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Megumi wanted Gojo back.
That was all there was to it. Maybe it was Gojo that had struck him with five Infinite Voids and nearly killed him. Maybe it was Gojo that had tossed out any and every care in the world while he was fighting Sukuna, even if it meant almost destroying Megumi’s body in the process. Maybe it was Gojo that had died trying to save him and had failed in the end.
Megumi didn’t care.
Gojo had to come back.
It was all he could think about the moment he even had the most remote semblance of consciousness during his coma, an aftereffect of everything that had transpired in Shinjuku.
He missed Gojo.
He didn’t know why his heart and mind were so focused on that man out of everyone he lost or didn’t lose. He didn’t know why his soul felt damned with the guilt of his teacher’s murder more than anyone else he killed. He didn’t know why it was so important that he had to have Gojo back. He just knew he felt empty without him.
It was a feeling he could sense deep in his bones— an emptiness in the world that came with the death of the strongest. Megumi didn’t like it. The safety and comfort that came from having Gojo around to watch over him was gone, and though he would never admit that he often found peace in knowing that he was always being looked after, he would admit that to be without it felt like drowning.
While stuck in his coma, he had dreams. Dreams of a world where Gojo never died, where everything was happy, but they always ended the same way. Gojo’s body always ended up split in two.
Megumi begged for him to come back each time.
Gojo promised he would never leave him.
When Megumi woke up, most of his shikigami had been destroyed, save for a few that he had yet to tame but now had use for thanks to Sukuna. But on top of those that remained, Megumi felt something else lurking in the darkest pit of his shadows that he’s certain was not there before.
It was an intense energy unlike anything he had ever felt, even when he summoned Mahoraga for the first time in Shibuya.
He told Yuji about it, back when he was still too weak to summon any of his shadows but still able to feel their presence all the same. Yuji had no idea what it could have been and even though they knew it was dangerous, they both agreed that there was only one way to find out.
As the days passed, Megumi could feel the presence beneath his skin growing stronger, as if a caged animal was trying to break free of its prison. In some dark thought, he wondered if it had something to do with Sukuna, but he brushed it aside as quickly as the idea came because Sukuna was gone.
He had to be.
One day, the presence disappeared. Megumi couldn’t feel it anymore.
Sometime later, on the first mission he was able to go on in nearly three years, he found himself cornered by a special grade curse that had hidden itself behind a plethora of second grade or lower curses, waiting for the moment to strike should its opponent take the bait.
Unfortunately, Megumi did, and Yuji was too far across the abandoned complex to get to him in time, so he was royally screwed.
He almost died that day.
Again.
But out of the depths of his shadow sprung an extension of himself that he never had in his arsenal prior to any of this, cursed energy blazing and teeth bared towards the monster that stood before him.
Pale skin, a bloody face, and the weight of death on its fingertips.
Megumi had covered his head to shield himself as he awaited the impact of the curse that was sure to kill him, but he was too scared to drop his arms even in the presence of the very thing that destroyed it and saved his life. He didn’t want to look at it, whatever it was.
But When Yuji came crashing into the room, fists ready to kill and shoes skidding against the concrete floor to stop himself, a single word uttered from his lips that made Megumi’s heart sink.
“Gojo-sensei?”
Megumi peeled back his arms to observe the creature before him, unable to do anything but stare at the one person he’d once desired to have back in his life the most. He thought he had gotten better with it once he woke up. He didn’t miss Gojo as much as he did in his dreams, though it didn’t mean that he didn’t miss him at all.
The school had buried his body on the grounds in a private corner of campus near the edge of the forest, and Megumi had spent many days visiting him there and learning to cope with his loss. But now, it was as if his scar tissue had been opened once more.
Yuji helped him onto his feet and shuffled them back as Gojo turned to face them, a toothy smile on his face that sent chills down Megumi’s spine in place of comfort. His teeth were sharp, too sharp to be human, his lips stretching wider than usual but not so wide that it split his face.
Beyond that, Gojo’s skin was pale and covered in scars from head to toe, littering his face, body and arms as if he had been cut a million times over. Blood cascaded down his face in multiple trails from a nonexistent wound in his hairline, each drop from his jaw falling onto his bare torso and disappearing with a searing sound.
