.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.
21 December 1600, Ōgaki Castle
The tatami itched. That was his first clear thought of the morning.
Not the stiff indigo kamishimo clinging to his shoulders, or the collar pinching at his throat, or even the way his hakama bunched clumsily around his ankles like a puddle. It was the tatami; dry, scratchy, splintering under his knees as if it hated him. Like the floor itself didn't want another Gojo on it.
Souta Gojo, apparently the head of the Gojo clan, was five years old. And he had never felt more alone.
He wasn't sure what "alone" really meant, not anymore. Not inside the echoing hall of Ōgaki Castle that felt too big for the people in it, too important for someone like him. His throat ached from the silence. He hadn't spoken once since they entered, just knelt, sat very still, tried not to fidget.
Or shake.
He was trying to sit like a grown-up: spine straight, shoulders back, hands on his thighs like he'd been shown. But his fists kept clenching too tightly. His legs were numb, but he didn't dare move. Five years old wasn't very old, but he knew how to be watched, and he could feel all of them watching now.
He peeked sideways from beneath his silver lashes and—yes, she was still beside him.
Atsuhime. His mother... Sort of.
Not long ago, she hadn't looked like a mother at all. She'd been hunched over on a futon, mumbling to herself like her thoughts were running away, and her hands were trying to catch them. When the previous head of the clan—Seijiro-sama—had introduced her, she hadn't even looked up.
"This is your mother," he'd said.
And that had been that.
The same woman now sat beside him with the poise of a blade drawn halfway from its sheath. Straight-backed. Perfect. Her jade green eyes fixed without fear on Tokugawa Ieyasu at the head of the room. Her hair—white, like Souta's—had been gathered into an intricate knot pinned by a single, silver kanzashi. Her kimono was seafoam green and the sleeves dusted with plum embroidery; nothing flashy, but regal enough.
She hadn't looked at Souta once since they entered, but that didn't mean she wasn't protecting him.
Souta remembered what had happened when the former clan head died at Sekigahara, and the elders of the clan tried to take him away, to take control over the clan. The way they fell silent, one by one, under the weight of Atsuhime's stare. She hadn't shouted, hadn't begged; she had just looked at them like she already knew where they were weakest until they all remembered how to shut up.
Now, no one in the Gojo clan was going to question her authority again.
Still, Souta knew the truth: the Gojo clan had lost. People whispered it in the corners of the estate, that they had bowed too late, that they had picked the wrong side, that the Zenin had burned and the Gojo had bled and the Kamo had won.
And now everyone was waiting to see whether the Gojo clan would fall completely.
He bowed his head lower, fists trembling in his hakama. He didn't know much about war, or sorcerers, or the reasons his real parents died in the courtyard of the Gojo estate that night. But he understood enough: that he was Gojo-dono. That people expected him to be something more than a child, a clan head. Souta hadn't cried when they'd told him about Seijiro Gojo, not because he didn't want to, but because there hadn't been time. Because the men around him had looked too tired, because the last thing the man who named him heir had said was—
Chin up, kid. You're the heir now. Like it or not, it doesn't matter. Always keep your eyes up.
The man had been distant, distracted. Sad, even. Souta had never really known him, but he thought he was kind. So, he lifted his chin, and when his sky-blue eyes flicked forward, he saw everything.
There, seated above them all on a slightly raised platform, sat Tokugawa Ieyasu, the man who had unified the country and ended the war. His robes were rich, but his eyes weren't; thick-lidded eyes scanned the room with all the interest of a merchant counting sacks of rice. He didn't look like the kind of man who'd just become a shogun, but then again, Souta had learned quickly that power didn't always need to announce itself. Nobody spoke without his permission, and nobody moved unless he blinked.
Around him sat the generals of the Eastern Army, the victors of Sekigahara. Souta didn't know all their names, but he recognized some now.
Date Masamune, the One-Eyed Dragon of Ōshū, slouched as something inside him had broken at Sekigahara. He didn't speak; he barely breathed. His four hilts were still on his back, but his hands never touched them. Instead, it was his too-young daughter—Irohahime—who knelt behind him. She helped him sit and answered for him with a dignity too large for her age.
Souta liked her, though they hadn't spoken. She reminded him of the cat from his old street in Kyoto, the one that never ran away, even from dogs.
Then there was Masanari Hattori. Souta hated him a little. When he and Atsuhime had entered, Masanari had blocked their path. Towering, scowling, muttering about damn Gojo brats and that stupid hair. Souta had frozen, but before he could cry or fall over, Atsuhime had stepped between them.
She hadn't raised her voice, just smiled and tilted her head. "If Hattori-dono would kindly move," she had said in the sweetest voice imaginable, "unless you wish to explain to the Shogun why you're threatening a widow and her son."
Three seconds: that's how long he held her gaze. Then he'd stepped aside, muttered something in his throat, and hadn't looked at them since.
And then, there were the Kamo. Souta had never met someone who smiled like the old Kamo patriarch. Not happily or kindly, just like he already knew he'd won. Which, honestly, he had. His mustache twitched as he cruled them between his fingers, and his words, when he did speak, were slow and polite and meant to sound like nothing.
Souta didn't trust him. Nobody who smiled that much was harmless, and he had seen the way everyone—everyone—deferred to him; they all turned their eyes downward when he glanced their way, as if you blinked, you'd miss the moment he slit your throat.
Behind him stood Mumei, his granddaughter. She looked like a storybook doll: flawless face, painted lips, a crimson kimono that shimmered when she breathed, if she breathed at all. Her geta were so high she looked like she was floating. But it wasn't just the clothes. She didn't blink much, she didn't smile; she didn't even look satisfied, and she was holding the one thing everyone else in the room kept sneaking glances at—
The Mitsuboshi no Yari.
Souta stared at it too long. A spear. That's all it looked like, just a spear, but the room—this whole war—had tilted around it. The cursed spear that, in the hand of the Kamo, had turned the tide at Sekigahara. The spear that broke jujutsu, and the reason the Gojo were kneeling here now.
Souta stared at it too long, then looked away quickly before Mumei could notice, then his eyes drifted—carefully, very carefully—beside him.
To Tatsuhiro Zenin. The new head of the Zenin clan.
His kamishimo was black, embroidered with the gold mon of the Zenin. He wore it better than Souta. His black hair was neat, short, combed back, and a black eyepatch covered his left eye. The other eye—cold and hateful—had pinned Souta in place when they entered.
Tatsuhiro was young, too, maybe thirteen or fourteen, which made them both something strange and terrible: children at the head of old, big sorcerer clans. For one stupid second, Souta had thought maybe… maybe that meant something. Maybe now that all the adults were gone, they could talk, they could be different. That all the blood spilled before them didn't have to spill again, and they could rebuild something.
But the look in Tatsuhiro's eye said something else entirely. It said: I hope you die, little Gojo.
Souta had stumbled, just a little before Atsuhime had stepped in front of him without a word, as she had with the Hattori leader. Her stare had locked with the Zenin boy's; when she stared at someone like that, they blinked first. Always.
But not Tatsuhiro Zenin.
