"Did Suguru really ask you to join him?"
I purse my lips as I look up at Gojo, we're stood in the freezing streets on Shinkuju, it's Christmas Eve, there as so many places I'd rather be right now than waiting to fight my best friend. He's not your best friend anymore. He hasn't been for 10 years, I remind myself.
"He did," I answer quietly as I nod, "I assumed he asked you too."
Gojo shakes his head and looks down, "No, he didn't ask me, I think I made it pretty obvious that I would've said no. Were you really thinking about it like he said?"
Remaining silent for a moment, I pull my uniform tightly around my shivering body, "I thought about it for a moment, but it's not like I agreed. Besides, it was 10 years ago, I only even let myself think about it because I was desperate."
He nods, re-tying his bandages around his head and covering his glowing blue eyes once again, "I know. I know that you wouldn't have said yes."
We stand in silence for a moment, the bitter wind biting at my face and my hands. I re-adjust the knife belt around my waist, it contains some real daggers that I occasionally use as well as my daggers formed from my cursed energy.
"Why is he doing this now? Did he really just spend 10 years gathering curses for this attack?" I ask, looking around Shinjuku once again, I feel uneasy, like something's going to go horribly wrong.
Gojo lets out a trembling breath, "I really don't know. I thought he only hated non-sorcerers."
"Do you really think that letting Toge and Panda come is a good idea?" The two students are preparing for the battle nearby, as well as several other Jujutsu sorcerers.
"You worry about our students too much, they're strong, they'll be okay. And we're here as well so we can keep an eye on them."
Maki and Yuta are back at the school. We couldn't risk Yuta unleashing Rika here. He'd be able to wipe out the opposition, but Rika could easily also wipe out our side. And none of the other sorcerers thought that letting Maki come would be a good idea, even though she could probably beat most Jujutsu sorcerers that I know in a fight, even without cursed energy. Her strength and combat abilities are incredible.
Megumi is at our apartment, where we believe that he'll be safest and away from all of the commotion.
Suddenly, hundreds of curses emerge from the floor and I notice a few of Geto's curse users stood on the roof of a nearby building.
"I'll see you in a bit, right Satoru?"
Gojo gives me a strained grin, "I'll see you in a bit."
Just as I'm about to head into the mass of curses, I notice Ijichi hurrying over to Gojo and explaining something to him, too quietly for me to hear. It's enough to make Gojo's jaw clench and he immediately hurries over to Toge and Panda and teleports them somewhere else.
"What was that about?" I shout over to Gojo.
He looks slightly panicked, "I think Suguru's at the school. Get there as soon as you've exorcised the more dangerous curses here."
I nod. Why is Suguru at the school? Is this all a cover up so that he can do something else? Or is Satoru wrong? But to be fair, I would have guessed that Suguru would've been on the front lines, but he's not here.
Summoning multiple of my daggers, I head straight into the middle of the chaos. There's a special grade curse here, I can sense it's cursed energy. I should probably take that one out, Gojo and I are the only special grades here and it would be extremely difficult for anyone else here to exorcise it.
I use one of my daggers to detect the curses location, it's close, behind the building beside me. Grabbing onto the hilt of another one of my daggers, I'm lifted up into the air and carried towards the curse.
As soon as I round the building, I see the curse. It's about 20 feet tall and the whole of it's body is covered in sharp spikes, dripping with a green substance. The first thing I notice is the figure attempting to fight the curse.
Based on their amount of cursed energy, they can't be more than a grade 2 sorcerer.
I let go on the dagger that I'm holding onto and plummet downwards towards the curse's head, I summon another dagger and grab onto it right before my body is impaled by the spikes and launch a dagger towards the curse's skull.
My dagger shatters into hundred of pieces the second it touches the green substance over the curse and I frown in annoyance. This is going to be annoying.
I continue to dangle directly above the curse and it glares up at me. I need to figure out exactly what this green substance does. The figure on the ground below has his face covered by a black beanie hat. Is that the guy that Nanami trains? If I recall correctly, his name is Ino Takuma.
Experimentally, I dangle my hand down use my fingertip to touch the green substance dripping over the curses's body. An indescribable pain shoots through my arm and I jolt my arm back, "Shit!"
When I look down at my finger, it's been split open and is bleeding everywhere. That's annoying.
"Are you okay?" Ino calls up to me, his voice sounds positive despite the situation.
"I'm fine," I call back. I summon 30 cursed daggers, imbued with more cursed energy than usual and they shoot through the curses skull. It lets out a loud screech as it falls to the floor. I take the opportunity to shoot one particularly strong dagger into the curse's mouth. Then, I allow the dagger to explode, a huge explosion of cursed energy.
I drop the the floor afterwards, clutching my bleeding finger in my hand.
"Wow!" Ino yells, hurrying over to me whilst pulling the beanie from over his face and clutching it in his hand, "That was really impressive!"
I give him a smile and look away from the grotesque sight of my finger. I realise that Ino has a few wounds from the spikes on the curses body but he doesn't seem bothered at all, "Are you alright? You're bleeding quite a bit."
