Chapter 26: The Harp

Cressida Thames sat with her legs crossed in the velvet chair, dressed down in beige-colored chinos and a white blouse, several gold chain bracelets tumbling on her wrists. "So, what should we call each other?" she tested, eying her host. "Cousins, I suppose."

"We don't have to call each other anything."

The Thames heiress sensed her error and tried a different tactic. "Alright then, what about married life? How have you been treating our dear Hannah these last few months?"

"A hell of a lot better than your family ever did. Thanks for asking."

The acidic bite in Satoru's tone made it evident he wanted no part of Cressida's company, despite inviting her into his home, prompting the Thames heiress demeanor to sour at his blatant ill-contempt.

"Splendid. I'm so glad to hear it," Cressida strained through gritted teeth. The heiress was not used to being un-welcomed by strangers. By now, she'd usually have them gobbling out of her well-manicured hands, but knowing she was treading on very thin ice, the English woman averted her focus away from the Six Eyes wielder and back to Nanami and Hannah, who were sitting side by side on the opposite couch. "Sorry, why have I been summoned here again?"

Nanami's patience was rapidly depleting. He wasn't fluent in English like Satoru and Hannah, but even he knew when someone wasn't getting the memo. The three of them - mostly Hannah - had spent the last hour and a half informing the Western sorceress of the Sukuna finger in the Gojo's living room, or at least, they tried to. The proceedings had been less than stellar.

"And you'd like me to help?" Cressida asked after Hannah repeated their predicament for the millionth time.

"Will you?" she piped squeakily.

Cressida glanced at Nanami and then Satoru over by the door. "I don't know, Duch," she lamented. "This seems like a tall order. Even for me."

Hannah frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Yes, what do you mean?" Satoru rudely butted in. "Enlighten us."

Cressida rolled her ocean blue eyes. "Do you really expect me to sit here and pretend jujutsu and Western sorcerers have always gotten along?"

"But surely that's changed." Hannah insisted. "The Association and the jujutsu higher-ups are cooperating with each other now. It's a new age."

Cressida shook her head. "That may be so, but I'm not part of the Association. Despite what people say, diplomats and aristocrats don't mix, Duch. If word got around that I was helping and abating 'jujutsu scum,' I'd be the talk of the county. My image would be tarnished."

Satoru shrugged. "Not that we'd care."

"Satoru, please." Hannah issued her husband a begging look. He was making things difficult, but her plea went ignored.

"No, this is bullshit." Still leaning on the doorframe, Satoru crossed his arms and eyed the Thames heiress shrewdly. "There's a Sukuna finger hiding somewhere in the underwater trenches of Itsukushima Shrine. Hannah says you have a curse technique that'll help us fish it out."

Cressida acted as though she hadn't heard him and flopped her black and gold Chanel bag onto her lap. She opened the lambskin clasps and pulled out a silver cigarette case and lighter. "So what if I do?" she stipulated, slotting a clove cigarette between her teeth. She flicked the lighter.

"Then you'll go fishing."

She lit the end, pressed her lips to inhale, and blew out the first tobacco puff. "And if I refuse?"

"You won't," Satoru snorted. "A lot of people are gonna die if this thing isn't apprehended in time and someone will have to take the blame. I don't know about you, but being the 'talk of the county' for helping and abating 'jujutsu scum' sounds a lot better than being the 'rich, whiny twat' who couldn't do the right thing if her life depended on it," he shrugged, "but that's just my opinion. I'll let you make the call."

He watched the Thames heiress curl her upper lip. "My, such a compelling argument," she groused, exhaling another breath of smoke. "Tell me, are all you jujutsu sorcerers this irritating, or is it just you?"

Satoru's mouth arched into a smirk, hands stuffed in his pockets. He said nothing.

The burning white hatred on Cressida's face could've melted diamonds. She eased herself back into the velvet armchair, crossing her legs, cigarette in hand, and stared challengingly at the Six Eyes wielder, looking more like her father than she'd dare admit. "You know, if it wasn't for that Infinity of yours, I'd have you kneeling at my feet."

