chapter 7: it takes a village of sorts

tw: mentions of child abuse, murder, suicidal ideation, dubious consent and drug use. no one's behavior should be used as a model to emulate.

Yaga has never been one who indulges in his vices. He smoked heavily in his teenage years and stopped when he reached twenty, deeming it a childish impulse. Drinking has never strongly appealed to him either; he enjoys a rich whiskey once in a while, but nothing excessive. Contrary to his looks, he is a man of stern principles, a man who believes in law, order, punctuality, and rules (excluding senseless paperwork). Jujutsu sorcerers, especially those who don't carry the names of Great Families, largely die before age thirty. Yaga did not reach his proud thirty-six years by stepping out of line or taking stupid risks.

Taking in Morimoto Yuna was a risk, but he did not think it was stupid at the time.

In retrospect, he may have misjudged.

"Be honest, Yaga. Were you aware of this?"

Zen'in Ogi sits in his office, arms crossed in front of his chest, his charcoal eyes fixated like that of a dead fish. The green tea Yaga offered him out of minimal hospitality sits on the desk, untouched, still steaming.

"It says it there. Double homicide." Zen'in Naoya sits next to his uncle and sneers. Yaga has only met Naoya on a handful of occasions but has wanted to punch him in the face at each one. He is eternally grateful that the Zen'in family decided to educate him internally. "I knew this school was full of trash, but this is a new low."

"We are deeply concerned about the quality of education this represents. The school does not have any members of the Zen'in family currently enrolled," says Ogi, "but it is always a future possibility."

"You mean your kids?" smirks Naoya. "You gotta be kidding. They're better off just being bred. One of them is such trash, she can't even see curses."

"Naoya, I brought you here for learning purposes, not for you to run your mouth."

"Oops." The teenager kicks his feet up on the table. "You're right, we're here instead to figure out why the prestigious Tokyo Technical College is employing a homicidal murderer to teach Satoru-kun. It's fucking hilarious. The Gojou head must be thrilled."

"These are disproven allegations," says Yaga wearily. "The case was closed without any further prosecution after Morimoto Yuna was determined to have acted in self-defense."

"She just killed an unarmed Kamo representative, Yaga," says Ogi coolly. "He was a Window. He didn't even have a Technique to threaten her with."

"That may be true, but she was certainly threatened. She returned to the school mortally wounded."

"Perhaps self-inflicted. The Kamo clan claims the Window did nothing."

"Since when did the Zen'in clan argue on behalf of the Kamo clan? I don't see them complaining."

Ogi's eyes narrow. "Meaning the Kamo clan hasn't brought forth their own concerns?"

Yaga curses internally. The Kamo clan has been eerily quiet, likely working out their own absolution from a heinous case of human experimentation before bringing forth charges. The Zen'in and Gojou families, on the other hand, have voiced their displeasure loud and clear—he is expecting a similar meeting with Gojou family elders later on in the evening.

"Of course they have," lies Yaga. "I mean that they have more reason to complain than you do."

"I believe the Gojou clan has the most reason to, with you threatening the well-being of their precious heir like this," Naoya says, snake eyes flitting. "When have you ever seen the three Great Families agreeing on the same thing? Your teacher is an issue. Take me to her. I'll kill her myself."

Yaga is about to reply when his door slides open without any warning, and in waltzes Satoru, whistling.

"Oh, hey, Yaga-sensei!" he waves. "Class is over, and I'm on garbage duty today!" He stands behind Naoya's seat and bends low to hover close to Naoya's ear. "I came here to take out this trash."

"Satoru," Yaga says warningly.

Satoru, of course, ignores him. "Whatcha doing here, Naoya-kun? You told me the school was too dirty for your precious manicures."

Naoya bares a fanged smile. "I was so worried about you, Satoru-kun. It'll be too boring, asserting Zen'in dominance over a Gojou leader educated by a homicidal maniac."

Satoru's laugh is trill and sends Yaga's hairs on end. He knows the first-years are taking the news about Yuna particularly hard, especially when they have not been allowed to see her, but something about Satoru barging in alone, without Suguru or Shouko to hold him back, makes Yaga uneasy.

