#blah blah pregnancy loss grief | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

damn-stark · 1 month

Text

Chapter 36 Be The One Fallen from Grace, be Death

Chapter 36 of Sugar

A/N- More tears, but also a great fight ;)

Warning- Swearing, ANGST, fluff, violence and blood, talks of DEATH, suicide, and pregnancy, flashback, SPOILERS!!!! long chapter!

Pairing- Choso x Gojo!fem-reader, Suguru Geto x Gojo!fem-reader

Episode and or chapters- 239-243 and then the first half of 249

(Let me know if you want to be tagged)

————

Grief has never been kind. Perhaps it was never meant to be kind, but this time besides sorrow, grief comes with livid anger.

You feel it within you. Like a blaring red alarm warning of incoming danger, like a tilting glass object on an edge ready to fall and shatter, like furious liquid lava boiling within and rising to the top to get ready to explode and spread havoc with no remorse.

You also feel like spreading chaos for the hell of it, because you’re hurt and you can’t pick up the pieces. You hate serene peace but also crave its infinite embrace.

You can do it, you can be like a great disaster, a deadly plague that terrorized that Egyptian pharaoh centuries ago. You want people to feel your deep pain, but…how selfish does that sound? When there are other targets out in the open for you to hunt and kill?

Waiting albeit might be the death to your patience that runs low already. First Takaba has to trap Kenjaku with his cursed technique, and once Kenjaku is so deeply entranced then you can go for the kill. You’re waiting for that to go down, but Takaba just started so it will probably take some time, much to your dismay considering you’re alone with Okkotsu and his cursed spirit.

Bummer.

This is worse than having to endure being by a person you just talked shit about behind their back, this is like being alone with your parents. Only you tried to kill Okkotsu’s friends and him.

Tsk, what a life.

“I’m sorry.”

Oh, he speaks.

He’s so strong yet so awkward, your father would hate him. He’d be like if you have no confidence then what’s the point of being the strongest, or a sorcerer? You can’t cower and blah, blah.

“For what?” You probe and keep looking past the tree line to try and get a glimpse of Takaba and Kenjaku, but they’ve moved so you’ve lost sight of them. Which means you have to move along to keep sight of them.

“For your loss,” Okkotsu shares kindly, making you halt in your tracks and look down, whilst he just slows down and keeps adding on. “And for being Suguru Geto’s demise.”

You gasp and clench your hands to fists.

If Suguru were still alive you’d have Kiyoshi, Nanako, and Mimiko would still be alive, your family wouldn’t have betrayed you, and perhaps all this disaster wouldn't have happened so soon. You also probably wouldn’t talk to Satoru, you wouldn’t have made amends with Shoko, or met Hakari and Kirara, or Choso—no you would have, he’d be different and you wouldn’t have fallen in love with him so the twins you’re expecting now would not exist, your life would’ve been different, but Suguru…Suguru would’ve been alive.

Oh, Suguru.

No matter how much life has changed, your heart will always yearn for him. He was your first love, your husband, your beloved, the one who was always there first.

Satoru killed him—That’s right your brother killed him, Okkotsu pushed him close to death, but he could’ve been saved, it was Satoru who took him away from you. You can admit that it took a while to admit it.

Maybe it only set in your heart now that Satoru is gone too, or it was Okkotsu’s apology—even if it wasn’t Okkotsu who made the kill.

You just needed to hear those heavy words, maybe not from him, but Satoru isn’t here now and you could never make him say it, so hearing Okkotsu say it is a close second, something to aid your bleeding heart.

“Oh,” your voice quivers and you start walking again to fall by his side and meet his droopy eyes. “It wasn’t you Okkotsu.”

It took a lot for you to say it but you finally did and it surprises the boy.

“But…thank you,” you tell him with no ounce of hesitation, not a sound of forced acceptance because of your circumstances. You mean what you say and it leaves him speechless with only the ability to look at the deep but beautiful sorrow haunting your face.

“I…” you hesitate now and avert your gaze to look out and make sure you’re not caught before you’re supposed to pop out. “I’m sorry for hating you. It was easier hating you than piling something else on,” you pause as your brother's name reaches the tip of your tongue, and no matter how much you want to say it you can’t bring yourself to utter a syllable of his name.

“…on him,” you say instead because you know Okkotsu will understand. “You didn't deserve it.”

“Oh,” Okkotsu scoffs nervously and slows down to keep an eye on the men fighting instead. “Well, I understood. It’s okay.”

You share a mostly forced laugh and peer at him over your shoulder. “It’s okay to say you don’t forgive me. I won’t break. I would understand.”

Okkotsu quickly shakes his head. “No, no I don’t hold any grudges against you. It’s really okay.”

You won’t fall into a never-ending cycle so you take it as it is, you really don’t care. You just needed to share that and ease yourself of that weight of hating a kid for what he didn’t do.

“Your girlfriend must be mad that we got paired up. I would really hate to face her wrath, I mean I didn’t fight Toji Zen’in but hearing about him was enough of an experience. So I’d rather keep things passive with her.” you point out to keep things lighthearted.

For the first time since you got here, Okkotsu finally stops dead in his tracks, and as you hear him you look back at him and see that a furious blush has taken over his face.

Was it something you said?

Were you not supposed to not know that he’s dating Maki?!

“Girlfriend?” He almost chokes on his own saliva.

“Uh, Maki Zen’in?”

His face grows even more red and he quickly shuts you down without actually being loud. “No, no, no. She’s not my girlfriend! She’s just a friend. Yes, just a friend.” He laughs nervously and offers you a sheepish smile.

Oh shit!

This is the last time you gossip with Hakari and Kirara—then again you weren’t really gossiping, you were all assuming by looking at how close the pair is.

“Oh sorry. I just assumed,” you say in a quick breath and laugh nervously before you look ahead and hide how embarrassed you feel and look.

“It’s okay,” he says once again and that’s probably the only thing he’ll be capable of saying to you from now on. How embarrassing.

Why couldn’t you and Choso come here together? Him killing his father would be poetic justice. Plus it wouldn’t be awkward and you’d be comforted by his presence even if he was being quiet. He’s so far now, so far and you’re left in the dark about his fate.

Maybe you’ve been clingy, maybe it’s due to your fear of being alone, but right now you wish you wouldn’t be far, or that he wouldn’t be out of sight, that way you can look out for him and save him from any fatal danger.

Which is funny because he wishes the same thing, it’s just…if you lose him you know you won’t love another soul ever again. Who else could love such a wicked creature like you the way he does?

So please higher beings, or whoever looks out for the mortals on earth, please, please don’t take Choso away.

“Oh damn,” Okkotsu whispers with shock.

You spot a cursed spirit in the distance surveilling the forest and stretch your arm out to point your finger at the distant curse.

“What is it?” You quiere as you shoot a fire orb from your finger and thankfully manage to exorcize the cursed spirit before it could spot you. “Or,” you sigh and put your hand down. “Who is it?”

Okkotsu clears his throat. “Kashimo,” he reveals.

You clench your jaw and rub the bridge of your nose.

Truth is you didn’t know him for long at all, he was kind of rude, and very much egoistical, but still…he was your friend.

A friend you knew would die, he would say it. It’s the way his cursed technique worked, and that’s why he chose to come back, so he could use his technique against Sukuna and die fighting. However, maybe you got a bit carried away and hoped he’d live so he could continue to be annoying, and stay close to Kirara and Hakari whom he had become friends with. But he, like everyone else, is gone.

At least he went out fighting his beloved.

“And,” Okkotsu adds to the morbid news. “Sukuna is finally in his true form. Yuji and Higuruma are next.”

Well, you all hoped Sukuna would unleash his final form, it would be pretty pointless continuing to go out and fight him if he kept using Fushiguro’s body because he would only get boosted up after wearing everyone down or after killing everyone. At least now you can all go all out and have a chance to kill him. Once and for all this time.

“Well, we expected that much huh?” You mutter and stop as you get a good view of Kenjaku and Takaba fighting in the forest now.

“Hopefully this won’t take long,” Okkotsu adds as he falls beside you. “I don’t want to leave the others waiting too long.”

