Archive of Our Own ^beta

“I’ve got an idea,” Satoru told Suguru. As with most things, Satoru hadn’t completely thought it through, but that had never stopped Satoru from trying. “It’s a good one.”

“I’ve heard this before,” Suguru grimaced with the distaste and countenance of a wet cat, drenched from the curse-induced storm that caught them. She was still crouched at the edge of the observation deck, spotting for their target, a giant manta ray of a curse that swept through the air and freezing rain, shockingly agile for its size. “What novel idea do you have to deal with a flying target?”

“I can expand Infinity to push against the rooftops,” Satoru explained, “give us more mobility to match.” Satoru had seen the way Suguru’s eyes narrowed with keen interest when they realized what their cursed spirit was, and immediately recognized its utility. Large sized aerial curses were rare enough, she wasn’t going to let the opportunity go. Satoru had already made the mental commitment to seize it for Suguru, like catching a UFO prize. “I know you want that curse, it’s pretty useful. We can take it down, capture it together.”

“How do you propose this? You’re the one that’s bone dry, not me.”

Satoru held out a hand. “Take my hand, I can extend Infinity to cover both of us.”

Suguru looked at her suspiciously, brushing back her waterlogged bangs. “You sure you can handle this?”

Satoru had, at some point in their now two month long partnership, explained to Suguru the mental hurdle of running Infinity, and how anything beyond the immediate surface of her skin required the mental capacity to calculate things like distance, momentum, and weight in order to use Infinity correctly. Six Eyes helped a lot with that, but it wasn’t reflexive by any means; Suguru had already seen it fail when Satoru got tired, or occasionally distracted, evidenced by the near miss with dropping a tree once, and another involving several metric tons of sea water and discards from the processing line at Tsukiji that they both, after having burned those uniforms, swore to never speak of again.

But, unlike most things, she had actually tested this out a couple times before, on herself at least. “I’ve used it before, it’s reliable,” she assured, and to prove her point, she took a running leap, ready to push Infinity to its conceptual boundaries, and jumped off the ledge before Suguru could even shoot up, startled and shouting “Satoru!” as she landed in mid-air, feet planted against the invisible boundaries of Infinity.

“See?” Satoru spun on her heels for effect. It wasn’t difficult at all to keep it going in the urban downtown environment, a gentle stretch until it brushed up against the vertical creep of office towers and high rises, balanced upon the pindrop heads of radio antennas and lightning rods, a far more delicate touch than the force required to pin a cursed spirit against a wall or crush it in its path. She pushed up her shades for better sensory intake, the world exploding into her visual field, the sprawl of the cityscape electric bright and a riot of colorful starbursts marking the streets and highways even under her veil. It was enough to give her a headache.

It was easier to turn her eyes to Suguru, standing stunned at the edge of the rooftop, her tall silhouette extra lean as her rain-soaked clothes clumped onto her frame. Satoru held out a hand. “Hold on to my hand, and it’ll extend over to you.”

Suguru stared at her, something resembling amazement twitching at the edges of her eyes. Her brows furrowed, and then relaxed. “You’re crazy,” she declared, and then, a bit self-reproaching, “I guess I am too.”

Suguru’s hand was freezing and wet, her grip vicelike as Satoru hauled her over the ledge and let her test her footing before they started moving. Satoru found the view decent, and the experience novel if only for the fact Suguru was clutching her hand for dear life as they walked on air with the city beneath them, raindrops refracting the night lights, a watercolor wash of neon shadows deflecting over them. There was an undisguised look of wonder in Suguru’s eyes; it made Satoru pleased, the fuzz of contentment wrapping about her shoulders, to be able to impress Suguru.

They both kept up their guard, surveying the full periphery of their surroundings, but the curse seemingly disappeared behind the low lying rain clouds and the sky high towers. “How long can you keep this up?” Suguru finally asked.

“As long as it’s needed.” Satoru didn’t find it taxing per se, but this was a different kind of concentration to keep Suguru within the boundaries of Infinity as well. She’ll have to work on that. “I have to calibrate for your mass too.”

“Are you calling me fat?”

“No, it’s just the tr—” Satoru cut off when she saw the air grow dense with vapors of curse energy and the scattered rain drops coalesced into great sheafs of water sweeping over them, drumming against Infinity. She squeezed Suguru’s hand and their eyes met; they immediately took off wordlessly, feet pounding against the air as the manta ray curse swept through the sky, carrying with it a personal ocean of water, maw gaping open and screaming. They were scant meters away from the nearest rooftop when the curse flicked its tail in their direction, a sonic attack in addition to the relentless downpour.

“Damnit,” Satoru muttered, and then they were falling between two buildings as she made the calculated choice to switch Infinity to deflect the attack.

Suguru’s eyes widened, and then narrowed as they fell within a hair's breadth of a roofline, throwing out an arm, fingers slipping on the wet railing, and scrabbling furiously until she found the lip of a metal frame, enough to slow down their descent. She shouted at Satoru, “Chimney!”

There was a building behind Satoru within the reach of her feet, structural integrity be damned. Satoru immediately kicked out her legs, cracking the concrete frame and finding purchase, locked their arms at the elbow, and pushed with the entirety of her body rigid, but not as hard as she could have. Suguru did the same, mirroring her position. It was unnecessarily difficult between the two of them, controlling the output of cursed energy enough to not destroy the walls outright.

They finally caught their breath, arms interlocked to allow their bodies to bridge the gap, suspended several stories above the ground, like a two-human tension spring holding their weight in place. They spider-walked their way in silence to the nearest ledge with standing room, watching as the manta ray circled overhead, scattering downpours blindly, the force of the water enough to dent the metal siding.

“We’re not doing that again,” Suguru told her as they found stable footing thirty stories up above the ground. “Not with an aerial curse.”

“I could have stopped us,” Satoru insisted. “You should have just let me push Infinity from below.”

“You’re wet,” Suguru told her, carding fingers through the peripheries of her hair.

Satoru’s jaw dropped slightly. Shit, when did she drop Infinity on herself? Satoru hadn’t even thought much of the moisture until Suguru pointed it out. “Momentary lapse,” she brushed off. “And you?”

Suguru held up their still interlocked hand. “Guess that worked still.”

Satoru stared up at the sliver of the cursed-filled sky overhead, annoyed at herself. If only she could teleport up there, a skip and hop of a distance, she could pull herself close enough to land a blow. The cursed spirit seemed woefully underprotected but for its ability to drown anyone that got near it.

“Hey,” she asked Suguru, “what if I say I have a different idea?”

“One that does not involve putting both of us at risk of a fatal fall would be nice.”

“Nah, only me.” Satoru gave her a thumbs up. “Can you get that gorilla curse of yours to throw me up? That first-grade one, you know, the one that crushed the pillar on the bridge.”

Suguru squeezed her hand so hard, it actually hurt, the small bones grinding together. Impressive. “Gojo Satoru, did you lose your last few brain cells somehow? Why?”

“I need a boost to close in on it, then I can use Infinity to cut the gap and jump it.”

“...and you’re proposing that I have my curse, the one that pancaked a truck, throw you like a shot put.”

“Yup.”

Suguru sighed, and squeezed again for good measure before she summoned the curse with a pop of cursed energy, a giant hulking menace that, for the lack of a better descriptor, might have passed for a gorilla, if a gorilla had compound eyes, a metallic carapace, and brass knuckles. “Fine, try not to be too dumb.”

Satoru didn’t really have that much time to think twice about the choice, coiled tight in a crouch as the cursed spirit hung off the edge of the building frame and hurtled her skyward, the sudden acceleration exhilarating as the cityscape dropped away and the cursed storm clouds spilled wide and yawning overhead. The cursed spirit was still directly in front of her, not even able to react to her sudden appearance; Satoru cut the abbreviated distance, pulling close with a snap of vacuum, landing right on top of the manta ray, and planted a reinforced fist between its eyes. It floundered upon impact, swerving in a drunken descent and carrying its body of water, a thin layer removed from Satoru by Infinity. Satoru crouched on top of it, and struck again, a knife hand through its head, breaking through its corporeal form, fleshy insides searing and smoking from the burn of her cursed energy. It dropped like a rock, her stomach flip flopping in the freefall.

“Anytime now!” Satoru shouted at Suguru as she plummeted.

Suguru was perched atop the shoulder of the gorilla cursed spirit, one hand extended to spin the cursed spirit into a ball as they converged, Satoru catching on the gorilla’s outstretched arm and swinging up once, twice to burn off the rest of the momentum. The body of water caught up to them, soaking Suguru completely before Satoru could reach over and shield her.

Satoru watched as Suguru unceremoniously shoved the orb into her mouth, ingesting it with one swallow, the starburst flare of cursed energy coalescing around her as she assimilated it. It was always fascinating to watch how Suguru’s cursed technique worked, even though Satoru might have been the only one to actually see it. Nothing escaped Six Eyes, not even the details like the pull of a tendon in Suguru’s neck, the narrowing of her eyes as she stared at the orb, the pulse of her throat as she swallowed it whole, the muted retch as Suguru tightened her torso to keep it down.

“You good?” Satoru asked after Suguru opened her eyes again.

“All fine,” Suguru told her, a thumbs up as she stripped the water off her face with a sweep of her other hand. The cursed rainclouds dissipated overhead, pulling back to reveal a muggy summer night, a sure sign she had obtained complete control over the cursed spirit. “Wanna see it?”

Satoru nodded; Suguru flicked her hand out and summoned the manta ray curse, now docile and meek, a pet floating before them as they perched on a ledge on the side of the building. It seemed bigger now, when it wasn’t trying to kill them.

“So we can use it for transport, right?” Satoru asked her, smug and triumphant at having secured an aerial curse for Suguru. “It was pretty solid when I jumped on it.”

“That is possibly the only intelligent idea you’ve had all night.” Suguru snorted, and jumped from the gorilla curse to the manta ray. It barely dipped under her weight. “Hop on.”

Satoru climbed on as well, tapping it with her feet, watching its back ripple smoothly. “Pretty cool.”

Suguru extinguished the gorilla curse with a puff of cursed energy, and then pulled Satoru to sit down with her. “Let’s try this, I don’t want you falling off due to carelessness, but I will throw you off you try anything stupid.”

Satoru cackled as they took off, a series of white-knuckled accelerations, proverbial brake checks, and steep banks until Suguru got a handle on how to instruct the manta ray. Their speed picked up as their altitude increased, elevating even higher than the skyline, the stretch of the special wards spread out below them, mapped by the light of the JR lines and freeways.

“This is like Aladdin riding a magic carpet,” Satoru told Suguru, peering out over the edge of the manta ray. “How does that song go— a whole new world?”

“It’s just Tokyo.” Suguru was shivering a little in the higher altitude, still drenched. Satoru reached over and grabbed her ice-cold hand, extending Infinity so it blocked the wind; Suguru gave her a wordless acknowledgment, and directed the curse to circle around once more, returning to their original site. “Go take down your veil, we can’t exactly ditch our assistant manager, that’s our third one this semester. I don’t want more detention with Yaga.”

“So, I think this is my win,” Satoru bragged as Suguru brought the manta ray to the observation deck where she had planted the veil. “I caught this curse for you, right?”

Suguru hesitated for a moment, and then sighed. “Fair.”

“Do I get a prize?”

Suguru shot her a withering glare. “For nearly getting us killed?”

“No, for bagging an extra useful cursed spirit for you. For example, you’ll buy me slices of cake from Laduree for a month—”

“No,” Suguru cut her off. “You get one request. I’m not going to be some fetch monkey for you, I will do one thing, a one time event, no repetition.”

Satoru hadn’t actually thought as far as coming up with a request of her own, only because she had been expecting Suguru to put her foot down and make the choice for her. Well, no time like the present. “Take me to Tokyo Disney.”

“What are you, twelve? I didn’t take you for the Disney princess type.”

“I’ve never been! I grew up in Kyoto, you know this.”

Suguru sighed, pinching at the space between her eyes. “Fine.”

“Great, it’s a date.”

The end of summer meant Satoru’s first goodwill event, which sent them back to Kyoto on the Nozomi line, glutting herself on the shinkansen bentos and snacks Suguru and Shoko brought. Satoru supposed it was inevitable that she’d find a suited delegation from the clan waiting for her at the station, having ignored their calls and missives the weeks leading up to the event.

Yaga wordlessly nodded at the group, and instructed Suguru and Shoko to go ahead. “If you need, call me,” he told Satoru before she left. Small graces that he didn’t get dragged to the Gojo compound as well.

The drive was boring, the security still carefully neutral and deferential. Back in the Gojo estates, tucked into the old wing of the house where they had to rebuild the dueling grounds and nearby facilities multiple times, her attendants bathed her, washed and arranged her hair, and dressed her in an iromuji of grey blue silk, wrapped in an obi woven out of gold thread and brocaded with crushed lapis lazuli. The head attendant clucked her tongue, commenting that if the young mistress had sent over the new measurements, they could have let out the hems to accommodate her growth spurt. Satoru found it all so pointless, the notion that she should somehow acknowledge the opulence and meaningless ritual she didn’t care one iota about. She would have shown up in her uniform, but then the staff would have been punished for not preparing her; she didn’t want to go through that again.

At least once every quarter they kept trying this, as if this display could somehow impress upon her their importance, the old, wrinkled geezers who were several decades removed from their prime. It had never worked in the past, and certainly wasn’t going to work here. This time, they gave up trying to make her wait on her knees in deference as they tried in the past, and instead escorted her to the assembly of the elders, their ongoing conversation a low murmur.

She saw the pamphlets laid out on the low lying table in front of her, each neatly folded and prefaced with exquisite calligraphy, each hanko imprint burnished with cursed energy. Weak, she evaluated, unimpressive.

“We need to discuss your omiai,” they told her. “As you know, this has been long contemplated. Each of these young men come from clans of well repute, we’ve negotiated the terms over the years. You’ve already met them in the past, and we’ve only kept the ones for the individuals you didn’t reject outright. We’ll adopt them, of course. We will permit your review—”

“No,” she interrupted, discarding propriety with a brush of irritation. “You don’t need me in marriage to adopt some sniveling bastard and have him take the name. Let me guess, you dangled the ghost of me in front of the other families for some other political gain? How many babies did you all think I was going to give them?”

She watched as their hands itched to strike her, as easily they would have if it were anyone else. The last time one of them tried, she twisted the limb into a string of flesh and bone, and smugly left him screaming on the ground. What do you know, these old dogs could learn new tricks.

“I told you the Tokyo college was bound to be a bad influence,” one of them commented, as if she hadn’t been there. “She wasn’t this rude last time. Tokyo’s always been more radicalized.”

“Why do I need to participate in this farce?” She inspected her cuticles, still a bit uneven because she hadn’t let the maids try to trim them. “I’m holding up my end of the deal — my reputation precedes me in every aspect, I’m unequivocally the strongest.”

“We hear talk of a remarkable duo, not just a singular individual. There is someone else as well, it seems, a fellow classmate of yours, another female. Surname Getou, Getou Suguru, correct?”

Satoru leveled a stare at the individual who spoke, one of the elderly females who tried not to wither under the gaze of Six Eyes. “I take pride in being half of the Strongest Duo,” she reminded them. “Getou Suguru is an individual with a unique skill set. Our ability to work together does not diminish my strength, only enhances it.”

“Setting that aside, your reputation works both for and against you. You haven’t mastered Red, have you?” The oldest among them spoke, a grizzled veteran she called Twinkle on account of the star-shaped scar on his face. Satoru could take him in a fight, but he was smart— smart enough to know better, smart enough to poke at her sore spots. She bristled at the mention of Red; she just needed time to learn reversal techniques. “Your technique is still incomplete, and that leaves us vulnerable. Use this chance to make a choice for yourself. If you do not make a decision, we will have to choose for you.”

“And if I refuse your choice?” Satoru held her chin up high.

“It’s not just about strength. This is about sustaining the continued welfare of the clan.” Twinkle scooped up the pamphlets in a neat stack, holding it out to her. She didn’t raise her hand to take it. “You have one year’s time to make a choice. A few of them will be at the goodwill games tomorrow, so it’d serve you well to pay attention. Remember, no killing.”

“Pity,” Satoru despaired sarcastically. “I’ll have to settle for maiming then.”

She turned on her heel as an outraged murmur rippled through the rabble. Her attendant scrambled after her, shuffling behind her footsteps on the polished wood as they made their way out of the main building. “Young mistress, please don’t forget to take these.”

Satoru stopped at the edge of the engawa. The attendant was on her knees, the stack of papers proffered above her head. She grabbed a few at random, and scanned quickly through them, breezing over their profiles. The usual trash from Kamo and Zenin clans, those she’ll encounter at the goodwill games, which was a good excuse for her to smash their faces in just short of irreversible damage; a few more from the branch families, whose faces she couldn’t even remember. None of them were even remotely interesting. At least Suguru wouldn’t have bored her to tears.

Now that was a thought. Satoru tried to picture it: someone like Suguru, with unparalleled combat skill, explosive groundwork, mesmerizing footwork, the tactical intellect made practical and an attitude to match, and the fascinatingly beautiful way her cursed energy coiled and converged like a miniature black hole as she used her technique, as she ate a curse, unlike anything Satoru had ever seen. Yes, someone like Suguru could be interesting.

She scanned the terms of the offers, largely similar: a bride price, a reverse dowry to bring the male into the Gojo clan, real estate in various prefectures, share holdings and controlling board seats in the big four zaibatsus, a collection of Heian era texts on cursed energy, and a cache of heirloom cursed weapons, in exchange for a guarantee of bridal virginity and a second born child to be remitted once they lost their milk teeth. Satoru found herself laughing at the absurdity of it all, the idea that there was even a monetary figure to be placed on her virginity and lives not yet conceived.

“Young mistress?”

Satoru shoved the papers back, pulling out the pins and ornaments from her hair, shaking her head. “I’m fine. Come, I’m getting out of these ridiculous clothes. Burn these if you can, I’ve already read them.”

She declined the perfunctory dinner invite as per usual; no one actually wanted her there, and she didn’t want to be there, much preferring to return to the Kyoto campus.

“Busy afternoon?” Suguru asked when she found her in the guest communal room, sprawled all over the couch and idly browsing the TV channels.

“Clan stuff,” Satoru explained. She made space for Suguru. “Hey, let’s make sure we win this tomorrow so we don’t have to come back to this place next year. They don’t even have a Playstation 2 here. I’m stuck watching variety shows.”

Suguru huffed a small laugh and sat down. “Fine, we’ll do our best.” She handed something to Satoru, a stick of Hi-Chews. “I figured you haven't eaten yet, we’re going to get dinner in a bit. There’s a ramen place Shoko found.”

“Excellent.” Satoru quickly ripped it open and unpeeled a piece, savoring the artificial strawberry flavor squeaking out between her teeth. She was suddenly starving, reminded that her last bite had been on the shinkansen before she lost all her appetite. “Oh, if I look like I’m going too hard on them tomorrow, don’t worry, I won’t kill them.”

Suguru snorted derisively, and then suddenly leaned in close, sniffing at her like a bloodhound. “Are you wearing perfume? Is that hair wax?”

“Ugh,” Satoru groaned. “You know how it goes, can’t show up in front of the clan elders like the unwashed masses. Kyoto protocols and all.”

“I don’t actually know how it goes, but I can only imagine,” Suguru mused. “I can’t really picture you submitting to that though. I would have guessed you’d raise hell.”

“I do,” Satoru admitted. She moved onto piece number two. “It’s the same old ‘here’s the line up of boring and acceptable young men who can’t wait to join our clan, all you have to do is nod and smile,’ spiel everytime. As if I’d cooperate with that.”

“I see.” Suguru sounded a little tight in her response, like she was somehow personally offended and holding back out of politeness. “I can see why you don’t want to come back here.”

Satoru was puzzled at the reaction. After all, Satoru had already made up her mind: she didn’t settle for imitations or knockoffs, not when she had the real thing next to her. All she needed was a plan, and Satoru was full of nothing but great ideas.

A bony finger poked at her face. “Can you hear me? You’re clearly awake.” Shoko, from the feel of it.

In the background, Satoru could hear the din of the dining room, the chef chatting away with the other customers as he fanned the grill; the smell of chicken fat wafted over, aerosolizing with a sizzle on the charcoal.

The countertop felt nice and cool against her cheek, whereas opening her eyes felt like a monumental effort, her eyelids unusually heavy. “Yeah, yeah, what happened?”

“You passed out.” Shoko pried her eyes open with clinical precision, inspecting each pupil. “You’re a real light weight, you know. No permanent damage, unfortunately.”

“I was on shot number four!” Satoru protested, suddenly recalling where she had left off. She lifted her head up; her brain sloshed about like a fish tank on wheels over cobblestone. She had to press the heels of her hands at her eye sockets to distract from the sensation. “Suguru had three already, I couldn’t fall behind. Wait, where’s Suguru?”

“Right behind you, dumbass.” Satoru turned around, pausing slightly for her brain to catch up. Suguru was to her right at the bar seating, blooming tomato red and heart rate elevated, but seemingly fine otherwise. The top of her shirt was unbuttoned, the flush extending all the way to her collarbone and beyond. “You should have eaten first before you started drinking.”

“The great Gojo Satoru, done in by a few shots of sake,” Shoko remarked dryly from her left. She picked up a skewer of chicken liver interposed with charred blocks of negi, still glistening with melted fat, and shoved it at her. “Eat, you need to metabolize something else first.”