"Naoya-kun," the Gojou heir moves around and sits down on the edge of Yaga's desk. He props a foot up on the edge of Naoya's chair. "Do you really it matters if a homicidal maniac or a field mouse is the one teaching me?" He pushes the chair back abruptly, forcing Naoya to hover in the air on the back two legs of the chair so his own feet no longer touch the ground. "You think anyone could teach me how to not want to kill you every time I see you?"

Naoya lunges forward to try and land a blow, but Satoru just laughs again and kicks him away so that the chair tumbles backward. Naoya adeptly avoids falling and manages to land on his feet, already in offensive stance. Satoru grins and brings up his fingers, ready to snap.

Yaga stands and tries to grab him by the shoulder but isn't able to reach beyond Infinity. "Satoru, stop it."

"Stand down, Naoya," says Ogi, much belatedly in Yaga's opinion, but he knows there's no love lost between the Zen'in elder and his nephew. "It's a fight you'll surely lose."

Naoya looks furious, but he knows it's true and visibly bites his tongue.

"Are you asking for a war, boy?" Ogi says to Satoru.

"Of course not," Satoru says, tone saccharine. "Like I said, I just came for garbage duty. And to tell you to back off in a battle you have no stakes in. There's not even a Zen'in student here whose education you can be pissed about. The Gojou and Kamo families will handle this."

"All Jujutsu Higher-Ups will be involved in this, boy. This is not a matter you can contain."

Satoru takes off his glasses. "Watch me, old man."

Ogi frowns, but the advice he'd offered Naoya applies to himself. The threat of Gojou Satoru is so immense, the merest suggestion of violence must be taken seriously. Still, the Zen'in clan has a stance to maintain if they sent Ogi and their likely heir to Jujutsu High to make a statement. Ogi has a duty to carry through.

All Jujutsu Higher-Ups have your best interests in mind," he says carefully. "We cannot have the Gojou heir, who bears so much significance for the rest of the jujutsu world, to be nurtured by anything less than the best."

"Funny you say that," says Satoru, not a trace of a smile on his face now. "I remember your family sending a whole squad of assassins and a Special Grade weapon to wipe me out in August. Thanks, by the way. The cannon's a nice addition to the Gojou arms inventory."

"We know nothing of—"

"You guys should leave." Satoru straightens up and looks down at them, his eyes gleaming. "Now. Before I make you."

Ogi stays still. Satoru's fingers twitch. Ogi stands up.

"Your arrogance will be the death of you one day, boy."

"I doubt it. I don't think I'll ever die."

From anyone else, it'd be madness.

From Satoru, it's still madness, but madness he believes.

The doors slide shut after the Zen'in members leave. Yaga buries his head in his hands. The last week has been absolute chaos. Since Yuna staggered back to the school, drenched in blood, Cursed Energy fatally low, Yaga has not gotten much sleep. Shouko had been deployed on field work and had taken hours to return back to the campus; by the time she did, they'd stopped Yuna's bleeding, but her eye was beyond saving. Even after treatment, Yuna was unconscious for most of the night and next day, when the reports finally started trickling in: a public skirmish with an unknown man in Akibahara, witnesses injured, a man later identified as a Kamo representative murdered in an alleyway. Only Yuna's Residuals were found in the alley, along with copious amounts of blood, a corpse, and crates that previously carried daikon radish.

Yuna had been apprehended by the Higher-Ups without further questioning, before she'd even woken up and was able to defend herself.

"Satoru," says Yaga wearily. "You can't do that."

"I know," is the surprising answer. "It won't always work."

"No. It won't. And it'll have dire consequences."

"I don't have another option, sensei. I don't have any other leverage." Satoru takes Ogi's vacated seat and slips his glasses back on. "They're hiding something. The Zen'ins are involved, somehow. I don't know why. I'm getting some family members to pull camera footage from around the area."

"I have to be honest. I didn't think you'd care so much."

"I'm not that heartless, sensei. This isn't the way the school year is supposed to end. We want things back to normal." Satoru drums the arms of the chair. "Suguru and Shouko are really angry."

Of course, thinks Yaga. It's less about Yuna, more about the restitution of Satoru's life, his needs, his wants. And thrown in there, possibly concern about his classmates' wellbeing too.

"How's Shouko and Suguru?" asks Yaga.

"Not good. Especially Shouko. Suguru just sulks. I expected Shouko to too, but she's really upset she couldn't save sensei's eye."

