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" Kugisaki! "
All at once, Kugisaki Nobara is a child again playing with her first and probably only best friend. She thinks that, at the time. She's fifteen on a train to Tokyo and watching her small town fade into the distance. She's sixteen laughing with Itadori while Fushiguro stifles a smirk. She's sixteen on October 31st. She's certain it's the oldest she'll ever be.
Itadori's guttural, throat tearing, scream rings through her ears. Somehow starting to loop within her own head. She doesn't get a chance to move. The last thing she sees is that patch-work freaks manic smile, it's hand outreached for half her face. Nobara gets just a second to widen her eyes in surprise, in an understanding.
She's sixteen, she's only been sixteen for two months, and it's the oldest she'll ever be.
A tear rolls down her cheek, Kugisaki Nobara hates crying. It makes her feel weak, immature. She's never hated crying more than she does right now. Her teacher had always warned her, her and her friends classmates, being a sorcerer would get you killed. Get you killed young. Nobara had always been ready, ready when she first got to Tokyo, ready when Fushiguro came back on a mission alone, ready when everything in Shibuya went to shit.
She didn't want to cry, and didn't want the last time anybody saw her to know that Kugisaki Nobara left in pain.
Nobara isn't sure when she realises tears are only coming out of one eye, the only one that can. An empty void to her left that's taken its place in her life long enough it feels strange to imagine the world whole. She isn't sure when she understands Yuji is in front of her, back turned. The curse exorcised and nothing they couldn't handle under normal circumstances. She is no longer sixteen.
A beat, a bated breath, and everything flushes with white hot emotion.
Itadori Yuji, ensuring the curse is really gone after a moment, turns back and Nobara just manages the energy to furiously wipe at her eye. Everything feels so pitiable, Kugisaki Nobara loathes it. His eyes widen, only slightly, and if his entire expression hadn't changed you probably wouldn't notice, "Nobara?"
He makes his way to her, pace moderate and not at all matching his obvious concern. It's a little amusing, that Yuji still convinces himself he's subtle. His approach actually makes Nobara consider her position, properly take in what's around her, on her knees with her nails scattered ahead and hammer tightly clutched in her hand. A final defense.
She shakes her head, taking Yuji's hand while standing up, "Nothin', just saw some weird shit" it's easy to play off her reaction, tell the truth while not touching the real meat and bones, "and why you gotta go so soft on me, eh? Think I can't handle it?" they're both accustomed to trading light hearted insults at problems, but of course this has to feel so different.
Her incredulous and overplayed tone is enough to ease the mood, "Alright, asshole" the replay is spoken with an endearing scoff and it's clear Yuji gets the idea to drop it. For now. He won't ask, and that's all she needs.
As they leave, Nobara finds herself unwillingly thinking about the past again.
She remembers waking up, with everything different. Her brain frantically filling in the gaps that reasonably shouldn't be there for any living person, but Kugisaki Nobara never really followed any sense of normal. Half of her version was utterly black, nothing like closing your eyes, where you at least had a chance to guess where you were. Just darkness. The other half was practically blinded by the overhead fluorescent lights making up Ieiri's office.
It was hard to take in all at once, sight and lack there-of, smells of smoke from a still lit cigarette, hums of the lights and gently rising beeps of a heart rate monitor. Deep, fast-paced breathes allowing her own chest to rise and fall and holy shit she is actually breathing-
A voice from the darkness breaks her spiraling thoughts and countless breaths, a painfully familiar voice, "Kugisaki?" Itadori asks with the sound of a chair scraping hard against the floor, causing Nobara to whip her head fast enough to break her neck in another circumstance.
Ieiri Shoko stands off to the side, just in view, stubbing out a cigarette atop a pile of others. Expression damn near unreadable, as expected. While Itadori is directly across from her line of sight, stood still but itching to run over. She appreciates the restraint. He's different, it's the first thing she can really think of and her brain doesn't let do. A scar traces down his forehead and stops halfway down the bridge of his nose, another at the edge of his lips.
His face was sharper, and eyes were more sunken in. Like in all the time she was gone he hadn't gotten more than a few hours of sleep. Nobara didn't doubt it.
She slowly pulls herself up and sits on the hospital bed upright, properly facing Itadori. There's nothing either of them can say, even if Nobara had the strength to speak in the moment. Ieiri is at her side first, unsurprisingly, inspecting the lasting damage and questioning her.
But it all starts becoming white noise, half hearted and repeated answers falling from her lips until the doctor gets the message or is satisfied with whatever Nobara has been telling her. She's told to lay back down and rest up, that any updates can wait a few more days. To Itadori's clear yet silent protest. Norbara can tell there's a lot to hear, and how much Itadori misses a familiar face, but exhaustion stops her from agreeing
The next couple of days blurred into one. Vision tests come up concerningly fine considering her condition, far from any standard of good but not as awful as anticipated, but it doesn't stop the searing pain or half the world being blacked out. Itadori comes and sees her everyday for the next week straight, it doesn't change the underlying unease plaguing him. Maki visits, and if Itadori was utterly jarring, then Nobara doesn't know how to begin with seeing Maki.
