Work Text:
Satoru <3
when r u getting back
finishing up now. all good?
when u get here, find me first thing
No emojis. Actual punctuation. Not a call, so Suguru has to be told in person. He’s back in Tokyo before the hour’s even up.
He arrives around midnight, stepping off his stingray right outside the campus barrier before going in. It’s characteristically quiet, no alarms or wrecked landscapes to signal anything immediately wrong. He heads for their room on campus. When Satoru isn’t there, he drops off his bags and continues down to the student dorms.
Suguru finds him leaning in Megumi’s doorway, staring. The blindfold’s pulled down around his neck so his eyes are lit by the moonlight streaming in from the sliding glass doors. They’re the brightest thing in the hall, steady and unblinking. Suguru comes up right next to him, one hand light on his rigid spine. He hears the thin whine of Infinity dropping, a veil through his fingers.
Megumi’s asleep, flat on his back with his arms stiff at his sides. Satoru (besotted) and Mimiko (genuine) have always called it creepy as shit. He’s slept the same way since he was six, sometimes even crossing them over his chest and going full vampire.
Now, his hands are fisted in the sheets, knuckles blood purple in the dark. One wrist is in a temporary brace and his head is bandaged so his hair puffs out limply in odd spots the gauze doesn’t cover. Suguru wants to go and smooth it down, is in the middle of the motion when Satoru finally speaks.
“I think the time to get rid of them is closer than we thought it’d be.”
Suguru flicks his gaze back to Satoru’s profile. His eyes aren’t glowing anymore but his tone is bone chilling, flat and not doing anything to conceal the real rage underneath it. It always makes Suguru’s nerves flare when he gets like that. He sounds so much like he did when he first unlocked his Eyes: detached to the point of destruction. There’s only one group of people he could be talking about that way.
“What happened?”
Satoru’s nostrils flare on a hard exhale. There’s a twitch in his brow Suguru usually smooths away. “Yuuji died,” he says and Suguru turns to face him fully, not quite registering what that means.
“What?” He asks in a louder whisper. The kid’s face flashes in his head, all huge smiles bracketed by dimples. Last Suguru had seen him, Yuuji had been hopping around him in celebration with Nobara when he’d finally agreed to spar with them after he got back from his mission. The disbelief is doing a good job of cushioning the sheer amount of lividity that leaks into his chest.
Satoru still doesn’t look at him. The wiring in the walls is starting to whir faintly, overpowered by the amount of energy Satoru is emitting. Suguru presses his hand closer against the small of Satoru’s back and it stops. “They sent the trio in to kill a second grade while we were gone,” he continues and shakes his head once. Satoru finally does meet his eye, blazing, when he says, “It was a special. Even had one of Sukuna’s fingers.”
“And those bastards knew,” Suguru completes, starting to hiss in his disgust. He rubs a hand over his mouth to fend off the wave of nausea. “Shit, they couldn’t even wait. The second we were both out…” It had been a possibility they discussed, of course it had been, but they’d reasoned that the council wouldn’t be that fucking idiotic and had settled in telling Ijichi to let them know if they tried sending out Yuuji by himself. Fuck. “Idiots.”
“They wanted Yuuji dead. Didn’t care about collateral.” Satoru leans closer, hand darting out to squeeze around Suguru’s elbow. There’s a mania in the way his eyes widen, teeth bared with every word. “Wanna know what Yaga was told? That decaying bitch said it wasn’t in the plans for Megumi or Nobara to die, but if they had, it wouldn’t have been a loss.”
Suguru’s mind races the way he imagines Satoru’s had to, their years of planning in advance quickly collapsing in on each other like a shoddy domain. Megumi, taller every passing day. Wouldn’t have been a loss. “They’re getting bolder, because of Sukuna. They’re scared of him, of needing us to kill him. What our terms might be.” Obviously, Sukuna is the biggest catalyst, but that’s only part of it. He’s practically growling by the time he concludes. “You directly disobeyed the execution order. They’re trying to see just how long the leash they have on us is.”