Satoru chewed thoughtfully around the skewer, studying Shoko’s nonchalant body language, her pale constitution, and the half empty sake bottle perched on the elevated counter. They had started an impromptu drinking contest before their first batch of yakitori was ready, splitting a bottle of daiginjo between the three of them. Judging from the number of sticks by Shoko’s plate, she must have been out for a good ten minutes. Satoru narrowed her eyes. “Shoko, how many shots are you on?”

Shoko maintained eye contact as she took a deep swig directly from the bottle. “Guess.”

“The lesson here is that Shoko will drink us under the table despite being half your size,” Suguru told her, clapping her hand on Satoru’s shoulder and handing her a glass of water. The heat from her hand was palpable even through the jacket and shirt. “Hydrate, and no more alcohol for you. I don’t think it plays well with your physique. And, of course, you lost.”

Satoru’s competitive urge curled up and died a little as the back of her head throbbed. She had never drank more than a couple sips before, a sampling of junmai daiginjo that tasted like flowery water for the most part. But it seemed that Suguru was comfortable with drinking, so wouldn’t she be either? Satoru wouldn’t call this embarrassing, more enlightening than anything else, knowing what she should stay away from.

“Is this your first time drinking?” Shoko asked after Satoru had put away a few glasses of water and the soboro don Suguru ordered for her.

“Substantially, yes,” Satoru admitted. “Never saw the need. Am I supposed to feel like I’m underwater?”

“No wonder,” Shoko remarked, and then looked past her at Suguru. “Suguru, don’t let this idiot wander about in the bars unless you actually want to have to physically drag her out.”

Suguru snorted. “So it seems. I’m stuck babysitting. I’ll keep an eye out for some bushes if needed.”

Satoru stayed with water for the rest of the evening while Suguru, interestingly enough, didn’t touch any more sake after that, splitting a pitcher of beer with Shoko instead.

The rest of the patrons dwindled as the evening waned, the trio trying to outdo each other by counting skewers instead of shots. Satoru won that one by virtue of the restaurant closing down on them, apologizing for running out of chicken, so Satoru settled the bill and they slowly made it back to the campus smelling of chicken fat and charcoal in the cool autumn night, Shoko clearly drunk and cheery, while Suguru was uncharacteristically loose-limbed and warm-blooded, and Satoru was shaking off the lingering haze of the unpleasant drinking experience. Shoko waved off their attempt to get her to shower, so they took her shoes off and tucked her into bed.

Suguru was brushing her teeth in front of the sink when Satoru came out of the shower, her hair still wet and dripping down her shoulders. Even in her sleeping clothes and bathroom slippers, still carrying a tinge of the evening flush, Suguru looked unfairly good; it had to do with the way she carried herself, the way she set her jaw, the relaxing furrow of her eyebrows, the line of her mouth. Her face was softer in this mood, like the tension in a coil had been released. Satoru was struck by how much she wanted to see more of Suguru like this.

“You could have drank more, right?” Satoru asked her. “You didn’t have to hold back on my account.”

Suguru raised an eyebrow, spat out the toothpaste, and gargled. “I don’t actually enjoy it, unlike Shoko. But sometimes, the situation calls for it.”

“I don’t get it,” Satoru confessed after brushing her teeth, struck by the memory of nausea and lack of equilibrium. “It doesn’t taste that good, and it certainly doesn’t make me feel good. Why do it?”

“It feels good for some,” Suguru shrugged. She was on the face care part of her routine, patting on moisturiser. “Shoko enjoys it.”

“Does it feel good for you?”

Suguru stopped, and stared at her through the mirror. “Sometimes,” she acknowledged. “It depends on the company.”

Satoru immediately registered what she said. “So tonight was good, right?”

Suguru sighed, and turned to face her. “You want me to say it was good despite your mishap? Of course it was good.”

Satoru glowed, content at the response. Suguru wasn’t a public affection kind of person, which was fine, Satoru could work with that. Might as well go for it now, she’d been well behaved all evening. “So...would you feel even better if we made out?” she purred, seeming to have hit the right note when Suguru leaned in rather than pulling back.

“I’m not saying no,” Suguru exhaled slowly, a flicker of red as she wet her lips. Satoru could smell the body wash Suguru had used. “Why don’t we find out?”

That was all the permission Satoru needed before she tilted her head down, nerves tingling at her fingertips no different than when they were starting a sparring session, familiarity and anticipation of new discoveries humming in her blood. This was a familiar routine minted over the late summer, the press of Suguru’s lips against her own, soft and warm to the touch, cool from the flavor of her toothpaste, responsive to every minute fluctuation. Satoru licked against the seam of Suguru’s lips as she sought out the feel of Suguru’s skin under her fingertips, slipping under the soft fabric of her sleeping shirt. She was undeniably greedy and always wanted more, there was no shame in that. Suguru, though, usually carried that sense of restraint that made Satoru want to poke and prod, to see what kind of unexpected excitement Suguru could render when Satoru pushed.

Suguru responded nicely, opening up to lick broadly at Satoru, letting her in as she moved her own hands along Satoru’s body, acclimated to the idea she could touch freely without interference from Infinity, although not quite where Satoru really wanted Suguru’s hands. But, Satoru wasn’t going to complain; Suguru’s hands were broad, long fingered and calloused, branding hot stripes against her hips and the small of her back where they slid up under her shirt. Satoru moaned against Suguru’s mouth, gripping fistfuls of Suguru’s shirt and shoving her against the counter, pressing together from chest to thigh so the mounds of their breasts rubbed against each other, nipples peaking at the sensation.

Suguru took the opportunity to insert her knee between Satoru’s legs, the meat of her thigh riding up against her crotch, a delicious pressure. “Does this feel good for you?” Her voice was low and husky, the stuff of Satoru’s wet dreams made real.

“Yes,” Satoru confirmed, clutching at Suguru’s chest, sitting onto Suguru as she shifted to press her pelvis closer, rocking against her leg. Suguru could handle it; she’s seen Suguru hip thrust triple her bodyweight. “Very good.”

Suguru started moving along Satoru’s jawline, hot, searing breaths along the cord of her neck, pausing to fixate on the spot that caused Satoru to squirm and gasp helplessly. She could feel Suguru’s hands shifting lower to cup her ass, squeezing firmly, and then Suguru’s chuckle tickling her ear. “I think this has sufficiently moved past making out.”

“Technicalities,” Satoru countered. “You like it, I like it. Let’s keep going.”

“We’re still in the bathroom,” Suguru reminded her. There were no other possible occupants, but Suguru didn’t seem to have an exhibitionistic streak, as far as Satoru could tell.

“Fine, your room or mine?” Satoru was starting to lose her patience, rutting against Suguru’s leg, rolling her hips and seeking a solid surface to grind against. Really, this was as private as any other room at this point.

Suguru growled against her neck, a tingling reverb straight down her spine as she pressed Satoru harder against her leg; Satoru could see it in her mind’s eye, maybe Suguru would go further, do more than just make out and some heavy petting, maybe actually stick her hand down Satoru’s sleeping shorts and find that Satoru was wet in more places than just her hair. Finally, Suguru’s fingers edged ever closer, sliding to the bottom of her—

“This is not a good idea.” Suguru suddenly stopped with a decidedly unsexy groan.

What. “How is this not a good idea?” Satoru was trying very hard not to sound shrill from outrage.

“I’ve been drinking,” Suguru stated, as if that explained everything.

“So?”

“So this is not a good idea.” Suguru slowly, reluctantly took her hands off, leaving Satoru cold, frustrated, and wanting to scream. “I don’t want any potential for misunderstanding.”

“Suguru, you can’t do this to me!” Satoru was not above pleading, not when the prospect of getting laid was on the line. “There is nothing to misunderstand here: I want this.”

Suguru scrubbed at her face, sighing. “This isn’t me saying no, this is me saying we shouldn’t do something that we may regret when we’re both level headed. We have a mission tomorrow, let’s just go to sleep. We can fool around another time.”

In Satoru’s head, she only heard no no no. This could not be happening. How could Suguru do this to her? “You know I’m just going to jerk off in my room,” Satoru complained bitterly. “I know you can hear me. I’m going to make sure you can hear me. How is this any different?”

There was that look in Suguru’s eyes, the edge of something sharp and lean, like the first time Satoru managed to set her off, to push past the edge of Suguru’s propriety and find the borders of harshness. It was a really attractive look on her face, to Satoru’s continued dismay. “Go ahead,” Suguru told her, “I’m not going to stop you if you’re so desperate to touch yourself.”

Satoru stomped off, listening for the sound of Suguru settling in her room before making good on her promise, courtesy of a Magic Wand she procured some time ago. The only good to come out of the whole thing, Satoru thought in retrospect, was that she got a lot more masturbatory material to work with, summoning her recollection of Suguru’s voice, rumbling low against her ear, Suguru’s touch hot and thick against her skin, Suguru’s glare, cutting her down.

After a head-clearing orgasm, Satoru decided she had been oversimplifying this. It was time for a structured, tactical approach. That, she could do.

“Again,” Suguru told Nanami as he picked himself up from the ground.

They reset, and entered their stances. Suguru closed the distance, a low feint to which Nanami responded by dropping his center of mass to match this time. Suguru pivoted on one heel and reared against his torso, tossing him into the air with a donkey kick. He went flying head over heels as she threw him down with a thud.

“Again,” Suguru repeated. Nanami got up, huffing a little.

It was amusing to watch Nanami try and eat dirt for his efforts. Nanami had the physique and innate technique, but was expectedly green as an incoming first year. Suguru didn’t seem to have a problem spending some time working with him, whereas Nanami nearly curdled like milk left in the summer heat when Satoru had first bodied him and remarked that interesting, he was indeed harder than he looked.

Still, it was dangerously attractive of Suguru to utterly dominate Nanami at every turn. Satoru much preferred Suguru as her sparring partner. Everyone else was, in a word, boring. Case in point: Suguru moved with deliberate economy, her entire body flowing undisturbed over Nanami’s sweeping arms and legs, a continuous movement to preserve momentum and force, crashing against him starting low and ending up high with a grunt and terrific push from her heels and up through her hamstrings. Nanami had no chance the moment his feet left the ground, and once again went head first into the ground.

Satoru gave a clap for Suguru. “Nice.”

“Nanami,” Suguru called out as Nanami rolled over and laid on the ground for a bit. “I know what you’re trying to do. There’s better ways to ask me to help you with groundwork. We can work through a few scenarios.”

He grunted in acquiescence, and got back up. “One more?”

Suguru eyed him critically. “That was five rounds, take a break first. No offense to you, but neither Satoru or myself are appropriate benchmarks for you. Once the other first year starts, you’ll have a better frame of reference.” She shifted her gaze to Satoru. “Satoru, you’re getting bored, aren’t you?”

“My turn,” Satoru sang cheerily, getting up from the bench and shaking her limbs loose. “We can demo for Nanami here.”

“Only if you take it seriously.”

“I always take you seriously,” Satoru protested in feigned outrage. “Fine, no techniques, just the usual. I do appreciate your body locks, especially where I can get my face between your thighs—”

“Satoru,” Suguru coughed. Nanami was wearing a particular expression on his face, pinched even tighter than usual, like he had been forced to suck on a lemon. Teasing him was going to be great.

Satoru tied her hair back as she cleared the distance between her and Suguru with a flourish and hop, skin prickling in anticipation. Five rounds with Nanami wasn’t even a warm up for Suguru; Suguru always looked forward to trying to beat her.

“I’ll show you how it’s done,” Satoru bragged to Nanami. “Just watch what I do!” she reminded him, sidestepping the first move as Suguru attacked before she finished talking. A feint, of course; Satoru had to protect her back, immediately pivoting on one heel to block the roundhouse kick.

Distance reset, Suguru attacked again, a blocked knife hand transitioned smoothly into a knee hook. Satoru swung into a handspring, kicking up before Suguru could knock her off balance, pushing off as Suguru slid into a low crouch, kicking at where her wrist was.

Four moves, Satoru counted: they were just getting started. Satoru grinned as she reset, watching Suguru’s eyes narrow in concentration. This was going to be fun.

Most of her traditional sparring partners had been boring and predictable in their moveset, but whenever she and Suguru sparred, she found the flex and flow against Suguru’s counteracting force something she could revel in, not having to rely on Infinity, just pure physical prowess and the occasional reinforcement of cursed energy. They could be sparring for seconds, or minutes, it didn’t matter, there was always something new and refreshing to be experienced.

Satoru still remembered the first time Suguru managed to land a solid hit on her face, when so few others ever had: the sheer numbing sensation against the pane of her cheek, the blood roaring in her ears, the waves of pain radiating across her skull, and the adrenaline pounding through her system as she craved nothing more than to meet Suguru again, and again.

They finally called it after six rounds, sweat soaking through their clothes, splitting the bouts evenly and both bearing bruises and numb limbs to show for it. Satoru didn’t leer, no, but she made it obvious she was looking when Suguru peeled off her shirt to cool down in her sports bra.

“How do you tolerate this?” Nanami asked Suguru pointedly.

“Because of my innate charm,” Satoru bragged.

“Nope,” Suguru rejected. “Don’t worry, I'll make her pay for it at some point.”

Suguru’s form of punishment was to push her through a series of manna progressions followed by planche work that left her wrists aching and her shoulders twitching from the static holds. That, Satoru learned, was part of the reason why Suguru’s grip strength was so strong, coupled with many, many years of competitive judo.

“I’m tired of fixing your wrists,” Shoko told her the third time she went to Shoko to whine about what Suguru subjected her to and how horribly unfair it was that Suguru didn’t seem to suffer, “pay more attention to your form instead of staring at Suguru.”

(“I was studying her form!” Satoru protested.

“You have Six Eyes,” Shoko reminded her. “You have no reason to be staring.”)

Satoru had her reasons for watching Suguru, other than to make her intent obvious. Suguru was, admittedly, quite good at guiding the new first years. Perhaps Suguru was onto something interesting, even when it came to interacting with those weaker than her. It was the principle of the matter, Suguru had told her before, to guide others and share her knowledge.

“Nanami’s not bad,” Satoru acknowledged as the first years sparred, the new guy— Haibara, if she remembered correctly— noticeably struggling against him. “Relatively speaking.”

“He’s quite good,” Suguru corrected. “Could use some more physical reinforcement, but solid judgement and foundations. He could be a great jujutsu sorcerer. Try not to traumatize him.”

Satoru chortled. “Fine, fine, I’ll play nice. And the newbie?”

Suguru thinned her lips. “Haibara’s a bit too rough, earnest though. A nice guy, a bit outdated in his views, but workable. Lower ceiling than Nanami.”

Satoru remembered then, Haibara’s self-introduction, how he had a younger sister who he didn’t want getting involved with jujutsu sorcerers, because it wasn’t what girls should do. He had promptly clapped his hands over his mouth in a panic, and then bowed, apologizing profusely as they stared at him.

Satoru shrugged. “We’re all born with our innate limits. Nice won’t get you far in jujutsu society.”

“And what would you say does?”

“Strength,” Satoru responded automatically. “Power. Those attributes are the measure of worth.”

Satoru had been keeping a running list of the places they’ve made out, but the most promising one so far was her room, mainly because there was a bed nearby and this time there was no way Suguru was going to have an excuse.

She was positive they’ve gotten at least this far before, hands in the proper location, back pressed against the wall of the entryway as they toed off their shoes. Suguru’s hands were running over her torso, down her thighs, edging towards the space between her legs as her lips scaled Satoru’s collarbone, working slowly towards her neck.

“Hurry up,” Satoru panted against Suguru, trying to show exactly where Suguru’s hands belonged.

“Someone’s eager to get laid,” Suguru remarked. Her palm pressed against Satoru, hot and firm.

“You bet. Remember, you said you would,” Satoru reminded her, rutting in small circles against her hand.

Suguru let out a sigh, the classic you’re insufferable sigh that Satoru had become familiar with. “I suppose I did.” She pulled away, a momentary disappointment, before asking, “so where is the stuff?”

Satoru all but ran over to the drawer where she kept some of the toys, the rest tucked away in the overhead bins in the closet. She fished out a harness, to which Suguru mused, “Does that come with an instruction manual?” and the dildo she had earmarked for this special occasion, after having queried Shoko for best practices (“I don’t need to know the details,” Shoko had told her, handing her a multi-pack of sterilizing wipes that she probably pilfered from the morgue, “and remember, you owe me a pair of noise-cancelling headphones”).

“I’m sure we’re smart enough to figure this out,” Satoru spoke confidently, showing off her selection.

It took more effort than Satoru wanted to admit to get the dildo into the harness correctly, and even more effort to get Suguru out of her clothes and into the harness, but she figured— nothing like practice.

“You know, there are easier ways to lose your virginity,” Suguru reminded her as she fiddled with the buckle on the harness, and then tested the stability of the strap. It looked strange, but also strangely alluring, Suguru’s nude body, clearly of the female variety, with broad shoulders, amazing boobs, round hips, and a silicone cock jutting out from the circle of her fist as she tested the weight. “Like hands, mouth, whatever.”

“I’m not taking any chances,” Satoru explained. “Not that I don’t like your hands or your mouth. If it turns out I don’t like it, or you don’t like it, then we try something else.”

“You’re making this real appealing,” Suguru deadpanned. “I’m the one doing the work here.”

“Come on, I can make it good for you,” Satoru bargained. “Anything you want as long as you get that dick in me.”

“Really now?” Despite her tone, Suguru had the look in her eyes, the sort of calculated, focused gaze that meant she was weighing her options with an objective in mind. Satoru should be her objective; Satoru was going to make sure of that. “Mark your words.”

Oh, that was— that was very nice. Satoru wanted Suguru to collect on that, eager with anticipation.

Maybe it should have been more awkward, undressing in front of Suguru, under her gaze, the earlier lust-fueled haze burned off in the logistical impediments. Satoru had been prepared for that. But somehow, shame and awkwardness had melted away, discarded along with her panties as they dropped to the floor.

“Come on,” Satoru egged on as she hopped onto the bed, digging out the lube from the nightstand drawer, scooching back. Did she need a towel? She pulled out a spare towel for good measure.

Suguru climbed onto the bed, grabbing the bottle and lubing up the strap. She paused for a moment, thoughtful, and then beckoned Satoru to crawl over. “Over here, it’ll be better if I get my fingers in you first.”

Their lips met again, open mouthed as Suguru slipped a lube-slicked finger in, the sensation slightly foreign. Satoru found herself groaning unconsciously, small gasps as Suguru moved her hand, rotating a bit, and then a second finger, a scissoring stretch. Satoru had tried fingering herself before, but it was truly different when it was someone else.

“Ready?” Suguru asked when they parted, steady eye contact with Satoru even as she wiped her hand on the towel.

“I was born ready,” Satoru boasted.

Suguru pushed her to lie down, her touch strangely slow and light, even gentle as she arranged herself between Satoru’s legs. This was Suguru, who acted out every move with conviction, who had no problem punching her in the face given the opportunity to do so.

“Who are you?” Satoru complained, propping herself on her elbows so she could glare at Suguru. “‘My Six Eyes tells me you’re Suguru’s body and cursed energy, but this behavior sure as hell ain’t it. I’m not going to break, just do it.”

“You’re shaking,” Suguru observed, pulling back. Was she? Satoru stared at her own hand; maybe, just a slight tremor, like she had over-exerted herself during a particularly intense workout. She did set a new max rep today, that must have been it. “Do you really want this?” Suguru double-checked.

“I don’t know how many times I have to say this,” Satoru whined out of exasperation. “Yes! Do you not see me spreading my legs for you?”

Suguru arched an eyebrow, and repositioned herself, the jut of her strap hanging over Satoru as she lifted Satoru’s legs over her shoulders. “For the record, I’ve never used a harness before, so this is a first for me too.”

Satoru’s brain whited out for just a moment when Suguru pushed inside; the sensation was completely different compared to Suguru’s fingers, so full she could feel the stretch, and it wasn’t even that big. Somehow, there was more, a slow continuous slide until Suguru bottomed out against her, pressing up against her so she was folded in half, nearly face to face.

“Oh, shit,” Satoru uttered, suddenly feeling sharply exposed under Suguru’s gaze, her own eyes reflected in Suguru’s iris, enormously wide and vulnerable.

Suguru wrinkled her nose. “Is that a good oh shit? Or a bad oh shit?”

“It’s a lot,” Satoru muttered, soaking in the feeling. “You should move.”

Suguru tested out a few tentative thrusts, eliciting a groan when the shaped tip of the strap drew against sensitive tissue, setting a pace that was just enough to start feeling something. If she had to be honest, the position, the way Suguru had folded her over was doing more for her than the strap.

“More,” she declared, remembering she could move her hands to clutch at Suguru. “I want more, harder, faster.”

“Geesh, so demanding,” Suguru chided, but complied anyway, picking up intensity and pace. “Anything else, princess?”

Satoru had to take a moment to gather her breath, suddenly feeling like she tipped the scale from foreign to pleasurable. “That’s—oh— that’s better,” she gasped out when she felt the cockhead catch on the edge; “mm, yeah, like that,” she told Suguru after adjusting the angle; “come on, harder,” she nagged, feeling the pool of heat coil tighter and tighter.

Suguru grunted in acquiescence, moving her lips along the bone of her ankle. “High maintenance, I see.” She sounded a little winded, like she was feeling it too. Good.

“I know what I want,” Satoru snapped back. She needed— she needed to touch herself, she’s always used a vibrator in the past. She moved a hand towards her groin, only to be intercepted, Suguru’s hand gripping tight around her wrist, wrenching her arm overhead. “What?”

Suguru shook her head, a mean grin on her face. “Nope.”

Satoru sucked in a breath, feeling her eyes go wide. “What do you mean nope?”

