Chapter Text
When Utahime gets to the airport, she has only one regret: she has never had a real relationship.
Which is stupid, really. She knows this.
As a sorcerer and an educator, she had been loved by her students and respected by her peers. With the passing of time, she had remained one of the pillars of jujutsu, an important figure in Japan and recognized by the ones in the know worldwide.
It's just that after the battle against Sukuna the years simply passed her by, and romance had fallen down her list of priorities, until she had forgotten what it was like to feel the touch of another, even if the needs were still pretty much present.
Now that she’s dead, she can admit to herself that she had no choice but to tell herself that it wasn't worth the hassle, to cope. That in the year 2038, what need does a woman have for a man, really?
None, exactly.
Not for love, least of all for pleasure, with all the options they have these days. Adult toys, the very realistic Adore and SweetSpace game and accompanying droids, and a myriad of other more avant garde alternatives that stimulate the body and mind.
However, none of that matters now!
She's irrevocably dead – heart failure due to hypertension, the silent killer – and waiting for her call to the afterlife.
Giddy excitement fizzes up in her belly at the prospect to finally be able to rest. It is a good feeling, albeit sort of silly for a fifty-year-old woman to have, considering the perspective of her life cycle ending is what thrills her so.
Even if she doesn't remember her previous lives, she thinks she was good enough in this one – guiding children, helping them grow their skills, risking her life in battle against the greatest threat her world has ever seen – and, if she says so herself, she had been especially good when she decided to shoulder the responsibility to take care of the grave of the most annoying, arrogant, insensitive person she has ever met.
Ah, I hope he got to rest too. And rest well, he had fought so hard, harder than any of us…
“This is a boarding announcement for flight 341. We are now inviting passenger Iori Utahime to board at this time. Please head to the Southern Gate to proceed with boarding,” an automated voice, female and serene, calls, at the same time as another, masculine and oddly upbeat, not at all fit for the situation, says: “This is a boarding announcement for flight 200! We are now inviting passenger Iori Utahime to board at this time! Please head to the Northern Gate to proceed with boarding!”
Hmm? Two different flights?
Utahime doesn’t remember dying before – well, before now, that is – hence she was not expecting to be given a choice. Moreover, she has not much to go by, as none of the calls explain where exactly each flight will take her. They just gave her random numbers, and directions north and south.
Hmm.
If she takes each number in 341, they add up to 8, as in the Noble Eightfold Path. That, paired with the direction – south – has to mean she indeed has been granted the opportunity to escape Samsara.
“No way!” Utahime exclaims, her voice echoing eerily around the vacant lounge as she stands up from her uncomfortable metal seat.
That’s incredible! In this intermediate estate between life and death, she really has the chance to end her cycle–right here, right now.
And yet, whoever or whatever is in charge, decided to present her with another choice.
But why?
A fluke? Some sort of mix-up?
Evidently, the northern path refers to starting anew, to being reborn. However, she has no clue what 200 could possibly mean.
She proceeds to rack her brains out, and while she searches, while she does her best to try and recall what 200 means, she scarcely feels her memories sort of slipping away, leaving her one by one in quick succession, as she focuses on the number.
Hmm…
She feels like perhaps, a long time ago, 200 was used to measure something.
Something significant, something great.
But what, exactly?
Is it the amount of times she failed at picking up men? The amount of her regret at having failed so miserably in the romance department as Iori Utahime, in cubic kilometers? The force of all the orgasms she missed, in joules?
Goodness.
Apparently that’s something she can’t forget, huh? Her regret at not having been sufficiently, thoroughly fu–
“This is the final call for flight 341. Passenger Iori Utahime, please head to the Southern Gate to proceed with boarding,” the calm, serene voice beckons, and it is seemingly interrupted by that man, who urges her: “This is the final call for flight 200. Uta-hi-me, please head to the Northern Gate to proceed with boarding! Come on!”
Somehow, that masculine voice sounds vaguely familiar – promising – in a way that warms up her heart, her cheeks.
And from someplace deep in her soul an abandoned desire she can no longer remember moves her feet.
Iori Utahime starts running.
She heads north.
Elsewhere, in a forgotten realm of magic and adventure, an elf baby is born.