·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.
2018, Tokyo Jujutsu High
As the afternoon sun filtered through the windows, Satoru Gojo, sunglasses firmly in place on his nose and arms crossed, was lazily sprawled on a chair of the faculty lounge with his feet kicked up on an old wooden stool and his ever-present smirk firmly in place.
"Did you know?"
Not far away, Megumi Fushiguro stood with his shoulder pressed against the wall and hands shoved in his pockets, with his usual expression a perfect blend of irritation and teenage indifference. He cast a sideways glance at his mentor, half-listening.
"The reason why the Gojo and Zenin Clans are on bad terms?"
Megumi raised a brow. "Were they always on bad terms?"
Satoru tilted his head, smirking. "The worst." There was a pause as he let the weight of his words hang in the air, savoring Megumi's curiosity before continuing, smug and casual. "I think it was during the Edo period… or maybe Keichō? I forgot. But the heads of their respective households… killed each other in a fight. Right in front of the aristocracy. Big, dramatic stuff."
Megumi turned fully toward him this time, his interest piqued despite himself. "Back then, who were the heads?"
Satoru's smirk deepened, and he leaned forward just enough to let the insinuation hit. "A Limitless cursed technique user with the Six Eyes, like me, for the Gojo Clan… and a Ten Shadows cursed technique user, like you, for the Zenin Clan."
Megumi's eyes widened briefly in surprise, but before he could say anything, Satoru leaned back again, throwing one final comment at him with that teasing smugness.
"You get what I'm trying to say, right?"
.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.
In the final decades of the Sengoku period, jujutsu sorcerers were not mere exorcists, they were the unseen foundations of power. While daimyō fought with steel, the Three Great Clans of sorcerers, Zenin, Gojo, and Kamo, shaped the battlefield with cursed energy, maintaining spiritual control over provinces and capitals alike. Their loyalties, often shifting, could determine the rise or fall of entire provinces.
The common folk called them onmyōji. The shogunate called them necessary evils. But among themselves, they knew what they were: hereditary weapons in a war without end.
Each clan played its role. The Zenin, warriors first and foremost, had carved out influence through strength of arms and cursed techniques, but politically, they remained the weakest. The Gojo, born of Limitless and the Six Eyes, were elevated to the highest post among the three: guardians of the capital. The Kamo, oldest by far, cloaked themselves in ritual and neutrality, waiting for their moment to rise.
In this world, names carried weight. Cursed techniques carved legacies. And a mistake, political or cursed, could mean extinction.
.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.
400 years earlier, Nagoya-go, Zenin clan estate
The smell of blood and rain permeated the night, and the paper windows hardly muffled the distant thunderclap. Inside the darkened chamber, the cries of a woman in labor pierced the quiet like a blade, and the air was heavy with anxiety. Sweat, blood, and incense filled the room, a last-ditch effort to ward off the stink of death.
Another wave of misery ripped through the clan head's wife, Lady Zenin, who clenched her teeth. Her silk kimono, decorated with the Zenin mon and colored in a subdued red, clung to her damp skin. At the same time, her carefully combed hair was now plastered to her forehead.
With their faces white in the lanterns' fading light, the midwives hovered, moving quickly yet purposefully. "Push, Okugata-sama," the senior midwife begged, her voice trembling beneath the seeming calmness.
When the baby was delivered, there was a breath of relief. "A boy, " one of the midwives whispered, her voice trembling, holding up the small, still body. "The clan's heir."
With a slight smile forming on her lips, Lady Zenin's head leaned back on the pillow. "An heir… my husband's son," she said in a tired, hoarse voice. A son is a rightful heir. The clan chief's desires were fulfilled, and her role as wife was fulfilled.
However, the midwife hesitated, her hands immobile, instantly shattering the optimism. She pressed her fingers to the child's little chest, and the room fell silent, the weight of unspoken words settling like a shroud. "... He's not breathing, " the woman whispered, her voice breaking. "The boy… he is stillborn."
The color drained from Lady Zenin's face. "No," she rasped, sitting up despite her body's protests. "That can't be—"
The midwife's bowed head said everything.
Then came the second blow. Another contraction, another wave of pain. The midwife's hands flew to Lady Zenin's belly, her expression shifting from grief to fear. "There's… another," she said, her voice panicked. "Another child."
"What?" Lady Zenin's voice cracked, her expression twisting with confusion and dread. "No…No, no, that's—that's impossible. Not twins—"
The midwives exchanged fearful glances, murmuring prayers under their breath. Twins. A curse in their world, a harbinger of divine punishment.