Satoru barked out a laugh. "Is that a proposition? Cause I'll have you know I'm happily married."

"Are you? Thank heavens. I was beginning to wonder." The heiress took a long drag, and uncrossed her legs, slinking from her chair to coily saunter up to the Six Eyes wielder like an alley cat. Fearing a fight, Hannah made to get between them, but Satoru silently waved her off - it's okay - and so she remained seated where she was on the couch. The two sorcerers, West and East, now stood nose to nose, Cressida's height shorter than Satoru's by no more than an inch thanks to her high stilettos (which she still hadn't taken off). The heiress blew a puff of tobacco right in his face, voice dropping to a low whisper. "I have it you like to get around, Mr. Gojo. Can't say I'm surprised. After all, plucking the blooms off the rose tends to be your demographic's idée fixe."

Satoru's eyes narrowed. "Watch it," he warned.

Cressida didn't hide the immense satisfaction from smiling up her lips. "But don't be too discouraged, love," she quipped. "I'd never betray Hannah like that and fortunately for us both," she gave him a once over, "you're not exactly my type."

The two sorcerers kept eyeing each other down like MMA fighters at a press conference, while Hannah and Nanami observed on the couch. Neither were able to catch what the other had said, only that it wasn't friendly or polite. Hannah felt the knife in her heart twist. She was hoping the two of them would get along and might've voiced this wish had Nanami's impatient Japanese not broken through the silence first.

"So is she helping us or not?"

...

The island of Itsukushima, or simply "Miyajima" (Shrine Island), was about an eleven hour drive from Tokyo, rooted in the prefecture of Hiroshima. Only accessible by ferry, visitors would depart from the Hatsukaichi harbor and arrive at the island where the famous 12th century shrine resided within an inlet. The sacred buildings encompassing the shrine were connected through a series of boardwalks, granting people safe passage without them needing to take a dip in the Seto Inland Sea. The shrine's main attraction of course was the red "floating gate" facing the ocean. Visitors could walk up to the grand o-torii at low tide when the water drained out of the bay, which fluctuated day to day.

It smelled strongly of fresh fish, ocean, and salt. A colony of wailing seagulls ringed the cloudless blue sky. Fishing boats put-puttered down the island coastline and nosed their way into shipless wharfs, men yelling at each other to grab the nets under the eternal surveillance of Mt. Misen. Hannah, Cressida, and Nanami had departed Tokyo by plane and arrived in Hatsukaichi two hours later, 12:05PM on the dot. They took a taxi to board the quickest ferry, which then sailed them safely across to Mijajima, exactly as planned. There was just one problem, and Nanami wasn't happy about it.

"I should've expected as much," he lamented, glowering at all the people. "They were supposed to clear this place an hour ago."

Hannah checked the time on her phone. "We are a tad early," she pointed out and began searching for a familiar head of white hair and a moxie Indian woman. "Satoru and Kumari said to meet us at the entrance."

The two sorcerers in question had already left for Miyajima before sunrise to secure the area, but there were surprisingly more tourists than anticipated; old ladies holding their umbrellas to shield from the sun; gobs of cheesy couples snapping selfies; a child throwing a major temper tantrum over his toppled ice-cream cone, now a melted chocolate puddle on the stoney hot ground. Tour guides hooked to microphones lead processions of people up and down the stone-blocked path bordering the sea, next to streets of gift shops, townhouses, and traditional ryokan where visitors could rest their heads for the night, as families of sika deer dozed peacefully under the pine trees, unperturbed by the throngs of camera-wielding humans passing them by. A small number of Fly Heads were buzzing around the vicinity, but all in all, the atmosphere was calm.

Nanami and Hannah kept a slower pace behind Cressida who was already four leagues ahead. It wasn't lost on them how seemingly every grown male's concentration would pivot away from their nagging wives and high-maintenance girlfriends towards the sensual foreign woman strutting up the boardwalk in a bright red sundress and floppy hat. Wearing impractical sandal-wedges and big rimmed Prada glasses, Cressida oozed sex appeal wherever she went. Anyone would've mistaken her for a supermodel. Except Nanami. His agitation was thick enough to spread on toast.

