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A world without curses, that’s what Tsukumo Yuki had envisioned and strived to achieve, ever since she had graduated from Jujutsu Tech High.
It had been a goal borne from witnessing too many premature deaths, of having lost too many classmates and peers to otherwise avoidable circumstances.
Was that truly the sole purpose of a jujutsu sorcerer? To kill or be killed, like some animal in the wild? Were their lives so pointless that they had to throw it away like that, time and time again? That had been the question Yuki had been hounded by for most of her high school life.
Where was the meaning of such a life, or death? If jujutsu sorcerers existed only to fight, without any thought of how to stop that fighting, then was their war against curses destined to never end? What was even the point in that? It sounded absurd, like the lazy plot of a terrible shounen anime.
Yuki had searched and searched and searched, trying to find an end to it, to treat the cause rather than the symptoms.
She had spent years, away from home, from her family and friends, in an attempt to find out; why them? In all her time spent travelling the world, Yuki had found little to no curses in existence elsewhere. They were there, of course, but they were few and far in between, nothing like the abundance of them that terrorized Japan.
Nothing like the special grades that occasionally popped up in her homeland.
The only conclusion Yuki could thus come to was this; curses evolved, just like the humans that lived around them.
Scientists often lauded humanity’s ability to adapt, to survive any environment or situation thrown at them in order to continue living. In Japan, society had feared the unknown so much that they had created stories to explain natural phenomena, had created folk tales to warn each other of the unseen dangers lurking in the shadows.
Because of that fear, and the staunch belief in the spiritual world, curses had begun to form. And as more and more curses, though ultimately weak and harmless, had begun to inhabit then-unventured lands, the peoples of Japan had begun to invent ways to eradicate them; giving birth to jujutsu.
But jujutsu wasn’t something that was easily understandable by most people, and so fear of jujutsu had spread as well, creating more curses. Powerful curses, the kind that could hold fast against jujutsu sorcerers. It carried on that way for centuries; curses getting stronger, forcing humans to get stronger, and causing curses to become even stronger, and so on.
At least, that was Tsukumo Yuki’s theory. The relationship between humans and curses; the purpose of a jujutsu sorcerer.
It was a vicious cycle. As long as there were curses, there would be jujutsu sorcerers, and as long as jujutsu sorcerers continued to become stronger, so would the fear of the common people for them, and thus, so too would the curses borne from them.
In the end, didn’t that make jujutsu sorcerers the true enemy of humanity?
The day that Gojo Satoru ascended to divinity, Tsukumo Yuki’s theory became a proven fact.
It had always been taught in the jujutsu community that the existence of the Six Eyes and Limitless in one vessel was nature’s scale to maintain the balance between the strength of jujutsu sorcerers against the evils of curses. To ensure that the influence of curses was kept at bay, that humanity would always have a weapon to ensure its continued existence. To maintain the clear divide between the light and the dark.
Yet a human was a human was a human. Wasn’t that so? And humans, in essence, held both the light and darkness within their hearts.
If the Six Eyes and Limitless were nature’s way of providing humanity with a trump card against curses, what was nature’s answer to that trump card’s descent into madness?
The answer, Tsukumo Yuki would eventually discover, was Nanami Kento.
---
Gojo wasn’t stupid, of course. Yuki had always known this.
In spite of his frivolity, and his natural aversion to being told what to do, Gojo also had a talent for being surprisingly insightful, outside of fighting and honing his powers.
When Gojo had warped in front of Yuki, just as she had taken down a group of ten first-grade curses outside of Roppongi, her first thought had been, Ah. It’s my turn already?
“If you can convince the others to not get in my way, I’ll let you live,” were the first words that came out of Gojo’s mouth. He was smiling, his blindfold absent.
“You always did look down on your senpai,” Yuki replied, hefting her weapon over her shoulder. “That always pissed me off, you know.”
“There has to be a balance,” Gojo said, not acknowledging her words at all. “Nothing lasts without a balance. From now on, the only curse allowed to exist is Sukuna. That means he has to get stronger, so I have to let him eat everything else first.”
Yuki tightened her grip on her weapon. “And what happens after that?”
Gojo tilted his head, and looked up at the sky. “I don’t particularly care,” he said simply. “As long as you stay out of my way, you’ll probably survive.”
Yuki stared at him, considering her chances. There was a negative percentage of her winning a fight against Gojo Satoru, but-
With a sigh, she swung her weapon down into the ground, embedding the blade into concrete. “You won’t hunt us down?”
Gojo looked back at her, surprise on his face. “Unless you’re planning on personally coming after me, then no,” he said with a shrug. “Jujutsu sorcerers don’t create curses. If you survive, you can even be in charge.”
“And if anyone tries to stop you? After all the curses are gone?”
“Then they’ll die.”
Yuki nodded, her chest tightening. She had never lost a fight before, and she couldn’t lie and say that her pride didn’t hurt. But she’d also never had to fight Gojo Satoru, and she knew, even without the fact that not a single curse had entered the area since Gojo had appeared, that the man before her was on a whole other level.
He probably wasn’t even human anymore.
“Will you at least tell me why?” she asked quietly. “Why now?”
Gojo smiled. “Why not?” was his vague answer, and he gave her a mock salute. “I’ll see you after everything’s settled then. Bye-bye!”
He was gone in a blink, and Yuki looked around her, taking in the devastation in the aftermath of her fight so far.
Nothing was standing in a five-mile radius, and with Gojo’s departure, more curses were beginning to crawl out of the debris, eyeing her hungrily.
Sukuna’s meal, huh, Yuki thought morosely.
And for the first time in Tsukumo Yuki’s life, she ran from a fight.
---
It was easy for Yuki to track down Todo, Inumaki, Panda, Zenin Maki, and Zenin Mai, but convincing them to retreat was slightly harder.
They all looked worse for wear, but they had all been her students, once, at some point in their jujutsu careers, so Yuki understood why they refused to give up. But it was this same fact that allowed her to convince them, using their trust in her to take them to Tokyo Jujutsu Tech High and seal them in the underground bunker.
