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kalopsia-flaneur · 19 days

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[GojoMiwa Oneshot] Blue, the colour of attraction

Chapters: 1/1

Wordcount: 11k+

Fandom: Jujutsu Kaisen

Rating: Teen and Up Audiences

Warnings: Age-gap, clan politics

Characters: Gojou Satoru/Miwa Kasumi

Additional Tag: Post-shibuya, Romance, clan politics, introspective, yearning

Notes and cultural references explained at the end

Summary:

Satoru doesn't need Miwa Kasumi, but he keeps searching for that mist out of the corner of his eye, he keeps seeking out her kind reproach, her quiet discourse, her opinions and her smile. It's easy to make her laugh. To make her face brighten. And he wants—

Satoru doesn't need her.

But he keeps looking for an excuse.

—

Miwa Kasumi is the one person Satoru cannot see.

Ironically that makes him notice her even more.

Like mist or shadow it curls around her, her cursed energy, and it makes her imperceptible to his Six Eyes. It makes her hard to notice at first, to Satoru or anyone else.

Volatile and extremely dramatic in their own ways, neither Satoru, the rest of shamanic society or the curses they fight, will notice the mist dancing at their feet, quiet and ever present. She simply is an outlier that way, quiet and studious and precise, with only her hair to speak of any obvious power beneath the surface - and that, as he has seen before, could always be a fluke.

So he doesn't notice her at first.

Until she opens her mouth and orders him to speak politely.

Until she refuses to kill Yuuji, in spite of her principal's orders.

Until she assaults Kenjaku head on without fear to protect men, usually much more powerful than herself.

Until she acts with such kindness that anyone would startle and truly wonder if she is a shaman at all.

It has its perks, of course. When not even special grade curses notice her sleeping in the words. When Gakuganji fails to notice and mold her potential.

But it wasn't enough to stop her being scouted. Her blue hair stands out a mile away, a signal to any shaman worth their while that here is a gem in the rough to be claimed and polished.

Satoru hates that he was never the first one to notice, even though she has wandered his turf of Tokyo all her youth. That she should be snatched up by the old men in Kyoto is a crime he has trouble swallowing.

"Say, Miwa," he intones, breaking the silence of the dojo, otherwise only broken by the swish of her shinai. "Do you think kindness is its own type of insanity?"

The bamboo sword cuts the air in a clean arc, cutting the heavens and earth in half with a single swing. Her hair flies out behind her in a pony tail, blue, like her hakama, the only thing to break the stale brown of the dojo.

"That depends," is her only response, as she lifts her weapon in a repeating motion.

Her brow furrows with renewed focus and Satoru cannot look away from the way the darkness flashes, clean blue.

He hovers somewhere above her, uncaring that he's showing off his power in this enclosed space. He might never tire or grow exhausted, but the soul grows mentally weary from too many encounters with the ugliness of humanity. Sometimes he can't be bothered to control his own centre of gravity.

"I suppose you're right," he allows. "Take an older sister, or a mother, who tells the children in their care that there are youkai in the forest after sunset. It's an act of love, a kindness, using the children's fear to keep them safe from the much more subtle dangers of a dark wood. Would that count as an insanity?"

Swish.

"It might cause insanity," she responds easily, skipping several obvious facts to herself and Satoru. "Or worse. But I don't think the act itself is an insane act."

He hums and spins on his own axis, grabbing his feet and ponders her form.

"What about the act of entering shamanic society for someone other than oneself?"

Her shoulders stiffen, but the swing is clean, more violent than the last.

He smirks.

Got you.

Until she turns around and regards him with a penetrating gaze.

"Sensei, you're weird today."

His grin goes. Misdirecting like the good little magic user she is.

And he lets her.

"Weird how?"

Two can play at this game, and they have an odd truce. The others bicker with him, tolerate him for his power, but otherwise find him completely reprehensible socially. His students are a bundle of chaos like himself and do not count. But Miwa is different.

Miwa treats him as she treats everyone else; with cool distance and a disarming smile. Secretive and diligent, respectful and kind.

They tolerate each other in a different way.

"You're actually taking something seriously for once."

It reminds him of Suguru, except she is nothing like Suguru at all.

"What?" he intones, drawing out the sound obnoxiously. "I take everything seriously."

That brings him a smile and a laugh behind a hand gloved in white.

No, Suguru was his level of deranged. Miwa actually seems to enjoy his insanity, which is a whole different sort of lunacy.

"So answer me seriously," she says in her light tone. "Why are you pondering the insanity of kindness?"

Satoru smiles wide. White teeth flash beyond the point of charm or amicability. His teeth flash in the gloom of the dojo, predatorily, greedily.

"I'm trying to pick the good girl apart," he says, honestly, floating nearer so their faces are close enough that most people would flinch away. "Every shaman has insanity in their blood, it's what makes them tick. I'm curious as to where your switch lies."

She doesn't flinch, but her eyes widen and there's a flush in her cheeks that give away the reaction behind the mask.

"That sounds like a useless occupation," she says mildly. "Perhaps I'm simply too much of an outsider to follow all the usuals of this world."

She turns away to hide her face, and Satoru has to resist the urge to chase her ponytail like a cat. Curiosity kills, and he knows he's stepping very close to a landmine, here.

"Highly unlikely," he declares instead, sitting crosslegged in the air and grabbing his socked feet, grinning arrogantly when it turns her back to look at him. "Look at Aoi or Yuuji. Both powerhouses, completely insane and," he leans forwards, smile falling to a crooked smirk as his face finds that vicinity to hers again. "Outsiders."

That does startle her, and this time Satoru does see it. It flickers beyond his vision, and her shadow grows behind her, taking almost physical shape and growing black like a line of ink on the floor.

Her smile passes into shadow and her eyes close, and Satoru thinks most shamans would have taken the chance to brag by now.

Miwa doesn't.

"What about Sensei? Are you insane, too?"

"Me?" he leans back to look at the ceiling, imagining a different dojo, and a different conversation like it. Loses his grasp on gravity and his momentum takes him over and under, so he hangs upside down, still grasping his feet. Smiling. "I'm the most insane shaman of them all, it comes with the territory."

The shadow wavers, and her smile becomes bright one more time. "That's too vague, sensei," she chides him, taking up her weapon to continue her practice. "You have to be more precise."

Satoru hums, watching her form, the way the soft cloth of her white shirt caresses the limbs underneath, the way her fringe brushes her eyebrows and her sideburns swing in elegant arcs with her movements.

Fire licks at his resolve, and the greed that always whispers in his ear at the sight of potential sounds with every swing of her wooden blade.

Sometimes Satoru wishes she wouldn't call him sensei.

"Obsessive."

Swish.

“Manipulative.”

Swish.

"With no regard for the lives of my fellow human beings or any sense of their value."

"Liar."

Swish.

"That, too."

"No," she stops, her shinai forming an elegant diagonal to the floor, as she turns around. The curve of her ponytail catches his attention, like a string from heaven to guide him home. "I mean, you do show regard for the lives of your fellow human beings and understand their value. Or you wouldn't have gotten sealed in Shibuya."