"It's the last of her worries now," sighs the principal. "Tell Shouko that Morimoto is grateful for the care she received. Hope it'll make her feel better."

Satoru straightens up. "You talked with her?"

Yaga curses internally again. He desperately needs a good night's rest; the lack of sleep has made him loose lipped.

"Yes," is the resigned answer.

"Can you take us to her? Can we talk with her?"

"No, Satoru. She's being held in a high security, heavily-sealed prison."

Satoru understands. "She's in the isolation chamber on campus, isn't she?"

"Goddammit, Satoru, no, you can't go."

"Why not?"

"She doesn't want to see you all."

"Why not?" repeats Satoru.

"You seriously can't think of one reason?"

"If it's about her being a murderer—"

"Don't say it like that."

"—you can tell her we don't care," says Satoru. "We've all done it. Maybe except for Shouko. But Shouko cherishes life the least."

"But Morimoto cares," says Yaga patiently. "She's not talking much to me either. She won't tell me what exactly happened, or how she was injured, even though I told her I need to know everything if I'm going to help her. Be patient, Satoru. You cannot force answers out of people if they're unwilling to give it."

"We'll see about that. Is it true then?" Satoru gestures to the photocopy of an old police report that had been sent anonymously to all the Great Families and both Jujutsu Technical Schools earlier that week. "The report?"

Yaga glances up at him, debating whether or not Satoru can be trusted, then hating himself for second-guessing when Satoru has threatened clan wars twice on Yuna's behalf.

"Yeah. It is."

Satoru just nods. "All right. Tell her we're gonna come talk to her, whether she likes it or not. Tell her she owes us that." He gets out of his seat.

"Again, didn't think you'd be so sentimental."

"Nah, I don't really care. I just know her. She'll respond most to guilt-tripping." Satoru gives a wry grin. "Especially when it comes to us."

He leaves with a slight spring in his state, clearly on his way to tell his classmates the good news. He is still an asshole, but even Yaga has to begrudgingly admit that he is an effective one.

The Gojou family meeting goes just as well as Yaga expects, though thankfully Satoru's presence there is more appreciated. His parents take the visit as an opportunity to see their son, who has refused to go home since his enrollment, and much of the meeting is Satoru's mother cooing over her son while his father points out all the ways in which Yaga has disappointed them. Satoru's adamant defense of his teacher is equally disappointing to them, but he is a child who has always gotten his way, so his parents bargain with him: they will not press charges against the school or his teacher for now, but they will remain on campus until the dust settles. Satoru is displeased with the arrangement, but he knows better than to threaten his own parents, and so Yaga spends the rest of the evening instructing the housekeeping team to furnish a dormitory to the Gojou head's standards.

It means that it is nearing midnight when he finally manages to break away and make his way to the isolation chamber, located in the campus's most southern corner. The chamber is planted near where the school's sealed curses and cursed objects are also stored; knowing the precise locations on campus means Yaga is not led astray by Tengen-sama's Technique that hides the storehouses from Curse Users.

He brings Yuna a bag of sour plum candies even though she has eaten very little since her imprisonment. When he enters the chamber, Yuna's eyes are closed and her head lolls on her shoulder. Hundreds of talismans seal the room and also bind her arms behind her, tying her against a pillar that suppresses her Cursed Energy. The light in the room is dim and paradoxically warm, in contrast with the ominous aura of the cell, but Yaga is glad Yuna is able to sleep. He feels badly waking her up, but she does on her own when he sits in front of her.

"Yaga-sensei," she greets. She blinks several times, as if clearing out the dryness from her eyes. He tries not to stare her left eye. Shouko had managed to repair most of the scarring, but Yuna's left pupil is the white-gray of blindness and cataracts, striking against her dark iris.

"You hanging in there?"

"Yes. I'm fine. I told you, you shouldn't come visit me so much. It will reflect poorly on you."

"I'm not going to abandon you, Morimoto."

"I insist you do. I have caused you too much trouble. First everything with the Kamo visit, now this."

"I don't even know what 'this' is, and I don't understand why you won't tell me. Why did you kill the Kamo guy?"

Yuna just looks at him. Yaga heaves a sigh.

"I'm trying to help, Yuna."

