Chapter Text
Present
First they send Fushiguro.
He’s the natural choice for a mission like this. Skilled, and with enough personal connections to both targets to be of additional use – there’s no one better.
He disappears. They say that it must have been Gojo's doing - that his mentor and guardian had sensed Fushiguro on his trail and killed him. It is an excuse almost no one accepts but still, none protest.
(The Elders have been waiting for an excuse like this for a very long time. It would do no good.)
Then they send Inumaki: a good backup and well-suited and just expendable enough to spare.
He, too, disappears.
Panda is next. His trail goes cold.
Nitta isn’t anyone’s first choice, but she is dispatched for lack of better options; she makes it to Moscow before she drops off the map.
It’s getting too dangerous, sending students and faculty members one after another until all that remain in Tokyo are a frantic Ijichi, Kusakabe, and a handful of injured students. And Ieri tries to tell them so but the elders are hardly inclined to listen. “Send me,” she insists.
They say that they cannot spare her. She goes anyway, and she returns – she is the first of them to make it back. But she is empty-handed.
They cannot send Maki, and Maki would not go even if they did; soon it is only she, Shoko, and a gravely-injured Kugisaki who remain in Tokyo, and there is no choice but to tap the Kyoto campus.
Todo is a terrible choice for a mission like this – no one is shocked when he, too, goes missing.
Miwa offers her assistance, but even in desperation no one wants to send her.
Hakari won’t go; neither will Mei Mei, if she’s not paid enough. (And she’s not – privately, everyone knows that no one in the world is rich enough to pay her what it would take to make her accept this mission.)
And it is with not a single sorcerer or student to spare that, with utmost reluctance, the elders agree to see Iori Utahime.
“I’ll find him,” she says, eyes like cold steel. “I’ve known him for years. I know where he’d run. Let me bring him in.”
She is not the champion they would have chosen, but with no further option, the council grants her petition. Iori Utahime will find one fugitive and lead them back to the others; she will put an end to the threat that a rouge Okkotsu poses, see to it that Itadori’s execution is carried out.
She will bring Gojo Satoru to justice.
It is easy to believe, the way she walks with coiled, tense muscles as if she is always about to pounce, that she is really going to do it.
**
But first, a beginning – that seems a better place to start.
**
Two Months Earlier
“Missing. Isn’t that something.” Zenin Maki has no patience left and what little goodwill she still possesses is not to be wasted on the Council of Elders. “They know exactly where he is.”
“That’s what they’re saying.” Yuta flops back against the mattress, and Maki wants to tell him to make less noise but can’t bring herself to. “He’s a fugitive now.”
Maki follows Yuta’s clue, lying back, legs dangling over the edge of the bed. She turns her head to face Yuta, even though he’s looking at the ceiling and he can’t see her. “Think it’s true?”
“Dunno. Could be.” Yuta’s a terrible liar. “Maybe he did get out. Maybe he didn’t. How would I know?”
Maki doesn’t have much goodwill left to waste on her best friend’s pointless lies, either. “You know something.”
“Don’t.”
“You’re fidgeting. You fidget when you lie.” Maki is so, so tired – tired of lies, too tired to keep her eyes open, tired of everything – and she can barely think straight but she couldn’t possibly miss that. “You know exactly where Gojo is.”
Yuta screws up his face like he’s tasted something unpleasant and, for some reason, won’t exhale. Then he does.
“Novgorod,” he says when he lets out his breath. “He should be in Novgorod.”
“The hell’s Novgorod?”
“It’s in western Russia.”
“You liar.”
“No, it actually is-”
“Not about that. You knew exactly where he was this whole time.” Maki isn’t surprised and she can hardly even bring herself to be mad, but she’s hurt. “Why didn’t you lead with that?”
“You never know who’s listening,” he says, which they both know is an excuse.
“Yuta,” she says again, “why did you lie to me?”
