Chapter Text
The cabin had been stripped to its bones. Furniture shoved aside, seals etched into the floor, candlelight flickering low and gold along the perimeter. Yuuji was the last to arrive, catching Gojo's gaze as he walked in. The man was leaned against the far wall with his arms crossed and one ankle resting casually over the other, looking absurdly relaxed, like he was waiting to give a lesson.
Not about to let someone tear through his soul.
“Nice of you to show up,” said Gojo. “I was starting to think you were gonna leave me to alone to face Yuuta's fussing and Shoko’s bedside manner.”
“You should be so lucky,” she said flatly. “Sit. Over there.”
“The floor? I’m a fragile man, Shoko. Rotting soul, remember?”
“You’ll survive,” she replied, rolling up her sleeves. "Everything I need to get to is best accessed through your spine, so you're gonna have to deal with it."
"I wasn't aware you were a licensed chiropractor."
"I'm not a licensed anything, and yet you people still keep coming to me with all your boo-boos," she muttered. "Being upright should help you stay grounded in your body. If you start to drift, the boys can help bring you back.”
Across the room, Yuuta bristled. "Drift?"
Shoko glanced at him.
"You'll know it when you see it," she said simply, turning back to Gojo. "Now, sit."
With a disapproving sigh, he pushed away from the wall and lowered himself onto the mat, legs folding to cross beneath him, hands resting loosely in his lap like he was preparing for meditation.
Not for whatever nightmare was surely about to unfold.
"Both of you, on either side,” Shoko said to Yuuji and Yuuta, who obeyed without hesitation. As they settled, she knelt behind them and pressed her hands into the small of Gojo's back, fingers spreading across the dark fabric of his shirt. She moved slowly, walking her palms upward along his spine, cursed energy blooming faintly beneath her fingertips.
It wasn't long before something shifted in the room.
The air turned heavier, dense and cold. Shoko’s expression hardened. Her cursed energy didn’t falter, but her brow furrowed, her body tensing as she read whatever was festering beneath her hands.
Her voice, when it came, was quiet.
“Jesus, Gojo.”
Gojo's brow ticked up. "That bad, huh?”
She didn't answer, moved her hands to the back of his neck. Yuuji watched as Gojo closed his eyes, like he was taking a second to let himself exist in the weight of a friend’s hands before everything ahead turned cruel. Because very soon, those same hands were going to break him open. Because it was necessary. Because there was no other choice.
They needed this to work.
“I’ll go slow to start,” she said. “Feel how deep it goes.”
Gojo opened one eye and glanced wryly over his shoulder.
“Buy a girl dinner first, Shoko.”
Their collective groan was cut off when the hum of Shoko's cursed energy shot suddenly through the floorboards. It buzzed in Yuuji’s teeth, settled in his own spine like static waiting to spark. It wasn’t like anything he’d seen her do before, because it wasn’t healing. The moment he felt it, Yuuji knew this was something ancient. Something primal. Made to reach places no one was meant to touch.
“You boys ready?”
Across from him, Yuuta gave a short nod. Yuuji followed a second later, slower, the muscles in his stomach winding tight.
He wasn’t ready. Not really.
“Gojo,” she continued. “I need to hear it from you.”
In the center of them all, Gojo tilted his head, like he was weighing his options or lack thereof.
Then he grinned, glanced over his shoulder.
“Hit me.”
She did.
The pressure dropped all at once, like a silent implosion. It pressed against Yuuji’s lungs, sank into his chest, made it harder to breathe. At the center of it, where Shoko’s hands met Gojo’s back, the space rippled like heat waves rolling off asphalt. Somehow even without touching it, Yuuji knew it felt cold.
Gojo breathed through it.
Not casually. Not flippantly. He inhaled slow through his nose, chest lifting with control so precise it almost masked the tension rolling through him, but not quite. His jaw tightened, the corner of his eye twitching once before going still again. For anyone else, it would have looked composed. For Gojo, it looked like effort.
Yuuji had never seen that before.
