There were few feelings better than waking up in the middle of the Christmas holidays, not bound to any alarm clock, free to laze under the warm covers without having to be forced out into the cold.
It wasn't that Kagome didn't love her job. She did, and she adored her kids. By the time the last school day of December rolled around though, even she, who everyone in the teaching staff considered to be a breath of fresh air, a saving grace during this difficult month, didn't think she would have had as little as one more hour of teaching in herself. She had hidden it as well as she could. After all, she'd become an expert at hiding both exhaustion and physical injuries when she was fifteen, so she might as well put it to good use. She certainly didn't sport the kind of dark circles under her eyes the other teachers had, but she knew that she skirt she'd thrown on the morning of that last day was one she hadn't gotten around to ironing — and that her bun had more to do with the fact that she hadn't washed her hair than with elegance.
The holidays weren't quite the time to rest, though. She had come home with hundreds of papers to grade, papers that her students would expect her to be done with by the time school started up again in January. She could have left some for later on, but she knew she wouldn't be able to stand the nervous little faces, looking up at her hopefully when she would walk into class for the first morning. As a result, she had made as much of a headway as possible during the first week.
Maybe it was the thought that she had only a third of her original stack left to grade that put a spring in her step as she stepped outside the bedroom, not bothering to change out of her pajamas to go into the kitchen. There, her mother, who was physically incapable of sleeping past 7am, was making breakfast.
"Hello there, dear," she said cheerfully, "have you slept well?"
"Hmm, the best," Kagome hummed in reply. "Isn't Sota up yet? Should I go get him?"
The first one wasn't a real question — not that you could have known that from the innocent batting of her eyelashes. Sota was never up before noon when he didn't have to go to college. Now the second question, that was far more sincere. She would love to drag her little brother out of bed.
Her mother, of course, was not fooled and sent her a stern look.
"He works hard. Let him be."
"Just think your food is better when it's freshly made," she replied with big, angelic eyes. "Thought he wouldn't want to miss that."
Her mother shook her head, the corners of her lips curving upwards traitorously, and Kagome hid her smile in the steaming hot cup of chocolate that had materialized in front of her. It was rehearsed by now, that little speech of hers, but she knew her mom loved getting to feel like her kids were still kids, even if they were both long out of childhood.
Also, she would, in fact, really like dragging Sota out of bed.
The meal was peaceful. From up on the hill, Tokyo was quieter than anywhere else in the city. Her mother hummed to herself as she switched from cooking to knitting, unable to keep her hands still. Moments such as these, Kagome thought, had kept her from losing herself too much, when she was traveling back and forth from the Feudal Era, anchoring her to normalcy and the small pleasures of life. She treasured them dearly to this day.
"I think I'll try to grade twenty papers today," she announced to her mother as she was finishing up her meal. "I' I keep that rhythm, I'll have a few days with nothing to do at the end of the week."
"That's wonderful, darling," her mother smiled. "Don't forget to get some fresh air before you start to work!"
She always said that when she felt Kagome was spending too much time inside the house. In fact, her daughter could swear she'd heard her muttering things about how 'At least when you went to the Feudal Era, you didn't stay cooped up all the time', blatantly ignoring the life-threatening situations she was also getting herself into back then. She hadn't reached that point just yet, but her daughter knew better than to argue — even if she did roll her eyes at her.
"There isn't such a thing as fresh air in Tokyo," she mumbled as she got up, a tiny act of rebellion. A meaningless one, though, because she knew fully that, just like the silence, the air felt preserved around the shrine. Pure.
She stepped outside, and tilted her head up to look at the low, grey winter sky. She couldn't wait for spring to come.
It was as she was standing there, eyes closed, breathing in and letting herself connect with everything that was around her, that she felt a tug on her soul. Her eyes snapped open.
She wasn't unfamiliar with the feeling — as a matter of fact, she had experienced it countless times during the Feudal Era. It throbbed when she sensed a Jewel shard nearby, in the presence of certain yokai, when she was near a barrier that she couldn't yet see. The feeling hadn't disappeared when she had come back to the Modern era, but she had ignored it, assuming it was either yokais passing by, or a sort of phantom pull that would never quite leave her soul, not when it had been a constant within her for a year.
