Chapter Text
Utahime sighed heavily. Shoko was right, this was the worst she had ever seen Satoru Gojo.
Most who knew of Gojo would never have been able to spot it. He stood in the doorway of his penthouse in Tokyo, grinning a bit as he cocked his head to the side. He seemed still dedicated to that aloof jackass performance he loved to put on, but Utahime noticed his hair was a bit too long and sticking out in several places, his hands were curved into tight fists, his once magnificent blue eyes now dulled to a matte gray.
Satoru Gojo was a hot mess.
Utahime rolled her eyes at some needle he tried to stick her with, but even the words that were intended to prick her pride felt dull to both their ears. That's when she saw a bit of his mask fall. His handsome but tired face showed stress lines that reminded her of poor Ijichi.
It was not a good look for Satoru Gojo.
She brushed past him, knowing she wasn’t exactly invited in. He wouldn’t let anyone inside, but if she was going to get through to him, she needed push through him and his defenses. He needed someone to stay with him, and that started with getting through the front door.
She looked around his apartment as he paused, still facing out the door she just pushed through. His apartment was scarce. Cold and clean, except for a bunch of unopened sweets spread out about his kitchen counter. She recognized it as the get-well gifts from students, friends, and even some of the more empathetic members of his own clan. She saw a card that bore the signatures of his mother and father in the trash.
The door closed behind her, and she looked back at him. His smile had faded into that scowl he gave when he was defensive and angry. She knew that he had the emotional control of a toddler and was pretty sure that he avoided attending the Tokyo campus because of it. That and his inability to face his students.
He had seemed so relieved when he realized Megumi was okay, or at least not dead. Yuji and the students had fought, even Yuta had realized his own potential when he took over the Six Eyes. Gojo’s body had been used as a weapon, even if he was not the one piloting it. It was a miracle, a true testament to Shoko’s ability as a medical sorcerer, that his body lasted long enough for Yuta to use it. After the battle his body fell apart, ripped asunder by his own residual power. It tore so deeply that even after his brain got transported back to his own body, his cursed energy leaked out so fast that no one could catch it, and his body remained empty since then. No power. No Blue or Red or especially Purple. Gojo was weak for the first time in his life. A broken sword, still revered for its past, but put on the shelf as a useless antique.
But worse than any of that, Satoru Gojo was as blind as a nonsorcerer.
Utahime stared into his dull gray eyes, her heart broken for him. “Don’t look at me like that,” his tone was light, but the last word was almost hissed. Instead of responding to his veiled annoyance, she turned and walked to his couch. She noticed that there was a blanket and pillow on it. He had been sleeping out here. He had been sleeping. She glanced to see a bunch of dvds scattered across the floor in front of his TV. She walked over to them and started to gather up the disks haphazardly thrown on the carpet. She found the matching cases and gently put them inside. Gojo may be angry now, but Utahime knew how much these movies meant to him. They provided noise where there was now silence. A sharp, annoyed click of his tongue had her turning her head once more to him.
“What are you doing here, Utahime?” The strangeness of his uncovered gray eyes still unsettled her.
“Checking on you,” She answered simply, knowing that the truth would needle him more than any excuse with which she could use. The lines on his face deepened as his smile became more sarcastic.
“What, making sure little ol’me was still kicking?” His voice was now just bitter. He dropped all of his pretense, giving her a cold look that even chilled her to her bones. Well, at least he could still do his Jekyll and Hyde mood switch.
“I want to go out with you,” Utahime noticed her voice was much more calm than her heart at this moment, which was twisted with his pain.
His pretend smile quirked back up. “Not in the mood, but if you want to see what the bedroom looks like…” he trailed off, pointing his thumb to a closed door down the long hallway.
“Okay.” His mouth dropped at her acceptance, her eyes never leaving his. He backpedalled.
”I was just joking.”
“I wasn’t.”
