Chapter Text
BANG-!
Kenjaku’s gaze darted from his phone screen when the basement door slammed into the wall. The catwalk stairs rattled a discombobulated beat to accompany the lively humming. Mahito descended at a jarringly upbeat and unburdened pace when considering the still human body slung across his shoulder. The weight of it may as well not have been there; he sprang freely and merrily to the bottom of the stairs, leaping the last three and landing with a performative twirl. There was such an airiness to his movements, a levitative quality almost, complete fluid control over the slightest muscle.
Studiously, Kenjaku had spent hours trying to crack it. Attempting to understand how Mahito moved on solid ground like a dancer suspended in water. It was the perfect testament to his ruthless actions never weighing on him. It was something Kenjaku could appreciate.
“Hello, Mister Geto!” Waving enthusiastically, Mahito beamed, jackal’s smile stretching far beyond the natural limits of a human face. If he looked at anyone else that way, they wouldn’t be able to resist the urge to escape him. It didn’t need as much as a smile from him, his mere presence alone set off an evolutionary flight response but it’d take a lot more than his unsettling expressions to get a reaction out of Kenjaku. If they were talking about the true horrors of the sorcery world, Mahito didn’t scratch the surface.
“Were there any troubles?” Straightening, Kenjaku switched his phone off and slipped the device into his pocket. Just seconds ago, the screen would’ve shown a certain pink-haired boy’s Instagram page documenting the hijinks of him and his friends, something the ancient curse user was most interested in.
“With something this easy?” Playfully rolling his bi-coloured eyes, Mahito blew his cheeks out. “Not a chance!”
“You made sure not to hurt him?” Kenjaku perked a brow. Of course, he’d laid the instructions of this task down in cement but Mahito’s juvenile eagerness often got in the way of him heeding them to the fullest extent. This wasn’t like the usual times when he could allow the young curse a bit of leeway to mess around, however, and he’d peel the stitches out of him if any harm had come to the subject of his interest.
“Tsk. I barely touched him, Mister Geto! You worry too much.” Shaking his head, fluffy tri-tied hair swaying to the motion, Mahito never lost his look of eternalised mirth even as he bent to lower his unfelt burden onto the rough concrete floor. Immediately when Yuji fell from his arms, it became clear that he’d lied straight to Kenjaku’s face. A deep gash cut directly across Yuji’s brow from the line of his pink hair, the aftermath of a careless blow aimed to messily incapacitate the young boy with as little effort as possible. With electrical cables, his wrists were wrapped so tightly that they purpled and the tips of his fingers turned milky pale. Unconsciousness couldn’t hide the tension of pain orbiting his soft face and the sight made Kenjaku work his jaw in controlled, aggrieved circles. Sukuna’s vessel receiving more damage than was necessary or unavoidable was a stake in the plan that he couldn’t afford.
What was the point of checking in on him if Kenjaku’s lackeys were going to brutalise him? This was a discreet operation, the sorcerers were not supposed to suspect anything out of the ordinary to be occurring.
“Oh! Hehe, sorry.” Giggling mischieviously, Mahito covered his mouth and attempted to appear obnoxiously adorable when Kenjaku noticed what he’d done. “I guess I may have knocked him on the head once but - ow! ”
Kenjaku ripped a stitch out of the curse’s patchwork cheek, popping the delicate seam from flesh with a taut snap and a spurt of scarlet. Clutching the side of his face, Mahito sought to reflexively stumble away, then no doubt strike back like the hot-headed little brat that he was, but Kenjaku seized a fistful of his hair before he could. Grip fastened to the base of it, he gave it a firm, establishing jerk that had Mahito’s armour-piercing leer interlock with the unwavering look of warning in Kenjaku’s dark eyes. The ancient curse user couldn’t be intimidated by a lowly disease such as Mahito, no matter how twisted a Lovecraftian amalgamation he might meld into, and he held the shapeshifter’s head rigidly in place at the end of his arm with the stern confidence of someone who knew they could not be bested. They were both well aware that he possessed items capable of disabling the highest-grade cursed spirits, a fact which he would not allow to slip Mahito’s memory.
A bead of blood rolled from the place of the torn stitch.
