Hoping Then

AKA the one that deals with the aftermath of Shibuya and the start of the Culling Game.

Kaia sat with Yuki and Maki in the hidden room at the school. She sat next to Yuki on the small couch in front of the old TV which wasn't even turned on while Maki paced back and forth, thinking loud enough that Kaia could practically hear the girl's thoughts. Kaia leaned into the couch cushions and pulled out the black clip that had been holding her hair back. Her hair fell down around her face and she massaged her sore scalp as she closed her eyes.

Nanami's watch still felt heavy and awkward around her wrist but she refused to take it off. She managed to pull a few links out of the bracelet so it could at least be somewhat fitted to her wrist, but Nanami's wrist had been so much larger than hers that it was still oversized. And it served as an agonizing reminder of the last few days.

Calling the remnants of the train station "remnants" was an exaggeration. The entire station was decimated. The floors were fractured to the point of craters, chunks of the ceiling kept falling and turning the craters into massive fissures, and there was the overwhelming odor of sulfur and gasoline that hung thickly in the air.

Kaia looked around for familiar faces. It seemed like the worst of the incident was finally over. There were few recognizable faces as Kaia started to push her way through the crowd. Her muscles ached, part of her clothes were singed from her cursed fire, and for the first time in her life, her throat stung from overuse of her cursed technique. But at least she was alive.

She could only pray that everyone else was alive too, though she had a sinking feeling that wasn't the case. Everything was still so unknown. So raw.

And then there was also the fact that Satoru was sealed…

She swallowed back a lump in her throat and it burned on the way down.

Satoru was sealed but he would be fine. She knew it. They'd find a way to get him out and everything would be fine. It had to be. The whole of jujutsu society and the entirety of Japan depended on Satoru getting out.

God, she could throttle him. She knew something bad was going to happen that night. She could feel it in her gut.

Kaia blinked as hard as she could two or three times to bring her back to reality when she noticed the sluggishness in her legs carrying her forward. She sucked in a sharp breath of air through her nostrils and caught sight of a woman with long dark hair and a scar going across her face.

"Utahime!" Kaia called out. Her voice came out much rougher than she anticipated, probably due to her using so much of her cursed fire to exorcise a goddamn special-grade curse on her own, and the sound made her wince.

Utahime's footsteps stuttered at the sound of her name and she looked over her shoulder. Their eyes connected through the passing bodies between them and after a short beat, Utahime reached forward and gripped Kaia's arm hard enough to leave a mark and yanked her through the crowd.

"There you are!" Utahime said once they were no longer separated by panicked civilians and injured sorcerers. "Everyone's been looking for you. Did you hear that—"

"That Satoru was sealed? Yes, I heard," Kaia said a little sharply. God, her voice was so hoarse. "Where's Yuji and the others? Megumi was with Nanami, wasn't he? We should find them."

Something flickered across Utahime's face that Kaia absolutely, positively did not like.

"You look hurt. Shoko is healing people right now. Why don't we—"

"I'm fine. Do you have a phone? I melted mine on accident in a fight and I need to call Nanami. I haven't heard from him in hours," Kaia said.

That same look flashed across Utahime's face. Her lip twitched and her eyes fell to the ground, and if Kaia didn't know any better, she would have thought Utahime was going to be sick. Kaia didn't get a chance to grill the woman on it though because she saw the recognizable loose black hat that she knew belonged to Takuma Ino and jumped into action.

"Ino!" Kaia shouted. She only had to take a few steps away from Utahime to get the younger man's attention.

He was injured. Badly. His face was all bloodied and bruised, his shirt was ripped at the collar, and there was a mottled mess of shiny pink flesh on his leg that was very obviously the work of Shoko healing a nasty gash. Kaia laid a hand on his shoulder as she surveyed him.

"You okay?" she asked before anything else.

"Murakami," Ino said in a sort of strangled gasp. His eyes flashed between her and Utahime, and Kaia watched his lower lip start to quiver. "You're alive."

Kaia nodded quickly and couldn't help herself when she asked, "where's Nanami? Aren't you usually with him on missions?"

Ino's lip trembled again and his mouth opened just barely, but words never came out.