He waves it off with a friendly smile, "It's fine, part of my cursed technique allows me to nullify pain. You're Nanami's friend right?"
"Yeah," I glance down at my phone to see the time, although Ino seems really nice, I really need to get back to the school. If Geto really is there then Maki and Yuta are in danger.
"Could you tell him that I did well, please? I'm trying to impress him enough to promote me to grade 1," Ino sounds excited at the idea of impressing Nanami.
"You know it would be easier to convince someone else to recommend you right?" I question, "Nanami's hard to impress."
"Oh I know, but Nanami's the one who trained me, I don't want to be recommended by anyone else."
I shurg, "Fair enough, I'll tell him you did well against the special grade. And if you exorcise that semi-grade 1 over there then I'll be able to tell Nanami about that too. I really need to get back to the school though."
"Of course," Ino gives me another grin and pulls his beanie back over his face, "I'll do it!"
I give Ino a smile. I don't sense any other special grade curses around here, I should be able to hurry to the school now, my students could be in danger.
____________
When I get back to the school, the first thing I notice is the destruction. The second thing I notice is the blood. So much blood. What have you done Suguru?
I spot Maki, Toge and Panda fussing over Yuta's unconscious body, trying to wake him up. All of them look injured. Dammit.
"Are you guys okay?!" I hurry over, looking at the four of them with concern.
Maki breathes out a reply, "We're fine. Yuta should be okay too. He's still breathing."
"Where's Suguru?" I ask, looking around in panic.
"We don't know, Rika blasted him pretty far away," Panda gestures towards the huge wave of destruction the stretches out for miles into the distance.
Toge just nods, he's bleeding from the mouth and I think that even speaking rice ball ingredients is too much for him right now.
"I'm going to go and find him, will you guys be okay for me to leave you here?" I look at them anxiously, "Call Ieiri, she'll come and tend to your injuries."
"We'll be fine, go ahead Y/N," Maki insists, she continues to gently shake Yuta's shoulder and look at him with more genuine care and worry than I've ever seen Maki show before.
"I'll be back soon okay? I promise."
__________
It takes me a while to find Geto.
And, when I find him, he's not alone.
Neither of them notice that I'm here.
Geto is slumped down in an alleyway, his right arm is missing and the whole right side of his body is covered in blood. Gojo is crouched down next to him, his hands trembling and a defeated look in his eyes.
"Any last words?" Gojo asks, his voice shaky.
No. No. No.
Satoru can't be about to do this. He shouldn't have to do this.
I feel sick, I'm going to be sick.
"No matter what, I'll always hate those monkeys," Geto breathes out, "But just know that I never held any resentment for those at Jujutsu High. Especially not you and Y/N. I could never have hated you two."
My heart stops beating. It must have. I have no other explanation for the feeling in my chest.
"I just couldn't be happy in this world," Geto says.
I can't watch this. I can't watch this. Turn away. I need to get out of here. I can't watch this.
Geto closes his eyes and leans his head against the cold wall of the alleyway, "I'm glad that you're the one who's going to end me Satoru."
Gojo says something to Geto, so quietly that I don't hear it. But it causes Geto's eyes to widen before he lets out a weak laugh, "You could...at least curse me a little in the end."
Gojo's jaw trembles and when he raises his hand, cursed energy running through it, I turn away as quickly as I can, squeezing my eyes shut.
I hear blood spatter against stone and my stomach turns.
I can't look back. I know what I'll see if I look back. I don't want to see that. I can't see that. It will mean that I have no choice but to believe it.
But I have to look back.
I slowly turn back around, I'm not breathing.
Suguru's body is limp, completely and utterly still. Not a single sign of life. Not the comforting rising and falling of his chest. Not a single twitch or movement. Not a single ounce of cursed energy in his body.
He's dead.
Then, my eyes fall on Satoru. He's collapsed to the floor, breathing erratically and choking on his own sobs. His shoulders are shaking violently and he's gone so pale that I think he's about to be sick.
Satoru may not be dead. But I can tell that a part of him a just died.
I still can't move. I'm still holding my breath and pinching my arm, as if somehow I'll wake up. I'll wake up in my dorm room at the school, age 16, and race outside to find Satoru and Suguru training. They'll both be smiling. Suguru will look healthy. Satoru won't have that haunted look in his eyes. Everything will be okay. They'll laugh with me about my wild imagination and dreams. Then, Ieiri, Nanami and Haibara will come in the room too. We'll all be happy again. That's what will happen.
Except that's not what's going to happen.
Nothing will ever be like that again.
I'll never see Suguru again.
And Satoru may never be the same again.
I may never be the same again.
Satoru's choked sobs snap me out of my thoughts and I stop pinching my arm. There's an ugly purple bruise forming on my arm and blood is seeping out of the cuts left by my nails but I can't bring myself to care. There's tears steadily streaming down my face.
After what seems like a lifetime trapped inside my own head, I manage to walk forwards, towards Satoru. My legs are shaking but I manage anyway.
When I reach the alleyway, Satoru's gaze snaps up to me. His blue eyes are haunted and bloodshot and he can't seem to breath properly.