Guided by a twist of his scruffy hair, Mahito knelt without so much as a protesting whine, taking his place as a curse at the feet of man, cold fingers holding onto Kenjaku’s wrist as he waited for his judgement. The cheerfulness was gone from his large, downturned eyes, taken with the notion that he’d overstepped set boundaries, and unlike most times that Kenjaku was willing to overlook, consequences abound. Yuji was not on the table as almost any other human was, Mahito could have his generous pick at the litter if he desperately needed to get his claws into someone, so Kenjaku took this as what it was: a direct go at his authority. A beg for attention. A deliberate disobedience. Bratty children testing the limits was grounds for a disaster if not immediately and gravely corrected.
Despite his annoyance, Kenjaku smiled through forced patience, never one to let a learning experience pass them by. Mahito was very young, immature and curious, it was natural for him to pull on the reins a bit, but it was equally natural for Kenjaku to recognise his responsibility to teach him not to. In what kind of a world did curses rule over humans?
“When I explicitly tell you not to do something, I’d like you to listen, Mahito.” Calm though he sounded, Kenjaku tightened his hold, gaining the tug of a wince from Mahito, who’d been determined to remain steeled. “Because if you don’t, I can’t trust you, and if I can’t trust you, what use do I have for you? Useless curses aren’t good for anything but a prompt exorcism.”
The line of needlework across Mahito’s throat tightened as he swallowed, not exactly afraid but unwilling to risk the implicit threat. Certainly, he did not grasp the concept of death when it regarded him, but he knew enough to be wary of what Kenjaku might be pushed to do. Lowering his gaze, an indubitable sign of compliance, Mahito gave a small, stiff nod.
“... I can fix it, Mister Geto. My idle transfiguration-”
“I’ll take care of it.” Kenjaku cut him off. “I only need you to confirm that you understand.”
The curse’s chapped lower lip tensed into what was almost a pout but since he’d been reminded to know better, he didn’t lunge into the full expression, offering a quiet, unenthused,
“I understand.” Like a small child forced to apologise out of a place of insincerity yet Kenjaku didn’t get caught on that detail and accepted it as the best that Mahito could do in terms of correcting himself. Too much couldn’t be asked of these creatures, after all, not to a human standard. They weren’t human, all they needed to understand was how to obey.
“Thank you.” Nodding without a further hard feeling, Kenjaku let him rise, even smoothening down the hair that he’d disgruntled during their brief disciplinary struggle. Mahito wiped the thin ribbon of blood off his cheek, already transfiguring the wound out of existence as quickly as he was ready to move on from this situation, appearing bored out of nowhere. Bored or maniacally gleeful, the only reliable states of his emotion.
“I don’t see what’s so special about that Yuji anyway.” Dismissive mismatched eyes strayed off to the side, looking for something more interesting than the current moment to occupy himself with. Kenjaku shook his head, holding no hope that Mahito could begin to grasp the complexities of Yuji’s role in the world but one factor that should be extremely easy to appreciate was that Kenjaku did not spend nine months suffering through pregnancy, then have his body near halved birthing the perfect vessel for Sukuna, just to have said vessel succumb to a concussion at the hands of a careless curse. Mahito didn’t know all that, of course, but should know to trust that the curse user’s commands should be heeded above all.
“You don’t need to worry about it.” Straightening the wrinkles caused by the encounter out of his ceremonial robes, Kenjaku returned to his incapacitated son, crouching to carefully turn his head and examine the extent of the damage. It’d leave a scar but nothing tremendous, still he didn’t like to see it. Running his thumb tenderly along the line of Yuji’s slack jaw, Kenjaku tried not to notice Jin’s features shining out of the boy, though he looked less and less like a boy as the weeks passed. The sorcerer world had aged him, still he somehow retained a bright sparkle in his eye and a wide smile framed by dimples, as shown in the Instagram pictures with his friends.
The sharp clattering of a tin can that the curse kicked across the room drew him off the idea.
Quietly, Kenjaku sighed.
“Why don’t you go and play, Mahito? You seem bored. Entertain yourself.” Truthfully, he wanted rid of the damned shapeshifter already, feeling that he was intruding on the rare moment that Kenjaku got alone with Yuji. With the ever-present vigilance of the Six Eyes and Tengen’s imposing barriers, it was nigh impossible to check in on him most times, especially more in-depth than a passing glance in a public place.
“But don’t go far. I'll call you when I need you.” The curse user went on to assure, hearing Mahito give a half hum and shrug of agreement. Whether he wanted to go or not wasn’t said but he drifted away at a casual, unhurried stride, fingers laced at the back of his head. There was that airy movement again. Kenjaku waited until he heard the door close.
