Chapter Text
Ijichi sighed. He didn’t like this one bit. The intel felt sketchy. Rushed. It wasn’t the source he didn’t trust, it was how quickly the situation was developing. His unease continued to grow as he read and reread the thin case file. He could handle complicated. What turned his stomach was going in blind.
All of the sorcerers he would put on the case were currently in the field already…well except for Satoru Gojo. Not that Gojo couldn’t handle this but he was in the middle of teaching at Jujutsu High. He would undoubtedly want to drag the first years along with him, but at this point what other option did they have?
Ijichi rubbed his forehead and made the call.
…
“Alriiiiiiight students!!! You guys are about to get a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to observe yours truly at work!” Satoru Gojo announced with glee to his first years. They were suspiciously quiet. Was that drool on Yuji’s notes?
Nobara Kugisaki’s head shot up from her desk. “You mean we get to go into the field for a real mission? Right on! I was beginning to think we would die of boredom before ever fighting a curse.”
Megumi Fushiguro glanced up from his notes, “What’s the mission?”
“Excellent question my young student,” Gojo answered as he neared a sleeping Yuji, “I will gladly answer as soon as all my darling prodigies join us in the land of the awake.”
He said the last part right in Yuji’s ear. No response. Gojo frowned and picked up the pencil that had fallen from Yuji’s hand. He slowly started inserting it into Yuji’s ear.
He shot up yelling, “What?! I’m up! Swear!”
Nobara nearly lost her seat, cackling. “Now then, as I was saying,” Gojo returned to the front, “We've got almost no information, it's extremely time-sensitive, and there are special grades involved,” he grinned. “Sounds fun huh?”
“Apparently the Prison Realm has resurfaced outside of Tokyo. Our best guess is that they are trying to free whatever is sealed inside.”
“What’s the Prison Realm?” Yuji asked, wiping drool off of his chin.
“Fantastic question…that I will answer in the car. I call shotgun!” Gojo yelled the last part over his shoulder as he sprinted to the car Ijichi had waiting out front.
…
“The Prison Realm,” Gojo explained, twisting around in the front seat to point his blindfolded eyes at the first years crammed in the back seat, “is a special grade cursed object. It seals people or curses inside. No outs. No escapes. Oddly enough I have never seen it myself. It has been in some unknown location for many decades.”
“Huh so it’s like Alcatraz for Jujutsu”, Yuji mused, ignoring Nobara elbowing his side for more room.
“Do we know what is currently sealed?” Megumi asked.
“No we don’t. There might be records somewhere in the archives but no one reads those boring things. My guess is a big bad curse. Maybe. You guys can just sit back and watch me handle it,” Gojo stated, turning back to Ijichi in the driver’s seat.
“How much farther?”
“Just another 15 minutes,” Ijichi muttered, having answered the same question already several times.
The first years glanced at each other, both nervous and excited to see their teacher in action, and some special grade curses up close.
The car pulled up to what looked like an abandoned farm. The sun was already setting, the days getting shorter as fall progressed. Gojo got out of the car, looking around. The first years were quick to follow.
“Well this is certainly creepy as hell,” he said joyfully and started off towards the large barn.
The car had dropped them at the end of a gravel road. The barn might have been red at some point. The paint was peeling and the wood was rotted.
Nobara tiptoed around puddles or mud, “Ewww this is gonna ruin my new shoes!”
“I told you they were impractical”, said Megumi.
“Cute is never impractical,” she huffed back.
Gojo was almost to the barn, pulling back the large sliding door. It creaked like it had been stuck in the same position for longer than the students had been alive. Shadows and eerie silence greeted them. They filed in behind Gojo. There were cobwebs everywhere, hanging from the rafters, draped all over the feed troughs, and animal stalls.
“LOOK GUYS! I’m a horse!” Yuji yelled from the stall he had slipped into, sticking his head through the bars.
“Yuji! You scared the shit out of me! Get out of there” Nobara hissed.
Gojo had reached the back of the barn, “Nothing here. I think I noticed a cellar outside. We can try there next. I can feel cursed energy somewhere.”
Sure enough, there was a cellar descending into the ground outside the barn. It took a few yanks to wrench open the metal doors. Darkness met them.
“And it keeps getting creepier,” Yuji muttered.
The four of them descended the stairs in silence. Gojo suddenly paused. Cocked his head.
“We aren’t alone,” Megumi whispered, pointing to the footprints in the dirt.
They slowly reached the bottom of the staircase. It was cold underground and a bit damp. A tunnel stretched out in front of them. It extended a few yards before quickly turning out of sight. Shadows danced on the walls. Someone or something was already down here. Gojo led the way and they peered around the corner.
“Holy shit.”
