Chapter Text
Satoru had dozed off waiting.
Kakashi had been late tonight—later than usual.
He didn’t often come home this far past curfew without calling, but lately… things had been unpredictable. The missions were longer. The silences heavier.
Still, Satoru had waited. In his father’s room. On his father’s bed.
And at some point, drowsiness had won.
The soft rustle of bedsheets, the lingering traces of his father’s scent—all of it lulled Satoru to sleep, curled up on Kakashi’s side of the mattress.
He didn’t know how long he’d been out.
Only that when his eyes fluttered open, he wasn’t alone.
Kakashi had returned.
His father was sitting at the edge of the bed, one hand gently brushing Satoru’s hair away from his forehead—fingers moving with a tenderness.
“Father… you’re home,” Satoru murmured, his small voice heavy with drowsiness.
Kakashi smiled, his thumb brushing gently over Satoru’s cheek. “Yes, I’m home.”
Satoru blinked again, eyes adjusting slowly to the dim light.
And then he smelled it.
His senses, dulled by sleep, slowly sharpened—his awareness returning piece by piece.
The scent that clung to his father’s clothes wasn’t ordinary. It wasn’t the scent of rain or travel or smoke.
It was cursed energy.
Subtle. Residual. But undeniable.
And not just any cursed energy.
It smelled like his.
Faint, but unmistakably familiar—like the way his own aura echoed in confined spaces after training, or clung to the walls after sparring.
“You stink, Father. Where did you go today?” His small nose wrinkled slightly.
There was a pause—so brief it might have gone unnoticed. But Satoru caught it.
Kakashi gave a soft chuckle and looked away for a moment. “I had quite a day,” Kakashi said lightly. “I’ll tell you all about it in the morning. I’m sorry for waking you.
Satoru studied him for a second longer, his eyes narrow. He nodded faintly, his small voice barely brushing the quiet air. “Okay,” he whispered.
His father was home. Safe. That should have been enough.
So Satoru didn’t ask.
Kakashi looked peaceful, his hand still resting lightly on Satoru’s head, fingers threading gently through sleep-warmed hair.
But even through the haze of drowsiness, Satoru’s senses stirred.
It was unmistakable. That scent, that frequency—Satoru knew it. Intimately. Because it was the same as his own.
His father had no cursed energy. Which was why any trace of it on him was immediately obvious.
“It smelled just like yours?” the Kakashi within the cage asked.
As he moved, the silk of his sokutai robes rustled—a faint sound, like paper folding under the weight of memory. Despite how regal the outfit once must have been, here it felt like a shroud.
Satoru nodded.
“Yes,” he said quietly.
It had been a long time since he last saw this version of his father—the one who lived only in this locked realm.
Ever since they moved into the new house, Kakashi had stopped having frequent nightmares. The door to this place had stayed shut.
But everything changed the day Satoru caught that scent.
That faint trace of cursed energy—so familiar it made his skin crawl. It clung to Kakashi like a whisper. Since then, the dream realm stirred again. And Kakashi, too, had begun to waver.
So Satoru had returned.
“It couldn’t be,” Kakashi murmured after a long pause, a brittle smile pulling at the corner of his mouth.
“The only person I can think of… has been gone a long time,” Kakashi said, his voice softer now.
Then, as if by instinct, Kakashi knelt down.
His ceremonial robes whispered softly as they pooled around him like old silk unraveling in the dark. With a grace that felt almost sacred, Kakashi lowered himself so he could meet Satoru at eye level—quietly, reverently.
So Satoru never had to look up to see his father’s face.
He never did.
Not even now, in this strange place between memory and dream.
Satoru’s throat tightened as the silence curled around them.
Then Kakashi smiled.
“Thank you, Satoru,” Kakashi said.
The words were so soft—so unexpected, like breath fogging a mirror—that Satoru startled.
“Why… why would you thank me?” Satoru asked. His voice was small and thin, like something splintered.
Kakashi didn’t look away.
“To have a child like you…” he said slowly, “makes being a parent feel… bearable.”
The words cracked softly as they left his mouth. A tremor lived in his voice, but he kept smiling.
“Not as frightening as I once thought it’d be.”
Satoru blinked. But the tears were already falling.
“I must’ve made you worry,” Kakashi added, his voice growing fainter. He tilted his head to the side with a rueful softness. “You’ve had to carry too much of me on your little shoulders.”
And still—he smiled. And that broke Satoru’s heart even more.
“Thank you… Satoru.”
Satoru opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out—just a sharp breath, a sob too tangled to surface.
His chest ached.
The tears spilled faster, heavier now, wetting the collar of his shirt. He didn’t know how to stop them.
Satoru cried and cried.
Kakashi saw the tears and chuckled gently, though the sound trembled with sadness.
