Prey the Sky

by Inkonstantin

Summary:

What if Naoya, still as the Zen'in heir with Projection Sorcery, was the older cousin, while Toji, still with his complete Heavenly Restriction, was the younger cousin who idolized him?

Notes:

bc my mental health has been fucking shit and i've been distressingly indecisive about which of my jjk fics to work on first, so i decided in the meantime to write this one-shot idea i came up with while sick with covid over the winter holiday lol

yeah i am way too depressive lmao, but i hope someone enjoys this piece! that i actually managed to write despite everything fjdksljfkdljlk

i just thought this idea would be so interesting to explore...?

Chapter 1: Prey the Sky (Running like the wind as I chase the sun)

---

Toji didn’t see Zen’in Naoya, the heir and his older cousin, until he was 12, and Naoya had just come back from his first year at Kyoto Jujutsu High.

As a failure from birth, having zero cursed energy, Toji had always been kept in the subsidiary living quarters, far away from the main buildings of the Zen’in estate where the clan head, the heir and other more important and accepted members of the clan dwellt. But even being kept as far away as he was, Toji still heard the rumors about Naoya, Naobito’s golden child, inheritor of his Projection Sorcery and a genius from a young age. He hadn’t ever tried to see him. He’d also heard the rumors about Naoya’s attitude, how he was a spoiled little brat and a cocky little shit who looked down on everyone, how he always ran his mouth, how it was impossible to be in the same area as him without wanting to punch him in the teeth. And if he looked down on everyone, even the higher Zen’ins, then he’d look down even more on Toji. Toji was looked down on enough, thank you very much. He didn’t need to see the Zen’ins’ entitled golden child.

The year when Naoya left for Kyoto Jujutsu High and was no longer around, the Zen’ins simply found other things or other members to complain about. Having zero cursed energy, ninety percent of the time people didn’t even notice Toji, so he heard all the gossip because nobody knew he was there. When everyone complained just as much with Naoya gone as they had with Naoya there, just not about Naoya, Toji concluded that people just liked to gripe and would always look for something to gripe about, it was just that when Naoya was there he apparently took everyone’s attention so completely that they could only gripe about him because he took their attention from all other things, like how the sun completely blotted out all the stars that looked bright in the night.

It was that which made Toji truly curious about Naoya, what it was about him that so completely took everyone’s attention, if it was just that he was the heir or what. So Toji decided that when Naoya came back from Kyoto, he would definitely go see what all the fuss was about.

Since he heard everything, he heard when Naoya would be back, and he was there at the edge of the main courtyard, waiting. The entire estate was in such a flurry about the heir’s return that absolutely nobody noticed him there in the main area. With his keen senses, he heard when the car pulled up, heard the footsteps, heard the gate, heard the voices, but it was only the older Zen’ins that he knew, there was no younger unfamiliar voice, but there was a pair of footsteps that was lighter than others, smoother, raised the hairs on the back of his neck because those were the footsteps of a prowling predator.

He was already on edge just from that.

But then, when Zen’in Naoya stepped into view, the entire rhythm of the world changed.

It was like the sun breaking over the horizon; Naoya was gold, literally, his hair was dyed golden blond, his eyes were gold beneath long dark eyelashes, he brought light with him, an attention-drawing charisma. The way he walked across the engawa, it was like when a drumbeat started, and you could feel it thrumming in your bones. And he was beautiful. With the elegance of his features, he didn’t even look like a Zen’in, looked like some other kind of being entirely. Even with his expression of lordly complacency, a wide smirk pulling his lips, chin tilted up and lashes lowered in pompous assuredness, an expression that should have been maddening, it looked like it belonged on him, only served to make his presence that much more arresting.

Toji absolutely understood why everyone talked about Zen’in Naoya. With him there, it was hard to even notice anyone else.

And that wasn’t even to mention that he literally had a cursed spirit wrapped around him, which the other Zen’ins were giving chary and repulsed looks, a large purple caterpillar-like thing with an an ugly human-ish pug-like face that seemed to be smiling as smugly as Naoya, Naoya’s hand on its head like it was some kind of pet. It almost seemed to be cuddling around his torso.

But what shook Toji to the core was when Naoya paused in his stride, turned his head and looked straight at him.

Toji’s eyes widened, his muscles tensing, freezing. Naoya’s eyes widened, and he stared for a few long moments, gesturing with a hand to silence the Zen’ins who asked him what was the matter. Their eyes glided right over Toji when they tried to see what Naoya was looking at.

“Go on without me, I’ll be in shortly,” Naoya told them, never taking his gaze off of Toji.

Toji wondered if he should scram. Instead he held his ground. If Naoya was going to bully him for having no cursed energy, he could take it. He wasn’t going to run.

In a single second, in twenty-four frames of movement, Naoya had moved from the engawa to standing right in front of Toji, looking down at him as Toji looked up at him with defiantly lifted chin, but Naoya instead of sneering grinned. Toji was caught off guard.

“Did your eyes follow me just now?” Naoya asked, lips curved wide and gold eyes bright.

He was even more overwhelming up close. They were standing in the shadows, but it was like Naoya had carried the sunlight he’d passed through with him like streamers that now shimmered softly on him.

“How could they not?” Toji said, gazing glancing over him, his cursed spirit, back to his face. “You draw all the attention to you.”

“But when I use my Projection Sorcery even other sorcerers can’t see me,” Naoya said, in the most ironically guileless tone, looking at him curiously, assessingly.

Toji shrugged. “I have good eyes.” Naoya’s gaze was making him uncomfortable, too bright, too intense; Toji wasn’t used to being stared at, especially not so intently.

Naoya’s cursed spirit moved slightly, making a little shivery-gargling curse noise and Toji’s eyes went to it, watching it shift on Naoya’s shoulder to better look down at him.

“You can see him, too?” Naoya asked in surprise, raising a hand to the cursed spirit’s head.

“How could I not?” Toji said. “He’s a large purple cursed spirit and he’s wound all around you.”

“And yet you don’t have any cursed energy,” Naoya said, but it wasn’t said scathingly or contemptuously, but rather, it was said lightly, curiously and almost amiably.

“I told you, I have good eyes,” Toji muttered. “And other senses.”

“A complete Heavenly Restriction, of course,” Naoya said, like he was putting it all together, musing to himself. “Zero cursed energy, but in exchange, your physical prowess and senses are honed to the max, huh.” He looked Toji up and down regardingly, his brow furrowing slightly. “How come I barely heard about you? I think I maybe heard mention of you once or twice, but they said you were a failure. How can that be? Isn’t the minimum requirement for being a sorcerer the ability to see cursed spirits? And you can.” He looked and sounded genuinely puzzled.

Watching Naoya come to conclusions was like watching a train crash in reverse. It left Toji feeling more than a little off-kilter.

“But I can’t exorcise them,” he pointed out to Naoya, feeling confused himself because he wasn’t sure who out of the two of them was the idiot at this point. “Not without cursed tools.”

“Ha!” Naoya barked, startling Toji. “Most sorcerers can’t even exorcise cursed spirits without cursed tools. I use cursed tools myself, even though I don’t need to, but tools are useful, that’s why they’re tools. They augment your physical strength the same way they augment my innate technnique. To disparage you for only being able to exorcise cursed spirits with tools when most of them would helpless without those same tools—what hypocritical fools! You’re way stronger than they are.” His lips had curled in a disparaging sneer, but he was looking at Toji keenly, assessingly. “That must be why.” He said it decidedly. “They hate you and push you down because they fear you. Fucking cowards, the lot of them. People always especially fear what’s different.” He lifted his hand to pet the cursed spirit’s head where it nestled on his shoulder. “Take Wormy here, for example. Most hate and fear him just because he’s a cursed spirit. They wouldn’t be able to see or recognize what a gift he is and what a special talent he has. Do you wanna see?”

Naoya grinned, and it was blinding, warmth in his gold eyes as his derision melted away in the face of his glee and fondness as the cursed spirit opened its mouth and he reached in and pulled out some papers. Which he then proceeded to stare at, glance over at his cursed spirit who made a satisfied gurgling hum, and Naoya said with some exasperated amusement, “This is not who needs to see my grade papers!” and the cursed spirit just made another self-satisfied noise, looking much too pleased with itself, and Naoya sighed and handed the papers over to Toji, saying, “Well, at least this demonstrates that he can even hold papers without them getting all slimed and messed up or anything. He’s actually currently carrying all my luggage. It’s super convenient. Basically,” Naoya was grinning unabashedly again, Toji taking a moment to flip through the grade papers and see all the perfect marks before glancing back up at him, “Wormy here’s a cursed inventory. He can store an unlimited number of things within him without becoming heavier or taking up more space. He can even store himself inside himself becoming small enough to fit in this pouch.” He lifted a small embroidered pouch that was hung on a black cord around his neck. His gold eyes were alight. “Isn’t that amazing? I’ve trained him, too, like one would train a dog or a cat. Don’t you think it would have been a shame if he’d just been exorcised just for being a cursed spirit when he has such a useful talent?”

Naoya’s gaze softened slightly as he reached out to ruffle Toji’s hair. “You’re like that, too, Toji-kun. It’s such a shame to scorn you and refuse to recognize you when you have such talents. Tch.” His lips curled, a flash of anger in his eyes, contempt dripping from his voice like venom:“There’s no helping idiots. The sin of the small fry is the inability to recognize true strength. The truly strong will never be understood by the masses.” Naoya’s gaze that had gone distant, staring at something other than Toji, fixed on him again, making Toji feel pinned, nearly scorched beneath their light. “That will never get easier for you. But you know?” His gaze became softer, somehow, while not becoming any less intense; it was a gaze that seemed to reach inside Toji, finding the dim embers buried deep down in him and stroking them alive. “Being as strong as you are, you don’t need them. You don’t need their support. You don’t need their recognition. As strong as you are, you will only continue to grow stronger, entirely by yourself, no matter what they say or do. That’s how strong you are, Toji-kun. I can see it in every fiber of you.” Toji’s heart was pounding in his chest as Naoya gave a delighted little laugh. “Just looking at you gives me goosebumps. Your potential is insane and implacable.”

Naoya looked down at him, and his gaze softened again. “But you know what?” He reached to his cursed spirit’s mouth again, wiggling his fingers and saying, “Wormy, give me that new one I got at the underground auction that I wasn’t supposed to be at—yes, perfect!” He pulled out a red, three-sectioned staff, grinning triumphantly as he held it by one section and let the other two fall. “See this cursed tool here? Playful Cloud is the only S-grade cursed tool (that we know of) not imbued with a cursed technique. This one’s a pure embodiment of raw strength. Because of that, the strength of this tool depends on the strength of the user, not the level of cursed energy. I’m fairly strong so I can use it alright, but I imagine it would be the very strongest in your hands.” He held it out, let Toji’s fingers barely brush it before pulling it back, grinning impishly. “But! You’re still a kid! How old are you?”

“Twelve,” Toji muttered, pulling back his hand in disappointment. His fingertips tingled where he’d touched the cursed tool.

“And when’s your birthday?”

Toji blinked. “December 31st.”

Naoya’s eyes widened slightly in surprise, and then his expression morphed into elation. “What a perfect birthday. The end of the old year, and the start of the new.” He tilted his head slightly as he regarded Toji-kun, saying almost musingly, “You know, my birthday is August 1st, the beginning of a new month, and I always thought that was cool, but your birthday is even better. As if the entire world changed with your birth and celebrates that again every year.” His gold eyes got the intent, incisive look again. “And you know, I think the world did change with your birth. After all, nobody in sorcerer history has ever had zero cursed energy before. You’re really something amazing, Toji-kun, a being entirely unto yourself. Of course you’re going to be misunderstood.” His face split into a gleeful grin again. “But the fact that you’re twelve right now is perfect! That means when you turn fifteen, I’ll have graduated from Kyoto high. Since fifteen is normally when sorcerers go to either Kyoto or Tokyo but since they’re probably not going to let you in because they’re stupid like that, for your fifteenth birthday I’ll gift you Playful Cloud.” He gathered the three sections of the staff together in his hand, waving the bundle of staff lightly, devilish glint in his gaze, so fulgent it caught on his eyeteeth. “This weapon is worth at least 500 million yen, making it one of the most valuable cursed tools, so don’t tell anyone I’ve promised it to you.” He slipped it back into his cursed spirit’s mouth, which swallowed it down with another much too self-satisfied gurgle. Toji’s eyes were wide, and Naoya gave him a smirk. “But since I have, you’d better become as strong as you absolutely can, okay?” He poked Toji lightly in the forehead. “I want to see just how much you can grow in the next three years. And then after that, too. You’re my little cousin, aren’t you?” He cackled in delight, and his gaze on Toji was warm, so warm, molten sunlight drizzling honey-like over Toji’s skin, and when he licked his lips he could almost taste the sweetness on the soft sunburnt-feeling flesh. “Haha, I’m so lucky to have such an amazing cousin! And here I’d been thinking I was all alone in this stuffy place. But you really change everything.” He was looking at Toji in fascination, consideration. “This world is so much more interesting now.”

Toji had never once felt valued in his life. And now here Naoya was, making him feel like it was wondrous to be alive. To be looked at like that by those sunbeam eyes, seeing him like they were uncovering him, bringing him to light like buried treasure, making him tangible, touchable, no longer a ghost that everyone looked right through like he didn’t truly exist, no longer curling mist wisps in the dark but solid gold that dazzled in Naoya’s sunlight gaze.

Toji had never felt so real.

The adults were snapping at Naoya from the engawa, telling him he needed to get over there, needed to greet his father and the elders, needed to stop goofing around.

Naoya made a face. “Ugh, I have to go do annoying stuffy stuff with small-minded idiots. Joys of being the heir, always so much red tape.” He turned back towards the engawa, but glanced back to say, “Remember our promise—Toji-kun, was it?”

Toji blinked, frowning as he tried to remember if he’d told him his name. But he hadn’t. “I didn’t say it.”

“Aha, so I remembered it correctly,” Naoya grinned, and snickered at him. “Damn you’re cute. Gotta go. Make sure you become as strong as you can be! I won’t be satisfied with anything less. And you shouldn’t be, either.” The hand that Naoya had lifted in a wave lowered to ruffle Toji’s hair again, take his grade papers from Toji’s hand (it seemed he’d nearly forgotten about them and only remembered to take them back at the last moment), and then, in twenty-four frames, Naoya was back on the engawa in a second, griping at the adults even as he swanned confidently, elegantly inside to meet with his father the clan head.

Toji stood there in the shadows of the courtyard for what felt like a long time, stunned, reeling, heartbeat pounding and skin feeling hot and sunburnt.

Then he went to find a practice weapon and go train, harder and more seriously than he ever had in his life. So hard, in fact, that he broke the wooden training sword.

Looking down at the broken thing in his hands, he thought, Guess I’d better train with a real weapon.

He’d never felt such effervescent tingles beneath his skin.

Toji had thought he was all alone at the Zen’in compound, in the sorcerer world. But Naoya changed everything.

The world seemed so much more exciting, now.

Toji wanted to prove Naoya right and show him just how strong he could become.

---

Naoya was kept busy during his visit, dealing with Zen’in affairs, being taken elsewhere to meet with other clans, so Toji didn’t get to talk with him again. But he did get to watch him train with the Hei, and it was clearly evident how superior Naoya was in strength and skill despite his youth. Toji could see, too, the way the others resented him for it. It was like a light being turned on, understanding what Naoya had meant when he said that others hated Toji because of his strength. They hated Naoya because of his strength, too. But Toji didn’t understand why they’d hate Naoya for being strong. Wasn’t Naoya the heir? He was supposed to be strong. He wasn’t a failure like Toji.

It made Toji feel even more special, though. Seeing the contempt with which Naoya treated most everybody, and how different that was from the way that Naoya had treated him. But he could hear the things that Naoya chided and critiqued them for, and Naoya was always right. Both when he pointed out their weaknesses and pointed out their strengths. So if Naoya was right about everyone, then that meant that he had to be right about Toji, too.

Toji really didn’t understand why they all got so upset about it though. The comments Naoya gave them were useful. If Naoya were to critique him like that, telling him what he was good at, where he had blundered and what he could do better, Toji would be grateful. But maybe they just didn’t like it because Naoya was younger than them. Would Toji be annoyed if he got critiqued by someone younger than him?

Okay, yeah, he probably would.

He was glad that Naoya was his older cousin, and he could look up to him unabashedly.

It was amazing to watch the way Naoya moved. Toji felt bad for anyone who couldn’t see it. It was violence elevated to a form of art, every frame a perfect pose, the gaps between tantalizing the mind’s imagination. It was clear as day how adept he had to be to use such an ability. It also looked like he was showing off, although he’d said that nobody could see him when he used his technique. Which meant he wasn’t showing off for anyone, he was just having fun for himself, striving for perfection for nobody’s sake but his own.

So that’s what Naoya had meant about being strong enough to not need anyone’s recognition, strong enough to become as strong as one could entirely by oneself.

Toji wanted to be like that, too.

But he’d never be like Naoya, who attracted all gazes as soon as he entered a space, who had the largest, brightest presence, was his very own sun around which the world couldn’t help but revolve, drawn by the massive gravity of him. It was the way he carried himself, the way he moved, the expressions on his face, the blond hair with black tips, the earrings, the long dark eyelashes that accentuated the gold of his eyes, it was the way he used his voice and the words that dropped from his tongue. As soon as Naoya stepped into view, everything else in the world was made insignificant.

Toji could become strong, but he’d never become like that, that strength and presence that was so much more than physical. So much more than cursed energy, too, because Toji couldn’t sense cursed energy at all, but still Naoya’s presence was incredible. He’d never felt so robbed, having zero cursed energy, as he did not knowing what Naoya’s felt like. If it was as gold and dazzling and overwhelming as the rest of him.

Toji would always be just a shadow. And yet, Naoya’s light on him hadn’t evaporated him away, but had illuminated him.

Naoya never did see him watching. Or rather, sometimes he did, but when he turned to get a better look Toji would hide more completely, and Naoya would scan the area with narrowed eyes before finally going back to what he was doing.

Unlike with everyone else, Toji had to be careful not to move too much in Naoya’s field of vision, or be too out in the open. But as long as he was behind Naoya, or partly obscured and holding very very still, Naoya wouldn’t see him.

Toji didn’t want to be seen by Naoya. Not right now, not until he’d gotten stronger like Naoya had told him. He just wanted to watch Naoya from a distance, try to figure out how to be as much like him as he could. If not that overwhelmingly present, then at least that unforgivingly confident.

When it came time for Naoya to return to Kyoto Jujutsu High, Toji was watching from out of sight.

He hadn’t expected Naoya to whine, “But I didn’t get to say goodbye to Toji-kun,” as he was getting ushered to the car.

“What does he matter?! Get going. You’ll be late.”

“Who cares if I’m late?”

“Who do you think?”

Naoya had turned back, then, his gold eyes scanning, and they didn’t land on Toji’s concealed observation point, but Naoya still smiled, waved and called out, “Bye Toji-kun! Don’t forget out promise!” before turning and letting himself be ushered away.

Maybe he’d known Toji was watching. Or maybe he’d just trusted Toji to hear it with his enhanced senses. Or maybe he’d said it not knowing either thing, but said it anyway, just because.

Toji didn’t know, but it brought that sunburnt feeling to his cheeks all the same, even though Naoya’s sunbeam gaze hadn’t even graced his shadowed skin.

---

That year, Toji thought of little else aside from getting stronger so that he could be worthy of Playful Cloud and standing at Naoya’s side. Technically he didn’t have to enlist in the Kukuru unit until he turned thirteen, but it wasn’t like anyone knew his birthday, anyway, so he just faked it and said he was thirteen already. Then he could join in their grueling martial arts training day and night.

It only made it clearer to him how physically gifted he truly was. Where everyone else struggled, to him, it didn’t even hardly feel like enough. They all hated him for it and degraded him, but he just thought of Naoya and how everyone hated him for being stronger than them, too, and all their cruel words became nothing but evidence of his own strength.

He didn’t let them hit him like he used to. If they tried, he easily evaded them. If they kept trying, he attacked them back, and attacked them better. If they ganged up on him, he just fought off all of them. The more they overwhelmed him, the better practice it was. Every time, it just made him stronger.

He’d never been so glad to be hated. And each time, he just remembered Naoya letting all the members of the Hei attack him at once, and how effortlessly he’d defeated them, how he’d made them all look like fools. That was the place that Toji wanted to get to. He was just small, now, not even actually thirteen, but he’d get bigger, stronger, and then nobody would be able to do anything.

He could taste the reality of that like sparks behind his bared teeth.

“What the hell’s gotten into you, you failure?!”

“I promised Naoya-kun I’d become strong.”

“Ha! Naoya doesn’t acknowledge anyone.”

“Then I’ll make sure he acknowledges me.”

Naoya was now a second-year at Kyoto, and that autumn was his first participation in the exchange event with the Tokyo school. The entire Zen’in compound was amurmur with it. How he’d be going up against Gojo Satoru and Geto Suguru on the Tokyo side. How he’d finally get a taste of his own medicine brutally defeated and humiliated at their hands.

Toji didn’t get to go, but he heard about it after. How Kyoto had predictably lost, but in the team battle Naoya had given Gojo Satoru and Geto Suguru a run for their money, and in the individual battle he’d been paired up against Geto Suguru and had actually won. Apparently the Curse Manipulator had brought out some incredibly powerful cursed spirits, but Naoya hadn’t even batted an eye, had just used the Split Soul Katana to slice right through, and then had beaten Geto Suguru in hand-to-hand combat as well.

It made Toji bitterly wish that he’d gone, and had gotten to watch.

Hearing the story only made him train harder. He wanted to be where Naoya was. Needed to get there.

On his thirteenth birthday, though, he skipped training. He’d decided that his birthday present to himself was going to be to get some nice good sleep. Give his muscles a day to fully repair themselves.

He was woken up by Naoya in the evening. At first he thought it was a dream. But Naoya was all too real as he grinned impishly, gleefully, “Toji-kun, I found you! Shh, I’m not supposed to be here, I snuck out of school. Let’s sneak you out of the Zen’in compound for a bit too yeah? It’ll be fun!”

“Huh?” was all Toji could manage as Naoya pulled him to his feet—Toji had been napping on the roof, where he’d thought he wouldn’t be found—how had Naoya found him there?

“I used to hang out up here all the time too,” Naoya told him, “but I know some better roofs to hang out on today. Don’t worry, I’ll carry you so you can keep resting!” and then Naoya turned and somehow managed to gracefully sling Toji up onto his back, and Toji reflexively wrapped his arms around Naoya’s neck and tightened his legs around Naoya’s waist as Naoya started running, in twenty-four frames per second that got faster and faster and faster, and it was so strange, being a part of that frame-by-frame movement, but eventually Toji got a feel for it, to the point where he could lean into it and move along with it, stretching up a hand in twenty-four frames towards the sky because Naoya had them so high that it felt like he could touch the clouds.

When Naoya set him down, they were at the outskirts of a festival. Toji had never been to the city before. The sounds, the smells—it was a lot. And all the people. There were so many. So much talking. So loud. But the scents of all the foods were making his mouth water.

Naoya was panting, wiping sweat from his face. “Fuck, that took way longer than I’d have liked. Need to work on my speed apparently. But we still have a few hours until the fireworks. Ah, I guess this is a lot for your enhanced senses, huh? Well, let’s just take it easy, get some food, walk around and look at stuff, we could play games but I bet we’d be way too good at it haha, if it’s too much we can go find somewhere quieter to hang out, how does that sound? I just figured you’d never been a New Years’ Eve festival so I thought it’d be fun. We absolutely have to stay for the fireworks, but let me know if you’d like to leave the festival for a bit okay?”

“I’ll get used to it,” Toji said, shaking his head slightly “It’s just new. The food smells amazing though.”

Naoya grinned, took his hand, and pulled him into the festival.

It was overwhelming at first, but once Toji got used to it, it felt almost magical. He’d never seen so many people, and he’d never seen people so happy aside from Naoya when he got a little diabolical. He’d never had food like that which they bought, had never seen people dressed up so extravagantly in colorful kimonos and yokai masks. It was all so much that Naoya’s presence didn’t even stand out that much, although Toji did hear some older girls catch sight of him and squeal to each other how hot he was, and what a cute little brother he had.

Toji was sure that the only reason they could see him at all was because Naoya was holding his hand ‘so he didn’t get lost’ (which was fair, because the festival really was crowded, and Toji with his lack of cursed energy would be especially easy to lose).

When it was nearing midnight, Naoya took Toji a bit away from the festival, going up to a roof and letting Toji follow him up in his own way, and when the fireworks started going off, bright and colorful and thundering and dazzling, Naoya said, “Happy birthday, Toji-kun!”

Toji was in awe of the lurid sparkling explosions above, and he felt warm down to the marrow of his bones even though the cold winter night air nipped his skin.

By the time the fireworks were over Naoya was hopping from foot to foot and breathing on his hands and then rubbing his palms together.

“Thank you, Naoya-kun,” Toji said quietly.

“Thank you, Toji-kun. I mean, nobody else would come out to a festival with me. Although I guess I did kind of kidnap you and didn’t give you a choice in the matter.”

Toji shook his head. “I had fun. And—nobody’s ever celebrated my birthday before.”

“I have this irremediable habit where I just have to be more awesome than everyone,” Naoya grinned. “C’mon, let’s run you back to the estate, ‘cause then I have to run back to Kyoto Tech as well.”