Gojo didn’t try to look effortless. He was. That was the whole illusion, power so complete it never needed performance. But now, with Shoko’s cursed energy driving deep into his spine, unraveling something they couldn’t see, Gojo was holding it together through sheer force of will. And Yuuji could see it, the work it took to sit still. The work it took to not flinch.
When her hands lifted, the pressure in the room eased in an instant. She exhaled sharply, fingers flexing like it had left something behind in her, too.
Gojo didn't move, not at first.
"Hey," said Yuuta softly, hand hovering uncertainly over his shoulder. "You good?"
He blinked, just once, a little slower than usual. But then his lip turned upward, and something clicked back into place.
“Never better."
If not for the fact that he looked like he'd aged ten years in as many minutes, Itadori might have believed him.
Shoko looked at him skeptically, her brow furrowed. "What's the pain level, on a scale of—"
“Manageable,” he cut in smoothly, glancing once over his shoulder. “I'm good, don't worry. Keep going.”
She didn't give him time to reconsider.
Time stretched, unmarked by anything but the steady, rhythmic pulses of cursed energy from Shoko’s hands and the way Gojo’s breath fell in and out of sync with them. Every so often, his eyes would unfocus, just for a second. Like something behind them had tugged too hard, but he always pushed through. He always came back.
All things considered, things were going well. Almost underwhelming.
Until Shoko announced:
“Hold him steady. Both of you."
Yuuji blinked, like maybe he’d misheard her.
Like maybe she hadn’t just told two people who weren’t suicidal to physically restrain Gojo Satoru. One didn’t just hold down the strongest sorcerer alive, no matter what state he was in. That was the kind of thing people died trying.
But her voice didn’t waver.
And Gojo didn’t protest.
Across from him, Yuuta swallowed noisily before planting both hands hand firmly on Gojo’s shoulder, fingers curling into his shirt. Yuuji followed suit a breath later, mirroring the motion on the other side. His grip wasn’t tight yet. But every nerve was lit up, braced for something. He didn’t know what. Just that it was coming.
And even like this, drained, broken open, soul half-rotted...
Gojo was still strong.
Shoko exhaled, silent as her cursed energy built again beneath her palms. And that was what got Yuuji, more than anything. Because usually by now, she’d be calling Gojo a dumbass, a baby. Telling him to quit whining. But she wasn’t saying any of that. And if Shoko wasn't doing that, instead of telling Gojo to suck it up like she usually would, then this had to be worse than they were letting on.
And that was an unsettling reality, one he tried hard not to think too much about.
The rot wasn’t passive. It wasn’t just sitting there waiting to be carved out. It was alive in some cursed, corrupted way. Fighting to stay. Fighting back. It was the kind of reality that should’ve sent real fear down his spine. But it didn’t.
Because this was Gojo.
And no matter how bad it looked, Yuuji couldn’t bring himself to doubt him. Not even now. He’d seen Gojo face things that would’ve broken anyone else. Walk through them like they were nothing. Hold the line when no one else could. So if this thing wanted to fight, it could fight. Gojo would win.
The pulse that rolled through him wasn’t like the others.
Gojo's head dipped forward, his entire body going rigid beneath Yuuji's hands with with something barely restrained, like every nerve was caught between collapse and detonation. For a split second, he looked far away. Like his focus had slipped off the edge of the room into someplace much colder.
Then, Yuuji saw it.
Golden threads of light spilled from the center of his spine. Loose, delicate. Yuuji’s stomach turned at the sight. Not because it was grotesque, but because it was beautiful. Beautiful in a way that made it worse. Seeing a soul in the open, dragged halfway into the air and trembling with every pulse of cursed energy, felt wholly unnatural. Like watching Gojo's armor being stripped off one luminous thread at a time. There was nothing left between him and the rest of the world. No Infinity. No blindfold. No jokes to hide behind.
Just raw, living essence bleeding out into the room while the infection latched to it like tar.
Shoko moved her hand toward the brightest point of the unraveling light, where the threads pulsed and bent under the weight of something darker. Where the infection had embedded itself, thick and viscous like oil spilled across silk.
Her hand hovered for only a second before she reached in, fingers closing around the first dense knot of corruption. She didn’t hesitate. Didn’t warn him.
