Chapter Text
***
Gojo murmured, “What have you done?”—a shadow of dread threading each syllable. His brows drew tight as a sob, thin and quaking, slipped free from Utahime despite her clenched jaw.
Before them, the other version of her sharpened by degrees, the haze gathering shape until the fine lines of her face emerged. When she spoke again, her words tolled like a distant bell, the slow echo shimmering through the strange, translucent plane that should never have existed.
“Take the option.”
The younger Gojo pivoted toward her, movements abrupt, almost violent in their urgency. “But with one eye gone, I can’t… I—” The confession spilled out half-formed, his voice breaking.
The apparition’s gaze—cool and fathomless—held him there. “Are you only about power?”
That was when a harsh scrape of steel on floor startled the onlookers. Amanai rose from her chair at the far side of the lounge, and a flicker of surprise crossed the younger Gojo’s face—as if he’d nearly forgotten she was there. Her voice carried a quiet steadiness across the room.
“You aren’t only about power. Geto-san told me. You would’ve gone against Tengen-sama if I hadn’t wanted to merge.”
Something in that stirred Geto. He shifted where he stood, a faint, rueful smile touching his mouth. “That’s true. You cared for her life. You believed she deserved a choice.”
Like a chain reaction, Yaga leaned forward, his massive arms folding across his chest, eyes narrowing with old memories. “You stopped the execution of that Okkotsu boy.” He tipped his chin toward Nanami, voice edged with dry recognition. “And he did the same for the Itadori kid, didn’t he?”
Nanami’s gaze slid to the younger Gojo—measured, reluctant. A small exhale escaped him, as though he disliked giving the words shape. “I’d like to say you saved Itadori,” he admitted, “but it always felt like an experiment to me. One of your far-fetched plans—to see if his body could take all 20 fingers without being possessed, to become the perfect vessel… and end the King of Curses for good.”
At that, the present Utahime drew a breath. The tremor in her voice betrayed the pressure that still gripped her, yet the words pressed forward anyway.
“They’re forgetting something big,” she said softly, her eyes fixed on the younger Gojo. “You killed Geto—when he became a threat to your students. You killed your best friend, and it ripped your heart apart, but you still did it… because it had to be done.”
Gojo turned toward her, a flicker of gratitude softening the hard line of his mouth. She met his gaze, the faintest glow of resolve kindling in her own.
“Or what about the people in the Shibuya subway?” she continued. “You tweaked your Domain Expansion so the hostages would survive—even inside your Infinite Void.”
At the same time, the younger Gojo whipped toward the others, desperation sparking like a live wire.
“Listing the ‘good things’ I did isn’t helping!” His voice climbed, sharp and ragged. “I have to decide—fast. Otherwise…” His eyes darted to the Utahime hovering before him like an untouchable wraith behind a veil, anguish flashing through the blue. “…she’ll never make it back.”
The manager stepped forward, expression unreadable, the borrowed face of Tsumiki catching the flicker of overhead light. “And your choice,” she said evenly, “is to refuse a return with diminished abilities. Yes?”
A beat of silence followed, heavy as held breath.
“So you’re choosing rebirth. Am I right?”
And then—
The veil seemed to pulse with each heartbeat, Utahime’s form almost solidifying, sending another wave of distress crashing into the younger Gojo. Her eyes—deep pools of calm judgment—probed him.
“Living and dying as a weapon… is that what you want?” Her voice echoed through the shifting matrix, laced with quiet sorrow.
Her form drew nearer, almost brushing the translucent divide, the space between them bending impossibly. “Aren’t you curious… how it feels to live as someone who is finally seen? Someone accepted beyond his power?”
The younger Gojo’s hands clenched at his sides, knuckles pale. “It won’t be worth it,” he spat. “Don’t you understand? I would be… incomplete.”
Her gaze softened, reaching across realms, tracing the tension in his shoulders, the storm swirling behind his irises. “And what if the people you’ve left behind… care for you more as a person than for your ability to kill curses?” she pressed, voice intimate. “Don’t you want to know what you really mean to them?”
The younger Gojo jerked as though struck. His fingers knotted in his own hair, yanking hard enough to sting. “I know they wouldn’t care for my cursed technique—at first,” he rasped, face inches from her spectral glow, eyes burning with blue fire. “But when they realized I’m not the same, they would… they would—”
The words broke off, strangled in his throat.
The shrine maiden’s image drifted even closer. “How foolish,” she said, the cut of her tone landing with surgical precision. “… to believe the only worth anyone finds in you lies in your cursed technique.”
A softer voice followed—calmer. Amanai stepped from the table’s edge, eyes wide yet steady. “I don’t remember your sorcery,” she said gently, “but I remember the day you and Geto-san took me to the beach. I remember how happy you made us—” she glanced toward Kuroi, a small, wistful smile touching her lips, “—how you cared that I was happy.”
The younger Gojo staggered a step closer, despair intensifying across his face.
