The forest had returned to stillness.
Yet Yuji Itadori's mind had not.
He stood alone beside the creek, the fading light of the afternoon sky painting his reflection in rippling shades of orange and silver.
The bruises on his arms were faint now, healing fast, but his breath still caught sometimes when he replayed it. The way the creature moved. The way Mahito had stepped in.
He didn't know what to make of the situation at all.
"You alright?" Megumi's voice came low behind him.
Yuji didn't answer immediately.
He kept watching the water, watching the warped reflection of his own face shift with every disturbance.
"He saved me," Yuji said eventually. His voice wasn't full of gratitude. It wasn't shaken, either. It was something more complicated. "He stepped in at the last second. Killed it like it was nothing."
Megumi stepped closer, standing just behind him.
"Doesn't mean anything."
"It does to me."
"And to him," said a third voice. Nobara walked into view, brushing dirt from her skirt. She sat on a mossy rock, arms resting on her knees.
Yuji turned slightly, confused.
"If he wanted you dead, he could've killed you a dozen times by now. Especially since it seems like he's tracking you. I am not buying the whole 'ran into you' bullshit trope..." Nobara said. "He hasn't made a move against you, though. That means he wants something else."
"That's the problem," Yuji said, hands curling at his sides. "He's not acting like a monster. Not even like an enemy. I don't really know how to handle this..."
Megumi frowned. "Not killing or attacking you doesn't make him an ally, Itadori...
"It is confusing as hell though~" Nobara added. "He looked shady. He probably wants something big..."
Yuji looked down at his fist, still scuffed from the battle.
"Then we should find out what."
_
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_
The Elder's Chamber was carved from stone older than any city still standing. Shadows clung to the corners, drawn to the silence that lingered between its high walls.
Eight Elders sat in a half-circle, faces half-shrouded under the folds of ancient ceremonial cloth. Symbols of authority hung behind them. The room smelled faintly of ink, parchment, and old curses sealed long ago.
Gojo Satoru stood at the centre of the room. He wasn't kneeling. He wasn't even formally dressed. His blindfold was up just enough to show his glinting blue eyes, and his hands were tucked lazily into his jacket pockets.
He looked more like someone waiting for coffee than someone being interrogated.
"He appeared in front of the first years unprovoked," one Elder said. The old man's voice trembled slightly, but not from age.
"He exorcised a curse that was attacking them," Gojo replied, his tone relaxed.
"You allowed a Special Grade to walk away. Again."
"I evaluated the situation and acted accordingly. He was not hostile."
"You should have eliminated him."
Gojo's smile twitched upward. "You should try doing that yourself sometime."
The chamber went still.
None of the Elders spoke.
One of them, an old man in a darker robe, finally found the nerve to continue.
"This isn't a game, Satoru. Curses like that grow stronger every day!"
"So do my students."
"You're being reckless."
"And you are all on the cusp of being irrelevant," Gojo said plainly.
The words echoed off the stone.
"You called me here to report. I've done that. I've shared what I saw. You can do whatever you want with the information. But you don't tell me how to handle my students, or my enemies."
His voice never rose. It didn't need to. Even a whisper from him carried enough strength to silence the room.
"I know you hate being powerless. But that's what you are. Compared to what's out there, to what's coming, you're already fossils."
Another silence fell.
Then Gojo turned to leave.
Not a single Elder moved to stop him.
-
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-
Far beneath the surface of the city, Mahito stood still within his chamber.
The remains of failed Fly Soldiers lined the outer edges like discarded sketches. Bits of fused bone, mismatched limbs, still-twitching husks.
He ignored them.
All of his focus was inward now.
He closed his eyes.
Beneath his skin, cursed energy pulsed and twisted, not with rage or chaos, but with clarity. He was learning. Faster than even he had expected.
He recalled Gojo's Domain. The blinding infinity of it. The sensation of every neuron flooding with the raw essence of understanding, so fast the mind couldn't hold on. That was the shape of the peak.
But he would never reach it by imitation. No.
He could never imitate Gojo, and imitating the original Mahito was useless as well.
His Domain had to be his own, or at least he had to make his own interpretation of it to some extent.
'A domain is a representation of one's technique in a way... That was how Gojo's felt at least.'
He raised both arms. His hands formed signs which felt most natural for him in that moment. He whispered the words.
"Domain Expansion…"
The chamber shook slightly. Thin lines of cursed energy spread like veins through the walls. Bone spiralled upward. Flesh pulsed outward like muscle forming around a skeleton.
"Embo-"
He could not even utter the name of his domain. He couldn't finish it. Not quite yet. The words tasted like iron.
A dome had only barely formed around him, it was raw. Unfinished.
The cursed energy spiralled too fast at the edges, unravelling as quickly as it formed. The interior walls rippled like water disturbed by a storm.
His cursed energy snapped, like a stretched tendon tearing at the root. Heat surged in his skull. Too fast. Too unstable.
Every part of him screamed to hold steady. But his soul sang with the chaos.
The walls cracked like glass. The bone split. The cursed energy imploded inward.
Mahito dropped to one knee, breathing heavily. Purple blood dripped from his nose, steaming slightly in the air.
He looked down at his trembling hands.
Mahito stood in the centre of it all. His body began to shift as his mind took the brunt of the hit of his failed domain.
His form split. Reformed. Melted and sharpened again.
He could do it. He had learned to perfectly heal his mind after a failed Domain Expansion, this was not his first attempt.
"Closer," he whispered. "Still not there... but closer."
His smile returned, slow and satisfied.
Gojo's words echoed in his mind. So did his Domain.
'Throughout heaven and earth, I alone am the honoured one.'
Mahito stood again.
"Maybe for now... But not forever."
He turned, facing the scorched line where his Domain had collapsed.
"There's room for one more."
He sat cross-legged in the centre of the debris.
'I won't stop until I reach the top of Jujutsu Sorcery... It doesn't matter that I am a curse~'