chapter 3: miracle and shit techniques

cw: minor character death, passive suicidal ideation

One out of five stars. Never mind that the sunset is kind of pretty and the sky is much clearer out here than in the city; she can see the barest shimmer of stars amidst the pale lilac of early dusk. Would not recommend this tiny village a bumpy forty-minute drive outside of Takayama, with nothing to see and a cemetery that smells like a man stuffed himself full of rotting fish before exploding and rotting himself. A trip that started off at a weak three-point-five has easily dropped to failing grades since Shouko found out she'd actually have to exert effort. The horror. This is all made worse by the fact that no one at the school knows she smokes, and for some bizarre reason she thinks she needs to keep this secret, so she had stupidly not stashed a pack in her pocket. It's a decision that Shouko vows she'll never make again—who cares what her classmates think, they're all dumb anyway. Shouko would kill the nearest person for a cigarette.

The nearest person is Suguru. Shouko tries to remind herself that Suguru is at least better than Satoru, and she should try to be nice.

Suguru can sense that she's on edge but mistakes it for nerves and not nicotine withdrawal. He slows his stride to match hers, and he's even brought out one of his curses that looks like a bloated millipede to guard her other side. His thoughtfulness irritates her to death, also because the millipede is so ugly and drools, and Shouko can't understand why Suguru doesn't have a single cute curse out of the thousand in his arsenal. The air is hot and she's hot and her nice brown loafers are so ruined because of the mud and sticks and smells.

Luckily, Suguru does not bother to ask if she is feeling okay. His mind is elsewhere entirely.

"Do you think Satoru was telling the truth?"

Shouko tries not to grumble. "About what?"

"The…how he's interested in guys."

Suguru's tone is plain, but the fact that he's bringing this up must mean that it bothers him. Shouko stifles a groan.

"Suguru, I like you more than Satoru, but if you're telling me you're homophobic, then I have to deal with both my classmates being utter garbage."

Suguru frowns. "Why does everyone assume that bringing this up makes me homophobic?"

"Because it's clearly bothering you?"

"Satoru being gay does not bother me."

"We don't know if he's gay, he could be bi or something else or just figuring things out."

"That doesn't bother me either," Suguru says, frustrated. "That's not my point. It's not the liking guys part, it's the fact that he doesn't seem to care that this could cause him problems."

"Why do you care? They're not your problems."

"They're…" Suguru hesitates and stares at the narrow, squelching trail they traverse to find their way to the proper front of the cemetery. "I guess not. I just am trying to figure out where I fit in this world, still. Curses are different in the countryside, and even though everyone knew I was powerful, it didn't really change how people looked at me or treated me. But things are different here. Everyone's obsessed about Special Grades and how they're supposed to…I dunno, be the pillars of jujutsu society. I just don't get how he cares about other people's opinions so little when he has that kind of pressure."

"But he doesn't," muses Shouko. The millipede kindly brushes some bramble out of the way so that the path to the cemetery's entrance is clear, now properly paved with pale stone. "Pressure only comes if someone can threaten to take something way from you. He has no competition. It's not like the dog-eat-dog world of the Zen'in or Kamo clans, with their main families and branch families and dozens of cousins."

"I get that. But shouldn't you still care about the people you love and what they want? Like…" Suguru is being cautious with his words, which makes Shouko three percent more curious not in what he has to say, but why he's saying it this way, "like my parents want grandchildren badly. If I went home and told my parents I wasn't going to have kids, that'd break their hearts and that'd make me feel terrible. I want to make them happy, so my caring about them impacts my decisions. I just don't think Satoru thinks like that."

"Yeah, no duh."

Suguru is mystified that she accepts it so readily. Shouko chews her lower lip, insides gnawing for a cigarette.

"People from the Three Great Families tend to be shitty," she explains reluctantly. "Even though they're families, they don't have that kind of…love or whatever relationship you have with your parents. Making other people happy because you love them isn't something they think about. Satoru's probably had people clamor for his attention all his life. If he cared about making other people happy, he would've died a million times over by now."

"I see," Suguru says after a long time. "That makes sense, Shouko. Thanks."

She bares a wry grin. "Regret coming to Tokyo now? Wish you'd stayed with your loving, doting parents?"