The second child came into the world amidst more blood, pain, and screams. The shriek ripped through the atmosphere, piercing, a vibrant sound slicing like a blade through the darkness. As she held the baby up to the faint lantern light, the midwife who had caught it shrank back a little, her hands shaking.
In a terrified whisper, "It's a girl ."
Lady Zenin's eyes became wide in shock, and she froze. The weight of her responsibility and ancestry seemed to bear on her, tilting the room. Her son—her ideal, priceless son—was gone, and a girl took his place. A female, the live twin, born of misfortune and blood.
Her first instinct was visceral. She reached for the child, her fingers trembling, intending to smother the source of this calamity. She could end this now. Kill the child before anyone else knows. It was a mercy for her, the clan, and everyone in that room. But as her hands wrapped around the fragile, crying form, she paused. She looked at the child. Looked at her. The child's cries were strong, defiant even. Tiny fists clenched as though challenging the world that had brought her into such circumstances.
Lady Zenin stared at her, searching for a reason to follow through with what she knew had to be done. Instead, she saw something else: a flicker of strength and life amidst the despair.
She tightened her grip, her resolve becoming harsher and colder, grabbed the baby and held it to her chest even though her hands shook and her hold might have been a little too tight.
When she did speak, it was like steel that had been tempered by fire. "No one must know," she said, her voice low and icy, her words laced with delirium and resolve. "No one will ever know what happened here tonight." She paused, her lips curling into something cold, determined. "Not even my husband."
The midwives exchanged horrified glances. One dared to speak, her voice faltering. "Okugata-sama… But the clan head... he will—"
"He will kill us all before sunrise if he learns of this," Lady Zenin interrupted, her voice low and venomous. Her gaze swept over the midwives, pinning each of them in place. "Do you understand? Make the boy's body disappear. Burn it. Tonight, I gave birth to a single son. That is the story we will tell."
The room fell silent, save for the infant's cries. The midwives cowed into submission by bowing their heads.
A young man emerged from the darkness. He had been silently crouching at a reasonable distance with a katana by his side; his hakama featured the Zenin family's mon for the cadet branch, and his black as ink hair was beautifully tied in a long warrior queue.
"Okugata-sama," he began, his tone measured, "what do you intend to do with the child?"
The woman glanced down at the newborn, her expression unreadable. Then, with cold determination, she looked back at him. "She will grow up as a man. As the heir, my husband expects of me."
The man's expression remained unreadable as he bowed slightly. "And the midwives?"
Lady Zenin hesitated momentarily, her grip tightening on the baby as if drawing strength. "We cannot take the risk."
"Understood," he replied, his tone steady as his hand landed on the hilt of his katana.
The midwives froze, understanding their fate in an instant and the sound of steel bega cutting through the air and silence. One by one, the midwives' terrified screams were silenced, their blood soaking into the tatami and shoji screens as the guard carried out his orders without hesitation.
The woman didn't flinch, her focus remained on the child in her arms. "You will live," she murmured, her voice devoid of warmth yet filled with an unsettling determination. "No one will ever know you are a girl. From this night forward, you are Kaoru. Kaoru Zenin."
Outside, the thunder rumbled again, as the infant's cries softened. However, the finality in her mother's words had already begun shaping her future.
.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.
1587, Nagoya-go, Zenin clan estate
The chamber was cold. Not the dramatic kind of cold that bit into your skin, but the bureaucratic kind: ceremonial and soaked in enough incense to choke a corpse. It clung to her throat and it was probably intentional.
Kaoru stood dead center covered in swear and blood, her chest rising and falling beneath the formal layers of her boy's kamishimo, a black hakama paired with a crimson vest. A black-and-red silhouette against the wood floor, motionless under the crushing weight of too many gazes. The candlelight danced on the boards beneath her feet, illuminating nothing useful, just her own shadow. Her black hair, yanked into a perfect ponytail at the crown of her skull, had begun to betray her after the intensity of the ritual. A few strands fell into her eyes. She didn't dare fix them. Not when every elder, every sycophant, every barely-interested Kamo diplomat had their eyes pinned to her like she was some rare, exotic insect on a display board.
Her breath came shallow, her ribs ached from the bindings and her arms stung with the thin ritual cuts. Her blood had dried tacky against her skin, and still she forced herself to stand proud. She had done everything right. Perfectly.
She had summoned Nue. Her second shikigami. At seven years old.
The room wanted to be impressed. They were impressed. But none of it was hers. Not the admiration, not the victory, not even the pain in her joints. It all belonged to the clan—to the Zenin name—and Kaoru was just the pretty, bloodied vessel who'd made it happen.