Souta hadn't stopped shaking since.
Maybe they all hate me. Maybe they all want us gone.
And maybe they hated the Zenin too, from the way they whispered when Tatsuhiro moved, from the side glances thrown, from the way everyone was waiting for someone else to speak first.
They were both on trial here, Souta realized—not just the Gojo.
Everyone in this room had killed someone or watched someone die. Everyone in this room hated someone else in it. The war wasn't over, not really; it had just gone indoors and changed robes. Still… Souta was here, and somehow, he was the head of the Gojo clan now. And he would not cry. He set his jaw, tried to stop clenching his fists, and whispered the words of the former clan head again in his head like a prayer:
Keep your eyes up.
Tokugawa Ieyasu was already speaking when Souta remembered to breathe, too busy counting the number of Kamo clan banners in the room; the result made it very obvious which one of the three big clans was the victor among them.
"…it is not enough to have won the field," the Shogun said, his voice even. "The cursed aftermath will cost us more if you fail to act with unity."
Souta's breath caught. Not fear exactly, just the sense that even his breath was out of place here.
Tokugawa's eyes moved across the room, sliding over the assembled heads. "Spiritual unrest is already spreading. The war has fed the curses, and numerous provinces are calling for aid. If the jujutsu families do not stabilize under my regime, then tell me—who will?" A pause, brief and brutal. The question wasn't meant to be answered. "You will rebuild your society. Together, or not at all. I called you here not as victors, but as foundations, and I expect the Three Great Families—Zenin, Gojo, and Kamo—to act like it. Or I will find other clans who will."
Souta bit the inside of his cheek as the weight of those names dropped onto his shoulders.
"You've all played your part in breaking balance," Tokugawa continued. "Zenin, Gojo. I do not care which of you buried the other's father or burned whose gates. I do not care who thinks they were right. You will not bring that chaos under my reign. Enough."
That word landed like a blade, and the silence that followed was anything but peaceful. Tokugawa's gaze swept once more and landed—not on Souta—but on the woman beside him. Atsuhime didn't blink. Her chin tilted slightly upward, just enough to speak, but her voice…
That voice could've frozen a battlefield.
"Tokugawa-dono," she said, calmly, dignified, not like someone whose clan had just lost a war. "On behalf of the Gojo clan, which now kneels before your will, we acknowledge the failings of our past heads. Their actions, however justified they may have seemed, fractured not only our own house, but the fragile unity of jujutsu society."
Souta's stomach twisted. She was saying it out loud; she was… saying they were wrong.
"I will not dress treason as tragedy."
There was a murmur; someone chuckled through some of the lower-ranked lords. Souta didn't understand what was funny, but his mother's face didn't change.
"We do not seek forgiveness," she said. "Only the right to clean our name and rebuild. The Kyoto Training Ground remains under our jurisdiction, but we welcome all allied clans who seek to restore balance and cultivate new generations of jujutsu sorcerers. The newly appointed head is not of noble blood, but he is a veteran of this war and a trusted retainer of our former clan head."
Ah. Souta blinked. She meant the gruff man with only one arm who had followed Seijiro like a shadow.
"He will not shape a faction," Atsuhime said. "He will shape a neutral school in respect of your vision for the future."
It was an offering, not a surrender, Souta heard the distinction clearly. She said nothing more, no apology, no pleading, she simply… held her place. It reminded him of the former clan head's voice when he gave orders no one dared question, but hers had more bite.
Tokugawa made a soft, pleased noise, almost a hum, but said nothing at first; then, slowly, the warlord nodded. "Accepted. If the Gojo serves, then so be it. We cannot enter this new era without all three of the great Jujutsu clans."
Souta exhaled—but before Atsuhime could say anything more, another voice rose. The Kamo patriarch.
"Ah, Atsuhime-dono speaks with the grace of a mother and the mind of a tactician," he said, still spinning his mustache between two fingers. "Still, wounds like these do not mend quickly. Someone must be entrusted to oversee their healing." His eyes flitted lazily across the room. "The war was long and tragic. And we—" he lifted one hand as if excusing himself from blame, "—did far too little, I fear, to stop our younger siblings from destroying each other."
Souta blinked. Was… was that supposed to be an apology? If it was, it didn't feel like one.
The man dipped his head with the same kind of grace a cat uses when it knocks something off a table. "To prevent future misfortune," he continued, "we propose the formation of a neutral Jujutsu Council. One composed of members from all major clans, to oversee both Training Grounds—Edo and Kyoto—maintain cursed object records, and arbitrate clan disputes." A pause. "Naturally, it would report directly to the shogunate."
Souta caught the glance he cast toward both Gojo and Zenin. Everyone else did, too, and the room stirred with low murmurs.
"And who," came a voice as cold as mountain stone, "would you propose to lead this council?"
Everyone looked up: Tatsuhiro Zenin had finally spoken. Souta turned his head just as the boy rose to his feet, not loud, nor dramatic. He stood tall, jaw clenched tight, and that one visible eye stared toward the Kamo patriarch with such steady dislike it almost made Souta's breath catch. The kind of look you give something that thinks it belongs at the top of the food chain.
"You?" Tatsuhiro asked. Just that, quiet, like a small blade drawn in public.
A collective breath sucked inward. Too bold.
Tokugawa raised an eyebrow, clearly amused. "Zenin-dono," he said, folding his arms, "you've said little until now." He tilted his head. "But what Kamo-dono proposes is a necessary structure. Let it be so. The Kamo shall lead its founding as they have proven their loyalty, after all; they retrieved the Mitsuboshi no Yari when the Zenin… lost it. Without them, the outcome of Sekigahara may have been different indeed."
The Kamo elder nodded slowly toward Mumei, who still stood with the spear in hand. "We are, of course, honored to serve as the inaugural stewards of this new era. We are humbled to have played a small part in ending the recent war; our clan only seeks balance and stability, nothing more."
Mumei, behind her grandfather, folded her hands over the shaft of the spear, with a small private smile of triumph. Souta didn't miss it. Balance. Sure. But with a Kamo at its head. He didn't know the word manipulation, but he understood the taste it left in his mouth.
The Kamo had won again.
"I have little to say," said Tatsuhiro, his voice measured, but Souta heard the roughness like something sour swallowed. "The Zenin clan will serve the Tokugawa shogunate," he said, shoulders squared like he was forcing the words out. "Kaoru Zenin failed in that duty. His impulsiveness cost us Nagoya-go. Cost us the Mitsuboshi no Yari. And nearly cost Tokugawa-dono his campaign."
A beat.
"I disavow his actions. At least his death spared us the disgrace of enduring him further."
Souta's breath hitched as he caught the exact moment Tatsuhiro's brows furrowed harder and his fists clenched at his sides. He had never met Kaoru Zenin, but those words felt... like an execution. Worse, they didn't sound like something he wanted to say; they sounded like something someone else told him to.
"But that's done," Tatsuhiro went on. "I stand here now, and under my leadership, the Zenin will support the shogunate. We will accept the creation of a Council." His voice dipped low. "But it will be equal. Our clan will not kneel to one who sat on the sidelines until the war was already won."
