Chapter Text
It's Kuroi who wakes them up in the morning. Apparently, Suguru had given her a key when he went out last night and told her to wake them up when it was time for Amanai to leave for school, figuring there was no way they would wake up on time. Which is ridiculous given the fact that they also regularly wake up during school hours, and they would have no problem waking up.
Yes, technically, he went to bed all of three hours ago, but Suguru doesn't know that, so he doesn't really see the issue.
Nonetheless, it was very responsible of him; he knew he kept him around for good reason, he is sure to tell him this too, to which Suguru responds with "well, one of us has to be."
Which is unfair and unwarranted, he could be responsible
To prove this point, Satoru takes the liberty of calling Yaga to inform him of the new plan of allowing her to go to school whilst still in the hotel rather than outside of the school for one reason.
He knows the bounty would have gone up by now, and the second they get to the school, curse users will be swarming them. This time around, Satoru wants to be as prepared as possible and give Amanai more time to enjoy her school day. He figures if he is able to take out as many curse users as possible before they can cause too much trouble, she may get more time. It's not hard to convince Suguru to allow him to walk around the school to make sure there are no threats. Suguru even seems proud of how seriously he is taking the mission and wanting to give the girl more time.
Of course, it may just end up being a few mere moments before there are too many to handle safely on the school's grounds, and they're forced to drag her away, but every second counts.
There's only one issue with this plan, and it's that he couldn't warp to the curse users, which, admittedly, would have made taking them out a whole lot easier to accomplish. He takes out as many as he can anyhow; there were three hanging around outside the school. Two of them were shikigami users, but extremely weak, so no problem at all.
All is going well until he gets a text from Suguru about two of his curses on the stronger side being killed, and to meet back up at the entrance with Kuroi, so they could grab Riko.
He looks down at the time and hums mildly satisfied, thirty more minutes than last time.
"Not bad." He shoves his phone in his pocket and runs towards the direction of the school's entrance.
When he turns the corner, he sees Suguru and Kuroi already there waiting for him.
"There are two unknown sorcerers," Suguru begins to explain as they run inside the building, "I'll handle them, you two find Riko," he orders.
"Got it." Kuroi verbally agrees while Satoru just nods his head. "She has music right now, so she'll either be in the music room or the-"
"chapel." Gojo finishes for her, "She's in there, I can see her. I'll get her out of the building, Kuroi. There's a curse user outside, not very strong, he'll be waiting, handle him, will you?"
The woman agrees and takes off, leaving Suguru and Satoru alone for a split second, the former with a confused expression on his face. "You can see her?"
Satoru nods, grinning, "Six eyes, remember?"
Suguru furrows his eyebrows in his answer, not removing the expression from his face, somehow making it worse. "I didn't think-" he shakes his head, cutting himself off from saying whatever he had to say, "Never mind, just get her to safety."
Satoru brings his hand up in a salute, deciding not to touch on whatever that was. "Yes, sir," he jokes before he turns, leaving Suguru on his own in favor of his pursuit to the chapel.
Once he reaches the building, he considers Riko's words from earlier about her not wanting them to embarrass her in front of her friends and looks for a way to try to sneak in. His attempts are, of course, unsuccessful. Chapels aren't exactly the building you sneak into.
At least he tried, he tells himself before slamming the doors open.
"Amanai." When he opens the door, he is met with a group of girls lined up, divided into two groups. Amanai, at the very end of one of them, looking very unhappy with him.
Her face, or rather his view of her face, doesn't take up his view for long, however, because once they get over their initial shock, Satoru finds himself surrounded by overly excited screaming teenagers.
Which is not the best, yes, he knows he looks sixteen, and they have no idea how old his mind really is, so it's not really a problem on their end, not that it technically would be for them if he did look twenty nine but at least then he wouldn't have to hear them ask if he was dating Riko.
He kinda stands there awkwardly and smile somewhat amused as they gush without shame not feeling comfortable posing for them as he once did all those years ago, fortunately after a few minutes the teacher finally decides to speak up and get the girls to quiet down unfortunately the teacher is a creep who gives someone who is about two years older than her students her number after he apologizes for the chaos he caused.