“You don’t have to carry me, I can run,” Toji said, lifting his chin.

“Then you’d better either keep up,” Naoya said, eyes mirthful and alight, “or else leave me behind.”

Running after Naoya felt like chasing the sun to the horizon.

When they ran straight across the surface of a lake, Toji almost didn’t notice until he realized he was racing over stars.

---

The jujutsu highs’ break was in late March and early April, when the cherry blossoms were blooming and the number of curses were low. It was only a few months after Toji’s birthday, and he worked extra hard in that time to increase his strength and skill before Naoya returned.

The others in the Kukuru unit were becoming truly scared of him.

“What the hell is your problem?!”

“I’m chasing the sun. Don’t get in my way.”

Naoya seemed to be brighter every time Toji saw him. When he came back from his second year at Kyoto Tech, striding assured and silky into the main courtyard but he was looking around and the first thing he said was, “Where’s Toji-kun?” with eager interest, and when his eyes alit on Toji in the same shadowed corner he’d been standing in the first time, Naoya lit up completely and he was there in a second, ruffling Toji’s hair and saying, “Toji-kun! Look at how much you’ve grown since the last time I saw you!” and Toji felt warm and light and happy like he never felt. It was all he could do not to bounce on his toes beneath Naoya’s hand.

“Naoya-kun. Welcome back.”

Naoya grinned at him. “I’m going to be pretty busy with all the red tape again, but I can eke out some free time. So don’t hide from me this time, okay? I wanna see how strong you’ve gotten, and I’d rather go view the cherry blossoms with you than the old boring clan people. We’re fast, so we can basically run away any time we want. So let me find you this time.” He poked Toji lightly in the forehead. “Don’t make me come steal you away in the night. Although the sakura blossoms by moonlight would be pretty. So maybe I’ll do that anyway, eheh. I’ll catch you later!”

Then in a second he was back on the engawa, going with the adults to meet with his father, but Toji was still giddy, excited and joyful.

Naoya was back. Naoya was back, and in just another couple years he’d be back for good, graduated from Kyoto Tech and Toji would turn fifteen and would be gifted Playful Cloud and since he wouldn’t be sent to Jujutsu High since he wasn’t a sorcerer, he could stay by Naoya’s side.

Naoya was all the light in his life. Toji didn’t think he’d mind if the entire world hated and disparaged him so long as Naoya believed in him, and ideally was close enough for Toji to bask in his bright gold light.

It wasn’t so bad being a shadow, when he was following Naoya. He’d never felt so delightfully hungry. He wanted to run forever, like wind, devour both earth and heavens.

Toji was so eager that night that he couldn’t sleep. He heard Naoya’s approach, sinuous and lithe, almost silent but Toji’s ears like the rest of his body were special.

“Oh, good, you’re still awake.” Toji remembered it from before—the way Naoya’s blond hair and gold eyes turned silver in the moonlight, turning him into an entirely different creature, all ethereal and unreal.

“I couldn’t have slept even if I’d wanted to.”

“Well, sleep is for the tired. If you’ve got energy to spare, why sleep? I’m feeling pretty restless after all the bureaucracy I had to parade through today. What say you we go find some surreally picturesque moonlit clearing amid sakura trees and play around like careless mischievous kitsune?”

It made Toji snicker. “What’s with that description?”

Naoya raised a brow, but his lips just quirked in amusement. “I dare you to come up with a better one.”

“Can’t.”

“Then don’t complain about mine.” He bopped Toji lightly on the head, and it made Toji snicker again. “Do you want to lead or do you want to chase?”

“I’ll chase.”

Naoya grinned indulgently. “Then you’d better try real hard to catch me.”

“Even if it takes me years,” Toji looked at him seriously, “I’ll catch you eventually.”

“That’s the spirit.” The air was chilly but Naoya’s voice was warm. A hop, a hop, like Naoya was testing the solidity of the ground beneath his feet, and then he was turning and dashing off in twenty-four frames per second, and Toji was chasing after him, playing tag with the shadows and moonbeams as Naoya evaded him, until they were in a clearing and Naoya turned around grinning to catch him beneath the arms and spin him around before setting him down, laughing breathlessly. “Damn, having such a cute talented little cousin is fun.”

Toji felt like he was stepping on air. The moon didn’t feel out of reach, and neither did even the stars. He felt like he could knock them all like dust from the sky and make them rain down in gentle drifts of sparkles to collect on Naoya’s eyelashes and hair like droplets of mist.

Life was such drudgery most of the time, but Naoya made it seem mystical.

Naoya beckoned him, smirk teasing his lips. “Come at me. I want you to show me what you can do.”

Toji’s heart was pounding. But he attacked anyway, and it was like trying to grasp a ghost as Naoya blinked out of the way, nonexistant in space between every frame. It took Toji a bit to adjust to the movements, and then even once he did Naoya, grinning, just stepped out of his innate technique and then back in, adjusting his movements.

“Too bad for you, but I always act on the assumption that you’ll counter.”

Well, then Toji just had to change up his movements to be more unpredictable. Switch up between strikes and kicks, change between attacking high and attacking low. Finally Naoya’s eyes widened, and his expression went from smirking to focused as he had to try harder, and then he stepped out of his innate technique but tripped on a rock in the dark, falling backwards, rolling when he hit the ground, but Toji took the opportunity and pounced on him, knocking the breath out of him and Naoya ended up on his back in the damp grass with an “Oof,” and Toji found himself straddling Naoya’s waist looking down at him as Naoya gazed startled up at him, and then Naoya was chuckling breathlessly and reaching up a hand to brush Toji’s too-long bangs behind his ear. “I called it. I knew you were damned talented.” He sounded pleased with himself, even smug, even though he was the one on the ground while Toji was on top of him.

Toji made a face. “Don’t act like you won when you lost.”

Naoya snickered. “Don’t act like you won when I wasn’t even fighting back. How could I bear to hit my cute little cousin? I’d feel bad.”

“I’m not going to stay little,” Toji muttered petulantly, getting off him. “One day I’ll be taller than you. Just you wait.”

Naoya chuckled, “In that case, one you’re taller than me, then I’ll hit you. How’s that?”

Toji wrinkled his nose. “Once I’m taller than you while I’m wearing geta.” So he wouldn’t have to wait as long.

“Oh, fighting while wearing geta,” Naoya hummed. “That sounds fun. I’m down.”

“No, I’ll wear geta, you can wear zori.”

“What? No fair. What if—oh, wait, do you think fighting would work while wearing rollerblades?”

Toji just stared at him for a moment and then started laughing. “What the hell? Who would do that?”

“I was just curious!”

Toji huffed. “You know, you look cunning and pretty, but then the things you say are ridiculous.”

“Life’s too stupid to take completely seriously.” It was a bitter-edged tone, and it made Toji look at Naoya curiously. Naoya, still lying on his back in the grass, just looked up at the sky melancholically. “It really is a beautiful night, though.”

Toji watched him for another moment, and then he lay down on his back in the damp grass as well, looking up at the night sky, scatterings of tiny glittering stars, the view framed by sakura trees with their blossoms lit white and ghostly in the illumination from the moon, petals tussled free by the breeze to dance pale and delicate in the dark air.

“It is,” Toji agreed softly.

They just lay there for a while, and eventually Toji started falling asleep. He was barely awake when Naoya picked him up into his arms and started running them back, and then he must have fallen asleep along the way, because the next thing he knew he was waking up in a bed in a room that wasn’t his own and could only be Naoya’s—the smell of Naoya was everywhere—but Naoya wasn’t anywhere, already taken away for the day.

---

Naoya’s break was only a couple weeks, and then he went back to Kyoto Tech for his third year, and it was several months before Toji saw him again. It would’ve been longer, but that October, he insisted on attending the exchange event as an audience member. It wasn’t that hard to convince the Zen’ins to let him come along, when he threatened to cause trouble, and pointed out that nobody there would notice him, anyway. There was no reason not to let him go. He just wanted to watch Naoya.

They made him ride in the cargo area of the compact SUV, but he didn’t mind. It wasn’t like he wanted to sit next to any of them, nor did he need to wear a seatbelt. Not that any of them who weren’t sitting in the front wore a seatbelt, anyway, and the only reason those in the front wore it was because of the beeping that occurred otherwise. Toji was perfectly content to chill in the back where he had the space to himself and he could practically lounge.

To his disappointment, they didn’t get to see Naoya before the team battle. They only got to take their seats in the viewing room and then watch the shitty screens, where they were barely able to see Naoya running everywhere and Gojo Satoru flying above and Geto Suguru sending his cursed spirits everywhere making things confusing, except cursed energy didn’t appear on cameras so Toji was actually the only one who could see them, and even then it was much different than seeing them in person, it was only the slightest shifts in the pixels showing near-invisible moving shapes. But the team battle didn’t last long, because both Naoya and Gojo Satoru quickly found the second-grade cursed spirit and then had to race to see who could exorcise it first, trying to thwart the other’s attempts.

Naoya ended up winning. Apparently, the year before, basically the same thing had happened except that Gojo Satoru had won. The adults who were watching who’d been there the year before as well remarked that Naoya had clearly improved, while Gojo Satoru had grown complacent. There were remarks about how sometimes, there was greater value in losing, and Gojo had better take this lesson to heart. There were some observations that ‘only Naoya’ could possibly have given Gojo Satoru a run for his money. The Gojos in attendance actually thanked Naobito for his son giving their heir a challenge. Naobito and the Gojo head were congenial about their clans being the two strongest, although there was a comment thrown in about how it was too bad Naoya hadn’t inherited the Zen’ins’ prized Ten Shadows Technique. Toji didn’t understand, because if Naoya had had the Ten Shadows rather than Projection Sorcery, he wouldn’t have beaten Gojo Satoru to exorcising the cursed spirit. Naoya was a genius and he was the best. Why would he be devalued just because his innate technique wasn’t the Ten Shadows? Toji knew the technique was prized because of Mahoraga, but he didn’t think that Mahoraga was that great of an asset when the Ten Shadows users always died whenever they summoned it. Divine General Mahoraga was basically just a glorified double-suicide.

Naoya with his Projection Sorcery was so much better than that.

Technically they weren’t supposed to see the participants until after the individual battles, so as not to ‘distract’ them, but Toji snuck off to go see Naoya anyway.

It was always a delight when nobody else noticed him yet Naoya spotted him right away, lighting up and grinning broadly, waving.

“What the hell are you waving at?”

“At one of my invisible fans, obviously!”

Lips curling, Toji slipped behind a tree and started clapping, peeking around the edge of the trunk to see the other Kyoto students’ jaws drop, looking around without spotting where he was even with the noise, a girl having jumped and shrieked about ghosts and one of the boys said “If it were a vengeful ghost we would have felt it, you baka,” and Naoya was laughing with merriment, and he looked beautiful like that, dancing light in his golden eyes and rays of sun in his blond hair, mirth bright and shining.

“Thank you, ghost-san,” Naoya said, sending a wink Toji’s way and then turning and bowing grandly in a completely different direction where for whatever reason the other Kyoto students kept looking. Perhaps because of the echoes of Toji’s clapping bouncing off the buildings. Toji had to stifle his snickers. “I’ll make sure to give you something to clap for in the individual battle tomorrow as well!”

The others griped about how it was some kind of trick and Naoya was pulling their legs, even as they continued to glance around with narrowed eyes, and one of the other boys grabbed Naoya’s wrist and began dragging him back towards wherever they were staying on the Tokyo campus, but Naoya turned back to wave once more at Toji before he was dragged away, and Toji let his clapping subside and slipped back into the shadows to return to the Zen’ins who probably hadn’t even noticed that he was gone, and probably wouldn’t notice when he returned.

Somehow, though, Naoya made the fact that he was next to invisible feel okay and even fun. It didn’t bother him, it actually made him feel rather smug. Because Naoya was the best, and Naoya could see him. Nobody else could even compare.

Except that as he was heading back, he passed by the Tokyo students, and even though he was behind them, Gojo Satoru turned his head and met his eye. It made Toji freeze, forgetting to breathe. Not even Naoya could sense him when he was behind him.

But unlike Naoya, Gojo Satoru dismissed Toji completely and turned away again, pretending like Toji wasn’t there even though he’d seen him, as if he’d only looked at Toji to let him know that he knew he was there, and that his existence wasn’t worth his slightest regard. That he was not unseen, but was seen and then disregarded as less than nothing.

It froze Toji’s blood, and he couldn’t move until the Tokyo students were gone, and then he slunk back to the Zen’ins, badly shaken.

When nobody else saw him, those who did had only ever been those two, but what Naoya and Gojo Satoru saw when they looked at him was completely different, and it left Toji confused. Because it meant that either Naoya was wrong—but Naoya was a genius and he was always right—or Gojo Satoru was blind—but Gojo Satoru was the Six Eyes and he supposedly saw everything.

By the time Toji got back, though, he was fully decided that Naoya was right and was superior, because he had to be right because Toji knew that he was strong like Naoya said, and therefore Gojo Satoru’s Six Eyes were not as amazing as everyone believed, because even though he’d seen that Toji was there, he hadn’t seen what Toji was. Naoya always saw the truth of everything, but Gojo Satoru only saw the veneer. Besides, wasn’t the Six Eyes’ thing that he could see cursed energy better than anybody? And Toji didn’t have any cursed energy at all, so of course he considered Toji beneath notice. He wasn’t like Naoya whose eyes sought out not cursed energy but strength. And strength, for Naoya, had many different forms.

“There was this quote that I heard once,” Naoya had told him, looking up towards the bruising sky where the sunset light was painting the clouds in luminous lurid glow that reflected a deep, eerie orange light upon the sakura petals and their skin, almost making red oni of them surrounded by light rustling flames. “‘Beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror which we are barely able to endure, and it amazes us so, because it serenely disdains to destroy us.’”

“Does that mean I’m nearly terrified of you?”

“You think I’m beautiful?” Naoya had smiled, turning his gaze from the monstrous sky to look back at him, reaching out to brush the dark hair from Toji’s eyes, leaning down to press lips chastely to his forehead, murmuring like a portentous secret, “I think you’re the beginning of terrifying, too.”

It was Naoya calling him beautiful, Toji understood. But he also understood it as Naoya tying beauty and strength into one and the same. It changed the way Toji looked at the world.

Gojo Satoru was beautiful, unquestionably. But he was not as beautiful as Naoya.

When Toji got back, the members of the different clans who had students in the exchange event were still socializing. Outside of the circle of more important members, those on the outskirts were making bets about the outcomes of the individual battles. Toji wanted in on the betting.

He didn’t have much to bet with, but he bet it all on Naoya winning whatever battle he was in.

“Even if he’s paired against the Six Eyes?”

“Even if he’s paired against the Six Eyes.”

The other sorcerers laughed at him. But they gladly accepted his bet.

When the clans retired, they were shown to guest rooms at the school that was much larger than was necessary for only a handful of students. The Zen’ins offered Toji a closet in one of the rooms. He said he’d rather sleep outside like a dog. They said to then go ahead.

He went and, like a dog, sniffed out the room where Naoya was staying instead.

“Toji-kun! Look at you, you really did grow again. You prancing around in those geta yet all ready to be taller than me?” Smirking, teasing, eyes laughing.

Toji’s cheeks were warm as he looked down. “Shut up. I don’t want to sleep in Nobuaki’s closet. Would rather sleep in yours.”

Naoya tched and pulled him into the room, closing the door behind him. “You can sleep in my bed, baka. Haven’t we already shared my bed several times?” They had, during Naoya’s last vacation to the Zen’in estate.

“I was just saying that I’d rather sleep in your closet than his. But yeah, your bed is better.”

“Damn right it is. Probably not gonna be really used by me anyway, I doubt I’ll be sleeping much.”

Toji’s brow furrowed. “You’re nervous?”

“I need to devise a strategy for if I get paired against Satoru-kun.” Naoya had moved over to the window and was looking out at the twilight, fingers tapping rhythmically against the sill. “I do have one trick up my sleeve, but I need to come up with a few more to get me to a situation where I’m able to use it.”

“You might not be paired up against Gojo Satoru, though.”

“Thinking about what to do if I am is still better than not thinking about it, though. I mean, I’m the Zen’in heir, so I’ve got to look good out there. I know I can win paired against any of the others. I was lucky to not get paired against Gojo Satoru last year. If I get paired against him, I have to at the very least look cool while losing.”

“You won’t have to look cool while losing. Because you’ll look cool while winning.”

Naoya sent him an enigmatic smile, the gloaming light casting him all in oni blue. “We’ll see.”

Naoya returned his gaze to the window, and Toji stared at him for a long moment, and then he went and got the chair from the desk, moved it to the window and made the bemused Naoya sit down in it, then he went and got the duvet from the bed and dragged it onto the floor at Naoya’s feet, where he then settled himself with his head resting in Naoya’s lap. Naoya chuckled softly, his fingers moving to card through Toji’s hair.

Toji eventually fell asleep like that, but not before glancing up at Naoya in the darkening light, seeing Naoya staring out into the night with long black lashes lowered serenely over pale eyes made sinister by shadows, smirk languid on his lips like dark blood brimming there, and Toji buried his face against Naoya’s muscular thigh, shivering with the beginning of terror.

---

Toji awoke to Naoya’s phone alarm going off. He found himself in the bed, in Naoya’s arms, and it made him feel warm, and he was glad to see Naoya blinking blearily as he turned and reached to turn off the alarm because it meant that Naoya had gotten some sleep, after all.

“Alright, time to start the day. Run along back, Toji-kun. I’ll see you after the individual battles, okay?” Fingertips brushing the dark bangs from Toji’s eyes, light as the touch of a butterfly, tickling.

“Ganbare, Naoya-kun.”

Naoya’s lips curled, assured. “Like a boss.”

So Toji slipped out of Naoya’s room and when back to the Zen’in area, joined them and the other clans for breakfast, and then there was nothing but socialization until noon, careful games of bureaucracy and last-minute changes in bets. Toji milled around, listening, unnoticed, bored waiting.

Finally it was noon, and time for the individual battles to start. There was a duel that didn’t include Naoya, a duel that didn’t include Naoya, a duel that didn’t include Naoya, a duel that didn’t include Naoya, and then there was only Naoya and Gojo Satoru who hadn’t fought, paired together because there was no one else left. Gojo Satoru’s expression was solemn, bright blue gaze disparaging. Naoya’s lips were pulled into a grin, gold eyes alight as he took his cursed spirit out of the small pouch strung around his neck, let it expand and curl around him, reached into its mouth for a crooningly offered weapon.

Everyone, not just those from the Zen’in and Gojo clans, were leaning forward in their seats, an electric tingle of anticipation in the air. Probably even Naoya and Gojo Satoru down in the makeshift arena could feel it.

Naoya moved, struck like a snake. Gojo Satoru rose like a god up into the air, power welling blue in his fingers, warping space. Naoya was thrown, flipped, rolled, caught himself, looked up with the end of a golden chain held between his teeth, and then he was moving again, twenty-four frames per second, faster and faster, moves impossible for most any other.

“That’s right, you can levitate!!”

Naoya had only been running over the ground, before. But now he was up in the air, above Gojo Satoru’s head, the golden chain left trailing behind him in confusing patterns, every bit of length left behind having become a frame that he kicked or hit as he made his way upward so that lengths of chain were strung in the air all around Gojo Satoru, and as Gojo Satoru was distracted with the cursed chain’s seemingly endless extent, Naoya was bearing down on him with a cursed weapon, Gojo Satoru’s eyes going to him, but at the same time Naoya was yanking the chain, another cursed tool linked to the end jerking up towards Gojo Satoru as Naoya fell down upon him with the other.

Toji couldn’t sense it himself, but he’d hear later that the weapon Naoya had held was a powerful cursed tool, while the blade attached to the chain had no cursed energy at all, and that was why Gojo Satoru didn’t notice it, and that the cursed tool Naoya held broke through Gojo Satoru’s Infinity so that the other normal weapon could pierce him, shocking him and making it so Naoya could strike him with the cursed tool as well, kicking him down to slam into the ground.

All that Toji saw was that Naoya was terrifying, beautiful.

Naoya touched down lightly, pulled the chain with its linked sword back to him, depositing both items back in his smug cursed spirit’s mouth. “Just like Suguru-kun last year, you respect neither your opponents’ nor your own abilities enough, Satoru-kun.”

Naoya turned to walk out of the arena, feeding his other weapon to his humming cursed spirit as well. It was clear that he had won the bout. It was already being announced. But Gojo Satoru staggered to his feet, no longer bleeding, held out his hand in Naoya’s direction with fingers together, bright blue gaze wild, said, “Hollow Purple,” and then there was a ball of purple mass shooting towards Naoya, who turned, eyes widening, and then the purple mass of cursed energy hit him.

It ate through his left shoulder and chest. The lower part of his left arm dropped to the ground. The cursed spirit wrapped around him that had also been torn through cried out in agony. Naoya was silent, staring down at the ground. With his right arm, he reached to feel for his left side. His right hand found empty air, was dripped on with blood from what was left of his torso above.

Naoya’s lips pulled away from his teeth in a mirthless smile. “If I’d known that lethal attacks were allowed, I’d have killed you first, Satoru-kun.” His right arm dropped limply to his side, his gaze going dull. “Ah, this is a sucky way to die. There was… something I was looking forward to… could you tell my little cousin? That I… wish I could’ve…”

Then his head slumped and he went still, silent. For a long moment, his body with the large hole bored through it remained standing. Then its knees buckled, and Naoya’s body fell to the ground. His cursed spirit screamed, gargingly, a hair-raising, shivery howl of blood-curdling lamentation and abject pain.

Gojo Satoru was staring with wide eyes, looking just as shocked and horrified as everyone watching.

Then everything went to hell.

Afterwards, Toji would hardly even know what happened. He might have thrown up. Naoya’s cursed spirit tried to escape but someone caught it. The Tokyo school’s healer ran to Naoya to see if she could do anything, only to announce that he was dead and beyond saving. People surrounded Naoya. People surround Gojo Satoru. There were shouts, yells. Brawls broke out between clans. Someone or someones tried to restore order. Toji was numb, dissociated. It couldn’t be real. It couldn’t possibly be real.

The next thing he was aware of, it was almost dark and he was alone. He appeared to have been forgotten. He thought it might’ve been a nightmare, but Naoya’s blood was still on the ground and Toji could smell that it was his.

He was sick again, but there was nothing in his stomach.

He wandered off. He was dazed, confused. It couldn’t be real. It couldn’t.

He made it down the mountain, disembodied. It took him a while of staring at train route signs before he could make any sense of them. Eventually, he figured out which one he needed to take to get to Kyoto. He didn’t need to buy a ticket when nobody even realized he was there. He got on a train, and it was probably a few hours ride, but it could have been mere minutes, or it could have been entire years.

He got off at what sounded like the right stop. He wondered around the city in the dark until he came to an area he vaguely recognized from when Naoya had taken him to the New Years’ Eve festival. From there, his memory of their travel brought him to the mountain, and then the mountain led him to the Zen’in estate. By then, it was already dawn.

He found Naobito. He asked, “Is Naoya-kun dead? Or did I have an awful nightmare?”

Naobito looked at him more seriously and seeingly than he ever had, and said, “If only we’d both shared the same nightmare, rather than the same reality.”

Toji fell to his knees, staring down at the floor. Naobito joined him on the ground. They were both silent, until Toji started sobbing. Naobito literally crawled away. Then he crawled back with a pack of beer. He opened one, gulped down probably at least half of it, and then he opened another and placed it in front of Toji.

Toji was seven years too young to be drinking alcohol. He didn’t even understand what the point of alcohol was.

It was also the first kindness and acknowledgment that Naobito had ever given him.

Toji took the can of beer and drank all of it.

Naobito said, “Fuck, drink like that and I’m gonna have to drink five times more than you.”

Toji didn’t have all that much memory of what happened after that. He might have drunk another can of beer. Naobito might have cried. Naobito might have even told him something acknowledging, something about how Toji had understood better than anyone but him how special Naoya was.

Toji woke up sick and puked his guts up, fortunately he found a bathroom first. Naobito wasn’t anywhere. There were empty beer bottles everywhere. Certainly most of them weren’t empty because of Toji.

The next weeks that went by, Toji was still dissociated, disembodied, benumbed. Later, he wouldn’t really remember anything between Naoya’s death and when he was thrown into the curse pit. But even then, when he was thrown in, he’d known it wasn’t really about him. No matter how they had complained about Naoya when he was alive, there was not a single member of the Zen’in clan that was happy that he was dead. Everyone was upset, wanted to take it out on something or someone, but there wasn’t much they could do against the Gojos. Toji happened to be there, the Zen’in failure, alive while the genius heir Naoya was dead, so they threw him in the curse pit, because they were angry, furious, full of distress and hatred.

Toji got it. He was angry and furious, full of distress and hatred, too.

Later, he’d always be glad that they’d thrown him into the curse pit then. The curses gave him something to unleash his fury upon. It was cathartic, and helped return him to something closer to sanity.

And then there was Wormy. Apparently, nobody had been able to get the cursed spirit to cough up its inventory, but nobody knew what would happen to the inventory if the cursed spirit were exorcised, and there were more than a few powerful S-grade cursed tools that Naoya had collected, so rather than risk losing it they’d simply thrown the curse into the pit. But after Toji had torn all the other cursed spirits to unexorcised pieces with his bare hands, there was Wormy huddled in the corner, crying in a wobbly, woebegotten whimper, “Mommy, hug me.”

