Prelude

Gojo Satoru doesn’t have a lot of regrets. He can’t afford them in his line of work, where a single misstep could – and would – result in everything crumbling at his feet.

And yet, despite what they claim, he is but human at the end of the day.

He regrets having faced Fushiguro Toji, in the cocksure vigour of his youth. It had been a humbling experience. He had come out of that encounter without some essential part of his sanity, without Riko, and with a moniker he’d grow to detest. Strongest Sorcerer, they called him. They never talked about what he’d sacrificed for the Six Eyes.

On his good days, he wonders if that meeting was fate. On the bad ones, he wishes he’d joined Riko.

He regrets not being fast enough the day Haibara died. Ijichi had driven like a madman when he heard the news, defying traffic laws and gravity in his bid to reach the campus on time, and yet, they’d been too late. Haibara had faded so quickly, there and gone, from one moment to the next. Satoru doesn’t like to think about that night, but when he does, he tries to focus on the look on Nanami’s face when he’d held his best friend for the last time.

He regrets Suguru. Not their friendship – never that – but everything that came after –

“Are you the strongest because you’re Gojo Satoru, or are you Gojo Satoru because you’re the strongest?”

– And everything that didn’t.

Satoru lives by the strict philosophy that every regret is a learning opportunity. Next time, he will be fast enough. Next time, he will be strong enough. Next time, he’ll do better.

So no, Gojo Satoru doesn’t have a lot of regrets. He simply doesn’t have the time for them.

But then, there’s Hakuya.

He remembers, with startling clarity, the day Ijichi brings him the news. It’s a moment he’ll reflect on for years to come and grimly decide that, yes, this is the event that colours his service to jujutsu society.

Sometimes, he wonders what would’ve happened if they’d simply sent someone to have a quick word with the woman instead of bringing it to his attention. Would things have gone to hell the way they had later? Could he have possibly spared those children the fate they were doomed to? Satoru can’t say.

Such ‘what-ifs’ are only fit for musing on when he’s alone in bed at some unholy hour of the night. Satoru deals in hard facts: that there’s news of a residence in Hakone emitting unprecedented levels of cursed energy, its resident a woman claiming that Fushiguro Toji had impregnated her, and the result was a child capable of miracles.

Satoru simply says, “Hm.”

Ijichi knows this to be one of his thinking sounds. “We could send someone to speak with her,” he offers, “Maybe explain to her why she may not want to keep saying these things.”

Satoru makes another of his thoughtful noises, and springs up from his chair. “Hm,” he says again, louder, ignoring his teacher’s sigh in the corner of the room. “That settles it. Guess I’ll have to go see the kid.”

“You guess,” Yaga repeats flatly.

Satoru turns away to the window. “Yeah, I think I will. Ijichi,” he waves a hand dismissively, “get the car.”

He doesn’t need the Six Eyes to know Ijichi and Yaga are exchanging a Look behind his back. But to his credit, Ijichi simply says, “of course,” before leaving the room.

“Even if it’s true, Fushiguro Toji probably has countless kids running around somewhere out there,” Yaga points out, a last desperate bid to get him to see sense. Like that has ever worked. “You can’t take in all of them.”

“Sure I can,” Satoru says easily, “Kids love me.”

Yaga looks like he wants to argue, but all he says is, “Don’t kidnap a child.”

“It’s not kidnapping if they come willingly,” Satoru sings over his shoulder as he leaves the room. Yaga doesn’t follow, and Satoru wonders if he’s thinking back to an old conversation from what seems like centuries ago.

“I can only save those who want to be saved.”

He slows his pace as he walks down the long wooden corridor, and thinks what if…

----

In the end, it’s just him and Ijichi.

Ijichi had suggested a team accompany him to secure the location, but Satoru had waved away his concerns like annoying gnats. He’s far too used to waltzing into situations with no protection and nothing to shield him but blinding confidence. This time, it’s justified; as if he needs anyone else to deal with one child and one mad woman.

In the end, Ijichi gives in. As always.

It takes a little over an hour to reach the mountainous little town of Hakone by car. “I know you don’t approve of this,” Satoru says, as Ijichi manoeuvres the car through the village streets.

“I haven’t said a word,” Ijichi says as they inch their way past hotels and onsens, to the outskirts.

“You don’t have to. I can hear you thinking it from here.”

Ijichi glances at him through the rear-view window. Satoru beams back. That’s as good as permission to speak freely. “We looked into Fushiguro Toji after… well, after everything. As far as we know, he doesn’t have any other sorcerer children except his son, Megumi.” Ijichi casts a quick look out of the window as he parks the car a few streets from their destination. “This woman is clearly unstable. I don’t think you should be dignifying her claims with any attention.”

