school uniform. Shirt untucked, jacket unbuttoned. You had been forced to spend hours getting ready for this meet-up. Forced to wear a kimono in this hot weather.
He tilted down his glasses to give you a halfway appraising look and you turned away.
“Goin’ for the aloof angle then? Some other girls tried it too. As if you pretend hard enough that you aren’t interested somehow I will be.”
How fucking arrogant.
Your fists clenched in your lap.
“It won’t work.”
“I’m not working any ‘angle’.” You grumbled, “I was told to be here so I’m here. That’s all.”
“You expect me to believe that, huh?”
“I don’t care what you believe.” You spat back, turning to shoot him a piercing glare.
There was silence then, even the voices behind you seeming to falter and lower as if worried they were missing out on some secret hushed conversation.
“Ohhh, wait. I remember now! I do know your name.” Gojo continued, taking off his sunglasses and wiping off some smudge or dust from the lens, “Aren’t you that girl they thought was gonna have the Six Eyes in her?”
Your fist clenched tighter.
“I get it now. Sour grapes and all. Tell ya what…” he spoke softer and leaned in until you felt his breath against your ear, “If you ask me really nicely, for one night, you still could."
The only sound that came after that was the harsh strike of skin against skin. The contact of your palm connecting to his cheek stunned not just the adults inside, but you.
No self respecting sorcerer with the Limitless ability would have been taken by surprise and yet here you sat, having successfully struck the heir to the Gojo name right across his smug face.
You drew your hand back. His cheek had turned a throbbing red so quickly, his smirk raised as his glasses slid down the bridge of his nose and revealed how his blue eyes danced with open amusement.
September, 2017.
The uproar that followed that moment twelve years ago had been profound. Your parents had spent the remainder of the visit profusely apologizing and demanding explanations… and the entire time Gojo had stared only at you. Blue eyes wide and engulfing, a smirk etched in the corner of his mouth even as he got up and strode out without another word.
You remembered he had whistled as he went. As if it were all according to plan.
No betrothal was agreed to that night nor any night since. You were never summoned to the main house again.
It had been the most freeing moment of your young life, opening the world from the one pinpointed hope you’d be born with the Six Eyes or wed to the one who had it into a kaleidoscope of possibility.
You attended Jujutsu Tech’s Kyoto branch, keeping far out of the way of the rising star of the Gojo clan.
Well.
Sorta.
So the problem with having an inherited technique that allowed you to “see” curses and cursed energy users from great distances? Gojo Satoru. The man was such an expansive supernova of energy that when you opened your mind and utilized your gift of telemetry to try and pinpoint targets you had to navigate around his massive, dominating aura.
It was like counting stars against a sunlit sky. The ability, that should have been astronomically useful, rendered inert if Gojo Satoru was on the field.
You tried not to have your own missions line up with his. Which meant keeping tabs on him. Which meant having to live with this gnat, this buzzing fly of cursed bullshit constantly humming in the background when you used your gifts.
You wished everyday you had swatted him harder.
Missions in Tokyo were the worst, but you accepted them without complaint. The fact you’d even managed to rise to second grade despite your public humiliation of the main family’s golden child was a miracle in itself and not one you would squander.
The task was simply. There was a cursed entity that was utilizing the signal within electric devices of all things to move from device to device, rapid as an electrical pulse. It had already killed five non-sorcerers in surge related house-fires in two days. The risk of it causing a massive firestorm in any district rising.
The air had begun to cool in Tokyo, the heat of the summer giving way to fall. You sat on a bench, wireless com already clipped to your ear, the only sound so far the faint static of the open radio and the sound of your breath. The air had that crispness already, the bare cusp of autumn. You steadied your thoughts and began to shut down your senses.
The cursed energy of the young sorcerer students around you began to glow in your mind’s eye, the rest of the world fading into shades of imperceptible grey. Blurring. Distorting.
If you had the Six Eyes, you would be able to see it all. But instead, you blinded yourself to everything but the cursed when you utilized your skill.
You shut your eyes and with a soft breath you whispered, “Cursed technique— Limitless Telemetry: Grey.”
The city revealed itself to your five senses like a massive overflowing of information. Had you not taken the time to adjust, quickly shutting down your hearing, sight, taste, smell and touch in order to compensate, the mental load would have stunned you into a comatose state for several hours. Another thing a Six Eyes user would never need to do. You mentally chastised yourself for allowing the distraction of a deprecating thought, and focused instead upon your sixth sense. The one that tracked beyond the physical.