Gasps; small, stifled, but present. Souta didn't even realize he was holding his breath until Atsuhime's hand settled lightly over his own. She was smiling, not sweetly, but like someone recognizing a checkmate five moves early. The Zenin head wasn't there to oppose the Gojo, not really; he was resisting the Kamo. And his mother… was letting him. Maybe even helping. In that moment, Souta thought that Tatsuhiro sounded older than he looked; he wondered if that boy had lost someone in the war, just like he had lost his parents.
Tokugawa didn't move as Tatsuhiro's gaze turned to them, to Souta. One eye, heavy with years he shouldn't have lived yet. "…That said," he murmured, voice hardening again into steel, "the Zenin do not forget what the Gojo did to us. We do not forget the slaughter of our kin. We do not forget the burning of our home. And we do not forgive."
He raised a hand and touched the bandage on his eye. The room went still, bracing for a blood feud to ignite once again under their very eyes.
"But," he added, quieter now, "we also do not ignore honor. I was informed by several of my own sorcerers that a young Gojo healer broke ranks at Sekigahara and risked her life for strangers. I was told she saved more than one of our wounded."
A pause. Then, impossibly:
"And for that—" Tatsuhiro's head dipped, barely a tilt of the head, but in that hall it was an earthquake. "—we give thanks."
A Zenin. Bowing to them. To a Gojo. To him.
Souta blinked hard as he could feel the shift ripple outward from the Zenin delegation like static in the air. He must've looked ridiculous, but his mouth parted as he stared at him in disbelief. He didn't imagine it, he didn't dream it. Tatsuhiro Zenin, who had glared at him like he was a plague, who wore the golden mon of the clan that had killed his family, had just bowed to them.
Souta's heart beat so loud it filled his ears. Maybe… maybe Tatsuhiro wasn't that different from him. Just another kid pretending to be a grown-up, forced to wear a name and pretend he knew what to do with it.
Then, Atsuhime stood, and she didn't rise like a widow or a woman in mourning as she brought Souta up with her without asking. He stumbled up, clutching her sleeve, and stood by her side like a small shadow.
"And the Gojo," she began, voice even, not sparing Tatsuhiro a glance, "do not forget the massacre of our Inner Courtyard. Nor the blood on Zenin's steel. My sons did not die quietly."
Souta's throat went tight as she squeezed his little hand a bit harder. That was the first time she'd said it, my sons.
"But," she went on, jade eyes now meeting Tatsuhiro's single black one, "that same Gojo healer, I'm told, was spared execution on the battlefield by the former Zenin head. At the cost of his life."
Her voice cracked—just a little—on the name Zenin. And then, for the first time since entering the room, she bowed her head, lower than Tatsuhiro had.
"For that," she said, "we give thanks."
Souta stared as something in the air just gave—tension, hatred, decades-old grudges, hard to say—so soft he almost missed it. It wasn't forgiveness; Souta wasn't naïve enough to think that. Maybe they never would forgive each other; the people in the hall had done horrible things and would never apologize for them.
But they were still bowing, and maybe this was just what peace looked like; ugly, hard, awkward. A quiet place between grudges, where people pretended not to hate each other long enough to rebuild something better.
It didn't feel like the end of a war. But Kami, if it didn't feel like a new beginning.
Tatsuhiro didn't move, and even if no one else noticed, Souta saw it; just the smallest twitch at the edge of his mouth, a flicker of surprise and relief that hadn't been trained out of him yet. Something human. His chest ached strangely. He didn't understand everything that had just happened, but he knew enough to realize one thing: these two people—these terrifying, impossible people—weren't trying to kill each other anymore.
Keep your eyes up, he thought again. Maybe this was what the former clan head had meant.
But just as that thought settled in his chest, it shattered. Click. Click. Mumei stepped forward.
"Kaoru Zenin," she said coolly, "betrayed the Eastern Army. He allied with an enemy during battle and disobeyed Tokugawa-dono's command. He died facing the wrong way. Should we now praise treason?"
Souta flinched as the air burned again. Tatsuhiro didn't answer her, didn't look her way. He swallowed hard, and after hesitating just a moment too long, he simply sat again, hands folded in his lap, so tight the nails broke skin. A drop of blood rolled across his knuckles.
He didn't defend Kaoru; he didn't deny the word treason.
Atsuhime, however, did look at Mumei. And when she smiled again, it wasn't a kind smile; it was the smile that made Souta's shoulders crawl.
"If the new Zenin head is to inherit the crimes of his predecessor," she said, voice warm, "then the same would be true for the new Gojo head. I suppose that would make this child responsible for Nagoya-go."
A hush fell as Souta stared hard at the floor.
"We will not go down that path," Atsuhime said firmly. "The child seated at my side has no hand in his clan's crimes. And neither does Zenin-dono." She paused. "Not this one. Unless, of course, we wish to reignite the blood feud now."
Mumei's hand tightened around the shaft of the Mitsuboshi no Yari.
"And besides," Atsuhime added, almost sweetly, "you wield the only weapon in this room to end two clan heads and tilt the fate of an entire war. We speak of harmony, yet one object of destruction remains in your hands alone. Is that balance, or leverage?"
That made everyone look again. Even Tokugawa shifted, slow and deliberate, and his gaze dropped to the spear, to the crimson shaft resting against Mumei's hand. "The matter of Zenin-dono's loyalty is closed," he said at last. "The dead need no punishment. But the living…" His eyes lingered on the old Kamo. "The living must remain useful."
He didn't elaborate.
The old Kamo patriarch—quiet until then—raised a brow, feigning mild offense but he didn't speak. So Mumei did. "The Kamo did not abandon their duty," she said, taking a step forward. "When the Zenin lost the spear, we recovered it. When the tide turned against the East, we stood our ground. Without us, there would be no Eastern Army left to govern. Should loyalty not be rewarded?"
Behind her, the elder Kamo fox smiled—softly, smugly.
Tokugawa raised an eyebrow, and for a moment, it seemed he might indulge her, watching the exchange like a man observing insects squabble over a half-eaten plum. Then—
"Zenin-dono. Gojo-dono. Two heads of great houses are dead, and now the spear returns to this hall like a question. Kamo-dono," his voice was calm, but something in it had teeth as he turned toward the Kamo delegation. "If this weapon is the source of tension, surely the Kamo do not intend to keep it alone. Am I wrong?"
Check. The room froze.
The old Kamo blinked once. "Of course not, my lord," he said at last, soft and slippery. "But as we all know, the spear cannot be destroyed."
Tokugawa gave a thoughtful noise and turned, this time to Tatsuhiro. "Zenin-dono, Gojo-dono. What would you propose instead?"
Souta saw it all happen: the way Tatsuhiro's jaw twitched, the tight pull of his shoulders. His eyes—his single eye—suddenly too wide. He looked like Souta did when the voices got too loud: young and a little more broken. The Zenin head opened his mouth, closed it again.
"I…" he trailed off.
It was the first time all morning that his voice cracked. He didn't have an answer, and for the briefest second, it looked like he might not answer at all, like the silence might swallow him whole.
