pomegranate ink | y. okkotsu

xxv

a/n: this is the most transition chapter to ever transition chapter LMAOAOA i'm so sorry but after everything w the shibuya chapter i think we need one where lowkey nothing happens

"Y/N," a soft voice whispered in your ear. "Wake up, Y/N. We managed to sneak you out of there, but you have to wake up now."

The hands which held yours were burnt but otherwise familiar, the shape of the palms and the length of the fingers both things that you had long ago memorized. For a moment, you did not let your eyes open, wanting to linger in the dream you had been having, but you knew you owed it to her to do that much.

It was Maki. You knew that that was true — the girl in front of you was definitely Maki, but she was not Maki as you had ever seen her. Her hair had been lopped short, and she was wearing her round glasses from your first year instead of the rectangular frames you had grown accustomed to seeing on her. The sleeves of her uniform had been cut off, and a short cape was settled around her shoulders, but none of this was the greatest surprise: it was the scars criss-crossing up her arms, down her neck, and over her face that took you aback, as well as the bandage wound around her head and over one of her eyes.

"Maki," you whispered. "Who—?"

Her expression was grim. "Probably the same bitch that did that to you."

You glanced down at your own palms, and then your eyes widened as you realized that they, too, were mottled with burn scars. Hesitantly, you reached up and touched your neck, only to feel the same puckered skin around it — like a collar, but ten times as hideous. Jogo's permanent brand on your body. An indelible reminder of what had happened to you in Shibuya, of what you had done.

"Composition shouldn't leave scars like this," you said, fumbling about, trying to find something to grab onto but coming up empty. "It's too perfect, too precise. Who healed us?"

"Ieri," Maki said. "The L/Ns were too busy dealing with Sukuna's victims, so none of them were free to help us. It's not a problem. We both were able to pull through, even if we look a little worse off than before."

"Too busy...dealing with Sukuna's victims?" you repeated hollowly.

"A lot of people were hurt in the attack," a new voice said. It was a tall woman, with eyes like gold and pale hair cascading down her back. "I'm Yuki Tsukumo, by the way. I don't think we've met formally before, though I've definitely heard about you."

"That's not the case," you said. "That's not why they didn't heal Maki and I."

You didn't understand it. Why had your father chosen to do that? He wouldn't even heal you and Maki? Was it not enough that he had already refused to save Tullia? You weren't anything without her, and that, too, confused you. Why had he taken away your other half? If he wanted you to be a healer, then why had he abandoned your Composition when she needed him? If he loved you, then why had he left you to die?

"What do you mean?" Maki said. Something curled in you as you looked at your hands, the hands that had used Composition to destroy Tullia and then hadn't even been able to draw upon it once more in order to save her. You wished you could trade your body with Maki's. You were the one who deserved to be burnt all over. Maki didn't. You were the one who had used Composition against Jogo instead of thinking of another method. You were the one who brought Tullia to Sukuna. You should've argued with your father. You should've threatened him, forced him into it somehow.

But what kind of threats would've been believable from a girl who was barely clinging to life herself? What kind of man listened to a filthy child who could not even save her best friend, the very source of her power? Of course he had not done anything. Of course he had not lifted even one finger in your aid.