Nobara walked in with Yuuji who began cooking in the so-called "camp kitchen." There was a cute portable stove and a water hose with a small basin plus a bucket. She smelt of fish and heard running water.

"Eh, where's Fushiguro?" asked Nobara, rubbing her eyes. Their sea urchin haired classmate usually helped out in cooking the rice.

"Out for a jog probably," said Yuuji, eyes still busy on his cooking.

"Jeez, how can he not be exhausted from yesterday?" Nobara proceeded to grab herself a seat, a beat up wooden one with an equally damaged table one. "I never thought my weekend would even look something like this!" She exclaimed. Her weekends usually consisted of her usual downtown Tokyo shopping spree and torturing Itadori with carrying her bags.

Yuuji didn't respond and was too focused on his cooking.

Still, Nobara continued. "Yesterday, Gojo was all like, 'you should all be working together!' like it's obviously what we're doing." She did a quick glance around the camp as she put her arms behind her head. "Nice. No kyoto brats this early," she said. "No Mai, especially."

"And I got to escape from Todo for a while," Yuuji finally said something.

Nobara snorted. "Oh right, that Gorilla is obsessed with you or something."

"At least, I'm getting along with them. Not you who butt heads with Mai every second you can."

"Pfft, it's not like Utahime-sensei does the same with Gojo."

"So are you saying you're acting like an old married couple with Mai?" teased Yuuji.

"Heck no!" Nobara playfully pinched his ears when Yuuji was about to settle the finished fish on the table. "Plus, Utahime-sensei's waaaay too good for Gojo," she added.

Right after he had turned off the stove minutes later, he heard footsteps and rustling closing towards them.

Yuuji craned his neck. "You're back," he greeted.

Megumi came in with a paper bag in his hand, a familiar logo printed in it.

"Wait a minute, you went shopping without me?" said Nobara, slightly offended.

"No, got it delivered. It's for studying purposes," said Megumi.

"Like what?" Asked Nobara

"Jujutsu stuff obviously."

"Then if its for that, for jujutsu, then lemme just…" Nobara started leaning down, "check it out!" Then she quickly snatched Megumi's paper bag. The books he bought immediately spilled out of the paper bag.

"Kugisaki!" called Yuuji.

Nobara dropped her jaw as the books slid on the table, its titles came unexpected for her. "Oh," she said. "I never knew you'd be that type."

Yuuji came over to inspect more, and his eyes widened. The books read "soulmates" written all over its cover, highlighted and bolded.

A dry laugh came out of Nobara. Yuuji awkwardly joining in as he tried to nudge her.

"You guys never heard of it?" Megumi asked, arching a brow

Yuuji stopped and looked up at him. His reaction was less what his classmate expected.

"Finding soulmate through domain expansions," Megumi said. The duo was bewildered as Megumi unhesitantly spieled about its details.

"Yeesh, this is something else," shivered Nobara in disgust. Knowing that gore filled world of jujutsu, the damn Gods decided it would be a nice idea to mix things up. "Who'd know you're stone-faced self would be into this stuff!"

"There's a catch to it, actually," said Megumi, completely unbothered by Nobara.

"And that is?"

"Mastering of domain expansion."

Nobara's jaw dropped. Yup, the jujutsu gods had too much fun mixing shit up.

"Stop! Stop!" intervened Yuuji. "What is all this domain expansion exactly?" He admitted that this info might be going too fast for joms. His Gojo-sensei might have not taught the basics of sorcery. Nanamin even awfully criticised Gojo about it.

"That's what I'm trying to find out," Megumi continued to flip through the pages of the 'soulmate' books. He bit his tongue in cursing out Gojo for such lack of information.

A rustle of leaves instantly snapped out of the trio from their discussion. Their heads turned and a familiar blue head girl had her face scrunched up, nervously biting her lips, her one foot raised off the ground like she's ready to sprint out of the scene.

