(a/n) hellu, im aim for once a month updates loool sorry ive been busy w other stuff! also i hope ppl like the way im progressing the story / developing characters lol. ALSO tw: self-harm & violence
The silence nipped at her ankles, and sent shivers down her spine.
Bright sunlight was beginning to peak past the covers of night, casting a warm glow on Tokyo.
Himari couldn't sleep for more than an hour.
The Jujutsu High students had agreed to meet in front of Amanai's building this morning, but the twelve unattended hours between her threats and their mission made her frantic.
After the incident with Fushiguro, she had retired to her dorm room for mere moments, before stalking out in the middle of the night to patrol the area around Amanai's apartment. She had worn the mask— of course. Getting caught by anyone involved would not only be incredibly humiliating— it would also endanger the entire structure of her plan.
As the sun kissed her skin, Himari's white tainted knuckles slowly regained their peachy colour and the tension within her body slowly dissipated.
No attempts on Amanai's life.
Sleep deprivation wore down her energy, leaving her heartbeat drumming in her head and bags beneath her eyes, but Himari forced a grin as she spotted navy blue uniforms approaching her direction.
"Yo, Suzuki."
Himari waved.
"Why'd you sneak out without us," Gojo whined, with Geto's arm slung across his shoulders akin to a scarf.
"Suzuki, up so early?"
The man's words were sharp.
His eyebrows were knit subtly, and Himari refused to flinch. His suspicions had subsided for the most part, but she saw the way he looked at Shoko and Gojo— he never looked at her that way.
"Well," She thought for a moment. "I was worried about Amanai's safety— I think I told you guys but I had met her prior to the mission, and I thought I'd take the morning to go for a jog and watch the area. Y'know, make sure there's no creeps wandering about."
Himari made a gesture with her hands by curling her fingers and striking a pose that she deemed 'sneaky'.
Gojo pointed at her and wheezed, "What the hell was that? What were you pretending to be?"
Rolling her eyes, she straightened her posture and motioned for the group to follow her. The vessel had been informed that the group would be escorting her, and Himari had specifically asked Amanai to greet the group at the door.
As the group approached the entrance to the building, the young girl burst through the seams of the entrance with a giddy smile. "Suzuki! And other irrelevant people!" It was a playful greeting, and Himari reciprocated with a wide hug.
"This lil' pipsqueak is the star vessel?" Gojo exclaimed in a manner that seemed entirely genuine, and Himari watched as Amanai's smile morphed into annoyance.
"Be nice, Gojo. She's tall for a third grader," Geto followed up with a light chuckle. The man's serious exterior was always broken by the need to follow up on Gojo's jokes, and Himari watched in mild amusement as Amanai— mouth agape— pointed directly at the pair.
"Okay, freak eyes! The retirement home called, they want their missing wig back," She declared, glaring at Gojo, before directing her gaze toward Geto. "And your bangs don't fit your face at all! Who's your barber?"
Shoko let out a laugh as the two boys flinched at the words. A vein almost visibly emerged on Geto's forehead, and Himari let out a heaping laugh before high-fiving the girl, who stood, hands on hips, smug as ever.
"Riko, have something to eat before you leave!" A woman appeared from the entrance to the building, waving a small paper bag.
"Mommy's calling," Gojo snickered, and Himari jabbed her elbow into his side. "Don't antagonize her," She scolded. With a glare, Amanai retreated to the woman and grabbed the bag, before marching back to the four.
"Listen, Tengen is the same as me, just the same as I am also Tengen. When the assimilation happens, I will become Tengen— but Tengen will also become me! I will live on through Tengen."
Himari blinked, it was almost as if the girl had different personalities for different situations— she almost felt like Amanai might have been compensating, or putting on a show. There was the sweet, quiet, and kind Amanai she had met at the shopping mall, and there was the quick-witted, confident, and loud Amanai that stood before them. Still, Himari clapped for the girl's speech, Shoko smiled softly, and the two boys seemed to entirely zone out.
"Ah— what time is it?"
"It's noon, but I really don't think—"
"No, no. I'm going to go to school! I want the last few days of my life to be as normal as possible!"