Mahito may not remember but this place was where he was born. The lowest level of a World War II hospital with a speciality in reconstructive surgery, later converted into a prison shut down by the government due to malpractice. The quantity of cursed energy here was astonishing, bitter and vitriolic hatred settling as heavily as smoke onto the basement floor. The choice of this decrepit hideout was very deliberate, as Mahito could convert the residue energy of his birth into untold magnitudes of power, something that’d come in handy if the sorcerers noticed something was amiss and somehow managed to track them down. Kenjaku was very interested in not being discovered until he was ready and made sure to plan for every contingency. It was extremely unlikely that Gojo realised a thing.
Thoughtfully nibbling on the end of his thumb, his free hand ghosted over Yuji’s face, looking for traces of the plump little baby that he remembered having held in his arms before his studies took him away. Sukuna should be endlessly thankful for the strides that Kenjaku had taken to produce a perfect vessel, so thankful that his allegiance was palatably near, the curse user could sense it.
It would be easy for Mahito to use his technique to mend Yuji’s wound, reshape it out of reality, but the maternal instincts at war with his plans for his son dictated that he tend to the boy. It was the motherly thing to do. His well-being was in Sukuna’s best interests and therefore in Kenjaku’s as well.
“Mommy will take care of you. Don’t worry.” Carefully, Kenjaku loosened the binds cutting off the boy’s circulation to his hands, particular to keep his touch soft enough to not wake him. With the damage dealt to his head, he should be out for a little while still. Damn Mahito.
The next step was getting the bleeding under control. Kenjaku gently dabbed at the cut with a sleeve rolled over his fist, tenderly soaking up the dribble of red, his palm delicate on the side of Yuji’s face. The young boy groaned low under his breath, eyebrows pinching together while his parent shushed him, soothing him back into not-so-gentle slumber.
Geto carried a strange amount of disinfectant on his person at all times, something to do with racism, and Kenjaku was now pleased that he kept a spray bottle of it in the folds of his ceremonial garbs. A couple of spritzes onto Yuji’s injury had the boy hissing subconsciously through his teeth, a harsh drag of breath, and his arm moved weakly to push away the cause of his discomfort, only to have the limb fall limp and powerless into his lap.
“Be still, little one. Mother is here.” Kenjaku tore off a long strip of black silk from his sleeve, swathing it around Yuji’s head in soft, attentive rounds. Once it was secured, the curse user lowered himself onto the ground beside his son, drawing Yuji against his shoulder. It was a thoughtless action as Kenjaku was busy wondering what Sukuna was doing in there. Was he going to make his presence known and thank Kenjaku for the generous gift of a body unto himself?
After nine months of crippling morning sickness, there better be a heartily offered allegiance by the end of this.
“You know why I did this,” Kenjaku said, waiting for the telltale twitch of the red lines under Yuji’s eyes that would indicate Sukuna’s attendance, but there wasn't so much a shiver of movement. So he was playing mum, was he?
“When the time comes, I expect a return, Ryomen.”
Yuji’s jaw tightened. His expression scrunched up ever-so-slightly, pressing deeper into Kenjaku’s chest in some gesture of latent desire to be close to his mother. His soul recognised Kenjaku’s, even when his wakeful mind would reject the feeling of familiarity.
In consideration, Kenjaku watched, unwillingly recollecting holding the baby against his shoulder much like this, nursing him and rubbing the small of his back until he was comforted to sleep. It wasn't a memory of great sentiment, just such a thing that reminded him of how much work he had put towards his schemes.
Gaining Sukuna’s astonishing power was the end to which he was willing to provide any means. A King of Curses, his to control…
Absently, Kenjaku caressed feather-light lines along Yuji’s cheekbone, listening to his shallow, pained breaths which greatly contrasted the restful ones he took in slumber. They were on a fast track for this to be over as it may well be the last of Kenjaku’s little check-ins, of which his son would remember nothing. With the correct curse methodology, he never did, possessing no idea how many times Kenjaku had taken him, then dropped him back into his ordinary life, retaining no memories of the hours he’d spent with his mother.
It was vital for Kenjaku’s studies to perform an in-depth analysis of a curse vessel of this magnitude, as enough was not known about them, but today… he didn't feel like it. Rather than any lingering finer feelings, he associated his procrastination with habit. He’d gotten used to having Yuji around, even if Yuji did not know of Kenjaku’s lurking presence, yet he found it within himself to be eager for the next stage. Everything was coming around.
The door opened again but he could tell by the footfalls that it wasn’t Mahito. Heavier, more controlled, like the weight of the world resided upon their owner’s shoulders. Choso.