She watches him sternly, and his smile falls.

Just because he cannot see Miwa Kasumi, doesn't mean he doesn't look.

"As I said, kindness is its own insanity," he concludes.

"That sounds like a counter rebuke," she retorts him strictly. "And is for me to decide on my own."

He doesn't know what it is, not really. But she's the only one he lets get away with this sort of cheek. Treating him like a misbehaving child, like a younger brother who hasn't learnt to be polite yet.

Maybe it's because her dignity never wavers in debate. Even now she holds herself right, like a samurai of olde. Even now she looks like a lady, simple and elegant, ready at any moment to uphold the honour of a great clan.

Not that the three clans have much honour to share amongst them.

"What grade are you now, Kasumi?" he asks, coming closer once more.

Her gaze reminds him: Curiosity kills. But Satoru was never one without a death wish. And certain types of strength don't show in the bulging of biceps or a pact with demons. Adulthood has taught him that strength of character might be the most dangerous type of all.

"Weren't you the one who said that when the golden age of magic returns there will be no need for grades anymore?"

Oh, she remembers.

Satoru laughs. Lifts his head to the spring sky and laughs so loud it echoes around him.

"Maybe," he allows, landing on his feet in front of her. "But you veil yourself too well for me to grasp your powerlevel exactly. It was much easier to ask."

The truth is she was always his type. Cool and kind under pressure, with hair cut like a Heian princess. He likes her too much to see a curse turn her soft skin to deadly white. He likes that strength of character too much to see it succumb to magical weakness.

Her eyes flash with fire again, and this time it is Miwa's turn to smirk. "If I can fool even the Six Eyes now, maybe that should give you the answer you're looking for."

It licks up his spine deliciously and a laugh falls out of Satoru involuntarily.

Oh, yes. She has grown to be even more his type as time passes, and the challenge in her fiery eyes is by far the most interesting thing to have happened in the longest time.

There is a kindness to her and a coolness hides a much more dangerous, volatile spirit than he can perceive clearly.

Blue fire, after all, is the hottest of them all.

And Satoru wants to see it.

If he can he would like to own it too.

***

“U-ta~hi~me~,” he sings, drawing out every syllable.

The mission director freezes and turns in the hallway, her upper lip already lifted in a sign of disgust.

"What do you want?"

"My dearest," he starts dramatically, his hand on his heart flying out imploringly. "My oldest friend. I need a favour from you."

"No."

Black hair swishes in his face and she turns her back on him.

"Aww." Satoru's tone falls and he ups the childishness a little more as he follows her down the hall to her office. "Don't you even want to know what it is?"

"Not particularly," comes the flat response.

She flips through some papers and moves to deposit them in different shelves on her wall. Stacks of missions all lined up for each shaman and student available. Everyone are pressed, especially now the only school remaining is the one in Kyoto.

He almost feels bad for playing games.

But life goes on even in the midsts of chaos.

"Would a bribe work?"

"No."

"What if I promise not to bully you for a month?"

"Not interested."

"How about if I take on twice the workload for the next six months?"

That gets her attention. "Are you insane?"

He grins. "Every single moment of the day," Satoru bows with a flourish to the fish he's just hooked.

She sighs. "Fine," Utahime allows. "At least it'll give everyone else around here a chance to sleep. What do you want?"

He takes his time. Sits down in the chair of her desk, makes himself comfortable in preparation for the scream.

"I really," he says, leaning forwards and playing with a calligraphy brush before looking up over the edge of his glasses at her. "Want to play with Miwa Kasumi."

***

The knife flies past his face, just far enough to avoid his magic, but close enough that the wind rustles in his white hair.

It settles in the back of his chair, communicating clearly what Utahime wants to do to him in response to his words.

But he still gets what he wants in the end.

***

"Want to go on a date with me?"

He tilts his head, his entire body, down over the desk to catch her attention away from the report she's writing, white hair making her startle into an upright position.

Satoru takes in Miwa's rumpled state, the dark lines below cloudy eyes. The way her energy flickers and he sees a spark of blue.

"Gojou-sensei!"

He grins. "Were you sleeping on the job, miss honour student?"

"Not—,” she begins her eyes flickering. "Not at all."

"Don't worry," he trills, "I won't tell anyone if you accept my proposal."

She studies him solemnly for a long moment, and he keeps his innocent expression in place during her scrutiny.

"I'm sorry, sensei," she informs him just as solemnly. "I don't have time between studies and work."

His smile doesn't falter. He knew this would be her response. Reserved and dutiful. Truly a princess left in poverty.

Utahime had sighed and informed him she's still stuck on second grade, even though she could be higher ranked. No one seems to have found her noticeable enough to promote, even though she's a third year on the cusp of her fourth, and clears her missions with the precision of a samurai.

"How about a mission, then?” he says, holding the file up like a fan and lowering his gaze to meet hers suggestively.

It makes her laugh, light and easy.

"Are you sure you need me for something like that, Sensei?" she asks, but she's holding out her hand for the file. "I'm not exactly reliable as a shaman, and as far as I know you prefer to work alone."

"For this one," he says, flipping the papers out of her reach. "I would need you. And if you do well, I'll suggest your promotion to Gakuganji."

She's tired and rumpled and ambitious. Her guard is down, and so he sees it this time: that blue flame licking at her soul. Reaching for a security that will settle her worries and enable her to take care of her family for the rest of her life.

It touches him, flickers against the void surrounding him. And Satoru feels her warmth for the first time.

It doesn't help that her smile is wide.

“Alright! I accept.”

***

Miwa takes one look at the abandoned tourist attraction, the romantic posters, the commercials proclaiming the path to the bell of ‘true love’, and spins on her heel to go back to the car.

It's only Satoru's quick reflexes that ensure he catches the whirlwind warrior before she can flee.

Her arm muscles tense against his, and he recognises the way she grabs him in preparation for an aikido flip.

But she stops, her head flying up. Her eyes, when they look at him, are wide with panic, and her cheeks are flushed.

"Let me go," she says. "You can handle something like this on your own."

She's nearly hanging on his arm like a sack of potatoes, and he would find it hilarious if she didn't look so desperate to get away from him. All her dignity abandoned.

"Actually I can't," he explains, patient as a teacher. "It doesn't show up for just me."

"Then you could've asked someone else," she hisses. "Or had it re-assigned."

"Reassigned?" this time he does laugh. "I don't have missions re-assigned. And who else was I supposed to ask? Utahime? Maki? Nobara? They'd find a way to cut off my head before they'd take on something like this. And it needs to be done, Miwa. This place is too popular in spite of its curse."

She's easy to nudge in the right direction. The reminder of people's lives being at stake draws her attention and she relaxes in his hold - a quiet request to be put down.

"No," she corrects him, surveying the abandoned stalls, the road up to the bell tower. The brilliant, glittering ocean and the sakura trees in full bloom. The perfect romantic venue. "Because of the curse."

Clever.

Satoru almost purrs.

He always liked clever.