"I know." She sounds sincere. "I'm telling you to stop. It doesn't matter why I killed him. What matters now is that I did. The Higher-Ups will rule for my execution. If the ship is sinking, you should jump off, even if you are the captain."

"Self-defense is a valid explanation."

She shakes her head. "It will not be enough for the Kamo family. The Kamo head wants me dead."

"You don't know that for sure—they haven't reached out."

Yuna looks at him. "They put Black Market bounties on me."

"What? How do you know?"

She ignores his question. "Did you contact Yuki-san?"

"I sent her texts and left her voicemails. Nothing."

A shadow crosses Yuna's face. "I see."

"Is she involved in this? I swear, if that bum is the cause of this—"

"Please, Yaga-sensei. It was my choice." She doesn't look like she believes herself. She leans her head back against the pillar. Her face has thinned and her skin is sallow in the yellow light. "How are the students?"

"They're…" Yaga thinks of Shouko's uncharacteristic outburst leading to lightly stabbing Kusakabe with a chopstick in the middle of the cafeteria earlier that day, and Suguru's constant curses triggering all the school's alarms, and Satoru's laugh that sounded like he was going to tear Zen'in Naoya's nails off, one by one.

Yuna's gaze softens. "I'm very sorry to them. I hope they know that."

"They don't care, Yuna. They want to see you."

"It is too dangerous. If they affiliate with me, it may stain Ieiri-san and Getou-kun's reputations for the rest of their lives. Not to mention the headache I'm sure I'm causing the Gojou family right now."

"Satoru knows you're here. He's going to come find you. One way or the other."

"He can't," she says sharply. "Tell him he cannot."

"Do you really think that kid listens to a damn word I say?"

"This isn't the time to cater to his whims. They are children. They don't understand what's going on."

"You keep saying that." Yaga rubs his forehead. "You know you just graduated less than a year ago, right? I don't think you're that far off from being a child yourself."

Yuna is quiet for some time. "It's not the same."

"You don't think I brought you to the school so you could have some semblance of a childhood too?"

"You know that was a lost cause long before I set foot on this campus, Yaga-sensei. The consequences of a lost childhood are very different for me and them."

"Are they? You just murdered someone in an alleyway, Yuna. Don't think that's far off from what you're so deathly afraid Satoru will do eventually. Protecting him from the shit of the jujutsu world isn't possible."

"There is no point in any of us being called teachers if we do not at least try. Tell Gojou-kun he owes me a five-page paper on human migration from Africa. It's all I expect of him."

Yaga scoffs. "Sure. He'll listen to that."

Yuna looks at the ground. "I'm sorry for all this. For the last five years. I know it turned out to be more trouble than it was worth."

"Stop saying that." Yaga's throat feels tight. "I didn't…I don't regret taking you in."

"I'm grateful. And sorry."

"This isn't the end. I'm not going to just let them execute you."

"I promise I will try my best to not let that happen." Her tone is reassuring. "Contrary to what people think, I want very much to live, Yaga-sensei. I merely do not want that to come with consequences to others."

"You don't have the backing."

"I know," she finally looks up at him. "Which is why it's important for you to get in contact with Yuki-san."

"You seriously think that bum is more reliable than me?"

"She is a Special Grade the Higher-Ups cannot touch. She also cares for very little that they can leverage against her. The entirety of the Tokyo School, on the other hand, can be weaponized against you."

It never fails to amaze him, how well Yuna adapted to the jujutsu world despite only living in it for five years.

Yaga opens the bag of sour plum candies he'd brought with him and unwraps one carefully. He offers it to her, but she shakes her head. He eats it instead. It tastes terrible. She was right to decline.

If you were to ask Yaga what had possessed him five years ago to take in an orphan widow at the center of an active homicide investigation, he wouldn't be able to tell you for certain.

He was emotionally raw at the time, fresh from a divorce from Hana, his childhood sweetheart who, on the same day as his hard-earned promotion to Grade One Sorcerer, told him that she could not bear being the spouse of a jujutsu sorcerer any longer. It was their fifth year of marriage. Hana couldn't see curses, but she knew of their existence, having been born into a religious family with scattered jujutsu sorcerers in their lineage. Yaga had thought knowing about curses was enough for her to understand the severity of his work. He had been wrong. The sleepless nights waiting for him to return from a mission, the hospital admissions, the nightmares she had to wake him from—"There comes to be a point, Masamichi, where I will go insane trying to heal you from curses that I cannot even see. There is horror in reality, and horror in our minds, and I don't know how long I'll last, not being able to differentiate between the two."