Just two months ago, she would have shrugged it off like she had done for the past decade. She would have gone back inside her house, would have gotten to work, would have thrown herself into her oh so normal life. Now, she found herself watching over the city, trying to find something unusual like the tell-tale glow of spiritual activity, teeth worrying at her bottom lip.
Should she try to figure out what that was? It could very well be nothing. Could also be one of those 'curtains' she'd seen Gojo use, acting more or less like a barrier. The likelihood of it being nothing but sorcerers doing their job felt pretty high. That wasn't something she wanted to interfere with.
And yet, the feeling wasn't going away, becoming harder to ignore with every second that passed by. Now that she knew of sorcerers, she couldn't just dismiss it. It kept nudging at her, urging her to go check it out, if only to appease herself. Back when she was fifteen, she might have been able to find it from where she was standing, her awareness of everything around her sharp and precise, her mind expanded.
Unfortunately, it was one of the abilities she'd lost — or rather, that she had taken from herself.
For years, after her return from the Feudal Era, she had worked on reigning herself in. Where she used to let her spiritual energy flow out of her naturally, forming a large sphere around her, she'd restrained it until it fit neatly within the boundary of her body. Having her spiritual energy all over the place, moving as it wished, had been very appropriate when it came to purifying cursed Jewel Shards, or her out of control best friend, or even a giant ball of youki from the inside, but it also meant that she had to feel everything around her at all time, from the steps of wolves to the breathing of the plants to the smallest insect.
It had been sustainable, if tiring, during the Feudal Era. In modern day Tokyo? It was unbearable.
It also harmed what she now knew were curses simply by making contact. Back then, she hadn't wanted to do that, just in case — at least not without having a say in it.
The problem was that now, she couldn't figure how to get it out. It was frustrating to the utmost degree, especially when it would have been such a great help in Shibuya. Maybe if she'd trained since then, she would have figured it out by now, but she— ah. She just hadn't gotten around to it.
She suspected that was the true heart of her issue. Training or not, this free movement was the natural state of her soul. No, the problem was her life. She was freer back then. She had chosen to go after the Jewel, chosen to keep going back to the Feudal Era, chosen to fight. Now… She adored her students, she did, but a part of her was shackled by the many rules of modern life. Oh, she'd chosen her job, too, but she answered to the Principal, to students' parents, to the school schedule, to—
Ah, this was no use. But she suspected, a bitter thought that she couldn't get rid of, that had she chosen to live strictly as a priestess, following the rhythm of her body and spending her time meditating, that she wouldn't be struggling in such a way. She did worry it would have dulled her, but there was no way of knowing that for now, was there?
Maybe meditation was the way of getting it back. She'd have to look into that. Later. When there was time. When she was out of papers to grade, and when her planning for her next classes was done, and when the students' report cards were filled, and—
Later. For now, she had to figure out where that stupid feeling was coming from, or else she would go insane.
"I'm going for a ride!" she called out to her mother, running through the house to throw on the first clothes she could find.
"Have fun, honey!" her mother answered as she passed through the kitchen a second time, heading out.
Groaning, Sota rolled out of a bed with a few choice words for his sister already on his tongue. How dared she scream in the house when it was basically dawn?
By the time he'd stumbled out of his room, Kagome was already far down the hill.
Following the tug on her should proved to be easy, which was a relief. She could still listen to herself, after all. She just had to remember to do it, when it used to be second nature. It crossed her mind, a bittersweet thought, that the diminution of her powers might just be the natural order of life, before she shook it off, a line creasing between her eyebrows as she sped through the streets of Tokyo, avoiding cars and pedestrians alike.
'The natural order of life?' Ha. She had never followed the natural order of life. Not when it came to training her abilities, not when it came to the rules of the soul, not when it came to time itself. If she wanted to get them back, she would. No matter how impossible it was supposed to be.