Suguru scoffs. "It makes me more grateful for my family, if anything."

"Mama's boy."

"Nothing to be ashamed of," Suguru says pleasantly. "But no, I don't regret it. Even if things are a bit different, I've enjoyed my time so far." Suguru looks at her with a genuine smile. "I'm glad to have met you, Shouko. Thank you for indulging me."

Shouko groans internally. What is this bubbling feeling? Warmth? Appreciation? Ugh, was she feeling…friendship? It appalls her. This is disgusting. She never asked for this.

"Ha ha, Suguru."

"I'm not kidding! I—"

Something crackles above them, a branch creaks under the weight of something too heavy to attribute to wildlife. The two students whirl around. Suguru's curse squeezes closer to her, a writhing guard. They scan the trees and find nothing behind them. The cursed energy radiating from the cemetery is so strong, it messes with Shouko's ability to sense around her, but she doesn't find a presence with strong cursed energy around them, not enough to be using a Technique.

"I don't sense anything," says Suguru quietly, his voice closely behind her. He's so much taller than she is, his profile is able to guard both her back and the side opposite of the millipede.

"Me neither," she says, relieved that he's in agreement. "Maybe just a fat squirrel or something?"

"I don't know. We should call Satoru and Morimoto-sensei, see if there's—"

A deafening blast roars in the air and something white hot whizzes over Shouko's head, lodging behind her with a thud. The millipede erupts in a shrill cry before dissipating into shadows instantly.

"Suguru!" she screams, turning around to face him, expecting to find him sinking to the ground, covered in blood.

Astonishingly, a thin, gold-tinged translucent barrier holds the bullet poised right over Suguru's heart, a hair's breadth away. The paper talisman at Suguru's shoulder burns in a bright orange flame. Once consumed, the barrier evaporates, and the bullet drops between them into the mud with squelch.

If Suguru is stunned, he wastes no time. He grabs Shouko and holds her tightly while he calls upon two curses to surround them. Suguru's millipede is back, now accompanied by a larger curse that has the head of a disfigured human and body of a snake but with scaley wings. The snake curse thrashes its tail, its scales flinging off into the air around them in a circle. One hits another bullet mid-air with a piercing ping, the other hits something with the dull thud of flesh, followed by a grunt as a body falls to the ground. The snake does not stop, its scales slicing through the surroundings so ferociously that a small clearing forms around them in a perfect circle.

"Come out," Suguru says, face pale but voice steady. "I know I hit you."

"You did, you did, good job, kid."

A man emerges from the shadows, gripping his bleeding shoulder. He does not seem too perturbed by his wound, as he is grinning widely in spite of it. He is middle-aged with faint wrinkles, his dark hair combed back in a ponytail, throwing a jagged scar over his forehead into ugly relief. He is dressed in a gray, patterned haori and dark blue robes. Contrasting with his traditional clothing is the rifle nestled against his shoulder.

"Thought I'd killed you for sure," the stranger muses. "What was that barrier?"

"Who are you?" demands Suguru.

"Just a poor mercenary looking for his next paycheck," grins the man. "You should see the bounty goin' for you kids."

"Maybe you should've thought about what Grade the kids are, before thinking shooting them with a plain gun would kill them," says Shouko coolly.

"That's precisely why I chose a plain gun. No cursed energy. Does the deed pretty well, since you can't sense it. I don't know what happened the first time." The man raises his rifle. "Let's try again."

The millipede makes a chattering noise with its legs and obscures Shouko entirely from view. Suguru snaps his fingers and the snake lunges forward, its humanoid head now sprouting a torso with arms that swivel two blades made of bone. The bullet ricochets off the snake's scales, but the curse is unaffected. The swords slash, once to slice the rifle in two, twice to bisect the mercenary. It's over in mere seconds.

It doesn't feel right.

"There's someone else!" Shouko shouts.