"Right, right," he trills, "trust a girl in the prime of her youth to recognise when curses, usually so feared, become an attraction instead."

He gets a look like he's insulted her, and she shoulders her katana to leave him behind.

He watches her back against that eerie road, cutting a straight path to the curse ahead of them. And frowns. The dark blue suit she wears is so different from any of her fellow students, sitting on her curves to give nothing away. Just a straight line on a crooked path, almost like a woman in a kimono. The only real curve on her is her hair that flutters in the wind behind her.

He glances ahead of her, at the cursed energy emanating from different stalls, and his smile returns.

"Kasumi," he purrs, his arm falling over her shoulder so she stops short. His finger finds the knot of her tie and he loosens it while she's catching up to his sudden presence. "You don't look like you're on a date at all."

"What?"

She looks up at his covered face, flustered and searching for an answer she won’t find there.

"It's time to uncover that sword of yours," he murmurs, pointing at a swarm of low level curses right ahead of them.

Miwa mouthes a small 'o', nudges him gently with her elbow to ask for space, and Satoru happily jumps back to watch her take in a familiar stance.

This he can see: the hair that flies up behind her, sparking with cursed energy, the line of white fire that spreads out in a simple domain. Shadows that catch everything in sight, painting the world in deep inky blue tones. Like an indigo artisan who lavishes the world with her rich, rich pigment.

Miwa breathes once, as the crowd of curses fall upon her, swings her sword so quickly even Satoru fails to see it, and the entire swarm of curses goes up in smoke.

"Nice," he says, patting her on the shoulder.

And he sets to work, all the way down the path, obnoxiously provoking every storm of curses he can find, just to get to see her work her magic on a crowd, he himself would hate to take on.

It makes him feel... oddly at peace.

But he chalks it up to the Miwa Kasumi effect and refuses to dwell on his aversions to small fry.

"Kasumi, Kasumi," he says cheerfully, emerging from a stall just as she's sheathing her sword for the seventh time. "Look!"

And he waves a lollipop in front of her face, already uncovered. It's indigo, and he has one stuck in his mouth already.

She looks at him with mild amusement and mild reproach. "You shouldn't be stealing from the stalls, sensei," she reminds him.

Satoru touches his chest with his free hand. "I would never," he declares theatrically. "I left money on the counter."

That brings him a full smile, and she accepts the sweet with thanks.

"There sure is a lot of indigo here," she observes, looking around.

Almost every stall is covered in it, whether it's the flags outside or the t-shirts being sold.

Satoru hums and rubs a thumb absentmindedly over her tie in his pocket. "Fuji weaves may be the oldest type of cloth in Japan, but indigo dye is almost as ancient," he observes. "It's a colour with very special properties both in zen buddhism and shintoism, and shamanic society holds it in high esteem as well."

He traces the line of her head with his eyes, and lets go of her tie. His fingers finds a strand of her hair and he rubs the silky strings between the tips.

"I know," Miwa says. "Mum used to dye it for that very reason."

"Odd," he murmurs, pondering her hair and determines to make Ijichi research the late Miwa matriarch. "When our colour would protect you more out in the open."

Her eyes find his face again, wide and surprised, and her cheeks flush with a fragile pink.

A quiet breezes flutters through the sakura behind her, rustling free the pink leaves to settle in her hair. And they stand still, staring at each other on the empty road to a cursed bell, a single string of blue connecting them.

There is a humble, traditional beauty to Miwa Kasumi that is difficult not to get caught up in, not to pay attention to. Especially when she is such a contrast to her fellow students and women shamans. It stands out to him, maybe because he is a Gojou, who can try but will never truly run from his conservative roots. The ones that trap him and drag him always back towards his clan, the centre of his power.

Maybe because she is still, like a brook reflecting the sky, quiet and easy to overlook in her significance, and he is that sky, all encompassing and exuberant. Impossible to ignore.

Maybe because she is kind, truly kind, because she never resents her circumstances the way other shamans do. Because her ambition never turns to hatred or jealousy.

Satoru is a master of gravity and he doesn't pretend not to understand this one. Blue attracts, after all. He leans down a little closer, to meet her gaze, and with one hand grabs her wrist. The other he uses to pull up his black sash to reveal a single bright indigo eye.

"Our," he says simply, his smile widening at the same tempo as her eyes do.

Got you.

Her mask is a hard one to crack. Most other people he can piss off with a phrase, or laugh with in a heartbeat. Miwa has always been harder to crack, guided by her own heart and convictions, her self-reproach and her dutiful moral compass. She has seen too much to let people in easily, and she protects too much to lower her guard. But there she is, disarmed and easy to read.

And Satoru determines to take pity on her, to treat her with a kindness that does not come easy.

"As I said," he repeats, straightening and letting the band fall back over his eyes. He releases her hand to gesture at the stalls. "A colour that protects against curses."

He leaves her behind to give her space, rubbing his fingers together thoughtfully, where the memory of her accelerated pulse refuses to abandon him. And he smiles.

When she catches up to him a moment later, by the stairs, he's already produced the file and is waiting for her.

"What do you sense?" he asks her, looking from her face to the bell tower above them.

The stairs are ancient, sengoku or older, and built in heavy grey stone. Not an easy climb to make for anyone, and Satoru can almost see the men and boys that have held out their hands to a girlfriend or a date, taking advantage of the scale.

"First grade or higher," Miwa reports, hesitating. "It's a bit difficult to tell, with sensei here."

Satoru twists a smile and nods. "Good," he says and gestures her along.

Below them the waves lap at the cliffside in a calm rhythm. The wind rustles in the cherry blossom leaves. And above them the sun shines brightly, promising a summer full of light and warmth. And Satoru takes it all in, the beauty of the world around him, unchanging in its constant change, and uncaring of human predicaments and curses.

It is his favourite thing, the world, as it is.

And as he turns around, to find Miwa in the endless blue sky, he finds her looking at the scenery with the same sort of tranquil adoration.

"So, Kasumi," he says, waiting for her almost at the top. "What do you think about love?"

That gives her pause, and as she does so many times during their debates, Miwa deflects his words with ease. "I didn't think love was something sensei worried about," she admits.

"On the contrary," he says brightly, as he reaches the top of the stairs. His voice falls ominously and as the cursed energy of the romantic superstition in the bell tower manifests like a roar from a storm that blows through their clothes and their hair, he adds: "I think love is the greatest curse of all."

It crashes into her with too much power, and Kasumi is launched from the path in a fall that Satoru does not expect. Her hair flies out, losing its edges against the open sky. And for a moment Kasumi is nothing but black and white on the horizon.

Satoru takes a single step forward, and without thinking twice, draws her to him. Kasumi falls into his gravity with the trick of a curse. His hand finds her wrist, and he grasps her under the knees briefly to direct her to the pseudo safety of the platform where the bell awaits.

"You okay?" he demands, oddly out of breath, his still heart a storm in his chest.

Kasumi sways on her feet but she finds a smile for him. "I'm going to say special grade after all," she amends her earlier assessment. "Should I leave you to it?"