You let out a deep sigh and drop your gaze to the necklace Choso gave you. “Yeah,” you quietly agree. “Me neither. But even if Takaba can’t stand a chance, I’m sure you, Rika, and I can take him…We will kill Kenjaku,” you proclaim with a wicked smirk on your features.

——

*A FEW YEARS BACK*

“I had a dream,” you speak airily as you tap your fingers together.

Suguru answers with silence like you expected. He’s usually so curious about listening to you share your ridiculous dreams, but lately, he’s been…distant. He seems to be in his head a lot. It’s begun to worry you, and you’ve pointed it out to Satoru but he says to just let him be.

You can’t just be so ignorant of Suguru’s feelings, he’s your boyfriend. He’s been there for you at your lowest, you have to treat him the same. You don’t want to be those couples who avoid talking about their feelings hiding right under the surface to keep the honeymoon phase unbothered.

“…that you told me what bothered you,” you quickly redirect to him and nudge his knee with yours.

Finally, after seeming to be stuck in a storm of his thoughts, he comes out looking lost. “What? Sorry.”

You swallow back nervously and push yourself to your knees on your bed to face him better without having to crane your neck, and take his hand. “You’re worrying me Suguru,” you get straight to the point now that he’s only heightened your worry to the point you feel it in the pit of your stomach.

“Lately you’ve seemed distant, like your mind is miles away, are you okay?” You share your concern, causing his eyes to flicker down but his expression to remain frozen in that nonchalance.

“Yeah,” Suguru almost seems to bring up that answer like it was rehearsed. “I’m fine, darling, don’t worry about me.”

For a moment, for a flicker of a second, you see a crease between his thin and dark eyebrows, but he makes sure to play it off as nothing.

“Suguru,” you coerce him softly and lean over to rest your hand on his leg, and that touch on such a delicate place always gains his attention. Just like now, his deep and dark eyes meet your gaze, and you see a dark storm brewing within, reflecting a peril you can’t quite dissect yet. You’ll get there.

“Talk to me. You can trust me, you know that.” You say and pull out a strand of his hair so he can wear his usual bang.

Meanwhile, Suguru immediately finds it in him to nod so you won’t think otherwise. “Of course I trust you, but there’s nothing wrong, it's just teenage blues. Normal, don’t worry about me.”

Teenage blues?

Yeah, you feel a bit gloomy sometimes, Belinda says it’s normal because you’re growing, but for Suguru, there’s been a distinct gloom haunting him. And you know it’s still there, you see it underneath the surface. But maybe he’s not ready to share what he feels just yet, so you’ll give him space and just show him some more appreciation than you already do.

“So tell me,” Suguru quickly changes the subject as he leans over and snakes an arm around your shoulders to swiftly turn you around and lay you back against him. “What was this dream about?”

“You know,” you don’t address that yet, you just need to lift his spirits a bit. “I’d be a hot housewife.”

Suguru’s fingers stiffen on your skin and he quickly picks at your comment in confusion. “What do you mean?”

You push yourself up and twist your body to face him as you remain at his side. “I would make a hot wife,” you repeat before you lean closer to explain the thought process behind your comment. “If it’s this part of your life that’s bothering you, you could wait until I turn 18 because that’s when I get my inheritance. And when we get that money, and with the money we make here, we could,” you pause and shrug suggestively. “Move somewhere far away from curses. Somewhere like Alaska, Fiji, Hawaii?” You suggest in a playful tone, making two emotions battle within him, amusement and admiration.

“We would probably have to pick up some odd jobs so we won't get bored, but we could live comfortably,” you continue to tell a dream that you make up at the spot, but one that could be a possibility. “We could live by the beach, far from Japan and this part of our world. We could live good lives.”

You were a rich girl, like an old money rich that would never know a day of poverty, your own kids would never know it, nor the kids after them. And this world you so easily wanted to cast aside was your entire world, you haven’t known anything else but this world of cursed energy and all that comes with it, so hearing you say you would risk not living such a luxurious life away from the world you knew leaves Suguru besotted.

“You’d do that?” He can’t help but ask so pathetically.

Not like you cared or let it boost your ego, you continue to look at him like he's the sweetest thing in this world, like he's a beautiful starry night. That softness never fades from your eyes nor from your voice. “Of course. As long as I’m with you I would be happy to leave this world behind.”

He knew that. He knew that you would have no debate leaving this sorcerer world behind because of how poorly your family treated you, but even yet, how silly is loving someone? Even if he knew, hearing you pour your heart out still steals his breath away.

“Well then if I ever feel like running off…” he pauses and exhales deeply as he feels so enamored by your sweet words. “I know who I’ll turn to.”

You smile giddily and lean in to press a peck on his lips. “You need only say the words.” You whisper.

Suguru smiles softly and hums. “I love you,” he says so tenderly. “More than anything.”

Your breath catches as if it’s the first time hearing those enchanting words and you stare at him dumbfoundedly before a silly lovestruck smile tugs on your lips. “I love you too Suguru.”

Suguru slowly cups your jaw and presses his lips against yours to feel the warm and wet feeling of your lips on his. Which is such an intimate act that always makes you nervous.

“So are you going to tell me that dream of yours?” He finally returns to your previous subject, making you pull back to lay back against him.

“Well,” you finally share lightheartedly. “I was standing in a pool of blood, I was covered in it and all I know is that I’m turning into a curse. But,” you add much to his surprise. “I wasn’t scared because you were there too.”

Suguru picks up your fingers to just mindlessly fiddle with them before he teases. “You do know what a nightmare is right?”

You roll your eyes and nod. “Yes, but it wasn’t a nightmare because you were there before you started doing, like, weird flips.”

Suguru snorts softly and you can't help but get lost in the moment and laugh with him. However, you come to an abrupt stop and tilt your head back to meet his gaze that's intently on you. “Swear to me that if I ever turn to a curse you’ll kill me. I don’t want to lose control of myself.”

Suguru’s eyebrows knit together with disbelief but before he can try and talk you out of this fear-filled pact you press him. “Just humor me.”

Suguru exhales deeply and chooses not to argue his way around this. “Alright. Swear.”

You sigh with relief before you then grow serious but reassuring at the same time. “If you ever turn to a curse I’ll exorcize you. I promise, even if it takes my soul and my ability to love again I will do it.”

Suguru’s cheeks grow a tint of pink that he can’t hide because you’re so close.

“And if we lose our minds together,” you continue playfully. “We can be like Romeo and Juliet and kill one another.”

Suguru shakes his head, but you cut him off before he can correct you. “Lovers suicide, how romantic.” You sigh and press your hand against your chest to dramatically recite a quote. “Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs; Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes; Being vexed, a sea nourished with lovers' tears; What is it else? A madness most discreet, A choking gall, and a preserving sweet.”

“How do you memorize a quote but not the ending?” Suguru teases you with a bit of judgment, you sense it. But whatever.

“It’s my favorite quote from that story,” you brush him off. “Like it?”

“Of course.” He assures you nonetheless, making your heart swoon and a happy smile tug on your lips. For he always knew how to make you smile with so much glee, and so did you always find a way to pull a genuine smile out of him that's filled with nothing but endearment. Even if a deep anguish clouds over him.

——

*NOW*

More than anything is what he would always say. At first, you didn’t know the meaning behind that—it’s just a simple phrase is what you’d always think, something sweet from someone even sweeter, but then, after his defection, as the years passed and Suguru changed, that phrase never left his vocabulary and that’s when you knew that he really loved you over everything and more than life itself.

You didn't just live for the hope of it all, you lived for each other. Which is so cheesy, and so clinging, but no non-sorcerer or anyone could understand the true meaning behind something so deep.

Which is why it’s so weird now—Not living without him, you can live without Suguru now. At first, going on and dragging your feet through life was like a person going through withdrawal, only there was no chance you could get your fix after his death. No curse and no cursed energy could bring him back, so you were stuck.

But now, you’ve healed. You would like to say that you don’t love so deeply anymore, but…you’re married already after 2 months of knowing Choso, and there's a chance you could relive all that trauma of loss again, but you’re not hurting now. Not about that love.