For now though, she was focused on figuring out what was going on with this feeling of hers. She slowed down as she spotted the curtain. With the bow and quiver she had thrown on her back before leaving — you know, just in case — she looked somewhat like a horseback archer from hundreds of years ago. If they'd been on bikes rather than horses, of course.
From close up, the curtain was impossible to miss, and yet non-sorcerers passed it by without so much as a glance in its direction. In front of it was an inconspicuous sleek black hair. Behind the will, his eyes focused on his phone, was Ijichi.
No tall, white-haired sorcerer in sight, though.
Shame.
Kagome didn't bother approaching the man in the suit. The last thing she wanted to do was mess with whatever business sorcerers had going on in here. No, she was just going to pop her head in, make sure her intuition wasn't the proof that something terrible was happening, and then get herself home. So, tiptoeing, she stepped through the curtain, going completely unnoticed.
There wasn't much to see inside. The curtain formed a dome over an old museum, surrounded by scaffoldings. Yet, the second she walked in, Kagome forgot any thought of leaving, and a feeling of dread coated her skin like oil. The air was thick with power and evil — and not just any evil, but a presence she had felt before.
The one that came from that kid. Yuuji.
Shit. She hadn't talked to Gojo about it, assuming it was another one of those things that she didn't yet understand about sorcerer society, but maybe she should have. She didn't think twice before rushing in. With fluid movements, she took her bow off her shoulders and grabbed an arrow, keeping it at the ready.
Inside, she found that the museum had been emptied of most of its valuable pieces. She sprinted through a deserted hall, populated only by statues covered in white sheets. Guided by both the noises of combat that echoed in the empty hallways and the bright, burning flames of cursed energy she could easily perceive at such a short distance, she made her way, unimpeded, through different rooms, until she finally reached what looked like a reconstitution of a roman amphitheater.
There, in the middle, was Yuuji, standing face to face with a tall man in a kimono, his hair in two buns, dark lines drawn over his face. There was something odd about him, something Kagome couldn't put words on. They both looked rather worse for wear, the fight clearly having gone on for a while, but they weren't the ones in the worst shape.
Slumped against a wall, down several rows from her, was a blonde sorcerer in a brown suit, clenching a blade in his hand. His face was contorted in pain as he tried to get up despite the numerous injuries she could spot all over his bodies. The injuries weren't the worrying part, though. No, it was the energy flowing through and around him was a mess. Kagome zeroed in on it, trying to understand it. Cursed energy was a pain to read in the first place — unless it was as neatly organized as Gojo's — and she found herself struggling to differentiate the different forms it took.
It looked like there was some under his skin, she could tell that much, some that wasn't his. It was spreading like a disease.
The man groaned as he fell back down.
"Nanamin!" Yuuji called, clearly worried, but that second of inattention cost him a strong punch to the jaw.
Kagome flinched, but Yuuji didn't hesitate to retaliate in kind. The fight was brutal, moving too fast for her to be able to read it. She tightened her fingers over her bow, hesitating. There was no way she would get a clear shot of Yuuji's adversary, and considering how incompatible cursed energy was with her reiki, she feared that she would hurt both of them.
There was no time for such consideration. As much as she hated to leave the kid to fend for himself, she had to hope he could make it a few minutes more so she would be able to help that Nanamin man.
Unfortunately, the second she started moving, shoes squeaking on the marble floor, both of their heads whipped towards her.
Stupid amphitheaters and their stupidly perfect acoustic. Would she truly never be free of mathematics?
"Miss Higurashi?" Yuuji called, eyes going wide in surprise.
The other man stared at him suspiciously before focusing back on Kagome, and she owed her survival only on the bow she happened to have been clenching in her hands. Sheer old luck, in theory, but also a testimony to how second nature her abilities were to her, when she got the chance.
What she saw was him clapping his hands together.
"Piercing blood," she vaguely heard.
