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“Five people have disappeared after visiting a haunted house in Sasebo, Nagasaki, somewhere called Huis Ten Bosch. A third year was sent yesterday morning. We haven’t heard from them since.”
“The house in the forest?” Satoru repeated, translating the name. It wasn’t until Ijichi nodded that Satoru finished the thought. “Like, the theme park?”
A bead of sweat dripped down Ijichi’s cheek. “Why would that…?”
Satoru didn’t let him finish. “Why wouldn’t I? Theme parks are a riot!”
The sinking circles under Ijichi’s eyes seemed to imply he didn’t find riots fun.
“According to the families, the victims all had a big disappointment recently,” ,” Ijichi read off the scouting report. “Lost jobs. Failed exams. A rejected proposal–”
“So, living?”
Satoru took the file straight from Ijichi. His free hand raised in a sigil, his cursed energy centering. He pictured the front of the theme park, somewhere else, far away. The point of the ground formed in Satoru’s mind. Then, he snapped.
The form of the world folded inward, space condensing where he willed it to go. Before Ijichi could manage a blink, Gojo was already there.
The grounds of the theme park were set aglow. Red and white lanterns stretched in strings across roofs of fake buildings. A decorative skull stood in the center, black eyes and chunky teeth set in a cartoon smile. The lights burned so bright, traces snuck through Satoru’s blindfold.
Satoru set his hands into his pocket, rolling the file away. “It’ll be fast,” he told himself. “It’s always fast.”
Satoru’s steps fell into a slouch as he crossed the town square. The inflatable skull seemed to turn with his stride. He didn’t look for a map. One foot inside this place, and, like every mission, Satoru already knew where to go. The buildings stretched, cursed energy flowing. The blip of an anomaly flickered amongst the rest.
“Haunted Forest House, right? That’s what he said?” Satoru muttered. His footsteps slowed as he drew closer, still thinking. “...Can’t fit a lot of forest here, though, huh.”
If there would have been an answer, no one was close enough to try,
The plain brick walls and white-trimmed windows stood still. A pop-up tent waited outside, the white chains and pillars roping a path to the door. Where the line would have ended, the plain doors stained brown. Red letters stood above the entryway. The kanji and the English both spelled out the same thing–’emergency’.
Satoru swayed to one side. “Not much of a house, huh,” he uttered to himself. “...At least it’s not a haunted urgent care.”
As he braced to walk in, a drift of a scent carried through the door frame. Satoru couldn’t place the source of it, but he knew the trace in his core.
His hand shook over the doorknob, not quite reaching. Whatever was on the other side of this door, he knew the cedar, incense, and fresh rain wasn’t from the inside. This cloud of a scent so thick he could cut through should have ended in a name his tongue had almost forgotten.
“Suguru?” Satoru called, knowing full well an answer shouldn’t come. The silence stung.
Every time he heard the silence, at the end of a stupid joke without a laugh, or something ridiculous he’d said just to see how the world would react, Satoru felt the echo of a voice that wasn’t there. The scent drifted closer. Satoru knew it well long after he shouldn’t have.
The imprint of Suguru’s cursed technique lingered through the door as if a part of him were there.
It had been years since Satoru had seen him. Suguru was still on the loose–still the most wanted curse user alive. If he were here, collecting curses, too, then the disappearances might make sense.
Satoru forced his focus, his senses pushing past the smell.
“Nah,” he uttered. “No way. Gotta be the curse.”
No matter what Satoru told himself, or how unreal Satoru knew the scents should be, Suguru’s scent shouldn’t be here.
Satoru reached for the door. His limitless lapsed, his palm brushing the handle. He gripped tight, his fingers curling to twist.
The knob evaporated, the substance breaking, as what had once looked like a hospital snapped away.
The crossing signal chirped in the background. The fuzz of strangers’ footsteps and fighting radios through open shop doors cast a white haze down the strip. Rows of fast food and faster pedestrians turned to blurs off the street, just a few minutes walk off from Memory Lane.
Satoru steadied his feet, adjusting to a domain he hadn’t sensed opening.
The haunted house still stood. His six eyes couldn’t be fooled so easily. His cursed technique and soul knew he was still standing in a theme park lot, on empty ground in Nagasaki. The rest of him sensed otherwise. From the smell of fried chicken to the passing conversations, stray words barely brushing by, Satoru remembered this moment.
