Chapter Text
The concept of family leaves a foul taste in the mouth.
Obligations to owe and expectations to fulfill are but a few of the countless other burdens that come in conjunction with what a family entails.
And within this world of magic and curses, family is but a burden.
She continued to uphold her well-rehearsed, demere smile despite being worn and absolutely exhausted. Her opponent in front of her, casually stood there with a hand on the hip and his head tilted to the side— unfazed and unbothered by her persistent barrage of attacks earlier. The fluff of white hair pulled up and back by the blindfold stood as a testament to remind her that she wasn’t even an opponent to be considered seriously.
He didn’t need to pretend to be tired at all.
“How much longer do you think you can keep pretending to smile like that, Gojo-chan?”
The words were spoken in snide mockery as her opponent bore the same familial name.
“You jest, Gojo-sensei.” The retort was short and spoken without the intent to play along with any insinuations.
Satoru Gojo had not changed one bit since she had first met him.
“She doesn’t look like me at all, does she, Suguru?”
He towered over her at the time. She remembered seeing those strikingly clear, blue eyes— sharp and piercing as they bore into her with a scrutiny unwarranted for a child at the time.
Two hands had reached out and grabbed her at the sides as she was hoisted several feet in the air to be turned back and forth, handled and examined like she was just some doll.
“You should put her down, she’s clearly uncomfortable.” Suguru, as he was referred to, placed a hand on Satoru’s shoulder whilst giving a firm glance of disapproval. He shot her a sympathetic smile as she was put down by the pouting teenager.
“How can she be uncomfortable when she’s smiling like that?” He begrudgingly asked his companion before putting two hands up in the air as to showcase his resignation. “But still to think that this little distant cousin of mine is supposed to bring in a new line of techniques for the clan is making me feel already less special~,” Satoru whined in jest as Suguru gave him a playful whack on the back. The white-haired sorcerer had wandered off, leaving her with an upset feeling of unsettled unpleasantness broiling in the pit of her stomach.
Those feelings were temporarily put on the side when his companion crouched down to meet her at eye level.
“Don’t worry about any of that, ok? If you’re ever sick of this guy, you can always come to find me.” Suguru reached down to pet her head in a strangely reassuring way. Comfort and ease had taken over her and her smile had unknowingly slipped off as the soft timbre of his voice lulled her in a sense of warm solace that she had never felt before. “My name is Geto Suguru. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Her head felt warm from where he had placed it before, and she had watched him catch up to her cousin’s side with a lopsided smile on her face.
The rate of those thrown punches coming at her were slow; she made them as such. Her innate ability, “Differential”, functioned on the rate of change principles from calculus and mechanics. Mathematicians, engineers, and scientists have long seen and quantified the inner workings of the world through equations. “Differential” allowed her to perceive the differential equation which models the behavior or qualities of an object and apply a “derivative” to it in order to adjust its rate of change. Simple equations such as the rate at which light refracts from the cornea of the eye to see are constant; taking the derivative of it amounts it to zero and thereby allows for someone’s vision to stop working. In this case, her perception of the logarithmic speed (ln(x)) of those punches have been derived to the equation of 1/x and will increasingly become slower and slower as more time passes.
It was a mutated trait from the original Gojo family’s “Limitless” technique. While the original skill operated under the fundamental principle of a limit with techniques operating under the mathematical principles of convergence and divergence in summations and series, hers was more focused upon the rate of change at a “fixed point” existing on a specific plane. From its proofing from calculus her technique took the limit as it approaches zero between two points allowed for the rate of change to be solved for and adjusted.
And so for things that move through time and space, she can easily avoid and counter them.
She dodged the first three punches with ease before countering with a sweep kick to the knees; however, the activation of Infinity didn’t allow for the attack to land as intended.
An upwards kick was evaded as she jumped backwards several steps to place sufficient distance between herself and Satoru.
“Hmmm~. We’re at around twenty minutes now. How are you holding up? Still smiling as always, I see.” She watched intently as Satoru leaned back and stretched out an arm lazily. “Should we call it quits now? You’re lasting longer than our last spar by around five minutes. That’s impressive growth, but you haven’t reached your fullest potential yet.”
