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monstersandmaw · 1 year

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Male fox spirit x female reader (nsfw)

Disclaimer which I’m including in all my works after plagiarism and theft has taken place: I do not give my consent for my works to be used, copied, published, or posted anywhere. They are copyrighted and belong to me.

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Commission #4 in the list of 5! Thank you for trusting me with your prompt: female reader saves a dying fox on her way home from work, who turns out to be a fox spirit. I hope you like it!

Contents: Fox suffers a spinal injury when hit by a car (not the reader’s); there’s some magic; some domestic fluff; oral sex, fingering, him coming on her; and a sweet, fluffy ending.

Wordcount: 4400

Driving rain greeted you full in the face as you shoved open the main doors of the building and burrowed down into your coat, drawing the hood tight around your head in a vain attempt to keep the weather out. Nights like this — cold, damp, and at the tail end of winter before Spring took a proper hold on the land — were truly miserable.

Your fingers were half frozen by the time you had fumbled the keys out of your pocket and clambered into your car, and you fired the old thing up with a hopeful grimace that it would start. It coughed to life and you uttered a little prayer of thanks to whichever gods or spirits out there might be listening. “Now if only you could do something about my pathetic love life as well,” you said to yourself as you reversed out of the parking space and headed towards the main road. “Wouldn’t that be perfect?”

Half an hour outside of town, your headlights flashed over something lying on the side of the road, sprawled halfway across the white line, and you swerved instinctively to avoid it. Mercifully there was nothing coming in the other direction, or you’d have caused a serious accident. Adrenaline spiked through you and you slammed on the brakes.

The flash of golden-red you’d glimpsed had told you it was a fox, but it had had its head raised and it had been looking at you with its eyes flaring yellow in the headlights, but the expression on its face had struck you to the core. It had looked… resigned. Like it knew you were going to hit it. Like it knew it was going to die.

“No,” you said through gritted teeth.

You had some old work gloves in the back of the car from when you’d taken a load of stuff from the garden to the dump a week before, so you put your hazards on and slid out of the driver’s side door and into the worsening storm. You cursed softly, squinting amid the stinging rain as it struck your face like little iron nails in the gusty night. You cleared a space in the trunk for the fox, spreading an old picnic blanket out and grabbing those thick leather gloves. No need to get rabies if the thing bit you before you could get it to an animal clinic in the morning.

You knew it was a stupid thing to do, that cars hit wildlife all the time, and you really weren’t equipped to deal with it, but you couldn’t just leave it there when it had looked so sad; black ears drooping, eyes wide, mouth slightly open.

Making your way along the edge of the deserted road with only your phone torch to light the way, you found the spot where the fox was still lying on the asphalt, and crooned softly to it. “Hey there,” you said, feeling a bit silly. “It’s ok. I’m not going to hurt you. It’s alright. Let me help you out… Let me take you home and see if I can take you to a vet in the morning…”

When your light found its back legs though, your heart sank. They lay limp and slightly twisted to one side. Its back had been broken by the impact with a vehicle.

“Oh baby,” you said, fighting sudden tears. “It’s going to be ok…” you lied.

Was it like with humans? Should it not be moved with a spinal injury? It would probably die anyway, or they’d recommend putting it down. You could at least take it in and keep it warm for its last few hours. When you knelt nearby, it just laid its cheek down on the cold tarmac, defeated, and let out a long, broken whimper.

“I’m going to pick you up, ok? Please don’t bite me. God, this is such a stupid thing to do…”

The fox licked its shiny black nose and just blinked slowly at you.

When it made no move to attack you or snap at you when you got nearer, you scooped it up and marvelled at how light it felt in your arms, its lovely, russet fur damp and matted.

“There,” you said, cradling it in your arms as you carried it back to your car. ‘Him’, not ‘it’, you saw when you set him down on the blanket and stroked his head and neck. He murmured softly, the sound almost a purr, and you swallowed thickly. He was so weak, you wondered if he’d even survive the journey home.

Five cars overtook you as you drove on after that, all beeping and honking their horns and flashing their lights to get you to go faster, but you absolutely would not be bullied into making this last car ride hell for the little, injured fox.

It didn’t take very long to set up a cosy den of blankets and towels in the kitchen by the radiator, and when you were satisfied that it was as comfortable as you could make it — and that any mess would be contained in an area with tile floors — you went back for him. He was still lying on his side, exactly as you’d left him, but his eyes seemed brighter and more focused, and his ears pricked up when you opened the trunk up and gazed down at him.

“Alright?” you asked and he gave a soft snuffle that was half-sneeze and half-chuckle. “You’re awfully perky for someone who’s just gone head-to-head with fast-moving traffic, buddy,” you smiled. “Maybe you will be alright. Ready to go inside?”

You had your gloves on but it didn’t feel like you really needed them, and when you settled him down on the veritable blanket fort inside, he heaved a great sigh and nuzzled his cheek against the fabric with a rumbling moan of contentment.

“You hungry?” you asked. “I don’t have much that’s fox-friendly, but I think there’s some ham in the fridge. Let me check.”

You offered him a saucer of water first, holding his delicate head up as he lapped steadily at it until he’d had his fill, and then you fed him little slivers of cooked ham which he took from your fingers like an absolute gentleman. “Aren't you dainty,” you chuckled as his small, sharp teeth pulled the next piece carefully free of your gloved hand.

He fixed you with such a flat, patronising look that you had to laugh.

The fox flicked an ear and looked away.

“Oh I’m sorry,” you said in a baby voice. “Don’t be grumpy with me, you precious thing… Here, have some more…”

He sneezed, then looked back at you and opened his mouth, head tipped back like a baby bird awaiting a worm.

“You’re not going to take it? You want me to feed you?”

He just stared at you without moving.

“Fine, your highness,” you said. “Anything for you.”

You let the piece drop into his tilted jaws, and then chucked him affectionately under the chin with your finger after he’d chewed and swallowed it.

He caught the leather of the glove’s fingertip in his teeth in a move that was so fast you didn’t even see it, but then tugged gently, insistently.

“I’m not taking this off,” you frowned. “You could have rabies for all I know.”

A tiny, rattling growl, like the world’s tiniest chainsaw, rumbled out of him and he folded his ears back indignantly before pulling on the glove again. Then he let go, his ears pricked about as far forward as he could get them, and he stared expectantly at you.

“No way, friend,” you said, and stood to put the empty ham packet in the rubbish bin.

With your back to the kitchen window, a golden light flooded the room, and for a wild moment, you thought someone was driving straight at the house, headlights blazing. When you whipped around though, you froze. The light was coming from… from the fox.

“The fuck…?”

Your heartbeat started to race, and you weren’t sure if the ringing sound was coming from your own blood pounding in your ears or from something else in the room. The brightness reached such an intense crescendo that you had to look away, shielding your eyes with the crook of your arm until the chiming noise stopped and you lowered it cautiously back down, blinking.

There, standing in the centre of the room, was a man.

You took a step back, fear crashing in on your senses.

You looked around for something you could use as a weapon, but a warm, gentle voice said, “Wait, I won’t hurt you. I swear it.”

Again, you went still, and after taking a steadying breath, you turned to face him again, wide eyed and shaking. “What the hell?”

“Not hell,” he smiled, and you saw that he had warm, tan skin and dark, golden eyes. His hair was a russet colour, and it fell in soft waves around his ears to the nape of his neck. He was slender, not especially tall, and he was quite possibly the most beautiful human being you’d ever laid eyes on. Except… there was still a kind of glow around him, like an aura, and his clothes looked like they belonged at a Ren Faire or something, though the dark green, belted and embroidered tunic was finely tailored and his dark brown boots looked soft and well worn. Tiny points of light, like fireflies, twisted slowly through the air surrounding him before vanishing into a miniature, glittering starburst.

“You’re not human,” you said, despite how crazy it sounded.

“No,” the man replied with a smile. “No, I’m not. But you didn’t know that when you took in an injured fox and cared for him.”

“You’re the fox,” you blurted without thinking.

“I am. Sort of,” he smiled, and you saw that he had perfect, white teeth, with slightly more pointed canines than humans usually did. “I’m a fox spirit. There are all sorts of us, and we’re known by many names all over the world, but the most famous is probably the ‘kitsune’ thanks to modern media.”

“Oh,” you said, only half aware that your vision was darkening around the edges until it was too late. The blood roared again in your ears and your knees went out from under you. The last thing you saw was a flicker of a frown on the man’s — kitsune’s — face before he lunged towards you with hands outstretched, and the world went black.

You stirred and found yourself lying on the sofa in your sitting room, with your feet raised about a foot or so off the seat cushion, and a stranger in green standing over you, holding your legs up by the ankle. The kitsune. The fox spirit.

“Got to say, that’s the first time someone’s actually fainted because of me,” he said with a smile, lowering your legs back down and stepping back. “Are you alright?”

“I fainted?” you asked stupidly, pushing yourself upright and swinging your legs slowly off the sofa and onto the ground. You swayed a little, but didn’t pass out again.

The fox spirit nodded, his lovely hair shining with strands of bronze and copper in the low light of the room, gold eyes glowing as if back-lit. “Thank you for saving me,” he said in a quiet, earnest baritone.

“Did I, though?” you asked, staring openly at him. “I mean… you’re… magic, right? I saw the way your legs were just… Your back was broken…”

“If you’d hit me with your car, or simply left me there for the next driver to do the same, then I wouldn’t have survived. We’re tough, and our magic can heal most things, but not that.”

“Oh.” And then your cheeks went hot and you looked at the carpet, “I’m sorry I baby-talked you like you were an actual animal.”

He laughed; a beautiful, bright sound like dry autumn leaves in clear sunlight. His head tipped a little way back and he looked truly delighted. “You weren’t to know,” he said, still chuckling. “And you’re not the first.”

“Oh,” you said, like a broken record.

From where he stood nearby, the fox spirit smiled at you and then inhaled deeply. “I… should go,” he said, his golden eyes turning a little sad. “Let you return to your life…”

“Wait,” you called from the sofa as he turned away. “What’s your name?”

He cast you a look over his shoulder and the smile he gave you was wry and amused. “You may call me Rowe.”

There was a nuance there that you weren’t understanding, but you told him your name in return, and he inhaled suddenly as if you’d struck him.

“You would part with your name so carelessly?” he whispered, brows pulling together into a frown of utter confusion. “You…” and then his expression cleared and his shoulders dropped. “You have never had dealings with the fae, have you?”

“The… fae?” you stuttered. “Like… fairies?”

The smile that replaced the frown was patient and amused in equal parts, and he sighed and shook his head. “Well, here’s your first lesson. Never tell your true name to a fae.”

Again, all the sound that escaped you was a dull, “Oh.”

He exhaled and approached you, and you tried not to lean back, to lean away from him. This whole night had gone from bad to utterly bizarre in the blink of an eye and you felt a little sick from the whiplash.

To make matters all the more confusing, the strange man knelt before you, sweeping his long, otherworldly tunic out of the way as he sank down onto one knee like he was going to propose or something, and he bowed his auburn head. “You saved my life without thought of debt or repayment, and in recognition of the gift, I give one of my own. I bind your True Name to my heart and hold it there in silence. I may never speak your True Name aloud unless you give me leave so to do. This I swear upon my spirit and my magic and my own True Name.”

The air in the room prickled like static and you had to fight the urge to see if your hair was standing on end. Goosebumps flickered along your arms and legs, and you drew in a shallow breath. “Anything else I should know about?” you asked faintly.

He looked up at you and shrugged. “We’re allergic to iron,” he suggested. “And we’re overly fond of cream and sweet cakes…”

“Sweet cakes,” you repeated thoughtfully, eyes drifting towards the kitchen where you’d bought a strawberry sponge cake just the day before, and an idea half-formed in your head.

Rowe smiled and your heart slipped sideways in your chest for a moment. He was so beautiful it was almost hard to believe he was really there and really standing in front of you. Well, technically he was kneeling like a knight in a fairytale. Fairytale indeed, you thought.

“You don’t have to go,” you whispered.

You were afraid of sounding childish, that if you spoke too loudly, he would think you desperate and would laugh at you, but all he did was tilt his head to the side the way he had done as a fox, and he nodded once. “Alright,” he said.

“I mean, don’t feel like you have to stay either,” you babbled, making a rather pathetic, flapping gesture in front of you with your hands. “I just meant… you’re welcome to stay if you want to. I was going to cook some dinner and watch a movie… eat cake for dessert. I thought… I thought since you’ve had kind of a rough day, you might like to just… chill out with me for a while.”

“May I help you cook?”

“If you… If you’d like to?” you said, standing carefully and holding your hand out to him to encourage him up off the floor.

He slid his warm fingers into your palm, and got to his feet with the grace of a prince, and offered you another smile. “I’d like that very much.”

Rowe stayed with you for a week. You explained that you had to go to work or you’d get fired, and when you came back on the first day, you expected him to have gone, leaving you wondering if the whole thing hadn’t been a hallucination brought on by the combination of a stressful week of work and the awful weather. But no, Rowe was there that evening, curled up as a fox on the impromptu bed you’d made by the radiator while the rain hurled itself at the window pane above him.

“Rowe, you don’t have to sleep on that!” you gasped, dropping your bag by the door and making him startle awake, ears pricked, tail fluffed up in rather adorable alarm.

In a flash of gold light, he was human again, standing beside the bed and smiling at you. “I don’t mind,” he chuckled. “It’s comfortable, and when I’m a fox, I don’t think in quite the same way as I do when I’m in this form. That’s how I got hit by the car in the first place… Please, don’t fret.”

You scowled at him, but relented, and asked him about his day. It seemed he’d spent most of it in his fox form, either out and about in the woods near your house, or sleeping by the warmth of the radiator.

“Didn’t you get bored here?” you asked.

“I could have done the housework for you,” he smirked. “But I thought that might have been an intrusion on your privacy.”

You laughed. “Thanks?”

After three days of sharing your space with him — he sleeping contentedly as a fox on the pile of blankets and you upstairs in your bedroom — you cleared your throat that evening as you sat together on the sofa like old friends, and said, “You know… uh… I… I wouldn’t mind if you wanted to come upstairs with me… I don’t want you to feel like you have to sleep down here like you’re a…” you trailed off, flushing hot with awkward embarrassment.

One russet-brown eyebrow climbed a little higher than the other. “… a what?”

“Like you’re some kind of pet… you know…”

Rowe laughed and, as it always did, your heart skipped a beat. His cheeks dimpled and Adam’s apple danced in his exposed throat and you ached. It felt like a long time since someone had touched you; since you’d been held, let alone kissed. He had a beautiful mouth, like he’d been made just to tempt you.

Some of your thoughts must have shown on your face because the laughter died in his throat and he fixed you with a look that was all concern. He murmured the name you’d given him permission to use when it was just the two of you and asked, “What’s wrong? I’m not upset about the animal comment,” he said, reaching for your forearm and trying to reassure you, but you shook your head. “Then what?”

Tears came unbidden to your eyes and you turned away. His hand felt hot through the fabric of your hoodie, but his grip was feather light. It would take nothing at all to pull yourself free, but the thought of it seemed overwhelming. “It’s nothing,” you choked, pressing your lips together and hoping he’d let the matter drop.

He didn’t. His eyes flared bright gold and he scowled at you when you risked a glance at him. “The fae can always taste a lie,” he said with the slightest growl to his voice. “And I can tell you’re hurting. We were laughing, and then… you weren’t. What changed?”

“It’s —”

A short, animal growl echoed in his throat but he bit it back, shut his mouth with a click of teeth, and glared at you.

“Ugh, fine,” you huffed, standing up and pacing across the room. “It’s been a long time since it’s been this easy around someone, ok? And it’s not every day that a handsome, cute guy with a great sense of humour shows genuine interest in me. I just wished, for like half a second, that you might be interested in me, but I get it. You’re not even human. I was nice to you. You probably feel obliged to stay here. You… You should probably go soon anyway.”

His expression turned from concerned to carefully neutral, and he stood. “If that’s the way you feel,” he said, “Then I can leave. But you should know that I’ve had a wonderful time with you, and…” he swallowed and took a breath, “I think you’re beautiful, through and through.”

“Please,” you scoffed. “Don’t bother trying to spare my feelings.”

“We can taste a lie, but we cannot tell one,” he said evenly. “I could not tell you that your clothes are yellow when they are not, nor that the sky is green, nor that you are not beautiful.”

You turned slowly around to look at him, and found him glowing gold again, those points of light spiralling lazily in the air around him. The slight shape of fox ears seemed to be picked out in two, brighter lines above his copper hair and behind him you saw a golden tail swaying back and forth. His eyes blazed bright like burnished bronze, and he was staring directly at you as he spoke.

“Oh.”

“I would very much like to stay with you, and share your bed, and, if you would let me, I would bring you pleasure too.”

Your breath hitched and you licked your lips. He even spoke like he was out of a fairytale. “You mean it?”

“Yes.”

“Ok,” you smiled.

Together, you tidied up the sitting room, and he followed you upstairs, still glowing softly, as if he were utterly contented and couldn’t help it.

Rowe undressed with you in your bedroom, baring a body like polished bronze; all lean lines and languid muscle, and you almost couldn’t look away. He asked if he could shower with you, and gently washed you and touched you, cupping your breasts and trailing his hands down your sides with reverent care. He passed his thumbs over your hardened nipples and kneaded your breasts until you gasped and tipped your head back, eyes closed. He teased between your legs with his fingertips, and then when you turned the shower off, he kissed your forehead. In a rush of magic, both your bodies were completely dry and your skin glowed softly with a thousand, dewy, golden sparkles. You beamed up at him, and he kissed you.

When he drew back, he led you by the hand into the bedroom and you lay down on the bed, heart racing. He knelt between your parted knees and you stared openly at his beautiful body. He looked like a statue come to life, and his cock had been more than half-hard ever since the shower, even as he turned his attention wholly on you and skimmed his palms up your thighs. You parted your legs a little wider for him and he bowed forward to kiss along your inner thigh until you shivered and lay back on the pillow behind you with a gasp.

He kissed you and tasted you, moaning softly before letting his tongue sweep up over you. He took your sensitive clit between his lips and kissed you there as well, and then he slid his arms under your thighs, lay down on his front, and you lost yourself to the pleasure of his mouth.

