Chapter Text
Suguru does not make a habit of involving himself in the mainstream Jujutsu world. He avoids it best he can, has avoided it for centuries; he has no patience for pesky shamans looking to exorcise him, nor has he any tolerance for the corrupt web of politics that has governed their world for so long as he remembers. It’s a game that’s long-since grown tired. But—
Sukuna’s long black nails are just about to pierce his vessel’s skin and he’s wearing that awful smile on his face, and it’s been a long, long time but Suguru knows the carnage that expression has brought. Knows what catastrophic harm Sukuna could do in that body, even at only a fraction of his strength. And the vessel, the Ten Shadows user, they’re both only children. Children.
Suguru rips himself out of the shadows and into properly solid form, previously hidden cursed energy flaring bright and loud and horrible. His sandals clack loudly where they hit against the rain-soaked stone. Under his fingertips, he feels the bones of Sukuna’s wrist break. Feels them attempt to reform, and break before the healing is complete.
“Apologies,” Suguru says, smiling, “this is a rather rude reintroduction, hm?”
All four of Sukuna’s eyes narrow. A thin line of red dribbles from the small, incomplete incision on the vessel’s chest. Vague recognition. A sneer. “You’re still around?”
“I’m sure it must be very disappointing,” Suguru sighs, all mocking sympathy, “but yes, Sukuna-san, I am.”
One of Sukuna’s eyes twitch. His entire body strains against Suguru’s unforgiving grip, and Suguru blurs the edges of his shape to restrain the other. Red dribbles intangibly into the air where Suguru reaches into his own technique and lets his curses crawl from the rifts in space, completing Sukuna’s confinement.
“You fucking—”
Suguru ignores the other curse’s vitriol and turns his head towards the Ten Shadows user. There’s still muted horror on his face, but it’s now marred with helpless confusion.
“You’re not human,” says Ten-Shadows.
Suguru arches a brow. “Astute observation.”
The boy falters. Glances between him and Sukuna. His jaw sets. “Why are you helping? You have to be special grade, but I’ve never heard of you.”
Suguru almost sighs. Really… Especially now, when another Six-Eyes and Limitless user has been born and reached adulthood, it’s absolutely moronic to thrust himself into the limelight like this. To slip from the shadows and show himself in front of this generation’s Ten Shadows user, but...
All the best things Suguru has done have been born of this knotting sensation that it’d be indefensibly wrong to do anything otherwise. This is no different.
“’Cause—” Sukuna starts, and Suguru lets more curses spill out from his technique, cursed energy so thick in the air it’s choking, completing a dome around Sukuna muffling his voice into nothing. Irritating.
“That’s irrelevant.” Suguru uses his free hand to reach into the deep folds of the robes that obscure almost the entirety of his form, slips his fingers past textured fabric and into the more loosely defined mass of his inner layers. “Your teacher is Gojō Satoru, no?”
“...Yeah,” says Ten-Shadows.
Suguru hums, drawing a phone out from his robes. He already knew, of course, because while he may avoid involving himself in the Jujutsu world, he’d be stupid not to keep an information network. “Where is he now?”
“...Korea,” the boy answers, after a moment.
Of course. Sukuna coming out now of all times… Suguru glances at the building that previously hosted an incomplete domain. Six-Eyes being overseas, the assignment of a mission like this to first-years—it reeks of a set up.
“What’s his number?”
“What?”
“Six-Eyes’ phone number,” Suguru clarifies patiently. “One that he’ll be guaranteed to answer from if called.”
“Oh,” the boy says with obvious caution, hesitation.
“If I wanted to harm you I would have done so already.”
The boy bites his lip. Shifts his weight between his feet. And, finally: “090-1234-5678.”
Suguru hums, tapping the numbers into his phone screen. Feels Sukuna once against struggle against the cage of Suguru’s curses. Wants to sigh, but doesn’t. Presses call.
It picks up on second ring.
“Hello!” It’s said with a musical, teasing lilt that almost sets Suguru off kilter. “It’s really funny that I don’t recognize this number. I don’t give my personal number out easily, y’know?”
It’s spoken fast and loud, his voice agitating Suguru’s cursed energy and making the beginnings of a headache throb through his temple.
“Helloooooo? Anyone there? C’mon c’mon you can’t just leave me hanging! Who—”
“Am I speaking to this generation’s Six-Eyes and Limitless holder?” Suguru speaks without preamble.
A half beat. “I’m frankly offended that you called without knowing. Of course you are!”
“Just confirming,” Suguru hums, tucking strands of loose hair behind his ears. “I have your students.”
Another silence. The line cracks with static.