She wondered if things would have been less tense or awkward between herself and Satoru had they not hailed from the same lineage. Resigning now to rest would only prove as a setback and insult to what was expected of her in addition to her own self-worth. There would be no resignation. No matter needed to be put forth on her end.
“I-I can continue, Gojo-sensei.” Her smile did not fall from her face despite how tired she was.
She stood up straighter and calmed her breaths.
Her still outer demeanor did not match the thoughts that were racing within her mind.
His Infinity was an issue. She would not be able to do anything about that nor about his convergence and divergence techniques of red and blue simply due to the nature of it resulting in something either undefined or unusable when taking the derivative of an abstract such as infinity, sums, and series.
But perhaps this would work.
The distance between the two of them was approximately fifteen. She needed five to try out her new method.
A breath in.
A breath out.
She dashed in to close the distance.
~~~
“Wow, I can’t believe that you were actually able to do that, Gojo-chan!”
She awakened and opened her eyes to see up to the ceiling of the infirmary. Gojo-sensei was sitting at her bedside with a tilted head, quirky smile, and a book that he must have been reading in the meantime while she was asleep. “Was that a new application of your “Differential”? I can’t believe that you actually rendered my Six Eyes blind for a good minute there.”
Her head hurt as she tried to recall the events of the sparring session before she had blacked out.
Upon closing the gap between them, at the five meter mark, she had Gojo-sensei in range.
Activating Differential, she was able to see the six constants that were governing the rate of perception for Gojo-sensei’s Six Eyes. She drew a shaky breath as she applied “Derivative” six times for each ‘eye’ and watched with elation as her teacher’s face became overcome with a sense of shock and surprise.
She quickly threw a punch aimed at his face in the hopes that the deactivation of his Six Eyes would affect the automatic response of Infinity somewhat.
That hope was dashed as her fist was stuck hovering in front of his nose, unable to proceed further to tangible result.
Leaping back, she stumbled as an sickening nausea overcame her and imbalance struck at her legs. Her vision was blurring and a strange ringing sound overcame her ears as she heard what was vaguely her name.
For some reason, she was kneeling on the ground with both hands in front propping her up. She bent her head up to see a white blur of what may have been Gojo-sensei running towards her, but her head was heavy and her vision was strangely red. Letting her head drop back down, she blinked and saw what seemed to be drops of blood dripping to the ground.
It was the last thing she saw.
“-Anyways, I was SO shocked that you started crying blood or something. You almost looked like a curse, ahahaha!”
Her thoughts were drawn back to reality as she tuned back into listening to what Gojo-sensei was saying.
“Man, if I didn’t manually activate Infinity, you might actually have hit me and gave me a bloody nose!”
She smiled and let out a breathy laugh. “Is that so?”
Gojo-sensei leaned in closer to the bed railing and placed a hand on her head.
“Yes. You did good.”
There was a warm elation in her chest from being praised. It didn’t happen often, though it left a strange feeling in her from being praised by Gojo of all people. It filled the cavity in her chest, but those words didn’t seem to be the ones that she was waiting for. Whatever it was she was feeling, it disappeared as quickly as it came for her teacher said his next words.
“Ah, but it seems that taking the differential six times is your current limit. Man, I don’t know how I’m going to deal with you and your younger siblings when they enroll next. I heard a lot of stuff about them~.”
Ah.
Her younger siblings.
The mention brought a bitter taste to her mouth and the lurking of a foul emotion within her heart. But she smiled as though it wasn’t the case.
“Hm, yes, my younger siblings. My sister definitely has more talent with the technique than I do, and my brother is well on his way. They might be the ones that’ll give you the most trouble, Gojo-sensei.”
She watched her teacher laugh.
Behind that coy smile and blindfold, she wondered if he could see through her facade and see her true feelings beneath.
But even if he could, he didn’t make a comment on it.
“I told Hakari, and he’s worried about you, you know!” Gojo-sensei continued. “We both keep telling you that you’re being too hard on yourself! Shouko keeps complaining to me about caring for my students more, you know!” He pouted. “I care about my students.” He rubbed her head as to prove a point.
There was a simmering frustration that was building in her abdomen.
