Chapter: I Wish

Summary: The world in the Age of Curses is weird. But there are still familiar things.

Rating: M

Warning: Canon-typical violence towards the end. The Juju Stroll bit has a tiny warning for weird food.

Surprisingly enough, the curse city looks far more familiar up close than it did from afar.

Sure, the buildings are awkward and built with some things that are definitely not meant to be used for construction—though spider silk is supposed to be strong—but the way everything is arranged…

Small shops line the streets, with fresh vegetables, strangely-shaped or not, proudly displayed outside. The smell of fresh bread sneaks out of bakeries, and fluffy scarves wave lazily on the racks outside the overtly cramped seamstress' shop.

Other curse children are running around, though some of them hold onto the… appendages of other curses, those ones clearly adults. Or, well, as 'clearly' as any curse can be. Satoru thinks about asking about that, the whole 'do curses have parents' thing, but his guides don't have an answer.

If Sukuna didn't know, despite how long he's been around, the quartet of special grade chibis definitely won't.

… It's curious, though. If Sukuna does remember Satoru, why do the chibis not? Is it because they were exorcised while Sukuna wasn't? And how does that work? How did Sukuna survive Yuuji's death? How did the chibis reform after being exorcised? Satoru knows that curses who manifest in place of others—like in schools and hospitals, where the influx of cursed energy is fairly constant and 'flavored' in a specific way—look like those who were exorcised, but…

For some reason, he hadn't expected these special grades to share that trait with regular curses. They were all so… unique. But obviously, they aren't, or there wouldn't be four mini-them showing Satoru around their city, with no clue of who he was.

Meh. He'll ask Sukuna when he gets back to the house.

… That is even weirder than the whole 'curses with parents' thing.

Sukuna is a bit of a recluse, apparently, keeping to himself in his house in the Hill of the Last Standing. He's revered, as Satoru noticed with all the 'Sukuna-sama' and 'Sukuna-ou', which makes him believe that the curses of this time take the whole 'King of Curses' a lot more seriously than the metaphor for 'power' that it had been back in Satoru's. Still, that means Sukuna leads a calm and peaceful and boring life… until bratty curses decide to dare each other into going to the Hill.

Judging by Sukuna's reaction to the quartet, Satoru guesses it must happen fairly often. Strangely enough, he wasn't as annoyed by it as Satoru would have thought… But then again, Satoru was there. Sukuna had something more interesting to focus on than the four kids.

So, when the chibi gang came to 'visit' yet again, it was no surprise that Sukuna kicked them, alongside Satoru, out of the mountain at last, patience gone.

"Just get out there and leave me alone!" he'd snarled, straightening proudly and hiding his fisted claws in the sleeves of his yukata, and Satoru had laughed.

He had hidden his trepidation well as they made their way down the Hill, though, and now that he's finally here, walking down the streets, he finds it vanishing as curiosity takes its place.

For a city of curses, it's almost peaceful. Oh, he can hear shouting, and they've walked past a couple of brawling curses without the chibis even batting an eye. But there's bartering, and laughter, and curses walking down the street, shopping and just… going on with their lives.

If Satoru were to close his eyes and ignore the cursed energy that he can feel all over his skin like some kind of muted itch, he could almost trick himself into believing he's surrounded by humans.

He keeps his Limitless close to the skin despite the street not being crowded, though for the first time in years, it takes a constant effort to have it be restricted thus. The presence of curses, the itching cursed energy, the sound of the special grades' voices, slightly distorted as they are due to age…

The last time he'd seen them, in their 'adult' forms, Hanami and Jogo had been able to break through his Limitless, and Mahito was well on his way to turn the whole population of Shibuya into deformed tools. Dagon had been nowhere to be seen, though, so Satoru can't say whether the curse is a new special grade or he had simply been hiding back then.

Really, what are the odds of a new special grade curse born of a primordial fear? No, come on. Dagon is not new. But he is a cursed womb, and if that had been the case back in Shibuya, it's no wonder he had been in hiding.

Hanami and Jogo had barely been able to keep up, and they had had the Death Painting, as well as Mahito and his transfigured humans, to help them out. Dagon would have been as much bait as the humans – for a far shorter time.

Satoru tilts his head back, facing the sky. A bit cloudy, really blue, but… There's too much cursed energy everywhere. Are there really no other humans left…?

