The ride to Jujutsu High was unusually quiet. Too quiet. All the rowdy energy from earlier gone.
And it wasn't because the students didn't have anything to say—but because they didn't quite know what to say. Between Nobara's confident smirk, Megumi's sharp glances, and Yuji stealing second looks at Fumiko every few minutes, the silence was filled with tension, curiosity, and a hint of awkwardness.
Fumiko sat calmly, seemingly unbothered by the attention. Her white cane rested across her lap, fingers gently tapping against it in thought. Her mismatched hair—white streaked with black—caught the fading light from the window, giving her an otherworldly glow.
Yuji unable to hold it anymore finally broke the silence. "Sooo... You and Gojo-sensei are related?"
Fumiko turned her head toward him slowly. "I suppose so. I mean, I've never met him before today."
That caught everyone off guard.
"You've never met him?" Nobara asked, eyebrows raised. "But you share a last name. And that letter? What's in it?"
Fumiko chucked and smiled. "I haven't read it. My mom sealed it. Said it was for his eyes only."
Gojo, who had been walking a few paces ahead of the group, kept silent. His hands were in his pockets, but his shoulders were tense—subtle, but noticeable to someone like Megumi who has spent alot of time in his vicinity.
He decided not to push. For now.
Eventually, the white-haired teacher stopped. They had reached the edge of the school grounds, standing before the massive torii gate that marked the entrance to Tokyo Jujutsu High.
Gojo turned to face the group. "Well, since we're all here now, how about a proper welcome?"
Yuji looked up. "This is it, huh?"
Fumiko tilted her head. "Feels... different."
"You can sense that?" Megumi asked, surprised.
She gave a small nod. "It's hard to explain. There's a lot of... pressure. But it doesn't feel bad. Just heavy."
Gojo grinned. "Not bad for someone who's never been trained."
Fumiko kept silent. Neither confirming nor disagreeing with his statement.
He stepped aside, gesturing toward the gate. "Welcome to Jujutsu High, everyone. Your new home—assuming you survive."
"Nice," Nobara muttered. "Real comforting."
As they walked the stone path toward the school buildings, Gojo peeled open the envelope he had received from Fumiko.
His eyes scanned the page slowly.
At first, his expression was unreadable. Then something shifted. A quiet kind of sadness flickered behind his usual smile.
Megumi noticed it again.
"What does it say?" he asked.
Gojo folded the letter and slid it into his coat, then he waves dismissively at Megumi. "Stuff from the past," he said. "Things I'd rather not forget, even if I wanted to."
Fumiko turned her head toward him. "My mother said you might not believe her."
"I believe her," Gojo replied instantly. Without hesitancy.
Yuji looked between them curiously. Rubbing his chin in deep thought he asked. "Wait, hold on. Are you her daughter... or...?"
Fumiko gave a soft shrug. "That's complicated."
"Everything's complicated with Gojo," Megumi muttered. It was the truth though.
Gojo clapped his hands. "Alright! Let's show everyone to their dorms. We've got orientation tomorrow, and possibly a cursed spirit to exorcise. Depends on how generous I'm feeling."
"Wait—tomorrow?" Nobara asked. She was genuinely under the impression they would be given a little more time to rest. "We're starting that fast?"
Gojo winked. "Curses don't wait for you to unpack, Kugisaki."
Later that evening, after everyone had been shown to their dorms and given a brief overview of the campus, Fumiko found herself sitting alone in the courtyard. Staring at the stars.
The night air was cool. The quiet hum of cicadas filled the silence, and the moon cast pale light across the training field.
She could feel it again—that heavy presence. It pulsed through the earth, subtle but constant.
"I was wondering where you wandered off to."
Gojo's voice broke the quiet as he approached. He didn't wear his blindfold now, just his usual relaxed grin.
"I like the quiet," Fumiko replied. "It helps me listen."
He nodded and sat beside her on the stone bench. "You really can't see at all?"
"No," she said calmly. Not the complete truth, she wasn't ready to him the truth ."But I can feel everything. I know you're here, that you're not alone. You've got a cursed tool in your left sleeve... and you're …. nervous?"
Gojo raised an eyebrow. "About what?"
Fumiko smiled faintly. "Me."
There was a long pause.
"You're Akari's daughter, My ....sister who ran from home," Gojo said at last, voice quieter than usual. "I didn't know she had a child. Let alone one with… abilities. She just dropped of the face of the Earth one day."
"She didn't know anything, either. Not until things started happening around me," Fumiko said. "We moved a lot. She tried hard really read to kept things hidden. But eventually, I started seeing shadows. Not with my eyes. With something else. And she couldn't run anymore. She had to face the truth."
Gojo didn't reply, but he was listening closely.
"She taught me how to live with it. She said it wasn't safe to tell people. But eventually, she told me your name."
Gojo looked up at the stars. "She should've told me sooner. She definitely knew, I would have helped."
"She was scared," Fumiko replied. "Not of you. Of the world you live in. The world she was raised in. She didn't want me to grow up like her. She wanted me to pave my own path."
Turning, Goji looked at her curiously and asked something that has bothering him since receiving the letter. " Why didn't she come with you?"
