It was a lot harder to plan for a fight between two of the most powerful beings on the planet than you might think. Midori, as she was apparently now named, could attest to that. Let alone how to actually influence the fight in a positive way, not just as another weak point to exploit. She wouldn't put it past Toji to target her just to throw Gojo off balance.
Even knowing what was coming, she agonized over every possibility. Try to get the boys to fight Toji together, and risk Geto's death at the sorcerer killer's hands? Haibara most likely wasn't going to be effective enough to make a difference in that sort of fight. She… honestly didn't know much about Yaga's capabilities? She was an anime watcher, not a manga reader, and all she really knew of what would happen past season 2 was from the memes and comments she saw on social media. She knew that Gojo was defeated by Sakuna, but as to how he got out in the first place? There was something about Yuta later too.
Curse her insistence on watching the anime along with her dad instead of reading the manga by herself. He would have forgiven her if he knew she was gonna get isekai-ed into Jujutsu Kaisen of all places.
Why couldn't it have been Pokémon? What she wouldn't give to cuddle a Bidoof, pat a Ponyta on the head, hug a Pidgey. She was a simple girl, she wasn't aiming to catch legendaries and become a champion. Even if wild Pokémon could attack her, at least she could have buddies to protect her. That was her type of playstyle, much to her father's disappointment. Why fight something yourself if you can cast Conjure Animals at fifth level and watch your enemy disappear underneath a pile of velociraptors?
She was going to try and save the world, right? All she had to do was ask to be taken to the police. They would drop her into another orphanage, she would keep herself out of trouble, and as soon as she could she would move back to the USA.
It was an option.
Just not a very good one.
She was never the type to try and save her own skin over taking the chance to save others. Psychology was her field of choice for a reason. She'd heavily considered paleontology too, but one of those made a much greater difference in the world.
What were the chances she had a cursed technique? What sort of Isekai would this be without cool powers to go along with it? Something mysterious was going on, because even in America, nobody was tattooing a little kid, let alone Japan where tattoos were so stigmatized.
Haibara woke her up in the morning with a gentle knock on the door, pronouncing himself her babysitter for the day. From what she had remembered, Haibara and Nanami were supposed to be on their way to Okinawa right about now, but she guessed her presence must have changed it. Maybe Yaga learned how well they got along and decided to send someone else with Nanami, or no one at all. Did they even do anything while they were there? She couldn't remember, but she didn't think that they had fought Toji.
"Yu-nii," She said slowly after finishing her breakfast of, surprise, surprise, more cup noodles, "Could you teach me how to fight monsters?"
The man jolted in surprise, doing a slight doubletake, undoubtedly considering her size.
"Don't worry Midori-chan, curses can't get in here, you're safe!" He reassured her quickly, before a slightly smug smile alighted on his face. He loved it when she called him nii-san, and she wasn't above abusing that.
"Your Nii-chan will protect you too!" He finished, giving her a pat on her head that should not have been as reassuring as it was.
"But I have to be able to fight, Yu-nii!" She exclaimed, looking up at him with the most pleading eyes that she could manage. She could see his will crumbling like burnt sugar cookies.
"I have to be as strong as you are someday!" Her words were the finishing blow to his willpower and twenty minutes later, she was standing outside on a field.
She didn't have shoes, but the grass was soft. Without any other clothes, she was still wearing Riko's nightgown, so she had grabbed the torn pair of shorts she had worn the day before and now wore them underneath.
Haibara stood in front of her, hands on his hips. He seemed confident and focused, but she could see a small piece of paper in his hand that he would squint at as her attention wandered. It shouldn't be so endearing that he had written himself a cheat sheet just to make sure he taught her right.
"First, do you know what curses are?" He asked, and she shook her head quickly. Sure, she did know, but it never hurt to learn again, just to be sure she didn't forget anything important.
"Curses, or Cursed Spirits are beings made of cursed energy, which are invisible to normal people. The cursed energy that Cursed Spirits are made from is in turn, created by people's negative emotions, which leak out of normal people and eventually congeal and take physical form. Jujutsu sorcerers are people who are capable of harnessing this energy, using it to increase their strength or in specific ways, called Cursed Techniques, which are usually passed down through families!" He was in the zone as he spoke, hands gesturing wildly.
"Jujutsu Sorcerers, like me," and he gestured grandly towards himself, "fight curses in order to protect normal people. Good so far?" He said, pausing for a moment, and she nodded furiously, wishing for a pencil.
"If you want to be able to harness your own cursed energy, there is one very important thing that you have to do!" He exclaimed, pausing just for the sake of drama.