"She's doing this on purpose," he grumbled to Hannah under his breath. "We're supposed to be blending in."

Hannah looked over her shoulder at all the star-struck (male) tourists fawning behind them. She was also wearing a sun hat and shades, but sported a more mauve colored dress instead with white trainers. "Actually, I don't think she means to," she said in her cousin's defense. "It sorta just happens."

Nanami huffed, rolling his eyes. "Of course."

Hannah smiled at the quasi-businessman, himself donning a well-tailored grey suit, which wasn't too eye-catching as many other men were wearing similar suits, though surely the sun and humidity made it uncomfortable. "You're not much for excitement, are you Nanami-san?" she chimed.

The quarter Dane released a vexed sigh, dabbing his neck with a handkerchief and balancing the unique sunglasses on his nose, cleaver knife concealed in its holster. "I'm not much for spectacles, I'll give you that."

"Are you sure you need me here?" Hannah added. "I don't want to get in the way."

"Any clues to the finger's whereabouts would be appreciated," Nanami answered, coiffing back his wheat-blonde hair. His cleaver knife was in its sheath. "Being present might spruce up your memory, and as long as Satoru's around you should be fine." He spoke under his breath. "Might even keep that overpowered nitwit from doing something abnormally stupid."

Cressida ushered them to get a move on. "Come along, you two. We're almost there."

They soon spotted Satoru and Kumari waiting for them at the entrance in front of the floating red gate. Sunglasses over his eyes, Satoru waved them over, and without thinking, Hannah raced for her husband's open arms as fast as her legs could run like nothing else mattered. She could hear him chuckling the closer she got. She must've looked ridiculous. Satoru didn't mind. There was no greater feeling in the world than her running to him.

"What's cookin, good lookin'?" he teased cheesily in English, stretching his arms real wide. His little wife barreled into him and Satoru responded by lifting her up off the ground and swaying her side to side, legs swinging, prompting Hannah to laugh. Satoru grinned like a total sap, but soon frowned upon realizing the dress she had on. "Where's the flowery one?"

Hannah peered up, face apologetic. In want of some late night entertainment, Satoru indulged himself yesterday evening by selecting her outfit, though apparently the plain mauve substitute wasn't cutting it. Hannah tried reassuring him. "The flowery one was too bright and Nanami said we needed to blend in."

Her husband couldn't omit the whine from his voice. "No fair, I liked the flowery one." He propped his chin on her soft auburn crown to hide his disappointment. "It was cute." His turquoise blue eyes flicked over to Nanami fiddling with his phone while Cressida picked the dirt off her fingernails, both ignoring the other. He sighed. "So how was it flying with Miss Sassafras and the Danish curmudgeon?"

"Good," Hannah replied, nuzzling into his navy colored shirt, glad to be reunited. She loved the smell of his morning coffee and his comforting solidness. "But I missed you."

But I missed you.

Satoru felt his heart and soul quadruple in size. Could she repeat that? Someone actually missed him? The flowery dress forgotten, he squeezed her tighter. "Aw, I missed you too, Prin — "

Kumari barged in. "Yes, yes, we all bloody missed each other - hugs and kisses - now can we please get this over with? I have a sick toddler who needs me."

Quite so. Out of the five of them, Kumari's reasoning to leave was the most justified. Abandoning her apron, the native Delhite opted for breathable palazzo's and a peasant blouse, rapunzel raven hair braided down her back, but the makeup and glasses hid her exhaustion. Suffice it to say, the young mother was not happy to be woken in the middle by her toddler son burning a 39°C fever and a cough. Ichiro kept sending her texts throughout the morning, sharing status updates, but little Kichiro's condition showed no signs of worsening or improving. Her separation anxiety was through the roof. Kumari simply wanted to find this accursed finger, box it up, and take the quickest flight straight home to her baby. She didn't care for much else, especially the English airhead standing beside them dressed in an offensive red frock that was reminiscent of a wannabe Flamenco dancer. (It was worth mentioning that the Indian arms-dealer also had a 98 cm, double-edged khanda strapped to her back, and was not afraid to use it if provoked).