“You don’t know,” he said, the fight draining even as defiance lingered. “You never lived my life—”
Utahime’s apparition interrupted, her voice firmer now, every syllable a vow. “I won’t leave,” she said, eyes unwavering, “until you choose to return.”
From the periphery, the manager moved urgently, her borrowed features tight with warning. “Careful,” she said. “No coercion. The choice must be the passenger’s alone.”
The first tremor came as a low, unsettling moan beneath the floor. Then the entire far side of the lounge pitched sharply. Chairs slid. A rack of glossy magazines rattled and tipped.
Beyond the gossamer veil where Utahime hovered, reality buckled. Pillars bent in impossible arcs, the ceiling stretching upward like melted glass. Tiles sheared and twisted, reshaping into angles that defied sense. The wide windows rippled as if the sky itself were water, warping the blue beyond into a whirl of bruised violet.
“Utahime!” Gojo’s voice cracked through the chaos, raw with fear. He lurched toward the divide, hand outstretched, his eyes blazing. “I beg you—please. Let go.”
Geto pivoted as well, his own composure fraying. “Senpai,” he barked, eyes narrowing against the skirling light, “why risk your life for this?”
Before Utahime could answer, the matrix shivered like a struck bell. Her outline pulsed—bright, then dim—until she flickered as though a dying filament. A wince cut across her face, the realization dawning there like a slow, terrible daybreak.
Her hand lifted, trembling, fingers reaching toward the younger Gojo through the storm of bending space. “Satoru,” she breathed—the final word to leave her lips.
Then—silence.
The veil collapsed in a single blink, leaving only the lounge: ordinary, maddeningly unchanged. Passengers waited idly on the low seats. A little girl dabbed a careful stroke of pink onto her nails. Her older siblings laughed over a board game in the corner. The air smelled of coffee and floor polish, calm as if nothing at all had happened.
Gojo stood frozen, arm still outstretched, the echo of her voice—calling his name—lingering like the final note of a song no one else had heard.
And then Utahime saw him—the Gojo beside her, his face mirroring his younger self. Wide-eyed, terrified, the kind of fear that twisted the soul and made the world feel brittle beneath your feet. Even his outstretched arm seemed to carry every shred of grief and shock all over again.
Gently, she reached for the other hand, limp at his side, and tugged. “I am here.”
His head snapped toward her, as if only now remembering she had survived this ordeal. He exhaled in a shuddering rush, swallowed hard, then faced forward, forcing his features into careful control as he lowered his arm and watched his younger self lunge at the manager, voice flaring.
“What did you do to her spirit? Are you keeping her here? Her body will die!”
She drew a tablet from her coat pocket and traced a finger across its glowing surface. “The wards have been reinforced,” she said, her voice unhurried and exact. “She’s been removed from this zone and will be allowed back to her body—” a pause, the faintest click of a key, “—but at a price.”
Geto’s gaze sharpened, a crease etching between his brows. “Another binding vow?”
The younger Gojo interjected before she could answer, the sound of his own breath harsh in the air. “What will you take from her?”
The manager glanced down at the screen once more, then back at him. “She crossed from the physical realm into the spirit realm. Not only that…” she slid the tablet back into her coat, “…she found you and tried to coerce you. Her action invited consequences.”
“She’s a shrine maiden,” he snapped, fingers raking through his hair until it stood on end. “That’s her fucking job—to connect with spirits.”
“She’ll keep that ability,” the manager replied evenly. “But only enough to continue her regular rituals.” Tsumiki’s borrowed eyes held Gojo’s. “She will no longer be a traveler.”
Beside Utahime, something shifted—a breath drawn too sharply, the faint scrape of cloth against cloth—and an angry huff sliced through the charged air. She turned and found Gojo staring at her as though the manager’s last words had hit him square in the chest. Bafflement burned bright in those pale eyes, sharp enough to flay her skin.
She drew a quiet, steadying breath. “It’s okay,” she whispered, a thread of calm offered across the crackling tension.
The attempt only stoked the tempest. He tore his hand from hers, the sudden absence a cold slash of air between them.
Across from them, his younger self stood rigid before the manager, fury and contempt sparking off him like static. Shoulders locked, jaw a blade of nerves, he fixed her with a glare that might have scorched stone. “I hate that you’re wearing her face,” he said, voice low and dangerous, each word honed to a knife’s edge. “My kid was kind.”
“Hating me won’t change a thing.” The manager’s tone stayed maddeningly level. “So—” she tilted her head slightly, gaze cold on his—“rebirth or return, Satoru Gojo?”
The younger Gojo’s fierce glare ebbed, muscles loosening, the hard line of his jaw easing as helplessness settled in its place. He stood very still, the storm within him quieting into something heavier, more resigned.
As if sensing the weight of the choice before him, Geto’s mouth curved with a gentling kind of affection. “Well,” he said softly, “if you choose rebirth, there’s no guarantee the next man you become will do better than you did in this life. Unlike Nanami, you chose the South to mend regrets, not to rewrite the story entirely… isn’t that right?”
