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“Konbu!”
“Toge-senpai! Hey!” Yuuji shouts, walking down the darkened path towards his former upperclassman. It was evening, the moon rising on the horizon, as he picked up pace to a steady jog, “It’s been a while, how are you?”
“Shake shake,” he agrees, nodding along.
“Glad to hear you’re doing well. Speakin’ of well, how Yuta-senpai?”
“Tsuna mayo,” he says, raising his hand in a so-so motion.
“Still searching then…”
It had been two years since Sukuna had been killed, and Gojo had yet to be released from the Prison Realm, which was driving Yuta up the walls. He wasn’t the only one either; Yuuji and Megumi had had moments where they would drop anything they were doing if there was even a hint of an extrication method unveiled.
The search itself was slow going; they were all adult sorcerers at this point, fully employed under the NSA, and still extremely busy. It only got worse after the outbreak, they could no longer travel as freely across borders for their search, and some of them even got trapped in other countries.
Todo was still haggling with the American travel officers, trapped in Appalachia after looking for help from the shamans native to the area, with little to no success. Yuta, however, was storming through the Chinese countryside after scouring all of Tibet. They could only afford to have two sorcerers out of Japan at a time, and now that many places were going into lockdown they couldn't even afford that much.
This new plague was just the tip of the iceberg. Since Shibuya, and especially after Shinjuku, sorcery as a whole had been exposed to the masses in a way that hadn’t been seen in centuries. Just the knowledge that curses existed formed even more negativity in the public causing the birth of even more curses, all over the world. Then, just as everything was beginning to settle, the outbreak happened, forcing everyone into hiding and bringing even more resentment and fear with it.
Just the paperwork to allow Sorcerers to work free of normal regulations was a clusterfuck, but it was better than getting repeatedly arrested for breaking quarantine. Turns out there are upsides to being an important civil servant, as they eventually got a pass just like sanitation workers and fire services.
Regardless, they had a job to do.
“You got the dossier?” Yuuji asks his mission partner.
Toge nods, pulling out a set of folded documents from his inner coat, “Tsuna tsuna,” he says, shaking his gesturing for Yuuji to take them.
Peeling the pages apart, Yuuji once again became grateful to his brothers and only his brothers, for granting him curse-like night vision. He disregarded the fact that he’s had good night vision for his whole life because he didn’t want to thank Stitches for anything.
He reads over the documents with a practiced eye.
“A mid-tier special grade, no eye witnesses, but a fair bit of energy…” he hums in thought.
God he loves the updated grading system, it was so very needed after 2018.
No innate domain recorded, but definitely a possibility…
Yuuji felt the skin of his brow stretch against the scarring on his face. He scratched his chin, pulling at the healed fleshy gouge in his cheek. He’d foregone the medical patch this time in favour of his own comfort, not wanting to be itching from the adhesive the whole mission.
He sighs, looking towards the building they’d be combing through tonight.
“Aright,” he glances at Toge again, waiting for his nod, before stepping towards the haunting.
The layout of this place is samey and boring , is what Toge thinks as he and Yuuji dive further into the strange domain they’d found.
The school’s music room, which he and Yuuji had both clocked for smelling weirdly strongly of roses and mulch, had been turned into the curses’ innate domain in the two days since the report had been made. Walking through the place was interesting, as it was formed into an elaborate flower garden of sorts. Neither of them spoke as they pushed their way through the thorny vines.
Each room looked exactly the same: a stone courtyard with an ornate glass roof, rose beds on all four walls, and a fountain in the center. All the stonework was chipped and dirty, and everything was covered in a layer of artificial darkness that made his hackles raise. The doors set into each of the four walls were heavy stone and grown over by rose vines. Yuuji had been using [Severence] to cut through the doorways and vines while Toge kept watch in case of an ambush.
Every now and then, they’d hear a small voice.
“You’re lying,” it would insist, despite neither of them having spoken a single word since entering the school proper, “You’re lying!”
As Yuuji cuts through another rock slab, Toge stands behind him, keeping a close eye on their surroundings. When he hears him hiss sharply. Instead of turning towards his underclassman, he asks, “Takana?”