“Everyone who knows is in danger. No reason to give you information that could get you killed.”
That, they both know, is the truth, at least.
“Someone needs to know.”
“Three people already do, though.”
That hurts even more. “Who?”
“Me, Gojo, Itadori.”
“Oh. Right.” Never mind. “Wait, why Itadori?” She’d known that Yuji wasn’t really dead – Yuta had told her as much – but that was the extent of her knowledge.
“They know.”
“Who? And what?”
“They know Yuji’s alive.” Yuta swallows hard. “And they know I didn’t kill him.”
“Wait, what?” Maki sits bolt upright even though it makes her wince. “Then why are you still here?! You should be running while you still have the chance!”
“They haven’t connected those particular dots yet-”
“Oh, yes, they have. I guarantee you they have.” Maki crosses her arms. “Why Gojo, then? Who broke him out? Is he with Itadori? Does he even know? Why Russia? What are you going to do? Surely you’re not planning on staying here.”
Yuta doesn’t miss a beat. “Not sure, yes, also yes, because it’s big and easy to lose a tail in, not sure, and no, but I need to have an actual plan before I head out. That answer all of your questions?”
“No. Why aren’t you freaking out?”
Yuta shrugs. “What would be the point?”
Maki turns from him. He reaches out to touch her shoulder but she tenses; he draws back his hand. “Maki,” he starts, gently, but he doesn’t remember what he meant to say next.
“They’re going to kill you.” Maki’s shoulders slump. “They’re going to realize you didn’t kill Itadori, and they’re going to kill you.”
“Only if I don’t run.”
“Which you’re not doing.” Maki’s voice is shaky, and he can’t help but wonder if she’s going to cry. It would be so unlike her, but she sounds so cut-up that he can’t help but wonder. “Why?”
“I don’t think that running off without a plan is going to do me any good, Maki.”
“Then make one!”
“That’s…not exactly easy-”
“Yuta.”
“I’m not Gojo, Maki,” he protests weakly. “I can’t just teleport to Novgorod. I…I need a place to hide. Transportation. Ways to make sure that no one finds me. That stuff takes more than five seconds. You think I’m not freaking out? I am. But what am I gonna do? It won’t help.”
“You didn’t have to lie to me, you know.”
Maki’s back is still turned, probably so Yuta won’t see on her face that, of all of this, that hurts most of all.
“I’m sorry. It’s not like I wanted to.”
“But you did.” Pull yourself together, she tells herself, but it doesn’t help. “And you weren’t planning on telling me the truth until I forced it out of you.”
“Maki, I-”
“At least you could stick to your guns if you’re going to keep me in the dark about everything.”
They both know he can’t do that. “Sorry, I guess.”
They’re silent for a few moments after that before Maki leans against the pillows, still facing away from Yuta, and says, “haven’t you always wanted to go to Thailand?”
“I did say that.” Maki can’t even remember why she knows that, but it’s the kind of mundane, lighthearted detail she never wants to forget. They know so few of those about each other. “This isn’t exactly a vacation.”
“It’s safer than following Gojo and you could keep yourself hidden there.”
“How would I even get there?” Yuta laughs without mirth. “I can’t buy plane tickets without being traced.”
“Stow away on a cargo ship?” It’s only a half-serious suggestion, but Maki doesn’t have anything better to offer.
“Sure, until they find me and I’m stranded in the middle of the ocean with no way to run.”
“Get some random civilian with a boat to drop you off in the closest international port?”
“Who’s going to do that, though?”
“Pay Mei Mei to get you transportation.”
“…do you really think I have that kind of money?”
“Steal a car?”
“We live on an island, Maki.”
“Well, then, fleeing the country’s not going to work. Find an underground bunker to hide out in?”
“Oh, yeah, because metropolitan Tokyo is just overrun with secret underground bunkers.”
“I’m trying to help you, Yuta.”