Gojo gave the faintest nod.
Geto’s eyes warmed, dark with understanding. “Considering your goal, I’d say returning holds more appeal. As for losing the full reach of your Six Eyes…” He inclined his head, a wry glint flickering through. “…that depends on how curious you are to taste life without being the strongest.”
A dry sound broke the quiet as Nanami cleared his throat. “I don’t know whether this is good or bad news,” he added, “but you would no longer bear the crushing responsibility of saving everyone.” He paused, letting the words settle. “Your students would respect your limits.”
And then—almost imperceptibly—a hint of a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth, the faintest crease softening his eyes. “They do respect you, Gojo.”
Gojo’s hands twitched at his sides, fingers curling and unclenching as if struggling to hold himself together. When he finally spoke, his voice carried a sharp edge of suspicion. “And what happens if the things I want to fix—are no longer there? Resolved, destroyed—or I’m just too late, too weak? I would be left without purpose.” His shoulders hunched as he repeated, each word a stab at his own heart. “A sorcerer with limited abilities—with no goal.”
Yaga’s voice rumbled low, grounding, as his massive arms folded across his chest and his eyes studied the younger Gojo with keen precision. “Then you find new goals.” He paused, head dipping slightly. “You were a pain in my ass, but… there’s no denying you have a gift for mentoring. Even—” his gaze flicked toward Geto, a sigh of regret threading the air before he looked back to Gojo, “—better than I ever was. You have a way of earning young people’s trust.”
Gojo’s jaw tightened, frustration still flickering across his features, hands gesturing restlessly. “They trusted me because they knew I would go all out to protect them. If I return… I won’t have the resources to go all out.”
Yaga straightened, meeting Gojo’s glare without flinching. “Then find your worth outside the battlefield, Satoru. Being a great sorcerer… doesn’t only entail killing curses.”
Silence stretched, thick and expectant, pressing against every corner of the lounge, over every figure standing there.
The manager’s voice at last cut through it. “So… what’s your decision?”
Gojo’s jaw clenched, the lines of his face hardening as a quiet resolve settled in his gaze. His fingers flexed once, released, and steadied. Then—
“I would like to… return.”
“And you understand the consequences?” the manager asked, eyes unblinking.
“Yes.”
As if on cue, the world around them shifted. The lounge blurred, gravity itself seeming to soften. The airport—the one they had known—began to dissolve before the eyes of present-day Gojo and Utahime, colors bleeding into one another, walls folding like wet paper. A low groan of bending architecture resonated through the void.
Time itself seemed to unspool, moments stretching and snapping back, scenes shuffling in a disorienting rhythm. Passengers froze mid-step. Luggage hovered, suspended in the surreal flux of collapsing dimensions. And then—like a memory overwritten—the previous scene vanished entirely, leaving only the familiar solidity of the lounge as they had first found it.
Geto, Yaga, Nanami, and Haibara were seated as though no shift had ever occurred. The other Gojo was absent—the manager had not yet brought him here.
The first loop had begun, seamless, terrifying in its inevitability.
***
Gojo’s gaze locked on Utahime’s face, digging in, the weight of it almost physical. “I think you already know what you have to do.”
A pause—long enough for the lounge’s hum to swell into something deafening.
She drew a slow, steady breath, knowing there was no room left to hide—not anymore. “After your body was stitched back together,” she began, her voice low but clear, “Shoko found a trace of CE—your own, innate. No one expected that. Your heart had already stopped.”
She clasped her hands together as if to still their tremor. “But the energy wasn’t growing. It stayed as dim as when she first found it, and she had to be certain she wasn’t… taking out your brain to follow the plan when there was still a chance for you to survive. That’s when I stepped in…”
Gojo didn’t react; his face held the same unyielding hardness.
“I came to search for you… here,” she continued, eyes lifting to meet his. “Because I assumed you would be… in between—not quite… gone yet, hence the CE.”
Another twitch ran through her hands. “I had never done—” She broke off, drawing a calming breath as if to gather her thoughts. “I didn’t know… if it would even work.”
She swallowed hard, voice thinning. “But when I found you—” almost imperceptibly—“I saw exactly what I had anticipated.”
Gojo moved then, sudden and deliberate. He loomed, his formidable presence driving her back until her shoulders brushed a pillar. Their faces hovered inches apart, the faint scent of ozone clinging to him, charged and dangerous.
“And what,” he asked, each word edged in steel, “did you anticipate?”
At that exact moment, the manager drifted past them with the younger Gojo in tow, both figures pausing at the mouth of the lounge. Gojo’s stance did not waver. His gaze stayed fixed on Utahime, cutting through every fragile defense she held.