“We’ve found the curse.” he whispers back.
Toge turns around.
The room looks identical to every other chamber they’d passed through, but this one is lacking a fountain. Instead, flush against the back wall is a stone dias, upon which sits the curse. It takes the form of a small child, skin made of stone, with animated vines crawling over it. One eye is deformed, stretching out of its face, deforming its skull into something else, like a child playing with clay. Behind it, latching onto the walls, is a large mass of vines and flowers, with each flowerhead fading from red petals on the outside to pink fleshy mouths at the center.
All three stand, unmoving.
“You lied.” it says.
Toge’s eyes narrow.
What did we lie about…?
“You told them you didn’t know.”
“It’s not talking to us.” Yuuji utters under his breath.
“Shake… nori?”
“Dunno…”
Is it possible…
“Unagi saba …?” Toge says, trying to convey this awful, horrible possibility.
Yuuji tenses, “Curse person… a vengeful spirit.”
Someone, at some point in time, lied about something involving this young boy, and he was harboring that hatred over it, then when he died he became a special grade curse because of it.
“You said you didn’t know,” the curse starts talking again, and with those words Toge notes how intense and bitter the energy around them becomes.
Without warning, it strikes.
A series of seed pods come flying towards them, so suddenly that Toge is barely saved by Yuuji pushing him over less than a foot.
Yuuji is hit in his good arm, and the curse starts yelling, howling in anger and pain.
“Tell me, tell them, tell EVERYONE what. YOU. KNOW!”
The vines burst from the walls, separating Yuuji from Toge with a writhing mass of green, but neither put anything to mind. They split off to both sides. Toge doesn’t worry, he knows how strong Yuuji is.
Freeing his collar, he dodges another onslaught of vines by mere inches, hearing them slam into the ground next to him, he shouts at them, “WILT,” and keeps running the other direction even as the green turns to brown, then black.
Pulling his tanto from his back holster with his prosthetic arm, he cuts through two more vines that shoot forwards to tie him down, and launches back towards the curse’s main body. The stone statue of the little boy had barely moved from before, and still doesn’t move when Toge darts forward.
He hears the shredding of greenery from behind him, and knows Yuuji just cut a host of vines to ribbons.
The young curse watches angrily, hatred burning fiercely in his deformed eye, as the rose mouths from behind him rush up from behind it to meet Toge head on.
As it tries to bite down he hears a clap from behind him, [Convergence].
“HALT!” He commands the rose mouths, and watches as it stalls, before being shot through with a bloody arrow. Toge takes aim at the stone curse, taking a swing at it with his tanto blade, only to watch with wide eyes as it bounces off it like it was true stone.
“[Nova!]” Yuuji intones from behind him, and the rose-mouth bursts into a spray of half-animal flesh and half-planty flesh.
Toge knows he’s strong, but he’s not like Yuuji or Maki, he can’t break stone with his hands, and he doesn’t have a bludgeoning weapon on him. He, unfortunately, can’t just command a special-grade to straight up die; that might actually kill him for even a first-grade spirit, and definitely tear his throat apart for a second-grade.
“Tsuna mayo!” he shouts into the room.
“Me?” Yuuji asks Toge as he leaps back, out of range of the two other rose mouths, snapping their uncomfortably slobbery jowls onto the space he just occupied.
“Shake,” he confirms.
“‘kay!”
“Tell them, tell them everything! Stop lying!!” the curse shouts, movements jerky and unnatural.
They both ignore it. Toge swallows, wetting his throat for something a bit more arduous.
“Don’t move!” he orders, feeling the sting travelling up his throat. The vines and rose-mouths take the directive, but still attempt the wriggle out of it. Toge doubles down on the edict, forcing them into still, motionless compliance.
He didn’t target the main body, he didn’t need to.
Yuuji was already there, lines spreading across the curse’s skin, before it shattered into a million pieces.
The rose-mouths scream and writhe, before hitting the floor of the music room with a solid thunk.
The domain that once existed there dissolves around them, revealing the wooden floors of the school building again.