So Toji did, and the cursed spirit curled around his torso and ululated, and Toji cried.

How could people say that cursed spirits had no feelings of their own, when Wormy so clearly, like Toji, grievously mourned and missed Naoya?

Toji wouldn’t even notice until he looked in the mirror that he’d received a deep cut through the corner of his mouth. He hadn’t felt it at all, hadn't thought anything of the taste of blood in his mouth or the pain when he smiled without happiness, vicious.

The cut scarred, and the scar just reminded him, every time he saw or felt it, of the promise he had sworn when he’d kicked down the curse pit’s doors from the inside: “I am going to kill Gojo Satoru.”

“If anyone can kill Gojo Satoru and get revenge for Naoya, it’s his little cousin with zero cursed energy,” Naobito said when he heard, regarding Toji assessingly. “Give him whatever tools and assistance he needs. He’s by far our best chance of taking down the Six Eyes.”

Thus began Toji’s life as the secret weapon of the Zen’in clan.

---

Ironically, after Naoya’s death, Toji was more accepted in the Zen’in clan than he’d ever been while Naoya was alive.

Ironically, Toji was more miserable being accepted by the Zen’in clan than he’d ever been while they had hated and disparaged him.

With Naoya dead, nothing was beautiful in life anymore. Not even the fiery sunsets that made a bloody hell of the horizon. Toji wasn’t terrified of anything anymore. He just hurt and hated.

If there was any comfort at all, it was in Wormy wrapping around him, giving a mournful moan or a mollified hum, regurgitating one of Naoya’s weapons into his hand.

If there was any acknowledgment that touched him at all, it was in Naoya’s father's gaze, Naobito’s gruff tone, a can of beer handed to him in the dim, a breathed curse on the old man’s lips, a twitch of long gray mustache and a growl in the old man’s throat.

In the company of those who understood him, cursed spirit and old man alike, Toji was mostly silent. There was nothing that needed to be said. Their circumstances were all vastly different, but they all felt the same pain, just from different angles.

The majority of the time, Toji was either training, sleeping or eating. His fifteenth birthday came and even though Playful Cloud had been in Wormy’s arsenal all that time, it was only then that Toji allowed himself to lay hands on it.

It felt so perfect in his grip he almost choked.

Still, though, it was the Inverted Spear of Heaven that he prized most, because it was that tool which would be the key to his success against Gojo Satoru, like it had been for Naoya. Toji just needed a different strategy, and a perfect opportunity.

The months of Toji’s life that he’d felt happy and alive no matter whatever incidental miseries numbered nineteen, little more than a year and a half. The number of years that he felt depressed and furious no matter whatever incidental joys kept growing: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. Time long stopped holding any meaning. He lived, he trained, he prepared, he planned, he was barely alive.

Sometimes members of the Zen’in clan demanded, “What the hell’s taking you so long?!”

Toji responded, “I’d rather a complete and utter win later than a failed win sooner. I want Gojo Satoru dead; I don’t care how long it takes. No matter when I kill him, Naoya-kun will never no longer be dead.”

“Leave him be,” Naobito told the other Zen’ins when he heard. “Nobody mourns Naoya’s death or wishes Gojo Satoru dead more than he. Some poisons become more potent with time; let karma take its unrushed course.”

The entire sorcerer world had more or less been in a cold war since Gojo Satoru killed Naoya. The two greatest clans having become once again at odds like four hundred years before, when the Gojo with the Six Eyes and the Zen’in with the Ten Shadows killed each other. Sorcerers were afraid to act, or else they were taking advantage.

Years before, Geto Suguru had disagreed with the values of the sorcerer world and had left. Years later, Gojo Satoru had killed him. A year later, Toji found him, but he was no longer Geto Suguru, he was someone else in the same body, and he was working with a faction of intelligent special-grade cursed spirits. Toji allied with them, because their different goals aligned.

Toji just wanted Gojo Satoru dead; he didn’t care about anything else. Whoever was in Geto Suguru’s body and the curses in the curse faction wanted Gojo Satoru out of the way. They made a plan where fake Geto Suguru and the curses would create an opportunity, and Toji would kill the Six Eyes.

The date they finally chose was October 31st, the Western world’s ‘Halloween’ on which the dead came back to walk the earth. It was a kind of joke, because fake Geto Suguru was the dead Geto Suguru without actually being Geto Suguru.

What wasn’t a joke was Naoya’s dead feet once again gracing the land of the living.

---

“…Grandchild?”

“Hey, old woman. Who do you think you’re giving orders to?!”

“What’s going on…? I only summoned the body’s information!!”

“Only summoned the body’s information? Ha! Do you really think that you are the one who gets to determine that? I’m Zen’in Naoya. As if I’d let anyone summon my body without my soul? Go ask me nicely in hell, old hag. Because that instruction of yours to ‘kill sorcerers’? That includes you!”

And then the old woman was dead, and Naoya was cocking his head. “The condition of me being summoned back is that I kill the strongest around, huh? Well, I guess I’ll just do so until I come across Toji-kun, then. He’s the only one I really care about anyway.”

So Naoya stepped off the roof of the skyscraper to plunge towards the ground, grin pulling his lips wide and snake-like away from his teeth.

---

Well, Naoya’s primary instruction had been ‘kill Gojo Satoru,’ but when he found him, Gojo Satoru was already dead. And he could feel the cursed energy from the Inverted Spear of Heaven. Someone who could use that weapon to kill the Six Eyes—well, there weren’t many. Naoya would put all his money on it having been Toji.

And Gojo Satoru was only freshly dead, which meant that Toji, if he was there, would be close. So Naoya went looking.

Rather than finding Toji, though, he found a considerably powerful Domain Expansion that seemed to have been created by a special-grade cursed spirit, and, well, his curiosity got the best of him.

And wouldn’t the best way to get in to be—to open his own Domain?

So he did, and then he was laughing. “Ah, being killed and then being brought back is great! Everything makes so much more sense now!”

“Naoya?” And well, what would you know: it was his father. And a few others, young teens he didn’t recognize—but hey, wait, maybe they were at least as old if not older than he was? If his age could be considered as that of when he’d died. A girl with very low cursed energy—a Heavenly Restriction, it seemed, but not a complete one like Toji’s, so she was probably a Zen’in—and then a boy with pink hair, whose cursed energy was strange and felt way more ancient than him and like it didn’t really fit him. Huh. Some kind of latent Incarnation?

But ah, whatever. The funnier thing was the tug-of-war between his Domain and the special-grade cursed spirit’s.

“Hey dad! Since you’re still alive, I guess I can’t have been dead for all that long, although I admittedly I wouldn’t put it past you to live longer than a hundred, but for a sorcerer that’s really pushing it, and even for a non-sorcerer not much longer than that is generally livable, and I’d doubt it would be the case with your drinking habit. So I’m guessing I’ve been dead for somewhere between ten and twenty years, judging by everything? How fun! Toji-kun’s still alive and kicking, right? I hope I’ll get to see him before this body runs out of cursed energy. I may have just greatly diminished that amount of time by opening this Domain Expansion. Whoops. But isn’t this hilarious? This cursed spirit has a Domain that’s such a pleasant tropical beach, and here I am, a human sorcerer, and my Domain Expansion is this way creepy eldritch thing! I could laugh myself dead, if I weren’t dead already. Hey, girly, gimme that cursed weapon, yeah? Defeating this thing can’t be harder than defeating the Six Eyes.”

Ha, being dead already was fun as hell. Naoya really just hoped that he could see Toji before he expired again. But still, to fight such a cursed spirit—how could he possibly resist? It was too fun!

Seriously, every entity who could levitate thought themselves so goddamn untouchable and special. Go read a fucking encyclopedia—hummingbirds that lived in the Americas could fly straight up and down, forwards and backwards, upside-down, could fly over 120km an hour and slow down from over 40km an hour to a complete stop within the space of an index finger.

As if flight made anyone special. How many kinds of flying birds were there in the world? They weren’t anywhere near as special as Toji, who had no cursed energy at all and was more unique than anyone, ever. And they weren’t anything in the face of Naoya who could actually use his fucking brain, and actually intelligently.

Did cursed spirits even have brains? Naoya hoped that that—Shoko, was it? That doctor girl. He hoped that she’d done some vivisections or whatever on some to see. How much did sorcerers even know and understand about cursed spirit anatomy? He just hoped that nobody thought to try to do anything like that to Wormy. Would his inventory spill out if he was cut open? Nobody could possibly know. It was probably safer not to.

Naoya exorcised the cursed spirit—the taste of ocean still on his teeth, and wasn’t that a treat?—and tossed the cursed weapon back to the girl with the cursed glasses that probably allowed her to see cursed spirits that she otherwise couldn’t have. He may have broken the cursed tool a little bit, but—well, it still worked, so who cared?

“Hey, anyone know where Toji-kun is?”

“I think he was out to kill Gojo Satoru,” Naobito drawled.

Naoya grinned. “Well, Gojo Satoru’s dead, so apparently he succeeded. Did he do it for me? How sweet. Is he heading back now? I’ll have to go see if I can catch him before this body runs out of cursed energy. Who would ever think to summon such a strong sorcerer into a body so weak? How much use could I possibly be like this? Ugh. If you’re going to go to all the effort to someone someone back from the dead, at least prepare a more suitable vessel. Fucking simpletons. Okay, I need to leave before the urge to take on the strongest here overtakes me. Which would be you, pink hair with the weird dark ancient cursed energy that I’m guessing doesn’t truly belong to you. So bye~♡ Although there’s a really hot—but not in the fun way—cursed spirit arriving, but I don’t have the energy to deal with it, so ganbare! Dad, if you die I’ll be disappointed, so preferably survive to spit on my grave and curse at my actually very dead soul.”

And then Naoya dashed off, and when Maki asked, “Who as that?!” Naobito snorted and said, “A ghost. But let’s get out of here before—”

---

Killing Gojo Satoru was almost anti-climatic.

“Have I… met you somewhere before?”

“You did see me once, but I’m sure you forgot me immediately after. And I’m sure you didn’t know… that Naoya-kun had a younger cousin who adored him more than anything.”

Gojo Satoru died looking like he’d expected it, or at least some karma like it. He didn’t fight it as much as he could have. He almost seemed to accept it. Toji felt satisfied, felt closure, and then he just felt lost. He’d accomplished what he’d been living for all these years. He’d avenged Naoya’s death.

Now, he didn’t know what to do. Didn’t know where to go from here. Didn’t even really know who he was. The one thing he’d been living for for over a decade was done. What was there left? Only living, and living itself had never meant anything after Naoya had passed.

He was walking down the empty streets, feeling dissociated and disembodied again, like a wandering ghost, when suddenly Naoya was there, standing in front of him, eyes guileless and wide, irises gold but his sclera were black, and then Naoya was grinning.

“Toji-kun!” Twenty-four frames and Naoya was in his arms in a second—so warm, too warm. Unreal in his corporeality. It couldn’t be real. It wasn’t. And yet when Toji bit his tongue, it hurt and made his eyes water and when the tears trickled from his eyes to his scarred lips he could taste them, warm water and salt.

“You really did grow tall… you don’t need those geta, after all.” Naoya stood back, and looked at him, really looked at him, gold eyes even intenser than Toji remembered with the whites of his eyes made black like that. A summoning.

Still Naoya’s grin lit the dark sky afire, like every star was drenched in gasoline and Naoya was the lighter setting it all aflame. If the heavens were hell in the sky, then living was hell on earth; but just like back then, Naoya made it seem so beautiful it was terrifying.

Toji could barely swallow around the sensation of ash caught in a burning lump in his throat. “Naoya-kun…”

For all of Toji’s memory, Naoya had been older than him, larger than life, wise and idolized; now, Toji was nearly a decade older than Naoya when he’d died, and Naoya seemed so young, so small, really just an ingenuous kid, and it made Toji’s lungs feel like they’d been rendered liquid, hard to breathe, his heartbeat like a stone thrown skipping into infinity.

“I’m so glad,” Naoya said, smiling with a wet glimmer in his gold eyes, starlight twinkling on his lower lids, catching on his long dark eyelashes when he blinked, “that I got to see you all grown up, Toji-kun. You’re the one who killed Satoru-kun, right? And you’re even taking care of Wormy. I’m really happy, you know? Getting to see you all big and strong and grown like this. Just as incredible as I knew you’d be.”

“I miss you, Naoya-kun.”

Naoya’s black and gold gaze softened, his smile wistful, sad. “I’m sorry, Toji-kun. More than anything, I wanted to watch you grow up and see what you would become.” Naoya’s laugh was all falling stars. “And just look at you! Positively terrifying, that someone so strong and beautiful could exist in this world. If I had to name a god, the name on my tongue would be yours. You just used to be so little and cute, you know?” Naoya was laughing, bright, a meteor shower. “I seriously can’t believe how big you’ve grown! I bet you’ve got all the ladies swooning.” Naoya was grinning as he stepped in, warm against Toji’s chest, pressed chaste curved lips to Toji’s jaw because he was no longer tall enough to kiss Toji’s brow.

Toji wanted to wrap his arms around him, hold him close, tuck Naoya’s head beneath his chin, hug him like Naoya, back then, had held him, close against his chest, like the world didn’t matter at all.

“Live with terrifying strength for me, Toji-kun,” Naoya smiled as he stepped back, Toji’s cursed tool in his hand, slipped out of Toji’s grip, and then Naoya was stabbing it through the side his head before Toji could do more than widen his eyes.

By the time Naoya hit the ground, his body was someone else’s. There wasn’t even a corpse left to tell Toji that it wasn’t a dream, only the skin of his jaw where Naoya had kissed him still tingling, the Inverted Spear of Heaven clattered to the ground in a position not from his own holding.

For the only the second time since Naoya had died twelve years before, Toji truly cried.

---

Later, Toji told Naobito to tell everyone that it had been Naoya who had killed Gojo Satoru. Enough people had seen Naoya, and not enough had seen Toji; it was more believable, that way. And it better evened things between the Zen’in and Gojo clans.

Toji didn’t care about recognition. Like Naoya had said, he was too strong to need it. All he cared about was that Gojo Satoru was dead, and Naoya’s death was avenged.

Of course, he no longer had any purpose in the Zen’in clan, once he’d killed the Six Eyes. So he left.

He ended up doing mercenary work, because killing was the only thing he was good at, and the only thing he really enjoyed, aside from gambling, which he developed an addicted taste for, although to date he’d never won a single bet aside from Naoya winning against Gojo Satoru in the individual battles of the exchange event. Still, as far as vices went, he figured it was better than drinking, although he did occasionally indulge in a beer, more for the taste than for anything else, because it reminded him of silent company with Naobito, shared company and grief.

Eventually, though, he met a woman, and she wasn’t like Naoya except for her valorous smile, but she still made the world more beautiful to live in. Once again, Toji knew terror, that possibility of loss, the feeling of evanescent sakura blossoms lit orange by blazing sunset.

When she gave birth to a son and asked him what they should name him, Toji, holding the intrepidly uncrying infant in his arms, murmured with scarred lips curving in heart-aching smile, “‘Naoya’, with the kanji for ‘honesty, frankness’ and ‘exclamation, alas’.”

Notes:

yes, Megumi's name is Naoya now :))

i kind of want to write a companion piece from Satoru's and possibly Suguru's POV... the angst would be so good. Satoru dealing with everyone being fucking terrified of/horrified by him bc he fucked up? yes please? gawd that mf is way too strong, it's way too easy to make him problematic lol

If you enjoyed this fic, make sure to let me know with a kudo or comment!

 

on another note, fic title comes from "Federkleid" ('Plumage') by Faun (video includes both original German and English translation, although I translated the particular lyric from German into English differently) and "Chase The Sun" by Koven
but while writing this fic i also listened to, in more or less this order, "Another Level" by Ambassador, "Ride" by Melih Yildirim, "In My Blood (Serhat Durmus Remix)" by Tommee Profitt feat. Fleurie, "Savage" by DV:XENSE, "LAND OF FIRE - Sped Up" from Kordhell, "BOSS BITCH" by Max + Johann, "Boss Bitch" by Doja Cat, and "Fensterbank" ('Windowsill') by futurebae lol. not that all of these songs make all that much sense for the fic, i go off mood vibes more than anything, but if anyone likes music, they're all fucking bangers

Chapter 2: Prey the Sky (To winter-wandering damned, same as the smoke that forever seeks for colder heavens)

Notes:

well. all i knew going into this chapter was that it was going to be Suguru's and Satoru's pov's. i mean, i had a slight idea of how things were for each of them in this au, but. things went a bit differently from how i thought :))

shouldn't have been so surprised about the GoNao tho lol. my brain is a bit obsessed with that pairing cuz they're so fucking star-crossed... they work so well together... and yet they're screwed from the start... fucking literally the Romeo and Juliet of the jjk universe lmao. it's driving me crazy trying to make it work somehow. i have yet to succeed (the angst of all the failings is so good tho...)

anyways, GoNao here = more angst! more pain! + more fluff! more humor! = more everything!!

and then there's Suguru and even though i solve his issues he's kind of still screwed too...

everybody's screwed. the jjk universe is so perfect for that

fjdskaljfdkjljlklk

Thank you for all the amazing supportive comments last chapter, and i hope you all enjoy this continuation!!

---

When Satoru killed Zen’in Naoya, it changed everything.

Or rather, it was the first of the nails hammered into the coffin of Suguru’s ideology, the coffin that Naoya himself had gifted him the previous year but Suguru had been resisting. But after Satoru killed Naoya, the nails started pounding into the coffin like rain.

In their first exchange event with the Kyoto school, in the individual battles, Suguru was paired up against Zen’in Naoya.

Satoru had told him, “Careful, Naoya’s fast.”

Naoya was more than just fast. He’s out of his mind, was what Suguru had thought at the time.

The Zen’in heir had a cursed spirit that he kept in a small pouch strung around his neck, which he took out and let it curl close around him despite how fucking ugly it was, but he stroked its head fondly and treated it like a pet, had it trained to give him weapons that it held within it, and it seemed to like him.

Naoya fought with it curled around him like that, and he was grinning, fearless, delighted as he took down some of Suguru’s strongest curses, and when he got to Suguru and fed his weapon back into his cursed spirit to engage Suguru in unarmed hand-to-hand combat, his speed was insane and there was also some kind of trick to it—it was clearly his innate technique—that Satoru hadn’t seen fit to explain. Suguru knew that he was strong; but that didn’t mean shit when he couldn’t hit his opponent at all.

He was defeated, humiliated, hurt all over and not understanding what was going on, what had happened, and Naoya standing over him had said, “You know, I would’ve felt bad exorcising those cursed spirits of yours, except that you clearly don’t care about them at all. If anything happened to Wormy here, I’d legitimately cry. That dragon of yours was beautiful, it really did feel like a shame. I understand that your technique is Curse Manipulation and they have no choice but to obey you, but cursed spirits aren’t really different from animals, you know; a dog who you show affection and is loyal to you will go to much greater lengths for your sake than a dog you neglect and abuse, even if you have that dog trained. I just think it’s a shame that despite the fact that your ability is Curse Manipulation, you don’t respect them more than you do. If you did, you’d be able to use them better.”

“How can you show affection to a curse?” Suguru had hissed.

“Because it’s just another creature that exists,” Naoya had said. “Curses didn’t ask to be born any more than any of us did. They’re not to blame for what they are any more than you’re to blame for what you are. And curses are born from humans, right? They come from humans’ negative emotions, but those emotions are exactly what makes us human. Yeah, a lot of curses are shit, and a lot of humans are shit, but there’s still beauty that can be found within that. I have my clan, including my adorable little cousin, and you have your cursed spirits. They’re there for you. Don’t you think you should respect them for that more? I don’t think being a Curse Manipulator is that different from being a clan head. And well, a great clan head is what I aim to be. What do you aim to be, Geto Suguru? A great Curse Manipulator, or a shitty one?”

It had left Suguru floored.

Naoya had crouched down in front of him, then. “Hey, if you promise not to try to hurt or absorb him, you can pet Wormy. Do you wanna?”

“Why the fuck would I want to pet it?” Suguru had spat.

“Because he’s nice and cute?” Naoya had said, like it should be obvious. Lowering his voice, eyes looking at Suguru, really looking at him, and for the first time Suguru noticed their uncanny gold color and just how long and dark his eyelashes were, Naoya said softly, “You know, when I found Wormy, he was crying and saying forlornly ‘Mommy, hug me.’ Curses come from negative emotions, but not all those negative emotions are hatred, fear or anger. Sometimes it’s sadness, loneliness, neglect, abandonment. Sometimes it’s love, sometimes it’s grief. All of us are just living, Suguru-kun. That includes cursed spirits. And I think a lot of them would actually be glad to no longer be so alone, in you, if only you didn’t hate them so. Your attitude about them makes me concerned about you, too, Suguru-kun. If you hate the greatest strength of your nature, your ability to manipulate curses that others cannot control, how are you supposed to live like that? You’ll fall into a dark place of hatred. I just think, Suguru-kun, that rather than focusing on how horrible everything is, you should look instead at the beauty within that horror. Because it does exist. If it didn’t, then horror wouldn’t even be possible.”

Naoya had stood up, then. “But if that’s too much for you to understand, then you can at least think of your cursed spirits as tools. A tool that you take care of, treat well and use well will do a lot more for you then a tool you neglect and throw around carelessly and randomly. I’m just saying: it’s not like you have to like cursed spirits, but you should at least respect them. And you should respect your opponents more, too; I know I’m not Gojo Satoru, but you shouldn’t think that he alone in this world is strong, or that strength comes in only one form. There are many ways to be strong in this world. You should find the greatest potential of yours.”

And then Naoya walked away, stroking his cursed spirit’s head as it hummed pleasedly and nestled against him, and Naoya gave a small laugh and cooed at it softly and praised it.

Naoya’s words were like a windstorm in Suguru’s mind, blowing everything around, breaking thing and disordering things until he didn’t know what was what, all that was left being mess. Satoru teased him for his loss, being all like, “I told you he was fast. And he’s the Zen’in heir with Projection Sorcery, what could you expect? Also he’s never been afraid of cursed spirits his entire life, nobody loves being a sorcerer more than he does. But wow, I’ve never seen gotten to see you get beaten by anyone but me! What a treat!”

“Then you’d better sear it into your memory, because it’s the last time it’s happening,” Suguru muttered darkly.

“Unless you go up against Naoya in the individual battle again next year,” Satoru had said.

“For all that the matches are supposed to be random, I don’t think they entirely are,” Suguru had replied. “I doubt they’d let a rematch like that happen. It’s more likely that you’ll be going up against him. I mean, this year they had you go up against Kyoto’s strongest third-year, but next year our grade and Naoya’s will be the third-years, and there won’t be anybody but Naoya over there who could hold a candle to you.”

“After fighting Naoya, you think he can hold a candle to me?” Satoru had asked, bright blue Six Eyes penetrating.

“Fighting him was a lot like fighting you,” Suguru had shrugged, “except that you goof around more while he was having more fun.” Suguru had looked at his best friend solemnly. “Naoya respects his opponents. Which is something that you don’t do, Satoru.”

Satoru had stared at him for a moment and then thrown back his head in a laugh. “Naoya, respect his opponents?! LMAO~! Naoya’s the smuggest little shit to walk this earth, and that’s coming from me.”

“If I’m strong,” Suguru said quietly, “then how strong do you think Naoya is to have beaten me?”

“Naoya’s not stronger than you,” Satoru had told him, looking back at him. “He’s just faster and maybe more than a little smarter. He’s got a lot of cursed energy for a sorcerer, but not as much as you do. His innate technique is just less straight forward, it’s a bit of a mindfuck for people, and he’s been lauded by the Zen’ins as a genius since he was a kid like I’ve been lauded as one by the Gojos. Honestly though, he would’ve been a better match against you if he’d had the Ten Shadows Technique, even though that one’s a lot more powerful than Projection Sorcery, but it’s a lot more like yours. Would’ve been interesting to see the master of shikigami go up against the master of cursed spirits. Naoya’s innate technique is just more along the lines of physical augmentation and psychological warfare. It was a bad match-up for you and you’d never gone up against anyone like him before, while he’s obviously gone up against a ton of cursed spirits, and also probably lots of members from the Zen’in clan’s units. Like me he’s been training since his powers first manifested as a little kid. There’s no reason to be any more ashamed by losing to him than it is to be ashamed by losing to me.”

It made Suguru’s brow furrow slightly as he regarded his friend. “You know him well?”

Satoru shrugged. “Well, I’ve known him longer than I’ve known any other sorcerer kids around my age. He’s the Zen’in heir and I’m the Gojo heir, we’re both the heirs of the two major clans if you don’t count the Kamos who kind of really come in third, we’d see each other a fair amount at clan events and whatever. Obviously though both the Zen’in and Gojo clans know a lot about each other, there’s kind of a feud between of us, so of course I know all about Naoya. For basically all of life until you, he was kind of the only person I really had to pay much attention to as the Six Eyes, since he’s gonna be the Zen’in head like I’m gonna be the Gojo head and he was the Zen’ins’ genius while I’m the Gojos’ genius. He’s kind of my rival, except not really? Perhaps more like the person who should be my rival, except that he’s not. If he had the Ten Shadows Technique, that would be a different matter… well, he’s about as supercilious as me, except with not quite as much reason to be. Never stopped him from acting like he’s my equal, though. Although since he’s going to be the Zen’in head I guess we are equals in that sense, will kind of have balanced roles in sorcerer society if you ignore the fact that I’m also the Six Eyes and so something special also outside of that. Projection Sorcery is admittedly stronger than people give it credit for, simply because it’s an ability that people don’t really understand and it’s easy to dismiss, but I have good eyes so I can see it how it works. Not that it would have helped you any if I’d told you, because the only way to counteract it is to move like him, which you wouldn’t be able to do.”