“I had seen you during training, Gojo,” she said, forcing her voice to remain even. “A dread consumed you—as if you’d already decided… that battle would be your end. In… in the memory earlier, you admitted you never asked me for a date because you were afraid of wanting things that would make dying hard for you.”
The words struck him. He leaned back slightly, the taut fury in his eyes softening into something unexpectedly vulnerable.
“I had an inkling,” she resumed, quieter now, “that you would just… stop. Accept it.”
Whatever gentleness had flickered there vanished in an instant. A spark of offense flashed across his face. “Stop? I gave my best!”
Utahime tipped her chin upward, narrowing the space between them until the air felt charged. “Going all out in a battle shouldn’t be the ending you want,” she countered. “I know for a fact that you have dreams and…” Her shivering breath grazed his skin. “…desires.”
Gojo’s eyes lingered, a slow sweep over the planes of her face. For a heartbeat, agreement seemed to glimmer there. Then his jaw tightened, steel sliding back into place.
“That’s not your decision to make—how I choose my end.”
He turned sharply and strode away, leaving Utahime trembling beneath the sudden weight of unwelcome guilt.
She followed him, weaving through a slow-moving crowd headed the opposite way. A passenger’s rolling suitcase nearly clipped her ankle, but she barely registered it—her gaze stayed locked on the broad back ahead of her.
“You didn’t even want to know if we won the battle?” Her voice carried, sharper than she intended. “What happened to your students? To Megumi? To me?”
Gojo strode on, long coat flaring with each step, not bothering to look back. His reply came flat, almost careless. “I trusted them.”
Her pulse spiked. “Like you did in Shibuya after getting sealed?” she shot back, words quickening with her breath. “Were you satisfied with what you found when you finally got out?”
He stopped so abruptly she nearly collided with him. In one fluid motion he turned, the coat’s hem slicing the stale air. His eyes blazed.
“What did I contribute after returning anyway?” His voice cracked like a whip. “I couldn’t fight beside my students because I needed a fucking long time to heal. By the time I got out of bed, the battle was over. I wasn’t of any use—and I never will be.”
That shattered her restraint. Heat surged to her face; her hands clenched at her sides. “Why do you have to be on top of everything all the time?” she burst out, her voice rising above the terminal’s dull hum. “Why can’t you be… just there?”
Gojo closed the space between them in two strides, anger radiating off him in waves. “Just there for what?” His voice thundered. “To cheer them?”
The argument ignited like dry tinder.
Utahime’s words cracked through the air. “What if an even bigger force comes now that Sukuna is defeated? You’re really telling me you’re delusional enough to think this was the last crisis our world will face? Spoiler alert—” her voice rose, nearly a shout, “—they keep coming.”
Gojo’s shoulders stiffened. He swung toward her though there was barely space between them. “And what exactly am I supposed to do when that happens with my defective abilities?” His chest heaved too fast, the words spitting out.
Utahime refused to flinch. “Your heart hasn’t changed,” she retorted, breath quick and hot. “Use that—as you always did. Guide the students. As Yaga said.”
Something fractured in his eyes. “They don’t need any more of my guidance.” His voice wavered, then climbed to a raw shout that startled even him. “Enough of me!”
The terminal swallowed the echo of his shout until only the low hiss of fluorescent lights remained.
Then—
Gojo’s defiance crumpled. His shoulders sagged; his hands fell open at his sides as if all strength had been drained away. The blaze in his eyes dimmed to something far more painful. When he spoke again, the sound barely carried, a hoarse rasp scraped from the wreckage of his anger.
“Do you know Yuji brought me on a mission a few days ago?” His gaze drifted past her, unfocused. “When we found the curse… you should’ve seen him. Magnificent. Didn’t even take five minutes to exorcise it.” A brief flare of pride lit his eyes before it faltered. “He didn’t need my help for a second. He only asked me along and pretended he needed advice so I’d feel useful.”
A bitter huff escaped him, tugging at the corners of his mouth in something that was no smile at all. “Utahime, he’s 17. And I made him worry about me—his useless sensei—when he should’ve been out there, being a kid, reveling in what he’s become.” His voice thinned to a whisper that cut sharper than any shout. “I’m a liability. A distraction. I drag him down. I drag all of them down.”
Utahime’s throat tightened. She reached a hand toward him, but her courage wavered, stopping inches short. “Gojo,” she said softly, coaxing reason into the brittle air, “remember what Yaga told you. You need to find your worth outside fighting curses.”
That did it. His eyes ignited with a renewed, searing fury, and his head jerked upward. “I don’t fucking want to!”
A disturbance ran through the concourse, the air bending as the veil re-formed in the middle of the terminal once more. Utahime’s gaze flicked toward the far end they’d passed minutes before—a half-turn born of instinct—then snapped back when she met Gojo’s eyes and realized the distortion hadn’t reached him at all; he was still drowning in his own torment, swallowed by the gravity of his despair.
“My birth itself has increased the existence of curses,” he murmured, jagged. “They crawl like bugs because of me. A cruel joke… about balance in the universe. The only reason I haven’t been miserable in life is because I love sorcery.”