Toge tries to breathe only to come up with a mouthful of blood. He spits it out onto the floor, not even bothering to be worried over it.
“You good?” Yuuji asks.
“Shake. Takana?”
“Got a thing stuck in my arm, but it’ll heal, just gotta get it removed first.”
Toge nods, giving him a thumbs up, “mentaiko!”
“Hell yeah, go us!” God, Toge loves his friends.
As they exit the building, they make a bit of small talk.
“‘Sword’s new, the old one broke?”
“Okaka.” he says.
“Oh?”
“Miwa,” he explains, moving his hands first like he’s wielding a sword, then like he’s breaking a stick.
“Miwa,” sword gesture, “okaka.” then the sign for ‘give’ and pointing at himself.
“Eh? Miwa gave you her old sword? The one that broke in Shibuya?”
“Shake shake! Furikake!”
“I’d be surprised too, thought maybe she’d give it to Maki, maybe?”
“Sujikoooo,” he says, leaning in on the ‘o’ while shrugging.
He coughed a bit, pulling out his throat medicine.
“Yuuji,” he says between sips, “ika ika?”
“Hm? Around 3 am, I think. Why, what's up?”
“Saba nori.” Toge says as he pulls out his phone, texting the night-driver that dropped him off.
Inumaki: kumari, come pick us up pls? 乀(𓁹 𓁹乀) 3:32 read
Kumari: stop using weird kaomojis 3:33
Inumaki: thanks! ♡⸜(˃ ᵕ ˂｡ )⸝ 3:33 read
Kumari: shut up 3:34
Yuuji knew he wasn’t supposed to remove the seed pod by himself, but Ieiri-sensei was asleep and he really didn’t want to wake her up. She already got basically no sleep, and Yuuji didn’t want to contribute to that. It was because of this that he just pulled the thing out with his hands and let his reverse curse technique handle the actual injury.
If he were anyone else, he might’ve worried, but he wasn’t. Itadori Yuuji had never been seriously sick, he was immune to poisons, toxins, and bacterial infections. The worst he suffered through was a simple flu when he was maybe five years old. So he simply removed the seed pod and crushed it in his hand.
Life as an associate for Tokyo Tech was eerily similar to student life. The only difference was that the higher-ups couldn't ruin anything anymore, and Gojo-sensei wasn’t there. Most of the sorcerers that participated in Shibuya or Shinjuku decided to stay in residence at either Tokyo Tech or Kyoto tech, both as personal protection and for ease of medical treatment.
Sure there was likely a degree of trauma involved, and being able to have easy access to each other was very relieving, but that was most definitely a coincidence.
Yuuji was still the one in charge of the associate’s kitchen, he simply had more people to feed now. It wasn’t something he found stressful, and instead it was rather calming for him. He got to spend a lot of the time he wasn’t fighting curses, cooking and caring for his family.
He even started cooking for the current students.
He tasted the moment Megumi and Nobara walked in, their distinct flavours- iced tea and coca cola -mixing into an interesting flavour on his tongue.
“Mornin’,” Nobara yawned, while Megumi just vaguely gestured at him.
Nobara was wearing nothing but a pair of Megumi’s shorts and an oversized shirt that definitely belonged to Yuuji, and Megumi had a set of track pants that were too small for him and a large sweater that Yuuji thought he lost weeks ago.
He watched with such deep fondness as they sat down, Megumi slumping and putting his head in his arms like a sleepy dog. He sets down a mug of iced coffee in front of Nobara, only for Megumi to steal it away from her near instantly. I love them so much.
Megumi chokes, spitting the coffee out onto the table. Nobara whirls around to face him, blinking in confusion.
“Huh? What's wrong?”
“Us? Who just says something like that!”
“I didn’t… I didn't say anything?”
Megumi finally catches his breath, “uh, ‘I love you so much?’”
Yuuji blinks. I always dreamed of hearing them say that.
“Yuuji!?” Nobara shouts, face turning bright red.
“What!?”
Megumi grabs his collar and pulls him down so they’re face to face, putting one hand on his forehead.
“He doesn’t have a fever so-” His eyes are always so pretty.