"Oi, Mister Eyebox, where are you from?" Mahito asks, startling Satoru out of his thoughts, and he looks down to the city and the special grade chibis once more.

"Who, me? Well… From someplace very far away. It looks a bit like this, if I'm honest. But Tokyo is way bigger, with far more people," he explains cheerfully, gesturing grandly, and the mini-curses all stare up at him with sparkling ey—er, grins.

"Really?! This is the biggest colony I know. I want to go visit your colony, Mister Eyebox!" Mahito exclaims, eternally excited, while Jogo grumbles.

"There's no way your colony is better than ours. Bigger don't mean better."

"But where is it? Is it in the North? I heard there are lots of ugoku-yamas there," Hanami muses, tilting his head this way and that, and Satoru blinks behind his blindfold while Dagon blows a raspberry that makes Jogo glare harder and Mahito crack up.

"Ugoku-yamas?" Satoru repeats, curious, because as far as he knows 'walking mountains' aren't a thing.

… Weren't a thing. Back in the past. Back in a world that didn't belong to curses.

The quartet turn to stare at him in disbelief, and Satoru stops, startled.

"What?"

"You don't know what ugoku-yamas are?" Hanami asks, stiff in surprise.

"You're weird!" Mahito laughs, doubling over, while Dagon shuffles uncomfortably, giving the more human-like curse a wounded look. "Ah, no, I didn't mean you, Dagon! You don't have ugoku-yamas in Sazansan, how could you have known?"

"Hey, why don't you try some?" Jogo asks, giving Satoru a huge grin that is almost eerie, as he points to a stand a couple shops down the road. "That's got to be the best explanation ever. And they have some sweet ugoku-yama mochi!"

And Satoru is sold.

Food is still a tricky subject, what with its appearance and general sourness, but Satoru is determined to find a sweet—pun intended—souvenir in every place he visits. And a city of curses won't be an exception.

Besides, Jogo said mochi. If the word for the many delicious sweet rice cakes has survived until now, what's to say mochi themselves haven't?

When they reach the shop, Satoru's grin only grows.

"Oooh! They are mochi!" he exclaims in delight, feeling the relief softening the knots of tension that make his Limitless itch against his skin.

"Why of course, my honored guest!" the shopkeeper croons smoothly, some kind of three-armed and six-eyed—snort—curse with quills for hair and gray-green skin, as her two almost vertical mouths split into wide grins. "Mochi for five? We have a special 10-pack offer today, and you can choose as many flavors as you wish!"

Satoru's grin falters as he straightens from where he was staring hungrily at the appetizing mochi, digging through his pockets – and coming up empty.

"Aw, shucks. I can't believe money is still a thing! I should've asked Sukuna for some," he bemoans, dropping his head back because it is not fair.

Now that he's finally found something good, something that reminds him of home—and he chooses to ignore the flash of warm ceramic and honeyed chamomile that comes to mind—he's trumped by money, of all things! Even if he'd had any on him, though, he's fairly sure human money would be as useful here as pocket lint.

"S-S-Sukuna…?" the shopkeeper squeaks, mouths frozen in twin rictus grins as her huge pupils somehow manage to shrink to the point they look almost human-sized.

"Not that he would have given me any, probably. One thousand years, and he's still the same old bastard," he huffs, grinning at the thought as he remembers the thrice-damned curse laughing at Satoru's sour-filled future. "I could always go back to the Hill and take some, though. There's no way he'd be able to catch me."

"You're faster than Sukuna-ou, Mister Eyebox?" Mahito asks, curious, while the other three chibis listen attentively.

"Oh, definitely," Satoru grins, thinking back to meeting Yuuji for the first time. "We haven't fought in a long time, so I don't know how strong he is now, but back then? It was almost a good warm up."

"You're really that strong?!" Jogo exclaims, puffing out smoke in his surprise, and Satoru straightens with a teasing grin.

"The Strongest."

"F-F-Free mochi!" the shopkeeper shrieks, reminding Satoru of her presence, and he turns around in surprise, lifting his eyebrows so high at her gleefully shivering form that he's almost sure they've gone over his blindfold. "Free mochi for Sukuna-ou's most honorable friend!"

