Chapter Text
Travelling via Gojo's unique method of teleportation was easily your least favourite mode of transport. Just once, when you were in your teens and he was showing off his new shiny technique, you'd agreed to let him whisk you away to the top of the Shibuya Sky building at midnight. Harmless fun, you had thought. You would go, admire the view for five minutes, leave. It would be a great experience.
Except it had been anything but. The sensation was indescribable, like your body was being ripped apart at a molecular level and stitched back together in the wrong order. Like your organs had been put in a blender and your head in a vacuum. What should have been a pleasant, if slightly illegal experience, had ended with reacquaintance with your dinner, a swift loss of consciousness and discovery by the building's security. You would perhaps never get the answer to how Gojo had talked his way out of the situation he'd created by not giving you a full disclaimer.
This occasion, years later, was slightly less traumatic. He had a better grip of his technique at least. You however, had no kind of grip on the overwhelming sensation of it.
You stumbled forwards, disoriented as you appeared across the street from the aforementioned Lawson, Gojo's grip on the collar of your jacket quite likely the only thing keeping you from faceplanting the concrete. Your stomach churned violently, your head felt like you had smashed it violently into the ground. It was every bit of your willpower and self preservation instincts to quell the overpowering wave of nausea that engulfed you.
“You alive?” Gojo spoke as you straightened your spine.
“You told me it was better now,” you snipped, aggressively turning to glare at him.
“Yeah, for me,” he grinned. “Well, I have fulfilled my role as your incredibly generous personal transport.”
“However will I repay you?” you deadpanned.
“Oh, I'll think of something,” he shot back immediately, far too pleased with himself. “Oh look, he's waiting already - cute.” He cooed, albeit quietly by Gojo's standards.
Of course you were aware, even dazed and on the verge of vomiting, even as your cursed energy was stretched in threads in every direction, you'd felt the familiar brush of Naoya's presence the moment you'd appeared out of thin air. Your eyes drifted over to him, leant against the same sleek black car he'd taken from the Zen'in estate when you'd been there previously.
It was every last drop of your resolve not to stare absently at his profile under the purple hues of twilight and the warm orange glow of the streetlights. He looked near on ethereal, and as his eyes caught ahold of yours, your breath caught audibly.
Gojo huffed a laugh, of course he'd heard.
“Damn girl, that dick made of magic because you're down bad.” Mercifully, the words were whispered.
“Fuck off, Gojo.” You snapped before you began to move.
He caught your arm, a quiet, earnest muttering of your name freezing your tracks.
“I don't know what you're doing but -” he paused “- be careful.”
You blinked at him, eyes meeting his through the tinted barrier of his sunglasses.
“I will be,” you assured him with a gentle snort of laughter, a fruitless attempt to shield yourself from the almost uncharacteristic caution.
“Good, because it would deeply inconvenience me if you died,” he grinned and with a sharp wave of his hand, disappeared into the nothingness from which you'd both just appeared.
The street felt unnaturally quiet after Gojo's retreat, even the hum of distant traffic and the faint chirp of a faraway crossing felt dulled in comparison to the sound of your own heartbeat in your ears. The nausea had peaked, but not fully passed, your fatigue felt like a trial as you pushed your body across the road towards Naoya.
His sharp, golden eyes tracked you, narrowing slightly, neutral as he pushed off the car with an ease that bordered on lazy. Oh how you envied the ability to do anything whilst expending such little effort. His gaze flicked over you, a quick assessment that absorbed far more information than you would have liked.
“Can you find it?” He asked bluntly.
Of course he wouldn't ask you how you were.
“I can track it, but -”
“Then track it,” he cut you off, not sharp, but definitely abrupt.
“The estate -”
“Irrelevant if we can simply catch him in the act,” he cut you short again.
You thinned your lips, averting your gaze, but nodded once. He said nothing more, just walked around the car towards the driver's seat as you opened the door and slipped in. Once seated, you focused on the thread pulled taut, the pull of cursed energy that tugged more sharply than the rest at the edge of your awareness.
After he joined you in the car, he watched intently yet wore a mask of indifference. Your eyes were closed, jaw tense as you focused. You looked awful, your skin pale, your cheeks reddened with weariness, the hollow beneath your eyes darker than was standard. You had told him the use of this particular technique would slowly drain your reserves, but as he observed the toll it had taken on you and felt the way your cursed energy stuttered, he realised you'd either downplayed it, or had been unaware of exactly how taxing it would be.
“West, I think,” your eyes opened and then met his as you spoke.
“Are you going to be a liability?” He queried, still neutral.
“No, I'm fine,” you shook your head.
“Good,” he responded simply.
Though both of you were well aware, your words were far from truthful.
–
Naoya drove in silence aside for when he checked in occasionally on the direction of travel. He radiated a festering sort of tension, not aimed at you for once, but rather, a product of the situation at hand. You occasionally allowed yourself a glance at him, each time you found him sharp and focused, coiled tightly like a spring under maximum pressure. He wore it well, shed of his usual casual arrogance, focus looked good on him, suited him even.