Satoru quirks a smile. "As I said, I need you here," he repeats. "Or I won't be able to activate it."

Kasumi nods, exhales a small sigh and closes her eyes to get used to the pressure of the unseen danger.

When she finds him again, she holds out her hand for the file and this time her expression does not allow him to keep the information from her.

Well, she has trusted him this far.

Satoru hands it over, and leans against the railing, watching her read.

It's not a big deal. It's just a curse overinflated with the romantic expectations of thousands of tourists, the kind of thing that was cute a couple of years ago, but is now a cause of irritation, unnecessary in the scheme of all that destruction.

Satoru would consider these things a waste of his time, if he didn't have a secondary goal in mind.

He watches her, the delicate curve of her cheek bone, the wide eyes, deep and blue as open space, or the darkest ocean. A mirror that reflects the sky, and makes her difficult to read, especially when she smiles in politeness, the way she has a habit of doing around him.

She has grown stronger, but by his standards she is still weak. She has yet to cross into that territory where she is truly useful and Satoru—

Satoru doesn't know if it's the mystery of her mask, of her cursed technique, of her smile; he doesn't know if it is the strength of her character, the kindness that never perishes, pure in the face of all the ugliness they face; or if it is their odd truce, their debates, the way she tolerates him with real warmth, but he wants her to be truly useful.

He wants an excuse.

But that won't be an easy task to create. As Satoru sees it, there are three types of strength in this world: there is strength of character, the ability to remain untouched by all the miseries of the world; there is strength of body and soul, the ability to trample any obstacle with the pure force of power. And then there is money, influence, political power.

And Kasumi lacks two of these.

In a perfect world he could wave his hand and erase those obstacles, but in this constipated, conservative realm, one would become a stumbling block for the other, and—

"Sensei?"

He does not wish to be her teacher.

Satoru finds her face again, to see it flushed. Her lips are slightly parted.

"Yes?"

"According to this, it's a basic first grade," she says. Her free hand finds the hilt of her sword and her eyes move furtively around to check that there truly is nothing coming their way without the activation of the curse. "Been growing over the past few months, probably since the events of Tokyo, would be my assumption. But suddenly activated and caused the deaths of several visitors - even those who came sneaking back in at odd hours, maybe because they believed the strength of the curse would make their bond real as well."

"I agree," he murmurs, stealing the file from between her fingers. "Ironically now they're tied together forever."

"That's dark, sensei," Kasumi declares reproachfully.

Satoru smiles sardonically at his own sense of humor, and turns his eyes away from her to glance at the instructions for the activation of the curse.

"So," he says, throwing the file over his shoulder to be caught in the wind, and grabs her wrist to pull her closer. His face finds hers, hovering just an inch away. "Shall we get started, Kasumi-chan?"

"Eh?"

She squeaks as he pulls her closer to the bell, her hair flying out behind her, her face flushing a deep shade of pink.

"We have to follow the instructions, of course," he says cheerfully.

"All of them?"

"Of course!"

Maybe it's cruel, maybe he's being insensitive, but Satoru's smiles grows as her masks crumbles more and more to adorable embarrassment.

Kasumi is too tall and elegant to be truly shy, she's too bright a person to become demure on the spot. But it leaves her a stumbling, stuttering mess, and messing with her is surprisingly fun.

He had hoped it would be.

Especially when it's so difficult to get to that point - she hadn't even stumbled over her words when asking for his photo almost two years ago. Just brightly smiled and treated the entire thing as normal. And Satoru had been, if nothing else, used to being treated as a pretty face, flattered but indifferent to the fan treatment. But puzzled by her easygoing nature.

Now he finally gets to see that mask crack properly, the flickering of flames below, the crumbling of security.

"Relax," he says, lifting her knuckles to his lips as they come to stand in front of the ancient bell. It's difficult to keep his smile in check when her eyes keep trying to avoid his face.

"Here," he murmurs, stepping closer, into her space to brush the tip of his nose over her overheating ear. "Focus on the job, if it makes you too nervous," he reminds her, and adds the stupid words from the curse. "Now and forever."

He can feel her nod and steel herself against a shiver at his touch, and when he looks down to find her eyes, she's furrowed her brow comically in determination.

"What?" she demands, protesting "don't laugh!"

"Sorry, sorry," he says between sniggers. His fingers weave through her soft, luxurious hair at the back of her neck, and he pulls her up a little closer. Molten honey melts into his veins, as he lets real affection bleed into his smile and he lowers himself greedily closer to her face. "You're too adorable, Kasumi-chan."

Buddhism preaches of spiritual enlightenment, of the few who wander from lifetime to lifetime in search of the ultimate detachment from the world. It's an old superstition in Satoru''s opinion, but at least they are not far from the truth. Awakening to power is inscribed in the blue of his eyes, the void that leaves him hungry enough to take in the whole universe.

But it is written in four other elements, in the same blue as her hair, and the fire that causes her shadows and turns her soul to mist is just such an element. The third spin through Samsara, the flame on the wheel of reincarnation. And Satoru—

Satoru wants to consume that flame, to see it burst into life like a living sun that fills the sky, that centres the void like a universe.

Cursed energy pulses around them, the closer he gets to his goal, and with a snap of a twig, it manifests like a monster above them, crossed legged, with huge imploring eyes, and hands like plates of iron, spread out to surround Satoru and Kasumi.

They part at its manifestation, a whisper of eternity between their lips, to take in their natural enemy.

"Now kiss," it say in a deep voice, and makes to push their faces together, to slam their bodies against each other until nothing can separate them, not even a coroner as skilled as Shoko.

Satoru barely has time to panic. Scenarios run through his mind with the speed of light; no matter what he does, stand still, move away, teleport out of reach, it all ends up with Kasumi left to smash against his infinity or the deadly palm of the curse.

But then that very palm touches her back and moves straight through her body as if she never existed. As if she were a mirage of smoke and mirrors and light.

Mist touches his cheek like the kiss he'd lost, and blue sparks flicker at the tips of his hair.

The other hand never touches his shoulder. It falls to the ground with a boom!

Satoru lifts his hand to catch the one that had turned Kasumi to smoke and holds it in place, while he turns to look at the handy-work of his partner.

She'd sliced clean through it, from where she stands, having materialised once more to have his back.

"Aw," he intones. "You didn't have to."

Kasumi smiles that warm, easy smile again. "You were a bit slow, sensei," she teases him. "And it was on my way."

That little—

But she smiles so brightly like a sun in the sky, as if she's redeemed herself somehow by having his back, the only one who's ever bothered having his back, that Satoru can't be bothered to be offended by her insult.

"You know," he says, leaning more heavily against the remaining hand of a curse that's growing increasingly frantic to get away from him. "I should leave this to you just for that cheek. But I don't really like it, stealing my chance of a kiss like that, so—"

He lifts his free hand, catches a spark of her flame, still left in the air around him and flicks it at the curse ahead of him. With a twist of space and time, the blue fire expands into a whirlwind blast of flame, incinerating their enemy without mercy or restraint.

