Chapter Text
“Do you hear me?”
“No.” Kokichi said. “Absolutely no.”
“Ha-ha, very funny.” Mai on the other side didn’t seem to laugh at all. “Should have asked for a shock-collar for you specifically. Feels like it would have been more profitable.”
Muta rubbed his eyes and decided not to say anything in return. After sneaking back into his own room, he didn’t get a single wink of sleep, so now constant buzzing in his headset drove him crazy full speed. No one else seemed to have the same problem, so Kokichi knew it was probably his own fault, therefore there was no good to be complaining. He didn’t tell anyone about his midnight breakdown. Even if he wanted to do so, he probably wouldn’t have found the words.
“Now I’m sad I left my tarot at school.” Momo sighed, stretching her legs over Miwa’s lap. “I feel like some people here would benefit from getting flipped off by the Universe.”
Kasumi chuckled silently, but still caught a shady look from Inumaki. “What? Maybe I am people.”
“Caviar.”
“Ouch, Toge, language!”
“More like an UberEats order—” Nishimiya jumped in place after Miwa pinched her sheens. “What? I didn’t say shit!”
All this friendly bickering usually got Muta into a nostalgic, warm mood. On every other day, he would be happy to be a silent participant in this platonic fake-fights, maybe even felt talkative enough to throw in something from his own heart. Usually, he wouldn’t be opposed to them. Usually, but not now. His head was buzzing with dull pain, constant beeping of his headset felt like someone hammering nails into his braincase, and voices in the background simply added to this cocktail of unfortunate events. Without thinking twice, he got up from his seat.
Their base was carefully placed on top of the building: not too high, not too low, it was a perfect spot for monitoring the situation without standing out like a sore thumb. The closest streets to Shibuya station had remained closed for a while now as a safety concern, so there was no civilians to begin with. That was a place for Tokyo “Attack” Group to navigate, and their mixed “Defense” team was simply awaiting for their time on a respective distance. It was nice to keep that distance for now – there was no good in scaring civilians outside of the closed zone, they had already had enough of struggles during last several months.
Kokichi leaned onto the safety railing of the roof with his whole bodyweight. Metal lining under his hands made a screeching noise, but stayed in place. What a shame. Muta tried his possible best, but there was nothing else in his brain apart of dull pain trailing like a blood markings left from dragging a lifeless body on cement pavement. Maybe, just maybe, if that railing gave up under his weight, it would do everyone a favor. There was no profit for jujutsu society in holding onto him anymore. He was nothing but a deadweight, nothing but an inconvenience, nothing but something that they should had left in the past for a long time already, nothing but something she should had left in the past already—
“What are you thinking about?”
Muta didn’t flinch. He knew Miwa would follow him here, she was never a person to leave someone she knew by themselves. It was something that Kasumi would have to fix eventually, Kokichi thought to himself. She couldn’t become a teacher while still holding onto deadweights. Sooner or later, she would realise it. Sooner or later, blood trail on the floor would finally stop.
“Nothing special.” Kokichi shrugged. “Didn’t sleep well yesterday.”
Miwa inched closer, pressing her shoulder into his lightly. “You could have texted me. I would have come.”
There was screaming inside his head, voice so loud it covered up annoying beeping of a headset for a quick second. I came to see you, it wailed, I came to see you and you weren’t there. Kokichi shut his eyes tight, feeling this voice echo from the walls of his braincase. He tried to silence it, but it came back every time twice as loud as before.
I came to see you, and you weren’t there.
“Didn’t want to bother you.” Muta whispered after a long needed pause.
Kasumi pressed her cheek into his shoulder carefully. “What a nonsense. You could never bother me.”
“For how long.” Kokichi chuckled quietly.
“What?”
He smiled, pushing harder onto the safety railing. It didn’t give up yet, but Muta had already done. “Nothing. Just thinking out loud.”
Every time Kokichi closed his eyes, there was no comfortable darkness to meet him anymore. Instead, he was faced with the same picture, with the same photo. Bedstand, night light shaped like a mushroom, a framed memory of Kyoto kids clinging to each other like their life depended on it. If he spent enough time with his eyes closed, he could forget that he was standing on the edge of Kyoto’s skyscraper. If he shut his eyelids especially tight, he could hear Miwa’s quiet laugh mixing with conversations back at home.
“You know, I have some inside information,” Kasumi started slowly, “that after we finish in Shibuya, they will give us a small vacation, like a week or something, to unwind before jumping back to study.” Her voice was steady and confident. Kokichi felt his hands grip metal railing so hard his knuckles turned white. “I was thinking about coming back to Kyoto for that time. We could all go somewhere to rest, maybe make a little trip as a class? I would love to spend some time with you before I sign my teacher contract.”