They would be angry, sure, but they would be alive at least.
When Yuki returned to Tokyo on her own, there were more dead sorcerers on the streets; the auxiliary managers, mostly, but Gakuganji, Yaga, even Kamo Noritoshi. Yuki saw their corpses, or what was left of them, and steeled herself as she pushed on, searching for other survivors.
She met Okkotsu Yuuta in Shibuya, facing off against a special-grade curse Yuki had only read about in reports, one that was easily distinguishable by the numerous stitches that decorated its face and its body.
“Oh my, you’re strong too, huh?” the curse said as it spat out blood, a manic grin stretching across its face. “I was hoping for Itadori, but the two of you can help warm me up.”
“Don’t let it touch you,” Yuuta said to Yuki, not taking his eyes off of the curse. “Its technique transfigures humans with a touch. You won’t recover from that.”
“We need to leave,” Yuki said, surprising Yuuta enough that he finally looked at her. “Gojo’s feeding all these curses to Sukuna. We’re only getting in the way.”
“Gojo-sensei?” Yuuta echoed. “Then-?”
Yuki shook her head. “He’s lost it,” she said succinctly. “But he’s only targeting curses. The rest of us are nothing but collateral.”
“Impossible…”
“He told me himself.” Yuki glanced over at the special-grade curse, seeing it watching them curiously. “Let’s go. I know it’s not easy but- curses are being drawn here from all over the country, because of Sukuna’s call. That means we’re at ground zero. There will be civilian survivors elsewhere, but if we die too, there won’t be anyone left to help them.”
Yuuta clutched at his katana, his expression pinching with indecision, but he drew in a breath and nodded shortly. “I’ll find others in the west district,” he said. “Where should I bring them?”
“Tokyo Jujutsu Tech. I got some second-years in the bunker already.”
With another nod, Yuuta turned and ran, and Yuki took off in the opposite direction, expecting the special-grade to come after her.
It did, of course, throwing a giant, worm-like transfigured human in front of Yuki to block her way, and she jumped over it, swinging her spear under her to lose her momentum so that she didn’t overshoot.
She landed on the back of the transfigured human, and jumped away quickly as the special-grade jumped onto her, landing where she had been standing just moments before.
“You’re pretty fast,” the curse sneered. “But not as fast as that kid earlier.”
He disappeared right in front of Yuki’s eyes, and she knew he was behind her a split second before she sensed his curse energy against her back. She ducked, swinging a leg out behind her, and backflipped off of the transfigured human, onto the broken concrete road below.
The special-grade had jumped into the air to avoid her sweep, and it was laughing gleefully as it landed on the ground on all fours, just a few feet away from Yuki.
“I take it back,” it said, slurring as its tongue lolled out of its mouth. “You’re pretty much a monster too, huh?”
Yuki couldn’t deny that, especially considering what she was doing. But it wasn’t anything new, was it? Becoming a monster; it was just inevitable for jujutsu sorcerers.
Even the strongest of them all hadn’t been spared that fate, after all.
Yuki lifted her weapon and readied to run, sensing the approach of a much stronger, much more menacing curse, and shot the special-grade a grim smile.
“Better a monster than a monster’s meal,” she said, and left without another glance back.
---
It took a month for every curse in Japan to be consumed by Sukuna.
A month before Gojo broadcasted his message across every television, radio station, communication device in Japan, for every sorcerer and non-sorcerer survivor left to hear:
Tomorrow at midnight, every sorcerer should report to Tokyo Jujutsu Tech High to decide on their fate. Non-sorcerers should stay where they are, and avoid experiencing any stress to prevent the creation of new curses. Failure to adhere to these instructions will result in immediate death.
Why midnight, some of the surviving sorcerers thought. What fate?
Yuki already knew the answers to both questions; midnight, because Gojo was a theatrical, overdramatic dick. Their fate; referring to the direction of Japan’s future, from here on out.
A world without curses, just as Yuki had envisioned.
But at what cost?
The death toll was too numerous to be calculated without more time, and sorcerers-wise - Yuki counted less than fifteen survivors, including herself and her students and colleagues.
There were more, possibly, among the clans, though could they even be counted if they couldn’t even fight?
“What do we do, sensei?”
Yuuta’s question silenced every sound in the bunker, as every pair of eyes in the room turned to Yuki expectantly.
It wasn’t quite fair, considering Yuki wasn’t the only adult among them. Ieiri was there too, along with Akari, Ijichi and Mei Mei, and each one of them had been in Japan for longer than Yuki had in recent years. Why not ask them what to do, considering Yuki had only been back for less than two months? Surely Ieiri, in particular, would know better how to deal with Gojo.
At the same time, Yuki knew why. She was the one that had gathered them here, after all, the one that had faced the new Gojo Satoru and not died in the process. Of course they would all turn to her for directions.
With a sigh, Yuki flicked her hair over her shoulder. “I’m not your teacher anymore,” she said. “But to answer your question; we do what we have to. It’s an hour before midnight, so I suggest you prepare yourselves to face Gojo Satoru.”
“Are we going to fight him?” Maki asked, crossing her arms with a scowl.
“That would be suicide,” Mai added, glancing uneasily over at Inumaki standing on her sister’s other side. “He destroyed Inumaki’s vocal chords without even blinking.” She shuddered, hugging herself as she muttered, “As a precaution, he said…”
Yuki felt sorry for her. She’d heard from Ijichi that two of her classmates had been devoured by a special grade curse right in front of her eyes, before Yuuki had found her and her sister. It was clear that she was still shaken by the experience, and now, she was facing possible death again, at the hands of the man they had once lauded as their champion.
“We won’t fight him,” Yuki declared. “Mai is right; it would be suicide. There’s not a single one of us that’s as strong as Gojo, and I doubt even combining forces would put us on even footing. Our only choice is to listen to what he has to offer.”
“Normally I would disagree,” Todo spoke up, surprising Yuki. The boy had been sitting silently in a corner of the bunker since Yuki had returned with more survivors, seemingly sulking at being forced to retreat.
