The six months following the naming of my Stygian Eyes marked a subtle but profound shift in my life at Jujutsu High. I was no longer just Satoru's strange little sister, the toddler mascot of the second-years. My breakthrough had been a statement. The elders at the Gojo compound sent formal inquiries. Other students looked at me with a new mixture of fear and respect. I had gone from being a curiosity to being a recognized prodigy, a wielder of a unique Cursed Eye trait now whispered about in the same breath as the clan's sacred Six Eyes.
This new status afforded me a strange sort of privilege. My presence on lower-grade missions with the trio was no longer questioned; it was expected. It was on one such mission that the fragile peace of my new life felt most poignantly real.
The mission was a simple one: exorcise a cluster of Grade 3 curses that had infested an abandoned hospital on the outskirts of Tokyo. For Satoru and Geto, it was less a mission and more a leisurely afternoon stroll.
"I'll take the west wing, you take the east," Satoru said, stretching his arms over his head with a yawn. "First one to finish buys the victory crepes. Aki-chan, you're the referee."
"This isn't a competition, Satoru," Geto sighed, though a competitive glint shone in his eyes. He turned to me, placing a gentle hand on my head. "You stay with me, Aki. Don't wander off."
I nodded, my hand clutching the hem of his uniform pants. We walked through the decaying halls, the air thick with the smell of mold and the palpable miasma of Cursed Energy. A grotesque curse, something that looked like a tangle of rusted bedpans and despair, lunged at us from a darkened room. Before I could even flinch, Geto gestured lazily. A sinuous, dragon-like curse manifested from his shadow and devoured the lesser spirit in a single, silent gulp.
"See?" he said to me, his tone light and instructive. "The key to managing your collection is efficiency. Never use a cannon to kill a fly."
Later, we met Satoru in the dilapidated lobby. He was leaning against a wall, casually tossing a small, wailing curse into the air and letting it splat harmlessly against his Infinity before catching it again. "Took you long enough," he grinned. "I finished ten minutes ago. That's a strawberry-banana crepe with extra whipped cream, by the way."
"You probably just blew up the entire wing," Geto retorted, though he was smiling.
"Details, details," Satoru scoffed.
Watching them bicker, their power an effortless extension of their beings, a deep, aching sadness settled in my chest. They were so perfectly in sync, an unbreakable duo at the absolute peak of the jujutsu world. They were brilliant, arrogant, and so tragically unaware of the fracture lines already forming beneath their feet. They had no idea that their shared title of "The Strongest" would soon become a burden one could no longer bear, and a title the other would have to carry alone. This easy camaraderie, this perfect balance, had an expiration date. And I knew the exact day it would curdle.
The year was 2007. I was six years old. The Star Plasma Vessel mission was imminent.
My knowledge began to feel less like a gift and more like a cancer, eating away at me from the inside. Sleep offered little respite. My dreams were filled with flashes of what was to come: a girl with a school uniform and a bright smile, the echoing clap of a gunshot in an underground chamber, Satoru's bloodied form, and Geto's face, his expression utterly, devastatingly broken.
My demeanor changed. The quiet, observant child became withdrawn and tense. My training took on a new, frantic desperation.
"Again," I'd command the Cursed Corpse puppets Yaga-sensei had begrudgingly made for me to practice on. I'd spend hours in the training yards, long after Satoru's chaotic sessions had ended, practicing the precise synergy of my eyes and my technique. I'd drain my Cursed Energy reserves to the dregs, collapse into my futon, and wake up to do it all over again. I had to get stronger. I had to be ready. For what, I wasn't sure. To intervene? To protect? To simply survive the fallout? I didn't know. I just knew I couldn't remain a helpless spectator.
My desperation did not go unnoticed.
One afternoon, I was sitting on the engawa, trying to make a single leaf phase out of existence using the defensive application of my technique Satoru had dubbed [Hollow Form]. It was incredibly difficult, requiring me to imbue the leaf with the property of nothingness rather than erasing it outright. The leaf would flicker, becoming translucent for a moment before the effort became too much.
"You've been pushing yourself too hard."
I looked up. Geto was standing there, holding two cups of chilled barley tea. He sat down beside me, offering one to me. His presence was a stark contrast to Satoru's whirlwind energy; he was a calm, anchoring force.
"I need to be stronger," I said, my voice barely a whisper.
He watched me for a long moment, his dark eyes perceptive. "There's a difference between training to be strong and training like you're running from something, Aki. You've been… tense for weeks. Distant. Is something wrong? Did someone say something to you?"
Here it was. A door, opened by his concern. A chance to say something, anything. But what could I say? 'Your best friend is about to experience his first real failure and it's going to break him, and you're about to have a crisis of faith that will lead you to murder a village full of people?' He'd think I was insane, or that a curse was manipulating me.
I had to try. I chose the only path available to me: the guise of a child's fear.
"I had a bad dream," I said, looking down at my tea. It wasn't even a lie. "A really bad one. About you and Satoru-nii."