The ray shot from his hands faster than she could begin to comprehend. Yuuji whipped back towards him, trying to intercept it with a cry of protest. It hit her before she had even processed it. Or rather, it would have, had it not been for the barrier she projected in front of her with her trusted bow.
It was a half-assed attempt at a barrier at best, one that would have shattered under an attack imbued with more cursed energy. In this case, though, the projectile splattered on it, and she realized as it turned liquid and slid down that it was blood. Distantly, she thought that his cursed energy shouldn't have felt like that, though she wasn't able to explain why.
She swallowed — then resumed moving.
The man kept his eyes on her, trying to figure out what had happened. Yuuji used that brief respite to come standing between them, shielding her.
"She has nothing to do with this," he pleaded, desperate.
"If you don't wish for her to be in danger, all you have to do is surrender," the black-haired man replied, his tone flat, almost bored.
Jumping over the rows without pause, Kagome soon found herself kneeling by the injured sorcerer.
"Hi," she said, squinting at him as if it would help her figure out the mess that were the energies inside him. "I'm Kagome."
"There isn't much to be done, I'm afraid," he said, ignoring her greeting in favor of going straight to the point. "His blood is a strong poison. Considering the amounts of it in my body, not even Reverse Cursed Technique could help me at this point."
Kagome's heart tightened painfully. Using blood to fight…? That reminded her of someone. She looked back at the dark-haired man, and finally, she understood what she had been feeling since she had walked in.
"He's not a curse, is he?" she asked, eyes wide. She had been saying it mostly for herself, barely noticing she was speaking, but the blonde sorcerer answered all the same. For a man at death's door, he managed to remain incredibly calm.
"A cursed womb painting. Half-curse, half-human."
She bit down on the inside of her cheek, hard. She didn't know much about sorcerers yet, but she couldn't begin to imagine what kind of life had to come with such a status.
Nor did she have time to think about it, no matter the complicated emotions it stirred within her.
"Okay," she said, turning back towards Nanamin. "Let me examine you."
He shook his head. The poison was clearly taking its toll on him, his teeth gritted, sweat dripping down his face.
"No need," he answered nonetheless, even if his voice was strained. "You would do better helping Itadori now. The only way for this to cease is to force this man to cease using his Cursed Technique."
She stared at him. With enough attention, she was starting to differentiate the energies battling within his system, but it was going to be a pain to entangle, she could already tell. At least Sumiko hadn't been producing cursed energy herself, and she didn't have to worry about blasting through that. Now, in theory, she would have to somehow destroy the one kind without touching the other, considering that he was using his own to fight against the poison.
Ugh. This mind last time look like a walk in the park.
Nanamin didn't realize what was going through her mind, mistaking her silence and stare for incomprehension.
"Either he chooses to end it himself, which seems unlikely, or he dies." Then confusion appeared on his face, finally piercing through the haze of pain. His eyes moved up and down her body, searching for something that would mark her as a fellow sorcerer. He couldn't even feel cursed energy coming from her body — but that… That made no sense, did it? "Wait a minute. Are you even—"
"There is another way," the black haired man noted. His voice was calm, as if he had no involvement in what was happening. "I could stop using my technique on you."
He flexed his fingers, and blood jumped out of one of the blonde sorcerer's wounds, forming small, perfect beads.
"All I want is for Yuuji Itadori to die."
Kagome turned around. The man's eyes were on Yuuji, barely paying attention to her or Nanamin. She watched the kid's Adam's apple bob up and down, before his shoulders fell and he lowered his gaze.
"I can't do that," he said quietly. "I'm sorry."
He looked dejected, as if he regretted it, and just the sight of it made her sick to her stomach. No one should be made to feel like going on living was the wrong decision, like they didn't have as much of a right to live as anyone else. Especially not a kid his age.
Before the han— No, before the half-curse could send his blood back into the injured sorcerer's body, Kagome shot a small wave of reiki through the sphere, making it splatter on the wall. The man's head whipped towards her, examining her in surprise. She paid him no mind.
"I'll take care of it," she announced, giving Yuuji a decided nod. "You just focus on staying alive, okay?"