Muta didn’t know what to say. He kept his mouth shut, teeth grinding against each other. How could he say something? How could he tell the love of his life that he was not sure there would be a place for him in their class anymore? How could he tell her that each day there was less and less hope in his system, that he didn’t believe he would be able to get through another day like this? How could he tell her, that his worst nightmare was Miwa signing that cursed teacher contract and being stripped away from his fingers back to Tokyo?
There was so many thoughts in his head, and exactly none of them were allowed to get outside of it. He would never forgive himself if Kasumi turned down her teaching opportunity because of their relationship. He would never forgive himself if she lived a life full of regret because of his love. She would go forward, she would come back to Tokyo, become a teacher, and kids would love her with all their might, and her smile would become someone else’s favourite thing in the world, and months away from now, she wouldn’t be able to even recall his face. And it would be okay. And she would be okay. As to himself, as to Kokichi, it didn’t matter at all what he would end up as. As long as Miwa would be out there, living life she had always dreamed about, he would be okay. He would be okay, and she would be okay, and they would be okay hundreds of kilometers away from each other, and there would be no phone calls, no messages, nothing more.
Without even talking to anyone else about it, Kokichi Muta had already decided how it would go. He would leave jujutsu as he promised, and Miwa would stay in Tokyo. There was nothing that could change it. She was happier there anyway, what was the point of dragging her down with him?
“What do you think about it, Kokichi?” Kasumi placed her head on his shoulder.
Muta chuckled, not able to stop his lips from forming a terrified, shaky smile.
“It sounds amazing.”
***
A room full of beeping was getting on her nerves. Mai looked over the monitors once again. They were lucky to have a full team of staff members here, the ones who actually knew what was happening on all these diagrams and cameras, cause if Zenin had to deal with all of it herself… Well, safe to say no one would end up safe. She threw a quick glance at Megumi to find the exact amount of understanding on his face. That was great, she chuckled to herself, they both had little to no idea what was going on.
Since the operation had started around forty minutes ago, energy levels maintained a stable flow. There was no problems at “Attack” Group side – not a lot of curses had actually tried to leave the station, and the ones who did try were eliminated quite quickly. There were no worries applied to that part of the plan: Yuta constantly kept them updated with others adding onto his reports once in a while, and both them and staff members seemed pretty comfortable in this situation. “Defense” group was also safe, tucked away on a rooftop nearby, waiting for a distress signal if one would ever to come, so there was no need to worry about them too. Even more, Momo used her headset to complain about Inumaki when silence was trailing a little too long, and Mai was truly grateful for these unbothered moments of kind support. They all understood the importance of the mission, yet no one wanted to be the one saying it out loud.
Teachers didn’t give a lot of updates on their movements, it seemed after they got several floors deep, connection became shaky and unstable, probably due to blackout being so close. The only thing left for students and staff was just following their locations on a map. It didn’t help a lot, since they were mostly going around in circles under the station, but still somehow provided team with some level of security. As long as their beeping dots were traveling around the map, it meant everything was still going according to plan. Mai would had been grateful for some clarification though, but there was no way to get though blackout energy field. Upsetting.
Megumi was stimming with a pen in his seat, rolling it around on the table and tapping on different surfaces to relieve his obvious stress. Usually, Zenin would get annoyed pretty quickly and throw something harsh in his direction – they weren’t friends, after all – but it was hard to be mad at anyone today. She understood perfectly that for him this mission was more personal than to anyone else. Utahime was Mai’s one and only teacher, mentor, boss at her new founded job, but for Megumi Gojo was more than everything else combined. Fushiguro was jumping in his seat every other second, reacting to every slight change on the monitors, because for him it was different. He would had never admitted it out loud, but Mai was too good at reading people to not notice. Megumi Fushiguro was scared to his death. It wasn’t just someone on the front-line of a blackout, no – leading the operation shoulder to shoulder with Utahime was Megumi’s father. And it haunted him to the bone.
“Utahime is a great partner in things like this.” Zenin dropped quietly. “He’s safe out there. He’s not even the only one special grade sorcerer out there, Yuki is also there. Mei-mei too, so…”
“It’s different.” Megumi answered. If she was completely honest, Zenin didn’t expect him to say anything in return, so when he actually did, she found herself turning towards him in her seat. “This blackout… It’s different. I worked on documents since I can’t do anything else anymore, I saw closed files about it. It’s a place of sealing, it has all this energy out there, it’s… it’s worse. And I am no help.”
Mai span her chair around. “Stop with this bullshit. If you are no help here, it means I am also no help here, and I'll take it as an offence. We may not be out there, but we are still useful.” She stopped her chair to meet Megumi face to face. “You’d die in seconds if you stepped on a field. You have no value when you’re dead.”