You lost count of how many times he made you come that night, with his tongue and with his fingers, but he never asked for more than you were ready to give.

“Come on me,” you murmured. You had no idea how well your current contraception would withstand a magical fae, but you were pretty sure you were safe with that, and when you asked, he nodded.

His fingers were slick from where he’d made you come, again, and he closed his hand around his cock with a low groan that dissolved into a gasp as he brought himself to the brink. He glowed gold again and you saw those ears made of light and the tail gleaming vividly behind him just as he spilled over your stomach with a muted grunt and another beautiful moan.

The golden light suffused the room, and you watched his expression as he came — open and vulnerable and achingly beautiful — and wished more than anything that he would stay.

When you woke in the morning, you expected to wake alone, but the warm pressure of Rowe’s body pressed against your back and the weight of his arm across your waist drew a little inhale of surprise from you. Apparently that was enough to wake him, because he kissed the back of your head and mumbled a sleepy good morning into your hair.

He was hard too, you realised, and you deliberately rocked your hips back against him.

Rowe let out a grunt and his hand shifted to your hips, drawing himself closer to you with a languid, answering roll of his hips.

“I don’t know if the fae have weekends,” you said, “But today is Saturday. I don’t have to go in to work…”

“Good,” he said. “I’m not sure I could let you go anywhere today after last night.” He said it with a laugh that told you he would let you do anything you liked, and you rolled over to face him. The softness in his smile brought one of your own to your lips, and he slid his hand down over your breast and then down between your legs.

Your eyes fluttered closed as he slipped his fingers easily inside you, and you rolled onto your back as he started a rhythm that would end in the kind of pleasure you had only ever dreamed of before him.

He smiled and kissed your cheek without his fingers once faltering, and whispered in your ear, “I’ll stay with you as long as you want me.”

You gasped and bucked, and almost missed his promise.

“I’ll stay with you forever.”

Thanks for reading this story, and I hope you’ll consider reblogging it (as well as leaving a like) if you enjoyed it, since that will help others find it.

Take care, and I hope you have a lovely day/night wherever you are, and whenever you read this.

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#kitsune #male kitsune #male fox spirit #fox spirit #fox shapeshifter #fae #shapeshifter #male kitsune x female reader #female reader #male fae x female reader #fae x reader #exophilia #monster boyfriend #kitsune boyfriend

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noroi1000 · 11 months

Note

Satosugu with reader who's insecure with her body since it's full of scars like gojo in latest chapter? Fluff or smut pls!!

Scars

SatoSugu x reader with scars

Summary: You have a lot of scars. All over your body...You can't show them naked. You don't want them to say you're ugly... But they want to show you that you are beautiful... They want to give you more confidence... They want you to show them your body. Even if you have scars.

Warnings: NSFW (mirror sex, threesome MMF)

Words: 3.3k

The door was closed so you could wash your body in peace.

And the fact that you locked the door when you were in the bathroom bothered them a bit.

Just like you go to the bathroom to change or lock yourself in your room while they're somewhere else.

Even on hot days, you don't wear shorts and revealing T-shirts.

You don't walk around with nothing but underwear on.

You don't shower with them. When you go to the beach, you don't strip down to your bathing suit.

The first time you were at the beach together, they were disappointed to see you in a knee length swimsuit with elbow length sleeves.

You have small scars on your forearms, but who doesn't? Forearms are very often exposed to damage.

Also a few on the calves.

But they've never seen the rest of your body in daylight.

When you have sex, you ask them to turn off the light. And for you to do it when it was darker. You didn't see their hands in the dark. There was only a little light.

They haven't seen you.

You saw them getting out of bed. But they've never seen you completely naked.

Even if you've been together for a long time.

They're afraid you don't trust them. But you do.

You can't just accept what they look like with what you look like.

You don't want them to feel from you that you don't want to be with them in such an intimate way as nudity.

But there's nothing you can do to make it different.

You just can't change anything.

There are scars all over your body.

There is no place on your body where these scars are not.

One is deeper and the other is lighter.

On your face too. But you can't see it because it was shallow.

Your hands are scarred. But you can't see that either.

Your arms, torso, and thighs are the worst.

That's why you can't show yourself to them without covering.

You just can't.

So many times you promised yourself that this was the day you would break down and undress in front of them so they could see you. You wanted to get out of your comfort zone so they wouldn't be mad at you.

But you ended up standing there talking to them instead of taking a bath with them.

Or you washed their backs or their hair.

You couldn't make yourself accept the way you look around them. You just couldn't show them your skin.

When they bought you a dress whose cut showed some kind of stronger scar, you hid it under makeup.

And then you went out with them.

But there were scars you couldn't cover up. Like the deepest one that left a slight dimple in your skin.

You remember seeing your body covered in blood when you got all those wounds that made you very insecure.

You can't even show your arms and thighs to them without realizing that your body doesn't look right.

Your body has signs. Not what they want to see.

You were a sorcerer. And it was as a sorcerer that you got all those scars. And then, after you had been recovering for a very long time, you quit.

You met them a few years later.

And now you're their girlfriend.

When you see them kissing, you don't mind.

But when they walk next to you with or without underwear on, you feel uneasy in your heart.

They hug. And here you see their clean skins touching.

They told you they were injured. That their skin was cracked and cut. But they have no trace.

Because it was used on them. Reverse cursed technique. Satoru healed himself. And Suguru was healed.

However, you have not received such perfect help.

You were helped by a sorcerer who could accelerate the healing process of wounds.

That's why when he finished your treatment, your body was scarred. Scars everywhere.

You were attacked by a curse that used spikes. Spikes like blades. And that was very common with your skin. Cutting you and hurting you.

When you failed to overcome this, reinforcements were called in.

And attacks from afar managed to kill this curse.

But the person who could use the reverse cursed technique was not there to help you at the time.

That's why your treatment took longer than it should have.

And that left a lot of marks on your body.

You tried everything to hide it.

Creams and ointments from the top shelf for scars. You wanted to laser remove lines on your skin, but you couldn't.

You went to the doctor, but nothing could be done. These are older scars you can't get rid of.

Therefore, all you could do was cover yourself, escape from their eyes, lock yourself in a room when you took off your clothes, and try to cover up what must have been hidden.

More than once you felt like crying when you saw people's bodies in movies and TV series.

It doesn't look like yours.

In order to feel good in your body, you must wear what won't show your skin to human eyes.

Because what you get will be painful. People will look at you with disgust or pity.

You can't show your skin to someone because it's not the natural look of skin.

It's not something you were born with.

It's not sexy at all. It's not pretty at all. There's no place on your body that you can show and say it's pretty.

You've stopped trying to change anything because you can't.

You just need to protect your skin for the rest of your life.

And because there is so much of it, you can't do much. You have to constantly make sure your skin isn't showing anywhere.

You told them you had scars. They said it didn't bother them.

And they understood that you might be ashamed to undress in front of them in the beginning.

That's why they listened to you and turned off the lights when you had sex.

But after a couple of years of relationship? How else can you want this?

It is a painful feeling when one partner does not trust them and does not want to show the body in all its glory.

When they touch you, they feel light dimples under their fingers on your belly or thighs and hips.

Anyone can get stretch marks. It is obvious. It's a natural thing for humans.

However, this on your skin was different. Plus, it didn't come naturally.

Therefore, images appeared in their minds that it does not have to be stretch marks on your body.

You always got dressed after you had sex. You weren't naked with them.

You got out of bed while they were sleeping and dressed quickly. And then you fell asleep with them again.

Until at some point they saw your back and thighs when you left the bathroom door open and they went home.

You're used to using another room to change clothes. That's why they felt hurt when instead of sitting on the edge of the bed, you took your clothes and went to the bathroom. To come back later and put your pajamas away.

When they couldn't stand the heat and walked around in underwear, you sat there in a sweatshirt and pants. Everything that covered your skin.

Even if you sweat a lot.

It hurt them.

They didn't force you to fully expose your skin. But they couldn't see what your complexes were making you do.

Scars for women are not something they should have.

According to some, women must have clean and flawless skin. No scars or stretch marks. Because according to established ideals, this is not feminine beauty. And a woman with something like that on her skin can never be considered beautiful.

Beauty ideals let people know that they are not perfect. And only certain bodies can be considered sexy. Human standards did.

Anyone could have sworn it wasn't like that before.

And now people want to tell someone that a woman can't have such ugly symbols on her skin.

They know women who have scars. They are the same as you.

It makes no sense for a sorcerer to think about ideals of beauty. Sorcerers fight to the death. And the fact that someone came back injured, with scars is just a sign that they managed to win and survive.

There are few sorcerers who live optimistically.

Because the life of a sorcerer is constant struggle and blood. Tears of pain. Death surrounding people.

There is no one among sorcerers who has never been wounded. There is no one whose skin is not marked with something that has been in life.

Scars, missing limb. Lost internal organs. Lost part of the skin or part of the face. Only a few can heal. And there are even fewer people who can heal someone.

Many sorcerers, in addition to scars on the body and cavities, also have scars and cavities on the soul. Death of a loved one. Death of people before their own eyes.

Moments that remain in memory forever. Causing trauma. Pushing into depression. Completely mentally devastating.

Leading almost to death.

You lost your confidence after losing the fight.

After what happened to your body, you also lost confidence in your appearance.

If only you could see what Gojo's body looked like. If he could show you this...

He couldn't do anything to help you get rid of the lines on your skin. They could only give you confidence.

Because they don't care what your skin looks like.

Even though you're not perfect beauty. They remember how hard it is to get rid of wounds. And it's even harder to get rid of scars.

Especially scars after a fight.

Even though they're both so handsome. They don't have scars because they heal. Nobody wants the strongest sorcerers to be injured and unable to fight. It was something nobody wanted. And the woman who treated them knew them very well.

That's why they didn't have much on their skin.

Besides, they were men.

And a scarred man is accepted faster and better than a scarred woman.

However, they cannot leave you.

They feel hurt by your harm.

You don't want to show yourself to them because you're ashamed of what you look like. You don't want to see them disgusted by your appearance.

You don't feel confident in your body because you're dealing with beautiful men.

And no one wants to feel rejected by the people they love...

That's why you don't want to see their disgusted eyes when they see your body.

You want to live with them normally for as long as you can.

And if it gets you hiding under your clothes, you'll do it.

Once they see the real you, every detail of your body, they'll stop being attracted to you. They won't pay attention to you. They won't think of you in a sexual way because instead of arousing you, you disgust them...

Instead of doing it in three, they'll do it in two. Pushing you away by making them feel less sexually attracted to you.

Even worse, they might just leave you.

There was a thought in your brain that they would actually leave you as soon as they saw what you really looked like...

It will be the most painful feeling you will ever feel.

You heard a knock on the door while you were taking a shower.

And then the handle fell.

But the door didn't open because you locked it.

You already wiped your body to be dry when you left.

And then another sharp tug on the doorknob.

"I am leaving soon!" You screamed, wiping your body faster to let them open once you got dressed.

You saw the darker lines on your skin as you wiped your body with a towel.

But as long as they are not next to you, you ignore it.

Then you heard the knocking on the door again.

"(y/n), open the door!"

You heard Suguru's scream behind the wooden door.

"I'll be right out!" You replied to him, quickly putting your pants on.

"Open now!"

"One second! I'll just wear a shirt!"

"Open!"

You quickly put on a loose T-shirt you took from their closet when you heard the squeaking cry of the bathroom door hinges.

And then the door flew off its hinges, hitting the floor.

When you saw Suguru on the other side who came inside walking through the destroyed door, you took your things.

"I'm sorry that so long. I was taking a shower." You smiled nervously.

He suddenly stopped in front of you and stared at your face.

You looked at him questioningly.

Then his eyes fell to your body. Fully covered with clothes again.

You started to leave after giving him a small kiss on the cheek.

"(y/n)." He called you quickly.

You looked at him before leaving the room.

"Go to the bedroom. We want to talk to you." He said before bending down to reach the door on the floor.

As you entered your room, you saw Satoru sitting on the bed looking at you with a smile.

You put your things down and placed your lips on his forehead.

Then the door was closed very violently by Suguru.

And his hands grabbed you to kiss you.

He kissed you breathlessly.

And Satoru's hands grabbed your hips.

Then he grabbed your shirt and lifted it up.

Panic kicked in.

But you couldn't pull away.

And then, you heard the torn fabric as the shirt was ripped off your body.

It was the same with pants. And you've been uncovered since you decided not to wear underwear.

Suguru's lips still on yours. His hands holding your wrists.

Satoru moved away, doing something by the bed.

And then he sat there and looked at you naked back.

Seeing the lines that showed where your skin was cut and bleeding before.

He wasn't disgusted.

He felt more sorry for you.

You didn't have to be ashamed in front of them.

They didn't tell you to undress in front of people.

But with them, you couldn't be ashamed.

Because you've been with them for so many years.

They want to show you your worth and beauty.

It doesn't matter what you look like or what you have on your skin.

It is enough for them that you are with them.

They want to increase your self-acceptance.

They want to ensure you have no shame when they touch you

They want you to accept that they want to see you naked. That they want skin-to-skin contact.

They want your trust.

When they laid you completely naked on the bed, you couldn't find anything to cover yourself with.

Satoru took all the pillows. There was only a sheet you were sitting on.

You covered your arms and hugged your legs, crying.

What they do is despicable.

And now they're just standing there looking at you.

"G-Go away..." You groaned as tears fell down your knees.

You cowered so they couldn't see much of your body.

So that they don't see something that everyone might find disgusting.

"(y/n)–."

"Go Away!" You screamed without looking at them.

Your body trembled as you tried to hide yourself from their eyes.

"(y/n)–."

"Get out of here! Get out!"

They didn't resent what was on your skin.

This is something natural.

How could someone who had even more of these things on their skin be disgusted by it?

Satoru's entire body was cut up.

Arms, legs, back, chest, face.

But all he did was regenerate.

It's not your fault that you couldn't do it.

What matters to them is that there are no more wounds on your body.

However...

There's one big wound in your heart that refuses to become a scar.

A wound from not accepting that someone would accept your appearance.

Four hands suddenly grabbed your legs and arms, placing you on the bed in a very exposed position.

You trembled and cried, moaning for them to let you go.

But suddenly you felt something warm lay on your belly full of lines.

You looked at Satoru's head. Or rather, his face.

His cheek pressed against your belly as he ran his finger gently over other scars.

And above the head of Suguru who was kissing and sucking your breasts.

Their hands massaged your inner thighs and spread your legs apart.

"Will you let us show you that we think you're beautiful?"

Their lips on your body as they stroke and caress you.

Their fingers on your scars. Face against your skin, as if it didn't exist.

Even though their eyes see all these signs.

You cried as you were placed on Suguru's cock right after Satoru ate you, massaging your belly and thighs. Reaching for your breasts. His balls were pressed against your clit as he lifted you up in an exposed position for you.

Your back on his chest.

Your knees in his hands as he lifted you up and down using his strength.

You didn't mind until Satoru came back.

Standing dick between his legs as he carried a large mirror in his hands to put it in front of you.

You looked away not to look at it.

You were ashamed now.

Your hands were grabbed by Satoru so you could hold him.

"Look ahead." He said and turned your face there.

Suddenly, Suguru lifted you up enough for his big cock to slip out of you.

"Tell me, have we ever told you that you look ugly?" He asked, stroking your body.

You shook your head from side to side, feeling your eyes sting with tears.

"Did we ever tell you that you can't undress in front of us? Have we ever told you not to take your clothes off? Did we ever tell you we abhor scars?"

You also nodded your head to the side.

His hands wiped your tears from your cheeks.

"Did we tell you that you are beautiful?"

Crying, you nodded.

"If we didn't like your body, would we be so hard? Would we be so excited to have you? Would we be that close? Would we like to touch you so much?"

You clamped your hand over his.

"If that were the case, and we didn't want to look at your body, could I happily do it?"

He reached between your legs to grab Suguru's length, giving him a few push.

He turned your face to the salacious sight of your boyfriend using your juices to stroke his boyfriend's cock. Your boyfriend.

He put his tip inside you, showing Suguru that he can leave you.

Then you sat on his thighs, with him deep inside, trembling from the depth he was in.

And you've seen it all. In the mirror.

You felt Satoru's cock rub against your leg for friction.

You were placed on Geto's chest as he lay down.

Your legs wide open as his length lay over your groin.

Satoru entered you and started massaging his cock.

He wanted so much to warm himself in your pussy.

Both equally.

As he danced his thumb over your clit, he also moved his hand over the dark-haired man's slick skin.

Until suddenly, when you came with a groan, he pulled out of you.

They felt it. Upcoming orgasm.

Suguru's cock was placed on your pussy as the tip poked out between your legs.

And Satoru closed your legs around him, spitting on the top of it to get more wet on your skin.

He then lifted your thighs a little higher, placing the tip against the softness of your thighs, just above Suguru's shaft. Using his saliva to move between your thighs.

As he began to fuck your thighs, rubbing his cock against Suguru's length, stroking him and him.

Causing after a few minutes of rubbing like this, Suguru's tip exploded with a white liquid, shooting all over your stomach. Behind him Satoru who shot at your skin on your chest and belly. Leaving drops down his boyfriend's length.

Covering your scars with their orgasm.

Showing that they will do it because they love your body.

They'll be learning all these new lines of your body.

Until they remember every inch. Every place will be remembered. And they'll be able to map your body to your brain down to the smallest detail.