His lips parted. For a moment, he looked at a complete loss for words, trying to figure out if he could let himself hope again. Finally, his expression hardened, and he punched the palm of his left hand with his right fist in front of his chest.
"Alright," he said, his determination back. "You save Nanamin, and I'll deal with this!"
Ah, so she had heard the name right.
"It's Nanamin, then?" she asked, going back to the man.
"No," Nanamin answered. "I told you Reverse Cursed Technique would not be effective. What is it you intend to do? Do you even have cursed energy?"
These were questions she didn't want to even have to think about. Not when there was a much greater task at hand here.
"I'm going to get to work, okay, Nanamin?" she said rather than asked, ignoring his questions. "I'm afraid this will be unpleasant."
He said something after that — about how his name wasn't Nanamin — but Kagome had already closed her eyes, trying to figure out how on earth she was going to handle the situation. The smartest way of doing it would be to focus on the tiny beads of cursed energy that came from the half-curse's blood. Problem was, there were so many of them, dotted in Nanamin's blood, mixed with his cursed energy, that she would have to operate with extreme precision.
Now, Kagome was capable of many things, but extreme precision wasn't quite at the top of that list. As far as spiritual energy went, she was a weapon of mass destruction, not a needle, and it was that kind of microscopic instrument she would need. On top of that, there was the matter of time, and how terribly she lacked it at the moment. With every second that passed, the infection spread, the beads multiplied, and it became more and more difficult to counter.
She could only see one solution. It might blow up in her face spectacularly, but if she didn't at least try, there might not be anyone left to save, even if she came up with the perfect method.
Instead of starting by dealing with as many of the beads as possible first, the method she had used with Sumiko, she blasted Nanamin with reiki. There was enough of it to purify a number of insignificant yokai as well as a number of perhaps less insignificant curses. He visibly winced under the sudden onslaught, and then his eyes went wide. While his cursed energy rescinded significantly, his production of it picked up right away, irrigating his body with it again.
"What— What did you just—"
"Just a second," she shushed him, raising a professorial finger. She didn't have even a second to lose.
The half-curse's blood, while affected by her powers, had still managed to resist her. She suspected, though she had no time to test that theory, that her reiki was not as effective against the cursed energy emanating from humans as it was against curses themselves. In other circumstances, this would have been a fascinating discovery. As it stood, she filed the information away. She didn't have time for that.
Before Nanamin's cursed energy could drown out that of the half-curse, which was still present in enough quantity that it would have no issue proliferating again, she 'popped' as many of the droplets as possible. Pouring all of herself into the effort, she went still, biting her tongue and keeping her mind dedicated wholly to the task at hand. No matter the state of her focus or how fast she tried to go, there was no getting them all though, not when she couldn't make her mind isolate them efficiently enough. The second she moved to another area, cursed energies all blurred together, and she found herself constantly searching for the right one. She groaned when she lost sight of them, once they had become too microscopic and were swallowed entirely as the returning cursed energy washed back in.
Well. She had to hope she had done enough. If anything, it would keep him alive a little longer.
"You should still get that checked by a doctor," she announced, her breathing heavy. "For now… It should do."
As for what would happen later on… Unfortunately, it would depend on how potent that poison was.
Nanamin stared at her, trying to read him, and she stared in return — at least, until she realized how utterly silent the room had turned while she was focused on something else. Turning around, she discovered Yuuji slumped against a wall, head low, blood dripping from his chin onto the floor. His opponent was prostrated in a distant corner, eyes open wide, head in his hands. He was mumbling incoherently, all desire to fight evaporated from his body.
"What… happened?" Kagome asked. Her jaw moved painfully, and she realized she'd had it clenched too tight as she'd focused on helping Nanamin. In fact, all of her muscles felt sore. Seemed that this had taken a lot more out of her than expected — definitely a lot more than just spewing out far more devastating amount of reiki.
"Don't worry," Nanamin answered, slowly getting up, testing his balance. "I'll put an end to this."
