A/N- Chapter warning for violence against children, eye trauma that isn't particularly graphic or delved into, and later mentions of past medical trauma as well as extremely painful medical procedures. Medical horror, I guess? Also a few mentions of spiders just in case anyone has some arachnophobia, but she just runs into a spiderweb, not too bad. Its Jujutsu Kaisen, so definitely canon levels of violence, and also, its Toji, which is warning enough. I rated this Mature for graphic violence and language, so definitely be prepared. This universe doesn't pull it's punches just because you're little, and Toji doesn't either.
Jujutsu High was much, much scarier at night.
She knew rationally that the barrier was up, and that curses couldn't get through. Rationally, it was the truth.
Just as rationally, she was in Jujutsu Kaisen, where she could die at any moment. She could get jumped any second, could run headfirst into Toji or whatever that brain guy's name was, or just a random weak curse that would flatten her like a pancake.
She was reminded quite quickly of the necessity of shoes, which she still didn't have. She was gonna have to find a job or something for all the supplies that she wanted to buy, shoes, her own clothes, not just a borrowed nightgown that she had been wearing for two nights now, (maybe some Pokémon Cards). If she could get her hands on some of the rarer sets before they were rare, she might be able to be more or less set on college costs, if she lived that long.
She wondered if her original body was alive in this universe too. She could set herself up, save a few Pokémon cards, send them to her old body, and claim it was a random drawing. That would be nice.
She walked headfirst into a spiderweb, breaking her right out of her thoughts of her past self and had to fight off a shriek, her hands flailing above her head in a frantic effort to remove any possible spiders. Her cursed energy followed suit, practically dunking her in an icy pond, her breath coming out in visible huffs of fog. She was shivering now, which only served to make her pre-morning trudge more miserable. Why couldn't her cursed energy be 'warm beach somewhere' or 'moderately cool autumn day'. No, she gets an ice bath every time she gets upset. She needs a jacket. And shoes.
Where even was the entrance of the school? She was in the forest now, working her way along the treeline. It felt less exposed than just walking through the school grounds did. Her dorm room had been quite close, just having to carefully cross a few paved roads and a courtyard before reaching the treeline. The moon shone brightly, not quite full, giving her just a bit of light by which to see.
Was she just going to camp out near the entrance and try and help Gojo by shouting a warning? Would that even make the slightest difference? She couldn't stand to just sit there and sleep while she waited for Riko to arrive and hope she found where they were going to be fighting in time.
The ground was unforgiving, her cold skin making every sudden impact sting as she bumped into roots, thorny vines snagging on her clothes and bare skin. Still, she kept going, no matter how much she wanted to turn around and snuggle herself into her warm bed.
So warm, so nice.
She felt a new type of sensation, making a violent shiver go through her after nearly half an hour of walking, making her freeze in place. That feeling of safety vanished like it had never been there, and she took several quick steps back, the feeling returning on her second step.
Finally, she had found the barrier. She stuck her hand out experimentally and was immediately struck by the strong sensation that something was about to attack her hand. She pulled it back and the feeling vanished.
That sensation would be her guide as she scoped out where exactly the barrier covered. The entrance of the school would most likely also be at the edge of the barrier. There were the arches, she could remember, and steps, like the entrance to a shrine. As long as she skirted around the edges of the barrier, she would find the entrance that Gojo, Riko, and Geto would use. She could remember that image well enough.
With one hand out of the barrier, she more or less circled the school. It wasn't square, but circular. She wasn't sure where it was centered over, though that would certainly be interesting to find out. There was an entrance to Tengen's domain somewhere on the school grounds, maybe there?
Eventually, she reached a river, probably the same one that Todo and Yuji fought in against that nature curse. Hanami? Something like that.
It… looked very deep at this point, nothing like the ankle depth that she had seen in the show.
She wasn't going to let a damn river prevent her from trying to save them though, so she put one foot in, then another, shuddering at the cold though she adjusted remarkably quickly. The current was quite fast, already tugging at her feet even though she was barely in the shallows.
If it wasn't quite so dark, it wouldn't be nearly so intimidating, the black water concealing the riverbed. One overturned rock could end up dunking her in the water and then she'd really be in trouble.
