Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

***

A knock, too polite to be urgent, rapped twice against the wooden-paneled door.

Utahime’s hands stilled mid-motion—gloved, poised in the act of winding a scarf around her neck. Her gaze flicked toward the sound—not startled, precisely. More like someone bracing for what they had already expected.

She rose without a word. The hem of her long coat shifted with the movement, brushing softly against her hakama.

When she slid open the door, Ijichi stood there, as punctual as ever—buttoned-up, deferential, his hands neatly clasped behind his back. The dawn had already touched the sky, but the hollows beneath his eyes still held the shadows of a long week.

“Ijichi,” she said, calm, composed—her voice steadying the air around them.

He inclined his head in a crisp nod. “Iori-senpai. The car is waiting.”

Of course it was. She had been ready for the better part of half an hour—boots laced, coat fastened, breath held in something like anticipation.

Yet she didn’t move immediately. Instead, she lingered at the threshold.

The question pressed against her chest. Her hand drifted to the strap of her tote, smoothing down fabric that needed no straightening. A breath caught in her throat, then slipped out—soft, uncertain.

“How is he?” she finally asked, barely above a whisper.

Ijichi hesitated. His gaze shifted to the side—one of those small, practiced gestures she recognized. He only did that when a question pulled him into places his protocol couldn’t follow. When the truth outpaced his clearance.

“Quieter,” he said after a moment. “Looking slightly tired.”

A pause. Then he adjusted his glasses and added, more gently this time, “He fell asleep in the car after I picked him up.”

Ah.

There was no sudden strike of revelation in it. Just a slow, steady acknowledgment that he had already joined the mission.

Despite the fact that he was still healing.

Despite the strain carved into the new shape of his cursed technique—strain that could not be soothed by mere will, nor reversed through mastery. The change had been one-way, sealed by his vow. What remained now was not exactly the power he was born with, but the price of choosing to live.

And his heart—still so proud, so infuriatingly stubborn—had not yet made peace with that price.

Not when she last saw him.

He had been pacing then, restless and barefoot across the floor of his office at Tokyo High, refusing to sit in the expensive chair he’d once sprawled in with effortless ease and a brazen grin. His eyes had been sharp but unmoored, fixed somewhere beyond the windowpane, his breath shallow with the strain of trying to wrestle control back into something that had once come to him like breathing.

His enhanced cognitive perception of cursed energy flow—once a blade honed to the edge of precognition—now tired him quicker than it should have. The way he’d used Limitless with near-zero cursed energy cost and split-second precision his whole life—now drained him after only a few hours of use. Every calculation took a few seconds longer. Every shift in Infinity, every flicker of spatial control—it all had to be consciously activated, sustained with effort, and meticulously managed.

She had noticed it in his hands. The slight flexing of his fingers after teleportation, as if checking for numbness. The flicker of discomfort behind his gaze when he used Blue for something simple, and his body had flinched as if the cursed energy burned hotter in his veins than it ought to.

And worse than that—his RCT, the trick that once made him invincible, had begun to act traitorously. His breathing grew uneven when he used it too often, and multitasking while healing had grown harder.

He never spoke of his struggles.

But she had seen the signs. The fatigue he masked. How he slept more. The way he scowled, uncharacteristically, when no one was looking—not from fear, but from unfamiliarity. Like a pianist returning to the keys after injury, fingers remembering the notes, but not quite the rhythm.

What he’d given up—what he’d traded—had left a mark deeper than the pale white pupil of his one eye, now devoid of that vibrant sky-blue glow.

And yet, he had left his apartment this morning and come.

She dipped her head in a quiet nod to Ijichi—the smallest gesture of understanding.

The door clicked shut behind her as Utahime followed the driver down the corridor, her steps unhurried.

***

Utahime slipped into the car with careful grace and closed the door with a soft click, muted deliberately—an unspoken kindness. She didn’t look at him right away. Just enough, through her peripheral vision, to perceive that he was still asleep, seated beside her in the back seat.

Then, as the car began to move, she finally looked.

Gojo was folded into the corner with the casual abandon of exhaustion. One arm hung limply between his knees, gloved fingers resting just above the floor mat, while the other was curled against his side, elbow jammed awkwardly against the door. His head was tilted toward the window, temple pressed to the cold glass, the curve of it fogging slightly with each slow, even breath. His sunglasses had slipped askew down the bridge of his nose, one temple arm dangling precariously off his ear.

He no longer wore the black eye cover. Said he didn’t need it anymore—not with the cursed energy flow dimmed, no longer screaming through his senses or inducing the splitting headaches it once had.

He looked... human, in a way she hadn’t seen in years. Vulnerable, even. His long coat was a shade softer than his usual black uniform—charcoal wool lined in fleece—and his scarf, loosely looped at his neck, was an oatmeal beige.

Infinity—he didn’t keep it on all the time anymore. Said it wasn’t worth the energy drain, especially not before a mission, when he needed to manage his reserves. So instead, he dressed for the season. Bundled like the rest of them. Mortal.

His legs were sprawled carelessly, one foot braced against the back of the front seat, the other angled awkwardly beneath him. A patch of light—a narrow sliver of winter sun—crept through the tinted window and settled across his cheekbone, illuminating the faint shadows beneath his eyes and the contrast of his pale lashes against his skin.

Utahime took it all in quietly, her shoulder a careful inch from his, then reached for the mission file tucked between the seats. She had already read all the details in the email the previous day, but she always checked again on the way to the site.

The report read:

MISSION BRIEFING – INTERNAL USE ONLY

Location: Mount Nakatani Shrine Ruins

Assigned Team: Satoru Gojo (primary), Utahime Iori (secondary)

Background:

Over the past two weeks, three sorcerers—ranging from Grade 2 to Semi-Grade 1—have failed to return from an investigative assignment near Mount Nakatani, where local villagers reported “wailing in the mountains,” particularly near the remnants of a long-abandoned shrine.

Only one sorcerer was found alive: Kanda Ryuki (Semi-Grade 1). He was recovered by a field team after vanishing for 48 hours inside the suspected cursed domain.

Subject Status:

Ryuki was found curled beneath the shrine steps—conscious and verbal, but nonsensical. Since his rescue, he has entered a state of cognitive collapse, occasionally muttering phrases such as:

“I couldn’t say it. I didn’t say it. I didn’t—”

No physical trauma was identified. However, residual cursed energy detected within his spirit aligns with signatures of deep sorrow manipulation —an ancient technique long absent from modern jujutsu logs.

Reverse Cursed Technique yielded no improvement.

Dr. Shoko Ieiri’s diagnosis: “Soul-fracturing domain effect. May be permanent.”

Curse Hypothesis:

We believe this domain forces intruders to experience emotionally charged scenarios, gradually unraveling the soul. As the mind deteriorates, identity and will begin to disintegrate.

Due to the curse's uniquely psychological mechanism, only sorcerers with proven emotional restraint—or a documented resilience to trauma—are being dispatched.

Objective:

Investigate the location, confirm the existence of the domain, and exorcise the curse.

Utahime eyed the phrase “documented resilience to trauma” and sighed.

How clinical. How detached.

On paper, Gojo was the most suitable person for this assignment—undeniably so. His abilities, his success rate, his fearlessness—all called for it. But suitability wasn’t the same as readiness. Every human being had a breaking point, even ones like him.

Especially now.

Her fingers curled subtly around the edge of the file, thumb tapping against the page. The inside of the car was warm, weighted with silence, and the steady motion of the wheels had become hypnotic—so much so that when Ijichi hit a pothole, it startled even her.

The car jolted. A hollow clunk echoed beneath them, the tires dragging roughly over gravel.

Gojo stirred at once.

His brow furrowed, lashes fluttering with the slow reluctance of someone dragged too early from sleep. He exhaled sharply through his nose—half sigh, half grunt—lifting his head from the glass with a soft scrape, blinking at the light in confusion.

His sunglasses, which had been tilting, finally gave up their grip and slid down the bridge of his nose, hanging lopsided at the tip. He frowned at nothing in particular, still disoriented, and reached up to adjust them.

His gaze—bleary but recovering fast—slid across the car and landed on her.

"...Mornin'," he rasped, voice hoarse with sleep.

Utahime didn’t answer immediately. She watched him with a neutral expression.

“Have you read the report?” she asked at last, flipping the folder shut and offering it toward him.

Gojo gave her a slow, crooked smile. “Guess I needed a nap to activate the emotional resilience,” he muttered, letting her know with a cocked brow that he had already read it.

He rubbed a hand through his hair, white strands sticking up at odd angles, and leaned back into the seat with a faint groan. The sunlight had shifted across the car, catching in the pale haze of his left eye—the one that no longer glowed.

Utahime glanced at him carefully, then asked, “Why the sunglasses? I thought you decided not to cover your eyes anymore.”

Gojo chuckled, low and offhand. “It’s for you, senpai. Don’t wanna scare you. One blue, one white—looks weird. Better to cover it up.” He paused, then added, almost as an afterthought, “Scared myself half to death last night in the mirror.”

His smile didn’t reach his eyes. It rarely did these days.

Utahime opened her mouth to protest, but he pulled the scarf higher around his neck and cut her off before she could speak. “Tell me your assumption.”

She shut her lips and made a conscious decision. Later—she’d tell him, later, that he didn’t need to cover his eyes for anyone’s comfort, least of all hers. But now wasn’t the time.

So instead, she returned to the file and said, “It sounded like regret. From the quote. Like he didn’t say something to someone he should have. Held it in too long.”

Gojo didn’t respond straight away.

His gaze remained on the window, watching as the city gave way to wilderness—houses growing sparse, shops thinning into clusters of old roadside buildings and shuttered inns. Power lines dipped lower between the poles. The hills in the distance were dusted white, their silence growing louder the farther they drove.

The car hummed steadily beneath them, and for a while, neither spoke. Utahime gazed at him—once, then again. His posture hadn’t changed, but something in the quiet tension of his profile told her his mind had gone elsewhere.

Eventually, he began.

“Deep sorrow manipulation,” he said slowly, his voice still husky at the edges. “A curse that manipulates emotional currents—quietly invading its victims’ subconscious with targeted precision. No wounds. Not even brain trauma.”

His tone wasn’t clinical. If anything, there was something unnervingly respectful in it. As if he were almost… impressed.

“It’s… fascinating,” he murmured. The fields beyond the glass now passed in a blur, bleached and brittle with frost. His expression in the reflection remained unreadable.

After a beat, he went on.

“It would’ve helped if Ryuki could tell us whether it was real—if the visions he saw were his own memories or some twisted what-if the curse fed him. Either way…” He paused, fingers idly caressing the bridge of his sunglasses. “It knew exactly where to press. Pushed the right button long enough, and turned a semi-grade one pro into a blabbering idiot.”

Utahime shifted slightly, angling toward the front as the road narrowed. Snow crusted the shoulder of the pavement now, and the sky hung low and pewter-colored above the trees.

“I’ve come across curses that made victims experience their phobias,” she said. “Spiders crawling up their legs. Being buried alive. That kind of thing.” Her fingers moved absently to her wrist, adjusting the threads of the suzu bells woven through her bracelet. “But Ryuki’s words didn’t sound like fear. They sounded like remorse. Something… deeply personal.”

Gojo made a low, unintelligible sound in his throat—noncommittal. He leaned his temple lightly against the windowpane again, and the faint fog of his breath returned to the glass.

Utahime didn’t press. Silence settled between them—brittle, but not uncomfortable.

Then the GPS’s mechanical voice broke through the quiet: “Estimated arrival in thirteen minutes.”

Outside, the trees had begun to rise taller, darker, hemming in both sides of the road. Cedar and pine climbed in quiet ranks, their branches whispering as the wind stirred through them.

The temperature inside the car seemed to dip—a shift in the air, charged and expectant.

Utahime cleared her throat. “Thanks,” she said, voice even and low. “For recommending me for the mission.”

Gojo exhaled. It wasn’t quite a laugh—more a breath turned sideways, humor worn thin.

“It’s not like I did you a favor, Utahime,” he replied, eyes still on the trees. “I need the boost. I’m not the same, remember?”

Neither of them looked at the other again until the car rolled to a stop before a moss-laden staircase that clawed its way up the mountainside—steep and crooked, the stone steps half-swallowed by centuries of creeping earth.

They stepped out from either side of the car almost at the same time. The air here was wetter, heavier—smelling of rain that hadn’t yet fallen.

Above them, nestled beneath a canopy of skeletal trees, the shrine waited—broken, half-consumed by ivy and silence. Its torii gate tilted to one side, lacquer peeled away by time, and the forest around it seemed to lean in, listening.

***

Stone steps groaned beneath their boots as Gojo and Utahime stepped across the shrine’s threshold. The air inside was even colder, the silence so dense it felt padded—like sound might fall and shatter if dropped too quickly.

The main hall had long since fallen into disuse. Tatami mats lay curled and blackened in the corners. Shoji panels leaned from their frames, torn through by wind. The altar stood at the far end, crooked and low, draped in shadows.

Gojo’s Infinity flickered to life with a near-imperceptible hum as he scanned the room. His gaze drifted over collapsed beams, spiderwebbed ceilings, the shrine’s offerings turned to rot and ash. But nothing shimmered with threat. No cursed energy bloomed in his vision. No distortion of space, no pressure in the air that would suggest a domain.

Nothing. Except—

A glint.

Resting on the altar, delicate and misplaced, lay a hairpin.

Thin, gold, flower-tipped. Clean. Untouched by dust.

Gojo took a slow step toward it, the wooden floor creaking beneath his weight. Another step. And another.

Utahime’s voice snapped from behind. “Don’t touch it.”

He paused—but only for a breath. “It looks harmless,” he murmured, not turning. His voice had gone oddly flat. Distracted.

Utahime stepped forward, her hand lifting slightly—uncertain whether to reach for him or pull her cursed energy into a defensive shield.

Because she could see what Gojo couldn’t.

A heavy flow of cursed energy was coiling from the hairpin like smoke from an extinguished fire. It clung to the object like sorrow, as if someone had once wept while holding it. As if a soul had cracked, and a fragment of it had taken root there.

A cursed object. And somehow, Gojo was already under its spell.

Her eyes widened. “Gojo—don’t—”

But his fingers had already closed around it.