“Don’t cry, Satoru,” Kakashi said, his voice nearly a whisper. “I… I can’t wipe your tears from here.”
Satoru choked out a sound that wasn’t quite a word. He scrubbed at his face with his sleeve, but it didn’t help—the tears kept falling, stubborn and hot. His breath came in little hiccups now, short and tight, his shoulders rising with every trembling inhale.
“Why… can’t I do anything to help you?” Satoru whispered, eyes shining with wet desperation. “I’m strong now. I should be able to save you. I should…”
His voice broke again. His sobs came in fits.
It wasn’t fair—none of it was fair.
The silence that followed was thick and unbearably gentle. It stretched between them like thin glass—fragile, dangerous, too sacred to shatter.
Finally, Kakashi exhaled. He said, voice low and careful, “I want you to remember just this one thing, Satoru.”
He looked up again—and this time, there was no hesitation in his eyes.
“You were born from love.”
Satoru gasped softly, the tears quieting into a stunned stillness. He looked into his father’s face.
“I never regretted having you,” Kakashi said. “Not even for a moment.”
“You are not a burden. You never were. You are… the only thing I am proud of.”
Satoru bit his lip, hard. His hands clenched into fists at his sides, trembling.
“But if you don’t come back—if I can’t bring you back—” Satoru began to say, his voice cracking, “—then what’s the point of being strong?”
Kakashi’s eyes softened further, his smile sad but whole.
“There’s more to strength than saving others, Satoru,” he said. “Sometimes it’s just staying. Staying even when it hurts. Loving even when you’re scared.”
He looked at Satoru one last time, as though memorizing the shape of him.
“And you… love so much, little one. That alone makes you stronger than I ever was.”
.
.
.
“That useless thing. Where’s he been?”
Satoru didn’t even look up from the television. He curled up tighter on the couch, one knee drawn against his chest.
“If you wanted to leave, you should’ve just come back,” Satoru muttered. “I’m not stopping you.”
A low, annoyed tch sounded from the front door. Satoru threw a cold glance in that direction, then turned back to the screen.
The man standing there was one of the Gojo clan’s elite guardians, an escort assigned to Satoru the moment he moved out with Kakashi.
It had been part of the elders’ terms. Non-negotiable.
Satoru was not to be left alone. Either Kakashi, or someone of the clan’s choosing, had to stay with him at all times. That was the decree.
And now, for the past two days, Kakashi had been away on a classified mission. So Satoru had been sent back to the main estate, under watch.
But by the second night, Satoru couldn’t take it anymore.
He insisted on returning to their house, his house. The one where Kakashi & Satoru always came home to.
Even if it meant being shadowed by the clan’s people, Satoru wanted to wait where it still smelled like Kakashi.
He waited. And waited.
It was getting late. The television was still on, flickering against the walls. Satoru barely registered the colors on the screen anymore.
Kakashi said he’d be home today.
But the hours slipped past. Evening gave way to night.
And now it was dark.
Still—no word. No footsteps at the door. No familiar voice calling out from the hallway.
Nothing.
Satoru gripped the remote tighter in his hand and started flipping channels, one after another after another. The sound changed but none of it registered. His mind buzzed with everything and nothing.
A dull ache had formed at the back of his chest.
Was something wrong?
Had something gone wrong?
He tried not to think about it, but his throat felt tight again.
Many weeks ago, when Kakashi had come home late from a different mission—Satoru had stirred in his sleep and caught a trace of something on his father’s clothes.
Cursed energy.
It had smelled just like his own cursed energy.
Satoru hadn’t said anything at the time. He’d wanted to believe it was just fatigue, just a trick of his senses.
But it hadn’t happened again.
Not once.
The days passed. Kakashi went on as usual. But that scent—it never came back.
Now Satoru was starting to think he’d imagined it.
Or maybe it had been something else entirely.
Satoru sighed through his nose, restless, and flipped the channel again. All of it blurred together. None of it filled the silence Kakashi had left behind.
Outside the window, the streetlight flickered.
In the hall, the guardian paced once, then stopped. The house groaned faintly with the weight of night settling in.
Still—no Kakashi.
Satoru swallowed and tried to stretch his legs out, but they felt heavy. He hated this.
He hated the waiting.
He hated how long shadows felt in this house when Kakashi wasn’t in them.
Satoru sat on the couch, his thumb clicking the remote, cycling endlessly through channels without watching any of them. One show blurred into the next, light flashing across his eyes.
But his mind was far away.
He wondered—hoped—that nothing had gone wrong at Kakashi’s workplace.
Kakashi wasn’t a sorcerer. He had no cursed energy. He worked in the outside world, as a bodyguard—a civilian profession, technically. One that had nothing to do with the supernatural world Satoru belonged to.