The most notable feature, however, were the scars on his forehead.
Megumi gripped Yuji’s sleeve in fear, unable to fully swallow the lump in his throat at the monstrosity standing before him.
Yuji caught his gaze, exhaling shakily and glancing between them. “Fushiguro, tell me you didn’t curse him.”
Four more eyes appeared on Gojo’s face, his skin splitting eerily as they blinked open to stack underneath his usual ones. Megumi’s gaze dropped to the seal paper wrapped around the place Gojo was split in two, that same material present on his arms and wrapped around his bare feet.
Gojo began to approach and Megumi held his ground despite every cell in his body screaming for him to bolt, unable to stop himself from staring at yet another scar that trailed from Gojo’s neck to his hip.
It hit him then.
Why Gojo, or at least some version of him, was here.
The realization made his heart feel like it dropped into his stomach.
“I think I did,” he breathed in horror, squeezing his friend’s arm all the more tightly when Gojo stopped in front of them with yet another smile. The man tilted his head, unable to speak yet conveying a thousand words with such a simple series of actions.
After that day, Gojo followed Megumi everywhere.
Not literally, of course, but Megumi kept him tucked away in his shadows like any other shikigami until he felt comfortable enough to use him. But using Gojo like that— like some sort of puppet, made Megumi hate this all the more.
He tried to find comfort in it, especially when he finally did get comfortable enough to let Gojo back out into the real world again. He talked to him, even though he wasn’t sure Gojo understood what he was saying, and let him walk alongside him on missions instead of trapping him back in darkness.
But the guilt of knowing that he was to blame for this was starting to eat him alive.
Gojo didn’t seem to mind being around, even if he was only a curse. Megumi wasn’t sure he could even feel that kind of emotion at all, but part of him liked to think that at least some part of Gojo was still human.
But all it took was for Gojo to destroy a cluster of special grade curses with ease for Megumi to decide that no part of that man was human anymore. It was just as Yuta had done to Rika back when he was still a child.
Megumi had cursed Gojo.
He tried everything to fix it. He talked to Yuta, who was still recovering even after so many years of being free, but Yuta’s only advice was that Megumi would have to find his own way to break the curse. It was different for everyone, when they cursed someone they loved like that.
Rika had been a special case, and it wasn’t to say that Gojo wasn’t as well, but this situation was different from Yuta’s. Megumi had cursed Gojo in his sleep, essentially, and he didn’t even know how he did.
He doesn’t know what was said or what exactly caused it to happen. All he knows, just like when he was still under, was that he wanted Gojo back.
He tried to talk to Gojo, even if the man couldn’t understand him. He sat down with him and took him places and tried time and time again to assure his new attachment that it was okay and that he would be alright by himself.
You don’t have to watch over me anymore, he’d said to him once. But when Gojo shrugged it off with a smile and proceeded to veer off the path into a field of blooming flowers, Megumi at least knew he was right about one thing.
So if Gojo could understand him, at the very least, there was still a little hope that he could break the curse he caused.
Yuji once suggested that maybe it had something to do with being human. Before any of this happened, Gojo was human, but he was always used as a tool and his weakness of the flesh was often disregarded simply because his soul was made of steel.
Megumi considered it, ciphering though his blurry comatic memories to find that in many instances, Gojo was more human than he ever was compared to when he was actually alive. He wondered if that was it— if by getting Gojo to remember what it was like to be human, truly human, he could get him to return to the stars as the soul he once was.
It was a shot in the dark, but Megumi had to take it.
Not just for his sake, but for Gojo’s.
The first place he took him was the same place they first met, though it was largely destroyed and abandoned now. He explained every detail he could remember, because even if he was incredibly smart as a six year old back then, his mind did not work the way it did before Sukuna took over.
The apartment he once lived in with Tsumiki was dusty and covered in debris, a gaping hole in one entire side of the complex where the wall had been ripped away without mercy by some unknown force. Gojo occasionally destroyed a low grade curse with a flick of his fingers as they walked through it, his features ever stoic and detached even in the face of the precious memories he was supposed to hold of this place.