You were effectively helpless in this state, but within your mind you breezed through the city like a thumb pressed over the pages of a book. Flipping at your leisure as you focused in upon the fastest moving pulse of cursed energy.
In your “peripheral vision” or what acted like a sort of peripheral vision, you could sense the constant presence of Gojo. It was far away, diluted. You wondered if perhaps he was overseas for the barest moment until your senses snapped together and fell upon your target.
You spoke. Your words falling on your own deaf ears as you gave the location into the com. You perceived the movement of the three students. Good kids, fast learners. One boy was even a scion of another great house and the one girl among them possessed a cursed technique of extreme value. The other boy, the pink haired one, you had yet to understand, but his cursed energy output was impressive.
The entity moved. You adjusted, giving new instructions. The curse had not yet caught on to the fact it was being tracked, a fact you would use to your advantage as long as possible. If the curse sensed you, it could easily close the distance and attempt to seek you out… which was why sitting in a park, far from any electrical devices other than your battery powered radio was the safest place you could be.
And if worse came to worse, at least it would be drawn out in the open.
The entity jumped again, following the planned route the three had decided upon to box it further and further into a section of the city that they had already prepared to shut down. Without power, the curse would have to break free of its hiding place within the electric current.
How did a curse even get into the power grid? Too many lost football games on TV? You chuckled a bit to yourself without thinking, providing the newest coordinates as you watched, like an omnipresent spectator as the energies of the curse and the students moved.
This is why I score the highest at Pac-Man…
Everything was going according to plan. You had begun to even let your thoughts wonder, your focus softening just the barest fraction as the students rounded the final corner and blocked the curse into the chosen spot.
And now here comes the switch…
You braced for the surge of cursed energy you expected to feel from it’s ejection…but the power stayed on. You had to stifle the sensation of panic that sparked through your heart, your cursed energy rising a fraction.
And there it was. You felt the shift, the sudden adjusting of the entity. The students flared bright, attacking to try and ward off its escape, but without the power shut off they were waiting for, the curse easily vanished, pulsing through the city and heading now straight ahead… to you.
It’s fine. Fine. Nothing electric by me, so no fast travel.
It couldn’t pass through the coms. It would need to branch off into another grounded circuit and then physically come out to face you in the empty park.
You could hold unto the technique a little longer. Guide the students a little longer. You snapped information in quick short terms. Watching the cursed energy approach closer and closer until it reached the last building at the far end of the park.
And then, inexplicably, it jumped again.
The force in which you were propelled did not immediately register to your mind as your senses flickered and began to come back on line one by one.
The first was touch.
And thus pain.
Your muscles contracted, shot full with an electrical pulse. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been, the strike coming indirectly as if someone had forced the curse away. Something blinding and bright exploding over the far-reaching vision of your Limitless technique before your ability snapped off like a cut thread.
Your hearing came back first from sheer force of will. Sight returning in blurry, slowly filling shapes. You forced yourself up from the ground, feeling scrapes biting along your palms.
“You fucking dick.” You managed to hiss, your vision returning just in time to witness the exorcism of the curse by none other than Gojo Satoru.
“You used me as bait!”
Your voice reverberated off the hallway walls, your mild injuries tended to but your grievances still in desperate need of airing.
You were only comforted by the fact his students had not been involved in the deception, having also thought Gojo was away while they worked under her guidance in the meanwhile. You were no teacher, but you had taken enough students through missions to be adequate at “babysitting”.
Gojo grinned easily, eyes hidden behind his blind fold as he ran a hand up his neck, feigning a bashfulness you knew had not an ounce of genuineness to it.
The bastard had quietly set up a god damn daisy chain of extension cables into the park, ending plugged into a cheap TV set… right next to you. And he’d done it only after you’d entered your Limitless, taking advantage of your lack of senses to literally bait you like a god damn fish hook and then swoop in to destroy the curse.
His students had been a distraction. A means to force the curse into seeking you out and getting into the open where it could not easily run again. It was the most convoluted, infuriatingly, ridiculous brilliant bullshit you had heard in a long while.
“Pretty clever, yeah? I’ve been practicing my multi-layer tactics.”
“That wasn’t a tactic, it was a gamble and a shitty one at that!”