"Uh, I-" Miwa said, eyes going around the room. "Sorry I eavesdropped!" Quickly, she bowed a thousand more per second.

"Actually," Nobara crossed her arms, a smug stretching her lips, "you can make up for it."

Megumi and Yuuji arched their brows at Nobara. Even Miwa did it.

"Know any info at all on this soulmate bullshit," Nobara asked.

"Well, first off, it's not complete B.S." she answered immediately to ease off her anxiousness. "The mastering domains you were talking about, it's more of unlocking its potential," Miwa glanced at Megumi, "it's the merging of two domains."

"Won't domains just try to overpower each other?" Megumi asked.

"That's usually the case, and both sorcerer might end up killing each other, which is a big risk to find your soulmate."

"Then with the right person, the domains merges, not overpowers."

"Yes, that's right."

"And how did you figure all this out?"

"Um, personal…research, I guess." Miwa looked down on her fingers, smiling. The same finger that spent too much time typing away on her computer, plunged too deep on the deep web. "But Utahime-sensei kinda helped as well."

"Utahime…sensei?" Megumi muttured, gripping his notepad on his hand. The vocabs in his notes are only one thing: soulmates. He needed to expand it, and he swore he is not gonna half-ass this task.

Throughout breakfast, with all Kyoto and Tokyo gathered for prepare their own breakfast, Megumi noticed Miwa and Muta had been close lately, even brushing each other's fingers waaaayyy too much.

"Get a room!" Mai suddenly said out loud, earning a flushed up Muta and Miwa. The rest of the group whistled and howled, but their touch never left each other.

Megumi stood in silence, contemplating as watched over them.

Later on, Megumi timed it right to approach Utahime with just her alone. He held his breath and slowly released when the teacher had easily agreed to fill in Megumi's curiousity.

"I think it's bound to happen." The Kyoto teacher shrugged. "And I'm pretty sure one of my kids had mentioned it to you."

"Yes," Megumi nodded.

"There's one thing that I haven't really talked about them though." Utahime paused, looking directly into Megumi's eyes. "It's always been a topic not hardly talked about before and one thing that I've realized is that…we make them."

The first two books that Megumi read about this soulmate thing were soulmates equalized, most of the time, you're destined lovers in people's first assumption. However, it also mentioned destined close friends you will trust.

"It's a rare thing and barely talked about, so, unlike before where it's apparent and you can easily find out, today you get to build relationships without the pressure of "destiny," I guess."

"But Gojo said it has something to do with reaching Domain expansion potentials. I'm more interested in that part."

"Oh." She thought for a moment. "But isn't it always been with this line of work?"

Megumi arched his brow. "And what exactly is that?"

"Each time sorcerers help each other, they're basically risking their lives. It's always been like that. The risk of losing someone's life. The other's death being in vain if you fail. But if it was a success, the end results are always worth it."

Megumi looked at the research books he had on his hands. This what he exactly needed the different perspectives of sorcerers. "So do you think it also unlocks the potential of jujutsu sorcerers as a whole?"

"Yes," she nodded firmly with an assured smile.

Utahime sensei didn't exactly answer his question, but it did bring him…some clues.

—

"It seemed like the training has been working," Utahime kicked off their nightly bonfire meetings. The seating arrangement was even different compared to the first day. She especially noted Maki and Mai next to each other.

And for the first time in his life probably, Gojo was in time for the meeting as he stood next to her.

"Now we had the warm up covered."

Everyone groaned in response.

"Don't agh me right now," lightly frowned Utahime. "Your next activity is a test of courage. I bet everyone heard of that."

Utahime glanced at Gojo, and he continued explaining the rest of the details. It's a classic one on teens that everyone had heard about for sure. The test of courage and partnering with people they might despise, and in the end, it proves all the work they built up for a team. To spice things up, each pair will also be split into different locations.

"I'll expect everyone to wake up early since we'll be hiking up a trail to get to where it all starts," the Kyoto teacher lastly said as she closed off the meeting and after answering all questions.