“They’re forgetting we aren’t on one in the first place,” Satoru confirms lowly. His fingernails let up a bit in Suguru’s sleeve, smoothing it down before he brings that hand up to tug the blindfold up. With a final turn of his head toward Megumi, he says, “They should consider themselves really fucking lucky. Hold on, I need to show you something.”
Hold on being a literal statement that Suguru’s long accustomed to following immediately, because Satoru doesn’t wait. He changes his hold to grab him around the waist in the same moment Satoru joins his hands, and then one stomach-turning second later, they’re in their house’s living room.
Satoru says nothing as he leads them down to the basement. When he turns on the light, Itadori Yuuji is sleeping on a futon set up behind the couch, curled into a tight ball under blankets tucked up to his chin and very clearly breathing.
“You asshole,” Suguru breathes himself, sagging against Satoru even as he punches him in the ribs. His instinct (from raising children for half his life) is to press the back of his hand to his forehead, his cheek, but he holds back. Yuuji smacks his lips, burrowing deeper into his pillow.
Satoru gives a pained, “Oof,” and slings his arm over Suguru’s shoulders anyway to keep him there. He wheezes, “Yup. Wanted you to get angry. Sorry.” He uses his free hand to rub at his side. “We don’t know what he did, but Sukuna healed him from the inside out. Only Shoko and Ijichi know. I’m setting him up here for the time being. He needs to learn control,” he points at himself then presses the same finger against the center of Suguru’s chest, “and curse manipulation. When he comes back, I want him to be able to have a fighting chance next time they try something.”
“And they’ll definitely try,” Suguru mutters. He keeps looking down at Yuuji, alive, until he can consolidate his thoughts. Damn Satoru and his roundabout way of thinking. Always has to go for the emotional impact.
Did Shoko heal him at the last minute? Was he ever even really dead? He looks fine. Suguru says out of the side of his mouth, “What’d they end up doing about the curse?”
Satoru snorts emptily. He motions back upstairs with a tilt of his head. Suguru braces himself for some more monumental bullshit as they go.
“It didn’t kill him. Sukuna eviscerated it,” Satoru explains as soon as the door’s closed, yanking the blindfold back off. He drags that hand through his hair. “He ripped Yuuji’s heart out to blackmail Megumi. Yuuji took back control and let himself die so he couldn’t.” Suguru swivels to stare at him, stricken, and Satoru only meets his gaze. Here, in their house, he doesn’t mask the way the anger is tapered by a bone deep exhaustion, the kind you can only have if you understand.
The implication is so horrifying, Suguru almost doesn’t even want to acknowledge it. He’s starting to hear static in his head, rhythmic and distant. His fingers twitch and he flexes feeling back into them, forces himself to croak out, “Did Megumi tell you that? Did he see it?”
Satoru, devastatingly, nods. This time, when the lights start to flare, Suguru makes no move to stop him. Satoru steps in closer, stating, “In front of him. He died right in front of him, Suguru. He had to carry his body back himself—“ His voice breaks and he snarls around it. Suguru numbly watches as he whirls, throws himself facedown on the couch, and screams once into the cushions. The power whoomps off, then on again.
Suguru follows. He lays Satoru’s legs over his lap, the weight grounding and forcing him not to do something he absolutely won’t regret. The need to draw blood is pounding in his head so loudly, he has to lean forward on Satoru’s shins to get it to level.
All of the kids were old enough to walk and talk by the time they got to them, so they never really had an actual infant, which is probably for the best. They used to just call Megumi ‘the baby’, half joke, half habit, instead, before he was angsty enough to get mad about it. Unfortunately for him, it didn’t make it any less true.
It had taken a second for Suguru to get there. The resemblance unnerved him, at first, freshly traumatized and flinching when his scar would start aching every time a dark head of hair flashed around a corner. With time, he worked through it, especially considering how utterly unlike that man Megumi was, in every single measurable way.
He can still remember the day he knew he had finally managed to completely divorce them. Walking back from the beach, the twins jumped Satoru from behind for a piggyback ride, and with Tsumiki fixated on her new roller skates, Suguru was left lagging behind with an overtired Megumi asleep in his arms. It was a rare moment to get to have him so close, to just look at him, so he did.