Geto and Shoko exchanged nervous glances, whilst Gojo merely rolled his eyes.
"Yep, let's make it even harder for us to protect you," He complained, to which Amanai puffed her cheeks and pouted.
"Let's go then," Himari suggested with an affirmative nod, "You don't want to be late."
Amanai's eyes lit up and she skipped forward, "Okay!"
"Geto, I want you to accompany Suzuki to take Amanai to her classes. You should be watching over her, throughout the day. Gojo and I will take a more active approach by scouting the area within a ten kilometer radius for any suspicious individuals. We will swap mid afternoon."
Gojo straightened his back and nodded; the man always respected Shoko's word.
"What about Kuroi!"
The group glanced at the older woman who raised a hand to the nape of her neck sheepishly.
"I really don't need any—"
"She will be with Geto and Suzuki."
It was a resounding statement, and no more protests emerged.
There was a term known as a ragtag group.
The term refers to a group of poorly organized individuals with no particular affinity to teamwork, or to each other. Himari wondered if the term ragtag group applied to pairs of two, or if it was strictly a team thing.
Because the past hour and a half was incredibly awkward.
She had spent numerous mornings getting tea with Geto in an effort to repair their relationship following the Hanami incident, but those mornings had slowly been replaced by individual training and missions she had taken on in an effort to improve before the Star Plasma Vessel incident.
Himari hadn't made a particular effort to inform Geto she would be annoying him less about morning tea, and he hadn't made an effort to ask.
Now, they were seated on a bench outside the classroom, with Kuroi between the pair, and an awkward silence masked by occasional conversation attempts from the older woman.
"Lovely weather!"
And Geto would respond with a well-mannered nod and a response affirming her deductions.
"I hope Amanai is enjoying her last day of school."
And Himari would chime in with a murmur of agreement, peering into the classroom where the school girl was seated.
"I've had enough of this weird atmosphere. You two need to have a proper discussion— I don't know what's going on, but it better not interfere with your ability to protect Amanai. I'm going to go deliver Amanai's lunch, and when I'm back, you two better be settled."
With a huff, the woman leapt off the bench and stalked away toward the direction of the school, and Himari felt a groan escape from her lips. It was as if she was a toddler who had stolen Geto's toys, and their mother was making them apologize to one another.
"Geto," She began, turning to face the man. The empty spot Kuroi left remained vacant, each sorcerer on the sides of the bench, and the boy craned his neck to meet her gaze.
"What?"
It was blunt, and Himari felt her head spin with confusion. There were moments where she felt as if she had slipped past his defenses and he trusted her again: the intervention, the morning tea, the occasional spar— but she felt entirely iced out, at the moment.
"I'm sorry—"
"Why do you keep apologizing? What are you even apologizing for? I don't like empty apologies."
She gulped, and before she could speak, she caught a glimpse of a smile that halted her words.
"You stopped coming to morning tea, and that annoyed me. A lot, actually. I was looking forward to free food every morning."
To this, she let out a hesitant laugh.
"I needed to get a bit more training in, that way I can beat up Gojo," She replied cheekily. "That way you can hop in there and save him— help you get your knight in shining armour moment."
Geto didn't laugh, but the smile that graced his face didn't fade either. Himari knew he would never look at her the same way he looked at Shoko and Gojo, but perhaps that didn't matter. All she needed was him to look at her, and perhaps that was enough.
When Kuroi returned, there was space on the edge of the bench.
Toji wasn't the type to make rash decisions. The star vessel merger in her timeline had been stopped in a calculated, slow fashion— a thread unwinding precisely how the man wanted it to.
That made the silence far more eerie.
Amanai had gone a day and a half without any attempts on her life.
Himari hadn't known the exact details of how the girl had been killed in the previous timeline, but she knew that Amanai's information had been leaked, and that she had become prey for desperate sorcerers with huge egos and empty wallets.
The group settled in the house, sat in a circle around a deck of UNO cards while Amanai pointed at herself and declared herself the winner.
"You guys suck!"
"Be nice," Kuroi called out from across the room, peering above her book to stare down the sheepish school girl. Himari had to feel for the woman— she was surrounded by teenagers arguing and fighting over a deck of cards, it was truly hard to believe the titles distributed across the room consisted of the Star Plasma Vessel, The Two Strongest, and The Reversed Cursed Energy Genius.