His posture softened immediately. "A nightmare? It's alright, Aki. They aren't real."
"This one felt real," I insisted, looking up at him, trying to pour all of my desperate sincerity into my crimson eyes. "You were on a mission. A big one. For a girl. And… something bad happened. Something you didn't expect."
He studied my face, a flicker of something—pity, perhaps, or genuine consideration—in his gaze. "Satoru and I are the strongest, Aki. There's nothing we can't handle."
"But what if it's someone you don't see coming?" I pressed, my voice small but urgent. "Someone who doesn't play by the rules? Someone… with no Cursed Energy at all?"
I had said too much. Geto's brow furrowed in confusion. A non-sorcerer? A threat? The idea was ludicrous to him. To any sorcerer. It was like a master swordsman being warned about an unarmed peasant.
"A monkey?" he asked him self, using the derogatory slang without thinking. He then seemed to catch himself, a flicker of distaste for his own words crossing his face. "Aki, a non-sorcerer cannot harm us. It's impossible."
Before I could argue, Satoru's voice cut through the air. "What's impossible? Nothing's impossible when you're me!" He dropped down from the roof above, landing silently beside us and snatching my cup of tea. "Ooh, barley tea!"
He took a long drink, then looked between my anxious face and Geto's contemplative one. "What's with all the serious faces? Did Aki-chan finally confess to putting salt in Yaga-sensei's coffee?"
"She had a nightmare," Geto explained, his gaze still on me.
Satoru laughed, a loud, booming sound. "A nightmare? Is that all? Worried about us, little sis? Don't be! There isn't a curse, a sorcerer, or anything else in this world that can touch me and Suguru. We're the strongest."
He said it with such absolute, unshakeable confidence. It was the core of his being. The dramatic irony was a physical weight in the air, a prophecy only I could hear. His confidence was the very thing that would blind him.
Two days later, the summons came.
Yaga-sensei called Satoru and Geto to his office. I was with Shoko in the infirmary, but I felt the shift in the air, the thrum of importance. I slipped away, hiding behind a large decorative pot down the hall from the office, my small size making me easy to overlook. The door was slightly ajar.
"...a special assignment directly from Tengen-sama himself," Yaga's voice was grave. "You are to escort the Star Plasma Vessel, a girl named Riko Amanai."
My blood ran cold. The names, the words—they were a death knell.
"Merge?" Geto's voice queried. "Her individuality will be lost in the merger?"
"That is the nature of it," Yaga confirmed. "The mission has two parts. First, ensure she reaches Tengen-sama safely. Second, defend against any and all forces who would seek to disrupt the merger. The two main threats are the Curse User Group Q, and the religious group, the Star Religious Association. Understand? The fate of the jujutsu world's stability rests on this."
"Got it," Satoru's voice was casual, almost bored. "A little babysitting mission. Sounds easy enough."
They emerged a moment later, Satoru with a cocky swagger, Geto with a more pensive expression. The weight of the mission, the erasure of a young girl's life, was already sitting on his shoulders.
I couldn't let them go like this. Not without one last, desperate attempt. That evening, as they prepared to depart, I found Geto alone, checking his inventory of Cursed Spirits.
"Suguru-nii."
He turned, and knelt to my level. "Aki. We're leaving now. Be good for Shoko."
"Please," I whispered, my voice thick with unshed tears. My small hands clenched into fists at my sides. "Please, be careful."
"We will," he said gently and pet my head.
"No, you don't understand!" My composure broke. "You can't underestimate anyone on this mission. Not the curse users, not the religious nuts… not even someone with no Cursed Energy. Promise me. Promise me you won't underestimate a them!"
My use of the slur, the desperation in my voice, finally seemed to pierce his calm. He stared at me, truly stared, seeing the raw, unchildlike terror in my eyes. He didn't understand it, but he could see that it was real.
"What's all this?" Satoru's voice interrupted as he rounded the corner, his bag slung over his shoulder. He saw my tear-streaked face and laughed. "Aki-chan, are you crying? Don't worry, we'll be back before you know it. And what's this about a them? We're the strongest! What's some loser with no Cursed Energy gonna do to us? Throw rocks?"
He ruffled my hair, completely dismissing my fears as a childish fantasy.
Geto, however, didn't laugh. He continued to look at me, his expression thoughtful. He eventually nodded slowly. "I promise, Aki. We will be careful. I'll keep what you said in mind."
It was the most I could hope for.
He and Satoru turned and walked down the long path leading away from the school grounds. Their silhouettes against the setting sun were tall, confident, and inseparable. They were the strongest, off to protect the world.
I stood there with Shoko, who had come to see them off, and watched them go. My heart felt like a lead weight in my chest. I had tried. I had planted the seed of warning. But I knew, with the cold, hard certainty of an unwanted oracle, that it wouldn't be enough.
They walked away, the two strongest boys in the world, striding confidently towards the day that would ruin them forever. And I, the girl who knew everything, could do nothing but pray I was wrong.