Now, he only looked tired, his eyes closed even as he continued, “but there’s no shame in admitting defeat against a stronger opponent. As it is, Gojo Satoru has not killed any humans himself. It goes against everything we know, but wouldn’t following his lead be exactly what we’ve been fighting curses for all this while?”
“That’s insane,” Akari muttered, seemingly to herself, clutching at her own blonde head as she stared wide-eyed at the ground, trembling from head to toe. “Insane. ”
“Is it really?” Ijichi mused. He looked disturbed, but Yuki somehow got the impression that he was grasping at any sliver of rationality in what was happening, however minute. “He’s eradicating every curse in Japan… Isn’t that the purpose of a jujutsu sorcerer?”
“At the cost of human lives?” Maki snapped immediately, glaring at him. “With all due respect, Ijichi-san, but that’s bullshit. There’s a reason why we keep jujutsu a secret from the rest of the population. The deaths of everyone this past month might only be collateral to Gojo Satoru, but it’s a tragedy to the rest of us. Or are you going to treat it all as a necessary loss for the greater good?”
Mai reached out to grab her sister’s shoulder, her expression pleading. “Don’t say that to him,” she begs. “If you tell him that, he might kill you-!”
“And so what if he does?” Maki snarled, shrugging her hand off violently. “How is his way any different than the Zenin way, Mai? Listen to him or die, listen to them or be ostracised - I would rather die than let anyone else dictate how I live my life-!”
Maki’s words were cut off by a hard slap delivered by Mai, and Yuki looked away from them, feeling uncomfortable at the exchange between the two sisters.
“First you abandon me to the family and now you’re going to leave me alone because of your pride?” she heard Mai whisper harshly, her words muffled by her tears. “This is real, Maki! You saw what happened to Miwa and Momo! I don’t want to see Gojo do the same thing to you! Don’t- don’t make me watch you die too!”
Mai broke out into sobs then, dropping to the floor as she wept at Maki’s feet, and Yuki closed her eyes, praying silently for strength.
“We’ll meet him and decide what we’ll do then,” she said quietly, though this time, her words felt more like a reassurance to herself than to the rest of them. “There’s no point arguing amongst ourselves like this.”
No one else said anything, thankfully, though the silence in the room was broken by the harsh sound of Mai’s tears.
Five minutes before midnight, all of them made their way up to the surface, and they were shocked to find the school’s grounds already changed. Gojo had redecorated, it’d seemed, and the buildings that had once housed the school’s dormitories and classrooms looked nearly unrecognisable to any of them.
But the greatest difference was the field; where there had once been a vast, open area, it was now packed densely with sakura trees, all in full bloom despite it not even being the season for it. The location gave off an eerie sense of dread that made Yuki uneasy, like she was in the presence of a special grade curse or something similar.
She didn’t want to know why or how Gojo had managed to pull that off in record time, and she luckily didn’t have long to dwell on it either, as Gojo himself chose that moment to appear before them.
The entrance to the bunker was in the building that stood next to the school’s pond, and the group of them had only made it as far as the end of the waterbed when Gojo showed himself.
Yuki hadn’t even been able to sense his presence before she saw him, and she had the terrifying thought of whether he had grown stronger since the last time she’d seen him, as he smiled coldly at them all.
“You’re early,” he said, leaning against one of the wooden beams of the shaded walkway casually. “As a reward, I’ll let you all decide what to do with the rest of Japan.” He tilted his head, and his smile fell away, his eyes opening to stare at them. “Or choose how you want to die.”
“Maki,” Yuki heard Mai whisper desperately behind her, and knew without looking that Maki had not taken Gojo’s words well.
“Maki-chan,” Gojo said, and Yuki tensed up. “You’ve always been a good student, so I’ll let you speak your mind without consequence. Go ahead.”
Yuki turned, watching as Mai clutched at her sister’s arm, whimpering audibly. Maki herself hesitated, looking down between her sister and then over at Gojo, who watched them without giving away anything.
Surprisingly, it was Mei Mei who spoke up first.
“I choose death,” she said, loud and clear, her chin held high as she met Gojo’s gaze without flinching.
Gojo nodded. “I guessed as much,” he said, smiling. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry about your brother. Thanks for your hard work.”
With that, he snapped his fingers, and Yuki turned away just in time, unable to watch as one of her oldest friends disintegrated into nothingness, right where she stood, not even a foot away. The rest of them weren’t so lucky, as Yuki heard Mai scream with terror, and the others gasping with shock in unison.
When Yuki dared to look back, there was only a black splotch on the ground where Mei Mei had been.
“It was painless,” Gojo said, his tone almost gentle, as if he hadn’t just murdered one of their own. “I promise I take no enjoyment in any of this. I’m only doing what’s necessary.”
“Necessary?” Maki echoed hollowly, her eyes glued to Mei Mei’s remains, her expression taut with shock and disbelief. “Necessary? What- why is it necessary to-?”
“Maki, no,” Mai choked out, pulling Maki closer. She was trembling visibly, her fear a palpable thing that permeated the air. “Please don’t, I’m begging you-!”
She clamped her lips shut when Gojo pushed off of the beam he’d been leaning against, brushing invisible dirt from his sleeves as he stood at his full height before them. Even though she wasn’t looking at him, she, like the rest of them, were all too aware of his oppressive presence.
“If you dislike the new world I’m creating, then you’ll never stop rebelling against me,” Gojo said, slowly, enunciating every word like he was speaking to unruly children. “I can’t allow the risk of any curses manifesting again, so this is the only solution. It’s simply necessary to eliminate any unknown variables that I can’t control.”
“What gives you the right?” Maki said, shaking as much as her sister, though it was clearly out of fury rather than the same terror that was now keeping Mai frozen in place. “Who said you got to call the shots like this?”
Genuine surprise fell on Gojo’s face, as if he truly hadn’t expected to be asked that. And then, in a matter-of-fact tone, he answered, “Well, the heavens, of course. I’m a god, after all.”
