Two months had passed since Yuzuki began living with Shizuku.
Two months of strange calm, of quiet days spent among the dead.
He never thought he'd get used to it — the smell of rot, the weight of lifeless bodies, the sight of blood so dark it looked almost black. At first, every time Shizuku brought a new "job," his stomach twisted.
It wasn't like he hadn't seen death before. He had died once, after all. And he'd lost family — grandparents, a friend from school — but those deaths had been far apart, wrapped in tears and farewells.
Here in Meteor City, death was a daily routine.
Not an event. A job.
And that terrified him more than anything.
---
Flashback — A Month Ago
The smell hit him first — iron, smoke, and something else. Something wrong.
He had followed Shizuku into one of the back alleys near the scrapyard, where three mangled bodies lay crumpled beside a rusted dumpster. Their shapes barely resembled people anymore.
Yuzuki's knees went weak.
His breath hitched. "Wha— what happened to them?"
Shizuku's voice was flat, almost clinical. "They picked a fight with the wrong people. Happens every few days here."
He stared, eyes wide, heart hammering. Then the bile rose. He barely turned away in time before vomiting into the corner, trembling violently. His chest heaved, his throat burned.
Shizuku stood there quietly, watching him. She didn't look disgusted or impatient — just… thoughtful.
After a moment, she crouched down beside him, her voice soft for once.
"You don't have to do this," she said. "If you can't handle it, there's no need."
He wiped his mouth, shaking his head. "No… I can. I just need time."
Her gaze lingered on him for a long moment — unreadable, as always. Then, with a faint shrug, she stood. "Alright. Don't force yourself to break."
He gave a weak laugh, clutching his stomach. "I already broke once… what's one more time?"
Shizuku blinked at him, tilted her head, and for a moment — just a moment — the faintest smile touched her lips.
---
Now, a month later, Yuzuki could look at a body without flinching.
He still hated it — the smell, the stillness, the way flies gathered so fast — but he'd learned to keep his face calm. He'd learned that sometimes, the best way to show respect for the dead was simply to keep working.
It was strange, how something so grim could start feeling normal.
---
During those two months, Yuzuki had also thrown himself into training.
He ran through the alleys every morning, used discarded metal bars for lifting, and practiced balance on the heaps of uneven junk. It wasn't much, but it was something.
Aura wasn't just energy — it was life force, built on the foundation of the body.
If he couldn't make his body strong, he didn't deserve to touch that kind of power.
Sometimes, when he meditated after cleaning up, he could feel something faint — a warmth in his chest, a pulse under his skin, like something sleeping just beneath the surface. But he didn't dare open it.
He'd read enough stories — and lived through one — to know what happened when someone messed with energy they didn't understand.
If he forcefully opened his aura pores and failed to close them, he'd die. Not metaphorically. Literally.
His life energy would drain from his body until nothing was left.
So he waited. He trained his body first, his patience second.
---
Life in Meteor City wasn't all death and training, though.
There was an old man who lived next door — thin, grizzled, with a patchy beard and a raspy laugh that always seemed one breath away from turning into a cough. Everyone called him Old Fin.
He'd run a small gambling stand near the central square for decades. Rusted cards, bottle caps, dice, and scraps of paper — that was his trade.
Yuzuki had found him by accident one afternoon, drawn by the laughter of a few kids playing around his table.
The old man noticed him right away. "You got the look of someone who's curious but too polite to ask," he'd said, his grin missing two teeth. "C'mere, boy. I'll teach you how to read a liar."
That was how Yuzuki learned to gamble.
It wasn't about money — not really. It was about reading people. Hands, eyes, tone. Old Fin told him that in Meteor City, "the game" was life itself.
Over time, the old man grew fond of him. Yuzuki always greeted him, always helped sweep up after the games, and never cheated.
"You got a good heart, kid," Fin had said one evening, leaning back with a grin. "And that's rare here."
Yuzuki smiled, scratching his cheek awkwardly. "Is that a compliment or a warning?"
"Both."
The old man's tone softened, gaze distant. "Kindness is good. It makes you human. But in this world? It's expensive. Every act of kindness takes something from you. And not everyone can afford that."
Yuzuki stared at the dice on the table, turning one between his fingers. "I know," he said quietly. "But I don't want to lose it. Not yet."
---
Later, Yuzuki returned home quietly.
Shizuku was already there, sitting cross-legged on the floor, cleaning her glasses. She looked up as he entered.
"You smell like cigarettes," she said simply.
"Old Fin smokes a lot," Yuzuki replied, chuckling as he flopped down across from her. "He taught me how to play dice today. Said I've got a good poker face."
Shizuku blinked. "You don't. You blush too easily."
He gawked. "I— I don't blush that much!"
"Mm," she hummed, clearly unconvinced. Then she reached over, patting his head with her usual calm detachment. "But you're learning. That's good."