He had spent so long committing every detail of his sleeping face to memory. The fluttering shadow of his eyelashes, long like Satoru’s, the way his mouth puckered when he puffed out breath. It’d been the one and only time he’d seen Megumi curl into sleep, his pointed nose pressing right over Suguru’s heart.
He really could be our baby, he’d thought for the first time without a hint of irony, and knew that if anything were to ever happen to him, to any of them, there would be nothing to stop him from finally snapping. And nothing did happen, this time, beyond what Suguru could see, but he knows better. He’s lived it. For him to have to experience something like that is worse than anything he can recover from, and even then, he hadn’t had to carry Satoru’s dead body back with him.
Satoru flips over silently, one arm thrown over his eyes. He flutters his fingers as he talks, “Shoko said he almost didn’t want to surrender him to the morgue. Nobara had to make him.” Suguru’s heart breaks all over again. Satoru peeks out at him with one tired eye. “Guess maybe I should’ve listened to you about letting them bond so fast, huh.”
“Satoru,” Suguru snaps immediately, giving him a narrowed look. “Did we or did we not make that decision together?”
Satoru just shrugs, gaze listing off toward the ceiling.
After fighting the elders and calling off the order, Suguru had originally wanted to find a way to put as much distance between the kids as they could out of a sense of preservation, house Yuuji in their place instead of on campus. Tsumiki had been hospitalized only a year before, and regardless of the inherent fuckery that is the life of a sorcerer, Yuuji was still doomed for execution. Why put them through any more? Why knowingly subject them to a life of holding that grief inside them?
Satoru, who at that point had been the only one to actually interact with Yuuji, insisted that they couldn’t expect to manipulate every aspect of their lives. Nanako and Megumi’ll kill us in our sleep before we hit thirty, first of all, he’d reasoned, and Suguru finally acquiesced to a twenty-four hour trial period. It wasn’t like Megumi or the twins got particularly attached to anyone very fast, and it’d be good for Yuuji to at least have some sense of the world he was stepping into.
Of course, Satoru had failed to mention making them practically roommates. Suguru only found out when Megumi stormed into his training session with the second years, hissing that Gojo was ruining his life and he had to do something. Suguru was almost inclined to, until they got back from picking up Nobara.
Megumi hadn’t grown up alone by any stretch, but he’d never had a real friend. He was quiet and when he wasn’t quiet, he was rude, which worked well in their household where everybody save Tsumiki hurled insults at each other like it was their personal jobs, and approximately nowhere else. The only other kids ever associated with him at parent-teacher conferences were the ones he’d beat up.
So meeting them at the dorm entrance to find Megumi in the literal middle of the debate Yuuji and Nobara were heatedly engaged in made him feel like he was hallucinating. He’d blinked once, twice, and, no, there he was, letting Yuuji yank on his arm while he pointed in Nobara’s face, talking back with a raised eyebrow and restarting some other point as the other two started yelling louder.
And three steps behind was Satoru, beaming. He caught Suguru looking and hopped up like Suguru couldn’t already see all two hundred centimeters of him, pointing down at the kids with enough motion for the take out bags on his wrist to crumple loudly.
Aren’t they adorable, he’d gushed when he’d skipped over to Suguru’s side, hugging him hard around the shoulders and shaking him. Suguru relieved him of the bags before they got obliterated by motion. I have such bad cuteness aggression, I’ve almost set off Purple, like, four times. No shit.
The trio had stopped short for Nobara to retie her shoe. She used Megumi’s shoulder to steady herself, still sniping back at Yuuji the entire time.
Suguru couldn’t look away as he asked, Did you guys have a good time?
Yep. Exorcised some curses, took them out for sushi, Satoru responded. He’d tipped his head against Suguru’s and continued, with a quieter kind of melancholy. Yuuji and Nobara are good. Crazy, too. You’re gonna love them.
