"Iku…ra…" Toge begins to back away from the two of them, clearly looking for a way to escape and forget this ever happened. Yoshi doesn't get up from the floor, just grimaces and mutters things in English that Gojo only kind of understands.

"Should've stayed in New York… not even surprising at this point…" she gripes, before her eyes land on Gojo again. "What part of 'I have a stab wound' do you not understand? Tell me if my Japanese needs work."

"Okaka?" Toge stalls in the hallway, halfway through closing the door. He blinks at Gojo and then points at Yoshi in concern. "Takana?"

"Yoshi just got back from her mission in Nagano," Gojo explains brightly. And then he lies right to her face again and says, "I forgot about the stabbing part, my bad!"

"Mentaiko," Toge throws his teacher a sharp, reproachful look.

Gojo gasps. "Watch your language!"

Yoshi finally moves, picking herself up from the ground carefully. Gojo takes a step in her direction and Yoshi stares at him like she'd bite his whole hand off if he touches her again. "I'm leaving now," she says shortly. "If you have more questions, ask later."

Gojo hums in dissatisfaction, but steps out of her path to the door. "Aw, but Yoshi, you're never this open with me, so…" he trails off as a thought occurs to him, and Yoshi lifts her head expectantly. "Oh ho ho. Hang on, that deal…"

If he keeps Wendy from stepping foot on campus, Yoshi will tell Gojo anything he wants to know about her talismans.

Wendy still hasn't stepped foot on campus, so that means…

"Yeah," she agrees, leaning against the doorframe heavily. "It's still in effect."

"Why would you—?" Gojo cuts himself off again. First, she barely gives him an answer, talking in circles. Now, she's all truth and honesty. "Are you a pitcher? You really know how to throw curveballs, Yosh."

"I am a pitcher," she replies, looking amused. Then she turns to the student sorcerer, arm cradled over her stomach. "Who ate the stir-fry, was it Nobara?"

Toge blinks, thrown by the non-sequitur. Then he shakes his head, pointing to himself. "Tuna mayo," he says approvingly.

Yoshi grins, so briefly that Gojo thinks he's dreaming. "I'm glad. I'll see you all once Shoko clears me."

Then she disappears down the hallway. Gojo stares at Toge, suspicious. "She cooked stir-fry for you? And not ME?"

Toge blinks again, rubbing his eye. Then he turns around and leaves without a word.

"Hey! Don't you give me the silent treatment!" he hollers after the teen.

—/—/—/—

Nobara and Megumi visit her in the infirmary later that day, after a morning full of fitful naps.

"YOSHI-SENSEI DID YOU REALLY GET STABBED?" Nobara hollers, sliding the door open with such violence, Yoshi thinks it may be broken now.

Her bed is raised so she can sit up and look at them, so Yoshi just rolls her head towards them tiredly. "Yeah, it sucked."

"No shit! Did you at least exorcise the curse?!" Nobara clutches at the railing, eyes scanning over her body. Yoshi's not under the blankets or anything, and her shirt is rolled up for Shoko to access her bandages. Megumi enters behind Nobara, eyeing the door as he passes it.

Yoshi picks up her water and sips at it so she has an excuse for not answering right away. "…The curse is gone. Don't you two have class or something?"

"We've got a mission, out in the middle of nowhere." Nobara whines, sagging over her bed in sorrow.

"It's in the suburbs of Saitama," Megumi translates. "Just a bunch of fly-heads popping up at a dump. It's pretty isolated, so we'll be able to train there without interruption."

"But we don't leave for a while, so! Tell us about your mission!" Nobara hops up onto her bed and grins, flicking her hair back.

Yoshi shuffles to the side to accommodate the teenager, careful not to spill her drink. "I had to hike up one of the mountain trails to find the curse. It seemed like a sea creature, so I'm not sure why it was in the highlands…." She scratches her cheek, unsure of how to describe her mission. "Actually, Nobara, will you give something to Maki for me before you leave?"

"Oh, sure…" Nobara blinks. "Hey, wait! Why does Maki get stuff from you and not me?"

"Well, you have your hammer." Yoshi leans over very slowly, and pulls open the dresser drawer. "Plus, I need to thank Maki for the warning." She lifts up the dagger, hilt-first.

"Ooh, gimme!" Nobara plucks the dagger out of her hand with eager eyes, flipping it around to look at it from every angle. Then she looks at the butt of the hilt, and her jaw drops. "Ah—wait. Isn't this—?"

"The Zenin clan symbol," Megumi murmurs, taking the dagger from Nobara with a strange, shuttered look on his face. "Where did you get this?"

Yoshi huffs, and taps very lightly on her bandaged torso. "It was a parting gift."

"Are you shittin' me?!" Nobara howls, grabbing her shoulders and shaking her. "That guy stabbed you, not the curse? What kinda shithead does that?!"

Yoshi pushes her hand away, but it's too late, she's dripping water everywhere. Not to mention her stomach is throbbing weirdly with pain. "Calm down. I'm fine, and it won't happen again."

