A/N: Okay okay, here me out. Anyone getting an alert from me and expecting a Home update... I suck, my dad dude. I burnt myself out more than I want to admit, a lot I need to fix because I'm stuck, and instead of you now, fixing it I'm working on... This

I am OBSESSED with JJK, Getou is... elite. Started watching it because of a clip of him prancing around being evil, was already into him, and then Hidden Inventory hit and well.. I was doomed. I'm obsessed.

This first chapter is a BIT rough, a little more info dumpy then I like but it is what it is. We had to start somewhere. I feel like it genuinely gets better from here.

This idea originally started as a one-shot, and I just kept adding on little bits to make the romance of it make sense. Now it has a full outline, that's like 22 chapters. There might be a chapter here and there I add I guess, just for like oh it didn't fit where I thought or whatever, but it's pretty much all figured out. Anyways, I hope you like it.

Chapter One: Everything Changed

2011 – 2012

Natsumi had never been very close to her family. It wasn't for any dark or mysterious reason, they hadn't beaten her or done some unforgivable thing to her as a child. As a general rule, her parents were kind and loving people, even if they were a little judgmental. Natsumi had just… never been good enough for them as she was. Whatever she did, whatever she achieved, didn't hold a candle to what her elder brother had already achieved.

He was several years older than her, a golden child in every conceivable way. Ichiro had been intelligent and kind, the perfect dutiful son. He was married with a child on the way before Natsumi was out of elementary school. His wife, Aiko, was beautiful and just as intelligent, and even more kind. She had always made it a point to sit with Natsumi at family functions and speak with her, ask her how she was. Natsumi liked her well enough, but… Aiko had always been a little odd, or at least, Natsumi had always thought so.

Sometimes Aiko stared at nothing and occasionally stared past a person, never really at them, It was always these same people that she seemed to know were burdened. An aunt who lost a child but hadn't spoken of it in years. A cousin who had been hurt by another family member. Aiko always seemed to know something was wrong, and they always felt better after they spoke with her. Everyone seemed to accept it as part of Aiko's charm, but it struck Natsumi as strange.

She had tried to ask her, just once, how she always seemed to know. Aiko smiled at her, she claimed women's intuition and the benefit of living a hard life. Natsumi thought it sounded like bullshit, but she wasn't going to argue with her sister-in-law at a family function. Not when Aiko was one of the few family members who didn't point out everything wrong with her.

By the time Natsumi was entering high school, she had already given up on trying to excel. She wasn't as smart as her brother and she had to work twice as hard as he had at school, just to have grades half as good. Her parents loved her, sure, but they made no secret of how disappointed they were. Her mother especially, was always convinced she could do better, that she wasn't trying hard enough. Natsumi had learned years ago that no matter what she did, it would not compare to her older brother.

It was so frustrating, to never be good enough for them.

It wasn't just her grades either, it was everything she did. Every piece of her personality and existence was dissected and picked apart. She wasn't as polite as her brother, she was too brash and too loud for her family. She spoke too much and said all the wrong things. It wasn't as if she tried to be rude, and she never even realized how rude she was until someone snapped at her for it. It was exhausting, to try constantly to do what was expected of her and to still fall short.

After so many nights crying, wondering why she wasn't good enough, Natsumi stopped trying. She stopped trying to twist herself into something that would please her parents. If she was going to fail at everything no matter what she did, then she wasn't going to waste her effort on pleasing anyone else anymore. She would never leave her brother's shadow, and wouldn't it be so much easier to just accept that? Maybe at some point, her parents would accept that too.

For years she resented Ichiro for it, for being born first, for setting the bar leagues above what she could achieve. It was even more irritating because Ichiro loved her, he doted on her, defended her to their parents, and told her she was good enough the way she was. He was, for all the world, the loving older brother. Even after she had given up, when she brought home barely passable grades and lashed out against her parents in every way she could think of, he still told her he was proud of her. When she ran away for a year, he never asked where she went, or why, he had just been happy that she was back.

Natsumi wished, desperately, she had appreciated him while he was still alive.

He died too young, they all had. Her parents had planned a family vacation for them all, they were all going to go to some resort to celebrate some promotion Ichiro had gotten at work. Natsumi just couldn't stand another event celebrating her perfect brother while she stood there again, the family disappointment. The slacker that didn't try hard enough. The unruly child who made mistakes no one would ever forget. The twenty-one-year-old that barely graduated high school and didn't have the grades to get into a decent university. She made up some lame excuse to get out of it, and their parents of course objected. Ichiro though, ignored their objections and told her it was okay, that he understood.