The instant he touched it, the world fractured.

Sound collapsed inward—the birds, the wind, the soft groan of wood—sucked from existence like breath into a vacuum. Light twisted, dimmed, then split into streaks and shards, bending unnaturally.

Gojo staggered, but didn’t fall. His face turned slightly, confused—but only for a heartbeat. Then even time thickened. Honey-slow. Amber-still.

His eyes—those one-blue, one-faded eyes—went distant, already slipping under. The shrine, the forest, the cold, the present—none of it remained. He was seeing something else. Somewhere else.

“Damn it,” Utahime hissed—and moved.

She didn’t hesitate. Her feet skimmed across the floor with the precision of muscle memory, the bells at her wrists jingling sharply as she surged forward.

And the moment her hand met his shoulder, anchoring him—

—the curse’s domain closed like a mouth around them both.

And the world they knew vanished.

***

They were standing in a long, narrow hallway.

The clean wooden floor stretched beneath them with uncanny symmetry, polished smooth and dark like still water in moonlight. Doors lined either side—identical, unmarked, and closed.

They lost track of time, unable to fathom how long they had walked. The corridor seemed endless, always bringing them back to the same stretch. The same doors. The same silence.

Utahime turned slowly in place, her boots brushing the floor, her eyes narrowing.

No windows. No entries or exits.

She reached for the wall and pressed her palm against the surface. It was solid—too solid.

Gojo blinked beside her, a thin line drawn between his brows, as if still waking from some deep and disorienting slumber. His coat hung askew, his scarf had slipped, and in his hand—gripped so tightly the veins showed—was the hairpin.

Utahime’s eyes dropped to it.

“Why?” she asked, voice low but firm. “Why did you pick it up?”

Gojo didn’t answer at once. The long line of his throat moved as he swallowed.

Then, quietly—almost as if confessing something to himself—he said, “It looked like something that belonged to my mother.”

Utahime inhaled through her nose. That was all she needed to know.

Not a coincidence.

Seduction.

She turned her gaze back to the hallway, her voice tight with analysis. “The curse is fast,” she muttered. “It bypassed your spatial defense entirely. Your Infinity didn’t matter. The moment you stepped into the shrine, it went straight for your soul.” She paused, then carefully added, “Targeting a memory.”

Gojo said nothing. His eyes had begun to clear—but only just.

Utahime pressed her fingers to the suzu threads at her wrist, grounding herself. “The hairpin was bait. Emotional resonance. The curse projected an object from your past to lure you in,” she continued. “The illusion began the moment you intended to reach for it. That’s why it looked ordinary to you. Why you couldn’t sense the cursed energy at all.”

Gojo’s mouth curled—not in a smile, but in something closer to wonder.

Utahime stepped toward one of the doors. She placed her hand on the frame but didn’t open it. Her voice was quieter now, less clinical. “This loop won’t break on its own. We have to go through them. One by one. I don’t think the curse will let us out until you’ve seen whatever it wants you to see behind the doors.”

Gojo exhaled—slow and shallow. “I’m its target. You don’t have to—”

“I do,” she cut in. Her gaze didn’t waver. “It dragged me in too. And now, we finish it together.”

For a long moment, neither of them moved. The hallway flickered slightly, like a memory refusing to stabilize. One of the doors shivered faintly on its hinges.

Gojo looked down at the hairpin in his hand, then slid it into the inside pocket of his coat. At last, he stepped forward.

He reached for the first door on his right.

Utahime braced herself.

***

The door opened with a creak.

What lay beyond wasn’t anything either of them expected.

Gone were the dim corridors and warped, polished floorboards. In their place stood the refined courtyard of an aristocratic Japanese estate, bathed in pale daylight and threaded with the sharp, earthy scent of incense. Winter sun filtered through a high lattice of bare branches overhead, casting dappled shadows across stone and snow.

And there were people.

Dozens of them—men in layered formal samurai robes, their expressions composed in a hush of reverent anticipation. Women in folded silks sat with backs straight and eyes lowered, their painted fans fluttering just once as they glanced forward. All knelt in seiza, silent and still, facing the same direction—a raised platform at the far end of the garden—draped in ceremonial white.

At its center stood a boy.

He couldn’t have been more than thirteen or fourteen, the folds of his kamishimo too formal and heavy for his narrow frame. A ceremonial headpiece rested atop his neatly trimmed white hair. His head was bowed slightly.

From their angle, his expression was hidden.

Utahime halted mid-step. Her breath caught sharply in her throat. The scent of burning sandalwood settled on her tongue like a forgotten memory.

She scanned the gathering—flicking from face to face, uncertain, searching. Looking for herself.

“Wait,” she whispered, her voice suddenly fragile with recollection. “I’ve attended ceremonies like this as a Miko trainee when I was a teenager. It’s a genpuku—”

“It’s my ceremony,” Gojo cut in beside her, his voice flat and grave.

***

Chapter Text

***

Utahime’s eyes swept the crowd once more, lingering on the ceremonial staff adorned with rice stalks, the braided shimenawa ropes framing the dais, and the low altar of sakaki leaves and salt bowls arranged at the edge of the clearing. Everything was immaculate. Too familiar.

She whispered, more to herself than to Gojo, “Was I there?”

His answer came, quiet and sure. “You were,” he said. “That was the first time I saw you.”

She turned sharply to look at him—but his eyes weren’t on her. They were fixed ahead, drawn taut with something that resembled disbelief.

Disbelief at how visceral the scene felt.

Then the memory began to move.

Slow at first—like a page turning underwater.

At the far edge of the courtyard, near a lacquered shed half-shaded by pine, a young girl knelt beside a woven basket of ceremonial tools. Her miko robes were slightly oversized, sleeves bundled at the elbows, her movements deliberate and cautious. She sorted ladles and sakaki branches, adjusting the placement of a kagura mask with careful precision. Each shift of her hand set off a faint jingle—bells, threaded into red cords at her wrists.

Utahime.

The boy—young Gojo—stood on the platform, unmoving. Then, slowly, as if pulled by an invisible thread, he turned.

Not toward the officiant. Not toward the elders.

Toward her.

The scene replayed.

The girl arranging offerings. The boy turning his head. Their eyes never meeting.

It played again.

And again.

Each loop more vivid than the last. The wind grew louder. The scent of incense thickened. The light fractured faintly—thin, bright cracks blooming across the sky like pressure beneath glass.

Gojo—the real Gojo—squeezed his eyes shut. His hand, cold and calloused, clutched Utahime’s.

At first gently. Then tighter.

And tighter still.

His breathing turned shallow. His shoulders coiled tight.

Utahime looked to him, alarm sparking in her eyes. “Gojo—?”

He didn’t respond.

His mouth was moving now, just barely. A mutter.

“The flowers…” he whispered, his brows knitting. “They were in your hands… or did you arrange them in a basket? Why did the flowers disappear?”

His voice was disoriented, as if he were walking through mist with no sense of direction.

Utahime’s breath hitched.

Flowers?

She turned back toward the memory still playing before them—but it was no longer whole.

The ceremonial staff remained. The altar still stood. But the people…

The elders who once flanked the dais had vanished. A moment ago, the courtyard had brimmed with guests seated in solemn rows. Now, only a scattered handful remained—like ink washing away on damp paper.

Even the light was dimming, though no clouds moved across the sky.

She glanced back at Gojo. His grip on her hand was still firm, but the tension had gone bone-white. His gaze had turned glassy—unfocused.

“You were kneeling near the mask,” he whispered again. “Or… was it near the altar?”

A pause.

“Was the lacquer chipped?”

Utahime’s chest tightened.

He was slipping.

This wasn’t a memory anymore. It was a rewrite.

The domain was altering it—incrementally, deliberately—replacing certainty with doubt, peeling his past apart until even he couldn’t remember what had truly happened.

She looked back—just in time to watch another guest flicker and vanish into thin air.

The illusion was devouring his memory.

Devouring him.

Utahime swallowed hard. “We’re running out of time,” she murmured, almost to herself.

Then she moved. Both hands rose to his face—firm, grounding. She cupped his cheeks, forcing his gaze to meet hers.

“Don’t look at it anymore,” she said sharply. “Look at me.”

Gojo’s eyes fluttered—as if he heard her, but didn’t quite understand. His lips moved again, barely audible.

“…Where did you go?” he murmured, voice low and breaking.

“You’re not giving the curse what it wants,” Utahime said, steadying her voice even as her fingers trembled against his skin. “It’s starving for something—but you’re holding back. Try to think. Please. There must’ve been something going through your mind at that moment.”

Gojo’s eyes, already glassy, brimmed further. His lashes clung together as he blinked slowly.

“I don’t know,” he whispered, almost unintelligible. His voice cracked at the edges, fraying like old silk.

Utahime didn’t let go. She leaned in closer, their breaths nearly mingling. “You’re resisting,” she said, softer now. “You looked in my direction. You didn’t even know me then. Why? And why is this memory so important that the curse chose it?”

His lower lip quivered. “I was…” His throat moved once. “I was grounding myself. Fixating my gaze on you… so I wouldn’t crumble.”

“Why did you think you would crumble?” she asked desperately, just as a mild tremor stirred beneath their feet.

Gojo exhaled, shuddering. His eyes darted—not toward the scene, but inward. “Because I wanted to ask something,” he said. “To my father.”

Utahime’s heart stilled.

His father?

Gojo had never spoken of him. Not in passing, not even in jest.

Then—

The illusion around them shimmered, subtly.

A few of the vanished guests reappeared, still blurred and incomplete—ghosts painted back in with an unsteady hand.

“What did you want to ask?” Utahime’s voice came out raw, finally seeing a glimmer of hope—an opening that might lead them out.

Gojo’s gaze flickered, watching as two realities blurred over one another.

“In case he knew…” he said slowly, as though dragging the words from a place long locked away. “If I was wrong.”

Utahime’s brows drew together. “Wrong about what?”

He still didn’t look at her.

“… In thinking I was raised without love,” he said, hollowly. “That everyone around me was so cold because that’s how they were trained to be—impersonal, mechanical, purposeful. Always moving with a single goal in mind: to build the perfect weapon.”

His throat worked as he tried to swallow, but the words kept rising—bitter and aching.

“But maybe… that wasn’t the case. Maybe it was me. Maybe they would’ve been warm—if only I’d been different…” His voice faltered, barely holding.

Then, softer—so quiet it only just reached her, “Maybe I was just too strange. Too... wrong.”

He paused, then murmured the last part as though the sentence itself cut him open, “Perhaps I was born unlovable.”

The silence that followed felt deafening.

Something inside him splintered. It showed in the way he folded in on himself, shoulders curling inward, chin lowering. His gaze turned further inward, like holding himself together was the only thing he could still manage.

Utahime began, softly, “Gojo, that’s not—”

“They didn’t care—not even the slightest—that I wanted to leave, Utahime.” His voice cut in—sharper now, edged with a growing clarity. “No one wondered why their child wanted to walk away from all of it. Not one of them stopped to ask if I was hurting. Or scared.”

His mouth twisted faintly—not a smile. Something far more fractured than that.

“All they cared about was putting on this... this fucking show before I joined the school,” he went on. “A ceremony. A perfect image. Just long enough for the other clans to see me—to see I was still theirs. That I was committed to protecting the clan. That no one should mess with them.”

Then, finally, he looked up and gazed at her. His electric-blue eye was rimmed red. Enraged. Exhausted.

“It was all politics, Utahime. Just politics… to keep a weapon they didn’t want to lose.”

Utahime couldn’t speak. Her throat tightened. Her heart ached.

There were too many things to say—too many soft, healing words that rose to her lips—and none of them, she thought, were strong enough to patch the wound he’d just revealed.

So, instead, she anchored herself in cold truths—the only strategy that worked in this domain—as the edges of their surroundings sharpened once more, colors deepening, sounds returning in hesitant ripples.

“So,” she whispered, her voice a gentle tether in the swirling haze, “did you ask your father?”

A single tear finally escaped, trailing down his cheek like a crystal breaking free. His voice faltered—like the softest whisper of shattered glass.

“No. I didn’t… I couldn’t. I was terrified he’d agree—that loving me really was difficult. That everything I ever feared was true. All of it. That no one ever truly loved me, and they were just waiting—waiting for the moment to let me go.”

A sudden rush of fierce tenderness surged through Utahime’s chest. Her thumb moved on its own, brushing away the tear as his lashes trembled beneath her affectionate touch.

“You wanted them to stop you,” she said softly, “…from leaving.”

A pause hung between them—a fragile breath of truth suspended in the air.

Then he nodded, bowing his forehead to rest against hers, his voice fraying with quiet surrender. “Yes.”

The world around them began to unravel—edges melting and dripping like molten wax beneath a flame. The altar and the lacquered shed dissolved into mist, the scent of sandalwood fading until all that remained was a void.

And then—snap—like a blink—they were back. Standing once more on the cold floorboards of the endless hallway.

They stepped apart, breath still heavy and raw.

Before them now stood three closed doors.

Three more memories awaited.

Gojo sank to the floor, his back pressing against the cold wall where the first door had stood moments before. The weight of his confession had finally pierced through his unshakable bravado, and his body gave in—yielding to the quiet relief that followed. For a long moment, he didn’t look at Utahime—perhaps from embarrassment at having opened up so vulnerably, or simply because he needed time to gather himself.

Then, a gentle touch grazed his shoulder.

He turned slowly and found Utahime leaning her head against his upper arm. Her voice was low, careful. “Was your mother there too? At the ceremony?”

Gojo nodded slowly, the motion heavy with memory. “No,” he said. “She detached herself from me when I was a toddler—when it became clear I had the Six Eyes.”

Utahime lifted her gaze, meeting his.

A dry chuckle slipped from Gojo’s lips. “Don’t feel sorry for me. I understood why she did it. She knew she would lose me—that I’d eventually be taken from her. So, it was like... self-preservation, I guess.”

“You remember the hairpin from your toddler days? Otherwise, how else would you recognize it?” She asked, her curiosity gentle but probing.

Gojo smiled, genuine and unguarded, the edges of his old self slowly returning. “I’m not that special, Utahime. I don’t recall the pin from when I was a baby. She used to visit me sometimes while I was growing up in the dojo—the training grounds, you know, where I lived and studied. She always wore that same gold pin. Quiet woman, though. Not much for talking, and she always looked a bit awkward around me.”