—

The hiking had begun before sunrise was at its prettiness, and they were several things Utahime had to note. Muta being oh-so-obvious in taking a chance to hold Miwa's hand ever since her clumsiness have tripped her on the rock. Then there's Todo pulling Yuuji into some weird side quest and diverging out their supposed trail. At least, almost a half of the children were..level headed. But still with an additional man child thrown into the numbers, Utahime felt she was experiencing being a whole kindergarten teacher that no doubt she can put in her resume.

The last thing that really hit the nail on its head for Utahime was when a sound of rushing water rustled the whole group and all came screaming like they just dug out a treasure. Gojo included.

"Utahime-sensei, please!" Unison voices of all kids pleaded her, and that's the only one thing they've finally agreed on ever since their hike started.

She looked at them with stars in their eyes and hopefully clasped their hands together. Then behind them, there was the stream that made them come begging for her. It looked inviting with its crystal clear water and the surrounding green shrubs reflecting on its surface.

"It's just a quick dip!" said Mai. They collectively nodded.

Gojo stood next to her, leaning a little to her ears. "Give them a break," he said.

She had decided; their starstruck faces weren't that easy to resist.

As anti-climatic as it sounds, the kids didn't even full on jumped on the river but rather just dipped their feet in the streams. The yelps of "too cold!" stopped from probably readily stripping down and swimming in the cold, cold rivers of fall. Still, they had fun.

Splashes ensued between them with Nobara and Mai being the culprit that started it all. A single splash from Mai sent Nobara firing back, kicking up waves until it spread to the group.

At some point, Gojo got into the mess. The smile widened on Utahime even more. He looked already in cahoots with them, the childish grin, the rolled up sleeves, and a hearty laugh with eyes almost closing.

And for once, she didn't mind him.

Similar to how she always didn't mind when he had knocked out on his self-proclaimed favourite couch. She went up to his office before and walked on with his legs dangling from the couch. Blindfold off, closed eyes, steady breaths and mouth slightly parted. Utahime swore that this idiot might have even some stash of lip gloss around.

Goodness, why is she even thinking about this-

"Utahime!"

Welp, too late now.

He caught her eyes, her form leaning on a tree with its autumn petals falling on the river surface.

"Quite lonely there, aren't ya?" He rushed towards her, his grin turned into a lopsided one that Utahime knew too well.

Utahime widened her eyes, firmly planting her feet on the ground. "I swear to god if you-!" Before she could finish, Utahime felt water shooting to her mouth, and god, if she wasn't fast enough to close her mouth, choking to death from some river water would be the ever so worst case scenario.

Gojo merely watched as the fuming Utahime tossed her shoes aside and jumped right into splash some water to him.

"Hey, that isn't fair!"

"Gotta use the infinity somehow!"

"Cheater!"

"Oh, c'mon, babe! I can explain!"

It only motivated her to send even bigger waves of splashes. Their students had all stopped and turned their heads when the head teachers got too loud chasing around each other's tails.

"You get back here!

"Bleh! Make me Utahime!"

"Gojo, hang on-"

"You already getting tired?"

"No! Behind yo-!"

The supposed strongest sorcerer had apparently slipped and fell on his butt due to a branch. He plunged to the cold waters of the stream

Gojo was soaking wet, and his glasses floated down the stream, disappearing somewhere.

There was a momentary silence as he got his head to the water surface.

Utahime had her hand on her mouth, and it soon morphed to a giggle then full burst of laughter.

Everything seemed to zoom into her at that moment for Gojo. He didn't realise the rest of the kids joined in her laughter. Gojo seemed to only hear hers only as he also closely observed her, turning slightly red from all that laughing. Shit, he also felt his heartbeats getting crazy.

Look away look away look away-

A part of him seemed to say, but his eyes were locked to Utahime, the chain that binding him to earth and to this moment.

—-

"Here."