On the dais at the head of the room sat Takahiro Zenin. Her father. The man for whom nothing was ever quite good enough, not her posture, not her technique, not her breath if it caught in the wrong place. He watched her like a hawk circling for weakness. Black montsuki dark as bruises. Mon blinding gold. Still as stone, all authority and expectations, the kind Kaoru had spent all her young years trying desperately to meet.
To his left: the Zenin clan elders. To his right: the Kamo delegation, draped in polite neutrality like it was a religion, because for them it was. Leaded by their clan head, a fragile unassuming elder with a gentle smile and thin mustaches. Kaoru decided that his face reminded her of a fox. A smart one.
And just behind them, kneeling with the stillness of one who had long since surrendered the right to move freely, sat Lady Reika; Kaoru's mother. Eyes forward, hands folded, perfectly beautiful and quiet as expected from a Zenin wife. A ghost in her own house.
Behind her, as always, stood Harunobu, her mother personal guard, with his black hair tied in a perfect warrior queue and his hand resting casually on the hilt of his katana. He was not her father, that was a lesson she had learn the hard way. It wasn't her fault. She was just a child and Harunobu had raised her more than her actual father ever had; all it took was a single, honest mistake when she was four. She almost called him "father".
For that, Takahiro punished him in her place, no matter how much she had begged.
Kaoru never made the same mistake again, and now Harunobu was the only person in the room she trusted, if trust were the kind of luxury she could afford.
The Kamo patriarch leaned forward, stroking his mustaches with the air of someone deeply satisfied with someone else's suffering. "A remarkable feat," he said, with his fox's smirk. "The second shikigami. At only seven. The heir of the Zenin Clan has truly exceeded all of our expectations."
Kaoru resisted the urge to blink. The compliment wasn't for her anyway.
Another Kamo elder nodded in agreement. "The Ten Shadows has not shown this level of control since the... well, since the unfortunate business with the Gojo scion last generation."
There were murmurs of agreement between the elders of the two clans.
There it is, she thought.
The Kamo patriarch chimed back in with a chuckle that sounded like a cough. "Perhaps this era will be known for its prodigies. The Gojo with their prized heir and the Zenin with their prodigy. Quite the match."
A Zenin elder chuckled lightly, clearly pleased with the flattery. "Indeed," he said. "The Gojo clan is not the only ones who can boast of a prodigy, now."
Kaoru bit the inside of her cheek feeling the heat of shame and irritation rise in her chest. The taste of blood was preferable to the taste of diplomacy anyway.
Her father's expression didn't shift, but the air grew heavier. Comparisons to the Gojo were a sore spot, always had been. And the Kamo patriarch knew it. That was the point. Her father had no interest for an heir on pair with the Gojo's one. He wanted a better heir. And Kaoru was still not enough.
Takahiro finally spoke. "A blessing," he said flatly, like someone reading from a prayer they really didn't believe in. "The kind we've long awaited."
She felt the words like frost. Blessings could be withdrawn, especially if they started talking.
Then, with all the smugness of a merchant announcing a price hike, the Kamo patriarch stood and bowed slowly, sliding his hands in the large sleeves of his kosode. "Zenin-dono. The heir you've raised is... extraordinary."
Kaoru's eyes snapped upward briefly, catching the shadow of a smirk on her father's lips. Her father didn't smile often, but when he did, it annoyed her how she could feel the pride blooming under her ribs.
"Perhaps," Takahiro said coolly. "Kaoru has yet to disappoint me."
Her fists clenched, hard, enough that her nails left half-moons in her palms. Yet. That single word hummed like a curse in her mind. She didn't flinch, she didn't move, but she wanted, badly, to throw the smirk back in his face.
What more do you want?
But she knew the answer.
More. Always more. Until there was nothing left of her except power and performance. After all, he had never once expressed outright satisfaction with her progress, no matter how diligently she trained or how perfectly she executed every task. Her father always gave her that look, as if her every struggle was Just a duty she was expected to perform. Nothing more, nothing less; he was always waiting for her to fall, just to prove a point.
It made her want to live up to his expectations just to spite on him.
Someone—a Kamo, probably—said something vaguely optimistic about the future of inter-clan relations. Kaoru didn't bother memorizing it. Her father nodded once and said nothing. That was endorsement enough.
The meeting ended the way they always did, slowly, painfully, with a flurry of stiff bows and murmured platitudes. The Kamo filed out with all the grace of rats leaving a gilded boat. The Zenin elders followed, looking pleased, as if they had bled on the ritual floor. Her mother stayed kneeling, unmoving, her eyes locked on Kaoru with a tightness that might have once been something akin to love. Now? Mostly dread. Not for Kaoru. Never for Kaoru.
Only for herself.