"What is it?" She asked eagerly.
"You have to be able to make this doll light up!" He just about shouted, holding out a creepy looking doll. It was green, with an ugly expression, but had multiple pink bows and googly eyes stuck to it haphazardly, the glue still slightly sticky, like someone had tried to make the doll cuter and more approachable but gave up on putting much effort in about halfway through. Its eyes were made of glass, and a bit of colored wiring was visible inside. A lightbulb, powered by cursed energy?
Gojo really had put Yuji through the wringer just for the hell of it, hadn't he? Though she guessed a little kid couldn't tank hits like that without some serious damage.
"First, all you have to do is get the eyes to light up, just for a second! Then, you can practice getting it to light up multiple times in a row, then you might even be able to learn how to make it stay lit up for a long time, or even control how bright the light is!" He told her, smiling reassuringly at her uncertain face.
"It won't punch me right?" She asked, just to be sure.
"No?" Haibara said questioningly, utterly bewildered. "Why would it even- No it won't punch you, I promise."
So Gojo had that doll made specifically for Yuji, the absolute jerk. She might be about his age if she lived that long, she had to be sure to make sure to give that kid a hug. Gojo was not taking it easily on him at all.
"First, hold the doll in your hand and look at it. Then, look within yourself. This might take a while, so don't get frustrated, but you have to find the cursed energy that's in your body. After you can find it, you need to guide it to your hands, then guide it to the doll. It might take you weeks to be able to get the doll to light up at all, and that's completely fine! You are really young to be trying to do this, so don't get mad alright?"
She nodded, staring into the doll's eyes intensely. What made it different from other dolls or plushies she had looked at before? She could see it clearly for one thing, not needing glasses like she had before. There must be some mechanism that would transform the cursed energy that she gave it into light, somehow. Maybe after she saved the world she could explore how this worked a little more.
Focus.
She let her eyes slip closed. Was there something there? Something that hadn't been there before?
"Is it warm or cold?" She asked quietly, peeking one eye open. Haibara had sat down on the ground and was idly picking grass piece by piece, the scrap of paper he had been looking at having fallen from his pocket and was slowly blowing away. He looked up when she spoke and a bee was visible on his cheek, unnoticed by him.
"That's a great question! It varies from person to person. Have you always been colder or warmer than normal? That can be a hint for you! Some people say it feels like electricity, or static, or like nothing at all, just a gap." He told her, a cheerful, absolutely sunshine smile on his face that only faltered a little bit when stumbled over the always part of his sentence.
She had felt cold more often than not in her old body, but right now in the sunshine she was pleasantly warm. Her eyes slid shut, more in contentment than any sort of focus.
It was not likely that she would be able to feel her cursed energy here, it was just too nice. She felt happy and content, which was the exact opposite of cursed energy.
She sat there, her eyes closed, dozing in the warm sunlight until Haibara scooped her up, ugly doll in hand and no closer to feeling her own cursed energy than she was when she started. Curse her small body, needing naps after lunch time. She would have to try this again late at night. Maybe she could watch a horror movie, or read a scary story? Or just wander the school grounds in the dark, that would be spooky.
The day crawled by equal parts blissfully quiet and excruciatingly tense. Every five minutes she was reminded of her time to plan slipping away, and every five minutes Haibara had to be his charmingly emotionally intelligent self and drag her right out of her worries. He really was the best older brother. He carried her around the school grounds, pointing out interesting places, regaling her with stories of what he did at certain places while learning, pointing out spots where this person fought this one, and this person passed out over here, and his senpai's told him about this happening a long time ago over here. It was all terribly interesting, for all she was trying to worry herself sick.
The ugly doll stayed by her side for the rest of the day, never lighting up a single time. Riko's caretaker lady should be free by now, and they were probably laughing on the beach right now.
Sometime in the evening, when the sun started to descend in the sky, she locked eyes with a familiarly emo blond-haired man, who stopped on a dime, spotting Haibara holding her. Clearly, Nanami hadn't been sent to Okinawa either. It was a bit unnerving to know just how much her presence had changed things already. Maybe they just couldn't agree to send Nanami in alone without his fellow first year? Hopefully Riko and her guard dogs would make it back just the same.
"Nanami!" Haibara shouted, giving the man an enthusiastic wave.
"Who's this?" He asked, gesturing to her. She was currently perched on Haibara's shoulders, hands holding gently onto his hair as if to stop herself from falling despite his steady grip on her legs.