She waded forward carefully and reached thigh depth alarmingly quickly. The current was strong, and she had to brace herself to keep upright.
Getting past the center of the river would likely be the most difficult part of the swim. If she remembered correctly, the center of the river should slow down a bit, but pick up around the far bank again.
The riskiest part of the swim would likely be getting her bare foot trapped in a hole or between two stones. If she got her foot stuck, she'd get dragged down and trapped there. Her cursed energy might be enough to free herself, but just as easily could fail. She couldn't rely on it at all.
So, swim without touching the bottom, prepare for a faster current, and try not to drown.
She couldn't even see the other side, let alone the rocky bottom.
Was showing up to fight Toji really worth it? What difference could she actually make?
She sighed.
There was just no reasoning with that little annoying prickle of 'If I can, I must' that she couldn't quite shake.
She dropped into a squat and fell forward onto her hands and knees to start swimming, letting herself mostly float, using her arms to doggy paddle rather than risk getting her foot trapped. When she reached a deeper point, where she couldn't touch the bottom with her extended hand, she started kicking her legs, broad, sideways strokes that broke the surface of the water more often than not.
She realized that this was probably a bad idea around the point where she left the barrier, the current tugging her insistently downstream. There had been something she had forgotten! Always head upstream of the point where you want to go, because the current will carry you downstream!
Swimming in a river was far, far different than swimming in a pool. It sapped her strength in an entirely new way, even when she was just mostly floating. Kicking the way, she was felt unnatural, and she kept wanting to correct her course using her feet, in spite of the danger.
Still, she persevered, clawing her way onto dry land like a bedraggled rat, and feeling horribly exposed.
The moment she had the strength to climb to her feet was the exact moment when she booked it back upriver, the insistent sensation of being pursued, being stalked, at her heels. It only faded as she reached that familiar comfort of the barrier, and she let herself drop to the ground bonelessly.
She laid there for what was probably a good twenty minutes, long enough for the cold to soak into her bones, a complement to the icy cursed energy that practically writhed under her skin.
Getting that under control was priority number one once Toji was dealt with. Had she even tried to actually use it yet or was she just letting it do whatever it felt like, helping as it willed? Had it even helped as she swam? She hadn't paid enough attention to notice.
Climbing to her feet was awful, especially as the puddle she was lying in had finally reached a comfortable temperature, but she really, really needed to find that entrance where Riko and the boys would arrive before she took a nap.
It took hours. She had been put to bed quite early, maybe around 10 PM or so, and it was surely close to around 3 AM by the time she finally saw the familiar steps and lines of arches. 5 exhausting hours of wandering through the forest.
She just about sprinted up like she was on the final leg of a marathon, trying to place just slightly higher in the rankings. She sat down at the top with a grumble of relief. Even with her cursed energy supporting her, in the strangest way, little kids weren't meant to walk such long distances, even slowly.
Her best hope would be to convince Geto that he needed to stay and help Gojo fight. Maybe she could lead Riko away, through the forest, to reduce Toji's chance to bring her down from a distance.
How could she convince him? Prophetic dreams of some sort? It could be a hard lie to sell, especially when he already doubted her. But if she could make it work… No, it just seemed too risky. If the higher-ups caught wind of it, she'd probably get stolen away. God knows what they were capable of, sending teenagers to die. Maybe a simple earnest plea that Gojo couldn't fight that scary man alone would work.
She sighed. All the planning in the world wouldn't amount to much against Toji. He wasn't some script, but an actual person. He wouldn't just sit still and let her intervene without him adjusting his own plans to fit. If that meant killing a child to do so, she didn't doubt that he was completely willing. He was ready to sell his own son to the Zenin clan after all.
She crawled off to the side of the stone platform, laying in the grass, still well within the barrier, and dropped to the ground, letting her exhausted eyes slide shut. The best laid plans never survive contact with the enemy as they say, and she could hardly do anything while dead on her feet. Now that she was in the right position, she should get some rest so that she wasn't stumbling around like a drunken, soaking wet zombie on the way there.
Slowly, she drifted off to sleep.
When she woke up, awareness drifted back in slowly. Sunlight was slowly filtering in through the trees, and she groaned softly. She was still so tired. But she had to get up, to be aware and alert when everyone arrived, so she tugged on her cursed energy, agitating it, jolting herself awake suddenly with the surge of ice.