Like the hand Kasumi had cut off, it turns to smoke where they stand, and what Satoru is still holding on to by the power of gravity crumbles easily into ash.

"Well," Kasumi concludes, sheathing her katana. "You really didn't need me."

"Nonsense," Satoru chides her. "You made this a far more entertaining experience than it would've otherwise been. And next time you can have it all to yourself."

Kasumi sighs and shakes her head in mild exasperation at his arrogance.

***

"Did you mean what you said earlier?"

They're sitting on the roof of the tower watching the ocean below, a can of soda in each of their hands. Catching a moment of peace before they return to their window and the next assignment.

The waves create a rhythm that is difficult to let go, the breath of an ocean inhaling calmly against the cliffs below. The sun's warmth touches his skin and warms his body, and he stretches out lazily like a cat with the old tile at his back.

"Hm?" Satoru pushes up his sash to really look at her, and finds Kasumi tucking her chin over her knee and grasping her ankles with her free hand.

It is a delicate, feminine motion, and the way her hair flies out with the wind, as if she could slip between his fingers and disappear easily once more, does not steal from the image.

Just as the fact she's protecting herself does not escape his notice.

"About love being the greatest curse of all," she reminds him in a soft voice that the wind cannot steal.

"After what you've just fought, how could you think otherwise?" he deflects curiously, sitting up and turning to face her.

"Well," she allows, releasing herself to tuck her hair back under control. There is a sadness to her that strikes him almost melancholic, almost nostalgic, and there is beauty in that too. "I would like to think my love for my mother, my siblings, is not a curse."

And Satoru smiles. "Oh, family is its own tie," he allows, and humorously produces the one he'd stolen from her to return it.

He gets a laugh for the pun, and she accepts it easily from his hand, her fingers drawing warm strokes against his skin because he lets her.

"But a curse is what you make of it," he reminds her. "It is neither good nor bad, and is not something to fear. It simply is a manifestation of our own intent.

"One of my students is also my cousin," he tells her. "When he was a child, the girl he cherished more than anything died in a car accident right in front of him. And because he couldn't bear to lose her, because of the shock and the horror, it awoke the power that had lain dormant in him, in his family for generations. And he cursed her."

Beside him, Kasumi is quiet. "That's Rika-san, isn't it?"

Satoru watches her solemnly. The ‘-san’ doesn't bypass him. That she can use that honorific in spite of the fact he knows she was victim to Rika's wrath in Yuuta's first exchange tournament, just as the rest of her classmates, is another of her natural acts of kindness.

"Do you find it sad, Kasumi? Horrible maybe, that he refuses to relinquish her of that form?"

It's a direct provocation, a test in itself. But there are no buttons of Kasumi's to push. Not here.

"I met her," she tells him quietly. "While you were sealed, and Yuuta-san was in Tokyo. A little girl with a great smile and a pink dress. There was a ring around her throat. I know she chooses to be a curse, just as Yuuta-san chose to always be with her. It's tragic, but not horrific."

Satoru smiles. This is why he doesn't want to be her teacher. There is very little he can teach her. He doesn't even need to conclude the lesson.

Kasumi knows.

She knows that what he means when he says that love is the most powerful curse of all: that there is no clearer intent than that which comes from love, no more powerful devotion to drive all our energy into. It's scary, but not evil.

Satoru smiles and laughs, tilting his head towards her in a joke that is meant to lighten the mood. "If anyone could love a monster it's a member of the Gojou clan."

It doesn't work. Kasumi meets his eyes unflinchingly, and turns the tables on him with her sincerity. "And what if the monster is the member of the Gojou clan?"

He's always wondered, deep down, if her admiration is nothing more than that of an outsider to their world meeting someone with the Six Eyes for the first time. If he is nothing but an idol to her in the most religious of contexts. Or if there is genuine emotion behind it.

Even now he would question it, whether she is gracefully messing with him in kind retaliation on Yuuta and Rika's behalf, or if she is referring to him and her.

But then her eyes grow wide at the boldness of her own words, and her face flushes. Her hair flies out in an arc behind her as she quickly turns to hide her face, fiddling with her tie so she can disappear once more behind that comfortable professionalism.

But Satoru has no mercy for her.

"I don't see how those are mutually exclusive."

When she turns back, he's smiling at her, warm and disarmingly.

Kasumi stares at him for the longest moment.

Family is its own tie, he had warned her.

"Sensei," she says. "Are you trying to curse me?"

And Satoru laughs.

He lifts his hand to touch her cheek and leans closer. Closer, until all she can see is him.

"Maybe," he murmurs, feeling the warmth of her breath against his lips.

***

The thing is, Satoru doesn't need her.

The world is evolving and every curse is worse than the next. It forces improvement but keeps her always at the mediocre mark. She's surviving but she is not impressive, not intimidating. Average to his eye.

And yet she draws his attention, her quiet beauty, her unflinching kindness, like a sun that serves as the centre of his gravity to keep him grounded on earth, keeping him from floating away into the void of his own godhood.

He doesn't need her.

He doesn't need her evolving strength, except as part of a crowd that keeps growing in numbers as he advances his plans.

He doesn't need her connections, for she is trapped, a part of his world, with no way to expand it.

The Gojou Clan does not need her: he is alive and so the Six Eyes will not be inherited to any potential children. He is free in that sense, far more than anyone else, and he can choose whom he pleases, so long as he eventually chooses someone. Anyone.

He doesn't need her.

He can handle everything on his own. He could save the world on his own, if he didn't care too much about the people fighting at his side.

He wants to brush his fingers down her cheeks, across her throat, to dig his fingers into her ribs and expose the fire at her core.

Satoru doesn't need her.

But he keeps looking for an excuse.

"I didn't know you played basketball," he trills, finding her on a court in a white t-shirt and deep blue sports tights that expose the elegance of her legs in all their unfair glory.

The bright blue string of her ponytail arcs beautifully as she flies into the sky. Her slender hands curve below the orange orb, and it flies easily into the net.

Satoru's mouth goes dry.

There's something unbearably hot about a woman who is that skilled at his favourite game.

"Yes," she greets him, turning around with a bright easy smile and a deep bow. "I was captain of my middle and high school teams, until Kusakabe-shishou scouted me."

Satoru drops off his present of souvenirs on the bench beside her bag and towel, and teleports to the ball.

"You're good," he says pensively, regarding the ball more than the girl so he won't show off the pinch of jealousy at a dead man's discovery.

"Thank you!"

He dribbles the ball a couple of times, trying to remember when he was last on a court with someone he cared about.

"Do you ever regret leaving it behind?" he asks, passing the ball to her.

She catches it easily.

"Not particularly," she admits. "I could already see curses, and answers are nice. Plus, they’re paying for my brothers’ welfare, the school. Besides. I would've been dead in Tokyo by now if I hadn't been a shaman, and—“

He should be grateful to Kusakabe, but Satoru is jealous, so jealous, of the man who discovered her brightness first. The man who got to mold this impoverished girl, who has the elegance and the look of a princess.

She lifts her dark blue eyes to meet Satoru's shyly, and a fire passes through him where he stands.