But that didn’t mean it was safe.
There were still dangers.
Still humans capable of taking away what you loved without warning.
When Satoru was younger, his world had almost fallen apart the day Kakashi began working outside.
Back then, the thought of not having his father beside him every morning—every afternoon—every time he turned his head—was unbearable.
It was the first time he realized that love did not always mean proximity.
But Satoru got used to it. Slowly. Because Kakashi always came back.
His father would return, every single time, with a tired smile and his familiar, comforting warmth.
And Satoru learned to trust that.
To believe in it.
Until one night—
Kakashi came home soaked in blood.
Not someone else’s. His own.
Kakashi collapsed before Satoru could even react.
His father was rushed to the hospital—lifeless, pale, silent.
And Satoru’s world cracked in a way it had never cracked before.
That was the day he discovered what fear truly was.
Not the fear of being left behind.
Not the fear of monsters or clan duties.
Not even the fear of pain.
It was the fear of death.
The fear that Kakashi might not come back next time.
That one day, his father wouldn’t walk through the door again.
That Satoru would wait and wait… and all he would ever get was silence.
Before, if Kakashi was late, Satoru could still imagine going out, searching for him, calling him back.
But death—death meant there was nothing to call back.
Death meant forever.
Death meant alone.
And the thing was—
Kakashi wasn’t just a parent.
He was everything.
Satoru had no siblings. No mother. No one he clung to more tightly than the man who raised him.
The clan had power, yes. Wealth. Prestige.
But their love was conditional. Strategic. Calculated.
Satoru was their heir. That was all he was to them.
To Kakashi, though—he had always been something else.
Something soft. Something precious.
Kakashi gave him warmth when the world was cold.
Gentleness when the clan gave him orders.
A laugh when the elders gave him silence.
And even if he didn’t say it aloud, Satoru knew.
He didn’t want to exist in a world that didn’t have Kakashi in it.
That was the truth. That was the fear.
Kakashi had been mother and father both.
Satoru had never needed anyone else. Not the clan elders. Not the maids or the tutors. It had always been just the two of them—and that had been enough.
He wasn’t lonely. Not really.
Because Satoru had grown up in the warmth of Kakashi’s quiet love. And that love had taught him that he wasn’t alone in the world.
That even if the clan loved him for his potential, someone—one person—loved him simply for who he was.
Please let this just be my imagination, Satoru thought. Please let him be safe.
Even now, he told himself to trust—because if there was one thing Satoru knew, it was this.
His father was strong.
Not in the way of sorcerers. At the moment, Kakashi had no cursed energy.
But Satoru had always watched him, quietly. Before the clan ever began training Satoru formally, Kakashi had been the one to teach him everything.
How to move silently.
How to read the room before stepping inside.
How to defend yourself without hurting someone more than necessary.
And above all—how to protect.
Kakashi’s movements were precise. Sharp. Efficient.
The way he could slip behind someone’s shadow before they even noticed the air shift.
His father’s body was lean, but it held a quiet tension—like a wire drawn tight, ready to snap into motion. It moved with a grace that couldn’t be faked.
Even without cursed energy, Kakashi’s physical prowess was undeniable.
And Satoru had seen it with his own eyes. He had tested it once.
Not in the realm. Not in theory. But in the real world, with his own hands.
He’d given his father a pair of tonfa infused with cursed energy—just a light trace, barely noticeable to the untrained eye. Satoru had slipped the blindfold over his father’s eyes, his fingers trembling just slightly.
And Kakashi had let him—quietly, trustingly—as if this had always been the plan.
Then, without hesitation, Satoru had summoned a low-grade curse onto the rooftop.
What happened next would stay with him for the rest of his life.
Even blindfolded, Kakashi had moved like water.
Like wind that had memorized the path of every leaf, every crack in the tile, every intention behind the curse’s teeth.
The tonfa moved in swift, decisive arcs. Each strike was clean, each motion fluid—like water folding over stone.
There was no panic in Kakashi’s movements, no hesitation.
Only silence.
Then impact.
The curse had been overwhelming at first—surging with malicious power, writhing in the air like smoke. But the moment Kakashi moved, something shifted.
A stillness fell over the rooftop.
The kind of stillness that comes before a storm… or before something terrifying awakens.
And the curse felt it. It felt the cold, coiled precision behind Kakashi’s every step. Felt the weight of a power not born from cursed energy, but from a lifetime of honed instinct and something older, darker, buried deep.
It froze.
Then, with a sickening, guttural shriek, it turned and fled—
As if it had caught a glimpse of something it was never meant to see.
Satoru had stared, heart hammering in his chest.
