67 (Closure)
Two weeks later,
Itadori received a phone call while he was sitting with Megumi, Nobara and Nanami, discussing about their next steps. He quickly turned on the speaker and soon, Sachiko's detached voice came.
"I've found a way to get Satoru back." She said but everyone could feel that there was something not quite right. Her voice was flat and void of any emotion.
"Nakamura, are you okay? You just disappeared since then and..." Itadori said but was cut off by Sachiko again.
"It's not important right now. I need you guys to do something for me." She said.
Itadori looked at Nanami and when he saw his nod, Itadori replied, "Alright, we actually find out a way too and we're trying to find you. How about we meet up and talk?"
".." There was a pause at the other end. After a while, Sachiko replied, "Okay, I will be there in thirty minutes."
"..We're in.." Itadori wasn't sure why Sachiko would say how long she would take to come here before he even told her their address. But it was answered with her next sentence.
"I know where you are. See you soon." With that, the call was cut off.
Itadori and the others couldn't help but stare at one another for a while.
"About that earlier.." Itadori started.
"It seems like this whole incident affected her a lot more than we thought." Nanami said with a sigh.
"Are we really going to do this? If she's not the right state of mind, it's.." Megumi started but was cut off by Nobara, "Fushiguro, do you think any of us are in the right state of mind as well? What if she's a little unstable right now? Heck, everything's a mess out there and that idiot is sealed. Our only way out is to get him back and we need Nakamura to do it."
"..i know." Megumi said quietly.
"I feel like we're also at fault here..If we didn't act like that back then, maybe she.." Itadori muttered.
Nanami coughed and said, "No one saw this coming. Let's finish this up first."
Thirty minutes later, they saw Sachiko heading their way in a black hoodie with the hood pulled up.
She didn't say anything until she sat across Nanami.
"So, it turns out there's a back gate for prison realm. I need you to get it for me." She said.
"What...wait, Nakamura, are you being serious?"
"It'll be best if you can get it in three days. Since that's my limit for now.." Sachiko quickly cut to the chase, "If you can't, then we can forget about working together."
"Nakamura, wait, can you slow down?" Nanami said, "And will you tell us more about that back gate of prison realm?"
Sachiko sighed, "What's that hard to follow? There's a thing called back gate for prison realm and that back gate is not with that evil version of me so if we can get it before she gets her hands on it, we can use it to free Satoru."
"I see, so that Nakamura I saw wasn't you." Nanami stated.
Sachiko nodded, "Well, I'm not surprised she'd go as far as pretending to be me and do evil things. I mean she did as far as making a clone of my mom and made her stab me so yeah, I guess it was all her doing. Except the collapase of Shibuya station..umm..that was me."
Nanami opened his mouth, then closed it, reminding himself that at the end of the day, Nakamura was much younger than him and she had just lost a lot in the span of a night. "I understand now and I apologize for doubting you before. You didn't deserve to be treated like that."
Sachiko paused, clearly not expecting the words, "I..."
Itadori said, "Yeah, actually, we've been thinking and I also think the way I asked all those questions and not believing you was wrong. I'm sorry."
Kugisaki also said, "He's right. I was wrong too. I'm sorry."
Megumi's voice was more quiet, "Like they said, I really shouldn't have done that. Or called Gojo sensei and questioned his judgement about you. ..Sorry."
"You guys..." Sachiko didn't realize she had started crying until she felt her cheeks getting extremely warm and her eyesight getting blurry. Only then, she realized she had been crying. "That's all I wanted to hear...God, I'm so relieved. That she's wrong."
The other Alter Sachiko had told her that her classmates, her mom and even Gojo would leave her once they found what she had done but now hearing her classmates saying sorry to her and trying to make up with her, Sachiko felt relieved.
Alter Sachiko had been wrong.
------------
After the emotional rollercoaster, Sachiko came clean about her encounter with alter Sachiko and how she found out about the back gate of the prison realm by using her cursed techniques to the max.
"So, you're saying you're abusing your cursed techniques right now to find out a possibility where Gojo sensei is saved successfully and at the same time, hide what you've been doing from your evil version?" Kugisaki stated. "That's..."
"Stupid." Megumi sighed, "I understand your sentiment but that must be taking a toll on you."
Sachiko shrugged, "It is what it is. Also there's a reason why I said I can only give you three days."
"You can't keep it up for more than the next three days." Nanami stated.
Sachiko nodded in reply, "She's still much stronger than me. Any longer than that, she'll start suspecting I've achieved something and then, she'll just easily counteract what I'm doing. And if that happens,.."
The group got what she was saying and finally nodded, "Okay, we will try to get it as soon as possible. Where's it located?"
"Master Tengen has it but I can't go near him or it'll alert her. Also there's the whole thing about him being branded as traitor. I don't think I can get close to Jujutsu Tech without commotion. My cursed techniques can't be used for other purposes right now so yeah, you guys need to succeed." Sachiko said.
"We will try our best." Nanami said.
"Yeah, you can count on us." Itadori said.
----------------
Three days later,
Sachiko was waiting at their designated meeting place for the group and she would be lying if she said she wasn't getting anxious about things going wrong. Getting prison realm herself was a task she couldn't have accomplished at this stage so she had no choice but to rely on her classmates and Nanami. While they made up and Sachiko forgave them, she still had some doubts about the success rate of their alliance. If she had more time...
Her thoughts were cut off when she saw a figure approaching her and the first thing she saw was the thing they were holding in their hands.
