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NOTICE FROM JUJUTSU HEADQUARTERS:
1 November 2018
1. Gojo Satoru has been deemed an accomplice in the Shibuya Incident and is thus permanently exiled from the jujutsu world.
2. Yaga Masamichi shall receive the death penalty for inciting Gojo Satoru and causing the Shibuya Incident.
3. The suspension of Itadori Yuuji’s death sentence is revoked and the execution is to be carried out immediately. Special grade sorcerer Okkotsu Yuuta has been appointed executioner.
4. Geto Suguru is under investigation for assisting in the Shibuya Incident and has been removed from his teaching position at Tokyo Jujutsu High until further notice.
5. Anyone found attempting to remove Gojo Satoru’s seal will be sentenced to death.
— —
NOTICE FROM JUJUTSU HEADQUARTERS:
10 November 2018
1. Zen’in Maki has been charged with the murder of all Zen’in Clan members excluding Head of Clan Fushiguro Megumi. She has been sentenced to death.
2. Anyone found attempting to hide Zen’in Maki will receive the death penalty.
3. Jujutsu Headquarters holds on the decision of whether or not to remove the Zen’in Clan from the big three sorcerer families.
— —
Satoru Gojo has been sealed for eleven days, and Suguru has nothing left to lose. The only reason he doesn’t have a death sentence hanging over his head is because the higher ups have spent the past year walking on eggshells around him, afraid one wrong move will send him spiraling out of control again.
(And now that they don’t have Satoru at their disposal, the only other remaining Special Grade they can get to do their bidding is Yuuta, who they needed to use for Itadori’s execution instead.)
Satoru is gone. Nanami is gone. Yaga is gone. Itadori, Megumi, and Yuuta have all jumped into the games. Mimiko, Nanako, Inumaki, and Kugisaki are all still in critical condition. Panda is borderline unreachable. And now Maki has been sentenced to death as well.
Satoru is gone, and with the realization that even the strongest can fall comes the realization that no one is untouchable. But Satoru is gone, making Suguru the strongest, and Suguru has nothing left to lose.
Which is why, after news of the Zen’in Clan breaks, Suguru ignores the direct orders he has to not go after Maki. He knows exactly why they don’t want him near her, and it has everything to do with the fact that they rule by fear.
(Why else sentence everyone who steps out of line to death? If you kill all your enemies, there won’t be anyone left to argue with you.)
(But the way Jujutsu Headquarters is functioning right now, there won’t be anyone left to protect them either.)
If they want Maki dead, what better way to accomplish that than by sending Suguru to kill her, now that Yuuta’s removed himself from their game board and planted himself into Kenjaku’s? With Satoru sealed, Yuki protecting Tengen, and Yuuta in the game, Suguru is the only Special Grade that Jujutsu Headquarters can contact.
But, he’s still “under investigation”. Which is their way of saying We can’t kill you right now, but as soon as we have the means, you’re dead. And of course they don’t want him near Maki, because there is not a single other person in the jujutsu world who could better sympathize with her right now.
So as soon as the news breaks, Suguru sends out the curses he has to go find her.
He has nothing left to lose. And he’s not going to let the one other person in the same boat suffer all alone.
— —
“You aren’t very good at sneaking around.” Maki turns to face him. “If you’re going to kill me, you’ll have to try harder than that.”
The worm curse he stole from Megumi’s father years ago settles on Suguru’s shoulders. Truthfully, he isn’t much surprised that one was the curse that managed to find Maki. It makes all too much sense.
“I’m not here to kill you.” Suguru steps out of the shadows. He pulls his hand from his pocket and holds it up in surrender. “I’m actually under direct orders not to interact with you.”
Maki just stares at him. She doesn’t look good.
She’s scarred from Shibuya, of course, and Suguru isn’t sure if she actually allowed herself to rest and recover long enough before jumping into action again. She’s covered in blood Suguru assumes is not her own. It’s dried by this point, smeared across her skin and staining the ripped uniform hanging from her frame. One of her eyes hasn’t been able to open properly since Shibuya and she has dark circles to rival Shoko’s. A sheathed sword hangs at her side.
She gives off a good illusion of being unshakable, but Suguru can see straight through it.
He knows the mask she’s wearing; he’s worn it himself.
“I haven’t heard the verdict,” she finally tells him. “They want me dead, don’t they?”
“How’d you know?” Suguru responds drily.
“You’re still aligned with them, aren’t you?” She takes her glasses off. She goes to clean the lenses, but stops when she looks down at her clothes. She places them back on her face, then raises an eyebrow at Suguru.