“I’m not even sure I have some alive.” He chuckled, but it wasn’t a light-hearted joke or a regular self-deprecating thought said out loud. It was easy to catch that Fushiguro, despite still being one of the best students in Tokyo High, actually struggled to see his own worth outside of the battles he wasn’t allowed to participate in anymore.
They weren’t close. Mai didn’t even consider them to be friends, merely acquaintances stuck together in a room full of beeping monitors and sweating staff members. They were nothing more than students going to neighboring schools, but somehow Zenin couldn’t stop herself from speaking:
“When your sister wakes up, she’d prefer to see you alive.”
Mai didn’t even know why she said it. It was an arrogant statement for someone not even close to being friends, and she wouldn’t be surprised if Megumi turned his chair 180° and started ignoring his work partner till the very end of the mission. But maybe Zenin was as arrogant as other people gave her credits for, and maybe she didn’t know how to mind her own business, and maybe she did see Maki’s shaking hands covered in her blood when she finally opened her eyes… They weren’t friends, but Mai still knew that no matter what, Tsumiki would prefer to see her brother alive.
Instead of breaking this silent bond that built itself up over past several sentences, Megumi suddenly smiled. It was a weak smile that almost went unnoticed, just a tiny move of his lips, but Mai still was able to catch it.
“I guess you’re right.” He whispered. “She would be pissed if I died after all this time.”
They hadn’t spoken much afterwards, but they did enjoy some time in silence that suddenly grew comfortable around their shoulders. Megumi was busy monitoring cursed energy output on one of the monitors, and Mai exchanged several quick messages with people as a check-up procedure. Everything seemed to be going smoothly. Over her headset, she heard Nobara joke that if curses were to keep that intensity, she would be able to run for a quick frappuccino and back since there was so little to do for all four of them together. Mai rolled her eyes, but deep inside she was happy everything was going so well.
Beeping noises of machines around them slowly stopped being annoying, blending into some type of a white noise. They were doing their regular monitoring, exchanging random phrases with other staff members or each other, and everything seemed to go according to plan. Mai caught herself zoning out a little while watching colorful dots blink on a screen. They didn’t have names there, but she knew that the red one was Utahime, and a blue one was Gojo. They were brushing edges on a map, moving deeper into the station, while green one – Yuki Tsukumo – and a purple one – Mei-Mei with her brother on her elbow – were circling in a distance from them. If the timing was right, they were supposed to proceed with blackout closing at that exact moment, unless they encountered any problems on the way. Zenin yawned slowly, looking at a red dot.
Blink-blink.
If there was still connection, what would Utahime-san said to them? Maybe, not to worry much, to take care about each other? She would totally check onto the “Attack” team, even though it consisted solely from Tokyo students.
Blink-blink.
When it ends, they all can go eat sushi together. They talked about it with Momo, how cool it would be to go shopping with everyone else. Surprisingly, both of them found themselves resenting their Tokyo colleagues less and less. It was like everything has changed after the war, like they weren’t competing that much anymore.
Blink-blink.
Maybe, she’d even get a chance to talk with Maki like normal people. Would it be less awkward if others were around too? Maybe, if they would be shopping, they could find a topic to discuss away from their family trauma? What did normal girls their age usually talk about? Make-up? Fashion? Not dying at sixteen at war?
Blink.
Momo was way better at all this “normal girl stuff”. They would find a lot to talk about with Nobara, Mai thought, they both seemed to be quite into putting together amazing outfits and had a lot of knowledge about the topic. After it all ends, Zenin needed to ask Nishimiya how to start a conversation like that, so maybe she could talk about some clothes with Maki and not make everyone in the room embarrassed for them.
Blink.
Blink.
Bli…
Mai felt her chest skip a beat. In a mere second, dots on the screen started to flash simultaneously, and then… went dark. The map in front of her eyes was empty. Writing it off on some technical problem, Zenin tapped the sensor screen several times. Nothing changed. She turned her head to Megumi only to found him staring in her eyes already. As soon as their gazes connected,
Everything went quiet.
There was silence in a room that a second ago was filled with constant machine beeping, and this silence injected more terror into their veins than any loud explosion could. Mai felt a timer in her head go off. Three. Two. One.
“Get down!” Megumi screamed. He launched forward and grabbed her shoulder to push her on the floor, under the table. “Everyone, get dow—”
Before Zenin could comprehend it, silence had changed once again. It sounded like the whole room got filled with an explosive substance. She felt cursed energy rush in so heavily, a metal plate inside of her forearm burned through her skin. Mai felt Megumi’s hand over her head, and the way the floor under her body seemed to tremble. The room filled with terrified screaming, while the windows shattered under another energy wave.