He did, turns out. The three of them individually were nothing but constant streams of potential, already skilled and always seeking to get stronger. Together, though, even still getting to know each other, it was clear they were made to be a team. It’s why they even thought it would be okay to both be gone in the first place. Between the three of them, even second grades wouldn’t have been an issue if they were assigned. Most importantly, Megumi was happy.
“We need to tell them,” he says now, the laughter in the memory fading.
Satoru grunts as he swings himself into a sitting position, their shoulders pressing together. “I’m not saying I don’t want to, but if they let it slip…”
Suguru shakes his head firmly. “We aren’t going to let them go around thinking Yuuji’s dead. Especially not Megumi, not like that.” He props an elbow on Satoru’s knee to dig a knuckle between his eyebrows. “The guilt will eat him alive.”
Satoru exhales slowly. The cushions rustle as he lets his head fall onto them, gesturing in Suguru’s peripheral. “I know. I know, it’s just the old fucks’d been docile for a while before this. Too docile. I feel like because we lost our paranoia, we forgot they’re not exactly complete fucking idiots either.” He straightens back up and plucks Suguru’s knuckle away by hooking it with one of his own, ducking so he meets his eye. “But I trust Megumi and Nobara. If you think we should tell them, we can bring them in tomorrow.” He makes a face, scratching at the back of his neck with his free hand. “The twins are the ones I’m most scared of, you know how they are.”
The fact that Mimiko tells Nanako everything and Nanako’s ears are basically connected to her Twitter, yes. It’s less a matter of trust there than it is knowing his daughters and the fact it would be pretty much a guaranteed means of spreading it to every other living being in Tokyo. “We’ll see what Megumi thinks,” Suguru decides tentatively. “They’re not due to come back here until at least the tournament, but we can’t know if they’ll want to come before that.”
He lets Satoru take his entire hand while he processes, playing with his fingers. Suguru leans on his other wrist. He wishes he could argue on their behalf. A betrayal of trust like this can’t end in anything other than them holding a grudge about it for the rest of their lives, even if they weren’t as close with Yuuji as Megumi is. But if the elders were so bold at the start, there’s no telling what they’ll do once Yuuji’s resurrected. They need all the time they can to prepare. He squeezes their fingers together. “By how much are we moving up the timeline?”
“I was waiting for your word on that,” Satoru says, raising his head and letting it fall against Suguru’s shoulder this time. He peers up at him with big eyes, batting his eyelashes in a flurry of snow. “I’m still tempted to go over there and break some bones. Need you to defuse my bloodlust.”
Suguru watches him back. It might sound unbelievable, but there are times when he forgets exactly what Satoru is, in the context of their world. He’s so used to his best friend, as powerful as he is ridiculous and infuriating and loving, that when they’re in a situation that makes him have to take into account the entire scope of just how much power Satoru is banking, receding like the tide at Suguru’s word if he asks. It’s as humbling as it is perpetual. He thinks, slowly starting to rub his thumb against the inside of Satoru’s wrist.
“The ideal would be to wait until at least their third year,” he finally starts, calculating for the current second years to be graduated, the new classes having come in. Factors in the elders’ desperation. He shrugs. “But… around this time next year, if we feel they’re good enough, we’ll take a vote. Let them have a say. Call it something else, a self-report, so they’re not complicit if they’re questioned about it later. If they think they’re ready, I’m not discounting their opinions.”
Satoru hums. He crushes himself up against Suguru even tighter, arms curling around his bicep, one foot hooking under his knee. It should be impossible, for someone so damn long, to make himself as small as he does in order to wrap around Suguru. The fact of the matter is, they fit together. “I like that idea. Nice and democratic. This is why you’re the brains.” He leans back for a second to give an explosive sigh at the ceiling before pushing his face into Suguru’s neck, muffled. “Still want to crack their skulls like eggs. Boo. I hate when they actually find ways to really piss me off.”
So does he. They’ve gotten good at being passive aggressive over the years, with Suguru specializing in the passive while Satoru mans the aggressive, but it’s rare the council has managed to find something egregious enough to set them both off. The last time had been during a faculty meeting, when they suggested leaving Megumi to the Zen’ins for proper training when he was still in elementary school. The gym had needed a new roof anyway.