"Kaia, we need to take you to Shoko," Utahime tried. Her voice was gentle and her hand gingerly touched Kaia's elbow. Almost like she thought Kaia was some rabid dog that needed a gentle hand when approaching.

She couldn't help it when her temper got the best of her. She whipped around and gave Utahime the nastiest death glare she could manage.

"Why do you keep saying that? I'm not injured. I'm just losing my voice because I've been using my cursed fire for hours. I'm fine," Kaia snapped. She then split her ire between both Utahime and Ino. "Now for fuck's sake, where the hell is Nanami?"

Utahime gave a sigh that made her entire body shudder and Ino looked like he was on the verge of tears.

"…Come on, Kaia," Utahime said softly.

She took Kaia over to what clearly was the triage area. Kaia glimpsed Shoko working tirelessly on countless people, alternating between using her reverse cursed technique and regular medical techniques. If she was struggling, she didn't show it. Not even as she tended to a man who was missing an arm. When Kaia thought Utahime was pulling her over to Shoko for treatment, they pivoted towards a completely different area. It was away from where most of the people were, shoved off to the side with various auxiliary managers and sorcerers coming and going.

And that was when the horror set in. That was when Kaia realized they were off to the side because that was where the bodies were being gathered for identification purposes.

Her footsteps stuttered and she came to an abrupt halt, reaching down and gripping Utahime's with enough strength that Kaia heard both of their fingers crack.

"Utahime?" Kaia whispered.

Utahime's big dark eyes softened and squeezed Kaia's hand back.

"I'm so sorry, Kaia," she said.

Kaia had started to shake her head without even realizing it as Utahime guided her through the bodies. Towards the front of the bodies, on the edge of a line of corpses with various sorcerers that Kaia had only got to meet in passing, was a body that she never wanted to see.

Lying on his back was Nanami. He wore no shirt, his slacks were charred, his ash blond hair was no longer gelled back, and… And…

The entire opposite side of his body was burnt. The burns were so severe and so horrendous that she could see the bones and muscles and tendons. The entire side of his skull was visible, so badly ruined that he didn't even have an eyeball left on that side of his face.

The only sound that came out of her as she took him in was a weak, breathless, "oh."

Kaia's hands trembled at her sides and her fingers began to spasm. All of the remaining strength in her body and soul fled faster than she could blink. She collapsed to her knees beside his corpse and stared.

"It was a special-grade. It also got Maki and Naobito Zen'in. They're both fighting for their lives in the field hospital right now," Utahime said very quietly.

Kaia's fingers continued to viciously rattle with tremors as she took in the sight of Nanami's ruined body. The pain that coiled in her chest was intensely familiar and she distantly remembered feeling like that only one other time in her life. When she was nineteen years old and watching her family be slaughtered right before her eyes.

There was no difference in the agony she felt.

Despite the intensity of her trembling, she very slowly took hold of Nanami's unburnt hand in both of hers and squeezed it.

He was cold, limp, and lifeless. It was too much for her to handle all at once.

So the levee broke.

Tears had been rapidly collecting the second she realized what had happened, but the quiet tears weren't enough to hold the grief. No, it wasn't a silent grief that she felt. She knew it was coming and she bit down on the inside of her cheek to desperately stop before it started, but she failed.

A terribly loud sob clawed its way out of the back of her raw throat and ripped itself out of her mouth.

The last time she cried like that, her sobs had been trapped behind a seal over her mouth as a teenager. And some twisted, fucked-up part of herself almost wished she had a seal over her mouth then so she didn't have to hear how utterly broken she sounded.

It was like Kaia lost all sense of time because one second she was sniffling back tears and holding onto Nanami's hand, and the next second she was crying so hard that she was hyperventilating and hiccupping, all while she held Nanami's hand tightly against her forehead as she rocked back and forth on her knees as if that would somehow bring him back.

It wouldn't though. He was gone and he would never come back.

Kaia had lost so much in her life but for some reason, the thought of losing Nanami never once crossed her mind even though he was a jujutsu sorcerer and obviously at a higher risk of death than most.

He was strong and experienced and not easy to kill. So she never thought this day would come.

She wept hard enough to burst the blood vessels in her eyes and face but she couldn't stop. The pain wouldn't lessen no matter how many tears she cried or how many wails escaped her lips. God, it wouldn't stop. It just coiled tighter and tighter and tighter around her heart until she wasn't even sure that she wanted to be alive for another godforsaken minute.