They had all died, except for her brother's child. Natsumi's niece, Sumiko, had been the only one to survive the accident. It was some cruelty of fate, that the will they left had designated their parents as the guardians. In the event they were deceased, Natsumi would be Sumiko's guardian.

It was a cruel joke.

Natsumi had declined immediately because she barely knew the girl and she was only twenty-one. She was in no shape to take care of herself, let alone an eleven-year-old child. She was drinking more often than she wasn't and missed work more than she went. It wasn't as if she had a decent place to live, she could barely afford her shitty little apartment, and it was no place for a child. Natsumi would screw up, she would ruin her life and then Sumiko would be just like her. A pathetic disappointment with no future. Natsumi accepted these things about herself, she knew who she was, but she didn't want Sumiko to have that same life. Weren't there rules about who could take care of a kid? Surely there had to be someone else, anyone else.

She didn't know Aiko's family very well, she had only met them a few times before the funeral. The few times she had met them, she didn't care for them. She could remember at her brother's wedding that she hadn't liked them very much, not that there were many of them there. They always seemed to be looking down their noses at everyone else and Natsumi had had enough of being looked down on at that point. Still, they would know how to care for Sumiko better than she did. Natsumi decided that she would sign whatever paperwork she needed to after the funeral and Sumiko would stay with Aiko's parents. It was better that way. It had to be.

The funeral changed that.

It wasn't some overwhelming sense of family obligation, because Natsumi had been the closest to her brother but they still hadn't been very close. She loved them and she was sad that they had died, regretted all the things she had never said. She regretted that she wasn't the daughter her parents wanted and most of all she regretted that she had not appreciated her brother and his kindness while he was alive. She had been too busy resenting him for things he couldn't help and if she was honest, she had been jealous of him. Jealous that he was so effortlessly kind, that he was so well-liked. Jealous that he didn't have to try to win anyone's approval, he had it just by being himself. She was jealous that no matter what she did, it felt like their parents would always love him more.

No, if anything, all of those feelings had her more determined to push Sumiko away. She was a spitting image of her brother with the personality to match and it hurt to be around her. It brought up all the feelings Natsumi tried to run away from, the feelings that had her running from her parents' home in the middle of the night. What changed her mind was the way Aiko's family had talked about Ichiro and Aiko. They had gone on and on about how he wasn't good enough for their daughter and about how Aiko was such a disappointment.

"I can't believe Aiko had the audacity to list that man's sister as her guardian. It was bad enough she married one of them, but to let them look after her child?"

"Hopefully, she can make up for her mother's failings."

Natsumi was sure she wasn't supposed to hear them, they had kept to themselves during the service much like they had at the wedding. It irritated Natsumi just as much as it had then, and it was wrong. They went on and on, about how terrible it was, how Aiko was a disgrace to the family. They spoke with disgust and resentment. Maybe Natsumi didn't have the best relationship with her family, maybe she'd never quite been enough for her parents, but they'd never spoken about her with quite so much vitriol.

After the service was over, when it was time to sign the paperwork Natsumi looked at Sumiko sitting in a chair between Natsumi and her grandmother looking so much unlike herself. She kept her eyes down on the floor, never looking up, and she realized she couldn't do it. She couldn't leave Sumiko with these people; she couldn't subject her to a life of being ashamed; of never feeling good enough. Sumiko had been staying with them for a week, and already she was so different. Maybe it was just the trauma of it all but she had never seen her niece stare at the floor like that. She'd never seen her look quite so empty, so disconnected from herself.

"Sumiko," she said.

For the first time that day, Sumiko looked up from the floor. Her eyes were puffy and red, but they were the same as her brother's eyes, as Natsumi's eyes. Natsumi had always been different from her brother, but as different as they had been they had looked just alike. They had the same medium-brown hair and honey-colored eyes, they had the same nose and chin. The only real difference between their appearances had been the softness of femininity in her face that made her look a bit more like their mother.

Every time she had ever looked at Sumiko, all she could see was her brother. This time, she saw herself, and she saw, for a moment, what might have been different if she had ever felt she was enough. She realized she couldn't do it. She couldn't leave Sumiko with these people; she couldn't subject her to a life of being ashamed; of never feeling good enough. Sumiko had been staying with them for a week, and already she was so different. Natsumi couldn't watch them tear apart this little girl, piece by piece, until there was nothing left, she loved about herself.

