lawly

by footfungus

lawly

23. Chapter 23

"It's so early."

"I know, Mai-chan." Wakana kneels, lifting the skirt of her yukata so it won't brush the floor, and rests her hand on Mai's shoulder. "But you can sleep on the train, okay?"

"We shouldn't go to sleep, though," her sister cuts in. There's a sharpness to her voice that Wakana has always thought was unnerving, coming from a five-year-old, but then, almost everything about the Zenin twins is unnerving. Even as babies, when they'd pulled Wakana from an obscure branch of the family tree to care for them, they'd been oddly quiet, as if they'd known the family wouldn't tolerate their discomfort. They've never really grown out of that lingering oddness.

"But I'm tired," Mai protests, hugging her coat around her middle. She's always cold, but Wakana doesn't think that's why she does it now.

"Yeah, but it's not safe." Maki grips the handle of her tiny suitcase in one hand and the doorknob in another, and she probably wouldn't keep her shrill voice down even if Wakana asked. She's never known how to be quiet, nor gentle, and every time she speaks she sounds like she's trying to cut through metal – but never with Mai. That she sounds that way now, knife's-edge sharp instead of young and afraid, should frighten Wakana more than it does.

It doesn't. They're children, but they're not children who have ever had the privilege of being young, and if they're going to make it out of this place, they're going to need that.

But maybe-

"It's all right, Mai-chan," Wakana reassures her, straightening the scarf around her neck. "You'll be all right."

"If they don't catch us," Maki counters.

"Maki-chan." Wakana's voice is firmer for Maki than it is for Mai – always is. She has a mean streak, or at least she will if no one does anything about it, and she never means to hurt Mai, but it often comes out when she doesn't mean for it to. Just another way this wretched family poisons them all. "Your sister can sleep if she needs to, okay? We're going to be fine."

She's taking the twins on a "pilgrimage" to "teach them contrition," as far as anyone knows. It's the kind of excuse no one but a Zenin would ever accept, but here on this estate, nobody bats an eyelash. Either they believe her or they think she's making it up, an excuse to be rid of her charges – and absolutely no one would complain if Zenin Maki and Zenin Mai were never heard from again. It's ridiculous but it's what Wakana is best at – lying through her teeth, pretending she wants to hurt her charges as badly as everyone else does.

It'll be four days before anyone realizes that none of them are ever coming back.

"They're gonna find us," Maki protests, her voice small with trepidation. She looks back at Wakana over her shoulder, her eyes wide. "Otousan is gonna find us and…and…"

"No, he's not," Mai pipes up. "Wakana-san says he doesn't know where we're going."

"But he knows." Maki looks at her sneakers. "He always knows."

"He doesn't," Wakana agrees, standing and taking Mai's hand, reaching for Maki's. It's beyond sad how normal a scene like this is – five-year-old twins discussing the things their father might do to them if he catches them trying to protect themselves. But the suitcases are packed and all she can do now is get them to the train station. "You're safe with me, okay?"

Neither replies, but she hopes they're as convinced of that as she's forced herself to be – that nobody knows which train station the cab she hails is taking them to, or why they're leaving at two in the morning, or what's in the suitcases she'd packed last night.

Mai is the first to turn around when the car pulls out of the driveway, watching the estate recede into the darkness behind her. Maki follows a moment later, and they're silent, wide-eyed, sitting on their knees because neither is tall enough to see over the backseat of the cab otherwise.

"Wakana-san?" Maki asks after a moment.

"Mmhm?"

"When do we have to go back?"

Tomorrow, probably, Wakana can't bring herself to admit. When they realize you're gone and raise an unholy fuss about it. The moment your father starts crowing about 'property rights' and puts a bounty on my head. At whichever stage of this stupid plan falls through. When I can't find anyone who's willing to hide you.

All realistic answers, none of which she's willing to give to a little girl who's never been given a scrap of hope by anyone else.

"If we're lucky? Never," she tells her.

It's the truth, for now, and if it's not, she swears it'll be true again someday.

Kyoto Metropolitan Curse Technical College

3:27

"Wait, what?"

"Two sorcerer children," the voice on the other end of the phone repeats. "It isn't safe to bring them directly to the reception office-"

"I'm…I'm sorry, what was your name again?"

It's entirely too early for this. As it stands, Utahime is barely alert enough to remember where the binder that contains the printed-out emergency protocol sheet is supposed to be. Whatever this is is decidedly beyond her energy level, her skill level, her jurisdiction, her pay grade-

"Inasa Wakana," the woman on the other end answers. "We're out at the back entrance, and I know this probably sounds suspicious, but I was told that you would take the children, and…"

She trails off. That probably isn't good, but Utahime isn't exactly alert enough to note more than the necessary details.

"Back entrance," she says, rubbing at her eyes. "Yup. Be there in a sec."

Tokyo Metropolitan Curse Technical College

The Previous Day

3:39 P.M.

"What, you need a babysitter or something?"

"I…I thought you might be able to take care of them," the woman on the other end of the call stammers, her voice beginning to shake. "I…I know you're busy, but I know you're looking after the Fushiguro children, and…I don't know, I don't really know who else to ask-"

"Look, lady, I get it, but I can't just start collecting kids." Gojo tosses the half-naked orange he'd been in the middle of peeling when his phone rang up and down, trying to rotate it in the air so he catches it on the side that still has its peel on. "Ya know? You said it. I'm kinda in demand." He sighs heavily. "And I kinda live in a dorm."

"I know, but Gojo-sama-"

"Take 'em to the Kyoto school," he tells her without even thinking about it, because – well. It's the only thing to tell. And not just because of the time she'd stopped by with miso because he'd offhandedly told her that Tsumiki was sick, or all of the times he's wondered what it would be like if it had been she who took in the Fushiguros instead of him. "Ask for Iori Utahime."

"Is that an acquaintance of yours?" The woman's voice is tight with worry. "Are you absolutely sure that she'll be able to take them?"

"I'm sure," he replies. In truth, it's been a month since they've spoken, and there's no way he could actually know that, but he doubts he's living in a world in which Utahime would run across two children in trouble and refuse them anything. Their last six real conversations have been about his wards, after all.

No matter how much it hurts to think about her now – no matter how little he's wanted to think about anything lately – he's confident of that.

"She's my girlfriend," he tells them woman – pointlessly – even though she's not. Because there's nothing she can do to confirm that. "She'll take 'em."

"Oh. Your girlfriend." She sounds relieved. "So you'll see them sometimes."

"Yeah," he lies, although he's not really sure how much of a lie it is when he intends to butt in as much as is humanly possible if Utahime's really going to be inheriting two Zenins as soon as he thinks she is. After all, he has expertise in this area. He, for once in his pathetic life, has something to offer Iori Utahime that she might actually want.

(Because stunning good looks and unparalleled strength and accomplishments and a prestigious pedigree, or whatever, hadn't been enticing. At least, not enough to stop her from tripping headfirst over her own feet at the sight of some stupid old dude at the Kyoto school who's twenty-seven, imagine, and nice and broke.

He really can't imagine why.)

"Thank you," she says, her voice like a sigh of relief even though nothing about its tone or its volume has really changed.

"Don't thank me," he replies, not really sure why he feels the need to say it at all.

Kyoto Metropolitan Curse Technical College

3:40 A.M.

"The lady seems nice."

Maki doesn't respond, which Mai had half-expected. She used to love to talk, but she hasn't lately; Mai picks up the slack when she can. "She's pretty."

"Yeah, but she might make us go home." Maki picks at a lint pill on her grey faux-wool jacket. "What if she makes us go home?"

They fall silent, because Mai doesn't really have a good answer for that. It's probably better just to listen right now, to see if there's anything they can learn – they're expert eavesdroppers by now. Otherwise no one would ever tell them a thing.

"…away from their parents," Wakana tells the lady in red and white who'd come to meet them at the back gate. "I asked your boyfriend if he could take them, but he told me to come to you."

The woman seems surprised. "Why would Tadashi-"

"Tadashi?" Wakana asks.

"Yeah, my boyfriend. Tadashi."

"I wasn't aware that Gojo-sama's first name was Tadashi," she comments, explaining herself.

(Who cares? Maki wants to shout. Who cares who this lady's boyfriend is?

But she doesn't. There are some doctrines which the Zenins didn't fail as spectacularly at beating into her brain as they did others.)

"Gojo told you he was my boyfriend?"

"Yes, but, ah, I don't think it matters," Wakana tells her. "What's important is that he thought you would take the twins, and, well, I don't have much else to go by-"

"Oh, I will."

Mai wants to cry with relief, even though Maki would tell her that they shouldn't. She's always saying that they'll get in trouble for doing that if anyone sees them. And there's plenty of people around to see her now – Wakana-san, and Maki, and the pretty teacher who says she'll keep them away from their parents even though she doesn't know who they are.

"But I'm going to need context," she goes on. "I need to know exactly what's going on here." She looks back over her shoulder at the girls, watching her intently. "And I'm going to need to get those two inside."

Kyoto Metropolitan Curse Technical College

4:22 A.M.

"Sorry, they're…who?"

"Minor members of the Zenin clan," Wakana explains for what she swears is the fourth time. Apparently this Utahime person (who is not, as far as anyone is willing to tell her, actually Gojo Satoru's girlfriend) hadn't wanted to be the only one aware of the twins' presence, and she'd dragged a good-looking redhead who looks a couple years older than she is in for a debrief within twenty minutes of their arrival. My actual boyfriend, she'd said when she introduced him. Wakana hadn't been sure why clarifying that point had mattered but hadn't wanted to ask.

"Oh," Tadashi replies, clearly understanding nothing. "I see."

"Maki can't see curses without glasses," she tells him, gesturing to Maki, who's curled up in an armchair, fast asleep. "And Mai" – she looks down to indicate the one who'd fallen asleep in her lap – "has a really weak technique, so as far as the Clan is concerned, they're essentially worthless."

She doesn't have to elaborate on that – almost everyone knows what happens to ungifted children in sorcerer families.

"Their father tried to make them sleep outside after they broke a vase a few nights ago," she admits, brushing Mai's hair away from her face just to distract herself. Her cheeks are finally warm, at least. "That was when I realized I had to get them out."

Utahime, who's already heard all of this, bows her head. Neither of them are as shocked as they'd like to be, but it's comforting to know that, at very least, she knows how grave this matter is.

"So," she continues, shaky, "I called Gojo Satoru."

"Oh?" Tadashi, who's never thought much of him, fights to keep his tone level. "And what did he say?"

"That he can't keep two kids in a dorm."

"Fair enough, but that didn't seem to stop him from taking the Fushiguros," Tadashi counters.

"Tadashi-kun," Utahime cuts in, laying her hand on his arm. "Not the time."

"Right. Sorry." He doesn't look particularly sorry, but apparently it's enough to convince Utahime. "Anyways. I'm guessing he referred you to Utahime?"

"He did."

Tadashi turns to his girlfriend. "You realize that Gakuganji is never going to let you get away with this, right?"

"They're babies, Tadashi-kun," she protests. "Their father just tried to kill them-"

"And I agree that they need to get somewhere safe, but isn't there anyone who doesn't live on a school campus who could take them?"

"Tadashi," Utahime hisses.

"Honey, I know," he says tightly, "but it's not going to do anyone any good if Gakuganji turns them in tomorrow."

"Which is why I'm telling you this." Utahime crosses her arms – she's never liked it when he 'honey's her. She knows he doesn't mean anything by it but she hates the way it makes her feel like a child. "You're the one with an off-campus apartment."

"I-"

"We tell Gakuganji we're moving in together and keep the kids at the apartment. No one suspects anything. Perfect, right?" Utahime gives him a look that tells him he's not really being given the option to refuse.

Kyoto Metropolitan Curse Technical College

4:48 A.M.

"Don't you think we should get them off-campus tonight?"

"Nah, too risky. I told Gakuganji I'd be here overnight." Tadashi turns his spare key in Utahime's lock effortlessly. "The security cameras would pick it up if I left."

Utahime sighs, but she can't really protest. Gakuganji's campus hadn't been the one with a student defector, but he's nothing if not ceaselessly paranoid, and if there's a single precaution he can take against a student turning like Geto Suguru had, he's going to take it. There are cameras where there used to be none, and it practically takes an act of God for a teacher or a student to get permission to live off-campus; teachers are expected to report their whereabouts. It's not the place for two children who can't afford to have anyone learn that they're here, but it's not as if Tadashi can get past security without raising questions, either. They'll cut their losses. "My room, then? After my shift ends?"

He shoots her a tired smile over his shoulder. "One in yours, one in mine."

It's at moments like this that she remembers why she loves Fukunaga Tadashi, and even though she shouldn't, she smiles back.

"I get this one," she tells him, patting the back of the black-haired twin's downy purple coat. Mai, Wakana had called her. She's shy where her sister is fearful, and the thought of a mother looking into those wide blue eyes with nothing but contempt seems unthinkable.

"All right." She hands Mai off and Tadashi leans in to kiss Utahime's forehead. "Call me if anything happens, 'kay?"

"You, too."

Kyoto Station

5:13 A.M.

"Why are you calling me at five in the morning?"

"She took them," Wakana says, limp with relief. "Your girlfriend who isn't your girlfriend. And her boyfriend."

"Oh." Of course she had. He isn't heartless; he wouldn't have referred her if he hadn't thought she would. "That's…that's good."

"Thank you," she says. "Really. Thank you, Gojo-sama."

"It's…it's fine."

Kyoto Station

5:24 A.M.

"Wakana-chan?"

Wakana flinches at a voice behind her. Not many people call her that, and she knows this one all too well.

"Zenin-san," she says, turning and pretending to be happy to see a relative so distant she barely knows if they count as relatives. He's a cousin, or something – whatever being the youngest of the sons Naobito won't acknowledge makes her – and he's just about the worst person Wakana could've run into here. Even though he's always been surprisingly decent for a Zenin, he's closely tied to Naobito, and a direct tip to the clan head would be the fastest way for Maki and Mai to be found. "Good…good morning."

"So jumpy," he comments, elbowing her arm. This one has always been too familiar for her taste. "Aren't you supposed to be with the twins?"

"They're in the bathroom," she lies, surprising herself with her own self-assurance. She usually chokes on lies like meat gristle – it's not pretty. "Maki insisted they go on their own. You know how she is."

"Ah. Surprised you didn't know better than to let them do anything by themselves," he comments. "You know, those two would run away if you gave them a chance."

Huh. I sure do wonder why.

"I'm sure they'll be back any minute," she says, smiling politely. He's already noticed her nerves and it won't do to let him take note of them twice. "What are you doing here?"

"Early mission." He grimaces. "Otosan is mad at me, I guess. Gave me this stupid assignment in Iwate and I have to leave early to meet a contact there."

"Ah. That's no fun." Wakana has made a career out of flattering Zenin men who don't know any better and it's the thing she does best by now. "Which train?"

"Supposed to be here at 5:27," he tells her. "So, like, three minutes. You?"

"Oh, uh, 5:36, I think," she lies. "To Nikko."

"Nikko?" He raises his eyebrows. "What're you going on a pilgrimage to in Nikko?"

"This temple that my parents used to take us to when I was growing up." Another lie, one she doubts will hold up under scrutiny – she probably should've thought more about the fact that she doesn't know anything about taking pilgrimages.

"I see."

"Well," she says, trying to laugh, "I'm going to head to the bathroom to make sure the girls didn't try to escape or anything."

"Yup. Good call."

She clutches her bag to her chest and bolts before she can poke any more holes in her own story.

5:49 A.M.

"Um, let's just say that I'm pretty sure the whole pilgrimage thing was a lie."

Naobito shakes his head on the other end of the line. "Wakana is a perfectly trustworthy employee."

"The twins were gone when I got there, and I looked up Nikko and there's nowhere she'd be pilgrimage…ing…to-"

"There's got to be something there," Naobito protests. He should probably not be surprised to find Wakana under suspicion, but she's always taken such a strict stance with the twins that he can't imagine her helping them escape.

Helping. Ha. As if they have anything to gain by being out in the world, unprotected and alone.

"Just…look into it, okay?"

"Fine," Noabito huffs. "But you're wasting our time."

Kyoto Metropolitan Curse Technical College

9:08 A.M.

"Are you going to explain yourself, idiot?"

"Yeah. You're the kinda sap who can't resist helping poor, defenseless little kids." Utahime can hear Gojo's smirk through the phone. "And was I wrong?"

"I'm talking about the fact that you told that lady I was your girlfriend, Gojo."

"Oh, that."

"Idiot," she scoffs.

"Be careful, okay? Those kids have a whole lot more enemies than you do."

"I know that, Gojo. I'm not stupid." She lets out a heavy sigh, for good measure. "Unlike some people-"

"Love you," he cut in. "Don't die."

"You do not."

He hung up before he'd have to dignify that with an answer.

Kyoto Metropolitan Curse Technical College

10:35 A.M.

"And you think your daughters went missing why?"

"It's a long story, but, you know, worth following up on." The woman's voice doesn't betray a single ounce of worry for her daughters or their so-called 'disappearance.' "And if they were going to be anywhere, it's probably most likely they'd be on your campus, so if you could just do a little bit of a check around the premises-"

"Mmhm," Gakuganji interrupts, already tired of this woman after three minutes of conversation and not least because he doubts she cares if her children live or die. He doesn't care what she thinks or doesn't think of her kids, but what he can't stand is the kind of posturing her people are so famous for. A Zenin, he's always said, would do anything to make herself feel like she's doing something right. "We'll let you know when we get the chance."

He doesn't bother to wait for her reply to hang up, or for a convenient time to dial another number. Class might be in session, yes, but he's almost certain she'll pick up.

"Utahime," he asks, as soon as she did, "would you mind telling me why I'm getting missing persons reports at the office?"

Utahime barely misses a beat – she's too used to dealing with her boss for that. "No, Gakuganji-san," she answers, ever-polite. "Is there a curse in the area that we might need to look into?"

"Don't play dumb, Utahime. I'm talking about the Zenins calling me every three minutes to ask if I've seen two of their missing children."

"Missing children?" Utahime feigns concern. "That's not-"

"Might you have happened to have abducted two Zenins recently?"

"Abducted? Gakuganji-san, really, I-"

"Might Gojo Satoru have recently abducted two Zenins and handed them off to you?"

Both, really, are nearly true, but just far-off enough that Utahime feels she has plausible deniability. "No, of course not."

"Hm. Are you absolutely sure you don't know anything?"

"Positive, Gakuganji-san. If I learn anything, I'll let you know."

"Well, all right," he sighs, even though he's still not really convinced. Utahime is the type to hide nearly everything behind a veil of entirely false politeness and he's not particularly gifted at seeing through it. "But if you're lying-"

"I know."

I know, she finished silently, that you aren't going to find out.

Chapter 2: Saving Face

Summary:

The Zenins go on the offensive, as the Zenins are apt to do.

Notes:

It's been forever since I touched this thing...heh. Sorry 'bout that.

Chapter Text

Zenin Estate

"Why do we even want them back, anyway?"

"Because they belong to us." Naobito shoots his son a disdainful look over his shoulder, not bothering to turn and face him. "And we're going to lose face if we don't make it clear that nothing good comes to people who take our things."

"They're useless," Naoya argues. He'd been perfectly content to stay in bed until his idiot half-brother had called from the station to report his suspicion that the twins' nanny – Manaka or Wakase whatever the hell her name was – was trying to help them escape. Which is perfectly idiotic. Why anyone should care if those useless brats strand themselves in the mountains and freeze is beyond him. Why he should be dragged out of bed to address the problem of how to get them back is even more so.

"No one is completely useless, Naoya. Someone has to scrub the floors." Naobito waves a dismissive hand at nothing. "And this has nothing to do with the twins. For the children of such a high-ranking member of our clan to be taken out of the fold-"

"There's no point. Even if we do get them back, what are we going to do with them?"

"Whatever we have to, but that's not the point, Naoya. Property is property." He finally turns, his eyes narrowed and his jaw set. "Theft is theft."

Naoya crosses his arms. "And what am I supposed to do about that?"

Naobito copies him. "We think that the Kyoto school is hiding them."

"Why?"

"Because they were found in Kyoto-"

"We're in Kyoto," Naoya points out.

"At the station closest to the school, before school hours when no one would be around-"

"You don't even know that Kyoto was their final destination!"

"No, but we cannot discount the possibility that they're at the school-"

"If you were trying to hide a kid, you'd take it to Gojo Satoru," Naoya cut in. "Or, I dunno, the Kamo estate. Somewhere defensible. What's defensible about the Kyoto school?" he sniffs. "What've they got, a couple of grade ones who might as well be dead already? That Iori chick?"

Naobito sighs heavily. "Might that be why you're refusing to cooperate?"

Naoya's nostrils flare. It's not, but if he could slap that stupid woman's stupid, perfect face and then never see it again, he thinks he'd die a happy man.

"You're being a child, Naoya."

"I hate that place," he spits.

"Because one of its employees rejected your marriage proposal? Really, Naoya?"

"She had no right-"

"You have no right to cast off your responsibility to your clan for the sake of a personal grudge," Naobito cuts him off.

"But father-"

"We're going, Naoya."

"But father-"

Naobito smiles tightly. "If you hate that place so much, won't you enjoy tearing it apart when they refuse to relinquish our charges?"

Kyoto Metropolitan Curse Technical College

"Are you guys warm enough in here?"

The smaller twin – the black-haired one with the rounder, sweeter face – looks up at Utahime and nods. Her sister, the proud wearer of a perpetual frown, just scowls.

"I'm sorry about this," she tells them, kneeling to their height to lay a blanket on the floor of what she's fairly certain used to be an equipment shed. She'd have loved to give the girls a space heater, but in a dilapidated wooden building, it would be more of a danger than a help, so it'll have to be two ratty old futons and stacks of blankets to bundle up in.

It's not the kind of place that children should be sleeping, but her room isn't an option anymore now that Gakuganji has an inkling of what's going on, and these two have no other choice. She thinks she's covered all of the bases – water bottles tucked into the sleeves of her hakama, a couple of leftover onigiri from the communal refrigerator, as many blankets as she can sneak away with – but she can't help but feel that it's all not nearly enough, and even if it were, it can't be permanent. Come sunset tonight, these girls are going to need somewhere to go, and if it can't be Tadashi's apartment, she doesn't know where that's going to be.

"It's okay," the smaller twin says politely.

"It's cold," says the other. Utahime really ought to start trying to remember which is which. It's not like it should be difficult when they look nothing alike, but she's had other things on her mind.

"I know," she tells her. "I'm sorry."

"Everyone at the Estate always told us we couldn't have the heater," the girl goes on, apparently undeterred by her apology. "Are you gonna tell us that we can't have the heater?"

"Not tomorrow," she tells her, smiling as sincerely as she can force herself to. "Tomorrow we're going to get you somewhere much better than this."

"You sure about that?"

Utahime can't help but wonder what people have said to this girl to have rendered her suck a skeptic at the tender age of five. "Promise."

"Missing persons?"

"I know you heard me the first time, Fukunaga."

Tadashi rocks back on his heels to distract from the telling bob of his adam's apple as he swallows. "I dunno anything about missing persons."

"Nothing?" Gakuganji raises any eyebrow. "You're positive that you have nothing to tell me about suspicious people being allowed on the campus?"

"Dunno how two five-year-olds are suspicious," he says casually, then adds, "and I don't. No one's entered or left, as far as I know."

He's stalling, and Gakuganji probably knows it, but this is all he can do – keep his boss occupied until Utahime has had time to get the twins stowed away somewhere they're not likely to be found.

"I never told you how many people were reported missing," Gakuganji told him. "Or how old they were."

Tadashi, were he at all surprised to learn that he'd made a mess of things in five seconds without even knowing it, would curse under his breath at that, but honestly, he's not. He's always been good at improvising. "I saw an alert go out," he lies. "My, uh…my phone" – he digs it out of his pocket – "has missing person alerts enabled. And I saw this alert about two five-year-olds going missing in this area, so I figured-"

"Five-year-old Zenins, Fukunaga. Zenins being the operative word."

He whistles low, feigning surprise. "Zenins, huh? That's gonna be a bloodbath."

"They suspect that a servant girl helped twin girls run away," Gakuganji tells him. "And they're convinced that someone is hiding them on our campus."

"Nah, no one here is dumb enough to do that," Tadashi says lightly.

"Fukunaga-san," Gakuganji sighs, "you're really not a convincing liar."

"Of course not," he agrees. "I'm telling you the truth."

"I asked Iori-san about this and got the same answers you're giving me." Gakuganji drums his fingers against the tabletop. "But she, at very least, didn't seem to know anything."

"Well, yeah. Utahime would never hide missing kids."

"She might if they were Zenins," Gakuganji challenges. "What with all of the rumors going around about the way they treat their children."

"Yeah, but those are just rumors. Utahime knows that." He tries to school his expression, look serious. "I get where you're coming from, but she's careful. I doubt she would do something like that, knowing what the Zenins would probably do to get their kids back if they found 'em here."

"Therein lies the problem." Gakuganji shoots him a look he's supposed to know not to question. "Zenin Naobito has been calling."

Tadashi winces. He doesn't know how the Zenins could already be onto them with such certainty, but if they are, none of them have much time to plan. "That seems a little overkill."

"I'm not saying it isn't, but if you have the twins, I need you to turn them over." Gakuganji crosses his arms. "Or convince Utahime to turn them over."

"Utahime doesn't-"

"We have people searching your room right now. Both of your rooms, actually."

"Okay," he says, unfazed. "You're not going to find anything."

"Well, for your own sake, I should hope not, but for our sakes, I should hope they do." Gakuganji lets out a trembly sigh that gives away more than he thinks it does. "If we don't report something they want to hear within half an hour, Naobito said he's sending in his people to search us himself."

It's not wise to be seen running like mad towards a shed on the outskirts of campus where no one has any reason to go when the whole place is on alert, but Utahime doesn't have the luxury of thinking about strategy right now. As it stands, she's still in the leggings and sweatshirt she'd thrown on before she took the girls out to the shed so that her trademark miko uniform wouldn't give her away, her phone still open in her hand after Tadashi hung up on the other end. The overpriced white tennis shoes she's kept pristine for over a year now are already coated in dust, though, honestly, she's never cared for them – she wears them for comfort and for Tadashi's benefit after he'd given them to her as a birthday present she'd never have chosen for herself. It's better that they're dusty now, anyway. The dullness of their dirt-smeared mesh will be harder to spot than their former bright white.

The Zenins, Utahime knows, are going to be thorough. Whoever they send in to intercept the twins won't leave without checking the shed where she's hidden them, and there can't be more than fifteen minutes before they're here. She'd only had five to shove cash and essentials into a bag, and she's got less than fifteen now to find the twins and call a car and bundle two kindergartners and all of their worldly possessions into the trunk and pray the Zenins don't notice it leaving. Nowhere in that timeline is there time for her to worry about whether or not she's seen.

She can only hope that she'll be gone by the time it matters.

"There better be a damn good reason I'm not in bed right now."

Gakuganji's jaw clenches. The Zenins have always been a tiresome bunch. "I doubt that it will be," he says, "given that we've already searched the grounds and there's no trace of your twins anywhere."

"Like I believe that," Naoya scoffs, even though he does.

"Well, you're certainly free to check."

"Yeah. Think I will."

"I would recommend you talk to Fukunaga Tadashi," Gakuganji tells him. "The second-year teacher. He seems as if he knows more than he should."

Part of him winces at the ease with which he dooms his employee – because no part of Zenin Naoya has ever been merciful – but if the Zenins aren't going to leave without seeing someone punished, it's not going to be any of the half-dozen students and employees he's interviewed who clearly know nothing. He never did buy that missing person alerts story, and Tadashi is quite simply the only person who's given him any grounds to believe that he might know what's happening.

"Where is he?" Naoya asks.

"Likely in his room. Go ahead and see if he knows anything."

At least, Gakuganji figures, it's out of his hands now.

"Already?"

"I know, Mai-chan," Utahime apologizes, kneeling to do up the buttons of Mai's duffel coat because her little hands are too shaky to button it themselves. At least she knows what to call them now. "But I promise we're going to get you somewhere safe-"

"They're gonna come here," Maki says drily, not even questioning. "I told you."

"They're not going to find us," Utahime reassures her. "I'm calling us a car, and we're going to get out, okay?"