“You said anything I want, as long as I got this dick inside you,” Suguru reminded her, rotating her hips in small circles. Oh, that wasn’t bad at all. “If you want to touch yourself, you should ask for permission first.”

“Why are you being so mean!”

“I’m the one fucking you, remember?” Suguru was panting just a little now, a fine sheen of sweat glowing on her forehead. “If you want to come, you should have some manners. At least say please.”

Satoru had never had a need for politeness, no matter what manners her clan tried to drill into her. She owed no one any obligation, no niceties. Why would she start now? She moved her other hand with a grit of teeth, and Suguru caught that too, pinning her in place with her weight as she pulled both of her arms up overhead, her hips grinding against Satoru.

“Damnit Suguru,” Satoru hissed. “I want to come.”

“Say please, and I’ll help you out.”

Strangely, she didn’t actually want to fight Suguru’s grip, and didn't actually find the prospect of complying that aggravating, maybe even tolerable. Maybe this was what being dick stupid meant, because she just wanted— well, whatever it was that Suguru was insisting on, she didn’t not want it.

Suguru’s face was close enough to kiss, so they did, meeting in a mesh of tongues. Satoru tried to test out the syllables where it couldn’t be heard out loud, the motion strange and foreign on her tongue.

“What was that?” Suguru paused, teasing. “Try again?”

Satoru could feel her face growing hot. “Fuck. Fine, let me touch myself, please.” Something was unfurling inside her, a strange tingling sensation sparking from her scalp, creeping across her back, down her spine, coiling at the pit of heat in her belly; satisfaction, she realized.

Suguru smiled smugly, lifting off her weight, pulling her hand back down to her groin. “There we go, not so hard, is it?”

Satoru nearly didn’t hear the rest, working her fingers over herself as Suguru redoubled her efforts, snapping her hips with the kind of intensity that Satoru could feel in her teeth. Oh, that was good, so very good.

“Are you close?” Suguru asked.

“Yes, damnit, so close,”

Suguru suddenly stopped. “Say please too.”

Satoru half-groaned, half-moaned at the sudden loss of sensation. She was so close, she wasn’t going to stop. “Suguru, you’re killing me.”

“Manners.”

Satoru growled, still moving her fingers. “Let me come, please?”

Suguru immediately started up again, pounding so furiously she could feel herself sliding on the sheets. “Then come.”

That was a new experience, the timing of her orgasm coinciding with Suguru’s instruction as she clenched down around the strap, the rush of it blanking all thought from her head so all she had was physical sensation, even Six Eyes going on pause for a moment.

She might have been louder than usual, up until Suguru captured her panting mouth, absorbing the rest of her sounds as she pistoned her hips a few more times, grinding out to a halt, rigid against Satoru.

“You okay?” Suguru asked after they finally caught their breath, pressing up in one fluid motion.

“Fine,” Satoru confirmed, unfolding her legs and stretching out of instinct. She felt great, actually.

“Was that okay?” Suguru tried again, clearly not satisfied with the answer.

“Very much more than okay,” Satoru confirmed again as she watched Suguru tear off the harness, sitting down next to her. It was as if her brain had rebooted and came back online, unfettered and efficient. “Wait, did you come?

“Yup,” Suguru nodded. “That was new for me. Never came like that.”

“First times for both of us then,” Satoru acknowledged. “I’d rate that a success, although we could do better.”

Suguru laughed, and then prodded at her arm. “Pee first, plan later.”

Satoru flopped over on the bed for dramatic effect. “Give me a moment here, let me enjoy the afterglow. You should join me.”

Suguru accepted her invitation, lying on her side to watch over her in silence. It was nice, a syrupy slow stretch of silence in her room, the smell of sex still in the air. Suguru traced small circles on her outstretched palm with featherlight touches.

“So, why me, why this?” Suguru finally asked, fingers still idling over Satoru’s palm, straying no further. Satoru wished she would touch her elsewhere.

“Why not you?” Satoru responded. It felt a little premature to admit that there really wasn’t anyone else; that felt almost desperate, and Satoru didn’t do desperate. “You’re the least boring person I know, and you’re hot.”

Suguru kicked at her shins half-heartedly. “You’re terrible at pillowtalk.”

Satoru rolled onto her belly to dodge, pillowing her head on folded arms. “I’m a scintillating conversationalist. Besides, are you saying you don’t want me for my body?” She stretched her spine, letting Suguru look.

Suguru appraised her from head to toe, her gaze slow and deliberate, sparkling with amusement. “Hmm, I don’t know about that.” Suguru poked at the jut of bone on her hip. “Still skin and bones.”

“Can’t help it,” Satoru pouted. “It’s Six Eyes.”

“I guess I’ll have to make do,” Suguru bemoaned. “At least your Six Eyes can be occasionally useful, even if you’re a brat.”

Satoru thought back to the unexpected curl of excitement when Suguru made her say please, the sort of relaxed, scalp-tingling pull of contentment and satisfaction. Doing what was expected of her had always been the modus operandi; she’d never been made to do what she didn’t want to do, but the fact that Suguru could make her want to do it— that was something unexpected; that was something she liked. “Well, I can be convinced to behave if there’s something in it for me...”

Suguru’s eyes narrowed, a calculating glance, her lips curving slightly, turning from soft to a knowing menace. “I don’t think I’m the one that needs to be doing the convincing here.” She ran her hand down Satoru’s spine, as Satoru peered up at her, invigorating shivers in the aftermath. “Now, if you want something, you’ll have to tell me. Or better yet, show me.”

Oh, Satoru liked that— that was a challenge, and Satoru was up to the challenge.

Early spring was not normally a time when curses manifested strongly, so Satoru was curious when Yaga sent them out to a northern town to look into the case of the overnight passing of a multi-generational family. The ground was still partially frozen, half-melted snow covering the field when they got off the train.

The down jackets made them look like puffer penguins, swishing with every step as they walked around the streets, studying the residuals, looking over the remaining possessions of the dead, reading through the coroner’s reports. Cause of death: hypoxia. She could hear the elderly policeman gripe in the background, “Why would they send a pair of school girls to do this, what could they possibly know? It was a gas leak, plain and simple.”

Suguru pulled her aside before she could open her mouth. For a non-sorcerer, that was the logical conclusion, but they knew residuals were all over the place.

Suguru gave her perfunctory thanks to the policeman, and identified a sequence of residences to interview, homes in the immediate surroundings. It was in an old, historic part of town, with the homes nearing the end of their useful lives, the rooflines so low that they had to stoop occasionally when they knocked on the doors. No surprise that each of the residents had little to share, unwilling to air their dirty laundry to a pair of city girls.

The last house they visited was a bit of a breakthrough, a chatty old grandmother who invited them in from the cold. “It’s so sad, really,” she told them, handing over mugs of tea as they sat by the kotatsu, “they were such a nice family, I knew the grandparents from their business, making dyed fabric the traditional way. They’re one of the last ones preserving the old ways.”

“Thank you,” Suguru dutifully accepted before inquiring, “Was it a family business?” Satoru wanted to roll her eyes.

“Oh yes, three generations, grandparents, parents, and their kids. Well, two of the kids anyhow. The oldest two were supposed to continue the business, the youngest girl…” The granny trailed off, her wrinkled face scrunching up a bit. “She had a blow up with them a while back, a horrible screaming match before returning to university, so disrespectful. The whole block could hear it. I can’t repeat the words in polite company, you girls can use your imagination, no?”

“She didn’t want to work in the family business?” Suguru continued her questions.

“Oh no, that wasn’t it, she wanted to introduce someone she was dating,” the granny explained. She leaned in, lowering her voice. “She was always an odd one, seeing things that weren’t there, acting out of turn. She was dating a foreigner at university, maybe even a woman. Can you believe the audacity?”

Satoru had to bite her lip to stop herself from laughing, whereas Suguru’s face was a smooth mask, perfectly balanced between neutrality and empathetic response. “Must have been shocking for such a traditionalist family,” Suguru commented.

The granny nodded sagely. “Such a shame, that really seemed to sour things. They tried to carry on as usual after that, but it’s always so awkward when everyone knows your business. Then, one day, they end up dead like this. Didn’t even get a chance to make peace.”

Satoru had a pretty good idea of what happened, and judging from Suguru’s face, so did she.

“Thank you for the tea,” Suguru told the old woman as they got up to leave. “And your hospitality.”

They made their way back to the house where the incident happened, studying the path of the residuals as they walked around the house. It was a traditional build, with very little insulation, so they had to keep the jackets on and hands shoved into the pockets, their breaths visible on the exhale. Suguru’s ears were red from windchill; her gauges couldn’t have been comfortable.

“It’s always something petty like this. Do you think it’s a curse user?” Suguru asked.

“Quite possibly,” Satoru mused. “Stealth assassination type, maybe even poison gas that dissolves after death.”

“Have you had experience with those?”

“Stealth assassination? Or poison gas?”

“Both.”

“Yes to both, but poison gas can be tricky to manipulate and is generally rarer.” Satoru turned the corner to the courtyard, and realized Suguru was staring at her. “What? I grew up with a bounty on my head. I’m very well acquainted with curse users.”

“I see.” Suguru sounded thoughtful. “So probably not the girl, but she might have known someone who could do it. But why?”

“The girl’s motivation is pretty obvious, pissed off at her family. A curse user is motivated by money. Girl hires a curse user, pays some money, the deed’s done. She’s not even here, probably at whatever uni she’s attending.”

“Wouldn’t this cost a lot?”

Satoru shrugged. “What’s a lot? A couple million yen? Maybe she made a binding vow as payment.”

Suguru still pondered, “I find it hard to believe she’d have the money to hire someone, and it’s strange they haven’t called her back either. Besides, shouldn’t jujutsu be used to protect people?”

“Not everyone deserves to be protected. That family sounded like a piece of work too, ” Satoru huffed. “Come on, let’s go, I’m hungry.”

They found a homely udon shop that was still open in the twilight hours between lunch and dinner, ordering the largest bowls on the menu with double portions of noodles. She was definitely starving, finding the basic fare unusually tasty, the broth hot and fragrant, the noodles chewy, the bites of tempura and fried tofu satisfying. Suguru phoned Yaga while Satoru slurped down her bowl, her belly warm and sated.

“Yaga says to stay the night, monitor for anything strange. If we don’t find anything tonight we’ll head back tomorrow and he’ll put it out on the bulletins,” Suguru informed her, and then did a double take at her bowl. “Did you steal my shrimp?”

“It was getting soggy,” Satoru explained, and then blanched when she processed the rest of what Suguru told her. “There’s nowhere nice to stay in this backwater town.”

“Satoru!” Suguru hissed at her. Too late, they were the only customers in the shop, sitting at the bar and well within earshot of the proprietor.

“What the young miss says is true,” the shop owner chuckled. “We don’t get a lot of visitors here. If I may make a suggestion, I know someone who runs a small ryokan, nothing fancy, but I can vouch for the quality.”

Since the meal was good enough, Satoru accepted the referral. It was acceptable by her standards, decent for such a small town, and no one really questioned two girls from the same school sharing a room. It lacked a TV though, and night fell early during this time of the year.

“I’m bored,” Satoru declared.

“We can go take a walk,” Suguru suggested.

“No, it’s too cold.” Satoru pouted, and then wedged herself next to Suguru, tucking her hands under the blanket of the kotatsu. “Say, what if we share body heat, I read skin to skin transference is best—”

Suguru shoved her face aside brusquely. “I know where this is going. You’re too loud and the walls here are too thin, you saw how the general population is here.”

“Then you should make sure that I can’t make too much noise.”

That was how Suguru ended up pressed along her back, with one hand sealed over Satoru’s mouth, her other hand under Satoru’s skirt, fingering her torturously slowly, as if she were trying to map out the topography of her insides with the pads of her fingers, a harsh drag and grind with the heel of her palm that just wasn’t enough, until it was. Satoru shuddered through her climax, her shout muffled against Suguru’s palm.

“Clean this up,” Suguru told her, holding her hand out, so Satoru opened her mouth.

Satoru was debating what she could do to return the favor when something caught her eye, or more accurately, flashed within the periphery of Six Eyes. She pulled off Suguru’s hand, scanning the room.

Suguru immediately rolled into a crouch, summoning her arsenal. “The curse user?”

Satoru shook her head. “Different energy signature. It’s not staying here, it’s moving in the direction of that house.”

They bolted out of the ryokan, jumping onto Suguru’s manta ray to catch up to whatever Satoru saw, the shield of Infinity protecting them from the bitter cold of the night. Satoru could see it, a different set of residuals, scattered along the low-lying rooftops, middling at best. A person, she could confirm, hopping over the gates of the deceased family’s home.

Satoru jumped off and tackled the target. A woman, crumpling like paper under her weight. Huh, not a seasoned assassin.

“Don’t kill me,” she begged, folding her arms over her head. “I haven’t done anything.”

Fair, Satoru supposed. “What are you doing here?”

“Collecting belongings,” the woman responded. “She had some keepsakes—”

“Who’s ‘she’?” Suguru asked sharply.

“Mari,” she responded. “She lived here, we dated, she didn’t come back to university after the break.”

That explained the two different sets of residuals. Satoru took a closer look at the woman she was sitting on, her features evidently of mixed race. A lot of pieces fell into place: a foreigner, a female, a fight that everyone knew about and didn’t want to talk about, a family that wasn’t the same afterwards. Suguru’s suspicions were quite accurate. “You are an unregistered cursed user,” Satoru confirmed, “but a weak one, so jujutsu society doesn’t care. I don’t think you killed the family. Do you know who did?”

The woman was quiet for a while.

“Was Mari also a curse user?” Suguru asked in lieu of a response.

“Not really, she had no training.” She sounded a bit fragile, like she was going to cry. Satoru really didn’t want to deal with a cryer. “I don’t know what happened, okay? But I know Mari is dead.”

Satoru sighed. “It's pretty clear what happened, a cursed spirit manifested mysteriously and smothered the whole family with their own suffocating set of traditionalist ways.” She stood up. “If you know she’s dead, you know where she’s buried, right? Show us.”

Later, Satoru suggested to Suguru to omit any reference of the curse user in the mission report. “Small fry,” she explained, “not worth the time. The cursed spirit’s been dealt with.”

Still, she could see Suguru was bothered by the whole sequence of events, taking longer than usual to complete the report.

“Some people aren’t worth protecting, huh?” Suguru asked her. “How did you find out?”

“It’s the same whether it’s just mundane humans or jujutsu society. Rot is rot.” Satoru shrugged. “I’ve seen everything.”

Satoru had the faint impression she was on the ferry in Lake Ashinoko, a faint rocking motion under swaying her from side to side, except she knew that lake carried tranquil waters, and the vertical rolling motion wasn’t normal to a boat ride.

“Satoru,” Suguru called, sounding close to her ear, “are you awake?”

Satoru opened her eyes to Suguru’s face hanging overhead, the yellowish blush of the morning sky behind her. She tried to ask where were they, but her mouth had cottoned over, croaking out a “blrgh” instead.

The pain of a migraine hit when she tried to sit up, as though she had personally offended Kannon and got slapped with a shrinking golden circlet for her indiscretions, an unbreakable and unrelenting ring of pressure squeezing through her skull; she gave up and settled back down. Her stomach somersaulted a few times, mouth salivating with overwhelming nausea, and she had to pinch her lips shut and force deep breaths through her nostrils to calm herself down. As she regained control and the world came back into focus, she realized they were on Suguru’s manta ray, her head pillowed on Suguru’s thighs, a warm cushion against the bitter cold of high altitude winds. Judging from the direction of the sun, they were on their way back to Tokyo. She could activate Infinity, let it stretch over them to shield them from the winds, but damn did her head hurt.

“You okay?” Suguru asked, concerned at her lack of response, the back of her hand pressed against her forehead, strangely cold; Suguru usually ran warm compared to her. Suguru lost her hair tie sometime last night, bangs falling over her face and softening her features, smears of blood across one cheek, a nasty purpling bruise creeping up the side of her face from when she took a whipstrike from the tail of the dragon curse.

Then Satoru remembered. “Tell me you ate that damn dragon,” she exhaled, suddenly aware of the ache that soaked her to the bone. The dragon curse had been a piece of work, incredibly armored and strengthened by the drownings in the local tributary for eons, snaking lightning fast through the mountain forests as they chased it into the open valley where the local tourist attraction of an old daimyo castle remained. Black Flash had been a stroke of fortune, enhancing her senses to the point where she could push her Limitless technique to overcome its shielding and pin down until Suguru’s curses could tear at its underbelly and gut it open. She remembered tag-teaming with Suguru to strike the vulnerable scales under its jaw, hanging onto its antlers as it twisted and turned, pounding them against the stones of the castle moat as Satoru used Limitless to twist its head off, a clean separation from the length of its body, and— not much beyond that.

Suguru gave her a thumbs up even though her eyes were bloodshot, evidence of a vomiting session while Satoru was out. “It stayed down,” Suguru explained at her suspicious look. “We can try it out when you’re better. How are you feeling?”

“Like shit,” Satoru admitted. She closed her eyes; it was only a marginal improvement, Six Eyes still humming along. “I should probably stay awake though, just in case. Will need to hit up Shoko for some more painkillers.” Shoko had compounded a formulation for her after she got tired of Satoru’s whining.

“It is Six Eyes? Or just your period?”

“Both. Probably overdid Limitless.” Satoru let Suguru card through her hair, teasing out the knots. The cursed spirit was long gone, tucked away inside of Suguru somewhere, but the glitterbomb of its prismatic scales lingered, sticking stubbornly to their reinforced uniforms, dusted into their hair. Maybe she should ask Suguru to stop at the nearest city so they could find a place to clean up. “But it was worth it, right?”

“It’s a good one to have,” Suguru assured her. “Easily the most heavily armored out of the bunch.”

“Nice.” Well, at least the effort was well worth it, like securing another UFO catcher prize. When they get back, they should celebrate, go visit that dessert shop they found in Ikebukuro, split a matcha tiramisu that Suguru would only take a few bites of and leave the rest for her, stop by the hole in the wall for tempura and soba, maybe even take a night at Atami and take a nice long soak in the hot springs if they could get away for a night. “So do I get credit for it?”

Suguru snorted. “I suppose you did decapitate it, so yes, I’ll give you credit. What do you want as a reward?”

Think, think, don’t think about how she wanted to claw her brain out of her skull. Anything else. “I think I earned something special for this one,” Satoru started, and then blurted out the first thing that came to mind: “How about I get to fuck you? With a strap I mean.” Yes, that was good, redirect her focus, sex was always a good distraction, the novel concept of her fucking Suguru for a change was refreshing.

Suguru was silent and still long enough that Satoru went from nausea to dread in her belly, and then burst out in a peal of laughter, jostling Suguru’s head in her lap. “Really? Of all the things you could be saying right now, that’s what you want to focus on?”

Satoru refused to open her eyes. She could already read the way Suguru’s cursed energy bounced inside her frame, vibrating with laughter. “I would rather think about that than my migraine right now.”

Suguru’s hand rested on her head, her calloused thumb sweeping across her forehead, a familiar weight drawing circles in the space between her eyes. “I get it,” Suguru commiserated, voice soft. “Fine, it’s a deal.”

In most other circumstances, Satoru would have considered this a victory, and celebrated accordingly. But even a hypothetical altitude change was unpleasant at this rate, and she might as well take advantage of the opportunity to sleep on Suguru’s lap. Suguru’s cursed energy signature was a panacea, one that she could take comfort in even without Six Eyes.

“Next time,” Suguru reminded her, “try not to overdo it, I don’t want to have to drag you out of the roof of the castle again.”

“It was only a building,” Satoru rebutted, eyes closed.

“It was a historical monument that you wrecked, and you forgot the veil again.”

“They’ll just rebuild it anyway, piece by piece. Call it a natural disaster, that’s the usual excuse.”

“Sounds about right, you are a natural disaster.” Suguru somehow made it sound affectionate, her touch consistent and steadying. “I’d hate to make Shoko have to rebuild you piece by piece.”

“I’m pretty durable,” Satoru confirmed, feeling good enough to extend Infinity to shield them both. The wind current disappeared, leaving only the warm weight of Suguru’s hand covering her eyes, Six Eyes tracking to the pulse of Suguru’s heartbeat. “Nothing’s going to get past this.”

Satoru had never wished for an actual biological dick, until faced with the prospect of fucking Suguru, rather than the other way around. It wasn’t that Satoru didn’t enjoy getting fucked, because she definitely did— but she couldn’t help the curiosity, the what ifs, being able to see beyond the unknown. She had fantasized about how Suguru’s face might look when it was Satoru using more than just fingers and tongue and lips. Would Suguru have the look of ecstasy and elation, to melt into bliss and go lax and boneless coming on Satoru’s cock, and let the whimpers spill out between her plush lips? If she had a biological dick, Satoru bet she could feel it, buried in the tight wet heat of Suguru’s cunt, feeling the clench and seize as Suguru came, being held in Suguru’s vice grip in more ways than one.

But, Satoru was bereft of an actual cock, so she had to make do with the next best thing.

“This feels a little weird,” Satoru told Suguru, adjusting the harness straps riding up her buttocks. The buckle dug a little bit into her hip, more obtrusive than it looked on Suguru.

Suguru gave her a look, eyes flicking to the silicone strap, and then back up at her face, sharp and mean, just the way Satoru liked it. “Yes, having a prosthetic dick flap around is weird.” She was gloriously nude, legs crossed primly as she sat at the edge of the bed, her hair undone and falling over her shoulders. “Somehow, I’ve managed. I’m sure you can too.”

Satoru wiggled her hips, testing its stability at her crotch. Nothing loose, which was good. “I’m a quick study.” She looked at Suguru. “Shall we?”