But even then it’s weird watching Kenjaku parading around in Suguru’s body. You quickly told them apart, you knew the deep workings of Suguru's soul after all, but seeing that long black hair draped over his back, seeing those dark passionate eyes, and that precious face makes you feel all dizzy—until you see the unique stitches.

It’s so surreal, more so because as you pay attention to Takaba and Kenjaku, you see Suguru’s body turned into a female nurse because of Takaba’s technique. Kenjaku is a female nurse. It’s…Well, there’s a possibility of what adult Satori could look like.

You always wanted a glimpse into the future, you never thought you would get one this way….

This fight is odd, it’s like watching a bad sitcom. What did you sign up to?

“What the hell is the matter with you!” Takaba bellows as he wears doctors get up to act out whatever scene you just focused on. “Is that how you treat someone in the pits of despair?! Well?!”

“You don’t look very depressed to me!”

No, no, you get it now, this is like those sitcoms they dump into the graveyard hours on TV, the time slots hardly anyone watches. Yeah! That’s it.

“Fine, fine,” Takaba pretends to deescalate whatever it is they’re fighting about in that fake reality. “We’ll settle this fair and square with rock, paper, scissors.”

Takaba and Kenjaku clasp their hands together and raise them over their heads, whilst you tilt your head and assume they’ll suddenly spin around like western cowboys in a standoff. You actually almost get amused, but…they start to dance and sing.

Would it be wrong to say you prefer blood and destruction? Like, yes, you love funny stuff, but considering who you left behind and the battle going on miles away, this is distasteful. And gross considering they just stabbed each other's fingers in each other's noses.

The one good thing is that their scenes keep changing. Like now for example, now they’re competing in those question games that air on TV, and Kenjaku’s face is contorting into silly facial expressions Suguru would do when he was in his high school years, and once when he was trying to make baby Satori laugh. Did he?

No, she just stared at him with judgy and beady eyes. It was the cutest thing and a lot funnier than his attempt at making her laugh.

Yet even if you reminisce about the past, when you lift your eyes your hatred for this man grows livid.

How much longer will you have to keep watching this? At this rate, you’ll end up falling asleep!

You groan under your breath and then frown with displeasure before you lean your body against the side of the tree and watch a street suddenly appear on the ground, and a black cat crossing a pedestrian crosswalk. It almost seems like it’s going to be hit by oncoming traffic, so as the fake sidewalk light turns red, Takaba tries to save it even if the car gets closer.

However, when he’s about to grab the cat, it suddenly turns to…Kenjaku!

He’s a freaky cat hybrid!

And now that you look at him look like some humanoid cat he’s actually terrifying rather than funny. You almost want to laugh at how creepy he looks, but you stand straight-faced and actually, feel impressed when the car from before hits Takaba, but he bounces out of the way with no repercussions.

It’s honestly very amazing and a great example of his powers.

Kenjaku even seems caught off guard by the suddenness of Takaba’s counter, but it’s a quick reaction before suddenly in a blink of an eye Takaba is a humanoid cat too and he’s drowning.

Kenjaku then appears on a surfboard and goes to his rescue. “Wait right there!! I’m coming to save you!!”

This time Takaba gets payback for Kenjaku’s surprise attack, and appears from behind Kenjaku with a Jetski, and slams right into his back, seeming to knock the wind out of Kenjaku. But before you can watch him hit the ground, the entire scene changes and it’s played off like Takaba is splashing him with water.

What a fake out! Boo!

“You got me good!” Kenjaku laughs along and splashes water at Takaba, creating a playful and almost serene scene.

Almost! Because then in a matter of a second the scene violently changes and Kenjaku is trying to drown Takaba with a sinister look on his face.

Alas, Takaba turns things around and plays it off to save himself. “Wait a sec!” Takaba cuts in humorously. “Taste some of this seawater!”

Kenjaku scoops up the water and his face lights up. “This isn’t water, it’s Fanta!” He laughs and you feel like you’re going to throw up.

This can’t be real. Please! Someone come kill you right now!

Anyhow the scene changes and Kenjaku and Takaba are in suits now in front of a stage of a real-looking audience.

“Huh?” Takaba seems to genuinely be confused by the change, but he also seems to be filled with awe.

“You’ve already warmed up plenty, haven’t you?” Kenjaku directs at Takaba. “Let’s do this partner.”

Takaba’s cheeks slowly redden and his response is given breathlessly. “Yeah.”

They both go up to the mic and like some heavenly intervention, Okkotsu finally distracts you from the horrible show. “Can I ask you something? If that’s fine.”

You keep your eyes on the men just to keep an eye on the scene and make sure your part isn’t coming up soon, but you still gracefully address Okkotsu’s question. “Depends what it is. Go on.”

You hear Okkotsu swallow nervously before he gets less confident and nervously brings up his question. “Why did you leave? I mean defect from school, from Jujutsu society?”

You scoff and immediately counter the boy. “I didn’t defect from Jujutsu society. That’s kind of ignorant of you to say, Okkotsu—”

“Oh, oh no, I—”

“Listen,” you cut off his nervous rambling. “Just because I didn't fit into this cookie image of what the higher-ups think a sorcerer should be, doesn’t mean I was out of the Jujutsu society. I was still a part of it. I was a curse-user, sure, but I was still here, I just changed my way of thinking that’s all,” you actually care to explain only because what you’re watching is boring.

“There’s many reasons that go into why I left,” you continue to explain. “Love, trauma, exhaustion, search for myself, and to sum it up realization,” you say and pause to stand up straight and draw out a deep breath.

“I realized,” you add and slowly lower your head to look at your nails.“That the non-sorcerers weren’t worth saving. No matter how heroic we are, they will always be selfish…we die trying to save them from the horrors they create and they clap and cheer at the death of an innocent young girl, they experiment on each other to achieve horrors that they can’t see. They hurt little kids because they’re different, because they themselves fear what they create, so why would I try and risk my life to save them when I could help us?” You rant as if you’re spewing your evil monologue to the hero. No remorse or pity. Just frustration and ache.

“That’s why I left Okkotsu,” you finish and lift your head to peer at him over your shoulder. He doesn’t look nervous, he stiffens when your eyes meet his, but he isn’t fidgety.

“But,” he surprises you by saying. “You’re ignorant too then…” he hesitates but his gaze doesn’t falter, and his lips twitch nervously. “Sorcerers are the same. We just have the power and the ability to not create horror, we’re strong and they’re not. Chaos and order.”

Rather than getting upset, you grin Instead over the fact that he’s quoting you.

“I’m selfish Okkotsu,” you admit with no sign of remorse. “If I have to pick between one evil, I pick us every time.” You could go on and on over why it will always be sorcerers over nonsorceres, but why should you waste your breath in explaining it to him? He's got strong beliefs. Besides, now doesn’t seem like the time to divulge into your deeper inner thinking.

“Hm, well I won’t say I see the way you think, but I appreciate you sharing your response with me,” Okkotsu says.

You answer with a hum and casually return your attention to the men.

“Hey, you okay?” You catch Kenjaku asking Takaba.

You sigh and lean back on the tree before you lift your hand to scratch your cursed worm's chin, making him lean towards you to appreciate your gesture.

“Yeah,” Takaba says breathlessly as his eyes take in the crowd. “I’m just thinking about curtains…”

Finally, what a drag!

“…on the show of my dreams…up until now you could probably say I wasn’t even qualified to spell the word comedian,” Takaba explains as his voice grows more and more shaky as his emotions rise. “But up on this stage, even your fangirls are making me happy. I want to keep going, I don’t want this to end!”

Kenjaku seems pensive, no malice lies behind his eyes, nor in his voice as he comforts his opponent. “Don’t cry, you’ll spoil the mood.”

He pats Takaba’s chest and everything changes back to the forest, but Takaba lays on the ground with a gown and head mirror on his head. Which means one thing now, this is your time.

It’s curtains for them, but what about an encore?

“It’s time, Okkotsu,” you let the boy know what he’s already preparing for, and with not a moment to spare while Kenjaku is babbling on, Okkotsu runs out of the forest and sneaks up to Kenjaku from behind without even causing the man to bat an eye.