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blegh-110 · 6 months

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How would reader react to Tangerine coming home sick or injured? We already know he would baby the hell out of her if roles were reversed but would she try and take care of him if he needed help?

okay, so the reader in general has a very, very big heart. no matter who the person is, she will always feel for them, and she hates that. she thinks its a weakness of hers. even if its a person she hates, she cant stand seeing them in any kind of pain, she just gets no satisfaction from that.

so when tangerine comes stumbling through the front door, groaning with cuts all over his arms and bruises forming all over his face, the first thing reader feels is shock. she always sees tangerine come back from a mission with a bruise or two, and usually a bloody nose. thats all. and he is able to carry himself with no issue. but he just looked horrible. his lip was busted, both eyes beginning to bruise, as well as his cheeks. he had abandoned his blazer, only wearing his white button up, but it was absolutely drenched in blood and shredded up, like he was constantly being sliced up.

she covers her face and cringes when tangerine bumps himself into the table and doubles over, cursing in pain. not knowing what to do, she curled herself up on the couch with peach, not wanting to be seen by him. luckily, he passes by very slowly into the kitchen. every step and groan is torture for her.

the last straw for her was seeing tangerine bring out a giant bottle of rubbing alcohol and poor it directly over his the cuts on his arms. she jumps out off of the couch, placing a confused peach where she sat, and quickly walked to the kitchen.

"tangerine, stop it!"

he flinches when hearing you, thinking you were asleep upstairs.

"what are you doin' up so late?" he asks with furrowed eyebrows. he takes your sleep schedule very seriously. he knows you worked yourself to the bone and barely slept before bringing you into his life. not even getting the recommended minimum time.

"i dont know, i couldnt sleep. dont put this stuff on your cuts, it doesnt actually help."

tangerines heart speeds up he feels your hands gently grab his arm and bring it over the sink.

"wash it with water and soap instead, okay" you look up at him to make sure hes paying attention only to see he was already staring at you. even with the handful of bruises and blood on his face, he was still the most handsome man youve ever seen. you cough and bring your attention back to his arm.

"cool water, okay?"

"okay"

after cleaning the cuts on his arms, you ask him to clean the ones on his chest and stomach himself. you couldnt bring yourself to even think about doing it, you know youd get distracted.

the most you did was clean the blood off of his face, and even that was difficult. being so close to him and holding his face in your hands. the way tangerine closed his eyes and sighed when you brushed his hair back will forever be engrained into your mind. you couldnt resist doing it again just to hear his pretty sighs and feel his hair running through your fingers. this was the perfect moment to feel him without actually giving into his advances, and you took it.

after cleaning his bloodied cheek, you couldnt stop yourself from softly brushing over it with your thumb. after the last swipe, you had to pull yourself away before you did something you know youd regret.

"okay, i think thats good"

tangerine nodded his head, a little dazed from all your touches. you felt a little giddy to have affected him this much.

"thank you so much, my love" and he ends the night with his hands cradling your neck and a kiss to your cheek.

#tangerine x reader #tangerine #tangerine fanfiction #tangerine imagine #bullet train #bullet train imagine #aaron taylor johnson x fem!reader #aaron taylor johnson x reader #tangerine blurb #aaron taylor johnson #flightless bird thoughts<3

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xxfrankiesteinksxx · 2 months

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small details in the dnpc video no one is mentioning

okay, look, i'm gonna admit it, i'm a game/film theory girly and a whore for lore, so i pick at details i shouldn't be picking at, so here's some things i see in the video that i don't see being mentioned in theories/analyses. also keep in mind my brain consists of a single cell encapsulated in aspic (i know what the actual deeper meaning is this is just a bit of fun for me)

the thing underneath the piano - the camera falls off the piano in one scene and something (i still cant figure out what exactly it might be) is visible, oddly clear-looking for something underneath a broken piano in shoddy lighting (actually looking at it again it might be a corpse, is it possibly phil's old body?)

dan telling phil not to film him drawing the sigils but phil still filming - you might be able to also throw in the part where phil screams "NO" when the camera's on him sitting in the corner; they don't seem to want things to be filmed but it feels like they're obligated to record everything to some extent

phil's very explicit control over dan - this is to the point where he even has to tell dan what and what isn't food, and takes away water privileges for some reason (btw this is your reminder to drink some water) and overall very demanding tone when instructing him

SOFT AND NEAT - there's a lot of reinforcement of this, its clearly a joke but i'm overanalytical and will blatantly ignore this. there's heavy hesitation with any sharp object around them (when dan has to cut his hand, kill phil, take out phil's heart, mentioning razor blades when using the shaving foam)

dan still primarily uses his left hand - people have mentioned how he's been "fixed" but him using his right hand seems to be performative since he pours most things, mixes with his left hand, and even primarily uses his left hand to spread the blood (plus he never sacrificed himself unlike phil who seems to have died in potato stamps and been resurrected with perfect vision) there's also old superstitions that being left-handed means you're somehow cursed by/connected to satan, speaking of which...

dan has a much better connection and the ability to communicate directly with Him - he seems to be a conduit, possibly being used by phil to properly perform anything (which also probably helped with his resurrection and eyesight improvement), he has uncontrollable actions from time to time

the sigils themselves - what do they all mean? what could they mean in a bigger, symbolic context? anyone that understands them pls explain to my aspic brain

the entire place fucking burns down after the ritual is complete and they're embraced by Him - it's clear at least to me that the shed is set on fire at the end of the video, cutting off further possible footage

dan doesn't put blood on phil's forehead during the ritual - might've just been a slipup during filming but we also dont see the blood dan put on his own forehead once he arrives and theyre all standing up in the pentagram

also just a couple fun facts:

the number on the case file when converted to corresponding letters of the alphabet spell out "satan"

what dan says in his reversed clip is just "thanks!", nothing is really said in the reversed clip of phil opening the shed door its juts kinda a random noise someone made

Aaaaand some misc nonsense crackpot theories/ideas/thoughts/brain vomit that my brain keeps me awake at night with (optional reading):

if the demon taking them at the end is actually baphomet and not just some generalized idea of satan, then "mother" could be another way to refer to "him" since baphomet is portrayed as having both female and male characteristics (bobs n pennies)

personally this is scarier/more unnerving than the actual blair witch project for some reason

my bathroom sink is the one sink you cant ship

i want a dapc for those dolls they hung everywhere

is cataloguing all of the ritual setup part of the craft channel's purpose?

what was the reason for summoning him? did they bring him to our plane of existence to just let him absorb these two brink-of-twinks and then use their gay power to torment the straights?

oh that rope is just his belt thing not rope tying dip and pip together

i think this is a good wrap-up idk what they could do in a part 5 to conclude things better

#this is what keeps me up at night #that and the 4 hour long naps i take at 5pm every day #now i wanna start a collector doll brand called brink-of-twink #featuring fun accessories like texts to his sugar daddy and mortgage paperwork #theres more but this is rly fkn long lol #dan and phil #dan and phil crafts #danandphil #daniel howell #dan howell #phil lester #amazingphil #phandom #dnp crafts #dnp

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linkspooky · 1 year

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Jujutsu Kaisen, Chapter 215 Thoughts

Yuji remains one of the most interesting shonen protagonists in the manga. Precisely because being the protagonist affords him no special breaks. The world of Jujutsu Kaisen is challenging for everyone to live in, especially Yuji. Now, Yuji after losing Sukuna has basically lost his protagonist status. He’s lost his entire purpose for becoming a Jujutsu Sorcerer in the first place because he can no longer become the sacrifice to permanently exorcise Sukuna. Yuji is no longer “special” and never really was in the narrative. Whenever Yuji acts like a shonen protagonist in the shonen manga Jujutsu Kaisen it never works out for him.

More thoughts underneath the cut.

1. Hero to Zero

What struck me with the whole Sukuna and Yuji fight scene is how tropey it was. Stop me if you’ve heard this before. In a shonen manga the villain suddenly appears easily knocks out the rest of the hero’s friends. All hope is lost and the protagonist looks dead, until they get back on their feet again and start fighting back through sheer force of will alone.

Yuji was having his protagonist moment when facing down Sukuna. He even gets to make a speech. Yuji and Sukuna faced off with their opposite philosophies, Sukuna beliving the weak should be crushed and put out of their misery, and Yuji continuing to fight Sukuna even if he’s too weak to make a difference. Yuji was determined enough to resist being sliced apart by Sukuna’s cleave technique. Not only is Yuji strong enough to fight back, but he also has Megumi fighting back from within in a show of the power of their bond.

Not only that but Yuji is shown to have unlocked a new level of strength for as-of-yet-unexplained reasons. Sukuna’s line of dialogue that it’s Kenjaku’s meddling, he either unlocked a heavenly restriction on his body, or Kenjaku was planning something else for Yuji when Sukuna left his body. Either way, Yuji survives being punched through a building and falling several stories.

Yuji fighting Sukuna at this moment is stronger than he ever was before. He gets the last minute power that shonen protagonists all seem to get at the most convenient moment possible. Maki also shows up at the right time where it looks like Yuji might have a fighting chance, especially with Megumi fighting back from within. Maki just like Yuji is at her peak physical strength. Her fight with Naoya allowed her to climb a greater height than before. She was strong enough to massacre the entire Zen’in Clan, and now she’s even stronger.

Maki is strong enough at this point that even Sukuna is acknowledging her strength. Maki and Yuji have near-perfect teamwork and neither of them is holding back, they’re both fighting with the intention to kill Sukuna if that’s what it takes to stop him.

They fight with everything they have, both of them having a recent power-up, and they still lose. They lose because of outside interference because Kenjaku and Ura-Ume both have plans that Maki and Yuji are unaware of. There are outside factors that are bigger than either of them no matter how individually strong they may be.

Yuji has all this strength, he just keeps getting stronger and yet at moments like this there’s nothing he can do but shout at Sukuna. Sukuna just finds all of his efforts laughable. This scene is clearly a parallel to this.

Yuji even repeats the line and has the same moment of realization. Think of how much stronger Yuji has gotten between the young finish and reverse punishment arc. How much he’s grown. He was strong enough to face Mahito. He accepted Mahito’s statment that they are the same, and resolved to continue killing curses as a cog in the system. Yet, after all this time Yuji ends up in the exact same situation. He is as powerless to save Megumi as he was to save Junpei.

This happens because Yuji is not the protagonist of a shonen manga. Jujutsu Kaisen is a deconstruction of the kind of story Yuji thinks he is in.

2. The Protagonist of Reality

Yuji’s assumption that everything will work out fine once he releases Gojo from the box, and finishes playing his “role” just reeks of storybook logic. Yuji employs narrative thinking a lot. Basically he assumes that the world works like a fictional story. Instead of everything being random and meaningless, events are connected to each other, those events have meaning, and things progress naturally towards an ending. Which is why Yuji says that Megumi and Gojo gave him a “role” to play, like he is a character in a cast of actors performing on stage and reading off a script.

This is not to say that Yuji thinks fiction and reality are the same thing. He just employs narrative thinking as a coping mechanism. He thinks of his life like a story and gives himself a part to play in that story to give his life meaning. If you think about it, Yuji’s trying to cope with an extremely tragic situation even before Sukuna is unleashed. He is a fifteen year old who will never grow up. His only living family member died at the start of the story, and the few friends he does make through his new school are always risking their lives. He is afraid of losing them. Then he does lose them.

Yuji goes through a lot of suffering, and at the end of that tunnel he doesn’t see a happy future, no he’s going to die for the sake helping others. Yuji is trying to reconcile his death by giving himself narrative purpose. He wants to die a meaningful death because he can’t accept the unfair reality he has to die young.

Whether or not Yuji actually sees himself as the main character in the story he’s telling is up for debate. This is not much of an answer but he does and he does not. Yuji clearly does not see himself as important as Megumi and Gojo. They’re the ones who gave him a role to play. That makes sense because they were already Jujutsu Sorcerers at the beginning of the story, Yuji is just the stranger who wandered into their world by accident, he wasn’t even born with a cursed technique and he can only fight thanks to borrowed power from Sukuna. He also only sees himself as a cog in the machine and constantly belittles his own importance.

At the same time, Yuji can have quite an ego sometimes in a sneaky way. Gojo tells Megumi that someone like Yuji is always swinging for the fences and even likens Yuji to himself. Also, Yuji’s martyr complex still puts himself as the center of the story. It’s his sacrifice that’s going to save everyone. His sacrifice is important, and matters, and he has a function as long as he plays his part.

Yuji may regard himself as the main character, or maybe the selfless savior of the story, but the people around him do not. Especially Kenjaku who created Yuji and played author for a good portion of his life.

Kenjaku mentions that Yuji has no longer specific role to play. He’s just the firestarter, it was his actions that started the story by eating the finger and becoming the vessel to Sukuna. What he says here, and the fact Sukuna was already registered as a player in the Culling Games before Yuji entered the boundary (and Ura-Ume was preparing the bath in advance) all imply that Kenjaku always knew that Sukuna was going to leave Yuji’s body. Yuji’s purpose wasn’t just to be Sukuna’s host like Yuji assumed it was.

Sukuna also reveals that what we as the audience and Yuji himself assumed that Yuji being a one in a thousand special vessel that can contain Sukuna without losing control or dying is not actually the case. Sukuna could have jumped into Megumi’s body from the beginning and was merely biding his time.

All of these things that made Yuji special, the attributes that made him the main character have essentially been stripped away. He was made into a vessel by Kenjaku, but Kenjaku has no specific plans for him anymore. He was set to serve as Sukuna’s vessel, collect all the fingers and then be exorcised but now that Sukuna has jumped bodies he no longer has that purpose. He no longer is able to just simply die to save the world because it’s Megumi who is possessed by Sukuna now. They might not even be able to free Gojo considering Angel’s fate is now up in the air.

This is what makes Jujutsu Kaisen unique as a manga, whenever the characters assume that things are going to work out the way they would in a story they get punished. This isn’t just Yuji who’s affected by this. Megumi loses his body to Sukuna because he assumes he can save Tsumiki and makes the mistake that she’s a princess waiting for him to rescue her. Therefore he doesn’t notice that Tsumiki isn’t even acting like herself. Hana is grievously hurt by Sukuna for assuming the exorcism worked and she managed to rescue Megumi with the power of love. That leads her into walking into an obvious trap and not listening to Angel’s warning.

These characters all walk into obvious traps and pitfalls because they’re not looking at the reality in front of them, they’re blinding themselves because they want the world to be more like a story.

#yuji itadori #megumi fushiguro #sukuna #hana kurusu #angel #jjk meta #jujutsu kaisen meta #jujutsu kaisen #jujustu kaisen theory #jjk spoilers #jujutsu kaisen spoilers

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rendy-a · 1 month

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Reverse Trope Writing Prompt Summaries

I've seen these reverse trope prompts going around and they seem so funny, I've decided to write one. I'll list a bunch of little summaries and then do a poll to vote on one.

Too many beds! When Deuce gets the opportunity to visit Clock Town with his friends, he excitedly tells his mother all his friends will be joining him. He later discovers that only his wild pal the Prefect will join him. Too embarrassed to admit to his mother that the large hotel rooms she rented was for nothing, they decide to have such a wild party that no one will ever guess that there were too many beds!

Accidentally kidnapping a mafia boss. You've just discovered that the animal shelter in your town is being closed so that a local restaurant run by a shady (rumored to be mafia) boss can open a branch location. You've seen a teal-haired menacing man going into the place with his timid looking secretary. On impulse, you decide to grab the secretary and use his life for leverage to get the mafia to give up their plan. Little do you realize the bashful gentleman you've kidnapped is actually the famous Don Azul himself.

Real nice guy who hates only you. There was a time when you remember actually wanting to be Silver's friend. That was before you got to know the residents of Diasomnia better. Now, it seems like every sleepover or breakfast date you have with your new bestie Lilia only makes the gentle Silver strike out at you in a ball of jealous rage. Just what is his problem with you?

Academic rivals except it's two teachers who compete to have the best class. Crowley brags about how he is clearly the best teacher on campus. Why, when he teaches class, the students never fail to gain a perfect score! Ha, he is so magnificent! Perhaps he should just take over teaching full time and let Crewel do the annual government audit instead, ha ha! To which Crewel replies, Hell no. The competition to prove themselves most worthy teacher (and avoid the audit) is on!

Divorce of Convenience. Marriage to Ruggie was everything you thought it would be; a tough life but it had its perks. Your hubby Ruggie always had an ear out to opportunity for his small family. That's why, when he told you about the new low income housing for unmarried residents he found, you couldn't rule it out. One quicky divorce later, you are now on the road to financial security...that is if you can convince the straight-laced inspector Jack that you truly are nothing more than the roommates you pretend to be.

True hate's kiss (only kissing your enemy can break a curse). You've become the assistant to Vil in order to make extra cash. One day, in a series of mishaps, Vil ends up drinking a cup of tea cursed with his Unique Magic that caused him to lose his voice. With an important interview coming up, it up to you to convince the proud Vil to travel to Royal Sword and ask his eternal rival Neige for a kiss to break the spell.

Dating your enemy's sibling. After a huge fight, your former pal Ace is now your worst enemy. You can't stop thinking about that fight and how you (maybe) didn't quite win it. The whole thing just makes you hungry for revenge. You spent a lot of time thinking of the perfect way to get under Ace's skin when you see a post on Magicam of Ace's older brother working his theme park job. Suddenly, you have the wildest idea on who you want to bring to the campus dance.

Love Triangle where the two love interests get together instead. No one was more invested in being a fan of Vil Schoenheit then you, the Prefect of Ramshackle dorm. Unless, it was your rival fan Rook. Vil is thoroughly fed up with you both. He announces that, from tomorrow onward, only one of you will be allowed to accompany him to class and help him at lunch. You now have one night to prove to Rook that your admiration of Vil surpasses his own. As the night goes on, you discover the allure of being totally in sync with another super fan. Can your love for Vil survive his ultimate fan?

Too hot to cuddle. There is a heatwave happening at NRC and the air conditioning magic is broke all over campus. It wouldn't be much of an issue except your dating notorious cuddler Leona Kingscholar. You've turned him down for a nap in the sweltering botanical gardens and denied him from resting his head on your sweaty lap in Savanahclaw. Will your clever boyfriend find a solution or be driven mad by the frustration?

#Reverse tropes #poll game

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indigos-stardust · 2 months

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Four Keys: Buwe (Blue)

(reblogs appreciated)

This is Buwe! (pronounced similarly to Dew), he's this au's Blue! Buwe's people, Selkie Folk, live in different communities on arctic Islands that rely on fishing seasons to survive.

Unfortunately, a horrible sea ice witch threatened them. She threatened to freeze all the sea, the sea that gave them their fish and their life, unless they paid. With wealth or manpower. Their tribes are like brother and sisters.