Fumiko tensed before forcing herself to relax. " S-she ….did-dn't make it." She mentioned. A sense of deep sadness clear in her tone.
Gojo looked at her with his eyebrows raised. "She's dead?"
Fumiko didn't answer. Her silence, her posture were all the answers he needed.
Sighing he turned and looked up at the sky with her.
A breeze passed between them. Leaves rustled nearby. They sat both there in silence enjoying the peaceful night.
Then Gojo stood. "Tomorrow, I'll test you. Just enough to see what we're working with. That okay?"
Fumiko nodded. "I'm ready."
As he walked away, Fumiko remained still. Alone under the moonlight, she reached down and placed her palm flat on the ground.
The air shimmered faintly around her fingers.
For a split second—barely visible—a ring of cursed energy pulsed outward, like ripples on a pond.
Then it vanished. She was getting better atleast.
Looking up at the sky once more she spoke once more into the empty air of the night.
"I made it Mom. I'm finally here."
The night air clung to Fumiko like a thin veil as she stood slowly from the bench. The warmth of the ground still lingered beneath her hand where the cursed energy had pulsed just moments ago. It was gone now—silent and still—but the weight of it remained in her chest, like a breath she hadn't fully exhaled.
She wrapped her fingers around her cane and began walking slowly back toward the dorms. Her footsteps were nearly silent on the stone path. She didn't need to see it—she felt it. Every dip, every rise in the earth, every twist of the wind carried meaning.
Each step was guided not by sight, but by presence.
As she walked, her thoughts drifted.
So this is Jujutsu High…
It wasn't what she expected. It wasn't cold or terrifying. It wasn't a cage. All words her mother once used.
It was… heavy.
Like walking into a place built from memories and regrets. A place where people died young and carried burdens that aged them long before their time. She could feel that in the walls. In the silence between words.
She wondered how her mother was younger. Did she run through this very walls with a smile on her face? Or did she find herself little nooks to hide behind when everything became a little too much.
But she could also feel something else. As she walked down the hall.
Hope. The hopes and dreams of all the sorcerers who have come and gone. It wasn't bright, nor was it loud. But it was there. Flickering like a candle just out of reach.
She paused at the foot of the dormitory steps and tilted her head up toward the sky. The moon had moved slightly—just enough to tell her how long she'd been outside. She wondered if her mother had ever stood in this place. If she'd ever looked at the same moon and asked herself the same questions.
"Why me? Why this?"
Her hand tightened around her cane.
Her mother used to say, "The world doesn't owe you answers, Fumiko. But if you're quiet enough, sometimes it'll whisper back."
Honestly, she still didn't understand that particular phrase.She hadn't heard any whispers yet. Just echoes.
I wonder what Gojo-sensei ....or is it Gojo-ojisan now? Doesn't matter. I really wonder what he saw in that letter…
He'd tried to hide his reaction. Most people wouldn't have noticed it. But Fumiko had felt the moment it hit him—like a sharp drop in air pressure. Like grief trying to hide behind a smile. Or aloofness in his case.
She hadn't lied when she told him it was complicated. Her mother had warned her that Satoru Gojo was powerful. Brilliant. Dangerous. But she had never said he was cruel. Just… broken in ways no one could fix.
Still, a part of her had hoped that seeing him would bring something—closure maybe. A piece of her mother that she could hold on to.
But all it brought was more questions that she honestly didn't have the energy for. But sooner or later her curiosity would win. And then and only then would she ask.
For now she was okay with the blanks.
She reached her door and stepped inside. The room was small but clean. Traditional in layout, with sliding paper doors, a futon in the corner, and a low desk by the window. Her bag sat neatly by the wall where she left it earlier.
She removed her shoes and stepped onto the tatami with care, relishing the soft thud of her cane against the floor. Each sound grounded her.
She didn't need light. The moon through the window was enough.
She sat cross-legged on the futon, setting the cane beside her. Her fingers brushed the floor, trailing over the wooden edge of the frame.
Then, slowly, she reached into her sleeve and pulled out something she hadn't shown the others.
A second letter.
This one was addressed to her. The handwriting was her mother's—delicate and flowing, ink slightly smudged in the corners.
She hadn't opened it. Not yet.
Because once she did, it would be real. The last words her mother ever wrote to her.
She stared at it in the pale light, running her thumb over the edge.
Her heart ached.
Tomorrow, he'll test me.
She wasn't afraid of the test.
She was afraid of what it might reveal.
That she belonged in this world. That maybe… her mother had been right to fear it. Or worse—that she might be even stronger than her mother realized.
What would that mean?
Was she cursed… or chosen?
The letter trembled in her hand before she finally set it down gently on the desk.
Not yet.
She lay down slowly, her thoughts still swirling as the cicadas continued their midnight song outside.
"I made it, Mom," she repeated silently in her mind.
But now what? She hadn't thought that far.
Now what? That thought played on repeat in her head.
Sleep didn't come easily.
But eventually, it did.
And when it did, it brought dreams—not of shadows or spirits, but of laughter. A woman's voice in the kitchen. The warmth of a hand on her head. A lullaby half-remembered and wholly missed.
And somewhere, beneath it all, a familiar whisper.
"You're not alone anymore."