“And I appreciate that! But the best thing you could do for me would be to let me figure this out on my own so I don’t put you in any more danger-”
“Little late for that.” Maki picks at her cuticles. “You’ll need a contact who’s in-the-know here to stay ahead of the Council. Someone’s got to stay behind and feed you information.”
“I…really don’t.”
“Yuta, you’re already fifteen steps behind, so yeah, you do.” She looks up at him and shrugs. “Could be exciting, working as a double agent.”
“Maki-”
“We’ve all lost enough already.” It’s hard to reconcile her flat, matter-of-fact inflection with the heaviness of her words, and Yuta doesn’t even try. “I’m not losing the three of you.”
She pauses and averts her face again.
“Especially not you.”
**
Seven Weeks Earlier
“Fushiguro is…just…gone?”
“That’s what the Council is reporting.” Gakuganji sighs. “Can’t say that I’m really surprised. That Gojo always was a loose cannon.”
“Maybe, but not the kind who’d murder his own student.” Utahime knows what the council is trying to imply and she’s determined to have none of it. “Is it possible that-”
“Iori, don’t.”
She glances up at Gakuganji with narrowed eyes. “Don’t what?”
“I know that the two of you have a history, but this isn’t the time to be making excuses for him.”
“I’m not. All I’m saying is that I doubt he killed Fushiguro.”
“I understand that, but you cannot afford to assume that he wouldn’t-”
“Gakuganji-san,” Utahime says coolly, “I understand your reservations, but I know Gojo.” She takes a steadying breath that doesn’t really steady her at all. “I know his methods are questionable, but he’s not…he wouldn’t.”
“Well,” Gakuganji mutters under his breath, “they do say that love is blind.”
“Excuse me?”
Gakuganji lifts an eyebrow. “Did you honestly think your infatuation with Gojo Satoru had gone unnoticed, Iori?”
“I am not,” she says archly, trying to pretend the accusation doesn’t sting, “infatuated with Gojo.”
“Explain yourself, then. Why are you trying to defend him? It’s plain as daylight that he killed his student.” Gakuganji scoffs. “And that after he practically raised the boy.”
Breathe, Utahime.
Bre-e-e-e-eathe.
“I have no reason to want to come to his defense unless I’m absolutely sure that he’s being falsely accused,” she says, and she knows Gakuganji can hear her voice shaking but barely cares. “Like you said. He practically raised Fushiguro. Gojo Satoru is a thorn in all of our sides, no less mine than anyone else’s, but he’s not the kind of man who’d kill his own ward in cold blood.” And she believes her own words, improbably – he loves his students, so much as Gojo Satoru is capable of loving anyone. “My personal opinion of him has absolutely nothing to do with my belief that the council is wrong about this.”
Gakuganji stares at her for a long, fraught moment before he speaks again.
“You had better not be thinking of trying to clear his name, Iori.”
Utahime shrugs. “I’m only saying what I think.”
“That’s a dangerous notion at times like these.”
It’s dim in the boardroom, and though Utahime stands under the lightbulb where it’s easy to see and be seen, Gakuganji’s face is half-shrouded in shadow. She feels as if she’s speaking to a phantom and the sensation makes her skin crawl. “Maybe, but a false accusation of murder isn’t something I’m going to take lightly.”
“You don’t know that it’s false, Utahime.”
“But you don’t know that you’re right, either,” she protests. “Maybe Gojo is the one who’s dead. Maybe whatever got him got Fushiguro, too. Who knows? There are a thousand other things that could’ve happened.” It’s hard to keep her eyes up. “I don’t believe for a second that he’d lay a finger on Fushiguro.”
Gakuganji lets out another world-weary sigh. “I’d advise you not to go and underestimate how dangerous Gojo can be just because he took a liking to you.”
“He didn’t.”
“He trusts you,” Gakuganji counters. “You’re one of the very few people of whom I can confidently say as much.”
“Okay, but that’s only because he thinks I’m too weak to betray him.”