"My name is Midori! Nice to meet you!" She replied, giving him a half bow from atop Haibara's head. He obligingly bowed forwards, making her shriek as the ground rushed up to meet her. He laughed, lifting her off his shoulders and placing her neatly on the ground.
"My name is Nanami Kento. Nice to make your acquaintance." Was his polite reply. He looked genuinely confused about what she was doing there.
"Midori-chan was found by Gojo and Geto while they were on protection detail yesterday. She got roughed up, so they dropped her off here." Haibara explained to Nanami, and he nodded in understanding.
"Are you trying to be a sorcerer, Midori-chan?" He asked, not unkindly, but a tone to his voice that she couldn't quite identify.
She nodded enthusiastically, taking a pose like a powerlifter.
"I want to be strong to Yu-nii!" She declared, making the man in question make an utterly delighted sound. Nanami's nonplussed face was hilarious and she faltered in her posing, giggling.
"I'm sure you will be" Nanami assured her, his face not quite reflecting his words, but she smiled anyway and something in his eyes softened slightly.
Her stomach growled.
Both men paused at the sound, Haibara's eyes widening as he looked back up at the sun, now well on its way down.
"I forgot about lunch!" Haibara shouted, utterly appalled, and Nanami's glance his way was pure judgment.
"It's nearly time for dinner." Was all he said, bluntly, making Haibara's face fall even more.
"Onigiri?" She asked hopefully, making Haibara's face harden in determination, for all the world a protagonist about to set out on a mighty quest. She loved rice after all, why not a rice ball?
"What fillings do you like, Midori-chan?" He asked.
"They have fillings?" She said, surprised. Both of the men paused again. She felt her face heat up a bit.
Of course they have fillings, Toge Inumaki spoke in them.
Idiot.
"Typically, Onigiri are filled with different types of fish. There are plain unfilled ones as well." Nanami informed her, kindly not insulting her intelligence.
"Plain then. I don't know if I like fish." Nanami tilted his head at that, considering.
"What do you mean, you don't know? Have you never tried it?" He asked.
"I don't remember anything before yesterday." She told him quietly. Something cold rested uncomfortably under her skin. She tangled her free hand in her nightgown over where she knew that empty circle tattooed on her skin rested, squeezing the cloth tight just to let out some of the tension in her shoulders. She'd never be able to wear a swimsuit again. All it took was one wave and the seal would be exposed.
A hand rested gently on her shoulder, too cool to be Haibara, who always seemed to run hot. Nanami was crouched down in front of her, with his utterly ridiculous hair that was probably perfectly on trend considering it was mid-2000s.
"The doll is lit up." He said, pointing to the doll still tucked under one arm, and she gasped, turning to look, only catching the brief sight of light before it faded away.
"I did it!" She shouted, automatically searching for Haibara, who quickly swept her up into a celebratory hug.
"I'll get every type of onigiri I can find to celebrate, alright Midori-chan?" He asked her, and she smiled brightly back, nodding quickly. He handed her right over to Nanami who took her by instinct, to the shock of both of them, waving and running off in an instant while they froze there, Nanami not even getting the chance to stutter out a protest before he rounded the corner.
They stood there, face to face, for several seconds.
"You can put me down if you want. I can walk now." She told him finally, and he awkwardly did so, bending down slightly too far like he couldn't quite tell when her feet were firmly on the ground.
They stared at each other a little bit more.
"Do you have anything you need to do?" She ventured to ask. He shook his head.
She picked the doll back up and settled down onto the ground, her back against the wall of the building that they stood next to. After a few minutes of fruitlessly trying to call up her cursed energy again, he sighed deeply and sat down too, long legs stretched out on the ground, just watching the clouds as they drifted by.
That ball of ice, she decided, must have been what her cursed energy felt like. Either that or she had been about to have a panic attack. Where exactly was her energy? That spot of ice in her stomach was empty now, no matter how much she focused on it.
So, she thought about her sister. At one year younger than her, Alexis had been her best friend since the moment she was born. An annoying best friend, but still hers. Was she, the real her, not Midori, dead? Was she resting in a coma, just wasting away? Her mom would be crying for months at the thought of her, and her sister would likely be the same way. She had never really lost anyone in their immediate family. The only set of grandparents that she had ever been really close to was still alive and well. And down one granddaughter.
She felt tears stinging at her eyes, that lump growing in her throat, and that uncomfortable ball of ice in her stomach.
Quickly, she seized the ball of ice in a mental pair of hands, holding it tightly as the urge to cry faded away, the ball of ice seeking to vanish along with it, but she held fast.
