Chapter Text
When Gojo stepped into the warehouse that night, his mind was admittedly elsewhere, fixated on a memory from earlier that week. The mission was an unusual one, just curious enough to catch his attention to take it on himself when the higher-ups sent it to the school, but he had a bad habit of thinking about multiple things at once. He snatched it up before it could be assigned to one of the students, using it as an excuse to go off on his own to be left with his thoughts.
It was the look of surprise, he decided. The flush of her cheeks, the slight part of her pink lips, even the widening of her eyes. There had been no anger in them for once, no frown on her face, nothing to suggest contempt. She hadn’t smacked him away when he touched her without Infinity separating them, no barrier between them when he brushed her hair out of her face and grazed her cheek to show off her scar more. Smooth skin to rough, then back to smooth. She took care of herself, perhaps more self-conscious due to the irreparable wound.
She hadn’t disliked his touch.
He didn’t allow himself such luxuries very often, keeping Infinity up for the most part even when around allies. It was only when it came to Utahime that he truly succumbed to an even worse habit, dropping it for only a moment to get closer to her. He didn’t do it every time he saw her. Sometimes, he went months without dropping it around her, as if starving himself of her, only to let it lapse on a random Tuesday in the middle of a meeting. It caught her off guard each time – the shock flashing across her face before she glared at him with a look of reprimand.
Not reproach though. It was almost like she was scolding him, warning him to put Infinity back up when around other people. He never let it happen for long when they were with others – a blink and you’ll miss it moment that sometimes slipped even over her head – but when it was just the two of them, he allowed it to linger just a bit longer, slightly past indecent for him, until she gave him that look and the barrier was put back in place.
Can’t help myself, his sheepish smile would seem to say – and he couldn’t, not with her.
He had thought he was bad in his youth, his raging hormones capitulating poorly with his boyish crush on his senpai, but after going through a dark period in his third year and post-graduation where he didn’t allow anyone to come even close to touching him, it spiraled dangerously into the current position he was in now.
Logically, Gojo knew his hyper-fixation on Utahime was unhealthy and perhaps even delusional. It wasn’t that he’d put her on a pedestal so much as placed a spotlight on her. She wasn’t the end-all-be-all of women. There was nothing particularly amazing about her. There was just…Utahime. She was one of the very few consistencies in his life, never one to let him down. Even when he infuriated her, she never refused him. She yelled, bickered, snapped, and scowled – and yet she was the warmest, softest person he’d ever met.
She also put up a wall between herself and the rest of the world, so whenever he was able to break through it, if only for a moment, he did so enthusiastically. It was almost illicit, a secret between the two of them that neither one could quite understand. She never questioned if he touched others as he did her when no one was looking, but he’d be honest if she asked.
He didn’t. He only wanted her.
But he couldn’t have her, not truly, so he was left with only these tiny pleasures to reflect on when he was by himself. It wasn’t nearly enough to satisfy him, but it could sate him, hopefully long enough for him to finally accept the reality of their situation.
As he meandered through the warehouse in search of the curse in question for the mission, Gojo was mainly focused on Utahime, thinking about the soft feeling of her hair as he’d run his fingers through it. A glide, like a waterfall. He’d wanted to tug on her bow, loosen it so the rest of her hair would fall down, but that would’ve been too far.
The residue of the curse’s energy pulsed in the back of his mind, never leaving him entirely, locked somewhere up in the rafters. Gojo kept a lid on his own, not allowing it to slip from him in powerful waves so the curse wouldn’t attempt to flee. Curses tended to do that once they realized the scope of his cursed energy, his presence spelling out their doom. It was better to lull them into a state of wariness, leaving them in a frozen state about whether they wanted to flee or attack.
He kind of liked it when they tried to run. It at least made things a little more interesting.
This curse was a strange one, but it shouldn’t be much of a problem for him. There was the slightly confusing matter of its nature, which was why it had caught his eyes in the first place. Four deaths had been attributed to it so far, but they had all been inconsistent, each cause of death different, the manners of death being labeled as accidental, unknown, or self-caused. The curse might not have noticed it at all if not for a well-known Window being its last victim. As a rule, all known sorcerers’ deaths were investigated by Shoko, so when she noted the residual energy of a curse, it was flagged.
Still, it was odd. The Window had died by, well, gorging themselves to death. It wasn’t natural and, according to Shoko, more unpleasant than some gory deaths. Any normal person would simply stop eating when they were full, but the Window didn’t, consuming and eating until… Gojo wrinkled his nose in disgust just thinking about it. The first victim, from what Shoko could determine, had literally worked themselves to death. Nanami hadn’t appreciated the jest Gojo had made about him when they found that out. A second victim had died from alcohol poisoning. The fourth had overdosed from drugs.
Only the third victim was murdered, strangled to death. Her killer was currently locked up, the poor sap confused and devastated about what he’d done. He had turned himself in not even thirty minutes after the victim’s death, babbling and crying on the phone. The emergency call had been difficult to listen to even for Gojo, the man’s emotional state a total wreck. He remembered every awful thing he’d done – strangling one of his closest friends to death and much more – but he didn’t know why .
“I just wanted her so much,” the man had sobbed, barely understandable. “I wanted her so much that I couldn’t stand the idea of anyone else having her.”
Gojo honestly pitied the man. Shoko had determined he was likely the true victim of the curse’s attack, and the woman he’d murdered was collateral damage.