Kenjaku watched his pig-tailed son descend the stairs, fingers trailing inattentively along the handrail until he got to the bottom. There was a dullness in Choso’s red-rimmed eyes, vacantly drifting over the features of the decrepit basement until they found Kenjaku sitting at the far end of it, Yuji burrowed into his flank. The blocky black line across his nose didn’t so much as crinkle in confusion. There wasn’t a waver of emotion anywhere to be seen despite what Yuji had done to Eso and Kechizu, despite what he had learned, not even slight annoyance or acceptance. Mere nothingness.
A long, satisfied smile couldn’t help but creep across the curse user’s lips. Mahito’s skills had come such a distance from creating fleshy monstrous heaps to delicately transfiguring the fine connections within one’s brain to alter their personality into a more malleable one. Or vice versa, anything Kenjaku wanted. Even erasing entire memories.
He still had use for Choso but not if he was driven by vengeance and the desire to destroy Sukuna’s vessel. Compliance was key. Compliance could be enforced. It needn’t take more than the chaste touch of a shapeshifter. Seeing Yuji was the ultimate test and as Choso had remained calm, it told that the transfiguration had been completely successful, widening an entire world of possibilities.
“Choso,” Kenjaku tipped his chin up to regard his eldest son, a self-satisfied smirk persisting. “What’s the matter, my boy?”
“... I…” Waving his arm sluggishly towards the way he’d come, Choso’s gaze persisted on a spec of dust on the floor. Even from this distance, his pupils looked blown out and huge, dissociation making him slur his words. “I… I went over the perimeter, like… like you said… no sorcerers.”
"Perfect. Aren’t you a clever one?” Fussing over him, Kenjaku patted the spot at his free side, an open invitation for Choso to join his father and brother but it was more of an order than a request, not that the blood manipulator had it within him to resist. Mind altered to such a passive state, he came without a moment of hesitation, taking his place like a meek, beaten dog too afraid not to. But Choso wasn’t afraid. Kenjaku didn’t scare him, merely crushed his desire to reside within the opposition. The shell of his state made it easy to imagine that Kenjaku could easily possess him in an emergency circumstance, should the worst come to pass for his current vessel. It was always good to have a couple of spare skins around, just in case.
Falling against the wall, Choso fit like a puzzle piece under Kenjaku’s spare arm, shoulder lodging beneath, a short, small breath leaving his lungs as he stared into open space. He didn’t feel warm, not cold, limbs splayed out without care where they landed. It further confirmed the success of the transfiguration, as the Choso known before did not enjoy being touched as a form of affection. Hell, that Choso barely wanted to be acknowledged, rather existing within a void of just him and his poor dead brothers. In Kenjaku’s world, however, there was no place outside of cannon fodder for those ugly things. Though he was an ancient being capable of changing his body for anyone else’s, Kenjaku was still rather superficial and did not like visually distasteful things. Were it not for his phenomenal curse technique, Mahito would not exist within his proximity. The revolting thing was the mix between a rag doll and a curb-stomped frog.
“It’s good to have the family together, isn’t it, Choso?” Giving his pig-tail a playful tug which he did not respond to, Kenjaku planted a firm but unloving kiss onto Choso’s temple. It gave nothing, it took nothing, merely a statement of ownership over the result of his half-interested experiment made 150 years ago.
“... Yes.” Choso’s lips hardly moved. His eyes didn’t. Not a single muscle of his features tensed or relaxed, a space of nothing but opportunities for Kenjaku to utilise. The dawn of the new world was bright and beautiful, lighting up the horizon.
“You know, Choso, your mother was an insufferable woman…”
Choso didn’t shift.
“... And your father was a nasty cursed spirit.”
Not a waver.
“... Yet I enjoyed them both. Both produced fantastic vessels for my experimentation. Those experiments took to my blood well but made such ugly subjects.” The tight tug of his smirk was beginning to strain the side of Kenjaku’s face but he couldn’t dissipate it, too pleased with the outcome of his latest conduct of research regarding the Kamo clan. He felt invincible. With Mahito’s mind-warping abilities, he could say or do anything.
Heavily, the blood manipulator dropped his head onto Kenjaku’s shoulder, where it bounced from a lack of effort to stabilise himself. The poor lifeless meat sack, Kenjaku tightened the arm around him and Yuji simultaneously, holding his two children tightly to Geto Suguru’s body.
Time spent between parents and offspring was so important.