Just yanked.
Gojo let out a sharp breath.
It came loose with the awful, sick resistance of something fused to flesh, like a rotted limb ripped from the bone all at once. The golden threads spasmed violently under her hand, convulsing like nerves misfiring. Gojo didn’t cry out, didn’t make a sound beyond that first breath, but Yuuji felt it. The tension rolled off of him in waves, tangible beneath the hands that held him steady. Across from him, Yuuta’s jaw was tight, knuckles pale where he gripped Gojo’s other shoulder. Between the both of them, they kept him from folding in on himself, but only just.
Shoko didn’t pause. She barely even glanced at the corrupted thread once it left him, just released it into the air, where it burned away like smoke. Already, her eyes were scanning the rest of the light, locating the next point of infection.
The next place she would have to cut.
The passage of time had quickly stopped feeling real after that. The longer they stood in it, the harder it was to measure. Seconds stretched thin, hours blended into one another. It was like it had all slipped sideways, caught in some gravitational pull that bent the rules around it.
The Prison Realm, Yuuji realized.
It wasn’t just inside Gojo anymore, it was in the room now. Heavy. Cold. Pressing in from all sides. The air felt too still, his thoughts dragged. It felt endless, and lonely in a way he couldn’t explain, like he’d already been here forever.
Gojo's breathing had gone shallow, his skin slick with sweat, and the light spilling from him flickered now with each pull, like it was beginning to fray. Shoko looked just as worn, her face pale and tight with exhaustion, but more threads kept coming. Yuuji kept hoping each one might be the last, only to watch her reach in again and pull another.
It felt endless.
Finally, after another long cycle, Shoko sat back on her heels and released a heavy breath. She swept her hand over her face, then through her hair. Yuuji could see it, her shoulders, her breathing, the faint sheen of sweat at her hairline. She wasn’t built for this kind of repeated output.
Not like this.
“I need a smoke.”
No one argued with her.
As she turned away, Gojo's eyes slid shut, the softest exhale of relief passing through his lips.
Yuuji’s gaze slid upward, toward Yuuta. His face was pale under the flickering light, his eyes locked somewhere near Gojo but not quite on him, like he couldn’t bear to look too closely. His hand kept flexing in his lap, tightening into a fist, loosening, tightening again. Like he wanted to reach out, wanted to offer something, but didn’t know how.
He understood that feeling.
There was nothing to do. No curse to exorcise, no enemies to punch. Yuuji had been through battles, through grief, through guilt that burned a hole straight through his chest. But this, watching their sensei hold himself together while Shoko tore him apart, felt like the worst kind of helplessness.
And the worst part was, it was working.
The procedure was doing exactly what it was supposed to.
And still, it felt like they were losing.
Yuuji’s eyes drifted back to Gojo. His head had tipped up again, still deathly pale, but his eyes were no longer glazed with pain or half-lidded with exhaustion. They were clear now. Too clear. Sharp in a way that made the hairs on the back of Yuuji’s neck stand up. His gaze moved around the room, slowly, deliberately, tracking across the walls like he was watching something move just beyond the edges of their sight.
There was nothing there.
"Sensei?”
Gojo blinked.
And his voice, when it emerged, was rougher than Yuuji had ever heard it.
“...Forgot how cheap this place looked."
Yuuji glanced up at Yuuta where they exchanged a wordless, uneasy look.
“What do you mean?” Yuuta asked. His eyes swept the room, but there was nothing to see. Just cracked tile and fluorescent hum. "The cabin?"
Gojo shook his head with a flicker of a smile. "Cabin's fine. A little outdated," he said with a half shrug. His gaze drifted slowly across the far wall, something like a laugh passing through his lips. "You really can't see them, huh?"
Across the room, Shoko had already moved, her cigarette forgotten on the windowsill. She knelt in front of him and placed a hand on his shoulder. “What the hell are you going on about?” she said, voice sharp. "Quit being vague."
“Skeletons," he said as if it were obvious, hardly noticing as Shoko placed a palm flat against his chest. "Like a discount Halloween store—"
Suddenly, he jolted inward like he'd been punched. Cursed energy surged through his sternum like a lightning rod. He coughed once, twice.