God, Satoru was such an ass. It was weird to hear him spend so many words on someone, but from what he said about the whole clan thing it did make sense why he’d have spent much more thought on Naoya than on basically anyone else for all these years. Rivals and equals, and yet not. Even Naoya had said that he wasn’t as strong as Satoru. But also that that didn’t mean that he wasn’t still strong enough to be noteworthy.

When they had met with the Kyoto students before the team battle, Naoya had grinned cheerfully at Satoru and said familiarly, “Satoru-kun, yo!”

“Naoya-kun,” Satoru had greeted in return, tilting his chin to look at Naoya from around his dark glasses as he smiled forbiddingly. “You ready for your school to get its ass beat?”

“Last I checked Limitless and the Six Eyes didn’t give you the ability to see the future,” Naoya had drawled, gaze audacious and smile complacent. “Did you develop a new ability and have a prophetic vision of your win, Satoru-kun? Because if not, I don’t think you’re correct to believe that your win is inevitable.”

“Please,” Satoru had scoffed. “I have the Six Eyes and Suguru here has Curse Manipulation. What do you guys have?”

Instead of bragging about his own ability, Naoya had drawled simply, “Well, we certainly don’t have the belief that if we lose we have to feel ashamed for it. So as my teammates and I discussed earlier…” he’d tilted his own head, aslant with lifted chin to mirror Satoru, “we’re just here to have as much as we possibly can. I’ll leave caring about winning and losing to you joyless souls.” He’d said the last bit teasingly, derisively, but then he just grinned and laughed, sunning and lighthearted. “Lighten up, Satoru-kun! If you truly believe that you guys are going to win…” he sent Satoru a devilish little smile, eyes twinkling, “then you shouldn’t be so damned serious.”

“Where’s the fun if the win’s so easy it’s boring?” Satoru had shot back, mocking, but his blue gaze on Naoya was unwavering.

Naoya just hummed, but he became more subdued, intertwining his fingers behind his head casually even as he held Satoru’s stare unfalteringly. “If competing with us isn’t enough for you… then compete with yourself, Six Eyes.” His grin had come back with a vengeance. “And make it flashy.”

“Naoya’s an attention whore,” Satoru had told Suguru later. “He always likes to stand out and cause a scene and have everyone’s eyes on him.”

“Well, then that’s nice for you, right?” Suguru had replied. “Since you get that attention all the time and you hate it so you’re always a bitch about it.”

“Excuse me? I may be an asshole with a shitty personality, but you’re way more bitchy than me.” But his bright blue eyes on Suguru had that too-wide, too-intense look that meant that there was way more going on in his head than what he said.

“I wouldn’t have to be so bitchy if you just behaved better,” Suguru had shot back, pulling a face because if Satoru wanted to devolve the conversation into insults then fine. Although it had kind of started out with insults anyway since he’d called Naoya an attention whore, but whatever.

Most of what Suguru noticed about Naoya was that he was just effortlessly charismatic. It wasn’t like he tried to get attention, he just attracted attention simply by being the way he was, which was confident, nonchalant, high-spirited and so, so damn bright, like sunlight was eternally gracing his skin, making his hair golden blond like that, making his aura blaze hotly like that. You didn’t really notice how sullen and wintry Satoru was until you saw him next to Naoya. It did make Suguru think, though, that Naoya stood up against Satoru well. That if there was anyone who could face or stand next to Satoru and not be completely smothered by him, whether in a battle or at a clan meeting, it was Naoya, so it was a good thing that Naoya was the Zen’in heir. It wasn’t good for any single clan to have too much power, and a lot of that depended on the clan leader, so it was good that it looked like the Zen’ins would be able to balance the Gojos.

Suguru heard that Satoru and Naoya clashed over who could exorcise the second-grade cursed spirit first, but he didn’t see it. All Satoru said about it later was a blasé, “Naoya’s fast, just not fast enough to beat me. Which is kinda sad, because the entire point of his innate technique is supposed to be speed. Although admittedly a lot of it with me is just that my eyes are really good so his tricks don’t work. It’ll be hilarious as fuck to watch him go up against someone else though. They’re not gonna have any idea what hit them.” When Gojo talked about Naoya, he seesawed so readily between derision, depreciation, esteem and some kind of almost possessive pride that it left Suguru muddled. But maybe that was how rivals worked: ‘Hey this is my rival and I hate him I mean just look at his stupid fugly face but also he’s really strong except of course he’s weaker than me but he’s stronger than you and basically everybody but yeah I hate him but if you even think of insulting him you’re an utter fucking idiot I mean he’s better than everybody I just hate him and he’s not anywhere as good as me and wow I hate his guts but haha I can’t wait to see him kick my teammate’s ass because that’s my rival that’s kicking ass here, isn’t he cool? But yeah I hate him and I will insult and mock him all the way to hell. You’d better admire him though he’s cool as fuck. Yeah I still hate him he’s a loser. But only to me. He’s a loser to me. But to everyone else he’s basically a minor god. It’s just that I’m a major god.’ (That was the gist that Suguru was getting, at least.)

When Suguru was the one who was chosen to go up against Naoya—or Naoya was the one who was chosen to go up against him, either way—he didn’t really know what to expect. Or, well, what he’d expected at that point was for Naoya to be like a slightly weaker, slightly slower Satoru without the Six Eyes or the Limitless abilities. Satoru might have mentioned that there was a mindfuck aspect to Naoya’s innate technique, but Suguru hadn’t thought to worry about it, and he hadn’t had any idea what to expect in regards to it anyway. But it really was a mindfuck, as if time were stopping for him and Naoya and the rest of the world were moving without him, like ‘blink and you miss it’ but for entire moments of his life. And then that wasn’t even mentioning the mindfuck that was Naoya having a trained cursed spirit that he was pulling cursed tools out of to fight with.

All in all, fighting Naoya wasn’t anything like fighting Satoru. Their style of hand-to-hand combat was totally different, as well. But Suguru wasn’t entirely sure which was worse: getting defeated by Satoru with Satoru being disdainful and contemptuous, or getting defeated by Naoya with Naoya looking like he was having the time of his life.

It would be a lie to say that Suguru wasn’t surprised to lose. He was. He’d expected Naoya to be strong, but he hadn’t expected Naoya to win. In retrospect, though, he thought that he really shouldn’t have been so surprised; for Naoya to have the easy, suave confidence that had, even in the face of talking to Satoru, there was obviously something to back up that unaffected manner.

Satoru wore his strength like chains, but Naoya wore his like second skin.

Suguru also felt that his own strength and his ability were a burden. It was admittedly one of the things that he and Satoru had bonded over, although they had different ideas of the meaning of the burden. But Naoya’s strength was something that he rejoiced in.

It took Suguru literal months of disorientation and confusion and distress before he put it all together and finally realized that that was the meaning of what Naoya had said to him after their battle: that Suguru should enjoy himself more. That to respect his cursed spirits meant to enjoy working with them, and to respect his opponents meant to enjoy fighting them, and enjoying it would make him stronger. That joy was strength in face of the horror of the world.

It changed the way Suguru thought about things, the way he looked at things. At cursed spirits; at strength; at the job of a sorcerer; at Satoru.

Yeah cursed spirits were ugly and horrific and disgusting, but why shouldn’t he enjoy manipulating them? Getting to make them his to use, using them to defeat others of their own kind; wasn’t there poetry in that? Even a little bit of godliness, getting to ingest rampant curses and make them his to use as he wished, every bit of negative energy he suffered to exorcise from the world joining him to make him stronger and become energy that he could use for positive means.

It tasted horrible to swallow the curses down; but it didn’t taste horrible to bring them back out, once they’d become part of him.

And to be that strong—why shouldn’t he enjoy it? Using his ability simply because he could. Why shouldn’t he enjoy himself while he was protecting people? If his strength and innate technique weren’t there to be used and reveled in, then what was even the point of having it?

It wasn’t that the strong had the responsibility to protect the weak; it was that the strong had the ability to protect the weak.

“Protecting the weak is such a pain.”

“With your power, there’s no reason why it should be a pain, Satoru. It should be easy for you. What’s so painful about it? I didn’t think you were that weak. Do I need to amend my opinion of you?”

“Who are you and why do you sound like Naoya.”

“He gave me some advice at the exchange event last year. I’ve just finally understood it, now.”

At that point, it was hard not to feel bad for Satoru. There was so much pressure on him, so much expectation, and he was almost too strong to carry it. Suguru understood Satoru’s view, but he’d come to consider Naoya’s a better one.

“I think Naoya was right and that we should try to enjoy ourselves more.”

“What’s there to enjoy about this?”

“My ability involves ingesting curses, which is like swallowing a rags that have been used to wipe up vomit and shit, and you’re telling me you have nothing to enjoy? You can literally fly Satoru.”

“Flying isn’t actually that cool.”

“Neither is manipulating cursed spirits. Or so I thought. Until I changed the way I thought about it. But just imagine if you suddenly couldn’t fly, Satoru. Wouldn’t that suck?”

“Okay, fine, I get your point. I get it. Yeah, it sucks to be me, but it would suck more not to be me. I get it.”

Suguru didn’t think Satoru truly did, but at least Satoru stopped griping so much, especially after one time he complained about their mission and how he didn’t want to do it Suguru told him to then go open a bakery, he’d look great in a chef hat and apron.

Still, though, it was easy to see that Satoru was unhappy and dissatisfied. Suguru didn’t know what to do about it, though. He knew that Satoru had fun with him, but happiness in the moment was different from satisfaction in life, and Suguru didn’t think that Satoru’s suffering was as simple as his own had been. He’d just loathed and been repulsed by curses and their existence and so had hated that his ability was manipulating them and so hadn’t done with it what he had the potential to. But Satoru was Gojo Satoru, the Six Eyes, was entrenched in the sorcerer world in a way Suguru probably couldn’t even begin to understand, having come from a non-sorcerer family. Suguru knew there was a lot going on for Satoru, but he certainly didn’t know what to do about it. He figured, too, that Naoya, being the Zen’in heir, was probably the only one who could possibly understand what it was like for Satoru.

At the beginning of their second exchange event when they met with the Kyoto students, it was once again clear how comfortable Satoru and Naoya were with each other, Naoya once again raising a hand and greeting gaily, “Satoru-kun, yo!” and Satoru greeted back, “Naoya-kun,” and then added a very typical-of-him remark, “the blond hair looks tasteless on you, as always,” which combined with his tone screamed familiarity.

“Fortunately it’s my hair and not yours, so whether you like it or not doesn’t matter, does it?” Naoya replied easily, smiling with incisive mirth, incisors catching the sun-glow when his lips pulled away from his teeth. “Worry about your own hair. Did you even brush it? You look liked you just rolled out of bed. Couldn’t sleep last night from nerves?”

“Do I look like I have dark bags beneath my eyes?” Satoru asked, tilting his head down to look at Naoya over the tops of his dark glasses while he pulled down the lid of one eye and stuck out his tongue.

“Doesn’t prove anything,” Naoya said, merry and lilting, spreading his hands. “Concealer is a thing that exists.”

“If you know that, that must mean you use it,” Satoru replied implicatingly.

In a second Naoya was suddenly standing close in front and slightly to the side of Satoru, holding a hand to block the view of his mouth from the other side as he said close to Satoru’s ear, in a lowered tone clearly not meant to be just for Satoru’s ears alone, but also not meant to be heard by those standing farther away like their teachers, like it was a joke just for the students, “Keep it on the low, but sometimes I go out at night to hang with my cousin. Which I’m technically not supposed to. Concealer is super useful for hiding the evidence. I recommend it!” He leaned back then, looking at Satoru with his smile impish, but something more serious in his eyes “Even if you don’t use it yet, I bet you’ll be using it eventually, Six Eyes. I mean,” he reached out a hand then literally placing his hand lightly against Satoru’s cheek and brushing a thumb gently beneath his eye, Satoru letting him, “it would be such a shame for dark bags to detract from this face, right? And the entire sorcerer world will always be looking at you, so I’m sure you’ll be busy…” he dropped his hand from Satoru’s face, stepping back and farther and grinning as he interlaced his fingers behind his head, saying louder, for everyone there, “the summers just keep getting crazier, don’t they? It’s nice and all to get some rest now that it’s fall and things have wound down, but I must admit I’ve been getting restless and would like to rest less…” he quirked his lips drolly as he held Satoru’s intense stare, “try to let us at least tire ourselves out a little bit before stealing the win, yeah?”

“So you admit that you guys are going to lose this year,” Satoru said, smirking, but there was a sharper, icier edge to him, like Naoya’s words, or perhaps the touch, had rubbed something raw in him.

“I said ‘stealing’ the win, not ‘earning’ it,” Naoya teased, lowering his arms and then brushing a hand back through his bangs, which proceeded to fall straight back into his face. “Satoru-kun, you think your win is so certain, and that we all should believe the same… what, you want us to not even try at all?” His gaze took on heat and his grin took on a mordant edge. “We’re all going to be going all out, Satoru-kun. Don’t expect us to let you win without your having to even try.” He closed his eyes and smiled more ebulliently, then, placing his hands together. “But tell you what, since you care so much about winning and losing, if we win, I’ll send you some concealer as a consolation present~♡ After touching your face and comparing your skin tone to mine I bet I can guess the correct shade for you!”

“Don’t worry, you won’t need to,” Satoru said, lifting his chin as he looked down at Naoya conceitedly. “You want me to send you something as a consolation gift when you lose?”

“Yeah,” Naoya said, opening his eyes to meet Satoru’s gaze unblinkingly but keeping his palms pressed together, his grin stretching wide and wild, “send me a bouquet of red camellia, like has historically been used to symbolize a noble death among Japanese warriors and samurai. I’ll treasure it until it dies.”

The red camellia also represented love.

“Well, then look forward to receiving that bouquet,” Satoru said with satirical magnanimity.

“Not enough to lose on purpose,” Naoya singsonged, pulling down one of his own eyelids and sticking his tongue out at Satoru.

Satoru actually gave an amused “Heh.”

It made it all the more horrifying when Satoru killed him.

Once again, in the team battle, Satoru and Naoya clashed for the second-grade cursed spirit, and Suguru didn’t see it, but this time it was Naoya who managed it first, and Suguru just heard from Satoru after “Tch. He got faster. Didn’t realize he could get that much faster in a year. I was just taken by surprise, is all.”

He was clearly annoyed, but he didn’t seem too upset, but Suguru would wonder later if Satoru had been more upset than he’d realized, and if that had added to what he’d done: being bested by Naoya not just once but twice.

Because the next day, at the individual battles, Satoru and Naoya ended up paired against each other, and nobody was really surprised. Judging by the number of Gojos and Zen’ins who’d showed up to watch, both clans had probably been expecting it, too.

Probably, though, everyone had still been expecting Satoru to win and Naoya to lose, even the Zen’ins. Satoru was the strongest, after all. It wasn’t a question of who would come out on top, but on how long Naoya would last and how much of a fight he’d be able to put up against the Six Eyes.

Certainly, nobody had expected Naoya to win. Satoru was such a powerhouse. Nobody could touch him. The day before everyone understood had been different; it hadn’t been a fight but a race. But this was a battle. What could Naoya possibly do, when Satoru had the Six Eyes that could see through his Projection Sorcery, Limitless that allowed him to fly and Infinity that prevented anything from hitting him?

It started as could be expected: Naoya getting throne around by Satoru’s ability, unable to even get near him.

Then Naoya brought out the cursed weapons from his cursed spirit, the blade and the golden chain. Then he showed everyone that he could get up in the air like Satoru. Then he showed that he had a tool that could break through Satoru’s technique, was capable of misdirection, had clearly gone into the fight with a plan, was well aware of Shoko’s reversed cursed energy ability because he did not shy from literally stabbing Satoru through and mercilessly slamming him down.

Everyone was shocked speechless. There was utter silence as Naoya was walking away to leave the arena. Satoru standing up and sending the ball of energy at him that took out his left arm and large portion of his chest was utterly surreal.

They all heard Naoya say bitterly, sardonically, “If I’d known that lethal attacks were allowed, I’d have killed you first, Satoru-kun.” They didn’t hear the rest of what he said before he died, and then collapsed. Satoru was standing there with his arm still stretched out from the attack, staring with wide eyes that were either shocked from his killing Naoya or else still enraged from Naoya’s having beaten him.

Naoya’s blood was spreading in a pool.

Satoru? What did you DO? Why would you…?

What have you DONE?

Satoru had fucking lost it, and he’d killed someone he shouldn’t have. Just because he’d had a fit of pique because someone had actually bested him for the first time in his life. And the person he killed wasn’t some random sorcerer, it was Naoya, who he’d actually seemed close with, and who on top of that was the heir of the Zen’in clan and the Zen’in and Gojo clans already had strife, and then Satoru had just—

If Satoru could kill Naoya, then who couldn’t he kill? Who wouldn’t he kill?

Satoru wasn’t the person that Suguru had thought he was.

After that, everything went to hell. Everyone on their feet, everyone shouting, exclaiming at once. Fights starting to break out. Shoko confirmed Naoya’s death. Satoru was taken away and locked in the Isolation Chamber. Naoya’s body was taken away. Seeing it up close, what Satoru’s power had done, Suguru was sick. He literally threw up on the ground. Someone said, “I feel you there, buddy…” but he wasn’t entirely sure who.

“I didn’t realize Satoru was like that,” Suguru said to the others later, quietly.

“None of us did,” Shoko said.

“Well, he always had the potential for it,” Mei Mei mused. “Seems he got triggered.”

“But…” Suguru struggled to speak. “Naoya was…”

“Yeah,” Shoko said, “I thought they were friends.”

“This is the problem with relationships not based on money,” Mei Mei sighed. “Only money actually guarantees anything. Emotions are too fickle. For the record, greed isn’t an emotion; it’s an inherent quality of being alive.”

“Nobody asked,” Utahime snapped. It said a lot that not even she was saying that she’d expect something like this from Satoru, given how much she hated him and always said he was the worst.

Haibara was still crying and sniffling. Suguru was pretty sure he hadn’t even known Naoya.

“There’s nothing that can be done about Zen’in Naoya’s death now,” Nanami said. “Nothing will change what Gojo’s done. I think at this point we should be worry about what will happen to the sorcerer world from hereon out. Given that the Gojo heir killed the Zen’in heir, there’s either going to be a cold war or a full-out war, depending. It will probably depend on how Gojo’s dealt with. There are arguments to be made for executing him, but there are also arguments to be made for keeping him alive. Personally, I think he should be psychologically evaluated before any conclusions are come to, but I don’t think the sorcerer world has any psychologists, and I don’t think any non-sorcerer psychologists would be able to properly assess anything. I think the main question, though, is how likely he is to do something like that again. If it’s a chronic issue with his mental state that he’ll act impulsively and violently like this, or if this was a special case. Given that I don’t believe he has any history of this, this may very well have been special, since this was the first time that he was beaten, and is likely to be the last. But there are some mental illnesses that don’t have their onset until one’s teens, so it could be the beginning of a larger problem as well.”

That left everyone staring at Nanami.

“I read books,” Nanami said, in answer to them all staring at him with ‘WTF’ clearly written on their faces. “For fun. In my freetime. When I have freetime. I lean towards psychology texts. Also philosophy.”

“Nobody asked,” Utahime said again, in just a slightly different tone.

“Everyone’s faces asked,” Nanami replied.

“What now?” Shoko asked.

“Go to bed, sleep for a week, hope it was all a dream when we wake up?” Suguru suggested.

“Sounds good to me,” Shoko agreed.

“The sandman accepts neither card nor cash,” Mei Mei drawled.

“What the fuck?” Utahime asked.

“I mean,” Mei Mei intoned, “that sleep doesn’t always come when you want it to, and isn’t guaranteed to stay as long as you’d like it to.”

“If there’s a sandman curse I will consume it and make it work for me,” Suguru decided.

“Well, I guess slave labor works,” Mei Mei shrugged.

It made Suguru think of Naoya’s cursed spirit, which had been more like a pet. What had happened to it? He was pretty sure it had still been alive and had been still curled around Naoya’s dead body as it had been taken away, the cursed spirit literally refusing to leave Naoya’s corpse. Suguru was pretty sure he’d heard it crying. What would happen to it now?

Fuck, he was actually concerned about a cursed spirit.

Naoya really had changed everything.

Satoru killing him even more so.

Because why? Why?

Why was the world this way? Why did sorcerers have to die just to protect non-sorcerers from their own curses? Why was that so important that they become sorcerers who could protect the weak that their schools pitted sorcerer students against each other, where accidents could happen and they could die? Why did they send out weak sorcerers to exorcise cursed spirits when Satoru was so strong he could’ve fucking done it all himself?

That was the main reason that they didn’t execute him, in the end. He was too strong to lose. The sorcerer world was understaffed and underpowered enough as it was. Even if Satoru occasionally snapped and killed a few of his fellows, his life was still worth the loss of theirs. He was strong enough for losing him to be worth losing three-quarters of the entire sorcerer population. As long as he didn’t kill that many, his life was worth it.

The first thing Satoru said when he saw them again was, “I didn’t mean to kill him.”

“That doesn’t change that you did kill him,” Suguru said. “It almost makes it worse, actually. That you can kill someone so easily on accident. At least if you’d meant to kill him, it would have meant that you understood your own power.”

“I’d never used that ability before. It won’t happen again.”

“‘It won’t happen again’? Even if it did, it wouldn’t be as bad as what you’ve already done. Out of all the people you could kill testing out an ability you’d never used before, you killed Zen’in Naoya. Name someone it would have been more problematic for you to kill, I dare you.”

“I could’ve killed Tengen.”

Oh, that made Suguru crack up, bitter inky black humor seething out of him.

He hated it. That Satoru could get away with killing his fellow sorcerers just because he was so strong. That he could kill a friend in a second just because he got angry. That Naoya’s death, despite causing an exponential rise in tensions and internal conflicts between the sorcerer clans and within the sorcerer world, was still ultimately accepted. That the exchange events were going to be kept. That even though Satoru was released, sorcerers were still dying. Like Haibara. And all this just to protect people from curses that they literally had created themselves.

Nanami left. Suguru didn’t blame him.

Exorcising curses just because you could was fine, but sorcerers like Haibara shouldn’t have to die doing it when Gojo fucking Satoru existed and was alive and free exactly because of how powerful he was.

Satoru had been mortal, for a moment, when Naoya had stabbed him. Then the window had closed, and mortal Gojo Satoru was no more.

He was truly unkillable, now. Since Naoya’s stabbing him had apparently caused him to figure out reversed cursed energy, which increased his power incredibly, some even argued that Zen’in Naoya’s death was more than worth it. That Gojo Satoru transformed was worth more than Zen’in Naoya and Gojo Satoru before put together. ‘One step back, three steps forward.’

It made Suguru furious. And why? Why? All this, just for exorcising curses? How good one was at exorcising curses and protecting non-sorcerers was the measure of power status.

Why not let non-sorcerers just die from the products of their own negative emotions? Protecting them meant protecting curses. It just didn’t make any sense. What was so wrong with just letting curses run rampant? Let non-sorcerers figure out their own ways to survive. Humans being preyed upon by curses was really just nature running its course. Maybe curses existed to help keep the human population in check. Why interfere?

That summer was a busy one. Suguru kept amassing curses, becoming ever stronger and more powerful. But to what end? It wasn’t like the sorcerer world needed him. They had Satoru. And the sorcerer world was shit. He could amass curses entirely by himself, for himself, without dealing with all their sickening bullshit.

So he left. Or more like, after one mission he simply didn’t go back.

He found other curse users outside of the sorcerer world who were of a similar mind as him. Live as you are, as you want. Take care of your friends and family. Fuck the rest of the world.

He didn’t know what had happened to Naoya’s cursed spirit. He amassed his own, simply so he’d be less powerless in the world and less alone. Sometimes he joked that he had an army of curses. Sometimes he joked that he had a curse petting zoo.

Terrible curses that other sorcerers would eradicate from the world, but which trembled with reverence and waited in obedience beneath his hand.

He hadn’t planned on having anything to do with the sorcerer world ever again. Up until he heard about Okkotsu Yuta and special-grade vengeful spirit Orimoto Rika. His thought at that point was, If I absorb her, I’ll be as powerful as Satoru.

He made mistakes, and wasn’t able to kill Okkotsu Yuta and absorb Orimoto Rika. In the end they defeated him, and then Satoru found him, as he was stumbling away with his left arm—like Naoya—completely gone.

Well, there was no getting out of this. Suguru let himself slump against the wall, lowering down to the ground. “Are you going to kill me like you killed Naoya, Satoru?”

“I’m not going to kill you like I killed Naoya,” Satoru said. “I killed Naoya without meaning to. I’m killing you entirely by intention.” His vivid glittery Six Eyes wide, glacial. Snow his eyelashes, snow his hair, deep blue ice his stare. Suguru shivered. The stump of his severed arm hurt like hell. Either it had hurt even more for Naoya, or else Naoya hadn’t even had the time to register the pain.

Crouching down next to him, Satoru said quietly, “You were my only best friend, Suguru.”