Your mind briefly wavered to the other night. You'd not addressed it, not uttered a word to each other about the meaning of the very fact you'd both willingly chosen to indulge in each other and then bathed in the afterglow together. Now wasn't the time, the act itself had complicated the situation more than was entirely wise, bringing it up would be a needless distraction, it could wait. It would probably wait forever, given the two of you were ill-equipped to admit there was a deeper layer to unpack than on previous occasions.
“Huh?” You snapped from your daze as you registered his voice but not the words carried on it.
The thread was still there, taut and persistent, impossible to ignore, like a hook buried in your psyche that tugged on your soul more aggressively the closer you got.
“Stop somewhere,” after an hour, your voice held a strain to it, the kind that came with bracing through pain.
Naoya complied wordlessly, pulling the car off to the side of the road before shutting off the engine. It was dark now, only the cold silver embrace of the moon illuminated the space around the vehicle after the headlights were off. You could see trees, but through them the ominous solid shadow of a boundary, a wall or a structure.
“Here?” Naoya twisted his neck to face you.
You nodded.
He observed you for a long moment, eyes assessing the tension, the tightness your expression held, the way your breaths were just slightly off.
“Are you up to this?” Not concerned - at least, not for you.
“Of course I am,” you bit, meeting his eyes as he huffed in response. “I'm going to sever my connections, if this is a dud, I'll have to manually reestablish them all before -”
“Then we make sure it isn't,” he cut through your words, at this point you'd lost count of how many unfinished sentences he'd left at the tip of your tongue. “I know this place, it's an old Zen'in branch family estate. The family was,” he paused “relocated, when I was a child.”
You cut each tie of cursed energy as he spoke, each one feeling like a weight lifted. Severing the connections wouldn't replace the reserves they'd drained, but it would halt any further degradation of your energy. Last but not least was the taut string that connected you to the weapon that had stilled metres away, as soon as it was gone your body felt lighter, relief leaving your body as a gentle breath of a sigh.
“You done?” Impatience nipped at his tone.
“Yeah,” you affirmed as you leant through the seats to grab your swords. “Let's go.”
You were apprehensive as you walked through the gates, up the path and towards the neglected building that sat at the end of it. You'd fought your fair share of curses, but rarely a curse user. People were different, strategic whereas curses were fueled largely by instinct.
Naoya didn't slow, didn't hesitate, just walked ahead of you with a purpose, like the situation was just an inconvenience waiting to be dealt with. The absence of the thread felt jarring, the inside of your head almost too still when moments ago it had felt too busy. The estate looked no better up close, but you could feel the faint brush of signatures within.
“He's not alone,” you whispered to Naoya.
“Didn't think he would be,” his response was almost dismissive as he simply carried on, diverting from the main path to skirt the edge of the building.
You quickly came to the side of the building, the engawa, though worn and dishevelled, showed signs of movement, visible even in the faint light of the moon. Naoya didn't hesitate, just climbed the few steps and slid the door open, silently, slowly, scanning the immediate vicinity before stepping in. You followed close behind, trying to quell the feeling of your heart pounding in your chest, but found it near impossible. Everything was still, too still. If they'd bothered to place any seals - they would already know you were there.
As you passed through one barren room, the next was far from it. Weapons were stacked in a neat orderly manner, thrumming with gentle cursed energy as they lay unsealed in the abandoned room.
Naoya froze for a single prolonged moment as his head twisted to scan the room. A gentle huff passed through his nose before he began to move again, only to stop in his tracks at the same moment you did.
Voices, muted by old walls mumbled quietly towards your ears.
“We need a plan,” you moved closer to him to whisper as quietly as you could.
“Stay here,” He didn't look at you.
“No way I -”
“Your cursed energy is a mess, if a fight breaks out, which it will -”
“So? There's at least four people in there you can't handle -”
“You have no idea what I can handle,” he bit, finally twisting to look at you from the corner of sharp eyes.
“Let me help, I'm not -”
Movement coupled with louder voices cut your protest short. They were relocating.
“I won't be responsible if anything happens to you,” his voice was somehow quieter, softer even.
“Wouldn't expect you to be.” You maintained eye-contact until he broke it, turning away to move again, still no plan in place. Just wing it then, you guessed, what's the worst that could happen? In a place you were unfamiliar with, filled with cursed weaponry.
“Don't fall behind,” he spoke as he began moving again.
Your lips pressed into a thin line, irritation flaring despite the situation - but you followed.
Of course you did.
The corridor ahead was narrow, the old wood creaking faintly under careful steps as you moved in tandem. The stillness pressed in around you again, thick and suffocating, broken only by those distant, unaware voices, though they were closer now.
Your pulse quickened, every sense straining, body coiled in anticipation.
Naoya slowed just slightly as the next doorway came into view, the faint glow of low light spilling across the floor from within.
He didn’t rush it.
Didn’t make a sound.
One step.
Two.
Then he stopped just short of the threshold, head tilting ever so slightly as he listened.
You held your breath.
The voices were clear now - still indistinct in meaning, but close enough that the next movement would bring you face to face.
Naoya’s hand shifted slightly at his side.
Ready.
And without another word-
He slid the door open.