"Wha—friend…? You think Sukuna is my friend?" Satoru manages to croak, flabbergasted, but the chibis are already jumping excitedly and shrieking in delight.

"Yay! You're the best, Mister Eyebox!"

"Mahito, don't be stupid! Sukuna-ou is the best, and Mister Eyebox is only as good because he's Sukuna-ou's friend!" Jogo scolds the other curse, but Mahito simply bounces some more, trying to decide his mochi flavors, and ignoring the angrily puffing volcano.

"Oi, Baldy, are you calling me second rate?" Satoru questions with a grin that is too wide to be anything but the threat he means it as, and Jogo immediately backpedals, obviously reading the situation accurately.

"O-Of course not, Mister Eyeb—I-I mean, Gojo-sama! It's just that, you know, though you are the Strongest, no one has really heard about you before, so…" he babbles, and Satoru can feel his grin fall at the words.

Right. Of course, no one has heard about him. They're all curses. And it's been one thousand years.

"Sukuna-ou clearly knew him, Jogo. And he's been around for a lot longer than anyone else," Hanami reasons, accepting his bundle of mochi from the still widely grinning shopkeeper.

Dagon burbles something too, staring at Jogo and Hanami, before turning into an excitedly squirming mess as the shopkeeper asks for his order.

"Oh, that's right!" Jogo exclaims, his eye wide, while Hanami tilts his head in surprise, before the two of them turn to Satoru. "You said it had been a thousand years since you'd seen the colony and Sukuna-ou. Guess it makes sense now how no one knows about you."

"And why you're so weird about food," Hanami adds, before bouncing to Satoru's side with a huge grin to offer him the bundle of mochi. "Here, these are for you! I checked all the poisons Sukuna-ou mentioned."

… Well, if that's so…

Satoru still gives the four beautifully presented mochi a long look and a sniff that makes his mouth water, before he reaches for the first. All four of them are round, but this one has a spot of some kind of dark jam on top, sprinkled with powdered sugar.

"Well, here goes nothing," Satoru tells himself, and bites on the mochi.

Unlike with Hanami's bark-like treat, when he shudders this time, it's in delight.

"So good!" he sighs with a grin after he's swallowed his bite. "The jam inside is not too sweet, but it's delicious. And I like the few berries sprinkled in. What are they?"

"It's Sambuku mochi, Gojo-sama!" the shopkeeper answers immediately, rubbing two of her hands together like she just made the best sale of the year, while her third hands Dagon his mochi. "The jam is made by the Myuurujika every season, with only their very best berries."

"It's really good," Satoru repeats, finishing his mochi and barely resisting the urge to lick the sugar from his fingers. "What about this one?" he asks as he reaches for the second, one that looks as if the rice paste had been mixed with chocolate, dark as it is, with sprinkles of some kind of nut on top.

"That's our Konomi botamochi, Gojo-sama. The mochi ball is on the inside, coated by our homemade nut paste."

Satoru hums, and bites into it with no hesitation at all. It's a bit sweeter than the Sambuku, and he can see how Jogo lets out some sputters of white smoke as he bites into his own Konomi botamochi with a grin. The nut mixture is smooth, its flavors blending together and balanced by its rice cake core, and anyway, Satoru doesn't know enough about nuts to put names to all of them.

He still loves it.

Hanami is cheering silently, high-fiving Mahito and Dagon before he grabs some mochi for himself. They are a couple of green ones with flowers on top and one that is as pink as the cherry blossoms from the hanami celebration, funnily enough.

Satoru turns to his remaining two, but they are both white. Well, appetizing as Hanami's look—and thankfully nothing like the grey one Dagon just swallowed—there has to be a reason the chibi curse didn't offer them to Satoru.

So, with a shrug, he turns to the plain white one and bites into it as the shopkeeper is opening her mouths—

"Daifuku!" Satoru exclaims around his mouthful, but the word must have come out clearly enough despite his bad manners, because the shopkeeper practically lights up once she's over her surprise.

"Indeed! You have excellent taste, Gojo-sama!"

"Eeh? You know daifuku? Are they an old recipe then?" Mahito asks, chewing on his blue mochi almost thoughtfully, and Satoru can only nod as he moans around his next bite.

The anko red bean paste is sweet inside, so familiar that it almost brings tears to his eyes if not for the fact he ate his last daifuku just the week before.