There was a pause—an unspoken space between them.

Then Utahime’s voice came hesitantly, tender. “You know you aren’t unlovable, right?”

Gojo leaned his head back slowly against the wall, closing his eyes briefly as if to steady himself. “I know,” he murmured. “I see it—in my students. In the way they care.”

A small, proud smile tugged at his lips. “How happy they were when I came back. The way Megumi almost cried when he woke up and saw me alive. Maybe… maybe I did something right after all.”

But then, that smile faded—almost imperceptibly—as if the memory itself had sharp edges. “Still… back then, I wasn’t so sure.”

“I know,” Utahime said softly.

Their eyes met, and in that shared glance, an unspoken understanding bloomed. Gojo gave her a brief nod—a quiet acknowledgment that he was grateful.

A beat of silence passed.

Then, he cleared his throat—overly dramatic, almost theatrical—as if the softness of the moment had pressed too close and he needed to retreat into safer ground.

“So,” he said, his voice deliberately lighter, “tell me your analysis.”

“You have to be emotionally transparent to survive inside this domain,” Utahime answered evenly, her tone calm and methodical.

Gojo laughed—dry and low. “I am so fucked,” he muttered, dragging both hands down his face.

She suggested quietly. “If you want… I could sit the next ones out. These are your memories, after all. I’m just an intruder.”

He didn’t respond right away. His mismatched eyes—one pale as ice, the other a brilliant, weary blue—searched her face, lingering as if trying to find something he couldn’t quite name.

Then, carefully, as if baring a secret he rarely allowed himself to feel, “I don’t think I’d survive out there… without you, senpai.”

She gave him a small, almost shy smile. “You were a bit disoriented back there. Losing track of what’s real.”

Gojo shook his head, quick and earnest. “Exactly. And the more the memory kept looping… the emotions got stronger… and suffocating. It was like being trapped in a fever dream. There was this crushing hopelessness and… and...” He trailed off, overwhelmed, once again.

Utahime reached out, her hand finding his. She gave it a steady, supportive squeeze.

He inhaled deeply, grounding himself in the warmth of her touch. “I need you there to be my tether,” he said. “To pull me back when I start to slip.”

A pause.

Then, with a tremor like wind through brittle leaves—fragile, exposed: “I need you to push me… to say the things I never could.”

Utahime nodded, her wide, honey-brown eyes glinting with determination.

Suddenly, a mischievous grin tugged at Gojo’s lips. “And if you ever tell anyone what you saw here today,” he said, cocking a brow toward her hand still resting on his knuckles, “I’ll make sure everyone hears how you clung to me inside this domain.”

Utahime immediately pulled her hand back. “You’re a jerk, you know that?” she said instinctively—but a smile escaped before she could stop it, slipping through the cracks despite her best efforts to hide it.

Gojo burst into laughter, the kind that rolled through him and shook the tension from his shoulders. Then, straightening, he extended a hand toward her.

After a brief pause and a mild eye roll, she took it.

As he helped her up, she asked, “By the way… why did you focus on me that day? You could’ve chosen anything—anyone else—to distract yourself.”

Gojo chuckled as he turned slightly away. “Because you were easy to look at,” he said, with a shrug that was far too casual. “A pretty little thing who made me wonder—wait, is she real… or did I dream her up?”

And just like that, he walked toward the next door—light-footed, as if he hadn’t just left Utahime breathless behind him, rooted to the floor, swallowing a quiet gasp.

Because no one had ever said anything like that to her before.

And the compliment lingered in the air—soft, golden, and slow to fade.

She fought a traitorous flush blooming across her cheeks. “Maybe little Satoru just hadn’t seen many girls his age back then,” she offered, grasping for logic—anything safer than the warmth rising in her chest. “He lived a sheltered life, didn’t he?”

“Sure,” he replied, without so much as a glance over his shoulder—too smooth, too swift.

His hand came to rest lightly on the doorknob to his left.

“Ready for this one, senpai?” he asked, his voice easy, though it carried the flicker of nerves beneath the surface.

Utahime drew a steadying breath, forcing her thoughts back to the task at hand.

Then, together, they stepped through.

***

Chapter Text

Gojo and Utahime found themselves standing in a small dormitory room—worn but tidy. The curtains were half-drawn, and the gray-gold light of late afternoon filtered through the window in slanted, molten bands. Dust floated lazily in the air, while long, angled shadows stretched across the floor, painting the room in quiet solemnity.

Utahime’s eyes swept over the space—lingering on the books stacked in uneven piles, the folded blanket at the end of the narrow bed—until they found him.

A younger Gojo stood at the edge of the mattress, folding clothes into a scuffed duffel bag. He wore a black shirt, sleeves pushed up to his forearms, and round glasses perched on his nose. But the boyish air he’d carried when he first joined the school had nearly vanished. His frame was no longer lanky but lean, muscles honed and shaped by training. His jaw was more defined, his shoulders broader. There was strength in his movements now, a tempered control—but it was his face that caught her most.

His expression was uncharacteristically grave. Lips pressed thin. A furrow between his brows that hadn’t yet become habitual.

Then she saw it—the diploma resting on the desk, tied with a crisp crimson ribbon, catching the late light just enough to glow.

Fresh paper. Barely a week old.

He had just graduated.

Utahime turned her head slightly—not toward the boy in the memory, but toward the man beside her.

“Packing to leave the dorm?” she asked lightly.

Gojo didn’t answer right away. His gaze remained fixed on the younger version of himself. When he finally spoke, his voice was low. Strained.

“No,” he said. “Packing to leave the society.”

Utahime went still. “What do you mean?”

His gaze dropped to the floor, shoulders drawing in slightly. “I was…” His murmur nearly dissolved into the stillness of the room. “Escaping.”

Her breath caught. “Escaping where?” she asked, uncertain.

Instead of responding, his eyes drifted to the far wall—to the old, curling poster of a boy band he’d once been fond of. The smiling faces stared back at him, frozen in time. He swallowed hard.

Then, just above a whisper: “To… join Suguru.”

Utahime gasped, her hand flying to her mouth in disbelief.

Gojo flinched, instantly on edge, like he’d been slapped.

“Don’t—don’t judge me so fast, Utahime!” His voice frayed at the edges. “You don’t know what I was going through then. I can explain—just—”

And then—there was a knock.

It cut through Gojo’s frantic words like a blade. Both he and Utahime turned just in time to see the young Gojo stride to the door in three long steps and pull it open.

Shoko stood there, breathless. Her face was flushed, eyes wild and streaming with tears that spilled in reckless abandon.

Before anyone could react, she all but shouted, voice breaking, “Utahime-senpai got hit!”

Utahime wasn’t prepared for what came next.

The young Gojo froze. Entirely.

He didn’t speak. Didn’t blink. Didn’t breathe.

He just stood there, as if the world had stopped.

Then—his voice thinner than a thread—he whispered, “Are you sure? How do you know?”

Shoko wiped her nose with the back of her hand and managed, “They just brought her into the med ward.”

He lurched forward and seized Shoko by the shoulders. The panic in his movements was so unrestrained—it was as if something feral had just snapped loose inside him.

Then a hoarse sound tore from his throat. “Did you see her? Is she alive? Can you save her?”

Shoko flinched, startled by the sheer urgency in his voice. She nodded quickly. “She… she was breathing. But—there was a wound. A bad one. On her face.”

“Fuck!”

The curse exploded out of him—so loud it rattled through the room, making all three of them jump.

His chest heaved. His eyes blazed. “Can you reverse it?” he demanded, as though he needed the answer to breathe.

Shoko looked uncertain now, her lower lip quivering as she weighed her words carefully. “The rescue team was a bit late getting to her. The… wound might’ve already passed the window for reversal. But I can help with the pain—accelerate the healing. I’ve patched her up before—minor injuries—and I know my CE is compatible with hers. But it’ll leave a sca—”

Gojo cut her off, his words sharp and clipped. “Then why the hell are you still standing here? Take me to her. Now.”

He didn’t wait for a reply. Before Shoko could so much as blink, his arms wrapped tightly around her—and in a flash, the two of them vanished into the ether.

Silence fell like a stone into still water, rippling outward—heavy and endless.

After a long moment—maybe a full minute—Utahime finally spoke, her voice faint, as if pulled from the bottom of a well. “Wow. I almost forgot this happened to me… right after your graduation.”

Gojo could hear the loud thrum of his heart echoing in his ears as he stepped forward, his hands lifting—open, unguarded—as if offering a wordless apology.

“I picked up the hairpin like a fool,” he said. “This is my test. I should never have brought you into these rooms. You don’t deserve to relive this… not again.”

There was a pause.

Then, as if she hadn’t even heard him, Utahime asked casually, “You could already warp back then? I thought you didn’t start until… a year later—right before you joined as a professional Special Grade.”

He blinked, caught off guard. “That’s... true,” he admitted, hesitating. “Up until this point, I could only warp objects. A couple of times, I managed to warp myself. But this… this was the first time I teleported someone else with me.”

Her gaze didn’t move from the empty doorway, fixed on the space where the younger versions of Gojo and Shoko had vanished. Then, slowly, her voice surfaced—almost pensive. “That was dangerous. For Shoko.”

Gojo stumbled. “I—I wasn’t thinking. I just… didn’t want to waste time.”

Utahime, finally, turned to him. Her face gave nothing away, her demeanor calm as the approaching dusk. “They’ve gone to the med ward. It’s not far. Let’s just walk.”

He tried to warn her, a note of caution threading through his tone. “What if stepping out of this room brings us back to that hallway? And then we’re punished for not seeing it through? I haven’t explained why I was leaving yet. Maybe…”

A nerve twinged somewhere deep. “Maybe that’s what the curse is waiting to hear.”

Her lips curled, just slightly—not quite a smile. Something more elusive. Ironic, perhaps.

“But the memory hasn’t looped yet, has it?” she said. “It’s still going.”

She reached for his hand and gave it a tug, her eyes flicking toward the door. “So come on. Hurry.”

***

Hospital ward.

Gojo and Utahime stood just a few feet from the entrance. The hallway was dimly lit, its silence sterile—too clean, too clinical. Utahime exhaled slowly, steeling herself. Then, quietly, she said, “Let’s go in.”

But before she could take a step, Gojo’s hand shot out—fingers wrapping firmly around her wrist. She turned, surprised, only to find his eyes clouded with hesitation.

And then—perhaps for the first time since they entered this cursed door—she smiled.

A small, sweet thing. The kind that could melt even the hardest heart.

“I’ve accepted it, Gojo,” she said. “It’s part of me now. Like my limbs. Like my lungs and liver.”

Still, he didn’t let go. Doubt lingered in his expression, clinging like instinct.

So Utahime reached up with her free hand and gently laid it over his, loosening his grip from her wrist. This time, her voice rang with conviction.

“If I’ve learned to carry the scar without pain,” she asked, “then why should I fear the moment it became mine?”

Gojo released her hand at last—reluctantly—and together, they stepped into the ward.

On the narrow bed near the center, Utahime saw her younger self—unmoving, unconscious, her face swathed in fresh bandages. In the corner, Shoko sat slouched in a chair, chewing slowly on a bar of chocolate.

Utahime recognized the habit instantly—it was something Shoko had often done in her early years as a healer. When her cursed energy ran low after a difficult session, she’d eat something sweet to stave off collapse.

It looked like she had already done what she could for Utahime’s face. The rest was now up to time. Recovery.

Color had begun to return to Shoko’s cheeks. But Gojo—his younger self—was in a different state entirely.

He looked wrecked. Pacing like a caged storm, his movements were restless, agitated. His face, pale and drawn, betrayed a thousand thoughts he didn’t know how to speak.

Again and again, he stopped at Utahime’s bedside. Leaned over. Studied her face as if searching for proof of breath—for life—not trusting the readings of the machine attached to her. Then he paced again, as though distance might dull the ache before it dragged him back once more.

From her chair, Shoko let out a long breath. Her voice was dry as she peeled back another bit of the wrapper.

“Would you stop doing that?” she muttered, not even looking at him. “It’s not helping anything. And it’s giving me a headache.”

Gojo snapped. “Who… who was managing this mission?”

Shoko broke off a piece from the corner of her chocolate bar, then said flatly, “I don’t think the manager was the problem. It was HQ.”

That did it.

Whatever composure Gojo had left shattered.

An angry sound ripped from his chest—half groan, half growl—as his voice rose in disbelief. “What the fuck is their issue? First Haibara, now Utahime—THE FUCK!”

His shout cracked against the sterile walls like thunder.

And then—

A faint rustle.

Utahime on the bed stirred—just slightly, almost imperceptibly—but it was enough to silence him.

Gojo stilled.

The rage drained from his face as his gaze snapped back to her. His chest still heaving, he crossed the room in two quick strides and bent down—carefully, reverently.

His eyes scanned her face, watching for breath, for any sign of pain. As if he could will her into comfort.

Then, quietly, he straightened again.

The storm still simmering beneath his skin, he turned and walked toward Shoko—each step slower than the last, his anger now tempered by something far heavier.

Something that looked a lot like guilt.

A quiet moment passed. Then—

“How did this happen?” Gojo asked, his voice low now—deliberately restrained, as if afraid to disturb Utahime’s sleep again.

Shoko took a long sip from the water bottle in her hand before answering. “Someone from the rescue team said she was supposed to boost a Grade 2 sorcerer from Osaka during the mission. But he didn’t show up—some kind of family emergency. So she contacted HQ and asked to postpone.”

Gojo’s brow furrowed. “What grade was the curse? Must’ve been high. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have tried to back out.”

Shoko nodded. “That’s what I figured too. Anyway, they refused. Told her to go in alone.”

Then her voice tightened at the edges—and Utahime remembered that, too. The kind of calm that was Shoko’s by habit, always masking something far more blistering underneath.

“It’s ridiculous, really. Her CE is supportive. She wasn’t even meant to fight. And still… they sent her in, without the sorcerer she was assigned to support.”

She looked up at Gojo, her tone once again matter-of-fact. “I’m here for now. You can go, if you want. But… you might have to take the next shift—at least until Principal Yaga gets back from Kyoto.”