Suguru uncrossed her legs, and recrossed them, and laid her wrists over her knees. She might have been trying to look bored, but Satoru knew the behavior, knew Suguru was invested in this, even as Suguru said, “Isn’t this a little too vanilla for you?”

“Well, since I am fucking you for the first time, I didn’t want to get too fancy.”

Suguru rolled her eyes. “You really need to try harder than that.” She curled her finger, beckoning Satoru over; Satoru felt a Pavlovian response, a twinge of anticipation down her spine, curling at her tailbone as her feet walked forward into the space Suguru made between her legs. The familiar urge to drop between her knees was very real, as was the urge to be contrarian. “Tell me,” Suguru commanded, voice dropping husky and low, “how did you think you were going to fuck me?”

Satoru knelt on the bed, the mattress squeaking, one hand pressed against Suguru’s shoulder, her skin warm to the touch. “First,” Satoru started, “I’d have you on your back, knees pressed to your shoulders so I could see all of you, fold you in half and pin you down.” Suguru’s breathing didn’t change, but Satoru could catch the minute dilation of her pupils, the twitch of her fingers. She nosed along Suguru’s jaw, inhaling her scent, freshly washed, running her lips along Suguru’s ear. “After you come the first time, I’ll take you from behind, with you on all fours. After that, once you’re boneless, I’ll put you on your side, and fuck you some more. Babe, I can keep going all day, there’s no refractory period for this dick.” She let her free hand wander, squeezing at Suguru’s tits, feeling her nipples harden under her touch.

“Ambitious,” Suguru intoned, a touch of interest underpinning the sarcastic tone. “You think I’ll just let you?”

“You said you would,” Satoru pouted, feigning betrayal.

Suguru raised an eyebrow, and sighed, pulling her down to the bed. “I said I’d let you put a dick in me, but I can be convinced for some more creativity.” They ended up wrestling, evasive half rolls due to the limited width of the bed, enough for it to creak to the point of structural concern, so Satoru finally conceded, letting Suguru sit on top of her torso, ass flush against the strap.

“First,” Suguru decided, staring down at her and maintaining eye contact as her hands squeezed Satoru’s tits together with a wonderful amount of possessive pressure, “I’m going to ride your tongue, and you’re going to get me nice and wet. Then I’ll decide if I want to ride your cock.”

When it came to Suguru, Satoru had long since recognized that there was some amount of short circuiting in her brain, as if the force of Suguru's presence was sufficient to peel back her already flimsy veneer of propriety and incinerate all her inhibitions; anything and everything seemed like acceptable behavior, especially when it was Suguru dictating the terms and Satoru was fulfilling them.

There was a sense of relief to not having to make a choice, when every other moment was a thousand details filtering through her brain, demanding concentration and attention. Even if Satoru didn’t care or want to make the decisions, as long as it was Suguru, her brain went on autopilot and compulsion took care of the rest, freed of such burden, leaving the rest to Suguru. Suguru was an equal, whose judgement didn’t leave her wanting, whose interests aligned with her own, whose power and strength impressed and awed rather than leaving her disappointed and bored.

So, if Suguru wanted to sit on her face, Satoru could only nod dumbly in agreement and try not to glaze over too much as thoughts of Suguru bearing down on her flashed across her head, all her grand fantasies vacating swiftly in the presence of the real deal before her eyes.

Suguru eased herself down until Satoru was buffered by those amazing thighs, the musk of arousal filling her nostrils, salivating as she stuck out her tongue, desperate for the tang and slick of Suguru in her mouth. The solid muscle of her ass was firm and heavy against Satoru’s hands, the tender slick folds of her cunt soft under Satoru’s tongue, sensitive every time at the outset. Satoru’s eyes traced the captivating contractions up the lines of her abs and her shudders against the muscle of Satoru’s tongue until she acclimated, and then Suguru’s eyelids fluttered shut as she really started riding, nearly suffocating Satoru as she ground her cunt against Satoru’s mouth, pressed flush against her nose, Satoru’s tongue an instrument, a tool solely for her pleasure. Satoru didn’t need air that badly, not yet anyway; the desperate urge to make Suguru feel amazing overrode every other need, the auditory feedback of Suguru’s near silent whimpers and low groans, combined with everything else culminating in a heavy weight in her gut, making Satoru clench down on emptiness.

Just as Satoru was tempted to turn her head for a gulp of air, Suguru suddenly pulled back, her weight suspended. “Not yet,” Suguru told her, panting softly as her thighs flexed, kneeling above her. “I didn’t say to make me come yet.”

Satoru stretched out her jaw and tongue, and pushed herself up, propped up against the headboard. She looked hopefully at Suguru. “I wouldn’t mind.”

“I would.” Suguru scooted backwards to Satoru’s groin, hovering over the jut of the strap. “Or would you prefer I skipped this part?”

Satoru bucked up her hips, teasing small gyrations so it rubbed up against the inside of Suguru’s thighs. “Oh, no, make yourself comfortable.”

Suguru slapped Satoru’s hips back down, and wrapped her hand around the strap, testing it in her hand, frowning a little. “Where’s the lube?”

Satoru dug it out from where it had rolled under the pillow, and watched as Suguru squeezed a dollop on her hand and slicked up the dick. She didn’t think Suguru would really need it, given how wet she could get, but who was she to judge? She laughed when Suguru wiped the residual on the sheets. “We can strip the bed later, it’s laundry day.”

Satisfied, Suguru reached between her legs, making eye contact as she told Satoru, “Consider yourself lucky.” Somehow, it didn’t sound like she was talking about the sheets.

Satoru’s breath stilled, words suddenly voiding from her brain as her eyes tracked the way Suguru’s fingers split apart her folds, lining up for the silicone dick, and how Suguru fed it slowly inside herself an increment at a time, the ripple of her quadriceps the only indication of movement as she sighed, a sound of satisfaction, maybe relief, and certainly not annoyance. For the briefest moment, Satoru entertained the thought of having a dick with actual feedback. Yeah, that would be nice, if only for this.

And then, Suguru commented as a follow up, “I’ve never actually used a dildo on myself before.”

Wait.

Back up, rewind. What. What.

“Is this the first time you’re taking a cock?” Satoru blurted out, ruminating over her judgement on the dick selection. Should she have gone smaller? How could she have known? Was it two fingers, or three fingers comparable? “Oh shit, am I taking your dick virginity? Seriously?”

“Satoru,” Suguru warned as she bottomed out, the sound of her growl doing a lot more for Satoru then she could admit, “You need to shut up if you want any chance of fucking me.”

“Right,” Satoru swallowed thickly, closing her mouth. Suguru braced her hands on Satoru’s shoulders as she shifted backwards, testing out the angle, the pressure of her weight grinding straight down. Satoru’s hands settled by reflex on Suguru’s hips as she planted her heels, stabilizing Suguru’s core as she tested the up-down motion.

Suguru had a look of concentration, her canine digging at the corner of her mouth as she acclimated, until her lips parted into a small o and the tension slowly unwound from her core, the lines of her abdomen softening. Satoru couldn’t help but jerk up her hips in sympathetic response, drawing out a small ah from Suguru. Satoru loved watching Suguru’s face relax, a sharp contrast to her snake-coiled resting state, brows unfolding and soft.

“Can I touch you?” Satoru asked, hands itching for more contact.

Suguru held up a hand, not quite looking at her, still experimental, treating her like a toy to be put through its paces. That definitely did something for Satoru. After a few more excruciating moments, finally Suguru nodded. “Yes.” And then, “Timing,” Suguru instructed crisply between her pants of soft ahs, increasing in intensity. “Match me.”

It was second nature for them to sync up, a familiar habit born out of everyday practice, Satoru pistoning as Suguru bore down with soft grunts and gasps, little sounds spilling out of her as she tipped her face skyward. Satoru palmed at Suguru’s chest, twisting and rolling a nipple between her fingers as she pressed her mouth against Suguru’s collarbone, sucking at the hollows right above the divot. Satoru had always thought those whimpering, soft noises the AV actresses made was for the camera, but then she actually started having sex and discovered that it was actually true; not for Satoru, no, quiet wasn’t her style, but Suguru did it so differently, in quiet sighs and breathes, and sometimes, if it was really good, the little “ah ah ahs” that indicated her satisfaction. Suguru was always so quiet, subsuming all her reactions into her core rather than letting it out.

Satoru could see every twitch, every clench, every twist of cursed energy coiled up inside every person, and Suguru was no exception, but it didn’t mean Satoru could read her like an open book; that was a learned skill, and while Satoru had made a lot of progress, there was still a ways to go. She had to ask, trying not to preen, “Good, right? You’re gonna come on my cock like this?”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Suguru warned, leveling a look at her, her smile mean and her eyes glinting. “You like it when I use you like this, don’t you?” Suguru always knew what pushed her buttons; she tipped her head to one side, exposing the juncture of her neck and shoulder, letting Satoru bite down on it, nipping and sucking at the skin, tasting the salt and sweat. “You like knowing that you get to be the first cock I take.”

Six Eyes fed every detail to Satoru as she watched transfixed: Suguru rubbing herself to their synced up pace, taking what she wanted from Satoru, slamming down, her speed picking up as Satoru matched, muscles contracting, cresting, cresting—

“This isn’t working,” Suguru sighed, coming to a halt, annoyed. “I’m going to need a different position.”

Satoru bucked up and fluidly rolled them over with a press of her palm, folding Suguru beneath her, pressing her knees up the shoulders exactly how she had imagined it. “Like this?” she asked, rolling her hips deliberately, nuzzling her cheek against the smooth skin of Suguru’s ankle.

“Harder,” Suguru managed. Her hair splayed against the sheets, a starburst shadow behind her head as Satoru pressed all of her weight down, her eyelashes fluttering. “Do it like you mean it.”

Spurned on, Satoru pinned the bones of Suguru’s well defined wrists overhead and shifted her weight to her free hand as she sped up the pace, snapping her hips, thrusting as deep as she could, pressed chest to chest so Suguru’s ankles ended up at her ears. Little ahs and uhs leaked out of Suguru, not quite whimpers, but close. Satoru had always felt a sense of helplessness in this position, pinned down and stretched out in such a way that she could only be eager cocksleeve for Suguru, at the mercy of the angles and force that Suguru chose; she wondered if Suguru felt the same, pressed open like this. It certainly was working for Satoru, base of the strap grinding against her in a way she hadn't anticipated, deliciously satisfactory.

“Still not working,” Suguru shook her head.

Satoru slowed, then stopped, perplexed. Still, she wasn’t a quitter. “What would work better?”

“I need clitoral stimulation,” Suguru explained, sitting back up. To Satoru’s amazement, she turned over and settled on her hands and knees fluidly, presenting the raised curves of her ass and the swollen pink of her cunt, puffy from their efforts. Satoru salivated at the sight, and then snapped to attention when Suguru remarked, “This should work better.”

Satoru didn’t need more encouragement than that. She kneewalked into position, slicked up some more lube on the strap with a free hand, and slid home with a grunt, her clean hand gripping at Suguru’s hip. “Like this?” She set a brisk pace, the base of the strap rubbing against her.

The triangles of Suguru’s shoulder blades rippled, her weight shifted forward as Suguru collapsed to her elbow, one hand visibly working at her clit as her face pressed against the sheets. “Okay— nnn— yes. Like that.”

Better, Satoru supposed, if Suguru was sounding like that, her hips pushing back against Satoru in counterpoint. Fucking back was good, as was the sound of Suguru breathing raggedly, “Fuck, come on, harder, fuck me.”

A sharp, crystalline clarity overcame Satoru, like when she had been using Six Eyes too long, the haze of mundanity peeling away. Who was she to deny Suguru such a request, especially when she’s made the same request of Suguru so many times over; whatever it took, Satoru knew she could do it, achieve it.

“You wanna come?” Satoru asked, fresh inspiration sparking to life.

“Goddamnit, yes,” Suguru growled.

Satoru rubbed the still lube-slicked thumb against the furl of Suguru’s asshole, hips still pumping away. “Ever had anything in your ass?” Satoru had tried fingering herself before, more out of curiosity than anything else, and had found after the initial discomfort she didn’t dislike it. She hadn’t brought it up to Suguru yet. No time like the present.

Suguru grunted, sounding a little far away. “No, never tried it.”

“Thought about it?” Satoru teased at the edges, pressing the pad of her thumb against the pucker, feeling the resistance. Suguru was clenched tight there, and probably her cunt as well.

There was a moment of wordlessness, just the slick squelch of the strap plunging in and out, the grind of Satoru’s hips as their pants syncopated, as if Suguru was fighting the last bit of mental resistance. “Fine, yes, thought about it, just do it,” Suguru rasped out, sounding desperate.

Satoru wiped the rest of the lube against Suguru’s crack, settling her palm against the cheek, and pushed in with the apex of her thumb, working past the sphincter as Suguru groaned. Suguru was warm and twitching against her thumb, solid muscle clamping down against the intrusion giving way to soft tissue. When she pressed down, she could feel the firmness of the strap just below.

“Shit,” Suguru gasped. She was still fucking back, but stuttered a little when Satoru began to rotate her finger in small circles, managing a shallow pumping motion against her thrusts. “Oh f-fuck,” she stuttered, stuttered, and jerking back and forth in a frenzy, her voice escalating in pitch as she rapidly ran out of words other than, “harder fuck me fuck me Satoru Satoru please please please.”

The begging was a lightning strike, a livewire, a lit match against the fuse of Satoru’s arousal, tipping her over the edge as she drove hard and fast to satisfy Suguru’s request, mesmerized by the sharp relief of Suguru’s back muscles in contraction as Suguru came, clenching and shuddering around her, feeding off the shockingly loud choked out cries. By the time Satoru came down, Suguru was also slowing down, the lines of her back relaxing, slumping as much as Suguru could slump.

“Wow,” was all Satoru could manage as she pulled out and Suguru sprawled out boneless on the bed. “That was different.”

“Not a word,” Suguru muttered into the sheets. “Not one word.”

Satoru always felt great in the immediate post-orgasm flush, like she could go again nevermind the consequences, even as her muscles reminded her of the efforts it had just gone through. She cleaned her hand with a nearby towel, and unbuckled the harness, tossing everything into the to sanitize pile. Grabbing another towel, she went to wipe down Suguru. “So, yes to ass play?”

Suguru smacked her arm. “Give me some time here,” she groused. “You’ve never mentioned it before.”

“You liked it! I’ve never heard you be that loud.”

“I didn’t know what to expect,” Suguru admitted,and then rolled to one side to look at Satoru, a relaxed set of her shoulders, her face soft. “Not bad.”

Satoru beamed. “The part where I fucked you? Or the ass thing?”

Suguru chucked a pillow at her. “It took three positions to get me going, I rate that as subpar.” She drew up her shoulders, straightening her back as she sat up. “Now, about the ass thing— is this a me thing or you thing?”

Satoru shrugged. “Why not both? You liked it.” She paused, and then went for it. “I’ve got an idea.” This one, she definitely hadn’t thought through. “How about if you fucked me in the ass?”

Satoru always liked watching Suguru’s eyes dilate, an unconscious motion that Suguru had no control over compared to the rest of her body, knowing that all it took were the words out of her mouth to garner that kind of reaction.

“Okay,” Suguru agreed with a quirked eyebrow, her low voice kindling a promise of anticipation. “That I can do.”

As she stood ankle deep in the Okinawan sea with sand filtering between her toes, it occurred to Satoru that this was nice.

This: the near-equatorial sun overhead, the warm ocean water, the weird-ass marine life, and the sound of a teenage girl forming new experiences in the form of shrieks and screams over the softly rolling waves. The morning dalliance with the kidnapper had been long forgotten, no more than a pebble to be shaken out of her sandals.

Objectively, Riko was kind of annoying; objectively, Riko deserved the opportunity to try and live a little, before she stopped living. Satoru had seen one too many cases just like Riko, born into a path that was preordained, every stop, every turn, every fork in the road dictated for her, insidious in how little agency she actually had while giving her the illusion of choice. Yaga had been clear, death awaited her, even if Riko had been convinced otherwise. This was no different from the other girls Satoru had seen, born into the old clans and destined to follow the instructions of their masters.

Satoru had experienced it herself. The only difference was that she had the power to change her path.

“We should get going,” Suguru reminded her.

Satoru looked at Riko, and saw how her face dropped. “Ne, Suguru, what’s the harm in staying through tomorrow morning? It’s nice here. Safer too.”

Suguru frowned, leaning close to look over her shades. “Satoru, I know you’ve been using Limitless continuously since yesterday,” she hissed, threaded with an undercurrent of worry. “You haven’t even slept since the night before we started this mission. We should get back to the campus quickly before you burst that head of yours.”

Suguru was the only person who knew all of the tells; it always sounded worse when it came from Suguru’s lips, as though saying the words made it true rather than Satoru’s own experience. Satoru could feel the exhaustion creeping up behind her, nipping at her heels. It didn’t matter though, she could hold out for a bit longer. “I’ll be fine. This ain’t the hardest thing I’ve had to keep up with. Besides, you’re here too.”

Suguru’s eyes softened ever so slightly. “You’re such an idiot,” she told her before turning to Riko and Kuroi. “Alright, change of plans, we’ll stay until tomorrow morning.”

This was nice: to be able to enjoy a peaceful afternoon sightseeing their way through the island, a quaint, rumbling bus ride to the mangroves where they could paddle their kayaks across the emerald waters; to savor the sugary sweet pork belly melting on her tongue as Riko gagged on the goya champuru, prompting Suguru to take over the dish; to idle before the serenity of the open sea tank as Riko stood entranced, and suggest to Suguru about trying it out themselves in deep water with Infinity as their barrier; to devour her cone of sweet potato soft serve soaked in black sugar syrup before turning to Suguru’s; to watch Suguru rinse her feet off under the beachside shower stalls, sand still dotting the pull of tendon at her ankles, her sandals dangling on two fingers as Riko squealed from the cold water; to burst bits of umibudo between her fingertips and wipe her hands on Suguru’s hair as Kuroi monitored the pork slices in the tabletop hot pot; to eat every variety of fried doughnuts they could get their hands on until their bellies protruded, soft and rounded from a surfeit of snacks and sweets.

It was how Satoru might have envisioned a vacation, if vacation involved babysitting while watching for bounty hunters and assassins at any given moment. It wasn’t so bad, she could almost forget the pressure building up behind her eyes, the dull ache at the base of her skull. They were safe, and that was enough.

The hotel suite Suguru secured for the night was a western style one, spacious but with a footprint small enough to make monitoring easier, one enclosed bedroom and a sizable couch, floor to ceiling windows overlooking the nearby park. Nanami and Haibara were settled one floor down, watching for disturbances.

“Thank you,” Kuroi told her and Suguru after confirming Riko was asleep, passed out from the day’s events. She was preparing to watch over her, setting up at the foot of the bed. “The young miss really enjoyed herself today. I’m grateful for your kindness.”

Suguru offered a pleasant smile. “It is no trouble, Riko is a kind girl. She cares for you too.”

Kuroi nodded stiffly. “I know.”

Suguru always seemed to know the right words to say, more than enough for Satoru. Satoru shrugged. “She’s not a bad kid.”

They left Kuroi to watch over Riko, Suguru sending a few scouting curses for extra measure. Satoru collapsed in a sprawl on the couch as soon as the bedroom partition closed. Sixteen hours left to go, if she did her math correctly.

“You forgot the painkillers, didn’t you?” Suguru asked her, looming over her head.

Her head was pounding, the tension extending to her shoulders. Too bad Shoko’s latest formulation had been left in her room back in Tokyo, still taped over with Shoko’s note in scrawled handwriting, eat me. “I’ll be fine.”

“Maybe, but just go to sleep,” Suguru nagged, sitting down next to her. “I can keep watch.”

“Nah, I got it,” Satoru reassured her. “You sleep tonight. I’ll take a cat nap on the plane tomorrow, assuming all clear.”

“Why are you doing this?” Suguru knitted her brows. “It’s not about Tengen, we already decided that.”

“I don’t give a fuck about Tengen.” Satoru glanced at the partition, and decided she could use Suguru’s lap as a pillow. There were no complaints as she shifted over, Suguru automatically finger-combing her hair like she was a large cat. This was nice. “She’s a human being, not an object. She should get a chance to decide what she wants to do instead of letting others dictate for her.”

“Like you?”

Satoru chuckled. “Fuck no. She’s weak and needs help.”

“Altruism doesn’t suit you.”

“No, this is selfishness. Between the two of us, you’re the altruist, not me.”

“Neither of us are,” Suguru rejected.

“True,” Satoru grinned. “You’re a bitch.”

“Takes one to know one.”

“You bet.”

The sound of Suguru’s quiet laugh rumbled through her bones, a familiar vibration distilled into ease. “So if she doesn’t want to go through with it tomorrow…”

“If we gotta fight, we gotta fight.” Satoru stretched lazily. They had already made up their mind before they started the day before: they were the strongest. “Who’s going to stop us?”

Satoru was familiar with death in the way all jujutsu sorcerers were, the snuffing out of a life, the extinguishment of cursed energy, the rigor mortis of a corpse, the stained and shadowy remains of lingering regret, the scattering of bone ash.

Purely in an abstract sense, she knew she too could die, would eventually die like any other human.

In reality, there was little that could actually pose a threat, let alone a mortal one. She had stared down each and every rat that crawled out of the woodwork to sniff at an ever increasing bounty from the day she was born and watched the smart ones run. The desperate and stupid had been dispatched, whether by her hand or another, it hadn’t mattered. She was part of the Strongest Duo, blessed with Six Eyes and Limitless; she was nigh invulnerable as long as she had Infinity. She was untouchable.