"I know I said that I couldn't take care of you, but… if you want to live with me, then you can live with me."

"That is out of the question," the older woman snapped at Natsumi. "You are not fit to take care of my granddaughter."

"Yeah, well your daughter listed my parents down and then me. Clearly, she didn't think you were fit either," she snapped back.

The older woman went on a tirade, bringing up everything that was wrong with Natsumi, everything that made her unfit to take care of Sumiko. "You're an alcoholic with no education, not to mention that hovel you call home. You have no house, no room for a child. She is our family, we will take care of her."

"Actually," the man behind the desk interrupted, "she does have a house."

Natsumi stared at him confused, "I do?"

He nodded and shuffled around the paperwork, "Two in fact, along with custody of Sumiko, they left you the house. Your parents left their house to you and your brother, but given everything that's happened, sole ownership falls to you. It was part of what we needed to discuss today."

She hadn't thought about that. She knew that she would have to go through everything at some point, but she had never thought about living there. Natsumi hated that house, it reminded her of all the feelings she'd run away from, but it was a good house, near a good school and in a good neighborhood. It reaffirmed her decision; she could do this. She could take care of her niece; she had a house for her, and she would stop drinking so much and she'd go to work, she'd get two jobs if she needed to, and… it would be okay. She could do this for her brother, the only thing he had ever asked of her. She could do this for Sumiko.

Natsumi looked over at Sumiko again, there were tears in her eyes and she was sniffling quietly. Natsumi reached out a hand, "Sumiko… If you want to live with your grandma, I'll sign this paper. But… your parents wanted you to live with me. They trusted me to take care of you."

"You are a child," the woman spat. "My family is what is best for Sumiko. We will ensure she has a future. If you think I will stand idly by while my only grandchild is taken in by the likes of you, then you have – "

Sumiko twisted in her chair, away from her grandmother. She grabbed Natsumi's outstretched hand and clung desperately to her. "I want to live with you ba-chan," the tears were spilling over.

"Well… all right then. What do I need to sign?"

The man behind the desk shuffled around the paperwork again and explained every document. Sumiko's grandmother argued and threatened to involve more of the family but in the end, it didn't really matter. Ichiro had every piece of paperwork prepared and filed correctly because of course he had. Everything was in order, and there was no legal recourse to take Sumiko away from Natsumi.

Natsumi, for the first time in years, put in a great deal of effort. She tried very hard to be the kind of person Sumiko needed, to be more like her Ichiro. They moved into the house Natsumi's parents had left her and after much debate sold her brother's house. It had been a hard decision, and maybe she shouldn't have asked the eleven-year-old what she thought about it, but she did because it had been Sumiko's house too. It hurt Sumiko too much to ever think about going back, so Natsumi put anything important in storage and set the money aside for Sumiko.

Within the first year… strange things happened. Sumiko was like Ichiro for the most part, but she could see some of Aiko in her too. Sumiko had her mother's sweet smile and the way she talked with her hands, but there were also all the weird things that Natsumi had noticed about Aiko. Sometimes Sumiko stared at things that weren't there and she always seemed to know when Natsumi hit a particularly low point. Sometimes when they walked to run errands, Sumiko would grab hold of Natsumi and cross the street, looking over her shoulder in fear. A few days later, Natsumi found out people who went down that street had gone missing. Natsumi couldn't make sense of it and when she tried to ask the girl to explain what had happened, to explain why she had reacted that way, she had just shrugged her shoulders.

She didn't understand until the year Sumiko turned twelve, just after she started middle school. Sumiko, much like her father, was very smart and managed to get into a good school. Before everything that happened, Natsumi would have been jealous and petty and refused to go to any of the ceremonies. She would have come up with an excuse to avoid it, but she put it aside and she tried to be better, for Sumiko's sake. It was so hard to let go of her jealousies and resentments, but she was doing it, or at least doing a really good job of pretending to. She did it for Sumiko, for the brother she had never appreciated, and for the parents, she had never been good enough for.

A few months into the school year, children were going missing. It caused panic among the parents and faculty, and Natsumi was no exception. She dropped Sumiko off and stayed until she was inside the building and was outside waiting before school ever let out. Except for one particular day.

She had stayed at work just a little too long and there had been just a little too much traffic. Natsumi had searched the sea of children in front of the school, and just as she started to panic, she spotted Sumiko. The relief she felt was quickly washed away when she saw two grown men dressed all in black talking to her. They were off to the side away from the crowd, and it sent a chill down Natsumi's spine.