Maki narrows her eyes. "Wakana said we didn't have to go back."

"We don't, Maki-chan," she says hurriedly. "But I need you to help me make sure we can get out of here, okay?"

Maki lifts her bag and nods. If there's anything life has taught her, it's how to know when it's time to argue and when it's time to pick up and run.

"I don't know anything," Tadashi pants, backed against his dresser. What remains of his bedding lies clumped on the floor wherever it had fallen; clothes are strewn across the room where they'd been ripped out of the closet, and not a single piece of furniture in his dormitory is in its rightful place anymore. He shudders to think of what they're probably doing in Utahime's room, hopes she's not there to see it. "I swear, I don't know where the twins-"

"We never told you they were twins, Fukunaga," Naobito says coolly.

"Gakuganji-"

"Hm. What an obvious lie." Naobito gestures to a henchman and he takes Tadashi's arm, yanking him roughly towards the door, and he stumbles as another man joins the first to drag him into the hallway. He doesn't fight – there would be no use, and he'd only look guiltier for it. But his head snaps around as if he expects Utahime to come running any minute, to need to be warned. He'd unequivocally told her that the twins had to be her priority, but he doubts she'll abide by that if she finds out that he's in danger. And if she shows up now-

"You may not be hiding the twins yourself, but someone is," Naobito accuses. "Someone you know."

"No," he rasps, tight-throated. "I swear, all I know is what Gakuganji told me."

She'd told the car to meet her half a mile from the school's back exit. It's risky to give herself more room to be caught without cover while carrying two children who aren't fast enough to keep up with her if she lets them run themselves, but it's less risky than asking a car to meet her outside of the school's curtain. Tricky business, calling a cab to a place that's not even supposed to exist. Trickier still with kids along, but she doesn't have a choice.

By the time she stumbles into the backseat of a taxi with twins and luggage in tow, she's breathing so heavily she can barely talk, but she knows that the taxi driver is waiting for her to give him a destination. She hasn't had time to think of one, exactly, but it has to be far and it's going to drain every yen she has on her right now no matter what she chooses.

Not Tokyo, even though an act of aggression against one of the jujutsu schools is tantamount to an act of war and her school's sister campus would probably shelter her if she asked them to. She doesn't have enough money for a taxi to her family's estate in Hakodate, and she's wary of the train – besides, it's the first place they would think to look for her. The Ioris have always been a vassal clan to the Kamos, protecting Utahime's smaller clan in exchange for tribute when need be, but they would never shelter two Zenins.

Her best shot is probably an airport or a train station far enough from the school that the Zenins wouldn't think to look for her there – a big airport that isn't Kyoto's, say, or a small-town train station. Money can't be an object if it's even remotely possible that she'll have enough-

"Kobe," she tells the driver. "Take me to the first train station we find in Kobe."

Tokyo Metropolitan Curse Technical College

"No way."

Gojo looks up abruptly from the worksheet their English teacher had left them to their own devices to complete at the disbelief in Shoko's voice. It takes a lot to visibly rattle her, and it's startling to see her startled. "Eh?"

"The alert system just messaged me," she says like the wind's been knocked out of her lungs. "I'm getting called in."

That in and of itself is nothing strange. He waits for her to tell him what is.

"To Kyoto," she murmurs. "The Zenins attacked the Kyoto campus."

Kyoto Metropolitan Curse Technical College

Nothing looks amiss at Kyoto until Gojo throws open an unattended door and pokes his head around the doorway to find the reception room in total disarray. Chairs are overturned, a potted plant has been knocked over as if someone was going to be able to hide behind it, and the hallways aren't much better. Everything bigger than a loaf of bread is overturned, kicked out of place, or even just destroyed, and there's an eerie quiet hanging over the place that belies the unsettled flow of left-behind cursed energy.

Attacking a campus, even if there are no casualties, is all but an act of war. Gojo couldn't care less. They're Zenins and they'll get away with it unless he kills them all, because no one else is going to bother to stand against them when they themselves have so much to lose. This isn't new. Nothing good ever comes of the clans deciding it's time to move. He runs through the halls as if he has somewhere to be when he doesn't, but he doesn't care.

He runs as if he has somewhere to be, throwing open every door he passes, because he cares that Iori Utahime is somewhere on this campus, and he has no idea if she's all right.

His foot strikes something soft and he realizes that Shoko was probably called here because this – Utahime's boyfriend, he's pretty sure, bloodied and crumpled on the floor – is the inevitable result of the Zenins' wrath. His eyes blow wide even though it's hardly the first time he's sensed the stagnant cursed energy of a corpse. He gives himself a second to gulp down his mounting fear, another to wonder what he'd done to prompt the Zenins to decide they'd be better off offing him.

Not good, he concludes, swallowing hard, and stepping over the corpse to keep running. Very not good.

"How many unaccounted for?" Shoko's used to rattling off these questions by now, but rarely under circumstances as pressingly personal as these. "Do we know if there are any casualties? Where-"

"One dead, three injured, two missing," Gakuganji interrupts. "Don't bother with the missing. They're probably dead."

"What?" Shoko's never been given an order like that before. "Are the injured in critical condition?"

"No, but they're probably-"

"Who's missing?" Shoko presses, because there's only one person here she cares about and she doesn't care who knows it.

"A janitor and Iori Utahime, but that's not-"

Shoko would curse under her breath if she didn't think Gakuganji in this mood would slap her for it. "Is she gone gone? Do you know an-"

"I gave you your instructions, Ieiri. Take care of the wounded."

"She's missing," Shoko pants into the phone as soon as she's out of earshot. "Not here."

"Which probably means-"

"They're chasing-"

"Call her," Shoko orders him, in no position to do any such thing, knowing he'll take it anyway.

"Right." Gojo sounds like he might faint with relief and Shoko wonders if he still would if she told him what Gakuganji had said about the likelihood of her having died.

Utahime doesn't think she's ever picked up a call from Gojo on the first ring before, but if ever there were a reason for his caller ID to flood her with relief and not annoyance, this would be it.

"Gojo," she says into the phone like a sigh of relief. "Did you hear?"

"You're alive," he croaks, and she raises her eyebrows because it really sounds like he'd thought she wasn't.

"I'm fine, yeah. Why?"

"The campus," he pants. "Shoko and I…t-two people missing, one d-dead, and I thought…I thought-"

"One dead?" Utahime's heart plummets like a sinking stone. "Did you hear who?"

"The Zenins are going to follow you," he says, ignoring her. "You gotta get somewhere-"

"Kobe," she tells him, because for all that he drives her out of her mind, in matters of her safety, she trusts him completely. "We're in a taxi on the way to Kobe. They picked us up far from the school, so we weren't followed, and who-"

"I'll meet you at the station."

"Wait, no-"

"I can get you to my clan's estate," he tells her. "We have good security-"

"Gojo, no, we don't-"

"It's just about the only place the Zenins can't-"

"Gojo-"

"They know, Hime." His voice is starting to shake and she barely has the presence of mind to mind the nickname. "They have to know, and if they were willing to attack the school, they're…they're after you, and I can't…I can't…" he trails off, then comes back with a much stronger "just let me help you!"

Rather aggressive. Maybe she should be touched that he was so upset when he'd thought she'd died. Maybe she would be if not for the far more pressing threat of Tadashi having died.

"GPS says fifteen minutes," she says flatly. "We'll talk."

She hangs up before he has a chance to press her any further, because it's obvious she won't be getting anything more out of him, but she almost regrets it once she realizes that without his voice in her ear, she has nothing to distract her from her racing pulse.

A tug at her sleeve does the trick.

"Iori-san," Mai asks, "who was that?"

"Help," Utahime responds without thinking. "Hopefully."

Chapter 3: Crisis and Croquettes

Summary:

Gojo takes Utahime and the twins into hiding. Utahime meets an unexpected ally. Maki gets some croquettes.

Notes:

I have COVID, so here, have the first update of this thing in over a month. Sorry. *laughs but sweats* I got really caught up in the euphoria of Anything You Ask of Me doing well and didn't want to update anything else bc the kudos gremlin in my brain said No. Whoops.

You'll probably be seeing a lot more of me on here than you should until I test negative. Whoops.

Chapter Text

Once, Gojo knew the ways to go unseen on this estate like the back of his hand. He knew every crawl space he could squeeze himself into, every cellar, every unused room, every trap door, even the boarded-up tunnel beneath the servants' quarters – there are no shortage of places here for sneaking around. It's been years since he's had to use that knowledge, but it's useful again, and he's grateful for that. He can't exactly be seen warping through the main gate with Utahime and the two missing Zenins and parade them across the grounds like honored guests.

"This should be safe," he tells them, swinging open a rusty-hinged wooden door. The room behind it is cobwebby-ancient, dusty enough that Maki sneezes – but Utahime looks relieved at the sight. Gojo knew she would be. If a room has managed to collect this much dust on an estate that's bustling everywhere else, it must be all but forgotten. "Nobody ever comes back here."

"I can tell," Utahime says tensely, brushing her fingers along the front of a futon cabinet that looks like it hasn't been opened in years. They leave a trail behind in the dust, and when she brings her fingers up to the dim light filtering weakly through a set of slatted blinds, they're covered in grime. There's no questioning how often this place sees visitors. "What are we supposed to do, stay here until you come and get us?"

"There's a bathroom at the end of this wing. Also abandoned." He tries to smile rakishly but can only grimace. "Apparently we had to downsize a while ago. No one's used these extra rooms since."

Downsize their staff, she assumes he means. The Gojos have always been a tiny clan, and the immense power of their innate techniques does little for their financial fortunes unless they've got someone like their current heir apparent to rake in a special grade's salary. It's not hard to believe that servants' quarters built in better days would be abandoned now.

"So we stay here until you come and get us," Utahime concludes, pursing her lips.

"Well-"

"How are we supposed to eat, Gojo?"

"Oh. I, uh…I'll send someone."

"Send someone to what, Gojo?"

"Why do you always say my name like that?"

Gojo winces at his own words, but the part of his brain that begs for normalcy insists. She can't know how bad a shock she's given him. If he has to tease her, then he will.

"Like what?"

"Never mind," he huffs. "I meant I'll send someone to feed you."

"To feed me," Utahime repeats, unimpressed.

"I mean…bring you food." He pauses, turns to the door – "um, anyway, I'll…"

"Gojo, I know you're hiding something."

He turns back. "What?"

"You're acting weird." Utahime folds his arms across her middle. "Cagey. What's going on?"

"Well, don't mind me," he huffs, "being a little preoccupied with trying to figure out how to keep three wanted fugitives in my house without getting caught-"

"This shouldn't be hard, Gojo. Do you have any idea how easily you could get rid of anyone who caught on?"

"Yeah, but then the Zenins would put the pieces together and attack my clan, and who wants that?" he shrugs, offering her a sheepish smile that isn't even slightly genuine. "Dunno if you've picked up on this, but we're kinda barely hanging on."

At the word "Zenins," Mai shuffles behind Utahime, hiding her face behind her leg. Maki doesn't move, but Gojo, who she doesn't realize is watching her, notices a flicker of nervousness cross her face. Poor kid, he can't help but think. He's not exactly what he'd describe as softhearted, but he knows well enough how much she must've seen in five short years to have learned to be so stoic. It's as unnatural as anything about him, and if he's not ready to admit to seeing himself in a kindergartner, the twinge in his gut does it for him.

"Besides, how am I supposed to keep these two away from Naobito and his people if anyone finds out they're here?" he squats in front of Maki and ruffles her hair, which – apparently – offends her to her core. "We can't have that, can we?"

"Don't touch me," Maki says flatly.

"Anyways." He looks up at Utahime, still kneeling. "You seeing the issue here?"

"Bring me something to dust with," she replies.

"You should really be thanking me, you know." He shucks off his uniform jacket and tosses it to her – it lands at her feet. Rude, he thinks. "If not for me, you'd be running for your life. And you can dust with that."

"Thanks," she deadpans. The jacket lies at her feet, ignored. "Now can you please explain to me how you plan on not having us all starve back here?"

"Yeah, I said. I'll have someone bring you food."

"You'd better."

"Do you think I want you to starve?"

"What I think is that you might wind up getting called away on a mission and forgetting to remind someone to bring us our food," Utahime argues. "Which I shouldn't have to tell you would be-"

"Bad, yes, I know. I won't, I promise."

"Otousan doesn't feed us when we're bad," Maki says, examining him with an expression of distaste. "How do I know you're actually gonna do it?"

"Well, that's horrifying," Gojo comments.

"I'm hungry," Maki informs him. "You better."

"Where did you get the idea that-"

"I want croquettes," Maki interrupts him.

"Geez. Ever heard of 'beggars can't be choosers'?" Gojo shakes his head. "I promise, kid, I'm not going to let you starve."

"But I want croquettes," she repeats.

Mai peeks out from behind Utahime's leg. "I like croquettes," she pipes up, her voice so small that Gojo barely hears it.

This place really is filthy. As it stands, Maki sneezes practically every time she moves – Utahime makes a note to ask for allergy medicine next time someone comes for them – with all the dust she displaces with each step. She tries unrolling the futon in the cabinet, only to kick up a cloud of dust that leaves all three of them coughing. Maki still complains of hunger after an onigiri from the supply Utahime had the foresight to shove into her bag back at school, and Mai is so quiet that she almost wishes she would do the same. At least that way she would know that she was all right.

If there's any chance that any of them are.

"I'm still hungry," Maki sighs, flopping back against the futon and coughing on impact in spite of their best efforts to beat the dust out of the mattress.

"You can have another onigiri if you really need it," Utahime concedes, finally, because she's been holding off for an hour now and she probably does. "But I'm trying to save them-"

"I asked for croquettes," Maki says forlornly.

Mai's head pops up from the dusty basket of magazines she'd found in a corner and begun to examine. "Are we getting croquettes?"

Doubtful, honestly, but somehow Utahime doesn't have the heart to tell her that. "Do you like them?"

Maki nods, but clarifies, "Mai-chan likes them more."

"Oh." It's a surprisingly sweet gesture from such a hostile child, requesting her sister's favorite food instead of her own. "What kind?"

"Ham," Maki says. "But Wakana-san likes the potato kind."

The nanny who'd helped them run away, Utahime recalls. "Did Wakana-san take you to get croquettes a lot?"

"No," Mai pipes up from the corner. "Just when our tou-chan went on trips."

"We can't have meat," Maki explains. "So we had'ta not tell anyone we had them."

"Oh, you're vegetarians?"

Mai wrinkles her nose. "What's vegetarian?"

"Not eating any meat."

"Oh." Mai nods. "Yeah, that."

"Naoya-san got meat." Maki flops back down on the futon and crosses her arms. "It's not fair."

"But Wakana-san gave us croquettes when no one was looking." Mai smiles, as if that one little shard of happiness is more than enough, and it pains Utahime to think that she probably thinks it is.

"I think the old man boy should give us croquettes," Maki concludes.

"Old…man boy?"

"His hair looks like he's old." Mai, apparently, knows exactly what Maki is talking about. "Even though he isn't."

"Mmhm," Maki agrees.

"Old man boy," Utahime mutters under her breath, and she can't not grin. She can't not pull out her phone and shoot off an ill-advised text message – the girls are calling you 'old man boy' now. It's too rare of an opportunity to pass up.

"He'll send someone to help us get food soon," she reassures them both, still half-smiling. "Promise."

The girls are fast asleep by the time a knock sounds at the door, curled up around each other beneath Gojo's uniform jacket, and later, Utahime will realize that she can't afford to be so quick to open it anymore. But she does.

"Someone insisted that I go for croquettes," says a voice that Utahime doesn't recognize as a woman in a nondescript yukata ducks beneath the low doorframe. There's something familiar in the voice's teasing lilt, but Utahime can't pin it down, and relief washes over her at the smell of fried batter. The woman fishes an oil-stained paper bag and a plastic Family Mart one from an equally-nondescript satchel, passing both to Utahime. "I hope this is enough."

"I'm assuming that someone was Go" – she stops herself. Everyone here is a Gojo. "Satoru," she corrects herself.

"You're not used to calling him that, are you." The woman meets Utahime's eyes and she shouldn't be as surprised as she is to find that they're the same eerie blue as Gojo's. "I can't say I'm surprised."

"I'm not," she admits. "Who exactly are you?"

"I'd imagine you keep him at a distance," she goes on, ignoring Utahime's question as she peeks into the croquette bag. Eight, flavors unknown – the twins will be thrilled. "He tends to be a little…overbearing when he latches onto someone."

"Thanks," Utahime says, holding up the croquette bag. Questioning is probably futile if the woman is this determined to monologue. "The girls were asking for these."

"I know." She crouches next to the futon, shifts Gojo's jacket back over Maki where she's kicked it off. "Poor things."

"Again, can I ask-"

"You must be Utahime," she interrupts. "From the Kyoto campus? My son has told me more about you than I suspect anybody would ever need to know."

Her son?

"I'm…sorry, you're-"

"Satoru's mother, yes. Apparently the only person he'd trust with your location." Her eyes sparkle, and she inclines her head at the neck, briefly, in greeting. "Call me Arisa."

Utahime smiles at that in spite of herself – so Gojo's mother isn't fond of honorifics or family names either. A woman of taste.

"I guess I never realized that Gojo had a mother," Utahime comments before she can think better of it, bending down to poke the twins awake before their croquettes get cold. "He doesn't really act like it."

"Sadly," Arisa agrees. "He's…unruly."

"He goes around telling people he's my boyfriend."

She rolls her eyes. "Ask me if I'm surprised."

"I have a boyfriend." Utahime doesn't want to think about Tadashi, who hasn't been answering his calls and probably won't be able to until the mess at Kyoto blows over, but she feels like something will happen if she doesn't remind herself. "Who isn't him."

A shadow crosses Arisa's face. She hands over the Family Mart bag without a word, a change so sudden and odd that Utahime can't miss it. A beat of silence follows in which Utahime waits for Arisa, who waits for her – neither wants to be the first to blink, but it's Arisa who has to. "He hasn't told you?"

"What do you mean, he hasn't-"

"I smell food."

A sleepy Maki's voice spares Arisa the end of that sentence as she blinks awake, eyes widening. She'd probably know the smell of croquettes anywhere. She also probably hadn't thought in a million years that her lunch request would be honored.

"I heard you like croquettes," Arisa tells her, crouching to her level. Like mother, like son, Utahime observes, still distracted by whatever Arisa had been about to say.

"Whoa," Maki says, a little dumbstruck. "You actually got them?"

"Oh," Arisa murmurs, laughing as she ruffles Maki's hair – this time, she doesn't protest. "You're adorable."

Maki blinks up at her as if she's never been complimented in her life. Arisa, whose hair is auburn streaked silver with age, doesn't look much like her son aside from the striking color of their eyes, but it isn't hard to imagine an older Gojo in her position, mellowed and softened a few decades down the line. Utahime doesn't want to dwell on that thought for too long.

"Thanks," Maki says. "For the croquettes."

"You're very welcome, miss…"

"Maki," she tells her, then points to her sister, still asleep. "That's Mai-chan."

"Well," Arisa tells her, brushing the dust off her skirt as she stands, "it's very nice to meet you, Maki-chan."

Maki, who's already reached into the bag of croquettes and taken a bite out of one to claim it, doesn't answer.

"I see you didn't actually dust in here."

"It was dust or blanket." Utahime gestures to the twins, still curled up in the middle of the mattress beneath Gojo's jacket. This isn't like their fitful sleep earlier – they're both out cold, Mai's arms wrapped around Maki, Maki's chin cradled against Mai's shoulder. She wonders with a twinge of guilt if anyone would've afforded them the comfort of sleeping like this back on the Zenin estate. "Clearly, blanket won."

Gojo curses under his breath. "I didn't even think about blankets."

"I mean, they're clearly fine with that one."

"And that futon must be filthy-"

"You sound like your mother."

He looks sheepish. "Oh, yeah. Forgot you met her."

"She's delightful," Utahime says coolly. "Unlike you."

"I'll…get you some rags or something," he tells her. "And…and an air mattress or something. I'm…I'm sorry-"

Utahime raises her eyebrows. "All of this apologizing is starting to creep me out."

"I, um, I've maybe started to realize that I sort of just dumped you back in a room with zero information and that was kinda bad." He shrugs. "And also, I have to be nice to you so you'll feel bad for calling me 'old man boy.'"

"I didn't call you that, Maki did."

"Little traitor," Gojo mutters.

"Be nice, Gojo."

"She can be nice first and then we'll talk."

They lapse into silence, leaning against the back of a rickety door they can't afford to bump open. She supposes it shouldn't surprise her when his weight against the door lifts and she looks up to find him gone – he's got a habit of doing that, warping away in the middle of conversations, but he's back in under a minute.

"Here," he tells her, tickling her cheek with a feather duster. She doesn't know how he found the thing when it's almost certain that he's never done a chore in his life, but it's a far more touching gesture than it should be.

His arms are full: blankets, a rolled-up rubber mattress, an air pump. A box of kikufuku – he must be planning on staying. "Don't you have class?"

"Cancelled."

"Because of the Kyoto attack?"

"For safety." Gojo swallows nervously. "Too risky, they said."

"Do they think the Zenins are going to attack the Tokyo campus, too?"

"Honestly, no one knows," Gojo sighs. "Considering that the only way to make sure they wouldn't would be to retaliate, which…no one wants. Obviously."

"Says the one who could wipe them out with his bare hands?"

He looks almost helpless when he looks up at her. "And what would that do?"

"Uh, stop the Zenins from attacking your school?"

"It'd basically be me declaring war."

"And?"

"Uta," he sighs. "Don't ask me to do that."

"I'm not. The last thing I want is to get dragged down with you." The last thing she wants is to see him be dragged down at all. She's not going to give him the satisfaction of admitting it. "I'm your ally, remember?"

"Aw. Cute."

She sets her jaw in annoyance. "I'm serious, Gojo."

"This kind of thing has never really happened before," he tells her listlessly. "There's no precedent for it. No protocol. Not that I care very much about protocol, but, I mean, it would help if someone knew what to do about this."

"Let me guess," Utahime sighs. "They're going to have a bunch of council meetings and then decide to do nothing because doing something would piss off the Zenins enough to start a war, which technically the Zenins already started, but nobody wants to call it that because calling it that would mean having to retaliate and having to retaliate would mean-"

"Being at war," Gojo finishes.

"I hate politics."

"I hate politics more." Gojo stubs at the dusty tatami mats with the toe of his shoe. "So, anyway. No school for a while."

"Is it safe for you to be back here?"

"Aw, you worried about me?"

"No, idiot, I just don't want to get caught."

"Oh, yeah, that."

"So?"

"I think it's fine," he concedes.

(He can't tell her, of course, that he doesn't want to leave her.)

"Tadashi won't answer my calls," she says after a moment's silence, stubbing at the floor in time with Gojo.

"…oh."

"What's 'oh' supposed to mean?" Utahime's head snaps up. "Do you know something?"

"I…I was at Kyoto," he admits, looking down. "After the attack."

"I thought you knew-"

"Knew what?"

And she knows, in that moment – he can really only mean one thing, and she knows what that thing is as well as she knows her own name. She's been telling herself his phone is broken, he's in the hospital, he's gone into hiding and the Zenins could trace his cell signal, and anything else she can think of. But he would have told her already if he had good news.

He wouldn't be stalling if he wasn't trying to avoid breaking the news to her.

"He's…Tadashi's dead, Hime."

Chapter 4: The Crane's Promise

Summary:

Utahime recalls a piece of her family's history as she processes Tadashi's death.

Notes:

I'm back by unpopular demand and throwing a 1.6k word flashback at ya because I Felt Like It. The less engagement I feel that a story is getting, the more creative risks I'm willing to take, and since this one doesn't have a big following, I'm like 'eh, write how you want.' Hence...Babyhime flashback. Whoops.

Enjoy!

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Sixteen Years Earlier

"Tell me about the cranes," Utahime says, bouncing the mattress in excitement. "I wanna hear about my cranes."

Settling in against the pillows beside her, Utahime's mother chuckles. "Always the cranes with you," she says, stroking her hair. "I don't know why you like such a sad story so much."

Utahime doesn't really have an answer for that. "I dunno. I just like it."

"Well," she sighs, "all right."

She pauses, trying to figure out how to start a story with a beginning that won't bore a five-year-old who's heard it too many times. Utahime is never bored where cranes are involved now that she's manifested the family's cursed technique, but Shion still worries that she'll lose interest if the story is always the same. But Utahime, never one to wait, forges ahead for her.

"Long ago," she starts, trying to prompt her mother. "It goes 'loooong ago…'"

Shion laughs, because the one constant she will allow – Utahime likes it too much to stop – is drawing out the opening phrase. "Looong ago," she starts, a teasing lilt to her voice, "there was a man called Koichi. He lived around here, so in the winters, it was always cold." Utahime loved the Hokkaido winters more than almost anything; it was always wintertime when Shion told her this story. "And he didn't like winter because he was a hunter-"

"And he had'ta go out and hunt for food in the snow," Utahime finishes, impatient as ever. It's an improvement: she'd taken several tellings of this story to stop being distraught that this Koichi probably ate rabbits whenever Shion mentioned his profession.

"That's right, Uta-chan," Shion chuckles. "But he had a wife and a little baby girl, and his parents were too old to go out in the cold, so every day, he had to go out to check his traps for food to eat. Winter was hard back then, and he would always hope that they wouldn't be empty. But one day, there was something in one of his traps that he didn't want."

Utahime knows this part, too. "A crane!"

"A crane," Shion repeats. "Somehow, a crane had gotten its leg stuck in his trap. It was crying out, and Koichi rushed to the trap to free it, because everyone around here knows that cranes are very special birds, don't we?"

"The most special," Utahime agrees solemnly.

"But even though he got the crane free, it was hurt," she goes on. "Its leg was broken, and it was bleeding. Koichi wanted to make it better, but there was nothing he could do, so instead he decided to take it back to his house so at least it would be warm. But before he could…"

She pauses to let Utahime interject, because her daughter doesn't do well with stories that don't involve audience participation. "The boyfriend crane came!"

Shion laughs. "That's one way to put it."

"Tell the part where the boyfriend crane gets mad," Utahime tells her.

"I'm getting there, peanut." She ruffles Utahime's hair. "Anyway. One of the reasons that cranes are special birds is because they mate for life. That means they have the same bird boyfriend or girlfriend forever." A clumsy analogy, but it's the only one Utahime can understand. "They raise their babies together, and when they have to go south, they do that together, too. I don't know if birds can love each other, but cranes…" she smiles. "They might."

Utahime has heard this story a thousand times, but she never, ever tires of hearing about the inseparable bonds cranes form with their mates. She probably draws analogies to her parents, to baachan and jiichan – it's really rather sweet.

"So when this crane's mate smelled her blood in the snow, he was furious." She smooths down Utahime's mussed hair. "He came charging after Koichi, and Koichi was terrified. He only wanted to help the crane who had gotten caught in his trap, but how could the crane's mate know that? He couldn't. All he knew was that his mate was hurt, and a strange man was taking her away. And that made him angry."

"But he was trying to help," Utahime says plaintively.

"He was, but Koichi didn't know what else to do, so he set the crane down. Before, she had been letting him carry her, because she could sense that he wanted to help her, and Koichi hadn't realized how strange that was. But she trusted him. And her leg was bad, so when she couldn't stand up on her own, she leaned against his leg."

"Because Koichi is nice to birdies."

"Koichi is nice. Now. The crane's mate saw that and he was angry at first, but he also trusted his mate. He knew that she wouldn't have leaned on Koichi if he was the one who hurt her. So when Koichi saw that he wasn't going to attack and picked up the girl crane again, her mate didn't stop him. He only wanted to follow them, so he knew where his mate would be, and he did, all the way through the snow to the village healer's hut.

The healer was a nice old lady, and she liked Koichi, but when she saw that he'd brought her a hurt crane, she almost didn't let him in. After all, if cranes are lucky, hurt ones might be unlucky. But Koichi argued with her, saying that not helping a hurt crane was the unluckiest thing of all, so she agreed, and she let Koichi and the cranes inside."

"And then what?"

"You know this story, Uta-chan."

"Yeah, but then what?"