"I think I'm going to call it a night," Geto suggested, raising his arms above his head to stretch.
"You're just mad you keep losing," Amanai teased, and a twinge of annoyance slithered onto his face as Shoko reached forward to rest a hand on her shoulder. "Come on, you're a kid, you need more sleep than us."
There was an unspoken melancholy fogging the room, like everyone was acting out a play where nobody acknowledges Amanai's fate— that she would never not be a kid.
"Lame," She whined, and Himari flicked her forehead affectionately.
"Get some rest in, pipsqueak," Gojo remarked, "We'll do some fun shit tomorrow."
A pout settled on the girl's face, and the she begrudgingly slunk away to her room. The common room slowly dwindled as individuals mumbled weary statements and excused themselves to their separate bedrooms. Shoko had been assigned first watch, and Himari resigned herself to her own room with a yawn.
She was exhausted— beyond tired, honestly. It had been days of minimal sleep, and panic, and anxiety. Her fingers shook as she parted her hair and trudged into the washroom, brushing the sweat off her brow. A version of her stared back at her. Himari reached forward to touch the surface of the mirror.
She was staring at a stranger.
Dark circles hung below her eyes, wrinkles carved into her face, paleness devoured her skin. In her previous timeline— her timeline, (when did she start thinking of it as a previous timeline?)— Himari had paid careful attention to her appearance. Morning was welcomed with a skincare routine, nails were perfectly trimmed, hair was curled and styled each day.
Stress and anxiety had whittled down her appearance, and a pang of sorrow wracked her body.
Loss was a thing she was used to these days; loss of her parents, her friends, her normalcy.
She thought she'd be numb when she lost herself.
She wasn't.
Himari gripped her chest, exhaling a shaky breath, and closed her eyes.
There wasn't time for this.
There wasn't enough time for anything.
Reaching for a hair tie, Himari gingerly tucked her hair into a tight pony tail with two strands framing her face, and shuffled from the bathroom back to her bedroom.
There wasn't time for sleep, either.
Peaking her head outside the door of her bedroom, she clutched a katana with her left hand and she slowly snuck out of her bedroom to the common room.
As she fiddled with the handle of the weapon, she heard the clicking of a door to indicate that someone was retreating from the washroom. Snapping her head in the direction of the sound, Himari's body tense. Had someone gotten past Shoko's watch?
Her cursed energy flared inside her and she hastily slipped the katana behind her back, preparing herself for a fight. Footsteps echoed throughout the hallway: slow, labored steps creating a faint scraping sound against the wooden floorboards.
She held her breath.
Then the Star Plasma Vessel peaked out from past the corner and blinked. Amanai rubbed at her eyes, her hair tussled with sleep and, with a drowsy rasp to her voice, called out, "What are you doing up so late?"
Himari blinked.
"Uhm, washroom?"
It was more of a question than a solid thought, but the girl seemed to accept her answer with a shrug.
"Hey," The girl mumbled, her voice barely above a whisper. "I can't sleep, can we talk for a bit?"
A pang of sympathy coursed through her sleep deprived brain, and she nodded, motioning for the girl to follow her into her room.
"What's up?"
Wrapping the blanket around the pair as they sat down on the bed, Himari let the girl tuck herself into Himari's side. It was familiar— the warmth, and for a split moment, Himari remembered her mother. The memory of her parents had been slowly buried beneath the stress of managing the timeline, and the fact she had simply gotten used to being alone— but the feeling of Amanai head snuggled into the crook of her neck— it brought back an ocean of sorrow that crashed into her at once.
"Nothing, just couldn't sleep."
"What do you want to talk about then?"
"Anything," Amanai fiddled with her fingers, nervously cracking her knuckles and grabbing at stray strands of hair.
"Okay," Himari thought for a moment. "What do you want to do tomorrow?"
The younger girl's breath hitched, and Himari instantly knew she made a mistake. Asking about 'tomorrows' to a child who had so few left was almost cruel, and she tried to correct her mistake.