Suguru spins around and the millipede hisses, its legs rippling in a chaotic chatter. Shouko senses a surge of cursed energy several meters away, in the opposite direction. It's a massive amount that she can't believe she'd missed, growing exponentially by the millisecond. There's a deafening boom and her skin sears with heat as the cursed energy barrels towards them at lightning speed. She ducks her head, fully regretting not staying in the car at this point; her offensive capabilities are pointless in this caliber of a fight, and she feels foolish relying so heavily on Suguru to protect her. His hold around her tightens as his curses brace for impact—when all this is over, she's going to buy Suguru fifteen molten lava cakes with chocolate drizzle and fifteen packs of cigarettes for herself—

The shrieks from the snake and millipedes as they are exorcised is ear-splitting. Shouko can't tell if it's the impact from the actual blast or the curses' reverberation that sends her and Suguru flying backward. They hit the ground hard, Suguru blunting most of the impact (Shouko will buy him twenty cakes). Shouko sits up, coughing and straining to see through the clearing smoke. The landscape—or what is left of it—comes into focus. The entire forest has been laid to waste, trees fallen in disarray around a deep path of what must have been pure cursed energy condensed through a weapon into a blast, perhaps a cannon or someone's Technique. They've been pushed even further away from where the cursed energy had surged, and though there is little forestry left in their immediate surroundings, she cannot identify a human figure.

Behind her, Suguru sits up much slower than she.

"You okay, Shouko?" he rasps.

"Yeah, you?" She turns to him. "Shit, Suguru!"

Blood trickles down from his forehead and he's looking at her, slightly dazed. He must've hit his head hard in their fall; she glances behind him and sees a stone protruding from the ground, tinged in blood.

"Shit," she repeats, bringing a hand up to his head. She can heal flesh wounds, muscles, maybe broken bones, but she isn't comfortable healing internal organs yet, much less the brain. Suguru almost definitely has a concussion, by the way his eyes are sliding in and out of focus, but she can't tell if he has a hematoma or worse, intraparenchymal bleeding.

Her cursed energy surges at the back of his head, healing the superficial wound and any potential fracture in his skull. Her Technique probes gingerly at his brain tissue, confirming swelling and reducing it, but she's too scared to do anything else that could alter his actual brain matter.

"Suguru, stay awake for me, okay?" she says. She shakes him by the shoulder, and his dark eyes flit open. "You need to stay awake."

"Got it," he says, blinking slowly. "He's still out there."

Shouko spares a look behind her at the destructed terrain contrasting with intact forestry so far away. She can sense the enemy now, too.

"He's charging up," Shouko notes. "I can feel the cursed energy growing."

"Yeah." Suguru groans in pain, but another curse erupts next to them, this one even more hideous than the last—a collection of grotesque human bodies melting into one another, protruding limbs and faces and organs at random. "This one's better for defense, though honestly Snake and Millipede were my strongest…"

"Okay," whispers Shouko. They don't have time to move out of the way, not with the radius of the previous blast spanning nearly ten meters and Suguru being wounded. She shifts so that she's in front of Suguru, between him and the disgusting defensive curse, because the least she can do is protect Suguru once in return.

The cursed energy builds, like a snowball rolling down a hill, accelerating with passing time, and the thought crosses Shouko for the first time—

Am I going to die?

Her heartbeat quickens, her pupils dilate, flooding her sight with light, and blood pumps through her body, and she knows that this is the physiology of fear, but she does not feel it. The thought comes and goes, as fleeting as all her others, because she has known this from the start, that everybody dies, because isn't that what she has been fascinated with in the beginning? Death itself, its emptiness but completeness, hasn't she eagerly dug her hands into every corpse in the morgue, wondering with morbid curiosity if one day, she'd be able to dig into her own? Death is just the next phase, a phase that part of her has been eagerly waiting for it since childhood.

The cursed energy swells, and Shouko grins.

A second boom erupts, and her muscles tense, and the curse in front of them is a cacophony of bloodcurdling screams as it is engulfed in blinding light.

But the impact never hits her.

A gold barrier flashes appears in front of Shouko, paper thin and trembling, but it holds the blast at bay, like a rubber band stretched to its limits, until the cursed energy dissipates. Only then does the barrier shatter, and with it, a small part of Shouko's hope. She looks down at her shoulder, where only the ash of her talisman remains.

"What happened?" Suguru asks.

"Sensei's talisman," she answers.

Suguru coughs. "Didn't she say…"

"That she only had enough cursed energy for one? Yeah, about that."

Satoru suddenly appears right next to him, his glasses off, for once, his Six Eyes glowing in the onset of night. Gods, Shouko finds him so gaudy otherwise, but she would keep his eyeballs on display in formaldehyde forever if she could.