"Broken legs are easy to fix," Shion said. "So the healer made a little splint for the crane. Then she told Koichi that since it was his fault that she'd gotten hurt in the first place, he had to keep her and her mate in his house like honored guests until she got better, or he'd have bad luck. So he did. He fed them, he let them sleep in the soft hay in his barn, and he even introduced them to his baby daughter, Yumi. And they loved her. The girl crane would lay her beak in Yumi's hand and let her pet her feathers, and her mate would curl up to keep her warm."

"Just like Baa-chan's cranes!" Utahime interjected.

"Exactly like Baa-chan's cranes." Shion paused to let Utahime picture her grandmother's crane shikiami before she reentered the story. "And even when she got better, they never forgot about the kind man who helped her when she was hurt, or his little girl. And whenever winter came, Yumi would go outside every morning with breadcrumbs to wait for the cranes to come home.

They always did – these weren't ordinary cranes. But even special cranes don't really live for a thousand years, and these ones passed away right after Yumi got married. So imagine her surprise when years went by and she saw her oldest daughter playing with a pair of cranes that looked just like hers!"

"Those are my cranes," Utahime tells her. Not quite, but not worth correcting.

"There'd always been sorcerers in Koichi's family, but he and Yumi didn't know that their kindness to the cranes actually tied them to their family line," she said. "Because without knowing it, by keeping their promise to remember their cranes every winter, Koichi and Yumi had made a vow with them. Yumi had even named her daughter Tsuruko after them. And the cranes kept up their end of the deal. Their souls were transferred to Tsuruko, and that became-"

"Her cursed technique!"

"A pair of cranes bonded by the user's own soul," she goes on, smiling. She doubts this Koichi person ever existed, and Utahime's cursed technique is probably a simple shikigami technique and nothing more mystical than the Zenins' Ten Shadows, but it's family lore that every inheritor knows and cherishes. "Bound to each other and to the user. They'll protect each other and the person who has them from anything they face. But there's one big downside to the cranes' promise."

"Mm?" Utahime asks, even though she knows.

"Tsuruko grew up and fell in love with a fisherman who got lost at sea," she said. "And everyone told her to find somebody else. She was still young, and everybody thought she was beautiful. But she didn't want to. All her life, she never wanted to love anybody else. She never had any children to pass on her gift to.

But her little brother had a baby girl who the cranes chose next. She was smart and funny and every boy in town wanted to be the one to marry her, but after the one she chose died in an accident, she could never bring herself to pick another one.

And it kept happening. They gave their technique a name, Tsuru no Hitokoe. And if one of the girls who had it lost the love of her life, she never, ever wanted to fall in love again."

"Maybe she could just not love anyone ever," Utahime suggested.

"True," Shion laughed, "and some of them didn't. But lots of them did. Love is hard not to want." She pats her daughter's head. "And the more it happened, the more people started to wonder if it was a curse. But it wasn't, because for the girls who didn't lose the people they loved, they had the happiest and best loves of all."

Utahime pouts. "That's not fair."

"It's not, but neither is the deal we make for having our technique." Not Shion's, but her family's, passed through the generations from woman to woman – never the men – until it had reached the Ioris. "All it is is this: that anyone to whom the cranes give their power can only love once."

Present

"I thought you might want something to eat."

Curled up with her knees to her chest in the room's southwest corner, Utahime has to raise her head from her knees at the sound of Arisa's voice. There are no tears in her eyes – perhaps that's why Arisa looks startled when she does. "Oh," she says dully. "Thanks."

It's been hours now. Almost eight. Food does sound good.

"I heard what happened," she says softly, laying her hand on Utahime's knee. "I'm so sorry, Utahime-chan."

"Thanks." Arisa's consolations won't do anything now, but it's nice of her to try.

"I brought up some leftovers from dinner," she says, setting a neatly-arranged tray in front of her. "Won't do you any good not to eat."

"Thanks." Utahime's surprised to find that eating feels like an excellent thing to do right now. "I actually am a little hungry, I guess."

"I'm glad."

"Are the girls okay?"

"Satoru-kun is watching them," she says. "They've gotten into the candy stash he keeps in his dresser."

The girls probably love that. Utahime shouldn't smile at the image, but she does. "That's good."

"They're in safe hands," she says.

"'Kay."

"But you?" she prompts.

"My boyfriend's dead, Arisa." It's not as if that's a shock, but it's still a blow. "What am I even supposed to think?"

Arisa sits on the floor in front of Utahime's dinner tray, legs crossed. "You wanna talk?"

Utahime shrugs. "I'm supposed to be a wreck right now. Why am I not?"

"I don't think it's fair to be asking that of yourself, Utahime-chan."

"But…"

"But nothing, Utahime-chan."

"I sorta knew," she admits, hanging her head. "But I didn't want to admit it to myself."

"I get that."

"But…I loved him."

Arisa, wisely, says nothing.

"I…I'd never had someone that serious about me," she mumbles, curling back in on herself. "First guy I met who actually wanted a forever kinda thing."

"And you?" Arisa asks.

"I mean, it sounded nice." She swallows. "When…when he talked about it."

She doesn't ask for the unsaid 'but'. It'll come soon.

"There's something stupid," she adds.

"Yes?" Arisa prompts, since she clearly wants to talk about this.

"My…my family has an innate technique with, um, with crane shikigami." She swallows hard. "My technique. And you know how cranes mate for life?"

She doesn't see why that ought to be relevant, but Arisa nods. "I do."

"There's this family legend that people who have the crane technique can only ever truly love one person."

"Well-"

"'Those to whom the cranes lend their power can only love once,'" she repeats. "That's what they say."

"And this Tadashi…"

"The whole time we were together, I was just thinking…is he the only person I could ever love?"

"Again," Arisa says, laying her hand on Utahime's knee, "that seems like an unfair question."

"I thought I would have time to find out," she murmurs, dejected. "And…now I don't."

A pause. Arisa doesn't fill it.

"Or else he was my crane and I won't know it until years go by and I haven't even thought about loving anyone else."

"Utahime-chan?"

"Yeah?"

"Grief is a heavy enough burden on its own," Arisa tells her. "Don't make it heavier."

It's another hour before a guilty-looking Gojo appears to drop off the twins and take her tray. She meets his eyes, then averts hers. He doesn't say anything, either too conflicted or too wary of saying the inevitable wrong thing to risk it. She's grateful for that.

"Utahime-san," Maki says, walking over to Utahime and standing in front of her with her arms crossed. "Gojo-san said you were sad."

She manages a watery smile. Tadashi had always said she was good with children and the least she can do in his absence is prove him right. "I am a little sad," she says. "But it's going to be okay."

Mai, who lacks Maki's lack of empathy, peers over at Utahime from the futon, blankets clutched tightly to her chest. "What's wrong?"

"Oh, it's just…something bad that happened." She feels nearer to tears at that question than she has all day. "But it's not about you guys, so you'll be okay."

"Is it about Naoya-san?" Maki asks, almost anxious.

Indirectly, it sort of is, but Maki would only panic if she told her that, so she doesn't. "No, it's…something else. I promise."

That seems to assuage their worries about her sadness for the time being, and when they finally crash in a tangle of limbs beneath the blankets, she breathes a heavy sigh of relief.

Utahime had never thought she'd welcome Gojo Satoru's company, but then, she never thought that vengeful Zenins would kill the man who she thought she'd spend the rest of her life with, either. Today is a day for exceptions. When he enters the darkened room, he slides his back down the wall to sit on the floor beside her, and she doesn't tell him to leave.

"You're not mad?" he asks, quiet so as not to wake the twins.

She shrugs. Grief has made her oddly reasonable. "I wouldn't have wanted to tell me, either."

"My mom said you were having trouble."

"It doesn't feel real," she tells him.

"Is that better or worse?"

"Definitely worse," she says. "My boyfriend's dead and I feel like a sociopath for not crying about it."

"You're definitely not a sociopath."

"He used to talk about the future all the time," she says, playing with the hem of her t-shirt. She'd never admit this kind of thing to Gojo, usually, but he's all she has, and he's being surprisingly decent about all of this for a guy she knows had been jealous of Tadashi for as long as he'd known him. "Where we'd live, how many kids we'd have. It was easy to picture back then."

He had never really thought to ask what she thought of his fantasies. That had never really occurred to her before, but now that he couldn't ask anymore, it seemed irrelevant.

"And now it's not?" Gojo guessed.

"I guess."

"Is this about that crane thing?"

Utahime narrowed her eyes. "Was I drunk when I told you that?"

"No, you told Shoko."

"It's…not that," she says numbly.

"Can I help?"

She looks at him askance. "Did you get body-snatched?"

"Mean."

"You've never said anything like that before."

"Your fiancé has never been dead before," Gojo points out.

It occurs to him slightly too late that this might have been a bad thing to say.

But Utahime doesn't acknowledge it. "He was never my fiancé."

"He wasn't?"

"Uh, no?"

"He acted like it."

"He did," Utahime readily agrees. "But if he'd asked…"

"Hm?"

"I loved him," she says, more to herself than to Gojo, "but I would've said no."

"Is that why you're so calm?"

"No, I'm calm because if I'm not, I'll remember that this is my fault and have a breakdown." She inhales, shuddery. "That or I'm a sociopath."

"It's…my fault, if it's anyone's."

"Did I hear that right?"

"Wakana told me to take the kids." Gojo can't believe he's admitting this when the likelihood of it inducing Utahime to punch him is so high, and when he knows he wouldn't have the heart to turn on Infinity if she tried, but it feels right – having somewhere else to put her guilt will probably make Utahime feel less burdened. "And I'm already in charge of Megumi and Tsumiki, and I couldn't have kids in my dorm, so I said no."

"Okay, but-"

"…and I referred her to you."

Utahime sighs. "Why am I not surprised?"

"I never thought it would get this far," he offers as a paltry self-defense.

"Yeah, well, did anyone?" there's an angry edge to her voice now. "What if you had taken them to Tokyo and they'd attacked the campus with the healer and the one-man army where they couldn't have possibly killed anyone?"

"They'd have taken the kids, Uta."

She falls silent. The Tokyo campus might've been the harder fortress to breach, and maybe it wouldn't have come with casualties, but they'd have found some way to keep its students from protecting the twins for long enough to snatch them.

She wants to believe that Tadashi's life was worth more, that she'd rather the twins have been returned, because she doesn't even know how disloyal it would make her if she couldn't bring herself to say that much. But she can't.

Two helpless little girls handed the worst possible caretakers, whose lives would've been hellishly miserable if they'd been sent back, trump one overbearing, overzealous boyfriend whom Utahime had always had to convince herself was the only one she would ever love. Death brings clarity in a sense. She had loved him, but not in the way that the other bearers of Tsuru no Hitokoe ever had. She had loved him but that had only made her more willing to overlook his flaws where she shouldn't.

She would miss his touch and his voice, given time. But she does not think his loss will cripple her, and that was more than she would've said yesterday.

"He doesn't feel gone," she admits.

Gojo wants to put an arm around her shoulders, but it seems too audacious. "I'm sorry, Hime."

"Someone would've suffered no matter who took the girls," she sighs. "But he would've wanted it to be him instead of them."

Notes:

A linguistic note on the name of Utahime's technique: 'Tsuru no Hitokoe' (— 鶴の一声) is a Japanese idiom meaning 'final word' or 'voice of authority,' but literally translates to "crane's voice." I will go into more detail about it later, but essentially, it's a shinigami technique that allows the user to summon and control a mated pair of cursed cranes with her voice. (Both ritual incantations/songs and actual crane calls are used.) It's only inherited by women in Utahime's lineage and it's pretty neat, methinks. More on that in later chapters.

Chapter 5: Questions

Summary:

Utahime grieves; Maki causes trouble; Naoya is punchable.

Notes:

Hey guys! I've been super quiet on here lately because I had to prep for Gojohime and Yuutamaki weeks (a seven-part multi chap for Gouta Week and eight oneshots for Yuutamaki Week...heh, I'm dying) but here! Is a thing! Again! Anyways.

Mimi, this one's for you *kiss emoji*

Chapter Text

Utahime knows plenty about children. She's got two younger brothers; her older sister had a baby last September. She works with teenagers. Her clan has always had close ties to the Kamos and that, on many occasions, meant babysitting. So the twins should be the least-difficult part of this situation by far.

But none of the children she's ever known have been Zenin Maki, and that throws a wrench in things.

"Utahime-san," she announces, poking her head up from under the blanket over her futon, "your boyfriend is weird."

She's supposed to be sleeping. Mai almost definitely already is. But apparently not Maki, who peels off layer after layer of blankets until she can sit up and stare at Utahime like she's cross-examining a witness.

"Gojo-san isn't my boyfriend," she tells her, trying not to look like there's anything more to say on that topic.

"He's weird," Maki insists, ignoring her.

"I had a different boyfriend, and he died." Utahime probably shouldn't be saying this to a six-year-old, but she's too tired to think better of it. "So can we not talk about boyfriends?"

"What do you mean he died?" Maki demands.

Utahime wishes she could be having any other conversation, but this one is going to be hard to dodge. "Do you know what dying is?"

"Yeah. It's when you get hurt so bad that your body doesn't work anymore and then they burn your skeleton and no one ever sees you again." Maki crosses her arms. "Hii-obaasan did it."

Well, that's one way of putting it.

"Look, Maki-chan, I don't really want to talk about this-"

"Why did your boyfriend die?" she interrupts.

"Maki-chan, please."

"Please what?" she asks.

"Can we please not talk about my boyfriend dying?"

"But why?"

She changes tactics. "How did you feel when your sousobo died, Maki-chan?"

"I didn't care," Maki answers.

"You…didn't care?"

"She was mean," Maki says remorselessly.

"Did you have anybody in your family who wasn't mean?" Utahime tries.

"Mai-chan."

Utahime knows better than to put that hypothetical in Maki's head. "Anyone else?"

"Wakana-san," she offers.

"Wakana-san. Perfect." She looks intently over at Maki. "How would you feel if Wakana-san was gone?"

"Mad," Maki answers immediately.

"And maybe sad, too?" Utahime prompts.

"Mmhm."

"Because you care about Wakana-san a lot, right?"

"Yeah."

"Well, my boyfriend…I cared about him a lot." She doesn't feel like she thinks she should, but she knows that much. "So I don't feel great. And I don't want to talk about boyfriends."

"Oh," Maki says, almost chastened. "Okay."

She lies back down, pulling the covers over her, curling back around Mai – but it's not even a full minute before her head pops back up from under the blankets.

"Utahime-san?"

"Yes, Maki?"

"Gojo-san is still weird."

Utahime doesn't really want to talk about Gojo, either, but she needs to know if he's being sketchy, so she sighs and asks, "what did he do?"

"Oh, nothing," Maki reassures her. "He's just weird."

"That he is," she sighs.

"He has a weird head."

"Sorry?"

"It looks like a paintbrush."

"Maki-chan," Utahime says, even though she wants to agree, "you're going to wake Mai-chan."

Maki doesn't seem to have a problem with that. "I said that to Mai-chan and she said I was right."

"She needs to sleep." Utahime pauses. "And so do I."

"Okay."

Seemingly satisfied, Maki lies back down. Finally, Utahime thinks wearily, sinking back into the pillows and pulling her blanket over her head.

"Utahime-san?"

Great.

"Maki-chan," she mutters. "Go to sleep."

"Gojo-san wants to be your boyfriend," Maki informs her.

"Have you ever heard of reading the room?"

"What's reading the room?"

"Never mind."

"But he's weird," she goes on. "You shouldn't be his girlfriend."

"Wow. For once, we agree on something."

"I'm sorry your other boyfriend died."

"You are?"

"Mmhm."

"Uh…thanks."

"Mai-chan, too."

She's really trying. It's an effort Utahime has no desire to applaud, but she really is trying.

"Thank you, Maki-chan," she says tiredly.

"Mmhm."

"Do you like Utahime-san?"

"Of course I like Utahime-san." Maki looks utterly offended. "Why would I not like Utahime-san?"

Mai shrugs. "You don't like people."

"But I like that one."

"She's so nice," Mai replies almost mournfully.

"Mmhm."

"And she smells pretty."

"She does," Maki agrees. "Like croquettes."

Mai isn't so sure about that, but she nods along. "She's sad, though."

"Yeah, 'cause her boyfriend died."

"He died?"

"She wouldn't say how."

Mai looks upset. Briefly, Maki regrets bringing this up – things like dying and grieving hurt her sister more than they ever affect her – but she'd asked, after all.

"It's okay, Mai-chan," Maki tells her. "Utahime-san is okay."

"But she's sad."

"But she's fine."

"She's not fine if she's sad," Mai insists.

Gojo looks down at the feeling of something very small and vindictive hitting his calf. Raising his eyebrows, he looks to examine what it is.

Zenin Maki's tiny fist, apparently. She's trying to get his attention.

"Gojo-san," she informs him as soon as he's looking at her, "Utahime-san's boyfriend died."

He kneels to be at her eye level. "I know, Maki-chan."

"How do we fix it?"

"Fix it?"

"She said she doesn't feel good."

"We…can't, Maki-chan."

"But-"

"We can't fix dead people, Maki-chan."

"The twins are worried about you."

"Yeah, well, I'm worried about what we're going to do next so we don't get killed," Utahime counters as soon as Gojo latches the door behind him. "Any ideas?"

"They keep saying you're sad."

Utahime rolls her eyes. "Maki asked me a bunch of questions about…" she pauses, breathes – still can't say it. "What happened."

"And you told her that."

"No, I told them my boyfriend died and I didn't feel great."

"So you're not-"

"Do we have any word on the Zenins yet?"

Fine, then. If he's not going to get anything out of her, they might as well talk business. "Nothing yet."

"You know it's just a matter of time, right?"

"Until what?" he asks, feigning ignorance.

"They figure out you're hiding us."

"Well, yeah, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

"Gojo, this isn't the kind of thing where you can just cross that bridge when you come to it."

"What, you think I can read minds? Am I just supposed to predict the future and tell you what to do about it?"

"No, but-"

"Utahime, we don't know what they're going to do," he argues.

"We can't just sit here and do nothing!"

She goes quiet after that. Gojo doesn't have much of anything to say, either.

"Hime," he finally starts up after a moment, "you're not fine."

"It doesn't matter if I'm fine or not."

"Hime, c'mon."

"Would you stop calling me that?"

"You're obviously not-"

"Can people please stop trying to tell me how I feel?"

They freeze, eyes meeting, and only then does Gojo realize that hers look moist.

"It's bad enough that the kids won't stop asking, okay? I don't need you to…to…"

"You look like you're going to cry," he cuts in.

"So what if I am?"

He watches her for a moment; she angles her body away from his. A few tears track down her cheeks when she blinks, but the slump of her shoulders is what he notices first. She's seemed so resilient these past hours, but he knows by the curve of her spine that she'd only looked that way because she hadn't let it sink in.

"Hey, uh…" he starts haltingly. "I'm…I'm really sorry."

"You should be," she snaps, trying to sound irritated instead of devastated and coming up pitifully short.

"You and the twins…" he swallows hard. "You and the twins are gonna be fine, all right?"

"You don't know that." He can't see her face anymore – she's turned even further away – but her voice is strained. "He wasn't fine."

"Look, I know this is a mess." He scratches at the back of his neck. "I, uh…I know you wanna do something, but…you don't really…need to?"

"We can't just stay here forever."

Gojo, selfishly, wishes they could. He'd even take the demonic kindergartners (well, it's really only Maki who's actually proven herself to be deserving of that title, but still) if it meant she'd stay. He's not naïve enough to think that he's going to be able to keep Utahime in his life for long if he doesn't have a compelling reason to – but this isn't the time. Gojo isn't and will probably never be known for his selflessness, but there are some things even he isn't stupid enough to step on.

"Nobody knows you're here yet," he deflects instead.

"And what about when they figure it out?"

"I mean, will they?"

"You can't be serious."

Fair point. The Zenins would never have gone so far as to attack on practically-sacred ground if they had any intention of backing down, and they're going to figure out sooner or later that there are only so many places for a person to go when they disappear.

"We'll be fine," he says, opting for a rakish smile that's entirely forced. "What's the point of being the strongest if-"

"Sometimes I wonder why I bother with you."

"Okay, I know you're upset," he shoots back, "but that was uncalled-for."

"This isn't the time to be patting yourself on the back, Gojo!"

"I'm literally just stating a fact!"

"No, you're throwing your weight around."

"I am not!"

"What I need right now, Gojo," she snaps, "is a concrete plan for what I'm going to do when the Zenins bust down the doors and barge in demanding the twins back, okay?"

"I don't have one!"

"Then make one, idiot!"

"I'm the only reason you're even alive, you know that?"

"And what good's that going to do if they kill me?"

None, and he knows it. For all his bluster, there's nothing he can do for Utahime outside the walls of his own estate, and if the Zenins take one step further, they're going to send shockwaves through the jujutsu establishment that it might take years to recover from. They'll force retaliation, and what started as a squabble over two children they probably wish had never been born is going to spiral until it becomes an excuse for their clan to strike at the balance of power even Gojo isn't rash enough to mess with. It'll be war if they don't have the sense to give up, and he knows they won't.

And there's no safety for Utahime in that, unless she's here, and so is he, to make sure that nobody who comes for her leaves alive.

"You just…lost someone," he tells her after a weighty pause. "You shouldn't be trying to think too far ahead."

"Don't you think I know that?"

She sounds more broken than frustrated now. His stomach ties itself in knots.

"I…kind of get it," he offers. "Um, how that kind of thing is. But, uh…it doesn't work."

Utahime finally turns back to him, her eyes still moist. "What doesn't work?"

Gojo shrugs. "Like, trying to just…work and plan and stuff. It never works." He stubs at the ground with the toe of his slipper. "Y'know? You just start thinking 'maybe if I do this, it'll make sense,' right? And then you do the thing and it…doesn't." He lifts his shoulders in a helpless shrug. "Just…didn't want that to be you."

"Geto?" she guesses.

It's been months, and he still flinches at that name.

"Don't try," he mumbles, looking at the floor. "It doesn't help."

They all eat together, dead-silent.

Utahime doesn't like to be alone at times like these, and the twins soak up attention like sponges; it's sort of just the natural course of events. Gojo flops down beside Utahime on her futon without asking, and she doesn't tell him to leave. Arisa pokes her head in to check on the group and ends up staying. And they eat nearly every meal like that, in a silence that might be contemplative or just miserable. Nobody can tell.

The first couple of nights, the twins largely decided what they all ate. Four days of conbini food, though, had convinced all three adults – however questionable that designation might be – that it couldn't go on; Arisa chose salmon for tonight. But the twins don't really seem to mind the change. It's probably novel, Utahime figures, because they're so used to the absence of meat in their diets.

"Thank you for the food," Mai says solemnly before she digs in. Maki doesn't bother.

It's the last sound anyone makes for the duration of the meal, save for the dull scrape of chopsticks against styrofoam dishware. It's always disposable, because they can't risk real ones that would need to be washed and explained. And it's quieter, too.

Quiet enough that a stray sniffle draws everyone's eyes.

"Sorry," Utahime murmurs, still looking down into her styrofoam bowl of salmon.

She feels a warm, broad hand wrap around hers. Gojo's, probably. Arisa's settles against her back.

"I'm okay," she says weakly. "I promise."

Neither lets go. The twins, watching, look almost sad.

She pokes at her salmon and tries not to think.

Zenin Estate

Kyoto

"There's an obvious solution to this that no one's talking about."

Naobito has been alive too long to know that he won't want to hear this. "And what would that be, Naoya?"

Naoya doesn't seem to grasp the gravity of his replying, "kill Gojo Satoru."

"You're not serious, are you?"

"Of course I'm serious. Who else would be hiding them?" He sniffs. "Or that Iori bitch?"

"Her own family," Naobito points out. "The Kamo clan? It's possible no one is. She might've just taken them out of the country. Why do you immediately assume it had to have been Gojo Satoru?"

"Because," Naoya starts, then trails off, unsure what to say. He finishes with a more-emphatic "because."

"That isn't a reason, Naoya."

"Because he did!"

"That also isn't a reason." Naobito rubs at his temple tiredly. "If you're not going to give me anything useful, Naoya, you need to leave."

"But if we could just take Gojo out of the picture-"

"And how exactly do you plan on doing that?"

Naoya shrugs. "Toji-san did it."

"I told you," Naobito snaps, "never to mention him."

"But he did," Naoya protests. "Why couldn't I?"

There are a million reasons why he couldn't, but at least half of them would require Naobito to admit something deeply embarrassing about the strength of his own bloodline. "There are easier ways to get what we want, Naoya."

"So?"

"We are not," he sighs, "going to kill Gojo Satoru."

Naoya looks like he's going to protest; Naobito steps in before he can.

"If this happens to be because you're still convinced he's the reason that girl wouldn't marry you-"

"What's she got to do with anything?"

"Well," he says drily, "she is our most direct link to the twins."

"But-"

"It's pathetic, how cut-up you still are over someone so unworthy." Naobito sniffs. "I don't care what you do with her after all of this is over, but going after Gojo Satoru is out of the question."

"Then what-"

"I have a theory," Naobito replies. "But it's thorny."

"What theory?"

"Well, it's entirely possible that she's trying to use Tengen's domain to keep herself out of reach." He taps his fingers against the desktop. "It's just about the only way she could reliably keep herself out of reach."

"But why would Tengen-"

"Tengen's only interest is in maintaining the balance of power, no?" Naobito reasons. "So if he thinks that whatever we're doing is going to upset it, it's possible he'd…cooperate."

"So…you want to kill Tengen?"

"Not kill, but-"

"How is that any less insane than my idea?"

"I'm not saying we should kill Tengen," he tries to argue. "But we need to pursue the possibility that he's hiding her."

"Yeah, and then what?"

"Well, leveraging our connections to the Council, we could probably-"

"It's Tengen," Naoya spits. "We couldn't 'probably' anything."

"Naoya-"

"If you think Gojo Satoru is too much, how the hell do you think you're going to get her out of Tengen's domain?"

"Well-"

"You must be going senile," Naoya scoffs, shaking his head. "You ever thought about getting checked?"

"I know I don't need to tell you that you're in no position to be saying things like that," Naobito says coolly. He's only so calm when he's truly incensed.

"You know what I think this is?" Naoya goes on, totally unfazed. "You just want an excuse to attack the other campus."

"Well, that would probably be-"

"You don't think for a minute that Tengen would actually hide someone so useless," he realizes. "You just want to start a war and win it."

"That accusation is entirely baseless."

"You can't win like that, old man." Naoya looks at him, eyes feverish, and a grin stretches across his face. "Power's nothing with no one left under it."

Naobito doesn't say anything, eyeing his son with thinly-veiled disgust.

"You can't just," he says, so excited he's beginning to trip over his words, "kill everybody in your way and call that victory."

"That would be the definition of victory, Naoya."

"It's about face, old man. Reputation." His grin widens. "People who know they have to follow or get squashed. That's why we can't just start a war, see?"

Naobito looks his son up and down as if he has many, many questions. "I don't follow."

"We have to get them back," Naoya finishes. "And we have to kill her, and that maid, and everyone who tried to help her, but not by starting a war." He clenches his hands into fists. "It has to be personal."

"Naoya, this really isn't the time to be acting on a personal grudge."

"It's not my grudge," he insists. "It's everyone's. They stole from us."

"She stole from you," Naobito corrects him.

"Suit yourself, old man." Naoya turns on his heel, scoffing. "But you're gonna get to the end of your war and realize I was right."

Chapter 6: Captive

Summary:

The Zenins try to enlist their rival clans as allies; a shocking retaliation prompts Utahime to go on the run again.

Notes:

If anyone besides Mimi, Alex, and Zach is still reading this, I love you. Please enjoy.

Chapter Text

"You're going to say no."

Arisa doesn't phrase it as a question. On almost any other day, Gojo would shoot back at that somehow, but this time, he just picks at his tonkatsu in silence.

"Satoru," she tries again, "you are going to say no, aren't you?"

He stabs a hole in the fried egg he still hasn't broken into. "Is that what you want?"

"Of course it is. Not that I actually think you'll take what I want into account."

"Look, I'm not heartless," he sighs. "I don't want them to get the kids or anything, but…we wouldn't survive a war."

"You would," she replies bluntly.

"Yeah, but-"

"It might come to that," she warns him. "If things keep going the way they are-"

"It won't." Gojo's head snaps up; Arisa imagines her son's eyes are probably feverish beneath his glasses. "I can't let it come to that."