Paying her, it would have debilitated them until there was nothing left. It would kill them. Going against the other tribes would kill their souls. It was a trap to let her get more power. With the walls of ice surrounding them, and air so frigid no messenger bird could be sent, there would be no help to free them.

Buwe decided, that if she wanted a warrior, he would give her one. One that would take the breath from her lungs as he strangled her. No sick child of his home, his tribe of Kunae, would die again, because of her. Coughing blood and becoming brittle.

He found a weak spot in her ice walls and after nights of hard work in secret, he left. Filled with rage, knowing he'd never survive making it to the other tribes, he decided to go straight to the mouth of the beast. Her little hideout, hidden in the ice, under the freezing water.

He's never seen a place so beautifully sculpted, yet so revolting. Patterns of swirling ice with windows to the wide ocean outside, columns fashioned with utmost care. Icy statues of figures posed beautifully appear along the walls. The bones of children as adornments. Red stained fabrics, draping down the entrances.

It's nothing like the castles he's learned about from books, its far too small and the design itself is far too close to home. But he knows that's just now, she wants to expand this. She wants more. She'll build it out of pearly white bones if she has to.

He catches her by surprise, while she's tinkering with some sort of map. Planning for the attacks she'll lead them in, when they all crack and serve her in their grief. When they let her take control of their very minds with a binding oath made of pure dark magic.

She's amused at first. She knew how great of a warrior, and determined a man he was. She reminds him of her offer. To be hers. Only the finest would be hers, after all. He's sick. This monster, the way she talks, the way she watches him. It's nothing but a freaking game.

"No? Pity, Kunae man, but I don't want to kill you ,you know... Such a wasteful thing, yes?"

He stands in silent fury. He's ready to fight, to end this.

"Fine then, you can be, another one of my... perfect sculptures. My favorite one, in fact. That way, you could stay by my side forever, hm?"

She steps to him, closer and closer. He will not be afraid.

"Even back then... So brash and brave, when I came, I just adore you..." her hand caresses his face, he's tense, " That's the face I want to keep for myself forever."

His dagger lurches into her gut, but not before a thin blast of ice blasts off forcing them apart. Buwe moves, the end is near. The end of suffering, or the end of any chance of hope. The end of her, or the end of him.

Buwe nearly dies in that fight. He was fighting, on her terf, already weakened, with his own ability already diminished from the hunger. But the rage fuels him on, and he knows he will End Her even if it only happens during his last dying breath.

She gives a final attack of defense, he got too close, his grand tactical mistake made out of desperation. Her eyes say the words he can't hear. It's the blessing of a curse. He can feel his legs freezing over, the ice in his bones spreading and paralyzing reaching itself tendrils outward. The sound of her cracking neck is nearly mute in the water, an endless abyss of the dark. It's the most beautiful thing he's ever heard. The light leaves her eyes.

He tries, Buwe really does, to transform again into a selkie, to let him swim to the surface, and maybe reverse her curse just long enough to see his home again. Just the walls and the glistening shining snow, that the children would soon play on again. He manages to transform, but it's too late. Every thought slows, muffled and pained. He will be lost, but he won, for them. That's all that matters. The world is deafening, as he sees the blackening ocean turn icy white. The world is dark again.

@slaingelo @vamqiredove @shadylink enjoy lol, it gets worse probably

#four swords #fs #fs blue #blue link #four keys #four keys buwe #fs au #lol I made such a mean addition

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hotchfiles · 5 months

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finale. damn your love.

masterlist

pairing: james x fem!reader.

content warnings: james being kind of an ass, cheating on lily, lily will be probably shit talked (i luv her i'm very sorry !), mistress!reader, uhhh cursing, not totally AU but like... canon divergent i would say. probably hurt/no comfort unless i switch the ending but--

worth mentioning: reader insert with no use of names or “y/n”. paragraphs completely in italic are flashbacks. pro quidditch player!james. muggle born!reader.

word count: 2,1k

previous chapter

chapter 4, finale.

you spent the whole afternoon with some cousins, talking about the whole france thing, asking questions and trying to understand why they didn't move there when your aunt, their mother, did. stable job, pregnancy... all reasons you certainly didn't have to hold you back. you could ask to be transferred to france's ministry of magic, or just take a muggle job as you thought about sometimes. and you definitely didn't have a baby on the way, nor a husband, or a boyfriend.

still, your heart was full of uncertainty, is the perfect place to fall in love, one of your cousins said, and you laughed as if love wasn't the problem to begin with, as if love wasn't the one thing pushing you away from your home town because you were too weak.

you got home and by instinct started roaming around your apartment, looking at every picture, the place was full of things you loved, things you were dearly attached to and would deeply miss like your friends, the rest of your family, the london weather you could always see from your window... and obviously, james.

you weren't innocent to believe he would even remember you when making a decision like this, you very much knew if the roles were reverse he probably would be in france by now, and that hurt, that cut your hurt deeply, knowing he didn't care was a terrible feeling, but still, you cared, you didn't really want to live away from him, because even after everything he put you through, you loved him.

even when you were angry you couldn't imagina a life without james, it wasn't easy to switch your brain around completely, fact was that for too long you were sure that being close to him, that having him even for a night was the best for you, because you had him. and a life where you wouldn't have him at all seemed... empty. but that emptiness seemed like such a relief if it came with no longer being his second option, not having to hear her name, not being the one he looks for to complain about her while also not doing anything to leave her. that seemed comforting. and the right thing. but you still were confused. it was too big of a decision that you had to make all on your own, anyone you told about it would certainly tell you to move and leave him behind. it was the right choice. so you couldn't.

while looking for a painkiller in your drawers (crying always gave you a headache, and you've been doing it a lot the last few days) you found the worst possible thing you could: a memories book. you and james had made two of those the last year of hogwarts. with pictures and little notes and diary entries. the first page was your first picture together from when you were eleven, it was winter time, you both had your cold clothes on but still your cheeks and noses were extremely red. the picture itself was already a punch to the gut, but alongside there was his handwriting, meaning you probably left something on his as well, "you complete me since i was eleven. back then i didn't know how big that was, but now i do, meeting you was the most important thing to ever happen to me. you're my best friend and i love you. from eleven to forever."

you tried to hold back the tears but it was inevitable, it was terrible to see how much things had changed since then, the person who once said you completed him, now would go months and months without talking to you, and then appear out of nowhere at your door in the middle of the night, it was always like that now.

now the moments where you really felt like he needed you were rare, very different than how he was as a teenager, then there was a constant need to listen to you, to be helped by you, to touch you. and it was the same for you, and it hasn't changed for you, but it has for him.

each picture from that album was a different knife to your chest, each photo causing you a another wave of sobs as you compulsively cried. every memory confused you even more, because in london you had that man, not always, but when you did it was like you were complete again, and when you were away from each other, you felt empty. you didn't want to feel empty forever.

in a moment of pure nostalgia you came to the conclusion that your james, the james from those pictures, still existed, even if just deep down, well in the back of his mind, he did still exist, and if you two could finally talk with honesty without fighting, you could bring that james back and you could work it out.

before you would loose that single string of courage, you took your wand from your nightstand and conjured your patronus, non corporal as always, with time it began to feel humiliating to have yours mirroring his after so many years, your message with it was simple, yet desperate: i really really need you right now, come see me.

you felt relief, knowing he would be there soon and you two would talk. at least that's what you expected him to do. but he never came. nor did he send a response. and truly, you could expect anything coming from him, but not that, you were clearly distraught in your message, and it still didn't matter. just a new way to disappoint you.

then you finally, finally saw the problem for what it was: you romanticized everything about that man, you could find beauty in every disappearance, you saw loving gazes when there was only lust in his eyes. there was no love coming from james, not for you. and you should have noticed that the first time he disappointed you. but you loved him too much and you thought things would be fine one day.

and nothing would ever be fine, not as long as you let him treat you like that, not if you kept answering to his pleads. not if you still opened the door for him.

you were very nervous, but in the best way. it had been some weeks since the last time you had seen and talked to james, being one of appleby arrows' newest and youngest chasers was very time consuming, and you respected that. but he was home, you knew he was, sirius had told you over letter when he would be back. you wanted to surprise him.

you weren't dating anymore for some time now, for no other reason other than the fact he couldn't be the boyfriend you deserved right now because of the team. you understood that, you thought it was endearing how he was thinking of you that way, and you still missed him when he was gone, you missed his smile, his eyes, his voice, his curls, his blurred glasses you would always have to clean.

you two had an unbreakable bond, best friends who were always there for each other, and even after breaking up you both had spent a few nights together, some just cuddling, some more than that. you didn't mind because you knew james loved you, and that he was just busy right now.

you apparate directly at his door without notice, the perks of being of age, and knocked on the door a few times, not even trying to hide the smile that took half of your face, you were so excited to hear him talk about the games, to see him, to feel his arms around your waist. to just think you were a few steps from feeling his scent... you were glad the torture of being away was over for now.

ms. euphemia is the one to open the door and you try not to notice how her smile simply disappeared as soon as she noticed it was you by the door, it was probably your imagination, she always liked you, actually, she loved you, you were always called for family dinners and vacations, you were part of the family, just as james was a part of yours.

"darling! didn't expect you so soon..." she sounds concerned, her head turning around for a slight second, seemingly checking for something, before giving you room to come in. "come in, sweetheart." you hug her in appreciation, and also because you've missed her almost as much as you missed her son.

"jamie's home, right?"

"yes dear, in the kitchen... but be careful." you don't understand what she means at first and you don't try to hard to, you don't have time to, your steps quick to the kitchen, regret filling your mind and your heart as soon as you did so.

james had a girl by his side, you knew very much who she was even, from hogwarts, gryffindor like the both of you. lily evans. their hands were intertwined, his smile that once was only yours was freely being directed at her, and worse than that, you see him brush his lips, that were also yours, on hers.

your heart shatters. you feel like there's no floor to fall to anymore. you didn't know what to do, how to deal with that. you were so sure he loved you, that he didn't want a serious commitment simply because of his job, and now you saw with your own eyes that he just didn't want to commit to you.

you take the deepest breath you've ever taken, holding your tears back as you try to maintain at least some of your pride. he didn't even notice you were there, too busy completely lovesick for the one in front of him. you turn around and get out of their sight, euphemia looks at you with the saddest eyes and calls you with her hands for a hug, which you gladly take. you can't hold the tears anymore, so you cry.

"i'm messin' up your blouse." you whine, feeling so sorry for that you couldn't even put into words, it was silly.

"dear, my son broke your heart, don't mind the blouse." she hugs you even tighter as you both hear laughter coming from the kitchen, "you'll always be my favorite. my james will see how wrong he is, just wait a little." you slowly agree with a nod, and as you both notice steps approaching, she lets you go from the hug.

you can hear james asking her if it was you just as you close the door and apparated back to your house. that was the last time you saw both of them for... you don't even know how long.

euphemia told you to wait a little, and unconsciously you followed her advice, but you couldn't wait anymore, that was too much, it had been years, too many years, he made your life hell by taking advantage of the fact you felt in heaven by his side.

you let yourself sob, this time in total and complete rage, taking the book full of memories in your hand and throwing it in a trashcan.

incendio.

you were going to burn him out if you couldn't ignore the memories. you watched the flames dance as they destroyed the paper, but the feeling in your gut didn't get smaller. and to think he was probably having a nice time with his girlfriend by now made you even more angry. angry at him, resentful at yourself for letting it get this far.

you went back to the room and screamed in fury, throwing every single one of the frames containing pictures of you two on the floor, you desperately wanted him out, you didn't want anything to do with him anymore, you wanted him gone, gone.

you spent the next hours going through everything you had, burning pictures, breaking cds, destroying plushies, ripping clothes apart, you knew for sure your neighbours would call the police at some point because of the breaking sounds and your yelling, but you didn't care anymore.

and then... your eyes fell to your bed, and you realized it didn't matter how much you tried to get him out of your home, james had plastered himself everywhere. everything reminded you of him. you truly couldn't be there anymore. you couldn't sleep in that bed, in that room anymore.

and you knew, there was no confusion. london wasn't your home anymore.

so you left. your apartment. your hometown. your beloved country.

and most importantly. you left james.

tag: @xcinnamonmalfoyx @dreamsygirl

#lari writes sometimes #marauders x reader #james potter x reader #james potter x you #james potter x y/n #james potter x fem!reader #james x you #james x reader #james x y/n #james potter imagine #james potter scenario

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tarotwithlove · 6 months

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PAC ⋆ christmas with your fictional other

reminder that this is a general reading and messages found here may not apply to everyone. take what resonates, leave what doesn't, and don't force anything if it does not fit.

BOOK A READING WITH ME · LINKTREE · 18+ PATREON · SUGGEST A PAC TOPIC · TIPS ♡ tips and feedback are highly appreciated!

GROUP ONE

cards · eight of boons, keeper of challenges, five of boons, three of challenges, eight of visions, keeper of spells.

channelled songs · gift & a curse by megan thee stallion. cry out by one ok rock. dear. by the boyz. loving you is a mountain by isaia huron.

hey there group one ♡ you may spend a lot of time on making or finding the perfect gift for your fictional other - or, in some cases, fictional others, because a large group of people, in particular, is coming to mind. it may be important to you that the gift is handmade, and crafted with a lot of care for your fictional other(s) and their family or group of friends.

you may bake or cook something special to celebrate the christmas festivities, only for your efforts to be disregarded. or for what you made to be burned or broken. for some, you may share the food with your fo's family or friends, only for one of them to make a snide remark about how it tastes. if you craft something, like a bauble for the tree or a tree angel, someone may mention how it's lopsided or the paint is uneven. they make a comment that stings but that is, ultimately, meaningless in your overall enjoyment of the day.

for some in this group – though, it is likely that it is for most – your christmas with your fictional other may start off beautifully mundane and end as it is disrupted by some great tragedy or some large-scale event. of course, it depends on the character and world that you are asking about and holds especially true for those of you asking about a shounen anime -- jujutsu kaisen in particular.

so, this christmas starts off as any other christmas, as any other day, and ends with your fictional other (or fictional others) running off to fulfil other, more urgent responsibilities. you will likely end christmas day alone and overwhelmed with bittersweet feelings about what you wished the day would be like versus what it actually ended up looking like.

GROUP TWO

cards · seeker of boons, seven of boons, two of spells, child of boons (reversed), seven of challenges, eight of spells.

channelled songs · animal instinct – acoustic version by the cranberries. sunflower by triple h. foreign by thutmose & alex mali. deep in love by day6.

hey there group two ♡ the christmas with your fictional other will be a non-traditional one. neither you nor your fictional other may care much about christmas, may not care to spend much time with family, especially during the christmas period, or you may be separated from your respective families in some way.

instead of a christmas celebration, you and your fictional other may spend much of your christmas in the service of others -- volunteering in old age homes, orphanages, and/or homeless shelters. hopping from place to place, going where you are called or where you are needed, and giving to others in any way possible. you may even make a pot of food and drive around your city, handing out food and water to the homeless, or to anyone who comes up asking for some.

you and/or your fictional other may have a complicated relationship with christmas, so you may fill the day with activities with which to distract yourselves from what is going on around you.

later on in the day, you and your fictional other may go to markets. there may be a thrift market or a christmas market at which you decide to while your time away. here, your fictional other may pickpocket something small to gift to you. you two may make a challenge of pickpocketing small items to gift to each other. of course, not only pickpocketing, but you may just go around buying items for each other.

i’m thinking of nami and usopp from one piece – in particular of this post i saw about how their talents as a thief and a liar would probably make for such fun nights out. so you and your fictional other, besides the pickpocketing or the buying things for each other, may also make a challenge of seeing how much free things you can get.

GROUP THREE

cards · seeker of visions, seeker of boons, keeper of boons, child of boons, child of spells, black shuck, five of spells.

channelled songs · fuckin' sound by lucky daye. goosebumps by travis scott. heaven by taemin. after we make love by whitney houston.

hey there group three ♡ this group has the most romantic overtones, the greatest romantic energy. you and your fictional other may not just be lovers, but soulmates; you're like two halves of the same heart, or two sides of the same coin. there's just so, so, so much of love and warmth here. it's as if you and your fictional other waited your whole lives to find each other and now that you have found each other there's nothing more important than building a beautiful, safe life together.

a child, or children, may be a significant part of your relationship with your fo. you or your fictional other may have a child, or either of you may be in a position where you look after children. this may even be your child with your fictional other. christmas with your fictional other, more than anything else and regardless of whether children are directly involved, feels like a family affair. with family and community being of the utmost importance to you and your fo.

i don’t know when was the last time i even thought about the x-men, but i’m thinking of them now, so a member of the x-men or the x-men as a team may be who you are reading this pick a card for. whether or not you’re asking about the x-men, though, i do feel that you’re asking about a character from a movie. i’m also thinking of irish pubs and traditional dancing, so you or your fo may be irish.

christmas with your fictional other is so fun and lively, with lots of dancing, singing, and loud expressions of joy.

this may be both of your first times spending christmas with a lover, so there is a lot to navigate. or it may be the first time introducing your respective families together. but because of how light this energy is, any worries quickly dissipate and it starts to feel so natural you both wonder what you were ever worried about. you get caught up in the dancing. in the singing. in the merriment.

christmas with your fo will be a large gathering, with pockets of people doing different things. some playing board games. some baking or cooking. some just chatting. there's also this energy of friendly competition, and this event may have a costume or ugly sweater competition. you and your fo will dress up as festively as possible, though it's likely that you had to corral your fo to dress up to theme – of course, in matching outfits with you.