How did this lady get a job as a teacher?!?!
Luckily for her, he doesn't really have the time to express his disgust with the women, so while the rest of them once again burst into chaotic conversation, he sneaks to the back of the classroom, where Amanai is currently the only one sitting, and drags the girl out of there.
"You idiot!' She barks, outraged, "I told you I didn't want any of my friends to see you."
"Curse users are attacking, didn't really have a choice." He uses blue to attach the girl to his hand and jumps onto the roof. "Wouldn't want them to be caught up in all this mess, would you?"
He feels the eyes of one of the bag guys he had been looking for earlier following them. He had hoped they had taken him out beforehand, but apparently, the guy got here the second he was no longer available.
Whatever, it should be fine; he doesn't really remember much of the guy, which means he wasn't strong enough to leave a good impression. Kuroi should be able to handle that clone on her own.
Plus, Suguru was on his way over anyhow.
Satoru feels his phone ring in his pocket, speak of the devil.
He carries Riko a bit further and comes to a stop to answer when they're suddenly surrounded by the bag guy and his shadow clones, who start ranting about the bounty.
Satoru ignores him in favor of digging his phone out of his pocket and flipping it open.
"Hey, you there?" Suguru's voice cuts through the other end.
"Thirty million bounty, huh? I remember those days."
"It was posted on an underground site for curse users," Suguru informs him, brushing over the comment. "Apparently, it expires in two days at 11 a.m."
"Right." Satoru nods, listening as Riko counts the number of clones surrounding them, commenting how they all look the same.
"Shikigami?"
"Shadow clones." Satoru corrects, hanging up the phone, "And to think Jujustu sorcerers are so understaffed."
"If 30 million is what you need for work, I could pay it, old man, welcome you with open arms.'
The idiot, of course, rejects his offer and summons another clone, "Nah, public employment not ain't easy work, either. Just hand over the kid and everything will be fine."
"Alright, come get her." Satoru quips, pulling the guy and one of the clones in with blue.
The fight goes pretty much the same from here if his memory serves correctly. The guy is lost to what is happening the entire time, Satoru tries to explain with no luck because unfortunately time travel only gave him information he wasn't aware of beforehand and not everyone around him so the guy still can't comprehend what is being said to him, not that time travel would've helped him all that much anyway no amount of consciousness swapping can cure the disease of idiotism.
Eventually, they get to the part Satoru has been waiting for.
The first time around, when he did this, it hadn't worked, and he had made a fool of himself; he won, of course, but he still made a fool of himself.
"Cover your head." He directs Amanai before destroying the glass separating them and the bag guy.
"This one is the divergence of infinity," He begins to explain, excitement rushing through him. "My reverse curse technique."
Satoru holds two fingers up, slowly bringing red to reality. "Now..'
"Red!" He brings his technique fully to life and shoots.
He grins with all his teeth as the red successfully fires and the bag guy is obliterated.
Along with the entire wall behind him, but that's hardly important.
"Much better!" He exclaims cheerfully, face beaming, and laughs as Riko calls him insane before her phone goes off.
"It's from Kuroi," She says, "huh!?!"
Satoru's face immediately falls, his laughter dying.
Kuroi.
"Kuroi!" Anamai exclaims, turning her phone around to show him the photo she received, not that he needs to; he knows what lies on the screen. "Kuroi has been-"
"Kuroi has been taken!" She cries.
Fuck.
He calls Suguru mere moments later, and they agree to meet in an alleyway a couple of blocks away from the school. Despite everything, Satoru isn't panicking as much as he ought to. Retrieving Kuroi was hardly a challenge the first time around; this should be a walk in the park.
Granted, it was certainly a bump in the road and drained him a bit back then, which, now that he thinks about it, was probably the entire point that wasn't happening this time, not while RCT was running.
"I'm sorry. This was my mistake." Suguru's voice breaks him out of his thoughts.
"Seriously?" Satoru responds, he hadn't realized it before, but Suguru really was a self-deprecating fool at times, although some may say this would be a pot calling the kettle black kinda of situation, so who is he to talk.
Maybe if he had realized just how serious it was, maybe things would be different, maybe he wouldn't be here now.