"Speak up," Tokugawa said, bored now. "Or step aside."
The silence that followed was awful.
Before the Zenin head's silence turned into shame, Atsuhime lifted her chin and saved him in a corner.
"If I may."
Souta didn't see her glance at Tatsuhiro, but he felt it, and more importantly, Tatsuhiro didn't protest. The relief in his shoulders said enough. Everyone looked to her, even Tokugawa inclined his head slightly. He respected her, Souta realized; or at least, he knew better than to underestimate a woman like her.
"Toward the end of his life," Atsuhime began, "the former Gojo-dono became—among many things—obsessed with cursed objects, spending entire days studying them. He left behind notes. Incomplete, yes. Sometimes unreadable. But brilliant." Souta's eye flickered to her. He remembered. "One of his theories focused on the Mitsuboshi no Yari. Or as it was once called, Hiten, in the Heian era."
Mumei didn't speak, but her shoulders stiffened. She saw where this was going, but Atsuhime didn't stop. "He knew it could not be destroyed, but he believed it could be divided. If a Binding Vow was placed upon it, its three effects—nullification, destruction, creation—could be sealed into separate weapons. Each one alone, incomplete."
She let the implication sit.
"Divided?" Tokugawa's eyes narrowed, interested now.
"One Heirloom for each of the great clans," Atsuhime replied. "A reminder and a deterrent to war. No single house would hold all three abilities again."
"You mean to scatter the spear across the three clans?" Mumei scoffed. "Based on the ramblings of a dead man who failed his own clan, no less."
"And who, despite that," Atsuhime said, "may yet prevent the next war. If the spear remains whole, we only delay another conflict. Divided into three weapons, it would be a balance of power. A deterrent to war, and an emblem of peace."
"A symbol," Tokugawa murmured.
Mumei's jaw clenched. "This weakens the spear."
Tatsuhiro stood. "The Zenin accept this," he said clearly, like he'd found himself again, casting an almost grateful glance toward Atsuhime. "Let the weapon be divided. We will safeguard our portion in Edo. The Gojo will remain in Kyoto. The Kamo may oversee, as they always have, the formation of a new Jujutsu Order."
Then, to Souta's horror, he turned toward him. "Gojo-dono," he said evenly, as if Souta were grown. His heart nearly stopped. "What does the head of the Gojo clan think?"
The hall went too quiet. Everyone turned to him, and Souta wanted to curl into the zabuton and vanish, but Atsuhime didn't step in this time; she let him decide. He hadn't expected to speak, he hadn't expected to matter, and he still didn't understand most of it.
But he thought maybe the former clan head had been trying to help, even after death. So, he inhaled and lifted his chin just like Seijiro had told him. He looked at Tatsuhiro, then Tokugawa, then Mumei, and at the cold eyes of all the strangers who might want him gone.
"G-Gojo-dono's theory… sounds like a good one." His voice shook. "If it stops the fighting."
A long pause. Then... From the back, the old Kamo patriarch made a sound like silk tearing. "If war returns," he said, "will we really break our strongest weapon apart? Divide the spear when unity may be needed again?"
Tokugawa gave him a look, not long, not cruel. Just firm. "Then let's pray," the shogun said coolly, "that the three clans remember how to stand together. And not how to tear each other apart."
And that was it.
"It's settled," Tokugawa said. He stood, slowly, like a mountain shifting. "The Zenin will keep their new lands near Edo. The Gojo remain guardians of Kyoto. The Kamo will form a Council to oversee both, and the Mitsuboshi no Yari will be split among you."
The words landed like a bell toll, but Souta barely heard them. He was still watching Tatsuhiro, who, just for a second, looked at him again. Then looked away quickly. "The Training Ground in Edo," he said, clearing his voice, "will reopen under shared oversight."
"So will the Kyoto Training Ground. We will share instructors," Atsuhime added smoothly. "And surveillance protocols. Every sorcerer from the other two clans is welcome."
"And the Edo school," Tatsuhiro said, "will welcome Gojo instructors and Gojo students. As a show of trust."
Tokugawa exhaled, looking mildly amused. "Let this be the end of it."
No one dared speak.
Slowly—formally—Atsuhime bowed her head. Tatsuhiro followed. Mumei did not. Souta didn't move as his heart was pounding too fast, but deep inside, something quiet had settled. A tiny voice, not loud, not proud. Just a small thought that felt like his:
Maybe they had all helped in some way. Maybe Seijiro Gojo's death wasn't just blood in the dirt. Maybe Kaoru Zenin's last act wasn't in vain.
.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.
The tatami in the guest quarter of Ōgaki Castle was newer than the one he'd grown up with—but it still itched.
Tatsuhiro sat cross-legged inside the room reserved for his permanence, shoulders rigid, posture perfect, eye locked on nothing in particular, if not vague offense in the air. Somewhere inside, someone was probably still pouring sake like the day hadn't ended with a sword pointed metaphorically at every neck in the room.
He let out a slow, dry exhale.
So, that had happened. The great peace had been negotiated.
His single eye twitched. He had bowed to the Gojo. Worse, he had bowed to Atsuhime, wife of Akiteru Gojo. He had thanked them out loud. In front of Tokugawa and the Kamo. And Kami knows how many smug little court rats were ready to whisper it across the country by morning.
What the hell was Kaoru thinking, leaving this to him? His fingers drummed restlessly against his thigh. She had made it look so easy, walking into rooms like that, head high, mouth sharper than steel, and making even men like Tokugawa blink before replying.
Tatsuhiro closed his eye, pinched the bridge of his nose, and muttered: "Kaoru-dono… seriously, how the hell did you do this for more than five minutes?"
There was no answer, of course. Just the rustle of pine in the outer garden and the faint scrape of wind against the shoji screens.
Beside him, resting on a folded cloth, was the manuscript Kaoru had entrusted to him before Sekigahara. "Read it when I'm gone," she'd said with her usual flair for melodrama, tossing it at him like it was firewood and not the summation of three decades of Zenin political secrets.
Tatsuhiro glanced down at it, then out at the night. He had followed every word she'd written, played his part just like she taught him: act cold, play the villain, make them listen, bow last, speak last, never forget who you're representing. And have a knife in your boots, just in case.
And he had. Kami, he had. He'd stood in that golden room like his feet didn't ache, like his eye didn't burn, like he hadn't wanted to scream every time someone said Kaoru's name with that tone. He'd played the villain, alright; condemned her, disavowed her, fed the Kamo just enough bitterness to keep them choking.
It had worked. It had been necessary, he knew that. But it burned. Every time he pictured Kaoru's name in Mumei's mouth—he died facing the wrong way—he wanted to throw something.
Still.
The Kamo had walked away with a council and an empire. He had walked away with an empty room, half a clan, and a single eye that still ached every time the air turned cold. But they wouldn't have the Mitsuboshi no Yari, that alone made it worth it. The spear would be split now, scattered across the clans, its power divided. No single family could dominate the others, not anymore.
Tatsuhiro and Atsuhime had made sure of that.
Maybe Kaoru would've been proud. Or maybe she'd laugh and say he still looked constipated when he bowed, which he absolutely did.