Satoru is holding their very clearly unconscious teacher over his shoulder like she's a sack of rice.

"Why do you two suck," Satoru smirks. "It's been five minutes and you had to use both of your Miracles or whatever?" He points at the unmoving body slung over his shoulder. "Did you know it causes her a shit ton of pain? She barely recovered from the first one, and then she just passed out from the second one."

Suguru grimaces. "We were ambushed."

"Yeah, no shit, so was I," says Satoru dismissively. "You don't see me needing sensei's shitty Technique. Plus, I killed my attackers."

"I killed one," says Suguru sourly.

"Congratu-fucking-lations," deadpans Satoru. "You got thirty-three percent. Y'know that's a failing grade?" He places Yuna gently down on the ground in front of Shouko. When he straightens back up, his back cracks. "I dunno if you can fix her, Shouko, but worth a shot."

Yuna is breathing shallowly and she is deathly pale, but her pulse is reassuring and strong. Shouko lets her Technique flow into their teacher's body, but it finds little to correct.

"In the meantime…" Satoru turns in the direction of the blasts, "I'll take care of the other two."

"Be quick about it," says Suguru. He seems livelier now. "They're charging up again."

"Yeah, I know." Satoru stretches out his arm, fingers extended, expression serious for once. "It's special-grade weapon. Some kind of cannon. Needs two people to crank and then fire." He is quiet for just a second and in that moment, even Shouko is distracted by how his eyes flare. "Blue." He snaps his fingers, and dozens of meters away, trees collapse on themselves as if they're being sucked into a black hole, but the sound of human screams is unmistakable before even those sound waves are absorbed into Satoru's technique.

It's over before it'd barely begun.

It feels stupidly one-sided.

"All done!" says Satoru cheerily, waving a peace sign. "They're dead! We win!"

"Is this normal? For mercenaries to be sent for us just because we're Special Grade?" Suguru asks.

"Oh, those weren't mercenaries," Satoru says with a mild shake of his head.

"Assassins?" guesses Shouko. "The first one Suguru killed was way too suicidal to be a mercenary. He was distracting us so the others could charge up."

"Bingo!" winks Satoru, back to his flamboyantly annoying self. "Zen'in assassins, actually! Though you'll never be able to prove that."

"Why not?" Suguru asks dumbly.

"As if they'd ever admit to trying to kill the Gojou heir," snorts Shouko. "It'd cause an inter-house war."

"That'd they'd most definitely lose," Satoru adds, as if they needed additional verbal clarification of who'd just won the fight.

"How'd you know they were Zen'in?"

Satoru shrugs. "I recognized one of the guys who attacked me. He'd tried to kill me when I was twelve, right around the time I learned Blue, but my aim wasn't great." Satoru snaps his fingers. "Still isn't, honestly. Could be better. But anyway, I missed and took out his right arm instead of his head." He laughs, and the sky in his eyes twinkles maniacally. "He was really pissed."

Suguru just stares at him, a bit dumbfounded, but Shouko isn't surprised.

"He must've really hated you," she remarks, "if he became a one-armed assassin just to kill you."

"Eh. It's happened since I was a baby."

"That's quite sad, Gojou-kun."

The three of them jump a little bit at the soft comment. Yuna is still lying on the ground in front of Shouko and makes no move to sit up, but her eyes are open and clear.

"Sensei, are you okay?" Shouko says, letting her Technique pulse through Yuna again just to make sure she didn't miss anything she could fix.

"I'm fine," Yuna says wanly. "Are you both safe?"

Shouko nods. "We're sorry. We let our guards down."

"It's not your fault. I should not have brought you here." Yuna closes her eyes and lets out a slow breath. Her brow furrows, as if the action is causing her great discomfort. "I should have verified the mission request myself. I would've been able to tell it was a set-up."

"You think they sent in a false mission request?" says Suguru in disbelief. Shouko almost feels sorry for him—he's just a pure-souled country bumpkin. Tokyo will devour him alive.

"Mm." Yuna's eyes remain closed. "I imagine the curses in the mist were all trained to wait until we arrived. An organic collection of curses this dense would've caused casualties otherwise." She takes another deep breath. "I apologize. I must admit I've never used Miracle twice in a day. My cursed energy is completely depleted. Could I leave the exorcism of the curses to you, Gojou-kun, Getou-kun?"