Until, skewered and gutted open from neck to navel like a gaping fish, she wasn’t.

Survive.

So this is what it felt like to be clutching at her innards, to push back the spill of blood-slicked intestine, to try to hold together muscle and skin over the shattered bone, to feel the life bleed out of her as she summoned the cursed energy that should have been no different from breathing, except even breathing was difficult, the faint wheezing telling her all she needed to know about perforations where they didn’t belong.

Such a stupid way to die, not by a curse, not by even a sorcerer, but a man completely absent of cursed energy.

Survive.

Now she knew what a knife in the head felt like, strangely devoid of pain compared to everything else.

Survive.

The fragility of her physical body was painfully clear, a collection of flesh and organs, wrapped in human skin and reinforced with cursed energy, still all too vulnerable.

Survive, you know how.

If she could perform reverse cursed techniques, she could heal herself. How silly that was: she couldn’t even move, couldn’t so much as blink, trapped in her own head, replaying the gibberish of Shoko’s explanations, all of the knowledge Six Eyes provided and nothing she could do about it.

Survive, you have Six Eyes.

A jujutsu sorcerer killed without cursed energy became a vengeful spirit; wouldn’t it be the greatest of ironies if she became that, the very thing she exterminated and watched Suguru consume, bent to Suguru’s will? No— she was Gojo Satoru, the bearer of the Six Eyes, an unparalleled genius, capable of anything and everything if she so desired, observer of the core of cursed energy whose threads wove themselves into fates and destinies, left their imprint in everything until this oddity of a man showed up in front of her like a void.

Survive, you have Limitless.

If she was going to die by human hands in the absence of cursed energy, she damned well was going to come back a human. Satoru knew there must be a way.

She needed time.

She needed time, time to assess, analyze, ascertain the path forward so she could reknit the tissue, undo the damage, solve the problem of lying at death’s door. She had already acclimated to the pain, moved beyond it, relegating it to a symptom of the body she had to fix.

Now, time— time was relative, a matter of increasing mass and gravitational attraction. She could do it with her technique; she had to do it.

Survive, and transcend this.

Satoru showed up at the Gojo estates with the remains of the weapon that had cut her open and a half empty wallet, barely remembering to change out of the bloody mess of rags into a wrinkled spare uniform dug out from the depths of her closet before taking the next Shinkansen departing from Shinagawa. It was late evening by the time she arrived at Kyoto station, the summer moon a pendant strung high among the stars and the world in stark relief as she saw things for what they truly were.

She had time. Time enough on the train ride to remember Okinawa, barely thirty-six hours ago in real time, even though it had felt like an eternity had passed between then and now; time enough on the idling bus ride to meditate over the man from the Zenin clan whose existence pushed her to where she was now, for whom she could summon no rage; and as much time as she needed during the walk over to the estates with gravel crunching underfoot to ruminate over the strange cruelty of ordinary humans celebrating the death of a girl who, as Suguru had recounted, simply wanted to live a life of her choosing.

Her footsteps had stopped making noise, floating above the gravel with an unconscious Infinity, rendering her entrance silent. A night guard startled when she rounded the corner to the old wing of the compound, barely remembering to conceal his surprise before greeting her. “Young mistress.”

She smiled, with teeth. “Call the elders. I’ve mastered Red and Purple.”

There had always been a lot of fussing when she broke protocol, a lot of hand wringing and whispered conversations in the background that she didn’t have the patience for, even more so when she interrupted their geriatric bedtimes. She didn’t bother to change her clothes this time, cut her attendants’ hushed conversation short by grabbing a knife and cropping what remained of her hair to create the illusion of symmetry, and let the smell of her blood stay on her skin as she sliced open her palm and healed it back up in front of an audience.

The fussing stopped.

A different kind of fussing started.

She had only intended to stay a day or two, to shove it in their faces and dump that abomination of the cursed tool somewhere under the strongest seals in the weapon storeroom before fucking off, but as things with clan politics often went, one thing bled into another and two days turned into three. The point was to prove that they didn’t need her in alliances with other clans, she was strong enough on her own; so why were these idiots trying to explain to her that betrothals were still on the table? Gone were the days when disputes between clans could simply be settled with a duel to the death. It was too bad, she’d win those.

Now, she had to follow the formalities, artificial rituals ascribed meaning: an exchange of terms, a hanko imbued with cursed energy, the reading of official offers before she could formally reject them all and ridicule them for the ridiculous and archaic requests that were categorically impossible to fulfill, watching as they turned red and purple with each tacked on insult.

After she demonstrated Red and Purple, there weren't many of them left to protest. She should have been exhausted, worn to the bone with the strain of using Six Eyes to manage her technique. Yet, all it took was a simple healing technique to remedy the impending migraine, and physically she was fine; it seemed that Shoko’s new formulation would go to waste.

The only problem remaining was that creating a power vacuum required that she fill it, such was the law of nature.

“Young mistress, congratulations on accelerating your timetable,” the middle-aged woman who introduced herself as the family retainer told her. Her face was reserved, carefully neutral, even though her body language betrayed her exasperation at Satoru’s choice of wanton destruction. In the background of the receiving hall, the construction team was scrambling to clear the debris. “Since this is now your clan, you will need to decide.”

“Decide what?”

“Delegation of responsibility.” The woman opened up the portfolio in hand. “You are the heir to the Gojo clan by birth. The addition of a husband was to secure the continuation of the naming right. There was never an expectation for you or your future husband to have to manage operations. There has always been a contingency plan.” She pulled out a bulleted sheet. “This is the shortlist for your chief of staff and cabinet members. I suggest we arrange interviews in the next few days so you can confirm their appointments and then we’ll need about a week to transition everyone fully.”

“Let me be clear,” Satoru explained, “there will be no husband, and I have no desire to be a figurehead.”

“You bear Six Eyes,” her retainer stated. “Every Six Eyes user has always been more myth than man. Or woman, in your case.”

“Why are you going along with this? Even you can tell this was a load of bullshit.”

“Young mistress, my family has served this clan for centuries, and each of us have sworn a binding oath to serve in the interests of continuation of the Gojo clan and preservation of the Six Eyes and Limitless techniques. My personal opinion is irrelevant here.”

“I am asking for your personal opinion. There will be no retribution or ill will, I swear it.”

The retainer pursed her lips, flatlined like a sad heart rate monitor. “I have witnessed your upbringing, I am unqualified to even contemplate being in your role. I can only assist to the best of my abilities with preparing you for what you will have to navigate. I hope your strength is enough to bear the weight of expectation, strength enough to stand against the ruling elite if that is what you choose.”

“I’m the strongest,” Satoru assured her, “of course I can.” Strength was the measure of worth of a jujutsu sorcerer, and by the offers that had been on the table, she was viewed as the most valuable one of them all.

Now responsibility, as it turned out, was boring. Operations was simply another word for maintaining the clan’s interests, tasked with managing funds and finances, squabbles over branch family inheritances and negotiating marriages of convenience, the disciplinary committee needed to squash malfeasance from those who had gotten too complacent in their own overconfidence, the master of arms maintaining the storeroom of cursed tools and negotiations with other clans, and gossip among middle-aged adults about ranking of sorcerer grades and limiting promotions beyond first grade.

“What do you mean by limiting promotions?” she asked, leaning into their conversation from her seat at the head of the table.

The man who brought it up drew himself upright, shoulders squaring. “It’s a mark of differentiation, setting someone like you apart from the common jujutsu sorcerers. Not just anyone can be a special grade sorcerer.”

“There was that other woman before me.”

“You have Six Eyes, you’ve now mastered Red and Purple at such a young age, there is no question of your skill. That other woman was... a disappointment ultimately.”

Satoru didn’t care about mistakes. “So what’s stopping another sorcerer from being promoted to special grade?”

“That individual would have to be truly skilled, well connected, and without fault. You’ve set the bar at this point. The administrative body values their reputation, and wouldn’t want another mistake on their records. The grading affects the individual’s compensation, access to resources, social mobility—”

Satoru sat back. “I will give you a name.”

“Please understand,” the man started with that tone of voice, the one of condescending gentleness that treated her like she was a child playing in a man’s world, like she didn’t understand anything. “Special grade promotions do not work like ordinary promotions. It’s not just recommendation based. The ruling body that makes the decision will ask, what does a girl like you have to offer them for entertaining such a request? Your designation is a result of a long-established agreement between the three major clans as to the next inheritor of the Six Eyes.”

“So it’s quid pro quo with the higher ups?” Satoru scowled. That explained a lot, actually; those could not simply be bought out with money.

“This is not something to take lightly,” he warned her, like she still didn’t understand. “Even if you are the strongest jujutsu sorcerer currently, their price may be difficult for you.”

Satoru shrugged. She was tired of this long-winded subterfuge, of the machinations in the shadows and whispers between clans of off-the-record deals, of the still-held perception she was a girl who only knew brute force and not the finesse needed to play this game. “There is nothing they can ask of me that I can’t handle. I will give you a name, and you will make it happen.”

By the time all was said and done, and she could finally return to the Tokyo campus, she knew what she had agreed to. It was fine, she could handle it.

“I only have the usual set here,” Suguru commented as she dug through her drawers, sorting through the collection of straps they ended up keeping in her room for convenience, some of Satoru’s favorites. “We’ll have to check your room for something smaller.”

“What for?” Satoru scoffed, unable to bear the thought of having to wait for Suguru to exit the room and leave her waiting on Suguru’s bed, already stretched out and worked up. “I can handle it.” She didn’t consider herself a size queen, the straps they left in Suguru’s room weren’t that big.

Suguru narrowed her eyes. “You asked for it,” she warned, the foreboding tone making Satoru wetter. Satoru watched as Suguru affixed one of the stiffer dildos to the harness, nearly vibrating with excitement; Satoru figured she could take it in her ass, it wasn’t that big.

Suguru jerked her chin at her. “Are you going to close your mouth or do I need to stuff it for you? On the bed, ass up.”

“Not that I don’t love to suck your cock, but I’ve been so good,” Satoru retorted, scrambling into position. She made sure her back was nicely arched, ass turned up high and angled to meet against Suguru’s hips. The strap slapped against her ass cheeks, a solid weight, cold and slick. Suguru’s fingers returned, lubed and probing her again, one, two fingers to the metacarpals with ease, a third finger a bit of a stretch past the proximal knuckle. Yeah, she could take it, Satoru was sure about that.

“Relax,” Suguru told her; Satoru was almost offended, she was relaxed. Satoru could feel the blunt tip pressing against her as Suguru started pushing, the immense pressure as the tip made its way inside her, forcing her open, and the stretch as Suguru spread her cheeks apart, thumbing at the rim in a pull of skin and muscle.

Satoru would never say she miscalculated, but the thought that maybe she was overly ambitious did briefly cross her mind. Three of Suguru’s fingers was one thing, this was a different scale altogether, splitting her apart in a way she had never imagined. It hurt, of course, and she was no stranger to the best and worst kinds of pain. Yet, it was visceral enough to trigger an instinctive and momentary reflex to crawl away, fingers scrabbling at the sheets while speared on the tip of Suguru’s cock, except Suguru maintained an iron grip on her hips, locking her down and impaling her, like that was all Satoru was at the end of the day, another hole to fuck loose and pliant—

“You said you could take it,” Suguru reminded her. “Be good, use your words.”

Satoru groaned and fisted the sheets, squeezing her eyes shut and pressing her forehead to the bed as the familiar chills of heat crept down her spine and sank into her gut, the subconscious and silent delight at exceeding a limit because Suguru pushed her, like she could at least be good for Suguru. She didn’t need to use those words. “I can, I can, I can be so good for you, it’s just—nnggh fuck, it’s a lot.”

Everything else dropped away, irrelevant details to be cast aside: the continuous ghost of exhaustion even as she healed her brain anew, the frustrating stagnancy and blood boiling arrogance from the last two weeks, the bone chilling clarity when she knew she cared nothing for the mere human cultists, the soul wrenching moment when she had only a broken body and a hole in her head to work with, left bleeding out at the campus gates. There was nothing left to focus on except Suguru’s unending and unyielding intrusion, carving out a space for herself within Satoru.

At some point Suguru finally bottomed out and stilled, leaving Satoru with a teeth-grinding stretch, guaranteed to be feeling it for days if she didn’t heal it, filled to the brim and unable to concentrate on much else. Was she saying something? Maybe, she couldn’t quite remember, maybe “fuck, you’re so big—ahh—Suguru, fuck, move move move.” So Suguru started moving, a few slow, shallow strokes to loosen her up before setting the pace, obscene wet squelches as the vacuum popped. Rhythm established, something shifted from pain to a deep coil of pleasure in her belly radiating icy hot, a hollowness in her pussy like the ghost of a cock inside her, a throbbing pulse at her clit, begging for friction.

“You’re taking me very well,” Suguru told her, loosening her grip, shifting angles; Satoru moaned unconsciously as it sparked new sensations. “You like this, moaning like the slut you are. You like taking it up your ass, don’t you?”

Satoru hadn't even registered the question, until a sharp crack of sound and reaffirming pain: Suguru levied a hard slap against her ass and reminded her, “I asked you a question.”

“Fine, yes!” Satoru admitted, voice hoarse even without Suguru having abused her throat. “It’s good, it’s so good.”

“Better than when I fuck your pussy?”

She faltered at the response, caught in the pure physicality of the moment, an unconscious clench around too much and nothing at all. “I-I don’t know, I just want it— fuck, I need it.”

Suguru pulled back, slowing, stilling; Satoru tried to chase, seeking sensation, the angle different from when Suguru used her other hole. “Even your asshole is this greedy. I should make you work for it.”

“Suguru,” Satoru pleaded, trying to fuck back with the full length of her body as Suguru held her in place. “You can’t do this to me, Suguru, you need to move, I need it.”

“I can do whatever I want,” Suguru reminded her. “For instance, if I want to stop now,” —She pulled almost all the way out, leaving just the tip maddeningly still at her rim— “or continue without stopping,” —and slammed back in, hips pistoning mercilessly as a shout tumbled from Satoru’s lips.

Satoru was losing traction, inching forward from the force of Suguru’s thrusts, only to be pulled back by Suguru’s grip. Satoru’s clarity was ever sharper, Six Eyes processing everything whether or not she wanted it: the wet fabric under her face, maybe sweat, maybe drool, never tears; the sheen of perspiration on her hand rippling with the flexion of muscle underneath; the air currents of her panting shifting the wrinkles in the bedsheets; the precise, calculated presence of Suguru behind her. No, she wanted none of that; she wanted just Suguru as she was and the simplicity of being dick stupid at the end of her thick cock, grounding her with every in-out drag against her walls, so deep she could feel it in the back of her throat, spilling out in a cadence of moans.

“Are you close?” Suguru asked.

Satoru found her voice again, somewhere amidst it all. “I need— I still need—”

“Fuck back against me,” Suguru instructed, leaning over, one hand finding her clit, a practiced slide between her fingers. “Tell me what you need.”

Satoru quivered as Suguru toyed with her. Finding the rhythm was easy, well practiced between them even if the angle was different, the burn in her muscles barely noticeable. The pleasure was an acute counterpoint to the fullness, a different kind of crescendo, more thrilling in its obscenity. Her pussy felt hollow, robbed of its usual function, a phantom sensation as Suguru took an angle that pushed against her G-spot . “Ahh- fuck, Suguru, oh shit— I need your fingers in me.”

“Be specific.”

“I-I need— nngh— I need your f-fingers— ah ah ah - in my pussy. Please!”

Suguru chuckled and moved her hand away; Satoru whined reflexively, cutting short when Suguru wrapped one arm across her chest to pull her into a seated position, gravity planting her even deeper on the strap and her legs forced apart. Suguru grabbed a fistful of her hair, pulling her head back and drawing her spine like a bow, the other hand reaching to slip two fingers inside her pussy and grinding the heel of her palm against her clit. “Ride me,” Suguru told her, a guttural growl against her ear, “I know you need it.” Was that keening noise coming from her mouth? Maybe, could be; she just needed to follow Suguru’s instructions.

Her pace was uneven as she braced herself against Suguru, staggered staccato bounces as she tried to find purchase, her quadriceps fighting in counterpoint to Suguru’s tight hold, but she didn’t care; all that mattered was getting enough lift to impale herself, grinding down against Suguru, filled to the brim in every way possible, chasing that dizzying peak. “F-fuck, Suguru, I’m so close,” Satoru panted. She could feel it, her white-hot core spinning tighter and tighter like a collapsing star, played in Suguru’s hands like one of Suguru’s cursed spirits.

“Come for me, Satoru.” A command, a furious thrust, the press of Suguru’s fingers and palm, that was all it took, peaking contractions pulling so stiffly she had pushed out Suguru’s fingers as the orgasm shuddered through her.

“You did so well for me, Satoru,” Suguru remarked, holding her up even as Satoru slumped against her, fucking her through the climax. “Such a greedy slut, needing both holes filled to come.” Even in the haze, Satoru could tell Suguru was close, grinding at the end of every bouncing thrust, swiveling small circles against her oversensitive rim.

“Only for you,” Satoru found herself gasping, letting herself go lax and be used. She turned her head, finding Suguru’s lips. Just you, there is no one else, she couldn’t say, the rest of her words swallowed.

Suguru stiffened in her mouth, against her lips, arms rigid around Satoru as she came, a soft sigh and whine from the back of her throat. It was a moment, it was an eternity; they both slowly came down, exhaling as they parted for air. Satoru loved that quiet, peaceful clarity, none of the excess detail and overtuned feedback from Six Eyes, just the naked gaze and the softness of Suguru’s eyes, framed by the fringe of her bangs.

“You okay?” Suguru asked after a bit, her brows furrowed as she stared at Satoru’s face. She reached out, and swiped away some moisture near the corner of Satoru’s eye.

“Great,” Satoru told her. She winced a little as she moved off, rolling to flop on her back. Yeah, definitely will need to heal that, although she did like the reminder, especially if she sat down. “Did you come?”

“Yes,” Suguru confirmed. The harness dropped to the floor, where Suguru had set up the towels. “I’m sure you could tell.”

“Well,” Satoru admitted, turning to look at the vision of Suguru, the imprint of the harness still visible on the pale of her skin, “I had to be sure. Besides, I’d never pass up a chance to eat you out.”

“There will be plenty of time for that,” Suguru reassured her, stretching out on her side next to Satoru. “I’d ask if you’re sore, but something tells me you don’t really have that problem anymore.” She extended a hand, fingers tracing the unnaturally glossy, silvery lines of the scar that extended down Satoru’s torso to her hip, a cosmetic attribute that remained beyond Satoru’s skills. Shoko had taken a look, shook her head, and said it was past the point where she could fix it. Oh well.

“You bet.” Satoru turned to mirror Suguru, musing over the possibilities. They could do a lot if there was no real risk of permanent injury, even without Shoko around. “But I like feeling it, your handiwork.” She took Suguru’s hand and matched it to the imprint on her hip, watching Suguru’s face as the heat of her hand settled against her skin. There it was, that flicker of smugness in her eyes, narrowing in satisfaction. Satoru liked that, and liked pushing against that sharp edge. “We can really have some fun, you don’t have to hold back.”

“What a responsible use of reverse cursed technique by the great Gojo Satoru,” Suguru sounded amused, the drawl of her name pooling low in Satoru’s belly like a warm drink.

“Exactly, we don’t even have to bother Shoko anymore.” Satoru smiled, snaking her leg around Suguru’s, hooking her closer so they could press chest to chest. “What’s your excuse now?”

“You really are insatiable,” Suguru marveled. Her eyes darkened as she dug her nails in, as if trying to mark her place more permanently. “Remember, you asked for it.”

Yeah, Satoru thought, she could handle it.

There’s a cursory knock on the door because it’s Shoko and she knows well enough to simply open the door, letting in a spill of incandescent light from the hallway.

“Yaga said you were back,” Shoko comments. The room returns to darkness when she closes the door, toeing off her shoes. “Without a body for me to examine, thankfully.”

“Couldn’t do it,” Satoru replies, the afternoon still fresh and replaying endlessly in her head, still chilling her to the bone, the cocoon of anxiety still prickling her skin into gooseflesh. Is this what regret feels like, lying on an empty bed and staring at the ceiling, wondering where things went wrong? Regret sucks.

“I figured it was fifty-fifty.” The sound of her footsteps brings her closer, and then her weight on the bed as she sits down. The smell of cigarettes is stronger than her usual stress smoking; probably more than a pack today. “I wouldn’t have been able to do it.”

“She might as well be gone, Shoko.” Gone, but not dead— not yet. If Satoru doesn’t take out Suguru, who will? Some other gun-ho jujutsu sorcerer looking to make a name for themselves? They might as well be the same rats they’ve dispatched before, back when there was a they. No, it has to be Satoru, no one else.

“So what are you going to do about it?”

“I don’t know.” Satoru turns her head to look at Shoko. Shoko’s eyelids are puffy, like she’s been crying, although her eyes are dry. “I know what I’m supposed to do, and sure as fuck ain’t doing that. But even I can’t turn back time, and undo what Suguru did.”

“She’s a big girl, she made up her mind. She sounded and acted remarkably lucid.” Shoko rifles through her pockets, looking for something to occupy her hands. “You mind if I smoke?”

“Go ahead.”

Under the moonlight, Shoko digs out Suguru’s ashtray and lighter from the corner of Satoru’s nightstand. Her eyebags are stark in the flare of the lighter. She looks tired, so Satoru lets her smoke in silence, lit by intermittent soft glow. Finally, Shoko asks, “Did Suguru ever tell you what happened in Master Tengen’s tomb?”