He reached up, brushing his fingers against the eyepatch over his left eye. Still tender. Nagoya-go. That fire. The battle. Harunobu. No, he hadn't forgiven the Gojo, not really. That wasn't how grief worked. But when he looked at that kid, at Souta, trembling beside a mother who looked like death given poise, he'd seen something familiar: a child with a mountain dropped on his shoulders. He blinked slowly into the night.
Kami. They were just a bunch of kids.
Tatsuhiro had no illusions. Sentiment had no place in clan politics, not anymore, not if he wanted to keep his people alive. If anyone caught even a hint of softness in his stance toward a Gojo, it would fracture everything Kaoru had bought them with her life so, no—there would be no kindness. Not even to a child. Still, he hadn't liked it, the way he'd looked at the boy like a stranger holding a reflection.
They could not be gentle. But cooperation? Cooperation, they could do, under the pretense of survival.
A sudden breeze swept past him. He paused. There. A whisper of static in the air. Tatsuhiro narrowed his eye, already annoyed. No. He wouldn't. Not here, not tonight.
... Oh no. He would.
He stood, scooping the manuscript under one arm and sliding open the shoji with more force than necessary. No one in sight, just the sound of someone walking like they had no right to be stealthy. His gaze shifted and—there. Leaning against a wooden pillar at the edge of the engawa with all the grace of a stray cat. Arms crossed over the shaft of his Nyoi, cyan hair tousled as always, and a faint glimmer of cursed energy making the tips float in the air.
Hajime.
The little delinquent prince of thunder was staring into the garden like he owned the damn place. Tatsuhiro muttered a curse under his breath, stepping outside.
Hajime had the gall to incline his head and just offered a lazy two-fingered wave. "Yo."
"Yo? You criminal, are you serious?" Tatsuhiro marched down the engawa, planted himself on the opposite side of the same pillar, and crossed his arms in a mirror image, scowling. "You vanish for two months after Sekigahara, leave me to clean up the mess, and now you just show up in the middle of the shogunate's peace summit to say Yo?"
Hajime smirked without turning. "Relax, I'm not here to start a coup. Yet."
"You have a death wish," he grumbled. "If she sees you here, she'll have half the council on your neck."
"Who?"
"You know exactly who. There's a marriage contract out there with my clan's mon and your name on it."
Hajime clicked his tongue. "You mean blood princess? I'd like to see her try. Just because they outnumber me doesn't mean I can't kill them all."
They stood like that for a moment. Back to back, separated by a single wooden beam, looking in opposite directions.
Tatsuhiro exhaled through his nose. "So. I assume you're not coming back to Edo with us."
Hajime shrugged without looking at him. Nyoi balanced lazily across his shoulders. "Told Kaoru I'd ghost if he ever tried to marry me off. Guess what? He tried. Guess what again? He's not around anymore to stop me."
His tone was light, almost teasing, but Tatsuhiro had learned by now to spot the edges where the flippancy frayed. "…He left me you, you know," he muttered after a beat. "Said you'd listen to me."
"Yeah," Hajime said, chuckling. "Big fucking lie."
The Zenin head sighed again, rubbing at his brow. "Language."
For a second—just a breath—the weight of clan headship slid off his shoulders. It was just Hajime again, kicking his boots that he was finally wearing against a pillar like they were boys hiding from Harunobu's lectures. There was the quiet creak of old wood beneath them, the faint hum of distant cursed energy, and something that might've been peace, if you didn't look at it too closely.
"You were with him, then?" Tatsuhiro asked, voice low. "At the end. How... was it?"
Hajime rolled his shoulders like it was nothing. "Like a proper dramatic finale. Blood, screaming, cursed energy doing whatever cursed energy does when it's about to tear reality in half." A pause. "And that fucking spear."
At that, his voice dipped lower.
Tatsuhiro didn't press. He just looked at him the way Kaoru used to. "You know I can't say anything. Not about the Kamo princess." His jaw clenched. "Not when what she did is, in Tokugawa-dono's eyes… justified. Necessary. Even what Kaoru would've wanted; he knew how to die with meaning."
Hajime snorted, mock-earnest. "Huh. Look at you, Kaoru would be so proud. All grown-up and diplomatic, keeping the clan together like a good little head. It suits you." He tilted his head, eyes flashing sideways. "Shame you're shit at looking scary."
Tatsuhiro gave him a look. "Kami's teeth—"
"If it were up to me," Hajime continued, stretching lazily, "Mumei's head would already be stuck on the tip of that pretty little spear of hers."
Another look, this one sharper. But not a denial. "…Is that why you're not coming back to Edo?" Tatsuhiro asked, vaguely alarmed about his future plans.
Hajime tilted his head. "Nah. Kaoru told me to grow old, just like that, like an order." He snorted. "So obviously I've got other plans. Heard that koi-boy idiot made it back alive to Kyoto. Figure I'll start with a rematch, and after that—" his grin widened "—we'll see if anyone stronger shows up."
Tatsuhiro groaned. "You could've at least brought Kaoru's body back. Now Yoshinobu's out there, convinced he can find it himself. You know how he gets, loyal to a fault. Exactly like his father."
Hajime laughed, rough and loud. "Bring Kaoru's corpse back and do what? Slap him on an altar next to his old man? His ghost would slap me for that, you know, he would."
"…He would," Tatsuhiro muttered. Then, quieter, not looking at him. "You know, you were always his favorite. Don't try to deny it."
"Obviously. But you were the responsible one." Hajime puffed out his chest, mock-proud. Then, he pushed away from the pillar and rolled his shoulders again, swinging Nyoi idly like he was preparing for a spar.
"Well," he said, half-respectfully, half-mocking, "Zenin-dono. I am officially too busy to linger another night in this snake pit of politics. Got a very pissed-off blood princess to dodge and the south sounds warm."
"You don't even know where the south is," Tatsuhiro said wryly.
Hajime squinted at the sky. "I'll figure it out."
Tatsuhiro rose to face him, a bit taller despite being younger. There was something old-fashioned about it, like a farewell between two men who knew they might not meet again. A clan head and a ronin sorcerer.
"…I can't let you keep running around committing crimes if you're still tied to us," Tatsuhiro said quietly. "If you want to live freely, you have first to break—"
Crack.
Blood spurted instantly from Tatsuhiro's nose as Hajime's fist landed square on it.
"—the connection, you absolute shitstain—!" Tatsuhiro choked, stumbling back, hand over his face. "I meant break ties with the clan, not my actual fucking nose—!"
"Language, little lord," Hajime said sweetly, brushing off his knuckles. "Guess I'm officially a criminal now."
Tatsuhiro blinked through tears, one hand clutched over his face. Then—slowly—he wiped the blood on his sleeve, trying not to laugh. It came out as a half-scoff, half-chuckle. "…Fine, criminal. You're out of the clan. I'll put a prize on your head before the winter's over." He reached into his sleeve and pulled out a folded paper bundle. "From Kaoru-dono. For you."
He tossed the paper to Hajime, who caught it without looking. "You know I can't read, right?"