Satoru blinks rapidly. "S-sure." He peers into the mist. Night has descended, but he looks ahead without squinting, his irises nearly glowing. "Suguru, you wanna keep any of them?"

Suguru straightens up, his stance steady. Shouko is still worried about a concussion, but reducing the localized edema must have helped.

"Anything cool?" he says hopefully.

"I can't see their Techniques when they're not using them, dude. I'm not that cool."

Suguru snorts and summons another curse, this time a red-armored praying mantis. "I'll take half, you take half?"

"I was thinking more race you in a 'see who's faster' sort of way."

"Your Technique literally implodes space, how am I going to beat that in speed?"

"I can give you a head start."

"Could you both just exorcise the shits already?" says Shouko, annoyed. "Sensei's over here in mortal pain, we don't have time to be dicking around."

Satoru looks at her, surprised. "She's in pain still? She looks okay."

"Of course she is, you dumbass, can't you tell?"

"I'm fine," says Yuna unconvincingly.

"Is that what it feels like to have depleted cursed energy?" says Satoru, completely serious. "I wouldn't know."

"Just hurry up and exorcise the curses so we can go back to the village and find someone who can give us pain meds."

"No," says Yuna abruptly. She has opened her eyes again, and her skin is covered in a thin sheen of sweat. "I appreciate the thought, but we need to leave. I don't trust the villagers. They must have been paid off."

"Sensei, there's no way you can drive like this," Shouko says, alarmed.

She squeezes Shouko's hand. "You have your license, don't you, Ieiri-san?"

Shouko pales. "I've never driven in the mountains! And I've just driven twice by myself in Tokyo!"

"I should be well enough to drive when we enter the city," Yuna says, "but we cannot afford to stay. If what Gojou-kun said is true, then it's possible the Zen'in clan has moles here and will know that the assassination plan failed the moment we return to the village. They may send more. I do not want to put you all in any more danger."

Shouko does not point out the irony that all three students are fine and dandy (Suguru is trying to punch Satoru for "cheating" but can't because Satoru still has Infinity activated) while Yuna looks like she's on death's door. But Shouko has to admit that her teacher saved her life today, and there's some obligation to return the favor.

"Okay," she concedes. "I'll drive us back."

Despite Yuna's intentions, they are in more danger the next four hours than at any other point in the mission, and when Satoru hobbles out of the car when they get to Tokyo, green-faced and ready to puke, Shouko feels satisfied knowing that her poor driving is somehow more powerful than Infinity.

Yaga feels badly about the mission and gives Yuna the week off, not that he has a choice because Yuna can move very little for the next several days without every muscle fiber screaming bloody murder. He does bring her a nice bouquet of tulips and has the cafeteria make her bland, digestible foods that are delivered to her three times a day. He also brings her sour plum candies, her favorite.

It all does little to blunt the blow of Yuna's lethally candid assessment of his catastrophic leadership: that he had forced her to take unseasoned first-years on what became retroactively graded as a Grade One mission, that he had failed to go through the proper protocols of mission verification when a quick search of that village's mission history would've shown that the last sealing was only two years ago, that he had allowed the Gojou family to unnecessarily pressure him into a situation that the Zen'in clan inevitably exploited, thereby putting his precious Gojou heir in danger.

"I mean, technically, he wasn't in danger…" muses Yaga at her bedside. "It sounds like he didn't have a scratch on him."

Yuna also does not have a scratch on her, but the consequence of burning Miracles means feeling like every cell in her body is on fire for the next week. She imagines burning two Miracles will mean she won't be back to her regular capabilities for a month. She bears it because she is who she is, but her glare is so uncommon that it shames Yaga at least a little bit.

"I apologize," sighs Yaga. "It will not happen again."

He sounds sincere, so Yuna nods in acceptance.

"Will you report the Zen'in clan?"

"There's no proof, Morimoto. I can't make that kind of allegation without evidence."

"Gojou-kun's Technique does not allow for much physical evidence to be collected, but he was certain."

"He hasn't brought up reporting the Zen'in clan at all."

"He hasn't?"