Suguru tugs at the back of Satoru’s collar and murmurs, “Heel. We’ve been just as docile as they have, haven’t we?” Satoru pulls back to peer up at him and Suguru presses the next words into his hairline, meaning every single one. “They’re forgetting their place in the food chain. We’ll get our teeth in them soon enough.”
Satoru leans away, expression completely still in his scrutinization of Suguru’s before he grabs his jaw in one hand and kisses him soundly. He hums and, around what definitely feels like a smirk, says, “Love when you’re scary. It’s really hot.”
Suguru huffs a laugh and accepts another kiss to his cheek. He wraps both arms around Satoru, squeezing and letting himself enjoy having him close after two days apart. His anger gets to stew in the backburner of his mind as the rest of his body warms back up with feeling. After a deep breath against Satoru’s pulse, he shakes him once. “Take us back to campus. I brought you those pork floss buns you like.”
Satoru perks up. He takes Suguru’s face in both hands now, squishing his cheeks in. “The place near that owl cafe?”
Suguru tries and fails to break his grip, barely gets out the first letter of the affirmative before Satoru is crowing, “Yes!” He throws himself forward so Suguru gets wedged into the arm of the couch, helpless to the assault of loud, smacking kisses all over his face punctuated by high-pitched yay-ing.
“Should we get a camera for him?” Satoru asks once Suguru, through great effort and little drive, finally untangles them. Their hands remain held, even while Suguru adjusts the blindfold back over Satoru’s eyes. He wiggles his fingers against Suguru’s. “Y’know, the kind you do for dogs? Would that be weird?”
“Yes,” Suguru responds. He glances at the closed door. He’d leave a curse here to guard Yuuji if it wouldn’t be detectable. He’ll check with Utahime about a seal he knows can mask a veil, which should be enough. “He has your number right?”
Satoru nods. “And yours. Told him we’d be available at any time.”
“Right. He’ll be fine.” Suguru kisses the back of his hand. “We’ll make sure.”
Satoru doesn’t speak for a beat, just staring at him. “I love you,” he says, pulling in closer, and Suguru could hear those words a hundred more times, a billion, and it still wouldn’t be enough. They make him feel stronger than any curse he’s ever tamed. Then Satoru grins, sharp and genuine. “So. Want to feed me pork buns and fantasize about mass murder?”
Suguru smiles back. “There’s nothing I’d rather be doing.”
They don’t last the year.
It’s all a blur after the curse markers go up in flames. Suguru lets himself recede into the adrenaline but his heart remains firmly lodged in his throat the entire time they’re all gunning for the battlegrounds. Then they run into the veil that Satoru practically bounces off of.
A planned attack on the school when most of the students are in one spot, specifically keeping Satoru out, is nothing less than fucking terrifying. He became a teacher to prevent the next generation from experiencing what he had to and having the same rivers of blood that still haunt him in his sleep become theirs. At the very least, whatever is here is not making it out alive if he can help it.
Suguru doesn’t waste any time, summoning up his inventory curse and yanking a sword out as he rapidly directs. “Utahime, stay here, boost Satoru up until he can break through, the rest of us will start going in.”
“On it,” she responds without complaint, one of the many reasons they’re able to get along nowadays, and the bells on her wrist jingle as she shakes her arms out. Suguru gets a final look at Satoru, already looking back at him with a nod, and goes through the veil.
Suguru immediately leaves Gakuganji and splits off toward the forest. He gets out a curse big enough to tear the trees down in front of him and clear his path as he sprints faster than he ever has. He’s focused on honing in on the rapidly approaching sounds of a fight, the vibrations of impact and shouts louder every second. The curse bucks suddenly, and Suguru is already shooting off another as he tries to take stock of what killed the first one when Panda yells, “Suguru-sensei, it’s me!”