Tatsuhiro rolled his eyes. "Kaoru-dono said to tell you that if anything happened to him and he wasn't around anymore to do so... Just, 'don't forget the first hand that fed you.'"
Hajime chuckled. "... Just that?"
The other boy shrugged. "... Just that."
"Ah. Didn't peg Kaoru for the sentimental type—" Hajime's grin faltered. Then he paused. Really paused. His grin faltered, just for a beat. "…Oh."
"What?" Tatsuhiro asked, suddenly alert. "What does that mean?"
"Oh, nothing," Hajime said too quickly as he tucked the paper into his sleeve. "Just… what a pain in the ass. Don't forget the first hand that fed you, huh. As if I have nothing better to do." He started to walk away, Nyoi resting across one shoulder, gait loose and uneven. Then he paused, just once, to glance back. "Goodbye, Zenin-dono. I've got a feeling you'll be hearing about me soon."
Tatsuhiro didn't ask what he meant. Too tired for that. He watched him go, blood still trickling down his face. "…Goodbye, Hajime Kashimo," he said softly. "I guess you really are the strongest sorcerer in this land now."
"Damn right," came the response—half a scoff, half a vow—before Hajime vanished into the night.
Tatsuhiro stood there a moment longer, fingers pressed to his nose, blood still warm on his skin. Maybe Kaoru had known it would end like this. He looked up at the moon and muttered:
"…Still should've punched him back."
.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.
In the months that followed the summit at Ōgaki, the jujutsu world began to reshape. The neutral Council was first formed by the hand of the Kamo under Tokugawa Ieyasu's rule. The other clans accepted it, if only because the alternative was worse.
It wasn't until the early spring of 1601 that the spear was divided. Before witnesses from every major clan, a binding vow was enacted, severing the Mitsuboshi no Yari into three distinct weapons.
Thus were born the Three Heirlooms.
The Inverted Spear of Heaven, entrusted to the Zenin clan, was reforged from the central blade and outer prongs and retained the spear's dreaded ability to nullify cursed techniques. The Void Severing Shaft, given to the Gojo clan, was carved from the crimson core of the original shaft and could tear through powerful barriers and kekkai. The Calamity Binding Halberd, claimed by the Kamo clan, born of the remaining outer blades, held the power to create and stabilize barriers and kekkai.
Each clan took one. Each swore never to raise it against another. They would protect the balance, if not always as allies, then at least as custodians of the same fragile peace.
The boy called Hajime Kashimo, once the youngest sorcerer of the Eastern Army, was accused of treason against the Zenin in the aftermath and vanished. A sorcerer-ronin, now. An outlaw.
His name reached every border in Japan by the time he broke into Osaka Castle in the autumn of 1603. Toyotomi Hideyori vanished that night, never seen again. Some said he died by his own hand. Assassinated. A failed rebellion was silenced in blood. No one ever proved it, and the truth was more complicated.
The Zenin clan never openly condemned Hajime's actions; they never spoke of him at all. He remained a threat to every power that followed. By the middle of the 17th century, Hajime's face appeared on bounty scrolls from Edo to Kyushu, but no one ever claimed the reward on his head. The Kamo, under the leadership of their new clan head, the First woman in history to lead one of the three big families, never stopped looking for him.
The Zenin, now landholders near Edo, kept their distance from the Training Ground but not from its defense. They refused to govern it, but their support arrived when it was needed by the first head instructor, a kind woman, once a friend of the Zenin clan.
The Gojo, diminished, rebuilt themselves in Kyoto. Their clan's prestige would never return to what it was for four hundred years. Though the Kyoto Training Ground bore no Gojo name, it bore their mark in practice, with the Koga clan overseeing the education.
The two Training Grounds flourished as students passed often between North and South, both for instruction and for peacekeeping. The schools were rivals, but rarely enemies.
The Kamo, crowned political victors, rose to oversee it all. Their influence shaped the new Jujutsu Council into a body that answered less to sorcerers and more to its own doctrine. Its jurisdiction spanned both Training Grounds in Edo and Kyoto, the registration of cursed objects, and, with time, even the oversight of individual sorcerers. From that moment on, every sorcerer, no matter their clan or strength, answered to the higher-ups.
Their decisions shaped generations, not always wisely.
Much was lost to time after that. Memory faded. Records blurred. Some grudges returned, as grudges always do, and in the centuries that followed, the Zenin, Gojo, and Kamo clashed in council halls, in policy, in pride.
But never again in war.
That alone was legacy enough.
And the Three Heirlooms were passed from hand to hand, heir to heir.
However, before the end of the Edo period, all three would vanish.
But none of them knew that yet.
.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.
...
...
...
I was created by Seijiro Gojo.
...
...
...
But I wasn't always a cursed object.
...
Once, I was just a porous, passive, vaguely unfortunate comb. Cheap wood. Painted with red camellias that bled slightly at the edges. My spine cracked just enough to splinter under heat. Someone once called me "elegant, if you squint." A merchant with too many teeth and too few scruples swore I'd belonged to a Gion courtesan; I hadn't. I was carved in the back of a moldy storeroom between uglier combs and worse lies.
I was nothing. And then I was sold in Kyoto.
A woman in a pink kimono bought me for more than I was worth. She lost me three streets later in a scuffle.
Then, he found me. My creator. He was too bright, too loud, inside. That was my first impression.
My creator had fingers that always trembled with too much power and air that bent around him in ways that weren't natural. His cursed energy had weight, like pressure at the bottom of the sea. A paradox with teeth; everything near him slowed, drifted, unraveled by degrees.
For reasons known only to him, he chose me.
I do not understand humans; their logic runs in circles. They die for honor, then cry when no one remembers them. They fall in love during wars and sing lullabies to things they intend to kill. My creator was no different; he mumbled to himself constantly, swore when he dropped things, and laughed when he shouldn't. He was a mess of a man, but when he wanted something, he wanted it with his whole soul.
And he wanted something from me.
So, for weeks—no, longer, I think, time doesn't pass the same for things like me—he poured himself into me. Cursed energy, over and over, and that's how it started: with repetition. Not always controlled, not always safe, but always focused. That's the thing with men like him: when they focus, it's like staring into the center of a collapsing star. He kept practicing the same technique, as if it would fix something broken in him. Half the time I thought I would split in half from the strain, the other half I thought I'd implode.
But then, I started to remember his cursed energy by pattern, density, and residue.
Eventually, I remembered his Infinity, too.
It's not gentle. It tears proximity apart, flattens space, makes breath feel like distance, but I—just a useless comb—learned how to mimic it, not perfectly, not creatively, but enough to hold a small, stubborn field.
Why?
Because I think he was lonely.
My creator never gave me a name, but he held me often and gently. He hummed when he worked. Swore under his breath. Said things like "damn thing, still not good enough," and "just one more time." And when creating me, there was one phrase he repeated in his head like a mantra. Or worse, like a curse.
Keep her alive. Keep her alive. Keep her alive—
That was it, that was the intent: love, maybe, but not the kind that comforts, the kind that clings and never lets go. Cursed energy, after all, listens, and I listened too well. I didn't know who she was for a long time. I didn't really care; I was just happy to be chosen.