Well, that's one thing that her cursed energy is good for. Might as well have drunk a shot of espresso.
She slipped into the woods more, settling down behind a tree to keep watch.
Her tentative plan was to run up from behind them, being loud and noticeable, and hopefully making Toji a little more wary of just straight up stabbing Gojo in the back, with everyone facing his way.
Then, getting Geto to fight Toji, along with Gojo, and taking Riko's hand and running like hell into the woods. Maybe, she could tell Geto she had sat here all-night waiting for them, and all she saw was some creepy man with a caterpillar thingy on him. Might work.
Nearly an hour later she was metaphorically tapping her foot, gathering sticks and making little buildings. Her cursed energy was so cold that if she concentrated, she could make little bits of frost come out of her fingertips, essentially icing two twigs together. It didn't last for very long, but if things got dicey, she might be able to make Gojo a bit of shaved ice to help him ice his damaged pride.
Her fingers were getting numb, though still unexpectedly mobile, so she stopped for a while. Wouldn't want to be a block of ice by the time they got there.
Her body seemed to acclimate pretty well to the cold. Sure, when she first started tapping into her cursed energy, it made her shiver, but as she slowly adjusted, she just stopped altogether, even after she warmed up and started messing around with her cursed energy again.
It was well into the morning now, and undoubtedly Haibara would be looking for her. How had he felt, going to her room and finding her gone? A pang of guilt struck her suddenly, but she shoved it back down. There was a teenager in need of saving. Even if the thought of his shocked and guilty face made her feel like the worst person in the world.
Finally, but far too soon (she wasn't ready, she wasn't going to be able to do anything), familiar voices filled the air.
It's go time.
She shook off the anxiety that had paralyzed her momentarily and climbed to her feet, making her way to the edge of the treeline.
Geto was first up the steps, followed by Riko, the woman who they had gone to rescue and Gojo taking up the rear. Riko was panting, and the woman handed her a rag.
She took off, running up the steps, making Gojo turn around suddenly, his Six Eyes probably spotting her as she left the treeline, before a blur knocked her aside with a dizzying blow that sent her flying, throwing her down the steps, and someone shouted in alarm.
She caught herself on a step on her second bounce, and forced herself to her feet, her ice-cold cursed energy useful for once as it surged through her muscles, numbing the god-awful bruise that she knew she would have on her upper arm later.
Toji, as she expected, had no mercy for children. At least he had only knocked her out of the way instead of taking a slash at her.
She was a good distance down, so she started climbing quickly. Toji was already free from Geto's weird worm curse, meaning that Riko and Geto were already off to Tengen.
The moment she reached the top of the steps, she was thrown away by Gojo, out of reach of Toji's sword. It wasn't the reverse sword of heaven, or whatever its name had been. There was no bloody wound that she could see on Gojo's chest, meaning he had either been able to bring up infinity in time or had successfully dodged it. The man himself was perched on a large stone, feeding his creepy little worm thing his sword, pulling out the heaven dagger thing.
"Get away, Midori!" Gojo shouted, but Toji was gone from on top of the stone, bouncing back and forth on trees, and she backed up, putting her back to one of the towering stones. Gojo moved in front of her, his hand flying up and sending out a burst of cursed energy, hurling Toji away from both of them, crashing through one of the school buildings. Maybe two even, as cracks of breaking wood filled her ears far past when she expected.
"Run into the woods!" Gojo ordered, and she could only think to nod quickly as he left, following after Toji.
She froze there for a second, almost literally, as frost seemed to seep from her bare feet and onto the grass. In front of her, she could see the light and sound of Gojo's technique, and this battle was really going much, much faster than the anime showed. She could barely keep track of where they both were before they were moving again.
She took off running towards the edge of the chasm that Gojo had carved into the ground, jumping down and running up the sides even as a loud buzzing filled her ears, Flyheads swarming around Gojo. The sight of her old enemy made her shudder, but she pushed through, letting her cursed energy fill her muscles, trying to speed up even more.
She wasn't going to make it in time, it was all going too fast!