And finally, finally, Yuki saw it; the first hint of madness in the man. A crack in the otherwise cool composure that Gojo had maintained up until now. There was a look in his eyes - the Six Eyes - that was unhinged, that shone through like a beacon in spite of the measured tone that Gojo used to deliver his words.
Gojo was truly insane. Because he really believed that he was a god.
“Now, then. Have the rest of you made your choice?”
---
3 Years Later
It was nearly impossible for any human to maintain a domain expansion indefinitely, let alone one that stretched across every island in Japan. So perhaps Gojo had a point, after all, that he was a god instead of a man.
Because somehow, even after 2 years, he’d managed to achieve that.
Yuki would have been impressed, if she wasn’t busy trying to maintain some semblance of normalcy in the lives they now led.
Gojo had kept his word, in the end. He’d allowed Tokyo to be rebuilt, allowed things to return as they were, before that night of his Ascension, as he liked to call it. But despite all their efforts, the surviving civilians had not been able to suppress their emotions, and new curses were being born almost daily.
And so Gojo had devoured them all, entrapping the entire country within his domain, controlling every single aspect of the people and creatures within it to ensure that any strong emotions that could result in a curse’s manifestation would be quelled before they could take root.
Only other sorcerers were exempt from his influence, but none of them could create curses anyway. Yuki felt terrible for the people of Japan, but with Gojo the way he was - there wasn’t much else she could do but remain calm and play her own part, trying her best to make sure no one would need to be- permanently silenced, all the while trying to find a way to either return Gojo back to his old self, or, by some miracle, get rid of him.
They needed to bide their time, to find a way to get as strong as, or even stronger than Gojo, and she knew that they had only one chance - as slim and nonexistent as it was - to bring him down. Gojo would not let them live to regret failing.
As a human, Gojo hadn’t had any weaknesses. As a god, this fact hadn’t changed.
At least, that was what Yuki initially thought.
“He has a mate,” Yuuta said, upon returning from his monthly visit to Gojo’s shrine; the compound that had once been Tokyo Jujutsu Tech.
At the beginning, Gojo had demanded at least one capable sorcerer from each corner of Japan ‘pay tribute’ to him in person, at least once every cycle of the moon. In reality, the tribute he wanted wasn’t money or food, or even anything physical. It was just his way of reminding them that he was always there, always watching, always ever getting stronger with each day that passed and with Sukuna at his beck and call.
The monthly tributes became unnecessary after a while, when everyone realised what it actually was that Gojo wanted, and so barely anyone ever bothered anymore. The message had been sent, and received.
Yuuta, however, had never stopped going. Yuki needed someone to bring intel back from Gojo’s shrine, and perhaps because Yuuta had always been so strong - or perhaps because they were distantly related? You could never be quite sure with Gojo Satoru - but Gojo had always been kind to him. Even after everything that had happened, this fact hadn’t yet changed.
Besides which - Yuki knew that Yuuta had grown a soft spot for Itadori Yuuji, who Gojo kept close under his wing like his own son. Yuki hadn’t the heart to discourage the feelings that she knew the boy was beginning to harbour, even if heartbreak was surely to be met at the end of that journey. Because Itadori Yuuji was just as much loyal to Gojo as Gojo seemed to care for him, at least as far as Yuki could tell.
Yuuta must have known, but if he chose to risk his heart like that, then who was Yuki to stop him?
“Is it anyone we know?” Yuki asked him, as he took a seat next to her.
“Nanami Kento,” was Yuuta’s answer, as his brows furrowed, clearly perturbed. “Wasn’t he a Grade 1 sorcerer in your generation?”
Yuki couldn’t help but feel surprised. She’d heard of him, had met him a few times, but that was only back when they were still students. She hadn’t seen him during the Ascension, or even after, and she’d just assumed-
“He’s alive?” she said, relieved in spite of herself. One less death of their people was always good news, after all. “I didn’t know they had that kind of relationship.”
“He looked different,” Yuuta said, frowning deeper. “Younger, and- confused? Gojo-sensei never left his side, and he didn’t seem to like it when Nanami-san spoke to me. When I asked Yuuji-kun, he changed the subject quickly too. Something didn’t feel right about it. Also-”
Yuuta stopped, looking around before turning back to Yuki and adding, quieter, “he didn’t have any curse energy at all. Not like a sorcerer.”
“That’s impossible,” was Yuki’s immediate response.
Yuuta only shrugged. “That’s what I saw.”
Nanami Kento? Without curse energy? How was that possible when he’d been Grade 1? And Yuki knew that he was one of the strongest sorcerers from Tokyo Jujutsu Tech. And if he had no curse energy, why would Gojo even mate him? Gojo Satoru, who had always looked down on those who were too weak to better themselves?
It didn’t make sense. Unless-
“Was he an omega?” Yuki asked, though she already knew the answer.
“He smelled like one,” Yuuta confirmed. “I think he might have been pregnant.”
Well then. That was a surprise indeed.
If Nanami was an omega and Gojo was mated to him in spite of him now not having any curse energy for whatever reason, then it could only mean that they were soulmates. To think that the strongest sorcerer in their lifetime was soulmates with a sorcerer who no longer possessed any curse energy; it was either cruel, or poetic karma.
But that kind of information- it was exactly why Yuki had never asked Yuuta to stop visiting Gojo’s shrine.
“What about Sukuna?” Yuki asked, changing the subject as the beginnings of a plan began to form in her mind.
Yuuta raised a brow, but didn’t persist. “He’s the same as before. He seemed restless and tried to pick a fight with me, but Gojo-sensei put a stop to that.”
“Then can you finally give me an estimate on when you can get strong enough to take him on?”
Yuuta’s eyes widened with surprise, but he gave Yuki an answer anyway. “Six months, if I keep training like I have been,” he said. “Without more curses, Sukuna can’t get stronger himself, so it’s possible for me to catch up to him.”
He stared at Yuki, scrutinising her shrewdly. “You have a plan already?” he asked in a low tone.