“I’m still under investigation.” Suguru slips his hand back into his pocket and relaxes his posture. “Meaning they’re waiting on the execution order until they find someone who they think can pull it off.”
“But until that happens, you’re technically on their side,” Maki points out. “And why wouldn’t you take up an opportunity to kill me? That gets you back on good terms with the higher ups. And if you earn their trust back, you could convince them to pardon Satoru.”
Suguru laughs, and he’s almost surprised at how empty that sounds. “They’ve made their decision. They’ve hated Satoru since the day his cursed technique manifested because of the power he holds over them - over everyone. Having him trapped in the prison realm finally releases them from the fear he creates by simply existing. They wouldn’t listen to me.”
“You’re the strongest now.”
“Sure.” Suguru kicks a pebble on the ground. It rolls towards Maki and comes to a stop against her foot. “But my power doesn’t come close enough to Satoru’s for that to do me any good. He fell, and that means anyone can be taken down, if you wait for the right moment to strike. Besides,” he looks up at her, “why would I want to kill you?”
Maki smiles. Her teeth still have blood splatters on them. She laughs, and then in one swift movement, the tip of her sword is under Suguru’s chin.
“You hate me.”
Suguru frowns. He doesn’t know what he was expecting Maki’s answer to be, but he knows it wasn’t that. “No I don’t?”
“You’ve hated me since you first heard about me.” She presses the spear against him harder, though still not quite hard enough to draw blood.
Suguru lets her.
“Sure, you’ve reformed yourself,” she spits out, “but I know the truth. Just because you no longer think killing all non-sorcerers is the right way to accomplish your goals doesn’t mean you don’t still hate them. And you’ve always seen me as one of them.” The blade pierces his skin, drawing blood. “Why shouldn’t I kill you too? You’re just like them - never willing to change your mindset and broaden your definition of what a sorcerer could be. I’ll bring your body back as a bargaining chip to get my death sentence lifted.”
“I don’t hate you, Maki,” Suguru says carefully. He could summon a cursed spirit to get Maki and her sword far enough away from him that she isn’t hurting him anymore, but he doesn’t. “Nor do I see you as an ordinary human. If anything, I see you as the ideal for all non-sorcerers. If all of those born without cursed techniques followed your footsteps and turned themselves into sorcerers like you have - sorcerers who could fight with cursed tools, I think the world would be much better off. You are a sorcerer, Maki. Not because of a cursed technique, but because you chose to be one, and you are more of a sorcerer than any of the higher ups who sit back and refuse to actually do anything. I’m sorry I ever thought that wasn’t the case.”
Maki lowers her sword just enough so it isn’t poking into Suguru’s flesh anymore.
“My belief was - and still is - that sorcerers do too much to protect those who would never do the same for us. If everyone could protect themselves from the curses they encounter despite not being able to wield cursed energy of their own, it would lift the weight of that responsibility from our shoulders.
“You and I aren’t all that different.”
Maki cackles, loud and humorless, and she pulls the sword away, resting the blade on her shoulder. “We’re nothing alike.”
Suguru hums.
“You became the strongest by chance. You were a nobody, born to a family of non-sorcerers, who just so happened to get the cursed manipulation technique. I have spent my entire life trying to prove my worth - to my family, to the higher ups, to the teachers and the other students. I was born into one of the most powerful families and ever since, I have been labeled the weakest. I’ll be a Grade 4 for the rest of my life, while you got called Special all because you were born lucky.”
And Maki isn’t wrong, really.
Of course Maki has had to fight to be taken seriously as a sorcerer while Suguru got his rank of Special Grade handed to him on a silver platter. And of course Suguru once believed that anyone like Maki - born to a family of powerful sorcerers and cursed with all the ability of a non-sorcerer - was a failure. A stain on the jujutsu world.
But Suguru has grown. Satoru may have overexaggerated his reformation in order to allow him to not only be pardoned but also allowed a teaching position, but Suguru is not who he was a year ago. And now that he’s actually gotten to know Maki, he knows she is anything but a non-sorcerer bloodstain on the Zen’in family.
They’ve led very different lives, but they both ended up at the same place, standing outside their parents’ house with blood on their hands and a distaste for the world swimming through their veins. They ended up drawing the same conclusions, and Maki is only a year younger than Suguru was when he made his choice.
The only difference is Suguru was alone.
If someone had been there to scrub the blood off his hands, to tell him he was going to be okay regardless of whether they agreed with him or not, to listen to what he had to say and why he’d done what he did—
(If Satoru had sat down with him and just listened.)