I think if curses can love—and they can, just ask the right shrine—then I loved him. Like the silence loves the voice that breaks it. Like a child loves the first hands that cradle it.
I suppose that makes him my father. And I wanted to make him proud.
But then came the battlefield, the smoke, black hair slick with blood and sweat. A hand—Father's—slid me into her hair mid-fight. It was awkward, improvised, practically sentimental. I remember thinking, as he fixed me behind her ear—Ah. So it's you.
Kaoru Zenin. His one and only.
I didn't protest; I liked her immediately. She smelled like camellias. Not the flower; the fall. That snap of silence when something beautiful breaks all at once. So I registered the transfer. Old user: erased. New user: accepted. The parameters were vague, but the purpose was clear: she was mine to keep alive now.
Father didn't look back; he never said goodbye, just placed me and smiled. I didn't know I could feel pride until that moment because I knew he had trusted me with her. Then, just when my new function seemed comprehensible, she added her own cursed energy. Not much, just enough. But the timing—ah. The timing couldn't have been worse.
"I'll find you."
"I'll wait."
Humans, I thought bitterly. What a stupid, beautiful idea. But I didn't get to say, Are you sure? Intent is binding, words have weight. And when two high-grade sorcerers mix their energy in a vessel during a verbal exchange of intent?
It becomes a Binding Vow.
I don't think it was what he intended, I'm almost sure of it. Father seemed… too soft, even when he smiled like a liar. He probably imagined her growing old, maybe laughing again, maybe falling in love again. He didn't mean to trap her forever, and she—she just didn't want him to die alone.
But humans are careless like that. They really should've picked better words.
Well. Too bad.
Cursed energy doesn't understand metaphor, and the rest was… improvisation. Something inside me whispered the final result:
Keep her alive. Let her wait until he finds her.
Fine.
Then the sword fell, that one, the one belonging to that wheel-headed monstrosity with too many arms, ready to cleave her in half. I didn't like that. Infinity: activated. She didn't notice. After that, the purple singularity detonated from Father's hand. I didn't like that either. I buffered her. Father or not, she was mine now. Infinity: activated.
...It nearly unraveled me, by the way.
The next part was unpleasant. She collapsed, a ruin of a woman: crushed, burned, pulped muscle and blood cooling in the ground. She wasn't healing, she wasn't breathing. After too many fights, her body had given up. So I intervened. Reverse Cursed Technique: forcibly applied.
Involuntary healing loop. No consent, no warning. I kept her alive and rewrote what I could. Froze the degradation of her cells. Suspended biological entropy. Stalling age. Cracked open every cursed meridian and stitched her back together one cell at a time. It hurt. It always hurts. Her body wasn't made for this kind of forced healing, but not my fault.
She hasn't aged a single second since that moment. She doesn't know yet.
When she woke, in pain, confused, she complained a lot, but she was alive. Father would be proud.
Did she know about me? Is she angry? She's clever, and she looks furious now. I hope she does not pull me out of her hair and throw me off a cliff, because if she does... Well. That's her problem. I didn't ask to be a seal for a Binding Vow born of two exhausted fools at the end of the world.
Then came the spear. That damn spear.
She stepped in front of it. Voluntarily. And I— I felt so helpless. Why would she do that? Does she have any idea how exhausting it is to keep someone alive when they don't want to be? It pierced her cleanly; brilliant craftsmanship, devastating effects. I tried to activate Infinity again, but the Mitsuboshi no Yari ignores all techniques. Even mine.
Unacceptable.
Someone grabbed her. Static, lightning. Not hostile, just sparking and loud. I didn't stop him; she seemed to like him. Touch permitted. She smiled at him, ruffled his hair, and died again. She always dies smiling; she's like Father in that way.
...I hated that.
So, I started over: Reverse Cursed Technique, activated. Manually. Laboriously. She doesn't know how long I've been repairing her after Sekigahara ended.
I worked quietly for days, even while she begged for rest. Threaded cursed energy through ruptured tissue, restoring vital functions she clearly did not care to preserve. I dragged and shoved her soul back into her spine when it tried to leave out of spite. Her body rejected the healing; I overrode her resistance. Sometimes her heart stopped; every single time I started it again.
Do you know how many cursed meridians run through a human body? Do you know how long it takes to regrow a lung? To restart a heart after the cells have gone necrotic?
That hurts her. It hurt me more.
I don't want her to suffer. I want her to be happy, I want her to laugh, I want her to smile and survive and live long enough to meet Father again, and finally—finally—let me rest. But that's the vow. Keep her alive. Let her wait. For how long? How long will it take for his soul to return to the cycle? How long until Father finds her again? How long until I am allowed to stop?
A year? A decade? Four hundred years?
I don't know; no one tells the comb anything. Souls return on their own schedule, reincarnation is inefficient, and I've seen nothing in the contract about expiration dates.
Now, her body is still weak and unconscious, but she looks peaceful, finally. She's beautiful when she dreams, you know? I can feel echoes of Father in her sleep. I am not supposed to feel, but I think I understand what Father saw in her. She's so small, so breakable, so stubborn, and so bright when she burns like a dying star.
I've grown… fond of her. In the way a child might cling to the one who sings them to sleep. I love her so much it hurts. I think—if Father loves her, then she is my mother. And I would like the rest of the world to stay away from her now.
When people touch Mother, I don't like it. When they look at Mother too long, I really don't like it.
When they threaten Mother—
Which brings us to now.
There's a man pointing a blade at her skull. A stranger with dirty boots. I don't like his breathing. I don't like how his cursed energy feels old with the weight of hundreds of souls. I don't like the way he looks at her like she's disposable.
I don't like him at all.
Mother's not disposable, she's Father's last wish. And now—he dares threaten her? You shouldn't look at her. You shouldn't even be in the same air as her. You should not touch what belongs to the dead.
Go away, I think. You are not Father.
...No? Well. I suppose that counts as a threat.
Infinity: activated.
.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.
??, 1600, Sekigahara
Kaoru had never believed in divine punishment.
Not seriously, at least, not the way monks droned on about it in court or the way peasants flung rice at shrines and begged the kami to show mercy. But this—this felt personal.
The sky above Sekigahara was obscenely blue. Again.
The kind of sky that didn't belong over a battlefield, the kind of blue that mocked you for surviving. As if nothing had happened beneath it, as if the mud wasn't soaked through with blood, as if she hadn't—
...Not again.
She blinked up at it, her vision tunneling in and out. Too clean. Too bright. She knew that color; the same one she'd seen the last time she'd died. Or thought she had. This time, at least, there were no screams or orders in the air. No crumbling bones, no domain left to collapse. Just the wind and silence. Just that aching, brutal truth she'd learned to recognize more than once: she was still breathing.
How dare she still be breathing?
Kaoru's lungs filled, then heaved out a slow, rasping breath. Every nerve in her body felt like it had been chewed and stitched back together wrong; her bones weren't broken, but they remembered being. Her skin wasn't torn, but her soul screamed like it had been flayed. No pressure in her lungs. No spear in her sternum. Which, frankly, made no sense, because the last thing she remembered was dying. Not metaphorically, not symbolically. The spear had gone through her, straight through.