GROUP FOUR

cards · eight of boons, nine of visions, keeper of challenges, child of challenges, five of challenges, the faery wind.

channelled songs · hello future by nct dream. shattered dreams by earl sweatshirt. amusement park by baekhyun. far by sza.

hey there group four ♡ you will put in a LOT of effort on christmas; decorating your home, cooking and baking, and just making sure that everything is perfect for your christmas together.

you may have wished time and again to have someone with whom to spend christmas, and so you do everything in your power to make sure this day is as worthwhile, beautiful, and memorable as possible. this may also be because you're hosting your fictional other and their family for the first time, so you want to make as good of an impression as possible.

you may feel like you are under a lot of pressure on this day, and it will likely boil over and lead to small arguments with your fictional other. a significant argument may come from your fo inviting someone extra at the last moment -- someone you had not prepared for, and thus are unable to cater for. this could be made worse by this person being an ex-lover or an ex-mutual friend, with your fictional other not realising the implications of this. to them, it is harmless, while to you it is a sign of disrespect.

you may find it difficult to truly enjoy christmas with your fictional other because you are so busy running all over the place – making sure this person is comfortable, or reheating that person's plate, or getting a blanket for this other person because they're cold. your perfectionism tendencies coming through again.

your fictional other will spend much of the day observing you keenly. as much as they want to step in and help, or to tell you to breathe, there’s this sense that they don’t want to overstep or undermine your efforts. so instead of telling you to take it easy – likely because you won’t even listen – they’ll go behind your back and pick up the slack. if you’re setting the table and someone is looking for you to ask about drinks, your fo will guide them away from you and get the drinks for them instead. if you’re in the middle of cleaning a spill, your fo will start talking to you in order to sneakily get you to hand over the cleaning tools so that they can clean up instead and you can go and be the amazing host/hostess you want to be.

they want to help but they also know how important this day is to you. they want you to rest, to take a breath, to calm down, but know that it would only hurt you if they voice this. but when the day is done and everyone has gone home, they will run you a bath. they will clean up. and once you’re out of the bath, they will sit you down and make sure you’re eating a hot meal, after which they will give you a shoulder massage and congratulate you on a successful christmas party.

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mvltisstuff · 1 year

Text

dreaming of you - e.b

summary: what if the lightning strike killed buck, and y/n and the 118 were left to pick up the pieces?

evan buckley x reader

prepared to make ppl sad!!! this is one of my favorite pieces, i hope you enjoy <3

y/n’s hand was being gripped by maddies, staring at the useless ring on her finger. the one that had become so agonizing in the snap of a finger. they sat in the pews together, surrounded by his family and her own. the 118. her eyes were glued to the wooden box at the front of the church.

the second that intubation entered bucks mouth, everyone knew it wasn’t coming back out, unless it was to finish him off. the lightning strike had hit him at the perfect time, stopping his heart and doing irreparable damage to his brain cells. she knew his exact condition. she repeated it in her head over and over again until it was engraved in her mind like an oath. she swore to marry him, she swore that she would walk down the isle and meet him at the end. all of those promises had been demolished as a result of the storm.

she was completely numb, like she had novacane all over her body. she felt nothing from the monitor connected to buck had made a deafening beep, that failed to cease. buck was her lifeline, her source of energy and he was gone. he was dead, and there was nothing she could do. she felt like god was laughing at her. making a mockery of her by taking him away from her.

whenever someone hears about the five stages of grief, it’s often in a tv show or somewhere in the media. everyone forgets about it up until the moment of loss. there is no possible way to prepare yourself for the reality that is a smack across the face from heaven.

stage one • denial

bucks side of the bed was cold like the winter breeze in the morning. it was painful to touch, feeling like a sting in the heart. y/n couldn’t stop herself from reaching over to place her hand on him, until her hand confronted the empty sheets below her hand. every single day, she came home from that current distraction to see him, and would spend minutes searching for him. minutes, only to realize that he died.

death is a wild thing. a sick and twisted, but inevitable thing. from the moment a person is born, they’re dying. you cannot prevent death. everyone has different definitions to death.

death

/deTH/

noun

1. the state of being dead

2. the permanent ending of vital processes

3. the action or fact of dying or being killed; the end of the life of a person or organism.

eventually, y/n removed his pillows in avoidance of any reminder of buck. she was practically in hiding from her fiancés state like a wanted person.

stage two • anger

y/n was forced to look in the mirror every day. she had to go to work and look presentable. the only thing she felt was rage. rage for everyone who let this happen. when a person doesn’t have control in their life, stress and fear arise. she couldn’t control what happened to buck. she couldn’t have stopped him from climbing up that ladder. some resentful part of herself wanted it to be her. pissed, she scowls at herself for even falling in love with him.

her life was becoming overcomplicated with the bitterness she had from bucks death. she silently cursed the doctors, when she knew deep down that they did their very best. not everyone can be saved. she swore to the skies, yelping out in agony from the loss of her love.

step three • bargaining

sitting on the dewy grass in front of the headstone, y/n picked the wilting petals off a flower that had grown next to him. she zoned off into a reenactment of the night. buck climbed onto the ladder. the thunder roared. the hoses were turned on. the lightning came down. the lightning brought buck with it.

she wanted to reverse time like a record. she wanted to run up on that ladder and take the strike. she wanted to take the power of electricity and move the strike off his strong, but fragile body. she begged someone, anyone, to turn back the calendar and bring her back to that day. to halt him from speeding up the ladder with his sweet grin and motivated personality. it had been stolen from her grasp before she could even react and scream his name.

some might call it selfish, but she even asked them to take her and bring him back. he was so beyond loved in this world, and he had so much left to do. the fact that she had to give it up and sign the papers was the worst part of it all. she wanted to sneak into the hospital files and erase her stupid signature. the ink that took her best friend away.

step four • depression

chores.

everything in life became a chore. waking up was exhausting. when y/n opened her eyes, she was disappointed, like someone had broken bad news to her. she had been taking time off work, not being able to shake her foggy mind of his face. she stopped getting dressed in the morning. she wore sweatpants and baggy shirts all day. y/n had abandoned herself trying to give her life back to buck. she wanted to live her life for him, but she couldn’t bring herself to leave the house.

the dinners and gifts had been nonstop to her house, being left on her doorstep or knocking to hand it directly. she had been checked on by hen, who was bombarded with the scent of whiskey. she swore she didn’t drink that much too often, just enough to take a little bit of the torment away. the 118 helped her constantly by cleaning her house, putting away gift baskets. she couldn’t bring herself to push away from them. the greatest people in bucks life were the 118. they allowed him to make a home there, and he would despise it if she distanced herself.

stage five • acceptance

beating avoidance is a huge step to accepting someone dying. bucks drawers had been stocked full of his items, his products were spread out on the bathroom counter. his favorite coffee was in the cabinet and his shoes were still by the door.

y/n finally decided to stop the affliction of cleaning his belongings out. she forced herself out of bed and swiped all of his things into a box to bring to the shelters. somehow, she managed to bring the clothes out and take in his refreshing scent. they forever smelt like him the same way her house would be intoxicated with it. no air freshener could cover up the torturing aroma.

she refolded all of the clothes the same way he would’ve liked, placing them on the bed, and into a box. there were so many things that she couldn’t bring herself to donate. his jewelry, his books, his coffee. some part of her was ready to face the reality.

her bare feet stepped onto the balcony, glaring at the orange and yellow sky with hints of pink. buck loved sunsets, and a part of her knew he had put that there for her. you always hear that they’re watching over you, but it sure didn’t feel like it. you want to think that, and maybe it’s a placebo effect. it wasn’t until y/n imagined herself back at the beach with buck, watching the sun cascade below the horizon, that she realized it was true.

the way the color reflected in her eyes reminded her of the way bucks blue eyes shined. the way his perfect teeth had glimmered in the light and even any time he smiled. buck woke up for her every day with a smile on his face. it will never make sense how someone can be so loving to the world around him. it will never make sense how that was stripped from the earth.

death is something that no one can answer. why does it happen and how can you face it? there is no facing death. you will never win. its like a game of pinball, no matter how many shots you take, you lose in the end. the arena falls down around you and the world you thought you knew so well changes completely. you don’t get rid of death and you don’t beat it. you learn to cope with the damage. losing someone is not for the weak or the strong. it’s not for the civilians and not for the superheroes. live for the dead, and portray their strength through you.

y/n’s heart beats for buck. she woke up for him and went to bed with him. she came out of every burning building to be with him and she would fight every single war to have him. there is no changing what’s within her, and he is a part of her now. and that is something death will never be able to take away.

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seravphs · 1 year

Text

ੈ♡˳·˖✶ — NANAMI x FEM READER

Nanami Kento’s only sixteen when he kills for you. He’s only twenty four when he dies for you. What was supposed to be his final sacrifice play, a life for life, goes awry when he ends up haunting you.

wc — 13.5k

tags — major character death, jjk typical violence/fights, mild(?) body horror, grief, betrayal, ghost marriage, Gojo my favorite deus ex machina Satoru, title from song of the same name by good dog

There’s nothing worse than standing on the sidelines of a major battle.

Of course, those fighting in the battle might disagree. You’re sure that any number of sorcerers would gladly trade places with you to be in the safety of Jujutsu High. But for you, missing out on watching Nanami fight is agonizing.

You’re the perfect complement to his cursed technique. Where he finds the chink in the enemy’s armor with his 7:3 ratio, you shore up your own defenses. While other techniques are aggressive, prioritizing attacking first and early, your skills are more suited to a war of attrition. In terms of endurance, no one can outlast you besides Gojo, who’s sheer strength simply eradicates all obstacles in his path.

Like Shoko, you’re a special case of sorcerer.

Gojo was rare, prized, and the strongest, but he was anticipated. He was simply stepping into a role that had already been played out over and over again, just by different men. The arrival of Getou, Shoko, and you was what truly rocked the boat. Two special grades in one generation, an innate reverse cursed technique user, and a barrier specialist all in one class - a guaranteed success, if not for the fact that one of you went crazy.

75% was still passing, if just barely.

Though you loved Shoko, Getou, and even Gojo, narcissist that he was, you understood that you would forever be a fringe member of that class. As a trio, there had been no room for another. For a while you were content with that. It was enough just to be counted among them, to be special like they were. No other Jujutsu technique was as well suited to defense as yours, able to fortify the Achilles’ heel of your target. If Nanami could find the perfect opening for a weakness, your talent was to do the opposite.

It was that very talent that had thwarted Getou time and time again, preventing him from entering sacred ground. Jujutsu High was as close as sorcerers could get to hallowed ground. It was their sanctuary, their first home, the place that had nurtured them to become killers so they wouldn’t be killed first. You couldn’t allow it to be desecrated, even by an old friend.

So you stayed, and Nanami went.

The worry was constant, the first few hours. It had been a while since you and Nanami hadn’t been paired together on a mission. Without you, he was simply a first grade sorcerer - nothing to scoff at, but not comparable to even the weakest special grade. With your protection, however, he was a monster. The two of you could achieve special grade status together, whereas apart, you would remain first grade only.

It was a fact that had earned you many a partnership with him on missions that all other special grades were too preoccupied to take. The elders’ budget special grades, if you will. Cheap copies could work just as well, utilized the right way.

But eventually, as it always did, your fear faded to a steady, constant hum behind your rib cage, but no more. You were always afraid for Nanami when he left your sight, since the first day you had met him and become inseparable. As if your techniques had been an indicator, it was like two magnets locking into place.

Nanami has more than earned your trust over the years. He’s survived many missions without you just fine. He made it to first grade status without your technique’s protection in the first place. In many ways, he was the one who protected you. It was how your relationship began.

Years earlier, back when you had been just students, you had been ordered to take Nanami with you to observe how upperclassmen dealt with curses. His patently obvious gratitude that Gojo wasn’t his mentor for this mission was further amplified by the fact that you were the anti-Gojo, the sweet senior. You couldn’t help doting on your underclassman, so uncorrupted by Jujutsu society. You remember when you and the trio had been pure children like that.

No Jujutsu sorcerer was truly pure, child or not. It’s not a curse that threatens to take you out, not with your ridiculously sensitive detection field or your perfect armor. It’s another human, a bounty hunter without a cursed energy signature for you to pick up on. He lunges for your heart, just like another curse user will years later. Nanami cuts him into ten pieces before he reaches you, seven parts sliding left and three parts sliding right.

Nanami killed a man for you when he was sixteen, and the blood shed that day has tied you to his side ever since. The two of you have a bond forged in iron and mutual understanding.

He will always come back to you.

For now, your duty is to make sure he has a place to come back to. If the worst comes, Jujutsu High will be the final battleground. You have no intention of losing an inch of the front line before the last battle even begins.

Not that it will. For all your adoration of Nanami, the truth is, no one can compare to Gojo Satoru. With him on the scene, you’re confident the mess in Shibuya will be cleaned up soon.

Shibuya, October 31st, 9 A.M.

Bad news always comes in battalions. One hour after dawn breaks, the unthinkable happens. Terrible news flies on dark wings from Shibuya to the main campus. Ui Ui lands in front of the morgue in a panic. Black feathers fall around him, a remnant of his cursed technique and an omen all in one.

Gojo Satoru has been sealed.

At first, Shoko merely laughs her dry laugh. She pulls another heavy breath from her cigarette, her voice momentarily raspy before her technique heals any damage almost instantaneously. Smoke wreathes her head like a miserable angel.

Ui Ui does not joke.

With shaky hands, he presents Principal Yaga’s letter. The two of you are the only ones left on campus, deserted by all but dry leaves. There’s no need to read it out loud. Instead, you and Shoko stand shoulder to shoulder as you pore over the writing. No matter how many times you read it, nothing changes.

Somehow, in one day, your world has been completely shattered. It’s like a law of physics has been broken, only more shocking because Jujutsu techniques are prone to ignoring natural law. No, this is more like if you had woken up and been told your entire life had been a hallucination. There can be nothing more real about this than if giraffes were suddenly unicorns because Gojo does not lose, but somehow it’s true.

Gojo is out of commission.

He’s been taken out by Getou Suguru, returned from the dead.

There had been a time when you would have been happy to hear Suguru was alive and well.

Now, you know almost instantaneously who Getou will target first. After Gojo, Jujutsu Society’s strongest line of defense is the sorcerer who can make Jujutsu High untouchable. Getou will burn to ash as soon as he steps so much as a millimeter within the barriers you’ve erected around the campus perimeter.

Immediately, you start plotting, comparing pros and cons, running possibilities. If Gojo’s already out of the picture, you cannot let yourself fall under any circumstances. You’re the campus’ final bastion.

You’re good in a fight. Watching Nanami’s back for years had taught you how to think on your feet, finding and removing potential for injury before the enemy notices. In a tricky situation, you can even use your technique offensively, using your barrier to inflict damage. However, none of this is what you really excel at.

Given adequate preparation, you could build a city with walls that no curse or curse user could penetrate without fear of instant death, and it’s been years. You’ve been working on the campus barrier since your arrival at Jujutsu Tech, letting your power bleed into it a little each year until it had become glutted on a wellspring of cursed energy. It was now so powerful and so well maintained it could run off nothing but scraps for centuries, completely impenetrable.

If this is truly Kenjaku, however, he has you beat in preparation by a few thousand years.

Gojo is your classmate, your friend, but also, as it was so easy to forget, your savior. He was the keystone of Jujutsu society. Without his effortless strength, things feel hopeless.

But even impossible battles must be fought, and you were willing to take it to the bitter, bitter end. From your vantage point on the farthest point of campus as you could get without straying outside of the protection of your barriers, you see your allies start to trickle in from the horizon. Without Gojo to simply teleport people in and out if and when he felt like it, they walk, run, and crawl their way towards safety, chased by mortal danger.

Sometimes you’re close enough to help with a conveniently placed ward. Other times, you pray that someone else is in the right place at the right time. Irritation with the elders and the three clans with their petty power plays wells up within you. If you all want to survive, the sorcerers will have to close ranks. There can be no weakness within when danger looms so close on the outside.

Inumaki gets in first, Yaga half carrying the boy across the threshold before he immediately leaves to find the rest of his charges. Panda and Maki stagger through together. Nanami brings up the rear, rounding up the last few stragglers. Casualties are more than you’ve lost in one year alone. You’re horrified by how thin your numbers are.

All the more reason why your technique is so imperative at this critical moment.

Yaga declares a state of emergency as soon as the immediate community is within the safety of headquarters. All other rogue sorcerers and stragglers, the few who have made it to retirement, those out of the country, and notably, Yuki Tsukumo are to return immediately. War is breaking out.

The loss of Gojo Satoru is a heavy blow to your forces. Thus, the first plan of action is to get him back. It’s a harsh reality, but the truth of the matter is you only have a few real sorcerers left at your disposal.

Yaga is working overtime making new dolls to patrol campus. Mei Mei and Ui Ui are currently your only contacts with the outside. At the moment, they’re trying to locate Hakari and Kirara. Nanami, Utahime, Shoko, Nitta, and Takuma make up what’s left.

Ijichi and Kusakabe were lost at some point during the retreat from Shibuya. You can only hope they’re alive somehow. Then there’s the matter of Yuuji’s curse of an older brother, which no one seems willing to touch quite yet. Yuuji himself seems unsure of how to deal with him.

The children are desperate to be of help, but it doesn’t take Shoko to see how traumatized they already are without taking an active role in the war effort. Survivor’s guilt has its claws in some of them already. The rest have their own little problems.

And Nobara - you swallow down bile.

Nobara is dead.

She was just a girl. Even worse, there’s no time to grieve, though she deserves a proper goodbye. One more thing war has taken from you.

One more friend Getou owes you.

If he tries to enter campus, you’ll make sure it’s painful.

The three great clans have chosen to consolidate forces on their own rather than, in their words, come running to you. Their delusions of strength or more likely, their pride, won’t allow them to owe you any favors even when facing down the threat that took down Gojo. No matter - you don’t want them here anyways.

Strong as they are, infighting would only make matters worse at this point. They’ll come to you when they’re desperate. You’re not above using that for leverage.

Yuki is on her way home, racing back from Latin America, where she’d been doing more research for her goal of eradicating curses at the root cause. Having her here would set your mind at ease. Even if she’s not Gojo, any special grade is a blessing. Besides, with your barriers to counterbalance her mass’s weak points, she might be strong enough to put up a fight against Kenjaku. All your hopes are banking on her.

For now, all you can do is wait.

Nanami finds you in the kitchens at 4 am, slumped over a bowl of melting ice cream. He slides in next to you easily, slotting into his place.

“Are you still working on that or can I have it?”

“It’s gross now,” you sigh, finally uncurling from your hunched position. “Like ice cream soup.”

Nanami shrugs half-heartedly and takes a bite, though it’s more like a sip. He makes a face.