As they got closer, Sachiko saw that it was actually Itadori with being all injured. Yet, he handed her the box, the back gate of the prison realm.
"Please..free Gojo sensei." He muttered.
Sachiko held the gate and nodded, "I will. Whatever it takes."
She decided to move to a different location in case a big commotion happens as Itadori would get caught up if she didn't.
With that, she activated her domain expansion. As she had been abusing, overusing her cursed techniques for so long, Sachiko had a difficult time doing it. She could tell she was getting severe backlash from it but she couldn't give up right now. That was what she said to herself.
She needed the maximum potential, power of her domain to ensure that everything would be okay and she persisted with her efforts.
So, when the domain formed this time, it was different. Instead of enclosing the domain in an enclosed space, it was no different from the real world or one could say it manifested in reality.
"Unseal.." Sachiko muttered the command as exhaustion set in and as the command took effect, her eyes closed and she felt the darkness took over her vision and consciousness.
-------------
Gojo opened his eyes and saw the bright sky, the colorful leaves and couldn't help but wince at all the sensory details that were coming back to him. But, before he could reach over to his blindfold to quiet it down, he felt an extremely familiar cursed energy slowly fading away.
"Sachiko..."
As soon as he identified it, he immediately rushed to find her and finally, he saw her a couple meters away lying on the ground, unconscious. There were traces of her cursed energy all over and the large amounts of cursed energy nature revealed that she had used her domain expansion before she lost consciousness and the domain shattering once she lost consciousness.
"God..sugar, what happened?" He muttered as he picked her up bridal style. With the limited information he had, he knew the world had to be in chaos and all.
So, he went ahead and found the only person he knew he could trust, Shoko.
Shoko wasn't expecting Gojo who was supposed to have been sealed in front of her door but she was relieved. That was until she saw who he was carrying.
"What happened?" She asked.
Gojo shook his head, "That's supposed to be my line, you know.."
Shoko sighed, "I know, it's just...Nakamura had disappeared right after Shibuya incident and we couldn't find her."
"She freed me from prison realm." Gojo replied, "That's as far as I know and I'm guessing her being in this state might have been because she was trying to overuse her cursed techniques. So again, what exactly is happening and why is she all alone right there?"
Shoko sighed again, "You're not gonna like that.."
Gojo raised his eyebrows, "Tell me.."
---------
So, by the time Shoko had done telling him what happened, Gojo had a hard time stopping himself from going out and killing the higher ups immediately. The only thing that stopped him was the fact that Sachiko was unconscious and it would be unwise for him to leave her alone at this moment.
"You're the doctor, Shoko. Surely, there's something you can do.." Gojo said.
"You know I cheated my way through med school and you still think I can? Besides, what she's suffering from is not physical injuries. Like you said, she overused her cursed techniques way too much. I can only treat her brain damage, not the mental or effects it had on her soul." Shoko replied.
Gojo was silent for a while, "I know...I just..I guess I just want her to be okay. She shouldn't have had to go through that kind of hell.." He remembered the conversation he had with the other Sachiko and had already guessed she might've done something to his Sachiko and injured her. But since Sachiko right now didn't have any other physical injuries other than the effect of overusing cursed techniques and a scar on her neck, he guessed that she at least got out of the ordeal the other Sachiko was saying. Now what he was missing was the middle part where she started to overuse her cursed techniques and how she freed him.
Shoko did a great job of filling him in about the current state of the Jujutsu society or the world and he sat there almost feeling empty for a good amount of time. Time passed by slowly and he spent most of the time beside Sachiko's bedside.
"If I know all of this would've happened, I.." Gojo paused, he wanted to say he wouldn't have put her through this or pulled her into this mess but he realized that wasn't what she would've wanted.
"Maybe we should've fought together...instead of separating. That way, at least...I could've protected you." He muttered.
He wanted to create a world where younger generation sorcerers could safely enjoy their youth as they learn. He kept saying it was all for the next generation and carried the burden of being strongest. He thought it didn't matter to him if the next generation was safe but, finally, he realized it didn't apply or extend to Sachiko. He might not have cared what happened to him in the process of making a change but for Sachiko, who only followed him and supported him in his goal, he couldn't say the same thing. He didn't want to see her hurt like this.
"I'm sorry..." He muttered. "I should've protected you instead.."
----------------
"So, what're you going to do now?" Shoko asked Gojo, when she came in to check in on Sachiko.
"I should go do something about those curses.." Gojo muttered.
"But, you can't go." Shoko stated. "Because she's here."
"Yeah." Gojo avoided her eye contact. "I sound so selfish, I know. But...with that other Sachiko on the loose, I can't.."
Shoko sighed, "No one would think that, Gojo. I think it's justified, seeing your efforts back then and how you two were treated despite that."
Gojo replied quietly, "Maybe."
"You can try calling your other students and collect information." Shoko said, "Maybe that'll make you feel better."
"You're right," Gojo said, "How could I forget about my precious students, right?" He said with a grin and Shoko had to sigh at the duality or rather the mood swing of the man.
She just hoped everything turned out okay for him.
--------
A/N : I know it's been like a year at least but just wanted to come back and quickly give a closure and ending to this real quick. So, it won't be detailed as much, just enough to give closure and write an epilogue to this version of the story. Gojo honestly needs a happy ending asap and so yeah, I at least wanted to give him the happy ending he deserved here.
I will continue writing the less tragic version, which is the more detailed rewrite version (it won't have the same story line for Shibuya tho) so please check it out if you're interested. And, this version will end in the next or the next few chapters.
Again, it'll be happy ending for Gojo and MC.