"Honestly, Shoko,” he muttered after a beat, breathless. “This is all starting to feel a little personal.”
“Might as well be, for the amount of shit you put me through," she replied sharply. “Did that do anything? Are they still there?"
He lifted his head slightly, enough to glance at her with an arch of his brow. “Well, yeah," he said, as if it were obvious. "I'm the one you're manhandling, not them.”
Shoko didn't seem pleased with that.
Yuuta shifted, tension flickering across his face as he glanced at Shoko. “You didn’t say hallucinations were part of this."
“They weren’t supposed to be,” she muttered. “Gojo, do you know where you are? That you aren't back there anymore?”
“Yeah, it was actually quiet back there.”
"Like you aren't Chief Disturber-of-the-Peace," she grumbled back. “Has the whole room changed, or just the walls? Can you see the three of us?”
“I can see your energy, which is... also weird," he answered. "Not used to having company.”
Shoko frowned deeply, opened her mouth to ask another question, then stopped.
Yuuji saw it, too.
Gojo’s gaze had shifted again, but not toward her. Not even back toward the walls. His eyes had gone glassy, fixed on some invisible point in space like he was staring straight through the room and into something far beyond it.
“Gojo."
A blink, hard and fast, like someone being yanked up from deep water.
“I'm good,” he said after a beat. “Let's just keep going."
Shoko's fingers hovered over his chest like she wasn’t sure if she should press again or pull away.
Then she exhaled, maneuvered herself to her position at his back.
There was something different about her this time, something sharper. Shoko's posture had shifted, shoulders squared with silent determination. Her cursed energy flared brighter at her fingertips, more volatile, less restrained. Whatever hesitation she’d held onto before, if any, was gone. She was pulling harder now, digging in deeper. Like the game had changed.
Like she was running out of time.
The infection was in the room now. Really in the room. Not theoretical. Not just something Shoko talked about. It was there, crawling along the floor, pressing into the corners of the space like a sickness made nearly tangible. He couldn't see it, but he could feel it. Thick and bitter and alive. Like maggots feeding on an open wound. His stomach lurched, bile threatening the back of his throat. Every instinct screamed at him to create distance, to move back, to get away from it. Run.
And then he remembered this was what Gojo had been walking around with inside of him for weeks.
It was another few cycles before there was another shift. Gojo's jaw flexed, his throat worked around a tight swallow, eyes fluttering shut for just a second too long. He shifted like he was trying to steady himself, shoulders held stiff and breath pulled carefully through his nose.
Then, finally, in a voice that sounded too calm to be casual:
“Gonna puke.”
Yuuji blinked.
But Yuuta was already moving, the words barely out before he pushed to his feet and crossed the room in two strides. The metal bucket clanged dully as he grabbed it from where Shoko had left it. Yuuji braced, arms tightening, posture shifting as Gojo swayed forward with a choked, involuntary motion.
The bucket landed in his lap just in time.
No noise at first. Just the sudden collapse of a body stretched too thin. The sound that eventually managed to escape was soft, but as raw and miserable as anything Yuuji had ever heard from him.
Even so, Shoko didn’t stop.
Yuuta flinched as Gojo lurched forward again, a broken, choked noise catching in his throat.
“Shoko...” he said, voice low, urgent. “Wait... Wait a second.”
Shoko’s hands hovered just above the sharp line of his spine, cursed energy flickering like heat lightning between her fingers. For a moment, she paused. She glanced toward the bucket, toward the way Gojo was still bent over it, chest rising and falling too fast, knuckles white where he gripped the rim.
And then:
“Keep going."
The words were jagged, torn up the back of Gojo's throat like they were carved on the way out. Not pleading. Not asking. A challenge. Like he had to say it before anyone else opened their mouth and made the mistake of trying to go easy on him.
He exhaled, spat, shoved the bucket back into Yuuta's hands.
"Get it out," he said sharply, breathlessly. "Whatever it takes. Get it out."
Shoko didn’t argue. Didn’t reassure.
Just nodded.