"Hey. Hey, breathe, Murakami. Please," Ino begged, falling to his knees beside her. "Nanami wouldn't want this. He wouldn't want you to grieve so hard that you made yourself sick. Please just take a breath."

She tried. She really did. She tried to take deep breaths but she didn't know how to get the oxygen to her lungs without a series of sobs replacing those inhales. Every attempt to breathe led to yet another round of uncontrollable weeping.

"I-I c-can't," she bawled.

There was a hand at her elbow and it tugged her back hard enough that she was forced to drop Nanami's unmoving hand.

She gritted her teeth and shook her head, forcefully yanking her arm away from whoever touched her.

"Kaia, you have to breathe," a different voice said. A feminine one that Kaia knew she recognized, but not one that she could place in that moment. "If you don't, I'm going to have to drag you over to Ieiri where you'll be sedated. We can't have you fall apart. Not right now."

Kaia could have laughed. She couldn't fall apart? Wasn't she already doing exactly that?

"She's right, Murakami. You're turning purple," Ino said softly. One of his hands came to rest between her shoulder blades while the other touched her bicep as if he meant to pull her away from the area.

She swallowed and forced herself to nod. She again tried to take in a breath, but it was again stolen by involuntary little sobs and hiccups.

"That's good. Keep trying. Maybe go a little slower," Ino encouraged.

She followed the younger sorcerer's instructions. She didn't know how long it took. Maybe a few seconds or maybe several minutes. But eventually, her breathing evened back out and when she inhaled, her oxygen wasn't stolen by more tears. Her chest simply shook with the effort but at least she was able to breathe again.

"Good. That's great," Ino said.

Kaia looked at him through watery eyes to see his own eyes a little glassy and red. He forced a weak smile onto his lips and patted her back.

"This sucks, Murakami. No other way around it," he said. "I looked up to Nanami. You know that, right?"

She did. Everyone did. Ino practically worshipped the ground Nanami walked on and it wasn't exactly a secret.

"Yeah," she murmured, voice almost completely gone.

"I went on a lot of missions with him and we would sometimes train together. So, I was with him a lot and I'm sure you already know this, but he loved you like you were family. He was really proud of you too," Ino said. Kaia was sure that he was trying to make her feel better but his words only stung. She closed her eyes to stop another wave of tears from taking over but let him go on. "You need to remember that. You have to keep going. He pushed himself to the very end to try and protect Yuji and everyone else, so you have to do that too. You have to push yourself and help make things right."

A weak laugh bubbled up in her chest and she chuckled in spite of herself, shaking her head slowly and opening her eyes. It was such a stupidly sentimental thing to say but he wasn't wrong. And he had to have known that too.

"I know," Kaia said. She sighed and wiped her eyes. "You're right."

"He is right," that same feminine voice from before said again. Only this time, Kaia was lucid enough to identify the voice as Mei Mei. "So let's go. We need to reconvene."

"You always have excellent timing, Mei Mei," Kaia drawled in a low voice. She looked down at Nanami's corpse one last time and felt her lip tremble. She kept it together though. Kept herself from crying long enough to take his hand one last time and squeeze it tightly.

She felt her eyes water again but that didn't stop her from leaning forward and pressing a kiss to his unburnt cheek.

"I love you, Nanami," she whispered under her breath. "Say hi to Maha for me."

When Kaia pulled back the tears were falling freely again but at least she wasn't sobbing again. She sniffled and stood straight up, turning her back to the corpse of the one person she considered her family.

Utahime looked at her with big understanding eyes and a tight smile that was meant to be reassuring. Kaia tried to return it but she was sure her own smile probably ended up looking like a grimace. She then glanced at Mei Mei, who somehow looked no worse for wear, and frowned.

"Where've you been?" Kaia asked.

"Don't worry about that," Mei Mei said with a shrug. "I've come to grab you and take you to meet up with a few others."

Kaia didn't have anything left in her. She didn't even have the energy to question Mei Mei on who exactly they were meeting up with or why they were meeting up with those people when Shoko probably needed their help. She just nodded and took a step toward Mei Mei.