Suguru stops, immediately forcing all the curses away and lowering his sword. His second of relief at finding a student quickly dries up into nothing when he catches sight of Maki thrown over his shoulder and Megumi in the crook of his arm, Megumi limp and bleeding—
His knees almost give out until Megumi flinches, groaning weakly. Suguru’s there in the next second, rapidly pushing his sweat-soaked hair back, feeling his pulse jackrabbiting and alive. When he checks Maki, hers is the same even if she’s out completely. Panda startles when he snaps his head up and barks, “What happened?”
“There’s a bigass curse,” Panda starts and is interrupted by Megumi slurring out, “S’guru.”
Megumi very rarely calls him by his first name on campus, especially not so genuinely. Suguru feels his heart clench painfully as he lifts a hand to take Suguru’s wrist.
“You need to—” He coughs, a full body shudder that makes him suck in a sharp breath. He still manages to look Suguru in the eye, tugging at him like he used to when he was too short to get his attention. “You need to help Itadori.”
Suguru looks off in the direction they’d come from, the same one he’d been headed for. “Are they over there?“
Panda nods, vigorously, only jostling Megumi and Maki a little bit. “Yeah, the curse is— Oh, shit.”
Suguru whirls already in fighting stance, needing no more than Panda’s wide eyes and a branch breaking to tell him what he’ll see. The curse user is short, resembling one of those smiling Chinese dragons because of his bugged out eyes and the tufts of hair on his chin and the crown of his bald head.
Suguru doesn’t take his eyes off him when he mutters, “Go. She’ll take you to Shoko.” He lets darkness pool in his free palm, flicking that hand so his manta ray rises from the portal in a graceful arc. He hears Panda carefully clambering on, practiced from whenever he’d manage to wheedle a ride from Suguru when he was a toddler.
“Thanks, Suguru. Kick his ass.” Panda whispers back. He says an unnecessary, “Yip, yip!” and they’re off. The curse user tracks them with his crazed eyes but Suguru shoots two quick flyheads at him to get him to deflect with the knife in his belt and put his attention back on him.
The man bares his teeth even wider, brandishing, barrel chest jut so Suguru knows exactly what kind of narcissistic asshole he’s dealing with. “I am Awas—“
“I really don’t care,” Suguru grinds out and lunges forward.
He’s fast and talented, which Suguru has come to learn is better to assume than the opposite. Regardless, it isn’t hard to figure out his technique through all of the man’s annoying giggling. The only thing throwing him off is the fact that he can still hear the other fight, the one he should be at, off in the distance. When the veil finally breaks, he can finally completely focus.
After trading enough blows, it’s clear nothing is having any effect. Suguru allows him to lead the fight until he finds an opening and smacks him upside the head, not even that hard. When the man doubles over shrieking in pain, he has his answer.
He deposits Awas-whatever’s body at the entrance with the other curse user’s, his twisted limbs a good indication that Satoru took him out as soon as he was within the veil. Gakuganji and Nanami confirm as much, and that’s all Suguru gets before Satoru materializes in front of him.
He’s crackling with energy, blindfold off so the full force of his gaze zeroes in on Gakuganji with all the consideration of a honing missile. Suguru isn’t even fully aware he’s physically there when he’s pointing a finger gun in the old man’s face, sudden grin a feral, deadly thing as a bang of red light blinds them all.
Suguru hears Nanami curse just as Gakuganji makes impact with the stone wall a few yards behind him. By the wheeze, he’s still alive, at least, so Suguru lunges for Satoru. He gets him around the waist and Satoru doesn’t struggle, eyes fixed on his attack.
Suguru presses in close so his nose fills with the thunderstorm smell of Satoru having used Purple, hissing against the shell of his overhot ear, “What the hell—“
“Aoi, Yuuji,” Satoru calls, voice ringing clear across the courtyard. “Tell them what you just told me.” Suguru glances back to see the third year lumbering over, beat up but wholly intact. Yuuji is trailing after him in the same state.
Aoi stops, arms crossing over his chest. He booms out, “Before the course started, my class was rounded up and instructed that we were to disregard the rules and make our primary goal killing Itadori Yuuji.” Suguru’s distantly aware that Nanami makes the same sound of affront he does. Aoi continues, smacking Yuuji’s back. “Of course, that’s before I remembered that he’s my best and greatest friend.”