A towel was harshly tossed on Gojo's face.

"Not on my precious face!" He exclaimed, taking the towel off his face. "After being humiliated like that," he grumbled and Utahime only bursted out laughing…again.

"You should have really seen your face!" She said as she held onto her stomach.

"I almost slipped and died back there! While everyone just stood laughing!" Gojo glared at his students behind Utahime. Their faces still tried to hold back another laughter.

"But like you said, you got Infinity on, right?" She drawled on her last word as if to smear dirt all over his face.

He only pouted as he rubbed his hair with the towel.

That childish pout made Utahime giggle. It was usually that pout he made when he tried to get on her nerves, but this time, it was her doing the teasing. It was hard to admit…but he did look cute. She suddenly started wondering if Gojo thought the same as-

"Utahime-sensei, we got you a spare shirt you can wear!" called Momo behind her, breaking that absolutely weird train of thoughts in Utahime.

"R-right, thank you, Momo-chan!"

Meanwhile, Gojo after the incident was soaking wet and he had to "convince" Megumi to just let him borrow his spare shirt which was quite tighter than usual size.

The rest of the agenda was properly taken off. They were randomly split into two groups who either went to Utahime's or Gojo's wing with different locations. Then within those group the head teachers continue to pair them up for the test of courage

All seemed to be running smoothly of course, until Gojo and Utahime met up to give updates on their respective groups.

"A cave?! You placed them in a damn cave!"

"It's a classic for Test of Courage," Gojo shrugged carelessly like Utahime wasn't raising hell right in front of him.

"And you made it worse with Nobara and Mai!" She massaged her forehead, trying not to fume even more, and sweat was on her fingertips like they were part of her gasoline.

"Everyone seemed to get along now, and it's just them who's being a pain. Who knows, they might have a heart to heart talk, you know! Like that one scene with Zuko and Ka-"

"No." She firmly narrowed her eyes at him. "Now is not the time for Avatar references, Gojo."

"Sheesh, just tryna lighten up the mood. They're fine. I'm sure they can handle themselves."

"Goodness," muttered Utahime, "you are so stupid." But still, Gojo got a point those two girls can sometimes like they are fused to each other's bomb, and they have to learn to control those fuses.

"Huh?" Gojo perked his ears. " Do you mean me or yourself?" He grinned, nudging her.

Before Utahime could retaliate back, Miwa and Yuuji interfere with bad news of still not sighting any of the two girls.

"C'mon Gojo!" exclaimed Utahime once their kids dispersed. "Use your damn senses and smell their cursed energy or something."

The ongoing search pushed the teachers to also join the search party. And still, unfortunately, Gojo's senses seemed to prove useless.

"This is the cave, right?" Utahime yelped, increasing her volume. "How come you can't feel shit?" She grew furious, her nose flaring and cheeks turning red.

Gojo put his hands up like a natural chemical reaction since he discovered this side of Utahime. Her lengths and concerns she takes with her student. It was something else..

He eyed her fist, and it looked like those tiny hands could grip onto his collar and just rip them apart. "Fine, fine!" He said, "then be quiet so I can concentrate."

Utahime watched as he leaned his huge hands on the cave walls.

Seconds came, and minutes tick, but he was still frozen on his spot.

"So?" She asked.

He started walking; he felt a faint energy that he assumed must be from the wild Nobara. Utahime followed him without any questions.

They were at least a hundred steps in when Gojo cut out the silence aside from their footsteps.

"What the?" He said, halting. "It just disappeared!"

Utahime widened her eyes. The tone of his voice told her that he was serious. She started calling out the two girls' names, using the cave echo for her advantage. She kept on going and repeating, yet There was no response. A group of bats only squeaked.

All of a sudden, the same group leaped out of their hiding places and flew forward towards the teachers like a sudden rushing water released from a dam.

Utahime had quickly ducked with Gojo following suit, and he swore that some strands of his quiffed up hair were grabbed by those bats.