Natsumi, while she had changed considerably out of necessity, was still more brash than other people tended to care for. She sprinted over to them and planted herself firmly between Sumiko and the two strange men. "What the hell are you doing talking to my niece?"

The shorter of the two men had dark hair and was dressed in an equally dark suit. He waved his hands about, a nervous look on his face as he spoke. "Let me explain miss. We're just – "

"Talking to a preteen outside a middle school," Natsumi said through gritted teeth. "Get the hell out of here before I call the cops."

The taller man was more unusual-looking than the other man. His hair was white though he looked young and wore sunglasses despite the sky being overcast and… he was laughing.

"Oh, you think this is funny? Kids have gone missing," she seethed. "I bet you have something to do with that. I mean, what business do grown men have talking to a twelve-year-old girl."

"Ba-chan, it's not what you think. These men are – "

"Not now Sumiko, whatever they said, it's probably a lie."

"But – "

The white-haired one finally stopped laughing, but he still smiled as he spoke. "Sumiko… is your aunt aware of your," he pauses as if searching for the right word, "technique?"

"Her what," she screeched. "You fucking pervert! I will kick your ass you sick son of a bitch – "

Sumiko grabbed hold of Natsumi's wrist just as she balled into a fist. "No, she doesn't know anything. I never told her."

"Ah, I see… Well, don't you think she should know at this point?"

Natsumi tried to pull her hand free, but Sumiko kept a tight grip on her wrist. She looked down at the girl, shocked, she was so much stronger than she should be.

"I didn't think she would believe me."

"You'll have to tell her in a few years anyways, may as well tell her now," the man in the suit said gently. "We can help explain since we're here anyway."

The white-haired man grinned, "You explain, I'll take care of everything here after the kids leave." He walked off without looking back and headed straight for the entrance to the school.

She tried in vain to follow him, but Sumiko continued her death grip on her wrist. "Hey, I'm not done with you, you little shit!" she shouted at his back, but he only waved a hand dismissively.

"Ba-chan, please. You're embarrassing me!"

"Better to be embarrassed than in some pervert's basement!"

"Matsuda-san, please. We are not perverts," the man pleaded. "I'm Ijichi Kiyotaka and if you would just let me explain, we can get this resolved."

Natsumi glared at him, "Oh yeah? What makes you think I'll listen to anything you say?"

"They knew my mom," Sumiko whispered.

"They knew…" she trailed off. "You knew Aiko?"

"Not very well," Ijichi admitted. "She taught at the Jujutsu High School in Tokyo and I attended the sister school in Kyoto. Gojou knew her a little better than I did, I think."

Natsumi relaxed slightly and Sumiko finally let go of her wrist. "So… You're not perverts and you knew Aiko. Doesn't explain what two grown men are doing outside a middle school." Grown men may have been a stretch. After she had gotten closer, she realized they both had to be in their early twenties. They were probably about the same age as Natsumi was, but it still was far too old to be hanging around a bunch of teenage girls.

"I will explain everything, but we should vacate the premises. Things are going to get a bit… chaotic soon."

Natsumi didn't trust him, but she supposed it was no more or less than she trusted anyone else. "Fine, but we're going to a public place, and you make one wrong move and I'm calling the cops. I'm sure they would love to know what you're doing here, considering all the missing kids."

"Stop," Sumiko begged. "It's fine, I promise. They've never hurt me before."

"Before?" she said alarmed, "How often have you met them?"

"Just a few times! Gojou-san comes and checks on me sometimes."

"Checks on you? Is he… is he from your mom's family? Is that how he knew Aiko?"

Sumiko shook her head, "No but he looks after my cousin." She paused before adding, "He doesn't like grandma either."

"Yeah, well… That's the bare minimum I guess…" Natsumi muttered. "Fine. Let's go talk or whatever."

Well… They were all crazy. Sorcerers and curses and techniques and clans and… they were insane. That's what Natsumi wanted to believe, but… the way Sumiko and Aiko had both acted, the way they seemed to stare at nothing… Had they really been seeing curses? All that time?

"Did… did your dad know?"

Sumiko nodded, "Yeah. He knew about Mom before they got married. That's how they met; she saved him from a curse."

Natsumi had always thought they met at a coffee shop, but she supposed Ichiro couldn't exactly have told them the truth. "So… you can… you can see them. Cursed spirits?"