His gaze sharpened, piercing Utahime, and in a sudden motion his hand clamped down on her chin, the force making her gasp. He lowered his head until their faces nearly touched.
“That’s why,” he whispered, raw, “after waking up I kept wondering why I would take a binding vow to return… as only half of me. What’s the point of coming back if I can’t use sorcery as I intend? Now I know… you baited yourself to put me under pressure. You. Manipulated. Me.”
Utahime’s hands flew up; she gripped his wrist with everything she had and shoved. He staggered one step back, still radiating rage. Her voice frayed, tears gathering at the corners of her eyes. “You chose what you truly wanted,” she said, voice shaking. “You wanted to live!”
Gojo’s lower lip trembled as he swallowed the anguish clawing his chest. “Don’t you get it?” His voice splintered. “My worst nightmare has come true. I’m a sorcerer with no purpose. I should have chosen rebirth… at least then I might have had a chance to be better.”
Utahime’s palm cracked across his cheek, a sound sharp enough to slice the heavy air. Gojo reeled—not from the force of the slap, but from the white-hot conviction behind it.
Her chest heaved, breath shuddering, eyes burning with a wrath that made her tears glisten like molten glass. “Your this life isn’t over,” she said. “Do you really think your 17-year-old students no longer need you? Is killing curses the only lesson you ever gave them? You’re a genius, but you can’t see the simplest thing. You’re exhausted, that’s all. Human. You need a break, time to learn how to adjust. And this horrible feeling…” her voice dropped to a hoarse rasp, “…time will wash it away.”
Gojo’s mouth curved into a wry, disbelieving smile, a bitter twist that barely masked the storm behind his eyes. “Still trying to play me,” he said. “All these words to justify the monumental chaos you’ve caused—just to dodge the real question, isn’t it?” His gaze sliced through the space between them. “Why did you do it? Why forsake that great gift you had… just for a chance—maybe—to find me here?”
“You deserve to live,” she cried, the words breaking free as though torn from her very soul.
He stepped forward, the movement taut as a drawn bowstring, his throat working as he swallowed. “You said you’d never done this before. First attempt. Did you even know the risks?”
As though she hadn’t even heard him, she lifted her chin, tears streaking her cheeks. “Satoru, you deserve a full life.” She repeated, a sob escaping her, fragile and raw.
Gojo’s eyes darkened, something unspoken flickering like lightning across a midnight sky. “Satoru… huh? Why does it matter so much to you that Satoru lives a full life?” His hands closed around her forearms, fingers tightening—not only from the heat of the moment, but to steady himself, to anchor the frantic pulse hammering in his ears.
The terminal’s bones gave a low, metallic groan. The floor trembled—a subtle warping of time that made the fluorescent lights flicker like breath. Gojo felt the twist of space, but the new loop barely grazed his awareness.
All that mattered was the woman in his arms.
Utahime clutched at his coat, fingers knotting in the fabric. Her honey-brown eyes brimmed, fresh tears glinting like quicksilver as they slid over her porcelain skin. Her voice came small, barely formed.
“I… I don’t know.”
Gojo’s mouth tilted in a sardonic half-smile, a glint of weary amusement against the tempest inside him. He tipped his head until his breath stirred a loose wisp of her hair. “Then think, Senpai. The curse needs an answer, or we’ll be stuck here forever.” His thumb traced the edge of her jaw, unexpectedly gentle. “You wouldn’t let your kōhai get lost in here, would you? Not after everything you’ve done?”
Utahime’s throat worked, but no sound emerged. Her gaze swept his face—searching, aching—as though the question itself had stolen the words from her.
Gojo’s voice softened to a coaxing murmur. “Suppose I agree with everything you’ve said. If there’s even the smallest chance of life, then yes—maybe I chose well. But what about you? Why didn’t you care for your own life?”
Utahime’s breath caught. She stared at him for a long, suspended moment before she finally spoke, each word seeming to cost her effort. “I thought… it would be a waste if you died.”
Gojo gave a slow shake of his head. “That doesn’t answer my question.”
Her voice frayed, desperation threading through it. “I thought… nothing would make sense if you didn’t survive.”
His brows knit, confusion shadowing his features. “Nothing would make sense? Utahime, the rest of the world is still out there.”
Her fingers clenched tighter in the collar of his coat, knuckles white. The next words tore from her like something wrenched free. “The world would be empty.”
Gojo went still, every muscle locked, as though the universe itself had paused to listen—a shiver of revelation rippling through the air without a single roar.
When he finally spoke, his voice trembled so violently the words nearly broke apart. “Your world… you mean? Your world would be empty without me? That’s why you pushed yourself this far—risked your life? Huh, Utahime?”
Her face crumpled beneath the weight of it. Tears spilled in bright, ungoverned drops, faster than she could blink them away. Gojo’s own composure wavered. He reached for her as if nothing else in existence mattered, cupping her face with both hands, his thumbs sweeping the wetness from her skin as though he could erase her torment.