"What have I just done?" He gasps out. My heart clenches even more tightly than before, I'm doing all I can to avoid looking at Suguru's lifeless body.
I can't form an answer. I want to comfort Satoru. Tell him that it's okay. That it's what Suguru wanted. But i can't push the words out of my mouth. My throat is tight and I seem frozen.
"What the fuck have I just done?!" He screams, not managing to gasp in a single normal breath.
His screaming snaps me out of my frozen state again and I crouch down next to Satoru and just pull my into a hug, "It's okay."
My voice is quiet and shaky and tears are still streaming down my face. I dare not blink. Dare not breath. As if somehow, doing that will mean that all of this is real.
"No it's not okay!" He doesn't move away from me though.
"What are we supposed to do now?" I hate how calm my voice sounds as I say that. It in no way represents the emotions raging in my chest. I hate that it seems like I don't care. When in reality, I feel like a part of me has just been torn from my heart. It's like I'm not even functioning properly. Like the part of me torn away was the part that kept me in order. Told me what to do. How to work.
"I don't fucking know," Satoru's voice has lost all of it's anger and is now just dead, shaky and weak, "But I'm not burning him."
It's a rule that all bodies of Jujutsu sorcerer's or curses' victims are burnt but I simply nod, "We can bury him."
Suguru was a part of the two of us. Now that he's gone, I don't think either of us will feel whole again.
_________________
Everything that happened when we got back to the school went by in a blur.
Yuta broke the curse he placed on Rika. And yes, it seems to after all, it was Yuta who cursed Rika nd not the other way around. As Gojo had suspected.
All of our students were okay, Shoko healed them all up.
Gojo returned Yuta's student ID to it's owner.
Shoko healed my mangled finger.
I told her about what happened. Well. Tried to tell her. I broke down halfway through saying it. But she got what I was trying to say.
All of the curse users that were working with....him. They all escaped.
To everyone else, Gojo seemed normal, if anything, he was joking around more than usual. But it was obvious to me that he was desperately trying to mask the anguish and loss he felt after....
I didn't speak a word to anyone when we got back.
The two of us have very different coping mechanisms. I prefer silence.
We're both back at our apartment now. Gojo immediately heads to his room and slams the door behind him.
Megumi, who is sat on the sofa, gives me a questioning look.
"Don't," my voice cracks and I have to blink quickly to stop tears from welling up in my eyes again, "Why aren't you asleep yet? It's late."
Megumi shrugs, "I guess I just wanted to check that you two were both alright. You made the mission sound really dangerous." He doesn't seem all that worried about us but I can see the curious look in his eyes.
"It's Christmas Eve. Go to bed. But it's sweet that you wanted to check we were okay."
"It's not sweet. It's not like I was worried," Megumi quickly heads to him room, with less attitude than usual. He knows that I'm upset and he won't want to upset me any further.
I head to my room and sit down on my chair. I know I won't be able to sleep so there's no point even trying.
I gaze out of the window, staring at the dark sky, lit up only by a few stars. It's such a beautiful night. A night that shouldn't be so beautiful considering the events that took place only hours before.
As I reach for the glass of water, I knock something onto the floor. My old fliphone.
I reach for it, seeing the light spilling from the screen, it must have turned itself on as it hit the floor.
When I pick it up, I see that it's open on my camera roll. The first picture I see is a selfie that I took with Gojo and Geto on one of our many missions together. We're all grinning widely at the camera and Gojo has his arms wrapped around mien and Geto's shoulder. There's so much life and genuine happiness on our faces.
I feel my body shaking and I feel like I can't breathe.
I toss the flip phone as hard as I can at my bedroom wall. The screen shatters in to hundred of pieces.
Fuck. That had all of our old messages. All of our old pictures. Why did I do that?!
Desperately, I scramble towards the phone, cutting my hands on the shards of sharp metal as I frantically click the buttons on my phone, trying to get it to turn back on. I know that it's pointless. It's damged beyond repair.
I don't know how long I sit there, blood trickling down my arms, sobbing on my bedroom floor.
I've lost Suguru.
And I've lost all of the messages and pictures of him. Of Haibara. Of us all together. When we were still happy. Is that even something I'll ever experience again? Happiness.
Maybe if we'd just never had went on that stupid mission in 2006.
Maybe if we'd just let Satoru massacre the Star Religious Group.
Maybe if we'd done more to help Suguru when we noticed his depression.
Maybe if we'd looked for him after he left.
Maybe if I'd joined Suguru. Maybe then Satoru would've joined us too. And it would have been us against the world. Then maybe none of this would've happened. Maybe.
But it's too late for that anyway. I can't start thinking like this.
Author's Note
Okay I think I just enjoy breaking my own heart
And it's super fun to listen to Mr. Loverman while reading this (totally)
Added Ino to cure my depression and also because my sister loves him
The aftermath of all of this is going to make me really sad again :(
Also as I said last chapter, there won't be any more chapters until next Saturday (probably)
I can't believe I've nearly got 1000 readers!!!!!!
Thank you guys so much and I hope you're enjoying reading this as much as I'm enjoying writing it :)
(Sorry about this chapter)