"This might be the first time you've actually given a damn about the rest of them." Arisa laughs without much humor. "Why now?"

He gives her what would probably be a murderous look if her eyes were bare. I give a damn about you, he wants to tell her. That, though, would be in violation of at least six of the points on his strictly-regulated list of behavioral rules.

"When," he asks, "was the last time the Zenin head asked the other clan heads for help?"

"Never, probably." Arisa leans back on the flat of her palm. "Your point?"

"They don't do that. So what are they gonna do to us when we refuse 'em?"

The instructions hadn't left any room for doubt there: we request your cooperation in recovering two missing persons belonging to the Zenin Clan. A request so unlike the Zenins would never be meant to be turned down; Arisa is silent. Gojo knows what she means by that, but he still wants to make her say it.

"Satoru," she says coolly, "even if you refuse them and they attack us, there's nothing they can do to you."

A heavy lump is rising up in Gojo's throat, and he doesn't like it. "You just want me to let 'em die?"

"I didn't say that, Satoru. I just said that their lives aren't the priority."

"Kaa-chan-"

"I know it's not ideal," she says softly. "But you know what the right thing to do is."

A laughably easy answer, really. The Gojo clan has no reason to help the Zenins at all, least of all at finding two children who are far better off outside and away from its influence. It's easy. Protect the twins. Protect Utahime.

But…

"I know," he says, swallowing hard.

There's Arisa, too.

Gojo Satoru is no stranger to loss. His innocence, his childhood, the aunt who'd been the only relative he'd ever had who would listen to a word he said. Any chance at a normal life. Geto Suguru; his innocence, again. He'd throw half his clan to the Zenins without hesitation if it kept Utahime safe and his conscience clear – it isn't as if the lot of them deserve to live.

But not his mother.

Gojo Arisa is close to all he has left, and if he can't know she'll be safe, he can't do it.

"Maybe you could get out of the country," he says reluctantly. "Wouldja do that?"

Her eyes soften. "It isn't your job to protect me, Satorun."

Zenin Estate

"Never thought I'd see the day when you came crying to me for help." Gojo artfully pushes his glasses an inch down his nose and glances diagonally across the table, raising his eyebrows in a look of challenge that he knows will make Naoya's blood boil. "You must really want those twins back, huh?"

Naoya looks like he'd take a swing if he didn't know that Gojo's cursed technique would block the blow. He does not dignify the Gojo Clan delegate's words with a response.

"Kinda pathetic, isn't it? You can't even keep tabs on two kindergartners." Gojo thinks about little Maki's ever-present frown and tiny, insistent fists and the way both of them still act surprised when somebody offers them food, and he lets out a peal of carefree laughter. "How hard can it possibly be to outrun a six-year-old?"

Naoya looks like he's going to say something to that when Naobito clears his throat from the head. Even Gojo turns to face him; Naobito meets his covered eyes with a look that seems meant to convey that he knows exactly what he's trying to pull and it won't work.

"Are you done yet, Gojo-san?"

Gojo flashes him an easy smile. "I was gonna say more, but since you're gonna talk now…" he shrugs. "Ready when you are, Gramps."

"The correct form of address," he says archly, "is Zenin-sama."

"Sorry, Naobito-kun?"

Gojo is well aware that both the Zenin Clan's head and its heir would've killed him for that if they could. That they can't fills him with self-satisfied smugness that nearly crowds out the thrumming anxiety in his head.

"Anyway," he goes on, leaning forwards with his elbows on the table, "what were you gonna say?"

The Kamo Clan's head coughs. Gojo flashes him another of his you-can't-touch-me smiles.

"You all already know why you're here," Naobito starts, pretending it hadn't been the teenage head of a rival clan who'd cued him in. "So I'm not going to waste any time explaining that again."

"Smart," Gojo replies, unasked-for. "Glad ya figured out that no one wants to hear you talk for longer than-"

"Gojo-san," he says, too prideful to lose his cool, "we could have a cohort of the Hei outside your clan's compound in under five minutes."

"And I could be back there to shank 'em all in two seconds, so I really don't see how that's supposed to shut me up." He leans back on his heels. "You were saying?"

"I understand perfectly well why none of you" – he glances between the two delegates – "are likely to agree to this, but we need the twins back, and it'd be to your benefit to cooperate with us."

"Because…why?"

This time, Naobito soundly ignores him. Naoya's nostrils flare, though, which is a good sign. "We're ready to do whatever it takes to return them, but the establishment" – he says that word with an air of disgust that implies he couldn't be further removed from that category when Gojo is fairly certain he is the establishment – "doesn't seem willing to cooperate."

"Probably because you seem hell-bent on upending the stability of jujutsu governance," the Kamo head snaps. "Why should we help you do it?"

"We're going to do what we have to, Kamo-san. And someone is going to make you pick a side." He looks so smug that Gojo wonders how disastrous the fallout of a solid Hollow Purple to the face would be. "You hold too much weight in our society not to be made to side with someone. Either us, or the people stopping us." He smiles placidly; he thinks, clearly, that his plan is foolproof. "And if you choose the latter, that puts you in our way-"

"And dead," Naoya adds, cracking his knuckles.

He's embarrassing, really. Gojo is embarrassed for him. He thinks. Or maybe he just reeks of the intolerable stench of stupidity and too much power.

"Yes, thank you, Naoya," Naobito sighs. "Anyway. Ally yourselves with us and you're not going to have to worry about that."

Gojo raises his hand.

"No," Naobito snaps.

"Great and venerable Naobito-sama," he says anyways.

"I could kill you, boy."

"No, actually, that was what I was gonna say just now." Gojo lowers his hand with an impish grin – he's gotten good at that, grinning impishly when his heart wants to pound a hole in his chest. "Why should I care when I could just kill you all first?"

Naobito's nostrils flare this time. They're very ugly nostrils, Gojo decides. "You think too highly of yourself, boy."

"Umm…no, I don't." He shrugs. "I'm the strongest, remember?"

"One man against the entirety of the Hei-"

"Seems like a cakewalk," Gojo interrupts. "So, no. No deal. No dice. No twins-"

Noaya's eyes narrow. "How do you know they're twins?"

"You said so," Gojo reminds him. "And I wasn't done yet. The Gojo Clan answers 'no.'"

"Has it never once occurred you to think about the consequences of your actions?"

Gojo's face darkens. "Yeah, actually, it has."

What he doesn't add is that, no matter how little he likes or understands them, there's no way in the ninth circle of hell that he's going to turn a pair of helpless little girls back over to a family that will only ever use them to flex their own power. He stands, turning to leave, but looks back over his shoulder one last time.

"Oh, and by the way," he says, his expression betraying absolutely nothing, "good luck ever finding your stupid twins."

"What was your answer?"

At very least, Gojo doesn't avoid his mother's eyes this time. "I said no."

She smiles, even though her face is lined with worry, and ruffles his hair. "Good."

Zenin Estate

"No, not yet."

"But you promised you'd retaliate!" Naoya protests.

"And we will. But the issue is that he's already expecting us to show up at his estate. He'd just kill whoever we sent." Naobito drums his fingers against the desk. "There are ways of twisting his arm that he isn't going to see coming."

"They're trying to get the other clans to help them find the kids."

Utahime raises her eyebrows. "The Zenins are asking for help?"

"Yeah, it was…" Gojo grimaces. "Weird. I told them no, of course."

"Well, obviously."

"But, ah, the problem with that is that they kinda said they'd, uh…" Gojo trails off when his phone's ringtone blares from his pocket. "Hold on, someone's, ah, calling me."

"Yeah, I can hear that. You gonna let it go to voicemail?"

Gojo flips his phone open and shakes his head. "It's Shoko."

"Why?"

Gojo shrugs, then accepts the call. "Y'ello?"

When his face pales, Utahime feels like she's swallowed a stone.

Nagano

"No, wait, the second integral is actually-"

Shoko doesn't even realize until the words of the formula come out muffled that there is a hand over her mouth, the fingers digging hard into her skin, and she doesn't even have the presence of mind to scream before it's clamping her mouth shut.

She doesn't know what to think, but she doubts she would be thinking much even if she did. Instinct kicks in, and she thrashes against the hands keeping a painfully-tight grip on her shoulders, trying to free her arms to swing at whoever is dragging her out of her desk chair and into the hall.

She tries to scream again, but it's too muffled to hear; too disoriented to see who's restraining her, she drives her knee upwards into what she hopes is someone's groin even though she knows it probably isn't. She can't see her assailants, all of them behind her and one holding her head straight forwards so she can't turn, but she knows she must be in the hallway, and when they take a left towards the living room.

Okaasan's show is on, she thinks, hot panic racing up her spine. Otousan, Ren-chan-

"Quit thrashing already," one of the assailants grunts, his accent surprisingly refined for a criminal's.

Shoko does not quit thrashing. To do so, she decides, would be the definition of insanity, and with all her meager strength, she tries to wrench her arm free. But she can't. She can't even stall, let alone run, and they drag her down the hallway, tripping along behind them to the sound of voices in the living room.

She can't see who's keeping her hostage, but she sees her parents' horrified expressions, and her older brother jumping to his feet, and she hears their ultimatum perfectly well:

"If you want her back," one of them tells her family, "you better hope you can get Gojo Satoru to do what we want."

"You need to go, Hime."

"Why?" Utahime asks. "Didn't you just say it wouldn't do anything?"

"Yeah, well, things are different now." They have Shoko. "And you gotta get out of here." They know who I care about. They're not going to do what I think they are.

"Because?"

"Things changed, okay?"

"You look like you're about to cry," Utahime accuses. "What did Shoko say?"

"Nothing, okay? Don't worry about it. Just go!"

"But why?"

"I told the Zenins 'no,' and they're going to do anything they can to-"

"But I'm safe here, right?" she challenges. "Isn't that what you said?"

"They're not that stupid." If they had been, they'd have attacked the estate, not realizing Gojo would rush home to defend it. "They're not…they wouldn't do it while I was here, and it's too risky, and…and Hime, please, just don't make me ask you any more times, okay?"

"There's something you're not telling me, isn't there?"

It's so glaringly obvious that even Gojo hadn't really expected her to miss it. "That's not important."

She'll come back to that later. "So where exactly am I supposed to go now?"

"Shoko's grandparents have this hotel in Kumamoto Prefecture." He looks exhausted. He hadn't a moment ago. "They'll put you guys up for free. No one'll think to look there."

It almost irritates her that he talks about the place like she's never been there. She most definitely has – nearly everyone whose high school years overlapped with Shoko's stayed at her grandparents' hotel over at least one break. She remembers it fondly and can't puzzle out why he would assume she didn't. "A hotel full of civilians."

"That nobody would think to look for you at."

"And what am I supposed to do if they do find me?"

"Call me," Gojo says flatly. He's not pale-faced or frantic anymore – some kind of autopilot kicking in, he imagines.

"But-"

"Can you please just listen and not try to fight me on this for once?"

"Only if you tell me why."

He wilts.

"They took Shoko," he says, more defeated than he's ever heard her. "They knew I was going to expect them to hit the estate and they went around me."

"What do you mean, took Shoko?"

"They took Shoko!"

"Took her where?"

"Hostage, stupid!"

"What?"

"And I don't know where she is, and they said they'd kill her if I found them, and the only way to get her back is to agree to help them find the kids, and if they find you on my estate, you're gonna be next!"

It hits, then. Feels like a wall of ice water. Utahime's hand raises itself to cover her mouth without her prompting.

Of course they had known – defenseless Shoko, all Gojo Satoru has left of his childhood. She almost feels as if they should have seen it coming and every muscle in her body wants to run and keep running until she finds her and, in the moment that the words sink in, she thinks she'd take on the Zenin Clan solo right about now.

This is her fault. She's the reason the twins are hiding out on Gojo's estate, and the reason Gojo had had to refuse the Zenins' demands, and the reason they might do to Shoko what they've already done to Tadashi.

"We have to find her," she says weakly. "You know that, right?"

"I have to find her."

"We-"

"If they figure out we're working together, Hime, it's over." Gojo's face is still pale, but it's drawn and grave now. "Get the twins out and stay low."

Minamioguni, Kyushu

Minamioguni is a hot spring town – tourists everywhere. As they make their way from the remote edge of town Gojo had warped them to into its center, it occurs to him that they'd probably look like a vacationing family to anyone else – mother, father, twin daughters. Maki jogs along in front of the pair while Mai clings to Utahime's hand, wary of the unfamiliar environment, and his chest feels heavy.

Family, like Shoko's frantic parents on the phone, begging him to get their daughter back, probably blaming him for her being gone in the first place. Like her grandparents, who don't even know she's gone yet and are going to have to put up her grief-stricken best friend and two little wards until a boy who can't seem to stop letting people down finds her again. It's dangerous, being loved by Gojo Satoru.

He gets within sight of the hotel with the three but doesn't accompany Utahime to the door.

"Oh," Shoko's grandmother murmurs, reaching out to stroke Mai's hair and widening her eyes in surprise when she flinches away. "Poor darlings…"

"We don't need much," Utahime says hoarsely. "Just a room and, um, and our meals brought up."

"Of course, Uta-chan." Shoko's grandmother had always insisted she liked Utahime best out of all of her granddaughter's friends. "It won't be any trouble at all."

"Well, that might not be true," she admits remorsefully. "If someone comes for them here, I, um…I'll try to get us as far away from the other guests as I can, but I don't know if-"

"That's quite all right," Shoko's grandfather cuts in. "Though I hope it doesn't come to that."

"Yeah. So do I."

"Come to what?" Maki asks, crossing her arms. "Is Naoya-san gonna come get us here?"

Utahime shakes her head with more conviction than she feels. "No. He's not."

"Can we go to the pool?"

"It's not a pool, Maki-chan." Utahime is too tired to be as patient as she wishes she could. "They're hot springs."

She should be out searching for Shoko right now, not explaining what an onsen is to a child who's never seen one. (In better times, she might wonder if she should be concerned about that.) If not for the fact that she can't afford to leave the twins undefended and there's no one else she trusts to look after them while Gojo searches for her, she would be on the road already, trying to puzzle out where the Zenins would've taken Shoko.

But, for whatever it's worth, this is what she has to do now. Wakana had trusted her with the twins, and she's going to be the one to keep them safe. Shoko, at very least, has a better shot than they do.

"Can we go to the hot springs?" Maki corrects herself.

"Maybe tomorrow," Utahime says wearily. Never mind that she ought to shut that down right away – the less they're seen in public, the better. But it's hard to manage a firm 'no' with Maki on even the best of days.

"Tomorrow," Maki repeats. "Okay."

Chapter 7: Survival Instinct

Notes:

Sorry for the slow. Thank you to the five of you who are still here. *peace sign*

Also, re: Maki's showers comment: I think that the Zenins probably don't have a lot of western stuff based on what we hear about them, so I doubt they would have showers. They're probably a bath kinda crowd.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

It's quiet this early in the morning, but Mai still startles when she feels Utahime's hand on her back.

"Mai-chan," she whispers, and Mai jolts awake. Her eyes snap open, and she doesn't sit up, but she clutches the covers like a shield. "Hey. It's okay, Mai-chan."

"Wha's happening?" she asks sleepily.

"Nothing," Utahime whispers. "I have a surprise."

Mai's eyes narrow. No one, as far as she can remember, has ever offered her that before. She doesn't quite know what one entails, but it's Utahime offering, and she's smiling, so it at very least seems safe to assume that nobody's coming for them.

Still, she's wary enough not to be sure that she likes this turn of events. "Um," she says timidly, "okay."

Utahime smiles, encouraged. "Have you ever gone to an onsen?"

Mai shakes her head. "The thing you said was here?"

"Mmhm." She nods. "Maki-chan wanted to go to the onsen, but she doesn't like being woken up first."

"No," Mai agrees.

"What do you say, then?" she smiles – she always seems to be smiling, far too much for someone with as much to be sad about as Utahime – and reaches for a folded bundle of fabric, unwrapping it to show Mai a little blue yukata. "Wanna have a bath?"

"I don't like baths," she protests.

"These are good baths."

Utahime has never seen Maki so cautious.

It's funny, she thinks, that they're running for their lives, but the only thing that seems to have fazed her this entire time has been a bath. She slips her shoes off carefully at the door instead of kicking them like she usually does; she looks over her shoulder before she starts to change out of her pajamas; and when Utahime directs the twins to the showers to wash, she looks at the showerhead like she's never seen one before.

"We don't have those at home," she says skeptically, pointing.

"You don't?"

"Nuh-uh."

"Well, now you've seen one," Utahime tells her as she lathers shampoo into her hair. Mai, who is, for once, the less skittish of the pair, copies her, even though she's no likelier to have ever been in a shower than Maki is. She's shy, but Utahime has noticed she's quick to adapt. She's grateful for that.

"Wait," Maki says, pointing to the basket where Utahime left their folded-up bath towels. "Don't we need those?"

"No, we'll just come back here when we're done," Utahime, mid-wash, explains.

"But what am I supposed to wear?" Maki protests.

Right. They've never been in an onsen before.

"Nothing," Utahime tells her.

"We can go around in nothing?" Maki doesn't sound like she believes that.

"Sure can," Utahime laughs, even though this whole exchange is making her uneasy. She pulls the last of the shampoo out with the water she wrings from her hair, then switches off the shower.

"That's weird," Maki decides.

Utahime hadn't realized nudity would make such a sticking point with a six-year-old. "Nobody's around right now, so no one's going to see us."

She tilts her head, and Utahime wonders if she picked that gesture up from Gojo. For Maki's own sake, she hopes she didn't. "But what if they do?"

"They won't, Maki-chan."

Maki gives Utahime a pouty look to express the offense she takes at that paltry reassurance. Nevertheless, she follows her sister and guardian into the baths. It's amusing, this trepidation, when previously she'd been chomping at the bit to 'go swimming,' but she seems a little more convinced when she dips a toe in the water, then a leg, and finally submerges up to her neck on one of the steps.

"It's hot," she says solemnly.

"That's the point," says Mai, who'd been listening more closely when Utahime had tried to explain the concept of a hot spring earlier. She sounds a little smug, probably reveling in her superior knowledge.

Maki floats her arms on the surface of the water, fanning out her fingers and then pushing down to let the water fill the gaps between them, and giggles at the sensation of the hot water rushing past her fingers as she pulls them down.

She doesn't try to swim, or splash much – that surprises Utahime. She's always been rambunctious, eager to push on whatever fences her in and see if she can break it; to see her sitting on the step, quietly entertaining herself – it doesn't match with the picture of Maki that she has in her head. Nor does Mai, grinning to herself before she splashes her sister and makes her squeal in protest. She's always assumed a hierarchy: Maki, the headstrong one, leads, pushes, and directs; Mai, more docile, follows, and she's quicker to worry and tears than her sister.

But then, Maki had been the one who had looked like she was trying hard not to cry the night that they had arrived at the hotel, and Mai is the one who shoves a wall of water in Utahime's direction and laughs uproariously when she pushes her wet hair out of her eyes and makes a disgruntled face. Maybe she's wrong; maybe they're less leader and follower than they're halves of a whole.

It's sort of comforting to think about that. Everything has felt so fragile since the twins came to her, and so much has already been lost; it's easy to forget that they are the one good thing in all of this. It's easy to imagine how the graceless Zenin would have handled children like them, and she's seen firsthand how quickly they've opened up with the knowledge that they're safe. She doubts that they would cry or ask questions or splash people in onsens back at home, where anything but perfection was probably grounds for punishment.

It's all been for them: the war brewing and the dead boyfriends and the abductions (even if Utahime doesn't believe for a second that Shoko won't find some way out of her captivity) and the late nights drawn taut with worry. The only reason she's even tried to see it through is to keep the promise she keeps on making that they'll never have to go back. But sometimes…

Well, it's easy to forget that they're people, as varied and complicated as any others, and not simply something to keep safe.

"It's bad manners to splash people in onsens," she tells Mai, crabby for show.

Mai giggles. "Sorry."

Utahime shakes her head fondly, tying back her hair with the band on her wrist. "No, you're not."

"You're right," Mai says frankly. "I'm not."

She grins. Utahime thanks every deity that she's ever heard of that this girl's contact with Gojo only lasted a couple of days.

Zenin Estate

"You got any gum?"

The poor Zenin chump they'd put on guard duty looks at Shoko like she's lost it. "Why would I have gum?"

Shoko shrugs. "Dunno. Doesn't everyone carry gum?"

"No."

"Shucks. Coulda used a stick right about now." They're not bothering to keep her tied up back in a locked room so deep in the bowels of the Zenin estate that she'd be dead four times over before she made it to the front gate, so she pillows her arms behind her head against the wall. "I always get so shifty when I can't smoke."

"Do you talk like that on purpose or were you just born annoying?"

She smiles. "Trade secret."

"You realize I could kill you, right?"

"Yeah, but you won't." Shoko shifts her head to cover hands that want to start shaking and looks over at the guard even though she'd rather keep her eyes closed. "I'm not important. You gotta have taken me for one of two reasons."

The guard says nothing.

"One," she continues, unprompted. "You wanna twist Gojo's arm."

Still nothing.

"Or two," she says. "You think I have information. And both of those things kinda require me to be alive, so…" she shrugs. "Gonna be kinda hard to explain yourself if you shoot me just 'cause I was annoying you."

"I wouldn't shoot you," he says mildly.

"Good, because-"

"Gunshot wounds don't hurt enough."

Shoko's skin feels too tight for her body. Knowing he's not going to act on anything he threatens is doing nothing for the cold fear clawing its way up her esophagus.

"You say that like you've been shot enough times to know," she says mildly.

Thank you, Gojo, she can't help but think. She'd never have been able to pull this act off without years spent watching him push every button he could find.

"You really wanna know?"

Shoko swallows trepidation and nods. "Not like I have anything better to do, right?"

He lifts his sleeve and raises his arm to show her a strip of too-smooth flesh running diagonally from his wrist to his elbow. She doesn't really care to guess at its source, or why he's bothering to show it to her when as far as she knows, he just wants her to be quiet. Nevertheless, she forces herself to reply.

"Doesn't look like a gun did that."

"My uncle," he says. "He keeps a training room full'a curses."

Shoko raises her eyebrows. That's probably the least terrifying thing on this estate. "That all?"

"You talk real big for a kid who couldn't even save herself from getting snatched, ya know."

"Nah," she says, forcing a smile. "I just know more than you."

She lets him think he's figured out what that means and turns back to the wall, closing her eyes.

"You know what we're gonna do to you if Gojo shows up, right?"

"Mmhm."

"Then whaddaya think you know that I don't?"

"Oh, you know," she says, keeping her tone light and her eyes closed. "That's for me to know and you to find out."

"What, you think your parents called the cops on us or something?"

Probably not, and even if they wanted to, she has to hope that Gojo had the foresight to stop them. Missing daughter or not, they know enough about jujutsu as Windows to know that involving the civilian police force in an investigation concerning the Zenin Clan is only going to end badly.

"Nah, they're not dumb enough to call the normie cops," she says casually.

"Well, that'd be a first."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing."

"It's kinda funny that we're still talking, considering how bad you wanted me to shut up a few minutes ago."

"Trust me, I still want you to shut up."

"Well, that's too bad."

"But if you're gonna be talking, cough it up."

"Cough what up?" Shoko says innocently.

"Whatever it is that you think you know."

The rough layout of the Zenin estate. That's pretty much it. Provided Shoko can find some way of knocking her guard unconscious, she's kind of confident she can find her way off the property; still, that's nowhere near a certainty. It's better if her captors think she has something bigger up her sleeve, something that means they should be putting their resources into keeping outsiders out and not keeping prisoners in.

All according to plan, or something. She doesn't think she's ever going to make it out of here if she can't be the architect of her own rescue.

"Now why," she says sweetly, digging her nails into her palms to distract herself from the sweat, "would I tell you that?"

"Dunno, but we got ways of makin' you talk."

"Yeah, right," she scoffs, even though she's pretty sure that, with the Zenins, a torture chamber in the basement isn't entirely off the table. That possibility is about half of the reason she hasn't slept a wink since they brought her here.

"But I also know you're prob'ly bluffing," he sighs, "so if you could just shut up…"

"Wow. You're really bad at your job."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"That if you'd rather just shut me up than drag me to the torture chamber for interrogation when you think I know something-"

"Torture chamber?" he interrupts.

"You're Zenins," she says matter-of-factly. "If anyone has one, it's you."

"Do you have any survival instincts?"

"No," Shoko tells him.

(A lie. It's Gojo Satoru's lesson number one: annoy someone enough and they'll forget they should take you seriously until the mistake's already been made and it's too late to fix it.)

"Stupid kid," he mutters.

"My point still stands."

"It really doesn't," the guard says drily.

"Does. You're awful at this guard thing."

"Then why are you still here?"

"Hilarious." She clears her throat. "And I'm still here because I do have survival instincts. To answer your question."

"I'll believe that when you shut up."

His dedication is almost enough to make her laugh. Maybe, if nothing else, Shoko is good at that – being bait for the people who matter more than she does, being a pebble in someone's shoe.

She likes the thought.

Minamioguni

"You got a plan yet?"

Gojo sighs. He should've known she wouldn't bother with a greeting.

"No," he tells her, figuring it's best not to beat around the bush.

"Seriously?"

"If I turn up wherever they're holding her, they'll kill her. If she tries to escape, they'll kill her. If anyone tries to retaliate, they'll-"

"I get it," Utahime cuts him off.

"Which is dumb, because honestly, how hard is it going to be to keep her from just reverse-cursed-techniquing herself, right? She's basically unkillable. Even if she has noodle arms." Utahime can hear Gojo drumming his fingers against something hard on the other end of the line. "But the problem is they know that, and they woulda gone for an easier target if they didn't have some way around it, and Yaga is trying to ransom her, and honestly, if they don't give her back soon, I think he's going to go and kill Naobito himself." He pauses to breathe. "So no. I don't have a plan."

She doesn't immediately respond. For once, she has no counterargument.

"I wanna tell myself I can just pop in and get her and be out of there before they can do anything," he says, crestfallen. "But even if I do, they'll just go and do something else."

Utahime has often wondered about that – why Gojo doesn't just break everything in his way to get what he wants. He has the power to do it almost without thinking; he seems too young to have the self-control to tell himself he shouldn't. Maybe it's this, though. Maybe it's just that there's always someone left to do worse. Take what he wants by force once, and he'll be caught up in something he can't stop until it's taken everything from him.

Never mind that no one can take his life – try as she might to pretend she thinks there's nothing in his brain or his heart, Utahime knows Gojo well enough to know that it would mean nothing to him if everything else was gone.

"Gojo," she says hoarsely. "I…I can't do anything."

"Yeah, well, neither can I."

He's not gloating. She could cry at that.

"We can't just leave her there."

"Yeah, I know."

"But I can't do anything," Utahime repeats.

"Yeah, well, for once in my stupid, pointless life, neither can I!"

"I don't believe you."

"Yeah, well. That's a you problem, okay?"

"There has to be something we can do!"

"Utahime-"

"Gojo," she interrupts, urgent, "I'm not letting another person I love-"

"She's not your stupid boyfriend, okay? She'll be fine-"

"Excuse me?"

He doesn't apologize, but he doesn't defend himself, either. Tears prick at the inner corners of Utahime's eyes.

"It's not just you," she says shakily. "If they find out I'm the one who has the twins, it's…I'm going to lose everyone."

"Uta-"

"And I'm not you, okay? I can't just blow up everything that's in my way. I can't…what if they came for my family? What's useless little me going to be able to do for them?" Her heart hammers hard and fast against her ribcage. "Or my old classmates? It's just going to be Tadashi all over again. And I'm not letting more innocent people die because of something I did!"

"Then can I give you a piece of advice, Senpai?"

"Oh, so now you call me Senpai?"

"Stay out of it."

"I can't!"

"That's all I have to say, Uta. If you don't want anyone else to get hurt, you better not let them find out you're involved."

"How could they possibly not already know that?" she snaps.

"Well, you're still alive, aren't you?"

That stings more than Utahime would ever admit.

"You asshole," she says under her breath.

"I'm just telling it like it is, Uta."

Kyoto

Shoko is sleeping when a loud thud jolts her awake.

It's too dimly-lit in here at night to see anything, but even in the dark she can make out the outline of a body on the floor. She rubs at her eyes to make sure they're not playing tricks on her; her heart starts to pound. Someone's here for me, she realizes, and she doesn't know whether that's terrifying or very, very good.