Nanami exhaled tiredly through his nose and placed his phone in his pocket. "Satoru, what was the hold up? I thought you'd have this place cleared by the time we arrived."

"Oi, don't look at me," Satoru moped, holding his wife. "It's not my fault the police are slow. We notified them two hours ago." He buried his nose in Hannah's hair, muttering to himself, "and I better be reimbursed for those plane tickets." He heard his wife giggle, her small, dainty fingers massaging the taut muscles on his back. He felt sleepy all of a sudden.

"It was your idea we should fly," she soothed.

"Yeah, I know," he yawned, closing his eyes and relaxing to her touch. "My own damn fault."

They didn't wait too long for the police to arrive. The alibi was that the shrine was closing for religious purposes; a special ritual was to be performed and no tourists could be present. Within twenty minutes they had the area cleared of civilians. Satoru made a quick scan with his Six Eyes to check the place was deserted (police included). He gave a nod to Kumari and the arms dealer rolled up her sleeves and in a quick chant activated a curtain over the entire shrine and beach so the townspeople couldn't see. The sorcerers were obstructed from view. Cressida stepped up to the plate.

"Right then," she said, seeing no reason for delay, Latin flowing off her tongue like a river. "Mare benedicta, da mihi instrumentum tuum…"

In a twirl of magic, a bronzed lyre materialized in her hand, though it bore closer semblance to a miniature harp. The memory came quickly to Satoru like a light switch; him sitting in Wasserton House, waiting for Lord Thames and the elders to strike up a deal, surrounded by glittering jewels and hoarded treasures. One of which was a lyre mounted on a wall next to an old grandfather clock. Shiny black strings, too thin in diameter to be copper wires or horsehair. So his hunch had been correct. That lyre or harp, or whatever it was called, was no decorative instrument, but a cursed tool. A cursed tool with Cressida's matching black hair tithed as strings.

Satoru was holding onto Hannah's hand. She felt his arm tense and looked up, moss-brown eyes filled with concern. "Are you alright?"

Satoru assuaged her with a quick smile. "I'm fine."

The four of them watched Cressida strum the first glissando, all twenty twined threads of ebony black provoked by their mistress, switching her thumb and forefinger in circles to create a continuous scale up and down the harp. Up and down. Back and forth. Give and take. Twenty. Forty. Sixty strings it sounded like, their musical notes steadily layering on top of each other, ringing all at once.

The waves along the dock seemed to sway around them, rising to ten-feet swells and then falling, responding to the harp's melodic enchantment. When Cressida's hand strummed back, the waves went back. When she strummed forwards, they beckoned closer, edging the shore, amassing to great height with each finished glissando. Cressida thus removed her fingers and soon the harp began playing alone. She soon broke into song, not with words, but with the musicianless harp, her aria accompanying the dancing sea like she were a snake charmer, a moon goddess controlling the tide. And it was something; Perhaps one of the most ethereal sounds they had ever heard, if "sound" was the definition for such a thing.

Satoru and the others watched the sloping waves, climbing higher and higher, though they did not crash into the shore like expected, but rather gently ebbed. Like the water had a mind of its own, choosing to forgo the laws of physics, building without spilling over. Waves only got that big when sailing miles out at sea amidst a powerful storm with no land to stop them from growing bigger. Satoru hadn't witnessed a curse technique quite like this, or perhaps he had? Music was not new to jujutsu - Utahime and Gramps were proof of that - and yet despite its alieness, something about the sound was familiar. He could hardly feel his own two feet on the ground, song traversing through his ears and into his bones. His brain felt numb to the harp's playing and Cressida's hypnosis, drowning out his other senses. Strange. He only ever felt this way when Hannah —

Cressida stopped singing. Everything became calm. She splayed out her hand towards the sea. Water, music, humans, frozen in time.

"Recedo," she commanded in a voice not solely hers.

Pleased by her song, the water showed its obeisance and began rolling back the direction it had come, back, back, back to the sea, more so than it did at low tide. Given how far the water receded, Satoru feared the locals would think a tsunami was underfoot, but the water only drained from a specific area in the bay, not the entire Miyajima coast, and there was no earthquake. With any luck, Kumari's curtain would prevent people from thinking anything was amiss.