"Even if I failed, I'm glad I got the chance to fight for you," Kasumi says honestly, demurely. "When you needed us most."

Yes, Satoru is greedy and selfish, and he isn't the least bit ashamed of looking for an excuse.

If he had a shred of patience in him, he would simply wait until her day of graduation to approach her, and live by his usual Gojou Satoru arrogance, to live as a man who needs no excuses to steal her away and dye her in his colours. But he is a clan man, he does not care for modern conventions and regulations except when they suit him, and he is greedy and not all that patient - it doesn’t suit him to be in this context.

A trick of magic, and he's standing behind her. Satoru's hand reaches from below, around her waist, and pushes the ball up from her hold so it bounces into the air.

"Hey!" she exclaims, too used to his shows of power and the antics of her friends to be surprised now, too deliciously competitive in this game she excels at to be flustered at his proximity.

She stretches her body back, shows off the full grace of her height, and momentarily leans against him to catch the ball he had attempted to steal. And Satoru—

Satoru turns his face just in time to have free access to a clean, unblemished throat. The temptation of it, the girl leaning so trustingly into his chest, his arm around her waist, the taste of her skin just a breath away, almost makes him forget they're playing basketball.

And then she catches it, the smack of rubber against her palm like one of Aoi’s spells snapping them back to reality.

Kasumi turns her head and leans her cheek momentarily against his shoulder.

She smiles at him, her eyes dancing, and, like a dream at dawn, disintegrates against his body.

Her laughter is the first thing to reappear, like a bell that rings out across an ocean, it dances up from behind him.

And Kasumi jumps, flies, her hand directing the ball into his ring. She lands, spins, her expression bright with victory. And Satoru stands, bewitched by this weak girl who is not weak at all.

Just out of her element, with no friends or family to push her along or ease her way, entering their world so late and with so much disadvantage.

She is everything Satoru is not. He has everything she does not. And he suddenly wants to offer it to her, every consequence, except the one that matters, be damned.

He just wants to see her shine on the battlefield the way she does on a basketball court.

And Satoru knows this has nothing to do with altruism or a sense of sharing all that he has with others to make him equal to the rest of the world. No, it is his greed again, the wish that grows in his throat to raise her into the sky and dye her fully in his colours. See what all the riches and resources and ancient knowledge the Gojou Clan might turn her into.

He is not like Suguru after all, not like how he was. He does not believe it is his duty to protect the weak because he is strong.

He does that simply because there is meaning and beauty in life, and no one truly deserves to die before their time.

But the thought of Suguru, the thought of that man, his first love, the person who carved a wound in his chest that has never fully healed and left him behind alone, makes Satoru ponder just where Kasumi stands in that debate.

He can almost see it as he looks up at her, finds her in the distance, the day Kenjaku had raised Uzumaki over her head.

Satoru tries not to think too hard about why that is, why one of the oldest most powerful curses, would deem such violence necessary against someone like Kasumi.

He waves his hand for her, and she passes him the ball without question.

"It sure has been a while," he begins, looking down at the orange lump of rubber between his hands, turning it easily. "Since I've had the chance to play basketball."

He bounces the ball on the court on its way back to her, and Kasumi catches it with just as much ease. "Any particular reason why?"

"Same reason as you," he says, catching the ball once more. "I stopped having time to play, and focused everything on this job. And I lost my partner."

For every time they pass the ball back and forth, bounding between them, they take a step towards each other. The ball, like a string tying them together, as if they are masses in space, caught in each other's gravity.

"I'm sorry," Kasumi says. Her smile falls in genuine grief for him. "What were they like?"

"A pain in my ass, if I must say so," Satoru drawls, intolerant of her lack of a smile. "Even to this day. Ridiculously moralistic, too. Someone who would practice what he preached to a point no sane man could follow."

Who the hell murders their parents on principle, Suguru? he asks the void for the seven-thousandth time.

Kasumi smiles, seeing through him with an ease that should terrify him. "You must have loved him a lot," she concludes.

And Satoru stills. People don't take him seriously like this. That's the point of the way he acts. They aren't meant to take him seriously, to see through him. They're meant to consider him an annoying child off the battle field. And yet, this woman, whose mask he has such trouble seeing through, who always keeps her uniform of respect and professionalism pressed to perfection, seems immune to all of that.

And Satoru wants to allow her that privilege.

"Yeah," he admits. "I did."

Still do, he thinks, but knows it shows on his face and that's not where he wants the conversation to go.

He gestures towards the bench, and Kasumi falls easily into step beside him.

"If it's okay to ask," she starts, her voice gentle with a type of care that doesn't grate. "What were their beliefs?"

Satoru dribbles the ball once, wondering what she will think about him waxing poetic about the person whose body nearly murdered her in cold blood.

"Suguru believed that it is the duty of the strong to protect the weak," he says.

"Ah."

Kasumi's smile twists and her blue eyes darken behind the wrinkles at the corner. Hiding her disapproval.

"You don't like that way of thinking?" he raises his eyebrow curiously.

He hadn't expected to find her in disagreement with Suguru.

"I would rather not speak ill of the dead..."

Satoru exhales a laugh involuntarily. "I'm sure whatever you have to say is far more kind than anything I told him at the time."

Kasumi pauses on her way to her towel, her fingers reaching out in elegant lines, and her hair falling over her farthest shoulder to once again reveal that note of skin. But it's her eyes, wide and blue and surprised that catch his attention the most.

"You didn't agree?"

He shakes his head.

It doesn't pass him by that she hasn't called him Sensei since the day, three months ago, when he'd kissed her on top of a bell tower.

She hasn't called him anything.

Now she smiles. "Probably not for the same reasons I would disagree,” she says.

"Go on, miss honour student."

Kasumi laughs and rolls her eyes, straightens and lets her gaze drift towards the temples.

"It is the duty of the powerful to protect the weak," she repeats. "Might make sense on the battlefield at first glance, but, logic is consistent across fields and this one always sounds like privileged nonsense to me."

"Pri—“

Satoru is interrupted by his own laughter.

He falls back down on the bench, grasping the edges and laughs.

Sorry, Suguru.

"Are you laughing at me?" Kasumi demands in the present.

"No, no," he says between sniggers, waving his hand for her to continue.

She exhales a breath through her nose, her hands falling to her sides. And then she shakes her head in quiet exasperation.

"Fine," she finally allows. "Take the logic off the battlefield and apply it to class, apply it to gender. Momo would say it's so typical a man to claim the strong have to protect the weak, when protection is just another word for control. She would say protection is just an excuse to confine women or exclude them from society, telling us what to wear, how to act, when to smile, so we don't end up corpses at the hands of those very protectors."

"And even when they're confined to a powerful home that ought to be able to protect them," he plays along, "they often end up harmed anyway."

Kasumi looks at him unflinchingly, and he wonders if she sees past the bandages across his eyes.

Broodmares, that's all women are in the eyes of the clans.

"Exactly."

"And what," Satoru asks, getting to his feet, grabbing the soft white towel from her hand hanging limply at her side.