“But you’re not?”
Of course I am, Utahime thought, though perhaps it was less a matter of weakness and more one of unfounded loyalty. “If it were warranted, I would…turn on him.” Maybe she would but she’s positive that there won’t ever be a need to – Gojo is a pain, but he’s not evil. God only knows he’d already have brought the world to its knees if he was.
“Oh?” Gakuganji seems much too pleased to hear that. “So if I were to recommend to the council that you be on the list of people willing and able to search for him, you’d go?”
“Of course I would.”
“To clear his name, I’m sure. How noble of you.” He shakes his head. “How naïve.”
“Founded faith in my colleague isn’t naïve.” Gojo has let her down and made her wonder why she bothers in a million different ways, but in this one respect she trusts him wholeheartedly. He is selfish, childish, and incredibly irritating, but he has only ever wanted to be a protector.
Gojo Satoru might be Utahime’s least favorite person alive, but that does not make him a murderer.
“Well, I’ll be the first to admit that I hope the accusations are unfounded.” Gakuganji’s face begins to close off again. “I hate the man, but I’d hate it even more to learn that we all put our trust in the kind of person who’d do something like this.”
“So if I were to try to clear his name-”
“I’d advise against it, and frankly, I think you’re biased beyond credibility, but I wouldn’t try to stop you.”
Utahime’s breath catches in her throat. “And you wouldn’t tell the Council-”
“I’m more interested in the truth than their agenda, so no, I would not.” He smiles knowingly at her shocked expression. “Shocking, I know. I do have a subversive streak deep down.”
Careful, Utahime warns herself. “Pardon me for being reluctant to believe you when you tried to make my students kill Itadori during the Goodwill Event, but I’m not sure that I buy that.”
“Oh, I’d ask you to kill the boy on sight if you ran across him.” Gakuganji waves his hand dismissively. “But as to Gojo…well. I’d like him dead, but the Council is acting outside of its jurisdiction.”
“Could you explain?”
“Firstly, it’s making and acting upon accusations for which it has absolutely no concrete proof. That’s not protocol.”
“Well, I should hope not,” Utahime mutters.
“Secondly, there’s a chance that Fushiguro is still alive. And in that case, his safety has to be prioritized.”
“Which means focusing the investigation on Fushiguro’s recovery instead of finding Gojo,” Utahime finishes.
“Precisely. I never agreed with their choice to send him in the first place, but now that he’s disappeared, we have to consider the possibility that they’ll try to send other students on the same mission that Fushiguro couldn’t complete.”
“Or professionals,” Utahime points out.
“Which would be equally bad, for different reasons. Sending students isn’t ethical.” Gakuganji turns his eyes up to the ceiling as if in prayer, though he’s probably just annoyed. “Sending professional sorcerers when our ranks are already so depleted would be worse.”
“Your point?”
“No matter what they decide, the Council is going to do more harm than good.”
“Because-”
“They’re wasting lives and time on a fool’s errand based on unfounded charges, and as much as I hate to disagree when I don’t have to, I cannot sit back and watch.” A look passes between them that might be understanding – how novel that seems.
“You don’t think Gojo can be found,” Utahime realizes.
“No, I’m certain he can. He’s probably in no state to run forever, and the people the Council is going to send know him well.” Gakuganji taps his foot impatiently. “I don’t think he can be brought back in, though.”
“But you said he’s in no shape to run,” Utahime points out.
“He’s not, but the fact is that those who don’t know him won’t find him and those who know him won’t hand him over.” Gakuganji’s eyes were almost sad. “His students would never willingly believe that their teacher would kill one of their classmates, and his friends…well, has he even got any? Ieri, maybe, but they won’t send her. You, if you’d even consider yourself to be his friend. Maybe.”
“I don’t know if I would.”
“Perhaps not, but that might be an advantage.”
“Oh?”
“You know him well and respect him very little, so you might well be the person best-suited to the task.”