Nanami glanced over to Hannah to translate. "How long will the water hold?"

Hannah relayed the question in English for Cressida. "I'd say about an hour. An hour and a half. Not very long," the heiress said with a shrug.

Hannah repeated her answer in Japanese. Nanami grunted. With a curt nod, he turned to face his other comrades. "Technically it rests on Satoru to retrieve the finger, but for the time being we'll divide and conquer. If anyone finds something, text it in the group chat and wait for Satoru to give the 'all clear.' Once he has the finger, it'll be handed over to Kumari for proper sealing. We're following protocol. No exceptions. Is that understood?"

Nanami kept his tone neutral like he were reading percentages during a business meeting. Hannah paraphrased his speech as best she could to her cousin.

Done listening, Cressida offered her hand. "Shall we go together?"

"Sure," Hannah obliged, but felt a gentle tug on her arm.

"Nope, I don't think so." Satoru snatched his wife and twirled her around, wiggling his snow-white eyebrows flirtatiously. "You're comin' with me."

"O-Okay." Hannah's face grew warm, letting him weave their fingers together and pull her in the opposite direction. She didn't see the triumphant smirk he shot Cressida's way as they passed by. Nor the heiress' blatant disgust. He had won this round.

The group split. Nanami to the east, Kumari to the west, and Cressida taking a route in between. Satoru continued walking north with Hannah along the bay, looking back over his shoulder every five seconds till the others were out of sight.

"Finally. Thought we'd never ditch 'em."

"Ditch 'em?" Hannah tilted her head, not sure what he was getting at. "Why would we — "

At once Satoru's mouth was on hers, capturing it in an all-too-happy kiss. Hannah was startled by the impromptu lip-lock but soon found her eyes closing, kissing him back, body melting as his arm looped protectively around her waist to draw her inwards. He had left for Miyajima that morning before she'd woken up. They hadn't been separated for five hours, yet it felt much longer.

"Mmm, no reason," he answered, as he broke from the kiss, lips smacking, and wove his fingers in hers again. Couldn't keep the shit-eating grin off his face even if he tried. "Okay, now we can go."

Hannah's profuse blush spread more to her neck and ears, all while not relinquishing his hand.

The underwater trenches of Itsukushima Shrine were deep. Not Mariana Trench-level deep, but deep. On the surface, their depth seemed to exceed no more than three meters before gradually marrying with the ocean; enough for an average person to plunge head first into the burnished saltwater and dive to the bottom. But the island shrine, with its rocky bluffs and pine covered shoals, actually stood atop a valley of gash marks embedded within the reef-beds like troughs, measured at about four fathoms. Once swimmers reached the very end of the bay, they were met with a steep twenty-four feet drop and risked being swept away by the heavy current, the Inland Sea punishing them for their hubris. A more experienced swimmer wouldn't make it.

Hannah and Satoru stopped where the bay ended and the chasm began. Curious, the Six Eyes wielder lackadaisically kicked a pebble in the hollow trench and watched it disappear. Didn't make a plop.

Drip, drip, drip.

The jagged rock was slick and slimy from being drained of its watery enclosure. They were high above the seabed. Satoru thought of helping his wife climb down the slippery rock on foot till they reached the bottom, but then hatched an idea. Without warning, he got behind Hannah and bent his knees. "Alley-oop," he hollered and hoisted his little wife in his arms, bridal-style. She let out a gasp. Much like the kiss, the auburnette wasn't given time to prepare and nearly had a mini-heart attack when Satoru spun on his heels, grinned real wide, and jumped off the edge like he was at the local pool and not a thirty-foot long chasm.

So they fell.

Hannah managed to eek out a yelp, burying her face in his shirt, clinging onto him like a frazzled squirrel. In seconds they were floating to the ground for a soft landing, Satoru's Blue and Red manipulating gravity to slow their descent. Falling no more, he set Hannah back on the ground.

"That wasn't funny," she chided, freckled cheeks glowing red, this time for an entirely different reason. The reprimand hid the fact her knees were buckling.

