Yoshi steps beyond the veil and directly into a nightmare. She doesn't quite know the criteria for labeling curses as second-grade, first-grade, or anything higher, but seeing that she just walked into a fucking domain, her money was on a S-class or Super-charged curse. Or whatever they called it.

Sorcerers sure loved to rank their stuff. Yoshi never understood the insistence on quantifying curses and power levels.

How can you put a number on strength? Who gets to judge it?

Power, Yoshi thinks irritably, ducking beneath a stray tentacle-like arm, is subjective.

The curse isn't slow, but it misses her again and again. The air feels different under the veil, but it seems to be an unfinished domain. The curse is too new, too thoughtless to concentrate on an actual technique. She's lost track of Naoya, which is bad, but there's a whole slew of crab-like offspring from the squid-like mother curse that he's probably busy with—

WHAM

Her vision goes dark for half a second, pain exploding up her back as she slams into something. The bat slips out of her grasp. It wasn't the squid-thing that attacked her—she's been deflecting its attacks pretty handily with Nudge.

That's on me, Yoshi thinks next. I took my eyes off him.

She doesn't wait for her eyes to refocus, or for Naoya to take another swing—she goes to her wrist and draws up the cursed energy embedded in her bracelet to teleport, dropping to the ground twenty feet away from him.

One breath. Two. that's all she gets before Naoya is back in her face—completely ignoring the curse to attack her.

He's much faster than he was on the rooftop. Too fast for Yoshi's eyes to perceive him.

And yet…

"Why—can't I—hit you?" He rages, narrowly missing every punch and every kick. It won't take him long to understand what Nudge does, but Yoshi isn't concerned.

Nudge is a simple power. When she's applying her technique, she alters something's position in space. If it's in motion, that adjusts its trajectory. The swing of a bat, the arc of a ball.

But 'something' can be anything. A baseball, a paperclip, a man too fast to see. He struck Yoshi first—it takes less concentration to work with things she's already seen or felt. And when Yoshi nudges something, she isn't applying an exterior force onto the object. It can't be felt, it can't be resisted. It's an instant shift in space. It doesn't matter that Naoya, using Projection, seems to flicker, skipping the gaps between milliseconds like he exists outside of time. Yoshi knows his fist is coming, and so she nudges him out of the way.

There should be a drawback to Nudge, because at the basis of every technique there must be a drawback.

Toying with the physics of space and distance should have a huge backlash, and it should require massive bursts of cursed energy to alter even a single, stationary object. It does use up a lot of power. But it's an instance too fast for humans, for almost anyone or anything, to sense or react to. The precision of Yoshi's ability was something no documented sorcerer had come across before.

Gojo Satoru was the only one capable of seeing it, with the Six Eyes.

But Gojo hadn't taken off his blindfold to watch Yoshi spar with Megumi, or when she'd teleported with him to Tokyo. If he'd used the full capacity of Six Eyes on her, he would have noticed.

Lucky, lucky, lucky.

Gojo was aware that Yoshi was strong. But if he'd understood just how massive Yoshi's reserve of cursed energy was, and the improbable control she held over it, she would have had a lot more questions to answer on that first day.

Naoya's fist crashes through a thick tree instead of Yoshi's face, and he screams in outrage, stopping for just a moment. The curse darts towards him, and he carelessly freezes it in place before shattering through it. It doesn't destroy the curse, but it sure does confuse Yoshi.

"What the fuck was that?" Yoshi blurts out, grudgingly curious. "That's what Projection does?"

That's kind of useful.

"Fight BACK!" Naoya commands, snarling like a dog as he lunges towards her again.

But the curse makes a gurgling, ominous noise—and then Yoshi and Naoya stagger as a head-splitting, incomprehensible noise floods the murky forest. Yoshi clamps her hands over her ears, even though it does nothing. She can't hear a thing. Can't think.

She feels it when Naoya sinks a dagger into her belly and yanks it upward.

Blindly, she grabs for his wrist to stop him from moving it further. The curse is still releasing its sound attack in waves. She hears something like a clap of thunder and her eardrums rupture. Naoya's grip loosens—he's suffering from vertigo, not that Yoshi knows it, but she takes advantage all the same to throw herself onto him—

Naoya can't hear her, though her lips are at his ear—he can feel her, when her teeth clamp around his earlobe and tear.

Yoshi shoves him off, keeping a hand on the dagger in her abdomen. She'd cuss him out for stabbing her, but her mouth is occupied. Salty, coppery, coating her tongue. The flesh and metal is pushed between her teeth and cheek so she can breathe. She doesn't think about it. She is not thinking about it. The curse's sonic attack doubles in strength, and they both lose their balance again. A tentacle dives towards Naoya, and he rolls out of its path.