“I know that, sensei. I’ll be more aware about that. Is Hakari alright?”
Her fellow classmate in the college, Kinji Hakari, was a third-year student like her. Due to the incident last year, he was on suspension.
“Oh he’s alright. He keeps saying that he’s bored to death being suspended and all and that he’s worried about you killing yourself when he’s not there with you.”
Perhaps it was said with good intentions. But it seemed patronizing. Maybe it was because it was spoken by those who were born with naturally strong talents compared to her who had worked to the point of injury in order to be a contender as their equal. That emotion in her stomach grew and started to burn and corrode away at her insides.
She laughed softly. “Please tell him that I appreciate the concern. I’m waiting for him to get back as well.”
Gojo-sensei had stood up muttering something about being a messenger boy and was readying himself to leave. As though he forgot something, he suddenly exclaimed aloud.
“Aha! I almost forgot to tell you too.” He whirled back around to face her. “There’s a whole queue of missions for you. All grade 2 or lower. It shouldn’t be much trouble for you, but be careful since you know-“ he gestured to the infirmary bed that she laid in as to drive home the point. “You get the idea.”
He left the room.
And she let out a sigh before slumping back down in the bed and closing her eyes.
It felt as though there was a crushing weight against her chest.
Taking care of the assigned curses was a simple task.
Despite her teacher’s reluctance at sending her out to the initial mission when she had gotten so adversely injured during a simple sparring match, everything turned out alright.
It had been a good while since that had passed on the order of months, but with the shortage of jujitsu sorcerers and Hakari still on suspension, it was only natural for her to handle things like this.
She stared down at her hands, which have unconsciously and naturally formed firm fists sitting in her lap.
With being tasked with an onslaught of more and more missions, she quickly rose to the rank of semi-grade 1. She was grateful for the opportunity as she needed this as a chance to raise her rank and further her worth.
She wasn’t talented, after all.
From the moment she was born, she remembered the crushing weight of anxiety bearing down on her at each step and misstep she took. The looks of disappointment, the yelling and screaming, the endless lectures, and the unbearable weight of it all.
Maybe it would have been better to have been born a disappointment to begin with. So that no one would make her carry these expectations on her weary back.
Her grandmother was actually the one to first develop the “Differential” ability. But the woman was originally an outcast of the Gojo clan and took her technique personally as a means to spite the ones that had looked down on her before. It carried the unbelievably petty burden of one day being able to surpass the main line of Limitless techniques.
So when her father, uncles, and aunts failed to inherit any of the “Differential” traits, they were marked as failures and the family was laughed at for daring to think that they could surpass the main line of inherited techniques.
That was until she awakened.
Up until the age of five, she was treated as a worthless and filthy object. Her mother was someone able to see cursed spirits, but had no innate techniques to deal with them, and despite having spite for the main Gojo family, her grandmother viewed her mother-- and by extension, her-- as a taint on the family line of sorcerers. Her first-cousins, unable to see curses much less use techniques though borne to two sorcerer parents, were treated with delicate care and spoiled by her grandparents beyond belief. And she was treated and called as the vermin of the bunch. Her father did nothing to refute that claim while her mother took out the insults of inferiority and stain on her as the byproduct and embodiment of that she hated. A living burden that tied her down to a family clan that did nothing else but mock her.
But that changed.
Suddenly one day, while her mother was hysterically screaming and cursing the old hag within the confines of their home, a stray curse wandered in.
She remembered what it looked like.
At the time she was patting her sister’s back, trying to turn invisible in the midst of her mother’s rage as she did her utmost to not earn her ire. Her younger sister, a toddler barely learning how to walk, cried incessantly at the loud banging and clashing of pots and pans as they were flung about the house.
The clanging stopped briefly as the air chilled and silenced; a grotesque hand of oozing purple goop clutched at the hallway corner.
A cry broke out. Her sister.
Loud gurgling sounds rang out as her mother desperately avoided looking at the monster as to not warrant its attention as one that can perceive it.
But she didn’t know better.
The curse had several green eyes embedded in the goop of mess that constituted its body and it let out a warbling bellow as all those eyes narrowed in to meet hers in a chilling stare.