"Murakami, wait," Ino said quickly.

Kaia hesitated and waited without looking over at him. She couldn't risk looking at Ino when he was crouched beside Nanami's body. If she had to look at Nanami's corpse one more time, she would need to be fucking institutionalized because her grief would be too all-encompassing to compartmentalize one more time.

But then a quick moment went by and Ino stood at Kaia's side. He reached down to take her hand and placed something cold and heavy in her palm.

Kaia blinked in confusion and glanced down.

"I think he would have wanted you to have that," Ino said softly. "And you deserve to have something to remember him by."

Nanami's watch. A TAG Heuer he got as a salaryman and a watch that Kaia had never seen him without. It was heavy, too big for her small wrists, and littered with scratches along the silver of the bracelet. Yet somehow, it still ticked the time away.

She closed her fingers around the watch and looked up at Ino beside her.

He looked so sad with glassy eyes, a deep frown, and furrowed brows. But there was still something unwavering in his expression that made Kaia's heart stutter.

She'd been so lost in her own grief that she forgot that she wasn't the only person who loved Nanami. He had other friends and people that cared about him. He had people that looked up to him and aspired to reach his level.

And Ino was one of them.

Kaia cleared her throat as she croaked out a pathetic, "thank you." Ino nodded and right before he turned to leave, Kaia reached forward and embraced the younger man as tightly as she could manage.

Ino returned the embrace without a second's hesitation and let out one sad little sob before he coughed and abruptly pulled away.

"Right. Now let's find out how to get Gojo out of the prison realm."

"They should have been here by now," Kaia said, still massaging her sore scalp.

"They'll be here soon," Maki said firmly.

"Okkotsu has to make Itadori's death convincing. Since the higher-ups have lost it and have made everyone close to Gojo public enemy number one, he needs to be careful," Yuki said. She shrugged and glanced at Kaia. "I'm surprised they haven't made you a target like they did with Yaga."

Kaia sighed and rolled out her neck.

"I'm not," she said. "The higher-ups don't consider me much of a threat now that my curse is broken. And even if they wanted to make me a target like Yaga, they wouldn't be able to. Hideki's made it clear that I'm off limits and he won't let the other higher-ups do anything to me."

Yuki nodded in understanding and said a light, "I still think your relationship with Hideki is beyond messed up."

Kaia snorted and said a sarcastic, "you mean you think it's strange that the man who signed my family's death warrant is protecting me? Me too."

Yuki hummed but didn't say anything in response to that.

They continued waiting in silence for at least another hour or so. Kaia started pacing around the room with Maki and began praying to a higher power that she was certain didn't exist for all the kids to be okay. They had to be. She didn't know what she would do if something happened to any of them.

And then after an additional hour or so of waiting, footsteps could be heard approaching. Kaia looked up to see Yuji, Yuta, Megumi, and one of the Death Paintings she'd heard about coming down the steps.

"Maki?" Yuji chirped.

"Maki!" Yuta exclaimed with a big giant grin on his face. Kaia's eyes flashed to Megumi not far behind them and crossed the room in a few long strides to wrap her arms around his shoulders. She squeezed as hard as she possibly could and Megumi huffed.

"Can't breathe," he grunted, though he did return the embrace.

"I was so scared something happened to you guys," Kaia said under her breath, still hugging him fiercely.

"I'm fine," Megumi promised. He patted her back and pulled back just enough that he could see her face. His green eyes looked troubled as they flickered over her expression. "What about you? Are you okay? I've been worried."

"I'm fine," Kaia echoed. She finally released the boy she'd known since he was a small child and pivoted on her heel to focus on Yuji and Yuta instead. She didn't know Yuta as well as she knew Yuji, but she was still relieved to see the young special-grade sorcerer looking unharmed. And as far as Yuji, he had a few more scars on his face, one by his eye and the other at the corner of his mouth, but he seemed okay too.

"Get over here," Kaia said in a hard voice when Yuji looked her way.

He gulped and took a few hesitant steps forward, but he came to a halt a few paces away so he was just out of reach.

"Kaia, I'm really sorry," he started. His voice was pitched up a notch and he sounded breathless. "Please don't hate me. I know that you and Nanamin were really close and I feel like it's my fault what happened to him and—"

She didn't allow any further rambling and took the three paces keeping them apart and roughly grabbed his shoulder to yank him in for a hug.