The plan is for Okkotsu to catch Kenjaku off guard and slice his head off, while you come out as backup because Kenjaku can’t seem to let go of life and will probably leave with a fight. Thus you stride out calmly since you completely trust Okkotsu to execute his fatal move.

And while you’re moving out, you see Kenjaku shut up and suddenly grow stiff and baffled as a realization seems to hit him as almost out of nowhere Okkotsu appears behind him.

“Curse technique reversal antigravity—” Kenjaku announces, making you transfer your cursed energy to the ground to rip chunks of the earth to get over to them and quickly rebuttal Kenjaku, but, luckily Okkotsu uses his advantage and quickly swings his katana to slice Kenjaku’s head off, letting you drop the pieces of earth and…gasp out of a sudden flash of horror.

You see Suguru’s dark eyes deep with complexity, his terrified expression painted over his face and you see your husband for a second. A second! But it’s enough to fool your mind into thinking it was him who was killed.

Realization thankfully hits you when you hear the head flop on the ground, but your heart is still trying to calm down from that freight that ramped up its speed.

“Was that your plan,” you hear Kenjaku interject in that deeper voice he could never mold into Suguru’s soft and soothing tone, not even because he’s in Suguru’s body.

“…from the beginning?”

You slowly step out of the cold shadows of the forest and feel a sly smirk flicker on your cold expression.

“Takaba doesn’t kill people,” Okkotsu says with no rise of stress in his tone, unlike in your interactions, he shows no awkwardness, no nervousness, he’s laser-focused and wearing an Icy look.

“Makes sense,” Kenjaku replies nonchalantly before he freaks you out as he snaps his gaze down to find you. “Didn’t I kill you?” He asks.

You shoot him a smug smile and shrug just as smugly. “What can I say? You should’ve gone for the head.”

He scoffs and his lips form into a deep discontent frown. “It's a shame to bow out before I finish…but my will will be passed on!” He sneers with eyes peeling back before suddenly a loud kadump shakes the ground, setting off every alarm in your mind.

Is he about to lose control?

“Rika!” Okkotsu bellows out for the cursed spirit attached to him before his eyes snap to you. “Get Kenjaku, Rika and I can handle what’s about to come!”

Neither of you have to see what’s about to unfold to know it’s not anything good, you feel it on your skin as all the hairs on your arms and on the back of your neck shoot up as your instincts sense danger before it all, every single curse Suguru had left, and every curse Kenjaku collected comes busting out of a portal.

The multiple and massive bodies block your eyesight as they surround you, causing you to lose sight of Kenjaku’s head.

“Okkotsu can you handle this?” You shout so you can be heard over the horrifying commotion everywhere around you.

“Yes! Don’t worry!”

You spare one last glimpse at Okkotsu and see that he hasn’t faltered, so you manipulate the wind with your technique and shoot up into the sky like a torpedo. And there, over the disaster in the forest beneath you, flying away is a curse carrying Kenjaku’s head.

“I killed you once, what's the point of sending you again?!” Kenjaku makes sure his voice is carried out as he gets flown toward the bridge over the water. “I can just kill you again.”

You curl your lips to a snarl and try to manipulate the wind to fly directly at him, but curses fly up in his defense and once again block sight of him.

But, it’s not like these curses are an obstacle, you’re outside, this is your territory!

“Let’s have some fun!” You cry out excitedly and shoot your arms out as you stay where you are.

The wind takes no time to gain momentum as you violently spin it around you at rapid speeds, tearing old trees off the ground, and mixing rocks in the tornado forming around you. The curses don’t have any grasp of incoming danger so they all still barrel towards you without a second of hesitation, which makes for easy work. How magnificent!

You beam at the curses with malicious joy and gently bring your arms back to send the tornado out towards the curses, feeling the high and icy winds blow past you but not harm you whatsoever. All you are is an ominous figure in the destruction with a wicked smile playing on your face

The curses finally sense danger and try to avoid being caught, but the tornado pulls them all into its spinning void and exorcizes them with ease with the sharp and deadly winds, leaving a clear sight of Kenjaku over the bridge but not an opening. There’s more curses below, and some out of the a hundred below spot you and make you their target.

So you use the tornado in your control and have it touch ground to wipe away the curses that came after you. You also end up clearing a path with the tornado and get rid of all the curses in its destructive path until it reaches the edge of the bridge.

There’s more curses, hundreds more all huddled up creating a dark cloud of curses on the bridge, but now that you aided Okkotsu by clearing the forest of curses, he can handle the ones on the bridge while you focus on Kenjaku who is still being carried away like some wimpy coward.

You won’t let him get away though, he won’t escape this time, nor will he get the jump on you again. Today you will recover Suguru’s body, today you will see through the revenge promise you made to Choso. Kenjaku won’t live past today. So as he keeps getting further away, you fly forward and once you get close you let your voice boom out so he can hear.

“Scared Kenjaku? You should be.” You smirk, and Kenjaku snickers.

“Scared? Of you? Please,” he brushes you off as his head gets creepily turned around by his hair so he could meet your gaze. “Do you want to know something, Gojo?!”

You draw in a deep breath and sigh. “I’ll bite!”

Yet before he can answer he has some of the curses on the bridge change directions and aim toward you rather than Okkotsu seeming to easily wipe them out with the help of Rika. But don’t the curses after you know how foolish they are? You’re near water, an element you reign over. Kenjaku knew that, he knows far too many things he shouldn’t, but then again he's using the curses as a distraction to make distance between him and you.

“Let’s show them something tremendously beautiful, hm?” You direct at your worm cursed spirit, and then tilt your head down to pierce your mischievous glare into the curses flying up to try and reach you before you point your palms at the water and play.

You raise the water several feet into the sky, causing Okkotsu’s attention to be stolen by the impressive wall of water rising in front of him, casting a large shadow over him and his surroundings that makes an icy chill rush over him.

The wall of water then folds down at your will and like an angry storm-powered wave blasts through all the curses that were coming after you and those too stupid not to move, while also cracking the bridge in half with the mere power of the water alone.

Now there’s a few curses left, but Okkotsu handles them, while you finally fly over the bridge and land on the ground just a few feet away from where Kenjaku’s curse is propped.

“Kogane,” Kenjaku says with his piercing eyes meeting yours. “Add a rule.”

Kogane sounds familiar, but you don’t—no you can’t figure out where you heard it from because you’re caught by surprise by Kenjaku’s rule. “Transfer the authority to begin the great merger between Tengen and Humanity to Megumi Fushiguro.”

Your eyes widen and you reach back to grab a blade imbued with cursed energy from the Worm's mouth.

“Roger that!” A creature with wings confirms after popping out of nowhere. “Rule 15: authority to begin the great merger between Tengen and Humanity has been transferred to Megumi Fushiguro.”

Oh, you get it now, this little creature is the one in charge of the rules from the Culling Games.

“One at least needs some insurance,” Kenjaku finally directs at you, making you step forward with growing horror over the fact that it won’t actually be Fushiguro in charge of the merger, but the one using his body; Sukuna.

“I’ve already had Sukuna undergo the succession ritual,” Kenjaku shares with that usual cocky arrogance he always carries—“what remains is simply his becoming the parent of the ritual via the culling games.”

You blink repeatedly in disbelief and then suddenly feel your breath catch in your throat when you see Tengen appear in the womb the curse carrying Kenjaku has.

You thought nothing of it seconds ago but that was because you didn’t realize it carried Tengen.

“Tengen!” You call out even if you know they won’t hear you, it’s a desperate call before Tengen is blasted away to the grasp of a greater evil.

“Oh please don’t act like you care about the human species,” Kenjaku picks on your baffled reaction. “Thanks to Suguru’s memories I know you more than I care to. You detest non-sorcerers, so think of this as…your dream come true.”

You clench your hand around the blade's handle and narrow your gaze to shoot your seething glare at him. “I care about humanity, you stupid arrogant fool. I am a part of humanity. Just because I don’t care about one part of humanity doesn’t mean I want life as I know it to go extinct out of some sick curiosity!”