"To you, maybe." Amusement twinkled in Satoru's turquoise blue eyes. "I thought it was hilarious."

His wife pouted adorably at being laughed at and the Six Eyes wielder couldn't resist leaning his tall, masculine frame over to plant an "I'm sorry" smooch on her blushing cheek. All forgiven, they webbed their hands together again and continued on.

The carpet of dark green seaweed spurted beneath their shoes, shells and fish bones crunching and cracking. Located in the epipelagic zone, the trench was deep, but not nearly so deep as to prevent sunlight from shining below. This particular kelp forest had thrived under Itsukushima for millennia, nourished by the warm sun and years of "marine snow," teeming with an ecosystem of diverse wildlife, but Satoru found it weird that there were no flopping fish on the sediment-covered ground, frantically puffing their gills for breath, or other aquatic animals, or cursed spirits for that matter. Had they been swept away with the water?

Those that could exist on oxygen remained. A cast of Chinese mitten crabs skittered across the exposed mudflat, pinching their claws at the trespassing humans, ambling to get away. Hannah thought they were cute and gave them a wide berth, sidestepping the exposed coral, the anemones, the seaweed, the shards of glass and plastic that had drifted because humanity didn't care. Thank goodness she'd worn trainers, who knew how well Cressida was fairing in those awful sandal wedges?

Hannah wasn't aware she had voiced this aloud for her husband to hear, receiving an earful about what he thought of the Thames heiress.

"I don't understand why you feel the need to be nice to her," he groaned bitterly. "After how her family treated you."

Hannah squeezed his hand as she narrowly avoided crushing another mitten crab. "She's your family too."

"Yuck, no thanks. Tell 'em family is overrated."

"People can change, Satoru."

"Which I'm not disputing, but you said you hadn't seen her in years and then suddenly she shows up on our doorstep to hand you tiaras? As wedding presents?"

"Cressida's going through a rough phase right now," Hannah disputed. "She's suffered a terrible loss."

Satoru's snort conveyed his doubt. "Whatever. I still don't buy it." He scanned the ground for clues. "Anything look familiar?"

Hannah sighed and shook her head. They were luckier than when they'd been stuck inside the curse's Domain at the opera. Here, they could see where they were going courtesy of it being in the middle of the day, making the excursion less foreboding, less unpredictable.

Thames.

Hannah became alert. "What'd you say?"

Satoru turned to face her. His brow framed into an arch. "Nothing. I didn't say anything."

"Oh, sorry. Nevermind then."

But it called out again. Raspy and ominous. A whisper.

Thames.

Hannah looked to her right. At the base of an inner wall was a postern, slim and narrow, chiseled out of the rock.

Satoru felt a pull on his arm, his little wife leading him towards the wall. "Princess? You okay?" She kept mum, not saying a peep as she walked him down the narrow path, assuming the lead. Her grasp was firm for someone so small. He didn't fight and allowed himself to be conducted by her guiding hand. The chasm split in two like a cleft palate. She chose the left fork and pressed onward, past the small seamounts amassed from centuries of seismic activity and magma, past the forests of teeming seaweed and coral. Another left turn. Made a right. Walked through the mouth of a cave, dark and sinister, stalagmite-like protrusion jutting downwards like rows of carnivorous fangs. They became swallowed by the dimness where sunlight couldn't penetrate.

And there it was.

You could've read it straight from the page of a movie script; the third Sukuna finger, shriveled and spindly, lying flat atop a sediment slab like a tribute, a film of skeletal-white sealing wax gauzed around it, perfectly intact. Staying submerged in the saline water seemed not to have altered its appearance whatsoever.

That was all there was inside. No cursed womb. No eighteen missing bodies, their flesh splitting open from being under thirty feet of saltwater like soft-boiled eggs. No hoard of hungry ghouls or freakish beings lurking behind, waiting to pounce. Just the cursed object. Just an index belonging to the strongest sorcerer-turned-curse who ever lived.

Satoru huffed out a laugh. "Well, that was easy."