From that moment on, Satoru knew—this man had been something terrifying once. Even now, without cursed energy, he was still dangerous. Still precise. Still capable of things no ordinary man should be able to do.
And if the curse binding him were ever lifted—
If Kakashi were to regain his cursed energy—
What kind of being would he become?
Satoru thought back to the other Kakashi—the one he saw only in the realm of dreams, shackled in that eerie cage.
The Kakashi in the realm had cursed energy that didn’t whisper, didn’t crackle. It roared.
It vibrated through the air like a living storm, like grief weaponized. Satoru had barely been able to stand in front of it.
It felt like it could swallow entire cities whole.
That presence—so familiar and yet so overwhelming—was still his father.
And someone, something, had sealed that power away.
Someone had looked at Kakashi in his fullness and decided: this man must never be allowed to awaken again.
The thought curled around Satoru’s heart like a thorned vine.
Whoever cursed Kakashi—whoever locked away that part of him—had to be unimaginably powerful. And afraid.
Afraid of what Kakashi would become if unchained.
Afraid of what he already was.
And Satoru, for all his research, all his instincts, still had no name. No clue. No answer.
Only the taste of dread in his mouth and a gnawing frustration he couldn’t shake.
He dragged his hands through his hair in silence, staring blankly at the ceiling as his thoughts circled the same, exhausted drain.
Ever since the day Satoru caught the faint scent of cursed energy on Kakashi, a scent identical to his own, he’d begun sneaking into Kakashi’s room at night.
Quietly. Gently.
Just to slip under the blanket beside his father.
Just to hear him breathe.
Just to make sure he was still there.
Satoru told himself it was childish. But fear has a way of curling itself around the heart, no matter how old you are.
At first, Kakashi had nightmares—twisting beneath the sheets, murmuring things Satoru couldn’t understand.
But then… he stopped.
The nights returned to silence. Kakashi slept peacefully again. And life resumed its rhythm.
Almost.
Because Satoru could no longer pretend.
That cursed scent hadn’t returned. But it had been real.
And with it, his search had hit a dead end.
The cage, the dream realm where the sealed version of his father waited—was no longer letting him in. No matter how hard he tried, Satoru couldn’t reach him.
“There are truths, Satoru, that would ruin the life you’ve always known.” That Kakashi said it gently.
Satoru had frowned, even back then.
What kind of truth could be that dangerous?
What could be so world-breaking, so irreversible, that it had to be kept from him?
But… there was another suspicion Satoru kept buried deep.
He knew, with quiet certainty, that Kakashi wasn’t his only parent. That truth pressed against him like a second skin he couldn’t peel off.
It wasn’t just the scent.
It wasn’t just the way his cursed energy fractured into something else when he was angry.
It was something older. Stranger. Like a shadow stitched into his blood.
A part of him, undeniably, belonged to the Gojo clan.
Their cursed techniques ran in his veins—too precise, too distinct to be mistaken. And Kakashi, in the past, had once wielded cursed energy. Satoru was sure of it. What Satoru inherited from him was clear.
But the other part…
That other presence inside his own power—
That other signature he could never trace, never name—
That came from someone else.
There was still a part of Satoru’s cursed energy that even he couldn’t explain.
A strange fragment of power—something unaccounted for.
Something that didn’t feel like it came from the Gojo clan…
And something that certainly didn’t come from the old Kakashi.
Usually, after exorcising the main spirit in a curtain, Satoru would stay behind a while longer. It was a habit he’d formed, drifting through the hollow remains of the cursed zone to clean up whatever still lingered.
He was a jujutsu sorcerer, after all—there was no harm in finishing the job.
And yet… sometimes, they didn’t run.
The smaller curses, the low-level, instinct-driven ones—
They would pause when they saw him.
Not out of fear. Not out of hatred.
They would simply… stare.
Long and quiet and strange.
Satoru had seen it with his own eyes once. He’d been moving through the remains of a shuttered curtain, the air still heavy with residual malevolence, when a small white shape moved in the corner of his eye.
It was a curse—no doubt about that. It didn’t hide itself. It didn’t hiss or bare claws.
It looked like… a cat.
A pure white one, no bigger than a house pet.
Its form shimmered faintly with cursed energy, but its presence didn’t feel like poison. It didn’t lunge. It didn’t snarl.
It just watched him. Wide-eyed.
Like it recognized something inside him that Satoru himself could not name.
Satoru stood frozen as it approached.
And then—
The cursed spirit brushed its head softly against his hand.
Satoru didn’t move at first. He simply stared, heart stuttering, at the warmth pressing into his palm.
It nudged him again, demanding to be petted.
So Satoru did.
Slowly, uncertainly, he ran his fingers through its white fur, and it purred.
A quiet, trembling sound of contentment.
Satoru’s breath caught in his throat.