With his hand still pressed to the wound on his flank, he started to make his way towards the half-curse. His pace was slow but steady, his eyes glued to his target. He held his weapon tightly, and Kagome felt, deep in her bones, that this man was deadly.
The half-curse was rocking back and forth, muttering under his breath, making no movement to retaliate against him. Kagome's heart started hammering with urgency. She had to do something. Everything within her was screaming at her to do it.
"Why did Yuuji say he was sorry?"
Nanamin paused, turning to throw a glance at her over his shoulder.
"I beg your pardon?"
"Yuuji," Kagome repeated. "He said he was sorry he couldn't die to save you. Why— Why would he feel sorry about that?"
"Ah." The sorcerer stared at her a while longer, clearly sizing her up, before gesturing towards the half-curse. "He killed this man's brothers. Two more cursed womb paintings, whose appearacnes were more curse-like than this one. Yuuji mistook them for curses."
Kagome's heart ached terribly in her chest. Hanyo often looked monstrous, too, having less control over their form than powerful yokai did, most of whom were able to change it at will. Her mind turned to Jinenji, to the numerous scars on his gentle hands, to the horror he inspired the villagers living near his house.
"These womb paintings were trying to kill him," Nanamin added, a hint of protectiveness in his voice, his eyes laser focused on her.
It would never have crossed her mind to blame the kid for anything.
"Then I'll take it from here with him," she said on a whim, just because it felt right. She knew that it would keep her awake at night, if she didn't at least try. "You should get Yuuji to a doctor — maybe calling Gojo would be the fastest way to do that."
Recognition flashed across Nanamin's face, pieces of the puzzle starting to fall into place at last. It made so much sense that she would be involved with Gojo in some way.
"I'm afraid he is not in Tokyo at the moment," he said. "If he was, this attack would not have occurred."
Kagome blinked at him. So his mere presence was enough to deter attacks…? Huh. Maybe she should be taking him a little more seriously after all.
"Couldn't you just use Reverse Cursed Technique on Yuuji?" the sorcerer continued. "He is a tough kid, but I'm afraid his injuries are serious. That would ensure I could take him to get treated safely."
More blinking.
"Isn't that what you did for me?" he asked, narrowing his eyes at her from behind his glasses. He was probing for answers, she could tell, not unlike what Gojo had done when they'd met, although with a lot more restraint. He didn't seem like a bad guy, she could tell that much. In fact, in many ways, he looked more trustworthy than Gojo had when he'd barged into her classroom demanding answers. And yet… Gojo had also felt like the type to do as he pleased, not as he was expected to. She couldn't say the same for this man. Counter-intuitively, and with Gojo's words about how small-minded sorcerers could be, it made her more cautious.
"No, it wasn't," she said, giving him a sincere smile, but not expanding on it.
For a second, there was silence. He was still trying to figure her out, and she let him, without ceding him so much as an inch.
Ultimately, he was the one who gave in. He didn't know that he would approve of whatever her plan was, but she was no curse user, of that he was sure. She had also just saved his life, even if he couldn't begin to understand how she'd done it. Repaying that debt right away was the smart thing to do — as well as the right thing.
Plus, it was just about time for him to go on his lunch break.
"Are you sure you can handle it alone?"
Kagome eyed the half-curse, who was still unmoving, his eyes watery and fixed straight ahead. His essence, by its very nature, meant that he would be no match for her reiki. On top of that, even though her earlier purification of the poison within Nanamin's blood would have been an exhausting show of force for anyone else as far as quantities were concerned, it had been but a drop of spent energy for her.
She shrugged.
"I'll be fine."
"Then it's settled," Nanamin said with a nod. "I'll entrust you with this."
He walked over to Yuuji, picking up the boy carefully. For the first time since the end of the fight, the half-cursed looked up, following his movements as he carried the unconscious boy towards the exit — but he remained where he was, curled up on himself, and he made no movement to stand up.
"Ah, and, Miss Kagome?"
How polite of him. Maybe Gojo should take a page out of his book.
"Yes?"
"The name is Kento Nanami."