It took a step forth.
She held her breath as she continued to stare at it with an intense fear.
It began to approach her rapidly.
And she remembered begging in her mind for it to stop. She didn’t want it to approach her anymore.
It stopped.
Not much was remembered after that as adults came and well-qualified sorcerers took care of the curse that was just frozen in place.
She had passed out by then and woke up to a new world that was unbelievably scary and confusing. A new world of just so many expectations.
This sudden twisting change from being viewed as less than trash to invaluable gold crushed and suffocated her.
From cultivating this new skill, surpassing some “Gojo Satoru”, shoving it in her grandmother’s face, and so, so, much more. It was dizzying. Nauseating.
One misstep signaled Armageddon. One pause meant weakness. One tear was failure.
As she sat on the bus bench in the lonely countryside, her breaths felt labored like she had to push a stone brick weighing several tons off her chest a few millimeters so that she didn’t suffocate under its weight.
Her promotion isn’t too far away. She was a semi-grade 1 at the moment and was handling missions smoothly and effectively. It’s only a matter of time before it will all be over.
The road was dull and illuminated with the yellowed lights of the street lamp.
Her thoughts traversed back to the events of present day back at the school.
There was buzz on things happening back at the school, but she had not had the chance to listen in on the details of the news. The Sister Exchange event would have happened around now. She’s missed it now unfortunately, but she thought that she had heard something about the first years being roped in to fill in the third year’s vacancy and they did well enough. What was interesting that she had regrettably missed out on hearing more about was the first year student, Itadori Yuuji, who was apparently the vessel for Sukuna, the King of Curses.
She wondered if he was feeling as burdened as she was. He probably had heavy expectations too.
Footsteps were heard and a strange presence of cursed energy lurked nearby on the road.
Senses were heightened as she pulled away from her mind’s musing to hone in on the present at hand.
There was one curse. No. Three.
Her eyes followed the curved line of the road to where it bent behind some trees, and she saw three shadows walking along it without much caution or care.
A chill went down her spine. The combined auras was overwhelming. They were at least a grade higher than hers— at least Grade 1, but it would seem that all three could very well be Special Grade curses.
There shouldn’t be a cluster of special grade curses like this.
While there shouldn’t be, she did recall hearing about the strange events and appearances of strong, special grade curses with a sentience recently.
She hoped that this wouldn’t be the case.
The first one out of the shadows was a man. He looked extremely tired with prominent purple rings around his eyes and an odd rectangular stripe across his nose. He wore baggy pants and a loose, long sleeved shirt paired with a series of black sashes wrapping around his waist, shoulders, and neck. As he walked, his wild, messy, black hair tied into two prominent bunches on his head flounced around.
He took up physical space and appeared human if it were not for the immensely crushing amount of cursed energy that shrouded around him like a dense fog.
His other two companions slowly came into view. The other two were definitively curses. One was turquoise with a hunched back. It had a prominent mouth on its middle that dripped blood and a humanoid husk of a face where its head would have been.
The other held similar form but significantly more humanoid. In the center of the abdomen was a pair of red eyes and a smaller mouth. This curse was flesh colored with a more defined human form and a similar deformed humanoid head on the top.
“Nii-san, is she the one we were supposed to be looking for?” The turquoise one spoke seemingly to the most human of the group.
“That’s right.” His voice was low in timbre with a strange sense of calm and echo to it. “That amount of cursed energy and presence... It’s most definitely the relative of Satoru Gojo that we were supposed to find.”
Her breath was caught in her chest.
They were most definitely Special-grade curses. Beyond their appearances in taking physical form through some sort of manifestation, they were sentient and individually held a tremendous amount of cursed energy.
What was worse was that their target was her.
If it was simply one, then she may have handled alright against a special grade with some collateral damage, but against three her odds of victory were slim.
There wasn’t a chance to escape with the three of them having locked onto her like this, and even if she did manage to, she would most definitely return as a failure sorcerer who flaked when faced with what her purpose in life should be.
There wasn’t a choice.
She breathed out.
The wind blowing calmly around her as the three curses continued their approach lulled her into an odd sense of tranquility to brace her for what was to come.
The fight was here.