Yoshi curls her hand into a fist and releases the seal on her foot, switching her cursed energy over to a powerful, nullifying force as she punches at the closest glacier. The sutra-carved ice shatters, unable to withstand the blow, but it also rattles her bones to punch so hard.

I don't use this one enough, Yoshi admits to herself, shaking out her ice-covered knuckles. But I guess there's no going back now.

Rain continues to fall, pouring down and saturating the earth. She pulls out a baseball and a bat from her fingertips, and judges the distance from the inn to the nearest ice tower. A fourth one is emerging in the southwest, closer to the clinic—either that or Gojo found someone to fight, because she can see the red light from his technique flashing against the dark sky.

Yoshi thinks back to the inn. The icebergs were primed beforehand, triggered by her stepping past the porch—or maybe touching that puddle of water?

It's talisman work, coupled with an ice technique. Who the hell knew how to do that?

With her seal still active, Yoshi pours her cursed energy into the leather exterior of a baseball, weaving it into the stitches. Then she tosses it straight up, and grabs her bat with both hands.

—/—/—/—

Gojo watches from above as a second iceberg bursts into pieces, courtesy of Yoshi. There's a veil a kilometer or two away from where they started, and Gojo assumes that it's concealing the clinic that Andrea is in. Or was in. She could be dead. Wendy and Nanami might be dead, too, but Yoshi would probably take notice of that. Hopefully.

This is a terrible way to spend his Sunday. Nanami, if he makes it out alive, will never forgive him for this.

Yoshi destroys a third iceberg in as many minutes and Gojo reconsiders. It's wet and gloomy and boring up here, but really fun to watch his new teacher smash things with sports equipment. This doesn't look like the full extent of her power, but now that Gojo and Nanami are in the loop, she can really let loose. Fighting freely with no fear of reprisal, Yoshi is dazzling with power.

And speaking of power, there's that pesky energy signature again.

The last one he hit turned out to be a fake ice-clone, which, while very inventive, also pissed him off. Instead of aiming Aka at this one, Gojo reigns in his own energy and drops down to ground-level just outside the empty church it's hiding in.

It's a quaint little building, much like the rest of the town, but it's slowly freezing over with delicate swirls of frost. Like that animated film with the ice princess. Soon enough all this rain will turn to snow and hail, so it's very fitting.

Gojo nudges at the front door with his foot and it swings open without any resistance.

"Crazy weather we're having," he chirps, tucking his hands into his pockets. "I guess they were right about those melting ice caps…"

At the far end of the little chapel stands a pale, petite figure. There's a deep spot of pink in their white hair that Gojo almost mistakes for blood, and they're dressed formally in clean, crisp monk robes. Judging by the flow of cursed energy it's just another ice-clone, but this time Gojo decides he'll wait and see what they have to say.

"Do you know what she is?" the stranger asks softly, examining a stained-glass window. Their voice is high and youthful, and the profile of their face is eerily child-like. "Do you really know?"

Well that's new. It made sense for a special-grade curse to go after Gojo, but a curse-user setting a trap for a barely-known sorcerer like Yoshi? Unless this really was a distraction to get to Andrea Hansen.

"I'd rather know who you are," Gojo replies easily. "This is quite the show."

"A necessary one," they sigh, as though they're reluctant to be here.

"How so?"

Instead of answering, ice races up the chapel's inner walls and sharp icicles erupt all around Gojo. This time he summons up Ao, creating a void right in the entrance of the chapel and propelling himself back into the air.

The ice grapples with the magnetic force of Ao, trying to extend outward while the void crushes it down to nothing. The iceberg is dismantled before it can rise any higher than the trees. It's a lot more successful than Aka, though he did annihilate the church too, and he doesn't seem to be affecting the pulsing cursed energy beneath every glacier.