Takahiro stood, his tall frame looming over the room. He turned toward Kaoru.
"You have done well."
Kaoru braced herself.
"Do not let me down."
And there it was: the real message. She felt her throat tighten, but she forced herself to kneel and bow low, her forehead nearly touching the floor. "Yes, Takahiro-sama."
He left and everyone else followed.
Only then did Kaoru straighten, alone under the gaze of her mother, who had not moved. Kaoru felt a shiver run down her spine: she could never decipher her mother's true thoughts, only her expectations. They exchanged a look, barely. A flicker of understanding, or exhaustion, or maybe just mutual recognition that the charade still held. That the lie was still in full force.
Kaoru's shoulders ached, her chest was sticky with sweat and blood. She reached up and smoothed her robes mechanically, tugging them back into symmetry. No one could see the bruises under the perfection: that was the point. On the inside of her cheek she could still taste blood. I will not disappoint him, she thought. I will be perfect the son my father demands.
She would be the perfect heir. The perfect clan head.
The perfect lie.
.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.
1598, Nagoya-go, Zenin clan estate
"Toyotomi Hideyoshi is dead."
The words landed without ceremony. No preamble, no weighty pause, just spoken aloud, like a report on the weather.
Kaoru didn't move. She remained perfectly still, kneeling on the tatami in the main audience hall of the Zenin estate in Nagoya-go. Back straight, hands resting lightly on her thighs, expression blank, as expected.
The man who had delivered the news, her father, sat across from her on the raised dais, cross-legged in his formal robes, his gray-streaked hair pulled back. His presence, as always, felt like steel drawn halfway from its sheath. He said nothing more, just let his eyes bore into her, waiting for her to react or give something.
Kaoru's chest ached, part nerves, part the tight linen binding pressed under too many layers of formalwear. Still, she kept her breathing even. Controlled. She would not give him the satisfaction of blinking first. Her mind, however, raced. Of course, Hideyoshi's death was no small matter. The unifier of Japan, gone, and that single thread pulled from the tapestry of power leaved the entire nation in a precarious balance.
"How?" she asked, voice flat, almost detached. "Natural causes? Or…" Her gaze lifted just enough to meet his. "The barrier around Fushimi wasn't something you could just stroll through."
Her father's lips twitched. Not quite a smile, her father didn't smile, but a faint glint of approval. The kind of look that meant you're not an idiot. Good. "The Mitsuboshi no Yari," he said, leaning on one elbow, "is gone."
Kaoru blinked, her mask slipping for an instant. "Gone?"
The room seemed to grow colder as she processed her father's words. The Mitsuboshi no Yari, the Three Stars Spear. That wasn't the kind of artifact that just went missing. It was the kind that generations of sorcerers died to protect, the kind that got you excommunicated just for asking the wrong questions about it.
A high-grade artifact of unknown origin, said to have been forged in the Heian era by hands lost to history. Little was known of its full capabilities, but its power is said to erect immense Kekkai and dismantle most top-level barriers. Unstable and dangerous, it requires tremendous control to wield without consequence, making it a weapon capable of shifting the tide of any war.
Centuries ago, by imperial decree, the spear was enshrined beneath the Fushimi Castle, forming the core of a city-wide barrier that purifies the capital of curses and protects its political balance and, most importantly, the Toyotomi legacy. Since then, it has never been moved, its maintenance entrusted to the Gojo clan, appointed as the spiritual guardians of Kyoto, with now only their prized heir said to be able to wield it.
It wasn't something that could simply vanish, unless someone deliberately took it. And whoever bypassed those layers of protection must have a deep knowledge of the jujutsu arts and the stomach to commit political suicide.
Her father's voice snapped her back, cool and deliberate. "Stolen. Along with it, the barrier around Kyoto has fallen, and with that, Toyotomi Hideyoshi was found dead."
Of course. One thread pulled, and the whole shroud came down.
"Needless to say," he continued, "we are being blamed by the other two grsat clans. Our recent alignment with Tokugawa-dono was already inconvenient and now the loss of the spear makes it… suspicious."
Kaoru dropped her eyes to the floor, her voice processing the implications. "Was it us?" she asked cautiously.
Takahiro didn't answer immediately. When he did, it was with that maddening tone of his — the one he used when a test was being administered. "What do you think?"
A test. She welcomed it, letting her mind race.
The Mitsuboshi no Yari. The shifting alliances of the Jujutsu clans. The delicate political scenario between the daimyo. Jujutsu sorcerers served as unseen but indispensable pillars of Japan's feudal society for years.