The rambles died on the tip of Yuji's tongue and he stiffened where he stood with her arms tightly wrapped around him. Kaia squeezed her eyes shut and pushed the memories of Nanami speaking so fondly of Yuji far away so she wouldn't cry.

"I heard what happened to you. I'm so sorry, Yuji," she said weakly. She squeezed the poor kid tighter. "Thank god you're okay."

She heard Yuji sniffle one time before he carefully cleared his throat and finally returned the hug. He held onto her as hard as she held onto him, sniffling and awkwardly clearing his throat to mask how he was really feeling. Kaia could feel his body shaking through their embrace but she said nothing about it. She simply held him tightly and waited for it to pass.

Eventually, Yuji pulled back and gave her a sunny smile that had lost some of its luster.

"Thanks," he said.

She returned the smile as best she could and reverted her attention to Yuki.

"All right. We should talk about Tengen's barrier," Megumi said.

The conversation shifted to the best way to get around Tengen's barrier and how to get to the remaining Death Paintings. The current Death Painting, Choso, referred to the other death paintings as his brothers, and even if Kaia found that a bit strange, it was nothing compared to hearing Yuji refer to Choso as his brother.

So she decided to not comment on it. Yuji could be a weird kid when he wanted after all.

The group went on their way and eventually reached the doors of the barrier, planning to reach the tomb. They passed through a corridor with bloodstains on the floor and that was when Yuki mentioned things changing eleven years ago.

Right. That was when the star plasma vessel died. When Satoru and Suguru failed their mission.

And then suddenly, the whole group realized they were being rejected by Tengen and the world around them went completely blank until the only thing that remained was an empty white space that hurt Kaia's eyes.

"…I was too optimistic," Yuki said.

Megumi gave a heavy sigh and said a low, "let's head back."

Kaia wanted to remind him that they needed to keep going for the sake of his sister, but Yuta beat her to it.

"Tsumiki doesn't have time," Yuta said.

It was quiet as Megumi seemed to be weighing his options. Yuta was right. They really didn't have time and they needed all the help they could get. But if they were being rejected, then there really wasn't much they could—

"Leaving so soon? It's a pleasure to meet you children of the Zen'in, Michizane's descendent, Death Painting Womb, last survivor of the Murakami, and Sukuna's vessel."

They all looked over their shoulders to see the one and only Master Tengen waiting for them.

Kaia had never known what he looked like and she never really wondered either. But somehow, seeing a man that looked almost more cursed spirit than human hadn't ever crossed her mind. He had two sets of blank eyes, a long cylindrical head with no hair, and a wide mouth. He wore simple robes that were without any embellishments and did not smile.

Yuki's face was nothing short of disgusted and unamused as she looked at him. Her eyes widened into a sort of murderous, blank stare as she said, "aren't you going to say hello to me, Tengen?"

"This isn't the first time we've met, Yuki Tsukumo," Tengen replied with that same straight face from before.

And that was how they found out about Kenjaku, the details of the Culling Game, and the way to get Satoru out of the prison realm. Kaia had little to say during that conversation. Yuki asked the best questions and after Tengen had explained Kenjaku's plans, the students grilled him on the Culling Game. Kaia stood back and quietly listened, trying to form the best plan in her head that would unseal Satoru as quickly as possible.

Tengen had then produced the back of the prison realm and gave them their options.

"Breaking it open requires either the inverted spear of heaven that nullifies cursed techniques or the black rope that disrupts and cancels cursed technique effects," Tengen said.

"Great. So we're out of luck then," Kaia deadpanned as she crossed her arms.

Yuji and Megumi both realized that they weren't going to be able to find either of those items and Yuta confirmed it when he mentioned that he specifically had searched for the black rope in Africa. Everything seemed downright hopeless until Tengen presented them with a third option.

"Among the players participating in the Culling Game is a sorcerer from a thousand years ago who calls herself an angel. Her cursed technique can extinguish any cursed technique," Tengen said. "Her name is Hana Kurusu."