The day after Yaga moved out, he was given his first Grade One mission brief: in a small village near Ogawa, an incredible amount of Cursed Energy had abruptly ballooned over a nondescript home, indicating the near certainty of a Special Grade Object. Coupled with this was also a rumor that the last known location of a Curse User, Kamo Hiroto, had been traced to this very village. Kamo Hiroto was a Semi-Grade One sorcerer, known less for his fighting prowess, more for his unorthodox intellectual curiosity and determination to replicate the work of his ancestor, Kamo Noritoshi, whose documentation of Cursed Womb experimentation had been destroyed centuries before.

After a long train ride, followed by a bumpy car ride, Yaga found his way to the address. It was a rickety wooden home, with sparse furniture and stray chickens, but nothing else inside but blood-stained tatami mats and walls, drenched in Residual Energy, but no clear object. He wandered out into the backyard, where he stumbled upon a small mound that could have been an unmarked grave. Cursed Energy seeped from beneath the mound, but Yaga could tell that it was waning quickly—possibly Residuals, possibly a quickly expiring curse. Something told him not to dig.

Villagers told the Windows that accompanied him that the house belonged to a man in his thirties, Morimoto Yuudai. Yuudai's father was once the village's most prominent landowner, but Yuudai himself was the village's most prominent drunk. He'd been wed to a childlike wife whose parents were rumored to have sold her to the family a year before. She was a docile, quiet little thing, never speaking unless spoken to, said to be pretty, if not rather empty in expression. Ten months ago, a mysterious man, tall, dark-haired, handsome, had appeared in the village and had charmed Yuudai into being his guest. No one was certain what the man was up to, or who exactly he was, btu they saw very little of the wife after his arrival. The home had become shrouded in a sinister energy that even rats avoided; the villagers gossiped among themselves that the wife had died.

Imagine their collective surprise when they'd woken up to find the police from Ogawa proper outside the home in the early morning, ushering this very alive wife into the back of a police car, her wrists distinctly shackled, her face covered in blood.

Yaga went to the police station himself, where he lied and said that he was a distant relative of the suspect behind bars. Being a Jujutsu Sorcerere meant seeing many fucked up things, but there was still something eerie about seeing a skinny, quiet child sitting behind bars, her entire yukata stained in blood, her eyes wide and drooping and tear-free, her expression blank. The murder weapon was in the laboratory along with the victims' corpses: the umbilical cord had been wrapped so tightly around the men's necks that it had corroded their tracheas before disintegrating.

"Unexplainable," said the forensic examiner. "She weighs barely forty kilos. Where she got the strength is a mystery."

Child brides were frowned upon, even in the countryside and even with parental permission, and the police seemed both sympathetic to and deeply disturbed by their suspect. Yaga pulled a few strings and called the lawyers affiliated with the Jujutsu Technical College who knew what buttons to press to release suspects and cover up Curse-related events; Sorcerers were rare and in demand enough that no small amount of money was put into recruiting them, even if in questionable circumstances. After several hours, Yuna was released to Yaga's custody.

She said nothing to him, did not even ask for his name. She sat in the backseat of the car, squeezing her hands tightly together and crouching, as if she was making herself as small as possible.

"You can relax a bit," said Yaga in what he hoped was a soothing voice. "We will not hurt you."

He knew she didn't believe him. She just looked at his chin.

"I'm sorry about the blood." Her voice was barely above a whisper.

Yaga shrugged. "Car needed cleaning anyway."

They drove back to her home, and while they waited for her to collect her things, the Windows asked him whether they should be explaining jujutsu principles to her, starting with the existence of curses and Cursed Energy that allowed a fifteen-year-old girl to strangle two fully grown men. Yaga declined. He did not want to ask Yuna if she could see curses, or if she felt her Cursed Energy fester in her blood. He thought the Cursed Energy had manifested from the fetus that had somehow manipulated the umbilical cord through Yuna, with the Energy expiring when the fetus did. There was a chance that this girl could be promised a normal life. Hana would appreciate his attempt to preserve that chance.