"Utahime!" He called. "We should head back."

"What if they're trapped in there?" argued Utahime. "And they need our help."

"They can just force their way out. Nobara's in there, and she can get crazy."

The stubborn Utahime continued to argue with him. She wasn't giving up, and it left Gojo tired out in screaming breathless in the stuffy cave.

"Jeez, okay, I'll stay," he said. "At least you got someone to pull your corpse out."

"How are you sure it wouldn't be the same for you?" Utahime arched her brow. "Though I'll actually let you just be eaten by bats."

"Yeah, yeah," He chuckled as he let Utahime keep on calling their students. Her sing-song voice expelled waves of energy, sinking into the cave like pebbles into a lake.

—

"Can I…ask you something?" suddenly asked Utahime, breaking the silent spell between them. They were both out of breath, being almost an hour inside the cave.

"What's up?" said Gojo, using his sleeves to wipe his sweat.

"About the domain expansion, how exactly do you do that? I need some first hand accounts."

Gojo looked at her like she had grown a second head. It was the first time she asked something like this.

She knew Gojo would try to tease her about it if she frequented these asks. He'd try to redirect them that they were supposed to boost his ego.

They sat next to each other against the cave wall. Their legs crossed. Utahime sat up straight as Gojo leaned on his knees, tilting his head to look at the other teacher.

"Is this about the soulmate thingy?" He mused, smirking.

"No, this is something bigger," she replied, now staring back at him. "About protecting my students. Seeing them this whole week, there are moments I want to protect." The students with their teachers were almost together every hour this week and getting to really bond with them, aside from just the sorcerer work, she felt closer more.

"Sheesh, you and your mother goose-lyness." He would say that was something he loved about her. Utahime had called him out of his abandonment to his students sometimes, letting them throw to the raging waters with the hopes they'd learn how to swim.

"I'm serious, Gojo."

"Your domain isn't actually not pretty bad, appearance wise."

She blinked.

Then another blink.

This is real.

Her throat had gone dry, and words refused to come out. The walls were closing onto her.

"Don't play dumb, Utahime." He continued to rub it in. "I bet you figured it out by now." Because you're smart like that.

"Shit," she muttered, lightly banging her head on the jagged walls. There was no escape, and the cave was growing dark, squeezing them in this predicament. "So now I have to deal with it, huh?"

He lightly chuckled. "I thought I had dealt with it when I ignored it."

He wasn't the only one, alright.

"Well, you did change the scenery but didn't solve the problem," She added with a deep sigh. "Why- why bring it up now?"

"I dunno." He shrugged, rubbing his hands on his neck. "To deal with it, I guess."

"And you choose such an absolutely perfect time for it."

"Fuck it," said Gojo, shaking his head and ruffling his snowy hair. "Let's just forget we have this talk."

What a dire attempt to escape the situation.

The atmosphere got even more stiffer than the stuffy air. The two didn't dare to even look at each other. They were either fiddling their fingers or stuffing their hands in their pockets, and now, it was yanked out and dangled on their faces, their minds whirled in haphazard directions.

"But tell me, how does someone master domain expansion?" Utahime pushed on.

"The understanding of cursed energy," quickly responded Gojo and whatever it takes to fill the air.

"I know that. Don't give me the textbook definition, that's not you."

"Guess the thing with you is you got a lot of….love in you. Curse energy usually comes from a lot of negative feelings."

"But that doesn't mean you can't agonize over love. It's a psychological burden, a double edge sword if you will."

Love is the greatest curse of all. He had once said.

"Then how do you feel about me?" Gojo glanced up at her, taking already too much of his courage as he tried to get a clue of her reaction.

"I-" paused Utahime, whipping her head to look at him, her brows furrowed. "What do you think of me?"

"You kidding? I asked the question first!"

"You're the one who brought it up!" She groaned.

It already took zero attempt to even stop themselves to cycle back to that thing.