"I think we could go to the beach, maybe play more games— you really destroyed Geto today, I've never seen that man look so distraught."
There was a silence, and Amanai whispered softly, "Yeah. I guess we could."
"I'm just— I don't know. I'm just thinking about all of this: about the merger, about my life, and it's like," Amanai paused, and Himari hesitantly reached a hand out to stroke the girl's hair. "I'm fucking fourteen years old."
A quiet sob escaped the girl, and Himari's heart squeezed at the choked whispers.
"I'm fourteen. I haven't kissed anyone, I haven't gone to university, I don't even love myself yet, let alone anyone else. You know when your teachers make you plan for the future with those stupid career tests? I never do those. I can't. Knowing that all of those careers and futures exists for everyone, but not for me. Never for me. I know I have to do this— I have to, it's what I'm supposed to do. Will you hate me if I'm honest?"
Himari shook her head, brushing her fingers through the girl's hair. "I don't think anyone could ever hate you, Amanai."
"I'm so scared, and I don't want to do this."
The quiet resignation upset Himari the most. Like the girl had decided that this was the only way forward; to sacrifice her life in exchange for the good of humanity. She had been groomed to picture her life in one direction, and Himari's heart broke a little more.
"Amanai—"
"It's fine, I'm sorry— I just had to get it out."
And Amanai looked up to smile at her.
Silence enveloped the two as Himari pulled the younger girl into a tight hug, and rubbed the girl's back with her thumb. Two girls thrust into realities they had no choice over; Himari wasn't able to change what happened to her, but she wanted desperately to help Amanai.
"You don't have to do it."
She wasn't the greatest with words. The lack of sleep definitely didn't help.
Amanai released herself from the embrace and grinned at her, her eyes slightly puffy and red.
"I know."
"Amanai, don't do it."
And the door closed behind her.
And then she was alone.
"Time weave."
And she was gone.
Her katana slashed through the fabric, and a screech from the linen material shot through the silence.
"Time weave!"
She was beside another training dummy. Another shriek.
"Time weave!"
The blade split through straw and linen with a slice, leaving bundles of straw exploding outward from the dummy through the force of her blow.
It had been about thirty minutes; thirty minutes practicing her blade skills and honing her technique. The limited pool of cursed energy seemed to flow through her far easier than it once did— something she was proud of— but it still wasn't enough.
She needed to be stronger.
Catching her breath, she planted her feet into the ground and stared out at the desecration she left behind her. The severed heads of training dummies scattered the floor, each taken out with a precise slash through the wooden stake that ran through the center of the dummy.
Her eyes scanned the floor, taking note of how long it took for each pseudo-kill, and how many she had gotten in her thirty minutes. Her brow furrowed when she realized that it was less than her previous session— the cuts seemed messier as well, with jagged edges along the dismembered heads of the training dummies.
She felt like screaming.
Perhaps there was a hard limit to how much she could improve, and she could never scale above that limit. That she was limited by her pitiful cursed energy reserves, her body, and her brain— and this was all there was.
The katana in her hand dropped to the floor, and she slid into a sitting position with her eyes closed. If she gave in to her despair now, then everything was useless. Breathing in and exhaling in a rhythmic pattern, she cleared her mind by picturing her negative thoughts as a leaf floating away on a stream.
She pressed a hand against her cheek and took in a deep breath.
It was time to revisit reversed cursed energy.
Shoko had explained the two different methods of using reversed cursed energy: technique reversal, and reversed curse technique. The former being far more sophisticated of a process, requiring the ability to produce positive energy and then using it to channel the technique rather than the default negative energy. The latter was what Shoko recommended as a starting point.
Closing her eyes, she let her surroundings melt into a mass of silence, and the crickets chirp and the harrowing wind and the weight of the world— she let it all curl into nothingness.
She was the only thing there. Drumming her fingers against her thighs, she shivered as she felt the cursed energy from the core of her being slowly trickle into the palms of her hands.
Body, mind, soul.
To utilize positive energy, the soul must be absolutely in tune with body and mind.