He drapes it over her shoulders and lifts up her hair, freeing it from the soft fabric. "Would Kasumi-san say?"

"Kasumi would say," she begins, and pauses. Her smile evaporates like mist on a sunny day, and she looks down and away, suddenly burdened by sorrow. "That there is no greater power imbalance than that between the rich and the poor, that when you steal the bread from out of the mouth of millions of people so we have to struggle just to survive, you take away our ability to stand up and defend ourselves, to speak for ourselves. Then it's easy to be clever on our behalf and claim you know what we want and need. That is the strong protecting the weak."

And aren't they the perfect example of just that?

After all, Satoru didn’t start listening to her because he considered them equal, or because he thought she had anything interesting to say. Not at the start. He'd listened to her because she was pretty, because she was a mystery, and because she entertained him.

He hadn't seen her even when he'd looked at her.

But in the reflection of his own expectations, so different from what was in his mind, he found someone who had a voice ready to speak with quiet passion.

"So what of on the battlefield?" he asks softly. His fingers find the softness of the towel again and he gently massages her throat. "If logic applies equally to all fields, how would yours apply to the battlefield?"

Kasumi smiles. "Well," she says. "You are strong and I am weak, is that not the state of the universe? Kenjaku was far more powerful than I was. And yet I faced him unflinchingly to protect you. Just as my friends and Kusakabe-shishou faced him to save me.

"The simple domain technique is a secret technique passed down from generation to generation to me," she adds. "People standing side by side to empower each other, across time, with an effort that is not inherited through family and blood. Just like friends and comrades protecting each other, we are always stronger together."

Satoru's hands fall from the cloud around her throat and he listens attentively, listens to the girl who stands before him, a surprise once more.

Miwa Kasumi radiates quiet pride. She stands all alone with her back to the void of the sky and regards him easily, as if he is just a human being equal to herself. And she agrees with him, ironically. In spite of all their differences, all the opposites in their lives and experiences, she has come to the same conclusion he has.

That there is strength in numbers.

Satoru thinks about Suguru, about the boy he had laughed and cried and fought with. About the boy he had loved and lost.

Bickering and disagreements belong to a bright endless youth, where there are no consequences to extreme moralisms. But Satoru thinks the world is far more cruel and unsympathetic than those bright moralisms comprehend, and he knows, if he is going to ask anyone to remain by his side as more than an ally, if he is going to dye them in his colours, it needs to be someone who already sees the world as he does.

He smiles.

"I need your help," he says. "Kasumi-san."

Kasumi blinks, not so much at the volatile change in topic (she is too used to those by now), but at the show of respect and trust.

"What do you need?"

Satoru takes her hand, threading his fingers easily through hers. "Come."

***

He guides her to sit down, and joins her on the bench, stretching his legs out in front of them and pushing aside the bag of souvenirs he'd brought back to enjoy with her.

The sun shines brightly above them, the blue summer sky a disruption to the gravity of the conversation he is abuot to broach, the change he is about to make in his own life and in hers.

The clans guard their secrets greedily, and even if something is leaked here and there, he would never willingly share this with someone whom he considers an outsider. Present or future.

He smiles grimly at the irony that she had critiqued his every privilege only a moment ago, and now he is acting just as she had predicted. But Satoru is not so one-sided: when the time comes to let the secrecy slip away, he will graciously accept a no, even if she knows too much.

"I learned a thing or two in Shibuya," he admits, threading his fingers together in front of him, his elbows on his knees.

Satoru knows it isn't wise to admit to this level of weakness to anybody. Someone is bound to take advantage eventually, but, he knows that if anyone is bound by character to keep his weaknesses to themselves it's Miwa Kasumi.

Now she sits beside him in her pure white shirt, with her cloudy towel around her shoulders, and with her blue eyes on his face, quiet and patient.

"No matter how strong someone is, there's always a way to overcome that strength," he says. "That's why I've been gathering students and allies in the first place, but... Kenjaku cut me off from all of you, and while I knew I'd left a generation of friends and allies behind to do my job for me, I don't like being cornered like that."

He frowns.

Satoru has analysed this situation a thousand times, the words, the defeat. He knows what he's done wrong, and he won't leave his back open like that again.

He's become a more cautious man as a result.

But talking about it, putting it into words, feels discomforting and like a prick to his pride he can barely tolerate.

"The Six Eyes," he continues, plowing on against the discomfort, stubbornly distancing himself from the topic as well as he is able. "Is weak to crowds."

He pauses and waits for it to sink in, the implication.

When he finds her gaze she isn't looking at him, just straight ahead at the horizon, the endless blue of the sky. The ultimate void.

Shibuya hangs thickly in the air between them.

"I knew that," she says finally. "Any person with you is basically a hindrance, right? That's why you work alone."

"Yeah," he sighs. "But that is just misdirection. It's true I do better working alone. I still believe that's the natural manner in which a shaman fights. We die alone so we have to be able to fight on our own too. But I'm not at liberty to just die, or be sealed."

It's an ominous speech of self importance. They both know the consequences of just such a situation, her more than him, if he's honest. She saw the worst of it. He just got to sit in a box.

But Kasumi smiles . She smiles for him, like someone who is proud of him. As if he's come to a mature realisation.

"Your life is not your own," she concludes.

Satoru exhales a breath, a laugh to hide the warmth that brings to him. Unexpectedly he feels affection breathe at that very attachment.

"No," he admits, scratching the back of his neck. "It is not. So while the fact I work alone, because others are a hindrance is a misdirect to make me come across as even more intimidating than I am, it is also a weakness. Especially when the enemy knows my habits, so well.

"The Six Eyes sees almost everything," he says. "And be it my blue, red or purple techniques, my innate domain, they're all great and blocky modes of attacks that work in the open. But put all that in a compressed space full of normal people, and I become what you said: power that leaves no space for others. In that situation I can either let people die or become just a special grade sorcerer who can be touched. Even something like a swarm of small fry can blind me."

That's how Zenin Touji had gotten him in the end.

They trick him, play with his vision and his head, because his humanity is all the weakness he has.

It's infuriating and insulting, and Satoru will do whatever he can to turn that very fact into a lie, an out of date piece of information.

"Like this," Kasumi murmurs beside him, lifting her hand and activating a white fire that runs down her skin.

Her hand passes easily into his infinite void, and a single knuckle brushes against his cheek tentatively.

Satoru's eyes grow wide.

Trust the honour student to evolve a technique that has remained the same for a thousand years.

He snickers.

"Women sure are scary," he observes, and watches her chest expand with pride.

Miwa Kasumi, useless no more.

"So why are you telling me this," she asks, her voice careful. "Does it have something to do with the fact you left all the low level curses to me at the bell tower? Or was that just a matter of irritation?"

Braver than perhaps she should be, Kasumi tugs on his bandages so they come loose. And Satoru lets his eyes crinkle in a smile.

"It does."

She's grown in so many ways. Unlike her classmates she had understood that her weakness was not an unavoidable fate she could not avoid. Perhaps because of her background she had known it could be fought and turned to strength. Perhaps, because she has always had to adapt to power that feigns no loyalty to her, does she more fully comprehend how to turn that to her advantage.