Both were utterly clueless. Meanwhile, Utahime continued looking down on her shoes, she was growing tired. They had to priority to actually look for their students, the real problem here, but her mind had been pushing off something for too long and it badly wanted to be let out right now at a bad timing

Before Utahime could dive deeper into her thoughts and never to come back, an echo of rocks dropping on the ground and hitting the walls reached their ears.

She quickly shot up from her seat. "That must be them!" she said.

Gojo got up and dusted off his pants. Utahime had already run off before he could even settle that thing.

They were in the same boat after all.

When both teachers had arrived to check their students, sweat dripped from their forehead with dust covering them like snow. Their students were at the same situation but more dirt smeared on their damped face

"Holy shit," uttered out Mai. "We made it out!"

"Hell fucking yeah!" Nobara responded with repeated nods, a relieved smile on her face.

They still haven't noticed their senseis' presence until Utahime cleared her throat. Both girls turned their heads at the same time.

Utahime greeted them with a toothy smile, her eyes almost closing into slits. Gojo had taken a quick look at her, and he too breathed out a relief from his lungs.

When all of them had started their trail heading back out of the cave, Mai couldn't help but to glance between the head teachers while Nobara had tried to fill them in on how they fell on a hole and managed to get out.

There was just..this air between the head teachers, with Utahime-sensei biting her lips as she tried to look away from his direction while Gojo kept on scratching his neck and also averting his eyes away.

Mai nudged Nobara. "Hey!" She aggressively whispered to her.

"What now?" replied Nobara, annoyed.

Mai didn't said anything back, but only motioned her eyes to the teachers walking right in front of them.

Nobara shrugged with absolutely zero clue what Mai was implying. She rolled her eyes.

"Utahime-sensei, is everything alright?" Mai suddenly asked, and her sensei stopped her tracks.

"Oh, me? I'm just tired," Utahime answered. "It's been a long day." She proceeded to stretch out her arms and at some point, upon putting her arms down, her pinky grazed Gojo's fingers, sending jolts to her that she jumped away from him.

"What the? What was that Gojo?!"

"That wasn't me!"

"You didn't just electrify me with your technique or somethin?"

"I thought that was you!"

Nobara and Mai watched their teachers argue like it was an everyday thing at this point. But they have the same thought going in their heads as their eyes go between the Kyoto and Tokyo teachers:

Gojo's Infinity was down.

—

"It's been a full week of training, don't you think we deserve a break to the city," said Mai at the conclusion of their nightly bonfire meetings.

"Shibuya halloween's coming up too," said Nobara. She had been planning to attend ever since she'd step onto Tokyo, excited to fashion show off at the event.

"Now that you brought that up actually," said Gojo, going totally off script. "How about guarding some curses at the event?"

Mai and some others groaned in response.

"And in return, we can still have fun," Nobara argued, "like going undercover!"

Miwa and Yuuji shot their heads up, extremely interested.

"It's way too crowded, how could we even kill some curses at that space plus putting up a curtain," said Megumi.

Kamo and Muta nodded in agreement.

"Geez, Fushiguro, no special grade curses are gonna show up; it's probably the cute, easy to kill ones over there," said Nobara

Utahime nudge at Gojo as their students continued to argue within themselves.

"Hey, what were you thinking?" She whispered in a harsh tone.

"Wanted them to have fun, obviously."

"But you don't have to make it about doing missions."

"Trust me," Gojo leaned onto her ear. "They'll-"

"We've debated about it," cut in Nobara, "seems everyone's in."

Well, that was quick.

Everyone had turned quiet. Not a single one twitching an eyebrow in reluctance.

"You see," added Nobara, "this just shows how badly we need to get away from this place."

"Utahime?" Gojo looked at her, and everyone's eyes followed, their gaze weighing onto her.

She thoughtfully glanced at them for a moment. "Fine," she said.

They bursted out into cheers like fireworks in the quiet night.