“Hm,” he simply hums before his creepy curse crawls down, making you step back out of a fear reaction. “But don’t you see it?” He says with a glee that creeps you out. “Peace you’ve craved for so long? Where the weak don’t exist and the strong like you reign? Where your daughter, your family, and your people can live without fear of getting killed by nasty curses?”

You sneer at the sound of him speaking of your daughter and lift your blade an inch.

“All you’ve ever wanted is there just out of reach,” he coaxes you in a gentle and almost alluring way while the curse brings him closer, but not too close. “You can almost taste everything you and Geto dreamed of.”

You raise your blade a bit further but stay glued to your spot whilst your eyes follow his hovering head. “Whatever you’re trying to get at, drop it,” you sneer. “I’m going to kill you.”

He shares a dry chuckle and stops before you. “You and me are different sides of the same coin. We both crave power and a craving to prove our strength.”

You lean towards him and shake your head as you look at him disgusted that he dared to compare you to him. “No. We’re not the same. I value my life, it’s beautiful because I’ll only live it once. I love and you're not capable of it. I value my family and you use them. I have a soul and you obviously don’t,” you spat, “we’re nothing alike.”

His face doesn’t drop his arrogance or that cockiness. Not even in death.

“Hm, you may be right. You truly are quite fascinating,” he speaks low as he leans towards your ear. “It’s why I know that it can all be yours, darling. If all else fails be, The One Fallen from Grace, be Death.”

You blink in surprise and clench your jaw. Kenjaku backs away and his eyes drift over your shoulder.

“I won’t say I’ve had a thousand years worth of fun, but,” he says. “I’m glad the one I got to play with at my end was him.”

You peer back and see Okkotsu finally has joined you dragging Takaba along on the ground and another body you don’t take a chance to identify because you focus back on Kenjaku.

“Now it’s up to you guys. I’m sure it’ll be fun.”

No more prusiading, no more talking, no more running away, it all ends here. He ends here.

A breath escapes past your lips, and then with your jaw clenched and your glare gleaming with forming tears, you grab the blade with both hands, and bring the blade up to thrust it right through Kenjaku’s head and all the way until the point comes out the other end just so he doesn’t pull some trick out of nowhere and live somehow.

You won’t let him live past today. He won’t live past today…

But you still make sure he's dead by waiting for any sign of life. You can’t miss a single detail that could lead to his escape.

You wait, and wait for what feels like hours (but it’s only a few minutes) until finally the blade slips out of your hand as his head flops on the ground when Okkotsu exorcizes the curse that held up Kenjaku’s head.

He’s dead. That parasite of a person is dead…

Suguru…you can rest now…

Suguru…

You slowly drop to your knees and grab the blade to pull it out of his head. Not Kenjaku’s, but Suguru’s. The stitches are still on his forehead, but now that no life brightens his eyes, all you see is the man you loved, the man that was stolen from you, your husband and best friend, Suguru Geto.

“Ms,” Yuta whispers cautiously behind you.

You know you have to go, but just one minute…

“Hm?” You probe and look back, catching him walking toward you with the other part of Suguru’s body.

“I thought you’d want it,” Okkotsu says softly.

Your bottom lip trembles and your eyesight clouds with tears, but you still manage a thankful nod in your numbed state.

Okkotsu then places the body under the head, and before he can step away to give you space you connect the pieces together and look at the body in awe.

There’s still stitches on his forehead, but you ignore them and only see Suguru returned to you.

“I’ll do it this time,” you murmur to his cheek as you lean down. “I’ll put you to rest. Close to home, where our daughter can visit. Where I can visit. I’ll put you, Kiyoshi, and the twins together. Okay?”

There’s no response, just a deafening silence that brings more tears down your face.

“I miss you,” your voice quivers. “But I bet you and…my…you and him are together now, so you’ll be plenty distracted…” you trail off and can’t go on anymore, you can’t muster another word, and your shattered heart aches too much, but you don’t want to break down now, Choso is not here to calm you down.

So after a shaky breath, you press a kiss on his cheek and then press your forehead on his shoulder as you feel a wave of sorrow incoming ready to bring you down.

“Don’t cry,” you hear a familiar voice. A soothing one that’s not forced and sounds so real. “…FireFly.”

Suguru?

You snap your head up and look ahead at the forest where the voice comes from and see him, a mirage, but it’s still him offering you his sweet and charming smile.

“I love you,” he says and brings a wobbly smile to your lips. “I’ll always look out after you and Satori. Always.”

You drop your head and let out a trembling sob before you repeat his words, “always.”

——

*LATER*

You to Choso: I’m back. I’m okay, are you? Answer when you can. I'll be there shortly.

Your name is called out before you can watch your phone's screen for the three little bouncing dots that show that he’s responding. And when you look over you notice Shoko walking over to you.

“Ijichi mentioned you came in. Why didn’t you go get me?” She asks.

You turn around to face her and see a faint smile painted on her features as she sees no blood stained on your white hair or clothes. When she doesn’t see any visible wounds she strides over and immediately envelopes you in an embrace without caring that the worm is still attached around your shoulders.

You’re a bit stunned at the feeling of her embrace, but when you feel a comforting weight clinging onto you, you let out a shaky breath and hug her tightly.

“Mei-Mei is not surveilling that far, I was worried,” she shares between a soft breath.

You pull back and face her so she can see once again that you’re okay.

Honestly, that was an easy fight, the worst one is yet to come.

“I’m okay, the plan worked,” you assure her and rub her shoulders. “I…brought Suguru’s body back. I wanted to leave it here for now.”

Shoko stills for a moment at the sound of your words before she nods gently. “Yeah, okay, just place him on a table. I’ll keep his body cool.”

You sigh deeply and know that putting his body down isn’t what will crush you. You had a moment with him already so you’ll be fine. Quiet but fine. It’s someone else's body that you’re afraid of seeing, but want to see at the same time.

“I’m sorry for the way it was transported, it was the easiest way to carry him all the way over here,” you excuse your actions before you walk to a metal table and look at your worm to give him a knowing look he understands.

Shoko walks over and reaches for a cigarette in her coat's pocket, but you then catch her eyes snap to you as she realizes your condition and pats her pocket before digging her hands in her other pocket. The worm then opens his mouth and you help him by pulling out the body before letting it fall on the table with a loud thud since it is very heavy flesh and muscle.

“Again,” you mutter with pursed lips. “Sorry.”

You glance at all the drool soaked on Suguru’s body and pass Shoko an awkward tightlipped smile before you look down and take out the head.

“Now we’re all back,” you mention a conversation you had a month ago.

Albeit now another one of you is also gone, and that’s a fact that’s too hurtful to think about so you try and brush it off by combing Suguru’s hair with your fingers before gently placing his head down.

“I could remove the stitches and close the wound,” Shoko says to not focus too deeply on the fact that her dead friend's head is on the table, it’s a sorrow that neither you can afford to get lost in just yet.

“Could you?” You ask hopefully as you caress Suguru’s head. “I want Satori to give her dad a last goodbye, and I don’t want those horrible stitches on his head.”

Shoko nods and can’t help herself, she pulls out a cigarette and places it in between her lips. She doesn’t light it for your sake, but she keeps it there as a form of comfort.

“Oh, and could you remove the stitches now? I want to show Choso his father's brain.” You say even if it sounds wrong saying that sentence.

“That’s so weird,” she says what you’re thinking. “But yeah. Afterward, I want to check on your twins. I can’t do much, but perhaps now we can hear a heartbeat. I just want to check if they sound good before you go. Choso would strangle me if I let you leave without getting checked out first.”

You chuckle breathlessly and nod. “Alright.”

Shoko walks off to get something, and you know you won’t be able to watch her take off the stitches and pull his head apart, so you instead walk away and attempt to leave the room, but before you can you come to a sudden stop when you catch Satoru’s shoes sticking out of a thick cover.

There’s no mistake that it’s anyone else, in your grief-battered mind the memory of his shoes sticks out like a sore thumb. Which is a cruel thing for your mind to do. Can’t it see your hearts already bleeding? Can’t it sense its agony?

Why does it take you to him without letting you question it first? Does it want to torture your withered soul? Or does your mind need confirmation of what the rest of you already knows?