"Yeah," she whispered.

"Why didn't you tell me? About all of this?"

Sumiko looked away from her aunt, fiddling with the napkins on the table. They had landed on a very public coffee shop a few blocks from the school, they needed to stay close enough that Ijichi could.. maintain a barrier? Natsumi didn't fully understand everything they told her, but she got the gist of it. Or at least, she thought she did. The man sat across from them, much more composed than he had been before while he explained that he was… a sorcerer.

"You thought my mom was weird and… I didn't want you to think I was a freak."

"I didn't…" she stopped because she had thought they were weird. She wasn't going to lie about it, because it was weird, and she wasn't going to just lie to her. "I don't think you're a freak. I mean, who cares about a little weirdness? You're not hurting anything; you're allowed to be a little weird."

"I thought you would give me back," she whispered. "You didn't want me in the first place."

Natsumi's heart ached, no matter what she had said after, all Sumiko could remember was Natsumi giving her back. "That didn't have anything to do with you," she grabbed Sumiko's hand and held it tightly. "That had everything to do with me, and my issues. I didn't think I was good for you, I thought you would be better off without me. That wasn't about you, not even a little." Sumiko still wouldn't look at her and tried to tug her hand away, but Natsumi held her hand firmly. "I mean it Sumiko. I promise you, nothing is wrong with you, it's all me, kid."

"Aw, how sweet!"

Gojou sat in the chair next to Ijichi, his glasses were lowered on the bridge of his nose as he leaned on the table. She hadn't noticed before, just how… how beautiful he was, because really no one had any right to look like that. Natsumi had been too angry before, too ready to fight to really pay attention. He had the kind of face that should be in magazines and with the glasses lowered, she could see a set of shocking blue eyes behind them.

"I assume everything is taken care of? Where are the students?" Ijichi asked.

Gojou waved his hand and rested his face in his hand, "It's all handled. The kids are off exploring, something about a noodle shop nearby."

"You're their teacher, you really should – "

Natsumi snorted, "A teacher? Seriously? How old even is this jackass?"

"Old enough," he grinned. "They explain things to you?"

"Mostly," Sumiko spoke softly.

"Yeah, what parts did you leave out?"

She shrugged.

"You and your cousin," Gojou shrugged mockingly. "Come on kid use your words."

"Hey," Natsumi snapped, "leave her alone. If she doesn't want to talk, she doesn't have to."

"Ba-chan, please," she pleaded. "He might be my teacher in a few years and you're making a bad impression."

Her stomach dropped, there was no way in hell. "What are you talking about?"

Gojou grinned conspiratorially, "Sumiko do you like sweets?" When she nodded, he handed her a few bills from his pocket and pointed toward the counter at the far end of the café. "Go grab as many desserts as that will buy you. Take Ijichi with you, he'll help."

"I'm twelve not stupid. You can just say you want to talk alone," she answered plainly but took the money and headed towards the counter. Ijichi gave Gojou a pointed look but left the table, following Sumiko closely.

Natsumi kept her eyes on Sumiko the entire time as she picked out desserts from the glass case. She didn't distrust Ijichi, he seemed all right as far as people go, but she knew how quickly a decent person could prove they weren't.

"Did they tell you about Aiko?"

"She was a sorcerer," she muttered.

"They tell you about her family?"

She rolled her eyes, "I know them, I've seen them more in the last couple of years than I care to. Sumiko's grandma hates me. A lot."

Gojou laughed, "Sounds right. They don't take well to outsiders having their kids. Even the weaker ones."

"Are you saying Sumiko is weak?"

"She is, right now. She doesn't have to stay that way."

"She's fine the way she is!" she spoke too loudly, and a few of the other patrons shot her looks of disapproval.

His grin broadened, "You're so protective of her. It's good really, she'll need someone willing to fight for her." He drummed his fingers on the tabletop, the smile still on his face. "Aiko was from a powerful clan in the Jujutsu world. There are two reasons you still have Sumiko. One," he held up one long finger as he spoke, "she doesn't have a technique worth the hassle, not to them at least. Two," he counted off on a second finger, "Aiko was from a branch family, not the main family. That's it, you have Sumiko because they didn't fight you that hard, because they let you."

"So what?"

"So!" he's talking with his hands wildly as if to emphasize the point she's missing. "That could change anytime. And it might, soon. There are constant power struggles between the great families, and the Zen'in have a habit of marrying off their girls to get the upper hand. Right now, they don't have a lot of girls that are worth anything."

