Chapter Text
The blood pounding in Nanami Kento’s ears echoed the sound of waves upon a beach in Malaysia. Liquid and rhythmic and loud. The bloody tile underneath his shoes did not have the same texture as sand, too smooth and slick, but it was warm as a sun baked beach anyway. The chill of the air-conditioning was an ocean breeze, the flickering lights clouds passing before the sun, the sound of his wheezing breaths the whisper of rustling leaves, the sweat and blood dripping down his skin the sea spray.
The sound of waves stuttered as a cold hand pressed against Kento’s back, the texture of the hand just off enough from skin to be noticeable. A feeling that he knew all too well nowadays since all of the mutated humans felt like that, felt like their creator. He turned his head just enough to see Mahito’s wide grin behind him. Kento was too exhausted and in too much pain to feel terror, having passed through that emotion into calm sometime during his fight with Dagon almost an hour ago. All he felt now was a defeated resignation.
Ah, I guess I will never go to Kuantan, he thought as the world resolved around him into the train station it was instead of the beach he wanted it to be. Even if it was just a hallucination, he wished it would come back. The station’s florescent lights and white walls hurt his eyes — his eye, rather — and the air conditioning was too cold to be comfortable without a shirt and he was uncomfortably sticky from drying blood and his burns hurt so much they were almost numb.
“You, seven-three sorcerer, are very annoying!” Mahito whined, the ever-present edge of childish cruelty ringing around its words. “Do you know how you keep getting in the way of my plans or is it just stumbling blindly in the dark and hitting me?”
“Call it a lucky accident,” Kento managed to voice.
He didn’t listen to the rant that followed about impertinent humans and fate and souls and whatever other bullshit Mahito was spouting. Instead he looked forward to the other hallucination that had appeared. Haibara Yuu, his classmate at Jujutsu Tech, smiled at him. He wore his uniform, a short jacket over a plain white shirt to accommodate his innate technique. He was sixteen years old, just like he was when he died. Kento could still remember ever small detail about him, even through they only knew each other for a single year a decade ago ago.
Haibara, what was I even hoping to accomplish in the end? He wondered bleakly. I couldn’t truly live in a normal life because I got too guilty that shamans were dying over curses that I could help with but didn’t. But the world of jujutsu… it is horrible. It swallows you whole, corrupts you, invades every other aspect of your life and rots them. It throws children onto the front lines with bare minimal training and they die, like you did. The cycle continues ever onward, curses form, they kill, they get exorcized, more curses form, they kill, they get exorcized. It will never end, never.
“Are you listening to me, seven-three?” Mahito singsonged in anger.
“No,” Kento said.
“You annoy me more than Itadori Yuuji annoys me! You are so serious and rational and it pisses me off!” The curse shouted directly in Kento’s ear. Then it grinned and pulled something out from under its shirt, or maybe from its torso, but Kento didn’t have a good angle to see what it did. Whatever it was held a dense and heavy feeling cursed energy. “But I have this! I took it from Geto specifically to use on you. I thought about using it on Itadori Yuuji, but I think Geto would kill me if I did that. He wants Sukuna’s vessel alive for some boring reason.”
Kento turned his head further to see the object. It caused the burnt skin on his neck to crack and bleed, but the pain was just added to the rest of it, which was already background noise. It was like being at a concert, a metal concert like the ones he went to in his youth, and his pain was the guitars and drums but he got used to it and muffled it in a way he wouldn’t notice until the concert — the fight — was done. The cursed object was an innocuous looking wooden scroll tube. Paper talismans wrapped around it, painted with ancient and arcane glyphs that Kento did not recognize.
“It’s called the Kaleidoscope,” Mahito said with glee-lined words. Then it pouted like child, but the mania stayed within its eyes. “To be honest, though, I don’t quite understand what it does. But I do know that it’ll get rid of you like the Prison Realm got rid of Gojo! I think. Let’s try it out!”
It grinned too wide to be human and Kento was reminded simultaneously of Gojo in one of his more homicidal moods and, of all people, Okkotsu-kun. With a deft flick of a finger, Mahito popped the lid off one side. The cursed energy in the air tripled. Alarms blared in Kento’s head and he tried to dodge whatever was going to happen next, but Mahito was too fast. It aimed the cursed object right at his face.