Gojo’s gaze drifted back to the hospital bed—to the stillness of Utahime’s face beneath the soft white bandages. His jaw clenched. His hands curled into tight fists at his sides. For a long moment, he just stood there, unmoving.

Then, slowly, his shoulders dropped—as if yielding to some invisible weight.

Without a word, he crossed the room and sank into the chair in the far corner.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said at last, quietly but unwavering. “I’m… staying.”

Then—like mist creeping in to blur the edges of a dream—Utahime and Gojo were back at the beginning.

The hospital setting dissolved, overtaken by the dormitory. The room reassembled itself: young Gojo folding clothes; a knock on the door; Shoko’s tear-streaked face; and then their frantic teleportation in a rush of panic.

The first loop of the memory had begun.

As the silence settled around them, it was Utahime who spoke first—just like before. “Why did you decide to stay?”

Gojo didn’t need clarification. He understood what she really meant.

She wasn’t talking about the hospital room—not just that night.

She meant the world he didn’t run from. The side he didn’t choose. The friend he didn’t follow.

He slipped his hands into the pockets of his coat and stood still for a moment, as if rifling through a drawer of worn-out thoughts, searching for the one that still made sense.

Then he answered. “The number of sorcerers was already thinning. And… it stopped being about our skill long before you got hit. It was always the bad planning—always their failure.”

His boot tapped the floor, absent-mindedly. Once. Twice. Fidgety.

“The jujutsu society would've collapsed if I’d walked away then. The ones still alive... they needed someone the elders couldn’t touch. Someone to speak for them.”

He let out a humorless breath. “The higher-ups—” his lips twisted, “—they were terrified of me. And that was the only thing keeping them in check.”

Utahime crossed her arms over her chest. “You never did like the higher-ups,” she said, voice dry.

Gojo retorted—sudden, harsh, louder than he meant to. “Don’t be so patronizing, Utahime. Wiping them out was the only way. Otherwise, we’d have ended up with more corpses from executions than from actual battles.”

For a moment, she stood still, trying to trace the thread—what had she said that struck a nerve? But there was nothing. Just a passing remark.

And then she realized.

He thought she was judging him. Condemning that choice—the one he made just before the Shinjuku battle. The day the higher-ups never walked out of the room.

“I didn’t mean—” she started, quickly, searching for a way to ease the blow.

But he didn’t let her finish.

He raked his hands through his hair, his voice rising—not just in volume, but in heat. Frustration seeped from every line of his face, every word scraped from somewhere too raw to hide.

“The system had to be rebuilt. It was broken. Rotting. Those kids—our students—they needed to be taught that their survival mattered. That they were people, not just tools.”

His breathing grew uneven. His jaw tensed.

“We’re not FUCKING tools to kill curses.”

He was spiraling.

And then—like bad timing woven into the moment itself—another loop began.

The same scene unfolded before them—like a cruel echo.

Gojo watched in silence, his eyes locked on his younger self, as if haunted by the lean shadow of the boy he used to be.

When the subjects of the memory once again disappeared into the ether, Utahime stepped closer. Her voice was careful, trying to temper whatever storm churned behind his quiet.

“I know, Gojo. That’s why you became a teacher, right?”

Something in that must’ve struck home. The tightness in his expression relented—but only just. He reached up and rubbed the back of his shoulder, as if trying to knead the anger out from under his skin, and gave a small nod.

“Yes,” he said. “I wanted to teach them compassion. So that when they grew up and became leaders, they wouldn't treat young sorcerers like they were expendable. I… I didn’t want them to repeat the same mistakes the higher-ups made. Decisions that told us our worth was conditional. That the things we carried into battle—our strength, our fears—meant nothing.”

And then—

His voice faltered.

His eyes found her scar.

That was his undoing.

Rage surged back into him—hot, bitter, monstrous in its grief. In two long strides, he closed the space between them and cupped her face in his hands.

Fierce. Tender. As if trying to hold something he wished—with all his might—the world had never marred.

His voice broke from the sheer force of the emotion behind it.

“Like life didn’t matter. Like beauty didn’t matter.”

Utahime stood stunned for a moment, her heart drumming wildly in her chest. Gojo’s words washed over her like warmth spilling across frostbitten skin—as if something inside her, long-starved of light, had finally been fed a sliver of spring.

And yet—she forced her thoughts to heel.

She was the tether now. Gojo’s emotions were elevated—too deep, too ruinous. If she let them sweep her away, neither of them would make it out whole.

So she reached up and gently folded her fingers around his, where they still cradled her face.

“And you did it,” she said softly. “You did exactly what you set out to do.”

The fog in Gojo’s eyes thinned, as though her words had pried open a window in a room long sealed shut.

“I did?” he asked. And the way he said it—it was the sound of someone who’d gone his whole life being revered for his strength, but never once admired for the shape of his heart.

Utahime nodded, steady. “Yes. Your students—they’re kind. Strong in all the ways that matter. They know how to protect, and how to care. You taught them that.”

Gojo exhaled a shaky breath, something like relief huffing out of his chest—as if he’d been waiting an eternity for that kind of validation. Slowly, he let his hands slip from her face, his fingers brushing her skin as he pulled away.

The moment barely had time to breathe.

Because just then—the memory looped again.

The dormitory. The folded clothes. The knock. The sobs. The surge of dread.

And Gojo—he staggered, like someone peeling his skin away piece by piece, dragging him through every stitch of it all over again.

Utahime felt helpless.

What did the curse want from him—what truth had it come to extract?

That question brought her back, full circle, to the very first thing she’d wondered after stepping through this door.

She drew in a breath, gathering herself. Because now, more than ever, his answer mattered—and she needed to be strategic to draw it out of him.

Their lives depended on it.

Her voice was hushed, but unyielding. “Why did you decide to leave before?”

The effect was immediate.

He recoiled as if struck, collapsing into himself—arms wrapping around his torso in a desperate, almost violent grip, as if trying to physically hold the pieces of himself from falling apart. His gaze darted around the room—frenzied to land anywhere but on her face. Shame clung to him like smoke, curling around every breath.

And then, his voice—fractured, ragged—broke through the silence.

“Because I felt responsible. For everything.”

A pause. A tremor.

“It was my fault… that he defected.”

His throat worked around the next words like they physically hurt.

“That he killed… his own parents.”

There was something unbearable about seeing him like this. Like the brilliance of a sacred flame fading before Utahime’s very eyes.

Without thinking, she stepped forward, her voice rising in defense. “That’s not true. How could it possibly be your faul—”

But Gojo’s voice sliced through hers—jagged and brimming with pain.

“I was a bad friend, Utahime.”

He didn’t shout, but the self-loathing in his syllables thundered louder than any scream, drowning out everything else.

“Selfish. Arrogant. Blind.” Each word stripped down to its bitter core. “I was so drunk on my own power after Toji… I thought I was a god. Lost in my own damn head.”

He drew in a breath that sounded like it scraped its way through splinters—fragile, raw, catching in his chest.

“Otherwise—how?” His face twisted, grief carved deep—like a man retracing his failures in real time. “How the hell did I miss it? The signs. He was drowning right in front of me, and I—I didn’t see it.”

Then silence fell—thick, oppressive. The kind that settles in the bones.

Gojo turned and walked to the window—his shoulders taut, gaze cast outward. But Utahime knew he wasn’t really looking at anything. He just couldn’t bear to face her. His frame still quivered faintly, like some dam inside him was breaking over and over.

“Killing makes you hollow, Utahime,” he said. “Not all at once. Bit by bit. You lose the good parts of yourself… and one day, there’s nothing left.”

He braced a palm against the glass, leaning into it.

“Suguru…” he said at last, the name—heavy in his mouth. “He was the most sensitive of us. He used to call his mother every week. I can’t imagine the kind of pain it took for him to kill her—someone who meant everything to him. Or to destroy the village he grew up in. The hopelessness he must’ve felt, to choose that emptiness. To abandon his own life like that.”

His voice caught in his throat. He pressed a hand to his chest, fingers curling tight.

“I kept asking myself—why didn’t he tell me? Or worse… how many times did he try, and I was too full of myself to listen to him?”

And then—the memory began to replay again. But…

Something was wrong this time.

The scene began just as it had before: a knock, the opening of the door, the hallway light bleeding into the room.

But then—

Shoko didn’t sob.

Instead, she looked over young Gojo’s shoulder—too slowly, too deliberately—until her gaze found them.

Utahime and present-day Gojo. No longer invisible to the ghosts of this manifested—and now altered—memory.

Then young Gojo turned his head and did the same.

Utahime staggered back a step—a cold shiver licking the back of her neck.

Both their heads tilted, slightly off-axis. Their pupils were blown wide—dark voids filled with something ancient and unnatural. Their expressions no longer belonged to a memory. They were too knowing, watching. Like marionettes yanked off-script, they turned aware, awake—dragged into something that had twisted the scene from the inside out.

The distortion had begun.

The curse was growing impatient.

Utahime snapped her head toward Gojo, panic creeping into her sharpness with every passing second. “You still haven’t said everything.”

Gojo’s brow furrowed in hazy confusion. “I don’t... understand.”

She bridged the space between them, urgency crackling in her voice. “Look deeper. Into your heart.”

His brows pinched tighter. Eyes narrowed. And then—his gaze stilled.

Slowly, his entire expression changed.

The blood drained from his face as realization struck—swift and merciless. His hands rose to his head, fingers clawing at his temples, grasping as if to silence the thoughts before they could fully form.

He shook his head once, violently. “I… I don’t want to. You’ll hate me.”

She didn’t speak at first, her breath caught between heartbeats.

Then she reached for him—slow and cautious—like one reaching out for a wounded bird in a storm.

Her voice was soft, quiet as falling snow.

“I would never hate you, Satoru.”

His name.

The first time it passed her lips.

He looked at her like he was hearing it from another lifetime. His hands fell from his temples, hovering near his face, suspended in disbelief.

And Utahime saw it then—what calling him by that name truly meant to him.

To the world, he was Gojo. Power incarnate.

No one called him by his given name. Not really.

Satoru—the name chosen for him with such far-sightedness. A name that meant to understand, to awaken, and to illuminate. A name that promised he would bring enlightenment—a new dawn to the jujutsu world.

And he had. He had lived up to every ounce of its weight.

But somewhere along the way, that name had been reduced to ink on paperwork, a headline in a mission report or history books—listed only because the full name was required—stripped of all its warmth.

How could something that sounded so sweet become so rare?

She inhaled deeply—and said it again.

“Satoru.”

And he answered, as if caught in a spell, voice small, threadbare.

“…Yes.”

Her word came barely above a whisper. “Please.”

And he could no longer stay silent. Her pleading, wide eyes—the promise that she would never hate him—the quiet affection bleeding softly from her voice, cracked the walls around his guarded heart.

His words tumbled out, bitter and laced with reluctant conviction.

“I believed what Geto believed. Yes, his methods were extreme. The way he acted—shocking. But the core of his theory? I didn’t think he was wrong.”

His voice grew heavier, edged with a simmering certainty that sharpened with every breath.

“Killing non-sorcerers... it would’ve solved everything. Cursed spirits are born from them. No cursed spirits, no threats. No more sorcerers dying for a world that resents them.”

He paused, offering Utahime a moment to respond. When she didn’t—her face holding nothing but unwavering attention—he continued.

“A world finally safe for our kind.”

Then his arms went rigid at his sides, tension coiling through him like wire drawn too tight. The curse was pressing in now—closer, hungrier—feeding off his moral turmoil. His next words came like a blade unsheathed, every cadence steeped in disdain.

“Why save people who orchestrated the death of a fourteen-year-old girl like Amanai? And they called themselves humans? They’re weak. Evil. Obsessed with Tengen’s purity—while the merging itself was a necessity to preserve their techniques.”

His voice tore through the air—burning with contempt too deep to disguise.

“It was absolute madness. They celebrated a child’s death, then... expected their families to be protected by the same sorcerers who tried to save her.”

The fire in his eye hardened even more—calcified into something colder, crueler, like the ember of a belief scorched into bone.

Then he finally said it—

“I was against sacrificing strong sorcerers to protect those weak evils. In the end, Suguru felt the same. The only difference was... he acted.”

The air began to shimmer—like heat rising off scorched pavement—warping the corners of the room.

Utahime watched in silence as color drained from the walls, the furniture bleeding into shadow, sounds folding in on themselves.

Then—like film slipping from a projector—the memory stuttered once, twice... and tore.

A windless current swept through, tugging at them softly, and suddenly they were standing in the endless hallway again.

Where it all began.

Where two doors now stood closed.

***

Gojo sat against the wall, one knee drawn close to his chest, the other splayed carelessly to the side. His arm hung limp over the raised knee, fingers slack. His head tipped back against the wall, eyes closed, jaw loose—breathing like he was trying to remember how.

Across from him, Utahime sat cross-legged, her spine bowed with fatigue. She faced him, but her gaze lingered somewhere near the floor—distant, unfocused. One hand drifted to her wrist, to the suzu bell she wore. Her fingers toyed with it absently, the soft chime breaking the silence in uneven beats.

After a long silence, Gojo spoke—barely above a breath. “Say something funny.”

Utahime didn’t catch it at first. “Huh?” Her eyes lifted, puzzled.

He opened his eyes, just slightly, a ghost of a smile flickering at the edge of his mouth.

“Say something that’ll make me laugh,” he repeated. Then, with a half-hearted grin, he added, “Gotta drown out the noises somehow.”

Understanding softened Utahime’s face. She looked down, fingers returning to her suzu bell, and for a moment, the only sound between them was its soft chime.

Then, she began slowly, “A year ago, I made a dating profile on one of those apps. And then I got this message from a guy…”

For some strange reason, Gojo straightened almost instantly. His posture pulled taut, eyes locking onto her. The melancholy that had clung to him a moment ago scattered—like dust beneath a spotlight.

A smile spread across Utahime’s face, faint at first, then blooming wider with the memory. Oddly, the brighter her amusement grew, the deeper the crease became between Gojo’s brows.

She went on, clearly enjoying herself now. “He opened with this line: ‘Would you rather fight a hundred duck-sized horses or one horse-sized duck?’”