A massive cavern opened up. It was tall and deep, the other end being lost to the darkness. Pools of water collected around the edges, likely from the dripping coming from the ceiling.
The source of the shadows was easily identified. Two cursed spirits were in the middle of the cavern. One had what appeared to be stitches all over his face and exposed arms. It looked awfully human, unlike its partner. It had one eye and what appeared to be volcanoes on its face. One on the top of its head, one where each ear would be. Fire burned out of the one on its crown, throwing shadows around the chamber. The hair on the back of his neck rose. These were the special grade curses that several field reports had been describing over the last few months. They seemed to be arguing.
Gojo crept closer, going unnoticed, hugging the wall. He held up his hand to tell his students to stay and watch.
As he got closer, he realized they were arguing about the small cube resting on the ground between them. He stopped short. Was that it? The Prison Realm? Kinda disappointing. He was nearly close enough to hear what they were saying, when the patchworked curse threw its hands up in a universal “fuck it” motion, and picked up the cube. Gojo tensed. The curse emitting fire danced away from it with obvious unease. The patchwork curse made some motion with its hands Gojo had never seen before and set the cube back down, quickly backing up as well. The cube did nothing for a few seconds and Gojo began to think this had all been a big worry over nothing, when suddenly it shot up to about eye level. It hovered there for a moment and then the edges started stretching. It grew rapidly until it had made a rectangle about the size of a door. It stopped growing and simply stayed there, frozen. The patchwork curse took a step closer and called out hesitantly, “open?”.
The cube, now rectangle, swung back as if someone was opening a real door. Instead of the cavern behind it, Gojo glimpsed a dark room. It was difficult to see from his place on the wall. He crouched, ready to take down whatever curse was about to be unleashed.
He heard footsteps, light quick ones. The door opened a bit wider and a girl stuck her head out. She looked completely bewildered and carried an open book in one hand, and what appeared to be a cup of tea in the other.
“Uh… that is not a curse” the one-eyed curse said out of the side of his mouth.
“We still need the Prison Realm,” the patchwork curse said back, stepping towards the girl.
Seeing the movement, the girl locked in on the two curses approaching, and took a quick step back.
Gojo moved in.
The curses sensed him as he closed in, quickly stopping their path towards the girl and the Prison Realm.
“Oh shit, the boss didn’t say we’d have company! That’s Satoru Gojo!” the one-eyed curse said, backing towards the back of the cavern in fear.
“Who me?” Gojo looked around behind him. “Oh don’t be scared! I will exorcise you quickly!”
“Mahito, let's get out of here! The girl has a lot of cursed energy too. I can feel it. We need Hanami for this at least,” the curses scrambled back towards the dark cavern that seemed to extend forever into the dark. Gojo watched them disappear down a tunnel that was previously hidden in the dark. He should probably give chase but his students were still down here and reclaiming the prison realm was a priority. He turned back to the open door.
The girl was still standing in the doorway, looking confused. Nobara, Megumi, and Yuji had drifted into the cavern after the curses fled.
“So is that the uh prisoner?” Yuji asked.
The girl blinked as if realizing they were real.
Gojo reached the first years and they all turned towards her.
“Hello! You seem to be a jujutsu sorcerer! My name is Satoru Gojo, I am sure you’ve heard of me. Who might you be?” Gojo said as he took a step towards the girl.
She gulped. She set her book on the ground and cautiously stepped through the threshold of the door. As soon as she did, the door slammed closed behind her, and returned to its cube shape, dropping to the cavern floor. She jumped at the sudden slam. “Geez that was loud.”
“Is that one of our uniforms? It looks so outdated,” Nobara leaned over and whispered to Megumi.
She turned and looked at the group in front of her. They seemed young, her age maybe. They were wearing Jujutsu High uniforms, recognized by the signature buttons, but they were unlike any she had seen before. She was still wearing hers. She cleared her throat, “Gojo? As in the Gojo Clan?”
Gojo smiled, “Yes, guilty as charged, that’s me.”
She shook her head, “Not a Satoru, just Hana Gojo. My name is Kiyopi. That’s my family name.”
Gojo halted his approach towards her.
“My grandmother was Hana Gojo,” he says slowly.
The girl paled.
She looked at Gojo, assessing him.
“Your grandmother?” she says almost to herself. She blinked again, as if trying to clear sleep from her eyes. She knew the answer to her next question would be devastating before she even asked. But withholding the question does not change the truth.
“What year is it?”
Gojo sucked in a breath, trying to ease the inevitable blow his answer would bring.
“2019,” he said quietly.
The tea cup shatters on the ground.
It comes out in a strangled sob, “Eighty…”.
Her knees hit the floor.