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“What the fuck is wrong with you, Tsukumo?”
The violent crack of the shoji door bounced against the opposite wall, echoing in the bustling room like a gunshot. The room, full of visiting sorcerers from Tokyo, immediately fell silent. Their eyes swivelled towards the woman standing in the doorway.
Utahime barely noticed. Her vision tunnelled. She zeroed in on someone chatting casually with Gojo in the middle of the room. The room parted for her as she strode forward, stopping right in front of the woman she wanted to punch in the face.
Tsukumo Yuki glanced down at her. “What’s the problem, Utahime?”
Beside her, Gojo let out a low whistle and stepped back.
“Are you kidding me?” Utahime exploded. “My student is on the verge of death because of you. He’ll be lucky if he can ever see out of his left eye again!”
“He’s a sorcerer,” Yuki shrugged, as if that was the only explanation needed.
“He would’ve died if Shoko wasn’t in Kyoto today!”
“Occupational hazard?” she offered.
Red tinged Utahime’s vision. Yuki was right- sorcerers suffered injuries all the time- but if the hazard could’ve been avoided if she hadn’t been so irresponsible, then Utahime had every right to be pissed about it!
The curse that attacked Todo had been a special grade wrought from a distant mining village. It was unusual for a higher grade to emerge from a village that small and remote, but most of the townspeople had lost their jobs due to new automated machinery. It had already taken out five people, growing greedy as it feasted on their despair.
Utahime didn’t even know how it got onto Yuki’s radar. She was rarely in Japan, so by the time she had swung by Kyoto Tech and picked up her former protégé for some ‘revision’, Utahime hadn’t even realised he was gone.
The curse had struck Todo with a devastating, precise blow right as he was preparing to activate his technique. It was a horrifying combination of cursed energy, fire and ash, launched at a hundred kilometres an hour right at the fifteen year old. It was a miracle it didn’t immediately vapourise the skin right off his skull. When he had arrived back at school, he was clutching what remained of his face, catching the pieces of skin as it peeled off like paper.
He had exorcised it himself. Of course he had. He was proud of it, too. Gojo had to knock him out for Shoko to properly work on him without his boasting getting in the way. It was just Todo’s luck that the Tokyo teachers had been visiting for a faculty meeting, because without Shoko, the outcome would’ve been much worse. Now all he had to show for the mission was a nasty concussion and a dark, jagged scar running down his face and over his eye. Takada loves the bad boys, Todo bragged. It made him look tough. Strong. Impenetrable.
Utahime looked at him and saw a boy- not a talented, strong sorcerer, but a fifteen year old boy who shouldn’t have had to be there in the first place.
“He is still a student,” Utahime gritted out. “He’s still under my care. You might bum around overseas doing what you want, but here is different. You can’t pick up students from school and take them on unauthorised missions!”
Yuki took a step forward. Her body language was still casual and loose, but the playful ease in her face disappeared. Utahime immediately noticed how she had to cran her neck up to still see Yuki’s eyes. Their height difference had never been more apparent than now. “You think he’s how to fight by reading books?”
Utahime was going to punch her. No matter if it landed or not, she was gonna do it.
Instead she clenched her fists by her sides. “Missions are supervised, screened and assigned according to a student’s skill level-”
“What if the mission is misassigned?” Yuki interrupted. “A civilian life hangs in the balance? The status of the curse changes from the time it’s reported to when the sorcerer shows up?”
Murmurs of assent went up around the room, but they were hushed and hesitant. Clearly no one else wanted to be the subject of Utahime’s fury right now.
“That is a case by case basis,” she insisted. “Students are accompanied when necessary-”
Yuki laughed. It wasn’t sarcastic or cruel. It was the unexpected, genuine laugh someone might make when a child had said something particularly naive.
“Jeez, when do the training wheels come off? You think someone will always be around to save him?” She tilted her head, glancing around the room. “Maybe I’ve been away for too long, but is that how it works here now? You guys always work in pairs? Groups? You have backups?”
The room was silent. People were either looking away nervously or openly gawking at the two like it was a particularly close tennis match.
Utahime refused to be embarrassed. Her student could’ve been killed. She would not back down.
“Todo might’ve been your previous personal project, but while he’s at Kyoto, he adheres to the school rules.”
“Boring.” Yuki blew a raspberry. Spittle arced over Utahime’s head. “You handle them with kid gloves, they’re not gonna know what to do when they come off.”
“So the alternative is they die before graduation?” Utahime demanded. “These are teenagers, not mercenaries.”
“Your conventional methods sound great for the weaker ones, but for the stronger ones it’s a waste of time.” Yuki turned to Gojo, who had slowly been backing away from the two of them. “Did you ever need to be accompanied on missions when you were fifteen?”
“Most of us aren't freaks like Gojo.” Utahime sniped before he could say anything. Gojo looked a little miffed, but tough shit. “How do you think sorcerers make it to grade one without innate talent or even a strong cursed technique? There’s more to a sorcerer than raw strength.”