“You can’t travel anymore,” he whispered. “Was it worth it?”
Her lips parted, and for an instant, certainty flashed in her wide, mesmerizing eyes. Her answer was so soft it barely stirred the air between them.
“Yes.”
Something inside him gave way.
He lowered his head until their foreheads touched, feeling the tremor of her breath against his own. For a heartbeat the world narrowed to the shared thrum of their pulses. And then—finally, irrevocably—he closed the last fraction of distance. His lips met hers in a kiss that was a slow, consuming surrender.
The domain shuddered.
A low, sonorous rumble rolled through the terminal. Glass walls fractured into prisms that bled color into the air. Around them the airport dissolved in impossible layers—gates and walkways stretching, collapsing, folding inward in silent waves that defied spatial logic.
Gojo held her tighter, the press of her heartbeat the only constant as gravity tilted and time unwound. Their kiss deepened against the slow unraveling, two figures suspended in the implosion of a world finally choosing to end.
***
The world felt impossibly still as Utahime broke the kiss. She pulled back slightly, eyes scanning the familiar shrine, tension lingering in the line of her shoulders. Gojo remained dazed, his gaze still locked on her as though seeing her for the first time.
“I can’t sense the curse anymore,” she said softly, her voice threaded with uncertainty. “Can you?”
Gojo shook his head slowly, almost reluctantly. His hand went instinctively to the pocket that had held the object luring him into the curse’s domain. But his mother’s hairpin was gone. Only ashes remained at the bottom, brittle and gray. He scooped a pinch and let it drift on the light breeze, scattering like dusted memories.
“Perhaps… the curse is gone because it has been fed,” Utahime murmured, her gaze tracing the drifting ash as it dispersed across the horizon.
Gojo finally spoke, his voice low and edged with a dangerous lilt. “Fed with the truths, you mean? Mine… and yours?”
Utahime didn’t answer, not even lifting her gaze at him. She moved toward the stone steps ahead, agile despite the uneven, worn stairway that descended from the shrine’s exit to the road shoulder where Ijichi waited. Gojo followed quietly, his boots muted against the ancient stone. Morning light spilled through the torii gate, scattering across moss-covered edges, while birds trilled overhead—their delicate song a soft counterpoint to the tension still coiling between them.
When they reached the bottom, Ijichi looked up from his phone, a flicker of curiosity crossing his composed features. “15 minutes,” he said, tilting the device as if to double-check.
Utahime’s breath caught—a soft intake that might have been a gasp. “Is that so?”
Gojo pressed his lips together, his gaze drifting up to the shrine perched above the hill. “Felt like four lifetimes,” he murmured, almost to himself. His thoughts wrestled with the impossible, caught between sanity and the memory of a warped dimension where minutes could stretch, space bent, and rationality had no regard for the measures of men.
Ijichi’s eyes widened, the calm in them briefly unsettled. “Is the curse gone?”
Gojo gave a small nod—an artful omission that it had vanished of its own accord rather than by their exorcism. There would be time later to worry about whether it might surface elsewhere, to hunt it through another fold in time and space. For now, a different matter pressed harder.
Before Ijichi could turn back to the driver’s seat, Gojo spoke again, his voice edged with lazy charm. “Erm… I left my wallet up there, and I really don’t feel like climbing those stairs again. Mind fetching it for me? Please?”
Ijichi inclined his head in a polite bow, no questions asked, and started the long ascent, his footfalls fading into the hush of the trees.
Utahime watched him go, suspicion narrowing her eyes. “Have you really lost your stuff?”
Gojo didn’t answer. His gaze swept her face in a slow, scorching sweep—a look that seemed to scorch the morning air itself. Heat climbed her throat before she could will it down. She edged back until the car door stopped her with a muted click of metal.
Then he moved.
Both palms met the car roof with a dull, decisive thud—one to either side of her—caging her neatly between the door and the length of his body. He leaned in, his breath feathering against her bangs.
“Speak.”
Utahime’s eyes flicked everywhere but to his—over the pale stretch of empty road, the silvered shimmer of dew on the bushes—before she finally looked back. One restless hand found a stray strand of hair and tucked it behind her ear.
“I know… it was impulsive of me to do that,” she said, blinking twice as if to clear the thought. “I put myself at risk. To be honest, I didn’t think it through.”
Gojo’s voice dropped, quiet and deliberate. “Does your clan know what you’ve done? Coming out with this incredible ability and then losing it on the first try?”
A wry smile touched her mouth, faint as the first light of dawn. “You should’ve been there… my last family dinner. Mother still isn’t speaking to me.”
The sharpness in his gaze eased—but only slightly, like a blade slipped back into its sheath yet still gleaming.