She paused dramatically, turning to Gojo with expectation lighting her eyes.

But he just stared.

She pouted. “You were supposed to laugh. It was funny.”

He let out a small, mechanical chuckle—more air than humor. “Ha ha.”

Then, with a casualness a little too polished to be genuine, he asked, “So what happened? Did you meet him?” Meanwhile, the fingers of the arm draped over his knee curled slowly into a fist—betraying the ease in his voice.

She sighed and nodded, drawing the moment out with perfect timing.

“I would’ve,” she said, “if he hadn’t sent the next message… like five seconds later.”

She paused, then mimicked the text flatly: “‘Send me bobs pic.’”

There was a heartbeat of silence—

Then Gojo burst out laughing.

Real, unguarded laughter. It ripped from him like breath after being held underwater too long. He doubled over where he sat, hands clapping hard against his knee, eyes beginning to water from the sheer intensity of it.

“He couldn’t keep it in his pants for five seconds?” he wheezed between fits of laughter, the sound alive in a way that hadn’t touched his voice in days.

Utahime watched him, a quiet smile ghosting her lips. She didn’t interrupt—only sat there, letting him ride the wave of his mirth until it softened, ebbed into a chuckle, then into silence again.

When his breath finally slowed and his shoulders eased, she murmured, “Mission accomplished.”

And she was right.

He had laughed.

They looked at each other as a hush settled—no longer heavy, but full. Like the quiet after rain, when everything feels rinsed and clear.

Then Gojo shifted, bracing a hand against the floor as he began to rise.

He was only halfway up when her voice came—sudden, like a reflex she hadn’t meant to release. “Do you still think like that?”

A beat passed.

“Do you still believe our kind’s lives matter more than the rest?”

Gojo’s breath hitched mid-motion. His back tensed, shoulders stiffening like a drawn bowstring—then, slowly, he sank back down, exhaling as his gaze drifted toward the ceiling.

“That was...” he said, his voice even. “… something I used to believe. A thought born of anger. And betrayal.”

He didn’t flinch as he spoke it—his face calm, almost serene.

“You carry your scar on your skin. And I carry mine... in my history.”

Utahime tilted her head slightly, a flicker of curiosity tugging at her expression. “When did your thoughts start to change?”

His posture eased—not slouched, but grounded. Less the fallen god, and more the man beneath all the shame he’d buried for years and was finally unafraid to name.

“After I became a teacher,” he said, his tone steady. “I thought… what if, along with showing them how important their lives are, I helped them understand how valuable all lives are? And maybe somewhere in that... we’d find a balance.”

Utahime’s gaze gentled, and she offered a faint nod. The quiet gesture spoke volumes.

A small smile curved the corners of Gojo’s mouth—as if her acceptance pleased him more than he’d let on. He rose to his feet, brushing his palms against his pants, and Utahime followed, stretching as she stood across from him.

Then, quite unexpectedly, mischief sparked behind her lashes, catching him a bit off guard.

“Well,” she said, “I think some of the credit is mine.”

Gojo blinked. “Credit for what?”

She tapped a finger to the scar on her cheek. “I got this... and it stopped you from leaving.”

He stared at her for a moment—then laughed. Low and warm, the sound spilled out like sunlight through cracked glass.

“Yeah, full points for getting hit by a high-grade at the most inconveniently perfect moment.”

Utahime grinned, clearly pleased by his reaction.

But the peace didn’t last. 

Gojo had drifted toward the door on the right and now stood before it, his hand hovering near the handle. He looked back at her—a glance that posed the question without words.

She gave a small, reluctant smile. “Ready.”

And together, they stepped through.

A familiar-looking classroom stretched out before them, half-filled with their students and a few colleagues scattered among the rows.

Gojo stiffened, his eyes widening.

Then, with all the grace of a man sucker-punched, he muttered under his breath, “Oh, fuck.”

***

Chapter Text

***

Utahime saw herself seated at the back of the classroom, chin cradled in one palm, the other hand tracing idle loops with her pen across a nearly blank notepad. Her posture said it all—an artful kind of detachment.

But there was something different about this other version of her. Something not immediately noticeable—like a shift in the light you only recognize once it’s gone. Her skin had a quiet luminescence, as though lit from within. Her features looked finer somehow, sculpted. The line of her jaw, the taper of her cheek—softened and sharpened all at once. She was glowing, in the way dusk glows just before surrendering to night.

Strange.

Utahime watched as her few-months-younger self looked up, her gaze drifting toward someone seated a few chairs away—slouched low in his seat, legs sprawled as if he owned the very floor, one foot toying with the chair in front of him, nudging it just close enough to collapse without toppling it.

Gojo.

His head was already turned, eyes fixed on her. And on his face was the oddest expression—like the stunned wonder of a man stumbling upon a wildflower blooming in the ashes of a battlefield. It didn’t suit the room, or the meeting, or the topic at hand.

He mocked a serious face, brow furrowed in exaggerated disapproval, and jabbed a stern finger at her notepad. The past Utahime squinted, her brows knitting in confusion.

He reached into his pocket, drew out his phone, and began typing. A second later, her screen blinked to life.

From behind him—here, in reality—Utahime’s voice broke through softly. “I remember what you had texted me. It was something like… ‘Why are you doodling?’”

Gojo didn’t look away from the memory. He spoke slowly, the words laced with a peculiar mix of melancholy and humor.

“Yeah. It was strange… seeing you like that. You weren’t listening to their presentation. You weren’t taking notes—which I thought was your idea of recreation—or jumping in with your suggestions…” he lifted his fingers in the air, quoting with dry irony, “‘to fix the strategy.’”

He let out a breath—a sound that flirted with laughter but never quite became one. “It was almost like looking at a new person.”

He turned to her as he said it, but she was already drawn back in, her gaze fixed on her past self—who was now doing something startlingly uncharacteristic, just as Gojo had said.

She glanced toward the front of the room, quick and discreet, checking to be sure no one was watching. Then, with a hesitation that gave it away as unnatural—almost like trying on mischief for the first time—she flicked her hand toward the group in a vague gesture and made a silent gagging face.

A sharp, barely-stifled snort burst from past Gojo, drawing a quick glare from Kusakabe, who turned in his seat just long enough to shoot him an annoyed look before facing forward again.

Gojo didn’t even notice. His face had lit up, more boyish than ever, his eyes narrowing with unguarded delight, burrowing deeper into Utahime.

And then—

It happened again.

This Utahime shimmered into clearer, more breathtaking focus—too breathtaking. It was as if some unseen hand were retouching her in real time: smoothing the light across the slope of her nose, refining the curve of her brows, deepening the color in her lips. Even the fall of her hair looked gorgeous, catching light like silk, framing her face with a precision that felt too perfect to be accidental. She looked unreal—like a portrait painted by someone hopelessly in love.

And then, stranger still, the rest of the classroom began to blur.

The lens of the world had suddenly shifted.

The small gathering at the front lost their edges first—then their voices, their words stretching into elongated echoes, distant and unintelligible.

Only she remained vivid.

A chill licked down the spine of the present-day Utahime. She whipped her head around.

Gojo was standing a few paces away, his long fingers trailing along the corner of a worn wooden bench. His eyes were fixed on something she couldn’t see. Beneath his hand, etched faintly into the grain, were the shallow scars of initials—old names carved in some long-forgotten bit of mischief.

“Gojo, what’s going on?” she asked, her voice low and wary.

He didn’t answer. Instead, his gaze flicked toward his past self—the one still seated, phone in hand, thumbs moving. A second later, the past Utahime glanced at her own screen. Her expression barely changed. She simply slid toward the edge of her seat, quiet as a shadow, and slipped through the exit at the back of the room.

No one noticed.

A beat later, the other Gojo stood, pocketed his phone, and followed. And no one noticed that either.

Utahime asked again. “Why this memory? I remember it—nothing unusual happened. We just… talked. On the balcony.”

Once more, Gojo didn’t answer.

But his silence carried a different weight this time. It wasn’t brooding or heavy with thought, like in the other memories—it was almost bashful. The kind of silence born of too much awareness. A flush crept up his neck, blooming soft color beneath his cheekbones. His lashes flickered with nervous insistence, and his gaze wandered anywhere but to her face—as if even a glance might give something away.

“Let’s go,” he said at last, a little too quickly. It was all he could manage—and even that sounded like an escape.

Utahime didn’t press him further.

They followed their past versions—radiant with a kind of carefree ease that had no business belonging to that day, drifting toward the far balcony as if the sky weren’t about to fall.

From this third-person vantage, Utahime realized—startlingly—how absurd the entire scene felt.

Late-afternoon light slanted across the corridor, catching in her past self’s hair as she leaned over the railing, gazing out toward the training grounds below. A few feet away from her stood the memory-version of Gojo, his back pressed to the rail. His posture was as casual as ever—hands tucked into his pockets, one foot crossed loosely over the other—but his head was, once again, turned toward her.

Utahime paused beside the present-day Gojo, who now hovered silently near the corridor wall, his expression unreadable. Her gaze returned to his past self’s face—on the light in his eyes, the unmistakable glint of fascination. The thing she hadn’t seen the first time, because she’d been facing the horizon instead of him.

He spoke. “You don’t agree with the plan?” His voice was light—but beneath its practiced calm was a quiet insistence, as though he didn’t quite wish to reveal how much her answer mattered to him.

The past Utahime shook her head in an exaggerated arc. “No.”

It was a tease, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth—as if this were a game she knew how to win. And in saying no, she’d just claimed the first point.

Utahime—the real one—felt it before she saw it. His eyes—already brilliant—flared, as though threads of sunlight had been pulled through a summer sky, shimmering gold stitched through the blue.

He looked at her past self, truly looked, the way an artist might study the delicate contours of a beloved muse—committing every line to memory. His lips curved slightly at one corner, a half-smile so quiet it felt like a secret. And he looked—damn him—handsome. Not in that insufferably smug way he often was, but with a softness that disarmed.

Utahime’s pulse quickened.

But her other version remained entirely unaware, her gaze now watching the shifting hues of the late-afternoon sky.

Then his voice rose again, now pitched to match her mischief.

“Why?” he asked, the lilt in his tone a near echo of hers. “It’s a sound plan. They’re just trying to find ways to keep using my CT, in case, you know…”

“Well… I don’t think we’ll ever reach that point,” she said, a mild shrug accompanying the words.

Gojo tilted his head. “That’s awfully bold of you to assume. And here I thought I was the overconfident one.”

She turned toward him, one brow arching with a quiet sort of challenge. “Why are you so uninterested, then? If it’s such a sound plan, why haven’t you said a word since walking into the classroom? All you’ve done is stare at me. And text me.”

“Because,” he chuckled, the sound spilling out before he could dam it, “you’re the only thing in my life these days that makes me laugh.”

The words landed too fast, too true.

In an instant, the ease in him snapped taut. He cleared his throat—too briskly. His eyes darted elsewhere, fingers tugging at the cuff of his sleeve, as if it suddenly needed adjustment. It was pure instinct—his way of retreating behind the smirk before anyone could ask what those words might’ve meant.

“I’ve got a meeting with Yuta later,” he said, his voice sailing back into its usual irreverence. “We’ll run through the swapping again. I already know everything they’re going over in there.”

A lazy flick of his hand followed. “And if I miss something, Yuta’ll fill me in anyway. That kid doesn’t miss a beat—so serious. Takes notes and everything.”

A pause. Then a sideways glance, mischief blooming. “Are you sure you two aren’t related?”

She rolled her eyes in that slow, theatrical way that suggested she’d done it too many times to count where he was concerned.

Then he couldn’t help but ask again, curiosity bleeding through. “Do you really think I’d win?” His lips smiled, but there was no jest in his voice this time—only something quieter, more intent.

Utahime slowly nodded, her hands resting lightly on the railing. “I do.”

His brows lifted—just briefly. Then his gaze dropped again, settling on a loose thread caught on his uniform. He plucked at it absently, buying himself a breath.

“There’ll be surprises thrown at me,” he murmured. “And I’ll give it everything I’ve got, but… it’s better to be prepared.”

She watched him in profile—those sharp, reckless features drawn into an unusual solemnity. The shadows of late afternoon fell across his face like brushstrokes.

“Logically, yes,” she said quietly, “but do they have to talk about it in front of you like that? So casually?”

He blinked, turning toward her. “What do you mean?”

Honest confusion. And it almost broke her heart—both her present self and the one within the memory—to see how accustomed he was to it. The cold pragmatism of hearing about his own possible demise, as if it were just another bi-weekly meeting topic.

Her past self’s gaze didn’t waver. “Death,” she said, shaping the word gently, “is not a light subject to consider. Not for anyone.” Her voice slightly faltered, then steadied again. “Not even for you.”

He didn’t answer right away. Just the subtle movement of his throat as he swallowed, the faintest furrow between his brows. One hand curled around the railing, knuckles whitening.

“It is personal,” she went on, her voice low but firm. “The idea of it shouldn’t be so… clinical.”

“They asked for my permission,” Gojo tried to reason, attempting an even tone.

But she didn’t seem to hear him. Her hand moved in a sharp, impatient arc, as if brushing aside invisible dust.

“The repeated discussions,” she said tightly, “... are stripping the humanity out of it. The grief. The weight of what it means.”

His gaze flickered. “Utahime,” he said, voice a shade louder. “I agreed.”

That did it.

A muscle twitched in her jaw, a vein becoming visible near her temple. “That doesn’t mean you’ve forfeited the right to be flesh and blood.”

Her voice kept rising, “You are powerful, yes. You have great influence, yes. But that doesn’t say that you don’t feel fear. Or that you shouldn’t be allowed to.” She stepped closer, and though her hands stayed at her sides, her presence seemed to press against him like a force.

“You’re still a person. You still have them… fears, don’t you?” Her eyes searched his. “And I’m sure—no matter how casually you speak of it—death is one of them.”

Gojo looked as though he didn’t quite know what to do with the shape of her words—tender things strung with barbs and starlight. They came wrapped in a softness that could wound, and a danger that felt like mercy.

There was a twitch in his hands—half-formed muscle memory, seeking the safety of his pockets—but even that seemed oddly uncertain. His eyes blinked—once, twice, three times—too many for it to feel natural.