Way too easy. Gojo paused a minute for something to jump out at them, block their exit, or both, but neither happened. The finger stayed put on the slab. He leaned over to pick it up.

THAMES.

Hannah also reached out, and Satoru, half spooked, immediately seized her hand.

"Woah there, Hoss, leave that to me." Hannah wasn't listening and reached out again. With more force, Satoru pulled her back from the undisturbed finger. "Oi, what's gotten into you?" She looked out of it almost, hazel eyes listless and vacant, reaching for the cursed object the more he tried pulling her away. He grabbed her by the shoulders. "Hannah?" Started shaking. "I said enough." He could see perfectly in the dark. Her pupils were fully dilated, indicating the lights were on, but nobody was home. She wasn't paying attention and hadn't spoken a word the whole time, hand grappling for the finger. "Hannah!"

"Huh? Wha?" Hannah came to, snapping out of whatever stupor befell her. She rattled her head and blinked confusedly. "Oh, um, sorry. I'm not sure…I thought I heard…" She swung around.

Perplexed, Satoru also spun himself around, but saw only the cave. "Heard what?"

"Nothing," Hannah said, hand on her forehead, perhaps feeling a tad dizzy. "I can't remember."

Satoru cupped a palm over her cheek and took a moment to study his young wife. Her pupils were back to normal and she appeared unharmed, but her recent behavior left a bad taste in his mouth. A constrict of worry tightened around his chest. He couldn't relay what just happened, but he knew the sooner he got Hannah out of there, the better.

"C'mon, let's leave. This place gives me the creeps."

Hurriedly, Satoru took the finger and stuffed it in his jean pocket, and encouraged Hannah to grasp his hand.

She did.

...

Kumari painstakingly examined the newly found Sukuna finger, flipping it over at every angle, searching for any indication it wasn't the real thing or a fluke; decoys weren't outside the realm of possibility. However, the sealing wax encased around it would've been near impossible for non-humans to replicate. No signs of crackage. No tearing. Oh yes, this finger belonged to Sukuna alright. She could practically smell the evil on it like raw sewage.

The cursed object specialist showed her displeasure, glaring daggers at the infernal thing. Kumari didn't want a repeat episode the last time she brought a Sukuna finger inside her house, and had raised hell in getting the higher-ups to approve her research at Jujutsu High. "This isn't your grandpa's grade-4 level sorcery. What's wrong with you people?" Good news was she didn't have to take them home with her anymore. Bad news was she'd have to drive down to Jujutsu High to study the damn object at the risk of bumping into her in-laws. Well, beggars can't be choosers. Her family's safety was most important. All there was left to do now was box the finger up and pray no surprises trickled in.

Kumari placed the digit inside and closed the lid of her sealing box, clasping the latches, utilizing her cursed technique to "lock" the compartment, only for Satoru to intervene.

"Actually, give it to me."

She blinked, holding the box. "You sure? This doesn't exactly make a good table centerpiece."

"There's a room in my house meant for keeping cursed objects like this under wraps. The sealing wax hasn't peeled off yet, so it shouldn't cause issues. I'll give it to the higher-ups first thing in the morning."

The arms-dealer eyed him coolly but nodded. Satoru showed no signs of concern. He was right, of course, the Gojo estate was imbued with powerful protective charms and spells, capabilities far exceeding those in her modern, three bedroom townhouse. It was designed for housing dangerous artifacts. Plus, he was the strongest. Though that didn't explain what Satoru planned on doing with it.

"Why not give it to them as soon as we land?" she inquired.

The strongest took the box from her hands. "I want to check something," he answered, tucking it under his arm like it wasn't a problem.

Kumari didn't question further. When Satoru had an agenda, there was no sense in arguing. His eyes were fixated on Hannah standing beside her cousin, both their backs to them, staring out into the wide, endless sea, chatting as Nanami maintained distance. Hannah's long auburn hair shone like shimmering waves of amber silk in the pretty sun.

"It'll be fine," Kumari heard the Six Eyes wielder whisper.

He'd regret those words for the rest of his life.

AUTHOR'S NOTES

For this chapter's notes, please visit AO3 (Same name).

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