You don’t know, your mind is silent and only occupied with one thought? Is he okay?

You mindlessly grab the edge of the cover that’s over his head and slowly pull it back. When his face is uncovered your mind quickly tells your hand to drop it and you freeze as you get stunned by what you see.

It feels like you got stabbed in your heart again. You feel that same stillness paralyzes your body, you feel that same pain terrorize you. This time though it’s worse. This pain is a lot more agonizing.

As your eyes focus on your brother's white eyelashes kissing his skin, when you take note of the fact that his chest lies still, and when you feel that not even a staggered breath escapes his nose, you feel a blinding pain puncture you and it pollutes every corner of your body, and finally hits your stubborn mind.

You try to think of any excuse, any workaround to deny what you see, but the realization is like shockwaves, bothersome, and unable to let you forget. Yet there’s an even sadder truth that lies beneath all that pain, and it’s a realization that you know who you’ll be now that he’s gone. You once feared not knowing who you’d be without him because he’s all you had, but now…now you lie underneath the rubble, just waiting to be pulled out, and those you cherish are present in your mind.

And you know he’d remind you of that. He wouldn’t let you forget nor would he want you to feel alone and lost, he’d remind you of who you were surrounded by, that you didn’t really need him in the grand scheme of things. He’d remind you of who you are and who you’ve always been, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that you’ll miss your older brother, that there will never be a day that goes by where you don’t mourn the first man who loved you and who always kept you in his heart.

There will never be a day where you won’t wish that he’ll be by your side because why did he have to leave? Why did he have to die and leave you here?

Why? Why?!

You clutch onto his shoulders and sob into his chest.

“Please,” you begin to plead. “Please come back. You said you’d always protect me. You promised me. Why are you gone, Satoru?”

Your legs lose all their strength and threaten to knock you to the ground, but before you can hit the ground, arms wrap under your arms and pull you up. You don’t get to look back before Shoko whispers your name and follows with soft words.

“Come on, honey, let’s get outside, okay? All this distress is not good for you and your babies.”

You shake your head and want to stay by your brother's side, but her words do register so you let her guide you out of the room, but fall with her out in the hall.

“Shoko,” you mewl.

Said woman caresses the side of your head and with tears of her own she tells you she understands your pain. “I know. I know.”

Her hand then slips from your head, and her arm slips around your waist so she can pull you to her side and press your head on her shoulder. Neither of you have the willpower to say anything after, you sit in silence with your backs to the door, and find comfort in each other's warmth.

You would want to sit here for hours just to try and process everything, but you can’t afford that luxury, people need you, so you lift your head off her shoulder before you stay attached to her, and push yourself up.

“I got your father-in-law's brain,” Shoko tries to lighten up your mood.

And it didn’t work to make you smile, but your nose wrinkles in disgust. “Ew please don’t refer to him as that,” you remark.

Shoko turns and as you lose sight of her in the room you hear her voice in the distance. “It’s true.”

“Ew,” you grumble and look down at your worm to mirror the disgust on your faces.

However, speaking about your father-in-law, you remember his eldest son and check your phone to see if he answered, but it’s still left on delivered. Choso hasn't read your message.

Is he okay?

You should check the broadcast—but if he’s not okay you’ll fall into more distress so you’ll text him first.

You to Choso: Cho? Call me if you can, please. Just let me know you’re okay.

You wait now and watch for the three dots again. But alas, once again Shoko comes to meet up with you.

“Here it is in all its glory.” She interjects with a hint of disgust as she holds a jar with Kenjaku’s blood-covered brain. “I was hoping I could keep it safe here though.” She then suggests as if she doesn’t know what it means to take it back to Choso.

She clocks your confusion and need to argue right away and quickly explains herself. “You’re going out on the battlefield, it would be a shame if something happened to it before Choso could burn it whatever he plans to do, don’t you think?”

She does make sense, but you want to give it to Choso like you promised.

“I’ll keep it safe,” she insists and slowly finds a way to ease your overthinking mind. “Swear.”

Well…she’s right, it would be a shame to have it destroyed before Choso could burn it or bury it or whatever he intends to do with his father's brain. Besides you trust her too so you let her keep Kenjaku’s brain reluctantly.

“Fine,” huff and step back. “Just let me take a picture of it.”

You pull your phone out and snatch a quick photo of the brain in the jar to show it to Choso as a sign that you kept your promise to him. After that Shoko quickly averts her gaze and walks away to put the brain in the jar away.

After Shoko’s quick return, she quickly insists on moving on from the queasy situation. “Now can we please move on?”

Your eyebrows raise and you nod eagerly. “Yes, please! I want to check on Choso. He hasn’t texted me back and he’s not one to take long to respond…” you trail off and look at her quizzical look to question her. “Do you know how he is? I mean have you seen him on the screens?”

Shoko tilts her head down to hold her dry cigarette stick and nods softly. “Yeah, he was helping against Sukuna. But that was a while ago, I got busy after that sorry.”

Well, that doesn’t work to reassure your worry whatsoever.

You’ll need to get through the checkup quicker than you’d like, Choso might need your help, or the others might need assistance.

Albeit there’s a part of you that doesn’t want Shoko to check on the babies. Not because you dread it, but because they’re still so small, and if she doesn’t hear anything you’ll think the worst right now considering all the distress you’ve been under.

However, there would’ve been signs if something bad happened, there hasn’t been any to your knowledge.

“Do you want to know what names Choso and I already chose,” you tell Shoko so you don’t keep focusing on the negative.

Shoko opens the door to a separate room and as you pass her to walk in she of course doesn’t turn you down. “Please do.”

You smile brightly and rub your belly. “Well I want a boy and a girl, so we chose based on that.” You share with your glee slowly heightening as you get excited. “For the girl, Choso chose Suki, which means beloved. And for the boy I chose Tsukuyomi, after the god of the moon. I wanted Orlando, but Choso vetoed it, can you believe that?” You pout.

Shoko scoffs and mumbles something under her breath as she taps on the chair for you to sit on. You pierce your glare into her and don’t leave yourself wondering what she had to say, you press her. “What? What did you just say?”

Shoko grabs a white device from her bag and when she turns around she doesn’t shy away from repeating herself. “It’s a stupid name.”

You gasp and touch your chest to pretend to be wounded by her insult to your beloved's name. “You’re a stupid name. I’m being so serious.”

Shoko sits on her chair and rolls herself to you. “Oh, I know you are. I’m glad Choso had some common sense, remind me to praise him for that.”

You pout. “Are you guys just jealous because he was my first love?” You tease her with the same thing you told Choso. “It’s okay if it’s any reassurance, I would hesitate leaving my life behind to marry Orlando Bloom. Before, nothing was going to stop me, now I’ve changed, okay?”

Shoko rolls her eyes and brings up her device that you don’t recognize. “What is that?” You probe and guard your belly.

Shoko turns on the device and pulls it up to show it off. “It's a fetal doppler to hear the baby’s heartbeat. I bought it recently to check on you.”

You drop your hand and can’t help your heart from skipping a beat at the thought of Shoko being so considerate and worried for your twin's well-being.

“Okay, now I won’t have you undress due to our circumstances, but I will ask you to lift your obi belt for me please.”

Your previous lightheartedness drops to zero, and all you’re filled with is worry that makes you swallow back nervously as you drag up the obi belt to give Shoko easy access.

“And I must warn you,” Shoko cuts in as she’s in the middle of leaning in. “If we don’t hear anything It’s because they’re too young to be detected by this device. Don’t worry, okay? You’re not showing any signs of concern, so I’m sure you’re okay.”

As far as doctors go she’s the first one to ever make you feel reassured by her attempts at comfort. The others you’ve seen speak with a feigned softness that oozes their artificiality

Maybe it's because she’s your best friend and the others have been strangers you have to see, but nothing in the way she sits, looks at you, or speaks gives any sense of doubt.

Then again she’s always sounded kind to you. Even when you first met her voice had a way to make you feel quite safe and reassured.

“Okay, I’m going to press this on you, okay? And you might feel a bit of pressure since I have to press deep to hear through your clothes, okay?” She speaks a lot softer and kinder, it almost sounds like she’s hypnotizing you.