When Megumi reached their old bedroom, he couldn’t stop the tear that slid down his cheek. He didn’t notice it until Gojo’s cool finger gently slid across his skin to wipe it away, the man peering over at him from his spot at his side with an ever distant expression.
“Sorry,” Megumi had apologized, wiping the area again with his sleeve and turning to peer into the destroyed room just across the hall. “Just a little sad, that’s all.”
“Sad,” Gojo repeated thoughtfully, his voice low and so inhuman that it nearly startled Megumi out of his skin.
He stared at Gojo for a moment, disbelieving and considering that this was either a good sign or a bad one before he chose the former. As much as he wanted to comment on the new revelation, he decided that now wasn’t the time. It would be better for Gojo if he didn’t point it out.
“Yeah,” he confirmed instead, looking away. “Sad.”
After that, he took Gojo to many of the places he had once brought the two children together, from the practically nonexistent park to the abandoned crepes shop on what used to be (in Tsumiki’s opinion) the prettiest location in the city.
He explained what Gojo always ordered when they went, what Tsumiki liked, what he liked (and didn’t like), and by the time the sun went down he had failed to realize how long he had been reminiscing until Gojo stopped them just outside the school grounds. But it wasn’t Jujutsu High that they had arrived at. It was the middle school Megumi loathed with a passion.
He knew it was too dark to really show it to Gojo, but he couldn’t help himself as he led the curse deeper into the untouched schoolyard. His eyes caught a set of bleachers in the distance and he froze.
Gojo had attended his graduation.
He was late, of course, just as he always was. But he was there.
When the tears started this time, they didn’t stop. His lip trembled violently as he took a deep breath to calm himself, studying everything from the building itself to the vines growing on the soccer goal to keep himself from looking at the shell of a man who stood next to him on the grass.
He wondered if Gojo remembered.
“S-s-sad,” Gojo had observed, recalling their interaction from earlier. It only made Megumi feel worse. Because if Gojo did remember, there was likely no way he even understood what it meant.
Megumi could only nod, leaning into the broad hand that found rest on his shoulder.
Several days of similar recollections of memories, and still nothing. Gojo showed no signs of change in his cursed state, and Megumi felt like giving up. He told Yuji about all of it, running through every detail of what he did and what he avoided doing until he was running out of breath from explaining himself so much. It was the most he had ever said in one sitting, but Yuji didn’t seem to mind.
He was only mildly amused, though Megumi didn’t find any of it funny.
When he asked what the hell was wrong with him, Yuji could only laugh a little and tell him the one thing he hadn’t even stopped to consider: I just think that you hanging out with ‘spirit Gojo’ has done more good than you realize, Fushiguro. You like spending time with him, even though he isn’t really there, I guess. Or maybe he is. But I suppose only you know that for sure.
Come to think of it, it had been made blatantly obvious that the cursed spirit haunting Megumi’s dreams and reality was actually there. Gojo could react to his sadness and his words, even if he wasn’t sure the apparition understood him most of the time. He could act on his own, though he couldn’t stray very far in that realm of consciousness.
He could kill curses on his own, smile on his own, occasionally pester Megumi on his own (it was those moments where Megumi was too stupid to realize that Gojo was still himself somewhere inside that cold body). He doesn’t understand how he didn’t see it before.
But Yuji’s words only posed another question. It was the same one they were trying to answer the entire time: how the hell do they set him free?
Almost a year into it all, and Megumi still did not know.
He couldn’t take it anymore, the guilt weighing on his heart and soul until he could feel his vessel splitting beneath the pressure of it. And no matter how many times it seemed that he was trying to help, he only ever seemed to make things worse.
He had avoided it like the plague, even though he had showed Gojo quite literally everything else imaginable. He refused to go near it even if he thought it could help. He thought it might have been better if Gojo never knew about its existence at all, the repercussions of the reveal too great to face should it send curse-Gojo into a loop
Yuta was the only one who knew the extent of it.
He was the only person who ever could, having lived inside of that body for some time.