"I found my magic power, what do I do now?" She said suddenly, urgency making her voice more alarmed than she had intended. Her eyes still squeezed shut, brows furrowed in effort.
A cool hand landed on her shoulder as Nanami moved closer, his voice calm in her ear.
"Familiarize yourself with what your cursed energy feels like. Don't bother trying to light up the doll, you must learn to find it reliably in order to be able to use it." He instructed her, deliberately emphasizing cursed energy, as a gentle correction. It was definitely magic, he just didn't know it because he was used to it.
So, she just focused on the sensation, beyond the horrific chill, the way it pulsed softly like a second heart, stuttering and flaring like flames in a fire, gradually losing her hold on it. And when it slipped away, she panicked for a moment, before awareness settled in. There was a chill, resting deep inside her. It was unnaturally cool, and even the warmth of the evening sun couldn't quite chase it away. All it took was a small tug, focusing on her hand and it was like her bones were suddenly wrapped in ice, and she squealed in surprise at the sudden chill, her eyes opening just to make sure someone hadn't just dunked her hand in a bucket of ice.
"My magic is really cold." She informed Nanami seriously.
"It is called cursed energy, not magic." He replied, and immediately launches into a lecture reminiscent of Haibara's teachings but subtracting all the flair that had made Haibara's lecture actually interesting.
She could feel her eyes glazing over.
His lecture continued, but she shifted her attention away, back to the ice that was her cursed energy, experimentally shifting it back and forth between her hands, the icy cold following wherever she directed it. Her skin broke out into goosebumps wherever it went, and she shivered often as it moved. It wasn't particularly hard to manipulate surprisingly, but it was definitely uncomfortable.
After nearly fifteen minutes of just playing with her cursed energy (magic it was 100% magic) familiar footsteps drew her out of her contemplation.
"I got the Onigiri!" Haibara announced, making her eyes shoot open, taking in the sight of him loaded down with onigiri. At least three paper bags were held with one arm, another bag clutched in the other.
"Did you buy the whole stock?" Nanami asked doubtfully.
"Hai!" Haibara shouted, saluting, looking completely unashamed. She giggled and his expression shifted to satisfaction.
"I found my magic and moved it around!" She told him delightedly, purposely using the term just to make Nanami's eye twitch.
"Well done!" Haibara praised cheerfully. Clearly, he didn't really care what she called it, as long as she was learning.
"Ready for dinner now? Or do you want to keep practicing?" He asked her, squatting down to her level. Really, why were highschool students so tall?
"I'm hungry." She decided. She was going to practice tonight on her own anyway, might as well get dinner out of the way. Besides, she wanted to try onigiri!
They moved to the same cafeteria as yesterday, and Nanami slipped on a stray pile of dried out noodles, clearly missed in Geto and Gojo's terrible cleanup job, a mumbled curse that she couldn't quite hear escaping his mouth, which he immediately covered. Haibara smacked him on the arm anyway.
It wasn't just onigiri that he had bought, but other foods, those strawberry and cream sandwiches, like she had seen in pictures, kit-kats, random convenience store junk food and meals.
He first handed her an onigiri, its plastic sticker carefully peeled off so she couldn't tell what flavor it was.
Her first impression was… bleh.
She thrust the icky onigiri away from her, blanching with distaste. Haibara giggled at her disgusted face. Seemed her new body didn't like mayo any more than her old one.
He handed her the next one, handing the one she had tasted to Nanami, who pinched off the part that she had bitten from and took his own bite. Seemed he liked the taste of mayo and tuna, the weirdo.
Rather than take another bite, she tore a piece off and tasted it. Not bad. Some type of fish. She took an actual bite. When she gave a thumbs up, he pronounced it as bonito flakes. She hadn't realized that bonito flakes were fish.
He broke a piece off another onigiri, handing it to her for a taste test. It was… salty, fishy sort of taste. Over several seconds, she became aware of the spicy taste building rapidly in her mouth, and she quickly fumbled around for a drink as the spice took over, obliterating every other taste in her mouth with the delightful taste of pain. She panted as Haibara finally found a drink in the pile of snack foods he had gotten, and practically threw it at her. Some sort of fruit juice, and she drank it down instantly, barely tasting it.
When she could see again over the tears welling up as a response to the burning in her mouth, she shot Haibara a watery glare. He held his hands up defensively in response, a guilty look on his face that did nothing to reduce her moderate betrayal.
"Sorry, sorry, I didn't know you couldn't handle spice!" He defended himself.