Satoru pretends to think about it for a moment. “Well, even fools and madmen can be right occasionally.”

Ijichi sighs as Satoru hops out of the car, but doesn’t argue further.

This far out of the main town, the streets are deserted, save for strewn rubbish and tumbleweed. Some of the smaller buildings have faces peeking out of them, that quickly turn away to slam the window shut as they pass, but a few more minutes down the street, there are no more residential properties.

There’s nothing, save for the lingering echo of cursed energy.

At the end of the street is a shrine – or what appears to be one at first glance. It’s a gated property, longer than it is tall. With an engawa that wraps around the structure, sloping tiled roofs, and gingko trees growing in the massive veranda, it looks like it’s been plucked straight out of old Edo. Satoru would bet it’s older than the Tokyo Jujutsu High campus.

And seems to be emitting a comparable amount of cursed energy, as well, if Ijichi’s sharp inhale is anything to go by.

The air is warm, and humid, heavy with moisture and something else they can’t pinpoint. The skies darken and electrify as they make their way to the main house, like there’s a storm just over the horizon.

Ijichi does the honours of knocking on the wall right beside the delicate shoji door. On the other side of the translucent material, they see movement. The door slides open to reveal a woman.

She might have been beautiful once, but the fineness of her features are blurred now, her limbs thin and her face gaunt. Her dark hair is in tangles, and she’s wrapped in a man’s faded kimono. Her feet are bare and dirty, and her deep-set eyes dart between them, too fast and too bright.

“Yes?” she says. Her knuckles are white where they clutch the door.

“Kashimo Koyo? We’re here regarding Fushiguro Toji’s alleged child,” Ijichi tells her.

Satoru watches her eyes go wide, terror mingling with wild hope. “I knew it,” She says, like a prayer, clasping her hands under her chin. “Oh, I knew this day would come.”

She ushers them into the house, hands fluttering wildly like trapped birds, and tries to offer them hospitality in between calling for someone from an interior room. Satoru refuses the offer, which – given the state of this place, with not a bit of clean floor in sight and surfaces that even look sticky – is only wise.

All the while, she stares at him, eyes burning with devotion, or perhaps vindication.

“Kashimo-san, no,” Ijichi says again, when she offers them sake, “nothing to drink, thank you. If we could just – ?”

“Is Toji-san with you?” She asks suddenly, tone breathless. She peers over their shoulder, as though they might be hiding Fushiguro Toji behind their backs like a child’s birthday gift. “He said he had to leave on a very important job. The others – the others laughed at me, they told me that he wouldn’t return, that he’d abandoned me, but did I listen? No, of course not. I know my Toji better than that. He loves me. He would never. He would never.” She ends with a full-body tremble, and peers at them wide-eyed.

There is a long moment of silence. Ijichi turns to Satoru with a look in his eyes that says – in no uncertain terms – ‘I told you so’. But the best thing about Ijichi is that he’s learnt a long time ago how acquiescence is the better part of valour when it comes to dealing with Satoru, so he holds his tongue.

“I see,” Satoru says, tone betraying nothing. “Can I see the kid?”

“Yes, yes of course.” Koyo edges away from them, backwards, as if reluctant to let them out of her sight for even a moment. “Hakuya! Hakuya, where are you?”

There is a series of thuds and crashes from an interior room. The girl emerges, dragging a blanket behind her, sleepily rubbing at her eyes. “You woke me, Mama,” She murmurs. “I fell off the bed.”

She can’t be older than seven or eight, around the same age as Tsumiki, albeit skinnier than her – skinnier than any child her age has the right to be. There’s a hint of malnourishment and neglect about her, in her twig-like limbs and ill-fitting kimono. And yet, Satoru can see the ghost of Kashimo Koyo in her developing bone structure and pale skin – a traditional, classic kind of beauty that’s been long lost to time. Even her hair is the same shade as her mother’s, except for the inner layers bleached bone-white.

“Yo,” Satoru says, crouching down so he’s at eye-level. “I heard you – ”

She looks up, and he feels his throat close.

He knows those eyes.

Something spreads in his chest, inflating his lungs and pushing outwards against his ribs, something instinctual and primal screams at him to turn and leave and never look back.

Are you the strongest because you’re Satoru Gojo?

Koyo reels the girl in and begins petting her, obviously against her will. “There’s my beautiful girl. Toji and I – we – we made such a lovely little thing, didn’t we?” She croons, smoothing the child’s hair back from her forehead. “Show them your – ” She stops, reconsiders. “ – Show the nice men what you can do, darling.”

The child continues staring at him, and Satoru fights the urge to remove his sunglasses and look back. Slowly, she holds up a hand that sparkles and cracks with cursed energy.