The Gojo, as ever, guarded the capital. Now they had Limitless, the Six Eyes. Unassailable. Their loyalty had always lain with Hideyoshi, more a marriage of politics than sentiment, but strong nonetheless. It couldn't have been them, they would have not risk their alliance with the Toyotomi just for a cursed weapon, no matter how strong.
The Kamo were different. Kyoto-bred, ancestral, always watching. Publicly neutral, privately… calculating. They kept to the shadows and collected favors like shrine offerings. No one knew much about them and their members, and sharing territories with the Gojo inside the capital, they wouldn't have risked an open conflict they couldn't win. It couldn't have been them.
And then there was them.
The Zenin.
No real political power at the Toyotomi court, no sacred inheritance, no Six Eyes. Just war and ambition. And now, the Ten Shadows. Based in Nagoya-go, far from the court, far from the capital. Too far to be trusted. Too close to be ignored.
But when Tokugawa Ieyasu began consolidating power, Takahiro Zenin saw an opportunity. No one else would have them. So he pledged loyalty early, placing his ambitions and hopes on the rise of a new shogunate. While the Gojo clung to tradition and the Kamo watched from above, the Zenin sharpened their blades and prepared for war.
And now?
With Hideyoshi's death, Tokugawa's star would inevitably rise, and the Zenin's sympathies toward his faction painted a clear target on their backs. Of course the blame was being delievered at them. The Gojo clan would waste no time in pointing fingers, and the conveniently neutral Kamo clan would likely align with them to protect their shared territory in the Kansai region.
What a damning timing.
Kaoru's hands tightened in her lap as she processed the implications. No, she thought. Her father was ambitious, but not foolish enough for this. His hunger for power was his most significant flaw, but even he wouldn't invite a disaster like this.
"No," she said finally, her voice firm. "It wasn't us."
Her father's expression didn't shift, but his posture relaxed slightly, as though her answer had passed. "Good," he said, leaning back slightly. "Then go convince the others of that."
Kaoru's head snapped up in alarm. "…Excuse me?"
Her father's tone hardened as he delieverer his orders. "In two weeks, a council will convene in Kyoto to address the incident. You'll represent us."
Her stomach dropped. Not visibly, of course. But inwardly, she felt it, the quiet, awful click of a trap being set. The Gojo would be there of course. The Kamo would play mediator. And she, the teenage heir to the least trusted of the three Great Clans, would walk in, sit at the table, and try not to get politically beheaded. She could already picture the accusations, the hostility, the scrutiny that would follow her every word and action. If she failed, it wouldn't just be her reputation at stake, it would be the Zenin name.
She nodded once. "I understand."
Takahiro rose to his feet easily, his hakama falling down neatly into place. He towered over looking down at her, his expression austere but his voice carrying a warning edge. "Do not embarrass me," he said. "Do not embarrass this clan. Keep our position intact. And if the opportunity arises…"
Kaoru's spine straightened before the sentence even finished.
"…retrieve the spear for the Zenin."
She bowed low. "I will not fail you, Takahiro-sama."
He turned and strode from the room, leaving Kaoru alone with her thoughs in the vast hall. The sliding doors closed behind him, and she exhaled, the kind of breath you let out when no one's looking. Her ribs ached under the compression of her bindings. Her fingers twitched, then steadied. "Convince them," she muttered, eyes still on the tatami. "Sure. Let me just smile nicely and hand them a metaphorical truce."
She didn't smile.
The quiet in the room was deafening as She stayed kneeling long enough for the numbness in her legs to settle in. Long enough to feel the full weight of it; the spear, the summons, the performance.
It was getting harder.
Harder to keep the mask straight, harder to lie to her father, harder, since her mother died. She had been raised not as Kaoru the daughter, but Kaoru the son, the heir of the Zenin clan. That part was easy: if you knew how to hold a sword, had enough cursed energy and keep your voice low, people would believe what you told them to.
The rest was not so easy.
She raised a hand, brushing away a stray lock of hair from her face, fingers trembling only slightly.
From the moment she could walk, it had been nothing but training: mornings in the dirt, evenings with scrolls. History, strategy, politics: everything she needed to lead the clan one day.
Her first real battle came at the age of eleven, when a curse broke containment in the Owari province and no senior sorcerer could be spared. She had returned bloodied but victorious, and for three days the Zenin estate had been silent in shock. Her first real kill had come at twelve—her second, at twelve and a half. By fifteen, she had led five successful campaigns against cursed outbreaks in the Kiso valley, had faced opposition from the Koga clan's proteges, and held her ground.
The Zenin elders no longer doubted her ability. The retainers bowed. Reports were sent to the rising shogun.
And yet…
And yet.
