Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The room is swarmed with dark clad uniforms, each adorned with a golden button save for the royalty. The heavy rain outside the old hall has chased the meeting to start sooner than anticipated, with the superiors being chased by their necks by the higher-up’s sharp standards, and those superiors chasing down principals, kings and queens or other monarchies in order to establish a proper setting. Gathering sorcerers en masse was already an arduous task, having them all behave under the same roof was a different story.
The occupants of Jujutsu Isle are the last to arrive from the rain, the cold atmosphere ushering quietly in the twelve something group of sorcerers. Most are soggy and drenched, rain speckling their coats and hair in splatted patches, except one man, taller than the rest despite his younger face and stark white hair that may confuse an onlooker.

The group finds their seats quickly. The whitehaired man looks about the room unapologetic for their tardiness even though he was the cause. His head is raised high above the rest, and his hands are resting lazily in his pockets. He’s trailing behind their teacher, equally as tall with short buzzed hair, as are the rest of the student sorcerers. A man stands beside him, long black hair tied up at the back of his head. They’re accompanied by a shorter woman, short brown hair cut off past the end of her chin. She stubs a cigarette out with her shoe, stepping on her tiptoes to whisper something to the two of them, receiving a quiet smile, some unheard thing spoken back.

Their group of sorcerers is smaller than the rest, but not atypical for the profession. There are more supervisors and assistants, normal people without cursed techniques, than there are actual men and women practicing sorcery.

Their teacher finally sees them all seated, counting heads as he goes. He gives them all a sharp stare before dissipating from their group to assimilate into the older collection, migrating into the middle of the room toward the round table. His equals are already there, sitting collectively in wait as he pulls his chair free and sits.

“Thankyou for finally joining us, Yaga.” A man greets. It’s a clipped remark sweetened in faux politeness, and it’s not unnoticed by the tardy principal.

“Apologies. The weather held us up. Please, let me not waste anymore time.”

The circle mumbles their cacophony of agreements, some dismissing the apology outright, others nodding their heads in acceptance or outright not acknowledging the apology at all in favour of starting the meeting.

Papers are passed around the circle, the rustling hushing those not seated by intrigue alone. Meetings like these were uncommon, only having occurred once or twice before years and years ago, when the current principals, royalty and other seated people of importance were children. But they had all survived to witness their mistakes and were eager to avoid repeating history.

“Tengen, along with ancient scriptures she’s produced within the past year, have come together to give us ample warning of a threat we, along with the rest of the world, should be afraid of.” Gakuganji begins the meeting promptly.

“A few years from now, we believe five years, a curse will be born with the ability to rival anything we’ve seen, and it’s suspected to become a violent, immovable force against not only our way of life, but humanity itself. The age of humanity is being said to expect its end at the hands of it, and that this curse will usher in the new age of curses.”

“Prophesied?” Someone calls out. The murmur of the room starts quiet, their growing concern muddying the silence until the whole collection of bodies is a swath of chatter. “Why is Tengen only telling us now?” Someone else cries. “Why is it warned about, if it’s some curse can’t it be exorcised?”

Gakuganji lifts his hand to halt the yammering. It takes a moment for the panic to be smothered, but once he can speak clearly again, he continues. “We suspect it will be.. born a human being.”

The room quiets, a hesitant thought glancing each tongue at the idea of human curse. People are muttering softly amongst themselves.

“So which is it?” Someone asks throughout the crowd. “A curse or a human?” Muttering moved through the throng of people like water the rough a river, rushing and quick and seemingly unstoppable and unguided.

“Quiet.” Gakuganji snaps, waiting for the silence to ebb back in. He is a collected, clean and timely man whose pursuit of maintaining tradition and jujutsu sorcery is not rivaled. His ability and determination has seen him revered among some and despised by others.

When the silence finally comes, he continues again. “We’ve gathered here to decide how to stop this plight we’re all about to face.”

“I have a question.” The whitehaired man stands without invitation, unashamed of the heaps of eyes now turned toward him. “Satoru Gojo, Jujutsu Isle and the Gojo Clan –” He begins his honorifics, his name and title like it’s customary to do so in such a setting, but it isn’t required. They all know him by appearance alone, let alone his reputation.

“We all know who you are, Satoru Gojo.” Gakuganji says, “Just ask your question.”

“Right. Why do we have to kill the kid?”

The effect is immediate the moment Gojo’s question has a second to air in the minds of everyone present, as if he had just thrown a heavy stone to watch the water ripple outward. “Who does he think he is!” Someone jeers, accompanied by dry laughter from their elders whose respect for the youthful students had long since soured.

“It’s a curse, Gojo. Built from human greed, hatred, sorrow and anger. It’ll be the same as any other curse, and we should be treating it as such. We kill it to stop it from becoming worse than —”

“But it will be human, or at least half of one.” Gojo interrupts, continuing further after the room huffs at his outlandish idea. “That’s what’s prophesied.. Born physically from a human mother and father, not from cursed energy residuals. Am I right or am I wrong..?”

They look back at the papers, rereading the lines inked there. How Gojo read the page from his seat toward the back of the room is irritating, but he does it anyway and there’s not much of a way to stop him now.

The circle is staring dumb-eyed and furious at the outspoken young sorcerer, muttering dismissals and almost outright shouting them until his teacher finally speaks. “It could be said the curse would resemble a human. It may feel and think as we do, it may not. We.. we can’t say.”

“But it’s not impossible.”

Yaga sighs. “No, it’s not impossible.”

Gojo must feel emboldened because he continues over his superiors as they try to wrangle the conversation back to the slaughter they had all previously agreed upon.

“So it is possible the boy could be just as human as the rest of us?” He gestures to the room flippantly, ignoring the gobsmacked expressions and disdain in the faces of those listening to his sorted ideas. “That he could… choose, distinctively, whether or not he wants to hurt others, right?”

“What’re you getting at, Satoru..?” Yaga tries to steer him back on course to avoid the chiding of the other councilmembers.

“I’m just saying that I think you’re all a bit jumpy to start slaughtering children, that’s what I’m getting at.”

The round table shoots up in fury. Chairs clatter, thrown back in anger as a handful rise to face Gojo headon, shaken by his unbrazen attitude. Voices clamour back and forth, true nature revealed under the scrutiny of a sassy teenager protesting them so openly.

“Yaga–” Gakuganji sneers sharply, “get your pupil under control.”

“Satoru, sit down.” Yaga says.

“Am I wrong, Sensei?” Gojo continues.

“Sit down.” Yaga snaps.

“What do you prefer, Gojo, the lives of a handful of children or that of the entire world?” Gakuganji calls.

“I’d prefer no-one died at all, actually. Especially innocent children.”

“It won’t be innocent.” Gakuganji tries to steer him, but the young sorcerer isn’t convinced.

“Yeah I get that’s what you’re saying but it doesn’t mean that’s what’s true. And even so, the hundreds of other children you’ll be murdering to ensure that the right child dies? Those ones will be innocent. And that’s okay with all of you..? You are all comfortable to stand and say that you are fine with mass infanticide in the off chance we stop one prophecy that could or could not happen?”

“It will happen.” Gakuganji sneers.

“Tengen can’t predict everything.” Gojo huffs dryly, and the room shifts even more. Tengen was practically a god, thousands of years old, immune from disease, age and deterioration. Such casual dismissal was unheard of.

“Watch your tongue —” one of the elders shrieks.

The young white haired sorcerer scoffs. “Oh no, I’m scared,” he mocks under his breath, casting a bemused glance to his peers. Suguru Geto, his black haired friend is not in disagreement with Gojo’s idea, but he’s not one to outwardly oppose their direct superiors either. He tries to tug Gojo’s arm to sit back down into obscurity, but it’s useless.

“Satoru, sit down.”

“I just wanna hear it from them —” Gojo says, ignoring Geto pulling at his sleeve. His tone is clipped, sarcastic and short and it prompts Geto to stand and urge his partner to sit down even more so than before.

“Enough, Suguru, stop —” Gojo says, shaking off Suguru shortly. “Just say it, that’s all I want to hear. Say that your plan is to murder children to stop one monster.”

“Yes.” Gakuganji finally stands, his chair creaking out slowly as he does so. He rests his knuckles on the table, firm and steady as he stares down the unruly student whose loud voice has caused such an irritating disturbance.

“We are going to take and kill any boy born during the predicted month of March to prevent this massacre.”

This makes the room hesitant. They knew that the plan was as said, but to hear it stated plainly, so candidly. That was settled, it seems. The slaughter of hundreds of children spoken about allowed both quells the fire in some and ignites it in others. Lunacy, some think, to commit such an act. Necessary, others deem, for the survival of the many.

“Each leader sat at this table has already been briefed, and the decision is unanimous. The curse will die, and we will sacrifice whatever many children born in the month of March to see that goal through.”

“I’m not slaughtering any children.” Gojo states simply.

He’s elicited a many disgruntled sighs already, but he receives another one as Gakuganji ignores speaking directly to him in favor of addressing the room.

“The culling will occur whether you, or anyone else for that matter, likes it or not. For the betterment of humanity, the survival of humanity, of sorcerers and non-sorcerers alike, these children will die. Those here who are unwilling to do their sworn duty will be removed as sorcerers.”

The room shifts. “Sorcerers unwilling to do their duty will face penalty of curse technique removal, imprisonment, fines and other such punishments. Any sorcerers found harbouring children will face imprisonment or the death sentence. Have I made myself clear?”

“I’d like to see you try,” Gojo scoffs. If it was anyone else saying it, the room would have erupted into laughter, into jeering mocks and ridicule. But it isn’t anyone else who can speak as freely as Gojo can without being chewed out or shunned in their current situation.

“Believe it or not, Satoru Gojo, we have ways to handle you as well, if you so choose to hinder this operation.”

“Is that a threat or a promise?” Gojo mocks.

Gakuganji’s temper is only held by a thread of string now and it’s Yaga that saves them all from a premature death. “Enough, Gojo.” He says.

“And this is agreed upon by everyone?” Gojo spits once the noise of the room dies back out.

Yaga answers him this time instead of Gakuganji, one of the voices at the table his student actually respects. “It’s been decided, Gojo. The lives of the many, millions of people, outweighs the lives of a few hundred children.”

The room is dead silent for the first time that night since it began. No one even moves, a button could be dropped and the noise would echo the hall for hours.

“All that being said,” Gakuganji calls finally, “those who wish to leave sorcerer society are permitted to do so now and only now. Once this meeting has ended, you are all sworn to do your duty to the best of your abilities. Those found not doing so will face the aforementioned scrutiny. So, if you wish to leave, do so now, but know this: Once this curse is born, if it is not stopped then and there, the blood it draws will not stain my hands or heart. It will be those here today who are responsible for the deaths of your families, friends, children, loved ones, with their inaction. In five years from now, ten years from now, if this child is not found, nothing will stop it. And I can only hope when it takes your life with its hands that you feel peace in your death, because none of us will mourn you.”