Yuki raised her eyebrows. “Raw strength is what keeps us alive.”
“If it just depended on strength, then why don’t we all operate like you? Kill the curse, get the job done, go home? Shall we all work alone then?” Utahime threw it out to the room. Just as she expected, no one answered her. “We can’t. The future of Jujutsu would fall apart. We need to help each other out. Curses will only get stronger. We need to depend on one another when we don’t have your overwhelming cursed techniques to back us up.”
Hushed words were being exchanged somewhere in the room. Utahime didn't even hear them. She focused on Yuki, tilting her head up to hold her intense gaze. “I’ll never be as strong as you. I’ll never even be as strong as Todo," she admitted. Even though everyone in the room had known that, it still stung. Utahime had worked her ass off to get where she was, but it was still a blow to admit out loud that no matter how hard she worked, she would never make it to the level of those born with inherently stronger techniques. “But if you think that strength just needs to be nurtured by strength, you create soldiers, not sorcerers.”
Yuki was not the first person to question Utahime’s ability as a teacher, especially one that accompanied her students out in the field.
They’d turn out weak like her. She doesn’t know how to handle violent, strong techniques.
To Yuki, only of the only special grades, it must’ve looked laughable to have her training her protégé.
Utahime, stagnant in her semi-grade one status. The support songbird, Gojo had called her once. A splash compared to Yuki’s tsunami.
But Utahime knew her strengths, and she lived her weaknesses. A person's strength didn’t protect them from tragedy. Her students needed to know that someone would always be there for them. Utahime would always be that person, even when they ended up surpassing her.
“No one is invincible,” she told Yuki. “No matter how strong they are. When Todo leaves school, if he chooses to go down your route, then that’s up to him. For now, he’s a teenage boy that needs to know he has people to fall back on.”
Then she turned on her heel and walked away. The other sorcerers parted for her. She stopped by the door, her hand on the handle. There was one last thing Yuki needed to know.
“You sent Todo to Kyoto,” Utahime threw over her shoulder. “So let me do my job and back the fuck off my students.”
~
“I can’t fucking believe her!”
Utahime, seated on Gojo’s lap in her dorm room, was still raging. She had her hands deep in his wild hair, tugging harshly whenever a new furious thought came to mind. Gojo, half dressed with his head buried in her neck, was more than happy to let her keep going. His own hands had wriggled under her untucked kosode and hakama, pressing into the soft skin of her hips as he moved her insistantly over his hard length.
She’d sought him out after she’d destroyed an innocent punching bag in the gym. He always liked her when she was angry. Fucking was a fight, not a dance, and he loved to fight.
A particularly harsh tug made him groan against her pulse. “She’s just an asshole who thinks she can do anything she wants because she’s a special grade!”
Gojo, very wisely, didn’t say anything. He pressed a trail of kisses along her jaw and over her chin, aiming for her mouth. Utahime jerked out of his grasp right before he reached it. “Just because she operates outside of headquarters overseas doesn’t mean she’s better than the rest of us!"
Gojo mumbled something that she knew he made purposefully inaudible against her shoulder.
Utahime yanked hard on his hair again, almost coming away with a handful of snowy white locks. “Are you on my side or hers?” she hissed.
She should’ve known that he would only give her the answer that would get him laid. But when he growled a low, “Your’s, baby,” it sent a gratifying and validating thrill through her veins. She crashed her lips onto his, tightening her thighs around his hips and grinding her core down into his lap.
He grinned against her mouth, returning with equal fervour. Bucking up into her wet heat, he dragged her clothed cunt against him, moving her how he pleased. The delicious friction sent a bolt of pleasure shuddering through her whole body, and she chased it, her mind hazy.
She yanked back from him, diving down to latch onto the crook of his neck. Gojo went wild, rutting harder into her, his fingers digging into her hips so tight she knew he would leave bruises. When Utahime pulled away, a red splotchy mark was blooming on his perfect skin.
“Harder,” she ordered. Of course Gojo would oblige. He stood suddenly, drawing her body tight to his.. They fell onto her bed, and he immediately covered her body with his own, his eager hands scrabbling for the ties on her hakama, his lips never leaving hers. His tongue dipped into her mouth, pressing for more. Greedy man.
Utahime hooked her legs around his waist and used all her strength to flip them over. Gojo went willingly, landing with a soft grunt against her pillows. He grinned up at her, baring his sharp teeth. He always liked her on top.
Utahime sank into his body, aligning herself right over his bulging cock, pressing her knees into the bed. Gojo’s impatient hands settled onto her waist, still reaching for her hakama ties, but she slapped them away. Instead, she pinned him with a glare and raised her hands, sliding them under her kosode. She pulled it open, letting it pool at her waist.
Gojo’s eyes darkened, his pupils so wide only a ring of blue remained. He bundled her against his body, leaning down to her breasts.