“That,” Six-Eyes answers, tone far more serious, “is a very dangerous sentence, Stranger-san.”
“No more dangerous than leaving a Ten Shadows user and Sukuna’s vessel unattended,” Suguru answers without missing a beat. “They’re wide open for assassination attempts without you.”
Because that is what this was, Suguru thinks. He knows more of Jujutsu society’s internal struggles than most, but it’d be impossible not to notice the political disaster that was Itadori Yūji becoming vessel to the king of curses. The way Six-Eyes wrangled a delayed execution and took the boy under his tutelage. It’s an event that’s sent ripples through the entire Jujutsu world like nothing has in a while. The news reached even Hanami, who is truly isolated from the world in a way Suguru never quite achieved.
“Where are they?” Six-Eyes’ tone is completely flat.
“A boarding school in Chiba Prefecture, near the Tokyo boarder, by a residential district.” Suguru really does sigh this time, gaze languidly drifting from the treeline to the enclosed dome housing Sukuna, to the poor shaman boy who still looks so on-edge. “How soon can you be here?”
A small pause. “Three hours.”
Alright. Three hours. It’s all the information Suguru needs for him to hang up abruptly; there’s no point in continuing conversation. Suguru’s eyes flick to the small mass of curses restraining Sukuna. Three hours… it’s not too bad, but it won’t be pleasant.
He settles himself cross-legged on the wet ground, elbow on his knee, palm against his cheek. “Relax,” he tells Ten-Shadows.
The boy does not relax. “What are you?”
“Irrelevant.”
“But—you can’t just—it doesn’t make sense!”
“Think whatever you want.”
That gets a small noise of frustration, and Ten-Shadows begins pacing. His cursed energy is so brazenly agitated. Suguru’s own energy is only just beginning to uncoil, loosen with calm as his irritation wanes. Were it not raining, he would pull out a book.
Seven minutes into their three hour wait, Itadori Yūji regains control of his body, panicky and confused and gasping for breath in the thick of Suguru’s enclosure. Suguru only recalls his curses after Itadori maintains control for a minute. For the most part, he ignores the children.
Well, best he can.
“Um, Curse-san…?”
“Yes?”
“Ah...” the boy shifts self consciously, hand scratching the back of his head. “You don’t have to...stay here...”
“While I trust your ability as a vessel,” Suguru pseudo-lies, “it would be beyond irresponsible for me to leave on that assumption. Sukuna isn’t someone to take risks with.”
Itadori mumbles something about Gojō-sensei, tone all worried and unsure. It’s misplaced worry. While meeting Six-Eyes will be bothersome, it won’t be deadly. Besides, Suguru has already decided to involve himself and abruptly put himself on the strongest shaman’s radar, and he’s never been one to go back on his actions. Once he’s started something, he’ll always stick it through. There’s no point in doing this halfway.
The wait is awkward. Suguru texts the family that he’ll be back later than expected. Ten-Shadows continues pacing with palpable agitation. Itadori Yūji makes a few pathetic attempts at conversation that Suguru entertains only on a surface level. The clouds crack apart in the sky, dusky blue showing between their hazy grays. It stops raining.
Six-Eyes arrives thirty minutes sooner than his initial estimate, warping onto the stone with a ripple of cold, sharp cursed energy so potent it makes Suguru’s whole being shiver. Six-Eyes’ shoes are silent where they don’t-touch the stone.
A beat.
“...You’re still here,” Six-Eyes eventually says, and then laughs. “Are you stupid or something?”
His blindfolded gaze burns against Suguru’s robed form, prickling, dissecting. What, Suguru wonders, almost absently, does he see? A dense, writhing amalgamation of curses? Can he pick out every tangled contradiction knotting beneath Suguru’s surface? Every grotesque thing that Suguru has swallowed into the bottomless pit of his stomach and taken into his being?
“Now that you’re here,” Suguru says, rising from his position on the ground and flexing his fingers, “I no longer have a reason to stick around. Keep better watch on your students from now on, please.”
Six-Eyes tilts his head. “You really think I’ll let a curse like you go?”
“You don’t have a choice.” The funny thing about cannibalizing his own species for a millennium is that he’s collected a lot of cursed techniques. An entire library of them, really, an archive of abilities stored within the ever-starving mouth of his own cursed technique. He has quite the arsenal, from destructive to deadly to paltry tricks that proved most useful in extracting hard-won giggles from Nanako and Mimiko in their first aching months under his care.
For now, though, he reaches for a spatial manipulation technique, reaching deep, wrenching it from the curse it originally belonged to, and letting it settle into his fingertips. He steps halfway into the new doorway manifested from nothing, sharp edges cutting awkward and clashing into the previously empty air. Suguru’s cursed energy prickles with that odd, uncomfortable sensation always makes itself known when he uses his curse’s techniques directly, cutting out the middleman.