… It's so hard to remember that all of that, the week before, two days before, is one thousand years in the past now…

"At least I still have you," he tells his last bite of daifuku almost seriously – and bites into it without a second thought, grinning happily. "They are so good…"

"You honor me, Gojo-sama!" the shopkeeper practically squeals, blushing an ugly shade of murky green, before she points at the last mochi in his hands. "That one is our house specialty! Ugoku-yama mochi!"

Satoru's grin falters.

Ah, the famed ugoku-yama. He still doesn't know what they are, but as he looks at the chibis, he realizes that, past the differently flavored mochi they all chose, there's one constant. The ugoku-yama mochi.

It's a plain white one, much like the daifuku, though the paste has a darker reddish shade to it, probably tinted by its filling. A bit like the 'flower petal' hanabira mochi, but unlike them, the outer layer is neither thin nor slightly transparent.

Satoru gives it a sniff.

It… smells a bit like anko, to be honest. But it was sitting next to the daifuku…

The chibis are staring, grinning in expectation. The shopkeeper is staring, practically vibrating as nervous sweat beads on her forehead. The whole street is staring, they have been for a while, whispering amongst themselves about the strange curse who tosses Sukuna-sama's name around like an old friend.

Satoru grins. And then, very slowly, he brings the mochi to his lips and takes a bite, making sure to keep his reactions hidden as his taste buds tingle and his skin threatens to break into goosebumps—

It's amazing, not as sweet as the previous ones but so much more flavorful, and Satoru has to really fight his grin down as the whole street holds its breath.

"It's…" he begins, lowering the rest of his mochi as his lips drop into a neutral line, and the chibis look about ready to start screaming, worried about their choice, while the shopkeeper is shaking so hard, pupils shrunk almost to pinpricks, that Satoru thinks she's about to faint – and so he grins. "Wonderful! I never thought I would say this of something that isn't absolutely cavity-inducing sweet, but I love it. Great job!" he congratulates the shopkeeper with a huge smile and a thumbs up—

And she topples back without resistance, twin mouths foaming as her face practically glows with her delight.

Satoru blinks, even as the rest of the street bursts into excited chatter and curses start to line up in front of the shop, waiting for the shopkeeper to recover consciousness so they can place their orders. The mini special grades are hopping around, cheering loudly, and Jogo is practically smoking non-stop as the others congratulate his excellent choice.

Satoru chuckles and takes another bite of his ugoku-yama mochi—

Geto Suguru grins as he disappears around a corner and Satoru almost chokes to death.

The chibi squad is clustered around him when he finally manages to draw breath again, barely refraining from reaching for him, wary after the way Hanami was unable to get past his Limitless the first time. But Satoru doesn't see them, he doesn't hear them, he can't even feel the way his remaining bite of ugoku-yama mochi has been crushed into a shapeless paste in his clenched fist.

That was… Was that Suguru… or was it the fake?

Something sparks to life in Satoru's stomach, twisting it almost painfully, and he snarls and rushes after the apparition—

But there's nothing around the corner. The street just ends in a small nook with a couple of rubbish bins. The buildings are tall, though not tall enough to stop Suguru if he was determined. But there are no residuals…

Hah. Residuals? Whether it's Suguru or the fake Geto—Kenjaku, Sukuna called him—they are more than good enough not to leave any.

So, Satoru jumps, using his Limitless to guide him over the buildings—

The world swirls and Satoru slams into the wall, unharmed thanks to his technique, but…

He drops to the ground, breathing heavily as he looks up once more, at the clouds and the blue sky, and tries to push back the startled shouts from the chibis, who followed him into the alleyway.

"What just happened?" he whispers to himself, carefully getting back to his feet, but the world stays as is.

… There's a lot of cursed energy around. Maybe… Maybe it disorientated him?

His stomach twists again, anger and disappointment souring the sweet aftertaste left behind by the mochi, and Satoru concedes defeat.

If Suguru – No, if Kenjaku is still around, he has had more than enough time to get used to this overcharged environment. And he still knows Satoru better than Satoru ever knew Kenjaku.

Sukuna said he killed Kenjaku, that he burned Suguru's body. But what Satoru just saw…

"Mister Eyebox? Are you sure you're alright?" Mahito asks, pouting up at him, while the other three stare up at him more or less nervously.