The room is stunned into silence, as if a loud thunderclap has gone over their heads and deafened any thoughts previously had. Doubts are quenched, squashed and stamped out with the weighted words, muttering rising after a moment of reflection of the night's events.

Satoru Gojo is the first to stand. “Well, fuck this.”

Not that he gets very far. Others stand alongside him, around the room pockets of people, stragglers, littering of soldiers, higher ups, sorcerers and assistants find their courage to ostracize themselves from their community to avoid committing a sin they believe is cardinal. Maybe, out of the something sorcerers and soldiers gathered collectively, about twenty stand. Those that do find eyes drawn to them. Some collect their things quickly, say their goodbyes and depart as simply as that. Others are drawn back down by their peers. Some stand but think better of it.

Satoru Gojo, despite the anger under his skin, isn’t allotted to going very far by his own peers. “Satoru, sit down.” Suguru Geto grabs his wrist tightly, urging him back toward the ground.

“You’re not serious —” Satoru spits.

“You cannot change anything if you aren’t involved! Leaving now won’t solve anything down the line!” Suguru seethes out the whisper.

“I could kill everyone here.” Satoru replies plainly. “That would solve it.”

“If you do that, and the boy is what they say, there will be no-one left to protect the innocent.”

“Who cares —” Satoru huffs.

“And if you kill everyone here you will be as bloodsoaked as they want you to be.”

“I won’t partake in it.” Satoru says back, almost quietly.

“Fine but don’t tell them all that.” Suguru urges shortly. “..now — just sit down.”

Satoru hesitates, lifting his eyes from Suguru to the rest of his classmates. None of them can be willing to do this, either, he knows. Otherwise he wouldn’t consider them his peers, his friends. But when he watches each face, a little bit of certainty has drawn down their brows.

Shoko most likely won’t be involved in the slaughter, her technique not suited for combat, but still she makes no protest now. Kento Nanami and Yu Haibara have their heads tucked down between them, muttering. When Kento catches Satoru’s eyes watching him, he shakes his head softly. Haibara doesn’t look.

Toji Zenin hasn’t been enrolled in Jujutsu High for long, a recent outcast excommunicated from the Zenin clan and technically a non-sorcerer, he’s been the topic of gossip in Jujutsu society for some time now, but he seems unbothered by it. He’s on the quieter side, mostly avoiding the class hangouts to relax by himself or wander, but even he looks concerned now. He lifts his head to Gojo and shrugs simply. He didn’t care enough to feel one way or the other about the situation now. He knew the stakes of disagreeing, and he was not prepared to leave Jujutsu society right then and there. So, he too, remains in his seat.

A few minutes later, the room is only slightly emptier than what it was. The victory is not lost on the higher-up’s table, the collection of the conservative old men discussing quietly to themselves as they watch the room shift apart.

“Thank you.” Gakuganji calls as the room dissipates, “Your superiors will brief you on any further details. Dismissed.”

Gojo is watching quietly as Gakuganji shifts among the room, the sorcerer's eyes never lifting from the back of the older man’s balding head. He knows it too, because he scratches there until the goosebumps sprawling up his spine becomes too much to ignore. He drags his attention from his conversation to meet eyes with Gojo across the room. The stare down holds, and Gojo doesn’t waver despite Geto urging him to relax. He wins their staring contest, as Gakuganji breaks his sight and turns away with a disbelieving shake of his head.

The students linger, hesitant. Nanami is the first to relent, Haibara following after him eagerly to escape the meeting. Shoko is next, already lighting another cigarette before she’s out the building.

Toji moves inward though, shifting carefully past Gojo and Geto and then shouldering carelessly through the rest of the sorcerers. If he shoves one to the side, he is not harassed for it. He is protested maybe once or twice, but when they glance to see who it is, they do not bother risking it.

“Eh –” Geto huffs, “Now where is he going?”

Gojo and Geto watch Toji for a little moment, curiosity not escaping them. Toji shifts like a snake through grass. The black haired man slips through the crowd like the air itself, quiet footed and distinct, yet untouched or even noticed despite his tall stature. He’d left the Zenin clan a long while ago now, but everyone had been called for this event, even the unwanted ones such as him.

“Who cares?” Gojo waves his hand, choosing to ignore Toji all together rather than question his actions. “Lets get out of here already before Yaga hits me again for talking out of turn.”

Suguru Geto and Satoru Gojo have been practically inseparable since enrolling. Something just clicked between the two, an unspoken thing no one else understands but is stupid to ignore. Geto cannot help the frown that darkens his face as he watches Gojo’s eyes flick across the room. They chase Gakuganji, they chase the other higher ups and royalties. They follow sorcerers, knights, anyone and everything, collecting data.

The rest of the Jujutsu Isle students disperse back from where they came. Gojo finally relents his scrutinizing observation and turns on his heel.

“What about Toji?” Geto asks, turning to look at Gojo. His partner turns back at him lazily, a marked look pinching his white eyebrows down. He shrugs, unbothered as he lifts a finger to point past Geto’s head.

“Come on.” Toji strides past them, his presence never noticed except maybe by Gojo once or twice. He looks disheartened, face sharp and avoidant of eye contact as he shoves his way past the pair.

“What’d you want with Naobito?” Gojo asks.

“I told you to stop watching everything, Gojo. It gives me the creeps.” Toji snarls dryly, moving continuously. The two follow after him almost lazily.

“Well what did you want with him?” Geto asks, “We thought you weren’t associated with them anymore?”

“I’m not.” Toji spits, “I asked the old man a question and he refused to even look at me. So who gives a shit.”

And with that, as quick as he came, Toji Zenin too disappears back out into the dark of the night. Geto and Gojo hesitate for only a second before they too slip into the fray of moving sorcerers, as if they were birds integrating into the migrating flock.

The sorcerers, knights and students disperse back amongst their own groups once outside, swathes of people like rats in shipyards and cities.

Jujutsu Isle is waiting for Yaga, muttering amongst themselves. When their teacher and current head governing official finally rears his head from the fray, it’s only met with questions.

“You heard what was said so don’t make me repeat myself.” Yaga says before they can start to badger him.

“Is it actually serious or not?” Gojo demands dryly.

Yaga’s frown shifts all of their moods from bad to worse. “Tengen is certain this boy will be the downfall of not only jujutsu society but the world. If it wasn’t serious, I wouldn’t even entertain the idea of such a thing like this plan. But —” he sighs, pinching his brow. “It’s the only way we can be.. sure.”

“Murdering all the baby boys born in March five years from now, that’s it? That’s all you idiots could think of, seriously —” Gojo spits at him.

“Satoru.” Yaga stops him finally. “It was Tengen’s order.”

“W-What?”

Geto adds this time. “So what.. there’s no choice at all?”

“You didn’t leave when you were given the chance earlier.” Yaga says, and he sounds almost sad about it. “So yes — Now there is no choice. Five years from today, we will purge the king of curses before he can grow and destroy.. everything.”

“But it’s —” Gojo grits his teeth. “It’s a baby, surely almighty Tengen can’t be scared of a child th—”

Yaga cuts him off. “Tengen isn’t scared.” He says quietly, almost with a certain reverence of fear himself. “She’s terrified.”

That stops them all then, paused at the thought of Tengen, cowering at something she’s seen in the far flung five year future.

“If it makes you feel better, stop thinking of it as a human being. It’s not.” Yaga says finally, before turning back out into the dark to lead them all miserably home.

Chapter Text

Masamichi Yaga died four years later on the 20th of March.

It was supposed to be in his sleep, is what was said. But the sorcerers surrounding him know the true demise of their government head. Not that there’s much to do about it now.

Tengen’s word is law, and she instates, of all people, Naobito Zenin to fill their void. It’s a weird insurgence, and one not met without resistance and complaints. Many threaten to leave, some do, others assimilate easily. But there’s not much room left to argue with the approaching plight of the King of the Curses a year away.

The students loyal to Yaga linger, not for Naobito’s sake but for maintaining what little was left after Yaga’s death.

They’re holding a funeral as Naobito Zenin makes himself comfortable in the castle.

Yaga’s ashes were collected by Gojo himself, in order to prevent the outsiders from dirtying their teacher any further than they already had. They agree, yes, on the grounds that Yaga had asked them to behave before he had died. But only on that one condition that a dying request was not something any of them were willing to disregard so easily. Not for Yaga.

But none of them are happy.

They light senko sticks at his grave and stand around it, muttering to themselves and distantly to Yaga too. Not that he hears them now. Not that anyone does.

“This sucks.” Gojo says, voice quiet. “Toji, tell your fuck-ugly Uncle to piss off.”

Toji is crouched at the corner, twisting a short knife absently between his fingers as he sighs his complaints. “That stupid bastard doesn’t give a shit about what I think. He’s drunk and power hungry like all of the Zenin are.”

“You’re a Zenin…” Haibara points out.

Toji shakes his head mutely, lifting his left hand. “Not anymore.” A simple but effective ring sits on his third finger, silver and plain in the daylight. “I’ve taken my wife’s last name. It’s Fushiguro now.”

The group is collectively dumbstruck. “Heh?” Gojo gawks, leaning over and shoving Geto down to look closer. Geto complains with a huff, but too turns his head to see.

“You actually got her to say yes?” Shoko asks.

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean? Why wouldn’t she?”

The group hesitate at the question, mumbling at the obvious. Toji was not known for his cleanliness, nor his polite attitude. He came from a wealthy family sure, but none of their inheritance would ever pass to him since he’d be ostracized. He was bad mannered, short tempered and crabby, and his only ‘friends’ were his classmates and even then he avoided most of them as if they carried ticks. Chie was insane or absolutely magical if she wrangled Toji like this.

“Well.. Chie Fushiguro is so.. polite, well mannered, pretty, and smart, not to say too that she’s loaded and you’re…” Haibara’s attempt at explanation is sorely lacking in decorum.

“Fuck you all too.” Toji huffs dryly. “Anyway she’s done it now so no take backs, right?”

“You’d let her do whatever she wanted to you, wouldn’t you?” Geto jeers.

“Absolutely yes.” Toji says without a beat, scratching the back of his neck.

“Good answer.” Nanami mumbles lightly into his palm.

“If you’d said anything else I’d have had to hit you.” Shoko muses lightly, cigarette ash dusting the tip of her boot.

“Is that why…” Gojo smiles, sniffing the air dramatically as he leans toward Toji. “No way have you showered..?”

“Alright enough we’re here to discuss Yaga, not my love life.” Toji shakes them away, rising to stand properly to avoid their hovering.

“What’s there to discuss?” Gojo huffs. “We’re still not going through with it.”

Silence overlaps them for a little while. They all linger, the air a heavy weight atop each head at the unspoken insurrection that sparing the King of Curses, even if he was what they said, would cause.

“I’ve… changed my mind.” Toji draws them all out of their mulling silence.

Gojo whirls on the sorcerer. “What the hell Zenin?”

“Fushiguro.” Corrects Toji sharply.

“God —” Gojo scoffs, “what does that matter —” he is prepared to continue, to badger Toji into changing his mind back, but it’s Toji’s turn to whirl.