Six-Eyes’ lips flatten just a moment before carving into a small, teasing smile. “’Just gonna leave a man hanging, huh? Not even gonna tell me what could possibly create a curse like you?”
“Correct,” Suguru tells him, and disappears fully into the harsh fold of space that connects elsewhere,.
-
Tokyo makes his teeth ache.
It’s the sheer density of humans that sets him on edge. Their cursed energy bloats the air, sweet and beckoning. It melts enticingly on his tongue, makes his cursed energy buzz, awakens his most primal instincts. Their fear, anxiety, anger, every other horrible emotion—just as any curse, he feeds on it. He avoids cities for this reason, much preferring the clean air of mountain monasteries, without the extra strain on the fickle rubber band of his self discipline. But…
“Mimiko?”
For the girls, he’ll do most anything.
They’re at a small dessert shop, sat comfortably outside under the mild spring sun. Nanako is devouring her cake, but Mimiko…
“It’s, um, nothing,” she says, picking at her own slice. It’s not very convincing, especially with the way she won’t meet his eyes and is fiddling with the hem of her sleeve.
Some concern tugs at Suguru. He shifts in his own thin metal cafe chair, form pulling into something more proper and serious from his previously lax position. He still doesn’t quite fit into the seat, long robes spilling over the edges and onto the ground, but he holds himself straight.
“You know,” he says, “that you can tell me anything.”
“I know...” Mimiko mumbles, but says nothing else, and Nanako sighs loudly.
“C’mon.” Nanako rolls her eyes, making a snatch for Mimiko’s cake. “It’s not that bad!”
“But it’s—” Mimiko bats her sister’s hand. “It’s...”
“Don’t be nervous,” Suguru coaxes, leaning slightly back. “Is it math again? There’s nothing to be ashamed of, it’s normal to struggle with school things.”
This’ll be Mimiko’s second year in public school. Previously, both her and Nanako—though especially her—were much too afraid of strangers for public school to even be an option. But Nanako insisted and Mimiko was curious despite herself, and Suguru knows that children their age need more social connections than he’s able to provide them at the temples, even with the family. They need people their age. Their first year of public schooling was difficult, and among everything else, Mimiko had avoided telling him of her academic struggles. He thought they were beyond that, but…
“It’s not that,” Mimiko says, and she doesn’t seem to be lying, but “it’s not...”
“But it’s something.”
“There’s this,” Mimiko stops. A sly expression slides onto Nanako’s face, all delighted and smug. “This this,” Mimiko tries again, and visibly steels herself. “There’s this—girl.”
Oh.
“A girl,” he repeats.
“Ayami-senpai,” Mimiko blurts, “that’s um—her! I helped her with English and she told me I’m smart even though she’s so much better at spelling than me and the best in math and the prettiest too and—and I said I might pierce my ears and she said I’d look cute with earrings!” Mimiko takes a deep breath, hand traveling up to play with her lobe. Then, quiet, almost disbelieving: “She said I’d look cute with earrings.”
It’s—expected, of course. It’s her first year of high school, it’s normal; he shouldn’t feel so off-kilter. But he still remembers when they were both so small and thin, fitting easily into the fold of his arms, little heads barely reaching above his knees, height so short he had to bend down so that he could hold their hands. Ah. But the girls across the table are teens, now, bright and growing, and…
It’s a miracle, really, for someone so undeserving as himself to be blessed with children like these, no matter how deeply he wishes the circumstances that lead them under his care had never happened. No matter how fundamentally he wishes this rotten world hadn’t dealt them such a cruel hand; the cage, the superstition, that wretched village…
“If you want,” he starts, “we—”
Something cold catches on his tongue, sharp and unmistakable, and Suguru’s cursed energy—the essence of his being, really—bristles like a bothered wasps nest. His abrupt stop makes both the girls tense, and slowly, Suguru turns his head.
“Yo,” Six-Eyes says, stupid grin on his face, posture all lax and casual, thin plastic shopping bag swinging playfully from his fingertips. He’s only a short distance away, close enough that Suguru could close it in three long strides.
“You’re interrupting,” Suguru tells him, not entirely managing to conceal his irritation. This day is for the girls, not shaman nonsense.
“Sorry sorry,” Six-Eyes cheerfully replies, entirely unapologetic. “I just saw you from across the city and had to stop by, y’know?”
“I’m flattered,” Suguru says, flat and dry, “that you find me so interesting.”