His gray eyes remained cold. Any other time, he would have picked her up and ran her to the nearest cushion, stripping them before any other words could ruin the chance. But not this time, his chest completely empty, the tingle of power that was supposed to be buzzing at the base of his spine was completely still. Again he asked, “Why are you here, Utahime?”
“I told you,” she said, “I’m here to check on you and get you out of this-” she gestured around his penthouse, “prison.”
He scoffed. “Don’t be dumb.” He sat unceremoniously on his couch, not even bothering to move his blanket from below him. “I’m fine.”
“Shoko says you haven't been to the school in weeks.” He shrugged. “And Ijichi says you haven’t called for a car since your last meeting with Gakuganji.” The one, in which she doesn’t mention, he stormed out within minutes of arriving, not even noticing he stalked right past her. There were rumors of the reasons: failed treatments for his condition, the wisdom of keeping him in the still volatile jujutsu world, the talk of retirement. The weapon was broken, and their society had no interest in the man who freed it from the bondage of the foolish elders himself.
Satoru Gojo was nothing but a dull blade, useless for the tiniest of jobs. He couldn’t even see a curse anymore. Although he despised that others saw him as a weapon, the thought of not being that weapon scared him to his core. Without the curse of being the strongest, he was nobody.
Satoru Gojo was lost.
Utahime finished organizing his stack of dvds on his coffee table in alphabetical order and stood. She strode to him to stop right in front of him. Her soft eyes looked down into Gojo’s hard ones. “I said stop looking at me like that.” She did not capitulate to him. Instead she lowered herself into her seiza, not quite between his knees, but close enough that he automatically shifted to give her more room. She looked up to him in her lowered position, almost intimate if his loss wasn’t as thick as the infinity that used to exist between them.
“I want to help you.” The corner of his lips ticked downward.
“Why the fuck would I want that?” She ignored the sting of his words. A vision of an injured, scared animal lashing out flashed in her brain.
Utahime shook her head. “I know you don’t, but I want to help you.”
His knee started to bounce. “And I know you heard. I am all out of cursed energy. The connection in my body is gone. There is nothing anyone can do.”
“I didn’t come to help you with that.” His expression froze as she continued. “I came because I miss you. We all do.” His face twisted into some type of emotion, and she looked down towards her hands to give him a slight feeling of privacy.
It took a moment for him to respond. “I don’t care.”
“Yes, you do.” Suddenly she jumped back to her feet as he jumped to his. She had expected him to square up, to get into her face, to spew some hateful incantations that were designed to rip her soul asunder. He had never done that to her before, but she knew he was capable of it. Instead, though, Gojo started to stalk around the apartment, looking everywhere but at her. She could see his eyes straining only to see nothing but his darkened apartment.
She sighed, but let him continue his pouty pacing as she folded the blanket on the couch and set it on the arm. She fluffed the pillow before placing it on top of the blanket. Gojo, retaining at least his physical fitness, appeared out of nowhere. “Stop cleaning.” She shook her head.
“You need help, Satoru,” Utahime quietly declared. He paused when she said his name, his brain suddenly realizing she was standing in his apartment wearing leggings underneath shorts, her large shirt hanging off one shoulder as she scooped up his shoes and walked over to place them by his front door. She picked up a large bag he hadn’t noticed, to his immediate frustration, she had deposited by the door. He followed her and, a bit too roughly, pulled back on her arm. Noticing his mistake instantly, he dropped his hand, but she turned her body towards him anyway, not even flinching.
She would face the wraith of Satoru Gojo, the man, not the weapon, and she would still be here when he couldn’t hide behind his anger anymore. She was strong enough to carry him through to the next stage of life, even if it meant that she would be destroyed afterward. The memory of his body, cut through this torso, his viscera gathering dirt and rocks as it poured from its cavity, made her almost gag. Only in that moment did she ever feel true sorrow. Her body had already been spent from the Solo Forbidden Area, but never did she expect her heart to shatter as she felt his cursed energy leave his body.