“That is exactly why it matters. Chie is..” he sighs, running a large palm over his face, “she’s pregnant.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“She’s due in December, I’ve lucked out there I’ll admit. But still — My kid’ll be out in this world soon enough, quicker than I’m afraid I’m prepared for. And Chie’s not a sorcerer, she can’t defend herself or the kid from the King of Curses.”

“We don’t know —” Gojo starts.

“Has Tengen been wrong before? It’s not a trick question, I’m serious. Has she been wrong before?” Toji asks.

And it stops Gojo in his tracks. Because they all know the answer. Tengen was as practically old as some of the mountains near their kingdom, maybe older. She had seen the deaths of hundreds of thousands, seen disease, infighting and war sweep swatches of the population like crumbs from a cutting board. But nothing, she has said, was like curses were.

And if she was terrified of the King of Curses, who hasn’t been born, then they should all be petrified.

“I’m not saying that it’s right. Or that I even agree with it. But I’m not going to stand around and let the monster we think will destroy society grow when we can kill it while it’s… small.” Toji says after a while.

“A baby.” Nanami and Gojo correct simultaneously. They share a glance, but say nothing, both still agreed on their position.

“It won’t just be small.” Nanami says. “It will be a baby. Someone’s baby.”

Silence drags after them the same way rain clouds hang above one before a storm. They know the rain must be on its way, but when it will break is a guess.

“I don’t care about someone else’s baby. I care about my own.” Toji says, a grit finality in his voice. He turns to Yaga’s grave, places his hands together and mutters an apology., eyes lingering on the stone a heavy moment longer, as if weighing in his head whether or not what he’s about to help do is truly worth it.

“I’ll see you all around.” He says as he turns to them a final time. “But when the time comes, I’m going to do what I’ve sworn I will.”

“Murder children.” Gojo corrects sharply.

And Toji’s steps halt, the dirt and dust he kicks up lingering over his boots. Toji has always been tall, and muscular, built like a house of stone. He was dirty a lot of the time, yes. When he had arrived at Jujutsu Isle a handful of years ago, it was as a reclusive outcast, cast aside by the Zenin and no-longer tolerated by the rest of Jujutsu Society. Until Yaga had agreed to his entry, allowed him a new home despite his lack of cursed energy. The rest of Jujutsu Society had disregarded Yaga’s choice, leaving him scrambling for their respect again, not that he did. Yaga was a man whose ideas never had wavered.

And if Yaga had seemed certain enough about this, then Toji was too. He sighs, turning to face Satoru Gojo once more.

“To stop a world-ending monster? I’ll kill as many children as it takes. So should all of you.”

And he slinks off just as he came, toward the castle to bicker with his Uncle.

Chapter Text

Toji Zenin hates the Zenin Clan. Truly. With everything he has, he hates them.

A year before he marries Chie Fushiguro, he finds himself there, back in the Zenin clan.

The meeting was mandatory, so much so that even he of all people, the ostracized ‘invisible man’ is dragged back out into the family politics that have no interest in calling him their family.

He’s waiting for it to start, milling in the estate. The sky is overcast and miserable, and he finds it a suitable atmosphere to find himself back there. His being there is as unwelcome as the darkening sky. Eyes linger over him, voices mutter at his appearance, ‘underdressed’ they whisper. He had gone to Nanami for help and the sorcerer had loaned him his best robes considering Toji was never given one from the Zenin nor bothered to buy any himself. But still, no matter what Toji wears, he imagines they’ll find an excuse.

“The hell are you looking at, brat?” He snarls at Naoya Zenin, his younger cousin, watching with a smirk of enjoyment as the younger Zenin scoffs at him and scurries hurriedly away.

“Watch your tone, Toji.” His Uncle strides past him without sparing a glance at his unwanted nephew. “Naoya is worth more to this family at half your age than you will ever be.”

Toji doesn’t bother arguing with him anymore, watching him stalk away with head held high. He tried it and received his reply one too many times to grow bored of being struck. He’s struck back when he was smaller, but he received his due diligence for that as well.
He bites his tongue and falls back into the crowd, allowing the mass of people to pass by as he slinks amongst them like a snake in a chicken coop.

He was about to decide that the whole trip up here was a dud, a waste of his time hearing repeated things and scared mantras and return to Jujutsu Isle early, but something stops his tracks.

Familiar dark hair catches his eyes. A long blue dress and a pink parasol, light footfall and a softness in her tone he had heard once or twice before in passing situations similar to this.

Chie Fushiguro.

His feet move on instinct, without his thinking, toward the crowd.

He was underdressed as it was to even be looking at her, let alone wanting to pursue her hand. But still — she was gorgeous, and warm. She was soft with servants that had spent their lives being scoffed at in the Zenin estate, she was gentle with the farm animals and kind to the poor. She held herself delicately but steady footed, strong. She was certain, and firm in a way he couldn’t fathom.

And in the one second her eyes did meet his, a passing glance as her family made its way through the estate to meet Naobito and the rest of the higher ups he had not been invited to sit amongst, she had smiled. A quick thing, as if she knows it would be frowned upon, but still. A glance to him, then down, then back up again. His heart skips, watching her turn away.

Soft, blue dark eyes that looked like the sea after a heavy storm. And she had disappeared just as quickly back into the crowd, but not for him. Every time he blinks, her face flashes in his mind.
He had tried to ask Naobito to introduce him to Chie back during the first meeting about the King of Curses, to have at least some backing of his heritage to catch her father’s interest, but his uncle had scoffed in his face and ignored him.

But she was here again.

He moves into the meeting, finding no place allocated for him to sit, so he stands at the back to watch. He listens to the repeated mantra of fear start, everyone already aware of the King of Curses and its approaching deadline.

“Thank you all for coming,” Naobito begins plainly, the practiced speech flowing easily from his tongue. Toji tunes him out – he’s heard it before, the fear that the King of Curses prophecy is inspiring and how it’s spreading is only growing its terrifying reputation. While the prophecy is the main topic, it’s not the only thing discussed.

The other half of the meeting speaks of the Zenin wealth and its interest in extending its family ties to outsiders, the Fushiguro’s, among others. He listens then, knowing there wasn’t much, if anything, he could offer to Chie Fushiguro or her father to gain his favour, let alone her hand. But he does listen.

The Zenin’s bark their offers like rabid dogs. Chie’s sister, who Toji has never been interested in the name of, is slightly older and supposedly more pretty than Chie, and she receives many compliments and offers of marriage. He doesn’t see it like that. Chie is smart and clever, with a shining in her eyes that none of them else have. That’s what he wants. To foster the shine, to give her whatever she wanted.

He leaves when they begin to discuss Chie’s hand in marriage— unwilling to hear any more.

He shoves his way past the suitors, the Zenins and the Fushiguros, until he’s finally back into fresh air. The day is dragging and all he wants is to return back to Jujutsu Isle. He wanders out into the estate garden aimlessly. It was too big, he thought, designed to be enjoyed by its owners but infrequently visited. The children, sometimes would be brought here by their parents to enjoy the view, the smell of flowers and the dancing of bugs and butterflies native to the area and season, but soon they would grow bored, tired of the tranquility and long for the entertainment.

Toji was familiar with the entertainment the Zenin clan enjoyed. Forcing non-sorcerers into a pit under the estate and letting cures have their way with rending their flesh apart. If they survived, they were rewarded with their life and forced to work among the estate if they weren’t wealthy enough to pay their way back out.

Toji mindlessly touches the scar along his mouth. He’d seen his fair share of that dark hell.

Not that he cares anymore — not that he cares at all.

He wanders off the bridge toward the river that is cutting through the estate. He’s found himself more than once shoved into it by older family members, found his shoes or clothes sank to the bottom with stones.

The dark envelopes him easily by the unlit stream, quietly collecting him back into the shadows where he belongs. He finds himself staring at the water, the dark flow and bubbling stream a distant call in the back of his head. Not that he’s ever listened to it. He can't bring himself to give them the satisfaction of it.

He sighs, prepared to return back to the meeting and see what man has crushed his dreams, when a sound that isn’t the river hits his ears. He was a gifted man in places that sorcery did not care for. His cursed energy was zero, non-existent, but his body made up for it in other ways. Hearing, sight, taste and smell were all dialed up to eleven. He’d been strong for a long while, and he was proud of that.

So when he hears the quiet whispers of something other than the river, he turns his head out of interest. Chie Fushiguro stands on the bridge, and much to Toji’s disappointment she isn’t alone.

A man speaks to her. Someone from the Zenin, a distant uncle, Toji thinks, though he can’t recall who. Someone too old for her, he knows, with a curl of his lip. He watches them for a moment, knowing his eavesdropping would probably get him wangled back into the pit if they could catch him, but still.

He doesn’t like the man’s tone.

Neither does Chie Fushiguro, he thinks.

She shies away from him as he talks, too polite and not in the position physically or by society to outright reject him then and there, let alone at all. She nods politely, but doesn’t contribute much to his ceaseless bragging. Her attempted suitor barely looks at her, too busy talking about the lavish estate that would soon be his – a Fushiguro estate belonging to Chie’s father, would soon be this man's. And he barely looks at her.

Toji’s blood freezes over.

“And of course you’ll change how you dress.” The man says.

Chie frowns openly then, looking down at herself. “What is wrong with how I am dressed..?” She asks.

“It’s a bit drab, isn’t it?” The man says as he looks her up and down, “I imagine you’d find yourself better suited without so much… effort.”

Chie scoffs, but the man continues, clueless or perhaps just cruel. Probably both. “And you need to grow out your hair, Chie. It’s too short, you look boyish...”

Chie’s frown only deepens, and she opens her mouth to protest him further, but he reaches forward and takes her hand. He runs his ugly fingers over her gloved hand with pinched brows, shaking his head at her soft blue gloves. He rips them from her hands, and she protests him with a cry.

“What are you doing?” She snaps at him. Dismayed, she watches him throw the gloves from the bridge and into the stream below. They land with a wet splash, quickly waterlogged and swept underwater into the dark. “Those were my mothers…” She says with a sob.

“They were ugly.” The man says, “Come, please, allow me to buy you new ones, prettier ones. Prettier things, whatever you want.” And he takes her hand, not accepting her no for any suitable answer, and drags a wet-eyed Chie back toward the estate’s main area.

The second they step from the bridge, Toji is in the water. It’s freezing for this time of year, and long water grass catches at his ankles and legs, but he ignores it. He doesn’t even feel it. He swathes effortlessly through the water, powerful muscles pushing him further to his goal. He sucks in a breath and dives headfirst into the dark, his outstretched hand, after some effort, finding her discarded gloves. He holds them carefully, lifting them from the water and ringing them free gently with a souring frown. Her gloves were plain by Zenin standard, but they were beautiful.

He drags himself from the water and begins his way after them. He won't be permitted back into the hall in his state, let alone due to the fact that he had left early and without permission, so he plans to seek out a servant and ask them to return the gloves to Chie, but in his haste he manages to find Chie and the man first.