Yuna emerged from the home, freshly bathed and scrubbed clean, her belongings tied neatly in a small satchel she swung around her shoulders. Her steps were careful but wobbly. Yaga, sensitive to whatever trauma he'd rather not know about but at least conscious that this tiny body had just given birth, guided her down the steps and to the front yard.

"We're going to take you to Tokyo to see our doctors there," said Yaga. "I'm a teacher at a special school that was sent to explore some events out here related to the visitor staying in your home. It looks like the visitor has been taken care of, but we will need to make sure there is no lasting damage on your end."

"I see," was her response.

"If you are cleared by the doctors, you can either stay with a…trusted friend of mine in the city, or you can return here."

For the first time, Yuna looked directly in his eyes. "I will never return here. Please burn it."

He didn't blame her. He asked the Windows to sweep the home one more time for Cursed Objects before dousing the entire structure in fire and lighting it ablaze.

"What can I call you?" Yaga asked.

"Morimoto Yuna."

"You sure you don't want to change your last name?" he asked as the wood crackled and fire roared through the summer heat.

She shook her head. "It is my sin to bear."

Yaga didn't know what to say to that. Sure, murder was a sin. So was everything that had been done to her up to that point.

"The baby." He had to make sure.

The flames danced in her eyes. "Stillborn. I buried it before the police arrived."

That explained the grave in the backyard and the waning Cursed Energy it emanated. Yaga thought his theory was sound—Kamo Hiroto must have tried to create a Cursed Womb, but it had failed.

"It's for the best, I think." She blinked slowly. "It would have been a monster, had it survived."

Yaga brought Yuna back to Tokyo, to Hana, who took one look at her, asked no questions, and took her in. For the remaining summer weeks, Hana clothed her, fed her, prepared her for a normal life in a local high school. The doctors at Jujutsu High weren't certain if Yuna could truly be a sorcerer or not; she did not mention she could see things that other people couldn't, nor did she have an amount of Cursed Energy beyond that of a normal human. She did not ask about the man who had suddenly appeared in her life and committed atrocities so foul that even Jujutsu sorcerers did not speak of them.

She had few words of her own, speaking only when spoken to, helping Hana with house chores in steadfast routine as if she had lived there her whole life. If either Yaga or Hana were perturbed by Yuna's swift adjustment, they ignored the feeling, welcoming instead the sweet relief of blindness, of fictional normalcy. Hana realized Yuna was a skilled calligrapher and insisted they practice together. The three of them cooked and ate dinner together. Yaga started staying over at Hana's again. The divorce papers were tucked under piles of mail, forgotten, unsigned.

But then, one mid-summer day, when the three of them were on a picnic, Yuna stared straight at a curse that hovered above Hana's shoulder. It was a Flyhead, Grade Four, benign enough and not touching Hana; Yaga didn't Exorcise it in the moment because Hana hated being reminded of things she couldn't see, but Yuna didn't know enough to know that the thing wasn't dangerous. All she knew was that it was a foul thing that could harm Hana, so she stared, as if trying to will it away by her glare alone, and Yaga knew.

That night, Yaga told Yuna about the existence of Curses, the things she had been able to see since the night she'd killed her husband and Kamo Hiroto. He told her about the Three Great Families, including the Kamo Family that had produced the man who had experimented on her. He told her she would have to move out of Hana's home the very next day because there was no life for her here.

The summer disappeared, and with it, their unspoken hope. Yaga signed his divorce papers. For he and Yuna both, Jujutsu High was the only choice.

Yuna wakes up in the middle of the night to the scent of tobacco and alcohol. The chamber she is held in is always illuminated, making sleep restless and intermittent, and it takes only the sound of a lighter switch for her to open her eyes. It still jars her, every time she opens them, to realize that half her vision is cut off in absolute darkness, as if half of her is permanently in her own Domain.

Shouko sits in front of her, cross-legged, a newly lit cigarette gritted between her teeth. Her hair is gritty and tangled and she has what looks suspiciously like dried blood on her chin. Her uniform looks unwashed. Shouko is normally poised and perfect in her disaffection. To see her frazzled to any degree makes Yuna ache.

"Ieiri-san."

"Hi, sensei."

Yuna opens her mouth to reply, but Shouko cuts her off.

"If the next sentence you say is that I shouldn't be here, I'm going to stab you."