But nothing tells her which it is. There's no chaos in the hallway outside, not a sound anywhere – the estate is as quiet as it was when she fell asleep however many hours ago. That thought sends a chill down her spine; an intruder would almost certainly have caused a ruckus. So the person who's come for her must either have been authorized to come get her, or-

"Shoko."

She's still lying down, pretending to sleep, and a bloodied hand reaches for her. Her eyes go wide and her body goes deathly still; only her eyes move, and she prays the speaker won't be able to see that she's watching.

"Shoko," the intruder repeats. "I'm getting you out of here."

She shouldn't, but she sits bolt upright, breath coming in shallow and inadequate, and inches away, standing and backing towards the wall.

"Do you not recognize me?"

Breathe, she tells herself, hands pressed to the wall behind her. "W-what do you want?"

"I told you." He steps forward, close enough to offer his bloodied hand again. "I'm here to get you out."

Notes:

Shoko, literally being held hostage: "all according to keikaku"

Chapter 8: Allies

Summary:

Shoko's rescuer wants to cut a deal.

Notes:

This felt so strange to write, because this is a chapter I've been waiting to write since the beginning, but I also had no idea what I was going to do with it and had to make stuff up as I went. Then again, that's how this entire fic goes. :p

Chapter Text

Minamioguni

4:32 A.M.

"Is this still Utahime-senpai's number?"

It's still dark outside, and her footsteps crunch as she walks along the gravel path to somewhere she won't be overheard. But she forgets about the need for stealth almost as soon as the owner of the unknown number speaks on the other end.

"Why are you calling me?" she asks, sharp, and she knows she should hang up and probably throw the phone to the ground and pray no one's gotten what they need to trace her from it yet, but she can't. "How do you even have-"

"You gave it to me, remember?"

"Hang up."

"Senpai-"

"I'm not your senpai anymore."

"You're older than me. Technically-"

"Geto," she says icily, "hang up."

"I have Shoko."

Utahime stills.

"She's safe," he says. "I found her on the Zenin estate."

"Wh-"

He cuts her off almost immediately. "I want to make a deal."

"What do you mean you have Shoko?"

"She's here with me. In Kobe." Her eyes widen – giving a location is risky. "She's resting now."

Kobe, she thinks. I was trying to go there.

"If you even lay a finger on her-"

"Utahime-senpai," he says, almost hurt. "I would never."

"That's funny."

"Shoko is my friend."

"Oh, really? That why you went on a murder spree?"

"That has nothing to do with-"

"Well, excuse me for wondering if my best friend is safe with a wanted criminal!"

"Do you wanna talk to her? Would that convince you?"

Utahime's heart leaps. Please. "Maybe."

"Okay, give me a sec. I have to put her on."

"Mmhm."

She wonders, in the brief silence that follows, how he got her out. Then she decides she'd rather not know.

(Geto isn't Gojo – there is no one to take for collateral if he risks retaliation. Only he would be punished, and there's little more they can do to punish a man they can't find than they already have.)

"Hey," she hears him whisper on the other end. Fabric rustles in the quiet. "I have Utahime on the phone."

Muffled noise – so he wasn't lying. She hears something rustling as the phone changes hands, then, "Utahime?"

She could wilt with relief. "Shoko."

"I'm okay," she immediately replies. "I promise. I'm fine."

"Where-"

"I was on the Zenin estate," she says. "In this back room. And I just kinda woke up in the middle of the night and" – a pause, she's probably turning to glare at Geto – "he showed up."

Utahime wonders if it's treason to her friend to be grateful that she was rescued at all, even if her rescuer might be no better than her captors.

"Where are you now? Are you safe? Is he-"

"No, he needs me alive," Shoko interrupts her.

"Shoko," Geto sighs in the background, as if they've had this conversation before. He takes the phone from her hands. "I'm not going to kill her, Senpai. She's being dramatic."

Shoko yanks the phone back. "He said he wants to make a deal with you, and you obviously wouldn't if he killed me, so he needs me alive, so yes, I'm safe."

"You make me sound so-"

"Shut up."

Geto, surprisingly, obeys.

"We're in Kobe," she says. "Sorry if I scared you."

"Scared me?" Utahime shakes her head. "Shoko, I thought-"

"They only took me to twist Gojo's arm," she says, cutting Utahime off again. "I think."

"Well, we figured, but-"

"So they weren't going to kill me either. So obviously it's fine."

There's something off about Shoko right now, and she might not admit it with Geto around, but Utahime has to try. "Aren't you even a little bit worried?"

"Oh, of course I am," she says casually. "But honestly, he totally had a thing for me back before he went loony, so I doubt he's gonna do anything. And he knows I'd kick his ass if he tries anything with whatever this deal he wants to make is."

"Shoko, are you even aware of-"

"Oh, yeah, but what use is-"

"Would you quit interrupting me?"

"I'm fine, Utahime, okay? So could you just…not freak out?"

She's taken-aback for the moment it takes her to realize that Shoko is never so callous for no reason. She's flippant, but she's never cruel, and it isn't like her to have so little sympathy, to talk like it's unreasonable for her frined to have been worried.

She's trying to tell me something, Utahime decides.

"Of course," she says coolly. "I'm sorry. Panicking won't solve anything, will it?"

"No," Shoko agrees. "It won't."

"Kobe sucks," Shoko tells her.

"Does it?"

"Definitely don't recommend. This hotel is a dump."

"I almost went to Kobe a while back," she says. "Good thing I didn't, I guess."

"Oh, definitely. It sucks."

Don't come, Utahime interprets.

"Have you gotten out much?"

"Nah. Just got here."

"Hm. Maybe it's nicer if you see more of it," Utahime says. Can you run?

"Yeah, not gonna happen. Geto can't risk getting spotted."

"Oh. Of course." So they're keeping a low profile. "Are you hurt?"

"Well, my neck is a little sore from sleeping against a wall."

"Did they try to get you to talk?"

"Nah. They actually wanted me to shut up."

"What?"

"Oh, I just kinda tried to talk their ears off so they'd drop their guard and I could bolt. Didn't work, though."

A Gojo Satoru solution if there ever was one – if Gojo would ever actually have needed such a flimsy cover to escape a tight bind. It's not a welcome thought; he remembers their last conversation and winces.

"But they didn't do anything to you?"

"Nah."

"And you didn't tell them anything?"

"Nope, you're good."

She isn't taking the bait.

"It's good you didn't tell them anything," she says.

"Well, duh. That would be dumb."

But what did you tell Geto?

"It would be."

"What, you think I'm some kinda loudmouth?"

"No, but if the Zenins-"

"No one tried to make me talk, Uta. It's fine."

"You know, you really don't sound fine," she says, even though she already has what she needs to know. That sounded affirmative, at least – Geto doesn't know where she is or why she's there. But there's something wrong. Maybe before Shoko had been talking in code, but now…

"Call Geto if you need me," she says after a pause. "They took my phone."

Kobe

3:10 A.M.

"So…how'd you get tangled up in all of this?"

Shoko doesn't look up, or over at him. She keeps her eyes down so he won't pick up on anything and she won't have to think about him washing his bloodied hands in a tiny bathroom sink. She doesn't even want to know how many people he had to lay waste to on his way to get her out. She especially doesn't want to know how he did it without so much as a scratch on his person.

"The Zenins are throwing a fit," she says tightly. "Gojo is involved. Taking me was supposed to twist his arm, I guess."

"Hm. Typical Zenins."

"What?"

"Stupid," Geto clarifies. "Gojo is too cautious for that to work."

"And that's where you come in, huh?" Shoko crosses her arms. "Why'd you even bother?"

"You're my friend, Shoko."

She scoffs. "Yeah, right."

"And if you're also useful, what of it?"

"Damn. The rumors were true, huh?"

"What rumors?"

She has to bite her lip so she won't smile, knowing the comeback she wants to make is a good one. "That Gojo took all your redeeming qualities in the divorce."

"You haven't changed, I see."

"Why are you kidnapping me?"

"Keep your voice down."

"There's no one on this train."

"And I'm not kidnapping you," Geto huffs. "Honestly."

"Then what exactly do you call making off with me in the middle of the night?"

"I'm rescuing you."

Shoko raises an eyebrow. "Is that what it's called when you steal someone else's hostage?"

"You look pale," he comments. "And you never look at me."

"Wow. You're so smart." She rolls her eyes. "I can't believe you figured out that I don't wanna be here."

"Would you rather be back at the Zenin Estate?" he asks, not unkindly.

"You really suck, you know that?"

"That's rude, Shoko."

"Everyone liked you so much." Shoko scowls. "You had such a good thing goin', you know?"

"Don't know how my changing sides is relevant."

"Changing sides, huh? You really are an idiot."

"The last time we spoke about it, you certainly didn't seem to take it this personally."

"Yeah, because you weren't trying to kidnap me at three in the morning last time."

"Well, the Zenins weren't trying to start a war last time, either." He shrugs. "Desperate times and all that."

"You're unbelievable." She pauses. "How did you even find out about that?"

"I keep tabs on things," he says vaguely.

She narrows her eyes. "What kinds of things?"

"What Gojo is up to. The Clans. All of that."

"Oh, really?" Shoko asks. "You and who?"

"I have informants."

"I know for a fact you're not rich enough to pay Mei Mei-"

"Mei Mei? I'm not stupid, Shoko. Someone would just pay her more and she'd tell the higher-ups where I was."

"So how do you know?"

He shrugs. "I have my sources."

Kyoto

Two Days Earlier

"Only sorcerers, huh?" Naoya grins. "I like the way you think."

"And I don't think you even know how to think," Geto says primly. "What exactly was your plan, break everything and see what happens? Don't you have enough sense left to know how stupid that is?" He gives Naoya a reproachful look. "Or are you Clan folks just too inbred to see reason anymore?"

Naoya sneers. "You forget who you're talking to."

"No, actually, I don't. I just think you're extraordinarily stupid." Geto is getting good at brushing out of rooms like he's walking on air, his feet invisible beneath the edges of his floor-length robes, and he brushes through the doorway. "So I think I'm going to have to pass."

"Do you not realize how much you'd have to gain if Gojo Satoru were out of the picture?"

"Of course I do," Geto sighs. "But there's a reason I haven't killed him myself."

"What, sentiment?" Naoya sneers. "You would."

"No," he says tonelessly. "I haven't because I can't."

"They say you're his only weakness."

"Wrong," Geto sighs. "He has at least eight."

"Geto-san-"

"If you're going to purposefully idiotic," Geto sighs, "I'm going to be excusing myself."

"And what if I told you we have your old girlfriend?"

Geto raises his eyebrows. "Can't recall ever having had one."

"Really? Girl with the mole?"

Geto freezes in the doorway.

"What do you mean you have her?"

"We're…detaining her for the time being," Naoya tells him. "But if you cooperate-"

"No," Geto says, his hands balling into fists, "I definitely don't think I'll be doing that."

Minamioguni

4:45 A.M.

"Geto took Shoko."

The other end of the line is silent before Gojo finally sputters, "what?"

"He got her. I don't know how."

"Oh," Gojo says dully. "Good."

"Huh?"

"I had a feeling."

"I'm…I'm sorry, what?"

"That he was gonna get roped into this somehow." He coughs, clearing his throat. "No surprise, really. Glad someone got her out."

"And you didn't think to warn me."

"Nah, 's just a hypothetical. Wasn't sure." He sounds like he's just woken up, which he probably has, honestly. "Is she okay?"

"Gojo, she's with a mass murderer!"

"Yeah, and what reason does he have to hurt her?"

"Gojo…"

"Look, I know what it sounds like." Do you? She wonders. "But seriously, why?"

"He…he said he wants to make a deal with me," Utahime admits.

"There you have it."

"I'm not going to."

"You better not."

Irritation pricks her throat, even though he's only repeated what she herself has already said. "What if I did?"

"You wouldn't."

"But what if I did?" she repeats.

"Can you just not?"

"Can you just not act like I'm too stupid to make rational decisions every time I don't agree with you?"

"I never said you were stupid!"

"And I never said I was going to make a deal with Geto!"

"But you were going to fake it, weren't you?"

She pauses.

"You were totally going to fake it," he sighs.

"I was going to go and get Shoko, yeah, gold star for figuring out the obvious."

"Utahime…"

"Senpai."

"Seriously? Now is the time you choose to pick a fight about what I call you?"

"Geto still calls me Senpai."

He bristles. "You talked to Geto?"

"How did you think I found out he had Shoko, you dunce?"

"I…I don't know, okay? Just…just don't be an idiot."

"Of course not," she shoots back. "That's your job."

"Mean."

"You keep calling me incompetent, so doesn't that make us even?"

"I never said you were incompetent."

"But-"

"I said I wanted you to stay out of it so you wouldn't get yourself killed. Geez. I had no idea that was so offensive."

"It's hard enough knowing I can't do anything about this without you rubbing it in, Gojo."

He sighs heavily. "So many people want to kill you right now, Hime."

"I know."

"I…I just don't want them to succeed."

"I know you don't."

"Geto won't hurt Shoko," he says, his voice gentler than she had known it could be. "And I know you wanna go get her, but if you just charge in like that, he might be able to rope you into something."

"So what do you propose?" she asks drily, even though the admission makes her throat feel tight. "That you barge in and take her back?"

"I…I'm just in a better position to negotiate."

"And by that you mean you're going to punch him into the sun if he tries to stop you, and I can't do that."

"No, I mean that I'm in a better position to negotiate."

"Gojo, do you realize what it means that he even found out about this?"

"Huh?"

"So obviously he could've found out that the twins disappeared. Everyone knows that by now. Wouldn't surprise me if he was keeping tabs on things enough to have heard about it, right? So he knows the Zenins are on the offensive. But how would he have found out that they took Shoko?"

"I don't know…?"

"Gojo," she sighs, exasperated, "if the Zenins want allies, and they already have everybody who matters against them, why wouldn't they try to ally with him?"

"…did he say that?"

"No, but who else knows about them taking Shoko? Her parents? Yaga?"

Gojo is silent for a moment.

"Wow," he finally says. "Finally beat me to the punchline."

She could smirk at that admission of defeat, but she's too preoccupied with less pleasurable things than one-upping her kouhai to bother.

"I don't think he'd work with them," Gojo says after another pause.

"Neither do I, if they have Shoko."

"But?"

"But if that's how he found out, then he definitely knows about me." She stops to let him put the pieces together. "And wouldn't that mean that if he really wanted to do something to me, he already could've?"

"Well, yeah, but…"

"I need to go, Gojo," she says softly.

"But what if he tries to get you to-"

"I just have to get Shoko."

"Utahime, he's a special-grade-"

"And I have one on speed-dial." She almost smiles. "And he can teleport."

She can hear Gojo swallow hard on the other end.

"Yeah," he agrees. "He can."

"So really, what's the issue?" She almost laughs. "Quit trying to act like you're my dad. I'll be fine."

"I'm…not trying to act like your dad."

He sounds embarrassed, and she might have bigger things on her plate than that right now, but that amuses her. "Well, you are."

"I, uh…I think you shouldn't die."

"I also think I shouldn't die, but I'm not sure what that has to do with-"

"Hime," he says, sounding a little queasy, "please don't die or lose a limb or defect."

"Defect? Where'd you get that from?"

"What if that was what Geto wanted from you?"

"What would he have to gain?"

"I dunno, but…what if he did?"

"Gojo, I'm not defecting."

"Okay."

"Wanna teleport me to Kobe?"

"Huh?"

"It's faster than the train."

He's silent for a moment, then quietly replies, "sure."

Kobe

6:15 A.M.

"You're sure about this?"

"I am." Utahime, without really knowing why, takes Gojo's hand and squeezes it. "I'll be fine, Gojo-kun."

He looks dazed. "I get -kun now?"

She shrugs. "It's appropriate for a kouhai."

"Ew," Maki says, observing the exchange from below. One of her hands is in Gojo's free one, and she looks up at them with more disgust than Utahime thinks such a small body should be able to hold.

"What, Maki-chan?" she asks, letting go of Gojo's hand to kneel in front of her. "What's ew?"

"You and old man boy," Maki says, crossing her arms. "Ew."

"We're just saying goodbye, Maki-chan."

"You're being gross."

"No, we're not," Gojo cuts in. "Love is a beautiful thing."

She glares up at him, then looks back down at Maki. "I don't love him."

Mai peers around her sister to interject, "that's mean."

"No, it's not," Utahime protests. "I don't."

"It's mean, Uta-chan," Gojo agrees. "You should say you're sorry."

She rolls her eyes and says nothing more before she leaves them.

"You idiot," Shoko hisses. "Did you not hear anything I said earlier?"

"Hi, Shoko-chan," she says drily. "Glad to see you're still alive."

"I was trying to tell you not to come!"

"Which obviously wasn't going to happen."

"Clearly not, Shoko," Geto interjects as he breezes into the room. He's wearing different clothes than the uniform Utahime always used to see him in – floor-length priest's robes, half of his hair undone and longer than it was last winter – and the sight of him makes her stiffen, but she knows she can't afford to freeze.

"Geto," she says, her voice hard. "What do you want with me?"

He smiles. "It's not so much what I want as it is what I can give you."

Chapter 9: Geto-Kun

Notes:

I have no excuse for the update delay except that I literally had zero interest in doing so until about two hours ago, so, uh, hi. It's me. I'm the problem, it's me.

(Anyways.)

Chapter Text

Star Religious Group Compound

Kobe

Last night, Utahime-san told them a story.

Wakana used to tell Mai stories sometimes, but she always said she wasn't very good at it, and even a child could tell she didn't like to, so neither twin ever asked. But last night, after Utahime had disappeared for a while and left the girls with her shaky friend who had told them what a cigarette was and tried to pretend to smile, she came back and asked if they wanted to hear a story. Mai, without waiting for Maki's agreement, had said that she did.

Utahime had smiled and knelt beside them on the futon they were sharing like Wakana used to. She had told them a story about a kind man and a pair of snow cranes, and even though the building they're in is drafty and Mai sees curses in every corner, her voice had been soothing. She hadn't told them where they were or why they were in such a frightening place, but her warmth had made the room a little less cavernous.

Maki, who apparently did not believe her when she told them that those same cranes were the ones she could summon with her cursed technique, had asked to see them, and Utahime had smiled sadly. Mai knew why.

Mai knows that Maki couldn't see the cranes even if Utahime did summon them, and that even if she'd never say it that would make her upset. She's proud of herself for knowing that that is why Utahime doesn't bring out her birds, even if Mai wishes she could see them.

They sound like such nice cranes. She wonders if it would be warm if she snuggled up between them when she went to sleep.

"We're going to be here for a while," Utahime had told them. "We'll be safe here."

Mai hadn't known whether to believe her, but that thought was swiftly replaced by the next moment, because Utahime had done something which Mai did not understand. She's still trying to figure out what it had meant when she bent and touched her lips to the twins' foreheads; she's still at a loss.

Still, years of caution have made it easy for Mai to hear things that nobody else does, and she thinks that must have been something bad, because after Utahime leaves she can hear the muffled sound of crying right outside their door.

After she went away, she probably thought the twins were asleep, and for a while Mai is convinced she'll come back and be angry that they're not, so she pulls the covers up to her chin and lays still as a statue. But she doesn't close her eyes. Maki has, and she's snoring a little bit beside her, but Maki isn't worried like Mai is. She can't see the curses that follow them everywhere, nor the ones that live in the rafters of this cold, dusty, unlit place. And even though she doesn't really know where she is, Maki has always been the braver sister; she isn't surprised. She was the one who would say things that Mai wouldn't dare to. Of course she would be the first to fall asleep.

But Mai can't. Mai doesn't like it here.

The boy who met them when they came here is scary. Mai can't explain why, because he's handsome and says nice things and his smile makes him seem like he means what he says, but he scares her. And she likes Utahime's grumpy friend with the cigarettes fine, but she's gone now. There are people she doesn't know everywhere, and she thinks they're all looking at her.

And now it's dark, and there aren't any lamps in this room, or even candles, and Utahime is gone again.

Too anxious to sleep, Mai inches closer to Maki, wrapping her arms around her because she does not know what else to hold onto. It doesn't wake her, and she can't ask for comfort or reassurance like she usually does when she is afraid and Maki is there, but at least Maki is warm. It is too cold in this room, and at least there's that.

Somehow she feels like Maki would know what to do, what to tell her sister to convince her it was safe to fall asleep even somewhere like this, but she'll be grumpy if Mai wakes her for something like that. She'll probably call her a baby and make her feel even worse than she already does, because Maki never needs to be told that she'll be all right – she just knows. All of the people who would hit them when they stepped out of line, somehow, hurt Mai in a way that they could never hurt Maki, and when she is in pain, sometimes all she wants is to know that she can be like her sister – bruised, but never really broken.

She wishes she were Maki sometimes, because then maybe she wouldn't be afraid, and she couldn't see the curse that had snuck in after Utahime left and started watching them from the rafters, and she wouldn't lie awake wondering if she was going to be left behind here because lips on a forehead probably mean something bad.

There is a reason that the people who call Maki weak always look like they're lying.

She clings to Maki and does not move, but she still feels fitful. It is only when Utahime enters silently, late at night, and lifts the covers to settle in on the same futon that Mai moves a muscle. Utahime had never said that she would allow it, and maybe it will make her want to leave, but Mai is too scared not to turn and curl up against her.

Mai expects her to chastise her or at least stiffen. She puts her arms around her instead.

"I'm sorry," she murmurs, her soft hands stroking Mai's back. "I'm so sorry I brought you here."

Mai had never known a grown-up was allowed to say those words before.

Earlier

"I just want to know why you're going to all this trouble."

Geto raises an eyebrow, no doubt trying to look smoother and more refined than he is. Geto has always been like that, putting on airs – it's a wonder he didn't turn up his nose at Gojo and his stupidity. Maybe he had. Maybe that had driven him away as much as the rest of it, such talent wasted on someone with so little seriousness.

Jealousy, Utahime thinks, is probably Geto Suguru's vice of choice.

"Altruism, I can assure you," he says, smooth and modulated and not at all seventeen. Idiot, Utahime automatically comments in her head. "I always respected you a lot."

She crosses her arms. "Even though you know I hate everything you're trying to do."

"Hate is such a strong word," he says, trying too hard to look gracefully but only slightly wounded.

"So is genocide." She gives him a hard look. "What is it that you actually want with me?"

"I told you. I want to help."

"Thanks, but-"

"Gojo can't protect you forever," he interrupts her. "You know he can't."

"I fail to see what-"

"And when the Zenins track you down, what are you going to do?" he challenges her. "You know you can't defend the twins on your own. And Gojo's your only ally, so what are you going to do when he can't defend you anymore?"

"Where are you getting this idea that I'm working with Gojo?"

Geto gives her an irritated look of his own. "Do you honestly think there's any other plausible way you'd still be alive right now?"

She winces. As much as she wants to protest, he's not wrong.

"I'll take that as a yes, by the way."

"You shouldn't."

"You're not a very good liar."

"Didn't you just say that you 'always respected me'?"

"Respecting you is different than ignoring your obvious weaknesses."

"Oh?" she can't help but be rankled, even though it would be advantageous to stay calm. "You wanna talk about obvious weaknesses?"

"Not particularly," he says, sounding almost bored. Probably, she figures, on purpose. "Anyways. My point is that I had a feeling you could use my help."

"How generous."

"And if that might induce you-"

"Induce me." She laughs, as harsh and brusque as she can make it, even though it makes her heart twinge to talk this way to someone she had once been so fond of. She'd never have admitted it, what with the way that he was always going along with Gojo's harebrained ideas, but she had had always liked Geto before his manicured words seemed insincere. "Why do you talk like that?"

He makes a face that is almost pouty, and for once he actually looks his age. "What would you know about refinement?"

"You've committed, like, eight different crimes in the past week and you're trying to lecture me about refinement."

"They're not crimes, really," he says, sighing as if he is unbearably put-upon for having to explain this yet again. "Unpopular but necessary measures-"

"Geto, are you going to get to the point or not?"

"Blackmail," he says flatly.

"Ohhh. Now I gotcha." She fakes a smile and knows he knows she's faking it. "You thought you could force my hand if you offered me protection."

Not a bad plan, but she can't for the life of her figure out why he would want her on his side so badly. She's not useless, but if he wanted somebody who'd serve his purposes, he ought've tried to get Shoko to defect, not Utahime. Her skills are a thousand times more practical. That's beside the point, though.

"Blackmail is such an ugly word."

"You're an idiot," she says flatly. "You know that, Geto? You're a real idiot."

"You used to be so polite, Senpai."

"Yeah, and you used to be sane." She probably shouldn't be goading him like this, but there is a strange mutually assured destruction about all of this – nothing she says incenses him so much that he'd retaliate, and nothing he says incenses her enough to act rashly. Words are all they're exchanging, and if she toes the line, it'll stay that way.

Which is good. She'll have her information, and he'll never know that the twins he's offering to shelter are the kinds of people that he would normally kill without hesitation.

"I guess you have a point," she sighs, as if it hurts to admit that he might be right. It does, sort of, but not in the calculated way that Utahime is trying to make him think it does. "But you know it wouldn't be a proper defection, right?"

"That'll come with time."

This idiot. Honestly. It's as if he thinks everyone else's morals are as cheap as his own. "Sure it will."

"You'll be useful once you're onboard," he says, looking at his nails (perfectly-groomed, Utahime notices) as if she couldn't possibly be of more interest than they are. "You have that kind of presence."

That might be one of the kinder compliments Utahime has ever been paid. How she wishes it were coming from more welcome lips.

(She thinks of that and wonders why the ones she thinks of are Gojo's, then shakes herself. This isn't the time.)

"What kind, exactly?"

"You're like a mother to people." His expression now is unreadable. "You have a way of making people think that you care more than you do."

And that stings more than it should. When he's not being ridiculous in his efforts to make an adult of himself, Utahime thinks he might have a dangerous talent for getting between the chinks in people's armor.

"Someone took psych class too seriously," she says airily, trying to sound like she couldn't care less.

"That's my offer. Take it or leave it."

"What, protection?"

"In exchange for cooperation."

She doesn't know what that's going to look like, except that he probably means to make her secure people's compliance. It takes all she has not to shudder.

"For how long?"

He looks at her like she's really quite stupid. "Permanently. Did you think this was a temporary thing?"

Tokyo Metropolitan Curse Technical College

"Why is she so stupid?"

"Don't call her that," Shoko snaps.

"What am I supposed to call her? She's stupid!"

"She's not stupid if she only had to be stupid because I was stupid first."

Gojo, a little stunned, looks over at Shoko and realizes she's got her head down like she always does when she's going to cry.

"I just don't get it," he says under his breath. "Why would she-"

"Because of me, dumbass." Shoko's voice snags, and now he knows she really must be crying. "Isn't it obvious?"

"But-"

"How else was she supposed to get me out alive?"

"I could've…we could've-"

"Gojo," she cuts him off, "it's Uta."

Utahime, the kind of idiot who's plenty selfless and just reckless enough to run into a burning building after a lost cat. It's amazing she's acquired the reputation for tact and discretion that she has when everything she's done lately has seemed so starkly misaligned with it.

"We have to get her out," he says.

"Duh."

"One of the twins can't see curses." Gojo taps his fingers impatiently against the table, something everyone close to him knows he only does under the greatest stress. "I give it five days before Geto does something."

Shoko thinks of the twin with the glasses and her fist clenches under the table. Stupid Geto. Stupid potential wasted on stupid ideas. Stupid idiot, thinking that killing a little girl is going to fix what's wrong with the world as if what's wrong with the world isn't him.

"What are we going to do?"

"Tell the Zenins he has the twins and snatch 'em while they're raiding the compound?"

"And how likely is that to actually work?"

"I mean, the way I see it, it's, like…two birds with one stone, ya know? The Zenins and Geto take each other out, then we don't hafta worry about either of them."

Shoko knows that he can't possibly mean that. She wishes he did, but neither of them has ever been able to talk about Geto so callously and mean it.

"You're actually going to risk that?"

"Who am I kidding," he mutters, hiding his face in his palm. "Of course I'm not."

Shoko's eyes widen, and she's grateful he can't see how surprised she is to see him admit something like that. He almost never does; his vulnerability, more often than not, is implied. It's almost startling to see it displayed so frankly. Makes her wonder how bad this really must be if even he's so anxious.