Himari let the cursed energy from within her flow to the tips of her fingers, never letting it expel from her body, and then redirected it back toward her core. She needed to be fully aware of its position within her system. A lot of cursed energy manipulation was instinctive, almost like breathing. It wasn't a manual process, and the feeling of cursed energy within a body was only something that could be noticed if entirely focused on the sensation.
It was easy for her to move cursed energy within her body.
The difficulty came from combining it.
Overlapping cursed energy internally was different from combining it externally— it was strenuous, and demanded large stores of cursed energy that Himari feared she didn't have.
Her cursed energy slithered from her core to her left and right hand, and she took a moment to feel it— to truly feel the energy within her body— and then she slammed her hands together, feeling the force expel the cursed energy toward her core in an attempt to combine the two in one explosive maneuver.
It fizzled.
The cursed energy wobbled inside her and almost seemed to pass through each other: immiscible, asymptotic, sliding over one another in a frustrating display that seemed to almost mock her for even trying.
"Fuck!"
She seethed, exasperation colouring her face with scrunched brows and clenched teeth.
Slamming her fist against the floor, Himari held back a scream of frustration. The past year she had been training had been an effort to develop the precise cursed energy control needed to manage reverse cursed energy— had it been a waste?
Cursed energy collected in her palms, and she redirected the energy toward itself again. And again. And again.
She knew she wasn't a prodigy— in fact, she knew she was painfully average— and failure with no progress was something that terrified her.
Glancing around herself, the cool breeze that swept by her tickled her skin had an almost sobering effect on her. It flushed away the anger and replaced it with cold, hard, realization.
If she wasn't able to understand Shoko's teachings on a theoretical basis, then she needed to understand it with a tangible example.
The katana.
Taking the weapon into her left hand, Himari dragged her finger along the flat of the sword to the point, and she felt a knot in her throat as she stared down the blade. Lowering the katana, she pressed the sharp edge against her thigh, letting cool metal kiss her skin, and then closing her eyes.
With a single dragging motion, a sharp pain coursed through her body, radiating from her thigh to her hip. Himari let out a strained hiss.
The world was a little dizzy in that moment, and she reached up to grip her forehead in her hand to stabilize herself. Blood laced the edge of her katana, and she let the weapon drop to the floor as she stared at the wound she had created— it was shallow, but deep enough that if noticed by the remaining jujutsu high students, she would definitely be questioned.
Wincing at the pain, she leaned back against the wall of the abandoned building, and she felt the cool flood of cursed energy shuffle throughout her. Cursed energy began to pool in the area around her wound, and she redirected more cursed energy to her palms.
She counted herself down.
At the last second of her countdown, she felt the cursed energy ripple throughout her body and toward the pool of cursed energy she accumulated. A searing heat enveloped her thigh, and Himari knew, in that moment, that the cursed energy had fused into positive energy.
It was a small inkling— barely a drop— and it dissipated instantly, but the feeling of positive energy within her system felt like being submerged into a warm bath. Himari nearly jumped to her feet in excitement.
Nearly.
A hand gripping her shoulder stopped her.
Through the sleep deprivation, the wound in her thigh, and the desperation to succeed, one emotion bubbled through the surface and stole her body: absolute dread.
Because she hadn't even noticed the person until their hand was on her shoulder. As if they had no cursed energy at all.
She craned her head to face the individual staring down at her, and electricity ran down her spine.
Their second meeting.
Toji Fushiguro.
"Time we—"
A hand collapsed onto her mouth, smothering her attempt at using her cursed technique, and the other hand previously on her shoulder found its way around her waist, pulling her into a hold.
His grip was incredibly tight, and his breath hot on her ear as he whispered, "Got you."
She was suddenly six years old again. A little girl being shoved down by a school yard bully for being a bit too short for her age, and the resentment and embarrassment bubbled inside her as Fushiguro pushed her against the floor. Her right arm was now held behind her, with his knee pressing down on her lower back to keep her flat and immobile.
"Comfortable?" He snarked, and she felt his hand lift from her mouth as she spat back a reply. "Lovely. Your face is ruining the view, though."
A chuckle erupted from within his chest— it was deep, guttural.
"You're a hard person to find," He remarked, and she could distinguish a streak of playfulness in his tone.
"I try to be."