Maybe he wouldn’t have gone as far as he did, almost getting himself killed for the chance at taking Rika as his own.
So Suguru isn’t going to make any snap judgments about Maki’s choice. He knows that the Zen’in Clan has been around for centuries and he knows that now, Maki and Megumi are the only two left. He knows that Maki killed everyone and she’s still wearing their blood.
He knows he made a very similar choice ten years ago.
“Do you know what I did to get myself exiled from the jujutsu world?”
Maki hesitates, then shakes her head.
“I was in my third year. One of the second years had died only a few weeks prior on a mission that he never should have been sent on, and I’d been spiraling ever since Satoru and I failed in our mission to bring the star plasma vessel to Tengen. Satoru and I were both being sent on mission after mission, all of them solo ones, and I was losing sight of the reason I’d ever wanted to be a sorcerer in the first place. I’d wanted to protect people - like every bright-eyed student who ends up at Jujutsu High - but I was beginning to realize it wasn’t worth it.
“And then I ended up saving a village from a cursed spirit only for them to tell me I hadn’t solved the problem. They wanted me to kill Nanako and Mimiko. Said they were the reason for all of the deaths and kidnappings that had been the fault of the curse I had already exorcised. And I realized that even when a sorcerer had saved their lives, they still feared what they didn’t understand - to the point of locking up two girls and asking me to kill them.
“Something in me snapped,” Suguru finishes. “I killed everyone else in the village, and I took Nanako and Mimiko, and I ran.”
Maki’s unscarred eye widens slightly.
“We ended up at my parents’ vacation home, and I killed them too.”
“Oh,” Maki whispers.
“You’re right. We’re very different. But right now, I think we’re a little too similar.” He takes a step closer to her, and Maki allows it. “They told me to stay away from you because they knew I would offer you the sympathy I needed ten years ago. I don’t really care what made you snap or why you killed them all. It doesn’t matter whether or not it makes sense to me. What matters is that you aren’t left alone.”
Something about Maki shifts suddenly - she drops the mask, lets Suguru in past the lie of being unremorseful - and it hits Suguru how young she is.
(How young he was.)
(How young they all are, how young they all were.)
Eleven years ago, in Okinawa, Nanami had voiced concern that he and Haibara were too young and inexperienced for the mission given to them. But no other sorcerers had been available, so they were both stuck on an airplane with Suguru, Satoru, and Kuroi, and shipped away.
Eleven days ago, all of the students at Tokyo Jujutsu High were sent to Shibuya - a mission that should never have even been considered for them. But the higher ups and elder clan members sit on their soapboxes, refusing to interact with the world in any way that actually helps, and now every single one of those kids has faced loss and sacrifice that the adults should have protected them from.
Nanami knew that, and he’s dead because he wouldn’t let any of the kids die before him.
Satoru knew that, and he’s stuck in the prison realm because he wanted to protect everyone.
Suguru knows it, and that’s why he turned his back on the jujutsu world and Satoru. Because kids should not be risking their lives like this for anyone, and definitely not for a bunch of civilians they’ve never met who could never even hope to repay the favor.
Maki Zen’in is seventeen years old. Two weeks ago, she was taunting Megumi about his crush on Itadori and planning a date with Kugisaki.
Now, she has burn scars covering her entire body, the blood of her family on her hands, and a death sentence waiting for her if she ever tries to return to her friends.
Suguru spent nine years of his life wanting to kill all non-sorcerers, but he can’t deny that Satoru’s fantasy of killing all the higher ups may have been more effective and far more satisfying.
(Suguru has nothing left to lose. But he has to take this one step at a time.)
“Why’d you do it?”
“What?”
“Your parents,” Maki clarifies. “I know they were non-sorcerers, so you killed them because of that. But why’d you go for them first? Or… first after everyone in that village.”
Suguru blinks. Not once has anyone asked him that. Not even Satoru had dared to bring that up, preferring to stay away from any discussion of Suguru’s betrayal that wasn’t necessary.
“I’m not sure they ever really loved me after finding out I was a sorcerer,” he hears himself say. “I showed up, and all I could see in their eyes was the same fear and hatred of everyone in that village.” He doesn’t make the conscious decision to say it, but it comes out anyway, like his tongue couldn’t hold back the confession any longer. He’d never wanted to burden Satoru or Shoko with it, and his parents weren’t ever actively hostile towards him.
They were just the same as every other non-sorcerer.
Maki laughs bitterly. “Well. Mine never really loved me as soon as they figured out I wasn’t a sorcerer, so,” she shrugs. “I guess maybe we aren’t all that different.”