But then, it's Utahime. Whether or not he would ever admit it, he's always had double standards for everything: one for the rest of the world, one for Utahime.

(One for Geto and Utahime, before, but she tacitly ignores that Geto's been painfully promoted to the same standards to which he holds everyone else.)

"We'll figure something out," Shoko says dully, and she doesn't even think she believes herself.

"Yeah. For sure."

Star Religious Group Compound

Kobe

"Mai-chan."

It's early morning, and Utahime must have felt Mai stirring against her. She's almost afraid she'll be chastised for it, but her voice is as gentle as ever, so she thinks she must be all right.

"Mai-chan," she says, poking her playfully, "I know you're awake."

"Mm?"

"Do you wanna hear the rest of the crane story?"

Mai had almost forgotten that she hadn't finished it the night before. Someone had knocked, and she'd had to go; in her general confusion, Mai hadn't remembered that the story had been cut off before the ending.

"Yeah," she says, because it's early enough to still be dark out, and she wants to be distracted.

She tells her, her voice soothing and warm as ever, about a little girl and the cranes who loved her, and all the little girls after that, unlucky in love but loved by the pair of cranes who'd bound their fates to hers. She tells Mai that she is one, too – that those cranes will protect her if she ever asks – and Mai wonders what it must be like for her to know that someone, no matter what, will always come running, holding up a wing to shelter her. Maybe that was what Wakana had done.

But then, Wakana is gone, and she had always disappeared when Mai's parents had given her disapproving looks. Utahime says that her birds come to her when she asks no matter what the circumstances; maybe she's like that, too. Mai hopes she is.

Nothing is safe here except Maki and Utahime, and, lying between them, she can almost convince herself that the fear she thinks she detects in Utahime's soft voice is a figment of her imagination.

Chapter 10: Silence

Notes:

I'm feeling very ouch, and this fic is a relatively easy one to update because the chapters are an attainable length to write in a single sitting, so when I feel twitchy about how long it's been since I wrote, it's a good default. So here I am again :p

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Star Religious Group Compound

Kobe

Utahime had said she was only going to step out for a few minutes, but even a few minutes is enough for someone else to get wind of the fact that she's left the twins alone. And Mai isn't awake to know that, but Maki is.

Even lying down, she hears the doorknob turn. She's trained herself well at home, learning to pick up on the sound of the screen doors that separate the rooms on the Zenin Estate even when she's half-asleep, and in a place like this, she's even more vigilant. This place is full of strange people and sounds and she'd have to be trying not to notice how worried Mai always is – she has to be.

So she hears the turning doorknob and the footsteps before she even opens her eyes all the way.

She tenses, hearing the footsteps of whoever opened the door approaching the futon where she and Mai are sleeping. Fabric rustles and she knows the person must be kneeling; she curls herself protectively around Mai and pretends she's still asleep. As far as she knows, her life, or at least whether or not she'll get away with running from home, might depend on it.

A warm hand, large enough that she's sure it belongs to a man, touches Maki's shoulder, and she forces herself not to flinch and give herself away.

"Maki-chan," a man's soft voice whispers. "Are you awake?"

She knows that voice, and she knows that Mai shudders whenever he passes from a room they've both been in. She was right to pretend to be asleep.

"I know you're awake, Maki-chan," he tries again. "You don't have to be afraid of me."

Things only someone who knew that everyone ought to be afraid of him would ever say. Maki stays as still as she can, and if Mai starts to stir, she resolves to kick her so she'll know to do the same. It wouldn't be the first time much has depended on their ability to fake sleep.

Still nothing. Another rustle of clothes, but no movement of footsteps away from the futon – he must be sitting down to stay. Maybe he believes her, but if he does, it's not working to her benefit when he plans on sitting beside her futon until she or Mai stirs.

The part of Maki that isn't as well-trained in the things that it takes to survive wants to scream until Utahime comes running.

She doesn't, though. Countless times before, she's learned the value of being able to stay quiet. And it's the same scene that Utahime finds when she returns to their rooms – Maki pretending to sleep as she clings desperately to Mai, Geto sitting cross-legged beside their futon as if watching them sleep.

"What are you doing in here?"

Maki thinks she might cry at the sound of her rescuer's sharp voice.

"Just waiting around," Geto tells her casually. "I wanted to talk to the girls."

"So you broke into our room while they were sleeping?" she practically spits.

"I had thought they would be awake."

"And? You were just going to lurk until they were?"

"Well, I didn't see the harm in it."

Fast-approaching footsteps tell Maki she's had enough. "Out," she snaps. "Now."

"You could really be nicer to the person who's trying to save you, you know."

Utahime doesn't answer that, and apparently that's the end of all Geto has to say; the next sound Maki hears is the shutting door, and at that, Maki rolls over, finally letting her eyes open.

No one. Finally.

"Utahime-san," she whispers, sitting up cautiously. "Did he leave?"

And then Utahime starts to run.

Her face, which before had been scrunched up in anger, turns downwards to what looks like sadness, and as soon as she's close enough she kneels beside the futon and wraps Maki in her arms, not saying a word.

Maki doesn't quite like that – she thinks that such a strange reaction deserves an explanation – but Utahime doesn't seem to care. She holds onto Maki the way Maki holds onto Mai when she doesn't want to admit that she's nervous, and for a moment, it's nice not to wonder why she'd wanted to.

"Oh, Maki-chan," she murmurs, cradling her head, "did that scare you?"

"I'm okay," she says, an answer she's learned to give purely on instinct.

"I'm sorry," she says, and she really does sound like she means it. "I'm so sorry, Maki-chan."

Geto is not the strangest or most frightening man whom Maki has ever run across, but the safety of Utahime's tight embrace is still welcome. Maybe, if Mai were awake, she would pretend it wasn't, but she's not, and something about those five minutes of pretending to sleep while she knew Geto was watching and waiting for something had made it feel needed. She allows it.

Not enough grown-ups have ever wanted Maki to feel safe for her to be able to take it for granted when one does.

Nagoya

Ieiri Family Home

"You're insane."

"Look, I know what it sounds like-"

"You're insane," Shoko repeats. "Do you have any idea how ridiculous that idea is?"

"Shoko, just-"

"No. No way. Hell no." She puts up a hand when she notices Gojo opening his mouth to speak again. "Don't even start."

For a few blessed seconds, he's silent, but it doesn't take long for that quiet to meet a very premature end.

"Think about it," he says. "We get them to fight each other, and they forget all about us, and then we get Uta and the twins out and smuggle them to Taiwan and everything is fine."

Shoko briefly wonders how Gojo has ever passed a class in his life.

"Gojo," she tells him, "you're pretty dumb."

"But it would work!"

"You're seriously telling me that you could get Uta to pack up and leave the country?"

"I mean, if she doesn't want to die-"

"Gojo," she interrupts, "I know her better than you."

"No, you don't."

"Yes, I do, dumbass."

"Do not."

"Point being, there's no way she'd run off like that."

"Okay, so maybe we just hide her at her parents' or something."

"Do you really think that's gonna work, Gojo?"

"I mean…"

Clearly, he isn't thinking straight. Shoko knows him well enough to know that he only acts this brainless when he's getting desperate.

"Besides," she says, figuring another tactic is in order, "I know you wouldn't go through with it."

"What…what do you mean?"

"Siccing the Zenins on Geto?" she gives him a sidelong look. "I know you don't have it in you."

"Says who?"

She doesn't answer, and for a moment, he doesn't say anything, either.

This isn't like Gojo. For all of his stupidity sometimes, he knows how to think strategically, and he can't possibly think that telling the Zenins where the twins are and sneaking Utahime and the girls out in the nick of time while everyone else is distracted by their plans and counterplans is the best possible idea. Sure, it could work, but it's reckless, and more importantly it's absurdly unlikely he'll make it happen. If he had that kind of resolve, Geto would already be dead.

Shoko likes to pretend not to know it, but Geto Suguru has a hold on them both, and he had probably only taken Utahime and the twins because he knew that the only people with the motive and the means to retaliate couldn't bear to.

"Gojo," she asks, "why can't you just…whoosh in and snatch them back?"

"Does she really need Geto chasing her, too?"

They both slump, and Shoko concludes that it's pretty damn stupid this whole thing is being left up to teenagers.

Like they're going to know what to do.

Zenin Estate

Kyoto

Geto had been a bad gamble.

Now, Naoya knows that, but back then it had seemed like the kind of risk just gutsy enough to pay off. He's pressed for allies; he's a blot on the sorcery world whom nobody would expect even the Zenins to collaborate with, and in that, he's the ideal trump card. He could have been of immense use.

Maybe he would've been, if they hadn't so miscalculated his fondness for the girl, but the fact is that they had, and now he's retreated behind enemy lines. The Ieiri girl is gone, he'd left a good quarter of the Hei to rot on their own estate, and Iori and the twins remain elusive. So much for that.

He has to cut his losses, though, because nothing can be done about it. Damage control is the best he can do, and perhaps that's for the better, because doing damage control has its perks. He has a target now, one whose location and motives are well-known and easy to find; even if it doesn't get him anywhere near the twins, there's something he can do to make sure that everybody knows what happens to people who cross the Zenins.

Besides, he hears the price on Geto Suguru's head is steep.

Star Religious Group Compound

Kobe

Utahime is gone again, and Maki and Mai took only a few minutes of discussion to decide that they did not like that one bit.

Maki isn't one to admit that things scare her, but even she agrees that there's something wrong with this place. Mai wants to leave more than she thinks she's ever wanted anything, even the beef that they'd given Naoya sometimes but never the other children. And when Utahime has to leave the room, they agree that these unguarded conditions can't be allowed to last.

This Geto-san is not a very trustworthy sort of person, and the moment they lose sight of Utahime, he might strike again, like this morning. And that is simply not a risk that the twins are willing to take. So, for the first time since they'd arrived, the twins make their way out of the dusty back room where they've been staying and wander the halls of the sprawling compound, looking for their guardian.

When they're not shoved back in the darkest and coldest room of the compound, it's actually sort of inviting. It's bright – Mai squints every time she looks in the direction of a window – and nothing is dusty out in these halls where guests are received and need to be impressed. Naturally, Maki and Mai, who have always been given the worst of things, hadn't deserved a room with enough light or air, or one that had recently been cleaned.

Peeking around the half-open screen door that opens to another guest room, Maki thinks wistfully that the futons in these front rooms probably wouldn't make her cough when she sat down on them.

The strange thing, though, is that there doesn't seem to be anybody around. The twins had seen countless people moving through the compound when they'd arrived, but now it seems almost deserted. The lack of people makes even the cozy, brightly-lit guest rooms look cavernous.

"It's too quiet," Mai says, her voice small, and Maki won't say it, but she agrees.

She wants Utahime. She thinks it might be babyish to admit it, but she doesn't like this place, even the nicer parts of it, and she wants Utahime. She'd settle for cigarette girl, or Gojo who looks like a paintbrush, or Wakana, even though she's started to think as she's spent more time with Utahime that Wakana had never been very good at keeping them safe – but what she really wants is Utahime.

It isn't Utahime that she finds first.

"I've been looking for you all day!"

Maki cranes her neck to look up at the speaker and crosses her arms. He's like a wall, tall and broad enough that Mai had run into his legs without disturbing his balance, and she's not pleased to find him blocking there way.

"Go away," she says.

"That's not very nice." He kneels in front of her. "You shouldn't tell people-"

"I don't care."

Geto raises his eyebrows. "Did you learn that one from Gojo?"

"No," Maki says, unsure what Gojo has to do with any of this.

"Hmph." Now Geto crosses his arms, too. "I've been trying to find you guys for a while now."

"I know," Maki says, even though she doesn't. "You're really creepy."

"That's not nice, either."

"I already said I don't care," Maki tells him.

"Wow. You really don't like me, do you?"

"No," Maki tells him, scowling.

"Well, I'm sorry to hear that." He pats her shoulder and only laughs when Maki swats at his offending hand. "Anything I could do to convince you I'm all right?"

"Yeah," Maki says. "Go away."

"Anything else?"

Maki looks over to Mai, whose eyes are wide as saucers, and the hand that's not holding her sister's clenches into a fist.

"You're scaring Mai-chan," she says, as loud and brash as she can force her voice to be. "Leave us alone."

"I'm sorry," he says, smiling that serpentine smile that almost seems real, and he reaches out to pat Mai's head. She shrinks back, but his smile doesn't falter. "I didn't mean to."

"I already said go away!"

"Sorry, no can do," he says. "We gotta chat."

"No, we don't."

"What do you mean?" he asks, feigning innocence. "We have tons to talk about."

"Like what?" Maki asks, unabashedly suspicious.

"Like how brave you are," Geto says, not missing a beat. "You're not even scared of my curses."

Maki's eyes widen.

"What's the face about? I'm giving you a compliment." He's still smiling, but there's a sinister edge to it now that he'd been trying harder to hide before. "There aren't many kids your age who aren't scared."

"Of course I'm not," she blusters.

Survival: at six years old, it is the only skill Zenin Maki has ever had to develop. He probably doesn't know that she knows what he's really asking, and she's not planning on letting him figure it out.

"Not even the big gorilla one?"

Mai, pale-faced, squeezes Maki's hand as tightly as she can, and she can't know exactly what that means, but she's known enough untrustworthy men to know a trick when she sees one.

"You don't have a gorilla," she says, as rudely as she can manage, because that feels like it's going to matter somehow.

Or maybe she just wants to snub him. Maybe there's that too.

"Oh?" Geto asks, smiling. "You haven't seen him yet?"

"You're making him up," Maki says flatly. "You liar."

"What a rude thing to say to a grown-up!"

"You're not a real grown-up."

"You know," he says, "I really don't have to stand here and take this from monkeys like you."

Maki's eyes narrow. "What'd you just call me?"

He shakes himself. "Never mind. Tell me, Maki-chan-"

"No."

"You haven't even let me ask yet," he scoffs. "So rude."

Maki scowls, saying nothing.

"My question," he says after a few moments of silence, "was whether or not you liked it here."

She still says nothing. She's starting to sense that provoking Geto is getting more risky than it's worth.

"No?" he asks. "Why's that?"

She still refuses to answer. She's sort of proud of that, not giving in.

"Maybe it's because you" – he stops to look her dead in the eye – "know you don't belong here."

Maki backs towards the wall, trying not to let her expression change. She doesn't know what Geto wants, or what he means by that, but it sounds like the kind of thing her family used to say, and that alone makes her want to run.

She can't, though. Maki has never had the privilege of being the one to turn and run when Mai has always needed her to pretend things would be all right. And she can't now, either, not with Mai frantically squeezing her hand as hard as she can, and as many times as she can in succession.

"I'm gonna call Utahime-san," she says, fighting the wobble in her voice. "If you don't leave me alone."

Mai keeps on squeezing her hand and Maki doesn't have the presence of mind to wonder what she's signaling. Geto seems to notice it, though, and makes a strange face.

"Go ahead. It won't do anything."

That – and Maki has heard enough of them to know – is a threat.

"Wh-what do you want?"

"Just to get to know you better, Maki-chan," he says kindly. "Because not everyone is a good fit for the Star Group."

Maki doesn't even know what that is, let alone what she's supposed to be ashamed of – and she knows from his tone that there's something – but she still braces her free hand against the wall behind her, preparing for an onslaught.

"Like," he says, smiling again, "people who can't see curses."

"What are you talking about? Of course I can-"

"Oh, really?" he interrupts her. "Then why aren't you even reacting when there's one on your shoulder?"

Maki's eyes widen. The hand-squeezing – that had been why. It must have been all Mai had in her not to run, and yet she'd tried to warn her, and now…

And now Maki's failed again, and Geto is talking like he's going to do something to her because of it. And even if it means retreating, she can't let Mai take the consequences.

She raises her voice until it feels raw and shouts.

They don't even stop by the room they'd been in for Utahime's backpack.

Utahime, holding a shoulder that is sore after she'd slammed it against Geto to keep him from pursuing them when she'd come running for the twins, has nothing on her person but the little purse that holds her wallet and her cell phone, and the twins have nothing but the clothes on their backs. It doesn't seem to matter, though – not after that.

It's almost novel how quickly, after learning that a place like this had no safe place for Maki, Utahime had taken them and run, even though she knows she'll be pursued. No one else Maki has ever met would've done that for her.

She tries to keep up and hopes, when Utahime pulls out her cell phone and clumsily punches in a number without breaking her stride, that somebody knows where they should go next better than she does.

Notes:

Ig it's hating Geto hours...

Chapter 11: Interlude

Notes:

A bit of romance and shark-jumping, for those of you who are enthusiasts of either.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Kyoto

"I thought you weren't going to work with us."

"I wasn't, but…circumstances changed."

Naoya looks across the counter at Geto as if he's trying to read his next move, which – Geto can't help but smirk at that – is exactly what he'd expected. The Zenins have always been backed by more might and money than intelligence; the consequences, he supposes, of being so inbred.

"And you want me to buy this why?" he asks.

"Because I know who has the twins," he says casually, "and where she's taking them."

Naoya narrows his eyes. "She?"

"What, you didn't know?" Geto raises a single eyebrow, feigning surprise. "You couldn't even guess?"

Don't play with your food, he chastises himself, which only makes him feel smugger. Leading a cult teaches one nothing if not how to play someone like a violin. Take a prideful man and undercut the foundation of the way he thinks of himself, and he'll dance to any tune one likes.

"Don't tell me-"

"I thought you knew," he says, pausing to slurp up a single soba noodle as slowly as he can. All in service of the act – every movement has to be planned without looking like it is. This man, after all, has no reason to believe a word he says. "That did seem like the most obvious reason for you to go after Shoko-chan."

"You two close, huh?"

"Oh, not really," he says, waving a hand dismissively. "Maybe once."

Naoya snorts. "Shame. She's a looker."

His eyes are sharper than he wants them to be when he looks over at Naoya, and he knows it, but he doesn't feel like controlling himself. "I'd thank you not to mention her again."

"Tch. Thought you weren't close anymore." Finally, a hit – Naoya smirks.

"We're not," he says coolly, "but I don't know a single woman I'd punish by connecting her to the likes of you."

Naoya, who is just desperate enough to prove that he isn't entirely incompetent that he's probably going to swallow much more than he normally would before he started swinging, says nothing – Geto smiles. He'd thought so.

"Anyways," he says with a feigned sigh, "I thought you had taken Shoko under the impression that she had information about Iori-san's whereabouts, but evidently I overestimated your information."

Naoya's eyes narrow; even in the dim izakaya lighting, Geto can see his pupils contract to pinpricks. It only enhances the catlike look of them that he's always found so off-putting.

"But, no, apparently you didn't." He lets himself gloat, because a gloater expects a gloater, and he doesn't see the point in retraining himself. "Which is funny, because what exactly did you think it meant that the woman whose boyfriend was obviously hiding something disappeared from the same place the twins did and wasn't heard from again?"

Naoya's nostrils flare, but he says nothing.

"But I had a little more success," he says, "which I'm passing on to you. You know, out of the kindness of my heart."

"Go to hell," Naoya spits.

"Gladly, if you insist." He raises both hands in surrender and offers him exactly the same pleasant smile he gives his lackeys when he wants them to think he's being generous with them. "But really, you'd be stupid to ignore me now that I have as much reason as you do to want them all found."

"What?"

"Iori should've known better than to try to stab me in the back," he says matter-of-factly. "And she definitely should've known better than to try to shelter a pair of monkeys."

Maybe that's more of a gamble than he should take – they are Zenins, after all – but Geto has a feeling Naoya is too prideful to think that anything said of the twins has any bearing on him.

"Then where is she?" he asks after a long, silent pause.

"Oh, I don't know, but I did manage to plant a bug in Shoko-chan's jacket before I let her go, so," he says, resting his chin on his folded hands, "if either her or Satoru happens to let her in on what they're doing-"

"What do you mean what they're doing?"

"Really? Come on, now." Sometimes it's satisfying, reminding the Zenins how ridiculously shortsighted they are. "How could you not have pieced together that Utahime is only still alive because Satoru's been helping her?"

There are probably Zenins who've realized that, but this is clearly not one of them. Naoya, he's beginning to see, hasn't quite been thinking straight lately – probably too drunk on the opportunity to make a name for himself, or maybe just too seventeen to have realized that Gojo is almost always the key if he wants to play the long game. Perhaps Geto could sympathize if it wasn't so pathetic.

"And I have no interest in letting someone who repaid my generosity with betrayal get away, so," he says, picking at his cuticles, "I'd gladly share that information if I happened to get it."

"You just don't wanna get close enough to let Gojo kill you," Naoya says, sneering.

"Wow. You can think." Geto smiles at him like he's bestowing some great blessing on a very small and helpless child. "You're absolutely right. Why take that risk?"

"Just who the hell do you think you are?"

"Someone who has every single advantage, if you want to fight this out," he says. "Whether that be strength, information, tactical intelligence, the fact that you're the one who could be killed if you're seen in public with a wanted man and not me…"

Naoya looks so mad he might combust, which is really quite amusing. Some people never do get used to having their goat gotten, no matter how old they are.

"Well, then," he says, sliding a thousand-yen note across the counter towards Naoya before he stands, "I have things to be doing, but if you want to take my offer, I'd be more than happy to talk."

He turns his back before Naoya can say anything more and, with a few more steps, passes through the door and disappears into the snow-dusted street.

Sapporo

Utahime has never been so glad to see Gojo, and she doesn't think she's ever willingly held his hand, either, but desperate times call for desperate measures. He offers, and she accepts, clutching his hand in her left and Mai's in her right; Maki, cooperative for once, lets him hold onto her, and when they stumble dizzily onto the ground wherever it is he's decided to take them, she's hit with a gust of icy wind she'd know anywhere.

"No," she pants, still winded after too much running and too much adrenaline. "Somewhere else."

"No one's gonna find you here."

But she knows what winter in Hokkaido feels like after the first fifteen of her life spent here, and the last thing she wants right now is to be anywhere near the people she loves. "Gojo-"

"Your parents are in Abashiri, right?" he asks. "That's pretty far from Sapporo."

She sighs, relenting only because she doesn't have it in her not to.

"He said he wanted me to defect," Utahime says, playing with the tassels at the end of her scarf. "I don't know if that was actually his plan, though."

"I mean, I dunno." Gojo has long since given up trying to understand how Suguru's brain works these days. "Did he do anything to you?"

"Other than kidnap my best friend and threaten to kill the twins?"

"Yes, Hime, other than kidnapping your best friend and threatening to…wait, seriously?" he screws up his face – a that-can't-be-right expression if she's ever seen one. "He actually said that?"

"He found out Maki couldn't see curses, Gojo. What'd you think he was going to do?"

"But-"

"He's a murderer," she says flatly. "That's…that's what he does."

"So that's why-"

"Yeah." Utahime slumps against the pillows, hugging a spare one to her chest. If it weren't for the weight of the moment, she'd be thrilled to be in a real bed again, and warm and safe for the moment on the top floor of a hotel in a city where nobody knows her, but it's hard to be thankful right now. "He cornered them while he was making me do something else."

"Making you do what?"

"I dunno, talk to donors. It was dumb, but…I thought we'd be safer if I at least tried to fake it for a little while."

"Hime," Gojo says, "you'd have been safer if you had stayed with me."

"Yeah, well, I had to get Shoko out, so that wasn't gonna happen."

"I still say that was dumb."

"You're dumb," she shoots back halfheartedly.

"What else did he make you do?"

"Nothing." She sighs. "Honestly, don't worry about it. I just had to schmooze and…and leave the twins alone a lot."

"Huh." He pauses – "do you think he might actually have been trying to lure you in to get his hands on the twins?"

"I mean, I didn't really think about that," she admits. "But if he didn't know…"

She trails off. Gojo doesn't speak in the interim, waiting to let her finish.

"He didn't know," she realizes aloud. "And if they're Zenins-"

"They didn't exactly publicize that the kids they lost didn't have cursed techniques," Gojo finishes for her.

"I'm so stupid," she says, rubbing her temple. "How did I not get that?"

"I mean, you were running for your life."

She glances over at him. "Why are you being nice?"

"Because I am nice?"

"Hilarious."

"I am nice!" he protests. "You called me and I immediately showed up!"

"Because you think I'm hot and you don't want me to die before you've seen my bra, probably," she says drily. "Nice try."

It's rather irrelevant at a time like this, but she enjoys watching Gojo's face heat up as he opens and closes his mouth like a fish gasping for air for the few moments it takes to decide that nothing he can say is going to salvage his dignity after taking a hit like that.

"That is," he says, still tomato-red, "slander, Utahime."

"No, it's true." She swats his arm and snickers. "You're so easy."

He slumps. "Stop taking advantage of my fragile emotional state. Geez."

"Your fragile emotional state." She cackles, crossing her arms. "Like you'd ever admit if you were actually in one."

She winces as soon as she's finished saying those words, because he really wouldn't, and in hindsight it seems like something a touch too sensitive to make jokes about.

"I mean, you're not wrong, but can't you have a little sympathy? I thought you were gonna die."

She sighs, even though she's sort of touched. "So, that's been the week I've had."

"Stop changing the subject."

"I'm not changing the subject. That was totally on-subject."

"You're changing the subject."

"Whatever." She rolls over onto her stomach, hugging a pillow to her chest. "Why'd you bring be to Sapporo?"

"Dunno. It's far, it's big, and you don't have any connections to it."

"I'm from Hokkaido, dumbass."

"From the other side of Hokkaido."

"Yeah, but no one comes to Hokkaido to hide out unless they're from Hokkaido," she says, "which I am."

"Give me a break, okay? I had, like, twelve seconds to make a decision."

Fair enough, not that Utahime would admit that. "Seriously, though, do you think I can just hide out here indefinitely? I know you can't."

"Who said anything about indefinitely?"

"Well, the Zenins are already after me," she says, "and now Geto probably is too, so the second I show my face in public and you're not around" – she mimes slashing her throat – "things start lookin' pretty bad."

"I…I can take care of it," he says, and even though she isn't looking at him, she can hear him swallow. "It'll be fine."

"Hey. Gojo."

He doesn't say anything, so, sighing, she sits (everything hurts) and crosses over to the other bed, taking a seat next to him.

"Gojo," she says, poking his arm. "Don't kill him for me."

He looks up, stunned – she'd thought he might be.

"I know, I know," she says. "Kill order and all. But…don't let it be because of me."

"I don't get it," he says shakily.

"If you have to kill him because you have orders, that's bad enough," she says. "But if you feel like you have to kill him because of me, I…I don't think you'd ever be able to look me in the face again."

"That's not-"

"And I couldn't stand that," she says, looking down. "Maybe it's selfish, but I don't want you to do something that'd make you hate me."

"I thought you hated me," he says, probably because the more fitting I could never hate you would be frighteningly truthful.

"Get real."

"And then this creepy guy who smelled like a shrine called me a monkey." Maki crosses her arms, and scrunches up her face, and employs all of the means of expressing her distaste for this man that are available to a six-year-old of limited expressional skill. "And then I screamed and Utahime-san headbutted him and ran off."

"Wow," says Gojo, kneeling in front of her and nodding intently. "He sure sounds like he sucks."

"He does."

Gojo thinks Maki might punch him if she ever finds out about his real history with Geto Suguru, so he refrains from commenting any further. "And then what happened?"

She gives him a don't-try-me look. "You showed up."

"You say that with such disgust," he says. "It's like I didn't totally save all of your butts back there."

"My butt is fine," Maki says with a flatness that is pure Utahime – he almost laughs.

"I'm sure it is." He ruffles her hair, briefly regrets having tried when she flinches, and asks, "are you okay?"

"I just told you I'm fine."

"And what about Mai-chan?" he asks, figuring Maki will be more forthcoming about her sister.

"Monkey guy scared her pretty bad," she says, as if she herself had not been remotely affected. This, he knows, is almost certainly not true, but he knows enough about cagey children after having been one his whole life to know not to ask. "She follows me everywhere."

"I mean, that's pretty smart," he says. "Lotsa people are after you."

He notices a flash of apprehension in her otherwise-hard eyes and immediately regrets that, too.

He always forgets that he's no good with children until one needs him.

There are two beds in this room for a reason, but nobody complains when Utahime crawls into Gojo's and the girls, who've taken to following her like shadows, climb in after her. He'd probably go into shock with the thrill of sharing a bed with her if not for the fact that her choosing to do that must mean she feels unsafe, and that's not a thought he likes.