He stops in his tracks, out of lantern light under the shade of a post as he watches the man yank at her wrist. They’re arguing, she’s chastising him for her gloves and he’s mocking her tears ruthlessly.

He grips her wrist sharply when she tries to turn from him to return to the hall. She whirls around, trying to push him off her and free herself, but he persists. It’s not fair, Toji knows. He knows their circumstances will always be different, and he has no right to think he can understand her existence as a woman surrounded by men like snakes. But he can relate to the way the man looks at her like she is less than him because she lacks something he does not.

He’s not sure the second the man’s hand moves, but it does for Toji in slow motion. He watches it lift to strike her, and Toji doesn’t think about it.

He simply moves.

He catches the man's wrist an inch away from Chie’s face, hard and vice in his grip as he only tightens his hold. The man Toji now recognises is his distant cousin Akui Zenin. He was a nasty man, Toji knew, but he was cunning when needed and could sweet-talk his way into pleasures and out of trouble. Probably how he managed to convince the Fushiguro head to give away his second daughter to him.

He releases Akui’s wrist with a shove, sending the man staggering backward with ease. He turns to Chie with a frown of understanding, eyes flicking over her face to search for bruising, for marks, for anything that might’ve given him a more reason to rip Akui’s limbs from his body than Chie’s tears had already warranted.

He lifts his hand slowly to her, carefully not to spook her, having seen how a man has just tried to use his hand to hurt her, and unfurls his palm to reveal her gloves. “You.. dropped these.” He says softly.

Her face is flush from the cold, but she’s even fairer than he had already thought. Her eyes are teary and it twists something inside Toji, a violent and heavy ache gripping his heart at the sight of it. Someone so kind, so tolerant of the world that rejected her, should not cry like this. She should not cry at all at the hands of others.

Her hands tremble as she takes the soaked gloves.

Toji turns toward Akui. “Please go back inside, Miss Fushiguro. There are monsters on these grounds.”

“Toji,” Akui spits, “You won't leave the pit so lucky ever again. You won't leave the estate at all for this, I swear I’ll see you less than a servant.”

Toji wants to rip Akui to shreds, and it takes everything within him not to do it right then and there. But Chie is still behind him, he knows. He hasn’t heard her footfall retreat yet.

But when he does, something releases within him, a weird snap of regret that she’s leaving, and relief that she doesn’t have to watch what’s about to happen. Toji thinks he could handle Akui, he has Naobito’s technique, projection they call it, images of what’s to happen displayed in one’s head. But he’d have to touch Toji first to activate it.

“You need to apologize to Chie Fushiguro and her father for wasting their time here tonight.” Toji snarls angrily. “You’ll get on your knees and you’ll beg that kind woman for mercy and for her forgiveness for even tolerating you, you piece of shit.”

“Naobito will have you in fucking chains for this you stupid brat.” Akui spits, slinking forward.

Toji shifts a foot backward, stance steadying. He believes the threat — Naobito would probably whip him bloody for the transgression of fighting a family member, for even daring to speak so openly against Akui, let alone interfering with his courtship attempt, but he can’t even bring himself to care.

Chie Fushiguro was crying — what else was he supposed to do?

Akui moves first, lunging for him. Toji shoves his hand away sharply, pushing his elbow to send the man staggering. He scoffs, irritated. He whirls back around with a snarl on his lips. From his robes then, he withdraws a knife.

Toji scoffs. He lifts his hands, watching the man through his brows as he stalks toward him.

“Coward.” He scoffs dryly, “your technique is not enough for you?” And he means it. Because both he and Akui know it isn’t. Toji is without any technique at all. But he’s at the advantage— he can handle Akui so long as he doesn’t let him touch him.

Akui moves quickly though. He swipes for Toji’s eye, prepared to take one for his transgression of daring to touch him. He yanks his head out the way and kicks out the back of Akui’s knee with his foot.

He’s almost enjoying the fight. He knows there will be consequences for it, but during the moment, as he yanks at Akui’s topknot, he doesn’t care. He’d made her cry.

He’s busy thinking about Chie’s tear stained face — distracted by the way it makes him angry. When Akui’s fingers manage to skim across his face.

Toji recoils with a spit, dropping Akui, but now the man knows the next move he’ll make and Toji can only dance out of reach for so long. He trips him, and while it doesn’t do much it’s enough. He staggers with a scoff, whirling to find Akui’s first burying itself in his face twice over.

He scrambles backward, muttering annoyances as he spits blood at Akui. That makes the other Zenin stop, disgusted at the sight. He’s too uptight and it’ll be what gets him killed because he’s frowning down at Toji’s blood on his face for a fraction of a second too long. Toji kicks the shit out of him.

He strikes his knee first, dropping him with a cry, then his shoulders, joyous at the sound of cracking, to stop him from using his hands let alone lifting his arms for a while.

“You don’t deserve her.” Toji snarls.

Akui huffs a laugh, “yeah, and you do?”

“No.” Toji says simply, cold eyes scanning Akui’s now bloody face. They’re both scratched to hell but Toji would be remiss to say he’s glad he’s come out on top of Akui in this. “No. She deserves someone kind.”

He’s about to give Akui a final strike, something to knock the miserable, irritating man out for the evening and then scurry home before they find him, but his hand stops before it connects.
He scoffs, glancing at the long tendril of ink black rope that has shot from the ground to stop him. It’s a shadowed technique, not as fancy or proclaimed as the Ten Shadows was supposed to be, but it’s still versatile. Still irritating.

The servants hadn’t waited around for the Zenin’s to kill each other. They had fetched others, and before Toji can drag his mind out of his anger, he’s got an audience.

“You insolent little shit —” Naobito ‘s voice has never been pleasant. It’s not nice now, either.

His hand wraps around the back of Toji’s neck and squeezes furiously . Toji snarls, gritting his teeth at Akui as he cranes his head to glare at his Uncle coming to stop the infighting.

Naobito kicks the back of his knees hard, dropping him with a grunt. More of the Zenin surge forward, eager wolves ready to pick apart the wounded prey they see Toji as. They shove him, finally dragging him to his knees. He doesn’t bother to fight them now, too grumpy and ready to go home to deal with the extra effort of a prolonged spat.

“What the hell are you doing?” Naobito demands.

“Akui w—” Toji doesn’t know why he bothers to even try to defend himself or speak the truth.

“Toji interrupted my evening with Chie Fushiguro.” Akui spits furiously, wiping his face with a trembling hand.

“Toji.” Naobito spits.

“M’not gonna bother, old man.” Toji says simply. “You won’t believe the truth if it hits you in the face.”

“The effort wasted on you,” Naobito slurs in anger, and he has to gall to back hand Toji, sending the young sorcerer's head whirling. If he’s honest, he doesn’t feel it much, and he puts on a show of letting his face snap away. If he hadn't flinched, it would have only incentivized Naobito to try again harder.

Toji bites his lip, frowning up at the man. One of these days he’d see him dead and he would smile, he swears it. Just not today, it seems.
Nagi Fushiguro has made quick work of finding his way into the family drama that has interrupted his evening.

“Naobito, what is the meaning of all of this?” Nagi Fushiguro, Chie’s father, finally manages his way to the front, swatting aside others to find his view of the situation.

“Nothing to worry yourself over, Fushiguro, I assure you.” Naobito says, a cold calm in his throat that makes Toji’s skin crawl at the familiarity of it. “Don’t waste your breath regarding him, please. Toji is a delinquent without any cursed energy and he should have long since learned his place. He understands the consequences of his actions, he just enjoys doing as he pleases, it seems.”

Naobito nods somewhere behind Toji, a simple thing, but its message is clear. They haul him to his feet, shoving his head down so he can’t even look at his elders. He could fight them back, drag as many of them down as he could, but Nagi Fushiguro is watching him and Chie Fushiguro is somewhere in the estate. He doesn’t want to stain her evening with anyone’s blood but his own.

“What was the scuffle about?” Nagi asks.

“The boy interrupted Chie and Akui’s evening is what I’ve been told.” Naobito says plainly, as if Toji had jumped in between their long awaited kiss and socked Akui in the mouth.

Toji scoffs under his breath, but all he receives for it is a strike to the back of his head that has him seeing stars. He puts his foot down, snarling, but they hold him tighter, as if awaiting an upset toddler to end his tantrum.

He relents when one of them produces a cursed tool, latching a length of enchanted silver chain around one wrist and then the other. It’s not designed for him, it’s designed for sorcerers to stop most techniques or mute them, but it still has its effect on him, making his head swim and his legs weak. He scoffs then too, the handful of them unable to handle him as he was.

“Wait —” Chie Fushiguro finally manages to make her way to the front, having tried with great effort to push past the men much taller than her and much less aware of someone other than themselves. “Wait please —”

“Needn’t worry, dear.” Her father assures as she finds her position at his side, “the ruffian won’t distress you any more.”

“That man wasn’t distressing me, Father. Akui Zenin was distressing.”

Despite his status, despite the fact that most men in sorcerer society look down on women even with powerful techniques, even more so those without them, Nagi Fushiguro loves his daughters.
So when she speaks, he listens. It may be why Toji likes him as well. She has nothing to offer her father except marrying rich — and he loves her regardless of the fact that she is in the middle of tarnishing it at that very moment.
He loves her because she is his daughter, and it’s as simple as that. A trait not common in the Zenin clan.

Nagi Fushiguro looks at Naobito with a frown, before turning to his daughter. He kneels to her, dirtying his robes in the mud to speak to her softly. “Akui Zenin? What did Akui Zenin do?”

“He threw my gloves in the river, he was cruel and mean all evening to me and to the servants. He went to strike me for being upset about my gloves, but this man—” she points to Toji, still soaked and now covered in dirt and blood, “he rescued my gloves from the stream. He stopped Akui Zenin from striking me. There has been some serious misunderstanding here tonight if he is the one finding himself in trouble. Please, don’t see him punished for this.”

“Nagi,” Naobito begins damage control immediately, “I’m sure Akui would do no such thing, and —”

“Are you calling my daughter a liar, Zenin?” Nagi is brushing his thumb gently over Chie’s face, eyes soft and gentle as he looks at his little girl's wet tear stained cheek. She had been crying, he knows now.

“Ofcourse not,” Naobito barks, “but you must understand Toji is —”

“Toji Zenin is facing repercussions for rescuing my daughter’s gloves and sparing her pain from Akui Zenin?” Nagi confirms coldly, standing.

“He’s facing repercussions for speaking and acting out of turn. Nagi, please let’s head inside and —”

“Release him, Naobito.” Nagi spits. “Now. I won’t watch another second of you belittling your family like this.”

“Nagi, this is none of your concern,” Naobito huffs. “Toji is not —”

“Naobito if this is how you treat your blood relatives, I would sooner feed the worms in the ground with my own flesh than allow any of my family to associate with you, let alone marry one of you. Except for the young man you say is ‘none of my concern.’ I’d like to speak with him properly, and give him my thanks for rescuing my daughter.”

