ACT I: DAMALS UND JETZT
Three is a common number.
The Three Musketeers. The Fates. The Holy Trinity.
Three is an odd number.
Division. Multiplication. The Third Friend.
Three is a cursed number.
Satoru, Suguru and you.
The three strongest sorcerers. Bound, by friendship and by loyalty. By betrayal.
You try and fail to shake the blood of your hands. The air around you reeks of curses and human remains, and it's making you crinkle your nose in disgust. A severed torso lies in front of you, and you quickly turn your head away.
"What a mess," says a voice behind you and you suppress the urge to roll your eyes.
"This is all you have to say?" you ask without turning around.
A hand comes down on your head. "Don't bother with Satoru. He didn't get to fight, so he's being whiny."
"It would have been even deadlier if he had been here," you say dryly and remove Suguru's hand from your head to bend down.
The eyes of the woman lying on the ground are wide open, the fresh look of devastation and horror still etched into her features. You bring your hand over them and close them gently, carefully.
The special-grade curse had used non-sorcerers as its shield when they arrived at the village. If they didn't engage, it just started tearing them apart, one by one. You had made the call to let Satoru recover the cursed artifact they were sent here for and to let Suguru and you handle the curse. Satoru's technique would have been too destructive, too dangerous to use near so many innocents.
The carnage was the result of this fight. There were survivors, but you doubted that they were ever going to recover from what happened.
You swallow as guilt starts to claw its way up your esophagus. Don't throw up, you silently pray.
Out of the three of you, you were the most emotional. Sentimental, they sometimes call you, although Suguru shares more of that with you. He is the one you go to when you have nightmares of curses and the dead. You would curl up beside him and let him stroke your hair until you fell asleep.
You think of the day you met. It was your first day at Jujutsu High, coming from a family of non-sorcerers with an extraordinary gift.
Power likes to accumulate, and it did. You think that this is the reason you three immediately felt drawn to each other. Worthy opponents, closest of friends.
You liked to have fun together on missions. It was rarely necessary to send all three of you, but if there was an especially dangerous special-grade curse to exorcise, you were dispatched. On top of fighting, you would visit the local city, go shopping, eat your favorite foods, and enjoy a hot bath.
It is easy to forget that there is something unspoken between you. The slight shift of feelings, the lingering of touches. The smile that Suguru gives you that is a tiny bit warmer and more genuine than what he shows everyone else. The tingle in your chest when you smile back.
"Come on, let's go," Suguru softly says. He lays a hand around your upper arm, and you let him pull you up on your feet.
Satoru watches the two of you, his eyes hidden behind his blindfold, appearing unbothered.
His hand balls into a fist in his pocket until it hurts.
You are assigned a solo mission when Satoru and Suguru leave Jujutsu High to protect the Star Plasma Vessel. It wasn't deemed necessary to let you tag along, not when there was a sighting of a grade-one curse in the East that required your immediate attention.
"Satoru!" you shout and catch his wrist before he goes out the door.
"Oh, it's you," he says, shoving his sunglasses up and peering at you from underneath them. He always does this, you noticed one day. Always looks at you with his eyes unguarded.
"You didn't even want to say goodbye?" you pout and release his wrist to cross your arms. You peek behind him.
"Suguru is with the principal," he answers your unspoken question.
Suddenly, he leans close until your noses almost bump together.
"Goodbye for what? You don't think we're going to come back?" he teases, and you can taste the smirk in his voice.
You scoff but don't back up. "No, you know I trust you. Isn't saying goodbye before you leave the polite thing to do?"
"I'm anything but," he shrugs and stands up to his full height again.
Sighing, you throw him one last look before retreating back to the school, having a bit of time left before you have to leave for your mission.
"Whatever. Just don't do anything stupid and come back."
Come back to me.
"Suguru killed everyone in that village."
You refuse to believe it. There was a moment where you think it's a big plot organized by the higher-ups. They do shit like this all the time, so it isn't unthinkable.
You rush to find Satoru, but it seems they told him the news earlier than you. You did get back from a mission just now.
"Satoru! Satoru, I'm so glad you're here," you pant and grip his sleeves.
He looks at you. His eyes, usually so bright and playful, were dull. Dead.
"They are trying to get Suguru killed. I don't know who and why, but we have to find out," you sputter, not aware that he doesn't react to your words.
"Satoru?" you ask, angry now. He is their best friend and needs their help for fuck's sake, why doesn't he say anything? Why is he not agreeing with you?
"It's true," is the only thing he says, watching as your features fall.
"Fuck off," you scream and push him. Despite his Limitless, your palms collide with his chest. He has never kept you out, after all.
He doesn't budge, doesn't move. "Suguru would never do that. Never! The report said he killed his own parents!"
You try to shove him again and he traps your wrist against his chest with an iron grip.
"I just talked to him. He plans to kill every non-sorcerer."
His voice is empty of any emotion, and you hate him for it.
"That's..." you try to snarl but your voice breaks.
Grief tears through you like claws. It leaves nothing but shredded skin and a mangled heart.
"Forget him," Satoru says, but even his voice sounds reluctant. "He chose this. It's better if we don't speak about him again."
"How...how can you say that?" You try to tear your hands away from him, but his grip only tightens until it almost hurts.
"Say what?" His voice turns cold now. "Tell you that Suguru wasn't the person you thought he was? That he doesn't give a single fuck about you and me? He doesn't. You thought you were special because you fucked him?"
He is always cruelest when he is angry.
"What the fuck are you talking about?" you ask, bewildered.
"Aw, come on. With all the glances you threw at him, it would surprise me if he didn't get a piece of that a-"
A burst of cursed energy. His back collides with the wall behind him.
"Don't fucking talk to me like that. How dare you? How dare you?"
You are crying now, although you barely notice it.
Satoru stands up with a grunt, and in a flash, presses you against the wall with his body.
"Back off, Satoru," you hiss, still angry enough at him to throw him across campus.
"So, you're telling me you and Suguru never did anything?" he asks, his breath grazing the skin of your neck.
"Stop asking me stupid questions, you bastard," you spit through gritted teeth.
"Then I guess I can one-up him one last time."
His lips are on yours in an instant. It isn't gentle, the way he presses his body into yours, his knee sliding between your legs.
You let him kiss you for a moment before you release the tight grip on your cursed energy again and make him fly backward.
He seems prepared this time around, his Limitless stopping him from colliding with the broken wall again.
"Fuck you," you wipe your lips and ignore the tingle that spreads through your body.
He sticks his hands into the pockets of his pants and watches as you walk away.
Satoru did the one thing he wanted to do since he met you, and now you were never going to talk to him again.
Losing two best friends on the same day. A feat only Gojo Satoru could accomplish.