There was no killing intent. No curse technique waiting to be sprung.
Just… curiosity.
Just contact.
Satoru knew the textbooks by heart. He knew that some curses learned to mimic affection to lure humans in. He knew stories of sweet-faced spirits who stroked cheeks before swallowing hearts whole.
But this one…
This one just wanted to be touched.
He stroked its fur again, feeling the steady rhythm of its purring against his fingertips. And for a moment—just one—he forgot what side of the veil he was on.
The cursed cat blinked at him, then padded away silently, disappearing between the debris without a sound.
Satoru stood alone in the stillness it left behind, staring at his own hand as if it no longer belonged to him.
Why had it acted like that?
And what was this part of him—this unknown energy—that made curses not want to kill him?
But that cat hadn’t been the only one.
It wasn’t just a one-time thing.
More and more, Satoru began to notice that not every cursed spirit inside a curtain wanted to harm him. Some simply… watched. With a quiet, peculiar stillness. Like animals in a forest who sensed something uncanny in the air.
And somehow, they recognized it in him.
After that first strange encounter, Satoru began doing things differently whenever he stepped into a cursed zone.
First, he would locate the main spirit. That one always revealed itself quickly—its killing intent sharp and hungry, a blade pressed to the air. It never hid. It wanted blood. And Satoru would end it in a blink. With precision, with calm.
But afterward, with the threat gone and the curtain still standing, Satoru would linger.
The guardian stationed outside would wait for him to dispel the veil and return—but Satoru took his time.
Because inside that space, there was something else. A silence that belonged only to him.
A rare privacy.
And in that silence, the lesser curses would drift about, not with aggression, but curiosity.
They would glance at him. Stare a little too long. Then go back to whatever they were doing.
They didn’t speak.
But once, one did.
Satoru had been walking a quiet street inside a rural curtain when he spotted it:
a kappa, collapsed by the roadside.
Its green skin was pallid, cracked from dryness.
It looked near death.
Its voice was a whisper when it noticed him.
“Water,” it rasped. “Please. Give me water…”
Satoru froze. The cursed spirit wasn’t attacking—it could barely lift its head.
Its eyes were dull, but they looked at him with the last flicker of hope.
Satoru knelt beside the collapsed kappa without thinking.
His small hands reached out, hesitant at first, then firmer. He tugged gently at the creature’s bony shoulder—careful not to startle it, careful because he didn’t know if it would suddenly snap.
But it didn’t. It was weak, light as a breath. Its limbs flopped against his arms with no resistance.
Satoru was still just a child, after all.
And in that moment, he carried the cursed spirit like one might carry a lost animal they weren’t sure they should be helping—but couldn’t bring themselves to walk away from.
Step by step, Satoru made his way to the nearby stream.
The water sparkled faintly, and as Satoru knelt by the bank, he lowered the creature in—slowly, carefully.
The moment the kappa’s skin met the water, something changed.
Its eyes fluttered open wider. Then it moved.
First just a twitch of its fingers, then a slow arch of the spine as if some invisible tension were finally releasing.
And then it laughed.
A bubbly, delighted sound burst from its throat—surprising, high-pitched, and almost human in its joy.
The kappa rolled onto its back, kicking weakly at the streambed. It splashed about like a child seeing water for the first time. Its voice gurgled into the air as it swam in circles, flinging droplets up into the low light of the curtain.
Satoru stood at the edge, watching.
Stunned. Still.
He didn’t know what to feel. This wasn’t how he’d been taught to deal with curses.
There was no classified rank, no strategic outcome. Only a small cursed spirit, bathing happily, and the strange warmth in his chest that wasn’t pride, wasn’t fear, but something softer and more confusing than either.
Satoru lingered for a moment longer, the corners of his sleeves damp with river mist, before quietly turning away.
He had taken only a few steps when a voice floated up behind him, soft and clear.
“Thank you, young master,” the kappa called behind him.
Satoru stiffened. He stopped dead in his tracks.
He turned back—
But the kappa was already gone, drifting deeper into the current like a leaf, vanishing around the bend.
Satoru stared at the empty river for a long moment.
Young master.
The words settled into his mind like a pebble in deep water—small, but impossible to ignore.
They felt… sincere.
But why would a cursed spirit call him that?
There were too many unanswered questions. Too many pieces that refused to fit, no matter how Satoru turned them around in his head.
Satoru sat on the couch, knees pulled close to his chest, fingers buried in his hair as if he could comb the confusion out of his thoughts by force.
The cursed technique he had inherited—what was it really?
It was supposed to be a terrifying legacy, a fearsome power passed down through the veins of the Gojo clan. Something that could make curses tremble at the mere scent of it.