He hadn’t paid much attention when Ijichi had described the pattern between victims. At first listen, it didn't seem like it should matter at all. The failures and rejections that lured them away all came down to one thing: regret.
The curse he knew existed lurked, somewhere he couldn’t make it out. In its place, all Satoru could see was the street.
“I know they theme haunted houses, but this is ridiculous,” Satoru started to whisper. He’d barely finished talking when he heard himself shout.
“Explain yourself… Suguru!”
The crowd kept rolling. In the midst of the rush, in an impossible blur, there was Suguru.
“You already heard from Shoko, didn’t you? That’s all there is to it,” Suguru said, as if it were ever that simple.
Satoru could hear him breathing. The incorrect vision was blurry, yet, the sound of his own voice was clear, as if the memory took flesh, and old words turned new. As if it were happening, all over again.
His feet stuck to a sidewalk that didn’t exist. The old rage burst through, shouting old words, too. “That’s reason enough for you to kill–?!”
Satoru covered his mouth. The shout died in his throat. Even so, he heard his voice, like an echo at full volume.
“That’s reason enough for you to kill all non-sorcerers?! Even your parents?!”
The smudge of Suguru’s imprint faced him, too.
“It wouldn’t be fair, if I made an exception for my parents, would it?” The silhouette looked down with a displaced, breaking smile.
So many times, Satoru had seen Suguru smiling. He knew what it looked like, when the light hit his eyes. No matter how distorted his senses were, he could tell this wasn’t that smile, where a crinkle hit the corner of his eye. Suguru smiled like he’d forced it. Like it hurt him to hold one at all.
Satoru let his hand fall from his mouth. He heard himself, even when his lips were still. “That’s not what I’m talking about–”
He spoke over himself, eclipsing the end.
“This isn’t happening.”
Suguru stayed a shadow. A perfect replica of the least perfect moment, staring low, spoke words he’d replayed a thousand times, exactly as he’d heard them.
“There is a point and a meaning to it,” Suguru said, deluding himself. “It’s also justice.”
“No way!”
Satoru’s shadow started shouting. “Killing–”
The real thing dropped his hand from his mouth. This thing in front of him wasn’t happening. He knew better. What he didn’t know was how to break it.
Yet.
“It’s not just us! It’s just me . You can’t hear me!” Satoru snapped, stepping between his former self, and the image of Suguru. “You never heard me! You never even talked!”
Satoru stared down, the old anger turning fresh, as he eclipsed his younger words with the new.
“Why should I care about this, now? I tried to help you. I let you escape. You didn’t do shit. You didn’t even try to–”
“How arrogant.”
The shadow of Suguru’s words cut in, exactly where they had before.
“What?”
The word left Satoru before he knew it would come. His former self spoke in unison, the words vibrating with the echo of each other, just a few steps away. However different or unreal this second was, Satoru still heard.
"You could do it… Satoru.”
He still remembered what Suguru meant to convey. What he’d been trying to say, if it was the same thing, Satoru didn’t know. He never would.
“You’re trying to convince me that it’s impossible, when you yourself could do it.”
A world without non-sorcerers hadn’t just seemed impossible. It didn’t make sense. There was no purpose. No motive. No reason. Nothing that Suguru would share, when before, they’d shared everything. Before this moment, they’d been the strongest, together.
The blur of Suguru’s shadow stood alone.
“Are you the strongest because you’re Satoru Gojo?” he asked. “Or are you Satoru Gojo because you’re the strongest?”
Satoru’s hand shook, his fingertips brushing air that hadn’t needed to touch him. He heard himself, set aside. “What are you getting at?!”
This wasn’t happening.
It had happened one time, but that time wasn’t here. Satoru knew that.
“It’s a curse,” Satoru said, in more ways than once. “My six eyes can’t see it. But, it is."
His fingers curled with the memory, the twitch twisting his hold. For a second, he felt himself align the shot. Then, he let his hand fall.
“Oh,” he whispered. “...right.”
The shadow kept speaking.
“This is the life I’ve chosen,” Suguru said, looking away. “All I can do now is give it all I’ve got.”
Whatever it was Suguru had done, it would never feel worth it.
Satoru pulled his hands behind his back and crouched low. His cursed energy burned in a circle, countering the curse with a simple domain.
