FreddySZN
patreon
CE 90
🕑 Added 2025-08-10 22:30:01 +0000 UTCAn interrogation room was not something you regularly saw in a school; however, Tokyo Jujutsu High was the farthest thing from a regular sch
An interrogation room was not something you regularly saw in a school; however, Tokyo Jujutsu High was the farthest thing from a regular school. Satoru and Jiki stepped into the barrier-secured holding chamber deep beneath the school and were greeted by the sight of a single figure.
Uraume sat in silence, legs crossed, body bound by layers of seals and suppression talismans.
Satoru cracked his knuckles for effect as they got in range, while Jiki simply rolled his neck. Only then did the white-haired woman raise her head to stare at them with fire in her eyes, eyes that spoke of religious fervor. A curious thing for Jiki to observe.
While they had been in a hurry to see Shoko, Uraume had been left behind. Luckily for them, she had already been wrapped and bound by seals and suppression talismans. Kusakabe and Mei Mei had followed up by keeping a watchful eye on her. They couldn't risk another sneak attack like what former principal Gakuganji had pulled off, even if it was to rescue the trapped woman.
"It's been a few days, Uraume-chan," Satoru said cheerfully. "I don't suppose you've had a change of heart over things."
Uraume scowled in response, her gaze flickering from Satoru to Jiki and back to Satoru.
"Do you truly believe that I would ever willingly betray him?" she said coldly.
There was something about her intonation that drew Jiki's curiosity, even if his cousin didn't see it. There was a particular weight to the 'Him' she mentioned. Enough to make Jiki suspect that she wasn't just talking about Kenjaku.
So Jiki replied in Satoru's stead, taking a small walk around her, forcing her to turn her head to track him until Satoru moved to the other side. Seeing his intentions without communication and copying him, Satoru forced Uraume to rapidly turn her head both ways as she tried to keep track of the two Gojos.
"You mentioned you didn't want me to stop the revival of your lord. Who were you talking about?"
Uraume's lips curled in the faintest flicker of unease as her composure fractured for the briefest moment. Just a flicker of tension in her jaw, a slight tightening around her eyes. But it was enough. Jiki caught it. Satoru, ever observant behind the blindfold, did too.
The two Gojos circled her like twin storms, their presence oppressive, their silence more unnerving than any threat. Uraume's breathing hitched as she strained against the seals binding her, but the suppression talismans held firm.
"You're wasting your time," she hissed, though the edge in her voice lacked its previous conviction.
Jiki stopped directly in front of her, his Sharingan locking onto hers. "Kenjaku has already lost," he started conversationally. "He's scrambling and desperate. But you?" He tilted his head. "You don't strike me as someone who follows a sinking ship."
Satoru leaned in from the side, his grin sharp. "Unless, of course, you're not really following Kenjaku at all."
Uraume's fingers twitched, her nails digging into her palms. Jiki stepped forward again, slowly, stopping just in front of her. Her pale eyes locked with his. His own spun, the Sharingan flickered once beneath his bangs. Just enough to see the twitch in her expression, the tightening around her mouth.
Not fear.
Anticipation.
"Your heart rate spiked," he murmured. "Your pupils contracted."
He leaned in, voice lower now as he pressed further. "That lord you mentioned earlier. Was it Sukuna?"
A beat of silence. Then Uraume laughed. A low, chilling sound that echoed in the sterile room. "You think you understand anything?" She lifted her chin, defiance burning in her gaze. "The King of Curses does not bow to the whims of lesser beings. And neither do I."
Jiki and Satoru didn't bother with something as mundane as exchanging a glance. They were too in sync for that. Instead, they took note of it as Jiki started walking once more, allowing Satoru to take his place.
One Gojo unreadable, the other unshakeable in his strength and confidence. They destabilized her by switching between the two personas too fast for her to get accustomed to either voice.
"So it is Sukuna," Satoru mused, rubbing his chin. "Interesting. And here I thought you were just Kenjaku's lackey."
Uraume's lips curled into a sneer at the word lackey. "Kenjaku is no master of mine. That leech is simply a means to an end. One architect in the grand design."
Jiki's eyes narrowed. "And what design would that be?"
She fell silent again, realizing she had spoken more than she should have, but the damage was done. The revelation hung heavy in the air. Uraume's loyalty wasn't to Kenjaku. It never had been.
Satoru clapped his hands together, his tone mockingly cheerful. "Well! This just got a whole lot more complicated, but it doesn't change anything. It simply highlights what we already know."
Jiki crossed his arms, nodding in agreement, his expression impassive. "If Sukuna's revival is truly in play, then we've got bigger problems than just Kenjaku."