Scars cover her body on every visible patch of skin of her sleeveless uniform, and her hair is cropped short. Some scars look more recent than others, Nobara isn't sure what to make of it. She isn't wearing her glasses now, either, and some back part of Nobara's mind tells her that she looks so much more like Mai now. From what she barely remembers.
Despite the curiosity, she doesn't ask about the twins.
No one tells Nobara what's happened in her absence, only finally getting Itadori to break enough to tell her it's been months since she died. That even after all of Ieiri's work, it still took a month for her to wake up. She expects the news to be easier to hear than it is, and yet something in her crumbles anyway.
She's given a full go ahead after two weeks, to which she's also swiftly thrown back into training and sparring. As if she simultaneously went forwards and backwards in time and found herself in a limbo. It's relieving, how everyone seems to fall back into old routines. Nobara's presence just an added familiarity. It's terrifying, to think that nothing and everything changed in a matter of months and she's missed it all.
Nobara understands how far she's fallen behind, when sparring with Maki lasts no more than a mere few moments. With her every sense heightened to an unsettling degree. She wants to say they all laugh it off, but no one seems so light hearted, and only Maki herself barely manages a well-meaning chuckle at Nobaras utter confusion and defeat.
Five days after her bedside recovery she finally sits down with Itadori to talk, and like a floodwall breaking, everything comes out. It's a lot, all at once, and Nobara isn't sure how she's supposed to respond. That the world nearly ended, that it practically already did fighting Sukuna, Fushiguro barely holding onto a thread, deaths of countless old and new faces. Somehow her teacher's death hits her in a place she can't quite understand yet. It's not that she's surprised she's upset, more so surprised she's this upset. Itadori liked him a lot better and Fushiguro was basically raised by the man. However Gojo and Nobara on the other hand hardly talk unless it was some well meaning annoyance or talks about fashion. Even thinking about how simple everything felt only a few months ago seems so ridiculous.
She doesn't cry, but there's an underlying feeling of loss that washes over her whole body. The same way when she woke up and there was just something missing from her. Nearly three weeks of being back, of living this this, and she still isn't used to it. It's hard to assume she ever will be. Everything is manageable, that's what her grandmother and stubborn attitude have always told her. She'll manage, Kugisaki Nobara always does.
A month and a half, Nobara is still barely used to it. Endless sparring and training and exercising what curses remain in the aftermath. She's been able to see more faces and confirm who's even alive these days, but it hardly helps when everyone is gone making sure the society of sorcery and the world itself doesn't crumble. Itadori has been at it the hardest, a sense of obligation, Nobara's sure. It's been tough, seeing him and remembering the Itadori Yuji she remembers. An annoyingly tough and durable person, the kind you'll never get rid of. The kind that brings their own seat.
Now he's all that but strong too, not that he never was, but he's undeniably different. Brandishing endurance rivaling Maki's and two curse techniques, it feels almost crazy to merely say she's fallen behind.
Time, however, does not care about the feelings of Kugisaki Nobara. It inevitably and irreversibly pushes forward. She grows stronger in her own right, teaching herself to see through cursed energy, mastering her resonance, getting quicker. Time also heals, like no other thing can.
Gojo's funeral is a brief thing, shocking considering the man it's for, but no one wanted to draw it out. Besides, the ceremony was truthfully to commemorate all of the fallen. That's the day Nobara breaks down, rushing to a hidden corner and letting endless held back tears fall freely. So many little moments built up to such a snap, Itadori's blank expression, Maki grazing her hand knowing everything Nobara was feeling, some stupid little photograph of the first years with their teacher tucked in the recess of her closest, the fact Fushiguro couldn't make it.
Itadori finds her, and they don't say anything because what they do isn't talk but they hold each other in a way only best friends could do and not have it mean anything. He lets himself cry a little too, and she doesn't know over who anymore but it hardly matters. Somehow they're here together and that's just what they needed.
Time has never been a friend to Nobara, and she doesn't expect it to. Never has, in fact. Time presses on regardless, and she adapts alongside it. Ever changing, never ending.
The drive back is silent, tensely so, but neither have the desire to break it. Nobara has never minded silence, not when she's with others at least, but this is different. Megumi always has a way of getting Yuji out of silence, even if it's mummers not privy to her ears, the gentle sounds of talking feels warm against her ears. This however, has no easy way out. Yuji at the very least has the focus of driving to explain the dead air away, while Nobara flicks at the fabric piece holding her eyepatch in place as a distraction. Yuji offers for her to come over, as if he has to. Their little custom after a mission, if they weren't excessively injured, of returning to Yuji and Megumi's apartment to relax.
Nobara isn't exactly when it started, but they've been doing it for years now. It feels wrong to try and fall out of it. Even if the invitation feels ridiculous at moments, as if she hasn't had her own key practically since they bought the apartment. So she nods, a faint smile pulling at her lips, and Yuji continues in their same direction wordlessly.