When Naobito is stunned into silence, Nagi continues. “Would you like to rescue what is left of your reputation here tonight, Naobito, by releasing Toji Zenin to me or would you like to lose any friendship we have left all together?”

“It doesn’t need to go that far—” Naobito spits angrily.

“No, it doesn’t. You have a kind Zenin among you, and I’d like to speak with him. So would you stop wasting my fucking time and release him?”

Toji is stunned.

So is everyone else. The hesitation and uncertainty hangs heavy in the air, so thick even a blade would find it hard to cut through. The silence drags for a hesitant second.

Naobito’s cruel gaze turns to Toji, a burning fury in his eyes that makes his skin goosebump. The Zenin head speaks clearly but cold — it’s obvious this is the last thing he wants. Toji knows if it was up to Naobito, he’d already be pummeled to a pulp and thrown to the curses under the estate.

But Nagi Fushiguro was there tonight to rescue him similarly to how he had rescued Chie Fushiguro. The irony is not lost on him.

“Release Toji.” Naobito says. “This great misunderstanding shouldn’t be carried out any longer, should it?”

Toji is gobsmacked at the order. He’s never seen Naobito go back on an order, not once. Especially not for something that involved bullying him.
They even hesitate at the command. None of them were used to this either, they’d have had Toji in chains previously for something much less offensive than fighting back against family. So their hesitation is almost normal.

But it’s irritating Naobito now, with the pressure of the Fushiguro Head burning at his back. “Now!” He snaps, and they all spring into action.

His hands are released quickly, and they scatter from their vice grips as if Toji had just burst into flames, unwilling now to be even associated with five feet of him, less they catch a stray from Nagi Fushiguro’s fury.

“Fushiguro,” Naobito says, a clipped anger buried under his polite attempt to rescue their friendship, “please come find me after you’ve spoken with Toji. Tonight’s events have been truly regretful and I’d be remiss for you to leave without a suitor for your daughters. I’m sure we can find one suitable amongst the estate, there are many good men.”

“I’m sure.” Nagi is as clipped in his reply as expected. “I’ll find you, Zenin.”

“I’m very sorry for your experience here tonight, Chie.” Naobito dips his head to the youngest daughter politely, though she does not look convinced by his apology, then he turns to Toji.

He strides carefully toward his nephew, taking his wrist in his grip discretely but sharp as he passes. Toji is six something decades younger than Naobito but he dwarfs him in height, a head taller at least and much more built in stature. He cranes his head down to make eye contact with him, frowning.

“If you fuck this up for me Toji, I will drag out the rest of your days in the pit in chains, and when you finally beg me for mercy, I will have them gut you, do you understand? You won’t have the Fushiguro’s or Yaga to run to.”

Toji says nothing, he simply stares. He has Jujutsu Isle to return to, he knows he is not forced to stay here any longer, but even if he fled he’d imagine Naobito would surely try to make good on his threat. He doubts Yaga or his classmates would receive Naobito’s threat in kind. The thought of Naobito getting the snot kicked out of him by Gojo almost turns his mouth into a smile.

Naobito throws Toji’s hand back at him like he’s got fleas and stalks back into the dark toward the waiting rest of the clan. “What!?” He barks at them all, watching with fury as they scatter away from the gossip they’d been trying so hard to overhear.

Toji watches him go for a second, trying to wrap his head around the event that has transpired.

“Toji Zenin?” Nagi Fushiguro drags him from his thoughts.

Toji turns, trying to gather himself properly. He’s scruffy, soaked in river water, mud and blood. He shouldn’t even be looking at the man, let alone speaking to him.

He bows immediately. “Fushiguro-sama, I’m very sorry for tonight, it wasn’t my intention to ruin anything for you, I swear, but he was just —” he tries to find the words.

“Why did you intervene?” Nagi asks simply. “I imagine you’ve faced these consequences before, considering how they treat you in front of guests I’d be rather afraid to see what they do to you in private.”

Toji blinks. His mouth opens, trying to explain himself properly, but finds nothing. He stands upright, face twisted in a frown that only his sadness for the sight of Chie’s miserable expression could muster.

“She was upset…” he says after a moment. “Akui was cruel and I could not stand there and allow him to hit her.”

“You could have.” Nagi says. “It would’ve been easy. Everyone else in your family would have.”

“I—” he hesitates. This is not how he wanted to be introduced to Nagi Fushiguro or his daughter.

“I could not stand there and see her upset. Even if I wanted to pretend I had not seen it, I could not.”

Nagi watches him for a moment, eyes flicking in a way that Toji can’t decide is good or not. It’s observant, scrutinizing over every part of his scuffed blood and mud soaked appearance.

Then Nagi nods. “You put yourself tonight at great risk for my daughter with no thought for your own safety. You did not speak out against them when Naobito wrongly accused you and you did not fight them about it any further once I arrived. Why?”

“I didn’t want to ruin Chie’s night any further than it already was.” Toji says simply.

Nagi smiles at this, and then he even laughs. Toji’s face burns with embarrassment — he can’t tell if his answers are getting him anywhere good or bad. He half expects Naobito to come back around the corner with his chains.

“Come with me, Toji.” Nagi says, voice gentle yet firm. “Allow me to treat you to dinner for your actions tonight.”

Toji blinks. “Sir, I really shouldn’t. I-I’m not dressed and I have no spare clothes, it’s really too much trouble f—”

“Nonsense.” Nagi waves him off. “You’ve done me a great service tonight by defending my daughter with no thought of yourself. I don’t care what you wear or who you are amongst these other Zenin’s. We are allocated to the west side of your estate in the guest houses, you can bathe, be cleaned and fed and we can give you the thanks you deserve. And then you may leave if you wish, and return to wherever it is that isn’t here.”

“T-thankyou, sir.”

“Come, Toji.” Nagi says with a smile.

Chie is lingering with her sister, who's been fetched from the fray, a few feet away. They’ve been quiet the whole time, eager to listen into the conversation, but when Toji and Nagi turn to them now, they turn on their heels and begin to walk as if they have not heard a thing.

Toji walks in silence among them for a while, Nagi Fushiguro allowing him a time to catch his breath and gather his thoughts in peace as they stroll. Not that the moment is alone amongst him and the Fushiguro family, though. He’s aware of the eyes following them throughout the estate. Constant watching.

“I said earlier, and I don’t mean to offend, but you do have somewhere else to return to that isn’t here, don’t you?” Nagi breaks the silence after a while, the thought breaking past his lips as if it has been sitting there since his previous idea, begging to be asked.

“I do, sir, yes.” Toji replies, “I live in Jujutsu Isle under Yaga Nasamichi’s estates. I’m only here regarding the King of Curses prophecy.”

“Hah, Yaga.” Nagi smiles with a knowing nod. “He’s a kind man, that Yaga Nasamichi.”

“He is.” Toji agrees.

His rescuer hums in thought, nodding absently after a moment. “Your Uncle mentioned it, and again please mind my brazen question.” Toji knows where it’s going. “You have no cursed energy?”

When Toji had been younger, he would’ve been irate at someone asking him about it. Like the ugly scar marking his face, one he could not hide. He’s grown desensitized to it now, but it had been a while since someone outright said it to him — everyone he cares to be around already knows and does not care. He’s shown them he’s worth his weight without any cursed energy. But still.

“I was born with a heavenly restriction.” He says simply. “In return for zero cursed energy or technique, my body is heightened physically. My other senses are much more than the typical…” he trails off almost politely. He doesn’t want to brag but he doesn’t want to understate himself either.

“Can you see curses?” Nagi asks.

“Not like you do.” Toji says. “But yes. I can see them. More so the air they replace, the noises they make. For me, it’s less seeing the place that the curses take up, but instead the space they push out.”

Nagi nods, and this time he turns to look at Toji. “Can you exorcise curses?”

“I can. I use cursed tools to do so, but yes.”

Nagi continues. “I’ve heard of you, you know. Not of you by name, I don’t think, it was never mentioned specifically. But a member of the Zenin family whose cursed energy was a mute point. Yet despite it, he slaughtered plenty of curses without aid from anyone.”

“Probably, sir.” Toji agrees with an almost embarrassed mumble about it. Praise was unfamiliar, especially on Zenin soil.

“Why do you bother?” Nagi asks.

And this stops Toji. Why does he?

“It was something I was good at. Even if I was doing it the wrong way from others. For a while when I was younger, I had no choice in the matter. It was exorcise curses or be consumed by them.” He replies honestly, simply. It’s how it was for as long as he could remember. “When Yaga recruited me, it was about the money I would make for a while. As you can imagine the Zenin clan is not exactly interested in sharing their wealth with me.”

The last comment makes Nagi chuckle under his breath, and Toji continues, feeling heartened. “Lately, I find myself exorcising curses because I’m good at it. And if I’m entirely honest, I can enjoy a day at home like any man, but to stay at home and know something evil is happening that I could prevent.” Toji shakes his head. “It feels wrong.”

Nagi nods his understanding, his hands tucked behind him as he walks. “My eldest daughter, Izumi, has a cursed technique. She got it from her mother. But myself and Chie? We aren’t sorcerers. We were invited here tonight only on the basis of money. Marrying Chie off would have come with a plentiful dowry for your family, had they been worth it."

Toji didn't know this. He suspected Chie wasn’t a sorcerer from how she looked disinterested in the earlier displays of techniques. It didn’t interest her, Toji had thought, because maybe she was better than they were. But it had also crossed his mind that she simply didn’t care to see them boast about something she did not have.

“You should know now that the Zenin has fallen very far from my graces, that much is obvious.” Nagi says, and he turns his gaze for a moment past Toji to linger his eyes on the Zenin still trailing behind them in the shadows. He watches them scamper like rats.

“But a man who was sought by Yaga is not someone who I can turn my nose up at so easily.”

“Thank you, sir.” Toji says. He’s a little behind now, brain trying to wrap itself around the complete turn of events that the night has become. He knew intervening with Chie’s miserable courtship would have repercussions. He had expected it to be pain, though, violence, shame. Not.. praise. Not a gentle conversation and a stroll through the estate.

“In the event that my daughters do now find themselves without any suitors at all, I imagine I’d be wise to look for someone of better standing. Someone with proper character.”

“Would I be wrong in assuming your interest in Chie, Toji? Or was it simply out of your kind heart that you rescued her? Not that that is bad, mind you.”

“I believe Chie is the most beautiful woman alive.” He replies. “What little of passing I’ve seen of her is something worth cherishing, a kindness, gentle yet steady attitude. N-not to say there is anything wrong with a woman being steady, sir.” He feels like he’s digging himself into a hole. “Your daughter was handling Akui before I stepped in, but still.”

He stops. “Fushiguro-Sama,” he says seriously, he doesn’t want to be misunderstood. “I didn’t do what I did tonight for any reward. Saving your daughter was a pleasant happenstance because I had the opportunity to return her gloves to her and to spare her a worsening night. But I would have done it for anyone, not because I expected some sort of reward.”

Nagi smiles, and while he appreciates the honesty, he’s looking for a straight forward answer about it. “Do you like Chie, Toji?”