“Fushiguro killed Riko and beat the shit out of her.”

“Suguru thought Fushiguro killed you.” It’s an accusation.

Satoru sucks in a shallow breath between clenched teeth. “Yeah. He got pretty close.” As close as death could get, Satoru knows.

“She crawled out of the tomb to find me. I had to heal her, knowing she was ready to die if it meant killing that man.”

“I beat her to it.” Satoru wonders, briefly, if the situation had been reversed, if she had found out that Fushiguro killed Suguru. The blinding white-hot ferocity of her rage surprises her, for a dead man she had already made peace with.

“Today was the same,” Shoko explains. “She was ready. But you knew that.”

“Yeah,” Satoru admits.

Shoko sighs, and stubs out her cigarette. “You look pretty pathetic. You two really are alike.” She leans over, and shoves at Satoru’s arm. “Move over, I’m going to lie down.”

“What?” Satoru puzzles, shifting aside.

Shoko arranges herself next to Satoru, the divide of Infinity preventing their arms and legs from touching. “Don’t get the wrong idea,” Shoko explains, folding her hands over her belly, staring at the ceiling. “I’m not desperate or dumb enough to sleep with you. I just don’t think you should be alone tonight, not after what happened. I can only heal physical damage.”

True, Satoru supposes. Reverse cursed techniques can’t heal whatever is wrong with her right now. Her body is fine, her brain refreshed, and her heartbeat steady. But she can feel something is amiss, something unsettled in her soul, a cord stretched so thin it might as well have been flapping untethered in the storm, the other end in the void beyond.

“I appreciate it,” Satoru tells her after a silence. And then remembers, “Thanks.”

Satoru knows she can only chase a Suguru that wants to be found, and can only understand what Suguru was thinking when she crossed the line between what she found meaningful and necessary if Suguru wants to explain it herself. Suguru, though, does not want to be found, and did not take any more time to explain herself.

“Do you want to drop Infinity?” Shoko asks her, turning on her side to look at Satoru. Her face is nothing like Suguru’s, soft and rounded along the edges. They share a commonality though: they both carry the same judgement in their eyes.

Satoru blinks with the conscious effort to deactivate it. “There,” she confirms.

Shoko’s arm is not the heavy weight of Suguru’s arm, her palm too small, her fingers too short, her grip too light. But, her presence is grounding enough. “Go to sleep,” Shoko tells her, “I know your brain is whirring away. You may not need as much as the rest of us, but try.”

Satoru tries.

“This is a terrible idea,” Shoko tells her, exhaling smoke in her face. “This is not what I meant when I told you to move on.”

“Cigarettes are bad for kids’ health.”

“You are bad for kids’ health,” Shoko reminds her. “What made you think you could handle taking on a ward, let alone two? And on top of that, you want to wade into Zenin’s mess?”

Satoru casts a glance at the two heads barely peeking over from behind the couch, still captivated by the TV. Even from behind, the boy is a dead ringer for his father, which unfortunately for Satoru, does him no favors in her eyes. “I am not volunteering to be a...parent, absolutely not. But I have money, that solves most of the problems.”

“Ah yes, you’re the shining example of money solving problems,” Shoko reminds her. “Do you even have the political capital to do this?”

Satoru smiles. “I'm the head of the clan now.”

Shoko rolls her eyes. “Yes, you’ve told me. That’s not the point. Gojos and Zenins have always had bad blood between them, and you blowing up that omiai didn’t help. What if someone wants the boy dead?”

Satoru has thought about it, has tested his technique, and knows precisely what he has. “I’ll take care of things inside my clan, I can manage things there. It’s the outside influence I won’t always be around to watch for.”

“No,” Shoko rejects as she realizes what Satoru is asking. “I can’t babysit for you.”

“I’ll have people arrange the day to day, money, residence, tuition, etc, get them out of that hovel. The boy will be fine, he has Ten Shadows. It’s the girl who needs protection.”

Shoko rubs at her temples. “You waited until now to drop the fact this is the Ten Shadows heir?”

“Is that a problem?”

Shoko shakes her head. “No, that’s not it. Why this? What are you trying to achieve? ”

“You told me to move on,” Satoru reminds her. “This is me moving on. I can’t be the only one people rely on, Shoko. We need strength, people who we can rely on. We can’t have a repeat of what happened with Suguru. I can’t.”

Shoko stubs out her cigarette on the nearby ashtray, a sign of defeat and acceptance. “So you want to start them young?”

Satoru pauses, the words tumbling over on her tongue. “I want to give these kids a chance to start over, untethered, no pre-existing obligations or preconceived notions of what should or shouldn’t be. Let the boy form his own value judgement. At least that will be honest.”

“Give me your black card,” Shoko sighs. “I’m going to call Utahime and sort this out, because you don’t know subtlety.”

Shoko, to her credit, works her magic. Satoru places a call to her retainer, and authorizes the rest of the funds and paperwork.

Time passes quickly when she’s busy, still at the beck and call of the higher ups. The incidence of high grade curses increases, like some malignant presence poisoning the well of population centers. Fortunately, she only needs to monitor Megumi occasionally, mostly for training during the intervals when she’s back in town, his sister clearly more than competent enough to keep him in line. She’s always surprised to see how quickly the siblings grow. Maybe this is what having kids is like? She shudders at the thought.

There’s something else she notices during errant missions that she buries in the paperwork. Curses that should have been there, gone by the time she arrives, not a single residual left. There’s very few curse users capable of extinguishing their traces so thoroughly. She doesn’t need to name them. Whenever those reports get filed, she usually gets called in to meet with Yaga, or depending on how pissed off they get, hauled in front of the administrative body demanding to know why this was happening, why she hasn’t confirmed the likely culprit, why she still hasn’t finished the execution order.

The usual.

They can’t make her do anything there, so she continues what she’s been doing, keeping an eye out for talent where she can spot them, tracking down assassins as she’s passing by, occasionally texting Suguru to test if she changed her number yet.

When she opens up Six Eyes to the possibilities, there are an interesting array of potential candidates outside the normal clans and known families. They’re everywhere, spread around small towns and large cities, tucked away into prefectures and special wards. She finds one high school boy working a part-time job at a cafe where she drops in for a snack, too terrified to accept her invitation (in retrospect, she might have come across too strongly); another, when she’s passing by a local gym, decking combatants double the boy’s size (he had wanted to fight her, which was hilarious); a teenage girl whose technique manifested a spy-camera, useful for cheating (perhaps more morally dubious than she would like); and a pair of school-aged sisters in a shopping street bearing a tinge of familiar cursed energy, enough to catch her eye, up until Six Eyes spots them running over to Suguru, like daughters to a mother.

All it takes is one sharp jerk of Suguru’s head as she spots Satoru, and Satoru knows who they are. They do not speak of it.

At some point, Yaga must be suspecting something, because he keeps checking in, asking how Satoru is doing, any sign of Suguru during those missions. Fine, and no, she responds, skirting the edge of truth. At some point, she’ll have to say yes, the intersection of their mutual interests will inevitably align.

And then, during one of those meetings, it almost catches her by surprise when Yaga asks if she wants to teach at the Tokyo campus.

“Did you hit your head?” Satoru has to ask. “Are you okay?”

“Don’t make me regret asking,” Yaga pushes back. “Do you?”

“I was your worst student,” she reminds him. “I gave you grey hair. Nice dye job, by the way.”

“You’ve also referred three potential students to the Tokyo campus in six months, none of which have come from the usual connections. That’s more than any of our other recruiters have been able to turn up.”

“They were interesting.”

“You’re at least putting Six Eyes to good use.”

“Yup,” Satoru confirms. “I look for strength.”

“Strength can be fostered, cultivated. Talent has to be intrinsic. Do you want to teach? Shape these individuals? Mold them into the characters you hope to see?”

Satoru pushes her shades up so she can study Yaga in more detail. He’s not bluffing, she can tell, his arms folded firmly, his back ramrod straight. “Do you want me to?”

“It’s not what I want, it’s what you want.”

Truth be told, Satoru has been thinking about it for a while, wondering what she can do differently. How can she stop another incident like Suguru’s? Stop another death like Haibara’s? Stop losing another talent like Nanami? Perhaps this is what it takes.

“Okay,” Satoru confirms. “I want to teach.”

It is inevitable that their paths would cross at the intersection of one of Satoru’s missions and Suguru’s quest to collect curses, such as here at the cliffside, where the mountains meet the sea, when the evening fog rolls in, preternaturally dense, near-living tendrils thick with cursed energy snaking over the hills and obscuring the rocky coastline. In the ocean, cursed energy boils the sea into mist, feeding the quickly ascending creep. That must be an extension of her target: a special grade cursed spirit.

“Are you going to poach it again?” Suguru asks. Six Eyes tells Satoru she looks leaner, the lines of her jaw sharper than the last time they met. It’s been close to a year, maybe more, since Suguru’s parting gift to her: an epiphany, an oath, and an outdated cell phone number.

“Depends, I need to see how dangerous it is.” The case file indicated it was a regional deity, borne out of long held superstition in an area dense with a history of wrecks and lost travelers, and a more recent spate of disappearing tourists. “Can’t let you have all the fun.”

“I’m going in,” Suguru announces, summoning her manta ray. “Try not to interfere.”

Satoru can’t exactly hop on anymore and ride along, so she teleports over in calibrated bursts, landing where the cursed energy is weakest, where the barrier thins, where Suguru’s cursed energy left its traces. When she steps through the barrier, rocking along the top of the undulating ocean waves, the air thickens, the cursed energy spiking exponentially as barbed tentacles emerge from the fog, lashing at her before bouncing off Infinity and melting back into the mist. Suguru is nearby, standing on the manta ray, eyes narrowed as she glides effortlessly between the attacks, Playful Cloud in hand. The attacks aren’t a problem for them, but the energy levels are unusual. She can see why this was marked as a special grade.

“It seems a condition was met,” Satoru calls out. “Did you do something?”

Suguru shakes her head. “This is one that requires first blood to activate its domain, along with another condition. There’s sharks in the water, and the fog you’ve seen.”

Ah, that would explain it. She holds up a hand. “My bad, that would be me.”

Suguru stares at her with disappointment in between blocking a few more tentacles with a flick of her wrist. “Really? Are they so bad at gathering intelligence that they can’t even warn you about menstruation?”

Satoru shrugs as the tentacles try to amass and strike at her. “The old fogies are squeamish like that. Who cares.” She wanders idly between them, letting them whip themselves into a spiked frenzy, scanning for the core. “I think the actual body is below us, in the ocean.”

“Quite likely.”

Satoru thinks back to Okinawa, and the open ocean tank. “I’ve got an idea,” Satoru tells her. “Take my hand.”

“I’ve heard this before,” Suguru reminds her, flying over, tucking Playful Cloud away. It’s a reflexive move as Suguru grabs her outstretched hand, Infinity flowing over her like a long lost friend, sweeping her into its embrace. It’s been a while since Satoru has sought out the touch of skin that wasn’t her own. Suguru withdraws the manta ray, and together they sink below the waves, seafoam wrapped around their bubble of Infinity.

It must be quite dark below the waters for Suguru to summon her fireflies; Satoru’s forgotten that she doesn’t need light anymore. Six Eyes tells her everything she needs to know, and more: the curse has a vaguely humanoid head, its hair spiraling about to form lashing tentacles with eyestalks attached, and below its neck extends a distended torso with a kraken mouth, gnashing and churning the water. The core of energy sits below its mouth, the curse itself anchored to the ocean floor, using its tentacles to spot and drag down its prey.

“Lovely,” Satoru remarks as its tentacles lash against Infinity, a constant pulsing drumbeat, “one of those curses.” The less mobility it has, the more power it has in exchange, a standard type of restriction wrought on a ship-devouring scale.

It shrieks at them, the water around them boiling in agitation and spinning into a funnel. Suguru sends out an ice-type curse, freezing the remaining water in place. “If it lifts enough of the water pressure off it, it’ll fulfill the second condition for its domain expansion and become mobile,” she explains.

“Wait, dismiss your curse,” Satoru insists. “I want to see this domain expansion.”

The chiding squeeze of Suguru’s hand is strangely familiar, despite how much time has passed between them. Her calluses have shifted, different from what Satoru remembers.

“You’ve gotten cocky,” Suguru observes. “We used to try to avoid domain expansions.”

“I have something to show you.” It’s rare enough to encounter a special grade with the potential for a domain expansion to justify using hers. She pulls down her blindfold and the world comes into sharp focus, distilled into every discrete particle of cursed energy and lit by bioluminescence. With visual intake, it’s apparent that this is one ugly cursed spirit. “It’s a good one.”

Suguru dismisses her curse, and the ice sublimates instantaneously into a gas-filled explosion, exposing the ocean floor before the rest of the sea can fill the gap. The sea bed lurches and rumbles, cleaved in half with a momentous groan as the curse extracts itself from the ground in a monstrous reach of spiked claws shielded by a massive carapace, summoning its domain and compressing the mist into its barrier. The exposed floor is a trap, immediately assaulted by a whirlpool of high pressure ocean water, sluicing from the edges of the barrier and churning to fill every inch of space available to its reach, the mess of water and whiplash tentacles rising to a fever pitch, its crushing weight crunching against the edge of her Infinity.

They have maybe a tenth of a second before pressurized sea breaks through Infinity, a natural result of a domain expansion, before the tentacles follow shortly thereafter. More than enough time for her to summon her domain, her free hand already in position for the hand signal.

“Domain expansion: Infinite Void.”

Such simple words, to let infinity spill forth and swallow them whole, encapsulated in the sphere of her void as she overrides the turbulent waters. The rush of using her domain expansion is like nothing else, as though the entirety of existence bared itself before her, exposed in its construction of time and space and suspended in a moment for her to examine, to reconstruct as she desired, to obliterate if she so wished, to relive every possibility only as she can perceive it, and be rendered helpless before it. Here, knowledge is overwhelming power, paralyzing in its magnitude; she’s spent enough time in her own head to know.

The cursed spirit stills, its frenzy of movement abruptly ceased, deceptively peaceful as whatever passed for its brain melted from the onslaught of information. In the peace and quiet of her domain, it doesn’t even register as she drops Red down its monstrous maw and shreds it into oblivion.

Then she remembers, Suguru is still holding her hand, not even having made a move to try and snipe the curse from her.

“Satoru,” Suguru says, the sort of awestruck tone that Satoru didn’t think she would ever hear again, a look of wonder in her eyes for just a moment. “You did it.”

“I did,” Satoru confirms, the surging wellspring of satisfaction sweeping over her. It always felt good to be able to impress Suguru.

“Why did you show this to me?”

“Why not?”

“You know why.” Suguru glares, furious, but doesn’t pull her hand away. “Why are you showing me this?”

Satoru shrugs. “What does it matter? It’s not like I’m going to use it on you.” She weighs the options, and then shares, “This came to me after we last met. You know what you did.”

Suguru breaks eye contact, and looks away with a complicated pull of her eyebrows, a peculiar expression. She does look thinner, leaner, her gauges larger. “Are we done here?” She gestures around them, the void of space still around them.

Oh, yes. “I won’t be able to use Infinity after we exit, you should have something that can get us out, right?”

“Since when have I ever been unprepared?”

They’re soaked the moment they exit from her domain, an unavoidable outcome, floating in the dark depths of the ocean. Suguru’s dragon curse is big enough for them to hang onto as it cuts a quicksilver ribbon through the water, breaking through the surface and soaring above the waves. With the curse gone, the mist has cleared so the rocky coastline is visible in the last remnants of daylight, twisted, windshorn pines dotting the slopes.

Suguru switches out to the manta ray so they can both sit, and they exchange no words as the curse carries them under the thin starlight to the nearest civilization, a moderately sized onsen town, buffered from the cold winds by Satoru’s Infinity, fingers still interlaced. Suguru silently directs the manta ray to deposit them on a secluded hill of a Buddhist shrine, out of sight from pedestrians. Satoru weighs her options: should she just let them part ways like this, or should she try—

“Do you have plans tonight?” Suguru asks.

“No,” Satoru responds a little too hastily. “Do you?”

“No, I don’t.”

“The night is still young,” Satoru tests the waters, “and we should get out of these wet clothes.”

Suguru squeezes her hand harshly, her eyes narrowing. There’s the grip strength she’s missed. “Yes, we should.”

They find an upscale ryokan easily enough in the tourist town, the sharp receptionist glancing once at their wet clothes, and again at their stature, before trying to upsell them a room with a private open-air bath. It’s a weeknight, so rooms are abundant, and Satoru has never cared about price.

The attendant, a young woman in traditional dress, escorts them through the hotel for the perfunctory tour, explaining the facilities before showing them their room, a traditional tatami room with all the modern amenities, the bathroom fully stocked with toiletries. Satoru’s been to plenty of these, and tunes her out for the most part, appraising the dimensions of the shower stall and outdoor tub before resuming her stare at the slowly beading seawater rolling down from Suguru’s hairline to the curve of her ear, surface tension adhering it to the lowest point, at the bottom of her gauge.

Technically, she still has her blindfold draped around her neck, but she’s not trying to be subtle. Suguru knows, casting her a sideways glance, eyes half lidded with intent.

At some point, the attendant catches on, and quickly informs them that dinner will be served in thirty minutes, and can be left next to the preheated kotatsu in the sitting room if they prefer privacy. Suguru murmurs the affirmative in a low rumble that leaves no room for doubt, so the young woman speedily backs her way out, and finally, finally the doors slide shut.

It’s been too long, Satoru doesn’t say as their eyes meet and they crash against each other, Suguru shoving her against the wall with one hand cradling the back of her skull, her mouth hot and hungry against hers as though she were swallowing Satoru in lieu of the cursed spirit she had set out to capture; what have you been doing, Satoru doesn’t ask as Suguru one-handedly divests her of the sodden wet mess of her uniform jacket and Satoru scrabbles at the zipper of Suguru’s windbreaker, grateful that she wasn’t wearing that ridiculous monk robe for a curse hunting expedition; how have you been doing, Satoru can’t ask as Suguru digs under the cups of her bra, squeezing at her tits, rubbing over her nipples, Suguru’s tongue laving at the spot under Satoru’s jaw after having thoroughly licked her mouth clean, driving Satoru wild. Of course Suguru remembers all her sensitive spots.

Suguru slips a knee between her legs, pressing up against her. It’s been so long, yet the reaction is instinctive, Satoru grinding against Suguru before she can even think about it, her hands hooked over Suguru’s shoulders. Suguru is skinnier, Six Eyes tells her, the breadth of her shoulders not as full for someone who used to, probably still can planche press without a second thought; or maybe, Satoru is the one who bulked up, so Suguru simply seems more fragile in comparison.

Satoru sets aside what Six Eyes tells her, and focuses on the moment at hand: the grip of Suguru’s hands against her, the salt of Suguru’s skin on her tongue, the water-logged strands of hair between her fingers. Her mouth waters as she wonders if Suguru would taste as she remembers; she lets herself slide downward, watching Suguru’s face as her lips graze the exposed collarbone, tracing over cup of her bra under the thin fabric of her shirt, pressing against the lines of her abdomen taut with anticipation, kissing the metal of her belt buckle as her fingers brace against Suguru’s thighs, until she stops, her mouth held open and lips wrapped around the wet fabric of Suguru’s groin, a slow heated exhale through her mouth to the dilation of Suguru’s pupils.

“Bathroom,” Suguru growls, digging her blunt fingers into Satoru’s hair, gripping close to the scalp, an exquisite burn, “or dinner service is going to get an eyeful.”

“Let them,” Satoru suggests wickedly, the thought of an accidental audience sending a jolt of arousal down her spine. It’s been a while.

“Really?” Suguru queries with a familiar tone of voice, pulling her off her knees by the hair. “You want someone else to see you bent over for me? Moaning and whining, begging for me?”

Satoru lets herself be pulled, lets herself moan, relishing the sensation. “Only if you can make me,” she counters, even as Suguru pulls her into a trot towards the sliding partitions of the bathroom. “If you think you’ve still got it.”

They leave wet sea-water tracks along the way, jackets and shirts clumped along the wall, pants puddled by the kotatsu, stockings peeled off and tossed over the back of the chair to join their bras. The bathroom tile is cold underfoot, so Satoru floats above it with Infinity. It’s when she drops her panties that she remembers and groans in frustration, the mood paused.

“Toilet,” she explains as Suguru arches an eyebrow. “I need to take out the tampon.”

Suguru shrugs off her hair tie, the spill of her hair reaching past her shoulder blades. “Join me in the shower.”

Satoru takes care of business, and finds Suguru standing under the shower spray, face up, eyes closed and meditative as the steam fogs up the glass door. She stands straight backed, the last of her adolescent softness whittled away to a lean cut, predator sharp, leaving nothing but well-honed skill and endurance to pair with her tremendous cursed energy. Fitting, Satoru supposes, for someone who holds herself out to be leading an army of curse users. Still, back when they stood under the ocean, Satoru saw and heard the Suguru she knew, the Suguru that stands before her.

Satoru steps into the shower with her, into the space Suguru makes for her.

The sudden heat is refreshing, invigorating as the water runs over her face, soaking her hair. This part is familiar: Suguru lathering up her hair as she melts against Suguru’s hands. It was one of the few indulgences she missed from her days in the clan estates, when the caretakers would wash her hair for her. Suguru was better, still is better. Time is inconsequential when she’s in Suguru’s hands, the hot water pelting her front, Suguru’s magic fingers working at her scalp from behind, Suguru making use of the stool for elevation to reach the crown of her head, the sound of the spray a low grade ambient noise.