Megumi is cleaning out the kitchen when two bloody sorcerers come crashing through his door. Exhaustion hitting the moment the duo finally made it back. Pleasantries are brief, but the furthest thing from uncaring. Even if they sound so. Yuji sneaks Megumi a kiss, thinking Nobara hadn't been passing a glance, and guides him to the couch where Nobara has already made herself comfortable.
Time passes unexplainably quickly, once they're all seated together. With Yuji situated on her left. Another normality over the years, one that neither of them acknowledge. She knows he blames himself, and she knows no amount of words will change that. Nobara takes no offense, and Yuji understands she wouldn't dream of putting that guilt on him. But old habits die hard.
If he's not sitting next to Yuji, Megumi is always on her right. It makes her feel rounded, and they cover each other in that way. Their own injuries didn't leave them incapacitated, but worse for wear all the same, so it's become what they do. Their new normal, upon the dozens of others. Yuji has now passed out, becoming a comfortable weight on her shoulder, as she and Megumi fall into a new silence. He can tell something is wrong, despite Nobara's best efforts to hide it. Not to mention the high likelihood Yuji might've signaled something's off to him earlier.
He idly taps a finger against his cane, his lips occasionally tightening briefly as if deep in thought. She doubts he expects the first words spoken to be her own, "The curse, it made me… see something"
She lets Megumi think on it, watching his head nod gently, "Like a hallucination?" he tilts his head a little to the side as the question escapes. An easy way to keep the conversation going, make it feel more human, "That's a rare ability for a curse to possess…' he trails off, with no real end to the statement.
Nobara shakes her head, "No, it was more like I was reliving memories" Yuji's fifteen year old voice ringing in the far back of her ears, searing pain culminating and bursting and vanishing within a second, "I saw that night."
She doesn't elaborate, she knows she doesn't have to for Megumi to get the picture. He reaches a hand for her arm, gently rubbing it with his fingers. A friendly intimacy someone would never expect of someone like Fushiguro Megumi. An almost breathless sigh escapes her, "I… I don't know what's wrong with me"
"That… that all happened when I was sixteen. I-I'm twenty now, nearly twenty one!" she exclaims not nearly as loudly as she normally would have in exasperation, rage, desperation, it isn't clear anymore, "Why, why can't that bastard just leave me alone" she wonders aloud, not even really to Megumi anymore.
If Megumi is going to interject with his own thoughts, Nobara doesn't let him. Tiling her head back and resting it against the couches back-board, "You know, for just a second, I thought he was really back." Megumi sharply inhales, and he sounds how every part of her feels saying this aloud, "It's fucking pathetic, I know, hes gone for good but still…"
They're back to a heavy silence after that, and Nobara is doing everything not to start bawling again when Megumi's deep voice cuts clean through it, "There's nothing wrong with you feeling like this" It's somehow relieving and stressful all at once.
"It was only five years ago, Nobara, you-" he's cut off nearly as quickly as he began talking and Nobara rips her arm out of his gentle grasp, "What do you mean only five years!?" she's been trying not to shout, in order not to wake Yuji, but it's only getting harder, "You even know how long that is? To a sorcerer no less" she half scoffs at the end of the statement. It's childish, they both know. She hates it.
He only deadpans, "Yes, and it's not a long time. Not to recover from something traumatic, at the very least" her retort dies before it can make it off her lips, "and don't even start with me, I swear you're worse then Yuji sometimes" Megumi is a lot of things, and direct has always been one of them. As long as Nobara's known him.
And it's not fair, because he's direct as he is observant. Megumi sees Nobara's guilt for what it is. Wishing she could've been there, wishing she could've helped, could've been a hand to reach out to, could've been an encouraging slap on the back. But she wasn't, she's only in the now. The aftermath. Waking up for the first time in months half blind and entirely lost.
"You died, Nobara." Maybe direct is too generous of word choice, blunt feels far more accurate. She almost lets a dark laugh escape her at Megumi's suddenness, but her moods been far too soured by the rest of the evening, "You were only a kid, and you're allowed to feel whatever it is you're feeling now" Nobara sometimes wonders if Megumi even realizes he sounds like a tamer Gojo, at times.
She lets the words roll around in her head for a while, and Megumi only observes. Waiting. He puts his hand onto her open face palm, her fingers slowly curling around it "Everything you're feeling is okay, but blaming yourself is different"
It's really nothing new, it's the first of a conversation quite like this, but they've all been going through this. In one way or another. She feels warmer inside, it's the kind of comfort she expects. From them both, really.
She still remembers when Yuji took her to see Megumi for the first time, bedridden and comatose worse off than she had been. When she realized he had been utterly alone for months, if not far longer.
Noabara grabbed his hand and squeezed tight, and from his reaction you'd think she'd grabbed his neck. A bark of a laugh escapes, and it's cold and sad and dark, but god is it incredibly relieving. They silently agree on this, as Yuji joins in.
And it's funny, how she almost hadn't noticed Yuji slowly, gently, wrapping his arm tighter around her own. Maybe he isn't as asleep as he seemed, but it doesn't matter anyhow. Nobara allows herself to fall into the embrace a little more, leaning onto Yuji as Megmi eventually follows suit.
They'll wake in the morning, never address what this night was, but know regardless.