Uraume's smirk returned, slow and knowing. "You have no idea what's coming."
Satoru's grin didn't waver, but his voice dropped to a dangerous murmur. "Oh, we'll see about that."
"Where is Itadori Yuji?"
Uraume's eyes widened in surprise. Which was a curiosity in itself. Was Uraume not aware of that part of the plan, or was she simply feigning ignorance?
"I don't know who tha—"
"Lie," Jiki stated impassively, and the woman's face snapped to meet him. Once more, pale eyes met swirling red and black. Once more, Jiki tried to slip his genjutsu into her, but whatever gave her the bravery to meet his eyes also prepared her because she constantly rebuffed him.
Uraume's straight face faltered for a fraction of a second, just long enough for Jiki to confirm his suspicion.
She knew something.
Satoru tilted his head, his blindfolded gaze boring into her as if he could peel back her thoughts with sheer will. "Now, now, Uraume-chan," he chided, voice dripping with false sweetness. "Lying to us? After we've been so nice?"
At least in comparison to the previous person they interrogated, Jiki reasoned internally.
Jiki didn't blink, his Sharingan spinning steadily, dissecting every microexpression. Her pulse was steady, her breathing controlled. Too controlled. She was forcing calm, which meant she was truly trained against mental intrusions.
Uraume exhaled sharply through her nose, her composure returning like ice reforming over a cracked surface. "I have no reason to lie," she said coolly. "Itadori Yuji is irrelevant to me."
Jiki's eyes narrowed.
Lie.
But before he could press further, Satoru cut in, his tone shifting from playful to razor-edged. "I find that hard to believe considering he's the only vessel shown to be strong enough to contain Sukuna's presence." He leaned in, his voice dropping to a whisper. "And if you're really loyal to the King of Curses, then you'd know exactly where he is, or where Kenjaku would've taken him."
Uraume's fingers twitched again, her nails biting deeper into her palms.
Jiki seized the moment. "You are not sure where Kenjaku took him," he realized aloud. "But you know why he's missing."
A flicker in her gaze, all the confirmation they needed.
Satoru's grin widened, but there was no humor in it now. "Ohhh, this is good. So Kenjaku's keeping secrets from you too?" He tsked. "And here I thought you two were best friends."
Uraume's jaw tightened. "Kenjaku's plans are his own. My faith lies elsewhere."
"Faith?" Jiki repeated, testing the word.
Her lips curled, something almost fanatical glinting in her eyes. "The golden age of sorcery will return by his will, and when it does, he will return and he will reign."
Satoru and Jiki exchanged a silent thought. She's waiting for Sukuna's return. And if she didn't know where Yuji was, that meant Kenjaku was working on something separate. Something even his allies weren't fully privy to.
Jiki stepped back, crossing his arms. "Then tell us this. If you don't know where Yuji is, what do you know?"
"I know that your struggle is futile. I know that the moment he incarnates in full, you will all be crushed, and I promise you this."
She stared at them, speaking with conviction... no, not conviction. Devotion. Mad, absolute, fanatic devotion. It was enough to let Jiki know that they would not retrieve anything useful from her, even via conventional interrogation. She reminded him of some Jashin worshippers he had encountered in another life.
"His return is predestined," she finished with that mad, fanatical gleam in her eyes.
Jiki walked forward once more and crouched, resting on his haunches, chin in hand as he stared at her. All too suddenly, he was once again reminded of Yoruzu. He knew they were the same, reincarnated sorcerers possessing and overriding the body of their host.
The major difference was how far along they were. Unlike Yoruzu, Uraume was completely in control. As he stared into her, past her skin, muscle, and bone, down to the very quintessence of her being, her cursed energy. He could tell that nothing remained of the original owner of the body.
Whoever she was, she was long gone, maybe years ago. And in that time, Uraume had sunk her hooks in deeper than it was worth to remove. For all that mattered, this was her body, and she might as well have been born with it, which meant that, unlike Yoruzu, who had been roughly pushed into the body of a cursed corpse and was forced to rapidly acclimatize the body to her cursed energy, Uraume had no such... condition.
Jiki let out the barest hint of a smile, and the edge of his lips twitched. From behind him, he could hear Satoru burst out into a boisterous laugh like he could sense the thought running through Jiki's mind. Meanwhile, Uraume flinched, unable to understand what was going on, not that it mattered. Trapped and bound as she was, there was nothing she could do to resist him.
"Do it," Satoru called out behind him.