He ought to be able to offer that, at least, or else what good is it being the Strongest?

"Satoru," she whispers, trying not to wake the sleepy twins, "don't take this the wrong way, all right?"

Utahime isn't supposed to need help. It's an unwritten rule of sorcery as a woman – self-sufficiency, or else forfeiting any right you ever had to pretend you were competent. The last thing she wants is to prove right the people who've been telling her all her life that she will always need a man's protection.

But it is nighttime, and nights in Hokkaido are especially dark in winter, and she's tried to do the right thing but seemingly made enemies of the whole world in the process, and it's sort of Gojo's fault for sending the twins to him in the first place, and well, he owes it to her to make her feel safe.

It's not that he's Gojo, she tells herself. If he were a woman, her response would be no different. All she wants when she puts her arms around his neck is reassurance after days on end of wondering how long she was going to be able to stay alive.

"I won't," he tells her, even though she knows he probably can't keep his word.

"You're an idiot," she murmurs, resting her face in the crook of his neck. "You should've known this would happen when you sent the girls to me."

"You love them," he counters. "Don't pretend you wish I hadn't."

"Of course I love them," she admits, surprised with how easy it is to say. "That doesn't mean you're not an idiot."

He puts his arms around her in kind and doesn't say anything.

Kyoto

"She called Shoko this morning."

"And?" Naoya says impatiently.

"All this time on the run and she still hasn't learned not to mention her location over the phone," he sighs. "They're in Sapporo."

Sapporo

Naoya's phone lists eight missed calls when he steps off the jetway in Sapporo, all from his father, and he rather wants to ignore them. He has better things to do; even if he hadn't disclosed where he was going or what he was going to do there to, well, anybody before he'd gone, his father ought to trust him enough to assume that. He's not in the habit of taking pleasure trips on the family credit card.

But it's his father, and if Naoya doesn't see what this was about, it's going to blow up in his face, so he sighs in as put-upon a manner as he can manage, for catharsis, and clicks one of the missed calls.

"Father, what?"

Naobito doesn't waste any more time than his son had. "Where are you?"

Surprising. He doubted his father would even notice he was gone. "Sapporo. Family business.

Naobito soundly ignores this, which probably means that wasn't the point of his call. How disappointing.

"Why," he asks, "am I hearing reports that you've been seen with Geto Suguru twice lately?"

So that was how you wanted to play it.

It's smart, ruthless – a lot like Naoya's own strategy of choice. It's plan as day that Geto had made sure that report would be leaked. The Zenins had not complied; now he'll crush them, turn them against each other and watch them fracture. War, Naoya has always thought, is won when the few who've died have been examples enough to strike fear into the masses that remain.

Challenge accepted.

"I'll deal with that later," he says. "I need to do something else first."

Notes:

I am aware that I didn't mention Geto bugging the coat previously, or set any precedent for it, and it haunts me, so please ignore-

Chapter 12: Partings

Notes:

Hi, it's me, hello, I have not posted anything that was not anon in forever and am deeply sorry, hehhhh~

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Abashiri

Two Years Ago

"From a fifteen-year-old." Utahime's nose scrunches. "No thanks."

"Well, to be fair, I really don't think they meant now," Takako says. "And he is a good-"

"He's a Zenin," Keisuke cuts in. "Absolutely not."

Takako turns over her shoulder to look at her husband reproachfully. "He's a good prospect, Keisuke."

"He's a Zenin."

"Tou-san," Utahime cuts in, "I'm not accepting."

Utahime's mother looks a little surprised, but she doesn't say anything.

"Good," her father says curtly. "No daughter of mine is ever going to be named Zenin."

"That's not fair, Keisuke," Takako argues. "She ought to make the best match she can."

"I'm not making any match with a high schooler," she says, scoffing, and leaves, hopeful that they'll get the hint and know that that is that.

It is with Utahime's firm approval that Keisuke turns away the Zenin emissary who shows up on their doorstep the next morning, and the next, and the next. How they're getting people up to Hokkaido in such quick succession during the New Year's celebrations, when everything is so crowded, is beyond her, but they keep coming. There seems to be a never-ending string of people who think an unremarkable sorcerer of decent wealth, acceptable breeding, and ladylike temperament is a bargain they're duty-bound to snatch up before somebody else does it.

It's only a few months later, when the second-year teacher who Gakuganji asks to supervise her until she learns the ropes at the Kyoto school asks her how she feels about a round of drinks after work, that the calls and letters and emissaries finally dry up.

She tells Takeshi that night that the Zenins must really be desperate if they keep on chasing after someone like her. He laughs and says he can't exactly blame them, and maybe it's the beer, but he really looks like he means it.

It's nice, being desired – Utahime has to admit that. Nice enough that she isn't exactly angry when the occasional missive from the family of her jilted would-be fiancé turns up in her mailbox at school.

After all, he's fifteen. What more than whining is he possibly going to do?

Present

Sapporo

Naoya has always hated Hokkaido. It's cold, boring, mostly empty, and full of shamefully plain-looking women, and he doesn't like the food. The few times he's been sent up on missions, he's left as quickly as he was allowed to, and that's exactly what he intends to do this time.

Maybe even faster. At least, he hopes. After all, this is where the Ioris are from, and that makes it infinitely worse.

(He thinks, if he were like his father and more given to rash acts of mass murder, there would be no more Iori Clan, but he doesn't serve to benefit much from that kind of thing right now. She is his objective; he'll find her and leave.)

Geto hadn't told him anything about her whereabouts, though, except that they were in Sapporo, and that is proving to be deeply unhelpful information. That, he figures, was Geto's plan – just enough information to distract him but too little to finish the job he started – and the little pearl of loathing that forms around the rage in the pit of his stomach when he thinks about it grows heavier with every useless step.

But at least he's in the right city. It could be worse.

He considers his options: search at random, for one. Inquire at every hotel he can and hope that one of them will tell him something useful. He doesn't like that idea, though – it makes him too powerless, subjects him too much to the whims of whomever has the information he wants. Naoya has never liked relying on other people's information.

He could try to track down Gojo's residuals, if he could find any. But that seems shaky somehow, because surely, if Geto really wanted to kill Utahime, he would have done that himself. He of all people, after all, would know how to find them. But he hadn't, and that has to mean something.

He probably doesn't know where Utahime actually is.

Naoya can't imagine any other reason that Geto wouldn't have come here himself. He doesn't seem like the kind of man to let somebody who had wronged him escape unscathed. If he were capable, Naoya is almost certain he would have come to Sapporo himself; perhaps he's still planning to. Naoya can't discount the possibility that, because Utahime hadn't disclosed a specific location to Shoko on the phone, Geto doesn't have one, and that telling him what he knew was a cheap trick, a way of getting someone else to do the menial job of finding her.

He scoffs. If he had any less of a stake in this, he would return to Kyoto just to spit in Geto's face and tell him to do his own grunt work, but that would mean letting Utahime go. The best he can do is get to her first.

That is not something he's going to be able to do without spreading a wider net.

He'd wanted to avoid this, and to avoid his father's notice entirely, but if Geto can outsource, then so can Naoya.

Twins in Sapporo, he types. All available report.

Tokyo

"Shocchan, can you come to the laundry room?"

Shoko removes an earbud, hearing only her name, and calls, "huh?"

"Laundry room," her mother calls from down the hall, and she complies.

"Yeah?" she asks.

Shoko's mother holds up the grey hoodie she'd worn when she was kidnapped, inside-out. She shows her a strange black lump under the armpit.

"Shocchan," she says, half-fearful and half-suspicious, "what is this?"

She approaches, taking the sweatshirt from her mother's hands, and when she touches the plastic disk sewn roughly into the seam, she raises her eyebrows. "I dunno, some kind of security tag?"

She doubts that, but she can't otherwise imagine what might have happened. She hadn't taken that sweatshirt off until she'd returned home, and she knows that the plastic thing – whatever it is – hadn't been there when she'd put it on.

She would rather not think about what that implies.

"That's not what a security tag looks like, Shoko," she says, frowning. "And you were just with dangerous people-"

"I promise it's nothing," Shoko says, entirely unconvinced by her own argument. "It…I don't remember…"

"Not even while you were sleeping?"

Shoko raises her eyebrows. "I think I would remember that."

"You sleep like a log, Shocchan," her mother says, furrowing her brow. "Don't you think we should take this to the school just so they can make sure-"

"No, it's fine," she insists. "If it were some kinda bomb, wouldn't it have gone off already?"

This argument is no more successful than the last. "A bomb, Shoko?"

"I mean," she says, swallowing. "Geto's nuts."

Geto, who has contingency plans for his contingency plans and knows that she sleeps like a log.

She's probably known that all along – that the real danger here was not her first captor but her second. And a part of her has an inkling that she won't admit even to herself of what that little bump of plastic in the lining of her sweatshirt is for.

"I'm taking it to the school," her mother says, setting her mouth in a line, and Shoko barely manages a nod before she dashes off to her room.

"Utahime," she pants, half-frantic, as soon as she picks up Shoko's call, "I think Geto is listening to us."

It is faster, easier, and safer to teleport, but Gojo refuses.

"It leaves the most obvious residuals," he tries to explain, but Utahime finds that argument unconvincing at best. Residuals don't mean anything if the person who finds them doesn't know where he's headed, and if Shoko is right, then it really doesn't matter if someone knows he was here anymore. It's worth the risk for a quick escape, she thinks. He doesn't.

"Do you really want to risk a run-in with Geto?" she hisses through her teeth, trying not to wake the sleeping twins. "Because I'm not going to."

"He probably knows my residuals better than anyone," he argues. "So if that's your logic, shouldn't we take a car?"

"You want me to give my name to a car-rental company?"

"What, do you seriously think Geto is going to go hold up a rental car place and make them tell him if they have your name in their system?" he asks, crossing his arms. "No, dumbass, he's gonna track my residuals!"

"He can't possibly be-"

"No, that's what you don't get," he argues. "Geto picks up on those things like a bloodhound."

It makes sense that somebody with a technique like Geto's would be more attuned to those sorts of things than most other sorcerers, but she still sniffs. "He can't possibly be better than you are fast."

"You think you can flatter me? Do you?"

"No, I think I can state facts, Satoru." There's a little snap to the way she says his name that makes his eyes widen. "And the facts are that no one can outrun a guy who teleports!"

Maki stirs in the bed across the room and they both fall silent, turning their heads slowly to look at her as if she's going to hear them move, and she blinks at them both, unimpressed as ever, before her head drops back down to the pillow. She's snoring within seconds.

"Satoru," she says, softer this time, "whatever we do, we can't risk letting them get caught."

She knows he won't be able to deny that the risk of being found lessens infinitely as the speed with which they can escape increases. He opens and closes his mouth a few times, makes himself look rather like a dying fish, and finally slumps.

"I think it's a bad idea, Uta," he says. "I really do."

"I know," she says. "But bad ideas are all we have left."

They should go immediately. If speed is the argument, there's no reason they shouldn't wake the twins as soon as they've made their decision. But they look at each other, and then at the twins, and neither of them can bear to do it.

Sleep is the only thing they do that makes them seem as young as they are, and the only time they ever look free from the anxieties of living in a world that has never wanted them. They're so small, even against a twin-sized bed – so achingly young that Gojo seems as if he can't bear to look at them, and Utahime can't bear not to. She crosses the room to sit at the edge of their bed, expertly delicate so she won't upset the mattress enough to wake them, and when she brushes a strand of hair that's fallen across Maki's eyes back behind her ear, she doesn't stir.

She doesn't know when her life became so wrapped up in these two little girls with nowhere to go, but it hadn't given her a choice. Funny how quickly she's forgotten – that life used to be disappointingly predictable, that nobody cared if she lived or died or what she did except a man who had wanted to marry her and is now dead. Now it seems these twins have put her at the center of the world, and as much as she wants to disappear back into the shadows, she can't risk it.

There has to be a reason they came to her, she thinks. And she bets it's the fact that they are starved for love, and she has more than enough wasted love to give.

Maki wakes, as she always does, around six, and that wakes Mai. They have their little routine: they brush their teeth, wash their faces, take their time to wake all the way up. She lets time – how could she begrudge them of something so small? – and resists the urge to tell them to hurry before they're done.

It's only then that they zip their things into bags and set off.

Aomori

Gojo knows this place because Geto's grandmother knew this place, and so Geto knew it, and one time when they were second-years he had brought them here to drink themselves silly, disappear, cause a minor scandal by said disappearance which Yaga valiantly covered up at the cost of about half his remaining lifespan, so suffice to say Gojo remembers it well.

Abandoned places happen to be excellent for spiriting oneself away.

"Suguru's granddad used to live out here," he tells Utahime as he ducks through the cabin's low doors. "No one ever bothered to do anything with it after he passed."

Clearly. The place is a cobwebby labyrinth, and if a single light in the cabin turns on, he'll be shocked, let alone the water. It's no hotel, but then, Gojo is going to get himself caught eventually if he keeps on paying for things on the maximum-security credit card he was given for classified missions – there's got to be someone who has access.

Utahime squints. "So you took us to a place that only the person who's chasing us would even know how to find?"

"It's called hiding in plain sight," he says archly.

"Sure."

"No, seriously! He'd never think I would actually-"

"Okay, Satoru," she says wearily, setting her backpack down on a dusty countertop. "Sure."

She hates this place. He's been traveling with her long enough now to know how much she hates this place just by watching her face change. The only thing she isn't sure of is whether that's because it used to be in Geto's family or because it's in disrepair or because she wouldn't feel safe anywhere right now.

She curls up next to him under the dusty coverlet, and he has a feeling then that it's all of those things.

"You know they'll never take me back, right?"

"Your family?"

Utahime frowns. "No, what? I was talking about the higher-ups."

"Oh." His cheeks tinge red. "I thought you meant your family 'cause the other one goes without saying."

"Which is your fault," she says. "You're the one who sent the twins to me."

"You love them."

"I'm a fugitive, Gojo." She smiles weakly and doesn't mean it. "And unless someone offs every single Zenin above grade two before next week, I'm going to have to stay like that."

Which, it goes without saying, the higher-ups would never tolerate. Regardless of their reasons, they'll rarely side with people who disturb the peace. Utahime, so long as she has something the Zenins want and refuses to return it, is exactly that.

"Move in with me," he says, half-serious.

"My boyfriend died a week and a half ago, you idiot."

His face falls. He had entirely forgotten about that.

"And you're not going to want to keep sheltering a fugitive long-term." She gives him a wary look. "If you even could."

"I'm Gojo Satoru," he says. "I can do anything I want to."

He might never have said anything so patently false before.

"The Taiwanese Jujutsu Association might give me asylum," she says.

"You wanna leave the country?"

"What else am I gonna do, Gojo?"

"There's gotta be something."

"This arrangement we have," she says, "you helping me keep running away – it can't last."

He knows that – he's probably always known that – but still, he shakes his head. "We gotta be able to figure something else out."

"Gojo," she says. "That isn't what I'm saying."

He stills.

"This isn't 'what else can we do,'" she says. "This is supposed to be goodbye."

And he had known, too, that that would happen. She was going to leave eventually. But…

Maybe he's grown to like this – caring about someone, having a purpose that feels higher and more real than taking on the countless missions they assign him. He doesn't quite know how he's going to go back to the dozens of urgent requests that are probably sitting in the inbox of the phone he left behind, to a life where the only thing that matters is getting a job done – not after this.

And then there's her.

He's gotten so used to being with her.

"Really?"

"I'm sorry," she says, then, touching his cheek, "thank you."

Without thinking about it, he takes his hand and places it over hers, just to be sure she stays there until she has to go.

New Chitose International Airport

Sapporo

It had never even occurred to Utahime that the twins might never have flown before. They're all wide eyes, though, and she quickly realizes that what an ordinary child might place on the novel end of everyday life is unheard-of to Maki and Mai, and it's hard not to smile, as little as she wants to.

She even offers one to the lady at the checkin counter. She can't remember the last time she had enough energy to smile out of mere politeness, but it feels good to exercise the muscles when there's so little to smile about.

Her parents don't even know she's leaving. They'll probably call her younger sister, away at university, with nothing to tell her except that Utahime is gone. They can't risk telling Shoko where they are, though she suspects Gojo will anyway. Gakuganji must still think she's dead. She will never put flowers at Takeshi's grave.

Takeshi might not even have a grave. If she thinks about that, she really does think she'll go crazy.

So she smiles just to do it, and it doesn't feel like much of a betrayal when a security officer with catlike eyes takes her arm and pulls her a little too roughly off to the side for a "delayed bag search."

She is alone - Gojo and the girls are in line at the convenience store for snacks - and it would never do to make a scene in a place like this. Someone had to have known that.

Well played, she thinks, smiling blandly, saving her strength for the coming moment when she knows she'll need it. I didn't think you were that smart, Zenin Naoya.

Notes:

BIG CONFRONTATION NEXT :DDDDD

Chapter 13: Buying Time

Notes:

I'm tired of studying and I really want to head into the summer with a relatively clean plate so that I can focus on non-fic writing and also have room to write random non-WIP update-fic spontaneously, so here you go, cram time. I hope that you guys have enjoyed this journey, however slow and chaotic.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

New Chitose International Airport

5:42 P.M.

Utahime quickly realizes that this is supposed to look like a routine procedure. Naoya's cousin or whatever this man with the Zenins' shifty cat eyes is doesn't restrain her, only looks over his shoulder every few seconds to make sure she's following him. Smart, sort of. But not really, because Utahime could easily run if she wanted to. He's banking far too much on her choosing to play it safe.

Because she could run. She's thought about it; all that really encumbers her is her heavy backpack full of the twins' things, and she runs often enough to know she could get pretty far. But Zenins tend to hunt in packs, and if this man is a member of the Hei like she suspects, there are probably at least eight of him at his beck and call, waiting to be told to intercept her wherever she tries to run. And if she's too good at getting away, it'll be a bloodbath.

They're like a cornered animal now – no one to fall back on but their own. They've lost all reason to care about the repercussions of their choice to make messes, and Utahime, if she doesn't want to be responsible for dozens of casualties, has to respect that.

For all that Naoya's twisted brain seems too clouded by inbreeding and egotism to work properly, it does know the basics.

"I'm sure this is nothing," Utahime says politely, playing along. "But would you mind telling me what it was in my bag that you found suspicious?"

The man looks back at her, and his eyes glint, but he doesn't say anything. She glances at her watch – five-forty-three – and wishes she could call Gojo to tell him to take the twins and board without her, but she doubts she could get away with it.

Point taken. She'll just have to make it back in time for the boarding call.

"That's a security matter," he says.

She wants to taunt them, because he's really not playing his part very well, but that would get her nowhere, so she smiles blandly like no woman being taken to a private place for an unsanctioned bag search never would and says, "okay."

Given the things she's heard about Zenin men, he probably thinks it's a woman's natural tendency to act like that, deferential to the point of naivete. She rolls her eyes when he turns his back.

It could be worse – enclosed space, maybe without backup. Decent odds. If she can take out whatever means he has of contacting the rest of Naoya's Hei goons, she thinks she can take one of them. Maybe it'll be tough if he doesn't go down quick, but it's been a while since she was in a solid fight.

Her mother never had liked how much of a brawler she was when given the chance.

Tsuru no Hitokoe isn't really a hand-to-hand kind of technique, but he hadn't confiscated her luggage. A smile comes to her lips, and she's glad he doesn't look back, because he'd know she had a plan if she did. Good old reliable Zenins, always underestimating a weapon in enemy hands if they aren't expecting one.

A door shuts. She takes the cue and smashes a backpack the weight of a small child into his unsuspecting face with all the force that the three months' worth of couples' kickboxing lessons Takeshi bought them for her birthday will allow.

The man sputters, scrambling for purchase, and when she knees his stomach hard enough to make him buckle over, she misses Takeshi more than she has in days.

Maybe he wasn't her crane, but she knows she'll cry once she has time to slow down and think about it. Maybe it'll be the memory of this moment and the way he and his bad taste in gifts had inadvertently saved her that does it.

"Dumbass," she says coolly, digging her knee into his chin to snap it back before he has time to recover from the last hit. "Never underestimate the weight of a girl's handbag."

The line to board is forming before Gojo catches sight of Utahime, and he wants to be relieved, because she isn't answering his calls and it's nearly time, but she's down a backpack.

He hasn't seen Utahime set down that backpack since they left the hotel.

She's jogging towards them, the best of her energy already spent sprinting through the airport, and she's probably expecting people to think she was just running late. But Gojo knows better than that.

"They're here," she pants, forgetting that the twins can hear. "One of 'em almost got me."

His eyes snap wide. "Where? How many?"

She bends to rest her hands on her knees. Her hair, hanging down over her face like a curtain, is falling out of her ponytail, and her bow is loose. Even Gojo has the tact to let her catch her breath before he asks again.

"I dunno," she says. "I only saw one, but you know there have to be more."

He makes a face. Of course they'd shown up here in the one place where he can't do anything.

"I knocked 'im out," she says.

He really thinks he must be terribly in love with her when she lifts her bent head just so he can see her smile at the worst possible time for smiling.

"Hot," he says.

"I hate you."

He shrugs. "Hot."

"And get your head out of the gutter, idiot. We're being chased."

He works through the calcuations she's probably run a thousand times already: this Zenin probably told his cohort that he had Utahime. They may or may not be asking for updates, but if she's telling the truth, and he hopes for the sake of that beautiful image that she is, they aren't getting any. They're going to start to suspect things soon. And who knows when the guy might wake up and start making his own messes.

He concludes that this flight is the least of their worries.

Maybe she can see him thinking that, because she says, immediately, "no, Satoru."

"Are you out of your mind? They'll follow us!"

"Onto a plane, Satoru?"

"Onto a plane!" Gojo gestures wildly as if this will make his point easier to digest. "You know, like, an enclosed space you can't get out of!"

"Security-"

"What's security going to do about" – he purposely scowls and contorts his voice accordingly, lest he ever be accused of saying the words without the ceremonially proper disgust – "Falling Blossom Emotion?"

Utahime's face reddens even more than it already was from exertion. "If we miss this flight, all we're doing is setting ourselves up."

"Yeah, but if we get on it, I'm gonna have to kill a dude in the middle of a flight!"

Several heads turn. A tug at his pants doesn't succeed in diverting Gojo's attention away from them.

"You can't say stuff like that," she hisses under her breath. "People are gonna hear you."

"Yeah, well, it's true."

"I'm serious, Gojo, if you keep talking like that, you'll-"

"And if we get on this flight, best case scenario is I stab a dude on a flight and get arrested, and worst case scenario is it's a bunch of them and I end up blowing a plane full of random people and you out of the sky!"

He doesn't remember to reset Infinity before a rough hand tugs his arm, and Utahime's face goes white.

"Sir," a security officer says, "I think you're all gonna need to come with me."

It is a perfect storm of absolute nonsense which undermines the triumph of Utahime's escape, and she wants so badly to spit on someone that she nearly spits on the poor security officer who's just trying to prevent what really did sound like a terrorist just to see if it would make her feel any better.

She doesn't, though. She retains a modicum of her self-control by reminding herself that Gojo hasn't made some horrible joke about the fact that she's in handcuffs yet. One has to find small reasons to live sometimes, because there sure aren't many right now.

Regular airport security thinks her idiot traveling companion is plotting murder. The Zenins are chasing her, and their only hope of getting away for good is probably minutes from leaving for Jakarta without them. Maki tried to bite the security officer's colleague when he came for backup and is now being very unwillingly carried by said colleague, who would probably have a hand clamped over her mouth to prevent a repeat biting incident if that wouldn't get him fired. Explain themselves, or try to warp away, and they expose the whole jujutsu world to the public. And the Zenins could be anywhere in this building, still looking for her.

Stupid Gojo and his stupid mouth.

And she can't even tell herself that things won't get worse, because someone's got to be looking for them. Zenins, definitely. Probably Geto, too, as if they need one more incurable headache to manage in a sea of them.

"That's her!"

Just as predicted: worse.

"She's the one," a voice she recognizes quicker than she'd like calls out. "With the two kids."

Naoya, in plainclothes instead of his colleague's stolen security uniform and flanked by yet more security officers, points at Utahime and her group.

"Well, it looks like someone else already has her handled," one of the guards tells Naoya. "So-"

"Oh, no, you don't get it," Naoya says with a smile like the tail of a snake. When one of the other guards moves forwards to restrain him, he shoves him back into line. "This one's mine."

Utahime turns and mouths go and Gojo doesn't move a muscle.

Go, she mouths again, somehow even more emphatic this time, and for the first time in as long as he can remember, he can't figure out how to move.

They're almost in a semicircle, the guards with Utahime and the twins in one arc and Naoya and the security officers he dragged off of duty somewhere else to chase them in another, facing theirs. Passengers who have no idea what they're about to be stuck in the middle of swerve around them; the canny ones notice the security personnel and cut through gates instead of passing, but most don't. He glances to his right, to his left, swears under his breath, warps only his wrists out of the cuffs so he can reach for Utahime, but he doesn't move.

"Take the twins and go," she hisses under her breath. "It's me they want."

He wants to shout, protest, tell her that there's no way in any universe that she's ever going to convince him to do that, but his tongue is stuck. He can leave Utahime and save the girls and maybe never see her again and know it was his fault. He can stay and make quick work of Naoya but the Zenins won't go out, he knows, without forcing him to kill dozens of staff and passengers whose families will never be able to know why they never came home from the airport. Her or everyone here. She's forcing an ultimatum on him and he doesn't have any time to react.

"Please," she whispers, her eyes full of something that is not fear. "I need to know they got away."

Maki twists in the officer's arms and looks at Gojo with a kind of terror that she's never let him see before. It's the kind of terror a six-year-old shouldn't have to hide, but her eyes ask him to save her, and Zenin Maki has quite simply always known that nobody would come to her rescue if she ever let it show that she needed it.

Not until Utahime, at least.

That is what Utahime is saying when she tells him to leave her.

"I'll be back for you," he says hoarsely, reaching for Maki. "I promise."

She looks at him with a gentle smile that feels out of place.

"If you can't," she says, "don't worry."

Gojo probably thought that sentimental leave-taking was an act of resignation. Ew. Utahime doesn't like that thought, upon further reflection. Then again, she could've just said I can handle myself, and she hadn't, so maybe that was on her.

And that's the last thing she needs to be thinking about, anyways, because the darkness that descends as Naoya chants the incantation to raise a curtain around their little group tells her that he plans on doing this the hard way.

The parts of Utahime that are great at being practical and not so good at being brash tell her that she might be a little bit screwed. The parts that excel at brashness but not exactly logic tell her that wringing this little twerp's neck is going to be the most fun she's had in ages. She can't think that and win, though, and she needs a clear head and time if she wants to be ready when he comes for her.

She checks her watch and realizes she should've started the chant that summons her shikigami minutes ago if she wanted to stand a chance.

"I had a feeling it was you," Naoya says, stalking the perimeter of the curtain as if he needs to look the part of the movie villain.

She gives him a hard, inscrutable look, and the words of her crane chant are her only reply. Two minutes, if she's fast. All she has to do is find a way to delay two minutes, but who is she kidding? It's Naoya. She probably doesn't even have two seconds.

"Stupid bitch," he spits. "Just how many times do you think I'm going to let you get in my way?"

Oh, so he wants to monologue. That'll help, if he keeps it up. She rolls her eyes to egg him on and keeps her mind focused.

See them in your mind, her grandmother had told her, holding a hand over her eyes to help her block out the rest of the world. Remember that you're singing to them. It's an invitation, Uta-chan.

She knows this song by heart, has for years, but she's almost reluctant to use it now. Cranes are sacred to an Iori woman, and Naoya's ears are not safe ones for sacred things like the words she uses to coax them out.

He's still talking, firing off questions she doesn't answer, and she tunes him out. She pictures their mating dances, the entwining of their elegant necks; she listens in her mind for the sound of their wingbeats muffled by snow and matches the rise and fall of each pitch to their cadence. Maybe this won't work, and she won't finish the chant before he gets sick of waiting and silences her, but she'd rather die with that song on her lips than waiting for his next move.

She doesn't even know what her cranes are going to do against Naoya's speed and endless backup, but they're all she has, and right now she has to believe in them.

