Chapter Text
The stranger arrived during the worst snowstorm on record in the past two decades.
He swept into the school like he owned it, exuding enough cursed energy to raze a city. Initially, they thought he had to be a special-grade cursed spirit. The staff had rapidly mobilized against him, before—many nonlethal blows later—they realizing he was in fact a human being. Just an inhumanely strong one.
And yet he was more than cooperative and entered a temporary hold without a word of complaint, despite having committed no crime but defending himself.
Who exactly this powerful stranger was, and how exactly he had gone unnoticed in sorcerer society for so long, occupied a good two weeks of debate between the principal and higher-ups. Eventually, unable to come up with a single reason to keep him in custody, they reluctantly released him.
The day the stranger stepped back out into the sun, Satoru ducked out of class (despite Suguru's disapproval) and beelined towards his direction to investigate. The air was cold and crisp. Light, fluffy clouds of snow parted easily around Satoru as he glided through the sky.
At this point in his education, he knew practically everyone in the small circle of jujutsu sorcerers. Strangers were rare curiosities, either having trained in isolation or coming in from overseas. This man, Satoru would later discover, turned out to be neither.
At the time, it had seemed likely that he was the former. He was Japanese, that odd hair color aside (not that Satoru was one to speak), and he walked with the wiry tension of one who’d been on his own, and been watching his own back, for a very long time. Perhaps he had emerged from the mountains, or the deserts, a wild man.
“Gojo-san,” the stranger said suddenly, without even looking up. “You can come down, you know. I won’t bite.”
Somehow, Satoru had been seen or sensed. He had to work on masking his own cursed energy better.
He drifted down from the sky and came to a stop just short of the ground. “Hello,” he said, flashing a blithe smile.
He didn’t question how the stranger knew his name. There wasn’t a jujutsu sorcerer alive who didn’t.
Satoru sized up the man: shorter than himself (most were), slender, in a baggy hooded jacket, maybe somewhere in his late twenties. And of course, those scars that bore the signature of cursed energy, the most prominent of which split right across his forehead and just touched the tip of his right eyebrow. Satoru wondered how strong the cursed spirit had to be, the one that had managed to leave a mark on that face. “What’s your name, stranger?”
“Itadori,” the stranger said. He looked to be sizing up Satoru right back, and not at all bothering to hide it either. His slow, considering gaze made Satoru's skin prickle. Perhaps it was the light, but his dark eyes seemed for a moment to gleam red. As deep a red as Satoru's were blue. Then, the moment passed and he smiled faintly back. “Nice to meet you.”
“You too, you too,” Satoru said, nodding impatiently. He had probably five minutes at most to satisfy his curiosity, before Yaga-sensei came back from his mid-class bathroom break. “Anyway, where are you from, Itadori-san? Why’d you come here?” He cocked his head. “How’d you get those scars on your face? And why’d you let those old idiots keep you locked up for so long?”
Unexpectedly, Itadori’s smile broadened at his rudeness. Not the typical response that Satoru received. “Somewhere very far away. Because I felt like it. None of your business. And because I don’t like hurting people.” He counted down four fingers. “Anything else?” His mouth quirked, stretching a starburst scar on the corner of his lip. “I’ll give you one more.”
What casual arrogance, Satoru thought. He felt a shiver of excitement run down his spine. This close, the sheer amount of cursed energy wafting off the man was intoxicating. Satoru let the space below him vanish and stepped down onto the paving stones. “Will you fight me?” he asked, not bothering to hide the hunger in his voice.
Itadori’s toothy smile suddenly took on a sharp edge.
”With pleasure,” he said.
-
“Oh, stop whining,” Suguru snapped, later that day. “You were the one who asked him. Why did you pick a fight with that guy anyway?”
Satoru had not made it back to the classroom before Yaga-sensei returned. "In my defense," Satoru had said, head throbbing from the blow he'd received. "You usually take much longer on the can. Are you eating more fiber these days, sensei?" That had earned him another blow.
He'd been put in detention, naturally. In fact, he was in detention for the next seven days straight. One, for skipping. Six for fighting with Itadori-san.
Unfortunately, there had been no hiding it. The explosions were heard all across campus.
Satoru slumped over his desk, groaning even louder just to piss Suguru off. "It huuurts, Sugu." The infuriating part was, Itadori had clearly been holding back, too. He had hardly used cursed energy. Hell, he hadn't even gotten out of breath.
To add insult to injury, Satoru had failed again to pull off Red. If only it had worked...at that critical moment in the fight, he'd stumbled with his energy. And within that miniscule window of time, Itadori had easily grabbed him by the neck and pinned him onto the ground. The impact knocked all the air out of his lungs. Thick clouds of dust and powdery snow swirled around them from the destroyed buildings, making Satoru cough.
"Okay, Gojo-san. I think that's enough for today," Itadori said cheerfully.
"No!" Satoru had so much more to give. He wriggled against Itadori but could not budge. Infuriatingly, Itadori even raised one hand to wipe a streak of dirt off his cheek, while keeping Satoru effortlessly held down with the other.
"Next time," Itadori had promised. And then, he was gone.
Satoru had laid there for a while after Itadori left. The stones were so cold behind his back. Everything hurt. And the blue sky above had been beautiful.
The same sky was now streaked with pink and orange as the sun approached the horizon.
"I need a rematch," Satoru said aloud.
"No, Satoru," Suguru snapped. "What you need is to keep your head down in classes and do your missions like a good boy. Yaga-sensei is already having daily conniptions over your nonsense."
"Suguru, you don't understand." Satoru widened his eyes, gesticulated with his hands. "Fighting that guy felt so amazing." His eyes glazed over as he remembered a particularly good punch on top of which Itadori had stacked a delayed blow of cursed energy, knocking him halfway across campus. He hadn't been hit that hard in a long time.
"Oh no, no, no, stop this right now," Suguru said, snapping his fingers. "You are not getting obsessed with this random guy we know nothing about."
"What?" Satoru refocused his eyes on Suguru's scowling face. "Why not?" he drawled. "Are you jealous?"
Suguru choked. "In your dreams, idiot."
Satoru bobbed his head thoughtfully. "Actually, you do feature very prominently in my dreams." He waggled his eyebrows. "Just the other night–"
"Enough. I'm done with you." Suguru's ears flushed red and he swept dramatically out of the classroom, leaving Satoru once again alone with his thoughts.
Itadori would do well to watch his back. Satoru would get him next time.