“Yeah, yeah, but did you die?” Gojo asked, tilting his head to the side. His voice was tinged with amusement and you wondered for a moment if he even remembered you and this was some elaborate “gotcha” twelve years in the making… or if this kind of backhanded backstabbing was common place for him.
“It was interesting to see your technique in action. I could probably give you some tips on how to make it more effective, but they’d be pretty useless to— well. You. So I figure I’ll just make the tweaks and practice it myself!”
You stayed silent.
“What did ya call it? Limitless Telemetry?”
You turned and walked in the opposite direction.
“Whoa— hold on.”
Your exit was cut off, the grinning face you wanted nothing more than to connect your fist into coming back into view.
“I’m kidding. Don’t run off and cry now, we got some other business I wanna discuss.”
“If you’re planning on pitching another mission to me, I pass.”
“Nope. Well— yes. But not like this one.”
You sighed, side stepped, and continued around him again.
“I’ll buy you lunch!”
You stopped.
“And maybe even some kakigōriiiiiiii—“ he continued, his voice lifting to a sing-song tone as he stretched out the word. Your stomach twisted and grumbled in response. Using your Limitless always took so much out of you… a side effect you wondered if he experienced to.
You turned to look back at the man who hadn’t so much as glanced your way in years and wondered again if he was so stupid he didn’t remember who you were or if he was hatching some new plot.
He smiled in what you assumed he thought was a disarming and charming way.
“Fine.”
You had settled for a sweet plum flavor, dipping your small wooden spoon into the shaved ice and enjoying the way it melted across your tongue. Flavors always felt more pronounced after you used your Limitless, smells more intense. The sights sharper. It was probably just a placebo effect from being without them, even for a short amount of time, but regardless you enjoyed the sweet flavor and the fruity smell of the different syrups… most of which were coming from Gojo’s own cup.
He had gotten every flavor. The shaved ice in his cup a rainbow of color and tastes as he scooped several together at a time.
The lunch he promised had yet to come, but the treat was enough for now as the sugar helped give a little more pep to your body and your mood. The amount of calories you expended using your gifts was another thing entirely.
The two of you walked a ways in silence, giving you time to observe him for the first time in over a decade.
He had changed, that much you could tell. There was something less harsh in his general demeanor and he had grown considerably since he was fifteen. The boyishness of his face had sharpened, the man overtaking his features. He was broader, less lanky than his teenage self and while his easygoing and devil-may-care attitude was still present, there was something less— edged about it. Less angry.
“Your hair is shorter now,” Gojo said suddenly, “And your chest is bigger.”
You immediately frowned. A look of open disgust flashing over your face. Gojo laughed.
“Thought I forgot about ya, didn’t you?” He slid a thumb over his cheek, the gesture making you flush at the memory of what it felt like to slap the smirk off his face.
“Honestly? Yes.” you answered shortly, taking another bite of your ice.
“Nah. I remember, just figured there was no point in makin’ nice. You seem to be doing fine on your own these days. Second grade, yeah?”
“Yes.”
“As short worded as ever.”
He strode off, forcing you to match his pace. He found a park bench and sat down, sprawling out lazily. You sat next to him at his insistence, knocking your knee into his own until he closed his thighs a bit more with a chuckle.
“Thought you’d be a first grade by now.”
“I have not been recommended.”
He snorted, “Bet you know why.”
You clenched your teeth, holding back a sharp word and an even sharper desire to toss your kakigōri right in his face. Arrogant as ever. Some things, you guessed, did not get better with age.
“The great and fabled Six Eyes holding a grudge over a love tap? How trite.” you said, trying to keep your words indifferent.
“Is that what it was? I had a bruise ya know.”
“You could have stopped my hand before it ever even touched you. You wanted me to slap you so you could get out of having to do anymore meetings.”
His laugh was all the confirmation you needed.
“Is that what you’ve thought all this time?”
“It’s what I know.”
Gojo turned his attention back to his shaved ice, the two of you sitting in silence long enough for the weight of it to become uncomfortable for you. Finally you shifted and scrapped your spoon down the ice, leaving trails of melting syrup.
“What is it that you want?”
Because that was what this was about wasn’t it? He wanted something. The main family never disdained to speak to the lower members without a need and Gojo Satoru was not about to be the exception.
“I’m going to recommend you for first-grade sorcerer status.”