“Okay,” you talk under your breath, and she only hears you because she's so close to you that her knees are touching yours.

And as she gets her wand close to your belly you hold your breath, and when presses her wand on you and presses hard to feel through the clothes and layers of skin and flesh, you stiffen and close your eyes out of your racing nerves attacking you.

“Come on now little Suki and Tsukuyomi, let me just hear you so your mama and your dad can have something positive to hold onto for today.”

You smile at her speaking to the twins, but it looks all wobbly and more like you’re about to cry.

Shoko notices your reaction and places the machine down to grab your hand and offer you a smile before she lowers the wand closer to your waistline and presses just a bit harder, making the sound of silence get interrupted by the sweet rhythmic music of two little ba-dums running quickly.

“Oh,” Shoko muses and drops your hand to grab the machine and watch the screen. While you drop that tension held on your shoulders, breathe out shakily, and feel the clutches of your sorrow let go of your bleeding heart to let you mend your broken heart with the bliss of the twins signs of life. The first signs that they’re viable.

“That’s them?” You muse breathlessly and watch Shoko move her wand to focus on the second baby.

“Yes!” Shoko exclaims happily and turns the machine around to show you numbers on the screen you don’t quite understand. “From what I read their heart rates are good. Strong. You have some strong babies.” She beams at you and turns her head to just take a moment to listen, letting you pull your phone out to record the session for Choso. You don’t want him to miss the first time you hear their heartbeats; he’d be crushed.

And yes it’s not the same as being here in the same room, but due to your circumstances, you weren’t granted the pleasure of being together for this special moment. He should understand that, and hopefully, he'll have a greater opportunity of being with you when you see the twins for the first time. If something comes up then, then you’ll wait for him to be with you.

“So tell me one more time,” you interject just to double check for you, and so Choso can hear when he listens to the video. “Their heartbeats sound strong? Healthy?”

Shoko meets your gaze and nods. “Yes,” she reassures you. “They’re strong for how small they are. Don’t worry.”

You sigh with relief and smile down at your belly as you relish in the sound of the music of their hearts, forgetting for a moment what chaos awaits you outside and what agonizing sorrow is waiting to dig itself back in you; you can feel it’s sharp claws trying to claw itself back in to keep hurting you in the worst way imaginable.

You almost just want to fight it off and drown yourself in the sound of your twin's heartbeats since it brings you so much bliss, but once again you have to remind yourself that people need you. They need your strength to fight off the demon monster that goes by the name Sukuna.

Thus, after a few long minutes, you stop recording and meet Shoko’s gaze to speechlessly let her know that it’s okay to stop listening in.

However, she’s the one who hesitates, seeming to want to get lost in the sound of something miraculous instead of having to endure more pain, but she pulls herself away and turns off the device, bringing an end to your bliss and welcoming back your sorrow and grief.

“Before you leave,” Shoko fills the silence and utters your name almost hesitantly before she drags her chair back to able to hold your gaze—“can I share something with you about Suguru? Is that okay? Or is it weird?”

No matter how deeply in love you are with someone else, talking about Suguru will never be a weird topic or something you avoid. You’ll limit yourself out of respect for Choso, but you’ll never hide away from talking about your first love,

“No, it's not weird,” you assure your friend. “Go ahead.”

You let your obi belt fall back in place and slouch to wait.

“It’s about something he told me 11 years ago. The day I ran into him for the first time after what he did,” Shoko explains and then exhales deeply, causing her eyes to soften with a hint of sympathy as if the wounds of his passing are still new and fresh.

“It’s not specific, but he said to tell you that he knew the answer to your question. It was “yes, I would want nothing else.”

You blink in confusion and press your mind hard so it can remember what he was referring to because it does sound familiar.

“I’ve been meaning to tell you but with everything going on I never had time, and when you brought him in I remembered. Sorry,” she backs up her comment with guilt.

“No,” you counter back right away so she knows you don’t actually blame her for anything. “I understand, but he didn't say anything else?”

Her eyes suddenly widen and she rummages through her pocket before pulling out a folded paper that looks quite old.

“This,” she blurts and hands it to you. “He gave me this to give to you. I brought it with me today since I knew you’d bring him back.”

You look at her curiously before you drop your eyes to the paper and quickly unfold it. When you spread the paper out your breath hitches when you see that it’s your favorite poem, “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love.”.

He wanted you to have it. He remembered. Which isn’t surprising, but…after all these years your heart can’t help but swoon, and help you remember what he was referring to.

“We hadn’t been dating long,” you tell Shoko so she wasn't left wondering. “As you know. But I knew it in my heart that I wanted forever with him, especially when we got back together, so,” you pause and smile softly at the poem in your hands. “I asked him if he wanted forever with me. If he could wait for me to come back from training with Yuki, and he never got to answer because we got interrupted…” you trail off and instead of crying you manage to keep your eyes dry and just smile with glee as you feel wrapped up by his love once again.

Even if he’s gone, you feel his loving embrace, and you smile at that.

“Thank you Shoko,” you whisper and finally get off the chair.

Your friend mirrors you and watches you carefully as you tuck away your poem as if expecting you to burst out in tears.

“I need to go find Choso now,” you cut your conversation there before you can keep lingering here with her.

“Are you okay?” She makes sure to ask while you walk away.

You peer back at her and nod. “Yes,” you tell her with no sign of deceit. “I’m okay about the Suguru thing. I mourned him earlier, and I cried, I’m okay. Thank you. Now,” you change the subject. “I’ll text you if anything happens okay? And if you need any help text me or ask Kirara, understand?”

“Well considering I’m not a child, yes,” she quips, making you smirk and stop for a brief moment to solidify a previous promise.

“I’ll be back, okay?”

Shoko draws in a deep breath and you watch her eyes gleam with tears clouding her eyes. “You better,” she mutters.

You offer her one last smile and head out.

And before you know it, after rushing to find Choso first and foremost, you spot him from afar; his buns that don’t actually work to keep his hair down, his purple vest that matches his scarf, and his white robe that's stained with…blood. A lot of blood.

Choso is on the ground hunched over, but you notice the blood from where you stopped and suddenly everything goes dark and time comes to a sudden halt. Nothing else exists but him, there. Nothing else matters to you but him bleeding out from wounds you can’t see from here or by the way he’s sitting, you can’t even tell if he’s breathing. He’s too far and he’s not moving.

He’s not moving…

No…please…no…

“Choso?!” You can’t wait, you have to cry out for him. “Choso?!”

Tagged- @deniseabad1928 @secondary-character-25 @starlightanyaaa @notsaelty @d4rno @moonnime @kodzukein @yozora7154 @heijihattorisgf @elegantweirdorchest @natakina

34 notes · View notes

sandraguide7-blog · 5 years

Text

Not Every Miscarriage Results in Grief, and That’s OK

Seven years ago, I had a miscarriage. Somewhere between eight and 10 weeks into the pregnancy, I started spotting. I knew that light bleeding wasn't always a bad sign during early pregnancy, but I did know that it could signal a miscarriage. I felt nervous. I think I cried a little.

I was out of state for my nephew’s baptism, but when I returned a couple days later, the ultrasound at my doctor’s office confirmed there was no heartbeat. I don’t remember my emotional reaction. I got in a cab and went to work. A half hour after finding out my unborn baby had died, I was editing magazine copy. A few days later, I went for my D&C. I told colleagues I was having “a medical procedure.”

I didn’t feel numb. I just didn’t feel much of anything. The worst part was answering questions from family members asking if I was OK…because I was OK, and this fact in itself made me feel guilty.

I felt weird for not crying more. I felt evil for not being more upset, particularly knowing that other women struggle to get pregnant in the first place. How dare I not be more affected by what had happened to me, if only to honor these other women’s experiences?

I hadn’t really thought much about the whole thing in years, until I got an email from the intimates company Knix, about the launch of their #FacesofFertility campaign to mark Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day, today, October 15. As the memory of my miscarriage resurfaced, so did the guilt. When I read or hear about other women’s miscarriage experiences, it’s predominantly stories of emotional wreckage. You rarely hear about this other side of the reaction coin—the indifference I’d felt.