The crab-things swarm Yoshi, and she's forced to summon another bat. The dagger pulls at her with every breath, every flex of muscle. She wants to keep a hand on it, she should hold it still, because at this rate she'll just bleed out, but the damn curse, it's stopped warbling and the next time it blasts them with sound waves, it might just kill them both.

Naoya seems to understand that part, because he targets the main squid-like body instead of Yoshi.

She swings her bat, clearing enough of the crab-things to give her room to move. Naoya continues to attack the squid, flickering through his movements in a way Yoshi can't understand. She pulls out a ball, facing the cursed spirit. Instead of winding up for a pitch, she tosses it directly up.

The dagger carves further into her belly the more she moves. The flesh in her mouth oozes, metallic and slippery on her teeth. Yoshi grabs her bat with both hands and swings.

CRRAACK

The squid erupts when it's struck, bursting into tendrils of black energy and squealing horribly as it dissolves.

–/–/–/–

Naoya's still halfway through a punch when it disperses, light-headed from its sound attack but not so out of it that he doesn't realize how wrong, how quickly it seemed to die. But the smaller offshoots of the curse vanish with it, and the incomplete domain fades as well, clearing the forest air of the murky, swamp-like fog.

That wasn't the main curse, is Naoya's immediate assumption. Some high grade curses were like that, splitting their energy to attack in multiple forms.

Yet the forest is silent. The veil is in place, still concealing him and the girl from the wider world, but there should be more.

There must be more. Because, if not...

Naoya swings his gaze around, wild-eyed, to look at the young, injured, baseborn bitch leaning against some rocks.

She exorcised it with one hit.

His ear throbs, and Naoya reaches up to feel the damage. His left earlobe is shredded, but the bleeding has slowed. It's nothing fatal. It'll hardly slow him down. But ears don't grow back. It's visible and permanent.

His blood is smeared over her face. Her blood, brighter and fresher, continues to dribble from the blade he stuck in her. She looks like death.

Even before she meets his gaze, though, Naoya knows this won't kill her.

His ear drums were ruptured by the curse, and there's a distinct ringing that will take time to fade. So he can't hear her, but reads her red, dripping lips instead.

Sucio.

He doesn't know what that means. Naoya starts towards her again, but before he can reach her, she vanishes.

–/–/–/–

Nanami Kento was minding his own business, shuffling through a new case file in Shoko's office when a bloodied body crashed on Shoko's desk out of thin air.

Shoko fumbles with her mug, spilling hot coffee all over the linoleum.

"Yoshi?!" she exclaims, and Nanami relaxes his grip on his cleaver. Apparently Shoko knows this person.

Instead of answering, the woman reaches up to her mouth—which is covered in blood—and gags up a glob of flesh.

"Asqueroso," the woman whines, spitting up more drool and blood as she slides off the desk. She looks around the same age as Ino Takuma, dressed in dark pants and a baggy windbreaker, darkened further by her own blood. "Shoko, toma esto." And then she pours out the rest of Shoko's coffee and drops the glob of flesh from her mouth into the mug. "Sucio," she gripes.

"What?" Shoko says, suddenly wide awake. "What is this? What happened?"

"No puedo oir," Yoshi says loudly, pointing to her bleeding ears first, and then to the dagger sticking out of her stomach. She begins to tilt sideways. "Eardrums burst," she says thickly. "Got...cut."

"You got stabbed," Shoko corrects her, setting the mug aside to grab Yoshi's arm. "Nanami, help me get her to a table."

"Who is this?" Nanami asks, ushering Shoko away and reaching under the woman to lift her. Nanami scans over her, but doesn't find the golden buttons of Jujutsu Tech anywhere on her.

"Who're you?" Yoshi jerks away from him, pressing one hand on her stomach and using the other one to push at Nanami's shoulder. She gives Nanami a once-over, skeptical. Then she slurs, in English this time, "Don't touch me, dude."

"This is the teacher Gojo hired," Shoko pushes her back towards Nanami, now holding a towel and pressing it over her belly. "Yoshi, he's a friend. Let Nanami help."

Yoshi takes the towel from Shoko, only to drag it over her face and scrub at the dried blood on her mouth. She continues to shove Nanami away, and he relents, raising his hands to show he means no harm. He's pretty sure she can't hear what Shoko is saying, and the more she moves, the worse the wound will get—

"Stop, stop, stop!" Shoko shrieks, and Nanami quickly grabs Yoshi's wrist when she starts tugging at the knife. "You'll bleed out, you idiot!"

"Take—it—out," Yoshi hisses through her teeth, either unable to hear Shoko or simply not caring. "Now. Out," she says, louder and louder. "N-now. Hear me? The mug. Dagger o-out."