She wanted to get back up, to dance once more, if not for Gojo, for Shoko who was doing her damndest to keep everyone alive. But Gakuganji held her back down. She would have ripped herself apart, and no one needed that on this battlefield. He put her to sleep, not letting her see what happened to him afterwards, a somewhat merciful look written across his face as her vision went dark. She never saw Gojo’s body being used by Yuta, never saw Sukuna meet his end, never saw the stitches in Gojo’s head. By the time she had woken up, Shoko had healed Gojo’s body enough that his organs came back online, his nerves reattached, the scars on his body disappearing except for the large one spanning his stomach and arms.
They had revived Gojo after keeping his brain safely in Yuta’s body, Shoko and her team continually using RCT to keep it fresh. They had all watched as Gojo’s lungs painfully filled up, his body burning with life as he tried to open his eyes and see. He did see, but everything was all at once too bright and dull. They rushed him back to the medical ward of Jujutsu High, but Gojo never fully recovered. He waited, not patiently, testing his nonexistent powers every moment. At first he was in high spirits, but the longer it took, the less visitors he wanted to see. Then came the news that he had been released from the hospital. No one but Shoko, Ijichi, and Utahime knew where he went. Everyone else who knew where Gojo would retreat to were dead.
The three kept it that way, Ijichi delivering food and gifts from his friends daily, Shoko calling on him once in a while to keep tabs on his healing, but Utahime had stayed away. She was unable to face him, her love for the man whom she hated suddenly shining brighter than any other emotion in her world.
Satoru Gojo’s world had just gone dark, just in time for her to notice the light in hers.
Finally, it was Shoko’s uncharacteristic tears that had convinced Utahime to go to him. She begged Utahime to heal Gojo in a way medicine could not. Utahime had long known that Gojo was interested in her. He wasn’t exactly coy when it came to his attraction to her. But Gojo had never been one who was interested in a relationship. She had seen him with several women after he had graduated and lived as a full time sorcerer, his base of operations the same penthouse in which he had holed himself up after Shinjuku.
She hadn’t seen him a lot in those early years, save for the one or two missions that overlapped with his own. He had been insufferable but distant, never the same since Geto had left. But then it was announced he would become a teacher at Jujutsu High. Not an advanced professor, but a first year teacher, a recruiter in some sense. He had all but abandoned his empty apartment for the humdrum of campus life. Gojo had come back into himself: crude, rude, and unapologetic, but caring, protective, and quietly calculating. He had worked closely with her to plan blended-missions, exchange events, and even asked her once or twice about her thoughts of a new student’s abilities. He was filled with life and hope, a version of himself she hadn’t glanced since Geto left. Even when he crashed the campus in Kyoto during the holiday season, his hands still wet with his best friend’s blood, his bright blue eyes shining with loss, he never gave up on his own mission to free the world from old tradition and prejudices.
When Yuji fell head-first into the jujutsu world, Gojo had been almost gleeful. His excitement was obvious even if he tripped over his words telling her his plans for the future. She had hung up on him, irritated that he called her during her teaching period, a fact of which she knew he was aware. She had silenced her phone only to turn and meet a bright blue eye staring at her from under a blindfold, the rest of the class gasping with his sudden arrival. She cancelled class before he had a chance to take over and her students wisely left as Gojo started chatting exactly where he left off on her phone.
Now she openly stared at the man before her, and his gray eyes turned even darker with warning. He somehow knew, maybe instinctively, why she was here. He was not someone to be coddled, to be comforted like a child. He had never needed nor wanted that attention. Still Utahime was there. She would let him take everything out on her. If he needed to scream and curse her, she would listen and forgive. If he sat in gloomy silence for days, she would be around, not too close to force the issue, but just close enough for him to notice she was there. If he were to pick her up and take her to his room, she would welcome his use of her body, finding some comfort in her embrace. Utahime didn’t care if he would drop her as soon as he was back on his feet, moving on with his life but not with her.
Utahime was going to save Satoru Gojo.