"How can you be sure of that?" Megumi asks, his expression inscrutable as he palms the hilt of the dagger. "Why did he attack you in the first place? You avoided answering me last time…"

"Does it have something to do with Gojo's overseas mission?" Nobara asks eagerly. "I overheard Nitta and Kusakabe talking about it. And Fushiguro says that Gojo says that you've exorcised special-grades on your own before, so like—does that mean you really fought Gojo? And won?"

Yoshi watches Nobara warily, and then eyes Megumi as well. They're both staring at her extra-hard, ready to watch every moment of her answer.

As much as Yoshi values honesty, there are some things best left unsaid. "When Naoya and I first met, I knocked him unconscious," she explains, ignoring the question of Gojo entirely. "After that, he put himself on the Nagano mission to kill me. It has nothing to do with Gojo. I don't think it ever did. He just doesn't like the idea that someone like me could be better than him."

"Male pride," Nobara rolls her eyes and slumps backwards. "Ugh. What a pig. I can't wait until Maki becomes the new head..."

Megumi looks annoyed on her behalf, which is sort of sweet coming from such a reserved kid. "Maybe you were right to avoid the council for so long. Why did you let Gojo bring you here?"

"Megumi…" Yoshi bites the inside of her cheek.

Leaving isn't an option right now. Gojo and Naoya both know how dangerous she is. Once the council gets wind of her sealing Naoya's power, they'll understand the threat she poses too. Stepping out of line now would give the council an excuse to label her a curse-user and have her hunted down. "Staying unranked had its advantages, but… it wasn't a long-term solution," she concludes.

Yoshi never intended to hide from the jujutsu world forever. She just thought she had more time until she'd be caught. There'd been a few close calls over the years, instances where Yoshi crossed paths with sorcerers and curse-users. None took much interest in her, because she said very little, and did very little to get noticed.

But then Yoshi went ahead and smacked the shit out of some albino giraffe man, and here she is.

"No way would I go unranked!" Nobara exclaims suddenly, shaking her head. "What a nightmare. You know why I'm a sorcerer? Because it meant moving to Tokyo and making a ton of money!"

"That's just you, though," Megumi mutters, leaning his hip on the side of her cot. "Some people would rather not have the jujutsu council breathing down their neck. Right?"

"Being unranked also meant I had no support," Yoshi remarks gently, avoiding his point about the jujutsu council, "I'm still catching up on things you've grown up knowing from the start."

"It's not impossible to learn it now," Megumi insists, eyes lowering to the floor. "...Okkotsu-senpai didn't know anything until he enrolled here, and he's now a special-grade sorcerer. And..." he hesitates, lifting his chin to look at her properly. "You got to choose, didn't you? Who to save, when and where you'd go. So what if you had no support, so what if you didn't know the rules? You lived by your own code, because you were strong enough to do whatever you want. You still are."

"Fushiguro..." Nobara says in warning.

"I don't mean as a curse-user," he cuts her off preemptively, clenching his jaw. "I just… it's stupid."

Though she's only known these students for a few days, Yoshi knows that Megumi is a boy of few words. This is by far the most he's ever spoken to her at once, and she can tell he's been simmering for a while over his questions.

Yoshi sits up a little straighter on her bed. "I'm flattered that you think I'm so strong while I'm laying in a bed with a hole in my stomach," she says, and Megumi just grunts and looks at the floor stubbornly.

"It's obvious that you only got stabbed because you were doing your job, and Zenin took advantage of the curse distracting you. That wouldn't happen if you hadn't needed to take a mission from the council."

Well shit, the kid's right on the money today. Yoshi runs a hand through her hair tiredly. "I knew the risks. And Maki warned me."

"That doesn't make it fair to you at all," Megumi says, scornful. "You don't deserve to get stabbed by your own ally, you did nothing wrong. You're a teacher."

Yoshi exhales a sharp, amused breath. "How do you know I've done nothing wrong?"

The blank look of shock on their faces just serves to remind Yoshi, painfully, that they don't know her. They grew up in the jujutsu world, after all.

"Because you're a sap!" Nobara answers suddenly, glaring at her. "So what if we don't know your whole life story?! It's obvious you're a stone-cold badass with a secret heart of gold! I bet you ask permission to pet every dog you see and cut up fruits for your friends when they're studying too hard!"

"Where are you getting all that from?" Yoshi mumbles, unnerved. "I'm allergic to dogs, and I don't cut up fruits." I buy grapes instead... kids are too damn perceptive.

"You're getting off-topic now," Megumi elbows his classmate. "When will you be allowed to start training us again? I wanted to ask you for a rematch."

Yoshi shrugs. "Uh..."

"Two more days should do it," Shoko interrupts, stepping through the door with her cell phone pinned to one ear. "Ah, you're up. Nanami's asking for you, Yoshi."

"Okay," she nods slowly. "...But who's Nanami?"

A/N: please read & review! i'm gonna be honest, there's so little interaction with my fics on FFN, there doesn't seem like a point to updating my works on this site.