But the ones he had encountered lately…
They didn’t run. They didn’t attack. They simply approached him, slowly, like moths circling a quiet flame.
Their eyes held no rage, no hunger. Only curiosity. Only submission.
It was the same with the small, strange collection of spirits that lingered in the apartment building he shared with Kakashi.
After they’d moved in, Satoru had spent days exploring the halls, the stairwells, the cracks in the foundation—and the curses that lived inside them.
None of them had posed a threat.
“I won’t kill you,” Satoru had told them, standing with arms crossed in the flickering shadows of the boiler room.
The curses had nodded, silent and almost solemn.
“In return,” he continued, “you’ll train with me from time to time. And you’ll keep an eye on my father. Understood?”
They had nodded again.
And from that moment on, there had been an unspoken pact between them.
A peace.
A strange, quiet loyalty.
Satoru sometimes wondered—was this power of his really just the Gojo clan’s legacy?
Or was there another source?
Was there something else inside him?
Something older, or darker, or simply different?
He had a theory. One that sat in the back of his mind like a sealed envelope he wasn’t sure he was ready to open.
His power might not come from just Kakashi.
There was… someone else.
The other parent.
In all his memories, it had always been Kakashi. There had never been anyone else.
Satoru had never asked. And he never would.
Because he knew Kakashi.
And he knew—somewhere deep in his bones—that asking would hurt his father. Would split something open inside Kakashi that was still trying to heal.
Satoru wasn’t a child who needed everything explained.
And what he understood was this—whoever the other parent was, they had chosen to leave. Whatever the reason, whatever the cause, they were not here.
And they had left Kakashi to raise him alone.
That, to Satoru, was abandonment. And abandonment, to him, was unforgivable.
Still…
Still there were questions.
Questions that twisted in his chest like thorns.
Was that person—the one who vanished before he was even born—the key to unlocking Kakashi’s sealed strength?
The thought had been circling in Satoru’s mind for weeks now, unanswered and unresolved, until it began to take root. He let out a breath and sank deeper into the sofa, the weight of all his questions pressing into his chest like stones.
His eyes drifted upward, as if it might offer some kind of sign. But the world remained still, dim, uneventful.
Then the TV spoke.
“A failed mass assassination attempt was reported earlier today…”
Satoru’s gaze remained unfocused, barely registering the words—until something flickered across the screen.
His eyes adjusted slowly.
And then—froze.
The broadcast continued:
“…The incident occurred during the campaign rally of candidate—”
He didn’t hear the name.
He didn’t need to.
Because on that screen…
His father was there.
Caught in the frame of chaos, shielding someone with his own body.
Blood trailed down his cheek, smeared across his jaw, soaking into the collar of his uniform.
That uniform—there was no mistaking it.
It was Kakashi’s.
It was unmistakably his.
Satoru’s breath hitched.
His heart seemed to stop, then restart with a violent jolt. A thousand instincts kicked in at once.
“Authorities say, miraculously, no casualties were confirmed at the—”
He didn’t hear the rest.
Satoru jumped to his feet. The blanket draped over him fell to the floor, forgotten. He grabbed the nearest jacket, his hands shaking, and bolted for the door.
“Young master, where are you going?” The guardian’s voice chased him down the corridor, sharp with panic.
But Satoru didn’t answer. He couldn’t.
He was already gone.
Satoru’s ears had turned deaf to everything but the pounding of his own heart. He burst from the apartment, his small shoes hammering against the narrow hallway, each step echoing like a drumbeat of dread.
The fear he had carried had finally taken shape. It was here.
His father—his father was in danger.
His chest constricted, as though invisible cords were binding his ribs together. Breath scraped his throat, too thin, too shallow, and still not enough. The thought of Kakashi alone, hurt, unreachable—it clawed at him, drove him forward until he wanted nothing more than to throw himself from the balcony, to cut the distance with his own body if that was what it took.
But then—Satoru froze.
A force pressed against him, stopping him in his tracks.
Cursed energy.
It rolled in like a storm tide, invisible yet suffocating, filling his lungs until he could hardly breathe. His knees trembled beneath the weight of it.
And the scent—he knew it. His entire body recoiled, not from fear, but from recognition so sharp it was almost pain.
The same cursed energy he had once found lingering on his father’s skin. The same pulse, the same texture.
His own cursed energy.
Satoru clutched at the railing, fingers white, his whole frame quivering as if the cold had gotten inside his bones. He turned, wide-eyed, to the guardian who had caught up to him, but the man’s face was blank, untouched, unaffected. He couldn’t feel it.
Only Satoru could.
He gripped the balcony harder, forcing himself forward, leaning out into the night air.
Down below, in the courtyard, a single car sat waiting. Its windows glinted faintly beneath the lamps, its engine ticking with a sound too small to belong to something that carried such dread.