"I don't even think this can count as a mistake."
Suguru balls his hands into fists, "I underestimated how much our enemies would value Kuroi."
Satoru sighs, brushing past how he once again shouldered the blame, something to address later; now, he must plan, or rather wait for the message they will eventually get for the exchange Kuroi's captures have set up.
He explains what they're planning with Kuroi to Suguru and Amanai, and how, despite the situation, they have the leverage due to the fact that they have Amanai.
"We just need to wait until they set up a location, then we'll be fine," Satoru finishes.
"How do you know they'll do it?"
Satoru shoots him a grin, "It's in every action movie."
"Satoru," Suguru scolds.
"Relax," He laughs, waving a hand, "It will all work out fine."
He walks forward to let Amanai out, not bothering to fight with her on whether she should come with or not, knowing where she stands on the matter and knowing she won't be much of a problem for them. "Come on, if we get to the airport now, we can get the tickets the second they send the location." When he turns back around, Suguru is standing quietly, looking at him questionably.
Satoru straightened, "What?"
Suguru opens his mouth slightly before blinking and shaking his head, scoffing lightly, "Nothing come on." He says, turning a heel and shoving his hands in his pockets.
"Okinawa." Amanai reads off the text from the kidnappers from where she sits between him and Suguru. "That's where they're keeping her," she looks up at him.
"Great." Satoru sits up from his seat, clasping his hands together "I'll buy the tickets, stay here."
"Do you need my help?" Suguru sits up to follow him.
Satoru waves him off. "Nah, never needed your help spending my money before." He teases.
"Funny," Suguru snorts, leans back down, "Be quick."
"Will do." He turns and walks towards the ticketing counter aimlessly.
Here's the thing Satoru had already bought the plane tickets on the way here because he had already know the location and didn't want to spend forever waiting in line for a ticket when he didn't have to, but since as for as the two of them are aware Satoru can not see into the future so if he were to just show them said tickets with a "surprise, I've actually knew the location this whole time and bought the tickets in advance no I won't tell you why lets go."
So he was stuck with just walking in circles for a few minutes out of sight until he could go and pretend he just finished buying tickets.
Maybe he could get a snack; he hadn't had anything sweet in hours, which was unacceptable.
Yeah, that's what he'll do.
After a few minutes of mindless walking, he eventually finds a shop that sells Pocky, not his first choice, but not the worst thing in the world. He buys himself a box of the strawberry once and since he is such a caring best friend he get Suguru a box of the matcha that he knows he enjoys, he also grabs another box of strawberry for Amanai he doesn't exactly know her favorite flavor given the fact that its never came up in the short time he knew her but who doesn't like strawberry?
"I'm back," Satoru announces, throwing their respective boxes of snacks at them, "and I bring gifts."
Suguru looks down at the box in his lap, then back at Satoru. "You went and bought snacks in the middle of a mission?"
"No, I went and fulfilled a request from Amanai, which is what I'm supposed to be doing." He bites into a pocky.
'Riko didn't ask for pockys." Suguru points out.
"Sure, she did. You just didn't hear it, isn't that right, Amanai?"
Amanai, who did not ask for them, looks between the two of them, then at the treat down in her lap, before picking them up with a shrug, "Sure." She opens the box and the bag before digging one out. "Thanks."
"You're very welcome," He nods. "See Suguru, I'm just fulfilling her final wishes as instructed; you should be more like me."
"I don't think the world can handle another you." He sighs, standing up and walking towards him, Amanai following suit. "Did you at least buy the tickets?"
"Yup." Satoru confirms popping the P. "Takes off in a hour."
"That's good, the sooner we get there, the better!" Amanai nods, determined.
"Once we're in the air, I'll have my dragon curse fly among us, you check the passengers on the flight," Suguru instructs.
"So bossy today, be quick, Satoru, this, check everyone on the plane, Satoru, that, since when were you, my boss?" Satoru complains with no real heat behind it, just for the fun of hearing Suguru sigh his name, all exasperated.
Which of course, in true Suguru fashion he does, causing Satoru to laugh.
Suguru shoots him a glare. "What's so funny?"
Satoru snickers to himself, "Nothing."