Yuuji doesn’t flinch at the hit, eyes still bugged out where they slide from Gakuganji to Satoru, Suguru, then Nanami. “They surrounded me in the forest,” he adds nervously and shrugs. “I didn’t know if it was just part of it at first, but then they got Maki-senpai’s sister to start shooting at me, so. I, um. I mean, I didn’t die?”
The statements settle in the pit of his stomach the same horrible way a curse might. He uses the moment where he’s still facing away to let the rage flood him without restraint. As he turns his head back around, he and Nanami exchange a glance. The only tell of his is the same one he’s had since they were in school, that twitch that pulls his bottom lip into a snarl. Suguru doesn’t need to look under his perpetual stony mask to know he’s equally as livid.
And with that, Suguru greets Gakuganji with a smile. He lets go of Satoru, not so subtly pushing him so he’s behind and closer to the kids. “Is that true?”
He knows both Aoi and Yuuji well enough to understand they’re not looking to lie for attention. Doubly, he isn’t surprised by the action so much as he is the audacity. To send other students on school grounds when the one thing they are supposed to be able to count on as teachers and guardians, as parents, is the safety the campus offers. No wonder the curse users were able to infiltrate the wards, the people that were supposed to be on guard were too busy plotting to murder a child.
It’s a damn waste of a question. Still, Suguru needs an answer while he has so many witnesses.
Gakuganji manages to sit up. One of his eyes is scarlet with burst vessels, twitching between them and widening when he realizes Suguru is taking the lead here. Suguru, who is serene, genial, logical. He doesn’t fan the flames, he pats the Honored One’s shoulder into submission when he starts making the walls shake. He clearly isn’t any of those things now.
Gakuganji spits out a tooth. “You insolent—“ He hacks out another two. “Brats. You don’t even understand—“
Suguru holds up a hand to shut him up, tilting his head. He can feel the darkness of his curses gathering at his back, spreading over the ground in front of him. Yuuji gives a low Ohh. “I’d like it if you answered me before you started insulting anybody, actually.”
“If you found enough merit in doling out a task like this to children,” Nanami continues, voice dropping lower into a growl with every word, “then you should at least have the conviction to say that.”
Gakuganji heaves another breath. His gnarled fingers dig into the dirt before one lifts, shaking, to thrust at Yuuji. “That thing has no place in jujutsu society, let alone this school. If you won’t do your duty,” he directs toward Satoru as he struggles to get back to his feet, “then it is ours to delegate.”
Satoru cocks his head, his hip. Everywhere he bumps up against Suguru’s side shocks him in little pinches of overpowered static. “Naturally. I mean, stuff like this goes to me, as the most powerful sorcerer alive, then, of course, the toddlers.” He laughs so it echoes out in the post-battle emptiness of the courtyard. Suguru hears more and more footsteps approaching then slowing to a stop behind them. Perfect. “Then, maybe after Plan, what, F?— that’s where I’m assuming getting one of the campus cats to poison him in his sleep fails— you might even consider getting your hands dirty. Not that I ever do,” he adds, holding his own up splayed. He sweeps two fingers in a hard flick and Gakuganji’s head cracks back against the brick so he crumples. Satoru wiggles his hands again. “See? Clean!” He drops them.
He looks to Suguru then, waiting. A decade of bated breath and anticipation is yanked taut between them. Suguru’s ears almost pop at the change of pressure.
They’ve known, for almost as long as they’ve known each other, that they had the power to upend centuries of order with nothing more than shared interest. Separately, Satoru certainly could if he so much as had the fleeting notion to snap on any given day, and while it would take longer, Suguru knows he could do the same.
That’s never been what the higher ups were scared of, though, was it? Yaga had told them himself that he’d been strongly advised to discourage their partnership. Individual powerful sorcerers were good to have, useful tools to deploy when their loyalties didn’t lie in any fixed place that could impede their commands, and all they ever clearly had was their loyalty. Suguru lets his hand slide off Satoru’s shoulder. The tips of two of his fingers brush the center of his palm in a hot burst of cursed energy as it drops to his side.