Six-Eyes opens his mouth to reply, but—
“Ummm,” Nanako says, squinting at the new arrival, “who are you?”
There is, Suguru suddenly realizes, a unique opportunity here. His irritation wanes all at once.
“This,” Suguru says, slipping from the chair and unfurling himself to full height, long sleeves dripping foggily into the air as he gestures Six-Eyes to come closer, “is Gojō-dono, and he’s someone you’ll both do well to memorize the appearance of.”
Mimiko immediately straightens, whereas Nanako’s face just furrows.
“-Dono, huh?” Six-Eyes cocks his head. “You’ve got a lot of nerve addressing me like that, considering you’re a curse. Since when are we on the same level?”
Nanako bristles, and Mimiko’s eyes narrow. She subtly bites her lip like she always does when thinking particularly hard on something. Her eyes widen. “Oh,” she says, looking uncertainly between Suguru and Six-Eyes, “isn’t—Getō-sama isn’t he the strongest shaman?”
“Wait seriously?” Nanako leans away from Six-Eyes, closer to her sister.
“Correct,” Suguru answers, pride fluttering warmly in his chest, “and do you remember what makes him so, Mimiko?”
“I think I missed something,” Nanako complains.
“Your fault for never paying attention!” Mimiko elbows her, then, to Suguru: “And...um, his techniques, right?”
“Primarily, yes,” Suguru hums, gaze sliding languidly to Six-Eyes, and he considers only a moment before gesturing the other closer, and outstretching a hand. “Come over.”
Six-Eyes tilts his head. Between the unflinchingly casual posture and the blindfold, he’s hard to read. A smile carves infuriatingly over his face. “Aww, you want to hold my hand? That’s cute!”
A sigh snakes up Suguru’s throat, but before it can slip past his teeth, Six-Eyes extends a hand to his, fingers interlacing, palm against palm. It’s an odd sensation, to press his hand and meet nothing—not even resistance. There’s no pressure. Limitless doesn’t manifest itself as a barrier, rather…
The experience is disorienting.
“Ummm,” says Nanako, and Suguru laughs, eyes crinkling.
“Look closely,” he instructs, breathing in deep. Around them, Tokyo bustles, cursed energy wafting sweetly. Chattering crowds, distant traffic. The girls peer closer.
“Oh,” Mimiko breathes, “you’re not actually touching.”
“Gojō-dono’s Limitless technique allows him manipulation of infinity,” Suguru says, “one application of it, as you’re seeing here, is the division of space into a convergent series...it may be a bit advanced of a concept, but you’ll go over it in math.”
“You know so much!” Six-Eyes voice comes in a teasing coo. “Are you some kind of stalker or something!? That’s so creepy!”
Suguru rolls his eyes, and doesn’t deign the other with a response. This is all very easily accessible information. Instead, to the girls: “For now...you can think of it as an invisible line that nothing can truly cross. In other words: unless Gojō-dono allows it, no one can touch him.”
“Heyyy,” Six-Eyes whines, “now you’re just oversimplifying it!”
“No one?” Mimiko asks. “Not even you?”
“Not even me,” Suguru confirms, “not without a particular cursed object, a sure-hit domain expansion, or a very very special cursed technique, at least.”
“Oooh!” Nanako’s face suddenly lights up and loses the I’m-trying-to-remember-something scrunch. Her fingers snap. “That’s what it was! You’re top on the list of people to avoid if we get categorized as curse users!”
“Correct,” Suguru says, withdrawing his hand and pushing stray hair behind his shoulder, its misty texture swaying under his fingertips. He smiles serenely, and it crinkles his eyes. “Gojō-dono is also top on the list of people that could potentially exorcise me, so do be careful.”
“Ehhhh?” Nanako blinks. “But you’d totally win, right?”
“Mm...” Suguru languidly slides his gaze back to Six-Eyes, who’s looking very offended. “If I had to guess… A fight between us would likely depend on circumstance—location, planning, et cetera. Here in Tokyo, I have an environmental advantage...but neither I nor him would want to fight in a place like this.” Too many civilians would be caught up in it.
Six-Eyes huffs. “Would not depend on circumstance,” he says, rocking on the balls of his feet. “I’d totally win, just so you guys know! Easy!”
“Oh?” Suguru arches a brow. “If it’d be so easy, why not try it right here and now, then?”
Six-Eyes sticks his tongue out childishly and shoves his hand in his pocket, still swinging the plastic bag with his other. “Maybe I just wanna get to know you! It’s not every day I find a human-loving curse, y’know!”
“Getō-sama doesn’t love humans,” Mimiko says.