Suguru chuckled weakly, sardonically, letting his head fall back against the wall. “Apparently you kill all your friends, Satoru.”

Because then Satoru killed him, too.

---

Naoya was unfailingly blithe and sunny even in Satoru’s dreams.

“Satoru-kun, yo!”

“You’re dead, Naoya-kun. I killed you.”

“That’s not preventing me from being here.” And Naoya would press close, hand on Satoru’s face, balmy breath gracing Satoru’s lips. “It’s not preventing me from touching you.” Naoya’s fingers tracing down. “Nobody else has ever dared, have they? They all think you’re a god. But you’re mortal beneath my hands, Satoru-kun. I touched you deeper than you could withstand, didn’t I? And so you touched me back in the only way you knew how… and well!” Pulling back, laughing. “Guess what? I couldn’t withstand that, either! Now we’re the same! That day, we both…” and then Naoya was staring at him emotionlessly, left arm gone and a giant round hole carved out of the left side of his chest where his heart would have been, “became heartless.”

Satoru never cried while he was awake. But sometimes, he would awake from sleep with tears on his face.

Sometimes he avoided sleep, because it hurt too much and he didn’t like pain. Then he’d apply concealer to the dark bags beneath his eyes and go about his day, unfeeling, numbed.

Life wasn’t quite real. Ever since his cursed energy had bored through Naoya’s side, it was like everything had lost corporeality. Like it was all just a dream of being a god. He could destroy everything with a gesture, a thought, a little application of willpower. He couldn’t find the reasons not to. It was just that most of the time, he also couldn’t find the reasons to do so. So he just watched it all as if from behind a pane of glass separating him from himself, observing even his own emotional reactions without actually feeling them. He did what people told him and expected of him, unless he didn’t want to, and then he just did whatever he felt like, and it was mostly just for the hell of it because nothing mattered because nothing felt real. How could it be real, when he could destroy it all so easily? His mind swam with unreality.

Nobody was his friend anymore. They all hated him, or they feared him, or both. He was too powerful. Who would be friends with a god? You might as well go befriend a hurricane. Satoru was in the eye of the storm. The rest of the world around him was in violent chaos. It didn’t touch him at all. Nothing did. Nothing except for Naoya in his dreams.

Those dreams felt more real than his life he did. He actually felt, there. Cried there, hurt there, laughed there, loved there. Then he came back to this other life where everything was dreamlike in surreality and he didn’t feel things like he should, where he couldn’t make sense of things because everything made sense and yet nothing worked like it should. He exorcised curses, demolished buildings, ripped up the earth, and it all became destruction so easily. He could fly above everything, teleport anywhere, neither space nor time had any hold on him. He could stab himself through the head and not die. In what were probably the real dreams, he couldn’t fly, when Naoya touched him he felt it so acutely it made him cry, and when he or Naoya stabbed himself in the head he actually died. Then he woke up in the other dream. Other life. Where he couldn’t get back without dying, but had to actually fall asleep. But when he wanted to fall asleep he couldn’t, while when he didn’t want to fall asleep he couldn’t help it.

Satoru was simply too strong. What use did a god have in walking the earth? Nothing could touch or harm him but his own mind. And that took up Naoya’s form, Naoya’s likeness.

At some point, Suguru said that the dead are gone and will never come back. But no: only the dead never left you, because they were only and always in your head. Nobody else was his friend anymore, but Naoya hadn’t left him. And now Naoya wasn’t always talking about his cousin, wasn’t ignoring him, wasn’t walking away leaving him bleeding on the ground like taking him down had been unceremonious.

Naoya had looked disappointed.

That was why Satoru had used Hollow Purple. Had scrambled desperately to put together reversed cursed energy and then combine it with cursed energy and throw it at him.

Look at this.

Look at me.

I’m not done.

That wasn’t everything I have.

I’m more than that.

See this?

Look at me.

Yes it had shocked Satoru that Naoya had defeated him. That Naoya had gotten up to him in the air, had gotten through his Infinity, had stabbed him and brought him crashing down. But the worst part had been Naoya belittling him and then walking away like he had someone more important to see.

Always fucking talking about his cousin.

I’m not done. Look at me. See me. I’m more powerful than you realize. I’m the strongest.

Don’t fucking walk away, Naoya.

Even Naoya’s last words had been about his fucking cousin.

And then Naoya was dead. Satoru had killed him.

It hadn’t been what he’d wanted.

He’d just wanted more of that one time when Naoya had softly kissed him, the both of them knowing that Naoya was the only one who ever would. Nobody else would ever dare. Nobody else would ever want to.

It stayed on Satoru’s lips like a sunburn.

Satoru had wanted to give the red camellia.

He’d even have accepted the concealer, after getting over the shock of the loss, because it would’ve been a gift from Naoya. Or at least, that was what he’d thought, what he’d told himself, originally, in the time directly following Naoya’s death. But as time went on, he finally realized: Naoya’s fate had been sealed as soon as he’d defeated Satoru without killing him.

Satoru was the Six Eyes. He was the strongest. Nobody who defeated him could be allowed to live. Because if he could be defeated, then he wasn’t the strongest anymore. And if he wasn’t the strongest, then he wasn’t anything. The strongest was all that he was. For as long as he was alive, he had to be the strongest. Nobody could defeat him. Not even Naoya.

Naoya shouldn’t have defeated him.

Satoru had just wanted to give him the motherfucking flowers.

Naoya shouldn’t have dismissed him and walked away from him like he was done with him. Always talking about his fucking cousin after having left that burning kiss on Satoru’s lips. Satoru was the Six Eyes and Naoya just kept going on about his cousin?

It wasn’t really that Naoya had stabbed him, but that after just that he had walked away. As if just getting stabbed and slammed into the ground were enough to defeat him?! He was Gojo Satoru. And Naoya was the largest fucking hypocrite, telling Satoru that he didn’t respect his opponents enough and then dismissing him, not respecting that Satoru was the fucking Six Eyes and the strongest and he’d never fucking lay down until he was six feet beneath the ground.

Oh, the anger and indignation came and went. The sorrow and agony came and went. The hopelessness and frustration came and went. He watched it all from behind the glass in his head, feeling like a dangerous animal in an enclosure at a zoo.

He was too fucking strong.

“Strength is a blessing,” Naoya said.

“No,” Satoru said. “Strength is a curse.”

When Satoru killed Suguru, he didn’t feel anything.

Heartless indeed, huh, Naoya?

Satoru was a god walking the earth.

Only in his dreams was he mortal.

---

Years after Naoya’s death, Satoru finally met his cousin.

Ah, so this is what it’s like when two gods meet and clash.

Naoya’s cousin was just as strong and empty as Satoru.

Guess he had a type.

Naoya had been too alive, and it had killed him.

When Naoya’s cousin killed Satoru, he didn’t really die, because he hadn’t really been alive. He’d already died countless times in his dreams. This was just the same again.

Maybe that was his personal hell: dying over and over again for infinity.

---

This time when he came to awareness, he was in a train station.

“Satoru-kun, yo!” Naoya bounding up to him, grinning, all sun. “I probably shouldn’t be so glad to see you since this means that you’re dead, but I’m really glad to see you here! I was getting really lonely all by myself. And hey, hey, Toji-kun killed you, right? Isn’t he amazing?”

“Yeah,” Satoru said softly. “He’s your cousin alright, Naoya-kun. I understand why you were always talking about him now.”

Naoya looked so happy Satoru could cry. “Right? He’s a lot like you, just the opposite, and cuter.”

Satoru snorted. “Considering that you thought that cursed spirit of yours was cute, I don’t think you’d know what cute is if it slapped you in the face.”

“Wanna slap me in my face and see?” Naoya smiled, light in his golden eyes dancing.

Satoru didn’t even have a heart, but something in his chest was clawing, trying to escape. Maybe it was the dangerous animal that he’d always kept locked there because it was too fucking strong and couldn’t be contained by anyone but him. “Wanna slap me instead and see if I’m any better at knowing what cute is than you?”

“If you’re better than me,” Naoya was full of teasing and merriment, “you should be able to tell without needing to be slapped.”

Satoru was laughing, hopelessly.

Please, just this once, let this not be a dream.

Rubbing at his eyes because burning as if Naoya had kissed them. “I killed you, Naoya-kun.”

“So?”

“‘So?’?”

“We’re both dead now, so what does it matter anymore?” Naoya shrugged, flippant, but both the gold and the darkness of his eyes glittered and his lips curled like tendrils of smoke. “Besides, Toji-kun is the one who killed you. I couldn’t be prouder. I’m sad that I didn’t get to watch him grow up, but…” his expression turned solemn, serene, “I don’t regret beating you, Satoru-kun. Even if it made you kill me. I mean…” the smirk was back, but his gaze was soft, “I showed that it was possible to return to a god his mortality. It was what I kept trying to tell you, you know. That gods aren’t immortal. They just climbed so high they got lost in the heavens amid all the stars. That’s what happens, see, when you try to touch the sun…” despite the train station’s dim Naoya’s pupils were contracted small, nearly disappearing in the circles of gold that were his irises, “sometimes you get so close, you end up on the other side of it."

It gave Satoru shivers, and he swallowed thickly. “And now?”

“Now?” Naoya smiled as he stepped close, reaching out a hand as if his fingers would meet with Satoru’s Infinity. “The light-years between two stars in space doesn’t matter when you view them from the surface of the earth.” His hand passed through the space, because there was no Infinity there, and curved up to rest against Satoru’s cheek, Naoya pressing closer, looking at him intently. “They might be a mind-numbing distance apart in the darkness of the universe, but in the constellations of the night sky, they might be…” he kissed Satoru’s jaw, “right…” he kissed the corner of Satoru’s mouth, “next to each other…” he kissed Satoru’s lips, and then moved to press closer still, embracing him and intertwining them, breath tickling Satoru’s ear as he murmured, “or even so close they look like one and the same.”

Satoru shivered, and Naoya exhaled, tucking his face against Satoru’s neck. “There’s no Infinity anymore, Satoru-kun. There’s only Eternity.” Letting go of Satoru and pulling back, leaving him cold, Naoya smiled with closed eyes, “Welcome to Death.”

Notes:

i think i already used a lucid dream/reality confusion thing for Satoru before in a fic haha, but it just works so well for him... death in the jjk world canonically being a train station tho lmao

the part of this chapter title in parenthesis comes from one of my favorite Friedrich Nietzsche poems "Vereinsamt" (Lonely). i rlly love it so i like sharing it with ppl lol, but i don't like any of the translations i found online so i did my own

so RANDOM INFLICTION OF NIETZSCHE POEM lol♡

Lonely

The crows are crying
And drawing in whirring flights to the city:
Soon it will snow –
Well is he who still – has a home!

Now you stand numb,
Look backwards, ah! how long it’s been!
What are you fool
In front of winters in the world – escaped?

The world – a door
To a thousand deserts silent and cold!
One who has lost
What you have lost, comes nowhere to a halt.

Now you stand wan,
To winter-wandering damned,
Same as the smoke
That forever seeks for colder heavens.

Fly, bird, snarl
Your song in your desert-bird-tone! –
Hide, you fool,
Your bleeding heart in ice and scorn!

The crows are crying
And drawing in whirring flights to the city:
Soon it will snow,
Woe to he who has no home!

Translator's Note that the lines "What are you fool / In front of winters in the world – escaped?" doesn't make much sense but not even the native German speakers in my German literature class knew what that line was supposed to mean in the German lol, there were a lot of different interpretations of it

anyways, being in a very 'i must share the things that i like bc fjdksljklk they're cool' mood (me being social and this is my social life lol), for Suguru's pov this chapter i was listening to fenekot - Off the Deep End which is a super super Suguru-coded song that i've had bookmarked for a while to write with sometime for him

for Satoru's pov this chapter i was listening to Faun - Hörst du die Trommeln (Do You Hear The Drumming) bc it just fits so so well with Satoru's situation here, lyrics like "Deine Taten werden bleiben / Es gibt keinen Weg zurück" (The things you've done will stay / There's no way back) and i just love the sound, it's been a fav for years

next chapter: Fushiguro Naoya (Megumi) :) except i have no idea how it's gonna go except that Toji is never abandoning a son that he named after his older cousin/fav person in the world

as for Sukuna and Kenjaku... i have no idea :') the one thing i do know is that there's no Culling Game bc in this au Toji was a killer-for-hire when the Star Plasma Vessel mission happened, so Gojo and Geto delivered her to Tengen no problem. ignoring their canonical plan to abscond with her. so Tengen had the merger, so he's not in the weird 'higher being' state that would make the whole Merging With Tengen thing possible. so Kenjaku has Geto's body, but can't do the Culling Game or weird merger thing... so i have no idea what he's doing instead lol. and i have not thought at all about Sukuna's status in this fic. but the crack!y idea in my head is the possibility of Sukuna throwing down with a bunch of sorcerers sort of in the neighborhood of Toji's house and he was taking a nap and he comes out like "Who the fuck is making all that racket?" and it's basically Toji the twenty-something-year-old irritable old grandpa trying to chase the 1,000-year-old punk teen Sukuna off his lawn bc IT'S FUCKING 8AM STOP PLAYING KICK-THE-CAN WITH FUCKING AUTOMOBILES AND GO TO SCHOOL
lol. probly not gonna happen but it's a funny idea
meanwhile, Fushiguro Naoya: Dad, breakfast is burning...

lmao my author notes are gonna be longer than the chapter

anyways!! if you enjoyed this chapter, make sure to let me know with a kudo or comment :)

Chapter 3: Prey the Sky (Nothing but drifting smoke left after the fireworks bloom, fallen short of the stars and moon, in dazzling tatters)

Notes:

title for this chapter does not come from anywhere, i made it up :)

Toge, Yuta, Maki and Mai all make pov appearances in this one

there were thoughts in my head, but now they have all fled...

I wanted to reply to comments on the last chapter but by the time i finished writing this my brain died and now i'm struggling to string together a single coherent thought or even read what i've written, so i'll have to go back and reply later, i at least want to get this chapter up

Thank you for the kudos and the wonderful comments, and i hope you all enjoy this chapter!

---

Inumaki Toge was cursed with Cursed Speech that he couldn’t control. He kept hurting people, damaging himself. So the Inumakis called Gojo Satoru.

Toge would always remember the first time time meeting him. Overwhelming cursed energy like a dark plummeting sky, that stark white hair and those wide, scintillating bright blue eyes that seemed to see everything and yet be completely unfocused and unseeing at once, like even when he stared straight at you his attention was always on his peripheral. He saw you but he wasn’t paying attention to you, because he was paying attention to everything, and you were just a small insignificant part of it. He walked lightly, but every step he took towards you was that sky falling closer and closer to obliterate you, and when he walked away, he was taking that apocalypse somewhere else.

Toge would never forget his words, the expressions on his face, empty and cold as a dark misty hell. “You’ve been accidentally hurting people with your Cursed Speech, huh? No wonder they called me. After all, I know better than anyone what that’s like… and what it is to accidentally kill someone. And let me tell you, Toge: you do not want to end up doing that. Ever. I know of no greater curse one can place upon oneself than to live the rest of one’s life with that. So Toge, you’re better off not risking it. At all. Outside of exorcising cursed spirits and any other fight situation, limit your dialogue to words that can’t imbue cursed energy. Don’t break the rule. When fighting other sorcerers, be careful which energy-imbued words you use. The way to not hurt others unintentionally is simple, it just requires self-discipline. Toge… I was upset and I tried to show off the extent of my power, and I killed someone important to me and robbed this world of a great sorcerer. I pay for it everyday. Conduct yourself better than me, so you don’t end up living so miserably. Name your favorite food, Toge.”

“Rice balls.”

“From now on, only respond to people in rice ball ingredients. And use saying those ingredients as a reminder to yourself. Because if you seriously injure or kill someone accidentally with your ability, not even your favorite food will be enjoyable at all. I used to love sweets, but I can’t taste them anymore. It’s all just ash and mud in my mouth now. So if you want to continue to enjoy rice balls, and every other joy in life, use those ingredients to control your speech. Does that sound acceptable?”

“…Salmon.”

Gojo’s pale chapped lips had curved ever so slightly, then. “Very good.”

After that, Toge only ever spoke in rice ball ingredients. Whenever he opened his mouth about to say something else, Gojo’s haunted face would come to his mind’s eye, and he would stop himself.

He’d been a kid at the time, and he hadn’t known what had happened with Gojo and who he’d killed, but he’d learn later, and then he’d wonder at how it was so long before he’d heard when it seemed like everyone was always mentioning it. How he’d killed Zen’in Naoya in the Tokyo-Kyoto sister school exchange event because Zen’in Naoya had beaten him.

Toge would get nightmares, sometimes, of killing his family or his friends, of doing the same as Gojo and killing another student in the exchange event.

His Cursed Speech was for exorcising cursed spirits. What did he have to use it against other sorcerers for?

He focused on honing hand-to-hand combat skills and using cursed tools so he had more he could do and didn’t have to rely on his dangerous innate technique.

Nanami Kento had been one of Gojo’s fellow students who had left, had apparently studied psychology before coming back to be a teacher at the Tokyo school. He also created for himself the new role of mental health counselor.

When Nanami asked him why he didn’t use his Cursed Speech, and Toge explained in rice ball ingredient speech that he was afraid of hurting others (“Mustard leaf”), Nanami had told him that it wasn’t healthy for him to be afraid of himself, and that he should try focusing on controlling his ability rather than suppressing, Toge had just shook his head and said, “Fish flakes. Tuna mayo. Tuna tuna.”

I’d rather live my life afraid of myself than hating myself, and I’d rather be full of anxiety than full of depression and regret. Just look at Gojo.

Nanami had sighed. “Well, I understand your feelings. But you’re not Gojo Satoru. You’re Inumaki Toge.”

“Salmon,” Toge had agreed. “Spicy cod roe.” That’s why I’m doing things my way, because my friends are more important to me than my power.

Gojo wasn’t a teacher until he was basically forced to be one by the appearance of Okkotsu Yuta. After he saw Toge sparring, he said with that small curve of pale chapped lips, “Ah, you’re like Mei Mei. Not letting your cursed technique define your strength. I’m proud of you, Toge. Maybe, like her, once you’ve done all you can with your physical ability, you’ll have the confidence to go back and master your innate technique.”

For whatever reason, it was only after Gojo was killed by the summoned Zen’in Naoya in Shibuya that Toge actually considered doing so at all, as if Gojo’s death had freed him from the shackles of fear that had burdened him. Whether that was from no longer having Gojo around as a living reminder of the worst case scenario of what he could become, or from Gojo’s death by the hand of the person he’d killed giving the comfort that karma would always have its way, Toge didn’t know for sure.

All he knew for sure was that, after Gojo’s death by Zen’in Naoya’s hand in Shibuya and the easing of tensions between the Zen’in and Gojo clans, everything in the sorcerer world felt lighter and less haunted.

---

Yuta was huddled on the chair in the windowless room full of candles and talismans, when the door opened and the most beautiful man he’d ever seen came in. Tall and slim, platinum-white hair mussed with such careless casualness it looked artistic, fine features, the most stunning bright blue eyes, movements light and utterly at ease as he pulled over the other chair and turned it around, sitting on it backwards to fix Yuta with his intense stare, firelight flickering at the surfaces of his bright blue eyes.

He held up a familiar knife with a twisted blade, making Yuta’s gut twist.

“Alright, I’m not very interested, so I’m not going to ask, I’m just going to say what I think, since you’re enough of a problem that they actually went and called me, which they only do when they literally have no other option, because I’m the strongest, and they need me even though they hate that they need me because they hate me. But I hate me too, so it’s okay. I’m just saying, I’m not happy to be here so I’m not gonna be gentle with you. You tried to kill yourself with this knife and your special-grade vengeful cursed spirit girlfriend Rika-chan prevented you. Now what I’m wondering is, why the fuck are you trying to kill yourself when your loved one is still with you?” He tossed the twisted knife down on the floor, and Yuta flinched as it clattered.

“I don’t want to hurt anyone anymore…”

“You’re not hurting them, Rika-chan is, and she’s only hurting them ‘cause you’re a weak pussy,” the man said. “She’s protecting your sorry ass. So stop needing protecting, and she’ll stop hurting others. She hasn’t even actually killed anyone, which I’m guessing is ‘cause you begged her not to. And she listened to you, so isn’t that something? Now, but what I do want to know is, do you hate her? Or do you love her?”

“I…”

“Spit it out. Do you want her with you, or do you want her gone?”

“I… I just don’t want to hurt anyone anymore…”

“Oh for god’s sakes!” The man stood abruptly, literally kicking the chair aside, somehow managing to avoid hitting any candles. “I literally do not have the patience for this.” He stalked over and grabbed Yuta by the collar, lifting slightly, fixing him with blue eyes like the burning hearts of flame. “It’s not like I don’t know what it’s like to accidentally hurt someone! I accidentally killed the person I loved! Did you kill Rika-chan? No, you did not. Is she gone from your life forever? No, she is not. So do I have sympathy for your bullshit? No, I do not. Stop feeling fucking sorry for yourself. If the person I loved had gotten hit by a car and then came back as a vengeful ghost that never left my side, I’d be fucking happy right now. But no—I killed him with my cursed energy because I got upset and used a technique I shouldn’t have, and now he’s dead and he’s never coming back. Not only is your girlfriend still with you, you haven’t even killed anyone! Much less anyone you care about! The solution to your problem is literally so simple and easy that I am frustrated beyond belief that you never figured it out yourself! If you didn’t get bullied she wouldn’t have to beat anyone up to protect you! Didn’t you ever think of that?! Of getting stronger and standing up for yourself so that she doesn’t have to?! What are you doing getting protected by your girlfriend, huh? Aren’t you a man? Shouldn’t you be strong for her?? Whether she were still a living human, whether she’s a cursed spirit, what does it matter if you love her? Stop being so damned pathetic and bemoaning your life when you could literally have everything if you’d just—!!”

The man let go of Yuta’s collar roughly and turned, Yuta watching with wide eyes and pounding heart, ringing in his ears as the man started pacing in a small circle around the stone floor, hand to his face, muttering to himself. “Is this for fucking real? Or is this just some especially stupid dream? I can’t believe this shit. But if this were a dream, Naoya-kun would be here… and it probably wouldn’t be this stupid. Fuck. What do they even expect me to do with this kid? I mean, yeah I could kill him, but I don’t want to deal with this! But oh, what does it matter if I kill another sorcerer?? I’ve already killed Zen’in Naoya! And if I can kill him, who can’t I kill?? I could literally kill anyone!! I could kill everyone! And this fucking kid is so powerful that he could so easily take care of himself, so what the fuck is his problem?! Where does he get off being so damned weak and pathetic feeling so damned sorry for himself?! I don’t want to deal with this! If Naoya-kun had just gone ahead and killed me first back then, I wouldn’t have to be dealing with any of this! But now not even I can kill myself! I understand that he’s more or less like me in that way, neither of us can be executed, but I really don’t want to have to deal with someone like him who’s choosing to be all weak and pathetic even though he’s powerful and who’s choosing to be all miserable and sorry for himself even though the person he loves is still with him despite having died. I only get to see Naoya-kun in my dreams! Actually, I wonder what he’d look like as a cursed spirit. Not that it matters because he will never be one because he was killed by cursed energy. This is annoying! It’s fucking summer and I haven’t slept in weeks because cursed spirits are crawling everywhere like bugs and I’m literally over half of the entire sorcerer world’s power! And that’s a low estimate! I just wanted to go home and finally sleep and see Naoya-kun again but then I get called in to deal with this! Fucking—!!”

He stomped the other chair to pieces, cursing, and then he raised both hands to his head, fingers curling tightly in his hair and starting to mutter, “Don’t kick the splintered pieces into the candles and start a fire, don’t kick the splintered pieces into the candles and start a fire, don’t kick the splintered pieces into the candles and start a fire—”

There was an unfamiliar kind of painful feeling in Yuta’s chest as he slowly unfolded. He felt… bad, guilty, but not the same way as he did about the people Rika hurt. He felt… chastised. He also felt bad for the man who clearly was not okay, was in acute pain and so sleep-deprived he probably could barely think straight and whatever mental or emotional stability he may have was probably shot.

“I’m sorry,” Yuta managed to find his voice, strengthening his will as the man stopped muttering to look at him. “You’re right. I’ve been weak. I want to get stronger. What do I need to do?”

“Oh, good,” the man said, dropping his hands from his hair. “This means that Nanami’s up." As he turned to leave, he muttered, “Why didn’t they make him deal with this kid in the first place? Didn’t he even study psychology?” And then he opened the door and left, the door closing firmly behind him, and Yuta was left there feeling awkward and uncertain and belatedly befuddled by the entire visit, until finally the door opened again and a tall blond man with a severe face came in, introducing himself as Nanami Kento, the teacher at Tokyo Jujutsu High, and he asked if Yuta truly did want to become a sorcerer and master his ability and Yuta tightened his fists on his thighs and said yes.

It turned out though that they made the man from before, Gojo Satoru, his tutor, since they were of similar power level and apparently Yuta was actually related to the Gojos. Gojo told him cynically that they also probably hoped that one of them would kill the other. Yuta quickly learned more about the exchange event ten years ago when Gojo had accidentally killed Zen’in Naoya, and the current cold war between the Gojo and Zen’in clans, the tensions through the sorcerer world. It was always being talked about. People avoided Gojo, except for when they needed him and his power, and Yuta felt bad but he thought it was probably for the best, because Gojo really wasn’t stable. Spending more time with him, going on missions with him and sparring with him, Yuta learned that Gojo mostly had two modes: angry, unhinged and excessively destructive—he usually got like that on missions, when exorcising cursed spirits or doing anything involving fighting—or else torpid and depressed, barely animated and barely seeming to have any will, almost like a living puppet—which, it turned out, was the way he was most of the time.