In an instant, the illusion of the Shinjuku street snapped away. In its place, Satoru saw the haunted house for what it was. Traces of starlight filtered through boarded windows. Painted rust-covered gurneys and rolling trays–a playset of an abandoned hospital, nothing more. In the midst of that mess was an object.
The essence of the curse rippled through a funhouse mirror. The glass suspended, warping ahead, a statue towards nothing. In the reflection, Satoru saw a silhouette.
It wasn’t Suguru, anymore. The edges were undefined and tarnished, lines slashing through it like snow on an old tv. Every detail of his memory set into a blur. Through his soul, and his reason, Satoru knew none of this was real.
Satoru pulled his blindfold down to his neck. His bangs scattered with it, falling into the two eyes that could see. The place just past Memory Lane distorted all the more. He watched the broken image like he might have a movie.
The black smudge of Suguru’s shadow warped in the mirror. The words carried in a rasp.
“If you want to kill me, kill me,” the image croaked, Suguru’s words clouding. “There’s meaning in that, too.”
It shouldn’t have sounded like him. He shouldn’t have been there. Satoru knew, unequivocally, that Suguru Geto wasn’t the one speaking. Whatever time there had been when Suguru turned his back to him, now, he was nothing but a memory.
The only wound Satoru’s reverse cursed technique could never mend for him turned fresh.
Satoru twisted his fingers. He knew this wasn’t real. Still, in the fuzz, he saw the image of mistakes he’d made too long ago to carry still. The hazy edges of Geto’s back blurred into the crowd, his black hair and black clothes like a beacon in reverse.
Satoru shouldn’t have spoken.
“You’re not real,” Satoru told himself, out loud. His thumb pressed down, his hand molding to the same shot he’d never taken at a target he should have struck then.
If only he had done what he should have, there were other people who would be alive. Presumably, some of them were worth saving.
“I could kill you,” Satoru told himself, trying to be sure. “I can. Like I should have, then. Like I–”
The lie fell so short, even he couldn’t believe it.
Satoru’s fingers scrunched in, his grip clenching, exactly like before. His cursed energy swelled like a glove, something so unrefined, it barely took sorcery to do it at all.
His infinity kicked in, the barrier casting between him and reality, too. Then, he punched through the mirror.
The cursed object shattered in the wake of the punch. The shards of the mirror fell to Satoru’s feet like violent snow, leaving him untouched. The curse wilted, the image of what had once been warping until Satoru couldn’t see the illusion at all.
A part of him sank where it shouldn’t have, the old wound carrying new pain. It had been years since they’d said goodbye, and this should have mattered. It hurt just the same to let the knowledge hit him. No matter how strong the world called him, that strength wouldn’t let him see Suguru.
He hadn’t seen Suguru in a very long time.
Satoru stood over the ruins. He tapped the glass shards with his shoe.
“Still down there?” Satoru uttered, watching the infinity scatter the glass. “That should’ve killed you.
The curse writhed, flopping, almost massless.
Satoru shook his hand. His fingers twisted again, releasing the fist to make a sigil.
“Oh, well, guess I’ll just–”
The same, familiar smell crept inside. The incense and captive storm sank in. Satoru froze. A chill passed through the soles of his shoes, his stance stuck to a cold floor his limitless could have kept him from touching, if only he’d remembered to try. In any other moment, he would have known how to.
The curse’s form twisted inwards, the matter condensing to a sphere, like the smallest model of a star about to die. The edges danced aglow in the blacklight, the dark circle shrinking until the essence turned a corner and pulled away.
In his soul, Satoru knew who was there. He couldn’t say it, or finish the thought. It was bad enough to know.
His six eyes saw it clearly. He pulled his blindfold up as he looked to the door.
“Yeah. Should’ve figured,” Satoru muttered to himself. “I’d know that smell, anywhere.”
In a way, it was the same thing Satoru had always done. Just around the corner, in a space he willed himself not to see, the best friend that he couldn’t save was leaving.
Maybe, years ago, there had been some words that could have saved Suguru Geto. In the now, the only mercy Satoru could give him was to walk away.
It wasn’t until he turned his back that Satoru admitted to the rest. In the quiet steps, as the scent of Suguru’s technique faded back, Satoru let himself accept that the mercy of never finding Suguru had never been for his classmate’s life. That mercy was for him.