“She could clear any dark sky, Fushiguro-Sama.” Toji says.

Nagi blinks, and the smile he gives Toji then is a warm, gentle thing. It must be where Chie gets it from, because Toji swears he’s never seen it on any man before, except for maybe Nanami and Yaga. A gentleness, an understanding for those differences that stand them apart and the things they share.

“I’m very glad you were here tonight, Toji.” Nagi says, placing a firm but warm hand on Toji’s shoulder. It chases the cold that the darkening night and his soaked clothes are providing.

Toji blinks, then he can’t help his own smile. “As am I.”

And when Toji spares a glance to Chie, she too is smiling. And when she catches him looking, she doesn’t turn away this time.

Her face softens, and her gloves are back on her hands, even if wet. She blushes, turning away finally when Toji’s awestruck face is too much to handle without embarrassment from either end.

Toji smiles for the first time on the Zenin estate that he could ever remember.

---------------------------------------------

It’s a year later when Toji Fushiguro and Satoru Gojo find Naobito Zenin’s disfigured bloodied body in his study.

“Tengen is never wrong, huh?” Gojo parrots their conversation a year prior back to Toji.

The castle is in disarray, the duties and responsibilities required to maintain it and the surrounding countryside neglected. Naobito Zenin was more familiar with smaller estates, and with his forces spread thin now here and back in the Zenin Clan, the castle was suffering.

Yaga’s way of teaching, living, and ruling had been so different, the Zenin Clan head simply was unequipped and too disingenuous about caring for Yaga’s legacy to bother.

Not that it mattered anymore. The room is a disgusting, repulsive sight.

“Yeah, well.” Toji scratches the back of his neck shortly, “If she was wrong to put her faith into anyone it would be this old geezer.”

“What the fuck happened..” Gojo mutters.

What remains of Naobito Zenin’s body is slumped over in his chair. His head is missing, his torso distorted and twisted, flesh bubbled and turned blue and red and black. He is stretched weirdly, arms too long to be normal and fingers bent wildly and twisted, turned black as if burned but no fire was found.

“So what the hell am I looking at here, Gojo?” Toji sighs. “It’s not a technique anyone on staff has..”

“No.. but it is a technique.” Gojo says, blue eyes sharp as they scan the room. “There are residuals all over the place.”

“So it’s a sorcerer then?” Toji mutters, stepping over a chunk of morphed, discarded flesh.

“No.. not necessarily.” Gojo says. “It could be a curse.”

“How did it get past everyone if it was a curse?” Toji huffs, “and why’d it take the old man’s head?”

Toji steps toward the desk. He is careful to avoid standing on any sinew, guts or gore that have spread outward from the old man’s distorted corpse. He’s got papers lined about his desk, his pen and inkwell staining half of the desk and adding to the pool of red and black that is sinking into the floorboards.

He begins to rifle through the desk, flipping pages and flicking through books. He opens a drawer, frowning. With a careful hand, he lifts an official page from the desk drawer, stamped and bound in official Jujutsu sorcery paper.

“…in the event of my death or incompetence which leaves me unable to govern in a fit manner, my nephew, Toji (Zenin) Fushiguro should assume…” he hesitates, flipping the page as if disbelief stops his ability to understand it. “Toji Fushiguro should assume the … throne.”

Gojo’s eyes lift from where he’s scanning the blood and residues splattered on the desk. He scoffs, snatching the page to read it for himself.

“meh meh meh… Toji Fushiguro should assume the ..” he reads it again, flips the page over too, then reads it aloud again. When nothing changes, he looks to Toji.

“You’re the King..” he says. “Heh— want me to kneel, your highness?”

“Don’t even think about it.” Toji spits dryly, running a hand through his hair as he tries to wrap his head around the situation, the new title.

He pinches his brows, sighing as his eyes lift toward the back of the room, trying to scan his head for answers he can’t find. A different sort of frown finds his face then, twisting down his features as he gawks at the sight past Gojo’s white hair.

“..whoever did this… didn’t take his head.” Toji whispers, lifting a finger to point past Gojo.

Hanging above the study entrance, high above on the tall ornate walls, Naobito Zenin’s head is stretched, severed and twisted, plastered to the wall. Long and thick stretches of blood strain out from his head the way water sprays when one throws a heavy stone into a pool of it, speckled and flowing freely.

“what the fuck..” Toji says. “What is —”

They both approach closer, carefully so as if Naobito Zenin’s head is about to open up and curse them for even looking at him the way he is, or, they suppose was.

“There’s something in his mouth..” Gojo says. Toji watches in stunned silence as the white haired sorcerer turns on his limitless and lifts from the floor. He retrieves a bundled item stuffed inside the old sorcerer's mangled jaw, retrieving a shriveled up blackened finger and a piece of paper nailed into it.

Gojo holds it for Toji to see, both gobsmacked and almost ready to empty their stomachs at the sight of it. Sorcery was not an easy profession. No one thanked you for it and it was never clean. But this was pushing it, even for them.

Gojo unfolds the paper and frowns. “What?” Toji snaps.

Gojo almost hesitates, eyes flicking over the paper longer, as if whatever is said there will become untrue or disappear if he looks at it long enough.

Toji tires of waiting and extends his hand to Gojo. The man turns his limitless off, and drops the note and severed finger to the older sorcerer.

Toji flips the paper over quickly.

‘Cometh the King’ is written in sharp black blood.

“…Tengen was right.” Gojo says.

Toji turns the gored twisted finger and blood soaked note over in his hand with a swallowed sigh.

“Then we get to work.” He says.

Chapter Text

The purge starts in a week. The warm February air is coming down from the mountains, melting snow and ushering up spring flowers and thawing the streams outside the gates. The whole world is unfreezing.

Their whole world.

“So it’s cursed paper to start..?” Nanami asks.

They’re all standing in Toji’s office, looking at the mess of boxes and seals that has exploded into existence now that the March deadline is approaching.

“Yes. Starting with the food...” Toji says, holding up a talisman paper with the curse inflicted into it.

“How does it not catch any wrong children?” Gojo asks, peering down into the city with all-seeing eyes. “The mothers that consume the cursed food, but don’t give birth until after March ends? Does it skip those, or are we killing ones we know for certain, certain, aren’t the curse, just for the hell of it?” It’s clipped and bitter, and while his anger is not directed at Toji specifically he is the nearest one they can direct it to.

“It’ll skip them.” Toji says with a sigh.

“Skip them?” Nanami interrupts before Toji can finish his thought.

“The curse has conditions.” Toji says, “if the mother consumes the curse but her baby is not born until after March, the curse won’t activate. It becomes a dud, a null point. Same thing if the baby is a girl, it will skip it too. So long as it’s male and born within the duration of March, it will die, either in the womb or right after.”

“So they won’t know?” Haibara mutters angrily, chin resting in his hand as he watches Toji push a pencil back and forth with his finger.

The king shakes his head. “The boys born in March will die, almost all of them, from some ‘illness.’ It’s as simple and as painless as that. They’ll go to sleep and they won’t wake up again.”

“And what about the mothers?” Gojo asks.

“Should remain unaffected.”

“How is it being distributed?” Haibara, this time.

“It’s already started. Rice, bread, flour, eggs. It’s in everything sold in the markets already, and cautionarily, talismans have been concealed in houses and entranceways aswell.”

“So we’re cursing the entire population?” Nanami asks.

“It’ll only affect the few we want but, technically, yes.”

“Tengen sure has thought this through, huh.” Geto snipes.

The room goes quiet. Toji shrugs almost. It was never his plan, not his idea. But he believed in it now, understood the necessity of this bit of evil to stop something worse.

They all fall in solemn silence, lingering at the thought of the children that are out there waiting to die. How many lives are about to be snuffed out in the dark in the coming weeks. One of them is marked not only by the curse they’ll be feeding to his mother and him, but marked by his destiny. And the jujutsu world is mostly joined in prayer that it dies now and then. Now and then. Now and then. Now and —

“Now we just hope the right miserable little kid eats the right curse and dies.” Toji sighs, running his hand over his face.

“What about the sorcerers?" Nanami asks. “Pregnant sorcerers who know about the curse? They won’t eat the cursed food, they’ll be able to see it. What is stopping them from leaving? From telling other pregnant women and their families?”

Toji had hoped they wouldn’t think this far. He knows it’s a silly idea, to imagine them not questioning everything in full, but if he had been honest, he had hoped that they would turn their backs to the purge like he had asked them to, and been blind.

Only a hope, though.

“The borders are closed.” Toji says simply, standing as he shuffles papers into a pile and stores them in his desk. “That’s where the rest of you come in.”

“..what?” Haibara asks.

“You’re the last ones to be briefed because I expected you to protest it,” Toji sighs, pinching his brow. “Sorcerers have already been posted throughout the city and spread amongst the countryside as far as we can bear. Tengen thinks the curse will be born within city limits due to the amount of cursed energy in big populations, so we’re mostly collected in our respected city limits, but —”

“Wait.” Nanami stands, chair crumpling the woven carpet beneath him. “We’re being ordered to kill other sorcerers as well as their newborn babies?”

Toji watches the room turn on him. He stiffs his lip and runs his hand through his hair, trying to push away the heated air as he sighs.

“You all agreed to this when you stayed the first time we heard about it.” Toji reminds coldly. “So yes. If you find someone, sorcerer or not, trying to leave the kingdom with an infant, or protecting someone with an infant, your mission is to kill the baby and arrest or kill the traitor.”

They all stare at him, wide eyed and certain that he’s wrong. And it’s not that he disagrees with them — he’s not fond of having his hands drenched in the blood of infants, of defenceless children.

“Look —” He sighs, lifting his gaze from where they lingered on the desk to avoid their attention, “We all saw what a curse did to Nabito in this very room a year ago for this future monster. Do you want that thing to grow? To walk amongst all of us untethered? For other curses to confide in? To call him King? To tear down sorcerer society and the rest of the world? Cause that’s what’s gonna happen if he grows up.”

Silence hangs heavy over each of their heads for a while. It clings weighted to Toji’s neck, making his shoulders sag a little inward.

“I won’t do it.” Nanami says after a while. “I’m sorry. But I can’t.”

“I don’t care that you ‘can’t’, Kento. You have to.” Toji sighs, lifting his forehead from where he’d buried it tiredly into his palm. “It’s not me that’s telling you to, if you’ve got an issue take it up with Tengen —”

“I’m serious, Toji.” Nanami says solemnly. “I won’t do it.”

Toji’s eyes lift, face a cold slate as he watches the room of sorcerer’s decide wether or not infanticide is worth the safety of the rest of the world. If the amount of blood drawn now is worth the amount of blood that will be drawn in the future if left alone. If they can weigh it against their own consciousness.

“Kento —” Toji begins.

“I won’t do it.” Nanami says, steeling his resolve. “If that’s such an issue, then arrest me. But I won’t —”

“Kento, don’t push me right now-” Toji starts.