Suguru gives the order. He nods.
The thread snaps.
He doesn’t have to look as he lets his kissing curse loose to a chorus of exclamations from the crowd they’ve gathered. He’d always pictured them finally deciding to do this in a fell swoop, but he’s not about to go completely batshit in front of the students. Regardless, things were about to get messy. He ducks his head to gather his hair up into a bun as Gakuganji’s strangled sounds of struggle join in on the commotion.
Satoru claps his hands, spinning on his heel. “Nanami-kun,” he asks, “are you taking the kids?”
“Yes,” Nanami confirms. When Suguru straightens, blowing his bangs out of his face, he’s looking between them without a small amount of curious acceptance.
They’ve never made the concreteness of their plans apparent to anyone except Shoko, for liability’s sake, so it isn’t like he actually knew this could happen. Comments here and there, sure. Satoru especially loved dropping it into conversation with all the casualty of a grenade. Suguru had just had enough conversations with Nanami about it since Haibara to know he would be, at worst, unobstructive and, at best, an ally.
Now, he restraps his sword to his back. He nods at them once and turns away to herd the kids, squawking with questions, back toward the medical wing. “Do what you have to do to keep them safe,” he throws back at them.
“We will,” they answer together.
Suguru starts to turn back, running the catalog of his curses through his head to decide who to bring out, before his concentration is interrupted by Satoru stepping closer. He says, “Hey, hold still a second,” so Suguru does, lets Satoru cup his face in both hands.
Everything fades, fuzzy and peripheral in comparison to him. He glows despite the gnarled mass of Suguru’s curses growing behind him. The fading sun hits his edges and fractures into rainbows that shift and breathe with him. Neither of them move in that unbroken second, but still, somehow, Suguru can feel Satoru’s touch press into his cheeks, the bridge of his nose, softly sweeping over his eyelids.
And just as it faded, the world explodes back into vibrant focus. Every time Suguru blinks, his vision shatters with the same colors swirling around Satoru, and if they hadn’t tried this before, once or thrice, the sudden spike in his heart rate would be enough to distract. As it is, Infinity settles over both of them comfortably.
Satoru lets him go. He beams, and he’s so beautifully bright that even his canine teeth wink like stars. Love and power have always been so intrinsically linked together in Suguru’s life that the feeling that rises in him now is nothing except completely and utterly right. He returns the smile.
His dragon’s snout emerges on Satoru’s other side. She nudges it up against his hip for attention, which he gladly gives with a coo and a scratch to her scruffy chin as she rises to her full height. He can’t exactly manifest her inside the building, so it’s better to have her stand guard outside in case they try to call in for any reinforcements. Not that it’d do anything. Besides, they just want to talk.
Suguru shucks his jacket off as they start walking forward, clicking his tongue so the kissing curse will follow. There’s not a small level of satisfaction in the fear clear on Gakuganji’s haggard face. When Satoru leans across Suguru to waggle his fingers at him and the hag actually flinches, Suguru laughs.
“I’m thinking some good everything takeout after this. Pizza, barbecue, sushi,” Satoru says conversationally, linking their arms when he stands straight again. There’s a skip to his step that bumps his shoulder against Suguru’s pleasantly. “We can bring some back for everybody. They’re gonna be tired after all the healing.”
Suguru gives him an amused glance. “You would already be thinking about food,” he muses. “Sure, let’s. This won’t take too long anyway.”
“Yeah,” Satoru says in a lilting tone and pulls at him to come closer, “‘cause we’re the strongest.”
Suguru turns his head to face him, not even rolling his eyes like he usually does when Satoru says that. Any other time, he would, because he’s been trying to instill any amount of humility in Satoru he possibly can for the past fifteen years with no luck.
Now, he doesn’t think it’s necessary. He lets himself be pulled, leans in, and echoes the sentiment against the perfect dimple in Satoru’s cheek, untouchable.