The street is still bustling with activity, and Satoru can hear the mochi shopkeeper screeching delightedly as the orders keep coming. No one noticed his slip.

"I need to get back to the Hill. Sukuna and I have some things to discuss."

"Okay. This way, then," Mahito answers cheerily pointing back towards the main street.

Satoru grins, but there's no humor in it this once.

"I know a shortcut."

… The shortcut, much like his attempt at levitation, ends up in a crash landing, though unlike before, the world is still spinning as Satoru manages to right himself, grimacing.

His stomach is turning again, but he's no longer sure it's because of his swirling emotions. He tries to draw a deep breath, but he can't seem to manage to do more than pant. There are children with him, calling his name over and over, looking worried, but…

No, wait, those aren't children, they're curses, they're… they're children, and curses, kid curses, kid special grades—

Satoru takes a step, and wobbles unsteadily until he finds a handy tree to lean against.

"Ugh, great. When I said you should go out and do something, I didn't mean for you to get drunk," Yuuji scoffs as he walks out of the trees, dressed in a black-trimmed white yukata, all four eyes giving him a disappointed look that has him chuckling sheepishly.

"I didn't touch any alcohol, I swear! I'm a responsible adult," he drawls, comprehensible despite the way his tongue tries to twist into weird knots.

"You're a man-child, Gojo. And you're going to stay out here until you sober up. I'm no babysitter," Yuuji scowls, almost disgusted, before the kids rush to him, clamoring for his attention, speaking over each other to the point Satoru can't make sense of their words.

Satoru observes as his student fumbles with the kids, chuckling at his discomfort before he tries to reach for his phone to take a picture. Megumi and Nobara will love to see this—

The world tilts without permission, and his stomach rebels so sharply that it's almost as if Satoru had been punched in the gut.

He barely manages to stop himself from slamming face first on the floor as the tree disappears from under his hand, but what he can't stop is the rush of half-digested food and bile coming up his throat.

Yuuji is suddenly at his side, four eyes wide and tattoos almost too dark against his pale face – no, wait, four eyes and tattoos is not Yuuji, it's—

"Sukuna?" he whispers, the sound raspy and almost drowned by his next heave, but it can't be, Yuuji has control over Sukuna, Yuuji is…

Yuuji is dead. And so are Megumi and Nobara and Suguru and Kenjaku and… and the whole world.

"What did you eat, you fool?!" Sukuna snarls, reaching for him but stopping short as he slams into the Infinity separating them. "Would you drop that thing?! Do you want to die?!"

… Does he? No, of course not. Satoru is the Strongest, why would he die? If he dies, how is he going to revamp the jujutsu world? How will he teach and tease and… And…

He thinks there's someone calling his name, but his heart is beating so loudly in his ears that he can't be sure. His blindfold feels heavier than ever on his eyelids, soaked with sweat, and he's shivering too harshly to even attempt to pull it off.

Is this what sickness is like? He remembers some fevers he suffered from when he was young, with too much cursed energy and too little control over the Six Eyes to balance it and the input out, overwhelmed by the world more often than not. But he'd been so young that he can barely remember it now. He was, what, three? Four? It hadn't taken that long until he'd seen how other sorcerers kept their own cursed energy under control, and the Six Eyes had helped him master it in but a day.

He hadn't been sick ever again.

So, what is this now? He can't be sick. He's Gojo Satoru, he's the Strongest Sorcerer, he's—

He's the only sorcerer, the only human, in a world of curses.

"I think I got poisoned," he manages to huff, his lips twitching into something that tries to be a grin, and why is the world dark, it isn't night is it – oh, his eyes are closed. "Totally worth it," he tells the black and white and reddish blurry person crouched over him—when had he laid down?—because those mochi had been great.

And a clawed hand stabs through Satoru's stomach.

He tries to shout, bile and blood mixing in his throat – and finally manages it when cursed energy burns through his body, ravaging his veins and sending his muscles into spasming fits that have him thrashing around. But the claws are still buried deep, pushing more and more cursed energy into Satoru to the point he thinks he's going to vaporize—

And then it changes, and the burning rushes out, leaving the warmth from a blanket in a cold winter night behind it.