“I’m not denying,” she continued, “that there was a chance you’d choose rebirth instead of returning… if I hadn’t been there. I know my presence disturbed the natural flow of things. But if you ask me”—she drew a quiet breath—“I think you still would’ve chosen this outcome.”
Gojo tilted his chin, studying her intently. “What makes you say that?”
Utahime’s eyes flared with something warmer than mere teasing. “Gojo,” she said, “I have yet to meet a more vibrant, life-loving person than you. You find happiness—fun—in everything.”
She paused, a small smile curving her lips. “To an extent that you become… annoying. Sometimes downright insufferable.”
A faint flicker of a grin teased the corner of his mouth, but he held it back.
“I didn’t think you’d ever let go of the chance to return,” she continued, “to see your students again. And—”
His head inclined. “And what?”
Utahime’s gaze held his, bold and unrelenting. “You said it yourself. You love sorcery. Even if the efficiency of your Six Eyes had been halved, you’re still a sorcerer. You can still kill curses. Still save lives.”
Gojo swallowed hard, his throat tight. For the first time, his eyes slid from hers, drifting toward the sheen of the car’s roof, unfocused, distant.
She stepped closer, the fronts of their coats nearly brushing, attuned to the quiet fracture in his composure. “When I asked if you agreed with Nanami’s evaluation of your personality,” she said softly, “you said no. Didn’t you mean… that you wanted to continue sorcery because you care for people? Not just because it excites you?”
A sudden tremor ran across his face, subtle but evident. His lashes lowered as his eyes glimmered with something perilously close to tears. He blinked once, twice, chasing them back, before finally lifting his gaze to meet hers again.
Utahime’s voice wavered, tender as a whispered breeze, partly from his heartbreaking response to how others perceived him, partly from the humility of admitting her own mistake. “Still… it’s true that I had crossed a line. So… if you think I deserve punishment, then go ahead. Let the higher-ups know… whatever.” She lowered her gaze, hands clasped loosely in front of her, as if bracing for a blow.
Gojo drew a slow breath, his eyes tracing the delicate contours of her face once more. “If I’m speaking strictly by the facts,” he said at last, “you protected Shoko.”
Her head lifted abruptly, confusion and disbelief dancing across her molten-honey eyes. “How?”
He held her gaze evenly, voice quiet but precise. “She was about to cut my brain out. But Yuta… he didn’t even get fatally wounded. If you hadn’t done this, and I’d chosen to return… I would’ve lost my vessel for nothing. And Shoko… she would’ve never forgiven herself, thinking that I might still have been there, with the possibility of returning, and that she had ended my life without knowing for certain.” He paused, noting the furrow of her brows and the thoughtful frown tugging at the corners of her mouth, then added, “Utahime, you saved her from carrying a lifetime of guilt.”
Her voice rose slightly, incredulous. “And that… makes up for what I did to you?”
Gojo eased back a fraction, amusement glimmering at the corners of his eyes. “Didn’t you find it strange?” he asked, voice edged with curiosity. “The curse chose my memories for the first three doors—and then, in the last, it switched to yours.”
Utahime’s eyes narrowed, pondering his words, her restless fingers idly winding another loose strand of hair that fell across her chest.
A quiet chuckle slipped from him, brief but warm, as he studied every flicker of her reaction. “Do you know what I think? I think the curse wanted to show me something.”
Her lips parted, subtly baffled, but no words came.
He tilted his head, a smirk ghosting across his mouth. “It forced us to say things that were hard to admit—true—but it can’t be a coincidence that through all those memories, you were my constant.”
Her breath caught. “Your constant?” she echoed.
“Yes, Utahime.” He leaned closer, fingers tightening on the cool metal of the car roof, watching her as though she might vanish if he blinked. “I always knew you sympathized with me—that you thought it was alright for me to be afraid of death, to want things, to be… human. You cared for me, and I was so fucking touched.”
A rough huff escaped him, almost a laugh, but weighted with something heavier. He dropped his gaze for a heartbeat, jaw tightening, fingers flexing as if to shake off a gathering storm, then looked back up. “But none of that explains what you did in the limbo. And you didn’t even brag. You kept it hidden from me until now—something I might never have known if the curse hadn’t shown me.”
Utahime’s gaze dropped. Color rose beneath her skin; her fingers dug into the fabric at either side of her coat. The sight of her—vulnerable, taut, and all that it implied—brought the smirk back to Gojo’s mouth.
“And then I remembered,” he said softly, voice folding around each word, “how you became my anchor behind those doors. Your stubbornness, refusing to let me fall. The way you understood me… it felt like a… perfect dream—as if my mind had made you up.”
A small, gasping sound escaped her. She blinked several times; the hands clutching her coat trembled.
Gojo’s index finger lifted. He pressed it beneath her chin and tilted her face up until their eyes met—blue to honey, breath to breath.
“I think… I know what the curse wanted to show me, Utahime.”
She swallowed hard. Something shifted behind her eyes—recognition, perhaps—and something else: an eagerness, hungry for his next syllables.