Yuta really did feel bad for him. He couldn’t even imagine what it would be like if he’d accidentally killed Rika. The very idea made him sick.

“What was Naoya like?” he chanced to ask, when Gojo was in what seemed to be an especially wistful mood.

Gojo exhaled quietly. “Have you ever seen someone with so much charisma that they seem to glow, and they illuminate wherever they are and become practically all you can pay attention to? He dyed his black hair blond, he got his ears pierced, he wore the weirdest combination of traditional and modern clothes, he was always grinning, always confident, always rakish. Nobody could ever win against him with words, he was too good with them, he’d run circles around everyone. He did that physically, too, he was fast as hell because of his innate technique. He…” Gojo’s scintillating bright blue eyes that had been on the sunlight gracing the dancing leaves of the breeze-blown trees lowered to the shadowed ground where all the fallen leaves lay, turning brown. “He was so unapologetically alive. He could be an arrogant jerk and so it was both easy and fun to curse him, but he’s the last person you’d want to die. It would be like annihilating the sun…”

Yuta imagined the sun being annihilated and the entire world becoming utterly dark and bitterly cold, and it gave him shivers to picture it, and it hurt his heart to think that that was Gojo’s world.

Later that year, Geto Suguru, a Curse Manipulator from Gojo’s student days, led an attack and tried to kill Yuta to take Rika. Yuta won, but Geto got away.

Or so he’d thought, until Gojo walked back carrying Geto’s dead body.

“He was my best friend.” Gojo was regarding Geto’s dead face phlegmatically. “Now I’ve killed the person I loved, and also my best friend…” he looked up at Yuta, then. “See, this is why I didn’t want to kill you: because I knew, after killing Naoya-kun, that no matter who I killed, or how many, I would never feel anything.”

And then he continued walking, and Yuta once again had chills.

Wasn’t that why he had begged Rika not to die, and had ended up cursing her?

He hadn’t wanted to end up like Gojo, living the rest of his life utterly numb and empty except for those moments when the rage at the unfairness of the world took hold.

A couple years later, when Yuta found Gojo’s dead body in Shibuya, Gojo’s expression was like he’d fallen into an exhausted sleep that he desperately, desperately needed, and was now resting gratefully and deeply.

As Yuta picked up Gojo’s cooling body, augmenting his physical strength with his cursed energy like Gojo had taught him, he murmured, “I hope that you get to see Naoya-kun again on the other side, Gojo-sensei.”

---

“Welcome to Death.”

It was peaceful, Satoru thought. The liminal space of the empty train station. Empty except for Naoya, softly aglow like the underworld’s sun.

Guess it made sense that the underworld would be an underground train station. They certainly weren’t going into the heavens.

But it almost seemed like they could be; in the dim Naoya was so bright, like the moon at night if you could make the moon gold and the night a shadowy gray with train rails instead of constellations. Maybe the trains would trace them through patterns between the stars; it almost felt that way. Because with Naoya there and looking like that, how could it be anything other than idyllic? His life had been hell compared to this vacant platform, where he could reach out and intertwine his and Naoya’s fingers.

“Naoya-kun.” There was something he would’ve died just to know. “Why did you turn and walk away from me?”

“Satoru-kun,” Naoya looked at him helplessly, “I spent basically the entire night devising a strategy to beat you. I barely got any sleep. I was wired as hell. Beating you, the strategy working, I just felt relieved and exhausted. I just wanted to go back to my bed to sleep. Satoru-kun, I…” Naoya glanced away, fingers tightening over Satoru’s knuckles. “I hated seeing your face. I didn’t feel smug at winning. I didn’t want to gloat or bask in it. The pain and the shock on your face, Satoru-kun—it didn’t look like it was supposed to be there. It wasn’t supposed to be there. Everyone expected you to win. I wasn’t supposed to beat you, Satoru-kun.” He looked back to meet Satoru’s gaze, gold eyes too honest, painfully so. “I wanted to get away. I didn’t want to deal with it. I just wanted to go crawl under the covers and sleep for a week and not face anything.” He exhaled, gaze lowering. “I didn’t blame you for attacking me again Satoru-kun. You were supposed to win. I just… hadn’t expected you to kill me.” He gave a wry laugh. “I really… wanted to live.”

His eyes were back on Satoru’s, silent but begging, tearless but crying. “Toji-kun only had me, you know. I wanted to live to be there for him…” He looked away again, his voice quiet as he said, “You know, the thing I loved about Toji-kun most was that with him, I didn’t feel alone anymore. Being alone sucks. I didn’t want to leave him alone like that, in a world that disparages and fears him. So I just… feel bad. That I won and drove you to that.” He glanced back at Satoru, a flare in gold eyes, something like the specter of anger. “But I was never going to not try my hardest. It was just that my hardest wasn’t supposed to be enough. And it felt like you hadn’t even tried against me at all. Even me giving me everything shouldn’t have been enough to beat you, Satoru-kun. So why was it? You’re the strongest. I should’ve been able to give it my all and still get defeated by you. I wasn’t stronger than you. I guess I just took you off guard because I guess you didn’t expect me to have thought out a strategy, and you probably didn’t know that I had the Inverted Spear of Heaven that could get through your Infinity, but still. If you’d been truly, actually trying, you could still have beaten me, Satoru-kun. We both know that. But everything’s always been so easy for you, so you didn’t take even me seriously, did you? To be honest, I was upset, Satoru-kun. That you hadn’t put in the effort to beat me. It would’ve been better for both of us if I’d lost. I walked away like that because I didn’t want to deal with the ramifications of me winning.”

He regarded Satoru sullenly. “I wish you’d beaten me but let me live, Satoru-kun.”

Satoru didn’t even have a heart; there was only throbbing emptiness in his chest. “I didn’t mean to kill you.”

“I know,” Naoya said, gold eyes illuminating too much of the darkness. “The horror was obvious on your face.”

Satoru tightened his own fingers over Naoya’s hand. His voice was small: “I just hadn’t wanted you to walk away from me like that.”

“Then you should’ve just used Blue to draw me back to you,” Naoya said. “Red to knock me away if you wanted to show off the reversed cursed energy.” His eyes glistened as he smiled brokenly. “Why did you use Purple?”

“Because it was the most impressive technique I had,” Satoru said. “I hadn’t expected it to hit you. I thought you’d dodge. You’re so fast. You could’ve avoided it easily.”

Naoya sighed, his shoulders slumping. “My brain had gone into shutdown and was barely functioning. I didn’t process what was happening until it had gone through me.” The glistening of his eyes beaded to tears, which trickled down to gloss his trembly smile. “Satoru-kun… we really were just a couple 17-year-old kids trying not to break under the weight of the expectations our clans and the entire sorcerer world had placed on us. We were both just trying to live up to what we were supposed to be.” He raised his hand that wasn’t interlaced with Satoru’s to wipe at his eyes with his knuckles. “It was an accident that came from us both just trying as hard as we could to impress, like we'd always done, like we'd always had to. We can’t blame each other for that, can we? I mean,” he met Satoru’s gaze from over the hand that dragged tears across his cheek, “we were the same.”

Satoru felt his own shoulders slump, resigned. “It ruined both our lives.”

Naoya exhaled shakily. “The world broke us, Satoru-kun. That’s all that happened.” Satoru didn’t realize he was crying until Naoya reached out to brush the tears from beneath his eye. “The world broke us both.” His smile became warmer and fonder, if still saddened: “At least Toji-kun is stronger. I hope he lives a life that he can be glad that he lived.”

“I didn’t,” Satoru said.

“I did,” Naoya said, giving him that stare that was like the early autumn morning sun burning the surface of one’s skin while the cold remained nestled deep in one’s bones. “But it would’ve been better if I’d killed you before you could kill me. For both of us, I think.”

“You would have had to kill me purposefully,” Satoru pointed out. “And you never would have done that.”

“That’s true,” Naoya mused, going thoughtful. “Well, I could’ve done it accidentally, if I’d been a little less smart. But wow, that would really have sucked.” His looked at Satoru like he was finally, for the first time, truly seeing him. “You’re right, Satoru-kun. Killing someone on purpose and killing them on accident is completely different. Damn. You really must have had it rough.” He nodded to himself, concluding, “Dying was better. Than living with having accidentally killed you would have been.” His lips curled as he looked back at Satoru elfishly, then. “Did you leave those red camellia at my grave?”

“No.” It would’ve felt like mockery.

“Boo,” Naoya pouted.

Of course Naoya would still have wanted the flowers on his grave. “I wanted to give them to you in person,” Satoru said, pleadingly appeasing. He turned his gaze away, squeezed Naoya’s hand, said softly, “I dreamt about you all the time, you know.”

“Only after I died, or before, too?” Naoya sounded nothing but curious.

“Mostly after,” Satoru said. “Although I guess you started showing up in them after you kissed me.” He looked back up at Naoya, seeking, aching. “Why did you, even?” It was another question he would’ve died just to know the answer to.

Naoya looked at him candidly. “Because you were beautiful and heartbreaking and I wanted to. Why did you kiss me back?”

Satoru swallowed, gaze lowering to Naoya’s hakamashita. “Because you were warm and bright and felt indomitable.”

Naoya huffed and chuckled. “I was always told that I came off as confident, even when I had absolutely no fucking idea what I was doing or if it would work.” His tone was both amused and wry.

Satoru glanced back up at him. “I got really jealous when you were always talking about your cousin, you know.”

Naoya looked comically astonished. “But he was such a cute kid!”

“He wasn’t that cute,” Satoru muttered. “I did see him once, after the team battle that time. I just forgot about it.”

Naoya looked at him in genuine shock. “You didn’t see how strong he was?”

“He was a kid and he had zero cursed energy,” Satoru said. “What was there to see?”

Now Naoya looked confused, uncomprehending. “But I saw it immediately. How he had left the rules of the world behind. His overwhelming intensity. I mean,” he regarded Satoru strangely, searchingly, “haven’t you ever looked up at the night sky, realized it as the most monstrous and also the most beautiful thing you’d ever seen, and felt all the starry darkness in the air in your lungs when you breathed?”

“No,” Satoru said, flummoxed, “what the fuck? And what does that have to do with Toji?”

“It was the same feeling for both,” Naoya told him, looking at him earnestly. “A defiance of boundaries, an inexplicable reality, an exhilarating wonder. You were like the moon, Satoru-kun: high and silvery bright and eerie and looking celestial and cold. Toji-kun may not have been the stars, but he was all the darkness in between them; and so all the stars were in him even without being him. But just nobody realized—because they always just look at the light—how the darkness is where the truest strength is.” He tilted his head slightly, then, assessing Satoru consideringly. “I guess with your Six Eyes, you were always just looking for the cursed energy.” The curl of his lips was as enigmatic as his stare: “You may have basked in the light, Satoru-kun. But it was the darkness in which you dreamed.”

Satoru could only shake his head. “You’re not making any damned sense.”

“Toji-kun is capable of the impossible,” Naoya said, slowly, like Satoru was stupid. “Because just like in a dream, the rules of reality don’t apply to him. Every wall that stops me and you… he just walks right through. Every eye that we must tiptoe carefully under, he can stomp the ground because they don’t see him. Everything that your common sense tells you can’t be done, it’s never told him. He will do it anyway. Satoru-kun,” he smiled, then, indulgent, “if you were like a living god, he’s like a walking, breathing nightmare.”

Okay, okay, Satoru gave up. He asked instead, “So if he went up against the King of Curses, who do you think would win?”

“Against Sukuna?” Naoya said, his smile growing teeth. “Winning against him should be impossible, which is literally Toji-kun’s specialty. So Toji-kun would win. I’d bet you any money on it.”

“You don’t have any money,” Satoru pointed out.

Naoya gave a put-upon sigh, lamenting, “Still not used to being broke.”

“Only broken?” Satoru asked idly.

“Only to being in the continual process of breaking without end,” Naoya said, those gold eyes lancing through him, hitting something that felt vital and excruciatingly tender as Naoya stepped closer, letting go fo Satoru’s hand to instead wrap his arms around Satoru’s neck, burying his face against him. “Keep me company, Satoru-kun.” It was a quiet, beseeching behest.

Satoru wrapped his arms around him and pulled him close. “I’m not going anywhere,” were the truest words he thought he’d ever spoken. “Not ever.” After all, they were both dead. So he couldn’t be made a liar.

“A train might come, eventually,” Naoya murmured.

“Then we can get on it together,” Satoru said.

Naoya shook his head slightly against him. “I’m not going anywhere till Toji-kun gets here. He will eventually. I hope it’s later rather than sooner. But one day, he’ll die, too. I already left him alone in life. I’m not going to leave him alone in death.”

Satoru exhaled, his breath stirring strands of Naoya’s golden-blond hair. He needed to let the jealousy go. Naoya had just cared about his little cousin, as any ideal older cousin should. “It must’ve been nice for him to have a cousin like you.”

“Of course it was,” Naoya huffed, pompous. “I’m the best.” But then he was exhaling, embracing Satoru tighter as he entreated quietly, “Wait with me, Satoru-kun.”

Satoru sighed, rubbing a hand comfortingly over Naoya’s back, murmuring, “I already told you that I will. Every dream I had of you, I wished I wouldn’t awake from. I don’t want to go anywhere else, Naoya-kun. There isn’t anywhere else that I’d rather be. I’ll wait with you here,” he pressed a forgiveness-seeking kiss into Naoya’s hair, “for Toji.”

---

“I hate him!” Maki fumed, on the verge of frustrated tears.

Toji was like her, but even more of a failure, because he didn’t have any cursed energy at all. And yet—and yet!

He was so strong, she could see that. And yet even though she was like him, was the only one like him, he refused to acknowledge her. He literally looked at her the exact same way Naoya had: like she was scum beneath his shoes.

Why had Naoya adored Toji, but despised her? Why did Toji despise her, even though they were similar? And why did the Zen’in clan acknowledge Toji when he had even less cursed energy than she did?! Was it just because she was a girl?! Was that it?! She may be a girl, but she was stronger than everyone except Toji! So why wouldn’t anyone acknowledge her?!

It was one thing for Naoya, the heir with Projection Sorcery and Naobito’s favorite son, to look down on her. But why did Toji dismiss her just like all the rest with all their cursed energy and innate techniques?! Just because Naoya had favored him?!

“You’ve got to go easy on Toji, Maki-chan,” Mai told her. “Naoya was really important to him. I mean, if someone had killed me—and especially right in front of you—wouldn’t you also think of nothing but getting revenge for me?”

Okay, that was… that was true. If someone killed Mai, and especially right in front of her, Maki would also be dead-set on getting revenge and not care about anything else.

But still…! Since her situation was the same as his, shouldn’t he have some sympathy and at least acknowledge her?! He didn’t have to look at her like she was a roach and threaten to beat the crap out of her!

“You should really leave him alone, Maki-chan… of course he’s going to be upset when you keep bothering him. He’s angry and grieving. He isn’t going to be nice to anyone unless Naoya magically returns from the dead.”

“I saw him hanging out with Naobito,” Maki muttered darkly.

“You know they both cared deeply about Naoya. And you know that Toji’s training to get revenge for Naoya. Of course Naobito’s going to support him in that.”

“Aaaaagh!! Sometimes I hate how reasonable you are, Mai-chan! Can’t I be upset?!”

“I mean, of course you have a right to be upset… but that doesn’t mean you have a right to make things even more difficult for him. You’re being just as inconsiderate of him and as he’s being of you, you know. With the way you’ve been, you don’t deserve anything from him, Maki-chan.”

“You don’t understand what it’s like, Mai-chan! But he should!”

“He’s a guy and he was favored by Naoya. Don’t I know better what you go through than he does? His experiences are different from yours, Maki-chan. But I’ve been with you this whole time. Besides, he can actually see cursed spirits, you know. He really isn’t that much like you.”

“Mai-chan!! Why are you so mean?!”

“I’m just saying the truth, Maki-chan. It’s not my fault if you can’t take it.”

“Aaaaah!! I hate you! I hate everyone!”

But she’d especially hated Naoya, and she especially hated Toji.

“Maki-chan…”

Maki had stalked off, then.

She really hated the Zen’in clan. And Toji may have had zero cursed energy, but he was just as much a Zen’in as the rest of them.

When she was fifteen, she left the Zen’in clan. Then she went to the Tokyo school just to spite them.

When she met Gojo Satoru for the first time, she was weirdly reminded of Toji. Gojo didn’t have the same kind of murder face, but he had the same blankness to his gaze and the same otherworldly intensity.

He was also similarly dismissive. “A Zen’in, here? You must really hate your clan. I don’t share the sentiment, so don’t drag me into your bullshit.”

“You killed Zen’in Naoya!”

That caused Gojo to freeze, and then to turn to look back at her with cold murder in his crazy-looking eyes. “And you think I killed him because I hate him and the Zen’ins?”

“Why else would you kill him?”

Suddenly Gojo had her by the collar, yanking upward, his face right there, ice-blue eyes rending her soul. “It was an accident. I liked Naoya.” He let go and shoved her away. “Say anything like that to me again and I’m having you kicked out of this school. Got it?” Then he strode away, with the same seething fury as Toji.

And then when she saw him fight, too, it was the same as Toji: they both fought with a wrath and intensity like they were trying to destroy the very world.

It had been like that for both of them every time, until she caught a glimpse of them fighting in Shibuya, and saw Gojo fighting like something celestial and serene, and Toji fighting like he was a starving predator but was having the time of his life.

She didn’t see Toji kill Gojo. But she did see the summoning of Naoya easily take down the special-grade cursed spirit that she, Yuji, Nanami and Naobito had been struggling with. Naoya even opened a Domain that was creepy as hell. As if any more evidence were needed that he’d always had a dark and twisted heart. Still caring about no one but Toji, just like Toji had never cared about anyone but him.

Afterwards, the story was that the summoning of Naoya had killed Gojo, even though Naoya had openly said to them that it had been Toji. There were reasons for the change in story, but Maki didn’t really care. She’d hated Naoya, she hated Toji, and she’d hated Gojo, too. So it really didn’t matter who had killed who.

Just a bunch of arrogant jerks with attitude issues, all of them.

---

Maki’s insensitivity had always frustrated Mai. Maki always complained how nobody acknowledged her and everybody despised her, all the while never acknowledging anyone else and despising everybody. As far as Mai was concerned, Maki was as bad as everyone she accused. She was such a hypocrite. She always complained that Mai didn’t understand her, even though Mai did, and all the while never trying to understand Mai. Mai loved her brave twin sister, she really did, but sometimes Maki was so obtuse it drove her crazy.

Mai felt bad for Toji. Naoya had been the only one who had ever acknowledged him, so of course he’d loved Naoya. Of course he was devastated by Naoya’s death and only cared about getting revenge. Maki was the mean one, not having any sensitivity to that and continuing to aggravate him. Mai understood why Maki thought that Toji should understand her, but they really couldn’t have been more different, aside from both being physically strong.

It hurt Mai to see Toji. His life was so empty and full of pain and misery. And she didn’t blame him for being enamored with Naoya; if Naoya had acknowledged her like that, she’d have been enamored, too. She even kind of had been even though he hadn’t acknowledged her, just because he was so attractive and ebullient. She’d always been scared to even try to interact with him, having as little cursed energy and such a lame innate technique as she did, but he’d always been fun to watch from a distance. Yeah he’d beaten Maki up a few times, but Maki had been the one who started it, so she kind of deserved it. You don’t just go and be rude to someone stronger than you unless you’re begging to get hit. Maki really needed to take a good look at her own behavior rather than blaming others for everything. But Maki never listened to anybody, not even Mai.

Mai wasn’t really surprised when Maki left, but it still hurt, and she still hated Maki for it. Especially since Maki just had to go and join the Tokyo school, which meant that to make up for it Mai had to go to Kyoto, even though she really didn’t want to be a sorcerer at all. She would’ve been perfectly happy to stay at the Zen’in estate doing chores. It was a simple life, sure, but what was wrong with that? She’d enjoyed it, that peace and stability. Watching the others train, like the Hei and the Kukuru and Toji. It wasn’t like they had it better than her. If anything, they had it worse. They were doing much more and way more strenuous work. What was so wrong with her liking to do chores?! What was wrong with that?!

But Maki just had to go and ruin everything.

Mai hated it at Kyoto tech. She hated sorcerer work. She went home whenever she could. Not that anyone wanted her there. But it was still nice to have that safety and comfort. The familiarity. Even Toji stalking down the halls like a dark personified thunderstorm was comforting in comparison to being with the other Kyoto students and exorcising curses.

Mai didn’t care about being a sorcerer. She just wanted to live with her family. What was wrong with that?

All the time when she was at Kyoto jujutsu high, she just wanted to go home.

But no, she couldn’t, and she even had to participate in the sister school exchange event, the one that Naoya had died in, and she had to see Maki, and she even had to see Gojo Satoru who had caused the whole mess.

She wasn’t sure exactly what she was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t what she saw.

Gojo Satoru was haunted.

And Mai realized immediately: he hadn’t meant to kill Naoya. He wasn’t proud of it or pleased about it in any way. He’d been traumatized ever since and had never gotten over it. He was like Toji: his life was empty and full of pain and misery.

Mai found it hard to hate him. She could only pity him, like she pitied Toji.

After Shibuya, the news going around in the sorcerer world was that the summoning of Naoya had killed Gojo. But all the Zen’ins knew that it had been Toji. Training to kill Gojo had been all that Toji had been doing for over ten years.

Mai hoped that, in killing Gojo, Toji had gotten some relief from his suffering. She hoped that, in being killed by Naoya’s cousin, Gojo had gotten relief from his suffering, too.

After Shibuya and killing Gojo, Toji left, and he didn’t come back. The Zen’in clan had never really been his family, except for Naoya. He’d only been accepted in the clan as Gojo’s executioner. It made sense that he would leave. Unlike Maki leaving. It was different. Maki had left to prove a point; Toji left because there was nothing there for him anymore, so he could only go looking.

Mai hoped that he would be able to find a family of his own.

After all, she still, more than anything, just wanted to go home. So she just hoped that he’d find somewhere he could go home to, and feel safe and at ease, like he must have felt with Naoya.

---

Naoya had woken up crying, so Toji had gotten up to see to him, letting his wife sleep. She was the one with a steady job, and she needed the rest. Besides, he liked taking care of his son. He would have gladly lost any amount of sleep to do so.

Now he stood in the dark with Naoya in his arms, rocking the crying infant gently. “Shh, don’t cry, Naoya. Don’t cry. Daddy’s here. I’m right here. I’ve got you.”

Naoya continued crying, and Toji huffed. “So dramatic. Just like your namesake.”

He hadn’t wanted to turn on the light, so he’d opened the curtains so the moonlight could shine in through the window. He’d been looking down at Naoya when movement out the window caught his attention, and he turned his gaze over to the night sky, his eyes widening. “Ah, a meteor shower! Let’s go outside, Naoya.”

So he took his son outside into the street, where neighbors were gathered who must have heard about the meteor shower on the news, and amid all the pointing and exclamations of delight at every falling star that shot across the firmament, Naoya stopped crying. Assuredly he could not see the stars at such an age when his eyesight was still poor, but perhaps he could see the moon.

It had usually been nights when he’d gone out with his cousin, since that was the only time Naoya could get away.

His son had taken one of his fingers and was now sucking on it, and Toji smiled down at him softly. The boy had emerald green eyes like his mother, the color becoming visible in the burgeoning light of the encroaching dawn.

After his cousin’s death, he’d thought that the dark night of his life would never end. But as he went back inside with his son in his arms, he knew that like the cut through the corner of his lips, wounds healed to scars and time moved on.

“One day, Naoya, I’ll die, too. But like he’s there waiting to welcome me, I’ll be there waiting to welcome you. So don’t cry so, Naoya. Shine like the stars in the dark, because when you fall like them, I’ll always be there with open arms to catch you.”

The pain and sorrow of his cousin’s death never left. But it grew lighter and sprouted radiant plumage such that it became easier and more beautiful to carry it with him, and he could handle it with reverent fingers rather than with agony and fury.

He was so glad that he’d had his cousin in his life. And he was so glad that he now had his son. They really were his blessings, and it made his eyes a little watery as he lifted the infant to kiss him softly on the forehead.

“When I’m gone, never forget that you were loved.”

Notes:

my eyes were prickling writing that ending...

ok i guess this story's gonna get at least one more chapter haha cuz this felt like a good place to break. my stories as always doing that thing where i think they're gonna end but then they just keep continuing...

if you enjoyed this chapter, make sure to let me know with a kudo or a comment!

Chapter 4: Prey the Sky (Bite me off all but a crescent of moon, and return to me with luminous silver in the dark cracks between your teeth)

Notes:

was waiting for Sukuna to finally die in the manga before continuing/finishing this story bc i wanted to see how he was defeated. and now he's dead!! finally!! yay!! so i can continue/finish this thing lol

except it's not finished yet bc there's actually gonna be another chapter... again...

as always my writing gets long haha

Thank you so much for all the amazing comments and encouragement!!!♡

sorry it took me so long, but i hope you enjoy this chapter :))

---

How ironic that Naoya, Toji’s son, had the Ten Shadows Technique, the Zen’in clan’s prized innate technique that everyone had always commented that it was such a shame that Naoya, Naobito’s son, hadn’t had.