"Of course not, Morimoto—this shit has been happening to him his entire life. Assassination attempts probably come as frequently as movie premiers. Everyone, not just the Zen'in clan, has been trying to kill him since he was a baby. Reporting it wouldn't change anything."

This is consistent with what Gojou had said himself, but it still sits uneasily with Yuna. Surely some retribution is warranted, and she voices this aloud.

"Oh, there will be retribution, all right," says Yaga grimly. "Just not above the books."

Yuna sits up and winces. Yaga pushes her back down against the pillows.

"You should take it easy."

"They're not going to send Gojou-kun to do it, right?" she says, alarmed.

"No, course not. They have their own assassins. Tit for tat. Satoru will just continue his merry time at Jujutsu High, without a care in the world."

She is relieved. "That's good."

"You should worry more about yourself instead of those kids. You're hurt the worst out of all of them." Yaga takes an orange from the fruit basket Utahime had brought by earlier and peels it. The tangy citrus scent soothes Yuna's persistent headache. "Miracle twice in a day, huh?"

"Twice in ten minutes," she corrects. "I quite honestly did not think I was going to survive the second one."

"I'm glad you did. Being able to use your Maximum Technique consecutively…" Yaga gives her half the orange and pops the other half in his mouth. He thinks aloud as he chews. "That's pretty good, especially when you've only used it once before."

Yaga had heard from Yuki about first time Miracle had burned. It was in the end of their first year, and the two of them were often paired up to go on missions because Yuna wasn't strong enough on her own. It was against a Special Grade curse, the first one they'd faced. Though Yuki outclassed the curse and eventually beat it fairly effortlessly, she'd underestimated the curse's ability to manipulate electricity and had been lured in to be struck by a bolt of lightning. Yuna had barely witnessed the golden barrier surround her friend before she felt her body being ripped in two. When she'd come to, Yuki was covered in the curse's purple blood, but her grin was feral. ("Fucking fantastic," she'd said, helping Yuna up. "Wait until I tell Yaga-sensei—with a Miracle on, I can literally never die.")

She had not asked Yuna what it felt like.

Yuna murmurs aloud. "It's not pleasant. I'd prefer not to use it if I don't have to."

"Yeah, but it's nice to have the option." Yaga rubs his chin. "You were just promoted to Grade Two a couple months ago, right?"

She nods in response.

"Hm. You saved a Special Grade and a Reversed Healing user. It's something to keep on our radar."

She knows he is implying promotion, even though it's much too early. Still, she thought she would have been happy to be at Grade Two forever, but her reaction to Gojou's snark during the mission coincides with a spark of pride that she feels at Yaga's words. She bows her head.

"Thank you, Yaga-sensei."

"Nah, least I can do when I've been sending you to face Zen'in assassins." He frowns. "Feels weird. It's only been two weeks and they had such an elaborate plan."

"I imagine they have eyes and ears in all places."

"That's not reassuring. I'll have to re-evaluate the auxiliary managers."

"The sorcerers, too," reminds Yuna.

"We haven't had any new hires beyond you. It's less likely." Yaga heaves a sigh and stands up. "I know you're still recovering, but we're short-staffed as always."

Yuna would love another week to recover, but she knows her responsibility. "I should be able to resume missions tomorrow."

"We'll aim for day after," says Yaga kindly. "We'll start a bit easier."

"Thank you, sensei, but it's not necessary. I understand the situation we're in."

"I wish everyone was like you," he says. "Would make my life so much easier. Speaking of people unlike you, have you heard from Tsukumo?"

"Ah. Just the occasional phone call. Last time we spoke, she was driving along the coastline and was near Okayama."

"Is she even exorcising curses along the way, or is she just making the Kyoto school deploy their forces?"

"I imagine she exorcises when she feels like it," Yuna says mildly, though she is not entirely convinced. Yuki often had the bad habit of ignoring minor curses entirely—the ones that she treated like buzzing houseflies, but could still harm laypeople—in pursuit of the curse's source. Nothing made Yuki happier than to find a curse user whom she could brutally beat up instead.

"The most useless Special Grade in history," Yaga grumbles.

"She's not that bad," Yuna attempts to defend her friend's honor feebly. "She is just thinking about the big picture."