Something cold rose up in her throat as she opened her mouth to shout a warning towards Gojo, subtly and avoiding exposing her future knowledge be damned, and instead of words, what felt like frost came spewing out of her mouth, blasting over Gojo and the Flyheads both. Gojo stood there as the frost breath washed over him, crystalizing around him in a wave of ice as it slammed into his Infinity. The Flyheads were already heavy for their size, and with the ice that formed nearly instantly on their wings, they plummeted from the air, unable to hold themselves upright.
Once she started she couldn't stop, even as she shut her mouth, she could still feel the liquid ice dripping from the corners of her mouth, down the front of her throat, and she shook her head violently in a futile attempt to stop the ice that was just pouring from her mouth. She was nearly choking on it, struggling to breathe past the liquid feeling in her mouth, her throat, in her stomach.
Rather than try to remain standing as she struggled to recover from whatever the heck that was, she dropped to the ground and crawled away, taking shelter in the crevice.
Flyheads buzzed weakly inside the crevice, wings beating the air helplessly, and one squealed as the liquid dripping from her mouth, down her whole front really, touched it, trying and failing to crawl away as ice spread, failing to get away before the ice encased it completely.
She looked up just in time to see Toji leap in to attack Gojo. This time though, Toji wasn't protected by the swarm of Flyheads, and by the time she was finished choking on her own created ice, the flow finally abating, Toji had been thrown back, Gojo in pursuit not far behind. She took her chance to escape, circling around to climb out of the other side of the circular chasm, tripping and stumbling over the mass of fallen Flyheads.
She had to leap to reach the top of the chasm and had started to pull herself up, when a large hand snagged her by her hair, dragging her up by the roots painfully, lifting her entirely up off the ground.
Her muscles froze instinctively as her back bumped into the man's chest, held like a kitten in their mother's mouth, and an eerily familiar dual bladed dagger rested against her throat. Frost breath dripped down her throat still, and she heard Toji hiss slightly as it brushed one of his fingers, his hand tightening in her hair, making her whine as the pain increased.
Damn. Way to get out of the way to avoid being used as a hostage, Midori-chan, lovely job. Being held up by nothing but the hair was a horrific way to hold a child Toji, no wonder your children hated you.
Her hands reached up, closing around the man's fist even as Gojo shouted something at the man, tone absolutely dripping with disrespect. Spitting on him might have felt less disrespectful. Probably some insult about honor, taking hostages, his casual child abuse or the many other negative qualities of Toji. It was a good attempt at turning Toji's attention onto him, she could applaud it, but maybe don't make the guy holding her by her hair angry, please.
Ice spilled from her fingertips onto his closed fist, turning his pale skin black. Toji dropped her reflexively, yanking his hand away, his other hand following, bloody dagger in hand, and Gojo was leaping in to push him back away from her, cursed energy already forming to send the man flying. Gojo worked surprisingly well as part of a team, though she didn't know why that felt surprising.
Her feet hit the ground, and she crumpled like a wet paper towel. Her one hand came away red as her fingertips brushed against her throat. She didn't really feel any pain though, her throat, her whole body really, numbed from her frost breath too badly for even her warm blood to thaw.
Was her blood even warm anymore?
Her breath was uneven, and she couldn't seem to get enough air, but she still forced herself to her feet to turn and watch the fight.
Gojo was definitely winning, but he was very wary of the bloodied blade in Toji's hand, clearly unused to having to dodge instead of tanking the hits with infinity. And when Toji locked eyes with her, he pivoted, his whole body turning towards her in midair even as Gojo leapt in front of her protectively.
She dropped into a kneel, following some forgotten instinct, letting her bloody, blackened fingers brush the ground and more ice spilled out, crystalizing over stone. Gojo shouldn't be affected, not if he used Infinity to keep his feet off the ground, but Toji would have a hard time getting traction if he decided to try and finish her off first.
Toji's lunge towards her was thrown off course by a blast of cursed energy from Gojo, reminiscent of a charging bull in a bullfighter's ring. The thought made her giggle slightly, and she couldn't keep the mild hysteria out of the noise. Why the hell was she even doing this? What happened to her plan of getting Geto to fight with Gojo and staying as far away as possible? She must have gone insane at some point between being 22 and then being 5. Good thing being crazy was practically a requirement for being even a half-way decent fighter in this universe.