There was a burst of innumerable and unnamable colors, a sucking sensation, and then darkness.
*****
The special grade cursed object Kaleidoscope was created by a shaman before the Golden Era of Shamanism and before its downfall, the ascent of Ryomen Sukuna. It is so old that the name of the shaman who made has been lost to the sands of time. And so was its true function.
Not only did it suck people into itself, it sent them somewhere else. The somewhere else depended on which side was opened, the square end or the circular end. The square end would send the victim down their own timeline and, essentially, into their past. The circular end would send the victim into another dimension.
Historically, back when people understood what it could do, it was used for two purposed, the square end for preventing calamities and the circular end banishing prisoners. Kenjaku had thought about using the circular end to send Gojo Satoru to another dimension, but decided against it, as it was unsure if Gojo could teleport through dimensional barriers or not.
Mahito, not understanding anything about the Kaleidoscope, used the square end.
And thus caused the incidents that would lead up to its own destruction. Not that it knew that.
*****
There was a sensation not unlike missing a step on a steep staircase, but the stairs were also a train platform and the train was pulling away, but then the train ran into a wall. No wait, that was Kento. Kento just ran into a wall.
Utterly bewildered, he blinked at the ceiling. What the fuck just happened? What did that cursed tool do? Did it send him into a Domain? But he couldn’t feel the cursed energy needed to create a Domain in the air. Though he could sense a semi-grade one curse around and the residuals of a grade two nearby. He should probably take care of that, shouldn’t he?
Kento gingerly sat up, but paused when he realized three things. First, he was no longer injured. Second, he was wearing a Jujutsu Tech uniform. Third, his body and cursed energy were different than they should be, weaker, more limited. He glanced down at himself, at his hands which were smaller and no longer as calloused, at his gangly legs that didn’t have the muscle he was used to. Was he younger? What the hell?
He forced himself to pay attention to his surroundings instead of freaking out about the change. There was a semi-grade one lurking somewhere in the same building. It seemed to be a school, though he couldn’t say if it was a middle school or a high school. There weren’t enough cheesy posters for it to be a elementary school. The residuals of the grade two curse where in the classroom right behind him. Did he exorcize it?
There was a distant sense of familiarity at the thought, at the sight of the hallway, but it was like looking through a scratched and muddy telescope instead of a clear memory. Well, judging by his physical age, probably a first or second year at Jujutsu Tech, it was about a decade or so ago when he was first here. Kento only remembered the important things so clearly from that long ago, Haibara and then the mission that almost killed both Gojo and Geto and then Geto going crazy and leaving and then Kento graduating and leaving himself.
This is incredibly strange, he thought. It can’t be time travel, can it? Or is it just another hallucination? How can I tell which one it is? Is there a way to tell or am I just going to have to decide which one it is? What if it is just a hallucination and I am actually trapped in a prison like Gojo was? What if I’m not? What if this was real and I am in the past?
No, stop spiraling, there’s a semi-grade one curse nearby and he was weaker than he was only a moment ago, eleven years in the future, whatever. Kento looked around and found his old cursed tool, the Skeletal Reaver, lying on the floor next to him. He picked it up and tested its balance and weight. It was larger than his Blunt Blade and thiner, more of the weight in the hilt than the top-heavy Blunt Blade, which was technically better for weapons users but not so great for his technique, which didn’t need an edge to cut so much as a weight to break something along the weak spot he forced. It was more efficient, like snapping a stick by stepping on it instead of sawing through it.
Swinging the Skeletal Reaver through the air a few times, Kento decided it was a passable weapon for the fight ahead. Then he followed the sense of the curse’s energy until he ended up in the gymnasium. It was more slippery than most, like it was trying to edge around his senses instead of swelling its cursed energy in a challenge like most did when they sensed a shaman. Hiding, maybe, but it was a semi-grade one curse and at this point in time Kento was only a grade two shaman. He was probably a semi-grade one right now, though. His cursed energy had only weakened half as much as his body did, which made sense considering cursed energy could strengthen through mental and spiritual means, such as traumatic experiences and Kento had lived through a number of them in the next decade.