“Told you so.”

“Some things have to be experienced, not told.”

You’ve been together long enough to be able to recognize the telltale signs of a lecture. “Not now,” you plead. “I’m exhausted.”

It only takes him a moment to give in. He’s always weak when it comes to you. Scooting closer on the bench, his shoulder bumps into yours. Warmth spreads through you where his shoulder is touching yours; his body a furnace. After scanning the room, he lets his head drop onto your shoulder.

Neither of you can afford to show weakness in front of the students, but this is an unprecedented catastrophe. You know he can feel it as well as you can. You lean in too, letting his soft hair tickle your cheek. Taking his hand into yours, you reinforce the point where you’re conjoined, just to remind yourself that he’s safe and with you.

He stirs. “Don’t waste your energy.”

Even with Shoko’s constant healing and pre-prepared wards, guarding campus takes a lot out of you.

Although you know this, you can’t help the need to reassure yourself. Gojo had seemed so infallible. In the way one only appreciates what one had once it’s been lost, you wonder if you had all relied too heavily on Gojo. To let society crumble because one man has been taken out was pure foolishness. What else have you taken for granted that could so easily fall from your clutches?

When you speak again, your voice is hesitant, though you know Nanami would never judge you. He already knows everything about your past.

“Do you believe in ghosts?”

Your breath ruffles his hair when you speak.

“Like your village?” He’s blunt.

“I’ve been thinking about Getou. There’s no way he came back. It’s impossible. How do you live through Hollow Purple?”

Nanami’s laughter is wretched and serious. “This is Jujutsu. Anything is possible.”

There’s just the slightest hint of emotion in his voice, indistinguishable if you didn’t know him well. You’re both thinking about her.

But Nobara wasn’t a special grade, wasn’t the beloved of the strongest.

Even more shocking than Getou’s return from the dead is his betrayal, which is a testament to the bond the strongest duo once shared.

“I didn’t think he would haunt him,” you muse. It is a haunting, isn’t it? Even if Getou’s physical body is present, he’s a dead man. He belongs elsewhere now. What he is currently is an abomination, a perversion of nature.

The mountain village you hailed from had been prone to superstition and folklore. Legends of ghosts had lurked in every corner, spirits born of resentment and unfinished business. Though it makes sense for Gojo to be Getou’s tether to the earthly realm, you can’t imagine the two to be so at odds that Getou would haunt him. Even now, it’s hard to accept. Regardless of how divided they were at the time of his death, Getou loved Gojo too much for that.

At least, you thought he did.

Nothing is certain in this world anymore, certainly not matters of death.

Perhaps that’s what Nanami’s thinking about when he whispers into the cold silence of the cafeteria, “If something happens to me, I promise I’ll leave you in peace.”

You tighten your grip on his hand, wishing he wouldn’t offer something he couldn’t promise. You know he’ll try. Nanami would never haunt you willingly. Ghosts aren’t always what they were living, however. Getou is proof enough of that.

Instead of voicing your doubts, you just hold onto him tighter until Megumi finds the two of you. You’re grateful it’s him and not Nobara, who would’ve no doubt teased the two of you. The memory of her brings fresh pain.

“Ui Ui and Mei Mei have news.”

You’re a little surprised he came to you, but he shrugs.

“They said to get Yaga after you.”

The brother and sister duo have been your only form of contact with the outside, as Yaga locked down campus. Only those two, with their ability to shift between spaces, were allowed to venture out.

If Gojo was still here-

If he was still here, you wouldn’t be hiding at all. There’s no use fantasizing about the impossible - is what you would think if it wasn’t occurring before your eyes.

Sitting behind the Principal’s desk in his office is Gojo Satoru, feet propped disrespectfully on his desk. In lieu of his usual sunglasses, his blindfold has returned, perching precariously high on his forehead, almost like a headband. It makes him look like a douche.

Nanami freezes beside you. In a way, it almost makes sense. If anyone could escape the Prison Realm, it would be Gojo Satoru. Your heartbeat is calm, not a single instinct rebelling against the scene playing out in front of you. Despite your body’s lack of warning to the man sitting in front of you, as if it truly is him, alarm bells are ringing in your head.

He cackles at the dumbfounded look on your faces. “Come on! You didn’t think that stupid little box was going to keep me trapped, did you? Even made time for a detour for mochi.”

He makes his point by popping one of the little green balls of rice flour he loves so much into his mouth. You want to smack him. Everyone was worried sick, and he went to get snacks?

But you don’t. None of your barriers have been ruptured, so this must be Gojo. If it was anyone else’s curse energy signature, you would know. Getou shouldn’t be able to set foot on campus.

“Relax,” Mei Mei says, sitting on the edge of the desk. Ui Ui clings to her adoringly. “I found him picking out his sweets in-“

The wall behind her crumbles, a clear number line emblazoned on it for a second before it falls. Mei Mei has already dodged the attack, standing slightly to the left. She raises an eyebrow. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Nanami hefts his blade and works his shoulder. “I don’t know what game you’re playing at, but you’ve got Gojo wrong. He’s a fool, sure, but he’s a soldier. He wouldn’t stop at a mochi shop before returning to find his students.”

Gojo sighs. “And here I thought an incorrigible, selfish bastard was all the depth there was to him. Guess that’s true friendship for you, huh?”

“Getou?” All of this is happening too quickly for your brain to catch up. The bandages-

He makes a hand seal and you flinch, expecting his dragon or another one of his nasty little curses to pop out, but nothing happens.

Nanami is already putting two and two together, being most familiar with the technique used. “You let Mahito take away your sorcery,” he breathes.

Your blood runs cold. The idea of someone tampering with your brain stem and taking away your technique sends chills down your spine. Willingly letting someone perform such an invasive procedure is horrifying, but the limits Getou will go to seem boundless. He must’ve used idle transfiguration to look like Gojo, too. They had been around the same height. You can see the scheme unraveling before your eyes which means-

“Traitor,” Yaga says in the doorway, looking at Mei Mei with a hardness in his eyes you’ve never seen before. He’s panting, having run all the way here. You can’t imagine how it feels, for the student you raised to have turned her back not only on you, but every ideal you’ve ever held dear.

“I can’t believe-“

Yaga’s voice is full of surprise and betrayal before it’s cut short by her scythe. You want to move, but are rooted to the spot at the sight of your teacher, throat carved open.

“Sorry, sir. It’s nothing personal. I’m just joining the winning side. You understand, right? You raised me to be practical.”

“Mei Mei?”

“Come here, Ui Ui.”

For potentially the first time in his life, Ui Ui doesn’t obey his sister.

“What’s this? You’re getting too old for a rebellious phase now, kid. Don’t you trust me?”

When she reaches for him, he darts past her hands and into your arms. You shove him behind you. A look of hurt confusion flashes across Mei Mei’s face, clearly unused to anything but perfect obedience.

“Go!” You urge him, trying to push out the door past Yaga’s body. Taking a quick inventory of the situation, you ascertain your chances. Yaga’s down for the count. You don’t know how serious his injury is. Nanami’s still fresh for a fight, but Ui Ui is dead weight. You’re dangerously low on cursed energy, but not near the bottom of your reserves quite yet.

You don’t need to speak for him to catch onto the plan. Immediately, Nanami engages Mei Mei. Getou may be the evil mastermind, but he’s a non sorcerer for now. Ui Ui is the priority.

“Go! Tell the others!”

By the time you spin around, Getou has his fingers around your throat. Your barrier flares against him, leaving him scrabbling at nothing. Light shines in the space between the two of you. Across the room, you let your cursed energy block a blow from Mei Mei right above Nanami’s navel.

Already, fighting with him feels so familiar, a song and dance you’ve done since you were students. He leads Mei Mei towards you until you’re back to back.

It’s so familiar to defend while he attacks. Nanami’s sharp eyes find that elusive chink in their armor while you adjust to cover your weak points. You drop back when he slashes forward. He ducks while you throw up a ward so strong Mei Mei and Getou stumble back. In every way, you’re winning, yet it doesn’t feel like it.

Getou’s calm is an ineffable as it was when you knew him, but his face-

His face is unsettling. It’s another boy’s. He smiles, so horribly close to the Gojo you knew that your heart breaks, both because something so familiar has become so twisted, and also because you know at that moment that you’ve made a mistake.

“You got it wrong,” Getou says softly. “I didn’t use idle transfiguration. I used a binding vow to seal my cursed energy for twenty four hours.”

The horror sinks in as you realize he hasn’t been weakened at all. The binding vow has made him stronger, twenty four hours of repressed cursed energy roaring to life in one minute.

Your barrier pulses around you and Nanami, dying light fighting to keep the two of you safe.

That’s when Getou pulls out his trump card.

Backing away from the barrier, he pulls the Prison Realm out of one pocket, and a cursed weapon in the other. He’s dangling it in front of you like the world’s most obvious mouse trap.

To get the Prison Realm, you’ll have to take down the shield.

You, or Gojo?

The choice is obvious.

At least Kenjaku is facing you and not Nanami.

With a burst of cursed energy, you slice straight through bone. Blood spurts from the stump of Kenjaku’s hand as it clatters into your palm, the Prison Realm along with it.

You expected getting stabbed to feel cold from experience, adrenaline numbing the sensation. This time, the burning starts immediately. Maybe fatal wounds are different? By the time you were in high school, your technique had improved enough that you couldn’t remember what those felt like.

The Prison Realm slides into your hand effortlessly. The blood coating your side doesn’t matter anymore, because you have Gojo.

When you hear the gargle of air in Nanami’s lungs, you immediately know what happened. There’s a jagged cut across Getou’s front, in the shape of his signature ratio. A barrage of cursed spirits forces you back. Desperately, you cling to Nanami as you shield the two of you with the flickering embers of your cursed energy.

“We have to go,” Mei Mei snaps at Getou.

He’s not listening, advancing towards you. A mistake, because you’re going to kill him. Your vision is red with blood and fury. With shaking fingers, you arrange your hands into the right shape.

“Domain Expansion-“

Mei Mei pulls Getou back, her crows beating a hasty retreat. She half runs, half flies down towards the boundary, taking him with her.

You’re throwing every attack in your limited arsenal at them, but every single hit is absorbed by the body of a crow, leaving a trail of corvids behind. She leaves you with your dead best friend and a horde of children to protect.

Nanami was dying for nothing. You can’t even open the Prison Realm.

You’re crying against his neck, hunched over him. Even as he lay dying, you’re looking for comfort from him and you despise yourself for it. He’s fighting to get words out. You press closer to him to hear it.

“I won’t haunt you,” he breathes against your forehead.

“Nanami,” horrible, shuddering sobs rip themselves from your chest. You’re desperately trying to hold him together, blood making your hands slippery. You’re afraid you’re making it worse.

“Don’t say anything,” you plead. “Save your strength.”

You hear it when he takes his last breath, rattling, painful. In the distance, you hear a horrible noise, as if even the earth is mourning with you. Dimly, the realization comes moments later.

That’s not the wind, that’s you.

“Hey!”

You can’t look at the voice, so consumed by your grief. You can’t even tell if your barriers are intact.

“Pull yourself together! I need to know what happened!” Someone is slapping your cheeks lightly. You can’t register the sensation. Nanami is gone. You only react when they try to pull you away from him. Howling like a wild animal, you cling to his body, but even by instinct, you know it’s not the same. He may as well be a cut of meat now. Nothing that made Nanami, Nanami remains in this cold lump of flesh.

Yuki Tsukumo was just fifteen minutes too late to save the day. She arrived right as Nanami’s body was starting to cool, and has been holding the crumbling remains of Jujutsu Tech together while you’ve been inconsolable.

You wonder if the guilt is eating her up inside, just like the resentment you’re trying to keep a handle on is devouring you even as you know it’s irrational.

In one attack, Kenjaku has taken out Yaga and Nanami. As the strongest, Yuki automatically assumes leadership, and she has an ambitious goal.

“We’re going after Gojo Satoru.”

Although you’re hesitant to split up, you admit that her plan has the most chance of success - not that it means anything, anymore.

Yuki will take Choso and hunt down Kenjaku with the goal of retrieving Gojo.

Yuuji’s team comes in for the second half of her strategy. He’s going to be sent with the other students into the Culling Games to seek out Angel, one of the few who can free Gojo since he destroyed all of the objects that could have saved him like the idiot he is.

Utahime, Shoko, and Ui Ui are going to serve as communication and healing for either team. Ui Ui’s transportation will allow him to move in and out of the Culling Game, as well as bring Shoko to whoever needs her most. Utahime will guard them while Nitta and Takuma will continue gathering allies.

Your role is to maintain the campus as a headquarters and safe house. You react, as Yuki predicted you would, explosively.

“Am I to understand that you want me to sit here and allow children to risk their lives for me?”

Yuki’s gaze is, as always, light-hearted steel. It’s not that she’s unreasonably confident, but simply that confidence is embedded in her DNA. There is no questioning Yuki because such a thing might as well not exist. Such is the cost of strength - it’s a quality Gojo also shared.

“You are to understand that if you want these children to have a home to come home to, you must defend the campus. What happens when one of them is injured? We’ll have no safe house to take them to recover. What happens when we need somewhere to fall back? You might think you’re noble for offering to take their place in the culling games, but all you want to do is relieve yourself of guilt. Is that selfishness worth their lives? The world?”

“The rest of the world can go to hell! We’ve given enough - let the children grow up here. I can protect them. Let Getou come for them if he dares.” Your blood boils at the idea. You’re ready for it, spoiling for a fight.

“Is that what Nanami would’ve wanted?”

That’s unfair.

“Nanami would’ve wanted them to be children!”

Yuki slams her hand down on the table. “How can they grow up as children knowing the threat of Getou will always be there? You can’t protect them! You already failed once!”

Your heart clenches painfully at the mention of Nanami. For a minute, you can’t speak. Yuki softens, also reminiscing about Nanami. She had already graduated when he had just joined Jujutsu Tech. Perhaps she’s remembering the little blonde boy who used to beg her to spar when she says, “Besides, I’m the strongest you have right now. If you stay, you’ll free me up to fight elsewhere. Otherwise you’ll force me to stay and defend Tengen. Of the two of us, we both have duties we’re better suited to. Trust me.”

Defeated, you can’t even verbalize your assent, you just nod.

Yuki’s pity only makes you feel worse. You turn away as she outlines the rest of the plan. While she captures Mei Mei and takes all the information she can offer, Takuma and Nitta’s first contact will be Hakari and Kirara. Yuki will turn Mei Mei over to them to guard while she goes after Kenjaku with Ui Ui’s team as backup.

Worst case scenario, she’s to retreat at any cost so Shoko can fix her up. If it comes down to it, you’ll abandon campus and Tengen to support her, leaving the students and Hakari to watch over it in your place. With your barriers, Yuki’s one weakness will be safely covered for. But in that scenario, you’ll need to end the Culling Games first to retrieve the students.

Every aspect of the plan hinges on pulling off some miracle, pushing past your limits. It requires a Gojo level of skill and insanity, but it’s the only choice you have.

Yuki’s teeth are bared in a grin as she ends the meeting. “Sleep well, everyone. Tomorrow I’m going to discipline a traitor.”

She grabs Yuuji’s older brother by the collar with a hooked finger and drags him in. He looks startled.

“Then we’re going to go get Gojo back.”

It’s a fool’s plan. Gojo is as good as dead in that prison of his, completely helpless, and someone who could beat the strongest is a complete wildcard. Yuki is brilliant and powerful, but where she measures up against the oldest and cruelest sorcerers from another time is unknown.

Still, it’s Yuki, the woman whose trump card is the most terrifying natural phenomenon known to mankind. If there was anyone on the current team who could get Gojo back - and you needed him back - it would have to be her.

She packs her bags and is ready by nightfall to start hunting her prey. Choso is already waiting just outside the barrier as you say your goodbyes, having walked her to the edge of the perimeter.

Impulsively, you pull her into a hug. This close, you can smell her strawberry shampoo. Her bangs tickle your cheek when she jolts, startled. Slowly, she relaxes and hugs you back.

You’re almost scared to let her go. Tears are forming in your eyes. Watching so many of your friends disappear in front of your eyes makes you wonder if you’re about to let one more slip between your fingers. Yuki is so reckless. Yaga had always been afraid she’d die young.

“Come back, Yuki.”

Don’t let this be the last time you see her alive.

“Stop that,” Yuki says gently, slapping your arm. “With Gojo out of the rankings, I’m the strongest. Don’t worry so much.”

Neither of you say what you’re thinking.

With Gojo out of the rankings, the spot of number one is a power vacuum that many would be dying (or killing) to fill.

Time is ticking. Every minute is another minute Getou plots, but still, Yuki hesitates. The realization that she’s looking at you with pity is not a welcome one.

“Are you going to be okay all alone?”

You force a cheery smile to your face. “I’ll be fine. I think I prefer it this way, anyways.”

Putting up a brave front for Yuki is easier than confronting the actual situation. As soon as she leaves, campus feels eerie and desolate. There’s an unwelcome chill at your back - even at its quietest, Jujutsu Tech has never been home to just one sorcerer before. In just a few days, everything has gone horribly wrong.

Sitting on the sidelines is as awful as it normally is. This time, instead of waiting for Nanami to come home, you feel the awful lurch of forgetting he died. Every day you wake up without the memory of it, only to feel that abyss open up beneath you over and over again at random moments throughout the day.

When you make the curry he liked, when you have to jump for a book he would’ve gotten for you easily, when you roll over to cuddle into his warm body after waking up cold - all of these little instances are accumulated paper cuts: miserable, mundane, and multitudinous.

You thought you’d be happy to have alone time to grieve, but the absence of Nanami is only compounded by the lack of your other friends. The last time you’d lost someone so dear to you, everyone had grown even closer, all piled all over each other like a litter of puppies. You had curled into one another, seeking warmth and companionship instinctively.

You had been inseparable, sleeping together in the common area, eating together, even showering together. There had been no understanding of the naked body as something to desire, just the sense that if one of you were to be left alone, you would crumble.