She stood, quickly closing the distance between her and Gojo, finding traction easily somehow despite her bare feet. Really, she should be more concerned about just how cold she was, because her sense of touch was basically gone. He could take her head off right now and she probably wouldn't even feel a thing.
"More ice?" She asked, her voice coming out oddly airy, coming to a stop in front of Gojo, and at his sharp nod she bent down, letting more frost, more cursed energy, escape from her hands, even as Toji watched warily from afar.
Her hands on the ground, she let herself drop to the ground so that she stopped swaying so much, then she let a sheet of ice fly at him from the ground, and he leapt away. She followed, shooting off arrows of ice along the ground. She could probably do more than spread the ice on the ground, but she wasn't going to try experimenting at a time like this, better to use the stability of the ground to make things easier and reduce his mobility at the same time.
Soon, Gojo was taking shots at Toji as well, always carefully aimed and wickedly fast, forcing the man into a reckless leap. He wasn't jumping around the woods like before, clearly recalculating his options. Ideally for him, he could take her out, then use the heaven sword thingy to take out Gojo. Take too long, and Riko would end up merging with Tengen before he could kill her, which meant no money for him.
Hmm. There's a thought.
"Are you bribable?" She shouted to the man, cupping her hands to her face to make her voice louder. It was still too quiet, not the volume she had been expecting, but he heard it all the same. Toji paused for a moment, considering. Gojo paused too, but remained at the ready. Let him have time to plot while she gives him a little time then. Maybe Toji would actually agree. She could only hope.
"I'm way too expensive for you kid," He replied, "And I don't make a habit of ruining my reputation and selling myself to the highest bidder like that."
"Things really aren't going well for you though." She pointed out, making him huff. His eyes, his posture, they all screamed that this was a man with a plan.
Hopefully he hadn't figured a weakness out, because some of that uncertainty was gone now and that was never a good sign.
"I thought you were after Riko-chan, not Gojo-san?" She asked, just stalling a little for time. Ideally, he could go away and Gojo and Geto could duke it out with him later, preferably when she was really, really far away.
"Six-Eyes over there has had a bounty on him since the day he was born, no amount of money would top that." Toji said, and leapt forwards suddenly, a knife leaving his hand and no sooner did she see it in his hand did it clang against the ground as Gojo slapped the blade out of mid-air. She hadn't even been able to see its path as it flew through the air, let alone move, and before she could even blink Toji was right there, that heaven dagger of his on a path straight through her head before Gojo, the absolute saint of a man was already intercepting, kicking him away.
Toji's foot slipped on the ice, an opportunity, and Gojo went in, cursed energy gathering in his hand so potently even she could see it, but then there was another knife in Toji's hand and all she felt as the dagger sank into her eye was the force of the impact, throwing her down on the ice, and Gojo's ghastly howl of complete and utter rage was all she heard, echoing for several seconds after her head hit the ground.
The right side of her vision was completely gone, not that she could feel any pain from the chunk of metal that was suddenly in her eye.
She wondered if it had hit her brain or not. She was still alive, as much as that mattered right now.
So, she climbed slowly to her knees, then hauled herself to her feet, aware of just how shaky most of her limbs had gotten. Her body might be in shock.
Gojo and Toji fought with bare hands now, fighting like a pair of wild animals. Gojo was mostly on top of Toji, the two pressed against each other as both of them struggled for an upper hand. The heaven dagger was on the ground and each time Toji lunged for the dual-bladed dagger Gojo fought that much harder, forcing Toji to go back to using both hands to keep him at bay if he didn't want Gojo to rip his throat out with his bare hands. Given Toji's size and muscles, it seemed like Toji should easily have the upper hand, but he struggled to get a hold on Gojo. Infinity, maybe, used strategically to give him the room he needed to squirm out of the deadly grapple that Toji was trying to force him in.
Gojo's right hand carved bloody furrows in Toji's neck even as the man's foot kicked out and dealt a vicious kick to Gojo's lower left leg and she could hear the crack as Gojo's leg snapped from several meters away. All cursed techniques, precision and training vanished, just two absolute powerhouses in a full-on brawl, if only for a few seconds.
Something bright and red sparked to life in Gojo's left hand, kept free of the scuffle for a few precious moments, and Toji scrambled to heave Gojo off of him, Gojo's position on top of Toji keeping the man pinned to the ground as he couldn't move past Infinity. The heaven dagger was only a few feet away, lost from the scuffle, and Toji spotted it too.