Suguru Geto was the most important person in Gojo’s life, and his body had been buried right next to Gojo’s in that concealed corner of campus. Megumi didn’t know enough to tell Gojo about him anyways, but Yuta did.
So when Megumi finally decided to bite the bullet in a last ditch effort to set Gojo free, he brought Yuta and his cursed shikigami to the headstones seated upon the grass, and let Yuta walk him though the memories Gojo did not recall.
It did not go as well as Megumi hoped it would.
But it did go about as bad as he feared.
Instead of freeing him from his life as a cursed spirit, it only sunk him deeper into the shadows. Gojo retreated into that darkness and locked the door, leaving Megumi with a key too bent to be of use any longer.
Gojo sat by the grave for a long time after Yuta told him what he knew, unmoving and appearing to think even though Megumi knew there probably wasn’t a single thought behind those luminescent eyes. He didn’t have the heart to call him back into his shadow even after the cursed spirit had lingered there until nightfall.
All he could do was sit with him and hope it was enough to convey the apologies he never knew how to say with his lips.
At the crack of dawn the next day, Gojo dissipated into the darkness and he never came back out. No matter how many times Megumi called upon him in the excruciatingly long month following, Gojo did not answer.
It broke his heart, knowing that not only had he been the cause of Gojo’s cursehood, but his decent into darkness as well. He never meant for any of this to happen.
He never meant for his parents to leave him. He never meant for Tsumiki to get cursed. He never meant for Yuji to eat Sukuna’s finger. He never meant for Sukuna to take over his own body. He never meant for Tsumiki to die by his hand. He never meant for Gojo to die by his hand.
And he certainly never meant for Gojo to become a curse by his hand.
Everything that had happened was his fault.
“Gojo,” Megumi called into the empty bedroom of Gojo’s abandoned quarters, determined to set things right even when he knew it would be no use. He supposed that if he ventured into a place that he’d been too guilty to enter before, that Gojo would finally come out as a result of his bravery, beaming with pride for whatever reason with that stupid smile on his face.
He took a seat on the dusty blanket when there was no answer, waiting and waiting for something— anything to happen, but nothing ever did. Gojo didn’t want to talk to him. Megumi couldn’t even feel him in his shadow anymore.
A deep sigh left him as the familiar sting of hot tears glazed over his eyes, his fingers plucking at the blanket Megumi is certain he’s slept upon once before after a nightmare.
“You promised you wouldn’t leave me, remember?” he uttered into the silence, even though he knew how unfair it was for him to say such a thing at a time like this.
But life was unfair.
It was cruel and it was unfair and it did nothing but take and take from him and everyone around him until there was nothing left but the ghost of a man Megumi misses with all that he is.
The silence that followed was only a painful reminder of that fact.
“I’m sorry. What I did was unfair,” he admitted, guilt and regret seeping into the cracks of the untouched walls around him. “I did this to you and now I’ve made it worse. You didn’t deserve that. You don’t… you don’t deserve any of this.”
The unfamiliar words of his apologies are bitter on his tongue, laced with a venom that was never meant for Gojo but for the world around him. He’d never been good with his words. But Gojo wasn’t either.
Part of him hoped it would be enough for Gojo to understand anyways.
A shadow opened on the wall across from him and he lifted his head to face it, his eyes meeting six others that looked a little clearer than the last time he saw them a month ago. Gojo slowly stepped out of the darkness, head tilted down the slightest bit and his expression his own version of sad.
The blood was gone from his face, but Megumi was too shocked to notice it even as Gojo approached him and took a seat on the mattress at his side.
Slowly, his scarred hand found his even more damaged chest, his earnest eyes meeting Megumi’s before he spoke. There was a ghost of pain on his features, his cursed body looking more human than Megumi remembered him being. “Hurts.”
Megumi exhaled shakily, lip trembling as he bit back his crippling urge to cry. He had never been the type to cry much, even as a child, but in the face of a man he had grown to consider his own family, he was finding it extremely difficult not to. “I know. I’m sorry.”