“Kento.” Gojo interprets their arguing to address Nanami, the inclusion of his first name catching him astray. “I’m… not sure we’re right, anymore.”

“You’ve changed your mind?” Nanami spits at Gojo dryly. “You’re serious!?”

“I-” he sighs, looking to the ceiling, “I can’t justify in my head a thousand over millions. Millions of people, including children, their future children, their families. Of everybody in the world versus the only boys born in a single month.”

“They’ll be—” Kento huffs, kicking his chair in anger. “It’s children!! Little children, actual babies! Do none of you hear yourselves?”

“Nanami..” Geto even starts, his mind turned too toward the greater masses than the March babies.
Haibara says nothing, and Toji sighs as he stands. Nanami stiffens, frowning across the room at the king, as if expecting retaliation.

“You’re retired, Kento Nanami.” He says dryly.

“What?” Nanami spits.

“You’re no longer a sorcerer. As of right now, you don’t have to partake in the March slaughter at all. You can step away and keep your hands clean if you seriously wish to do so. I should say — if you’re all serious about not doing your fucking jobs, then leave.”

Nanami goes to move, ready to be done with this horrific situation and get the hell out of there.

“But,” Toji warns. “If I find you helping these infants, if anyone finds you helping these infants, I won’t let my personal feelings for any of you stand in the way anymore than they already have. You will be arrested, and you will be tried and sentenced to death and that will be the end of it.
So, if you seriously can’t stomach this tiny bit of blood to stop the world from being drenched in it forever, then. Fuck. Off. But know that I’ve just extended you all a mercy that no one from this point on will give you, including me.”

“I’ll pack my things.” Nanami says after a long moment, the room clinging to the heavy words hung over each head like a noose ready to be drawn and pulled.

They watch in silence as Nanami turns on his heels, swings the door open and out, disappearing into the hall.

Toji sighs, pinching his brow with unsteady hands. “Anyone else?”

Haibara glances around the room, uncertain. He lifts his gaze to Gojo and Geto, the matching pair unmoving as they watch the events unfold, and to the King whose head must be reeling.

“I’m sorry, Toji.” Haibara mumbles, and he too turns on his heels to flee the room and responsibility.

Toji watches him go, hand balling into a fist with anger as he collapses into his seat with a bitter sigh. When the air stills, he drags his gaze from where he’s buried his eyes behind his crunched up palm to the only two who remain.

Gojo and Geto linger.

“The hell are you two still standing here for?” Toji spits angrily.

“We’re going to go through with it.” Geto says shortly.

“You are?”

“It’s not for you, Toji.” Gojo adds quickly, withdrawing tiredly toward the door with Geto trailing along after him.
“It’s for the fact that I believe this child really will be the end of the world the way Tengen thinks he will be. The true king of curses. That’s why I’ll help with the curse distribution, why I’ll guard the borders and why I’ll allow you to slaughter any baby boy. Because I don’t want to see what the world will become if he survives. And only that.”

And with that, both Gojo and Geto leave the room then too. Toji watches the door latch close behind them, listening distantly to the noise of the world outside his study, the bustle and shout of people preparing for the infanticide to come.

Toji sighs into his palm miserably. “Fuck.”

He goes looking for Megumi and Chie. There’s a nonstop buzzing behind his eyelids, lowly and noisy and thundering in his skull. If he’s honest with himself, he’s seeking out Chie and Megumi because he wants a friendly face to confide in. Megumi knows no better, still too little and preoccupied with chewing his crib corners to care, and Chie will at least pretend to support him to some extent, even if he knows she disagrees. He knows it's for the greater good, not just for his family. For all of them.

Convincing everyone else that was the tricker task.

He checks their room first, but it’s empty. The curtains are drawn, the evening sun filtering through the gaps. The window is open, pushing the curtains into movement, long open-armed dancers greeting the world without a care. The chill in the air sends a shiver over his skin, and a frown chases his face.

“Chie?” He asks, turning on his heels. He knows it’s probably illogical, that since his coming into power security, monitoring and patrols, and curses all together near the castle have died down. He ensured that nothing like Naobito’s death would happen to his family – that they wouldn’t be slaughtered in their own home under the noses of everyone they were supposed to be protected by – but still… especially now, not being able to find his wife and son makes him unspeakably worried.

He snaps at a guard in his passing, barely stopping as he strides past the smaller man. “Have you seen my wife and son?”

The guard, surprised to be spoken to at all, shakes his head dumbly. “I heard last they were in your quarters, sir but I h–”

Toji waves him off, already uninterested if he has no actual useful information. He stalks down the hall like a dark storm, shoving his way down the cobblestone building at lightning speed, blurring past people. He scatters papers when he passes some, old decorative armour shakes in its stands as he rushes past. Someone asks if he’s fine but he ignores them.

He checks her usual hideaways first, ones closest to him as he goes, her private study he helped design and had built for her once she moved in, found empty, then the study they share, two massive chairs shoved side by side, cold. Where the hell is his kid and wife..?

He flings the door open to the library, desperate for anything. The heavy door clangs loudly at his entrance, reverberating against the wall. The castle librarian, one he hired at Chie’s request, looks up to chastise him, but sees who it is that is making such a commotion, and bites her tongue.

“Is my wife and son here?” He asks, a little too loudly.

The librarian is about to direct him, but she’s too late as Chie’s face pops around from a corner, face downturned in concern at the ruckus he’s making. “Toji?”

“Are you okay?” He asks, outstretching for her like how a storm reaches to touch ground, quickly blitzing from his flungopen entryway to her in the third row of shelves. Her hair rustles with his speed. “Where’s Megumi?”

“He’s asleep.” She says, pointing down the way to Megumi, laying on the floor, surrounded by throws and flattened clothes. He’s swaddled in a blanket Chie had made him, and beside him is Chie’s guard he’s insisted follow her.

Chie had protested it profusely, but the guard simply did as ordered and followed her everywhere anyway. Chie’s berating he could handle to a degree, though sometimes she pushes him away enough by sheer grumpy face – but disobeying a direct order from King Fushiguro, one designed to keep the man’s wife and only child safe – he’d sooner die.

“What ever is the matter? You swung in here like a wild animal.” She asks.

“I couldn’t find you.” He huffs angrily, “you weren’t in our room, nor your study or ours, you were nowhere.”

“I was here.” She supplies simply, lifting her hand to touch his cheek. “I told you this morning that I’d stop by here today… remember?”

Toji blinks, leaning into her palm. He takes it from her, kissing it gently as he holds it for a moment. Breathing, knowing that she’s fine, that their baby is fine. He exhales.

“I could not find you.” He whispers.

Her face softens at his worry, holding his hand gently. She brushes his hair from his eyes, but it sticks up in a funny way, and she smiles, huffing her laughter under her breath. She smoothes it back down with a wry smile.

“Kenji,” Toji directs himself to the guard standing watch over Megumi “take the day. I’m here now.”

Kenji bows, gives the family a final look-over to assure everything is fine before his departure, then turns on his heels, not before though, giving a tiny wave goodbye to little Megumi on the floor. The baby has stirred now, waking and wiggling on his mat of blankets.

Toji shifts toward him, still holding Chie’s hand as he returns the other half of his family to the whole. “Megumi..” he whispers with an upturned smile. Their little blessing is growing more than Toji thought he would. He’s still a little small, maybe a bit smaller than average, but Toji thinks he’s strong. Or that he most certainly will be.

Chie sinks to the floor beside Megumi, smiling as the little baby wiggles an arm free and wraps his extended hand around his mothers finger. Toji follows after her, laying on his side to encase them both from view, quietly admiring the two he gets to call his own.

“I think he’ll be able to walk soon.” She says proudly, though she’s very wrong, Megumi still has a long way to go before walking is even on his mind, let alone crawling. All he does at the moment is cry and poop and throw up on Toji’s clean uniforms.

“I wish he wouldn’t. He’s not even three months old.” Toji huffs. “I have a hard enough time keeping track of you two as is.”

“You worry too much.” Chie says simply, “It’s turning your hair grey.” To extend her point, she reaches across and tugs a hair from his head sharply before he can protest. He scoffs, shaking his head.

“That wasn’t grey!” He huffs, “you’ll make me bald before I can afford to go grey. Besides, it’s my whole job to worry. Especially now.”

“I don’t think they’ll make it into the castle.” Chie says.

“Naobito thought that too.” Toji reminds, “Look where that got him.”

“Naobito was not as prepared as you are,” She says, “he was not diligent, or quick witted, or cared half as much as you do. Nothing will happen, Toji.”

“The second I start believing that, something will happen.” Toji sighs, brushing his thumb against Megumi’s cotton swaddle with a sad frown. “Promise me you won't go out this month, Chie.”

Chie frowns, “I thought you said I –”

“I know what I said. But I’ve changed my mind.” He says simply, wrinkles pushing his face down as he looks at their little boy, safe and secure and unknowing of the slaughter that’s about to take place of the babies unfortunate to be born the year after him.

“Please,” he pleads with her. “Just.. stay in the castle, okay? Don’t chase off Kenji like I know you like to do. He’s here to protect you both.”

“I can look after me and Megumi,” She insists, upset. He knows she could. She’s adept enough with a sword. Her father has insisted she’d be trained when she was young and she makes a thrilling sparring partner for Toji. He knows to an extent, she’s much more prepared than the average non-combatant woman in the castle for a sort of invasion.

But still. The thought of her having to raise a sword to stop something wishing to hurt her or Megumi. It makes his skin crawl.

“Chie,” He insists, “Please, for me, just for the month. Stay put.” She frowns, unconvinced, so he continues, voice a little lower. “Kento Nanami and Yu Haibara have just quit. I’m not sure where Gojo and Geto are lining up in this so just –”

“They quit?” She asks, sitting a little straighter. “They can do that..?”

“No.” He sighs, “not really. But it's Nanami and Haibara. I can’t exactly have them arrested right then and there, can I? I don’t even know if Gojo and Geto would’ve agreed with me if I had them detained anyway. I’d rather not have a spat with the six-eyed idiot right now if it can be helped.”

“Nanami’s a good man, so is Haibara.” Chie notes thoughtfully, “I’m sure they didn’t mean anything by it.”

“I know that.” Toji says, “Still… I’m down two grade one sorcerers. So just… please?”

She sighs. Toji leans over Megumi carefully, his hand cupping her face almost entirely, running a gentle finger through her short hair as he kisses her. She melts into it, almost as much as maybe he does.

She breaks it with a smile, exhaling softly. “You shouldn’t worry so much. It’ll rub off on Megumi. He’ll grow to be a worry wart like you.”

Toji huffs a chuckle against his teeth, glancing down at the baby between them. Megumi’s little round face is looking up happily at them, babbling endlessly as if he has so many things to say to them. His little blue-grey eyes watch them, and then, something must amuse him, because the baby looks at Toji’s face then laughs at him candidly.

“He keeps laughing everytime he looks at me…” Toji laments with a lighthearted frown as Chie scoops Megumi into her arms.

She watches Megumi in her grasp, gentle and delicate and still so new. She smiles, cooing at him as he settles back down. “Okay,” she whispers after a moment.