"Because I've never had spice before," She said, accusing, her voice strained, "you could have warned me."
Nanami set a can of milk down beside her, tapping it lightly to get her attention. She spotted it and immediately cracked it open, taking a long sip. The burning in her mouth waned quickly, and she mumbled a quick thank you as she continued to sip the milk.
Dinner went quickly then, her sticking to her bonito flake onigiri, and the boys tearing their way through the rest of the snacks, always pulling a small portion aside for her to taste test. The strawberry and cream sandwich was surprisingly good. Seemed that she didn't have quite the same texture issues as her old body had had. Hooray for being able to eat whipped cream without feeling like she was going to throw up!
After dinner they started sharing the kit kats, splitting them up and claiming them based on who liked them the most. Nanami, obviously, favored a dark chocolate one, but she had a taste for it as well, and they compensated by splitting the remaining three sections as much as they could. There was banana, peach, wheat cracker, strawberry cheesecake, blood orange, all of which were carefully taste tested by each of them. It was fun, and something warm settled in her bones alongside the lingering chill that came from her cursed energy.
It didn't take long for everyone to finish their desserts and start focusing on other things. Nanami left, citing schoolwork, and Haibara startled a little, as if suddenly remembering something. The way his face fell, she could guess what it was, and she giggled a little bit at his face.
"Could I watch another movie, Yu-nii?" She asked him, reaching up and grabbing his hand.
"Of course!" He agreed quickly, probably planning to slip away and finish whatever schoolwork it was that he had forgotten about.
Good, that would give her time to familiarize herself with her cursed energy even more. Maybe she could actually light that doll up on purpose even.
He set her down in the conscripted movie room, sorting quickly for a Studio Ghibli movie, of which there were now five. Someone had clearly added to the stock of kid friendly movies. She paused upon seeing Grave of the Fireflies. Wasn't that really sad? Studio Ghibli still, but from what she remembered…
She chose Grave of Fireflies, mostly out of hope that it might help her efforts with her cursed energy. Obviously, she wouldn't be able to actually fight Toji, but even the smallest advantage, a boost of speed or strength, could be life or death.
He waved goodbye and promised to come and get her before bedtime and to read her a story. She gave him a bright smile and waved him off, hitting play as he shut the door.
Despite her best efforts today, she hadn't actually accomplished much with her limited time. There just wasn't much of a difference that she could make preparation-wise. She wasn't a ninja, she couldn't lay out traps or wait in an ambush. Her best hope was to get the right information to the right people at the right times, without outing her future knowledge. Riko, Geto, and Gojo would be heading back in the morning as far as she knew, spending the day having fun. The most she could do was try and learn enough that when she was in that high stress situation, she would know what to do with the cursed energy that she would get.
The movie was absolutely heartbreaking. She cried no less than five times, tearing up countless times more. Her cursed energy was far easier to find, the ice under her skin leaving her shivering violently, even the blankets not doing much to heat her up. Still, she practiced, moving her cursed energy from limb to limb, then reinforcing different parts of her body. If she did get thrown around, she might be able to reinforce whatever part of her body was gonna connect with the ground. It didn't seem to make her much stronger, but when she flexed her hands and took a few strides, she could feel the smoothness of her movements. If she had to run, moving her cursed energy to her legs might keep her upright and stable at the very least.
About twenty minutes after the movie finished, Haibara came back, huffing slightly, clearly having run to the movie room. He probably lost track of time while doing his homework.
She gave him a little wave, and when she sat up, he paused, clearly seeing the tear tracks that covered her face.
"Are you alright?" He asked her gently, approaching her slowly, like he was afraid she would burst into tears again.
"Setsuko-san and Seita-san both died! They couldn't find any food to eat, and their aunty was really mean!" She told him, but her voice cracked as she tried to speak and she had to struggle through to the end, barely understandable. Yet again she could feel the tears welling up in her eyes, Haibara desperately pulling her into a hug in a frantic attempt to comfort her.
"I'm so sorry, I thought that was a kids movie!" He said, clearly alarmed. He continued to apologize as he carried her.
"I want to see Riko-san again!" She told him sadly as he put her down on her bed and his smile went brittle for a moment before it reappeared, though strained.
"I'll make sure that Riko-san comes and visits you before she leaves again, alright?" He said, clearly trying to keep his tone bright and reassuring. It may have even fooled a real child, perceptive as they can be.
But she knew exactly what Riko was destined for.
So, when he left, not nearly as upbeat as he was before, she crawled out of bed and slipped right out of the door.