It took everything within her to steady her voice, and a shiver ran down her spine as he assessed her position and raised an eyebrow.
"Who are you? What do you know?"
Himari bared her teeth at him.
"If I tell you, you'll just kill me after. It's in my best interest to keep quiet."
His knee cut a little deeper into her back, and she winced at the pain of his weight shifting onto her. Gripping the katana previously used to slice her thigh, the man took hold of the weapon and pierced the palm of her left hand, letting the blade slide into the ground to pin her arm down.
She bit her tongue to hold in a scream, and she felt a warm gushing sensation of blood pooling beneath her hand.
"I wonder how long you can keep quiet for."
Fear laced her body as she widened her eyes, and an uneasy dread pooled at the bottom of her stomach. Was this going to be the way she dies?
Imagine traveling through time itself, living for a year and a half, honing your skills, and then dying to deadbeat alcoholic with a gambling addiction. The thought of that made her chuckle under her breath. Fushiguro didn't take too well to that.
Her left arm felt another slice.
"You told me I'd be hired to kill Amanai, and you were right. Two days after we met, an organization approached me to do just that. I accepted, of course, need money to live—"
"And gamble," She cut him off with a sneer, writhing with pain as the katana stabbed into her right hand as a response.
"And you told me I'd die."
She stared up at him.
"Either tell me exactly what that meant— or I'll kill you right here."
Her vision grew woozy with each pierce to her body, and she could hear her heartbeat pounding in her ears. Still, she smiled at him.
"No you won't. You're too scared to die to kill me before knowing what happens."
Her thigh was slashed again.
"And you're also too insecure to die now. If you died, you'd prove every person in the Zenin clan that you were always worthless, and that's something your ego could never let happen."
The katana was raised in his right hand, aimed toward her throat.
As the world spun around her, and a euphoric warmth swallowed her being, a rush of noise swallowed her senses. A weight was blown off of her in an instant, and she heard a grunt followed by a shuffling of foliage indicating a fleeing sorcerer.
And he was gone.
Himari squinted to make out the figure standing above her, barely conscious as hands slipped under her knees and behind her shoulder blades, lifting her off the floor. It was a blur of motion. The wind tussled her hair matted with blood, and the individual carrying her clutched her closer. When she looked up, she could make out piercing blue eyes staring down at her.
A beam of sunlight cradled her, and the first thing that she felt when she woke up was a soothing warmth enveloping her. The next thing she felt was sharp, stabbing pain.
"Fuck," Himari moaned, wincing as her eyes adjusted to the sterile white light of the room, and grabbing her forehead with her hand. Beads of sweat lined her brow, and she noticed that her previously blood soaked clothing had been replaced by a loose tank-top.
Tightening her fists and then releasing the tension, Himari tested each of her limbs for their mobility, noting that her wounds had almost entirely healed, aside from minor scratches and bruises. Scanning her surroundings as her vision came to, she noted she was in a similar room to hers, except the pile of clothing scattered on the floor, specifically loose black t-shirts and sweatpants.
She blinked, and a pounding headache sunk into her head as she laid back down to stare at the ceiling. Everything was rushing back to her, and she started recalling what happened.
Training, reversed cursed energy, Toji. Then there was nothingness.
As her memory slowly crept into her mind, rapid footfalls approached her room. Each step struck the floor with urgency, a stark contrast to the quiet contemplation of her resurfacing memories, and Himari held her breath as they stopped outside her door.
The door knob twisted, and a white haired boy stepped into the room.
Her eyes met Gojo's, the two staring directly at each other.
The ocean blue engulfed her.
"Hey loser," She called out in a joking manner, only to be met with a stoic fury.
The air in the room was dense, and Himari fidgeted with her fingers.
"Can you thank Shoko for healing me? I think she left some bruises and scratches because she's made I made her worry, so I'll need to talk to her. Where are the rest of them, by the way?"
He was angry at her, she could tell. His shoulders were squared, his jaw clenched, his brows furrowed. She couldn't tell if it was from her words, or from the state she was found in, but he was angry.
"Quit being a sorcerer."
She blinked, and she scanned for any sign of amusement or playfulness in his features, but he was blank.