“Okay?”

She nods. “Okay, we’ll stay put for March, if you’re still so insistent that the purge goes through.” She’s tried talking him out of it plenty of times, tried convincing her Father out of it. She’s even sent messages to other monarchs, pleading for a little bit of sense among them, but she’s received either silence, pointed messages telling her to leave it to her sorcerer husband, or laughter.

“We would be the only kingdom not doing it, and besides, Naobito already signed his written consent and that passed down to me when he died. We’re already in agreement.”

“Can you not just take it back? It was his word, not yours that agreed.”

“I agreed during the first meeting, and I agree now.” He reminds her.

“It’s children, Toji.”

“I know that, Chie.” He says tiredly, “but if this child doesn’t die, everyone, the whole world as we know it, will suffer for it. Better we stop him now before he becomes something we can’t stop. If he isn't, there won't be anything left for Megumi to inherit. There won't be any more royalties, no independence between here and the south, nothing. It will belong to the King of Curses.”

“He’s a baby.”

“He’s a curse.” Toji reminds her pointedly. “And even if he is just a baby now, we’d be waging war against everyone else by harbouring him. There is no choice left anymore.”

“There should always be a choice, Toji.” She insists.

“I know. And I’ve made mine, so has your father, Tengen, Gakuganji, the Inumakis, the Kamos, the Zenins, the Gojo’s. For once, we’re all united. And I trust Tengen. I’ve seen what’s been done already.”

She still looks unconvinced. “Chie.” He insists in a whisper, “If I didn’t believe in it, I wouldn’t be doing it.”

He looks at Megumi, frowning as he runs his pinky finger over the infant's black curly hair. “I’m… afraid of the King of Curses.” He admits quietly, “I don’t want to have to face him twenty years down the line. So please –” He lifts his gaze to her, eyes soft as he pleads.

“Let's just kill him now before he turns the world upside down."

Chapter Text

Gojo holds the door open for Geto after they leave Toji’s office.

The castle air is bustling lately, but it’s terror that clings to it, abstracting horror, in each hesitant breath. People don't speak much, and if they do it’s quiet, under their breath sort of whispers, things you say so quietly in case a higher power is listening.

“Do you think he believed us?” Geto mutters tiredly, clinging to the wall.

Gojo sighs, pinching his nose bridge with a shake of his head. “I hope so. Either way, we have word of mouth to fall on about it. Now we just need to be good enough at our jobs to not raise suspicion and just.. see how it plays out.”

Geto frowns, staring at some distant space not exactly real. His eyes fuzz over, hesitant and not all there. Gojo waves a hand in front of his face, bringing him back around.

“Suguru..?”

“What?” Geto blinks, shaking the fog creeping into his skull out of his mind. “Sorry. I’m fine.”

Gojo looks like he wants to pry, because even in all his blab of overconfidence and bravado, he’s observant. Especially as of late. Maybe too much it’s making his own skull feel like it’s rolling in his head.

“Mmhmm.” Gojo humms. “Let's get settled for tomorrow, yeah? Not like there’s anything we can do about it right now anyway.”

Geto nods, and they both slip away from Toji’s office and back into the darker patches of the castle, following their foot-worn trodden paths, each hallway bend some secret route they’ve plotted over years for better efficiency for missions, more sneaky and less overrun corridors for when they were doing things they shouldn’t been. It had been a game, half the time, when they were younger, to see what boundaries they could push.

But not lately. Not now. Now, they tread the line with careful precision, not overstepping, holding their cards closer as they tread. It’s a dangerous situation now, to be morally correct, depending on which side is to be believed ‘good’ versus ‘bad.’

Stopping the world ending monster, everyone around here agrees is the best and only solution.
But they’re all choosing to ignore that the monster is a child.

Gojo sighs. He and his other half slink back into their room. Once they’d gotten older, and better at their jobs, they upgraded housing. Haibara and Nanami moved out and split rent halfway between themselves. Gojo and Geto did the same — they’d been inseparable since enrolling, then sticking together just made sense.

Gojo holds the door open for Geto, watching the dark haired sorcerer slip inside. It’s making his stomach crawl, the way Suguru’s shoulders sag and his hands keep pushing his hair from his eyes.

“Suguru?” He asks.

Geto turns, faux smile plastered on, the same one he’s been using all day to appease higher officials. “Mm?”

“We’ll..” Gojo hesitates. “Should we…”

“No.” Geto confirms. They’d debated it heavily, back and forth, for the years leading up to it. Now wasn’t the time to withdraw.

“We’re not doing it.” He says.

And that is enough for Gojo. He blinks once, the information, the treason they’re both about to commit, the possible fact that their actions in the following month may actually bring about the world's collapse, it all clicks in his head in a heartbeat.

But he doesn’t feel bad.

“Okay.” He agrees.

“Okay?” Geto asks.

Gojo nods. “We’ll spare the King of Curses, if we find him first.”

Geto nods. “We will.”

Chapter Text

The day they’ve been dreading has finally reared its ugly head. The first day of March, hours before dawn, the sky is starless. It’s a dark day, hanging heavy above each gathered head blowing hot air steam into the breaking morning chills.

Toji watches with a thin lipped frown at the sight of all the sorcerers, en masse, armed and ready. They’re all in dark, shining armour, helms to conceal themselves within. It was an oddly terrifying sight, a swarm of dark unmoving monsters of his own to snuff out the one they’re all convinced is the real threat.

Toji supposes the hard part is almost over with. Convincing them, testing their resolve against the crimes they’re about to commit, was half the struggle. To continue asking them to turn off their conscious and strive forward without second thought, to be stone-faced against the sobbing children they’re about to rip apart —

“Toji?” Chie snaps him out of his spiral.

“Mm?” He replies.

She meets him at the doorway, looking out into the courtyard at the almost two hundred of them. A handful of them are still new, freshly minted sorcerers gathered for their great and ugly cause. Some are still children themselves, first or second year teenagers, some are brought up to speed by family ties, even younger than sixteen, their youngest sorcerer amongst them is fourteen. Toji swallows.

“Are you.. sure about this?” She asks softly, gently. But it’s not to challenge him like she has been. It’s gentle, a sad understanding between them that some things may not be changed. That some things will most certainly, unrecoverably break, change. Shatter into nothing.

“I’m sure.” He says.

He can feel her eyes wander across the side of his face, drifting from the top of his hair, down his cheek, lingering on the scar marking his lip. She gently brushes his face with her hand before nodding.
“Then go and make sure that they are all sure about it, too.”

Toji turns his gaze to her, the cold hardened look he had been using to scrutinize his soldiers lifting when it comes to her. He nods, exhaling a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding.

He gives her a final, certain nod, before turning his attention to the crowds.

“Enough.” He calls, watching the silence wash over the swarm of people sworn to do as he asks of them. All of them, prepared to enact the bloody and violent task he and everyone in a higher power than him, have given them.

“We’ve all heard the prophecy of the King of Curses from Tengen, from Jujutsu Society high officials, from the mouths of curses that are in constant growth as of late.” He begins, voice carrying over the cold air.

“I, like all of you, had hoped it wouldn’t have had to come to this. But the choice is no-longer ours. Nothing we are about to do will be easy. It is going to hurt. It will hurt you, and it will hurt the families and the lives we’re about to disrupt.”

He can feel Chie’s eyes burning into the back of his head. He continues anyway.

“But it is the greater good that must be pursued. The deaths of this month will spare the world a violent, uncontrollable and deadly calamity. A monster that we would never be able to escape or overcome. It will be a cruel and unfair sacrifice, these deaths, but it is a needed sacrifice.”

He lets the chatter idle, the quiet mutterings, some unsure whispers that quell the longer he stares at them each. He continues again.

“The King of Curses, if permitted to survive, to grow into adulthood if not stopped here and now, will double, triple the pain we cause today in sheer numbers alone. He’ll make his throne on the bodies of every sorcerer, man, woman and child, animals – the ground we walk on. It’s a needed sacrifice, the deaths this month will bring, to save the world from the wrath of a monster the likes of which it has never seen, and will never see again.”

The silence permeates, the hot breath of the soldiers lingering below punching pockets of warm air into the lightening sky.

“Go and ensure society's light isn’t snuffed out prematurely.” He says finally. “Ensure our survival, and that of the generations to come after us.”

They salute, they swear their duty, and they depart. It’s eerie how simple it’s become to them all — for him to tell them it’s fine to commit mass infanticide and for them to agree.

Toji watches them streak away, swarms of black and silver armour flooding out into their corner of the world to do the spoken unspeakable act of slaughter. He watches the familiar pair linger at the edge of the courtyard, Gojo and Geto, an unmistakable duo even under their dark armour, speak amongst themselves for a moment or two. They withdraw then too, Gojo’s hand lifting shortly, a quick curt wave to the King they both know is watching them.

Then they too disappear out the gates to the early morning slaughter. The plan is patrols mostly, civilian observation. Sorcerer families knew to avoid becoming pregnant in the summer months, some waiting till the end of the year, or earlier on to try. Some haven’t bothered and won't try till later, just in case. The non-sorcerers, though, aren’t as privy to the situation. Most know of curses, yes, but that The King of those monsters is meant to be born among them is another story. It was easier to exclude them from it all together. They don’t know Tengen the way sorcerer society does, her word means nothing to them.

Toji sighs, turning to Chie after watching the yard empty out. “Will you be fine here?”

Chie’s face is a taught frown, but she nods regardless. “Kinji will be here, and I’ve got some plans to waste the month away.”

It’s a dry jab, a little chipped, and it makes Toji’s brows twitch. She corrects herself a little, sighing. She hadn’t signed up for this the way he had, and though she agrees to an extent, the thought alone is clinging to her shoulders. When Toji sleeps, he has nightmares of the King of Curses, the monster backlit by a burning city, unstoppable and violent. Chie dreams of the babies, of Megumi soaked in blood she and Toji let inside the castle doors.

“Go, Toji.” She relents after a moment, brushing his face with her palm. “We’ll be here when you return home.”

Her face is twisted, uncertain, but he can’t allow it to sway him now. He sighs, wishing if anything to simply stay with her there, that he could collect his wife and child in his arms and disappear within the castle walls for good, not needing to face the little monster outside.

“Be careful..” she says as he goes to turn.

“I always am.” He replies.

“Toji.” She snaps, stopping him mid-step. He turns to her, frowning. “I mean it. I refuse to raise Megumi alone, do you understand?”

The King, in all his dark armour, feels like breaking. He collects her in his arms, metal clawed hand resting gently atop her head as he exhales tiredly.

“I’ll come home, Chie.” He whispers, shoving the lump clawing its way up his throat down deep into his gut. He blinks furiously, chasing away wet lashes.

When he withdraws from her, she’s crying too. He frowns, but leaves her. He can’t stay. He knows if he lingers any longer that he’ll give up the whole thing just to stop her tears.

He leaves Kinji within the fort with Chie and Megumi and departs for the outside world and the slaughter that is calling his name.