Just like a few minutes ago in the classroom, Utahime realized. That restless quiet. That same evasiveness. A man who could fracture the earth with a flick of his finger… now looking like he wanted to disappear into the seams of his uniform.

And then—again—the subtle shift in her other self.

Her long lashes had darkened, casting shadows across her cheeks like the sweep of wings passing over moonlight. And when her gaze met his again, the brown of her irises had molten. Like sunlight caught in syrup.

Gojo, scrambling for higher ground, finally managed to pull a grin. It limped across his mouth—half-born, all awkward angles.

“Aww,” he said, his voice dressed in a lightness, “you think this much about your idiot kouhai?” But there was that strange tremble, as if he were holding something in. Something she wasn't supposed to know.

She rolled her eyes again. Didn’t bother letting him interrupt. Just pressed on.

“And you’re only twenty-nine.”

He raised a brow at that, something in him lifting. “And what’s that got to do with anything?”

Utahime hesitated, her eyes lowering to the sliver of floor between them. “Well…” she said, “there must be things you still want to do in your life.”

“These conversations in your presence…” Her hands moved in the air, tracing her thoughts. “They steal those hopes from you.”

A pause.

“And I think everyone has the right to hope. Right until the moment they die.”

Her voice caught for a moment.

“Otherwise… what’s the point of living?”

Another beat passed.

“Tell me I’m wrong,” she said softly, “and I’ll stop talking. Right now.”

Gojo didn’t speak. Couldn’t, actually. A laugh tumbled from him instead—nervous, breathless, like it had tripped on the way out. His gaze grazed over her face again, and then just for a second—too quick for her past self to notice—it landed on her mouth.

The color of her lips deepened even more—suddenly looked... ruinous. The kind that made a man want to press his mouth to it, helpless and half out of his mind.

Utahime’s breath caught in her throat. Heat climbed from her collarbones, uninvited and all too alive. The wintry air no longer cooled her skin. She reached up, brushing her temple to wipe away the sweat that had begun to gather.

Almost out of reflex, she glanced at the real Gojo.

To her horror, he was already watching her. Anxiously. Measuring.

And the moment he realized she’d seen it—the change in her memory self—a muscle ticked at the corner of his jaw. His eyes slid shut like the world had just grown too bright. He tipped his head back against the wall with a quiet thud.

Then almost too low to hear: “I hate this curse.”

Utahime pulled her attention back to the memory, where her past self now tilted her head, eyes narrowing as she asked,

“Don’t you have things you want to do before you die? You know… other than this sorcery business?”

Gojo stilled.

He drew in a long breath—slow, deliberate—but the exhale came fractured, uneven. A swallow followed, dry and audible, as if even the air had turned treacherous in his throat.

And then, he shifted, edging closer to her. Something in him strained toward the narrowing space between them. His lips parted—hesitant, searching.

He was going to say something that needed courage.

Something that carried weight. And heart.

He stopped for a second, breath trembling, suspended between confession and retreat. Then his eyes softened—blue sky catching firelight, meeting honey lit from within.

But—

“Hey, Gojo!”

A voice cut clean through the air.

From the far end of the hallway stood Kusakabe, hands buried deep in his trench coat pockets. “Yuta was looking for you.”

He didn’t move on. Didn’t wave and leave.

He waited—rooted in place, one brow raised, clearly expecting Gojo to follow.

The moment cracked.

Whatever Gojo had meant to say… slipped back into silence, left unsaid.

Utahime watched, bewildered. The softness—so near, so startling just moments ago—vanished as if it had never existed. In its place rose a colder edge, the hard gleam of command settling over his features like armor snapping into place.

His posture straightened. Hands slipped from his pockets with deliberate ease.

And then—he grinned. That boyish flash.

“Duty calls, Senpai,” he said, his voice laced with age-old tease.

Before she could speak—he was already turning on his heel, striding toward Kusakabe with long, careless steps. The echo of his retreat rang louder than any goodbye.

Then—

The corridor began to dissolve, smoke curling around them like mist drawn back into the lungs of time. The light dimmed. The floor rippled.

And slowly, the classroom took shape again.

Desks. Chalkboard. That same small group gathered at the front—focused, intent on finding possible loopholes in their plan—while in the back corner, two rebellious figures sat, lost in their own little world.

Utahime threw Gojo a sharp look—one laced more with frustration than fury, but no less commanding.

“I need to speak with you.”

She didn’t wait for his response. Her steps were already carrying her toward the balcony—the quiet stretch of concrete where their conversation had once happened… or, in this new loop of memory, was about to happen again.

Gojo lingered for a moment, biting the inside of his cheek. Reluctant. Then he followed.

They walked in silence. The sharp rhythm of her boots striking the concrete echoed her mood—clipped, troubled. His shoes made less noise—muted, hesitant, almost guilty.

She stopped a few feet short of where their past selves would soon appear and faced the skyline. The wind swept past her, tousling the ends of her hair, tugging gently at her coat.

“Why do I look like that,” she asked, voice low and taut, “in your memory?”

Gojo leaned against the railing. It was meant to be casual, but he didn’t quite pull it off.

“Because,” he said with a shrug, “that’s how you look.”

Her head snapped toward him. “Gojo.”

Just his name. But it landed like a warning shot.

He held her gaze for a moment. Then—

“Six Eyes,” he said, more gently now. “It has its perks. Seeing cursed energy isn’t its only job. It’s more like… one of those high-end lenses photographers use. It captures more. More light. More depth.”

He looked away then, his eyes drifting across the school grounds, as if he couldn’t quite bear to look at her for this part.

“And sometimes,” he added softly, “it sees in ways more complete—more true—than our ordinary sight ever could.”

Utahime looked contemplative for a moment, her gaze lingered on some invisible point in the distance. But then something surfaced in her memory—a flicker of doubt, sharp and swift. Her brows knit together, and she shook her head with visceral disbelief.

“That couldn’t be the reason,” she said. “Then why did everyone else look… normal? Just the way I remember seeing them.”

Gojo paused. Then let out a short, ironic laugh—more weary exhale than true amusement. “You don’t miss a thing, do you?”

Just then, their memory-selves slipped past them—caught in that breathless ease, as if the world weren’t teetering on the edge of destruction and they were simply out for a leisurely afternoon walk.

Utahime turned back to him, urgency tightening her voice.

“You know quite well by now that you have to be emotionally transparent to survive in here.”

And it dawned on Gojo then—there was no way left to dodge what was already exposed between them.

He drew in a slow, long breath.

“It’s tied to my emotions,” he finally said, his voice quiet with honesty. “It wasn’t like that at the beginning. I mean… back in the first memory, you saw yourself. And you didn’t look like… this.”

He flicked a glance at her face, then looked away again. “The Six Eyes evolved. The more I used it, the deeper it reached. Over time, it stopped just reading cursed energy and started… reflecting how I feel about the person I’m seeing.”

Utahime didn’t respond at first. Her expression was unreadable—still and distant, like she was holding something fragile in her mind and hadn’t yet decided whether to shelter it or speak it aloud.

Then, softly, she let it slip: “And what is it you felt… for me? In this memory?”

Gojo’s lips parted, then closed again. The silence hung—taut and trembling. And then, slowly, his gaze rose to meet hers, open—as if, in that single breath, he’d finally decided to set down every defense he’d ever worn.

“That you’re beautiful,” he said. “I’ve always thought you were. But this was… different.”

Utahime barely managed to hold back a gasp. “Different… in what way?”

He began, sifting through memories—

“I started noticing your discomfort in those meetings… when they first floated the body-swapping plan.”

He let out a soft, almost breathless laugh—more stunned than amused. “I don’t know how to explain it. I guess I felt… grateful.”

He halted, fingers curling by his sides.

“Everyone was uneasy about it, sure. But it was a rare chance—a wild possibility—so they had to weigh it for the greater good. But you…”

He tilted his head toward her, and for a moment, the quiet awe his past self had worn in the memory shimmered across his face too.

“… you didn’t even pretend to entertain it. You just sat there with that… look—like you’d already stepped away from the whole thing.”

Then—

A shadow passed through the blue of his gaze, something unguarded and aching—heartbreakingly tender, terribly human.

“And somehow, that… touched me.”

Utahime whispered, almost to herself, as if in a daze, “Then… this conversation happened.”

Gojo gave a small nod.

“Utahime…” Her name slipped from his mouth like a vow whispered in the dark—soft, reverent.

“Do you even know how intimate it feels—to be understood?”

Once again, his gaze drifted across her face like a breeze brushing over wind chimes—gentle, resonant—and something fluttered beneath her ribs, like a secret trying to take flight.

“I can’t even begin to tell you how relieved I was… when you said I was allowed to have… fears.”

A moment passed. He let out a breath through his nose, a sound carrying more grief than humor. “I’m the strongest, right? Untouchable. Fearless. Brave. That’s the story everyone tells.”

His fingers opened and clenched again where they hung beside his thighs.

“But people forget…” Something fractured—and achingly boyish—flickered through his face. “They forget that fear is just the other side of bravery.”

He drew in a deeper breath, steadying himself. And then, without flinching, he let it fall from his mouth:

“Do you know how scared I was during my first mission? I—” His voice caught, cracked like glass. “I peed my pants.”

A small, helpless laugh escaped him—half disbelief, half release—as he blinked fast. “I was eight. And that’s… a whole lot older than the age a kid usually does that.”

A silence bloomed. And gods—Utahime’s heart broke open at the seams. Something deep within her stirred—something that trembled with violent protectiveness for the frightened boy he’d once been… and the man who still carried that child inside.

“Gojo…”

At that, his lips curved into something crooked—wry, but touched with truth.

“And among all my fears,” he murmured, “death was always at the top.”

Then, softer, as if the thought had waited years to find voice:

“Yes. I am flesh and blood, Utahime. So painfully ordinary.”

The light in his eyes dimmed further, like the sun eclipsed, as he continued, “Do you know how heartbreaking it was… that I had to dissociate just to sit through those meetings—just so I wouldn’t lose my mind?” His voice began to tremble at the edges. “And then you came… and told me it was okay to be upset about it. I wanted to—”

Their surroundings suddenly blurred. The other versions of themselves evaporated like fog, the dusty smell of the classroom bleeding back into existence.

Another loop was beginning.

But Utahime didn’t move. She didn’t even blink.

She kept watching his face. Her eyes, steady. Her breath, shallow. The question smoldered on her tongue until it finally broke free—

“You wanted what?”

Gojo’s expression faltered, turning almost sheepish. His hand rose to the side of his neck, fingers grazing the skin where a deep flush had already crept in.

Utahime warned him again, her voice a careful contrast to the thunder of her own heartbeat. “The longer you resist,” she said evenly, “the longer the memory keeps going.”

A nervous laugh escaped him. His fingers drifted up to ruffle his already messy hair—an idle, futile gesture, like straightening pages in a burning book. He hesitated for a moment. Then—

“You asked me,” he said slowly, as though tasting each word before committing to it, “if I had things I wanted to do before I die.”

His eyes flicked toward her briefly, then dropped to the floor—uncertain, glassy with something raw. His mouth tugged faintly at one corner, attempting a smile.

“I wanted to ask you on a date.”

Utahime felt the world tip sideways, as if the very axis of her gravity had shifted.

After several silent beats, he finally dared to meet her gaze, and she was startled by the fear in it, as if his whole life were at stake.

When he spoke again, his voice was soft—half-laugh, half-apology, like a boy confessing mischief to a teacher he admired.

“I was… a bit overwhelmed by your compassion.”

Kusakabe turned to glare at the Gojo sitting at the back, his face drawn tight with irritation—but Utahime barely registered it. The world around her had faded. The people scattered across the memory—colleagues, students, even their other selves—receded like ghosts into mist.

All she could see was him.

The real Gojo.

The man standing mere feet away, watching her like the verdict of his whole heart rested in her eyes.

Her chest tightened, her skin burned. And then—without her mind’s permission—her lips parted.

“Why didn’t you?”

His brows furrowed. For a beat, he looked almost adorably baffled. “Huh?” was all he managed, blinking as if he hadn’t heard her right.

She took a step closer, her gaze unwavering, refusing to miss even the faintest flicker of emotion: the twitch at the corner of his mouth, the slight narrowing of his eyes, the tension that pulsed along his jaw.

Then, quietly—irrevocably—she tested the shape of a dangerous truth.

“Why didn’t you ask me then? On a date?”

A breath passed. Heavy. Awkward.

He still looked lost, even after she’d spelled it out for him. His hands balled into trembling fists—anchors for everything he couldn’t articulate. His mouth parted slightly, then shut again, as if the answer he meant to give had dissolved on his tongue at the last second. And finally, in a voice quieter than his usual bravado ever allowed, he said:

“I didn’t want to drag you into my mess.”

A hollow laugh followed. “Kind of grateful he interrupted me at that moment, to be honest.” He tipped his head toward Kusakabe, still glowering up front like a stern drill sergeant waiting for a recruit to fall in line.

“You… deserved better than a man giving you false hope right before stepping off to a suicide mission.”

A brief silence stretched.

Then Utahime folded her arms, her posture firm, her head tilting with a glint in her eye that teetered between sass and affection.

“Well,” she said airily, “bold of you to assume I would’ve said yes.”

Gojo blinked, clearly not expecting that.

“And even bolder,” she pressed on, “to think I’d spiral into heartbreak after one date with you.”

Her lips finally curled into a smile—dry, but fond. “Please. Don’t make me laugh.”

His breath hitched—an incredulous, unguarded sound. And then he laughed. A low, almost disbelieving chuckle, like she’d plucked the tautest string in him and let it hum its way into release.

But the moment didn’t get to breathe.

Utahime’s brows knit as the edges of the classroom refused to disappear, as the memory pressed forward like a wave that hadn’t finished crashing.

She scanned their surroundings, tension inching up her spine. “Why is this loop still going?”

Gojo’s eyes flickered—as if the thought had just caught up with him, too.

A beat passed. Then he exhaled, hands rising slowly to cover his face. His fingers pressed hard against his eyes, dragging down his cheeks, as though physically trying to smother the inevitable—an inescapable truth clawing its way to the surface.

“I hate this curse,” he muttered again.

Utahime stepped toward him, instinct moving her where words could not. Her hand came to rest on his forearm—a light, grounding touch.