Just like the Zen’in clan and sorcerer world had never recognized the true strength of Toji’s Heavenly Restriction, they’d also never recognized the true strength of Naoya’s Projection Sorcery, not even after Naoya had defeated Gojo Satoru.

“The sin of the small fry is the inability to recognize true strength,” Toji’s cousin Naoya had said.

The Zen’in clan and sorcerer world would recognize the strength of Toji’s son Naoya’s Ten Shadows Technique. But only because of its Eight-Handled Sword Divergent Sila Divine General Mahoraga.

Being born with the Ten Shadows Technique, it was pretty much assured how Naoya would die: in a glorified double-suicide via Mahoraga.

When Toji saw the technique that Naoya had inherited, it made his heart heavy.

It didn’t help that his wife had died from illness hardly more than a few months before. Her death hadn’t felt like a new grief, but simply an intensifying of the grief that already defined his existence.

Now he only had his son Naoya, like he’d used to only have his cousin. But having a young child to take care of wasn’t the same as having an older cousin to catch up to or a wife to share his life with.

Toji loved his son more than anything. But how was he supposed to take care of him like this? Full of such grief and depression, with taking care of Naoya being the only thing that even got him up in the mornings, the only reason he was able to do anything at all, but even then it was so hard.

His son wasn’t anything like his cousin. His cousin Naoya had been all brightness and energy full of ebullient smiles, but his son Naoya was quiet and serious and it was difficult to get him to smile at all, and even when he did it was small. Toji was trying to take care of his son by himself, but every moment he felt like he was dying a little. He felt like he’d be able to do anything, if the child would just smile at him like his cousin or his wife had, but his son gave him next to nothing. Didn’t cry or throw tantrums, but also didn’t laugh and talk, just quietly kept to himself. Toji loved his kid, he really did. He wanted the best for him. But he was dying inside like this.

And then Naoya’s innate technique manifested, his two Divine Dogs that indicated the Ten Shadows, and Toji knew that he couldn’t do it.

Well, at least Naoya was smiling, finally, playing with the dogs. Clearly they could do more for him than Toji could.

The Zen’in clan would be able to do more for Naoya than Toji could.

So he brought his son Naoya to Naobito.

“Naobito, this is my son, Naoya. He has the Ten Shadows Technique. Naoya, this is Naobito. He’s the father of my cousin whom I named you after.”

The four-year-old Naoya’s nose crinkled, green eyes not exactly pleased. “You named me after your cousin?”

“Yes,” Toji said, pressing a kiss to his crazy hair that he’d gotten from his mother. “Because Naoya was the blessing of my life, just like you.”

“But he’s dead? Like mom?”

“Yeah,” Toji said, softly, looking down. His scarred lips quirked, wry. “But your mom died from an illness. My cousin died in a sparring accident. He and is opponent both had powerful innate techniques, like yours, but different.”

Ah, his heart felt like he could reach and grasp it in his fist and yank it out of his chest like yanking off a heart-locket necklace. Their was hot stinging behind his closed eyelids.

“Naobito,” he said. “Would you accept me back into the Zen’in clan, with my son?”

Naobito snorted. “We’ll gladly accept him. If taking him in means taking you back too, so be it. You can be leader of the Kukuru unit.”

“What?” Toji chuckled breathily, opening his eyes to regard the old man with a lifted chin, scarred lips pulled away from his teeth in something like a dog-grin. “You’re not gonna let me be leader of the Hei when I’m by far the strongest you have? A complete Heavenly Restriction is practically an innate technique, don’t do you think?”

Naobito huffed, but his lips quirked. “If you’re willing to fight for it, there certainly won’t be anyone who can stop you, although there might be those who may try. If you want to be leader of the Hei it won’t be on my decree, though, so make it happen yourself. The most I can give you is the Kukuru unit. If you want anything more than that you gotta take it without it being given.”

“I can accept that,” Toji said, realizing just how much he’d missed the old man. It was good to see him again.

“The hell are you guys talking about?” Naoya muttered.

“Already got a mouth on him, huh,” Naobito said, brows raised.

“My fault,” Toji acknowledged.

“Of course I have a mouth,” Naoya said, indignant. “Who doesn’t have a mouth?”

“He meant that you’re already using curse words,” Toji told him, “which generally children aren’t supposed to because adults try to keep them from using curse words, but I never saw the point because you’re a sorcerer and what are some curse words next to actual curses? Nothing at all.” Toji was sober. “This is a world in which we live and die. What does it matter if you use curse words, even if you’re a kid? Being a kid doesn’t keep from living nor will it keep you from dying. Besides, I read an article once about how people who curse more are more open and honest than those who don’t, and it’s fitting for you to be that way given your name.”

Naoya, with the kanji for ‘honesty, frankness’ and ‘exclamation, alas’.

“Curse all you want, Naoya. You’re going to grow up to become one of the very best at exorcising curses, anyway.”

“It sounds stupid,” Naoya said.

“Which part?”

“All of it.”

“Mm, most of life is stupid,” Toji agreed. “Your namesake said that, too. That life’s too stupid to take completely seriously.” He shook his head, lips curving, remembering. That night laying on the ground in the moonlight beneath silver-illuminated sakura trees glowing. “But despite that, there are still things in life that are beautiful.”

Toji missed his cousin. He missed his wife. But he returned to his clan with his son, and he became leader of the Hei, and he shared beers with Naobito again where they were either silent or reminisced, and he got to help train his son and watch him grow into a powerful sorcerer in a clan that venerated him. Zen’in Naoya, the heir of the Zen’in clan just like his namesake had been, even if aside from that and being a powerful sorcerer he was truly nothing like him.

Sometimes, being with his son hurt him more than anything. But he tried to imagine that it was probably similar to what it must have been like for his cousin Naoya dealing with him, except that his cousin had been different from him, so Toji tried not to take things too hard and react more like his cousin would have.

Toji, like his son, had also been a quiet child who had barely smiled and had generally been petulant and indignant and griping.

But damn, sometimes Toji just wanted to be smiled at again, like his cousin and his wife had smiled at him.

At least Gojo Satoru was dead, so Toji didn’t have to burn with hate anymore, could actually lay down and relax and appreciate that there were beautiful things in this world despite all the pain and sadness, no longer being devoured alive by the need for revenge.

“I loved him, you know,” had been Gojo Satoru’s last breathed words before his death, head falling to the side with sightless eyes still frightfully blue.

“Yeah,” Toji had said to the fallen god’s corpse. “I loved him, too.”

Remembering Naoya standing there as a summoning in front of him, black sclera around his golden irises but aside from that as bright and sunny as he’d ever been in life. Naoya hugging him, alive and warm. Naoya smiling at him and stabbing himself in the head.

Sometimes Toji looked at his son with his summoned shikigami and inexplicably felt the sting of unshed tears.

“What’s wrong?” Naoya asked him.

“Nothing,” Toji said, wiping at his eyes. But part of him had wanted to say “Everything.” Even though that wasn’t fair. Because he’d gotten to have his cousin Naoya in his life, and now he got to have his son Naoya. He was so incredibly blessed.

But sometimes it still felt like the locket of his heart was on the ground in a puddle of falling rain reflecting a stormy sky that lay on the other side of what his cousin had described: not the beginning of terror which became beauty, but the ending of beauty which became terror.

He knew exactly how his son was going to die.

He could only hope that he would get to die before he had to live to see it happen.

So when Ryomen Sukuna returned, well. Toji had to defeat the King of Curses, so that Naoya wouldn’t have to do it with Mahoraga.

Just like his cousin had done before going up against Gojo Satoru, Toji didn’t sleep, spent the entire night before the battle coming up with a plan. He took inspiration from his cousin’s. Except that instead of the Inverted Spear of Heaven, his killing blow weapon would be the Split Soul Katana. But leading up to that, he’d use Playful Cloud, the weapon that his cousin had promised him.

He wondered, going up against Sukuna, if what he felt was how Naoya had felt going up against Gojo: the combination of dread and excitement and fear and glee and desperation, going up against the Strongest Sorcerer, needing to win despite how everyone believed you would lose, because there was one person who looked up to you and believed in you.

“You’re such a creep, dad,” his son had told him countless times, sighing in exasperation because he always had such a hard time seeing Toji. Before saying, begrudgingly, “But you really are the Strongest. And even if they can’t see you, anyone who can’t see that is an idiot. The invisible man has got to be the most terrifying man in the world.”

The strength that Toji’s son saw in him was different than the strength that his cousin had seen in him. While his cousin had seen how he was strong despite having no cursed energy, had seen his overwhelming intensity and physical prowess, saw him as having a strength similar to the Six Eyes, his son saw how he was strong because he had no cursed energy, saw that he was strong because of the way that nobody could see him coming, saw him as having a strength similar to Projection Sorcery.

Toji would use both of those things to take down Ryomen Sukuna.

“What is the King of Curses to someone who doesn’t even have cursed energy?” Toji grinned viciously down at Sukuna who had been reduced to eyed sludge on the ground, soul cut from his host. “You might be the Strongest by this world’s rules, but this world’s rules don’t apply to me.”

Sukuna managed to both acknowledge his strength and also curse him before dissipating, but Toji was already on the verge of death anyway, barely managing to stay on his feet long enough for Sukuna not to see it when he felt to his knees, Split Soul Katana stabbed in the ground as he gripped its hilt to keep himself up as he vomited up blood, the action causing his broken ribs just to dig more deeply into him, making him cough up even more blood, which made him cough up even more.

He may be the Strongest, but what he didn’t have, that both Gojo Satoru and Ryomen Sukuna had had, was reverse cursed energy.

He was the Strongest, but he couldn’t heal.

“Dad!” His son was there in front of him, hands on his face, bright alarmed green eyes. Wow his hair was crazy. Just like his mother’s. “Dad! You can’t die! You’re stronger than this! Stay with me! Dad!”

Smirk languid on his lips like the dark blood brimming there, Toji said, “Live with terrifying strength for me, Naoya.”

And then the darkness closed in, Naoya’s cries for him like a wolf-dog’s haunting sibylline howl on a misty moonlight night where there no stars or true shadow, just hazy eerie silver-gray glow.

On the other side of the darkness like a tunnel, the soft dim glow was illuminating a train station. Vast and empty and echoing—no, not empty.

“Toji-kun!!”

Twenty-four frames per second and his arms were suddenly full of Naoya, his cousin Naoya.

“Naoya.” Toji breathed it, burying his nose in his cousin’s hair. Still so strange that his older cousin was younger than him, shorter than him, smaller than him, just a teenage kid his son’s age.

“How the hell did you die, huh?” Naoya asked, pulling back, whimsical smile and soft gold eyes.

Toji’s scarred lips quirked. “Collapsed from internal injuries after defeating Ryomen Sukuna.”

“You didn’t,” Naoya laughed, delighted, “by which I mean, of course you did.” He shook his head, chuckling. “That’s my strong little cousin.” Eyes so bright they could shed sunlight tears. “I couldn’t be more proud.”

Toji’s heart was full and heavy like rainclouds. “I wish you’d been there to see how strong I became.”

“I did get to see, though,” Naoya told him, ingenuous. “Thankfully, since I got brought back as a summoning.” His grin was elated, ate up sky like a solar eclipse. “And because of that, I also discovered my Domain Expansion! And got to defeat a really powerful special-grade cursed spirit!” Such a child, still, so jubilant. “It was great.”

If Naoya hadn’t been killed, he could have discovered his Domain Expansion and fought that really powerful special-grade cursed spirit while alive.

Toji’s heart ached, but Naoya being just like he remembered only seeming so much younger in his eyes had it splitting open like a cloudburst. “Mm, I’m glad you got summoned back, too.” His scarred lips trembled, like he wasn’t forty-two years old, trembling like he was twelve again and Naoya was his god. “It… really meant a lot, to get to see you again. And to hear those words from you.”

“Hey,” Naoya smiled like he could read his mind, “no matter how old you got, you’ll always be my cute little cousin.”

Toji had hardly started crying and wiping at his eyes when his gaze caught on something that made his entire soul freeze. Ice, snow, glacier blue.

“That’s…”

“Gojo Satoru, yup,” Naoya grinned blithely, gesturing the Six Eyes over, throwing an arm around his shoulders, pulling him close. Smiling so brightly while Gojo was expressionless like an opened void. “My secret boyfriend.” A flippant gesture of his hand, so light. “Well, I guess we weren’t quite official. But we were almost official.”

“You…” Toji stared at Gojo, who stared back, those eyes too crystal blue. “You really killed your boyfriend.”

“On accident,” Gojo said.

Toji barked a bitter laugh, hand over his face. “Damn. If I’d accidentally killed my wife…” It hurt like hell to realize even more fully just what Gojo had done.

“You have a wife?!” Naoya exclaimed.

“Had,” Toji said, lowering his hand, gaze lowering with it, tiled train station floor that no coming trains rumbled. “She died before I did. Over a decade before, from illness.” He raised his gaze back to Naoya, smiled, a feeling in his chest like something caught in it, maybe a large bird. “I’ve got a son from her, you know. He’s got the Ten Shadows Technique.” Softly, softly fell the mist, catching on his eyelashes that weren’t so long as Naoya’s cat’s eye ones but still caught light like beads in the dim. “I… named him after you.” A chuckle, nearly silent, nearly choking. “Although he’s not like you at all, he’s much more like me, just with a shitton of cursed energy and the Zen’ins’ prized innate technique.”

Naoya’s intense gold eyes were too soft, gaze too mist-like without being misty. “So your life was okay, even though I wasn’t there?”

“It…” Toji swallowed around the lump in his throat. Carefully didn’t look at Gojo. “All things considered, it wasn’t a bad life at all for someone born into the sorcerer world with zero cursed energy. Could’ve been a whole lot worse.” The taste on his tongue was bitter although he felt so abysmally grateful it threatened to gut him and leave him hollow. “I… I really was blessed. Thanks to you, and then my wife and son. I…” He’d been twenty-five when he’d killed the twenty-nine year old Gojo Satoru. Now he was forty-two. He might not know the answer to life, the universe and everything, but he was a whole lot more emotionally mature now, after all that time. Emotionally mature enough to meet Gojo Satoru’s gaze and say, not without pity, “I guess I certainly had a better life than you, Satoru.”

“Yeah, well, that isn’t exactly hard,” Gojo said, waving a hand. “Aside from being stronger than anyone, my life was pretty miserable.” He looked down, wide blue gaze unreadable, a thousand-yard stare of crystal. “I just… wanted to give him the flowers.”

“Flowers?” Toji asked.

Naoya brushed the white bangs out of Gojo’s face, the touch of his fingers tender. “Satoru-kun and I made a bet that if Kyoto Tech won the exchange event, I’d send him some foundation for his inevitable eyebags as a consolation prize, while if Tokyo Tech won then as a consolation prize he’d give me a bouquet of red camellia.”

“Geez,” Toji breathed, cursed. “Teen love and teen competition taken too seriously, huh.” That hit like a blow to the diaphragm, knocked the air out of his lungs.

“As the heirs of the Zen’in and Gojo clans, we had to take those things seriously,” Naoya said quietly. His lips quirked, rueful. “We were both pretty sad and pathetic. But at least in death there’s no infinity between us anymore.” His hand was on Gojo’s face, thumb stroking beneath one of his eyes, so caring it hurt like a bitch. The way Gojo leaned into the touch even more so.

Toji swallowed around the lump in his throat. “You guys weren’t sad and pathetic,” he said, smiling, desolate. “You both were too strong for your own good.” The reality of it was so heavy.

“Thanks for finally killing me, Toji,” Gojo said, meeting his gaze and saying it simply and honestly. “I…” There was a flicker in his gaze, subtle like a purported vision of doom in a crystal ball. “It was a relief.”

Toji exhaled, shaky. “I did get that feeling.” His scarred lips quirked wryly. “Thanks for dying by my hand, it gave me the chance to finally move on.”

Gojo’s own lips quirked in return, his crystal gaze moving to Naoya, brushing the dyed golden-blond hair out of Naoya’s golden-yellow eyes, similar to how Naoya had done for him. “At least someone was able to move on from him, since I never could.”

“I never truly did…” Toji said, watching them, heart in silent ruins. “Not completely.”

“It is my sin that I am just too awesome,” Naoya said, shrugging with elegant hands.

“It’s not a sin,” Gojo said, thumb brushing over Naoya’s lips, “it’s a curse.”

Toji could feel his heart in his throat when he swallowed. “But any curse can be a blessing if you hold it it in the light and turn it just right.” He said it quietly, snowflakes falling in the dark and in stray beams of moonlight.

“It wasn’t a blessing that I killed him,” Gojo said, stating it.

Toji was so much older than them, now, and it ached when he smiled. “But did you ever think that maybe it was a blessing that you loved him so much it destroyed you? That you even actually had someone you loved like that. That’s a blessing, don’t you think?” His gaze was down, thinking of all those hours of darkness where he had to remind himself why it was worth being alive. “I’d think about that, you know: how terribly it hurt to have lost him, especially in the way that he was lost, but how I was still so glad that I’d gotten to have him in my life.” He looked back up at Gojo and smiled with closed eyes. “That having him and having lost him was still so much better than having never had him at all.” Opening his eyes again, holding Gojo’s wide crystal gaze, sober. “It wasn’t a blessing that you killed him. But it was still a blessing that he’d been there for you to love and even kill, even if it destroyed you.” He let his scarred lips curve, soft. “Love is the most terrible and terrifying curse; but I also like to think of love as the greatest and most beautiful blessing.”

Gojo stared at him, turned to Naoya and said, “Naoya, your little cousin has become a DILF.”

“That he has,” Naoya agreed with a closed-eye smile.

“Hey…” Toji said, not sure how to respond to that.

It felt like just yesterday he was thirteen, chasing after Naoya over lakes of stars with anger at the world burning his feat like coals. When had he gotten so old and calm?

“So, I was gonna get on a train once you got here, but should we wait for your son to show up?” Naoya asked him. He gave a little grin. “I wanna see my namesake.”

“Ugh,” Toji groaned, covering his face with a hand. “He just had to be born with the Ten Shadows and Mahoraga. And being way too wont to use it when he gets in a bind.” He gave a growl. “He’d better not use it until he damn well truly has no other choice.”

“Man, being a father with a reckless son sounds tough,” Naoya commented. “I say as the reckless son of an exasperated father, never having had a kid myself.” He grinned wryly as Toji looked at him through his fingers. “I gave Naobito so many headaches. Your son must have given you the same.”

Toji sighed, lowering his hand. “He probably wasn’t as bad as you… but he probably wasn’t as good as you, either.” Toji gave a shrug of his shoulders. He loved that kid, but “He’s no genius or anything, and he’s frustratingly stubborn. But he’s smart and a good kid, about as responsible and down-to-earth as they come, just gets a tiny bit crazy when he’s fighting sometimes.” Toji’s lips quirked ruefully. “He’ll make a great clan head, if he can manage to outlive your nigh-immortal father.”

“I used to joke that Naobito’s a dragon,” Naoya said wisely. “Which is why he’ll never die. And part of why I’m so awesome, of course.”

“Of course,” Toji said humoringly, amused.

“But you know, that means that your son must be really awesome, too,” Naoya said, looking at him with sun eyes, so bright it hurt to look directly into his gaze. “Since he’s your son.”

“As I recall, all your older brothers were lame,” Toji remarked drolly.

“Well, that’s true,” Naoya agreed.

“So obviously an awesome father doesn’t necessarily equal an awesome son,” Toji pointed out, just for the sake of argument.

“Okay, that’s fair,” Naoya relented. “But he has my name. Therefore, he must be awesome.”

“Okay, that’s fair,” Toji smiled, feeling so warm.

It was so nice just to talk with Naoya again. Him looking so cunning and pretty but then the things he said being so ridiculous. Toji’s pleasure-shivering heart was going to quiver to pieces like a bird molting plumage.

“I must admit to being curious about the Ten Shadows user,” Gojo remarked, almost idly.

Naoya hummed and played with his white hair, but there was something dejected in his gaze. “Because he should have been your Zen’in rival as the Strongest, right?”

“Since the Ten Shadows Technique is supposed to be strong enough to rival the Six Eyes, yeah,” Gojo said, more like he was correcting than agreeing, holding Naoya’s gaze as he seemed to be silently communicating something that Naoya didn’t look like he was getting. It made Toji’s chest ache, remembering that night with his head in Naoya’s lap watching him look out the window into the moonlit dark as he made plans for how to defeat Gojo, dark smirk on his illuminated lips but deathly discouragement in his shadowed silver eyes.

“Nothing about the Ten Shadows Technique rivals the Six Eyes except for Mahoraga,” Toji said, because he wanted them to understand this. “It’s just a similar fear factor. People are scared of the Ten Shadows’ Mahoraga like they’re scared of the Six Eyes’ Infinity. Techniques that are essentially impossible to do anything against.” He shook his head. “But trust me, fear factor excluded, Projection Sorcery is a lot closer to the Six Eyes and Limitless than the Ten Shadows is. The style of the Ten Shadows is a lot closer to Geto Suguru’s Curse Manipulation. Aside from his shikigami, his large amount of cursed energy and his ability to hide in shadows he’s just a normal sorcerer.” He’s not crazy, like you two.

Naoya turned his gold gaze away. Gojo turned his blue gaze to Toji. “Speaking of Geto Suguru… that guy who took his body. What happened to him?”

“Okkotsu Yuta killed him,” Toji said. “With that guy and Ryomen Sukuna, we just…” His lips quirked sadly. “We were all just trying to keep Naoya from having to use Mahoraga. Not that he minded if he’d have had to.” He gave a little tch, mouth pulling in a soft silent snarl. “Sons, huh. I told him not to make me lose him. He told me that if I was going to lose him anyway he may as well take his opponent down with him so that I don’t have to seek revenge again. I told him that after Naoya’s death, revenge was all I had, and without that I would have had nothing at all. He pointed out that only once my need for revenge was gone was I able to move on. Fucking kid. I just didn’t want to have to see him die, like I saw you and my wife die.”

Speaking to his cousin, but it was Gojo who replied. “So instead, he had to see you die.”

“Yeah, well, maybe he’ll understand better, now,” Toji said, sober, gaze falling on the dark empty tracks. “It’ll do him some good, honestly. You fight harder to keep what you have once you’ve lost something. You better understand the worth of what you have, then. I may have died, but he’s grown up a bit, now. Even if he doesn’t understand that now, he will eventually. That what life is is living with pain—and having to decide how to live with that pain.” Toji inhaled, exhaled, thinking back on forty-two years of life, the dim pre-dawn and the brief brilliant time in the radiant sun before it was dragged from the sky and left him in the deep shadow of the earth where he wandered in the dark until he found himself in the soft silver light of a moon surrounded by stars. Lights that he wouldn’t have found so breathtakingly beautiful, before. “So I just hope… that learns to live well, finally understanding that life is defined by death, like beauty is defined by terror.”

“Look at what an amazing man my little cousin has become,” Naoya smiled, all soft and serene, before that fire-light came into his eyes that little devil grin took over his lips, that expression of an arsonist. “On that note… please take off your shirt and flex.”

“Seriously?” Toji asked, grinning in fond incredulousness.

“Come on, show me the glory of that Heavenly Restricted body,” Naoya said with a nod, knuckles to his smiling kitsune mouth, glittering gold fox eyes. “Maybe take off your pants, too. You can keep on your underwear… unless you don’t mind taking that off as well,” grinning like lustrous sunrise but god he was ridiculous, “because I kinda wanna know how big my little cousin got down there.”

“Naoya!” Toji said, laughing, hand to his face, god why was that just so Naoya.

Naoya had always just wanted to show him off like a discovered treasure, bring all of his unseen and unappreciated existence to light, Naoya all glowing This is my cousin, mine, mine.

“Come on, you’re not embarrassed, are you?” Naoya said, grinning. “I’ll take off my clothes too if it makes you feel less self-conscious.” He was already reaching for the ties of his hakama, jerked a thumb over at Gojo. “I might even be able to convince Satoru-kun to take his off for us too.”

“What, we’re comparing physiques, now?” Toji said with an amused grin even as he took off his shirt, reached for the hem of his pants. He was more than happy to oblige. Gojo, after a moment, moved to remove his clothes as well.

“Didn’t you ever watch any of the Olympics and note how athletes for different events have different physiques?” Naoya asked, casually and unceremoniously shucking his clothes, gesturing to his body, lean musculature and powerful legs. “Obviously I have a runner’s physique, but seeing your guys’s will tell me more about the training that you guys did, the lives that you lived, since I wasn’t there to see it myself. I… wasn’t there to get to see the men that you became.” He smiled at them with closed eyes. “So let me see now, yeah?”

“Sheesh,” Toji said, hand on his hip as Naoya regarded both him and Gojo with gaze soft and caressing, sad and admiring. “What, you boyfriends haven’t had sex in death, yet?” Trying to distract from the ache that was the obviousness with them all naked standing there that Naoya was a seventeen-year-old kid while he and Gojo were fully-grown men.

“Oh, we have,” Naoya grinned easily. “But that was something else.”

He’d been gazing at them both, but it was Toji he moved to, reaching out to touch, tracing his pectoral, his abdominals, thumb brushing over the bone of his hip as Toji tried not to shiver.