“Yeah,” Suguru whispers. “Look at us. Born to parents who were disappointed by something we didn’t choose. And how’d we decide to deal with that?”
“I didn’t do it for myself,” Maki confesses quietly.
“You…didn’t?”
She shakes her head. “I did it for Mai.” She looks down. “I don’t know what they said, but Mai was half-dead when I got there. Our father wanted us both gone. Threw us in the training room with all the curses and left.” She takes a shaky breath. “Mai’s cursed technique allowed her to create things from nothing, but her technique had a limit.” Maki moves her sword so she’s holding it with both hands, the hilt resting in one hand and the flat of the blade resting on the other. “She sacrificed herself for me. …And she told me to destroy everything.”
She looks up at Suguru. “Who was I to deny my sister’s final request?”
There’s something in the way Maki is looking at Suguru that makes him fear he’s included in the everything Mai asked Maki to destroy. Maki is tired. She’s worn down to the bone, she clearly hasn’t been taking care of herself, and if she were anyone else, Suguru would have no doubt he could take her in a fight.
But there’s a glint in Maki’s eye that Suguru recognizes. Suguru never had siblings, but he knows the feeling of being willing to risk everything to avenge someone you love all too well.
The fire that burned through his veins when Toji Fushiguro told him that Satoru was dead is not something Suguru will ever forget, and that is what he sees in Maki’s eyes right now. It doesn’t matter how tired she may be - she’s going to fight to make sure Mai didn’t die in vain until her final breath.
It makes sense now, too, why the sword looks polished and cleaned but Maki doesn’t. Maki chose one of the two of them to take care of, and she chose Mai’s final gift over herself.
“Your reasons are far more noble than mine,” Suguru tells her.
“I know.”
Suguru lets out a laugh. She hasn’t changed entirely, it seems, and he’s grateful for that. Beneath the scarred surface, Maki is still the same brash, blunt, stubborn, student he is grateful he got to know over the past year.
“Do you regret it?” She asks.
Suguru hesitates, mulling it over. Does he regret it?
“Yes and no.” He drags his heel across the ground and looks away from Maki. “Yes, because I don’t think you can do what we did and not live with at least a little regret. Yes, because it took me away from Satoru. But no, because I saved Nanako and Mimiko. No, because I don’t have time to regret every bad decision I ever made. No, because I was young and I needed help no one could offer me, and I dealt with that in the only way I could see at the time. I did what I needed to at the time. I can look back and find a thousand other roads I could have taken, but in the moment, I couldn’t see any of them.”
He sighs and looks back up. “We’re treated as adults from the day we step onto campus our first year, and then when we snap under all that pressure, they kill us or exile us so they don’t have to address what pushed us to the breaking point. I will take ownership of all my actions, but I won’t say that I fell into them on my own. I was pushed to a breaking point same as you, and I won’t shoulder that part of the blame.”
Maki nods slowly. “None of them cared for me. None of them except Mai. Not really. Some of them pretended to, but…”
“They only liked the person they thought you should be?” Suguru finishes. He knows the feeling.
“Yeah.” Maki sighs. She rubs at her eyes, her hand pushing her glasses up. “What happens if someone finds out you found me and didn’t kill me?”
“Death penalty.”
“I assumed.”
“I’m bound to get one eventually, though.” Suguru shrugs. “You want to know something about losing the person who’s kept your head on straight ever since you were kids?”
“You realize you’ve got nothing left to lose?”
Suguru nods.
“We’ve got that in common too, then.” Maki sheaths her sword. “But Satoru isn’t gone for good, so you’ve got to keep your head on straight on your own until he gets back. Think you can manage that, or should I prepare myself for a three-way war of the higher ups vs. Kenjaku vs. you and whoever you recruit?”
“Luckily for you, I’ve still got a little Satoru in my mind telling me what to do.” He taps a finger against his forehead. “Once you let him in, he doesn’t go away.”
Maki smiles.
“And he’s telling me that above all - above even saving him - he would want me to help our students.”
Maki’s smile drops. “Don’t waste your time on me; I’m beyond saving.”
“No one is beyond saving, Maki. I would know.”
Maki turns as if she’s going to walk away from Suguru, but she doesn’t actually start walking. “If you manage to free Satoru from the Prison Realm, you’ll end up saving far more people than if you go against direct orders and help me.”
“The others are all working on that as we speak. I can’t do much to help them without raising suspicion. But what I can do is help you.”
Maki doesn’t respond.
“Do you want to know what Satoru told me after the battle last year?”