An abrupt knock at the door startled her right of her stupor. She jerked her head up, yanking her kosode closed. The person knocked three more times before the world finally righted itself, and Utahime’s pleasure fizzled out into an unsatisfying end.
“Don’t answer it,” Gojo groaned against her chest, grabbing her hips to keep her still. Utahime shoved him off with a huff, and he whined like a petulant child. Sliding off his lap, she padded towards the door, the pleasure evaporating from her body as she immediately snapped back into teaching mode. Her room was pretty isolated from most of the other dormitories, so no one knocked at her door unless it was serious.
She pulled her clothes tight around her and hastily combed back her hair with her fingers. If she had been a bit more alert, she might’ve picked up on the distinct cursed energy trail standing beyond the door.
“Tsukumo,” Utahime blinked.
Yuki stood there in the hallway, as unbothered as ever. Her long blonde hair was tied back. She had her leather jacket buttoned up to her chin, her motorcycle helmet tucked under her arm. She chewed loudly on a piece of gum, smacking her lips together to blow a bubble.
Utahime slid open the shoji door just enough for her to slip out into the hallway before she closed it again. “What are you doing here?”
Her sudden appearance had taken her so off guard that her earlier rage hadn’t had time to catch up. Was she here to rub salt in the wound again?
Yuki jerked her thumb towards the window. “I’m heading out.”
Utahime was unsure how this pertained to her. Surely she wasn’t expecting a warm goodbye. “Okay.”
“I wanted to say that you were right.”
Utahime’s jaw dropped. All she could do was blurt out, “What?”
Even when she was admitting she was wrong, Yuki looked as cool and confident as ever. “I shouldn’t have taken Todo out of school like that.”
Utahime, still dumbfounded, just stared at her.
Yuki continued. “When he was deciding schools, I told him he didn’t need one. But if he had to choose, I told him to go to Kyoto.”
“Why?”
Yuki shrugged. “I don’t meet many other sorcerers that often when I’m working. But when I did, someone always had something good to say about you. You won’t believe how small the sorcerer community really is, you know? Someone always knew someone else that was taught by you. Know what they said?”
She shook her head. Before this, they only met a few times. Utahime didn’t run in the same circles Yuki did. She wasn’t even aware that Yuki interacted with other sorcerers outside of Japan.
“Not that they got stronger, or faster, or tougher. But they're seen and cared for.” Her tone had turned almost soft, something Utahime had never associated with the special grade. “I knew then that you were a great teacher. Even if I don’t agree with the higher-ups' way of learning, if you agree with it, that’s all I need to know.”
“If the higher-ups’ had their way, students would graduate at fourteen and be out fighting curses on their own by fifteen,” Utahime said dryly. “But I can’t just abandon my students if I don’t like it. I have to work to make training better and safer for them. That’s how we get more full-fledged sorcerers who don’t leave sorcery a few years out of graduating. It’s how more students survive to graduate.”
Yuki snapped her fingers, pointing towards her. “That’s exactly why I sent Todo here. Sure, if he went with Gojo, he’d get stronger. Probably stronger than anything I could teach him. But you were right. There’s more to sorcery than pure strength. He needs guidance from someone that’s sticking around. You know how much Gojo dips in and out.”
Yes, Utahime knew that very well.
“Besides,” Yuki laughed. “I thought he might get dumber with Gojo’s level of teaching.”
“Todo is top of my class in academics,” Utahime informed her.
“He should be. He’s one of the smartest kids I’ve ever met.” She gave Utahime a hearty slap on the back that almost knocked her over. “Thanks for everything you’ve done for him. I’m off now.”
“Where are you going?”
“Who knows?” Yuki grinned, huge and wide. “I’ll figure it out at the airport. Oh, and Utahime,” her grin somehow grew even wider, and a tad more evil. “Say goodbye to Gojo for me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Utahime said primly.
Her bedroom door slid open. Of fucking course it did.
“Bye, Yuki,” Gojo said impatiently, still shirtless, his hair sticking up like he’d been electrocuted. “Can I have her back now?”
A sound that fell somewhere between a squawk and a scream escaped Utahime. She shoved Gojo backwards into her room, spinning back to Yuki to explain, but the other woman had already swept down the hallway.
“Let me know if you ever need a third!” Yuki yelled, throwing a thumbs up over her head.
“So shameless,” Gojo muttered, herding a shell-shocked Utahime back into the room.
“You’re one to talk,” Utahime snapped, grabbing his discarded jacket and shirt and pelting him with it.
Gojo stuck his tongue out at her, flopping back onto the bed, gesturing for her to join him.
“You heard all that, didn’t you?” Utahime asked, sitting on the edge of the bed.
“‘Course I did. Even the part about how my students get dumber. How could she say that?” Gojo whined, wrapping his arms around her and placing his chin on her shoulder. “What’re you thinking about?”
Utahime smiled, leaning back into him. “Just thinking about how I’ve never had a special grade sorcerer admit to me that they were wrong.”