“Naoya…” His voice was slightly strangled.

They were both completely naked but it wasn’t sexual it all, it was somehow something even more intimate. This abject gazing, seeing.

Never except beneath those golden eyes had Toji ever felt so seen. Fully in sunlight, illuminated.

“You’re blushing?” Naoya asked, looking up at him with a grin, warm and teasing. “That’s cute.”

Toji swallowed, exhaled, shivered beneath Naoya’s touch, hopelessly breathless. “You’re still… the person I look up to most.” Even now, so much smaller and younger than him. Looking up at him with gold eyes as unreadable as suns. “Naoya, you—you were everything to me.” Naoya touching him like this, Toji felt so young inside, hopelessly starstruck, hopelessly inadequate. “Even after, you still—” He shook his head. Voice dropping, quiet, the plaintive wish of a child, almost embarrassed, still begging, “All I wanted was to become as strong as you.”

“And look at you,” Naoya smiled as he pulled his hand back and Toji felt the loss like a bucket of cold water dumped over him. “You became even stronger than me.” It was so obvious with them both standing there like that, Toji almost a head taller and so much more muscular. His eyes stung like he could cry.

“Physically, maybe,” he said quietly, scarred lips tremulous in their small bitter smile. “But never… never in confidence. Never in aplomb.”

Naoya’s gaze flickered, shadows in gold depths. His smile was sad, quiet, almost apologetic as he reached up to cup Toji’s cheek, like you would do to a child you were trying to get to look at you and listen to you. “Toji-kun… just because I always appeared confident, didn’t mean that I always was confident.” He laughed, lightness in bitterness. “I grew up being compared to the Six Eyes who I could never match. Toji-kun, I always felt inferior, and was always pretending that I didn’t.” Naoya shook his head, sardonic in his grin. The bitterness was dripping from him now. “‘Fake it till you make it’ but I never believed I actually would. I just had to convince everyone else that I was exactly that arrogant as to believe it.”

Toji glanced over to Gojo to gauge his reaction to this, but those celestial blue eyes were wide and blank, staring like to him nothing was unknown, like he had always known and would always know everything. Probably as much of his confidence had been as faked as Naoya’s.

None of it surprised Toji, not really. Even as a kid he had seen the dissatisfaction in Naoya, had seen just how hard he was trying. But that had been part of what made him so amazing.

He hadn’t admired Naoya because he thought Naoya was without pain, he’d admired him because of the way he dealt with the pain, how bright he was even in the face of it. And it was exactly the fact that both Naoya and Gojo had been trying so hard to live up to the expectations on them that the tragedy of Gojo accidentally killing Naoya had occurred.

Toji knew all this already. That neither of them, no matter how strong they were, were perfect.

“Toji-kun,” Naoya said, bringing his attention back to him, looking at him significantly, almost beseechingly, “I knew from the moment I laid eyes on you that you would surpass me. I knew that if there was anyone who would be able to match the Six Eyes, it was you.”

“And yet, you still beat him,” Toji pointed out.

“Yeah, because he’d hardly been trying because he hadn’t been taking it seriously,” Naoya scoffed. Pain in his eyes, anger, despair. “And then I died from an attack that I should’ve been able to dodge.” Smiling but it was so bitter, self-scathing. “Talk about lame, huh?”

“You weren’t lame, Naoya,” Toji told him quietly, hand over Naoya’s on his cheek. “You were amazing out there. Maybe everyone else couldn’t see what you did,” how many times he had had to fight people because of that, because they didn’t understand how incredible it was what Naoya had done, “but I saw all of it. You were awing, Naoya. I’ve never been so inspired in my life. And it wasn’t your fault for not dodging an attack that shouldn’t have come.”

“But maybe it’s my fault for not having offered him a hand up,” Naoya said, and everything in him cracked, pain and tears in his eyes, desolated smile that was all heartbreak. “He sent that attack because I walked away from him and he wanted me to look at him. If I’d just stayed and offered him a hand up…” Naoya’s breath hitched and he started crying in earnest, wiping at his eyes with the back of his hand.

“Naoya…” Toji pulled Naoya to him and hugged him, an arm around his waist, a hand on the back of his head as Naoya buried his face in his chest, all naked skin on naked skin so absurdly non-sexually intimate. He looked over at Gojo who was standing there naked and watching with that same unchanging wide-eyed phlegmatic expression.

There was something poetic about it, the three of them in death, naked of everything, laid bare.

“Toji-kun, I’m sorry,” Naoya sobbed against him, body wracking so violently with the intensity of his pain and sorrow. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault, Naoya,” Toji soothed him. “It’s not even his, I’ve realized.” Gojo Satoru there watching, frozen and numbed with the pain that Naoya was sobbing with. Caressing Naoya’s blond-dyed hair, Toji told them quietly, “Our world was a shitty one. You both did the best you could. It’s not your faults if you slipped in the puddles because it was raining but you’d both been told to run like your lives depended on it, and you were told that you should be able to match him but also that you never would, and he was told that nobody else should even be able to touch him. You were just kids and it was supposed to be just a game, but because of your statuses the importance became life-threatening.” He pulled back slightly, wiping the tears from Naoya’s face as his cousin sobbed and sniffled and shook. “Shh, it’s okay, Naoya. Just because the circumstance you were both in was so unfortunate doesn’t mean that you weren’t still amazing.” Turning up Naoya’s face so he would look at him, thumb stroking through the water falling from his golden eye. “Naoya, you achieved something that everyone truly believed was impossible. You changed the entire world that day, Naoya.”

“I didn’t… I didn’t care about any of that…” Naoya said, shaking his head, the pain still brimming and spilling like cold liquid glass, drops shattering quietly on the train station floor. “I just wanted…”

“I know,” Toji said, pulling him back against him, arms around him, tucking his face into Naoya’s hair. God, the smell of him, it brought so much back. “I know, Naoya. But no matter what happened in life, in death we’re all equal, huh?” He let his lips curve, softy. “You, me, him.”

Sniffling, quieting, Naoya said against him, “You’re amazing, Toji-kun. He is, too.”

“You just gonna stand there, Satoru?” Toji asked the naked Six Eyes who still standing frozen in the same place watching. “Or are you gonna come comfort him, too?”

Gojo moved, then, like he’d just needed the permission to be human, coming over and placing a hand delicately on Naoya’s lower back.

“Naoya…” he said, and up this close Toji could actually see the emotion in that blue crystal stare.

Naoya pulled away from Toji to turn and embrace Gojo instead, muscles of his back and shoulders and arms tensed with the force he was clinging to him with as he buried his face in Gojo’s chest. “I’m sorry, Satoru-kun.” His voice choked and his hold tightened. “I’m sorry I didn’t offer you a hand up. I’m sorry I didn’t stay and pull you to your feet. I’m sorry I turned and walked away after having barely said anything. I’m sorry.” He was shaking with sobs again.

Gojo, who had been stunned and uncertain, exhaled as he finally wrapped his arms around Naoya in return, looser, gently stroking Naoya’s back. “Geez, I’m literally the one who killed you. I’m the one who should be apologizing.” It was a bona fide sepulcher behind those glittery baby blues, all stillness and hollowness and death. “I’m the one who attacked when the battle was already over, and who used a deadly technique when I could have used a non-lethal one. I’m the one… who didn’t realize. How seriously you were actually taking it. Naoya, you really…” gaze subdued, haunted, “you always tried harder than anyone, while making it look like you did everything without even trying.” Naoya sobbed harder, and in response Gojo embraced him tighter, just slightly, like he wanted to be even closer but was still so afraid to hurt. “Naoya, I didn’t take you seriously because I’d never had to try for anything in my entire life, and also I didn’t want to hurt you or beat you so quickly or badly to make you look bad.” He exhaled, shaky. “Ironic that that’s what caused me to end up killing you. But fuck, I’d already healed myself, I could’ve just flown over and punched you in the face. I didn’t have to… I don’t know why I used Hollow Purple. I don’t know why. I just wanted to impress you. I hated how you were so disappointed in me. I didn’t want to hurt you. I just wanted to impress you.” He was quiet for a moment, no sound but Naoya’s stifled sobs. “I… I’d read how to do Hollow Purple, how to combine cursed energy with reverse cursed energy, but I hadn’t… I hadn’t understood exactly what it did. And I hadn’t realized that were too tired to process what was happening.” He pressed his face into Naoya’s hair, pulled him again a little tighter to him. “Naoya, it wasn’t your fault that you’d tried harder to beat me than anyone else ever would. And it wasn’t your fault that you were so disappointed in me for actually getting defeated by you.”

Silence, continued sobbing, and Gojo softly sighed, pulling back to trace Naoya’s tearstained face. “Naoya… I killed you, and it ruined my life.” He was gazing at Naoya with crystal blue eyes subdued and hopeless, like he was taking Naoya in and reconciling something. “But I realize, too, that if I hadn’t done it, I would’ve hated you. And that… may have been even worse.” He leaned in to press a kiss to Naoya’s brow, gently caressing. “Naoya, because I killed you, at least I got to keep loving you. Naoya… I’m sorry that I killed you… but I’m glad that I didn’t have to hate you and keep hurting you. I’m glad that because I killed you, the only person I could hurt was myself.” He brushed his thumb through Naoya’s glistening tears, saying devastatingly gently, “Naoya, I never wanted to hurt you… I didn’t want to hurt you… so at least, in death, you were safe from me and from me having to. Naoya… at least, by killing you when I did, I was able to preserve how amazing you were, rather than destroying you along with myself.” Gojo smiled down at Naoya ruefully, agony and despair and irony making a skeleton of his flesh. “Naoya… killing you made me love you more than I ever had, and probably more than I ever would have.” He laughed with desolate humor. “You became everything to me only because I killed you when I hadn’t meant to and it haunted me so completely.”

He caressed Naoya’s face. “Naoya, I fucking love you.” He said it so adamantly. “I wish things could have been different… I wish there was a way we could have stayed alive and loved each other… but I’m not sure if such a thing would ever have been possible.” He shook his head. “Naoya… I think we were always fated to end in tragedy. So I’m just glad that the way it ended was with minimal pain to you, and that I and I alone was the one with all the suffering.” He stroked his thumb over Naoya’s dark eyebrow, let his lips quirk with some joyless mirth. “If your cousin suffered, too, well, I never cared about him, so I don’t care about that.”

Haha. That actually made Toji grin a little, sharply.

“I’m glad though,” Gojo told Naoya, though clearly he was saying it for Toji as well, “that there was someone who cared about you enough to give his everything to kill me.”

Yeah, Gojo had looked really fucking tired of life. And to get killed by someone who was expressly out for revenge for what he’d done to Naoya must have been the best way he could have got taken out, finally getting the punishment he felt he deserved and had craved.

“Naoya, I was abjectly miserable and probably three-quarters insane for the twelve years until my death, after killing you,” Gojo confessed to him, Naoya’s crying gold eyes widened like that was a surprise to him. Luridly blue gaze softening, Gojo kissed Naoya’s parted lips with his own parted, no tongue, more just a little lip-nibble, frosty white eyelashes lowered over eyes that like Naoya’s didn’t close. Softly, close, Gojo murmured, “But to get to have you like this now, in death?” Another lip-nibble with gaze watching from beneath eyelashes, seeking, maybe not for forgiveness so much as for understanding and acceptance. “All that misery and unreality kind of feels worth it. Just to finally be here like this.”

It really was poetic that they were all naked laying themselves bare like this.

“Satoru-kun…” Naoya said, smiling with pain and love and sorrow, wiping at his crying eyes. He didn’t seem to know how to respond.

“Sheesh,” Toji said, raising his chin as he regarded them. “You guys really are a tragedy.” They turned to look at him, Gojo blank, Naoya seeming surprised. Looking at Gojo pointedly, Toji stated, “I really would have preferred him to keep living for as long as possible, for the record. Even if he suffered. At least he would have continued illuminating the world with his light. And he would have actually gotten to reach his full potential, which I think you know would’ve been incredible. I would have gotten to be by his side and helped him run the Zen’in clan, and he would’ve been fucking great at it. I would have had an infinitely better life, if you hadn’t killed him that day. As noble as you not wanting to hurt him is, he was always more than strong enough to take it. Suffering never hurt him in any way that didn’t make him stronger. And I would have been there for him throughout all of it. He wasn’t alone like you, Gojo. He would’ve had me, and I’m the strongest.” He grinned, savage. “Yes, I’m selfish. And I wanted more of him. Just like you did.” He narrowed his gaze. “So I’m just saying, I understand what you just said, but I don’t agree with it. At all.”

Gojo stared back at him.

“Guys… don’t get like this now…” Naoya said, crying again, his expression absolutely devastated and it sent remorse lancing through Toji. Naoya was wiping hopelessly at his streaming eyes, voice wet and choked. “I lived so much less than either of you. I was just a teen, I didn’t experience anything beyond that day, but you two lived through decades of suffering after that. Don’t… don’t do this to me.” He was shaking like an autumn leaf, sobbing. “Don’t make this about stuff I never got to be part of and couldn’t do anything about. I didn’t want to die. I love you both, I didn’t want to leave either of you. I would’ve lived and suffered with you gladly. But nothing that we say or do is going to change anything that happened. So can we just…” He looked at them beggingly through the tears and gold, devastated smile he was valiantly trying to uphold. “Can’t you just tell me stories of your lives that I missed out on? I don’t care about the could-have-beens. I don’t care about what may have happened if I’d lived. I didn’t live. I died. All I care about is hearing how your lives went.” Wiping at his eyes even though it was useless, neither tears nor gold would subside. “That was what killed me the most about dying, you know? Not getting to see. So just… just tell me more about the men that you became.” Smiling so valorously through the suffering. “Don’t make this about who you may have become if I’d been there. I wasn’t there. So just tell me who you became without me.”

The broken pieces of Toji’s heart were broken to further pieces.

He swallowed thickly. “So,” he tried to say like a wisecrack, “I assume this conversation will be one better carried out with our clothes on.”

“It would certainly help keep me from staring at both of your guys’s tits,” Naoya smiled, making Toji cough and sputter, and even Gojo’s face heat. “And feeling woefully inadequate in comparison, of course,” Naoya added, still smiling with merciless brightness. “You guys both got huge.”

Toji and Gojo were both already moving to put back on their clothes, Naoya following suit.

After several beats, Toji couldn’t help but say, “Neither of us ever got as pretty as you, though.”

Naoya made an absolutely disbelieving face. “Did you never look in a mirror?”

“I’m guessing neither of us spent much time looking in mirrors,” Gojo remarked, finishing pulling on all his clothes, glancing over at Toji who was now fully dressed as well. “Not without hating our reflections, of course.”

Interesting solidarity for him to identify, but it was true.

“With you gone, Naoya, there really was nothing to do but train,” Toji explained with a shrug in response to Naoya’s questioning gaze on them. “And certainly no reason at all to care about appearance. Hence,” he gestured between himself and Satoru “well-developed musculature, but no care at all for our faces or hairstyles. We probably spent most of our days busy as hell and looking like shit.”

“Accurate,” Gojo agreed.

“That so?” Naoya mused, almost subdued and offhanded, finishing up tying his hakama, being meticulous about it. “Being attractive was always important to me. But I guess that was to try to somewhat make up for the fact that I was never as strong as I was supposed to be. Since I could never be the strongest, being better looking than everyone was a large part of my entire self-worth and self-validation.” It did make sense.

“Since nobody could see me anyway, my looks never mattered that much to me,” Toji shrugged.

“I…” Gojo looked away. “I’ve always been striking.” He gestured to himself. “These eyes, and this hair. I was striking no matter what I did or didn’t do. So I never went out of my way to do anything. Except, sometimes…” He glanced over at Naoya. “For the clan events, when I knew you were going to be there, Naoya. I’d put it a bit of effort, then.” He grinned a little self-deprecatingly, gesturing at his head. “Although there was never much I could do since my hair’s untameable, anyway.” He glanced away again, almost bashful. “But I did try to dress in flattering clothes, and I even wore lip gloss, sometimes.”

“I do remember the lip gloss,” Naoya grinned. “It was admittedly part of why I kissed you. You really were begging for it.”

“So yeah, the only effort I put into my appearance was because of you,” Gojo told him, smile small and subdued. “So after your death, aside from using foundation and concealer, I never did anything. And I only used foundation and concealer because it was what you’d promised as a consolation present if I lost. And I did lose. I…” He tilted his head back, looking up at the low shadowy ceiling. “Honestly, there isn’t really much to say about my life. After I killed you, everyone either hated me or feared me, or both. I lost all the friends I’d had. Nobody really considered me human anymore, I was too powerful and unhinged. I just did my job. That was the only reason they let me live after what I did to you, rather than executing me. Since I’m the Six Eyes and the Strongest, and they needed me to pull most of the sorcerer world’s weight. So that’s what I did.” Righting his head on his neck, he shrugged, not looking at them. “And it was easy, honestly. I didn’t feel okay and I didn’t feel sane, but I was the best. I hated being awake and conscious so I slept whenever I could. Sleep was nice, because in my dreams I always got to see you.” He gave a dark wry chuckle. “I had serious reality issues where reality felt like a disorienting dream while my dreams of you as felt real as anything. I could actually feel there, too. When conscious I couldn’t feel emotions normally anymore, if at all. Mostly I was numb and hazy as hell. I killed my best friend Suguru and I didn’t feel anything. I was just…” He shook his head, white bangs across his face. “Gojo Satoru barely existed. What was there of my self was just being haunted by you. Aside from that, I was just the empty vessel of the Six Eyes, more living jujutsu weapon than person.” He gestured over at Toji without looking at him. “And then your cousin finally killed me.” He was silent, looking down at the ground. Slowly, softly, he said, “I… I guess, all things considered, it couldn’t exactly be considered a bad life. I did my job that was easy and I got paid a shitton of money and was respected for my strength and I wasn’t really there mentally or emotionally anyway, I was pretty dissociated most of the time so it’s not like I even really felt any pain or anything. So, it couldn’t exactly be called a bad life. It certainly wasn’t a difficult one. But it was certainly a lackluster one. One that I spent sleep-walking through more than living.” He shrugged. “It was what it was, I suppose.” He looked over to meet Naoya’s gaze and smiled with closed eyes. “I pretty much held onto what little sanity I had by dreaming about you.”

Naoya looked back at him, subdued.

It was actually pretty heartbreaking, hearing Gojo describe his life like that, the ease with which he just accepted not even being human. The Six Eyes was really a fucked up thing to be, huh.

“Mm, up until I killed you, Satoru,” Toji said, “and then afterwards ran into you as a summons, Naoya, my life was pretty similar to that, in that I wasn’t really living it and was operating more as a living weapon than as a person.” He said it casually, lightly. “All I did was train to get stronger and more skilled so that I could take down the Six Eyes. Train, eat, sleep, repeat. Pretty much all I did for those twelve years. And then…” His turn to look up at the dim low ceiling, sifting through his life in the cobweb-hanging shadows. “After killing you, Satoru, and finally achieving the revenge that had been all I was living for, I was adrift and lost. I’m actually not sure if I might even have killed myself, if I hadn’t gotten to see you again, Naoya, and you telling me that you were proud of the man I’d become and to live with terrifying strength for you.” Toji’s scarred lips curved softly. “So, then I had to.” He lowered his gaze down to the floor, smooth gray tiles in the gloom. “But all I’d ever done was train to kill sorcerers, so that’s what I went into. Became the Sorcerer Killer, more or less just a special-status mercenary. Not that all I did was kill sorcerers and curse users, I killed non-sorcerers, too, and sometimes exorcised cursed spirits. I even did thefts a few times. Whatever the job was, if it paid enough. Then I met the woman who become my wife. Met her at a bar, I would go for a beer from time to time because after your death I used to drink with Naobito and it had become a comforting taste. She was… bright and ebullient, like you.” It made him smile softly to think back on her. “Eccentric and charismatic. Had the craziest fucking hair that always stuck up in these ridiculous cowlick spikes,” he gestured above his head demonstratively, “crazy hair that our son inherited. I had a few years of happiness with her, before she got sick and died in the hospital, but by then I had our son, Naoya, but I realized pretty quickly that I couldn’t take care of him by myself so after his innate technique manifested and it happened to be the Ten Shadows, I took him back to the Zen’in clan and more or less used him to get myself accepted again.” He shrugged. “Fought to become leader of the Hei just because I was the strongest and I could. Actually ended up becoming something like your replacement, Satoru. With the Six Eyes gone the sorcerer world ended up having no choice but to accept me since they needed my strength. Got to exorcise curses which I enjoyed, got to raise my son. You might think the Ten Shadows is a cool technique until the estate is overrun with bunny rabbits.” He chuckled at the memories. “Nah, it’s a cool technique. He ended up going to Tokyo Tech rather than Kyoto I think because of Nanami and Shoko. In his second year that guy who was working for Tokyo Tech, Itadori Yuji, he was a vessel of Sukuna and had been hunting down and collecting Sukuna’s fingers for years, but then—ah, that guy in Geto Suguru’s body, who I actually teamed up with in order to take you down, Satoru—he did something that caused Itadori Yuji to lose to Sukuna. I’m hazy on the details because I didn’t care about them, but basically Sukuna reincarnated in his original form, then there was a rather civilly agreed arrangement where he and I as the two Strongest would meet to have a duel.” He shrugged again. “So I fought the guy and exorcised him and then died right after, pretty much.” He raised his gaze to the train station wall. Could use some graffiti. “All things considered, my life was pretty alright. At least, it got pretty good, later. But I…” he look over at Naoya, meeting his watchful gold gaze, smiling tremulously, heart heavy as the emptiness of an abyss, “I really did miss you, Naoya.”

Naoya just smiled back at him with brightness and warmth. “I’m so happy for you and proud of you it hurts, Toji-kun.”

Toji didn’t even realize he was crying until he found himself rubbing at his eyes, hand getting all wet. Then he tasted the salt water on his lips, and for whatever reason it made him cry harder.

When Naoya went over to put a comforting hand on his shoulder, Toji dropped to his knees and wrapped his arms around Naoya’s waist with fingers clenching in Naoya’s hakamashita, burying his face against Naoya’s stomach just to feel small again, his older cousin with a hand on top of his head stroking his hair.

---

“Okay but here’s my question,” Naoya said, one all of their talking was done and all of their tears were dried. “When you’re dead and hanging out in an empty train station, is there anything to do aside from talk or have sex?”

Toji’s lips quirked as his eyes glanced around. “An excellent question. Have you tried exploring the station yet?”

“I was waiting for you guys, so I didn’t want to accidentally end up getting lost,” Naoya said.

“Well, we’re both here, now,” Toji said. “We could all explore what’s here together.”

“You don’t want to wait for son?” Naoya asked.

“Well, I’m hopeful that it will take him many years yet before he crosses over,” Toji said. “And I’m hopeful that he’ll have friends and maybe even a lover that he’ll either be waiting for or who will already be waiting for him. He doesn’t need his dad hanging around making things awkward. So I think it’s okay if I move on without him. The way he is, it would be what he’d want, anyway.”

Naoya smiled at him, holding out his hand for Toji to take, like when Toji had been a kid. “Then lets explore this empty train station like we once explored that New Years’ festival together, Toji-kun. But this time with my boyfriend.”

“Sounds good,” Toji smiled back. His heart was doing melty molten things as he took that graceful hand that now seemed so delicate in his own, but was still exactly as he remembered it, calloused and strong.

“And hey, who knows,” Naoya said, pulling Toji over to Gojo so that he could link his other arm through Gojo’s own, grinning. “Maybe we’ll run into your wife somewhere, and you can introduce her to your crazy cousin and his drop-dead gorgeous beau.”

“Drop-dead gorgeous?” Gojo asked.

“I literally did drop dead because of you,” Naoya pointed out.

“Ouch,” Gojo said, with a rictus.

“It’s true, though,” Naoya said, guileless. “Along with the gorgeous part.”

“Naoya…” Gojo said, intense blue gaze both pained and hopelessly soft.

“The way you two are with each other really does make it even more tragic the way he killed you,” Toji said.

“All the greatest heroes of history are tragic ones,” Naoya shrugged, pulling them along with the three of them ridiculously linked. “Come on. Our lives may have ended, but our deaths have only just begun.”

“At least we’ve got a sun to light our way through this dark unknown,” Toji said, reaching over to brush a black-tipped blond bangs out of one of Naoya’s gold eyes.

Naoya looked at him, and then looked away, nodding up at the shadowed ceiling with his chin. “You look up at the sky and think the sun is blotting out all the darkness and stars, but it’s not,” he said. “That’s just the atmosphere you’re looking through. The sun is actually just another self-luminous gaseous spheroidal celestial body of great mass which produces energy by means of nuclear fusion reactions which is drifting alone in the universe.” Letting go of both of them, he moved ahead of them to turn around and grin back at them, gesturing to the vast and probably infinite shadowed empty train station behind him. “Come on. Let’s drift together through this dark unknown, as each other’s only effusing light.”

Notes:

the fight against Sukuna in the manga dragged on forever and then his death was super uneventful, huh? didn't feel any inclination to do much homage to it. maybe there will be a few more details of the fight next chapter though, maybe. probly a little.

Next chapter: Naoya (Toji's son) and his life, growing up with the name of his dad's favorite cousin who was killed by the Six Eyes. kinda a lot of weight, bearing that name. that legacy.

if you enjoyed this chapter, make sure to let me know with a kudo or a comment!

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 9 of jjk fics that are all toji's fault