“Maybe,” Yuki said, turning away. It was half-assed and nigh on suicidal if even the slightest thing went wrong, but-
“Have you ever heard of Prison Realm, Yuuta?”
---
Are you sure this will work?
Of course not. There’s never any absolutes when Gojo Satoru is involved.
Unless it’s the absolute truth that he’s the strongest.
Well, you know what they say. The stronger they are-
The harder they fall. Sensei, everyone is in position.
Good. Maki, Togo, take the lead. Panda, cover them if you need to. Yuuta-
I’ll give you the signal once the curse is activated.
I’m sorry to put you in this position, Yuuta.
… It’s partly my responsibility, so you don’t have to apologise. As long as no one else has to get hurt, then- then I don’t regret anything. Just be careful.
… Thank you. All of you.
The objective of their plan was, ultimately, quite simple. If it was impossible to kill Gojo Satoru, then they would lock him away for good instead.
Prison Realm was a curse object that Yuki had heard about towards the end of her last trip overseas. A living barrier so powerful that it could seal anything within it for an indefinite amount of time; including - in theory - one Gojo Satoru.
It had been easy to establish contact with the outside world, once they’d discovered that Gojo’s domain expansion was weaker at its southern borders, for whatever reason. It might have simply been hubris on Gojo’s part; perhaps he’d grown so confident of his own power and authority that he hadn’t bothered to be as thorough with his work as he’d once been. Perhaps, it had even simply been a human error.
Yuki didn’t care, either way. What mattered was that it allowed them to contact sorcerers from outside of Japan, who knew about what had happened to them and why. Through their new contact, she had been able to determine that Prison Realm really did exist, and it had taken a while longer, but somehow, they’d managed to obtain it, and smuggle it through Gojo’s domain barriers - along with another curse object thought to have been lost to time; the Inverted Spear of Heaven.
They were the ultimate weapons against someone as strong as Gojo Satoru, and the best chance any of them had.
(Yuki tried not to think too much about what might have happened if she’d gotten them before, if she’d just paid attention to rumours more and had brought them back with her that night she’d faced Gojo before his madness had fully taken root.
There was no point in what-if’s and what-could-have-been’s.
Though it broke Yuki’s heart still, knowing that she could have done something to save her friends.)
The next stage of the plan was getting close enough to Gojo - and staying alive long enough - for Prison Realm to take effect. If Gojo knew what they were up to, they would be dead in an instant, and they couldn’t risk him knowing what they were up to lest he might get a hold of Prison Realm himself.
Yuuta discovering that Gojo had a mate - a soulmate, at that - by his side, had been the solution to that part of the plan.
She remembered Nanami Kento being a serious, hardworking student with a strong sense of justice. Yuuta had described him as anything but that, but Yuki had little choice except to bank on the hope that somewhere inside him, there was still that same student that would fight for the right thing. That he would understand what they were doing and forgive them for it, afterwards.
If there was going to be an afterwards at all.
Either way, given who Nanami was, he was the best method of getting Prison Realm close enough to Gojo; so Yuuta would give it to him, and tell him it was a gift, of sorts. Nanami didn’t even have to know what it really was, and Gojo wouldn’t suspect anything from his own soulmate.
The rest of them would confront Sukuna - and Gojo’s students, if it came to that - and keep them busy, once Yuuta activated Prison Realm inside his shrine. And if everything went well-
Gojo Satoru would be sealed.
It was a simple plan, and Yuki wished they could make a better one. Something more detailed and more elaborate, something that would actually guarantee them success.
But she wasn’t a master tactician against something like Gojo, and she couldn’t predict the future even if she tried. And a part of her was just- tired of continuing as they were.
Mai had taken her own life six months after their meeting with Gojo, without even leaving a note. None of them had seen it coming, not even her sister, and not knowing why she had done it had taken a terrible toll on Maki. The girl had become quieter and more withdrawn since, while being a lot more vicious with her own training.
There were more sorcerers in the other settlements that had died too, either for defying Gojo, or by ending it themselves like Mai had, and Yuki knew that the longer they lived like this, the less of them there would be left at the end of the road.
They couldn’t last like this for much longer. She couldn’t risk waiting for a guarantee, not if she didn’t want any more of them to die.
They had to do something, and even if this plan failed, at least-
At least-
At least-
“What’s happening?!”
“Nanami-san, stay away from the box!”
Yuki entered the main hall of Gojo’s shrine just in time to see Prison Realm gaping open as its one eye cast itself upon Gojo Satoru.
Nanami was an arm’s length away from him, staring at the curse object with horror, while Yuuta was trying to pull him away.
“So you’ve betrayed me after all,” Gojo said, watching the two of them, seemingly unaffected by his own entrapment. “I was hoping your love for Yuuji would have won out.”
Yuuta froze, looking over at Gojo and meeting his eyes.
“He won’t forgive you for this, you know,” Gojo said nonchalantly, just as the corners of Prison Realm tore themselves off from around its eye and long, fleshy limbs began to stab into Gojo’s upper body, effectively surrounding him and pinning him in place. “Neither of them will.”
“Satoru!” Nanami cried out, reaching out for his mate.
Distracted, Yuuta’s hold on him loosened, and Nanami broke free from him, stumbling towards Gojo just as Prison Realm tightened its hold on him.
“What’s happening?” Yuki heard him say frantically, as he gripped onto the fleshy appendages and tried in vain to claw them off. “What are these things? Satoru, why aren’t you breaking free?”
“I love you, Nanami,” was all Gojo said in response, his tone cool and composed as he looked down at the panicked omega. “More than anything else, remember that I always loved you.”
Yuki’s breath caught in her throat - she could see that Gojo meant it, and for that split second before Gojo was completely encased within Prison Realm’s box, his eyes were free of any trace of madness.
It wasn’t Gojo Satoru, the god that had said that. It was Gojo Satoru, the strongest sorcerer of them all. Just another human being.
“No!” Nanami cried out as Gojo disappeared, reduced to the shape and size of Prison Realm’s deactivated appearance, and he fell to his knees on the floor by it, screaming. “Satoru! Satoru!”