"There's no point thinking about the big picture when the small picture still kills ten thousand people every year," he scowls. "I swear, Special Grades…they just don't think like normal people."

She knows what he means. She remembers the sight of Gojou's smile when she was kneeling on the ground, coughing up blood, and Gojou only had eyes for the assassins that he could destroy with a simple snap of his fingers. If she had to guess, saving her was an unintended benefit, an afterthought to the priority of asserting his dominance of his enemies. Yuna has not forgotten her momentary panic leading up to her Miracle burning—she'd almost been grateful for the assassins, because they had distracted Gojou from probing further and demanding to know why she had been so terrified of him.

"Morimoto?" Yaga's giant hand suddenly appears in front of her, waving. "You there?"

"Sorry," she says, startled.

"You okay?"

"Yes, I just…spaced out for a moment. Were you saying something?"

"Just shitting on Special Grades, and asking if you were up for your students visiting today."

Though Utahime and Mei have been by to visit, per Yuna's request, Yaga has kept her students away while she recovers. Again, she is surprised by the degree of embarrassment she has about the whole mission, that she'd lost her composure in front of Gojou, and needed to be saved by him, and was the only one bedridden while her students roamed aimlessly, teacher-less, while she recovers. It is all a needless reminder of her incompetence.

"They've been asking to visit you daily," he offers.

"Really?" she says, not fully believing him.

"Most of them," Yaga corrects.

"You mean just Getou-kun."

"Shouko too, honestly. Satoru asks about you, but most of the time, he's babbling about other things."

"I expected nothing less." She heaves a sigh. "I should see them. Hiding from them doesn't get rid of my humiliation."

"There's nothing to be ashamed about," says Yaga sternly. "You saved two of their lives."

"It doesn't feel that way, but I appreciate your support. I'll stay awake this afternoon, sensei, if they want to come by. I should think of lesson plans for tomorrow too."

"Has anyone told you that you take things too seriously?"

She looks at him severely, unwilling to verbalize that if he took his job more seriously, the entire debacle of a mission wouldn't have happened. Yaga raises his hands in surrender, takes back his statement, and bows out of the room, with the promise that her students will be by later.

Her students knock on her door right after Yuna finishes her supper. She is exhausted, having spent the majority of the afternoon slowly tidying up her space and taking a long bath to make herself presentable. Every movement still hurts, but the roaring flame in each cell has weathered into a smoldering hearth, and she is able to force herself to perform basic functions. She does not want to appear as fragile as she feels in front of Gojou again.

Her door slides open, and her students file in one by one, Ieiri first, Gojou last. They look well, dressed in casual clothes of T-shirts and jeans instead of their uniforms after an afternoon in the city. Ieiri brings her a small bonsai tree and sets it on her windowsill. Getou finds her water heater and makes them tea. Gojou is uncharacteristically restrained, lingering by the window as the other two fill the silence with a synopsis of the movie they watched this afternoon. They compliment her living space, its cleanliness, its queen-sized mattress, the calligraphy scrolls hanging on her wall.

"You look better than I thought you would, sensei," Ieiri admits. "When Yaga-sensei said we couldn't see you, I was expecting things to be a lot worse."

"That was more my vanity than anything else. I apologize if I made you worry. Thank you all for visiting me."

"We wanted to earlier," Getou states. "It's been boring, not having lessons. There's only so many times you can watch Satoru use Blue on field mice and chipmunks for target practice. On the morbid but bright side, the cafeteria no longer has a pest problem."

Yuna is a bit alarmed, but she's now seen Gojou kill people with the same apathy, so she doesn't think it's new information.

"Um…good job, Gojou-kun?"

He is looking absentmindedly out her window. "Thanks."

"Ignore him," Ieiri says. "He's been out of it all day."

"Are you all right, Gojou-kun?"

"Yeah." He's still not looking at her, and Yuna doesn't know why she feels relieved that he's not making eye contact.

"We wanted to say thank you and sorry again," Getou says, unperturbed by his classmate's off standish behavior. "The burden of your Technique must have been massive, all because Shouko and I were caught off guard."

"You don't have anything to apologize for," says Yuna with a wave of her hand. "My Technique is not normally so burdensome. We had bad information—it was my fault for bringing you without verifying the mission."

"Just wondering, what is your Technique, exactly?" Getou asks.