Pausing at the foot of metal stairs that led to a balcony, Gojo clicked his tongue. His sharp gaze flickered upward, his Six Eyes cutting through the darkness to pinpoint the curse. It was tangled in the rafters, peering down at him, its cursed energy flickering in sporadic flashes. A grade one, what with having a cursed technique of its own. He just couldn’t pinpoint what it was. Not even Shoko had a clue after her tests on the bodies, declaring she’d need to see the curse itself to figure out the psychological effect it had on its victims.
Not that it mattered. No matter what the curse’s technique was, it wouldn’t strike him, not with Infinity up. The curse could do its worse, and it would do absolutely nothing. It was almost boring at this point, but Gojo didn’t complain, whistling as he traipsed up the stairs. He was half in mind to call out to toy with the curse – play a little joke on it – when suddenly, a strangely familiar feeling swept over him and he froze midway.
That energy… It shouldn’t be here. It was impossible. It couldn’t– She couldn’t–
But it was here. Gojo would’ve recognized that cursed energy from a mile away, its signature residue one he dreamed about in the early hours of the morning when he couldn’t sleep.
It was Utahime .
“What–?” Gojo spun around, struggling to latch onto it. That was the beauty of Utahime’s cursed energy though: while it resided deep within her chest and throat, it also swirled around in the air like notes on the wind, drifting around her. He could enjoy the feel of it surrounding him, take in its sensation, soak it in. The gentle breath of it coasted over him like a breeze, lulling him into a dreamy state. He knew to be wary, but the call was there all the same, familiar and warm.
Come to me.
Gojo gazed up at the balcony. “Utahime?”
Come to me, Gojo. I need you.
He blinked, taking one step, then another. She shouldn’t be here. As a semi-first grade sorcerer, she was technically capable of dealing with a grade one curse – truth be told, the reason she hadn’t been promoted to first grade had nothing to do with her actual abilities or energy, no matter how much he teased her about being weak – but the mission had been sent to the Tokyo facilities, not Kyoto. This wasn’t her place. Besides, although she had completed plenty of missions on her own, he knew for a fact that she wasn’t sent on them anymore.
She shouldn’t be here. What was she doing here?
I need you now.
Gojo’s heart leaped into his throat. He followed the trail of Utahime’s cursed energy up to the platform, watching as the tail whisps of it flickered away from him. He could hear her calling out to him, dragging him forward. Or was it in his mind? He blinked, not entirely sure, but then there it was again, a bright ball of her cursed energy. It had to be her. Somehow, she’d gotten dragged into this mess, and he had to save her. She needed him. She–
He was struck from behind before he could even register that he’d dropped Infinity, if only for a moment. It had been out of instinct more than anything else, the urge to feel her cursed energy for himself too great to ignore.
But it was a mistake. One second Gojo was staring at the blinding light of her cursed energy at the end of the platform, and the next, he was coming back to consciousness on the metal bridge that hung over the empty space of the warehouse.
He blinked underneath the blindfold, grimacing when a flash of pain coursed through his body, and pushed himself up onto his knees. Running his fingers through his hair, Gojo searched the warehouse, but there was nothing to be seen. No trail of Utahime’s cursed energy, not even the curse itself. He was utterly and completely alone, bathed in the darkness of the night. His head ached from where he’d either been hit or fallen, unaccustomed to actually being struck, but there were no other injuries that he could sense. There was nothing.
Nothing except anger – and a growing need in the back of his mind.
The curse had tricked him – played him an illusion of Utahime’s cursed energy and even her voice to lull him into a false sense of security. He didn’t know how it managed to do that, but that didn’t matter, not when it pissed him off. It had somehow known exactly what he wanted and used that desire against him. He’d been so focused on Utahime, thinking about how much he wanted her, that he’d allowed himself to fall victim to it, letting the curse catch him off guard.
His rage should’ve eclipsed everything else, but his mind kept stubbornly drifting back to Utahime. Now that he was thinking about it, the curse’s fake-out was obvious. It didn’t hold a candle to the beauty of her true cursed energy, but in his own desire to feel her cursed technique for himself, he’d slipped. He wanted to feel the real thing – needed to feel it, needed to hear her, touch her, ground himself to reality.
Shaking his head at himself, Gojo pulled himself back to his feet, trying to orientate himself again, but that need couldn’t be pushed away, not like before. Every time he tried to use Six Eyes to search for the curse’s trail, his mind would shift back to Utahime – her little scowl whenever he teased her, the shock in her eyes when he managed to catch her off guard, the rare occasions when he spotted her smiling and laughing around him. She was almost nice when she was drunk, even allowing him to get close to her.
He wanted that now. The feel of her soft hands clinging to him so she wouldn’t fall, the pout on her lips when she was cut off, the pleading in her eyes when she tried to trick someone into buying her another drink. He loved it when she was like that – so vulnerable that he could do anything and she wouldn’t be able to tell him no.
She almost always told him no – it was one of the reasons why he never tried anything more – so quick to deny him what he wanted. It pissed him off. Who was she to tell him no? He was Gojo fucking Satoru, the head of the Gojo clan, the greatest sorcerer of their time, and she wouldn’t even deign to respect him, much less give in to him. Maybe the curse had used her to show him the truth – that he could have what he wanted if he just took the step, that she was toying with him but in the end, it didn’t matter.
He wanted Utahime. So why the fuck didn’t he just take her? It wasn’t like she could do anything about it.
The curse could be dealt with later, he decided. It could’ve hurt him or even killed him when he’d been knocked unconscious, but it had run away instead, scattering into the night to preserve its skin. Gojo rolled out a kink in his neck and started back down the stairs. He had something else to hunt down tonight first, a finale that had been a long time coming.