Maki makes a noise that Suguru is going to interpret as affirmative.
“After Shoko stopped the bleeding and fixed me up as well as she could, I asked Satoru what I could possibly do to earn his trust back - if there was anything at all. He told me that the only thing he wanted was for me to be able to heal, and I asked how.”
Maki glances back at him, though she still stays silent.
“He said, ‘We’ll figure it out together, but what I do know is that the healing process begins with a shower’. He took me to his apartment and made me take a shower to scrub all the blood off, and then we went to sleep and dealt with everything else in the morning.
“Our apartment isn’t far. Come back with me and take a shower. I’ll get you new clothes and food. And you can figure out what comes next after you’ve rested.”
Slowly, Maki turns back around to face him. “If they find me there, they’ll kill you.”
“They can try.”
“I don’t really want your blood on my hands too.”
“Helping you will only be an excuse. They’re itching to kill me before I can help the others free Satoru. They’ve been itching to kill me since the day I was exiled. If the higher ups kill me for helping you, my blood is on their hands and theirs alone.”
Maki is silent for a long time, her eyes flickering between Suguru, her sword, and the ground. Finally, she relents. “Okay. I’ll go with you.”
Suguru breathes out a sigh of relief.
“Do you even have extra clothes that will fit me?”
“You can try anything of Nanako or Mimiko’s. Or even Megumi’s.”
Maki doesn’t respond.
“Or I can buy you something on the way back.”
“I can’t go in any clothing store. I look like I just committed mass murder.”
Suguru huffs. “I’m trying to be helpful.”
Maki smiles. “I know. I’m sure I can fit into one of the twins’ clothes.” They walk in silence for a bit longer before Maki adds, “I appreciate you coming to find me.”
“I couldn’t leave you on your own. Loneliness is the last thing you need right now.”
Maki nods vaguely. “How did you find me, though?”
Suguru laughs. “Megumi’s dad had a worm curse that I took as my own. When I sent out some of my curses to look for you, I sent that one out too, because I thought maybe its old connection to the Zen’in family would lead it to you.”
“I can’t believe that worked.”
“Whatever happened to you must have been similar to whatever caused Megumi’s dad to be able to dispel all of his cursed energy. …I could give you his worm, if you wanted?”
Maki wrinkles her nose. “Gross. No thanks. I don’t want anything to do with that guy.”
“Good call. He was the worst”
“Why’d you even take the worm if you hate him?”
“Spite.”
Maki laughs, and this time, it sounds genuine. It sounds like the laugh of the girl Suguru knew before Shibuya. “That’s fair.” She nudges him with her elbow. “Did the higher ups really explicitly tell you not to look for me?”
“Yep. I got an official summons to talk to them and everything.”
“And then you immediately turned around and ignored them.”
“I had to do something,” Suguru argues. “Besides, the apartment gets lonely without Satoru and the girls around.”
Maki stops walking suddenly, and Suguru follows suit. Before he can ask what’s wrong, though, Maki is throwing her arms around him, pulling him into a hug.
“The twins are going to be okay, and we’re going to get Gojo back. I’ll do whatever I can to help.”
Suguru is slow to respond by wrapping his arm around her back. The last thing he had expected was for Maki to hug him. When it comes to Maki and touch, she tends to prefer punching and kicking.
“Thank you,” Suguru whispers. “And I’ll do whatever I can to help you.”
“You know,” Maki says as she breaks the hug and starts walking again. “You’re not as bad as I thought. And it’s cool that you don’t hate me anymore.”
Suguru nods. “You know nothing is ever going to be the same after this, right?”
“After Shibuya, or after,” Maki gestures vaguely at her sword, “after mass murder? But… yeah. I know.” She takes a deep breath and rolls her shoulders. “Even when we get Satoru out of that box, the damage has been done. He can’t restore everything to how it was before Shibuya. And even if I regret what I’ve done, nothing I can do will bring them back. But…I think it’s time that the jujutsu world has to face change.” She glances sideways at Suguru. “Don’t you?”
“Yeah,” Suguru agrees. “It’s needed change for a while now.”
“And this time, we’re going to force them to accept it,” Maki says decisively. “No more ignoring us. They’ve lost the loyalty of you and Yuuta, even if they don’t know it yet. And once we free Satoru, they’ll have no choice but to listen to us. Nothing is ever going to be the same, but…I’m hoping the change will be a good thing.”
“Me too.”
Good things can be born out of the darkest moments. Suguru remembers that every time he looks at Nanako and Mimiko. And he is going to make sure whatever change is born out of Shibuya is a change that helps the people he cares about.