“I thought I was ‘biased beyond credibility.’”
“You are, but not biased beyond reason. If it became evident that Gojo had killed Fushiguro, your personal fondness for him – oh, don’t give me that look, I know you have some – wouldn’t stop you from bringing him in. And it could help you, you know. You’re not going to go in assuming that an accusation full of reasonable doubt is true.”
“Are you saying that you want them to send me?”
“I’m saying that I’m not going to stop you if you want to be sent.”
**
Six Weeks Earlier
“It’s not safe for you to be here.”
Itadori answers the door in Gojo’s stead, and his eyes are tired; his face, body, spirit are tired and Toge doesn’t know what to say except, sotto voce, “okaka.”
“No, really.” Itadori tries to close the door, but Toge kicks the stopper underneath before he can. “It’s…it’s better for everyone if you just go back.”
He can’t say anything of substance, so he says nothing, but he wedges his shoulder between the doorframe and the door itself so Itadori won’t be able to close it and uses it to shove his way through. Toge isn’t really sure what he’s doing, but he knows he can’t leave without answers; this seems like the only way to get them.
He pulls out the notebook he carries in his pocket for emergencies when more substantial communication is necessary and writes out a message to pass to Itadori.
The Council is saying that Gojo killed Fushiguro because he didn’t come back. They’re sending people to bring him in. True?
“What?” Itadori’s eyes widen. “We…we haven’t…Fushiguro hasn’t been anywhere near here.”
So Gojo didn’t kill him.
“Of course he didn’t!”
I thought so.
**
Six Weeks Earlier
Yuta is used to loneliness, but it’s never felt bigger than it does now. A transcontinental train trip through thousands of miles of nothingness might have been Maki’s most workable escape plan, but it’s crushingly isolating.
There’s nothing for miles around – for miles, and miles, and miles. Nothing but snow-covered grassland and overcast sky, fierce winds whistling past the occasional isolated hamlet, and reminder after reminder of the fear that is his only companion. If he were cornered, this slow-moving train winding its way through some of the most remote territory in the world wouldn’t offer him shelter. He has little to do, either – cell signal is a distant memory, and he’d brought a couple of books but they don’t do much for his nerves. Usually, he finds himself thinking – nothing more than that.
He thinks too much, about everything – about Rika, about Gojo, about Itadori, about his classmates’ worried faces when he’d told them that he had to run, about his regrets, about his fear that he shouldn’t have told them at all. But mostly, he thinks about Maki, and her irrepressible spirit and her steely eyes and her scar-dappled skin beneath his fingers when she’d grabbed his collar and kissed him the night that he was set to leave. I’ve got your back, she’d said, and she probably didn’t know that she had his heart, too. Maybe she wasn’t trying to.
He replays the memory of that kiss what feels like every ten seconds and it’s quite a nice distraction from the fact that he’s probably going to die.
But, at least, he finds Fushiguro waiting in Novgorod long after Gojo and Itadori have gone. It’s something. They’re not really friends, but a familiar face after the endless empty miles of steppe he’d crossed to find him is balm he’s sorely needed. “They’re saying that Gojo killed you,” Yuta says, and Fushiguro doesn’t even look surprised.
“I’m sure they are.”
“They know about Itadori now.”
“That’s unfortunate.”
“Is he safe?”
“Enough.”
“And Gojo?”
A shadow passes over Fushiguro’s face. “A disaster.”
That same shadow passes over Yuta. “How?”
“Guilt, mostly.”
“Really?” It’s hard to imagine Gojo feeling guilty.
“You kind of have to see him to believe it.”
“Where is he now?”
“He didn’t tell me.”
“Good. Now we don’t have any useful information.”
Fushiguro gives him a dirty look for that. “Doesn’t matter. We’re not going to get caught.”