Those pretty eyes go wide and his ears turn red.
“Oh my god!” Nobara groans. “Oh my god…!”
He pulls himself away from Megumi, ignoring the impulse to kiss his cheeks.
“Itadori!” Megumi howls, red spreading from his ears to his face.
“What’s wrong with you guys?” he asks, looking between them both.
“What’s wrong with you!” Nobara yells at him, pointing at his face, “Quit saying nonsense idiot!”
“I haven’t said anything!” even though you’re wearing my clothes , he pouts internally.
Megumi makes a sound like a tea kettle, and Nobara shoves her face into her hands.
“What the hell is happening?” Ino asks from the doorway, followed by a rather sleepy Toge, still hugging his pillow.
“Tsuna tsuna…? Takana?”
“Yuuji keeps saying weird shit!”
“I am not!” Yuuji says, trying to defend himself, “You guys are freaking out over nothing!”
“Is this some kind of prank?” Yuuji turns towards Toge, knowing he’s the exact kind of person to try something like this. Huh, I never got to see his curse seals till now.
“Eugh, furika-ke…?” Toge says, confusion etched into his expression.
“Why’s that relevant?” Ino asks.
“Huh?”
“Why are Inumaki’s curse seals relevant…?” Ino reiterates.
“‘Inumaki’s curse…’ ” Yuuji pauses.
He turns to look Ino in the eye, “are you reading my mind!”
I didn’t know he could do that!
Megumi actually fucking giggles behind him, and he turns around so fast he might’ve gotten whiplash if his body weren’t so ridiculously sturdy.
He sees Nobara with one hand across her face, barely holding back laughter.
They’re so fucking cute.
At once they both go red.
Wait.
“Is everyone reading my mind!?” Yuuji exclaims, hands shooting into the air.
Ino bursts out laughing.
“Ah. Sujikooo.”
“What, senpai what's happening?”
“Ika okaka, unagi saba.” he says, shoving his pillow under his arm to then point to where his arm would’ve been pre-amputation. “Yuuji, unagi unagi.”
Why/when/how, negative, curse person, arm, curse-curse. Curse-person like last night, night as in negative, a vengeful spirit… so when last night, the vengeful spirit, I arm curse-curse.
“The seed pod!” he says, “you think I got cursed by the seed pod?” he asks, turning to face Toge, only to be met with an expression he can't quite decipher.
“I think,” Ino hedges, “you might just be saying all your thoughts out loud.”
A memory echoes in his thoughts.
“Tell them everything!”
Toge nods. “Shake.”
“Well if that's it. I’m going back to bed.” Ino says, wandering back towards his dorm room.
“Konbu.” Toge says, turning to do the same.
Nobara, Megumi, and Yuuji are left alone in the kitchen.
“Hey,” Megumi says, hesitant.
Yuuji hums, still embarrassed and trying not to think of anything at all. He can tell by Nobara sighing to his side that he’s failing rather spectacularly.
“Did you mean all that?” She asks.
“All that…?”
“What you said. Thought.” Megumi says, picking up for her, ignoring her quiet uttering “same difference at this point.”
“I mean…” Well. Not like I want to take anything back.
He smiles at them both. “I’m not very good at lying to myself, so.”
Megumi’s shoulders hunch, but it's more to cover his reddening ears than anything else.
“Well, I'm happy for you two.” Nobara says.
Pursing his lips, he can’t really hide his thoughts no matter how hard he tries.
“I meant both of you. I love both of you.”
“That-” Nobara’s eyes are wide, but she’s interrupted by Megumi.
“Me too,” he forces out, face flushed all the way down his neck, "I love you both, too. I couldn’t imagine living without you, or never meeting you guys.”
Nobara is silent for only a moment. “I’d rather die than live without you two. So don’t go dying on me, got it?”
As she says this, her eyes become watery.
Yuuji takes his hands, holding one out to Megumi and the other to Nobara.
“Yeah. I don’t know where I'd be without you.”
“Does this mean you’re dating now,” Panda says from the doorway.
Megumi throws the forgotten glass of iced coffee at him.