"Tsukuyomi."
x
Uraume woke up from a strange dream. She could hardly remember the details, but as she stood up from her bed in a shrine she had crafted by hand over months in dedication to her lord, she didn't bother to hold on to the last strands of the dreams. Instead, she allowed them to dissipate into the fog of wakefulness as she began to clean up.
She went from taking a quick bath as well as absolution, followed by prayers. Her former prayers to the gods had been twisted, their focus realigned to center more on her Lord. Then she shifted to dusting the shrine. The handcrafted frozen statue of her two-faced and four-armed lord did not need it, however she did it anyway.
The shrine was deep in the cursed forest of Aokigahara. Secluded from even the machinations of Kenjaku and his twisted curse spirit he manipulated like a puppet. The building was completely hers and was treated as such, which was why the sudden cursed energy signature she could feel from behind her froze her.
There was a monstrous presence slowly approaching from behind her. Towering in power, radiant in strength. Familiar in feeling. She spun around, eyes wide and ecstasy alight on her face.
Sukuna.
But it was not the Sukuna she remembered. His form was draped in the same pale white imperial robes stained with ash she remembered, just like when he had returned after decimating the twelve court guards. His arms hung limp at his sides. He stopped outside her shrine, features carved and expressing nothing but boredom.
His eyes, those endless, cruel eyes, glanced around the shrine, her place of worship and veneration of him, without any care. They roved around the statues, the mandalas, the paintings, and the poems, before finally landing upon her. The familiar look in his eyes, where he looked at her like she were nothing more than dust. It sent a thrill down her spine.
"...My Lord," she whispered, falling to her knees, forehead pressed to the cold ground. "You've returned. I... I waited. I served. I..."
"Uraume," Sukuna said, and the tone froze her mid-sentence. There was no affection in it. Not even disdain, not that she expected one. Unlike most, she knew her place. She was a tool. One he wielded as he wished. However, she didn't care. She devoted herself to him all the same. No, what sent a pang down her chest was the lack of recognition. The disinterest. What had she done?
How did he return?
"You disappoint me."
She jerked up in response, vague worries discarded and thrown to the wind the moment she heard that voice. "What? No... no, I have done everything for you! I killed, I waited, I endured the age of monkeys..."
"Then tell me, Uraume..." He cut her short, that same imperious and uncaring look in his eyes. "Why do you keep secrets from your king?"
She froze. "Secrets?"
He walked forward. His presence was as towering as ever. He crossed the entrance to the shrine. If he were anyone else, she would have taken the person's leg the moment it passed the threshold, yet here she remained, on her knees and frozen on the spot as he stopped just before her, looming over her. "Kenjaku's scheming."
Her breath caught in her throat.
"I... my lord... he is nothing to me. A pawn. I only followed him to serve you."
"And yet," Sukuna growled, "you kept his schemes hidden even from me. Did you fear I would not approve? Did you think to play god behind my back?"
Uraume shook her head violently, confused. What was happening? She would never. She had to explain. "No, never...! I didn't..."
He took another step, and he was so close, she knew if he took another step towards her, he would crush her beneath his feet, yet she knew, even if he took that step, she would remain unflinching and bear the brunt of her unwavering loyalty on her very body. "You fear his wrath more than mine. You trust him more than you do me."
Uraume's face contorted in panic. "That's not true! I followed every plan you left behind, your resurrection, the Prison Realm, the Culling Games. I gathered every enemy the Honored One made in this life, even sought Kenjaku's counsel with spirits any sane soul would never approach.
I carried out his madness too, went along with his scheme to rewrite the very laws of cursed energy, to redefine the nature of jujutsu itself. We would merge with Tengen, forcibly evolve the world, and turn all of Japan into a single cursed womb.
Yes, some of it was derailed by that accursed Gojo... but all of it, every step, was to pave the way for your return! I swear it!"
Sukuna raised a single hand, an uncaring gesture, and with a flick of his fingers, obliterated her left arm. Bone, flesh, and blood vanished in an instant. Uraume's face twisted with pain and shock, yet she didn't flinch or move from her spot. Instead, she stared back into his eyes, even as her blood dripped from her missing appendage, soaking the ground.
"And my host, where is he?"
"I had no idea he planned to abduct the boy as well, but if he did, he should be here." She turned her head frantically for a hint of Itadori Yuji's cursed energy signature. "Somewhere here in the Aokigahara forest."
"There is no one else here but us, Uraume," Sukuna stated, the first true hint of displeasure covering his tone.
Her eyes widened in frantic shock as it suddenly came to her. The forest had been abandoned as bait to slow down and potentially stop that accursed Gojo, who still looked to the old gods, another threat to her lord's return. Which meant if Itadori Yuji was not here... Then it clicked. They had planned to meet up somewhere else.