"It's very basic, just Cursed Calligraphy," Yuna replies. "Most spell casters can use some variant of it. Mine is stronger if I use my own blood and prepare my own talismans. Miracle is just the Maximum Technique and I've only used it once before—my body was not quite prepared for the strain."

"That's your Maximum Technique?" says Gojou suddenly, finally turning to face her. He's wearing his sunglasses again, but the incredulity lining is face is obvious.

She can tell Getou wants to ask what a Maximum Technique is, but holds his tongue in light of Gojou's outburst.

"Yes," she answers simply.

"Are you serious," Gojou scoffs. "Sensei, has anyone ever told you how shitty your Technique is?"

Suguru stares at him. "What is your problem?!"

"It's okay, Getou-kun," says Yuna mildly. "It's certainly not anything miraculous like your Limitless or Six Eyes, Gojou-kun. But on the contrary, I've had people tell me it's quite fantastic."

"Who, psychopaths?" Gojou says, fully unaware of the irony of the insult coming from him. "Weak ass shits? Anyone worth protecting won't need your Miracle, sensei. Your Technique is literally to be in debilitating pain and subsequently useless for the rest of the fight all so someone else can survive. It's bullshit."

She wishes Gojou would correct his tone. It's hard to see any well-meaning part of his message when it's coated with such disdain.

"You're never sticking one of those talismans on me again," says Gojou coolly. "Spend your cursed energy on something more worthwhile."

"Dude," says Ieiri, tone dripping acid, "I know it's hard for you not to be such an asshole but honestly, could you at least try?"

"It's okay," says Yuna again. "I think I understand your meaning, Gojou-kun, no matter how it was delivered. I merely ask you remember that we come from different backgrounds. For those of us who are not Special Grade at age fifteen, we must ask ourselves sometimes what we are worth relative to others."

"Well, maybe the answer should be 'more than some shitty sorcerer who needs a living sacrifice on a routine basis.' Whatever," he says, fire gone from his voice. He scratches the back of his head. "It came out worse than I meant it to. I'm not saying it's useless. I'm glad Shouko and Suguru are alive."

"So are we," says Getou evenly. "What Satoru was really trying to say underneath all his assholery is that we are very grateful to you, sensei, but in the future, we will be more careful so you don't need to feel like you have to sacrifice yourself for us. Having Miracle stuck to us won't help us grow—we're always going to think we have a safeguard."

Gojou snaps his fingers, a hint of a smile creeping on his face. "Wow, Suguru, it sounds so much better when you say it! That's exactly what I was trying to get at."

Yuna can hear her heart crack a little. They had discussed this before: how they would thank her, but still ask that she hold her Miracles a bit more precious. It's different from how Yuki had responded to her Technique—fucking fantastic, because it could be used. She'd thought the validation from Yuki, from Yaga, about her ability had moved her, but this is different.

"This is why we told you we would do the talking," Ieiri glowers at Gojou. "All you had to do was shut up and give her the croissants."

Something in her eyes burns, and she stares at her clasped hands in her lap. Her heart is pounding so loudly that it jumps in her throat. She wants desperately to change the subject.

"You brought croissants?"

"Yeah," Getou gestures for Gojou to approach. "Satoru guessed they were your favorite."

"They are," Yuna says softly. "How did you know?"

Gojou drops the small plastic bag in her lap.

"You hesitated," he mutters, "when I asked for it in the car."

"And you still took it, like the little shit you are," reminds Ieiri.

"Well, I wanted to try them. And so did you, you bigger shit."

"Language," chides Yuna halfheartedly. They ignore her.

She unwraps her croissant quietly while the students bicker, (she learns Getou also curses, and quite liberally at that), and bites into the pastry. It's perfectly soft, buttery, sweet without being too sweet, with the precise amount of crunch from the toasted almonds. The electric kettle whistles, and Getou makes Gojou prepare the tea, because he's useless at all household chores, and tea is a good way to display sincere apology.

She listens to Gojou argue that he didn't say anything he needs to apologize for, that he's the only one out of their shitty lot that didn't need a Miracle to survive, if anything they should be thanking him on bent knee for saving their sorry asses—

Yuna smiles, despite all her muscles telling her not to. The fire in her cells has calmed. Now, she is simply warm.