Am I the only one who’s felt this way? Am I an anomaly? Am I actually evil? No. Women’s feelings toward miscarriage are extremely varied, psychologist Rayna Markin, Ph.D., associate professor in counseling at Villanova University, tells SELF. Sometimes the grief is immediate and profound. Other times, it doesn’t surface for weeks, months, or years. Many times, it comes in and out, like a wave.

Although general openness about miscarriage has increased over the past few years, Markin, who specializes in counseling related to infertility and pregnancy loss, believes there remains a certain taboo in talking about it. Because of this, “we really don’t know [how others deal with it] because we have nothing to compare it to,” Markin says. “You wonder, ‘Is this a normal reaction? Is this not something people have?’ In that way it can be really isolating.”

She also explains that a woman’s reaction after a miscarriage can be related to how attached she felt to the baby. “Often times, women can, not purposely, but can distance themselves from the baby when they anticipate a loss, as a way of protecting themselves,” she says. “We see that a lot when women are pregnant after miscarriage, that during [the new] pregnancy, it can be hard for the woman to bond with the baby because she’s worried about losing that baby.”

But why would I not feel attached? I wanted that baby, and I hadn’t had a previous miscarriage. Perhaps it was because I already had one child? My son was 3 years old at the time. I do think I would have been much more distressed had this been my first pregnancy; I’m sure I’d have blamed my body for “malfunctioning” and feared I was incapable of carrying a child to term.

Could this be the reason for my blah-ness, I ask Markin? Do women who have kids typically feel less distraught about a miscarriage? “In my clinical experience, I wouldn’t say one is worse than the other,” she answers. “But when you don’t have children already, many women worry, ‘will I ever be able to have a child’?”

I did go on to get pregnant again, a year after the miscarriage. I had another boy, who is now 5.

In dredging up these feelings about my miscarriage, a new thought, a new version of guilt, emerged: If I had birthed that baby, the one I miscarried, I likely wouldn’t have my youngest son—my precocious, sweet-toothed, dancing little soul.

I can’t imagine what my life would be like without him. I remember telling my husband shortly after his birth that I felt he had really completed our family. Now, even thinking about the baby I miscarried feels like a betrayal to my son.

“There can be this fear that, as a parent, you’re replacing one baby with another,” Markin says. “I think it’s more helpful to think of subsequent children after loss as siblings to that baby that was lost rather than as a replacement. That allows you, as a parent, to love one child while also grieving another.”

But, at the time, I wasn’t grieving the other child, I think to myself, still unclear as to why I felt like I did seven years ago.

The reason starts to unfold as I’m on the phone with David Diamond, Ph.D., associate professor in the clinical Psy.D. program at Alliant International University and co-founder of the Center for Reproductive Psychology in San Diego. He asks if responding with restrained emotions—as I did after the miscarriage—is a “characteristic style” for me. Hardly. I am the queen of strong emotions. This reaction was, in fact, completely uncharacteristic.

He begins to explain the concept of a “lifelong reproductive story,” one that we all have. “You start to think consciously or unconsciously early in life about whether you’ll have kids or not, what your life will be like, and sometimes that’s not at the forefront of your mind, but the seeds get sewn early on,” he says. Each part of your reproductive story gives context to the other parts.

So I tell him about another part of my story, the birth of my first son. As soon as he was born—after 62 hours of labor followed by an induction—10 doctors rushed in. I never got to hold him. He was whisked away, and later, my husband told me our baby’s body was gray, and he thought that he was dead. Our baby stayed in the NICU for two weeks, covered with EEG electrodes to monitor the seizures he was having. “Why are you crying? He’s very, very handsome,” the technician said to me as I stood over his NICU bassinet, tears rolling down my cheeks.

Despite an uncomplicated pregnancy, my baby had had an in utero stroke, which they could pinpoint only to the four days before birth or during birth. He had bilateral brain damage, they said. He might have cerebral palsy, they said. He might never walk, they said. They didn’t really know what would happen—we’d just have to wait and see.

I didn’t even know babies could have strokes, but mine did. (According to the Children’s Hemiplegia and Stroke Association, 1 in 2,800 babies have what’s called a “perinatal stroke.”) I left the hospital with an empty car seat.

I swung into a serious postpartum depression. For the first four days, I lay on the couch, nauseous, unable to get up and go visit him in the NICU. People sent food, flowers, kind notes, and Dr. Pepper (which I drank by the vat-load then). For the next three years, we visited a neurologist every few months, who assessed our son’s development. “He’s lifting his head when he’s supposed to,” I’d say. “Does that mean everything is going to be ok?” “Now he’s walking—that proves something, right?” The answer was always the same: It’s a good sign, but we wouldn’t really know until the next visit. When we stopped seeing the neurologist, he told us, “I’d be surprised if there are no effects as a result of his birth experience.”

That baby is now 9 years old. He has pure blue eyes, a sprinkling of freckles, and the sweetest demeanor—literally never a bad word for anyone. You would never know what he went through by looking at him or talking to him. He’s an orange belt in karate who can also whoop your ass at Mario Kart and recite every evolution that Pokemons go through, with a sophisticated sense of humor and a fierce defense of his little brother. He does have some learning delays, so he attends a special ed class for reading and math, works with a tutor, and receives OT services at school. Occasionally he’ll get a physical tick, where he repeatedly moves his arm or his head in one direction, but they typically disappear within a month.

Doctors who see him for routine medical appointments, when told of his birth history, call him a miracle. I do believe he is a miracle. And I feared, in those first couple years after his birth, that if I got pregnant again, the same thing would happen…only this time we wouldn’t get another miracle.

I never connected what happened to my first son with my miscarriage response, but Diamond, co-author of Unsung Lullabies: Understanding and Coping With Infertility, sees the link immediately. “Nobody thinks they’re going to have a child with an in utero stroke,” he explains. “You perhaps approach the next pregnancy with that experience, that bad things can happen.”

Even though our son is thriving now, “still, it’s not the way you thought your child-bearing life was going to turn out. So there’s the loss of that sense of how you think it’s supposed to be. Having been through something like that, you might understandably want to have your emotions somewhat in check as you go through this next thing,” Diamond continues. “If you went through a lot when that was going on—it must have been horrible at the time—there’s accumulated trauma.” (My eyes well up.) “That’s one part of your reproductive story. When we look at your whole story, that first part is what we call a reproductive trauma.”

So the guilt I felt…and still feel—first, for not reacting passionately to the miscarriage, then in thinking about what the miscarriage meant in relation to my youngest son—is actually not that surprising of a reaction.

“Things mean different things to different people. And the meaning of things changes after a while,” Diamond says. “Later you have these other feelings, ‘well, if I had had that child, I wouldn’t have this child.’ It’s helpful to let people know that guilt and shame and other reactions are not abnormal in any way.”

There I have it…clarity. It feels strange.

And it’s sent me into an emotional tailspin. My husband and I talk about whether it’s OK to share this story about our first son so publicly—will other kids use it one day to taunt him? But we come to the conclusion that it’s nothing to be ashamed about, and that what it actually shows is his incredible ability to keep trying even when things are tougher for him; that the elasticity of the human brain is real; that doctors don’t always know how things will turn out; and that, for other parents who might be dealing with something similar, there is always hope. As a former boss wrote to me right after my first son’s birth, the most important thing for your child is that he’s happy, which both of our sons are.

If you've had a miscarriage or fertility issues—whether you want to speak about it or not—you should know that you are not alone. Knix's campaign aims to help end the stigma. From now through the end of October, the company will donate $1 to Resolve.org in the US and FertilityMatters.ca in Canada for every Instagram post tagged #FacesofFertility. The company has also partnered with Inkbox on two temporary tattoos, for sale on knix.com, with 100 percent of the proceeds going to the above charities. One—created by illustrator Mary Purdie, who herself has experienced five miscarriages—shows a plant growing from a cloud with a raindrop, which Purdie says depicts both her grief and sadness but also her strength and personal growth.

Source: https://www.self.com/story/grief-and-miscarriage-medium-well

#read more #see more #check it out #interesting #learn more

0 notes