"They might be at the Iya Valley deep in the uncharted mountains of Shikoku," she began. "Kenjaku claimed he helped hide the Heike clan survivors there after the Genpei War. Whatever remains of them, hidden as they are so deep in the gorge, would remember their debt to him. And it's so far and secluded, one of the few places that the vaunted Six Eyes can't peer into."
The words came out in a rush, like a torrent, as Uraume spoke and Sukuna listened.
x
The hospital smelled of bleach, plastic, and quiet dread.
Toji sat with one leg crossed over the other in a cracked vinyl chair that groaned every time he shifted his weight. The flickering fluorescent light above buzzed like a faint murmur. He leaned back, fingers steepled, and stared at the figure on the bed. Kong lay silent, unmoving, and lost in unconsciousness.
The machines beeped steadily. A dull rhythm proving life, but only just that. Proving he was still alive. Still fighting.
Kong had been like this for months. A result of his stubbornness and surprising loyalty. Toji didn't ask him to be so pig-headed. He should have given him up. Instead, he had become a casualty during Gojo Jiki's scouring of Japan in his mad search for Toji. This was back before alliances, before any understanding. Back when they had taken something the Gojos deemed valuable. Kong had been stupid enough to get in the way.
And now? The bastard was paying for it. Lying there, wired up like a corpse waiting to be told it was dead.
Toji ran a calloused thumb along the stubble on his jaw. The last nurse had told him recovery was possible, but unlikely. Something about how the brain wasn't simply damaged, at least not in a way that they could see. Instead, whatever was wrong was partially psychological in nature. The body still breathed, but the soul hadn't caught up.
The chair creaked again as he shifted forward.
"Idiot," he muttered, eyeing the IV line dangling from Kong's arm. "You were supposed to be smarter than me."
There was no answer, not that he actually expected one.
Toji pulled a small, crumpled paper packet from his jacket pocket and set it on the table beside the bed. Cheap cigarettes. The same brand Kong used to chain-smoke before every job.
"I still owe you a drink for Kyoto," Toji said flatly. "And for Fukuoka. And for Shikoku, twice. You won't be able to cash in on them if you keep sleeping, you bastard."
There was no reply from the thin figure under the bedsheets. Just the rhythm of machines pretending everything was fine.
Toji sighed and stood, cracking his neck. He hated hospitals. Hated the smell, the quiet, the lie that time could fix anything. And yet, he kept coming back.
Maybe out of guilt. Maybe out of boredom. Or maybe because sitting here was easier than admitting he didn't know how to move on without the one guy who actually had his back since he left that damned clan.
The room was quiet again.
He was halfway through reaching for his jacket when his phone buzzed.
Not the burner. That was reserved for side gigs. This was the personal line. Only a few people had the number, and only one of them had the gall to text this late without saying hello.
Toji raised an eyebrow and unlocked it.
Sender: Jiki Gojo
CC: Tsumiki Fushiguro
No formalities. Just coordinates, an objective, and a price.
Location: Iya Valley, Shikoku
Objective: Passive recon. Eyes only. No engagement unless hostile movement is confirmed.
Subject: Suspected ritual preparations. Possibly tied to Kenjaku or Sukuna.
Payment: Triple rate.
Toji stared at the screen for a long second. Then huffed. "Of course."
He leaned against the windowsill and gazed out at the cityscape. The hospital was on a hill so he could see the tops of buildings, the tiny dots of cars moving like ants. Somewhere out there, people were living their small lives, blissfully unaware of what stirred beneath the mountains.
And now the Iya Valley, huh?
Toji had been there once, years ago. The outskirts were tourist centers now and were used to funnel money back to mainland Japan. The interiors, however, were uncharted. Dense forest, narrow gorges, and rope bridges. It was a good place to hide something.
It would have been easier if Kong were awake. Recon worked best in pairs, especially in terrain like that. One to watch the path, one to watch your back. But Kong wasn't waking up. Not today. Maybe not ever. Toji pocketed the phone and looked back at him.
He walked over and adjusted the pillow under his partner's head. It was something pointless, something small. But it made him feel like he was doing something—anything—other than walking away again. Vulnerable. That was how he felt whenever he came here.
He tapped the side of Kong's bed lightly, once.
"Rest easy," he said under his breath. "I'll handle this one."
He pulled on his jacket, glanced once more at the still figure, then walked out the door without looking back. The phone slipped out of his pocket and back into his hands. He found the number he sought quickly and put the phone to his ear.
"Tsumiki, I trust you got the message as well... Good, let him know that I want something else as payment... A favor instead."