“What didn’t you say?” she asked gently, her voice threaded with kindness—the kind that didn’t demand answers, only made them safe to offer.

He drew in a breath—shallow and uneven—and when he lifted his head again, she saw it all on his face.

The wild, untended longing behind his eyes.

An old yearning that had grown delicate with time, brittle with silence. The helpless twist of his mouth. The tension in his jaw, trembling with the strain of everything he’d buried.

His throat worked once, twice, before the words found their way.

“The main reason I didn’t ask you…”

His gaze dropped to her hand, still resting on his arm, as if it both steadied and split him open.

“…was because a date with you wouldn’t have just been a date for me. It would’ve made… dying hard.”

For a moment, Utahime couldn’t breathe—the air felt stripped of all oxygen.

“It would’ve made me… want more. Made me regret what I couldn’t have.”

His eyes found her face again, and he almost exhaled the next words.

“Made me feel more… human. And, Utahime… I couldn’t afford that.”

The classroom didn’t shatter so much as soften.

The blackboard bled into gray. The sunlight slanting through the windows dulled. Desks blurred at the corners, their outlines seeping into the floor like watercolor left in the rain. Pages rustled without wind, and chalk dust rose like a departing breath.

And then—a soundless collapse. The room folded inward. The floor gave beneath their feet.

Stillness.

They stood once again in the hallway.

Only one door remained now, closed and silent at the end of the stretch.

They stood across from each other, backs against opposite walls. Utahime’s gaze lifted to him, while Gojo kept his eyes on the ground, lashes low, his jaw tense, clenching back things still too fresh.

The silence lingered—awkward, unkind.

Finally, Utahime let out a soft breath. With a small shrug, she said,

“Can’t think of a single funny thing to say to make you laugh.”

He blinked—then remembered.

Say something that’ll make me laugh.

The request he’d made after the second memory, spoken half in jest, half in desperation—to drown out the haunting thoughts that had tormented him, even after he'd safely reached the shore.

A chuckle broke from him, low and grateful. When he looked up, there was a glint of relief in his eyes.

“Well,” he said, pushing off the wall, his tone gradually smoothing out, “good thing is… we got out of this one before it started twisting the memory to mess with our heads.”

Utahime gave a small nod, but her gaze drifted past him, toward nothing. She was still somewhere inside that classroom. Still standing in the echo of his voice, of a truth laid bare—without charm, without irony.

It would’ve made me… want more. Made me regret what I couldn’t have.

His words still pulsed through her—not like sound, but like something elemental. Like the first tremor of a heartbeat long thought dormant. She could feel them threading through her—delicate and devastating all at once—like music too beautiful to endure.

Gojo tilted his head, watching her in silence. As if trying to catch the shape of her thoughts, but not daring to reach for them.

Instead, he gave her something gentler. Something to pull her back.

“Have you noticed,” he said, voice quieter now, “you’re the constant in every memory the curse chose?”

Utahime’s brows drew together in contemplation. She folded her arms across her chest as if bracing against something within. Her voice, when it came, was slow and pensive.

“What do you think the next memory will be?” Her eyes flicked toward the final door. “Nothing significant happened with both of us in it after that classroom, did it? Except that morning in Shinjuku, when I boosted your technique before the battle. But… we barely talked then.”

“No idea,” he murmured.

His gaze too shifted to the last door—hovering, unreadable—before returning to hers.

“Only one way to find out.”

Together, they walked toward the door.

No more words passed between them. The air felt heavier there—thick with anticipation. Or perhaps… dread.

Gojo’s hand reached for the knob first, his fingers hesitating for just a moment before turning it.

The door creaked open. And the world shifted again.

Muted light bathed the space beyond—diffused, artificial, too clean to be sunlight. They stepped through to find themselves on the edge of a wide concourse, flanked by rows of sleek, pale leather seats. Steel arms. The quiet hum of recycled air.

A soft murmur of conversation drifted from a scattering of strangers. A businessman cradled his phone. A woman in sunglasses flipped through a travel magazine. Children giggled over a shared snack.

Luggage rolled by, wheeled with urgency. Overhead, screens blinked with scrolling text—some in languages they didn’t recognize.

And beyond it all: a floor-to-ceiling glass wall, where a plane idled on the tarmac, its silver fuselage gleaming. The sky beyond was a bright, cloudless blue.

Then came the announcement.

A woman’s voice—smooth, rehearsed, almost bored—crackled through unseen speakers.

“Passengers traveling south, please proceed to the left lane. Northbound passengers, this way to the right.”

***

Chapter Text

***

“Passengers traveling south, please proceed to the left lane. Northbound passengers, this way to the right.”

The announcement dissolved into the recycled hush of the concourse.

Gojo didn’t recognize the place. It was nowhere and everywhere—an airport like any other—and yet… it was wrong.

A sliver of unease lodged itself beneath his ribs. Until now, every fragment the curse had shown them had been rooted in memory, pulled from the locked vaults of his past. But this… he couldn’t place.

Beside him, Utahime went very still. Her gaze swept the terminal once before halting on something ahead—and whatever she saw drained the color straight from her face.

Gojo followed her line of sight.

And then he saw him.

A younger version of himself stood several paces away, awkwardly poised near the glass wall. He was slighter, leaner, the angles of his frame not yet tempered by adulthood. Round sunglasses perched on the bridge of his nose, hiding his eyes—but Gojo didn’t need to see them to know the careless brightness they once held.

He stared, the thought slipping from him,“When… did this happen?”

Utahime didn’t answer. He doubted she even heard him.

And then—movement.

A woman approached the younger him, the soft click of her heels unnervingly steady against the hollow acoustics of the concourse. She carried herself with a quiet authority, as though she belonged precisely here and nowhere else.

Gojo’s breath caught.

There was something about her face—something painfully familiar. A resemblance too precise to dismiss: Tsumiki, and yet… not. Older, sharper, a few years etched along the edges of her features.

She wore a fitted grey suit: tailored trousers skimming her ankles, a silk blouse in muted ivory, the lapels of her jacket folded neat and precise. Her brown hair was swept cleanly back, exposing the elegant lines of her jaw.

Gojo watched as she stopped beside his younger self. “Welcome,” she said smoothly, her voice even, practiced into perfection. “Satoru Gojo, new passenger. Zone Five.”

The younger Gojo turned toward her, his sunglasses catching a glint of sterile light. He shifted awkwardly, his weight resting on one foot. “Zone Five?” he asked, his voice uncertain.

Her lips curved faintly, not quite a smile. “That is where you are, yes.”

“Funny,” Gojo said, forcing a careless lilt that didn’t quite hide the tension threading through his voice. “I don’t remember buying a ticket.” He studied the woman’s face, the resemblance disorienting him just as much as it did the Gojo watching from the present.

“You look like Tsumiki,” he said finally, “an older version. A kid I took in a long time ago.”

Something flickered across her expression—amusement, sympathy perhaps—but it vanished too quickly to name. “The zone chooses familiar faces,” she said calmly, as though reciting policy. “It is meant to put new passengers at ease.”

His laugh was quiet. “At ease?”

“Yes.”

“Why,” he asked, his tone sharpening, “would I need to be at ease?”

Her gaze held his steadily. “Because you will be asked to make a choice.”

A pause followed, clean and absolute, like the silence after a verdict.

His brow arched faintly. “…What choice?”

“You will see.”

She turned then, fluidly, without waiting for his reply, and his younger self—uncharacteristically obedient and silent—fell into step beside her.

Utahime finally stirred, drawing a breath as though surfacing from deep water. Without a word, she moved forward, and Gojo followed, his long stride matching hers while his thoughts churned, restless.

It had to be his subconscious at work—some buried construct, a fabricated event blooming from the chaos inside his mind after the world-slasher had cut him. Perhaps this was how the curse had found its way in, tapping into thoughts he didn’t even know he’d had, reconstructing fragments of something that never truly happened.

And yet… the more he clung to that explanation, the more skepticism crept in.

Because if this wasn’t real, if this was nothing but the mind’s coping mechanism as his physical body bled out—then why had the curse chosen to show this?

Why a place he’d never seen… a face he shouldn’t know… and a choice he didn’t remember?

They walked in silence, the muted hum of the terminal folding around them like a low tide. Ahead, a glass-paneled lounge emerged, its boundaries faint, its air unnaturally still.

And then Gojo saw them.

More familiar faces.

Principal Yaga stood near the glass wall, hands clasped loosely behind his back, broad shoulders squared as he watched the silver fuselage of a plane preparing to take off. Light from the tarmac haloed faintly around him, a pale shimmer tracing the curve of his silhouette.

Further in, seated along a low line of leather chairs, Suguru Geto lounged with his usual grace, one leg crossed over the other, a travel magazine dangling loosely in his hand, posture slightly hunched in concentration, thoughtful and unreadable. A few seats away, Nanami Kento sat upright, bearing an immaculate composure, fingers resting lightly against his knees. Beside him, Haibara Yu leaned forward, elbows braced on his thighs, boyish smile bright as he gestured animatedly—words spilling fast, half-laughing—something about the airport snack bar.

Every detail was right.

They looked exactly as they had in his youth—high school Gojo’s world, untouched, perfectly preserved.

The younger Gojo slowed, his steps faltering until his sunglasses slipped lower along the bridge of his nose. He glanced back at the woman beside him, breath catching, his throat tightening around words.

“…Are they—” His voice caught, the sound fracturing before he forced it steady, though bewilderment still rasped along the edges. “Are they real?”

The manager’s reply came smooth. “They are reflections of those you spent your youth with. No, these are not their actual spirits…” She paused, letting silence breathe between words before finishing softly, “…but they carry the same characteristics as them. The same patterns you remember. So, their actions and reactions would be the same as if they were real.”

Younger Gojo’s gaze drifted back toward them, lingering on Geto’s familiar frame. “And they’re going to bring me the options to choose from?” he asked.

The manager said nothing. She raised a hand, palm open, and gestured toward the lounge, as though the rest of the path belonged to him alone.

He drew in a long, steadying breath and stepped forward.

“Hey, Principal,” he called, his sharp voice startling Yaga enough that the older man dragged his gaze away from beyond the glass and turned.

“Thought you said no jujutsu sorcerer dies without regrets.”

For the first time since they’d stepped into this strange memory, Utahime’s voice moved. “You’re teasing him,” she said, her tone mild, her gaze lingering on Gojo’s profile beside her. “You’re implying you don’t have regrets—that he was wrong.”

Gojo didn’t answer her. Instead, his attention drifted, drawn by a flicker of movement in the far corner of the lounge.

There, seated at a small round table, Riko Amanai propped her chin lightly on her palm, her laughter unrestrained as she spoke. Beside her, Kuroi listened intently, the faintest smile easing the stoic composure of her features.

His gaze moved on, restless, sweeping over Geto, Nanami, and Haibara once more. They had stilled mid-motion now—the travel magazine forgotten in Geto’s lap, Nanami’s posture tilted toward attention, Haibara’s grin fading as he leaned back, alert.

They were watching his younger self—surprised, as he stood silent, gaze tracing the faces long lost to him. And then, almost dramatically, the piercing blue of his eyes softened.

“…I’m hoping this isn’t just a dream.”

Gojo swallowed against the dryness in his throat. His voice came low, softer than he intended, almost absent-minded, translating his younger self’s emotions into words—for Utahime, or perhaps for himself as well.

“I’m happy,” he murmured. “Seeing them again like this.”

His younger self eased onto the seat beside Geto, a wide grin tugging at his lips. “Long time no see,” he said, voice casual, light—but in the very next instant, something in the cadence shifted, a subtle undercurrent of restlessness weaving through the words.

“This sucks,” he muttered, eyes flicking over the lounge. “I’ve always told my students, ‘When you die, you’ll be alone.’”

Gojo let a faint smile curve his lips. “That’s true. I have always prepared myself—and them—for a lonesome death.”

The young him leaned back slightly, and then—he said something peculiar, peculiar enough to make Gojo pause, his mind straining for clarity.

“So, please tell me this is just some ridiculous dream.”

Utahime exhaled softly, a wry sigh that didn’t quite bloom into a chuckle. “You just contradicted yourself,” she murmured, voice calm but sharp enough to prick him.

Gojo’s brow furrowed slightly, confusion and tentative admission seeping through his tone. “Probably… I only joked about it because… I didn’t want to be proven wrong to my students. Really… I was happy just a moment ago about this, so I definitely wasn’t being serious.”

Little did he know that brooding over being wrong about what death looked like was only the tip of the iceberg.

Because then, without hesitation, his younger self’s words began to spill—candidly, almost recklessly—as though a thousand unsaid things had finally clawed their way to the surface.

“…there is this stuff about his dad…”

He spoke of Megumi—how he’d never found the right moment, never forced himself enough to tell the boy about Toji.

“…Sukuna wasn’t able to give me his all and that was a damn shame…”

He spoke of Sukuna—how he hadn’t pushed him far enough, hadn’t truly tested the limits of that monstrous strength, even though he’d gone all out. And yet… that wasn’t the failure that cut deepest.

“…I am no stranger to feeling isolated…”

“…I put everything I had into trying to reach him, to make him understand…”

What gutted him was this: despite touching something rare—an understanding born from standing at the same impossible height, two beings unmatched in their power and equally damned by their loneliness—he had failed.

He had failed to teach Sukuna about love.

At first, it was subtle—the gradual tightening of Utahime’s shoulders, the way her hands folded too neatly before her—but by degrees the stiffness spread through her frame, until her silence itself seemed strung taut as a bowstring.

Gojo turned his head, catching the shift. “Are you okay?”

Her gaze lifted to him, steady yet weighted. “It seems,” she said slowly, “you lied to yourself at the beginning. You aren’t as fulfilled as you wanted them to believe.”

But then, as if to soften the sting of his own confessions, the younger Gojo reached for levity—his voice turning sardonic, almost self-soothing.

“I guess I’m glad I went out facing a strong opponent at least,” he said. “It would’ve been embarrassing if I let some disease or old age get the best of me—”

The words cut short, clipped clean by Nanami’s dry retort.

“What are you? A samurai?”

The remark landed without flourish—unyielding. Nanami’s sharp gaze followed, pinning Gojo where he sat as he chastised the disdain he had cast on ordinary ends—illness, age—as though they were something lesser, unworthy of dignity.