Victories were just expectations fulfilled. Nothing was ever enough. Her father never said "well done." Only "again." As though to acknowledge her strength would be to admit that a mistake
Her body, with time, betrayed her. Though she bound her chest tightly beneath her robes, even now at eighteen, she heard it: the murmurs behind closed doors.
"Too soft," they said.
"Too narrow in the shoulders."
"Too pretty."
As if strength needed stubble.
They called her the prodigy of the Zenin clan, one of the two strongest sorcerers of their time.
And still, respect clung like mist. Thin and waiting to evaporate the moment she slipped.
Kaoru pressed her hands to her thighs and rose in one slow, practiced motion.
She had two weeks to prepare.
The sliding doors of the audience hall closed behind her with a soft click.
Kaoru let out the breath she'd been holding since the first syllable of "you will attend." It didn't help much. The bindings crushed her ribs, the weight of her father's expectations crushed the rest.
Waiting at the end of the corridor, as always, was Harunobu.
Tall, unshakable, dressed like the idea of discipline had been folded into human form. His hair was tied back into a no-nonsense ponytail, his katana sat with indifference at his hip, wearing the black formal uniform of the Zenin retainers; he had the serene preparedness Kaoru had grown accustomed to and even depended on.
At the sight of her, he bowed. Shallow. Formal. Watching her face like it might crack, scanning for trouble in a way that spoke more of a parent than a bodyguard. "Kaoru-sama."
Kaoru nodded back, a short, mechanical motion, still too stiff to pass for normal. But it was enough. Her mother's old guard, Harunobu, was the only one who had remained resolutely loyal and knew the truth, the only consistency in her chaotic world.
They began walking in silence, footsteps soft on wooden floors. The heat from the courtyard slanted sideways through the screens; it made her skin itch. The bindings felt tighter than they had an hour ago, always tighter, always worse the moment no one was watching.
By the time they reached the edge of the veranda, her control cracked. Just slightly. She stopped, scowled at her own hidden chest like it had personally wronged her, and started adjusting the cloth beneath her layers, a subtle tug, barely visible. Mostly just an excuse to breathe.
Harunobu's voice arrived right on schedule, low and bone-dry. "Might I suggest saving that for your quarters, Kaoru-sama? Some of the servants here have excellent peripheral vision."
She didn't stop. "I can't breathe, 'Nobu."
He raised a brow. "You're speaking. That suggests otherwise. This is hardly the place."
Kaoru exhaled sharply, half a laugh, rolling her eyes as she looked ahead. "A little compassion, perhaps?" she muttered under her breath with rare petulance. "These damned things are suffocating me."
"If I lacked compassion, Kaoru-sama," he replied without missing a beat, "I wouldn't suggest you avoid a scandal, you'd be out here alone. Consider that."
"Deeply appreciated." She let the fabric fall back into place and resumed walking, slightly faster now. The moment of weakness had passed, or at least been shoved back into its designated box. "We don't have time to linger," she said, voice crisp again. "We leave within the hour."
Harunobu matched her pace without question. "Destination?"
"Kyoto," she replied, voice low enough to keep it from carrying beyond their conversation.
A beat. "Ah," he said. "Subtle."
Kaoru didn't look at him. "Orders of the clan head. I'll explain on the road." They moved through another corridor. "I want a small unit. Seven, no more than eight. Sorcerers. Not idiots. Not idealists. I won't spend the entire meeting apologizing for someone else's ego."
Harunobu's head inclined slightly in acknowledgment. "Any preferences beyond intelligence and restraint?"
Kaoru considered. "No facial scars. They're sensitive in the capital." That earned her a flicker of a smile from the older man. "No excess," she added. "No drama. The old men are already out for blood. I won't hand them a scandal on a silver tray."
"Understood, Kaoru-sama," Harunobu said simply. "I'll see it done."
They stopped in front of her quarters, the inner heartbeat of the estate reserved for the men of the main branch of the clan, where no one wandered by accident. Kaoru paused at the threshold. Something in her expression softened, not quite warmth, but something adjacent.
"Thank you, 'Nobu," she said quietly.
Harunobu bowed. "I'll see to the preparations."
Without another word, he turned and strode off, his long steps purposeful as he began to carry out her orders.
Kaoru watched him until he disappeared around the corner. Then she stepped inside and closed the door behind her with a soft click, sealing the world out, at least for a minute. Though sparse and functional, the familiar space felt heavy with the weight of her thoughts. She leaned against the doorframe, exhaled through her nose, and let her head tilt back until it touched the wood. Her chest still burned, her jaw ached from being clenched too long.
She stood there a little longer than usual before setting into motion.