Maybe he's only waiting for her to be ready so he can kill her at her full power, make a mockery of her pathetic efforts to fight back, but she feels like she's wone already when a feathered head brushes her outstretched hand.

"There you are," she coos, stroking the female crane's soft neck. "You wanna help me kill this lousy bastard?"

The corridor where he'd left Utahime is dark, and Gojo curses.

He doesn't know how much he's missed in the seven minutes it took him to convince Shoko to keep the twins in her basement or something until he came for them again, but if Naoya has a curtain up, he must be trying something. He doesn't know if Utahime had time to summon her shikigami or if she even stands a chance, and-

"If you thought I was gonna let it be that easy," Utahime is saying when he warps past the curtain, spitting blood from the corner of her mouth, "then your mom really must've sucked."

Gojo has no idea what she's talking about, quite frankly, but the whole spitting-blood thing is really quite impossibly sexy, and it takes him a second to remember that he's supposed to be helping, not admiring, and-

Oh.

His eyes refocus and her lip is not the only thing bloodied.

Utahime is agile and fast, but she's nothing like Naoya, and every single blow he's landed shows. Her right eye is puffy, her nose bleeding so profusely it must be broken; he can see her holding her abdomen with an arm that she needs to counter but can't use. A ways off, one of her cranes struggles to lift its neck from the floor, and its mate is useless.

Utahime's cursed technique has a thousand shortcomings, but that – that one crane will refuse to fight if its mate is injured – is the worst of them. Maybe Naoya knew that, or maybe he was lucky. Either way, the long-ranged attacks that are usually her best defense are impossible without her shikigami, and now…

His jaw sets.

He could Hollow Purple Naoya into another dimension if he felt like it, but he feels like a good old planet-shaking sucker punch. It won't kill him, but it'll buy him a few seconds to ask Utahime what happened, and that's what counts.

Besides, wiping that smug look off his face is a nice stress reliever.

"Gojo," Utahime pants, clutching at her ribs. "Where are the twins?"

For once, he has the good sense not to answer that.

Many people think that Naoya is too egotistical to think straight. Sometimes, this is true. Other times, it's really just a reputation he has to uphold.

This is one of those times, because there isn't a soul alive who wouldn't have a newly-heightened awareness of his own mortality with Gojo Satoru looking at him like he's about to drop him into a deep-fryer full of boiling acid.

Which is what he is currently doing.

He'd thought he was in the clear. Utahime's stupid birds can't do anything useful if one of them is hurt, and she's so beaten-up she's barely standing anymore after what felt like ten seconds of hand-to-hand. She should have been easy pickings. It should have been easy to throw her to the ground and pin her beneath his shoe and make it known that no one denies Zenin Naoya what he wants.

But Gojo is back for her, and that is a problem.

He can't kill her, not unless he wants to be squashed like a fly. But he can ruin her. He can be sure that this idiot prodigy who has everything and who wants Utahime as badly as he once did will never have her blemishless.

She charges at him, stupid and reckless as ever, and her face is inches from his before he pulls the knife from a sheath at his belt that Utahime hasn't noticed yet.

Gojo hasn't, either.

At least, if he is going to die, he'll have taken that one small victory.

Notes:

Me ing the "we need to buy time for Utahime-sensei to get ready" line by making her, well, need time to get ready, lol. I want you all to know that no matter how relatively useless they are, her cranes are my babies and I would die for them and so would she 333

Chapter 14: Scarred

Notes:

Me again lolol hi. Anyways. Just a short epilogue to go!

Chapter Text

Pain opens like a bud across the gash that spreads so quickly she's barely registered the slivery flash of Naoya's knife before she feels it. It shouldn't feel like anything with her face already so damaged. Somehow it still feels unbearable.

She does not know he's thinking that this will be his mark on her for the rest of her life, or that it's Gojo he wants to be revenged against by cutting her face. But she does know how it hurts, and that she has nothing more to fear from Naoya now that Gojo is with her, and the adrenaline that accompanies the worst pain she has ever felt gives her grip strength that it has never had before.

She probably cuts her hands wresting the knife from Naoya's, but she doesn't feel it. All she can think of is the wild fear, made worse by the loss of blood, that she is fighting a cornered man, and that he would do anything now to get an upper hand.

And then she raises her knife on a man who is only a boy and stills.

It isn't pity that makes her stop. She could cut his throat and feel no remorse; it would be self-defense, really, even if he weren't the kind of person who hunts six-year-olds for sport. No moral code she has ever lived by would tell her not to kill this man.

But if she kills him and leaves his body here in the airport, his curtain fallen as soon as he lost consciousness, someone will find the body and think things that aren't true. They'll find her fingerprints on the knife and think she had killed a promising boy too young to have even finished high school and brand her a monster. There will be a manhunt no matter where she goes, and she will never be able to explain why she did it.

"Gojo," she says weakly, knowing that he's waiting for her to land the final blow, "not here."

The sleeve of Gojo's favorite sweatshirt is stiff and dark with dried blood. Utahime, limp in his arms, feels lighter than a person ever should. His hands shake, he wants to take the earth in his hands and squeeze the life out of it for daring to let this happen to someone who has only ever tried to do good – but she had given him a task.

He doesn't really know where he is teleporting, except that he needs to be high above the sea. Utahime rests unconscious against his chest; he holds Naoya by the collar of his jacket, and with a single rough tug, it rips in his hand, and he plummets towards the surface of the frigid Hokkaido sea.

He sees him hit the surface and warps to Nagano.

Nagano

Utahime's head is still fuzzy when she hears someone calling out that she's awake, and it's only then that she realizes she's opened her eyes.

They focus, but barely. Everything hurts and when she wakes enough to lose the dulling of feeling that comes with sleep, she feels a throbbing in her abdomen and a stinging in her face that make her wish she hadn't woken up.

She doesn't even know where she is, or how she got here, and she dimly realizes that she can't smell. But when she opens her mouth to ask, nothing comes out.

"We're so glad to see you awake," a woman in scrubs says, peering down at Utahime.

"Ungh," she manages.

Memories float back to her piece by piece. She tries to sit up, but she doubles over her bruised abdomen when she does, and the pain that radiates from the left side of her ribcage makes her feel nauseous. I need to go, she thinks, panicked, they'll find me here, but her body won't move.

It's only the touch of a tiny hand that makes her stop.

"Uta-san," a little voice says at a distance from her ear. "Why do you have a tube in your arm?"

"I really tried."

Shoko looks so downcast that Utahime can't help but reach, though it hurts, to squeeze her hand. "You probably saved me," she says. "No apologizing."

"But-"

"I know." The nurses, trying to pretend to be more sympathetic than she thinks they really are, have told her a million times that the cut on her face is going to scar. "I don't care, Shoko. I thought I was gonna die."

Shoko looks at the ground, and Utahime wishes there were something she could say to make things different.

"You'd already lost so much blood when you got to me," she murmurs. "I still had to call an ambulance."

"Shoko-"

"I just," she says, sucking in a breath, "think I should've done better than that."

She chooses not to tell Shoko how ridiculous that sounds. High schoolers aren't supposed to be able to do at-home blood transfusions.

"I'm still here, right?" she says instead.

Shoko looks up at her guiltily, saying nothing. Utahime gives up on trying to find suitable things to say.

"Hey, Uta?"

"Mmhm?"

"I'm sorry about your boyfriend."

Oh.

She hasn't been thinking much about Takeshi these past few hours. Too much pain and too many unknowns have made sure of that. Now, though, she wonders if it would bother him that her face will always bear the reminder that a man she'd turned down had been angry enough to mark it.

Probably not, but the part of her that wants to put as much distance as she can between herself and the dead convinces her that he would've.

"It hasn't sank in yet," she admits.

"Of course it hasn't. You've been running for your life."

That shouldn't be a novel thing to hear. Somehow, it still is.

"Uta-san."

Maki's little elbow digs into the part of Utahime's middle that still hurts, and she winces, but she tries not to let it show. "Yeah, Maki?"

"Old man boy says we're going on vacation."

Of course had. She smiles, so far as it doesn't hurt to smile. "Did he?"

"Mmhm."

"That's not exactly what's happening," she says, ruffling Maki's hair. "More like moving."

"Moving where?"

"Far," she says distantly.

"Where far?" Maki screws up her face. "Like Hawaii far?"

"Hawaii," Utahime says, laughing wheezily. "You're pretty ambitious for a kindergartener."

"What's ambitious?"

"You want big things."

Maki peers at Utahime as if trying to find her eyes between the bandages, her lips pursed, then asks, "so are we going to Hawaii?"

"You," she says fondly, "have a one-track mind, Maki-chan."

"Wakana's sister went there when she got married," she says, bouncing the mattress. "She brought me this weird-smelling candle shaped like a flower."

Utahime doesn't think Maki is really asking where they're moving anymore, so she smiles, indulging her. "Did she?"

"Yeah. It's gone now."

"I'm-"

"It was with my stuff in the backpack that you left at the airport."

Oh, dear.

"I'm sorry," Utahime says, not particularly remorseful, "but I was fighting a bad guy with that."

"I don't care," Maki says, crossing his arms. "You lost my flower candle."

"Do you even like candles?"

"No," Maki says. "But I liked that one."

She watches Maki for a moment, observes the way her lips pout and her eyebrows raise as she waits for an answer, and her chest floods with a warmth that makes the pain in her ribs feel like nothing at all.

"I'm sorry, honey," she says, smoothing down Maki's hair. "One day I'll get you another one."

She doesn't really know if that's a promise she can keep, but when Maki lays her head gingerly against Utahime's chest on the unhurt side, she knows it's not the candle that matters.

"Maki-chan," she says, "no one's gonna take you away again."

"I know."

It's been a while since anyone had that much faith in Utahime. Even if she needed help, she's glad to know that she's earned it.

They let her go before it's safe for her to fly again, and it is a risk to go home, but it's one she won't leave Japan for good without taking. It is a weighty thing, leaving the only place she's ever known and Gojo, who probably has damage control to do in a thousand places, must know that.

It's not safe to be alone anymore. Sometimes, when she wanders into the kitchen in the early morning and passes him on a futon in the living room, she remembers that. But she suspects his persistence has less to do with safety and more to do with guilt.

Gojo has never been able to outrun the idea that being able to ensure that nothing ever goes wrong is the job that justifies his existence in this world, and he cares too much for Utahime not to feel the wound on her face as deeply as she does.

It sort of makes her heart ache, knowing that, and that he still sleeps in until it's noon and her mother kicks him to wake him for lunch, and that she won't be around to see him grow the rest of the way up. He'll see her sometimes – she's sure of that – but she will never really be in his life again, and he will never really be in hers. It is a more desolate feeling than she had thought it would be.

"You're creepy," he tells her one night when he cracks open an eye to find her sitting cross-legged a few feet from his futon.

"Sorry," she says. "I was just thinking."

She knew he hadn't really been asleep. He's probably known she was there the whole time.

"About me?"

She shrugs. It still hurts, but a little less now. "About leaving."

He rolls over to flop onto his back and doesn't say anything.

"Can you bring Shoko to see me sometimes?"

He turns his head to glare at her. "Really?"

"What? I'll miss her."

"What about me?"

She smiles, her cheeks a little red. "Glad you'll be out of my hair."

"Uh, what?"

"You're too young for me anyway," she says, laughing fondly. She doesn't know where this swell of emotion is coming from – probably the late hour and her painkillers – but she doesn't really mind it. "And my boyfriend just died."

That sinks the mood like a bag of rocks.

It helps, though – makes it easier to say what Utahime really wants to say. "You know I owe you one, right?"

Gojo swallows; she can see his Adam's apple bob. "It was really nothing."

"Maybe to you."

But not to someone like Iori Utahime, gifted with very little power but her grit and loyalty and ability to inspire it in turn.

"Still."

"I'll miss you," she admits. "Call me sometimes."

He may be a boy, and eighteen, and stupid, but they've been through enough together by now that he doesn't take that out of turn. She appreciates that more than she can say.

"I'll come see you," he says, his voice painfully earnest. "Enough that you'll get tired of me."

She inches closer to his futon and reaches for his hand, placing it palm-up in hers. For a moment whose span she loses track of, she traces the lines, not really knowing why.

"I mean that," she says. "I'll miss you."

Narita Airport

They fly out of Tokyo this time. No one can stomach New Chitose anymore, and besides, the flights are cheaper. It's better this way.

But standing in front of her gate, her shirt damp with her mother's tears, Utahime feels far from home already, and she hates that feeling.

"We'll visit," she says, even though Utahime knows for a fact they don't have the money.

Gojo, who's crouching in front of Maki and Mai off to the side and giving them a lecture that makes Maki look like she wants to backhand him, looks up at her, and his expression softens. I know, it says. Maybe she wouldn't have believed he really did if she hadn't spent enough time with him to know that he loves his mother, too.

Unimaginable that he would be a part of the group that is the reason her heart aches to be leaving.

Singapore

Even in the winter, it's hot here, and Utahime might hate the heat, but it doesn't seem to bother the girls. The friends Utahime's parents put them up with until she finds her footing here think it's adorable, their excitement at being able to go outside in shorts in December, but she's hard-pressed to be so enthused.

She feels like she sweats buckets every time she steps outside. That is a hard thing to feel excited about.

In a way, though, she's grateful for it. The heat gives her something to think about that is not her uncertainty about this new country, the constant question of what she's going to do. Unless there is a great demand for Japanese teachers, she's clueless, and though her parents' friends are insistent that they can stay as long as they like, she's sure they'll outstay their welcome eventually. It's better to think about how hot it is outside than any of that.

And the girls love it – it's kind of sweet, seeing them so excited about an unfamiliar place. They've probably never been on a vacation.

On New Year's, when she should be with her family, she takes that to heart.

She's seen pictures of the botanical garden before – vaguely, she remembers having known about them before she lived here – but never bothered to sightsee. On New Year's, she wakes the twins early to make the walk to the marina before it's stiflingly hot and she changes her mind.

It feels so useless. She used to have a job, a purpose, people who meant something to her – a home in all the ways she could have one. Now, she wanders aimlessly down the streets of a city where she still feels like a tourist, pretending that sightseeing is any substitute for the ache in her chest for her the warm sound of her family's laughter over her mother's New Year cooking.

She has to remind herself all the way to the ticket window that it has to be worth it if these two little girls who might otherwise have been shoved off into a corner or worse for the holiday will finally know a year with a happy beginning.

It's hard to believe it really was worth the loss, sometimes, but not when she pushes open the glass double doors of the Cloud Forest greenhouse and Mai looks up at the wall of green reaching to the vaulted glass ceiling with the kind of wonder on her face that children are supposed to feel.

"Pretty cool, huh?" Utahime asks her, and Mai, holding her sweaty hand, grins.

"Yeah," she says. "Pretty cool."

Tokyo

"Kaa-chan."

"Mmhm," Arisa says, distracted by the books she's trying to balance. "What?"

"Utahime lives in Singapore now."

"Utahime-senpai," she corrects him. "I know that."

"How?"

"She has my phone number."

"What?"

"She sent me a picture of the girls yesterday," she says. "With those giant metal trees. You ever see a picture of those?"

"She didn't send me any pictures," he huffs.

Arisa, who knows well that the best way to quicken the exit of Satoru's tantrums is to ignore them, doesn't say anything to that. "Why do you bring it up?"

He goes silent again – sulky. She thinks she knows what he's going to say, and has for a while, but she waits to hear it from him anyways.

"I think maybe it's my fault she's gone."

"Well, yes, one could argue." Arisa jots down a few figures she knows she's in danger of forgetting before she looks back at him. "But why do you mention it now?"

He shrugs. She doesn't need any further answer than that.

"Satorun," she says, turning her chair to face him, "everything that happens in this world isn't your fault."

It's a reminder he perpetually needs and one she doesn't think he'll ever outgrow.

"I don't even know why I sent them to her," he says, looking down at his feet. "And now she can't come home."

It's only for her that Satoru is ever so childlike in the ways that matter. She treasures that, but knows it's finite – that he'll grow a hard shell, convince himself that he has to stop needing his mother for her own protection. Thinking about it makes her ache, so as far as she can, she doesn't.

"No one could say that what you did didn't have consequences," she says carefully, "but that doesn't mean it was wrong."

"But-"

"She loves those girls." Arisa brushes her fingers gently across the leather of her ledger and smiles. "And she fought tooth and nail for them. Not many people would have done that."

"You think so?"

"You were with her for weeks, Satorun. You should know so."

He probably does. She'd bet anything she had that half of this guilt just comes from missing her.

"I guess," he says.

"No," Arisa says gently. "You know."

Chapter 15: Epilogue

Notes:

What I will say in conclusion is that this took too damn long to finish.

Chapter Text

Singapore

September 2017

Utahime hears a rush of air and curses profusely under her breath.

"You almost caught me in the middle of a lesson," she says once she's regained her composure. "Can't you knock like a normal person?"

Gojo pokes her in the back with something and she turns, finally, to find a stupidly oversized bouquet of flowers in her face. "I come all the way here to see you and that's the welcome I get?"

"Yes," she says flatly, accepting the flowers without so much as a flush in her cheeks. "What would you have said if you showed up during somebody's lesson?"

"That I'm here to see my lovely lady-friend?"

"I'm not your lady-friend," she scoffs. "Why the flowers?"

"Can't I just-"

"I know how you work, Gojo."

He shrugs good-naturedly. "It was worth a shot, wasn't it?"

"Like I said," she says. "Knock next time."

"Whose lesson was it?"

She looks back at him, surprised. "Jinyi's, but you don't know who that is."

"Jinyi? Tiny alto girl?"

Utahime raises her eyebrows. "How and why do you remember that?"

He pouts. "Because," he says.

"Because you're delusional and you think I'll marry you if you remember things I say?"

"Basically," he says blithely, following her into the kitchen. "How are the-"

A muttered curse in Mandarin stops him mid-sentence.

"-twins," he says faintly.

Mai, who had been peeling a tangerine when he came in, looks at him like he's bringing the bubonic plague into the apartment. "Fine," she says archly. "Great."

"Good to hear," Gojo says, undeterred, and makes a beeline for the fridge. "You got any more of those little oranges?"

"Mama," Mai says, "can you get rid of him?"

Utahime snorts. "Don't you think I would've done it already if I could?"

"You wound me," Gojo says, pressing his hand to his heart. "Where's your sister?"

"Taekwondo practice," Mai says, throwing a tangerine at his head. "There ya go. Sure she'll be glad she missed you."

"You shouldn't talk like that to your dad-"

"Funny," Mai says, looking back down at the book lying open on the counter. He hadn't realized she'd been reading when he came in. "I can't remember Mama ever even saying she liked you."

"Well, that's too bad," he says cheerily, peeling his orange – annoyingly – in a single try. "Because I have a favor to ask."

Mai glares at him hard enough that he shudders. If looks could kill.

"That's enough, Mai-chan," Utahime sighs, exhausted already, and drags Gojo by the arm into a room where Mai isn't. "What favor is this, exactly?"

"Well, ah, there's-"

He stops mid-sentence, again, when the doorbell rings. Utahime excuses herself to get it, and he lets out the rest of his sentence as a sigh.

Someone at the door is speaking what sounds like Mandarin, and after a moment, Utahime leads a tiny girl who looks about the twins' age into the apartment. "Sorry," she says, briefly acknowledging Gojo without really meaning it. "Jinyi forgot her sweater earlier."

Right, Jinyi. The student from earlier. Tiny alto. He watches her, fascinated, like he's seeing a diorama of the life Utahime lives when he isn't around – speaking choppy Mandarin, teaching voice lessons, walking around her apartment in embroidered slippers with a practiced, confident step he never used to see when she was younger. He likes it – makes the swish of her hips more pronounced than it used to be.

He likes her hips. He wouldn't tell her that, because she'd slap him, and they're not really the 'I like your hips' kind of lovers, but he does.

Jinyi looks at Gojo and says something to which Utahime responds with a profuse blush and what looks like an adamant denial. He knows exactly what that means, and as soon as Jinyi is rushed out the door, he turns to her and grins.

"Let me guess," he says. "She asked if I was your boyfriend."

"Shut up," she huffs, sitting down hard on the sofa beside him.

Their knees touch. This pleases him.

"So," he says, casually slinging an arm across her shoulders, "about that favor."

She removes his arm. "Yeah? What about it?"

"Well, I need it."

"Yes, obviously," she snaps. "Is it a reasonable favor this time?"

"When is it ever not?"

She looks at him the way Mai usually does, which hurts, he has to admit. It really does. She's a brutal woman, that Utahime.

"So, basically, I've stumbled across-"

"Gross."

Maki throws the door open like she wants to break it, drops a backpack the weight of a small child in the doorway with a thud of a magnitude that really isn't necessary, and stalks into the living room to throw herself into a chair and glare across at Satoru.

"Kaasan," she says, "why is he here?"

"That's rude, Maki-chan."

"You can't tell me that you didn't ask the same thing."

Gojo can see the stress lines crease on Utahime's forehead. "I'm allowed to do that, Maki," she says. "I'm the mom."

"Okay, and? Just because I'm not, I'm supposed to be okay with creepy men being in my house?"

"Maki."

This time, Utahime's tone is sharp enough that Maki stops, dropping the tension from her expression. "Hi," she says begrudgingly. "Or whatever."

"How was taekwondo?" he asks her, trying, perhaps in vain, to project the fatherly image he thinks is fitting of his station.

She raises her eyebrows, kicking one of her legs over the armrest of the chair. "How'd you know where I was?"

"Mai told me."

"Tch." She doesn't elaborate. "Fine, I guess."

"Is that boy from the international school still giving you trouble?" Utahime asks.

"Nah." Maki smiles, though it looks like she doesn't want anyone to see it. "I just beat 'im up a few times and he got the message."

She nods. "Good."

"Uh, are you sure you should be encouraging this?"

"Maki's violent tendencies are untamable," Utahime says flatly. "All you can really do is channel them into positives."

"Like beating up her taekwondo classmates," Gojo says.

"Like assertiveness." She turns back to him. "Anyways, what was your favor?"

"Favor?" Maki scrunches up her face. "That got anything to do with why you're sitting with your legs touching?"

"No," Gojo says. "That's because we love each other."

"No," Utahime immediately counters. "It's because Gojo has no sense of personal space."

"You know," Maki says, "I really shouldn't be subjected to this all the time."

"He isn't here that often."

"Whyever not?" Gojo asks, feigning hurt.

"'s nasty," she says. "Probably stunts my growth. I'ma get a complex or something."

"A complex," Utahime repeats. "You're a weird one."

"Very," Gojo says solemnly.

"Anyways. Favor."

"Favor," Gojo says, snapping his fingers, then points at Maki, "which has nothing to do with why our legs are touching."

Maki takes that as her cue to leave.

"She's happy to see you, I promise," Utahime whispers as soon as she's out of earshot.

"Oh, I know."

"She's…been in a phase lately."

"Hasn't she always been like this?"

"Nah, nowadays she talks weird," Utahime says. "I don't know how to explain it, she's just…so teenage."

"Tragic," he says. "I liked it better when she was too small to hurt me."

"Yeah, well, like it or not, she's taller than me now." Utahime smiles fondly, but a little sadly, too. "Both of them, actually."

"Really?"

"Just a little. And honestly, Maki looks even taller."

"She does."

"She catches a lot of eyes," she says, shaking her head. "Don't think she knows, though."

"Well, ah. Speaking of boys."

Utahime narrows her eyes. "When did I mention boys?"

"Wasn't that implied by 'she catches a lot of eyes'?"

"Uh…I mean…"

"Never mind," he says. "Thought that was a great segue, but apparently not."

"Get to the point, Satoru."

"So there's this kid I found."

"You're great at finding kids, yes, we know."

"Who I kinda need to get out of an execution."

Utahime's eyes widen. "Sorry?"

"Because he has, uh…a lot of…behavioral problems."

"Like what, killing people?" she asks, incredulous. "What kind of behavioral problems get you executed?"

"No, no, nothing like that. He's a great kid, really," he says. "But he's, ah…well."

"Satoru."

"Cursed."

"How?"

"His…dead ex-girlfriend turned into a curse and she kinda keeps trying to kill people."

"I'm sorry, what?"

"And he's a good kid, I swear! He's just doin' really bad right now, ya know? And I wanna help him, and, I mean, I definitely have, but this year's class is really tiny, and, I dunno, I just think it might do him some good to have…a change of scenery…?"

Utahime looks at him for only a second before she crosses her arms.

"You want me," she says, "a music teacher, to figure out how to exorcise this kid's homicidal ex-girlfriend?"

"No, no, I would do that," he says. "I just…I dunno. The kid needs friends, ya know? Building confidence, that kinda thing."

"That doesn't really sound like what this kid needs, Satoru."

He wilts like a leaf of lettuce on a sandwich. It is not a particularly good look.

"I'm not asking you to figure out the curse stuff," he says, dropping the flippant tone, "or anything like that. I just…there are things about him that I can't help with."

"Like?"

"Like…the feelings stuff, y'know? He's just got no confidence. Most anxious kid you've ever met. And he's just…sad. I don't know what to do with sad."

"So what am I supposed to do, be his mom?"

"No! No, that's…I just…you know."

"No, I don't, Satoru."

"I think he'd be happier here," he said. "At least for a little."

"Why?"

"I mean, the twins-"

"Misanthropes," she says. "They'd probably just bully him."

"They bully everyone," he says. "They'd come around. And you-"

"Just a random civilian, remember?"

"But you're not."

She looks up at him, surprised at the quiver in his voice.

"The twins," he said. "They should've been an absolute wreck by now. Honestly, if I'd have tried to raise them, they probably would've been."

"Your point?"

"They had such a bad start in life," he says. "And you…you let them live a normal life."

"Anyone could do that."

"Most people couldn't take a kid who'd been told they were worthless their whole life and make them confident enough to beat up a guy who was bothering them at taekwondo."

A small smile tugs at Utahime's lips. "I don't think I had much to do with how Maki turned out."

"Yeah, you did, Uta."

"She's just…strong."

"Strong people who don't have someone to take care of them don't grow up like her, Uta."

"I just don't know what you think this kid would get out of living with us," she protests.

He shrugs, smiling sheepishly. "Maybe just a reminder that life doesn't have to suck."

October 2017

"Why is there a boy here?"

Maki drops her bag by the door like always, this time with more violence than usual. The subject of her ire flinches at the sound, and Maki scoffs.

"Maki-chan," Utahime chides her, setting aside the knife she's using to chop vegetables for dinner, "stop being a misanthrope."

"No, I'm serious," she presses. "Did Mai bring him?"

"No, Gojo did."

Maki takes one look at the boy, who looks like he might start crying at any second, and her face pinches.

"Oh," she says. "Hell no."

She storms off to her bedroom and leaves him gaping like a fish.

"I'm really sorry about my daughter," Utahime says. "She's…prickly."

"I…it's okay," he says. "Really, I…I totally get it."

"Hey, none of that." Utahime gestures at him with her knife. "You gotta stand up for yourself. Just gotta tell her, 'I don't care if you don't like it, I'm here, and I'm staying.'" She smiles fondly. "And then she'll respect ya."

"Oh," he says. "I…I see."

Mai looks at him like a specimen in a museum on the way to the kitchen for a snack. The effect is not much more encouraging. "How long's he staying?"

"He has a name, you know," she says. "And he can hear you."

"I know," Mai says. "How long's he staying?"

"I'm so sorry, Yuuta," Utahime says. "I don't know why" – she gives Mai a pointed look – "I have such rude daughters."

"Eyebags," Mai says. "How long are you staying?"

"Don't answer to that name, Yuuta," Utahime calls to him.

"Uh, two…months, I think?"

"I told you not to answer! Where's your backbone?"

Yuuta shrinks back like he wants to disappear.

"Mama," Mai says, "I think you're scaring him."

Probably.

I think you need to come get your kid, she texts Gojo. He looks like he's going to have an aneurysm.

"The trick with this one," she tells him, gesturing to Mai with the knife, "is to act like you don't care what she says about you. Works like a charm."

Mai crosses her arms. "What are you, his life coach?"

"Basically," she says. "And you're the 'don't' example."

Mai sticks out her tongue and Utahime feels the warmth from her chest suffuse through her stomach, out to her arms, up to her warm cheeks. "Love you, Mai-Mai," she calls after her as she stalks out with her tangerines.

She doesn't say it back, but she doesn't need to. In every way that matters, Utahime already knows.