A shiver traced Gojo’s spine as he set the words down, his hand returning to the cold metal of the car roof for balance. “This curse wouldn’t accept anything less than the absolute truth. But when the domain collapsed, your last words weren’t a confession. You sounded… uncertain—about why you did it. The only thing you were sure of was this: you believed losing the ability to cross beyond the physical realm was worth the risk if it kept me from drifting away from life. But you weren’t sure why you felt that.”
She gave the smallest, almost involuntary nod. “Yes.”
“And yet the curse let us leave,” he continued, eyes intent. “So I think you were telling the truth—you really don’t know, do you?”
Her head shook once, slow and fragile. Her lashes glittered with fresh tears. “No.”
Gojo’s gaze softened in a way that made the air between them ache, voice a hush meant only for her.
“Don’t you want to know why?
The crunch of hurried footsteps broke the moment. Ijichi stumbled into view, slightly breathless. “I couldn’t find any wallet. Did you drop it in the shrine?”
Gojo didn’t so much as glance at him. His gaze stayed locked on Utahime’s face as though the rest of the world had fallen away. “Oh, geez,” he said lightly, almost bored. “Didn’t I tell you? I think I dropped it somewhere on the stairs—on the way up or down. Would you please give it one more try?”
Ijichi froze, catching the tension that hung like static in the air. His gaze darted from Gojo’s taut stance—palms braced on the car roof—to Utahime, pinned between his arms, cheeks flushed, eyes wide. In an instant he understood: this was not a moment meant for him to witness.
With a small, stiff bow, he stepped back and slipped into the hush of the trees, leaving them to their privacy.
Gojo waited until Ijichi’s footsteps had faded completely into the quiet. Only then did he move. His hands left the cold metal of the car roof and found hers—warm, taut with barely contained energy. He laced their fingers together, thumbs tracing slow, deliberate circles across her knuckles. The touch sent a small, involuntary shiver coursing through her, a ripple that traveled from her hands up along her shoulders.
“About that punishment,” he murmured, his voice low, teasing, velvet-soft, “how about a date? Tomorrow evening. Dinner… and while we’re at it, we can discuss some strategies to figure out why you did what you did.”
Her eyes widened, disbelief flickering across her face. She searched his expression as if trying to catch him in a bluff, but the uncertainty slowly melted into the realization that he was—unmistakably—serious. A soft, shy smile curved her lips, delicate as morning bloom, and Gojo felt the weight of a mountain lift from his shoulders, leaving him light—almost as if the breeze could carry them upward.
His own smile formed, faltering at first, then settling into something truer, richer. “Besides,” he said, his gaze tracing over her face before dropping sensuously to the curve of her lips, “you already know everything about me. It’s only fair I get to know you a little more.”
Utahime’s lips parted, a trace of mischief in her voice. “Am I… looking like I did in the third memory?”
Gojo nodded slowly, catching his lower lip briefly between his teeth, eyes darkening with intent. “Is Ijichi away from our sight?”
She cast a swift glance over his shoulder, then met his eyes again and gave a silent nod. “Yes.”
He didn’t waste another breath. He leaned in, closing the space between them in an instant, capturing her lips with a searing press. Her hands shot to the collar of his coat, gripping him with a bold urgency that fully matched the heat in his mouth. The kiss deepened, voracious and intimate, a gradual blaze igniting between them, their breaths mingling, hearts hammering in a rhythm all their own.
Their hands moved restlessly, seeking, learning. His palm slid to the base of her neck, then up to cradle her chin, the curve of her throat; hers wandered to the sharp line of his jaw, threading through the softness of his hair, skimming the clipped edge of his undercut. Gojo shifted the angle, claiming a closer hold, a quick sweep of his tongue against her lips that drew from her an unbidden, breathless whimper.
One of his hands slid to the back of her head, fingers splayed possessively, nearly undoing the delicate folds of her bow—and in that instant, a bird shrilled somewhere nearby, its sudden note slicing through the haze just enough to remind them of the world beyond. Gojo drew back, but only slightly, until his forehead rested against hers, their breaths ragged, the air still heavy with the afterglow of their kiss.
“Woah,” he murmured, voice roughened, lips brushing the plane of her temple with a lingering, smoldering heat.
“Let’s… speed this up,” he said, the words catching somewhere between a startled laugh and a whisper—like a sentence struggling to contain the happiness coiled in his chest. “How about tonight? Dinner—7:30. That new place near my apartment… the one with the ramen that’s supposedly to die for. I’ll pick you up at 7?”
He leaned back just enough to meet her gaze, eyes luminous, charged with a desperation that made it feel as if every heartbeat, every inhale, begged for her answer.
Utahime’s lips curved, a slow, knowing smile that held warmth, mischief, and something deeper, more tender beneath it. Her voice finally pierced the nerve-wracking silence:
“I’ll be ready at 6:45.”
***
(The end)