Satoru’s gaze locked on the shadowed interior. His breath hitched. For one unbearable heartbeat, he thought it might be a stranger, or worse—an enemy waiting for him.
But then, through the dim glass, he saw him.
Kakashi.
His father’s head rested against the seat, tilted slightly toward the window, his chest rising and falling in the rhythm of sleep.
The world around Satoru seemed to fall away. All that remained was that fragile silhouette, so near, so untouchable.
Father’s here. He came back. He’s alive.
Relief broke over Satoru in a wave so strong it nearly buckled his knees. His heart, bound so tight a moment ago, finally loosened. Every suffocating fear melted as he clung to the sight of Kakashi breathing, existing, there.
But then—Satoru saw it.
A hand.
Pale, unnatural, too deliberate. It crept out of the shadows of the car’s interior and settled against Kakashi’s cheek.
The gesture was almost tender, obscene in its mimicry of care. Fingers stroked the hollow of Kakashi’s face, sliding over skin that should only ever be touched with love. Then, with slow insistence, the hand tilted Kakashi’s head back toward the darkened seat, pulling him deeper into its grasp.
A curse.
A curse.
The word hammered through Satoru’s mind. His body screamed to move, to leap, to tear his father free, but all he could do was choke on the sight before him.
Kakashi leaned into that touch, vacant, his features slackened into a mask of half-sleep. He wasn’t himself; he wasn’t awake. From this angle, Satoru could no longer truly see his father—only a figure being swallowed, guided, claimed.
Panic tore through Satoru.
The suffocating weight of cursed energy was gone, but in its place was something worse: a hollow terror, a desperate certainty that if he didn’t act, he would lose his father forever.
“No—no, no!” His hands shot to the railing. He was ready to throw himself from the balcony, ready to crash onto the pavement if it meant reaching that car.
But strong arms yanked Satoru back.
His body jerked upward, his legs kicking at the empty air. He dangled, caught.
“Young master! What are you doing?” the guardian shouted, voice cracked with fear as he hauled Satoru back from the edge.
Satoru fought him like a trapped animal, thrashing, fists striking, voice breaking into a hoarse scream. “Let me go! Let me go!” His eyes, wild and wet, never left the car below.
Inside, the cursed hand still cradled Kakashi, its grip unyielding. His father’s eyes were half-open now, glazed, pupils swimming out of focus as though sleep were dragging him under again, this time too deep.
This isn’t right. This isn’t right!
His chest burned with the helplessness of a child who could do nothing but cry out. In that knife-edge instant, hanging between terror and hope, Satoru’s voice split the night:
“Father!”
The word was raw, ripped from the very core of him—a sound desperate enough to shatter glass. For a heartbeat, the courtyard was silent, the car unmoving, the cursed hand still pressed against Kakashi’s face. Despair welled inside Satoru, sharp and suffocating. He could not reach his father. He could only watch as the one he loved most seemed ready to slip away, stolen by a force too dark, too cruel.
But then—something shifted.
Kakashi stirred. His breathing hitched, faint but undeniable. From where he stood, Satoru felt it, like a current breaking through murky water. The curse faltered. His father’s head turned slightly, heavy lids lifting.
Satoru’s heart lurched. He cried out again, louder this time, his small body straining against the guardian’s grip.
“Father! Father!”
This time, Kakashi’s eyes opened.
Unfocused at first, then searching—until at last they found him. Father and son, four eyes locking across the distance.
Satoru waved frantically from the high balcony, his arm trembling with urgency. He sees me. He’s awake. He’s still here.
Adrenaline surged. Satoru tore himself free from the guardian’s grasp, his small frame thrashing with a ferocity the man hadn’t expected. The shove sent the adult stumbling backward, but Satoru didn’t pause to watch him fall. His feet were already pounding across the balcony, carrying him toward the railing.
Every second mattered—he had to reach his father before the curse claimed him again.
If father saw this, he would worry, Satoru thought fleetingly.
But there was no room for hesitation. Satoru pushed the thought aside and hurled himself from the railing, his body hanging weightless for a single, impossible heartbeat before the night tore him downward.
Satoru jumped.
The fall stole the breath from his lungs. The world blurred into rushing air, his stomach twisting violently as the courtyard surged closer, his body folding into a practiced crouch as if to soften the inevitable blow.
Satoru’s small chest tightened. He braced for the ground to rise—
—when suddenly, the air itself shifted beneath him.
Something caught him in the fall.
Not the ground, not the sharp embrace of broken stone, but something broad and alive that rose beneath him like a tide.
A curse.