“Yuuta, the command,” Yuki said, snapping Yuuta out of his daze, and the boy staggered over to Nanami, pulling him away from Prison Realm with some effort.
“Gate close,” he bit out, and a dozen odd-shaped, eerie-looking eyes blinked open all over Prison Realm’s surface.
They blinked rapidly at different intervals, and Yuki had to look away, her skin crawling at the disgusting sight it made.
She looked over at Yuuta instead, still struggling to keep a hold of Nanami. The omega was completely distraught, desperate to reach for the curse object that had taken his mate from him, and Yuki strode over to them before grabbing a hold of his chin and stilling him.
“We did what we had to,” she snarled, aware that she was shaking - from the adrenaline, from the fear, from the deep and visceral relief that they had actually, unbelievably succeeded. “He’s not coming back, Nanami. Now you can either pull yourself together before you hurt yourself, or I can knock you out right here. What’s it going to be?”
Nanami sobbed, tears escaping from the corners of his eyes as he stared back at Yuki. “What did you do to him?” he choked out.
“He’s sealed away,” Yuki said, letting go of his face. “Potentially forever. There’s no way out of Prison Realm once someone’s sealed inside it. The only escape is death.”
Nanami sobbed harder at that, shaking his head. “Why?” he wept. “Why did you-?”
Did he really not know? Or did he simply not care? Yuki couldn’t tell, not past the grief that was exuding from the omega in unbearable waves.
“Nanami-san, the baby,” Yuuta said cautiously. “You have to calm down.”
That seemed to do the trick, because Nanami continued to cry but he no longer struggled to reach for Prison Realm, nor did he resist when Yuuta began to lead him further away from it. Nanami slumped against the boy, looking smaller than he was as he buried his face in Yuuta’s shoulder and grieved for his lost mate.
Yuki watched them for a moment, before turning back towards the curse object that now held Gojo Satoru. The eyes had disappeared, and now it looked like it had before it had been activated. Yuki shuddered before bending down to pick it up, staring at it and marvelling at the fact that Gojo was inside that thing.
How could something so small and innocuous imprison the terrifying figure that Gojo had been?
It didn’t matter.
“I’ll keep this somewhere safe,” she said, mostly to Yuuta, but- a part of her truly did feel sympathetic towards Nanami. Was it kind, to let him know that his mate would be safe and alive, although completely unreachable? She wasn’t sure. “Sukuna is still out there. The others may need back up.”
Yuuta nodded, but before Yuki could turn and leave, there was a massive explosion behind them, towards the main entrance of the shrine.
The immense presence of a powerful curse emanated from the same direction, and Yuki quickly pocketed Prison Realm before drawing the Inverted Spear of Heaven and preparing herself to face the King of Curses. She’d brought the weapon along in case anything had gone wrong, to use it against Gojo. She was glad; Sukuna was just as well another Gojo Satoru.
The curse was much larger than she remembered, as he towered over them in the spacious room, his form appearing grotesque from the cloying thickness of his curse energy. It was dark and miasmic, tinged with a crimson light that stank like dried blood.
“You defeated the brat?” he sneered as he gazed down at Yuki.
Yuki gripped the spear hard, but she refused to show weakness. Jutting her chin up, she said, “It was a team effort.”
To her surprise, Sukuna threw his head back and laughed, loud and cackling, like a madman with no restraint.
“As thanks for your help, I won’t slaughter you where you stand,” he said, once he was done, grinning at Yuki and baring rows and rows of sharp teeth in the process. “But I want the child.”
Yuki frowned. “What child?” she asked, although she already knew the answer. Gojo’s child. The one Nanami was carrying. But why?
“There’s no need to play the fool,” Sukuna sneered. He tilted his head and crossed his massive arms, his lids growing heavy as his eyes - every one of them, including the ones scattered across his cheeks and his shoulders - swivelled over to where Yuuta stood with Nanami in a corner of the hall. “Leave the omega with me and I’ll spare you. I won’t repeat myself, human.”
“Sensei,” Yuuta said, looking over at Yuki seriously. “Please leave with Nanami-san and Prison Realm. I’ll deal with Sukuna.”
Yuki hesitated, glancing between the boy and the curse.
Once upon a time, she would have refused.
Even if it meant certain death, Yuki would have never run from a fight, let alone one that determined whether one of her students would die or not.
But- but that was a long time ago. Yuki had lost count of how many fights she had run from, how many cowardly decisions she had made for the sake of survival.
Once upon a time, Yuki would not have recognized the person that she was today.
Today, Yuki could only nod curtly, and moved as fast as she possibly could to Yuuta’s side before grabbing a hold of Nanami’s arm. “We’re counting on you,” she told the boy, and Yuuta managed a small, grateful smile.
“Take care of everyone,” he said, as he drew his katana and blocked an attack from Sukuna.
Yuki jumped out of the way, landing a little awkwardly with Nanami’s weight, and dashed out of the hall without looking back, her ears ringing with the sound of Yuuta’s katana clashing violently against what could only be Sukuna’s claws.
“We can’t leave him,” Nanami murmured, and Yuki tightened her arm around his waist, holding him more firmly as she sped up her pace. “He’ll die.”
“So will we if we stay,” Yuki replied.
Nanami made a strangled sound, but said nothing else.
The rest of their journey was silent, save for the thundering sound of Yuki’s heart beating a storm inside her chest.
---
Sealing Gojo had not disabled his domain expansion immediately, but trapped inside Prison Realm, even he wasn’t able to continue exerting his influence on the people within the domain.
So news of his fall spread fast, and the effects were immediate.
With their newly-found freedom to feel and think again for themselves, people began to riot, and loudly demanded that all sorcerers be prosecuted for the crimes of Gojo Satoru. They were branded criminals and monsters, and even when all the negative energies from the humans created curses that sorcerers exorcised, still the people loathed them. Openly and without restraint.
The people cursed them, and they eradicated those curses, only to have more curses created soon after.
The cycle kept repeating itself, over and over and over, until the barriers of Gojo’s domain finally faded and full communication with the outside world was re-established.