Tengen launched into a discussion on how to find Hana, taking time to explain the setup of the colonies in Japan. Kaia listened carefully and drew a map in her mind of what Japan looked like with the colonies and realized that a certain set of islands were left unaffected.

The group discussed the rules of the game in detail. Trying to figure out what they all meant and if there was any way around them, though it didn't seem possible.

"Well, that's the info we've got. Now we each have a role to play." Maki said after they had discussed the rules in detail. "Choso and Yuki will stay here and guard Master Tengen. I'll return to the Zen'in clan and collect cursed tools."

Kaia listened closely as Maki mentioned Megumi was now the head of the Zen'in. She watched the confusion flash across Yuji's face and Megumi hiss that he would explain later.

"When I'm done, I'll find Panda and help address the game," Maki finished. "What about you, Yuta?"

Kaia's eyes flickered to the prodigy that was Yuta Okkotsu to see him with a surprisingly calm expression on his face.

"I'm going to enter a colony right away to take part in the game and see what information I can get," he said.

Kaia thought that was smart. They really could use all the information they could get and there were still just under two weeks before Tsumiki would have to declare her participation in the game. Having Yuta get ahead of it and gather additional information was a good idea.

Even if it might have been safer to have Yuta with Yuji…

"You two will go find Hakari as planned," Maki said to Yuji and Megumi with a sharp nod of her head.

Kaia hadn't met Hakari but she'd heard plenty about him from the second years, Nanami, and Satoru. Getting his help would be pivotal if he was even half as strong as everyone said.

"Is that guy tough?" Yuji asked.

"Well, he's moody," Yuta said with a sheepish smile. He then shrugged and said a casual, "but when he gets worked up he's even stronger than me."

"That's not true," Maki deadpanned with a scowl.

"What about you, Kaia? Do you want to go on damage control with Ieiri and Ijichi?" Megumi asked.

His eyes flashed and they looked at Kaia with a sort of concern that reminded her of Maha for some reason.

Kaia shook her head and kept her arms crossed securely over her chest.

"No. I think Yuta has the right idea about entering a colony to take part in the game and get some extra information. I'll enter the one in Saitama since I'm familiar with the area. Shoko and the others can handle things on the outside for now," Kaia said. "Besides, I've never been good at damage control. I'm more useful in a fight."

There was also the fact that if she had to sit around with the others on the outside that she would very likely go criminally insane. She didn't have it in her to sit around and let the students handle everything while she hung back and twiddled her thumbs, waiting for them to get Satoru out of the prison realm. She needed to do something with all of her frantic energy or else she would shatter into pieces.

"That's fair," Maki said as she nodded her head again. "You did exorcise that special-grade in Shibuya and we need all the help we can get right now."

"Kaia," Megumi said. His frown deepened and a crease appeared between his brows.

"It's fine. I've got more experience anyway. Let me help," Kaia said easily.

"It's not that I don't think you'd be good in a fight. I know you would. I remember you exorcising that special-grade on our mission when you first came out of retirement," he said with that crease between his brow growing even deeper. "But if something were to happen to you…"

Kaia's stomach knotted and she forced a small smile onto her face that she knew didn't reach her eyes.

"I'm the one who's supposed to be worrying about you. I appreciate your concern but I'll be just fine, Megs," she promised.

"This is a good plan," Yuta said. He kept that easy expression on his pale face and wore a smile that was far more convincing than Kaia's own. "Kaia will go to Saitama and I'll head out to Sendai. We'll gather some information and go from there while you guys get ready to enter a colony."

Everyone nodded in agreement. Even Megumi, though he seemed more reluctant than the others.

"Great. Let's get going then," Kaia said.

Everyone started to head back the way they came, feeling a little better now that they had some answers and a plan in place. Kaia didn't feel any better, but she did feel like she could at least cope now. At least she had something to do and didn't have to sit around and wait anymore.

But then Tengen stopped them when they had only taken a few steps forward.

"Unfortunately, part of that plan won't be possible," Tengen said.

Everyone stopped and looked at each other in confusion. What did that mean? Hadn't they already discussed everything ad nauseam?

"What won't be possible?" Yuki asked. She still looked at Tengen with thinly veiled disgust, but her brows rose higher up on her forehead to give away how confused she actually was.