The pain of those days had been unbearable, but you miss the comfort of it too, like the sweet ache of a day-old bruise. Getou’s death had faded into a familiar hurt that could be suffered. Remembering those bygone days now brings the memory of Nanami rising soap out of your hair, or being sandwiched between Utahime and Gojo in sleep, his leg slung over the both of you, your face pressed against her back.

Now you’re alone, having outgrown the nest. Or rather, it appears that everyone else has flown the nest and left you behind. You remain in Jujutsu central, holding the line as you always do.

You break surprisingly fast. Perhaps Yuki knew you better than yourself. Like her dragon shikigami, she was almost half animal. Beautiful and feral, with a pleasure that came from obeying only herself - like a beast, she could sniff out the truth in you.

Everyone was gone. You were lonely. You turn to the one friend you had left.

For hours you sit with the Prison Realm, grimacing at the almost tacky feel of its strange skin. Your fingers slip over everything but the stitches, as if it repels you. The eye blinks patiently as you probe it with your technique. Even if you don’t have Nanami’s offensive technique, you can still find its weaknesses.

You see none, but that doesn’t stop you from trying. For days, you try to pry it apart with brute strength. You pore over the archaic, arcane scrolls in the catacombs, throwing the contents of text after text at it. You’ve taken every cursed weapon in the armory to it.

You listen for Gojo’s voice, still disbelieving that someone like him could be trapped in such an unassuming object. If anyone could escape, give you direction on how to help him, it would be Gojo. You fantasize that he has enough power to simply force his way out, or at least send you a hint in the real world.

He stays quiet, slumbering.

Talking to the Prison Realm is a surprise. You don’t mean to, it just happens naturally. In his place, you treat his prison as if it were him. You cart it everywhere with you, from laundry to patrol, cracking jokes and telling stories.

Of course, it doesn’t respond as Gojo would have. There’s no raucous laughter or snide remarks. Instead, the unnerving eye of the Prison Realm blinks steadily at you. But this fragment of Gojo is all you have left of your scattered friends.

And you miss him.

Even though you had belonged to the same class, and in fact he was younger than you by a few months, Gojo had always felt like a certainty in your world. It was as if you had been born knowing him, like you knew the sky was blue or that water was essential for life. The Six Eyes was one of the laws of the natural world. Even disagreeable as he was, he had a way of reassuring you.

If he had never been captured, Nanami-

You choked.

Nanami would still be alive.

You were forever the last line of defense, the second choice. Your only job was to step up if Gojo failed and you hadn’t. The eye of the Prison Realm blinks in annoyance as your salty tears seep into it.

A cold breeze brushes the back of your neck, almost like fingers, and you shudder. The Prison Realm’s eye seems to hold eye contact with you for a second, or something slightly to the left of you, but when you turn, there’s nothing there. It might have been a trick of the light, or a figment of your imagination, but you could’ve sworn there was recognition in that eye.

Can Gojo hear you?

The event shakes you so badly you put the Prison Realm away for the day and continue on with your chores. You maintain the barriers, you look after Tengen, and you keep updated on the status of everyone’s missions. You do such an admirable job of avoiding the Prison Realm that you almost forget about it until you see it lying on your bed. Your blood runs cold instantaneously.

You shriek when you feel it again, the breeze that shouldn’t exist. Spinning to face your assailant, you almost drop the Prison Realm - and yet there’s nothing there. Your technique returns nothing too, but somehow you know the truth as if by heart.

“Nanami?”

The air stills around you. Even the whistles of the birds in the trees outside are muted. The crawl of frigid fingers up your arm returns, now unmistakably familiar. Even the whorls and ridges of the pads of his fingers are known to you.

Half of you is relief, half of you is dread.

You did this to him.

You cursed him.

He nudges you towards the bed and sets the Prison Realm down on your lap. His fingers are cold but gentle as he tries to pry the box open. The eye looks uncomfortable.

“Nanami, stop. It won’t work.”

He arranges your hands into the shape of a seal, though of course, it does nothing without your cursed energy flowing through it. The intention is clear - he wants you to use your barrier technique. But you’re not Nanami. You can’t exploit weaknesses, you can only defend them. Hypothetically, you could try to reverse it, but the chances are unlikely.

Still, if Nanami wants you to, you’ll try, even if every attempt you’ve thrown at it before has failed to even budge it.

Nothing.

His disappointment stings.

Again, he folds your fingers into the right shape. Again, you pour cursed energy out through the right channels, letting it wrap around the Prison Realm. Again, its boxy shape is silhouetted in white, as you find its soft underbelly.

Nothing short of Hollow Purple could burst through it.

Nanami lets you go.

It’s as if it’s storming outside. Wind batters the windows until the shutters slam forcefully against the walls. The very foundation of the house groans in pain.

“Nanami, stop! Please!”

Almost immediately, the breeze dies down, as if Nanami is mildly ashamed. He’s more volatile as a dead man, easier to anger in a way he was never in life. You loved that about him, his patience, his goodness.

“I know you’re upset. I am too, but I promise we can-“

Can what? Fix this? You can’t promise that.

You jump at his hands on you again. You’ll never get used to them being so cold.

“Enough,” he writes against your arm, his finger tracing the letters over your skin. “I’m sorry.”

You think Tengen might be scared of ghosts. He hasn’t been out much since you discovered Nanami’s presence, though the two of you used to discuss barrier techniques. You think Yuki might have told him to look out for you.

There’s no guidebook to being a ghost. After that first day, you and Nanami experiment to see what he is and isn’t capable of.

He can’t be more than a room away from you. Physically can’t. He describes it as a wall, except the wall is indeterminately high and wide. There’s simply no space for him to move to that isn’t less than twelve feet from you at all times.

He’s only able to interact with the living world through you. If he wants to move a glass or close the blinds, he has to tug on you until you move where he wants to before he can put his hands over yours to complete the task.

It’s strange, at first, living with a roommate you can’t see. In the early days, you forgot his presence often, and would be startled by the soft brush of cold hands against yours, then again when your hand moved of someone else’s volition to catch whatever you had dropped.

Like all things, it becomes normal over time. Now Nanami is just Nanami again. You play chess on both sides in the afternoon while you wait for more information from the teams on the outside.

Sometimes it feels like a snow globe, as if you’ve been preserved in time. Everyone keeps fighting on the outside, yet you only grow more and more removed. These days life is starting to feel like a dream. Nanami worries over you like he did when he was alive. You wish he wouldn’t, though it’s partially your fault. He keeps catching you sitting on the porch with the Prison Realm in your lap, staring off into the distance as you stroke its strange flesh and dream, dream, dream.

In some ways, you’re beginning to understand Gojo, even appreciate him a little. Caring about life when you’re on a plane removed from existence is surreal. You have to remind yourself every day that you love Yuki and the kids, that you want to protect them and do your part. You loved Nanami, too. This is for him.

He tries to keep you here and lucid. When you get too lost inside your own head, his hands shoot up to your face, roaming over your cheeks until the icy thrill sinks in and you remember what task you had been doing before you zoned out. It happens more and more often these days until eventually, even the coldness of his body stops startling you and he has to resort to gentle pinches.

Yuki sends a letter during the first winter, when snow blankets the campus and muffles any sound. You barely hear Ui Ui’s footsteps when he enters the kitchen. Has he gotten taller? Children grow so fast. You hear from Megumi and Yuuji, but they don’t tell you about their heights, only if they survived and carried out the next step of the plan. There’s enough humanity left in you still to worry for those children.

Would Nobara have grown too, if she still lived? The pain in your heart is muted, not as sharp as before. Nanami doesn’t think this is a good thing, but you can’t bring yourself to care.

Ui Ui barely stays to wolf down the dinner you’ve prepared before he disappears in a cloud of black feathers again, shuttling the two teams to each other. Yuki’s notes are brief things scrawled on any available paper. This one is ripped off a hotel’s memo pad and reads:

Getou is Kenjaku from the Meiji Era, returned to life.

I’m not sure if I can beat him.

Getou was never Getou at all. Even as a villain, he stirred up lingering emotions in you that you couldn’t help. For the second time, you mourn your friend. It’s a cruel trick fate plays on you, to subvert death over and over again in all the wrong ways. Each time, those you love return to you wrongly.

You feel the brush of hair against your cheek, as if Nanami has placed his head against yours. You’re equally grateful and miserable he’s here.

He’s just another one of your dearly deceased that have been cursed.

Supplies are running low. One day, you’re picking radishes from the garden when you think to ask him: “What’s it like?”

He pauses before he answers, but never lies. His fingers scrawl out the message, quick and dirty, like he wants to get rid of it. “Cold. And dark. I can only feel you.”

Your blood freezes in your veins.

You had thought you could have him back. It was a selfish dream, a child’s dream. It had been a miracle at first.

Sure, he wasn’t the same.

He was cold-blooded now, ran quiet and passive except for when you goaded him to move. You were his tether to life. Guilt roils in the pit of your stomach. You had seen nothing wrong with it even when he could only move through you.

Already, Nanami is no longer the same. You wonder if this decay will continue the longer he remains stranded on earth. The first day you reunited with him, he had been different, darker. Has it gotten worse?

Perhaps this is your form of a curse, to have Nanami rot along with the body that once held him.

Nanami didn’t deserve this half-life.

Alarmed, he taps your arm rapidly for your attention before writing out, “What’s wrong?”

“Let’s go to Malaysia when all of this is over,” you suggest more lightheartedly than you feel.

“So suddenly?” You can almost see his wry smile.

After Malaysia, you can put him to rest. He deserves one thing he wanted before you have to let him go.

Getting in touch with Yuki is getting harder and harder. Every fight comes with increasingly narrower odds, so it’s a while before Ui Ui can make time to get to campus between transporting students to Shoko.

It takes even longer for Yuki to respond.

The message the sealed envelope contains is a simple ‘Yes.’

Preparations are immediate. Kenjaku isn’t going to come just because you want him to. Thankfully, after a few years of hunting this elusive beast, Yuki has a few clues to how it ticks.

She wants you to pretend to use your technique to forcefully pry the prison realm open. Immediately, you shoot the idea down.

“It’ll never work. Kenjaku’s too smart not to know that my technique alone won’t be capable of breaking the seal, especially not if my specialty is defense.”

“Are you alone?”

All special grades are the same, you think in frustration. You’ve often witnessed Megumi on the receiving end of this from Gojo, being led around by the nose. Everything is a teaching moment to them so they can bring you up to their level, but sometimes you wish they would just say things outright.

Nanami spells it out for you. On your forearm, he writes, “She means me.”

“How-“

“One step ahead of you, sweetheart. Remember how I went after Mei Mei first?” Yuki’s smile is fanged. “She’s going to leak information of Nanami Kento’s miraculous return.”

You aim for the battle to happen on home territory. It doesn’t matter anymore - if you lose, there’s no way Jujutsu Tech will still be standing by the end of all this.

Sitting quietly on the main road that leads to campus, there’s a strange sense of peace permeating the air. The knowledge that this is your final stand almost brings you comfort. No more running. No more hiding.

You end this here, or you die.

It’s so simple.

Nanami’s presence helps, too. Each breath slips you deeper and deeper into a semi-meditative trance. His hands run lightly up and down your arms, as he did in life. Even now, freezing to the touch, it’s grounding. It soothes you as you wait, eyes trained on the horizon.

You have to time this just right.

Kenjaku is just cresting the hill when you press your palms into the Prison Realm and start pouring your cursed energy into it. Nanami treats your body like a conduit. The familiar symbol of the 7:3 technique hovers over the Prison Realm like an old friend.

“What’s this?” Kenjaku is, for the first time since he exploded onto the scene and ruined your life, confused. He scans the scene, looking for one Nanami Kento, very much missing in action despite his obvious presence.

“Did you cannibalize your friend's technique?”

You hate how he seems almost impressed with the idea. Ignoring him, you simply reinforce your barrier. He’s not getting to you or the Prison Realm. You’ve just realized you can access the reserves of Nanami’s cursed energy as well. They feel different now that he’s dead, but they’re still there.

Predictably, 7:3 fails to pierce the Prison Realm. Kenjaku looks relieved. It must seem like your last bet had failed, a miraculous resurrection that went wrong. If only he knew that wasn’t the plan at all.

Yuki’s infinite mass slams into him with enough force he goes careening sideways. He barely manages to catch himself against the ground with a hard grunt while she lands gracefully on her feet, not winded at all. Her curtain of blonde hair whips around her face in the wind, making her look like an ancient goddess.

She doesn’t let up, going after him before he can even catch his breath. Yuki is a brawler at heart, matching her full physical fortitude against Kenjaku’s masterful use of technique. Her first blow catches him right in the cheek, pulverizing teeth and spraying blood. Her next lands square on his arm, snapping the bone clean through.

When Kenjaku tries to fall back, Yuki rears back and kicks Garuda, curled into a ball, so hard into him he goes flying once again. She’s a wild beast - beautiful and feral. Kenjaku can’t give himself breathing room as she hammers him with attacks. Every time he gets too far, Garuda occupies him until she can get him in close quarters once again, where she specializes.

For a second, it seems like Yuki is winning.

Then, right when Yuki has him cornered, Kenjaku grabs her arm and pulls her in, almost as if embracing her. He places one hand at her stomach, right where her vital organs are, and summons a mini Uzumaki in his hand.

You realize with horror that he’s going to tear her to shreds right in front of you.

Your reaction time doesn’t catch up quickly enough, but your technique instinctively senses what he’s about to target and throws a shield over her - if you hadn’t, she’d be dead. There’d be a gaping hole blown in her side.

You can’t count yourselves lucky just yet.

Kenjaku takes advantage of Yuki’s loss of momentum to use his gravity technique, pinning her and you to the ground. Your shields are up, but knowing Kenjaku, he has something else up his sleeve. Every second you’re down is another second for him to unleash a new, worse weapon.

Yuki moans in pain, her arm ruined. It’s bent at an awkward angle. Her reverse cursed technique is working overtime to heal her injuries enough that she can keep fighting. She’s a true monster, tanking hits like that at close distance even with your help.

“Tsukumo!” Yuji’s voice is worried.

Somehow, the students are here.

You close your eyes. The momentary relief you feel at hearing Yuji’s voice, safe and sound, is quickly overtaken by fear. Even if you can get back up for your fight now, Yuki can’t unleash her trump card while the students are here. Her black hole would suck them in at this close of a range.

Whatever support they could’ve provided for this fight is heavily outweighed by the cost it’ll force Yuki to bear. Special grades fight best alone. You know this from watching Gojo. Everyone else drags them down.

Choso had fallen back while Yuki was thrashing Kenjaku, likely because she had told him to. Now, Megumi and Yuji rush to him as he duels Kenjaku, severely out of his depth. They can buy him some time, but you’re not sure how much. Will it suffice to get Yuki back up again?

Can Yuki even adjust to fight alongside them?

Yuta peels away from the pack of students and heads towards you. “No time to explain!

A disfigured figure lopes towards you, grinning horribly. You cringe at the sight of it, which instills some primal fear in you. “Is that-?”

Yuta nods. “Yuji said we should bring him here. I’m sorry, there’s no time! You’ll just have to trust me!”

Splitting your attention between five different bodies that need your shields is agonizing. You’re breaking out in cold sweat, fully aware of the fact that any lapse in concentration could mean the end of someone you care deeply for. Already, Yuji’s only avoided two near death experiences because your shield slid over him just in time. Yuki pulls Megumi back just as Kenjaku tries to drop a cursed spirit on him, and demolishes it with Garuda. She shoves him hard towards Yuta who’s stolen Mahito’s technique and is now employing it against him with a sense of almost childish wonder.

That’s when a sixth person joins the fray, adding to your already buckling mental stamina. This one flies and is calling out to Megumi.

Very quickly, the situation is only growing worse. Yuki pushed Megumi out of the fight because Yuji has lost control. She’s now on her own against Kenjaku and Sukuna, barely fending them off. Your shield cracks and reforms, only to crack again under a relentless onslaught of blows. You taste copper in your mouth, but you can’t stop. Nanami strokes your hair, trying to offer some relief as blood dribbles from your nose under the pressure of your technique being pushed further than it ever had before. Even tapping into his reserves, you’re finding that you’re about to run dry.

Megumi’s friend dive bombs Sukuna from the air with a scream of rage.

“Angel, don’t!” Megumi screams.

For a second, you don’t think she’ll really do anything. After all, she’s with your students. You’re sure she won’t hurt Yuji’s body, but when she strikes with the intent to kill, you throw another barrier around Sukuna’s body just in time. It drains you to the point of collapse. Now Nanami’s physically holding you up, the phantom sensation of his strong arms around your waist keeping you from falling.

Angel is furious, raining blow on top of blow on your shield. In your one second lapse in concentration, you drop Angel’s shield by accident. Sukuna grabs hold of her and tears her wings off her back before Megumi summons Nue to pull her back. Dropping Angel, once again safely enclosed in your shield at the cost of feeling like your skin is on fire, Nue heads to support Yuki, who’s losing her battle.

Beside her, Megumi shoves the Prison Realm into her hands. She must realize she can’t win a fight with Sukuna, because she makes a miserable face. Megumi closes her hands around the Prison Realm and urges her on. You feel faint. You wish he would talk faster but finally, finally, he gets through to her.

At her touch, it unfolds in a way it didn’t for you or Nanami. Gojo Satoru returns to action in a literal blaze of glory. The light pouring out of the Prison Realm is so bright it’s blinding.

His face is sterner than you’ve ever seen it. Unobscured behind his blindfold, his eyes are blue chips of ice. He neutralizes Sukuna immediately and turns to deal with Kenjaku.

“Wait,” Kenjaku says.

Gojo doesn’t hesitate.

“I have something you want.” Kenjaku bargains. At a gesture, Mahito, crushed by Yuta, pulls something out of his pocket.

It’s Nobara, her form mangled into something tiny and unrecognizable. She’s missing an eye. Mahito must have used idle transfiguration on her.

Your stomach turns. All the students are horrified. Yuta’s face has gone stony with anger, but Megumi turns to the side and gags. He fights and fails to keep from retching into the grass, down on his hands and knees. Weak yourself, you crawl to him to wipe the cold sweat from his brow.

Whatever Kenjaku was trying to accomplish with that little show fails. Gojo goes berserk. Kenjaku’s existence is simply deleted from the face of the planet as if he never existed at all. Such is the power of a god.