Yuna closes her mouth promptly so she can think of something else to say instead.

Shouko grins wryly. "Sorry. I've been threatening that a lot this week. I've only really followed through on it once, though."

"Gojou-kun?"

"Kusakabe. Satoru was a close second."

"I see." She looks closely at Shouko's face, her dark shadows, chapped lips. "Ieiri-san, how are you doing?"

Shouko's gaze is fixed on Yuna's left side. She knows she's staring at Yuna's eye.

"I'm fine," Shouko says, rehearsed. "How are you?"

"Me too." Yuna's lips quirk. "I'm fine. You and the others shouldn't worry about me. Your term papers—"

"Sensei, there's no way we're doing term papers or exams," she cuts in. "No one's going to class. We're all disasters."

"I'm sorry."

"It's not you. It's everything else around you. Satoru told me you were here but didn't come because he and Suguru were having dinner with his parents. It's hilarious. His parents know it doesn't matter who teaches Satoru. They're more worried about the other Special Grade classmate."

"That makes sense."

"No, it doesn't. They could get you released, but they just don't give a shit. This fucking school." Shouko takes a deep breath of her cigarette. "This fucking place, this fucking world, it's all just fucking shit."

"Language, Ieiri-san."

It makes Shouko laugh. It comes out warbled, like she's holding all her supreme dissatisfaction with life and her existence in her throat. Yuna has guessed, though cannot fathom to know, that Shouko's obsession with the morgue runs deeper than morbid curiosity; that some part of her longs not to die but for death, if there's a difference between the two, and that desire amplifies when she is reminded over and over again of the multitude of ways she can be disappointed by life. Yuna tugs at her bindings to try and comfort Shouko, but pins and needles jab down her fingertips. Shouko notices and scoots closer to her. She sets aside her cigarette.

"It's okay, sensei," Shouko rests her forehead against Yuna's. "We're fighting for you, even if the rest of the world isn't."

"I don't want you to, Shouko," says Yuna softly. "You're students. You shouldn't be caught up in all of this."

"That wasn't ever your decision to make." Shouko's pupils are dilated against chocolate, and her breath is sweet like sake and smoke. "My parents are supportive, if that helps. They're researchers. They know all about that Kamo creep."

Shouko brings a hand up to Yuna's cheek and brushes her fingertips against her left temple.

"I'm sorry about your eye, sensei."

"There's nothing for you to be sorry for," Yuna swallows. She knows Shouko is drunk and tired and emotional. "I'm grateful for your treatment."

Shouko nods. She wraps a strand of Yuna's hair around her fingertip.

"I'm sorry for everything that happened to you before you came to Jujutsu High," she says, voice hoarse. "And for everything that is going to happen."

"What do you—"

Shouko leans in and presses her lips to Yuna's. It's open-mouthed, heated, Yuna hasn't been kissed like this often, perhaps the last time being with Yuki on top of Tokyo Tower, after they'd snuck off campus one humid summer night and ended up watching the sunrise together, Yuki's blond strands wrapped in Yuna's fingertips, her calloused hands sliding up her waist—

Shouko slips her tongue into Yuna's mouth and presses something to the roof of it. A thin shell breaks, and bitterness envelopes her tongue.

Shouko withdraws, her cheeks flushed, eyes wide.

"Sorry," she says again, breathless.

A heavy fog descends over Yuna's mind and her eyes slide shut beyond her control. The golden light of her prison doesn't bother her anymore.

What was that, Yuna wants to say, but her tongue is too heavy, you're a student, Shouko, you're just a child—

And then she thinks,

But so was I, so was I.

Shouko slides open the door to Suguru's room, pleased to find both her classmates are back from their terribly long dinner with the Gojou parents. She is extra pleased to see they are actually studying the list of items she'd asked them to obtain from the storage rooms rather than lounging about, making out, though there certainly has been less of that this week.

Suguru looks up at her. "You get it?"

Shouko holds up her vial. In it shimmers crimson liquid, still warm and fresh.

He lets out a low whistle. "Nice. How is she?"

"As expected," she answers. "Worried about us. Saying we shouldn't get involved. I wish she'd stop doing that."

"Don't we all," complains Satoru as he rolls around Suguru's bed. "She just needs to realize already—we're way more competent than she is."