She smiled, eyes creasing sincerely.
"It was a pleasure meeting you, Nanami."
He nodded, examining the scene once more, before deciding he had done all he needed to and leaving the room. Kagome went back to the half-curse, whose breathing was slowly evening out.
"Hi," she said, her voice soft. "I'm Kagome. Who are you?"
He stared at her from under his lashes. Like Nanami before him, he struggled to read her. He couldn't feel anything negative coming from her, that much he knew. She had to have some kind of cursed energy, but even that he couldn't pick up on. She radiated warmth and kindness, and it made him want to finally, finally rest. After 150 years of the coldest darkness, he felt, for the first time, as if he might at last get a good night's sleep.
"Choso," he answered softly.
"Choso," she repeated, and she said it with a care he had never heard coming from a human. "Well, Choso, let's see if we can figure out what to do with you, shall we?"
"Aw, you really can't stand being away from me for too long, hmm?" were Gojo's first words when he picked up the phone.
Kagome clicked her tongue and rolled her eyes. He couldn't see it, but she was sure, from the chuckle on the other side of the line, that he could picture it just fine. She pinned the phone between her shoulder and her ear, using her free hands to cut up the vegetables she had laid out in front of her.
"What has it been, a week?" she asked, knowing full well it wasn't the case and grinning he spluttered indignantly. "No, I just— Ah, I ran into of your students today. Yuuji? I was wondering if you knew if he— was okay."
"Ran into him?" Gojo repeated. "Ah, is it about the cursed womb painting? Ijichi said there was an issue with that. Curses tend to get bold when I'm away…" A sigh, a heavy one. "But what can you do!" he went on cheerfully. "not everyone can be as scary as I am. Anyway, we have a real good doctor. Yuuji's fine."
"That's a relief," Kagome sighed. "I felt bad for not helping him out there."
"Wait, what do you mean 'not helping him'? I thought you'd met him on the way. You were there?"
She hummed as she dropped the vegetables into the pot. Her homemade ramens were coming along nicely.
"Yeah, I got a feeling that something was happening. At first, I just wanted to check that everything was okay, and then it turned out they needed help. Yuuji… seems like a really good kid."
A weird one, too, but since her instincts did seem to be failing her when it came to him, she would wait a little longer until she discussed that part.
"He is," Gojo agreed spontaneously, "but, wait— did you fight that curse?"
'Oh, no! Just helped the other sorcerer at the scene with his poisoning. Nanamin— No, Nanami, I think. He was very polite."
"He might look like he is at first, but he has no respect for his senpais," Gojo sniffed disdainfully.
"He's younger than you? I would never have guessed."
"Thank you."
"That wasn't a—"
"So did they exorcise the cursed painting then?" Gojo interrupted her before she could finish her thought. "Ijichi was pretty vague. Just said it was a pain."
"Hm," Kagome said, taking the pot off the fire and proceeding to pour a generous portion of ramen into a bowl, "no, they didn't kill him. I brought him to Miyamoto's temple."
With a smile, she gestured at Choso, who was perched on a chair across from her, watching her carefully, to start eating. He only hesitated for a second before digging in. Kagome sat down, waiting for Gojo to say something. For a while, there was shocked silence, before a high-pitched laugh trickled in.
"You're something else, Ka-go-me," he said at last, not bothering to question her one second. "Not afraid he'll kill everyone there in the middle of the night."
"No," she said matter-of-factly. Even if she'd thought Choso would do that, the priestesses were setting up ofudas, just in case, but they hadn't hesitated to open their doors to him when Kagome had explained the situation. The notion of a half-curse had been as confusing to them as it was to her, and she was pretty sure they had just equated it to a hanyo and moved on. Anyway, Sumiko could no doubt handle him on her own. "I'm a good judge of character. I trusted you, didn't I?"
"You should ask Nanami if he thinks that makes you a good judge of character," he laughed again, but it was softer this time. Fonder. "But alright. You better know what you're doing."
Well, she wasn't sure about that, but she was going with what felt right to her. It had never betrayed her before.