“Of course not.” Yuta barely believes that – the Council won’t do anything itself, but it’ll use every resource available to do its dirty work and it won’t stop until it succeeds. Still, it wouldn’t do to point that out.
They’re silent for a moment, gusty winter winds whistling around the walls of the train station. Then Fushiguro shifts and asks, “how’s Kugisaki?”
“Stable.” Yuta swallows hard. “Unresponsive.”
Fushiguro’s expression doesn’t change. “No change, then.”
“Not much.” Yuta shuffles his feet. “How’s Itadori?”
“Tired,” Fushiguro says. “Really upset. He’s basically taking care of Gojo now.”
“So it’s bad bad.”
“He’s at rock bottom, Okkotsu.”
“That’s how it sounds.”
“So where are you headed next?”
Yuta doesn’t know, so he deflects. “Where are you headed next?”
“However far south or west the money I’ve got left will get me.”
“So you’re not going back.”
“Can’t. I know too much.”
“You know almost nothing, though.”
“If I go back, they’ll find some other way to use me.” Against my friends, he’s too proud to add. “I’m not giving them that opening.”
**
Five Weeks Earlier
“I guess this makes us fugitives.”
“Shake.”
“Fun times, fun times,” Panda sighs. He watches his friend’s longer, more agile legs trace whirlpools in the filmy water on the surface of the pool with something like envy. “Where to next, then?”
“Konbu.”
“You dunno, either, then.”
“Shake.”
“Sometimes I really wish I could actually talk to you.
“Shake.”
“This place is a dump,” Panda sighs. He’s talking to the air but it doesn’t really seem to matter anymore. “Think we’ve been declared missing persons yet?”
Inumaki says nothing this time – he responds only with a wide-eyed, wary look.
“Probably, huh. Guess this was what happened to everyone else, right?”
“Shake.”
“They can’t just keep sending people like this. It’s never going to work. Also, we’re almost out of money-”
“Konbu.”
“I wasn’t done yet! We’re almost out of money, and we can’t keep staying in hotels, so either we go back and stay with Yuji and Gojo, or we sleep in an alley.”
“Okaka,” Inumaki says miserably, pulling his legs out of the water to rest them on the wall and set his chin against his knee.
“I know, bud. Trust me, I know.”
Inumaki pulls out his notepad again – he’s been doing that more lately – and scratches out, can we do that?
“I wish we could.” It’s exactly the kind of nonanswer Inumaki had expected.
So we have no idea where to go?
“Nope.”
Inumaki drops the notebook to the deck with a miserable sigh.
**
Four Weeks Earlier
“I’ll be back for you.” Shoko touches the mottled skin at the edge of Nobara’s eyepatch, neither expecting nor receiving a reply. “All right? Just a couple of weeks.”
She’s sure of that.
The list of charges against Gojo Satoru has grown steadily since the first, but Ieri Shoko knows that they are as false as they are numerous. She’s confident enough to leave behind a patient in desperate need – Nobara is no longer the only person who requires her assistance, and though most days she’d gladly agree never to see Gojo again for the hefty price of a single shrimp puff, she knows now that something sinister is afoot. And if Gojo stands falsely accused at its center…
Well.
She gives an unconscious Nobara one last tiny wave before she turns to go.
**
Present
It’s nearly time now, and Utahime is going to miss her flight to Croatia (Croatia?) if she doesn’t get going. But she can’t resist turning back for one last look at her comfortably messy living room before she leaves. She’s still looking when she opens the door, but it hits something and she’s met with a yelp of surprise.
“Sorry!” she exclaims without knowing what she’s hit, then freezes. “Shoko?”
It’s pouring, and Shoko clutches an umbrella like a lifeline even on her covered stoop. Utahime hadn’t known she was in Kyoto, and she hadn’t expected her to leave Tokyo again so soon after her return from her last mission – unsuccessful, apparently. She tilts her head, silently asking for an explanation.
“Uta,” Shoko says, voice ragged, “you have to help him.”