"Murakami entering a colony," Tengen answered. He nodded at Kaia and looked directly at her with those eerily flat eyes. "Given your condition, you need to avoid this fighting at all costs."

Kaia's brow furrowed and she felt the corner of her lips tug downward.

"What condition are you talking about? The drugs? I've been clean for months," she said, albeit probably a little too sharply since it was Tengen of all people she was addressing.

"…Drugs? What drugs?" Yuji quipped from somewhere on Kaia's left.

She waved her hand dismissively. "Nothing. It was just a party phase."

"A long one," Megumi mumbled on her right, causing her to reach over and swat him upside the head.

"Or is this about me losing the cursed moon technique? Because that really isn't a problem anymore. I've already proven myself without it," Kaia added.

She definitely sounded defensive and her tone was only getting harsher the longer she spoke, and really had to fix that. He was Master Tengen for fuck's sake. Not some random sorcerer she could give attitude to. He probably didn't even know that she'd been getting so much shit from the higher-ups about her lost technique. He probably was only trying to be helpful since he was affected even more than the rest of them by Kenjaku's plans.

"…You don't know then," he hummed.

"Don't know what?" she pressed.

"Well? The suspense is killing us," Yuki said in a sarcastic sneer.

Tengen sighed and folded his hands together behind his back.

"This has nothing to do with your ability as a sorcerer, Murakami," Tengen said. There was something cold and clinical in his expression that made the hair on the back of Kaia's neck stand up.

"You can't fight in the Culling Game because you're pregnant."

Not for the first time in Kaia's life, time slowed.

It stilled, actually.

It stilled the same way it had all those years ago when she'd been bound to a chair with her throat cut. It became as static as it had been when her subconscious used her cursed fire to cauterize the bleeding in her neck when she was only nineteen. It was like moving through honey or trying to run in a dream.

And the only thing she could do was say a high-pitched, utterly distressed, "…what?"

"I noticed it the very instant you entered the barrier. Pregnancy always affects a woman's cursed energy output. It's very obvious to anyone who is even half advanced as I am in barrier techniques," was the only explanation Tengen offered.

Her brain didn't move any faster, but it very slowly, very painfully started to put the pieces together in horror and incredulity.

"What?" she blurted yet again, her voice cracking with the word.

"Well that changes things," came Maki's (unamused) voice from somewhere in the distance.

"Are you kidding me?" Megumi snorted. "Now? Now is when you decide to be stupid and not use protection? When unregistered special-grades are showing up and big occasions like the Goodwill event are being attacked? You decided that was when you wanted to play with fire?"

He was berating her—rightfully so. But Kaia couldn't even focus on that because she kept shaking her head because she was so fucking confused.

"I do use protection!" she yelped, voice so loud that it echoed around the bare white room. "I-I get the shots! They're supposed to be effective! This can't be right! Master Tengen, you're wrong. You have to be."

But Tengen was still clinical in the way he looked at her. He pursed his lips, surveyed her up and down once more, and shook her head.

"I'm right, Murakami. You are pregnant and given the current circumstances, we can't risk anything happening to you. Not when you're carrying the heir to the Gojo clan."

Her jaw dropped and her eyes doubled in size.

"Hu—oh god," she breathed, suddenly feeling incredibly lightheaded. "Oh god. Oh god!"

She started deliriously walking around when nausea sank in. She was going to be sick. She was going to be violently ill and vomit all over Tengen's pretty little barrier room. Sweat broke out across her forehead and her heart rate skyrocketed to what felt like full-blown palpitations. She sucked in a sharp breath through her nose and paced back and forth, taking in gasps of oxygen that were doing absolutely for her sanity. Nothing for the panic mounting in her chest.

"I'm gonna kill him. I'm gonna break into the prison realm myself and fucking kill him!" she shrieked as she furiously rubbed her temples.

Kaia couldn't even look at the others in the room. She couldn't bear to look at Maki or Yuji or Yuta. And she certainly couldn't risk looking at Megumi. Everyone was getting ready to put their lives on the line now she wasn't going to be permitted to help them because she was a fucking idiot who somehow got defective birth control?

She was going to kill Satoru first and then fling herself off a fucking cliff.