Natsumi bristled at the comment, clenching her nails deep into her fists. Girls that weren't worth anything? She could not punch this man in public, no matter how much she desperately wanted to. "They are not marrying Sumiko off. I won't sign a damn thing."

"You don't think they've done research on you? It's not hard to find. You've gotten in trouble a lot. Honestly, I'm not sure why they still let you have her," he shrugs and leans back in the chair, tipping dangerously.

She really fucking hated him. "What's your point? I'm a shitty person, it's not like it's a fucking secret," she said.

"You're so testy," he teased. "My point is if you let her train with me and her cousin, if you let her go to Jujutsu High when it's time, I'll agree to keep them off your back. I'll make sure Sumiko stays with you."

"Why? Why would you do that? What do you get out of this?"

He flashed his teeth then, too straight, too white, too perfect like the rest of him. "What can I say? I'm a generous guy."

"Bullshit," she said. "You want something."

"Does it matter? It's not like you have tons of options."

"We could run," Natsumi said, "I've done it before. We have passports already we could just – "

The smile fell leaving only a look of pity, "It's cute that you think that. There isn't a place on this Earth you could hide from the Zen'in if they want that girl. I am your only shot."

Sumiko was on her way back with Ijichi, arms filled with their pastries. She'd have a stomachache later, but she had a smile on her face and she looked… she looked like a kid. Sumiko so rarely let herself be a child, let herself be carefree. Natsumi didn't want to see her saddled with looking over her shoulder her entire life. No, she couldn't run with her. She couldn't force her to live like that. Natsumi had barely survived it. "I'm not sure I believe you could do anything even if they did."

"That just shows how little you know, and how much you need me." Gojou patted Sumiko's head with one large hand as she dropped the pastries on the table. Sumiko tried to duck, unsuccessfully, squinting at Gojou. "I am the heir to one of the great families and the most powerful Jujutsu Sorcerer in the world!" he declared boldly and nudged Ijichi with his elbow as he sat in his chair. "Tell her, Ijichi!"

Ijichi sighed, "It's true. You could be a little humbler about it."

"Humility is for the weak," he waved Ijichi off dismissively. His over-confidence set Natsumi's teeth on edge, she'd known men like this all her life and she'd hated every one of them.

"It's not just my decision," Natsumi said. "If Sumiko doesn't want to go, then she doesn't have to."

"What do you say, Sumiko-chan?"

She was pretty sure she could slam his face into the table if she moved fast enough. Natsumi resisted the impulse because there was a reason he was this confident, even without Ijichi confirming it. "You don't have to," Natsumi spoke softly to Sumiko, trying to bury the violence she felt towards the man. "If you don't want to go to school there, you don't have to."

"My mom taught there," Sumiko said. "She went to school in Kyoto, but she taught at the Tokyo school. That was her choice, her first choice after leaving them. She told me about it before she…" Sumiko's voice cracked and Natsumi wrapped her arm around her shoulders, pulling her in close. "I want to go; I want to feel close to her and…" she looked up at her, her eyes shining with tears. "Please let me go."

She wanted to tell her no because there was nothing good that could come of this. It was too dangerous; those cursed spirits had been killing kids for weeks and at least one of them had been a classmate of Sumiko. Now Natsumi was just supposed to let her train to exorcise those spirits? It wasn't safe, she could die. Natsumi didn't know if she would survive that, not now, not when she'd spent the last year caring for her. She had barely let herself know Sumiko before and now… now she loved her so dearly, she couldn't just let her do something so dangerous.

But what if they did come for her? What if Aiko's family took her and used her as some bargaining chip? A marriage and life that Sumiko wouldn't choose for herself. A life with people that didn't love her, that wouldn't let her be a child, wouldn't let her be who she was.

"You won't let them marry her off? She won't… she gets a choice in all this, no matter what she gets a choice. If she changes her mind, you still won't let them use her. And… And you tell me everything that happens. You don't take her anywhere unless I okay it. I'm involved in every step," she demanded. "She doesn't fight any of those things before high school and never alone."

"That's not really how this works Matsuda-san," Ijichi had been mostly silent, but he spoke out now. "She's already incredibly behind, and the best way to learn is through practical application. Her technique and cursed energy level are severely underdeveloped. She needs to at least practice with lower-grade curses and –"

"Deal," Gojou interrupted, smiling smugly as if he had known this was how it would end.

Natsumi only hoped she was making the right choice.