You remember lines from a text you read long ago, as a student.

Through heaven and earth, I alone am the honored one.

Mahito is wiped from the earth just as effortlessly, too. It’s too late for you to throw a shield in front of him. Even your scream is too late - Gojo is simply unmatchable.

Your heart breaks. “We needed him,” you sob. “He’s the only one who can fix Nobara.”

“We didn’t.” Gojo’s as cool and level headed as ever when he nods Yuta over. “You know what to do.”

“I don’t know if I can,” Yuta says nervously.

“Just give it a shot. Be greedy. Let your cursed energy take the shape it wants to.”

Yuta startles. He’s so used to control, keeping Rika on a tight leash. Still, he trusts Gojo immeasurably.

Nobara’s resurrection is violent. You turn Megumi and Yuuji’s heads away. Her flesh unravels back over fresh bone growth. Her frame elongates and stretches. Yuta assiduously tries not to concentrate, and that tiny doll pops back into Nobara like it had been stretched out and wrangled back into the right shape. No sooner does he finish then Megumi and Yuuji wriggle out of your grasp.

They wrap their arms around her, a three headed monster weeping. A few feet away, Yuki has forced herself into a sitting position, blood seeping from a cut over her eye. All around you, your friends are battered, but alive. Gojo saved everyone.

All, but one.

One person he was too late to save.

Gojo’s brow furrows.

“Where’s Nanami?”

A cool breeze touches your cheek as you feel the first drop of rain touch your cheek. The sky opens up above you, and soon the ground is soaked, so wet the soil has darkened.

Gojo knows just by looking at your face, but he needs to hear it.

“Nanami’s dead.”

It’s cruel. It’s unbelievably, unbearably cruel. It’s a cosmic joke, because Gojo just lost Suguru, and now he’s confronted with the death of another old friend.

He never falters. He’s the strongest. But there’s just the tiniest wrinkle between his eyebrows as he helps usher all the students back inside the safe doors of the main building.

His time in the Prison Realm doesn’t leave him. Although he’s mostly normal, and certainly does his best to act like it, tiny cracks show in him. He’s lighthearted and blithe about all of it, blowing off your concerns, but you know him.

He develops a dangerous tendency to self-isolate and stew in his own emotions. Too volatile for meditation before, claiming he was prone to boredom, now he remains stuck in place for hours at a time. He doesn’t drink, he doesn’t sleep, he doesn’t eat - it’s like he’s frozen.

He treats meditation like a chrysalis, trying to ascend to an even higher plane. But already at the top, he has nowhere else to go. Still, he sits cross legged on the stone floor in the heart of the catacombs snaking under the campus, dreaming for days on end.

He’s searching for peace.

You are, too.

Perhaps that’s why he suggests funding your trip to Malaysia. You have a mutual understanding. You’re loath to leave him and the kids in this state, but Utahime promises to watch after them all. Thank god - Shoko and Yuki weren’t meant to be caretakers.

The latter had already skipped town, claiming that being in one place for too long made her antsy. Still, the bonds of that hard fought war seem to hold her just as tightly as everyone else. She returns home every few days, Gojo’s twin in hollow eyed fake happiness. Ever the world traveler, she marks out a careful itinerary for you and Nanami.

Malaysia is a good life, a peaceful one. You live for Nanami; you let him live through you. In death, he can be selfish as he never was in life. You spend days on beaches, sun bathing and hoping he can feel the warmth of its rays.

You don’t forget how he told you once, in that voice like he would never recover, how cold it was to be a ghost. He told you later that it was like extended hypothermia, a chill that seeped into the bones and stayed there.

You read the books he likes and eat the pastries he enjoys. Every time you check in, the hotel managers will worry over you traveling all alone, but you aren’t alone. You sleep wrapped in solid arms, with your back pressed to his chest. His breath tickles your ear when you sleep. Sometimes you wake up crying because it all feels so real, having him next to you. Every morning is a fresh heartbreak, but you savor it because it means he matters. You savor everything he gives you, every press of skin or gentle kiss, knowing it’ll be gone before you know it.

All too soon, it’s time to go home.

The fact of the matter is, he’s still a ghost. You can’t change this. Nanami’s life is already gone. You’re just clinging to borrowed time, trying to extend your debtor’s card to mark out just one more day, one more hour past what you were allotted.

You can’t help wishing you had more time. In that quiet place in your heart where you keep secrets you can’t admit to anyone, not even yourself, you want Nanami to stay.

In the real world, you start preparing to lay him to rest.

It’s a complicated practice. You’re not sure how to bring Nanami peace when you’ve never had a ghost before, at least not a true, recorded one. You rely on old legends from your village and an ancient text Shoko unearthed from the library to figure out which ceremonies need to be performed so Nanami can finally leave this plane of existence.

Nanami protests the idea of a ghost marriage. He doesn’t want you to be a widow so young.

“Married to a dead man! Think about it,” he pleads.

“I already thought about it. This is what I want,” you tell him stubbornly.

In a way, it fits. Malaysia hadn’t shaken the urge for you to give Nanami everything he still hadn’t experienced in life. Grief is a permanent lump in your throat. He had died so young, too young.

Your marriage will be a happy event, at the very least. All your friends will be there to celebrate. This way, everyone can let Nanami go with a warm memory.

It starts with a feast.

Say what you want about Gojo, but the man knows how to party. He’s not shy about throwing around his massive wealth to host the most lavish of dinners. In fact, he’s acting almost as if he’s giving away his own daughter. You’ve never seen him so absorbed in anything as in wedding planning. Flyers litter his room, and you have to stop him from demanding every item the caterer can supply on more than one occasion.

It’s a night of merriment, the kind Nanami would’ve wanted - not the partying, but the effusive joy on his friends’ faces. He probably would have gotten it, if he had lived long enough to marry. Gojo drags Shoko and Utahime onto the dance floor where they do a strange three legged hop to the beat of the music. Nobara is enjoying the delicacies ordered on Gojo’s money.

All around you, the people you and Nanami loved most are happy. You feel him rest his head against your shoulder. He turns your hand over so he can write on your palm. Your skin tingles with the ticklish sensation.

“Are you happy?”

“I am. Are you happy?”

“So much so I could die,” he writes back with his characteristic dry humor.

Normally, it would make you laugh, but tonight it just chokes you up.

“Sorry,” he writes after a second.

You just bring his immaterial hand to your face and kiss it in lieu of words, hoping he knows how you feel.

A ghost marriage is half beginning and half ending. Like a snake eating its own tail, it devours its own happiness. There’s no need for an official announcement. As the night wears on, the mood grows somber on its own. You know when it’s the right time.

After the glorious, bright joy of the marriage ceremony, the funeral rites start.

In a roundabout way, god is the closest thing you have to a priest. Gojo lights a simple, unscented candle taper solemnly. Dressed in all white, he doesn’t look like the friend you know. He looks otherworldly.

You kneel in front of him. He chants an old prayer. The flame leaps with his words. You bow once, twice, three times, feeling your heart rise in your throat. Nanami’s presence is all around you, closer than you’ve ever felt him. When you press your head to the floor for the final time, Gojo’s voice is barely a whisper. He presses a gentle kiss to your forehead as he helps pull you to your feet. This is what almost breaks you, after everything, this kindness from an old friend.

When you rise, it’s time for the candlelight vigil. Your friends file out of the room silently. Yuki, surprisingly, does not leave. When Gojo stares her down, she only raises her chin. “I owe her.”

Only Gojo is left to lead you down into the catacombs, where you will meditate all night, thinking of nothing but Nanami, remembering his smile and laughter for when he’s gone. Yuki trails behind you. Nanami squeezes your hand as you walk, lending you his silent support. You squeeze back.

Thus, two friends accompany you into the underworld. You will be the only one leaving. Gojo sets the candle in front of you carefully, making sure not to stir it with his breath. They leave silently, so it’s just you, Nanami, and a dying flame.

The wax drips.

Just before dawn, the candle burns out. It flickers, fighting, before it dies down into melted wax. You think you can feel the imaginary tether between you and Nanami be severed. A sigh escapes your lungs.

“I’m still here,” Nanami taps out against your shoulder.

It didn’t work.

At once, relief and grief crash into you, a cocktail of emotions so complicated you threaten to hurl up your decadent wedding cake. The pain of knowing you’ll have to lose him all over again wars with the joy of having him even just for one more day, even at the cost of his own peace is striking. You feel horrible, but you can’t help it.

You clutch onto Nanami’s hands, holding him tightly. For an hour, it’s just the two of you, weeping silently together. Sitting down next to you, Nanami pulls you towards him until he can cradle you with his body, the two of you skin-to-skin, so close the boundaries of your bodies blur.

Your chest heaves in great sobs as you wail and claw at him. If you don’t concentrate, sometimes your hands slip right through him, hurting you all over again. You’re so overwhelmed by panic and grief, so much love you don’t know what to do with it, that you confess your secret sin to him right then and there.

“I don’t want you to go,” you admit, tasting salt and ash in your mouth. You nestle in, calmer now that you’ve purged the bile infecting your system. It’s something Nanami used to encourage in you, refusing to let you bottle your emotions up. He knew you’d feel better once you let it out.

He rocks you back and forth slowly, the action so comforting it almost lulls you to sleep, as exhausted and spent as you are. “I know,” he sighs, his breath stirring your hair as he rests his chin on top of your head. The circle of his arms tightens around you. “I know, sweetheart. I don’t want to go yet either. I want to live-“

Shocked, you bolt up and grab his face.

“Nanami! Why? If you didn’t want to be exorcized, we would’ve never- '' Confusion boils under your breastbone. You’re already exhausted from a night of vigil, and somehow you can’t string the connections together for any of this to make sense.

“Because you deserve better than to have me leech off your life. There’s no place for a ghost in the future.”

You’re overcome with longing and misery, and then Gojo opens the door. The question is in his eyes.

Nanami lifts your hand with his and waves.

Gojo almost smiles, albeit ruefully. “Should’ve figured you would cling on. Guess you’re not so weak after all, Nanamin.”

In Yaga’s absence, Utahime has taken over as de-facto principal, though you’re sure you’ll remain in her position after everything has been worked out. The only reason the other clans haven’t challenged her yet is because the far worse option is Gojo, and they consider her the lesser evil. She abuses her authority to place you on a mandatory break.

“I’m fine, really!” You insist, even as she tuts at you.

“You,” Utahime says sharply, “have been running yourself ragged. Has your body ever gotten out of our fight or flight reaction to Kenjaku? I get it, we need to help Nanami, but you won’t help like this. You need a break.”

“Malaysia-“

“Malaysia was another thing you did for Nanami! Don’t argue with me. Whether you like it or not, I’m pulling you off all missions. If you don’t relax, I’ll extend your sentence.”

Utahime is a very strict jailor. Your days pass peacefully, with long walks underneath the flowering trees. You come to realize one of your friends is with you at all times, but you don’t mind. Even if they’re babysitting you, it’s good to have them around. In a way, Utahime shouldn’t have worried.

No one is more adamant about finding a cure than Nanami, but you’ve lost your fire with his confession. You don’t mind if Nanami stays with you for the rest of your life, your ghost husband. You’d be lonely without him, haunting be damned. He could burn your life down to the quick to stay here, and you would let him. You’d do anything to keep him.

The students are furious that their mentors are monopolizing you. One day, Nobara, Yuji, and Megumi sneak into your room. You hear them coming. Who couldn’t?

“Shut up! She’s going to be back any minute!” As always, Megumi is trying to do damage control. You can practically see his eye twitching.

Nobara tells him to shove it with all the authority of a girl people thought were dead up until recently. “We haven’t seen her in a week! It’s all Gojo’s fault,” she grouches.

“Are we allowed to be in a girl’s room?” Yuji says, oblivious as ever.

You open the door. “Not really, but I’ll make an exception this time.”

You barely finish your sentence before Nobara and Yuji leap on you, bringing you to the floor in a tight hug. Megumi is slightly more restrained, but when he embraces you, he almost crushes your bones. Fondly, you stroke his hair. You’ve known him since he was a child and Gojo took him in.

“We missed you-“

“Gojo wouldn’t let us see you-“

It’s a cacophony of noise, Nobara and Yuji are talking over each other. Megumi pinches the bridge of his nose, already frustrated. You don’t know how he puts up with them when they clearly annoy him so much, though of course you do know - because he loves them.

Yuji touches your sleeve. “Did Nanami-?”

They deserve to know.

“He’s still here,” you say, your voice broken. Nanami squeezes your shoulder in warning, a silent plea to stop.

Children shouldn’t shoulder these burdens. You pull yourself back together, but Nobara is clever and quick on the uptake. She picks up on your changed emotions immediately.

“Does he still have to go?”

“Nobara,” Megumi hisses. “Be tactful.”

“No, seriously! The straw doll we used for the ceremony gave me an idea. I wasn’t going to bring it up if everyone still wanted Nanami to move on, but if not-“ she looks at you hopefully.

You nod at her, expecting Nanami to stop you, but he’s surprisingly quiet and docile by your side.

“If we combine my technique, Mahito’s, and Kenjaku’s, couldn’t we bring him back? If Kenjaku can stay alive, why can’t Nanami?”

Of course.

Yuta’s more than happy to use his borrowed techniques for Nanami’s sake, but as you’re all gathered in the morgue, you can tell from all the grim looks on the adults’ faces that this is something you can’t come back from. Resurrecting the dead isn’t just taboo, it puts a target on your backs. Everyone will want to bring their loved ones back, not just you.

Is this a risk you’re willing to take?

You look around the room at all the determined faces. Yuji is deathly pale with restrained hope. Utahime, prim and proper, is guarding the door.

You know instantly that everyone in this room is willing to take this secret to the grave.

Yes, this is a burden you’re all willing to shoulder.

Nanami is worth it.

Yuta starts by using idle transfiguration on the doll. In front of your very eyes, the image of the doll seems to melt away, only to be replaced by Nanami. He looks like he was sculpted out of wax, still beautiful, but cold and stiff. All hints of life are absent.

Wrapping Kenjaku’s technique around himself, Yuta grabs ahold of Nanami, whatever he is now, and pins him against the doll. Nobara strikes down through the center of its chest with a nail. Her face is set in determination.

You feel Nanami begin to peel away from your side. Nobara pours more energy into the nail. Everyone is watching, transfixed, as your small team of sorcerers performs a miracle.

Then it starts to hurt. Just a little bit, at first, like a paper cut until the pain grows so intense you can’t ignore it. Utahime is at your side instantly as you gasp.

“Something’s wrong,” you say, voice horrified. “He’s slipping away.”

Gojo, for the first time in his life, looks helpless. His jaw is clenched in rage that has nowhere to go. Strength means nothing in this situation.

“Let go,” Nanami urges. His voice is barely more than a whisper. “It’s okay. I wish we got more time - in the next life. I promise. I’ll find you in the next one, whatever it takes.”

His voice is breaking. In the distance, Gojo is barking orders like, “Hold on!” and “Just a little longer!”

“Nanami, please,” you’re crying. Cold fingers freeze your tears on your face and brush them away. “I don’t want you in the next life. I want you in this one.”

Your mouth is suddenly stinging cold, but you welcome the pain. This might be the last kiss you ever get from him.

Nobara roars with rage and strikes a nail into the doll with such force her hammer shatters. Her eyes are feral with an emotion you’ve seen before in Megumi and Yuuji. It seems like she’s hit her tipping point, just as they did.

Cursed energy surges from her into the doll. Black roses climb up her arms, twining their thorns up her throat and over her face. Still, her cursed energy output keeps building until the doll simply disappears. The nail stays in Nanami’s body, glowing with blue fire until it too melts into his chest, the hollow cavity where his heart was.

Nanami’s return to life is quiet.

You’re clutching his face, fingers near frozen to his cheeks when you first feel the faint signs of life. Slowly, his skin gains color and heat flushes through his body, warmth bleeding into your aching bones. You can’t let go, or won’t, still cradling him.

Nanami opens his eyes with a gasp that sounds painful. It takes another second, then his chest heaves, two more and he’s breathing, miraculously breathing, gulping in great inhales of air. You nearly weep, hauling him upright, pressing your forehead to his. He’s so beautiful, so alive.

“There you are,” he says, his voice raspy with disuse. “I missed you.”

Epilogue !

Yuji is visiting today, so you’re just finishing up the last touches on dinner. You’re making his favourite, steak so raw it’s practically mooing, on top of rice with an egg on top. You shake your head even as you grill the meat, letting Nanami’s and yours cook a little more.

There’s a great measure of joy in being a hostess. If you hadn’t been a sorcerer, you think you might have been a party planner. Nanami says it’s not too late, but you’re content to keep your abilities confined to just your circle of friends for now. Utahime and Gojo came by just last week, doing the same old song and dance they’ve been doing since they were teenagers. Yuki has bets on when they’ll get married, Shoko says never. In your opinion, this is just their thing, and if they enjoy it, who are you to protest?

You hear the patter of footsteps on the porch. There Yuji is now, off to bother Nanami before his mission, no doubt. Even now that Nanami’s too old to go on missions with him, as a result of Utahime’s newly implemented retirement strategy for sorcerers due to the drop in cursed spirits, it soothes Yuji to see Nanami before missions.

“Whatcha doin’, Nanamin?”

“Reading the news.”

“You’re boring,” Yuji grouches.

“I think we deserve to be a little boring sometimes,” Nanami says.

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll be back for dinner! Can you-“

“I’ll make sure your meat is so bloody we can’t stand to watch you eat, you little rascal.”

Yuji’s laugh is bright as he runs off your front porch down to the car where Megumi and Nobara are waiting. You come out to wave goodbye to him.

Somehow, sitting on the sidelines isn’t so unbearable anymore, not when Yuji has grown so strong and capable. You know you can leave the world in his capable hands. He’s been raised well.

Watching him leave, back straight and proud - looking so much like Gojo your heart aches, you share a loving smile with Nanami. He lifts your hand to his mouth and kisses the golden band on your finger. Peace and crows feet are beautiful on him, as on you.

#sera writes #Nanami x Reader #nanami kento x reader #nanami x y/n #nanami angst

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