Kasumi is clever, so clever that she has evolved a technique for the weak and used it to overcome the strongest, most perfect technique in existence — his.

Her weakness had led to creativity and that had made her strong.

Satoru dissolves the curse that lies always against his skin and takes her hand in his.

Whatever ideals she believes in, he will never become. The world where there is no weakness or power, he will never strive for. He is not a good or egalitarian man: he will always choose those he has use for, those that will help him strive towards his own ideal world — one where no one can order the murder of a child simply because their existence feels ill-suited to the person in power.

But he thinks that is a compromise they can easily strike, a balance that will make them equal.

And Satoru finds that if it is for Kasumi, he does not find so much discomfort in sharing his weakness. He will offer it to her, his weakness, to this weak girl of his. Making himself a little less godlike, a little more human. To make space for her at his side.

"I want to leave my back to you, Kasumi," he says, finally. "Not now. Eventually, completely."

Her dark blue eyes catch the endless azure of the sky as they grow wide, wider than he has ever seen them. And her face grows white at the implications of what he's saying.

"Why— Do you know what you're saying?"

Satoru thinks of the girl who stood in front of Kenjaku to bet her life for his. He thinks of the girl whose soul is so defined by kindness she protected the back of the most powerful shaman in the world.

"Eventually, your mist will enable you to become entirely untouchable, your soul unreachable with any cursed power,” he says. "Your simple domain is also a genuine threat against sorcerers like Kenjaku. You are not as powerless as you think, but, yes, you have to grow stronger. Or I won't be able to get what I want. Besides that," he adds, letting his fingernails brush the bang that hangs to the side of her face. "You have to learn to start speaking your own truth to the people in power here."

Gakuganji has changed, but the higher ups have only grown more annoying, now there are less of them.

He needs her confident, he needs her opinions to shine.

He needs her to no longer bow so deeply to others.

Kasumi stares at him as if, for the first time, she cannot fully comprehend what he is thinking. Her eyes are still wide, bright with the impossibility of hope he is extending to her. Apprehensive as if she expects him to tell her it was all a joke at any moment.

"I don’t—“

"I can't be your teacher in this, of course," he cuts her off. "But Mei Mei will be interested in you now that you've gone and evolved what she originally taught Kusakabe. I'll talk to her."

"But—“

"I know it'll cost me," he says and grins. "But I paid for my own students’ advancement, as well. Money is not a problem, Kasumi-san. Not anymore."

She understands what he means, he knows. He can see it in the way that all the confused protest goes out of her and she regards him instead with open vulnerability.

"Are you sure?" she inquires quietly. "About this?"

He suddenly wants to touch her again, but Satoru only pretends to be a fool when it comes to social queues. And he senses now that this is not the right time to break their distance with a touch.

"You already accepted my proposal, didn't you?" he teases, using words instead.

Kasumi flushes and he laughs.

"But before all that," he says, sitting up straighter and stretching his hands out in front of himself. "I want you to improve your swordsmanship, too. So I'll ask Maki to practice with you often from now on. She likes you. And Yuuta, too, when he's around. He's much better at imbedding his cursed energy into weapons than even I am. He'll be a good continuation after Kusakabe.

"Oh!" he adds, jumping to his feet and regaining some of his mischief. "And we can take on harmless missions together. It'll make it a lot less boring, and I can leave all the work to you."

He spins on his heel and watches the laugh that catches on her face at his slightly ridiculous behaviour.

"What do you say, Kasumi-san?" he asks, offering her his hand. "Will you walk into hell by my side?"

Kasumi considers him for a long moment, and then pushes off the bench on her own, her hair falling free of the tie at her throat, the towel fluttering away like wings. And she comes to stand easily beside him.

"If you don't mind waiting a little longer for me," she says, touching the pads of her fingers to his cheek before letting her hand fall into his palm. "Satoru-san."

He closes his hand around hers, and feels the warmth of her fire cursing them both.

"I'm nothing if not patient," he says, unable to contain a smile. "The best plans bloom after years of devotion, after all."

He waits for her eyes to close in a laugh at his theatrics, and then teleports them high into the sky, so that when her eyes fly open once more, it is to a world of their own with no witnesses.

Satoru grins, and before she can grow scared or distracted by their defiance of the natural order of things, he leans forwards to catch her lips in a kiss that is too short, but sweet and addicting.

Kasumi hums happily against his lips, and when her blue eyes flutter open, slow and deep as the darkest ocean, as her palm lands warm against his cheek in an unfamiliar sign of affection, Satoru knows it no longer matters if she is the one who cursed him, or he if is the one who cursed her.

He will curse her either way, until he has painted her fire completely in hues of white and indigo.

-------

Thank you for reading!!

Cultural notes (read: rambles):

So, Miwa’s power-ups aren’t really based just on flight of fancy. Like how Gojou’s name defines his magic (Gojou refers to the fifth element in the zen buddhist elemental system, the void, and Satoru refers to spiritual enlightenment), so does Miwa’s: “three wheels” refer to her number of turns in the wheel of samsara, as far as I can tell, and the third element of the zen buddhist elemental system: fire.

Fire, which creates the barrier in her new shadow style technique (a fire which is white and indigo), and is an element that creates both shadows and mist (the meaning of her personal name).

Kasumi also means “dimness of sight”, and I find it extremely interesting that between shadows, mist and the unusual kanji that makes up her name, they all imply something that is hidden or impossible to perceive - especially when she has so many symbolic and cultural connections to Gojou, whose power is defined by being capable of perceiving everything.

(I mean come on even the fact they meet through her telling him to use Keigo, and then he does it Only To Address Her)

Not to mention her technique being the only power that would enable her to render his power useless outside of a domain.

And then there’s blue, which bothered me for a while because I couldn’t quite figure out why it said Miwa’s hair was special, why her mother dyed it black constantly until she was scouted and no longer had to. Both anime and manga also go out of their way to point out that there is magic imbedded in Miwa’s hair. Turns out it’s not blue (ao) at all, but indigo (ai) or what has been called ‘Japan blue’. Which is an incredibly popular and mystical colour to Japanese culture, both in present day and historically. I won’t go into detail entirely but you can find more information here. Safe to say, indigo symbolises, in Japanese culture, Zen Buddhism and shintoism. It brings good fortune and protects against evil spirits, warded off a negative attitude and ensured the wearer’s safety and well-being.

It’s also associated with purity and spiritual awakening (much like satoru is a name that means spiritual awakening/comprehension).

These all are characteristics we find both in Gojou, with his indigo eyes, and Miwa, with her indigo hair, and are characteristics that seem likely treasured by Jujutsu society in show.

All to say I hope I haven’t played Miwa’s powers up in vain and in a moment of blind favouritism. For everything Gege has put into her character design, I hope we eventually get to see pay-off. And if not, I got to fangirl over my favourite girl through Satoru ~

(Not to mention blue is the part of Gojou’s technique which attracts)

I hope you enjoyed the fic!

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