Yuki fled Japan, taking the sorcerers that had stood by her side with her. They hadn’t had a choice. Their home was too hostile to live in any longer, and Yuki feared that if the treatment persisted, a sorcerer would snap and commit the same crimes that Gojo had. She didn’t want to have to go through all that again. She could barely stomach the thought of it.
They fled as far as they could by sea, wary that travelling through mainland countries would result in arrests by foreign governments. Eventually, they found themselves on an island, off the coast of a nation that was hotter than any of them were used to, but which was sparsely populated by kind people that hadn’t seemed to have heard of what had happened in Japan. They were welcomed by the locals, and offered simple housing made of wood and leaves, along with odd jobs in exchange for food and supplies.
It wasn’t the best, but it was better than what they had left behind in Japan.
And more importantly-
“Aunty Yuki! Aunty Yuki!”
Yuki stopped what she was doing, looking up to see a little girl with pigtails and white ribbons skipping over to her with a flyhead between her hands.
“Look what I found!” the little girl gushed happily, giggling as she stopped a few feet away from Yuki. “It washed up on shore! I think one of the mainlanders might have made it!”
“Wow, Etty-chan, that’s a big one you’ve got there,” Yuki said, smiling. “Does your mother know you’re out scavenging?”
Etty pouted up at Yuki, and before she could say anything, a woman’s familiar voice was heard from the front of Yuki’s hut.
“Etty! Aiya, Etty! You better not be doing what I think you’re doing, you little rascal!”
An older woman appeared from round the corner of the hut, her grizzled grey hair loose and flapping about her face where it had escaped from her red headscarf. She was dressed in the village’s traditional clothes, which was as restrictive for movement as a kimono, and so she was holding her skirt up to her knees as she made her way down the path towards them.
“There you are!” she said as she reached them, huffing and puffing with effort. “I’m sorry if she’s bothering you, Miss Yuki. I told her to stop messing around on the beach, but you know how she is.”
“But mama, I found this one all by myself!” Etty protested, holding the flyhead up towards her mother.
“She’s no bother at all, Farah,” Yuki told the woman, who recoiled from the flyhead with disgust.
“How many times do I have to tell you not to shove those things into people’s faces, Etty,” she said with exasperation. “Exorcise it or let Miss Yuki do it.”
Etty pouted again, but relented, her face scrunching up as she summoned enough curse energy to eradicate the flyhead between her hands. It dispersed in a cloud of smoke, after a long moment.
It wasn’t impressive, by a normal sorcerer’s standards, but Etty was seven, and only trained informally with the rest of her classmates at the village’s local school. Yuki was, quite honestly, still astonished by such a scene.
Farah took in stride, however, shaking her head and offering Yuki a smile. “Well, I’ll be taking this one back with me now. It was nice to see you, Miss Yuki. Don’t forget to come for the gathering this Thursday night.” She threw in a wink, as she took a hold of Etty’s hand, adding, “Madam Khairiah is bringing her famous rendang and she said she’s making it extra spicy just for you.”
“Of course, thank you, Farah,” Yuki nodded, smiling wider. “Please pass my regards and thanks to her too.”
With a wave, the mother-daughter pair left, leaving Yuki staring after them.
The aftermath of Gojo’s fall in Japan was still fresh on Yuki’s mind, even though that was all eight months behind them already. She still wasn’t used to being treated like a person, and not a criminal to be locked behind bars.
But Farah’s village hadn’t cared that they were sorcerers, or ahli sihir, as they called them in their native tongue, and had welcomed them into their community. Yuki found it admirable, and there wasn’t a day that went by that she wasn’t grateful they’d found this little island to call their new home. At least for now.
She knew, deep in her heart, that they had to go back to Japan eventually. They couldn’t hide away forever, especially not when- well.
She stood up, leaving the half-finished mat she had been weaving from palm leaves on the back of a fallen tree trunk, and dusted her pants off before making her way to the front of her hut. She walked past the entrance, towards another one not far from hers, closer to and facing the beach behind them.
She didn’t have to enter it.
Nanami was sitting on a rattan chair in front of the hut, his bare feet buried in the sand beneath him, his eyes closed as he enjoyed a warm sea breeze blowing through.
“How is he today?” Yuki asked gently, resting a hand on Nanami’s shoulder.
The blond hummed, opening his eyes and blinking a few times before he looked down at the bundle of cloth in his arms.
“He didn’t cry even once,” Nanami said, shifting to adjust the weight of his baby, so that he could free one hand and reach up to push aside the cloth covering its face. “I think he’s tired.”
Yuki stared at the sleeping face of Gojo Satoru’s child, still a little unnerved at how uncanny the resemblance was. The kid was the spitting image of his father, down to the last strand of unruly white hair, and even though he was just a baby, Yuki couldn’t help but be reminded of the things that Gojo had done, the awful things that he’d put them through, whenever she looked at him.
Seeing Gojo again, every day, in the face of the child that Nanami cared for- she hated to admit it, but there was a part of Yuki that couldn’t help but understand why the people of Japan hated them all so much.
“You should come inside soon,” Yuki said instead, letting out a breath. “It’s getting late.”
Nanami shook his head. “In a little while,” he promised. “I think the sea keeps him calm. I don’t want to wake everyone up again if he starts crying in the middle of the night.”
“Alright,” Yuki concedes. “But mind the mosquitoes. I don’t want you to get dengue fever like Yuuji did last time.”
“He was a miserable patient, wasn’t he?” Nanami said, with a smile. “Even Yuuta-kun couldn’t stand him after the first day.”
“And Maki wouldn’t stop trying to skin him alive for being insufferable,” Yuki sighed, although she recalled the events with fondness. “Well, I’m beat, so I’m going to bed first. Don’t stay out too late, Nanami.”
Nanami nodded, and Yuki took her leave, returning to her own hut as she thought about the others.
Yuuji and Yuuta had mated, shortly after they’d arrived at the village. The two of them lived together, further down the path from Nanami’s hut, and though Yuki worried for them, the two were happy and healthy, the last Yuki had checked.