The gym held two basketball courts, sectioned off by a cloth divider with a large tanuki holding a basketball on it, which Kento assumed was the school’s mascot. The curse was behind the divider, hidden from sight but not sense. He breathed in, relishing the easy expansion of his chest without excruciating burns, tightened his grip on his new-old weapon, and then darted forward, cutting through the divider to get to the curse as quickly as possible.
The curse was human-shaped, but its head was distorted like a basketball at the moment of impact on the floor, eyes bulging in a way that would be grotesque if Kento hadn’t been dealing with Mahito’s mutated humans for the last few months. It even had a jersey on. His first hit was only enough to tear through the fabric of that, since the curse whirled out of his way too fast.
Kento frowned in annoyance. “You should do the world a favor and let me kill you quickly. My work day has long since ended and I’m racking up overtime.”
“Nationals,” the curse groaned, “We lost nationals.”
It took its head off its body and threw it at Kento like a cannonball. Kento, having enough of being injured for one day (or sort of day anyway) moved out of the way, but the head hit the ground and bounced after him like a homing missile. He narrowed his eyes and activated his technique, a line appearing in his vision as the head rocketed towards him. He swiped Skeletal Reaver right along its mouth. The jaw came clean off and the force of the hit sent the head on a new trajectory.
“Must… get… to… nationals…” it slurred piteously as the head ricocheted off the backboard and landed in the hoop. It fell to the ground with a wet splat, blood seeping from its lower half. But it didn’t dissolved into shadows as a curse did when it was exorcized. That was expected. It was a semi-grade one after all. One hit wouldn’t be enough.
“Ah, three points for me, I think,” Kento said, turning towards the body who now had a new head, distorted in a different way than the first but still like a ball being thrown against something.
It launched the new head at Kento, but he didn’t dodge. Instead he raced towards it, activating his technique once again. This time he sliced it vertically. The two halves whizzed passed him, splattering him with blood and brains. Kento didn’t let that stop him and tried to get closer to the body, which sprinted to the side.
It was like they were playing a demented game of tag. The squeak of its distorted name brand sneakers on the basketball court gave Kento a headache. It kept throwing new heads at Kento, who kept cutting them. Once he cut one in such a way that it could still bounce and it tried to take him out along with a new head at two different angles. He shouted as he spun, Skeletal Reaver cutting into one and his fist slamming into another. The cursed energy wrapped around his fist exploded black and red as Black Flash increased the damage of his hit two and a half times. The head he hit burst into shards of bone and brain mush and blood.
The curse faltered. He used the opportunity to close the distance between them and swiftly activated his technique to create a weak spot along its chest. He sliced it right through the middle of its jersey number. The two halves fell to the ground with a thud. They, and the discarded heads around the court, dissolved into black shadows. It was exorcized.
Kento leaned his hands on his knees and tried to pull in enough oxygen to stop his lungs from rebelling. That was more tiring than he expected. Those bouncing heads were powerful and every time he hit one, the reverberation of the force ran up his arms to his shoulders. The body was fast and it dodged like a skilled professional player, with swift turns and spins. He flexed his aching hands with a grimace. The numerous one after the other activations of Ratio were draining in a way that he wasn’t used to anymore except against special grades and their thick cursed energy he had to cut through to get to the body. And then the Black Flash… It was always a tiring yet invigorating experience.
The veil around the school vanished, dissipating into nothingness and allowing the light of the setting sun to shine through the windows high up on the gyms wall. That was strange considering his mind wanted to say it was around midnight instead of, what, six or seven? Maybe even five or eight o’clock, depending on the time of year. It was well into the night when everything went to shit in Shibuya, after all.
Kento exited the gym through the fire door and tried to get his bearings outside. This school, whichever one it it was, was surrounded by a suburban neighborhood. There was a smattering of trees around with leaves so it wasn’t winter. It wasn’t fall either, since they were green instead of the orange and red leaves he expected. Spring or summer, then. He wandered outside of the school grounds to check if an assistant manager was hanging around to take him back to the school, but there were no cars along the road.
