The world did not stop turning.
That was the cruelest, most baffling lesson in the aftermath of our return from the dead. Despite the cataclysm that had shattered our small universe, the sun continued to rise, missions continued to be assigned, and the mundane world trundled on, blissfully unaware. For me, life settled into a new, fragile, and deeply fractured routine.
Satoru, true to his word, had taken care of everything regarding the Fushiguros. He had paid off their father's debts with a flick of his wrist, and with a single, intimidating visit to the Zen'in compound, had ensured they would never bother Megumi again. The story of how he'd made the clan elders back down was already becoming a legend at Jujutsu High, another testament to his terrifying new power. He set Megumi and his stepsister, Tsumiki, up in a comfortable apartment in Tokyo, with a generous stipend that would cover all their needs. He was, from a distance, the perfect benefactor.
He was also, now, my warden. His overprotectiveness, born from a deep, festering guilt, was absolute. Where he had once been a chaotic force of freedom, he was now a vigilant keeper. My training was more structured, my diet monitored, my location almost always known to him. And twice a week, every week, he would take me from the isolated, curse-haunted grounds of Jujutsu High to the Fushiguros' apartment. He called it "socialization." I knew what it really was: him trying to give me a sliver of the normalcy he had inadvertently helped destroy, and a way to keep all his wards in one, easily observable place.
These visits became the anchor of my new life. They were a study in contrasts. My days at Jujutsu High were spent in silent, lonely training, honing my control over Black and White, or sitting with Shoko in the quiet infirmary. My only other peer at the school was Panda, Principal Yaga's "child," who was now about my size. We had a strange, silent friendship. I would practice my techniques on training dummies, and he would practice his wrestling moves, sometimes using me as a surprisingly durable grappling partner. We were two monstrous children, learning how to control our unnatural abilities in the shadow of a school full of ghosts.
But then came the afternoons with Megumi and Tsumiki. Stepping into their small, sunlit apartment felt like crossing into another dimension. Tsumiki, a year older than us, was a beacon of pure kindness. She seemed to have an endless wellspring of warmth that she showered on her quiet younger brother and, by extension, on me. She showed no fear of my crimson eyes, only curiosity. She'd try to teach me how to braid my long black hair, her fingers gentle and patient. She'd share her snacks, insist I watch her favorite magical girl anime, and treat me, for a few precious hours, like a normal seven-year-old girl.
For me, Tsumiki was a painful, beautiful reminder of the world Geto was beginning to despise. She was the best of the "monkeys," a person whose inherent goodness made his growing prejudice feel like a profound betrayal.
My bond with Megumi was different. It was a thing of silence and stillness. We were two old souls in children's bodies. We didn't need to talk much. We could spend an entire afternoon in his room, him reading a book about animals, me practicing the delicate task of making a single grain of rice hover an inch off the table with a micro-application of Cursed Energy. We were equals. He never looked at me with the awe or fear that the Jujutsu High students did. I wasn't a miracle or a weapon to him. I was just Aki. And to me, he wasn't the future vessel of the Ten Shadows Technique or the son of the Sorcerer Killer. He was just Megumi, the quiet boy who loved his sister more than anything else in the world.
One afternoon, we were sitting on the apartment's small balcony. Tsumiki was inside, humming as she did her homework. A low-grade curse, a gnat-like thing born from the mild anxieties of the apartment complex, buzzed near Megumi's head. He frowned, swatting at it uselessly.
I sighed, not even looking up from my book. I lifted a single finger, focused a minuscule thread of my will, and whispered the name of my technique internally. 'Black.'
The gnat-curse didn't pop or dissolve. It just… ceased to be.
Megumi blinked, then looked at me. He didn't look shocked or scared. He just nodded, a silent acknowledgment of the strange reality we shared. "Thanks," he muttered, and went back to his book.
That was our friendship. An easy, unspoken acceptance of the abnormal. He was the only person in the world with whom I didn't feel like a complete anomaly.
But this fragile normalcy was a thin sheet of ice over a deep, dark, and freezing ocean. And the ice was beginning to crack.
Geto's decline was accelerating. He still fulfilled his duties, but he moved like a man walking in his sleep. The chasm between him and Satoru had become a permanent fixture of their existence. They no longer spoke unless a mission required it. The title of "The Strongest" was now solely Satoru's, and Geto was left to grapple with his own identity in its absence.
One day, I was leaving the Fushiguros' apartment with Geto, who had been tasked by a busy Satoru to pick me up. Tsumiki had given me a big hug goodbye, making me promise to come over for her birthday next month. As we walked down the street, Geto was unusually quiet.
He looked back at the apartment building, his expression unreadable. "She's a kind girl," he said, his voice flat. "Tsumiki."
"She is," I agreed.
"And yet," he continued, his voice dropping to a low, venomous whisper that wasn't meant for me, but for himself, "her existence, and the existence of billions like her, is what fuels the suffering of people like us. Like you. Like Satoru. They are the source of the poison, and we are forced to be the ones to drink it." He looked at me, a pained, desperate light in his eyes. "It's not a fair system, is it, Aki?"
I had no answer for him. I just slipped my small hand into his. He flinched, surprised, then his fingers closed around mine, a grip that felt less like comfort and more like a drowning man clinging to a piece of driftwood.
The final harbinger came at the end of August. The humid summer air was beginning to carry the first, faint hint of autumn's chill. I was in the main courtyard of the school when Yu Haibara, the cheerful, dark-haired first-year, jogged past. He was with his mission partner, the perpetually serious and stoic Kento Nanami.
Haibara spotted Geto and me standing near the entrance to the dorms and waved, his smile as bright and wide as the sun.
"Geto-senpai! Aki-chan!" he called out, jogging over. Nanami followed at a more sedate pace, giving a curt nod of acknowledgment. "We just got a new mission! It's to guard an old deity, the Ubusuna-sama of some village. The report says the curse isn't even a Grade 1! It should be a piece of cake!"
My blood turned to ice. My System, which had been silent for months, blared in my mind like a fire alarm.
[Canon Event Approaching: The Ubusuna-sama Land Spirit Exorcism.]
[Assigned Sorcerers: Haibara Yu, Nanami Kento.]
[WARNING: Mission parameters are inaccurate. Threat level is Special Grade. Predicted outcome: High mortality rate.]
I stared at Haibara's smiling, vibrant face, and all I could see was a corpse. The foreknowledge was a physical sickness, a cold dread that filled my throat with bile.
Geto looked at the optimistic first-year with an expression of profound pity. "Be careful, Haibara," he said, his voice weary. "Don't trust the mission grades. The higher-ups are incompetent."
"Right! Will do, senpai!" Haibara said, completely missing the dark undertone. He gave me a final, cheerful wave. "See you when we get back, Aki-chan! I will bring back gift!"
He ran off, full of a life and a future he would never get to have.
I stood there, frozen, watching him go. I wanted to scream. 'Don't go! It's a lie! It's a real god, not some low-grade curse! You're going to die!'
But I couldn't. Who would believe me? A seven-year-old girl having another "bad dream"? I would be dismissed, ignored. I was utterly, completely powerless to stop the future I could see so clearly. All I could do was bear witness.
Summer ended. The last day of August gave way to the first of September. And I knew, with a certainty that felt like ice forming in my veins, that Yu Haibara had just seen his last sunrise.