Maki was a little more concerning. She’d become even quieter than before, and sometimes, Yuki thought she might have been talking to herself, but Yuki could never be too sure. Maki would always clam up whenever she was around, though she answered questions when asked. She often disappeared into the forest in the centre of the island too, usually in the middle of the night, and Yuki never knew what she did while she was there.
She would return before dawn and appeared unharmed every single time though, so Yuki had decided against asking her about it. She was worried that pushing her too far would only agitate her, and it was far from what Yuki wanted to do.
They’d lost Panda and Togo in the fight against Sukuna, and the other survivors- none of them had wanted to leave Japan. They were all they had left, and Yuki found it lonely, but she couldn’t bring herself to regret the decision to flee, not when Nanami had been targeted specifically because someone had leaked the fact that he’d been mated to Gojo.
The info hadn’t been received well, predictably. Yuki had no idea what they would have done to Nanami, if they’d gotten their hands on him, but she was sure it wouldn’t have rested well on her conscience.
Entering her hut, Yuki took a look over the sparse furnishings and the dusty wooden floors before heaving a sigh and making her way over to the partitioned section where her ‘room’ was.
There was only a simple bed, and a rough-looking box that she used as a chest in one corner, which she moved over to. She looked inside, even though she knew no one else ever ventured into her ‘room’. Just for some peace of mind.
Inside the box sat Gojo’s prison, and alongside it, the Inverted Spear of Heaven. Anyone would have told Yuki that it was insane to keep the prison and what was essentially its key right next to each other, but Yuki was uneasy being too far from either of those things. Who would even know, besides herself and the other survivors there?
She was certain even Nanami didn’t know, scattered as his memories were. He was too busy looking after the baby anyway.
Yuki slept better, knowing the Prison Realm and the spear were right by her side, safe out of anyone else’s hands.
---
A strange noise woke Yuki up.
She wasn’t immediately alert, but the moment she sensed movement in a corner of her room - the corner with the box in it - she sat up in her bed, eyes wide and awake.
It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the darkness in her room, only dimly lit by moonlight filtering in through the cracks of the plank walls. When she saw what it was that had woken her up-
“Nanami?” she said, confused at the sight before her.
Nanami froze where he stood at the end of Yuki’s bed, holding the Inverted Spear of Heaven between his hands. A guilty look crossed his features, but before Yuki could question him further, the sharp edge of a katana pressed itself up against her throat, and Yuki froze too, not daring to move.
“Yuuta,” she said calmly, despite the fact that her heart was beginning to race in her chest. She couldn’t see the boy. He was completely hidden in the dark, shrouded in shadows. “What are you doing?”
Silence met her question, broken only by a derisive scoff that Yuki had never heard from Yuuta before.
“I warned you,” Yuuta- no, that guttural, growling voice wasn’t Yuuta’s at all. Sukuna. “You should have just left the omega with me.”
“Don’t hurt her,” Nanami barked out when the katana dug a little deeper into Yuki’s flesh, drawing a thin stream of blood.
Sukuna clicked his tongue in obvious annoyance, but the pressure against her throat lessened and Yuki allowed herself to feel a tiny sense of relief.
“Your alpha will kill them all anyway,” Sukuna growled.
“That’s not up to you to decide,” Nanami retorted, glaring. “Remember your place, Sukuna.”
Sukuna scoffed again, but said nothing else, and Yuki tried to make eye contact with Nanami, her mind racing as fast as her heart, trying to understand what the hell was going on, and not liking at all what the answer to that question was.
Because she knew. Of course she knew.
“Nanami,” she said, drawing his attention to her. “You know why we did it. You have to understand.”
The guilt returned to Nanami’s face, and he flinched, drawing the spear closer to himself. “I do,” he said, quiet and strained. “I do understand, Tsukumo-senpai.” His eyes closed, and his brows furrowed as he let out a shaky breath. “But you don’t understand. You don’t know what it’s like to lose your soulmate. What it’s like to pretend, every second of every day, that you’re not losing your fucking mind knowing that your soulmate was so close, but forever out of reach.”
He opened his eyes, and Yuki gasped, shocked at the sight of that same madness that had shone in Gojo’s before.
Of course.
Of course.
How could she have not seen it?
“I remember everything now,” Nanami said, smiling wryly. “I think that’s the worst part. I remember everything, but for the life of me, I can’t fault Satoru for anything that he’s done. Because I- I would do the same thing for him, Tsukumo-senpai. Do you understand? I’m going to do the same thing he’s done for me.”
Yuki’s eyes stung as she listened to him.
Despair had never felt so great. Not even after all those years, living on thin ice under Gojo’s rule-
( Not again. Not again. Not again.
Not.
Again-)
- Yuki had never felt as hopeless as she did right then.
“Don’t worry,” Nanami added in a gentler tone. “You’ve taken care of me and our son. I will make sure Satoru repays your kindness with mercy.”
“His mercy is death,” Yuki said, trembling now. “I’m begging you, Nanami. Not for me. For everyone else. You saw what happened after- after everything. Freeing him will only make that worse. We’re monsters in everyone’s eyes now. Because of him. You know that.”
Nanami’s smile fell, and he pursed his lips, gaze dropping to the ground. Yuki almost found it in herself to hope, but then he spoke again.
“But he is a monster that I made. And I cannot turn my back on him.”
Before Yuki could even begin to understand what he meant by that, Nanami suddenly raised the spear, and drove it hard into something on the ground, beyond Yuki’s line of sight.
It took an eternity of a second before Yuki realised what he’d done, but it was already too late by then.
A flash of blinding light exploded in the room, and Yuki shielded her eyes from it with her arm, shouting.
By the time the light had faded, Yuki could already sense it; an immense, oppressive presence that she remembered perfectly, despite how long ago since she’d last felt it. It paralyzed her whole body, bringing with it fear, anxiety and utter despair.
How could she have been so careless?
“Well. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”
“Please forgive me, Tsukumo-senpai.”