He thought it was strange before remembering that back when he was a student they usually had to get to the locations and draw up the veil themselves, unless it was considered an important mission by the higher ups. It was Gojo, actually, who changed that policy up when he became a teacher. To get back up to them easier, Gojo said, and to train assistant managers at the same time. It was a good policy, one that should have been implemented decades ago. It also meant that Kento was stranded until he could figure out where the nearest public transportation was.
He sighed and complained to himself, “I have to get Yaga-san, Yaga-sensei, to pay me more for overtime.”
After sheathing Skeletal Reaver to the harness under his jacker (and rolling his shoulders in a grimace at the odd length of it, too used to his old Blunt Blade’s shortness), he riffled through his pockets until he found his wallet. It was depressingly empty. He didn’t even have a credit card. At least he had a subway pass. He stuffed it back into his pants with another sigh.
It took another thirty minutes of increasingly annoyed wandering until he found a subway station. He had to scowl at the transit map for a few minute before figuring out where the hell he was. He was near enough to Ogikubo, which he then could take to Shinjuku where Tokyo Jujutsu Technical College was located. It would take just over an hour and fifteen minutes. Also, he looked at the clock which displayed both the date, the time, and the temperature. It was June 17th, 2006, 7:56 pm, and 18.3 C.
He was only three months into his first year at Jujutsu Tech. That meant it would be four months before Gojo and Geto are almost killed by Fushiguro-kun’s father (who Kento was now only realized that the man who entered Fushiguro-kun’s Domain in the battle against Dagon was probably him considering Zen’in-san called him Toji and said he was a ghost, plus the his Heavenly Restriction was even more powerful than Maki’s but Kento decided not to think about that), and nine months before Haibara was killed only a few weeks into their second year. If this was time travel. But it was too vivid to be a hallucination and there wasn’t enough cursed energy in the air, that he could feel anyway, to be an illusion caused by a technique. And, if it was an illusion, why drop him into this memory, one that he could barely remember and was in no way significant emotionally to him?
He spent the three train rides ruminating on it and trying to figure out how to figure out which one it truly was. And if it was just a distraction from the instinctive recoil of horror he had at entering an actual train station, a large station too alike to Shibuya where he almost died and Gojo was sealed and whatever happened to Maki and Zen’in-san and Yuuji-kun lost control and Fushiguro-kun got kidnapped by his father that impossibly strong man and so many others were killed or injured, that was only for Kento to know.
He didn’t realize that he was still covered in blood until he passed a mirrored entranceway on his way out of Shinjuku station. Ah, he thought, that’s why people were avoiding me and giving me looks. I must look like a delinquent. He went to the bathroom and wiped the worst of it off his face and hands. At least his uniform was black and hid bloodstains much better than his tan blazer. He despaired at the state of his hair, which was crunchy with dries blood and also in a slightly embarrassing edgy haircut. He winced as he tried to get the blood out, realizing for the first time that his head hurt because there was a large knot and a cut along the side of it. He originally thought that was just an effect from whatever was going on.
The walk from the train station to the campus was of incredible familiarity. He did it almost completely on autopilot. It was only when he neared the top of the stairs that he realized two very important things. First, Haibara was alive. Second, Geto wasn’t a psychopathic killer and cult leader and, what he knew from what Yuuji-kun had learned from Mechamaru, did not have a curse’s brain possessing his corpse.
I need to act normal around them. I need to act like I didn’t see Haibara torn in half. I need to act like Geto didn’t murder hundreds of people.
This resolution, of course, was put immediately to the test.
*****
Suguru stomped into Yaga-sensei’s office with an annoyed smile. He was in the middle of beating up the final boss of Ocarina of Time when the teacher called him into his office. It was passed office hours and even dinner hours, not that Suguru ate anything, too nauseous from a curse he ate during his mission that morning.
“I hope this is important,” he said, “I just left my DS near Satoru. If he deletes my file for nothing I’m gonna murder somebody.” He was joking. Probably.
Yaga looked up from his endless pile of paperwork with a serious expression. “It is. Nanami was sent to Ichimatsu High School this afternoon to exorcize a semi-grade two curse. I’ve just got a call from Yamato-san, the manager in charge of the operation. He was wrong. It isn’t a semi-grade two, it is a grade two. And there are likely two different curses on the same campus.”