He sighed, leaning back against the wall. "You know… this place isn't as bad as I thought it'd be."
Shizuku glanced at him, the faintest glint of amusement in her eyes. "You got used to dead bodies. That's impressive."
He groaned. "Don't make it sound weird."
She shrugged. "It's the truth."
For a while, silence filled the room — the comfortable kind.
Outside, the city buzzed faintly — metal scraping, wind howling through pipes, the distant clatter of people surviving another day.
Yuzuki closed his eyes, the exhaustion of the day finally settling in.
For all its filth and chaos, Meteor City was starting to feel… familiar.
Not safe. Never safe. But his.
That night the soft crackle of the fire filled the quiet room as Shizuku ate in her usual slow, unhurried way. Her gaze, however, wasn't on her food — it was on him. Again.
Yuzuki shifted slightly, pretending not to notice at first. But after a few minutes, he gave up.
"...You've been staring at me for a while now," he muttered, glancing up.
Shizuku blinked. "Your eyes," she said simply, "they're really pretty."
He let out a soft, embarrassed chuckle. "You've said that before."
"They don't look normal," she continued, tilting her head like she was examining something under a microscope. "They're different from before."
He smiled faintly, rubbing the back of his neck. "Maybe it's just the light."
In truth, even he didn't know anymore. The Six Eyes — if that's what they were — had remained dormant all this time. No strange vision, no heightened perception. Just… pretty eyes.
For a while, he'd started to think maybe he got ahead of himself. Maybe he was just Yuzuki — not some reincarnated Gojo Satoru clone with divine eyes.
They talked about other things for a bit.
Shizuku mentioned her job earlier that day — how she found an arm still clutching a wedding ring, and how she thought it was kind of romantic. Yuzuki nearly choked on his soup. Then they talked about Old Fin's endless lectures on gambling, about how he accused Yuzuki of being "too soft-hearted to win."
It was peaceful. Familiar.
Until suddenly, his world exploded.
A sharp pulse of pain shot through his skull, his eyes bulging wide. He gasped, clutching his head as his spoon clattered onto the floor.
"...Yuzuki?" Shizuku's voice came out flat, but the slight tension in her tone betrayed her concern.
He gritted his teeth, the pain spreading like wildfire through his temples. His heartbeat thundered in his ears — and then, just as quickly, it stopped.
Everything went still.
And then—he saw.
Not just saw — understood.
The air itself shimmered with faint light, like dust motes suspended in water. Aura. He could see it. The faint glow of life energy leaking from the walls, the flicker of Shizuku's own Nen wrapping around her like invisible silk.
And himself — his body was aglow with fine threads of energy, so detailed he could trace each one to its very end.
His breath caught.
So it's real…
Shizuku tilted her head. "What happened?"
He looked at her for a long moment.
He trusted Shizuku — she had no reason to care for him, and yet she did. But she was still… well, Shizuku. A possible Phantom Troupe member in the months to come or so and she was loud without meaning to be. Loose with her words.
So he smiled faintly and lied. "Ah… nothing. Just a migraine."
She seemed to accept it without question and returned to her meal.
Meanwhile, Yuzuki sat frozen, his vision alive with light.
Until it started to hurt.
Three minutes in — his eyes began to throb. His head felt like it was splitting apart, pressure building behind his sockets. He hissed softly, pushing himself up and stumbling to the corner where his black cloth hung.
As he tied it tightly around his eyes, the pain finally dulled.
"Three minutes," he muttered under his breath. "That's all I get?"
He sighed, half annoyed, half amazed.
Gojo had trained years to handle his eyes — even then, he couldn't walk around without covering them.
He chuckled softly on his own, but inside, his thoughts raced.
He'd been covering his eyes before just to hide them — because they were too eye-catching, too strange. But now… now it was necessary.
Before, he'd relied on his sharp hearing and smell — sometimes even Shizuku guiding him by the sleeve. Some people even thought he was blind.
But now, with his eyes covered, he could still see. He could trace outlines of furniture, walls, even the faint Aura signature of a rat scurrying under the floorboards.
It was like having Gyo turned up to max — a cheat code for perception itself.
He exhaled softly. "Guess I'll test it out tomorrow…"
When he turned, Shizuku was watching him again. "You okay now?"
"Yeah," he said, forcing a small smile. "Just tired. Gonna sleep early."
She nodded, poking her food lazily with her chopsticks. "Don't die in your sleep."
He snorted. "I'll try not to."
For a while, there was silence again — the kind that wasn't awkward, just warm.
Then Yuzuki stood, stretching his arms before heading toward the corner mattress that served as his bed.
As he lay down, he could still faintly sense Shizuku's Aura from across the room.
"Goodnight, Shizuku."
"Mm. Night."
And as his eyes closed beneath the cloth, the faint glow of the world slowly dimmed to black. Yuzuki slept soundly.