“Yeah Getō-sama ha-tes humans,” Nanako cheerfully adds, barely looking at them, finally succeeding in snatching Mimiko’s cake.
“Slandering my good name already?” Suguru asks, but his eyes crinkle on the edges and there’s no heat in his tone.
Nanako sticks her tongue out. “Not slander if it’s true!”
“Mm.” He sinks back to his own seat, form sprawled on the metal, hair spilling down the back and legs stretching wide to the side. His elbow rests against the table’s surface, and his cheek leans against his palm. “Can’t dispute that.”
“A curse that hates humans but treats us like this?” Six-Eyes’ voice is lilted incredulously. “That’s even more interesting. It makes me wonder, y’know—you never did answer when I asked what could’ve made a curse like you.”
Suguru sighs, smile dropping ever-so-slightly. “It’s very rude,” he drawls, “to ask a curse their origin, especially if they’ve already denied answer.”
Six-Eyes pouts. “How am I supposed to know about curse courtesy!? How unfair! As repayment for being so mean, maybe you should teach me? Courtesy classes are always boring as hell, but I’d pay attention for real! Promise!”
“I’m sure you make great company and a wonderful student,” Suguru says, “but my schedule is very full, so I’ll have to decline.”
The second part isn’t even a lie. Suguru divides his time into neat little boxes, thrives off the comfortable rhythm that he’s managed to build, no matter how long it’s taken to do so. Still, between running the family and completing his scheduled exorcisms and everything else… it leaves little room for deviation.
“Awww,” Six-Eyes pouts again. “’Make room for me?”
“All my freetime is for personal affairs,” Suguru tells him, “but you can schedule an appointment.”
Six-Eyes tilts his head. “How?”
“Through the temple,” Suguru answers promptly. “I should warn you, though: there’s a wait list, even if you book as a shaman.” Shaman requests are typically prioritized over nonshaman ones, for the sole and simple reason that if a shaman can’t deal with a curse themself, it’s likely far more pressing what a nonshaman would need help over.
That gets a face. Clearly, Six-Eyes isn’t the sort of man to enjoy waiting. “How long?”
Suguru hums, tilts his head against his palm. Smiles. “Ah… sixteen months, or so?” Probably longer, in honesty, considering the lists are frequently shifted around in order of urgency, and there is absolutely nothing urgent about Six-Eyes’ dig for information.
A half beat, and—“What!? No way! That’s not fair!”
“It’s perfectly fair,” Suguru says. “Please simply leave if you have no interest in abiding the same rules everyone else does.”
Another pout. A huff. “Fine,” Six-Eyes says, but there’s no surrender in his tone, and his shoulders are straitening, lips curling, steely determination setting into his figure. A bad feeling tingles down Suguru’s spine. “Then I’ll just make myself ‘personal affairs’!”
“Not a chance,” Suguru replies flatly.
“Yes a chance,” Six-Eyes insists. “Getō-san, go on a date with me!”
Nanako chokes abruptly, falling into a coughing fit and hacking up cake all over her sister’s arm, much to Mimiko’s vocal disgust. Suguru registers this distantly. For a moment, he’s completely taken by incredulity, thrown entirely off kilter at the ludicrous proposition.
“Excuse me?”
“Go on a date with me,” Six-Eyes repeats, beaming brightly. “A date is totally a ‘personal affair’, right? So go on a date with me!”
What the fuck.
“No.” In all his centuries he’s never gone on a romantic outing, not even entertained the mockery of one. That isn’t about to change now. “Absolutely not.”
“Aw c’mon!” Six-Eyes lifts a finger to his blindfold, slipping the black fabric down and letting it settle around his neck. His eyes glitter brightly, glimmer with countless blue refractions, and Suguru goes breathless under their intensity. His whole being shudders, cursed energy buzzing with agitation. They’re beautiful, they truly are. This is a display of vanity just so much as a threat. “Look at me! I’m such a catch!”
“No,” Suguru repeats, because he is weak to many things—his own genuinely horrific flaws, mostly—but not this. “Please book an appointment.”
-
omg so, comes the awful text, i just remembered i have ur number!!!! :D
Suguru stares at the text for the longest ten seconds in a long time, before the next one comes: from when u called me. remember. lmao that was hilarious. i mean like, not rlly when it happened but funny in retrospect!! megumi (ten shadows, looks emo but is jsut moody n uncool n has bad opinions) woudlnt stop asking questions abt u after xD
and then:
U SHOULD’VE SEEN THE AFCE HE MADE WHERN I SAID I AKSED U OUT
and then:
wait i think i took a picture actually
1 sec
Suguru pulls himself out of his disbelief, and blocks Six-Eyes’ number before the picture comes.