"You," Shouko bonks him on the head, "can't do jack without Suguru or me."

"That is not true!"

"Threatening Zen'in Naoya was so stupid."

"It was in character! I threaten Zen'in Naoya every time I see him! He gets off to it!"

Suguru arches an eyebrow. "You know what Zen'in Naoya gets off to? Is there something you want to tell me?"

Satoru clutches his heart. "Suguru! You think so little of me!"

"Like attracts like." Shouko puts the blood on a bag of ice and sticks it in her cooler, which contains some control blood samples and several jars full of purifying water.

"I am not anything like him!"

"You're real energized after moping all week," she comments. "Did Mommy's hug lift your spirits?"

Satoru points at her. "Pot." Then at himself. "Kettle."

Shouko rolls her eyes, even though she knows he's right. Talking with her parents the day before had been tremendously helpful to her mood, which earlier in the week had manifested in sleepless nights pouring over textbooks about ocular anatomy and ophthalmologic surgeries and wondering why she was so incompetent. In addition to enjoying her mother's reassurance and support, Shouko had found the Ieiri elder's offhanded comment about the taboo of Cursed Womb research superbly interesting; after another night of insomnia, she had birthed the plan the three of them now called Operation: Miracle. (It was mostly Satoru who called it that, because he'd just binged a marathon of James Bond films and five tubs of ice cream and thought they should all be double O agents).

"How was dinner, Suguru?" she asks.

Suguru scrunches his nose. "Awful. They just kept passive aggressively asking me if I was threatened by Satoru, if I was keeping up, dropped hints that they knew where my parents lived…"

"So standard stuff," says Satoru brightly.

"Did you guys mention that you're…" Shouko makes an obscene hand gesture and cackles when both of them go red.

"Shouko, why are you like this?!" cries Satoru.

"We…we haven't," stammers Suguru.

Shouko stops her hand gestures. "Really? You're always in each other's rooms for like…hours."

"I mean, we've done stuff," blabs Satoru, "but not like everything, not that there is everything, or that I want to do everything, but I don't not want to do everything—"

Suguru throws a scroll at Satoru's face. "Shut up. She doesn't need to know."

Shouko plugs her ears. "I really don't."

"How was sensei?" asks Suguru, very determined to change the subject. "Other than being worried about us?"

"She didn't look good. I don't think she's eaten much since she's been there." Shouko takes the scroll that Suguru had thrown and tucks it into a bag. "Still pretty though."

"You so have a crush," chimes Satoru.

Shouko shrugs. "Maybe. I kissed her."

"You what?!"

"Shouko," gapes Suguru. "That's our teacher!"

"Relax, it was to Roofie her so I could get the blood. I didn't think she'd be okay with it if I asked nicely."

"She was literally tied up, she couldn't have done anything even if she wasn't okay with it!"

"I didn't want to traumatize her!"

"So you Roofied her instead?!"

"That's…" Suguru looks uncomfortable, "really bold, Shouko."

"Yeah, it is," she says sharply, "and you guys better get your shit together because so far, I've pulled my weight and came up with this entire plan while all you've done is set off fifteen curse alarms in one week."

"Fine," he relents.

Satoru peers at her. "Was it good?"

Shouko thinks about it. "I think so. It was my first kiss. But I thought it was pretty good."

Satoru whistles. "Nice job."

"Don't encourage her," snaps Suguru. "There was no consent in that."

"Sensei hasn't consented to literally anything we're doing," shoots back Shouko, "including us going to Ogawa and digging up fetal parts. One's more invasive than the other, don't you think, Mr. Holier-than-Thou?"

"I hate you both," he grumbles, but obediently zips up his bag of scrolls and some nails wrapped in talismans for Curtains.

"Don't be too long, guys," says Satoru. "I can only stand my parents for so long."

"It won't be more than a day or two," promises Shouko. "You just need to keep your parents occupied and say good things about sensei, none of your typical bullshit. Get Utahime and Mei-senpai to help you. You're hopeless on your own."

"I am not!"

"Yaga-sensei too," adds Suguru, "for good measure."

The Messiah of the Jujutsu World flicks them off, and Shouko thinks, not for the first time, that perhaps Yuna is not so lucky to have three teenagers, regardless of their Grade, in her corner after all.