“You should rinse,” Suguru tells her at some point. Satoru must have drifted off; strange, it’s been a long time since she’s done that.

“Let me,” Satoru insists, taking a quick pass of the spray through her hair, finger combing to ensure all the soap was out. They swap positions, Suguru letting Satoru wash her hair in return, the liquid black of her hair slipping through Satoru’s fingers. Satoru had always marveled at how slick her hair was, and how tightly Suguru had to tie it. Yet, it seemed her hair always sprang a leak of bangs here or there.

Suguru pulls away from her to rinse, quickly and efficiently stripping the suds off her hair and body, cleaning her hands last. They both learned to shower in the shortest amount of time possible, when there wasn’t the luxury of hot, clean water, or the time to relax. This isn’t one of those times.

Suguru rolls her shoulders, a beautiful ripple of her trapezius as she stretches, and then turns to look at Satoru, instructing with a familiar, flat tone of voice, “Hands on the wall, ass out.”

Pavlovian response doesn’t even cut it when it comes to Suguru’s commands; Satoru can feel the twist of anticipation overriding everything else as she obeys, bracing herself against the moon-pale tile, the water running over her backside as she pushes her hips back.

There is a moment when Suguru makes her wait. Then, Satoru feels the first finger slip inside her, an easy passage from the slick of menstrual blood. A second finger joins, both of them curling against her, circling and stretching. Satoru pushes back against Suguru’s fingers, groaning, wanting to touch herself.

“Even now, your cunt is so greedy,” Suguru states the obvious, her tone firm. “Insatiable.”

“Only for you,” Satoru gasps out.

“Really, after all this time?” Suguru sounds thoughtful. She presses the length of her body against Satoru’s back, cupping a breast in one hand, tweaking a nipple. Satoru tilts her head back with a sigh, content at the familiarity of Suguru’s hands on her, in her. Water drips down her face in the way she imagines tears might. Satoru can only imagine; she has never cried before.

Then Suguru muses, “I’ll try something a little different.”

Satoru feels a finger pressing against her asshole even as two fingers scissor inside her. Oh.

Water isn’t a lubricant, but her body accepts the insistent intrusion, an accommodating stretch and ache to make way for Suguru’s thumb, her nerves alit at the trifecta of sensation between her nipple, ass, and cunt as hot water cascaded over them. Then Suguru presses her fingers together, only Satoru’s thin inner walls separating her fingertips, and pumps her hand, wet squelches reverberating in the enclosed space.

“Fuck,” Satoru gasps, her hips pushing back before she’s conscious of the motion. It’s all sensory feedback, a stretch in both holes and the squeeze and pinches at her tits. It’s a lot; it isn’t enough. “I need— fuck, I need to—”

Suguru’s hand leaves her chest, tracing her scar down to her hip, and slides further to part at her folds. Suguru doesn’t touch her clit directly like Satoru wants, only circling around it with two fingers reverentially. “You need a lot of things, don’t you?” Suguru doesn’t wait for an answer and shoves her against the wall with a push of her shoulders, mouth hot against her neck while the tile is cold and slick against the points of contact: her hands, her forearms, her tits, her cheek. Satoru’s torso sags as she focused on rotating her hips, fucking back against Suguru’s hand. Shivers run down her spine, as though every muscle were contracting to her icy-hot core; Suguru’s going to make her beg for it, and that made it all the better.

“Suguru, you need to touch me,” Satoru grits out.

“I am touching you,” Suguru responds, low against her ear, her tits pressing against Satoru’s shoulder blades, hand thrusting in counterpoint. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

“My clit goddamnit, you need to touch my clit.”

Suguru’s wry laughter rumbles up her neck, vibrating against her skull. “Manners, Satoru.”

“Touch my clit, please,” Satoru tries. Just saying the words made her clench down on Suguru’s fingers, a vicious positive feedback loop.

“There we go.” Suguru’s fingers descend upon her clit, alternating firm and light touches, a delicious and heady sensation blending smoothly into a crescendo of pleasure as she impales herself on Suguru’s fingers. The stimulation is almost too much, she’d never been this close so quickly.

Suguru times a pinch at her clit, an intense mix of pain-pleasure, always just the right amount at the right time. “Come.”

Satoru gasps, hips stuttering as she comes, a temporary paralysis as her abdominals seized, pressing her forehead against the chill of the tile until her body can come down. She’s always been more sensitive, more responsive during her cycle, but this is more than she remembers.

Suguru lets her catch her breath, cleaning off under the spray. When Satoru turns around, Suguru’s watching her with a steady gaze, like she no longer has to ask, to check in, like she knows what Satoru is thinking.

That’s never been a mystery: old habits die hard.

Satoru sinks to her knees, slowly, deliberately, unceasing in her eye contact. There’s very few people who can handle the full brunt of her stare, Suguru the rare exception.

Suguru positions herself closer, and Satoru has to pull back a little, curling her spine a bit to lick at the folds between her legs, seeking out her clit. Suguru tastes the same as she remembers, even under the running water, soft and hot under her tongue, the scent of Suguru flooding her nose, the sense memory enveloping her: in the dorm room showers, Suguru squeezing her shoulder, Suguru’s eyes closed and brows furrowed, one hand over pressed over her own mouth because Shoko was meters away.

Satoru closes her eyes, and angles her face, tonguing deeper, nose pressed flush against the neat trim of Suguru’s pubic hair, groaning in the self-satisfying urge to make it good for Suguru, to make it as good as she feels.

“Hands behind your back,” she hears Suguru say. She obeys, bracing hands to elbows, and lets Suguru rut against her face, trills racing down her back from being used, a background sense of urgency from the lack of air, the water streaming over her face. “That’s it,” she hears Suguru praise her, the feel of it spilling warm and comforting inside her, “you remember how to do this.”

She never forgot, just out of practice.

Suguru must be similarly unacclimated; she comes quickly, her hands wrapped around Satoru’s head, hips bucking, a quavering sigh tuned to the flex of her thighs, hot and heated around Satoru’s face.

After Suguru unclenches her hair, Satoru stands up from her knees, licking her lips. “Still got it,” she tells Suguru.

There’s a strange look in Suguru’s eyes, not quite disdain, and more than just a little gentle as she reaches to rub the pad of her thumb over Satoru’s cheek, her palm cupping her face. Satoru can’t help but lean into it, eyes half lidded so she can watch the flicker across Suguru’s face, the pull of her lips curving slightly, the lines relaxing on her face, her eyes soft.

They can’t feel the shower spray anymore, the water having gone cold and Infinity kicking in automatically.

“Dinner is here,” Suguru announces as she turns off the water. Satoru saw the observation curses when they had walked in, nothing new there: paranoia is a virtue for a curse user and jujutsu sorcerer alike.

Someone’s made an attempt at organizing their clothes, at least to get them off the tatami mats and hung up on the clothing racks, the bed rolls set out in the sleeping area, and the dinner spread set out on the table. There’s a pair of yukata laid out that they shrug on for the semblance of modesty. Satoru digs out her phone and a new tampon from the waterproof pocket of her jacket, Suguru’s phone is deposited by a familiar sight, that worm-like storage curse.

It’s almost quaint in a way, to be able to sit in front of a traditional kaiseki spread of small plates, simmered seasonal vegetables, slices of sashimi, a cup of chawan-mushi fragrant with dashi and crab meat, pearlescent grains of rice soaking up the sauce and oils of the grilled mackerel, the crunch of pickled daikon under her teeth. Satoru watches Suguru pick her way through each dish as they sit framed against the open balcony doors, the mist from their miso soup curling into the air, the sound of the ocean distant in the background. The full moon lingers, massive and hanging low, like an opalescent grape ripe for picking, the open air tub inviting them. Perhaps they could.

She must have thought about something like this before, fantasized about an overnight stay like this with Suguru back when they were at the school, probably fantasized moreso about fucking like rabbits uninterrupted given the chance, not that they didn’t try.

That was a different time.

They could talk, they probably should talk. Every topic is a minefield though, and Satoru doesn’t want to ruin the moment. Suguru meets her eyes, and seems to think the same, her lips parting to say something, and then closing again. They both check their phones instead, a familiar and comforting habit.

It isn’t until they finish eating and the dinner trays have been collected, when most of the tension has eased out of Suguru when she finally asks, swirling her cup of tea, “What’s it like, activating a domain expansion?”

“For me? Like an epiphany.” Satoru doesn’t have to think about the answer.

“What exactly does your domain expansion do? That cursed spirit just stopped moving.”

“It’s an environmental— overloads them with information, more than anything or anyone can process.” Satoru shrugs. “Only problem is that it doesn’t differentiate between human or cursed spirit, so unless you’re under Infinity, you’d suffer the same paralysis.”

“So you basically won’t use it around others, because the collateral impact is too high.” Suguru immediately understands, of course, the kind of protection Infinity afforded.

“Exactly.”

“Still,” Suguru acknowledges, “extremely useful to have. As expected of the strongest jujutsu sorcerer. How responsible.”

“I thought about using it on the higher ups, you know, last time they summoned me.” The memory of the incident is amusing and infuriating at the same time, the murder of wrinkly old crows of jujutsu society clinging to their outdated philosophies, hiding behind their ritualistic habits, demanding why to know why Suguru was still not dead. “You know, let them see things from my perspective. How’s that for responsible?”

“They’re already senile, it’d be a waste of cursed energy,” Suguru states matter of factly.

“Exactly. Waste not, want not, even if it’s only a small amount of cursed energy for me.”

They both chuckle wryly at the thought. Suguru sets her tea down on the table, and walks over to sit next to her, a sliver of self-imposed separation between them as they sit moon gazing by the balcony.

“For what it’s worth, Satoru,” Suguru tells her, “I always knew you could do it. I’m glad you proved me right.”

“Me too,” Satoru affirms. She presses up against Suguru, thigh to thigh, hip to hip, the heat of her body as distinct as her cursed energy. The strength is still there, coiled tightly under skin, over bone, even in this serene state. “And the same to you. I’ve told you from the beginning, haven’t I? You’re just as strong, always have been, always will be. We are equals.”

“We can’t be,” Suguru tells her, without venom or spite, just resignation. “This much is certain. You are the strongest, you’ve earned that title.”

“And what are you?”

Suguru looks at her. “A curse user.”

“Not just any curse user,” Satoru reminds her. “One with a following, a family.” It’s the closest she’s going to touch on the topic of the girls.

“Ah, yes, something you don’t have,” Suguru observes. “Jealous?”

It’s a stark reminder that she needs others who think like her, to share a common goal, but family is beyond her. There’s talent out there, Megumi is progressing nicely too, but the change she wants won’t come overnight. Strength, she has more than enough; power though, the ability to effect change, she needs a generation, maybe more, to do that. Even she cannot be the sole bearer of such weight. Death will come for her too, as all sorcerers know, and she’s already deferred the prior visit.

Still, Suguru says it in a way that didn’t seem to be intended to hurt, so Satoru takes no offense and shakes her head. “No, why? I’m a one-person army, one-person clan.”

“You’re much more than that,” Suguru says, turning to look at her. “You and I both know that truth.”

Satoru lets herself stare, to gauge the glittering conviction in Suguru’s eyes, the spinning core of cursed energy nested within Suguru, the movement of Suguru’s arm as her hand closes over Satoru’s, slowly increasing her grip. Satoru licks her lips. She could say something, maybe; maybe should say something. “Are you going to kiss me or what?”

Suguru laughs, real amusement rather than wry sarcasm. “You are truly impossible, Satoru.” She leans in, so close that Satoru reflexively closes her eyes, and kisses her, soft and languid, as though savoring the ghost of the last bite of the wagashi she had offered to Satoru. It’s a tame kiss, but sparks a deep-seated arousal all the same, less desperate this time, more certain. As long as they don’t go about trying to change each other’s minds, this— this part is easier.

Yukatas make for easy access, for which Satoru is grateful. She can slip her hand inside Suguru’s robes, her tits a familiar weight and feel in her hand. She squeezes, digs in a little, waiting for the part of Suguru’s mouth to lick at the insides of her mouth. They make out like this, Suguru letting Satoru grope, a slow pace as Suguru’s hands start wandering, tracing an exposed knee, the curve of her quadricep, dipping down under the robe to dapple feather light touches against her inner thigh. That still drives her crazy.

“I’ve missed you fucking me,” Satoru mumbles against her lips, the obscenity making it seem less vulnerable. “There really isn’t anyone else.” It’s not as if she had the time, the constant stream of missions, acclimating to a school schedule, dealing with the stupidity of the administration while trying to keep an eye on Fushiguro eating up what downtime she had.

Suguru breathes her in deeply. “I was hoping you would find an alternative, the way we were doing things wasn’t sustainable,” she says, soft enough to be a confession. “Not that I’m complaining.” Suguru sighs, leaning against her, moving her hand up further, her thumb rubbing small circles on the soft skin at the juncture of hip and thigh, brushing over her pubis. Satoru hadn’t bothered to put her panties back on; it seemed pointless.

“I’m guessing you don’t keep a strap or other fun stuff in that storage curse of yours?”

Suguru snorts. “No, I certainly don’t. But that doesn’t mean I can’t fuck you.”

Suguru always says it like she means it, and Satoru loves that. “How do you plan on doing that?”

“You like it when I make you beg, don't you?” Suguru reminds her, low against her ear, fingers slipping to rub peripherally around her clit. “To make you beg for me to fuck you, or would it be to stop because you can’t take it anymore?”

Satoru lets herself go lax in Suguru’s hands. Either way, the idea is very nice. “Any way you like it, but it’s going to be messy with fingers,” she has to remind Suguru. They’ve done it before during her cycle, since neither of them were squeamish about blood, but the clean up was easier with silicone.

“I have a better idea.”

Satoru opens her eyes, intrigued. “Oh?”

Suguru carries a mean smile, her eyes sharpening with intent. “How good is your self-control?”

“As good as you need it to be.”

Suguru summons a new curse, not of the monitoring variety that she has positioned around the ryokan. This one is of decent strength, a semi-first grade cursed spirit with an amorphous shape, far too small for something packing so much cursed energy, maybe akin to a cuttlefish with a multitude of muscled tentacles, obsidian black and gleaming.

“Are you serious?” Satoru asks, eyeing the curse, the haze of arousal dying down a bit. Of all of the things they have done, using curses like this hasn't been one of them. The curse itself was nothing unusual, a higher grade version of the variety common enough to be memorialized in even non-jujutsu literature. “It’s the size of a cat. I could kill it with a squeeze of my thighs.”

“Self control, Satoru.” Suguru instructs it to move. Satoru makes a conscious effort to not let Infinity kick in, to remind herself this was still Suguru’s curse climbing up her exposed leg, leaving behind a weirdly wet and warm trail of mucus, cooling rapidly in the night air. “Do you think you’ll be able to resist the urge to kill it? And presumably, Infinity won’t interfere?”

Well, when she puts it like that, like a challenge. “Yes.”

“I’m not going to ask you to trust me, but will you let me?” Suguru’s hand is still softly cupping her pubis, a warm weight, not at all insistent. “You can think of it as an extension of me, because I will be directing every action. You recognize this type of curse, this one has a unique attribute: it can grow at will.” On cue, the curse swells up, enlarging in overall size, its arms lengthening and thickening, a smooth ripple of muscle and cursed energy. Six Eyes tells her this is not as weak as it looks.

“Fuck,” Satoru exhales, examining the idea in her head. Tentacles definitely hadn’t been on her kink list, but this is Suguru, and Suguru has never disappointed her as far as these things went. The thought is not unappealing, if Suguru’s commanding the movement of the tentacles, teasing at her, driving it into her, adjusting its size like using an inflatable toy— okay, yeah, she could see that. Plus, she’s always willing to try everything at least once. “Yes.”

Suguru smiles. “Okay. You should prepare first, I’ll set up.”

The things she is willing to do to get laid, Satoru supposes.

When Satoru returns to the sleeping area, the balcony doors have been drawn shut, and Suguru has laid out a large towel on the bedroll, with extra towels in arm’s reach. Her yukata is open, sleeves draped over her shoulders as she taps away at her phone, slightly hunched, the inner swell of her breasts peeking out, her belly soft and full from their meal. Still devastatingly attractive, Satoru finds as she kneels next to her.

“Are you ever going to give me your new number?”

“I was advised by my lieutenant not to give you my number,” Suguru responds, still texting away. “Probably better for you as well to purge your phone, wouldn’t want to leak a history of compromising messages with a wanted criminal.”

“As if that ever stopped me.”

“True.” Suguru sets her phone away, and turns her full attention to Satoru. “You still want to do this?” She resummons the cursed spirit, less alien than before. Satoru thinks she’s going to call it Tentacles.

“Always.” When it’s you, Satoru doesn’t say.

“Good,” Suguru confirms. Her voice goes flat. “Strip.”

There’s not much to take off, not enough to make it a striptease. She lets the yukata slide off one shoulder at a time as she unravels the belt, letting it pool underfoot.

Suguru’s looking at her, really looking with intensity, as if she hadn’t gotten her fill when they were in the shower, when she had her hands all over Satoru. It’s a reminder to Satoru, not everyone has the sort of comprehensive gaze Six Eyes affords her.

“Look at you,” Suguru says slowly, appreciatively. “No one else can compare.”

Satoru resists the urge to preen. She knows how she looks, and the efforts it takes to maintain, more for function than form, but form is important too.

“Come here,” Suguru beckons with words and the tilt of her head. Satoru knee-walks over, close enough to kiss. Suguru does, cupping one side of her face as she works Satoru’s mouth open, shifting to the back of her head and pulling to open her up wider. Suguru’s free hand works at her tits, cupping and squeezing, tweaking at the nipples, one at a time. “What do you want?” she breaths into Satoru’s ear.

A lot of things, Satoru knows and doesn’t say. “You,” Satoru settles for, “however you want to do it.”

“On your back,” Suguru compels, pushing her down to the bedding, the other hand trailing under her tits, palming at her ribcage. “I’ve missed that mouth of yours, and the last one was too fast. I want to take my time riding your face.”

Satoru has always loved it when her face was nestled between Suguru’s legs, her mouth buried in Suguru’s cunt. It’s no different now, still a natural fit, Suguru’s weight bearing down on her, Suguru’s musk permeating her senses, Suguru’s clit swollen against her tongue. Suguru’s belly quivers, the lines of her abdomen rising and falling as she gasps, the curve of her underboob swaying as she rocks against Satoru’s face, pushing up against her nose as Satoru thrusts her tongue up and in as far as she can manage.

“That’s it, very good,” Suguru coos. “Such a good girl, so eager to please. Can you even breathe?”

Satoru shakes her head. The burn in her lungs is a heady reminder, an edge of desperation that shoots straight to her cunt. Still, Suguru wants it slow and steady, and so Satoru follows her pace.

“Hands over your head,” Suguru tells her, leaning back to give her air, still rocking against the ridge of her tongue. “Keep your legs wide open.”

Satoru complies, treated to the sight of Suguru’s eyes fluttering shut, her face awash with sensation. Satoru takes delight and pride in the scene, adjusting her angle, alternating the motion of her licks, fine tuning for the action that gives Suguru the most pleasure. Being able to watch her feedback in real time is one of the great pleasures in life.

She stutters a little when a multitude of touches, warm and wet, tickles her thighs. Ah, it’s Tentacles.

“Keep going,” Suguru instructs, her eyes still closed in concentration, the edge of her mouth curving upward. “You’re good at multi-tasking, aren’t you?”

They’ve done something similar before, when Suguru fingered her as she rode Satoru’s face, but it’s different here, a warm and slick presence between her legs, the initial intrusion manageable, not much different than a starter dildo in her pussy. She plants her heels on the bedding, and can feel more of the appendages wrapping around her, bracing against her hips, an anchor to start a slow pulsing motion inside her. It’s surprisingly tame.

As Satoru focuses on keeping her jaw open and her tongue extended, she feels it then, the stretch as it expands, its grip increasing like Suguru’s ropework. The thing inside her moves in a shallow fuck that isn’t anywhere near enough. She needs more.

“Eyes on me,” Suguru reminds her. Suguru’s eyes are open and crystalline, her hips still insistent, pushing at Satoru’s mouth. “Focus.”

Satoru wants to make it good for Suguru, wants to focus on giving Suguru what she wants, but the inhuman presence between her legs is a bit different, touching and circling with the extra appendages that no human has, the fucking motion increasing in speed. It doesn’t come as a surprise when another tentacle uncurls from where it was wrapped around her leg, probing at her asshole. Its entry is aided by the abundance of slick, like getting fingered, a pleasant stretch up to the point it starts expanding thicker than what she’s taken in a while, pushing up against the walls of her pussy, moving in alternating strokes. The sensation of fullness is different, the closest thing she can think of is a particularly memorable fuck, when Suguru fucked her pussy while she was wearing a plug. This isn’t as good though.

“You like it in both holes, don’t you?” Suguru asks, the sharp edge of meanness showing in her voice. Suguru’s deliberately commanding Tentacles to avoid touching the part Satoru desperately wants, leaving her only with the in-out motion, almost machine-like as Satoru tries to buck her hips. “Can you come like this?”

Maybe, Satoru tries to say, but her mouth is full as Suguru rocks forward, planting her palms above Satoru’s head, her response a mess of garbled vibrations.

“Let’s see how much you can take when I come all over your face.” Suguru looks down at her, locks eyes with her.

The promise of what’s to come pools in her gut, clenching around the tentacles thrusting into her, the speed picking up, inciting the pit of heat in her core. Even so, muscle memory kicks in, Satoru’s habits shaped intrinsically to give Suguru what she wants, what Suguru needs to find her peak, the flex of her thighs, the clench of her abdomen, the look of wanton pleasure on her face.