Ijichi braces himself against the pressure of it, staggered. For a wild moment, Satoru wonders if she’s instinctively drawing it from him, but no, that’s impossible. She’s drawing it from within herself. It’s her own cursed energy. To be so young, and have this much –

Or are you Gojo Satoru because you’re the strongest?

----

For the last ten minutes, Kashimo Koyo has been fluttering around the house, a ball of frenzied energy. She gathers up pieces of rubbish that Satoru imagines is her trying to pack a bag for herself and her daughter.

He’ll have to provide the kid with brand new supplies once he takes her back, because he’s positive Koyo hasn’t packed a single useful thing in there.

Hakuya waits, unmoved, watching him all the while with bright, intelligent eyes that burn with the aftermath of cursed energy.

“Are we leaving now?” Koyo comes to a halt and asks him breathlessly, hands wringing. “Are we leaving to see Toji? Are you going to take us to him?”

“Kashimo-san, please,” Ijichi says softly, taking her by the shoulders, and steering her slightly further into the house. Or slightly further away from her daughter.

“She’s wrong, you know,” Hakuya says suddenly without preamble. “I was six when she brought that man here. He isn’t my father.”

“I know.”

“You’re still going to take me with you, right?”

“Of course,” Satoru tells her easily. As if there was any doubt.

He allows her to reach up and take his hand, smaller fingers curling around his index and middle. As he leads her out of the house, he hears Ijichi mumble his way through an explanation, and Koyo’s soft gasping sobs that follow them all the way to the veranda.

Neither of them turn around to see.

----

Hakuya insists on riding in the back with Satoru. Her demand makes a muscle tick in Ijichi’s jaw, but he doesn’t have the energy to protest.

She’s a quiet child. She doesn’t speak much during the ride out of Hakone, content to watch the scenery roll by, frosted behind the thick glass, until it gives way to the Tokyo city limits. She’s probably never seen sights like this before; she’s used to the calm stillness of the countryside, and nothing about Tokyo is calm or still.

Hakuya gazes up at the skyscrapers towering over them, and traffic gathering around them like a carnival, her eyes bright with awe. Satoru watches her, wondering just what he’s gotten himself into.

The sights overwhelm her before long, and she abruptly turns her attention to the interior of the car, which is all gleaming metal and wood and leather. She reaches for a set of buttons.

“Don’t do that,” Ijichi says.

“Don’t tell me what to do,” The kid retorts, and keeps on reaching.

“No, don’t,” Ijichi says again, a hint of panic in his voice now, and tries to ward away her fingers without accidentally smacking her hand. “Those go to the windows. If you lower them, every cursed spirit for miles will sense your energy.”

Satoru snorts. “It’s fine. I’m here, aren’t I?”

But Hakuya is already distracted again. She sits back down. “What’s a cursed spirit?”

Satoru glances at the road passing them by, and spots one soon enough. “See that ugly thing on the roof of that café? That’s a cursed spirit. You can see them too, can’t you?”

“Yeah,” Hakuya says softly, staring intently at it. “I’ve seen them before.”

Satoru holds up a hand, and cursed energy springs up from between his fingers like a flame. “Soon enough you’ll learn how to kill them.” He lowers the window ever-so-slightly, and flicks the ball of energy towards the café. The spirit barely has time to scream before it dissipates into nothing.

Hakuya looks up at him with wide eyes, and an expression like he’s hung the moon. Why can’t that brat Megumi be like this, Satoru thinks.

Ijichi’s eyes meet his through the rear-view mirror. “Maybe you should consider teaching kindergarten.”

He’s positive Ijichi is attempting sarcasm, so he nudges Hakuya and says, “Ask the nice driver man what those dials do.”

“What do those dials do?” Hakuya parrots almost immediately.

Ijichi’s eyes narrow slightly at him, but he only sighs deeply and relents. “Those go to the radio. Find a station you like.”

Hakuya spends the rest of the ride scanning through various stations – the car radio probably picks up more than whatever old one she had at home.

When they pull up at Tokyo Jujutsu High, she wrenches the car door and hops out before either of them can undo their seat belt. Satoru hears Ijichi mutter something like, “worse than Panda” under his breath.

The auxiliary managers waiting at the threshold seem more than a little confused at the girl and her ratty backpack. Ijichi whispers a few words to them, and they nod, ushering Hakuya inside. She refuses to move.

“Go on,” Satoru pats her head. “Go get cleaned up.”

The hesitation melts, just like that. She turns around and gives him a small smile over her shoulder before following them.

I can only save those who want to be saved.

Satoru watches her over dark lenses, and wonders if this is what Suguru sacrificed an entire village for.