When the claw shlurps out of Satoru's stomach, his cursed energy starts to knit the flesh back together slowly, the Recovery Technique that is usually running on automatic slowly reactivating now that the poison has been literally burnt away.

"You idiot," Sukuna snarls, all four eyes ablaze with a red light that Satoru can't help but think looks a lot like his Reverse Technique Red. "If you're going to die, it will be at my hand."

Satoru thinks of retorting that he just missed his chance, but that's when darkness claims him at last.

JUJU STROLL!

"It smells sweet."

"And?"

"I can eat it?"

Sukuna doesn't throw his tea at him, but that's because he knows Satoru's Limitless will keep it from landing, and that would just be wasting good tea.

"No, you absolutely can't! That's the same mochi you ate in the colony, the one that had you throwing your guts up."

"Eeh? This little thing?" Satoru asks with a disbelieving grimace, pointing at the innocent brown nut mochi – Konomi botamochi.

"Do you know which nuts it contains?" Sukuna manages to ask past his tightly clenched teeth, straining his patience.

"Does that matter?"

"… Yes, it bloody well does," Sukuna hisses, tone even, if slightly murderous, and Satoru frowns and leans back on his seat on the cushion across from Sukuna's.

"There are poisonous nuts in this world?"

"This one was already poisonous in yours!" Sukuna finally snaps, one of his hands slamming on the table, before a second reaches for the bridge of his nose, pinching it despite it already being red from such a previous treatment. "It has nutmeg, and while a pinch of it isn't poisonous, the amounts in this mochi most definitely are. Learn the smell. You avoid that one. Now, what about the next mochi?"

"Oh, it's the berry one! What did that curse call it… Sambuku mochi?" Satoru answers, grinning as Sukuna nods. "It's not as sweet as the Konomi botamochi. So, that means I can eat it!"

"That one is the one that was killing you," Sukuna hisses, his two visible eyes glowing red as he hides half his face behind a hand, as if reaching for patience while beating back the urge to just murder Satoru here and now.

The pale scar on his stomach twinges with the memory of Sukuna's claws piercing him through, but Satoru keeps his smile on his face and relaxes further in his seat.

If he hides his hands in the sleeves of borrowed navy-blue yukata, though, there's no one around, beyond the two of them, to know.

"So, even berries are dangerous—"

"They were there one thousand years ago, too," Sukuna interrupts before Satoru can finish his teasing retort, and he finds himself blinking in surprise at that.

"Oh, come on! You've got to be pulling my leg."

"Ever heard of elderberries?"

Satoru's lower jaw falls to the metaphorical floor. Sukuna grins, sharp in his delight, but if Satoru thinks he sees an edge of relief in there too, he chalks it to Sukuna's words finally making it through his thick skull.

"Let me guess. Remember the smell and avoid it at all costs?"

"For now, yes. Just like nutmeg, you could eat it, but only if the jam is cooked properly. Next time—"

"Let you check, yes, I get it," Satoru huffs, and if he's pouting like a scolded child, he's in his right.

Sukuna just took away two of his new favorite foodstuffs, so sue him.

"Now you're going to say I can't have the ugoku-yama mochi either, that it's this one that made me hallucinate Suguru and Yuuji," he grumbles, glaring at the last of their 'exercises', sitting innocently in the box the chibi squad graciously provided them with when Sukuna asked.

But Sukuna sighs, relaxing at last, and waves a hand in permission.

Satoru perks up.

"Really?"

"The nutmeg was behind the hallucinations," he explains simply, and unwilling to let Sukuna take this from him, Satoru quickly snatches the mochi up and takes a huge bite off. "Ugoku-yama testes are perfectly safe for you."

And Satoru almost chokes to death again.

AN: And now, to cover those terms that don't get explained in the story, we have a Glossary (Keep in mind that most of it is taken out of Google searches crossreferenced with Google Translate):

Sambuku: Play on Sambucus, the scientific name of the elder trees, which grow the elderberries.

Myuurujika: Japanese name for mule deer, which are some of the animals that do eat elderberries.

Konomi: Japanese for nuts.

... It's trying to grow a plot. Halp.

I've got a few more 'slice of life' bits, but then things get... weird. I don't know how else to explain it.

Also, is the warning about the ugoku-yama 'testes' necessary? I wouldn't have put it, if it was just me, but I'd rather be safe than sorry.