Its shape spread wide and weightless, wings spanning farther than the boy’s outstretched arms. It was a manta, or at least the memory of one, sculpted from shadows and stray whispers of cursed energy. Its body glided through the air as if the sky itself had become water, and Satoru, small and trembling, landed on its slick back with a startled gasp.
The creature was vast compared to him, a floating continent of muscle and velvet skin, its great wings undulating in silence. Beneath his fingers it felt cold, smooth, faintly damp, like the glass walls of an aquarium he once pressed his palms against in Okinawa, staring wide-eyed at creatures that looked too gentle to belong to the sea.
“Thank you,” Satoru whispered, clinging tightly as the manta tilted, carrying him down in a sweeping arc. Wind tore at his hair and clothes, stung his eyes, but he refused to close them. He could not afford to miss a single heartbeat.
Father was below. He had to reach him.
The manta had lived in the same building as he, once small and feeble, bullied into corners by harsher, venomous curses.
But since Satoru had begun living here, it had changed.
Grown. Perhaps because it lingered near Satoru, perhaps because it wanted to keep pace with him. It had always been foolish, always timid—drifting after him like a lost shadow, incapable of harm.
Foolish enough that Satoru could never turn it away.
Now it bore Satoru swiftly toward the ground, wings slicing the air with silent grace.
When at last it landed, it set him down gently, lowering its body until his feet touched stone. The boy stumbled but did not fall. He stood, his small hands pressed briefly to its head. The manta leaned into him, nudging at his chest, rubbing its blunt snout against him with affection.
Satoru’s palm found the smooth expanse of its forehead, and he patted it twice, almost tenderly. The creature smelled faintly of salt, and its skin was cool against his fingertips.
But the moment could not last.
Satoru lifted his gaze upward. The guardian on the upper floors was still searching, his eyes darting, unaware of him below. Relief loosened a breath Satoru hadn’t realized he was holding.
Still, his chest tightened.
Satoru knew if anyone from the Gojo household saw him consorting with this creature, the consequences would be dire. Worse still, that suffocating cursed energy was still in the air, oppressive and choking—it made his skin crawl, as if disaster could strike at any second.
“Go,” Satoru whispered, his voice small. He pushed at the creature’s head, gentle but firm. “It’s too dangerous here.”
The manta stilled, as if it didn’t understand. Its wings flared, then folded again, and it pressed its forehead once more against Satoru’s chest, refusing to move.
Satoru squeezed his eyes shut. His throat burned. “Please,” he begged. “Please go. I’ll be fine. Just… go.”
The curse lingered a moment longer, then finally obeyed. Its body shivered, began to unravel, wings dissolving into thin wisps of mist that drifted away on the wind. Before vanishing, it brushed his cheek one last time, and then it was gone.
The air felt heavier without it. Satoru’s hand hung uselessly in the space it left behind, trembling.
Satoru’s chest heaved as he scanned the courtyard.
Gone.
The car was gone, swallowed by the night.
Only one figure remained.
There stood Kakashi, silhouetted in the moonlight, his body rigid, his face turned toward the street where taillights dwindled into the distance.
At first, Satoru only stared. For one stunned heartbeat, Satoru could not move. His chest clenched so tightly he thought he might break apart just from breathing.
Then his legs betrayed him.
They carried him forward—first a stagger, then a stumble, then a headlong sprint, as if the earth itself had tilted and was pulling him toward that one familiar shape.
“Father!”
The cry tore from him, ragged, shaking, more a sob than a word. By the time he reached him, Satoru flung his arms around Kakashi’s waist from behind, clutching with a desperation that left no air between them.
The warmth was real.
For an instant he couldn’t believe it, couldn’t trust his senses—that the man he feared lost forever was here, solid beneath his palms, body heat seeping into his skin. The scent of dust, leather, and something faintly metallic clung to his clothes, achingly familiar.
Satoru pressed his cheek against Kakashi’s back, and only then realized how violently he was trembling. His fingers clenched harder, terrified that if he loosened them even for a breath, Kakashi would vanish like all the fragile things that slipped too easily from his grasp.
Kakashi turned slowly. Without hesitation he dropped to one knee, gathering Satoru into his arms.
Satoru collapsed into the embrace. Every shiver, every ounce of fear poured out of him, swallowed by the strength of his father’s hold. His small frame fit against Kakashi’s chest as if it had always belonged there, sheltered beneath the steady beat of his heart.
He’s here, Satoru thought. He’s really here…
Kakashi said nothing. He simply tightened his arms around Satoru, one hand cradling the back of his head, as if anchoring him to reality. Satoru could feel the rise and fall of his father’s breath, the solid rhythm that said: alive, alive, alive.
The night air was sharp, full of the echoes of what almost was—but in this fragile circle of warmth, it no longer mattered.
For the first time in what felt like forever, Satoru allowed himself to breathe.