“Shit,” Suguru breathed out, “And you haven’t heard from Nanami?”
“He broke his phone on his last mission, remember,” Yaga said, shooting him a disapproving look, which, yeah, Suguru deserved considering it was one of his curses that sent Nanami crashing into that wall. It wasn’t on purpose. “So we can’t even call and tell him to cancel the mission immediately. And he’s been there for almost an hour already, if I’m judging transportation time correctly.”
“So he’s either fine and on his way back or he’s injured and still there.” Or dead, Suguru didn’t say. But they both knew it was an option. They both knew it was the likeliest option.
“Exactly. Which is why I’m sending you to check up on the school. If he’s coming back, you might pass each other, but I’m betting that the waste of time is more convenient to you than if he dies because you could have gone but didn’t,” Yaga said heavily, eyes boring into Suguru’s.
“Stop with the guilt tripping, old man,” he groaned, “I’ll go. Ichimatsu High School, right?”
“Yes, in Suginami Ward,” Yaga said. “I just hope you get there in time.”
“Of course I will,” Suguru said. He had to believe himself because the other option was unthinkable.
He still lets himself think about it when he leaves the office. Nanami could be dead. Nanami, the shaman he got along with the best besides Satoru. They might never share exasperated glances over Satoru and Haibara’s unending enthusiasm again. They might never annoy Shoko with their metal music at two in the morning again. They might never recommend each other books again. They might never do anything together again because Nanami might be dead.
Nanami could be dead and it was all the higher ups’ fault. Because they couldn’t categorize a curse correctly. A simple, easily fixable mistake. A simple, easily fixable mistake that could be fatal.
Suguru was so stuck in his thoughts that he almost missed Nanami walking up the stairs with impeccable timing. It was like a several ton weight lifted off his chest. Nanami was fine. No, Suguru corrected himself as he looked at his kohai with narrowed eyes, he was covered in blood. But he seemed to be mostly fine. He wasn’t bleeding out somewhere inside a school over an hour’s train ride away, at least. He wasn’t dead.
“Nanami-kun!” He called out with a rather angry smile from the top of the steps. “You’re late! Did you stop for some cigarettes and sake on the way back?”
Nanami blinked up at him with a twitch of his lips. Was that a smile or a frown? Suguru couldn’t tell. He could never tell with Nanami. The guy had a remarkable poker face, which he used to his advantage whenever he, Suguru, and Shoko played cards together. Gojo was banned from all card games on the account of his Six Eyes.
“Geto…senpai,” Nanami said. He didn’t move. All he did was keep staring at Suguru.
“Nanami?” Suguru said as he moved closer, smile fading. “Are you alright? Do I need to bring you to Shoko?”
He was planning on it anyway, if only for the peace of his own mind. Nanami was a grade two sorcerer. He could handle a grade two curse, but two of them? When he wasn’t expecting a second? Of course Suguru was worried. Not that he’d ever tell his kohai that, having to maintain his coolness in their eyes.
“I think I have a concussion,” Nanami said after a little too long silence.
“Are you going to throw up? If you get it on me, I’ll make you do the dishes for a month,” Suguru said, a bit disgusted. He dealt with his own vomit enough times that you’d think he was used to it, but no, not at all.
“I already do the dishes,” Nanami said, a bit annoyed. Which was true, but mostly because he was the only one out of the students who could cook. Haibara… tried, but all he could truly make was slightly burnt rice. Shoko could make coffee and that’s all she wanted to make. Gojo was unilaterally banned from the kitchen by Suguru, Shoko, and Yaga-sensei after one too many fires. Suguru himself had never bothered to learn anything other than how to boil water for instant food.
“Laundry then,” Suguru said. “Now come on, let’s get you to Shoko.”
He started up the steps but paused when he realized that Nanami wasn’t moving. He reached back, grabbed the younger teen’s arm, and started physically dragging Nanami with him. It only took a few seconds before Nanami’s brain seemed to catch up with what was happening and start walking under his own power. Suguru kept his hold on his arm, though.