Shoko makes a big X with her arms, facing Yoshi directly and clearly. "Not yet, you have to wait!"

Nanami pries Yoshi's hands away from the dagger, shaking his head. She scowls at him, like his very existence offends her, but she's lost too much blood to keep protesting. "I am helping you," he says, making sure to enunciate every syllable when her eyes are on him.

If anything, she looks even madder now. But she stops moving, and Nanami hunches down to lift her up.

"Th-the mug," Yoshi says, lolling back against Nanami. She's lucky that Nanami and Shoko are here. Shoko alone couldn't carry Yoshi to the infirmary while she was resisting. And if Nanami were alone with her, he would probably kick her off campus.

"Yeah, yeah, I have the stupid mug!" Shoko rolls her eyes, bringing it over as Nanami puts the woman on the nearest infirmary bed. Yoshi tries to sit up so that Shoko can wrap up her torso and keep pressure on the wound, but can't hold herself up.

"Nanami," Shoko barks at him, and Nanami presses against the woman's back, keeping her in place until Shoko tells him he can let go. Yoshi lays down reluctantly, muttering venomously.

"Is she speaking English?" Shoko asks over Yoshi's head. "I'm not fluent."

"She's just cursing a lot." Nanami shrugs.

"Fix my ears," Yoshi interrupts. She stares down the physician, "I'll do the rest."

"Can you heal yourself?" Nanami asks dubiously.

Yoshi squints at him suspiciously. "Ears," she says again.

Shoko exhales, pulling on a pair of gloves.

"Zenin stabbed me," Yoshi adds conversationally, blinking at the ceiling. "Pinche cabrón..."

Nanami makes a small noise of surprise at this, thinking she means Zenin Maki, but Shoko just purses her lips as she brings a chair over to Yoshi's head. "She was on a mission with Naoya," she tells Nanami, drawing up her cursed energy and funneling it towards Yoshi's ears. "A first-grade curse in Nagano. Apparently they have a history."

"How did she appear in the office like that?" Nanami asks. "The bracelet on your desk?"

"Oh, you noticed that?" Shoko nods absently, eyes on Yoshi. "She uses talismans to teleport. Fushiguro showed up this morning and asked to leave one here. It must be an anchor, so she can find the school despite the barrier."

Nanami pulls off his jacket, wondering if the bloodstains will come out. Dry cleaning was an option, but if he does that too often, it'll alarm civilians. He puts his jacket aside and scrubs his hands at the sink as he lets Shoko work. He could leave, but he doesn't really know this woman, and just because Gojo hired her didn't mean they should trust her alone with one of their most valuable healers.

"Those must be some powerful talismans," he says quietly, and this time when Nanami looks over at them, Yoshi blinks and looks directly at him. "Can you hear me now, Yoshi-san?"

"Yes," she says sluggishly. "Y'wanna see talismans." Shoko pulls away, rolling her chair closer to Yoshi's middle.

"Did you know Naoya would attack you?" Nanami wonders.

"Kind of," Yoshi blinks a few times. She stretches out her hand just enough to hook a finger around the mug Shoko brought over. Then Yoshi rolls onto her side—Shoko snaps at her again to stop moving—and pushes herself off the table again, collapsing onto her knees and groaning in pain.

"Are you trying to die?!" Shoko cries, rushing around the table. "What are you doing, Yoshi?"

"Shoko," Nanami says suddenly, observing Yoshi closely. "Leave her."

"What?" Shoko stares at Nanami, bewildered. "She's bleeding out, she's not thinking straight—no!" she gasps when Yoshi yanks the dagger completely out of her stomach. The wound begins to weep anew, streaming down her folded legs and onto the floor.

"...Move… back," Yoshi chokes on the words, tears welling in her eyes. Her hands are surprisingly steady as she tips out the contents of the mug. "Heal me after this, Shoko."

"I-I'll try. I'm not a miracle worker. But what are you doing?"

Yoshi lifts her head, finding Shoko's eyes. "Promise me to try."

"...Sure. Only if you clean up all this blood later, too," Shoko grumbles, but her eyes are wide with worry as she shuffles away. Nanami isn't sure how Yoshi is still conscious, let alone talking so clearly.

Yoshi rasps out something like a laugh. "I promise," she says.

Then, she dips her fingers into her own spilt blood, and begins to write sutras on the tiles.

She's making a new talisman.

A/N: Spanish translations!

Sucio - Nasty
Asqueroso - Disgusting
toma esto - take this
No puedo oir - I can't hear
Pinche cabrón - Fucking bastard

lmao these translations are so much more aggressive than the previous ones