Haruta looked over when Patch-face gave a long, attention-seeking sigh, purple eyes narrowing and the matching-toned tallies beneath them crinkling in focus at the curse, who kicked his leg in boredom as he sat on the edge of the box-like rooftop air conditioner.
“What’s the matter, Mahito?” Haruta tilted his head, long blond ponytail falling over the exposed shoulder on which his katana rested.
“Well,” Mahito huffed, enunciating his ill mood with a weighted, exaggerated shrug, hands curled over the edge of the AC. He’d wanted Haruta to ask, clearly. He’d sought it out. “It’s just that… Mister Geto is so interested in that Yuji.”
The shapeshifter’s posture sagged, slumping towards his core in worked-up confusion that showed on his patchwork face. Haruta drew closer despite Geto’s orders to maintain an unwavering wall of supervision around the perimeter, hooked by the curse’s clear signs of discontent. No one was coming out here. The sorcerers were nowhere to be seen and wouldn’t be, Haruta was sure. It was a lot of bogus paranoia over nothing. This was more interesting.
“Perhaps Geto loves him.” The blond curse user suggested, to which the shapeshifter responded with an expression like he’d taken a bite out of a lemon, jagged teeth showing when his lip pulled back.
“Geto wouldn’t! That awful human is - is-” Hitched, Mahito’s mismatched eyes fell upon Haruta, regarding his status as a human being as if he’d forgotten about it, but Haruta was not offended, knowing that curses didn’t understand things the way that humans did. They were rude and inconsiderate by nature. Like animals being disgusting and crude, they couldn’t help it. It was best to nod along and take it when it was inconsequential.
“- He is not worth it.” Mahito finished with a snap, irritated to even hesitate when Haruta was there. Haruta was surprised that he had but maybe the curse was learning manners after the extensive amount of reconnaissance missions they’d been sent on together. The curse user had learned that Mahito did not like to ruffle feathers when he was bothered by something else, instead desiring a listening, compassionate ear despite not necessarily realising the nature of his want. Haruta did not think that Mahito realised what he wanted, validation or understanding, perhaps, but he indulged nonetheless. It was no skin off his nose to hear out a vile animal to ease his own boredom.
“Sometimes, it’s difficult to understand why people do the things they do.” He sympathised, laying a weightless hand on top of the curse’s shoulder, peeking out from the slit down the side of his square-pattern shawl. The coarse stitches poking out of his skin brushed up against Haruta’s palm, unpleasant on the soft surface.
Pushing his bottom lip out, Mahito sighed again, doubtlessly unaware of the deep-rooted insecurity leaking out from his every motion. It was jealousy at its rawest, most basic ingredient, something that Haruta recognised well when he thought about the dead-set way that the curse clung to Geto every chance he got. It was debatable whether or not Mahito knew that Geto was not his father or whatever he thought of the man. Still, certainly, it went beyond the general curse and curse user relationship.
Thoughtfully, Haruta began to curl his finger around a prominent rough stitch which Mahito gave no reaction to, merely staring hopelessly at the vast city beyond them. The rooftop offered a brilliant vantage point of the sectioned-off prison grounds, chainlink fences holding the masses back from a building soon-to-be-demolished, the surroundings so colourlessly tired and unmoving that it was impossible to keep interested in them. If it weren’t for the money, Haruta would be tending to his Digimon card collection, a task he was far more invested in than whatever whims and worries Geto had. The man was insane and unregulated, even to Haruta, so he wondered what Mahito was here for if he wasn’t even getting paid.
“... Have you ever thought about killing Yuji?” The suggestion was a timidly enthusiastic one, an outcome that Haruta might like to see simply for the entertainment value, but he tried to play it off cool so as not to incriminate himself. Geto would have his life if he overheard.
Humming in thought, Mahito tipped his head, a section of his bound hair rolling over onto the side while Haruta’s finger intrusively worked its way under his stitches.
“... I have. Many times. But he is my natural rival and Mister Geto has said that he would annihilate me within my last atom if I did away with Itadori Yuji, so I can’t do anything.” Disappointment brought his tone down, the corners of his mouth tugging floorward.
“Sounds like you need to make a statement.” Haruta twisted his index around and under the stitch of his interest, pulling the thin parting in the pale skin closer and eliciting a flinch from Mahito, the first indicator that he noticed a thing. Irritated, he swatted the curse user away, scowling in patchwork fury yet he couldn’t deny his curiosity at Haruta’s words, dragging the shawl further over his shoulder while he asked in feigned disinterest,
“What do you mean statement?” Moping, picking up the pace at which he kicked his leg, Mahito looked off towards the incredible expanse of Tokyo’s skyscrapers and twinkling lights but he did not dwell on them, gaze straying to Haruta in question almost immediately.
