Chapter Text
The rain falls like it's praying. Soft, endless, whispering against the thin roof above their heads. Yamiko presses a bowl under the leak and listens to the drops fall, one by one, like a heartbeat that didn't belong to her.
Mama lies in bed again. She's been there for days. The air smells like medicine and damp wood. Her hair sticks to her pale face when she lifts her head to look at her.
"Yamiko," she says, her voice trembling like the wind. "Don't frown so. The Lord sees everything, even your small heart."
"I'm not frowning," Yamiko says, even though she is. Yamiko has been frowning since she stopped getting out of bed.
She smiles anyway — soft and cracked like an old photograph. "You're just like him," she whispers.
"Him?" She tilts her head. "Who?"
She nods slowly, like the words weigh too much for her lips. "Gojo Satoru. The strongest sorcerer in the world."
Yamiko blinks. She think she's joking. She's never heard that name before. "What's a sorcerer?"
Mama closes her eyes and laughs, but it sounds more like crying. "Someone who sees the monsters. Someone who fights them."
She hugs her knees. "There aren't monsters, Mama."
Her eyes open again, wide, almost glowing. "There are," she says, and her voice goes low. "They hide where the light doesn't reach. They feed on sorrow. On fear. Promise me you'll never let them see your heart."
Yamiko's heart beats louder when she says that. She don't understand what she means, but nods anyway. She always nods when she says strange things.
Later, when she thinks Yamiko's asleep again, she hear her whispering to herself.
"He has her eyes."
Then she coughs — once, twice — like her lungs are trying to escape her body.
Yamiko stares at the cracked ceiling. She tries to imagine what he looks like, this Gojo Satoru. Maybe tall. Maybe with hands big enough to carry them both away from this awful place. But he didn't.
Maybe the monsters got him too.
In the morning, Mama can barely lift her head. Her skin is the color of wet ash. Yamiko bring her water, but she waves it away.
"Yamiko," she says, voice trembling. "Come here."
She sit beside her. Her hand finds hers, cold, thin, trembling.
"Listen carefully," she says. "You have a gift. A dangerous one. You have his eyes, and with them you can see what others cannot. But the Lord will not protect you unless you keep your heart pure."
Yamiko nods, although she does not fully understand.
"Pray, Yamiko," she whispers. "Pray to Him every morning. Pray when your heart trembles. Pray when the monsters come. And pray when they do not, for temptation is its own curse."
Yamiko frown. "Pray for what, Mama?"
"Pray to see clearly," she says, looking past me as if she's already staring at a shadow she cannot see. "Pray to be cunning when cunning is needed. Pray to be merciful when mercy is a sin. Pray to survive, even if the world tells you it is wrong."
Yamiko nod again, silently.
Her voice softens. "Promise me, Yamiko, once I am gone... seek your father. Gojo Satoru. Know him, understand him. He is a lion. And you... you are a lion cub."
Yamiko stare at her. Her face is a map of pain and love intertwined. "I promise," she whisper.
"Good," she smiles faintly, and it feels like sunlight on stone. "Now... pray. Pray for me, Yamiko. Pray for yourself. Pray for the days to come."
Yamiko bows her head beside her, her small hands pressed together, murmuring words she barely understands. The rain outside chants with her, and she feel the world hold its breath.
When she open my eyes again, her mother is still.
Her chest no longer rises.
Her eyes stare past, empty, yet somehow knowing.
Yamiko continues to kneel there, holding her hand, as the rain keeps falling. It's soft and endless, like it is praying with her too.