And then came the blow, delivered with brutal clarity.

“You never cared about keeping sorcery going. You were just in the game because you got a kick out of it.”

The silence that followed was dense, oppressive—whether laden with truth or poisoned by cruelty, it was impossible to tell. Both versions of Gojo—the boy in the chair and the man standing beside Utahime—sat suspended in the storm of it, startled by the sheer force of its harshness.

For a long moment, the lounge held its breath.

It was Utahime who finally broke the stillness, her head tilting toward the Gojo at her side. “Do you agree?”

Gojo exhaled slowly, the faintest shake of his head. His answer came quiet, firm, threaded with defiance.

“No.”

The stifling silence seemed to make Nanami finally reckon with the striking boldness of his own words, how far he had let his bluntness carry him. Gradually, a subtle softness spread across his features, a faint smile ghosting onto his face.

“I do sympathize with you, though,” he said in a low voice. “It was… a fitting way for you to go.”

The younger Gojo blinked at him, surprised by the shift in tone.

“As for my own death…” Nanami leaned back, his voice settling into something contemplative. “When I once asked Mei-san about travel, she told me this: If you want to become someone new, go north. But if you’d rather return to who you once were, then go south.”

Young Gojo frowned, a puzzled crease tightening his brow. “Huh? What’s that supposed to mean? Geography advice for the damned?”

A hushed giggle rippled through the lounge, interrupting the conversation. The manager—wearing Tsumiki’s face—stepped forward. “Perhaps,” she said, a measured smile still lingering at the corners of her lips, “I can help with that.”

Every head turned toward her. Even Gojo and Utahime, standing apart from the scene, found themselves watching her intently.

“Are you familiar with the cycle of birth, life, and rebirth?” she asked.

The younger Gojo tipped his chin, answering with cautious ease. “Yes. Common concept in Buddhism.”

A faint acknowledgement touched her borrowed face. “Then you know most lives are marked by suffering and regret. The only true escape lies in the surrender of the self—the ego. Complete enlightenment. Some call it nirvana.” She paused, letting the syllables settle. “Here, it's called… North."

She continued. “For one who chooses this path, it means the cessation of the cycle entirely. Either they are already fulfilled… or they have at last let go of every tether to their former life. In other words—complete death.”

A brief silence followed.

“And… South?” the younger Gojo asked.

“South,” she said softly, “is for those not yet emptied of longing. They choose rebirth, another turn of the wheel, in the hope of mending what was broken in lives before.”

Her words lingered for a moment before Nanami’s voice broke through—threaded with rueful laughter.

“I chose South,” he admitted. His eyes glinted with irony. “Strange, isn’t it? I always preferred the past… yet in the end, I wagered on the future. I took the risk of returning—reshuffled—in the hope that perhaps my next life might be spared the dissatisfactions that marred this one.”

And then, as if on cue, every gaze turned back to the younger Gojo.

The manager’s eyes, calm yet insistent, held him fast. “So. What would be your choice?”

Then—

The light above them quivered—flickering once, twice. Across the lounge, a lamp sputtered as though short of breath, shadows stretching long and warped against the walls. From the far corner, the opposite waiting room seemed to blur, its outline wavering like a television losing signal. Even the magazine balanced on Geto’s lap winked out of existence for a heartbeat, only to reappear as though nothing had happened.

The younger Gojo let out a low whistle, a smile sliding across his face. “Huh. Guess your little zone’s got some glitches.” His head tilted, mockery edged with nerves. “Or is this just another one of your tricks—to make me feel at ease?”

For the first time, a faint crease broke the manager’s composure. A flicker of unease passed over her ever-serene face.

“This wasn’t us,” she said, her voice lower now, tighter. Then she drew herself upright again, regaining her poise. “Anyway—please. Answer the question.”

Gojo swallowed, the first tremor of hesitation cutting through his usual nonchalance. His hands flexed against his knees as though to steady himself, before he finally lifted his gaze—to meet Principal Yaga’s. “What do you think?”

Yaga’s deep voice chiseled truth into stone. “It sounds to me…,” he said, his heavy brow shadowing his eyes, “…you are yet to separate yourself from the life you left behind.”

At that, Geto leaned forward slightly, elbows resting on his knees, his tone characteristically calm as he reinforced Yaga’s judgment. “You haven’t let go, Satoru.” He paused—the way a physician might before delivering unwelcome news—then added, “So… not enlightened.”

The younger Gojo stilled. His grin faltered, his posture too relaxed to be anything but forced. He drew in a slow breath, his blue eyes lifting toward the flickering light above them—its glow casting restless shadows across his face.

At last, a rueful smile tugged at his lips, half-formed, almost self-mocking. “So… South, then,” he murmured. The words slipped out softer than he meant, yet carried the weight of a decision long resisted. His voice grew warmer as he pressed on, gaze dropping to his own hands, flexing—opening, closing.

“I wonder,” he said, eyes narrowing faintly, a spark of curiosity cutting through the weariness, “what kind of person I’ll be reborn as.” His shoulders eased, the irony tempered by an undercurrent of relief—as though the admission had finally loosed an unspoken chain.

And then—

Another ripple stirred the hush of the lounge.

This time it was not the flicker of a lamp, nor the blur of a magazine phasing in and out. The entire waiting area across from them seemed to slide backward, as though slipping behind a translucent veil. Its colors bled into one another, and the people within bent at impossible angles, their outlines shifting like objects adrift in water.

Suddenly—just for a second—something foreign cut through the distortion.

A figure. A woman. A flash of white and red. Just beyond the veil.

Gone in the blink of an eye, but it was enough. Both versions of Gojo stiffened, posture betraying a recognition that needed no words.

The younger Gojo reacted first—wild, frantic, his composure shattering like glass. “How is she here?!” The words tumbled out in a rush, breathless, stricken. “She isn’t dead—is she? Tell me—she isn’t—”

The manager’s hand slipped into her suit pocket as she drew out a small tablet. A few swift taps on the keypad, and then she looked up. Her expression remained composed, but the tightness in her shoulders betrayed her calm.

“You’ve misunderstood,” she said evenly. “This zone is not a place where spirits go after death. It is a threshold—a kind of limbo, if you will.” Her eyes flickered toward the veil, a shadow crossing her face. “And it seems there has been… an invasion.”

The younger Gojo staggered back a step, heart hammering, words spat like sparks. “What? This isn’t the afterlife? Then—I’m… I’m not dead yet?”

The manager’s reply came swift, leaving no room for doubt. “No,” she said. “You are in transition. You can go either way.”

“I… I don’t understand.” The younger Gojo’s voice cracked, raw and almost graceless. “I was given two choices—and both led past death. Enlightenment, or reincarnation. How can I be pulled back toward life now? I thought that door was already closed.”

The manager’s gaze held his. “Whether that door opens for you or not depends on the reason you chose South. And that reason is—”

A harsh flicker from the overhead light cut her words short.

The distortion quivered again beyond the veil. This time, the form lingered—long enough for everyone to catch a clear glimpse. Her brows were furrowed, eyes searching, hands stretched forward as though groping through absolute darkness. Suju bells dangled from her wrists and ankles, yet no sound reached them.

The younger Gojo stepped forward, fingers trembling as they reached for the translucent curtain conjured from nowhere—but the instant they breached its surface, she was gone again. His hand met only the cold, impersonal breath of conditioned air.

Geto stirred beside him, mirroring the motion—but his hand, too, met nothing, the air yielding like water: an unseen, unbothered, intangible fluid.

Gojo spun toward the manager, eyes wide, chest hammering. “Is she in limbo too? Hanging here between life and death?” His voice quavered, panic threading each word. “Was she… was she injured in the battle?”

The manager shook her head slowly, shoulders stiffening further. “It doesn’t appear so,” she said. “The tether binding her soul to her body is strong. Too strong for her spirit to be claimed by the zone. My guess—her vessel is still whole. That is why she is only transient—” Her gaze lingered warily on the space where she had appeared.

The figure materialized again.

Gojo’s breath caught, his voice breaking into something perilously close to a scream. “What are you doing here?!”

This time her form was clearer, almost anchored—her features sharpened as though she were only a pane of glass away. He pressed his palm to the veil, desperate to breach it, but the distance between them warped absurdly, impossibly. The harder he reached, the further it stretched, slipping just beyond his grasp.

Her hands remained outstretched, fumbling through a darkness only she could see. Her eyes drifted over them, unseeing, unfocused, as though their faces didn’t belong to her reality.

Nanami’s voice rose. “She looks more real now.”

The manager’s composure thinned, a warning fraying the edge of her tone. “That isn’t good for her. The longer she lingers here, the narrower her path back to her body becomes. If she stays, that door may close.”

Dread cracked through Gojo’s voice. He pressed harder against the veil, limbs acting before thought, though he knew it was futile. “How did you find me? Please—go back!”

But she did not answer. Couldn’t. Her expression was drawn tight with disorientation, her presence wavering like someone lost in a labyrinth.

The manager’s voice cut through, cold as ice. “Trespassers will be prosecuted.”

“No—wait, please!” Gojo’s protest ripped through the charged air. He spun back to the flickering figure, her outline coalescing into something almost solid—yet still maddeningly untouchable. His voice broke, thinning into a plea. “Please… go back.”

Geto’s hand hovered near his friend’s arm, his gaze never leaving the apparition. “Satoru. I don’t think she can hear us.”

“She is right here!” Gojo snapped, his gestures frenzied, carving the air toward her.

Geto’s voice softened, sympathy threaded through the weight of reason. “Think of it like… your Infinity. There’s a space between you and the reality—an invisible divide. She’s somehow managed to be seen by us, but not close enough for you to reach for her.”

The manager inclined her head, eyes narrowing. “He might be right. She has not yet acclimated to this realm. The nearness you perceive is only illusion.”

Her tone shifted then, almost judicial—unease receding, cold pragmatism returning. “In the meantime, Satoru Gojo—let me catch you up. The moment you chose South, and admitted you had not let go of your past, another option opened to you.”

The present Gojo—silent until now—let out a low, dry huff, not directed at anyone in particular. “Is that so?”

She gestured toward Nanami, her expression shifting no more than a degree. “If, like him, you had chosen South to sever yourself from everything that came before, to seek a better outcome in your next birth, then no other path would have revealed itself. But unlike him—you did not wish to escape your past. You wished to amend it.”

A tremor shook the veil. The figure’s eyes darted over them, no longer unfocused—scanning, intent—as though she were beginning to assemble fragments of what was unfolding before her.

The younger Gojo’s head snapped toward her, body drawn taut, torn between the voice dictating his fate and the frame pressing closer to reality with each passing second, dangerously threatening her return to the physical world. Another request slipped free, helpless and strained. “Please… go back.”

Nanami stepped in, his tone carrying mild curiosity. “What’s the option?” he asked the manager.

Her gaze sharpened. “For him, death is no longer the only choice. Rebirth is possible—but not only through a reset of the cycle. He may continue this life as another self. But I must warn you… such a path demands its price. To survive what should have ended him, he must surrender something dear—something vital.”

Yaga’s voice rumbled low. “What do you think is vital for him?” he asked, his gaze sliding toward Geto.

Before his old friend could answer, Nanami suggested. “His cursed techniques? His Infinity?”

The younger Gojo’s head whipped around, frustration breaking through his already fraying composure. “Would you all please give me a break for a second?” His eyes flicked restlessly—between the semicircle of watchers and the familiar red-and-white figure hovering beyond the translucent barrier, nearer now, distress etched in every line of her face, as though she could almost pierce the distance and glimpse the despair he could not disguise.

The manager’s unyielding voice interceded. “It isn’t as though Nanami Kento revealed something unknown. We are already aware of everything about you, Satoru Gojo.”

His temper flared, sharp enough to rattle the hush of the terminal. “So, now what? It’s fixed, isn’t it? What do I have to give up—if I want to go back?”

The manager’s reply fell with the finality of a verdict. “A binding vow to yourself will suffice.” She paused, letting silence tighten around the words, before delivering the blow. “Sacrifice one eye… and you will return.”

A life without his efficiency—or a rebirth that might thrust him down paths unknown.

He had never liked uncertainty. Yet neither could he imagine living a life where he was not him—the strongest, the protector, the one everyone leaned upon.

Gods, how he wished he possessed Nanami’s disillusionment, the weariness that made letting go seem almost merciful—or the tranquil mind of a sage capable of seeking enlightenment.

But those ships had long since sailed. And now, he must choose.

His gaze ricocheted between the manager and the faces of his old comrades, as though one of them might carry the answer he could not wrench from himself. His chest rose and fell too fast, breath catching shallow, each inhale colliding with his ribs like a fist. His hands twitched at his sides, fingers flexing toward a decision only to recoil again.

Then—through the trembling stillness—it came.

A voice. Familiar. Haunting. It echoed as though borne through fathoms of water, rising from some unreachable depth. A voice that had always unsettled and steadied him at once—exhilarating in its spark, disarming in its understanding, soothing in ways he had never thought possible. It slipped between layers of dream and waking, a thread pulled through the seams of reality—calling to him now.

“Take it, Gojo. Take the option.”

His head swung sharply to the veil, shock stripping him bare, every nerve taut with disbelief.

It was her. Speaking—at last.

And now—he could hear her.

In that exact instant, the present Gojo’s voice broke out, the timbre edged with a gravity that surpassed even the charged tension thrumming around him.

“I look so distressed,” he said slowly. “And yet… there’s no trace of it in me. Quite unlike the other memories. But—” His head turned, his gaze cutting to Utahime, now shivering beside him. “Look at you. You’re about to collapse.”

Utahime’s arms folded around her middle, as if to contain the pressure swelling inside her. A single tear slid free, trembling on her lashes before falling.

Gojo exhaled a short huff—but there was no humor in it. Only the slow, dawning horror of truth.

“It’s a memory,” he said. “Something held in a conscious mind—not a fragment spun from the subconscious of a wounded body. Not a fabrication, as I thought.”

His eyes locked on her, unflinching.

“This really happened.”

The next words struck like a lightning ripping through the sky, shaking her entire frame.

“This is your memory, isn’t it, Utahime?”

***

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)