The flow of cursed energy is steadily rising, and the temperature keeps dropping. Gojo pulls off his blindfold again to examine the town from above. The energy buckles every time Yoshi takes down a pillar. She's like… hm… a little beaver clogging the path of a river, a keystone species capable of changing the whole ecosystem.

Another glacier goes down, leaving five more around the outskirts of the little German village. The roar of thunder overhead seems to overshadow the rumbling of each iceberg, and combined with all the rain and wind as the storm picks up, the non-sorcerers in the town haven't even noticed the battle raging around them. They're all shuttered away in their homes to weather the storm, unaware that they're sitting ducks.

"What a mess," Gojo murmurs. He doesn't see the monk kid anywhere, or any other curse signature besides—Oh, where'd Yoshi go?

Then there's a burst of familiar energy right in his face and he feels a hand yank on his arm.

He squawks, tipping over at the sudden extra weight. "No te atrevas—If you drop me again I'll koroshimasu!" Yoshi threatens nonsensically, scrambling to balance against his shoulders.

"Warn me next time!" Gojo shouts back, adjusting himself to carry them both. "Also, stick to one language, you're confusing enough already." She braces herself along his flank and locks her elbow around his neck, so he doesn't have much choice but to support her around the waist with his arm, leaving his other one free for hand signs. It's not exactly a hug, but he can feel her from thigh to hip to shoulder and it's a hell of a lot more contact than he expected to have while floating a kilometers above land.

"Uh…" She's not even looking at him. "This is cozy, but why—?"

"I couldn't see all the pillars from the ground," Yoshi cuts him off, intently scanning over the land below them. "The town will sink if they complete the sutras. And freeze over."

"It really is like Frozen," Gojo murmurs, carefully expanding his barrier to include Yoshi and drifting up higher for a proper vantage point. He tugs his blindfold back over his eyes. "Careful with that foot, alright?" If she nullifies him now, they'll drop like fruit flies out of the sky.

She nods absently, blinking against the water dripping down her face. She's already soaked to the bone, and now it's seeping past the layers of his clothes, but Yoshi doesn't seem to care at all because she's so focused on the iceberg patterns. And, full disclosure, it's not actually cozy at all up here: he's cold and uncomfortable and he wants to drop her as soon as possible.

"Alright. You can let go now," Yoshi says, loosening her arm around him.

Gojo tightens his grip in response. "I keep seeing ice-dummies of the curse-user. It's some spooky little monk, but I don't think they're nearby. Or they're very good at hiding their presence."

Pragmatic as usual, Yoshi doesn't question his odd description. "The ice was triggered when I stepped off the porch. This was planned."

"Just to kill you?" he wonders. "Or is this a way to keep us occupied while they take back the vessel?"

Her brow furrows in thought. "Wendy hasn't left." She mops at her forehead, but it just tangles her wet hair even further. "Either she's trapped in the clinic now or she's still searching for Andrea. Or both." Yoshi turns to him, grim and water-logged. "Whoever's still alive in the clinic, get them out. I'll look for the monk and destroy the rest of the pillars."

"I feel like you're giving me the easy job," he complains, just to be contrary. "But fine, ugh, I'll go. Will you be alright?"

Gojo's mind goes blank for a second, bewildered by his own mouth. What a silly thing to ask. He never says stuff like that.

"Stupid question," Yoshi informs him. Then she shoves his arm off and tips backwards into the open air, vanishing before his eyes.

He pauses long enough to watch her drop down onto another glacier and obliterate it with another nullifying punch. "Show-off," he mumbles, propelling himself back towards the veiled clinic.

A/N: thank you to /nadiecomoyo on tumblr for beta-reading this one!
also i'm sorry the chapter title ended up as a Frozen reference, i was just vibing with it too much

am i ignore my own lore by simply ✨not explaining✨ why & how yoshi has a jellyfish? yes. mind your business. worry about nanami or something.

translations:
Ao - Blue (referring to Gojo's cursed technique)
no te atrevas - don't you dare
koroshimasu - (i'll) kill you