“Keep going,” Suguru gasps out as she comes, “don’t stop.”

For the second time today, the passage of time becomes irrelevant, Suguru’s presence the grounding factor tethering her to this place, to this room, to the increasingly damp bedding under her body, her world narrowing to two points: the weight of Suguru riding her face, fucking into her mouth, and Suguru’s cursed spirit thrusting into Satoru with an unrelenting pace, the two melding into her climax with a muffled shout, her hands clenching and her hips lifting off the bedding.

There is no reprieve. Tentacles continues its mechanical motion, fucking her through the come down, and Suguru redoubles her efforts against Satoru’s face. Her clit’s still aching, desperate for anything; she can come again, she’s sure, if Suguru touched her. This last orgasm wasn’t the kind she liked, not nearly intense or satisfying enough.

Suguru doesn’t touch her, instead riding her to another peak, pinning Satoru’s face between her legs. “Stay down,” she tells Satoru, climbing off, slick and saliva dripping down her thighs. From this angle, Satoru can see Suguru’s gaze sweeping her lower body, a peculiar sheen reflecting in her eyes.

Satoru works her jaw, the ache noticeable through her neck, her tongue slowly regaining normal flexion before she can talk. “Suguru,” Satoru finds herself whining, nothing left to distract her from the overbearing sensation of being full and continuously fucked, the slick squelches from between her legs clearly audible. “How long are you planning to do this?”

Suguru runs a hand over her belly, tracing over a hip, hovering just short of where Satoru really needs her to touch. “That depends on you. How do you feel?”

“Full,” Satoru grunts, rotating her pelvis and still unable to get away from the thrusts. It’s gotten bigger, Satoru realizes, the stretch more than before. “What did you just do?”

“Nothing,” Suguru remarks, her fingers still dappling over skin. “This curse is one that is strengthened by feeding on blood.”

“You’re using that on me?” Satoru wants to protest, but it just dissolves into a groan. “That’s mean.”

“I find it very efficient, waste not, want not,” Suguru repeats her words back at her, taking on a pedantic tone. “There’s a particularly rich history associated with these curses, everyone is aware of Tako to Ama, which was sourced from curses of similar origin. Meanwhile, menstruation has always been its own taboo topic in many areas. Interestingly, even in the modern day, the abundance of these types of curses haven’t waned.”

“Suguru,” Satoru warns, just a little exasperated, “you need stop lecturing and just fuck me.”

“I am fucking you.” Suguru reminds her, straddling her waist. She reaches up over Satoru’s head to pin her wrists down, her face suddenly flush against Satoru’s, strangely intimate. The speed of the thrusts increases, pressing against the sensitive tissue, still too mechanical. Not as good as Suguru, whose lips are soft against her ear. “You want it like this?”

It’s not just about pace, of course, never has been. Satoru wants someone to push back against, to fight against. She’s never liked just lying on her back; it has to be Suguru pinning her down and spreading her open, or pushed and bound into a position because Suguru wanted it.

“More,” Satoru says, maybe whispers. “I want more.”

The grip on her wrists tightens, just enough to make it hurt. “Be specific.”

“More of you, taking what you want.” It’s the truth. “I can handle it.”

Suguru’s pupils are blown wide, bottomless wells on the night of a new moon, her iris faint even under Six Eyes. “No cursed energy,” she finally says with a harsh undertone, “I plan on making you beg.”

Satoru nods, anticipation a solid weight in her belly, willing the near instinctive habits to shut down entirely: no reverse cursed technique, no Infinity, no cursed energy. As close to human as she can get.

Tentacles withdraws entirely from her, its sudden absence leaving her hollow. Then, Six Eyes can see it as Suguru lets the cursed spirit unravel into its true form, a large, menacing sunburst shadow behind her, no longer the cat-sized cephalopod it was before. When it snakes one limb around her ankle, pulling up her leg and giving her no leverage, a spark of something electric jolts down her spine, a match to light the gleam in Suguru’s eyes.

“Interesting,” Satoru finds herself saying as Suguru climbs off, both of her ankles caught up in its reach, the lower half of her body lifting off the ground; “that’s different,” she tries again, as she finds her wrists seized in its muscular grip, pulling her upright; “oh,” she gasps when it lifts her mid-air, carrying her weight, a few slim probing arms seeking out her sensitive spots, fine-tuned control sufficient to avoid the most sensitive part of all. She’s turned to face Suguru, who stands straight-backed and nude, a sharp and lean interest in her eyes as she watches.

There’s too much sensation, Satoru realizes, a downside of having Infinity running permanently for so long, a warm, gripping touch at every sensitive part of her body, wrapped around her waist, circling around her neck, sliding across her buttocks, squeezing at her tits, tracing through her folds, lingering at her ass. And yet, there’s no penetration, so she still feels oddly bereft.

Satoru tests its grip on her wrists, and finds it adequate before it pulls her arms up behind her, not quite a strappado, but enough to take away mechanical strength, tipping her forward and exposing her rear. The position holds; Satoru finds her arousal building quickly under Suguru’s watchful eye, her body signaling its willingness for another round.

“You look good like this,” Suguru tells her, walking up to her, “bent over.”

“I could use something else,” Satoru reminds her, craning her head up to look at her. “Are you going to do anything? Or are you going to just watch?”

The cursed spirit drops Satoru to her knees, the pull increasing on her wrists, a harsh torque on her shoulders as it wrenches her arms up.

“I am a patient person,” Suguru responds. “I can wait.”

“I am not,” Satoru counters, wiggling her ass, or trying to. The tentacle around her waist is surprisingly effective at holding her still. “What are you waiting for?”

Suguru squats down, so they’re face to face, pulls Satoru’s hair roughly to her delight, and consumes her in an open mouthed kiss, licking the taste of herself out of Satoru’s mouth. There it is, that’s the signal: two of the cursed spirit’s appendages push their way inside her simultaneously, the intrusion eliciting a choked-out gasp. There’s nothing gradual about it this time, thick and unyielding, the tip wide and blunt as it forces its way through with a not unwelcome burn. It doesn’t wait for her to acclimate, immediately starting, punched-out groans tumbling from her mouth before she can brace herself. She can feel Suguru smiling against her mouth, swallowing her down, her lips wet and her tongue voracious.

Touch me, she wants to say, I need it, but there’s only a rumble in her throat, an amalgamation of moans and wordless sounds. Suguru knows what she needs, always has. It’s not a hand at her clit, no, the angle doesn’t work for that, but there’s something, a fleshy appendage slick from her sweat and arousal, working at her, diffused instead of the pin-point accuracy of Suguru’s fingers, but it’s enough to get her going, drawing in her imploding core as Suguru makes her take it, the double-barreled sensation of being pumped full as viciously as she could bear, as Suguru takes what she wants.

Satoru clenches every part of her body through the climax, down to her toes, and Suguru drinks down her cry.

“Second one, right?” Suguru asks, pulling away.

“Yes,” Satoru confirms as she catches her breath, focusing on unfurling her fingers and contracting each finger slowly. The curse hasn’t stopped, driving into her, working her over. She’s too sensitive post-orgasm, feeling every thrust and grope, unable to pull away even as her body tries to curl in on itself.

Is this what Suguru was planning?

“How many times do you think you can come in one night?” Suguru asks rhetorically, confirming her guess.

Satoru has never tested her limits like this before, the amount of effort required a deterrent given all the other things they could have been doing. Now, faced with a cursed spirit that could continue to fuck her senseless, as long as she let it, it formed a deep-seated knot of desire in her gut. She wanted it, because Suguru wanted it. “Why don’t you try me?”

The look in Suguru’s eyes is a familiar one, one part naked hunger, two parts comprehensively analytical, and obsessively thorough throughout. “I missed that part of you,” Suguru tells her, holding Satoru’s chin, rubbing a thumb along her lip. Satoru opens up her mouth, tongue out, welcoming her thumb. “Only you can be used like this, and still want more. Let’s keep count, shall we?”

Satoru lets Suguru use her, only as Suguru wants, falling into pure sensation as she works past the oversensitivity and the need returns, so she’s rocking back, impaling herself deeper, riding peaks and valleys until they blur together, just a continuous climb from one peak to the next, her core trembling from overuse. Some part of her is counting, that uninhibited part of her that manifests in moments like these. Maybe she last shouted, “six!” her voice hoarse; maybe she’s rambling, a mantra of “fuck fuck fuck - nngh that’s a lot— Suguru please, make it smaller,” after the curse had glutted itself on her blood; maybe she is asking for something, something like, “I need your fingers in my mouth” so that she can gag on them instead of saying other embarassing things like “please, no more, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, fuck I can’t come again.” Certainly, at some point, she must have been begging, after the seventh one, just as Suguru wanted, “Please please Suguru, let me eat you out, please,” the sight of Suguru stroking herself stoking a desperate need that overcame everything else.

Maybe, maybe that is how Satoru ends up on her knees, her face buried in Suguru’s cunt as she spasms through another, wet cheeked and gasping softly, “eight,” as Suguru stroked her shoulder blades, tracing small circles on her upturned palms folded behind her back.

“I think you’re done,” Suguru tells her, her voice soft.

“No I’m not,” Satoru mumbles back, even as she’s aware of Suguru withdrawing the curse. Regaining body control is something else. She’s aching in places she didn’t think could ache, nerves tingling in places of which she hadn’t been aware. “I can take more.”

“As much as I like seeing you completely fucked out, we should stop here,” Suguru says wistfully. “You were so good for me, Satoru, absolutely gorgeous.”

Her body grows warm, content at the praise. “I’m glad.”

She decides to lie still for a moment, debating if she should just heal herself back to normal or luxuriate in the boneless limp-bodied sensation for a moment longer. Suguru moves away, and then returns, wiping her down thoroughly with a warm, wet cloth. Satoru decides against healing herself for now, enjoying the aftercare.

“Eh?” She blinks when Suguru picks her up in a fireman’s carry. At least the view of Suguru’s ass is quite satisfying.

“You paid for the outdoor tub, might as well use it.”

She doesn’t protest when Suguru eases her gently into the hot water, tipping her head back to watch the moon, shifted higher up in the sky in the hours they were occupied. Suguru joins shortly thereafter, a warm, silent presence. It’s nice, Satoru thinks, being sore enough to enjoy easing the ache in the hot water, the overall sensation novel to her since her reverse cursed technique had evolved to be an automatic reflex.

“Thanks Suguru,” Satoru tells her after a while, letting herself melt into the water, careful not to sit too firmly. “It was good.”

“You’re welcome.” Suguru places a hand on her shoulder. “You were very good. Are you sore?”

Another starburst of warmth and contentment, like rubbing her face in a fluffy hotel towel. “I am,” Satoru admits, “but nothing I can’t heal.” She fights a yawn, surprised at the level of physical exhaustion. Even her eyelids feel heavy as Six Eyes churns away in the background. She’s forgotten how that feels too.

“When was the last time you slept?”

“Hmm, I napped on the shinkansen yesterday, about an hour maybe? Don’t worry though, that’s enough for me.”

“You should get some real sleep.”

“You know how it is, Suguru, I can’t do that.” She can’t remember the last time she slept more than a couple hours, or even overnight. She just hasn’t needed to. She’s just resting her eyes right now.

“You can’t even keep your eyes open.” Suguru sounds like she’s admonishing her for not taking care of herself, a familiar mantra, like the time Suguru found her sitting upright in the communal kitchen, drifting off while waiting for her instant noodles to finish cooking, or the time Suguru hauled her onto a concrete bench under an open air pavilion after they spent all night in the abandoned park chasing down a trickster cursed spirit, telling Satoru to sleep while she kept watch. “You can sleep, I’m here.”

That much is true, Satoru recalls fondly, just like old times.

When she opens her eyes again, she’s staring not at the night sky and the full moon, but rather the lacquered ceiling panels of the room, sunlight filtering through the ricepaper panes, her head light, resting on a pillow, her body heavy and tucked under a blanket.

Suguru is long gone, the only residual left a deliberate marker of time.

She heals herself as she looks for her clothes, suspicious of how she hadn’t made a mess on the bed. Inside the waterproof pocket of her jacket, she’s down one count of tampons, and in lieu of that a folded up square of paper with a cell phone number in Suguru’s handwriting, annotated “one time use.” She commits it to memory and disintegrates it into powder.

She’s not mad, not even disappointed, only resigned to the outcome. Suguru will go back to being a kill on sight curse user, and Satoru will reactivate the always-on parts of her technique.

This, like everything else, will be a memory.

Nanami’s call comes as a surprise; Satoru knows she cannot be the first person that Nanami called.

“Alright, alright, I’ll help get you back in the groove,” Satoru tells him over the phone after she stops laughing. “Let’s meet up off campus?”

They arrange to meet at a cafe in Roppongi, probably not far from wherever Nanami’s human job was. He’s sipping a post-lunch espresso by the time Satoru appears at his table. To his credit, he doesn’t startle; his cursed energy still looks robust despite his years of dormancy.

“Still tardy as ever,” Nanami remarks as she sits down opposite him.

Satoru shrugs. “If you quit your job already, then schedules hardly matter, right?” She flags down a waiter and orders the framboise gateau she spotted in the display cabinet; it arrives expediently, plated with an extra drizzle of sauce she requested.

Nanami lets her enjoy a few decadent bites before he comments, “You should be more respectful of people’s time.”

“I had to help out my cute students!” Satoru lets that sink in as Nanami blanches. “They’re not very good at making curses follow schedules, you know how that goes.”

“Yaga must have lost his mind to let you teach,” Nanami mutters. “To be honest, between you and Getou, I tried calling Getou first, but the number had been disconnected. What happened?”

Satoru was trying to shove as much of the cake into her mouth as she could before she lost her appetite, but the damage was already done. She washes it down with a gulp of water. “That’s a long story. Ready to hear it?”

Nanami sits back, folding his arms. “Tell me.” Every line of his body is rigid, held so stiffly she wonders if he’ll break before she’s done. It’ll be a testament to his conviction, a gauge of just how badly Nanami Kento wants to return to jujutsu society.

She tells him the story sequentially, in the way Yaga told her, in the way she experienced it, in the paper trail she found in the case files, framed in the task she’s been assigned, and the surreal reality that Suguru is currently the most dangerous curse user in the country, amassing a following, a private army of curses and curse users alike. His drink has long since gone cold when she asks him, “So you still want this?”

Nanami exhales, his judgement loud in its silence. “We’re all insane, aren’t we? If Yaga is letting you teach, you must have a vision.”

“I do,” Satoru admits. Nanami’s always been sharp like that. “We know what happened when we were students. I am still only one person, I can’t save everyone. These kids deserve better, we need to enable them to grow stronger than we are. That means we have to be the change we want to see.”

“And what if these kids decide they want to follow Getou?”

Satoru has contemplated this before, and accepted this as a potential outcome in her quest to cultivate the next generation. “Every person has their own free will, we can’t dictate their choices for them. We can only try to convince them.”

“Is that why Getou isn’t dead yet?” Trust Nanami to get to the heart of the matter. “The higher-ups can’t make you kill someone you love?”

Satoru slides down her shades to stare at Nanami, lets the silence build until she can see his lips twitch in an attempt to take it back, and laughs. “First, no one can make me do anything I don’t want to do. Second, I wouldn’t call it love.”

Nanami stares at her like she’s grown another head. “Gojo Satoru,” he starts with a weary sigh, portending an ominous storm, “I have lost the slightest bit of respect I managed to build up for you.”

“No, really,” she tries, “I’m serious, it’s not what you’re thinking.”

“You— Getou—” Nanami gives up, scowling. “Nevermind. Life is shitty enough as it is, I might as well live it doing something I can live with. Whatever was, or is between you two, doesn’t affect me. Figure yourself out, Gojo.”

Satoru doesn’t need to. Love? A mother may love her child, a husband may love a wife, a grandparent may love a grandchild, and perhaps two individuals may love one another romantically, or not. Satoru is none of those in every possibility Six Eyes has given her the opportunity to consider and evaluate. She knows what she is— the Strongest— and what Suguru holds herself out to be: a symbol to a group larger than herself.

It’s too late for them to discuss anything meaningful, that opportunity disappeared long ago. The only truth is that calling it love would be a gross understatement.

“Are you really doing this to me?” Shoko sighs at her, snapping on a pair of latex gloves.

“Yes.” Satoru sets the body bag carefully on the table. It’s too light, but there were no remaining pieces to be found, even under her careful scrutiny. “They’ll believe your report.”

The zipper is loud in the silence between them, Suguru’s sleeping face coming into view, finally at peace, followed by the rest of what remains.

Shoko starts.

The process is detached, sterile and efficient, clinically precise, an incomplete and hollow body stretched out over the stainless steel, lit under the halogen lamps, laced with the chemical smell of death. Suguru was an empty husk when she died, so Satoru could kill her without reprisal from her host of cursed spirits; Suguru had made sure of that.

Shoko records her findings in the voicelog, confirms the cause of death with Satoru. And that is it: thirteen years of history, distilled into a moment, a final exhale after they traded words.

“Wait,” Satoru stops her after Shoko marks off the cremation option on the paperwork. “I’ll deal with the body myself.”

Shoko levels a gaze at her. “You sure about this?”

Suguru would not have wanted to be buried with humans, even if there had been space in Suguru’s family grave. Satoru has an option for that at least, to ensure Suguru would be laid to rest among fellow sorcerers. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

This isn’t Suguru.

It’s her cursed energy.

This isn’t Suguru.

It’s her body.

This isn’t Suguru.

It’s her face.

This isn’t Suguru — Satoru refutes everything Six Eyes insists to her, a reality shattering rejection. Satoru knows, knows with every fiber of her soul, this isn’t Suguru. Satoru knows this isn’t Suguru, because she remembers the exact moment when the light extinguished from Suguru’s eyes, the lifting of the binding oath because she fulfilled her promise, that Satoru would be the one to kill Suguru.

She knows, because Satoru buried Suguru.

What stands before her is an abomination, horrifying and grotesque in its simulacrum of the real Suguru: whole-bodied, four limbed, carrying itself in a way that lacks Suguru’s predator sharp intent, too casual and lax.

For the second time in her life, Satoru finds herself trapped and unable to move, locked into a mortal body still aching from the toll of killing over a thousand curses. The complete absence of her cursed energy is a foreign sensation, to be stripped of her armor, of her power, naked before the second physical body that has ever been company to her at her most vulnerable.

The space between them is infinite; the space between them is nothing at all. The world is hollow and silent around them, a capsule of quiet and peace as curses and humans alike gape into the void she just rendered, even as her own icy horror sweeps from head to toe, shredding her insides, grabbing and twisting at her heart.

The mockery of Suguru’s face smiles. Satoru wants to retch if she could.

“You,” she grits out, forcing back the bile. Good, at least she can still talk. “Who. Are. You.”

The fake smiles. “Your one and only, your Getou Suguru of course.”

“Go fuck yourself,” Satoru snaps back. “You may be convincing to everyone else, even to Six Eyes, but not to me. Who. Are. You.”

“Well, this wouldn’t hurt to show you.” It walks over, lacking the gait that Suguru had. The right hand attached to the arm that had been torn apart in that last fight, reaches up to Suguru’s face, pinching at the scars on Suguru’s forehead, lifting up the scalp and bone, a spill of cerebrospinal fluid— she doesn’t need to Six Eyes to know that cannot be Suguru’s brain.

“From one jujutsu sorcerer to another, bearer of Six Eyes, thank you. I’ve had so many bodies before, but I’ve always coveted one with a cursed technique like this, and the exact set of circumstances like this.” The hand that used to be Suguru’s hovers before her, reaching out and stopping just short of making contact, before Satoru tries to flinch— if she could. “You were so kind to keep the body mostly intact.”

It pulls back, and reassembles Suguru’s skull cap into one piece, wiping off the fluid trickling down Suguru’s face. “All these lovely memories you’ve made, such a shame that it’s time to say goodbye, Gojo Satoru. The sealing is almost complete, you’ll finally be out of the way.”

Satoru has long since abandoned fear of death, having danced upon its threshold and found it uninviting. Being sealed isn’t that different. The premise of this scenario, although not this exact set of circumstances, has always been something she prepared for, building up a generation that doesn’t need to rely on her. She scoffs at the thing occupying Suguru’s body. “There will be others, even if you seal me. The body you’re hijacking has already experienced it.”

It twists Suguru’s lips a little. “That boy, Yuuta Okkotsu? Power, yes, he has that, but he’s not you and can’t be you.” Suguru’s hand twitches oddly even as it continues to talk. “As much as I enjoy this view, I’d rather not take any more risks. It’s time to say goodnight, Gojo Satoru. See you in a thousand years.”

Even in the absence of cursed energy, Satoru can sense it, a tenuous grasp, gossamer thin, a faint echo, a ghost in the shell plucking at the thread of her soul. Suguru ought to be rolling in her grave before this grave digger robbed her, knowing what was happening to her body. There is no room for fear here; fear is useless, only confidence and conviction would do, and for the first time, she realizes — she cannot rely on Six Eyes for this.

Come back.

Disregard what Six Eyes has always told her, is telling her now— what is Suguru to her?

Come back.

Before Satoru became the Strongest, before she accepted the mantle jujutsu society placed upon her, what was she to Suguru?

Come back.

She sneers at the imposter. “You’re just going to let yourself get used like this, Suguru?”

No one has ever come back from the dead just because a mere human soul wished for it, but—

There’s a first time for everyone and everything, and if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.

So Suguru tries.