His hand met the dagger, and she scrambled towards the fight, just to try and intervene somehow even though she knew it would be too late. She heard Gojo's cry of pain as the dual-bladed dagger buried itself in his stomach, but Gojo's focus didn't waver, eyes wild and completely focused, even as Toji's blade sliced upwards. She could see the blade, pushed entirely through his back as it hit Gojo's spine and the red orb was hurled with both hands straight down, carving a hole right through the man's chest.
Toji said something then, that she couldn't quite make out. Her ears were ringing, the sound louder than any noise she had ever heard before, but she moved anyway, staggering her way to Gojo's side. His stunningly, heavenly, blue eyes met hers (one, she only had one now), and his widened in shock, yanking the dagger from his chest without a care, and she only realized that she was falling when he caught her, achingly careful of the dagger still lodged in her head.
It took a few moments to realize that they were moving, and she blinked slowly. Something in her brain was weirdly fuzzy, and she was idly watching the trees go by, changing into buildings, then walls, and then she was dropped on a vaguely familiar table. People were talking, well shouting really, if she was interpreting their movements right, but all she could hear was an overwhelmingly loud buzzing.
Did a Flyhead get in her brain, she wondered sluggishly. That would explain how loud the buzzing in her head was, and that weird pressure on the inside of her skull. There was something blocking the right side of her vision, she noticed for the first time, and she slowly lifted her hand to move it out of her way, only to get stopped. A pretty woman held her hand, which was completely numb. Was it even actually her hand, or was that someone else's? It could honestly be either.
The pretty woman was crying, that look of shell-shocked horror out of place on her face. She should be smiling, and it made her a bit sad that she couldn't muster up the will to try and wipe that look away. Once she felt less tired, she would try and cheer the lady up.
The lady kept the hand of dubious origins clenched in hers, and her free hand brushed lightly against the left side of her face, as far as she could tell. She appreciated the effort, but it really seemed like she was the one who could use comforting right now, she seemed to be having a rough time.
Someone with brown hair came running in the room, barely visible in her field of vision, and rushed past the pretty lady, almost knocking her aside in her haste, and if she felt like moving at all she would throw that person a glare.
The object blocking her right eye was removed, but her vision didn't change, but that didn't matter at all as something boiling hot poured in, like someone suddenly hooked up an IV of pure lava in her veins and let her heart pump it through her body.
Sensations came pouring back in and she screamed, her hands reaching out to push the lady in the white coat away, to stop her from burning her alive, but the horrified pretty lady pulled her hand back before she could even reach the lady. Her other hand was held in someone else's, but she still couldn't see a thing on that side. Her right eye, her neck, her whole right side of her face were all suddenly horrifically painful, a burning fire that was ice cold compared to the magma spilling into blood.
Why were they doing this? She had thought the pretty lady was nice, but she held her hand down as the agonizing heat cooked her alive, in spite of her screams. Someone was at her shoulders, pressing down with one hand on her head and the other across her chest, and the person holding her hand was practically laying across her lower body. They just pinned her there, cruelly, letting the lady burn her from the inside out, and she screamed again, the sound turning to sobs as she thrashed against the people holding her, and someone with familiar brown eyes, wide and frightened ran up, a syringe of something in hand. She tried to shake her head, tried to open her mouth to beg him not to, but he handed the syringe to the brown-haired lady anyway.
She didn't want to die like this, not like this. She wanted to live, she wanted to die fighting, not slip off into sleep and never wake up again. Not like last time, not like last time, not like last time, not like last time. She screamed again, just out of fevered desperation to get away, not sure if she was crying out for help or trying to scare them away or just let out the feral desperation building in her chest as every movement, every attempt to get away met resistance, hands holding her down.
A white coat splashed red with blood in several places caught her eye and she could feel another scream building in her throat, something more primal than had ever escaped her mouth came spilling out and she felt the person holding down her lower body flinch as it left her mouth.
He moved in front of her, blocking her view. He was saying something, and his face was twisted, bottom lip trembling like he was fighting off tears, but all she could do was stare into his watery brown eyes as a needle pricked her arm and everything slowly went black.