Her gaze shifted to the low table in the corner, and eventually, she crossed the room and knelt beside it. Ink, brush, maps. Kansai unrolled before her and her fingers moved on instinct, checking supplies, rolling parchment, counting. She exhaled slowly, the faintest hint of a smile tugging at her lips. "Alright, Kaoru," she muttered to herself, stuffing a few final scrolls into her satchel. "Time to convince your father and Kyoto's most influential senior citizens that you're not just a pretty face."
She tied the travel bag shut with a tug and slung it over her shoulder.
"Should be fun."
.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.
August 1598, Kyoto, Kamo clan estate
The summer heat clung to Kyoto like a second skin. Gold light filtered through the shōji of the Kamo audience hall, turning everything soft and ceremonial.
Except Kaoru.
She stood in the center, her back straight, her black hair pulled neatly into a formal knot, and her hakama impeccably folded. She was every bit the image of the perfect heir.
Behind her, Harunobu waited in silence, posture perfect, presence quiet and anchoring. The rest of her delegation remained tucked away in an adjacent chamber, leaving Kaoru to face Kyoto's most politically astute clan on her own.
Across from her sat the Kamo patriarch. He was exactly as she remembered: an old fox, silver-haired, draped in layers of brown silk and condescension. His smile was the kind that belonged on folding screens: painted, and fake.
To his left slouched a disinterested functionary from the Council of Five Regents, who looked one blink away from death by boredom.
"Ara, ara," the Kamo patriarch drawled, his tone dripping with politeness so saccharine it bordered on cloying. "Zenin Kaoru-dono, in our humble halls. The prodigy himself. What an extraordinary occasion."
Kaoru inclined her head just enough to be polite, not enough to encourage further praise. Here we go again. We get it, you're neutral. So neutral you bleed bias, old man.
"Truly, the honor is mine, Kamo-dono," she replied, her tone so smooth it should've been illegal.
He didn't notice. Or he didn't care.
"Of course, given the gravity of the situation," he continued, smile still glued in place, "I had hoped to see your esteemed father in attendance. Not that I doubt your capabilities, of course. Not at all. It's simply that—"
Kaoru smiled tightly, the kind of smile that said try me.
He kept talking. "—his presence would've reassured those of us with long memories."
Kaoru sighed internally. The Kamo clan's famed neutrality was already proving to be as genuine as a painted smile. Since her arrival the day before, the head of the Kamo clan had made no secret of his opinions, or rather, the ones he tried to disguise as harmless pleasantries. Her fingers twitched once at her side, remembering the way he'd looked at her the day before, not quite disrespectfully, but long enough to catalogue. Height. Shoulders. Jawline. Whatever conclusions he'd drawn, they weren't flattering. She'd held his gaze without flinching, returning the scrutiny until he'd politely looked away.
Since then, he hadn't stopped talking.
"I assure you," she replied, calm and steady, "my father has complete faith in my ability to speak for the Zenin clan."
Translation: I'm the best you're going to get. Try living with it.
Still, her patience was fraying, and not just from the Kamo patriarch's endless diplomacy, but from the absence of Kyoto's other shining star. A day late. An entire day. While the country tipped into chaos, the Gojo, loyal retainers of the late Toyotomi Hideyoshi, clan had apparently stopped for tea.
It's absurd. Embarrassing. Frankly, insulting, Kaoru's jaw tightened as she stole a glance behind her. Even Harunobu looked faintly unimpressed, and his tolerance for nonsense was legendary. At least she wasn't alone in her frustration. She was just about to cut off another round of compliments with something sharp and vaguely disrespectful when the doors finally creaked open.
A servant entered and bowed. "The Gojo delegation has arrived."
Kaoru didn't turn. She didn't need to. She felt it. The shift in the cursed energy around her, the sudden pull of attention. The way the entire room leaned, almost involuntarily.
And then he walked in with an ease that Kaoru found both irritating and undeniable
Tall. Just a few years older than her. Relaxed. Dressed in black with a white haori tossed over his shoulders like he never learned to wear it properly. His hair, absurdly white, was tied back in the most half-hearted ponytail she'd ever seen, the rest of it drifted around his face like it couldn't be bothered to stay put. He carried himself with the sort of effortless confidence that Kaoru had spent her entire life striving to emulate, the kind that said this room belongs to me now, you just live in it.
His eyes—blue, cold like ice, and very sure of themselves—swept the room. And then landed on her.
Kaoru did not blink. She knew who he was. Everyone did. Too young to be the head of the clan, too self-assured to be anyone else. No, this had to be him.
Seijiro Gojo.
Her jaw tightened imperceptibly.