“Weren’t you leaving for a mission?” Nanami asked, “I can get to the infirmary on my own.”
“My mission was to collect you,” Suguru said, “Sensei got a call from the manager who assigned your mission. Apparently it wasn’t a semi-grade two, but two grade twos. He was worried, so he sent me. But you’re here now, so at least I don’t have spend my evening on the train.”
“One grade two and one semi-grade one,” Nanami corrected.
A bolt of fear went through Suguru’s chest. He whipped his head towards Nanami. “A semi-grade one? Nanami! How are you still alive?”
“I’ve had several revelations about applying cursed energy to my physical hits in order to augment my technique,” Nanami said, sounding exhausted instead of proud. Suguru understood. Improving a cursed technique or improving cursed energy manipulation was usually the result of several near death experiences. “Which created a Black Flash.”
“A Black Flash? I’ve only seen Yaga-sensei do that once, last year,” Suguru said, impressed at Nanami’s achievement even if it probably was the result of literal blood, sweat, and tears. “Even Satoru hasn’t managed one yet.”
“It is a phenomenon for physical hits, which Gojo-senpai rarely uses,” Nanami answered, as logical as always. “So the statistics are against him.”
“I don’t think that matters for Satoru,” Suguru said.
“You don’t think what matters to me?” Satoru said as he stepped out of the dorm doorway, playing Suguru’s DS.
“Did you wipe my game?” Suguru demanded, ignoring the question.
“I’m playing Pokemon, not that stupid Zelda game,” Satoru said, tapping the buttons and ignoring Suguru’s growl. “It’s too boring. I mean time travel? Overrated. But look at how cute my Ratata is.” He shoved the screen in Suguru’s face. “I named it Yaga after sensei.”
“It’s ugly,” Suguru said. “And I hope you saved my game or I’m going to beat your ass in class tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? Why not now?” Satoru said with an anticipatory grin.
“I have to bring Nanami to Shoko,” Suguru said, gesturing to their kohai, who was… worryingly silent and pale. “Shit, I’m serious if you throw up on me, Nanami, I’ll make you wash my dirty socks.”
Satoru peered around Suguru and grinned at Nanami. “Wo~ow, Nanami-kun, you’ve really grown since I saw you this morning. What’d you do? Get a cursed energy growth spurt or something?”
“Fight a semi-grade one apparently,” Suguru said.
“Eh? A semi-grade one? And you didn’t die, Nanami-kun?” Satoru said, shocked.
Nanami blinked uncomprehendingly at him and didn’t answer. He was starting to sway on his feet, Suguru realized. He shared a concerned glance with Satoru. “Come on, Nanami,” he said as he gently pulled the first year towards the infirmary, “Let’s get you to Shoko.”
The walk took a few minutes, even if the infirmary was only across the courtyard from the dorms, since Nanami kept stumbling. Satoru ended up taking ahold of Nanami’s other arm and helped Suguru guide him through the doorway into Shoko’s domain.
“Hey, Shoko, we’ve got a patient for you!” Satoru shouted cheerfully as they set Nanami down onto one of the beds.
Shoko walked out of the office she took over from the nurse, who no longer worked at Jujutsu Tech, with a frown. “I was in the middle of studying for med school. Can’t we go one day without needing me?”
“Nanami went up against a semi-grade one,” Suguru said since apparently it was his duty to explain things. Or maybe brag that their kohai managed it. “He said he had a concussion and he’s pretty out of it now.”
Shoko’s cigarette almost fell out of her mouth in shock as she bustled over to them. Nanami groaned in annoyance as she peeled back his eyelids. “Definitely concussed,” she concluded. Then she put her hand on his sternum and frowned, “A few broken ribs too, and two broken fingers and a stretched shoulder ligament. Hey, Nanami, just so you know, I haven’t managed to make my healing painless. So, this might hurt just a little.”
Suguru winced as her cursed energy enveloped Nanami and healed him. He was very familiar with her reversed cursed energy technique. It hurt almost as much as getting injured in the first place. Nanami, unlike Haibara last week when he broke his arm, stayed silent beyond a pained exhale.
“And he passed out,” Shoko said. She looked over at her classmates. “So what was this about a semi-grade one?”