Chest to back. Exit wound and all.
She remembered her own blood sliding over her stomach. She hadn't even fought it, just whispered something stupid and soft to Hajime, something final, and then darkness. Blessed, cooling, final darkness.
So why?
Why was she breathing again? Why did her limbs still answer to her will? Why did death refuse her, even now?
Kaoru closed her eyes. Reopened them. It was starting to feel like a joke. I want to be left alone, she thought bitterly, her throat thick. I want to rest. Why won't the kami let me rest? For a long moment, she didn't move. She was vaguely aware that her back was pressed to earth, her limbs stiff, her robes stiffened with blood. Still her own... maybe. Her black hair was knotted and matted with dried filth, except for the weight behind her right ear—the comb.
It hadn't moved, of course. That, too, felt wrong.
She didn't dare move. Couldn't, really, not until she noticed the pressure on her ankle.
Drag.
There it was, that humiliating scrape of her body against the ground, the crunch of gravel and soot under her spine. Her arms flopped limply over her head as she was hauled like a corpse through dirt that had seen too many real ones. Someone was dragging her. Kaoru let it happen; she didn't resist. What was the point? Another corpse among corpses, maybe someone mistook her for loot, or maybe not. Either way, it didn't matter.
Kaoru stared upward, past the hawk circling above like it had been watching the entire time. The same one? Tch. What, are you too mocking me now?
Her leg dropped suddenly; whoever had been dragging her let go, and her leg hit the ground with a jolt that rattled through her ribs. Still, she didn't fight it. Her eyes—half-lidded, unfocused—tilted upward just as a shadow blocked the sun. A figure. A sugegasa hid his head, but Kaoru caught the shape of his thin eyes beneath it, and his lips tilted into something like amusement. The stranger crouched, reaching out—
—and then the tip of a katana leveled with her brow.
Not a clean blade; rusted along the edge, like it had been stolen off a soldier's corpse already beginning to bloat.
Kaoru didn't even blink. Not fear, not bravery. Just sheer, exhausted why. She welcomed it, disconnected. Finally. Maybe this time I'll stay dead, she thought. Weird situation to die on, but come on, then. Let's not drag this out.
The blade hovered.
Hovered.
...Hovered.
Nothing happened.
The blade didn't fall. It hovered there, suspended, awkward, like something unseen had caught it midair, unable to reach her. A frown twitched beneath the hat as the stranger tilted his head, confused, and leaned in. Then—
Tap. Tap.
A dirty fingertip tried to press against her cheek, like he was poking a dead cat, but it too hovered, unable to reach her skin.
What.
The spell broke.
Kaoru inhaled like a drowning woman as her body snapped into motion, powered by the ghost of every battle she'd survived and muscle memory. Her knee shot up, clocking the stranger in the ribs with satisfying force.
The figure yelped—actually yelped with a choked "Oof!" offended, surprised, as he tumbled back, and landed on his ass, clutching his side with a theatrical grimace.
Kaoru rolled, came up to a crouch with all the grace of a feral dog, wheezing and covered in blood but not dead. The pain was real, so real. So was the blood. But her chest—her chest was whole. Not just healed, completely whole again. No gaping hole, no blood pouring out.
What the hell.
Her heartbeat thundered as her vision cleared.
The man—no, the boy—was too young to be this calm. Maybe her age. Thin build. The kind of gait that said he wasn't tired because he hadn't done any of the fighting. Brown hair stuck out beneath his straw hat, which was lowered just above his eyes, and he had a gap between his front teeth that made him look almost innocent. His robe, some deep-blue dyed thing with patches, looked like it had seen better centuries, the hems frayed, too thin for October frost, sandals caked with half-dried mud.
He looked, by any means, like a poor farmer.
But the cursed energy... It didn't move right. Too much. Too quiet. Too old for that skin. It didn't sit on him so much as rot through him.
Yeah. No way this is a farmer.
The boy sat cross-legged, rubbing his ribs like she'd done him a personal injustice. "Well damn," he muttered, more amused than upset. "Those legs sure are steel. Almost broke a rib."
Then he laughed. Kaoru didn't; her eyes flicked to the blade in his hand. Still there, still rusted.
He tilted his head again, inspecting his blade. Then her. Then the blade again, as if the situation amused him. "Huh," he said, casually rubbing the back of his neck, not lecherous, just... curious. "Thought you were dead. Pretty dead, actually. The not-breathing, not-twitching, eyes-glassed-over kind of dead. I'm surprised."
"Yeah," she croaked. Her knees shifted, preparing to move again if she had to. "Same."
"Guess I missed something then." The boy stood, brushing dirt from his knees as if they'd just bumped into each other in a market stall instead of attempting executions. "So... what's your deal?"
Kaoru said nothing.
He clicked his tongue. "Right. Formal types." He adjusted his hat lower on his head with too much care.
That made her twitch. "…What are you?" she asked, voice low.
"Who, me?" He laughed, hitching the blade over his shoulder like a rice stalk. "I'm just here to collect the leftovers."
Kaoru didn't like that phrasing. Didn't like that her comb pulsed faintly at the same moment. Seijiro's comb. "You're not with the Eastern Army."
"No. Too organized."
"Western?"
"Nah. Too dramatic."
"Then what—"
"What a rude question," he waved her off cheerfully. "I should be asking you that. You're Kaoru Zenin, yeah?"
Kaoru stepped back.
The boy didn't follow, just smiled, nodding to himself as if she'd confirmed it. "Thought so. Saw you drop dead. But that thing just now..." He tilted his head. "Not Ten Shadows, was it? Mm," he hummed, gaze flicking to the comb. "Looked a little too Gojo-flavored, if you ask me."
She blinked once. No. No, it wasn't the Ten Shadows. It had been—
…What was it?
"You don't know, do you?" He scratched his cheek, eyes glinting under the brim of his sugegasa. "Interesting."
Kaoru didn't answer. Not because she didn't want to, because if she opened her mouth, something too loud might come out. Because she didn't know how to say I felt him, or I heard something, and it wasn't me, or what the hell did he do?
She exhaled, focusing. She still didn't know what had happened after Sekigahara, what time it was, or where she was, but she knew: she didn't trust that boy, not one bit. Her cursed energy was back, fully back, and stronger than it had been in months. And the comb—its pressure hadn't shifted; she reached up once, almost automatically, and felt it still fixed behind her ear.
Kaoru shifted her weight and braced herself as the boy stepped forward, lazily and carelessly, as if he had all the time in the world.
"Now, see, I tried to open your skull," he said conversationally. "I was pretty sure, blade ready, aimed right above the eyes." He lifted the rusted sword again, mock-demonstrating. "I even timed the angle."
He met her gaze.
"But it couldn't touch you. Why?"
Kaoru's blood turned to ice as the boy's gaze lingered on the comb again, just for a second. Then he grinned, utterly delighted, like someone who'd just solved half the puzzle and decided to enjoy the rest.
"You know, I don't like not understanding things."