"You're nothing special— the jujutsu world wouldn't miss you. Geto and I can handle the difficult stuff, Shoko is a genius at reversed cursed energy— if you want to die so bad, why are you even here? What are you so reckless for? Putting yourself in situations where you're near death just so you can be average?"
"I didn't put myself—"
"I know, Suzuki. I know you hurt yourself, Shoko said the wound on your thigh had to be self-inflicted. Why are you even here? Just quit being a sorcerer."
Her breath hitched.
And that was it for Himari.
She could take his teasing, his arrogance, his jokes— but she would not take his pity.
"Why am I here—" She caught her breath, "Why am I here? What the fuck else would I do? Haven't you noticed me fighting so hard? Working so hard? I guess not— not when you're so powerful, so strong, don't even have to try— meet Gojo Satoru, everyone! He's the strongest! Has it ever occurred to you that not everyone can choose what they want to do? You think I have a family to walk back to? Pick up all the pieces and kiss all my boo-boos better? I'm here because that's all I fucking have left, and I'm sorry if you can't see that."
There was some sick satisfaction watching his face drop.
Her body trembled alongside her yelling, and red hot rage morphed into a sorrow that she had been trying to push away all this time. Curling into a ball, she wrapped the blanket around herself, trying to become as small as possible.
She refused to cry.
Heat crawled through her face and her eyes began to sting, lighting her face with a bright shade of red.
"I don't give a fuck whether you think I'm average, or not worthy, or whatever. You don't know shit about me, so don't act like you do."
But she refused to cry.
"I'm sorry you feel that way, but I'm not responsible for your dysfunction. You think we don't notice you sneaking out at night? That we don't see you write down everything meticulously in your notebook? I notice— we notice, and I'm not fucking standing here watching you kill yourself slowly. So either tell me what's going on, or quit being a sorcerer."
But she refused to cry.
He wouldn't believe her if she explained it, and she reached a hand toward him, trying desperately to grasp his arm. Disappointment flooded her. Her hand, instead of grasping warm flesh, felt cold resistance: his infinity was active.
But she refused to cry.
"There are things I can't tell you, and I'm sorry," She began, watching as his eyebrows lowered and his mouth turned downward. "But I want to, I really do. I'm just not ready yet."
She hoped that this would be enough to satiate him— and his eyes softened— but infinity remained active.
"What are the things you can tell me, then?"
"Well," She pursed her lips. Himari was tired of calculating everything— tired of thinking constantly of her every move, tired of overworking, tired of her stupid notebook.
"My parents died about a year and a half ago, my mother was a retired sorcerer and my father was a fisherman."
So she told the truth.
Or some of it.
She left out the parts about time travel and binding vows, but she mentioned how she was raised in Hokkaido, and how her mother had warned her to never lose herself to sorcery. She mentioned the family restaurant, the ocean, her dreams; and she told him about Amanai. She explained how the girl brought back memories of her own mother, and the desperation to save the girl came from her inability to save her family— and a fear of losing anyone again.
"And the man? Who was that."
Himari thought for a moment, about how much she could give away, and how much she should keep hidden.
"Toji Fushiguro, he's a hired assassin with no cursed energy. Impressively strong, and likely trying to kill Amanai," She paused. "I can't tell you anymore, can you please just trust me?"
An hour passed, and by the end, his hand touched hers.
But she refused to cry.
(a/n) jujutsu scroll!
"Geto!" Himari wrapped her knuckles against his door, increasing the pace of her knocking slowly as each minute passed without a response.
"Morning tea time! Hurry up and get out here!"
She heard a groan from within the room, and she snickered quietly to herself. Bothering Geto in the morning had become a ritual the past few months, and it was awkward— but it was free food, and she knew that was most likely why he never turned her down.
"Fine, if you insist."
She listened to the sound of shuffling feet toward the door, and the door slammed open to reveal the boy shirtless.
Himari felt her face flush, and she covered her eyes with her hands.
She swore she heard his quiet laughter as her embarrassment tinged her ears with a deep shade of red, and she quickly reached for the door knob, pulling the door shut.
"We're still going!" Himari exclaimed through the closed door, huffing.