The other prodigy of the Jujutsu world. Her counterpart. The Limitless heir with the Six Eyes. Weapon and heir of the most arrogant family in existence. A Kyoto-born golden boy with inherited untouchability and the kind of face that made people forgive him before he even spoke; unfortunately, he also spoke.
She remembered seeing him once from across the banquet hall of the Kamo clan, when they were both children. That evening had been all silks, lanterns, and veiled tension among the clans heads, before things got bad enough that "cross-clan diplomacy" became a death sentence. She had been seven, eight mayhe. He'd been a loud, overdressed blur of arrogance with perfect table manners and the moral restraint of a fox in a henhouse. He'd laughed too loud. Bowed too deeply. Flirted with a servant that had twice his age.
He hadn't noticed her. Worse: if he had, he wouldn't have remembered.
Kaoru's impression back then? Unbearably smug. Overdressed. Probably stupid.
Since that day, they'd never exchanged a single word. Never crossed paths again. And if someone had told her she would one day have to stand across from that very same boy—grown, smugger, and stupid with diplomatic power—she might have thrown herself into a cursed lake.
Unfortunately, he had grown into all of her worst assumptions. Sharper around the edges, more annoying than memory had allowed... And taller than her.
Which made it worse.
Kaoru's eyes narrowed as he strolled toward them, offering a flippant, insincere bow to the Kamo patriarch and a criminally unserious apology. "My apologies for the delay," he said smoothly, clearly unconcerned with how flimsy the explanation was. "We were… unavoidably detained."
Kaoru kept her chin high and her expression still, cataloguing him the same way he'd probably been catalogued all his life: unbothered, unrepentant, unkillable, for now.
It wasn't the constant comparsion that bothered her, nor the white hair, though honestly, who had hair in disarray like that at his age? It wasn't even the absurd lateness, which had prompted two different Kamo elders to begin subtly speculating whether the Gojo clan had withdrawn from the talks entirely.
No. It was the fact that he was a man.
No binding, no lie, no secrets that could kill him if they slipped. Just a boy who had everything, and still expected applause when he arrived late.
Seijiro stopped in front of the Kamo patriarch first, offered a bow that was exactly shallow enough to insult no one and impress even less, then turned to her. Paused. Tilted his head, as though seeing her for the first time. His smirk widened into something that almost counted as a challenge.
For a brief moment, his unnervingly blue eyes met hers then, as if to confirm every bad impression she'd already formed, he stepped in front of her. Kaoru felt her jaw tighten before he even opened his mouth.
"Well, well," he drawled, arms crossing lazily, "The famous prodigy of the Zenin Clan, I presume?" His gaze slid down and up again over her, from head to toe, deliberate, insolent, and far too practiced. "I pictured someone taller."
Kaoru resisted the urge to summon Nue and end the meeting early.
"So…" His smirk widened, and with a glint of mischief in his eyes, he added, "Do you actually have one, Pretty Boy? You know, a—" he made a vague gesture, "—something between your legs? Or is it just that pretty face keeping you in the game?"
The silence that followed was immediate and volcanic.
Even the Kamo patriarch blinked, the kind of blink that says I would very much like to not be here right now.
Behind her, Kaoru could practically feel Harunobu's hand twitch toward his sword, and for a brief moment, she wondered if he might draw his blade.
She inhaled deeply, her hands remaining steady at her sides. She held his gaze, didn't blink. Didn't breathe, for a moment. Her face remained glacial, controlled, but inside, her mind was already cataloging fifty-nine different ways to maim him without technically starting a war.
Damn idiot.
"Gojo-sama," she said slowly, looking him dead in the eyes, as if daring him to try again. "my face is the least of your concerns." A pause. She smiled, a small thing, the kind that left bruises. "Though I understand why you'd be focused on it, considering it's the only thing in this room prettier than you."
Seijiro blinked, and for half a heartbeat, just half, his smirk faltered.
Murmurs rose from the corners of the room. The Kamo patriarch coughed discreetly into his sleeve, clearly enjoying himself more than protocol allowed.
Kaoru didn't stop. "Perhaps," she continued, tone cool as winter steel, "if your punctuality matched your wit, we wouldn't be having this conversation a full day late." She let the silence sit a moment. "Then again," she added dryly, "I might have overestimated both."
Seijiro tilted his head again, the grin snapping back into place but now just a little tighter around the corners, with something unmistakably annoyed simmering just beneath. Then laughed.
Kaoru arched one brow, just enough to make it clear she was debating whether he counted as an actual threat or a prolonged waste of air. But her fingers itched to summon one of her shikigami, just to wipe that smirk off his face.
Still, she sighed—internally—and braced herself.
This is going to be a long meeting.