Smiling, Haruta ran his tongue along his lips, inclining the blade across the line of his shoulders with his friendly, easily approachable body language. “Maybe you need to make it clear to Mister Geto that you cherish him more deeply than Itadori Yuji doees."
Narrowing his odd eyes, Mahito started drumming his fingers on the edge of the AC, now bouncing both legs at mismatched paces while he thought it over. Haruta very much associated the suggestion he’d made with dropping a lit match into a tank of gasoline and running away but this mission was boring, so he had to come up with something to do.
The last time that Geto caught him admiring his Digimon cards on the job, the heartless monster tore the deck clean down the middle!
Luckily, they hadn’t been his collector’s editions but it hurt nonetheless and left him desiring to subtly stir up trouble. That lobotomy freak deserved a bit of repercussion but Haruta wasn’t going to do it directly. He didn’t want to get hurt, after all.
“You know, Haruta,” Mahito said. “He’s going to make me alter Yuji’s mind again soon, to make him forget.”
Haruta traced his finger carefully along the edge of his katana, contemplative of its sharpness. “Maybe you should blow his brain up instead.”
“I can’t. Mister Geto would be very angry with me.”
“Then be sneaky about it. Work around the lines. Make him realise that Itadori Yuji is a pointless investment.”
“Maybe.” A recognisable, in-character smirk spread across Mahito’s patchwork face as his confidence returned in the form of a scheme, a mischievous little something to work towards at Haruta’s encouragement. Of course, Haruta would never take accountability for whatever the curse decided to do at his spurring, merely here to see what happened with that Digimon-killing beast. Making his life harder was oddly satisfactory as a form of retribution.
The door to the rooftop creaked back on its squeaky hinges. The curse and curse user turned to see the smokey-eyed blood manipulator join them, grip ghosting around the door handle, neither holding nor releasing it. It was strange and uncanny to see how Choso now was. Haruta had never been too interested in him yet still recalled there being something more to Choso than acting like a hollowed-out zombie, alive only to receive the next command. Didn't he used to have brothers?
“Mahito…” Choso’s words were barely an audible utterance like he hardly remembered how to form them. “... He wants you now.”
Rolling his eyes, Mahito huffed in inconvenience but sprang onto his feet without resistance, heading to follow Choso to the basement level of the old prison, where the leader awaited impatiently. The gestures of irritation were never deeper than the skin, as anything reaching further would be met with Geto’s firm, disciplining backhand.
Haruta was happy to be involved only during one-off missions. He couldn’t deal with all of this memory-altering, personality-draining garbage on the regular.
Gasping, Yuji snapped awake with the first thing to cross his awareness being the avalanche of pain vibrating through his skull. His fingers trembled as he carefully touched them to his brow, confused to find smooth material like silk wrapped around his head. What the hell?
Gathering his limbs around himself, he realised that he was on a trail outside of the school, surrounded by a dense bamboo forest. It was night. His palms and knees were scraped. An obtuse tree root jutted out of the path behind him, dirt torn up around it and a bloodied rock where he’d been lying. Dots slow to connect, Yuji frowned but immediately regretted it when it pulled on the wound he didn’t remember acquiring… he must’ve been on a walk and bonked himself hard enough to forget what inspired him to take it. Forests weren’t his thing. Neither were strolls through them. Especially without his phone blaring Megan Thee Stallion's new album, which he assumed it had not been, as he couldn’t find it in his pocket or anywhere around.
“Oh boy…” Trying to rise, he swayed, legs like jelly when they tried to carry him. How hard had he fallen? He didn’t remember what he’d been doing before so it must’ve scrambled his brain well and truly.
“Fushiguro’s gonna have a field day with this.”
Again, he laid a hand over his face as he tried to calculate exactly how far from the school he was. How had he gotten to this distance without remembering the walk? Boy, he really was messed up. But… what was with the silk? Unwinding it, he examined the blood-soaked strip in the utmost confusion. It carried a persisting scent that was vaguely familiar but he didn’t recall where he could have gotten it wrapped around his head. Gojo-sensei didn’t wear silk. Neither did Megumi or Nobara. They wouldn’t’ve left him out here if they were responsible.
Yuji didn’t like how frequent these bouts of lost time were becoming. This was the second time this month.