"Don't stress, Murakami," Yuta said. Kaia risked a glance at him and he had that same easy expression on his face and a tiny smile that was way too reassuring than it had any right to be. "This doesn't have to change our plans. I'll still enter a colony first, Maki will still get the cursed tools, and Itadori and Fushiguro will find Hakari. We'll take care of everything, but maybe you should hide out for the time being."

Kaia shook her head hard enough that it almost gave her a headache.

"It's fine," she said sharply before anyone else started talking like that. She couldn't handle the kind understanding tone in Yuta's voice. She couldn't deal with people fretting over her. Not anymore. Not now when there were so many other important things to worry about. "I'll go see Shoko and get it taken care of. Give me a few hours and then I'll head down to the Saitama colony."

There was that fucking silence again. The type of silence where she could hear her pulse in her eardrums. She hated silence like that.

"I'm afraid you can't do that, Murakami," Tengen said. "Although Satoru Gojo will eventually be released from the prison realm, none of us truly know what else Kenjaku has planned. And given the extraordinary lengths he's gone to, there is a possibility that Satoru might not come out of this alive. For stability, the Gojo clan cannot be extinguished. Your child will be the heir and you must carry this pregnancy to term."

The nausea only got worse and the saliva in her mouth thickened, signaling that she was dangerously close to throwing up all over herself.

"…I'm not talking about this anymore. No one else gets an opinion. I'm going to see Shoko, take care of it, and enter a colony. I'm not doing this," Kaia snapped as her hand gestured to her stomach, "right now. Not when Kenjaku is about to put an end to life as we know it and when Satoru is sealed away in some inescapable prison realm!"

She sounded hysteric. Her voice was nothing but a rising set of screeches mixed with words that fell off her tongue too rapidly for anyone to actually understand. And judging from the silence of everyone around her, she wasn't doing a good job of pretending that she was keeping it together.

"Kaia," Megumi said. He tentatively reached out and touched her shoulder. She flinched at the contact but didn't pull away. "Maybe you should wait for us to get the Angel to release Gojo's seal before you make any decisions."

He didn't meet her eyes as he said it and that only made it worse because that meant Megumi agreed with Tengen.

She scoffed and eventually started laughing in disbelief. There was a fury that pulsed through her body and it felt intimately familiar. Almost like the rage she used to feel when she still had her cursed moon technique. Even through her sharp laughs, she could feel her lip curling in disgust when she looked around the room to see that it wasn't just Megumi avoiding her eyes, but the entire goddamn group.

Except for Yuji. Yuji met her gaze head-on with a determined sort of look in his eyes.

"It'll be fine, Kaia. We'll take care of the culling game first. We'll get the Angel and free Gojo. Then we'll worry about you. It sounds like we've got time, right? So give us some time and we'll take care of you."

Kaia wanted to cry and she was so tired of crying. She was so tired of being hysterical so often over the last few days. And Yuji… Poor Yuji had so many other things to worry about.

She sighed and raked her fingers through her hair, turning her ire towards Tengen.

"Fine. I'll wait before I make any decisions," she warned in a razor thin voice. "I won't enter a colony but I'm not going to stick around either. I'm going to do some research far away from this place."

Yuki tilted her head to the side. "Where are you going? I doubt it'll be easy to get out of Japan right now and there are ten colonies you'd have to avoid."

"Where do you think?" Kaia said in a quiet voice. "I'm going where no one can touch me. Not even Kenjaku. There aren't even any colonies out there."

Yuki, Tengen, and Choso all looked thoughtful, but it was Megumi beside her who realized what she was talking about.

His eyes widened.

"Okinawa. You're going to Okinawa."

Author's note

Title comes from the song "Hoping Then" by Big Red Machine.

Y'all I am so fucking unwell after Chapter 222. I am so fucking STRESSED. I have so many thoughts and I am LOSING IT.

Anywho. This chapter takes place between manga chapters 144 and 147. I glazed over some things (such as going from the hidden room at school to hanging out with Tengen) because it would have been too long to pull the details from the manga. You can read what actually happened in chapter 144-147.

I'm also open to some general requests with this series as well! I can't promise I'll post the request *immediately* but I'm open to them. If you have a request, feel free to drop it in the reviews or private message me(:

K BYE. I'M STILL STRESSED ABOUT CHAPTER 222.