You scrapped your spoon through so harshly a chunk of colored ice fumbled down the side of the paper cup and down your hand. You dodged just in time to avoid it landing with a wet smack on your pants.
You gaped openly at him, but Gojo kept his attention fixed on his ice, happily stirring it up into a soupy, syrupy mess.
“… and yet again I ask, what is it that you want?”
Gojo leaned back, tilting his face towards you with an easy grin. You wondered if he saw the world the way you did with your Limitless with his eyes shaded. Seeing only the impressions of energy and sensation. Could he see your expression? The confusion in the downturn of your mouth or the suspicion in the narrowness of your eyes?
“Nothing too crazy! Just need a fiancée.”
The breath punched out of your lungs.
—
You waited outside the small convenience store across the street, feeling your cheeks beginning to lessen in redness from both anger and embarrassment at your sudden outburst.
When Gojo returned from inside, his hair was still wet… and there was still some redness from the syrup stuck to the strands. You hadn’t been able to control the impulse to throw your kakigōri at him, the breaking of your composure having flowed directly down your arm. It could have been worse, you supposed. You could have punched him.
He had needed to rinse off his blindfold, the fabric now folded and tucked into his back pocket. He had replaced it with the dark glasses you recognized from his youth, giving you a glimpse of the bright blueness of his eyes every once and awhile.
Gojo sighed and tossed a damp paper towel into a bin and turned to you expectantly. You gingerly handed him back his own dessert, having minded it for him while he went into the men’s room to clean up. It was practically soup now and you winced when he lifted it to his lips and drank it.
“As I was saying—“ he began with a smack of his lips.
“No—”
“—it’s a pretend engagement.”
Your mouth hung open, half ready to utter another refusal, which you swallowed back in as he waited expectantly for you to cease interrupting him.
“You let me take you on a few dates, we put on a show of my courting a potential betrothed and in exchange I green light your promotion.”
You narrowed your eyes, biting the corner of your lip into your mouth in obvious consideration.
“For how long?”
Your directness didn’t seem to offend him. Quite the opposite actually. Every time you curtly dropped a single or few word sentence he seemed to only smile brighter.
Gojo shrugged, “A few months. Maybe more. Until I figure out a permanent solution.”
“Your parents want you to get married?”
“The whole clan wants me to get married, sweetheart. I am the strongest.”
And now came the obvious question.
“Why me?”
Gojo shrugged, “You were one of their first picks to start with, so they’ll approve. And there isn’t a risk of you falling for me…”
His lips upturned into a sly grin, “… too quickly.”
You scoffed.
“Family will back off. I get a bit of peace until I have to kick you to the curb, and you get to be a first-class sorcerer. Everyone wins.”
“I’m not going to fall for you.”
Gojo gave a sad little nod, like he was agreeing with a deluded person in order to keep them calm and reasonable.
Granted, you did just effectively hurl a slushy at him a few minutes prior.
“This seems a bit extreme, even for you. Why do you think I’d even say yes? You know exactly why you got slapped. Can I expect that same level of charm from our future ‘dates’?” you asked, kicking yourself for having implied in your words you knew him well enough to even know what was extreme for him. The comment did not go unnoticed, even with his half expression hidden you could tell his interest was piqued. The last thing you wanted to do was to explain to this insufferable man how his very presence was as constant as the sun. Always nagging in the back of your mind and in your abilities.
You wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
“That was awhile ago. Most girls find me pretty charming these days. As to why you’d say yes— given it is probably your best chance at getting to first grade sorcerer status, I can’t think of a reason you wouldn’t.”
You bit the inside of your cheek. Fifteen year old you would be outraged, furious. She would not have considered this offer for a second. She would have stamped her foot and told him exactly where he could stick his offer.
But twenty-eight year old you had learned that very often principles were made to be damned.
“And the fact I can tell you are just dying to say yes.”
There was that arrogance again.
“You still buying me lunch?” you countered and the smile he gave you was a bit different than the ones before.
“Wow. No one will even question how I could have been charmed by such a talented freeloader.”
“I am exceedingly charming.”
“And what an arm. You play softball or you just start a lot of food fights as a kid?”
“I want sushi.” You said, the finality of your voice inarguable. You thought he might have rolled his eyes, but nevertheless you got your lunch and even managed to bargain a single day to think about the offer.