"You should let me know when you're back in Tokyo," she said.
"Ah, I'll have to see if I can find the time," he sighed dramatically. "I'm a busy, busy man, you kn—"
"Too bad," she interrupted him. "Guess I won't be seeing you anytime soon, then."
He didn't fall into her trap this time.
"I'll tell you when I land," he said, with a smile so wide she could hear it in his voice. "Bye, Kagome."
Land? Just how far did they send him?
"Bye, Gojo," she replied. She waited a second longer, hesitant to end the call, before dropping the phone on the table, thoughtful.
She hadn't expected she would be this impatient to see him again.
MoEmiLuna: Yeah, since yokai aren't very present in modern society, Gojo hasn't gotten to seeing a lot of Kagome in her element yet, but that's coming along eheh. I'm so glad you're enjoying the story, thank you so much for your kind words!
CocoaBeanie144: I fully thought I would have responded to you on Ao3 before posting this here, but here we are and I haven't oops ;-; Yes yes yessss on Gojo being a mess — he goes with the flow without hesitation, but if he feels this get any deeper, it's not going to be easy for him to accept it. If anyone can get him to though, it sure as hell is Kagome ;) I'm so happy you like how their relationship/interactions are going! There are so many parallels between them and yet such huge differences, and it's really fun to dive into all that as a writer. Thank you so much for your comment 3
anahicoca: Thank you for your comment, I'm glad you like it!
HerTormentedHeart: Hope you liked the chapter :)
Emi Ogawa: Oui c'est une grande nouveauté pour Gojo de se retrouver jeté dans l'inconnu comme ça (et s'il était honnête avec lui même il admettrait que ça ne lui déplaît pas tant que ça eheh)... et de se faire utiliser comme un taxi aussi mdr. Le parallèle entre lui et Kagome j'y pense depuis le début de la fic, j'avais TELLEMENT envie de réussir à le caser. Ils sont tous les deux des monstres de pouvoir à leur façon, et en même temps ils sont complètement différents et je trouve ça fascinant. Effectivement, il n'en est pas encore tout à fait à "s'ouvrir", je dirais que c'est Kagome qui fait un peu office de bulldozer et qui fait tomber ses murs qu'il le veuille ou non :') Du coup il se retrouve à s'exposer plus qu'il ne le ferait en temps normal sans forcément s'en rendre compte, et Kagome est dans une position unique pour le comprendre.
Je suis super contente que tu aimes cette version de Gojo ! C'est l'aspect "goofy" avec lequel j'ai l'impression d'avoir du mal, l'humour ce n'est pas mon fort à écrire malheureusement :') Merci beaucoup pour ton commentaire 3
Alright! This chapter was harder to write than anticipated, especially the beginning for some reason, and I made very little progress with it for several days when I started working on it, which was quite frustrating. I do hope it doesn't feel boring, it's very introspective/description based in some part, and it feels interesting to me to explain some of Kagome's struggles, but I hope it doesn't mess with the pacing too much. You can feel very free to let me know if that was too much description for you btw, that's useful information for things to avoid/follow in future chapters! We get to see some familiar faces from Jujutsu Kaisen, and people that were at Shibuya are starting to poke their heads out again, though it's not the worst ones... For now. (Tbh this chapter was originally supposed to feature Mimiko and Nanako's return but that will have to wait a little longer) Gojo only makes a vocal cameo in this chapter, BUT there'll be lots of him in the next one, I promise!
I know I keep saying this, but truly, I am floored by the support I get for this story, and I want to thank you all for giving it so much love 3 I am trying to hold myself to posting for this fic every two weeks — not straining myself, don't worry, just trying to build a habit to keep myself writing ^-^
You can also see as a cover a piece I commissioned recently from the wonderful minthe-drawings over on Tumblr for our main couple! If you want to see it better, it is also over on Ao3 and on Tumblr.
Thank you all so much for reading! Hope you've enjoyed the chapter, don't hesitate to let me know your thoughts and I will see you all in the next one ;)