Gojo shook his head, his slightly sharp nails gripping his chest harder and digging his fingers into his skin. He did not bleed. “Hurts.”
The connection between a Ten Shadows user and their shikigami was an intimate one, especially on an emotional level. He knew that part of this was Gojo’s reaction to his pain, doubled by the curse’s own version of it, but there was nothing Megumi could do to stop it.
“It’s all my fault,” Megumi whispered, feeling the effects of that connection taking a deep root inside his soul. It was as if a branch was growing around his heart, constricting the life out of it so that it could live there instead.
“My fault,” Gojo repeated, dropping his hand.
Megumi shook his head, quick to correct him. “No, me. My fault. I cursed you. I took your life away from you because I wanted you to stay. And now, you’re forced to follow me around for an eternity all because I didn’t have the strength to let you go.”
“I leave,” Gojo replied, his inhuman voice as soft as he could manage it to be. It was the most emotion Megumi had ever heard from him, but his hurt was too loud for him to notice it. “Me. I leave.”
Part of him swore that Gojo’s speech was much clearer than before, but this wasn’t about that. All he could think about was how sorry he was that any of this happened.
He shook his head again, ready to refute Gojo’s claim of responsibility that he likely didn’t even understand, but Gojo only shuffled closer, legs and shoulders brushing as he leaned over to meet Megumi’s teary eyes.
“I leave you,” the cursed spirit reiterated to the best of his ability, cool hands taking Megumi’s wrists into his grasp. It was firm at first, serious, but quickly loosened into something much gentler and aware.
The third sign that something was different.
“I left,” Gojo continued. “My fault.”
“You were just trying to save me,” Megumi sniffled, unable to do anything else. “Because you cared. It’s not your fault.”
“It is,” Gojo argued, his voice clear and so much like him that Megumi swore he imagined it. For a brief moment, he thought he could see him hidden deep inside that curse somewhere. “I promised.”
Megumi’s eyes widened, hot tears freely dripping from them to cascade down the surface of his cheeks until they disappeared onto the stained rug below them.
Gojo’s expression turned solemn. “My fault.”
Megumi closed his eyes, unable to face it, but Gojo tugged him close to his chest and refused to allow him to bear any of this alone. His chin found rest on his head and for the first time in three years, Gojo’s heart began to beat.
“I’m sorry,” Megumi choked into the space between their souls, “I didn’t mean to curse you. I just wanted you back.”
“I know, kid.” Gojo replied, warmth filling his bones and leaving Megumi feeling like he finally made it back home.
“I never got to tell you how I felt. I never… I didn’t know how,” the boy continued, voice wavering.
He didn’t know how much longer he would have with Gojo before he returned to wherever he belonged. This would likely be the last time he would ever see the man again so he had to make the most of it. He just feared it wouldn’t be enough.
“There’s so much I want to say, but—“
“—It’s okay,” Gojo chuckled. The sound only made Megumi cry more. “You don’t have to say anything, Megumi. I already know. Trust me. You and I were never vocal about that stuff anyways. It doesn’t have to change now.”
“Thank you,” Megumi replied, wrapping his arms around his teacher in a proper hug and burying his face in a strong, warm shoulder. “For all of it, Gojo.”
“You’re welcome, kid.” Gojo murmured softly, so earnest and real that Megumi wondered how the hell he was ever going to let him go now.
“I don’t want this to be goodbye.”
“I know,” Gojo told him, passing a hand through inky black locks. “But you’re gonna do just fine without me. You’re strong. You’ll figure it out.”
“I’m not as strong as you,” Megumi tried to argue, but it was a weak attempt.
“You will be, someday.”
Megumi clutched him tighter, tears dripping onto warm skin. He wasn’t so sure that would ever be true, but he owed it to Gojo to try.
“This mean you’re gonna start calling me dad?” Gojo joked, prompting a teary laugh from the boy in his grasp.
“You’re an awful shitty excuse for one,” Megumi shot back, though there was no bite or malice in his words. He could feel Gojo beginning to slip away from him, but even if he would be gone in the next few seconds, Megumi decided that maybe this would be enough time after all. “But yeah. I think I might."