***
“Damn, if it goes this way I can go grab myself a frappuccino next door and come back with no problems.” Nobara threw her hammer in the air. It did three flips and fell back into her hand perfectly.
There was nothing to do for them at the moment. For the past almost an hour, they had exactly three low-level curses try to crawl out of the station, and it was in no way, shape or form a problem for four sorcerers to stop them from exiting. They didn’t even have to try that hard, mostly just enjoying working together after a long break of working in differently formed groups.
“What a friend you are!” Yuta chuckled. “Didn’t even propose to take some for us?”
Kugisaki threw her hammer in the air one more time. “Stop acting like you’d drink my shit. Last time you tried my regular order it took you two hours to stop spitting curses.”
“I like your regular order!” Yuji screamed out.
“I know, babe.” Nobara sighed. “You’ll absorb anything containing sugar like a sponge.”
Maki stood up from a place where she had been seated for the past ten minutes, and stretched her aching shoulders slowly. “Yeah, and both of you get overhyped by sugar and caffeine like toddlers.”
“Hey!” Nobara pouted jokingly. “You are my girlfriend, you should be on my side!”
Okkotsu laughed, catching Nobara’s hammer in the air instead of her. “Everyone is on your side till both of you idiots get stuck inside of a slide on a kids’ playground.”
Yuji protested quickly: “It was only one time!”
“Yeah, and one time is enough.”
They were bickering with each other since the very beginning of their mission, but there was nothing hurtful behind these words. It was a regular thing in their school life, this friendly platonic interactions that could most certainly send people unfamiliar with the phenomenon to write letters to their teachers because of “student conflict”. Everyone enjoyed that little Tokyo High tradition, and it in no way came in between their casual conversations about life and deep supportive talks. Luckily, these two things were made to coexist perfectly by Tokyo students. They must had gotten this ability from their teacher, since Satoru Gojo was in no way a typical one…
“Hey.” Maki called out. “I can’t sense the energy, but… there is something weird. It looks weird.”
“The entrance?” Yuta immediately turned himself into a work-mode, handing Nobara her hammer back. “Me and Rika can check.”
Kugisaki grabbed his sleeve out of nowhere. “Wait.”
“Wait?” Okkotsu frowned. “What…”
“There is an energy wall. It wasn’t here before.” Yuji whispered.
Nobara focused her eyes at the entrance. Energy on the stairs was weird – it seemed to tense, to thicken, building an invisible wall in a doorway. Even for people like Maki who couldn’t sense energy changes it was obvious that something went wrong. Energy wall in a doorway looked like it was shaking, circles spreading across its surface like waves on a water. They were consistent, like a heartbeat or someone’s rhythmic steps.
“I need to come closer…” Yuta tried to get his arm away from Nobara, but she was so focused on a shaking energy field, she didn’t seem eager to let him go. “Kugisaki—”
“Yuta.” She whispered. “Something approaches.”
Waves became more and more consistent. Students got together in a tight group. Heartbeat, someone’s steps… Someone’s steps?
“Back!” Yuta screamed. “Everyone, back!”
Yuji grabbed both Nobara and Maki, shoving them behind Okkotsu’s back just on time. Rika appeared in front of them in a form of a human – human? – shield, and her appearance went hand in hand with the ground shaking profusely under their feet. As soon as they felt the first wave struck the earth, they tightened grip on each other’s shoulders instinctively – right on time. Because together with the second wave, they felt cursed energy rush out of the underground entrance with enough strength to move them all several meters back.
With a screeching sound windows on all buildings surrounding them shattered, and pieces of glass rained down like waterdrops during a storm. Rika disappeared, opening a clear sight of the underground steps. For a moment, there was nothing but silence, but then the energy field moved again, and a creature put its foot forward, breaking the seal. The first one, the second, the third… One by one, they started to flood out of the station, angry with bloodlust. Curses rushed towards students so fast they started to trip over each other on the steps.
“They keep coming…” Yuji whispered.
Maki tapped her headset with two fingers. “Megumi? Mai? Do you hear me?” The ground shook once again, and Zenin stayed upwards only thanks to Nobara’s hand gripping her shoulder in order to keep her steady. “We need an emergency group. Something… something is not right. Mai? Do you hear me? Mai?”
There was buzzing in a headset with nothing else but noise. The ground shook again, this time followed with another powerful wave of cursed energy. It washed over the group, feeling like a light breeze, before it hit them full-speed, knocking everyone on the ground. They were scattered around like toys, and the last thing they saw before the ground shook one more time, was an endless trail of curses, that
kept
flowing
out.