One of the startling similarities between his past life and this was the people's love for hot baths. He was never one for vanity, but after spending two days in solitary confinement, the opportunity to soak in the hot bath was as heavenly as they come.
For the first time in years, he allowed Aiko to join him, although restricting her access to getting the grime out of his hair and soaking it in copious amounts of shampoo and soap.
"So you think I should cut it?" he asked in lieu of starting a conversation. His question was met with uncharacteristic silence, and he forced his eyes open to look up at her.
Her short black hair was let down to her shoulders, while her wolf-like amber eyes seemed duller than usual, with stress lines vaguely like his lining her face.
"Aiko," he called out once more, gently this time, snapping her out of whatever fugue held her attention.
"Are you alright?"
She briefly shook her head in an attempt to physically disperse her thoughts before seeming to realize what the motion meant, then rapidly transitioning into a nod that brought a chuckle to his lips.
"Sorry for spacing out, Jiki-San."
"What is wrong?" He asked again, this time sitting up and turning to face her, letting the lower half of his body remain hidden in the fog of mist and water that covered his private bathhouse.
"Nothing serious, Jiki-San. I'm just a bit tired."
He noted the lie for what it was but ignored it, turned back, and sank into the water after giving her hand a tight squeeze that brought back memories of the first time he woke up as Gojo Jiki.
When she was more comfortable and ready, she would open up to him, and he'd be there to listen whenever she wanted to speak.
"I was asking about my hair, do you think I should cut it?" Even he wasn't sure why he left it to grow out so much. But if he had to guess, it was because Aiko enjoyed braiding it back for him whenever she had the chance.
"It looks really good on you, Jiki-San. But I saw your last match and your opponent's attempt to grab at it. If he managed to get it, I don't want to think about what might have happened."
He considered her words. His last fight against Tanaka was one of the things that reminded him of the danger of letting it grow out. There were plenty of advantages and few real disadvantages to cutting it.
Knock knock.
They both turned their heads to look at the door. "Come in," he called out as he sensed the cursed energy of the person who knocked.
The brown-haired figure of one of his newer maids came in with a deferential bow. "Your ride is ready, Jiki-san, and we've called ahead to let Shoko-san know we're on our way."
"Okay," he replied succinctly, and she gave out another bow before shuffling backward and closing the sliding door.
He glanced up and saw the look Aiko sent the maid. He had originally planned on sending them off after his recovery, but Aiko had disagreed, citing their aid in taking care of the household and allowing her to focus on his person. He had not seen fit to argue it.
With a sigh, he forced his way out of the calming hot water, ignoring Aiko's brief squeak of shock, in amusement. She passed him a towel which he quickly used to wrap around himself while forcing out the water in his hair; at this rate, he might just go ahead and cut it.
Drying the hair out, his right hand briefly spasmed, and it took all his twenty-plus years of training as a shinobi to stop himself from letting go of the hairdryer. Despite how smooth he wished to be, Aiko saw through the deception and moved forward to help him, forcing it out of his unwilling grip. She stood behind him and started drying the hair.
His eyes trailed back down to his scarred right hand; it had never healed completely. In between his pride stopping him from receiving help from old man Tatsumi and his immediate seclusion, the hand had been left unattended to, and it was only his inhuman fortitude and his immense control of his body that stopped it from getting any worse.
His hair done with, they moved to his dressing, swiftly picking out another black sweatshirt and shorts combo, ignoring the pointed stare Aiko was sending to the more formal style Yukata. With that done, they left the room, taking the short walk to the car.
xxxx
The car stopped just outside a medium-sized hospital deep in Osaka. During the drive, he noted the lack of any real cursed spirit worth the name; the fact that there wasn't a single one to be seen around the hospital itself, despite how it should be a breeding ground for them, told him that either Shoko had not slacked in her training, which was highly unbelievable, or most likely she had strong-armed someone from jujitsu high to do it.
He stepped out of the car, ignoring the looks and stares he got for his long white hair, and walked into the hospital, Aiko trailing behind him. Sending his senses and cursed energy out in a pulse, he picked up her location along with a visitor's own that brought a smile to his face.
He knew who exactly she strong-armed now. Taking the short walk, he sent a simple genjutsu at the nurses who tried to either talk to him or stop him from walking even deeper into the hospital.
So far, his genjutsu had proven to only work effectively on non-sorcerers or the few that were immensely weak-willed, and even then it wasn't for long. The rough flow of cursed energy inevitably broke the hold the genjutsu had. The secret to it was following the flow the same way a ship followed straight behind massive waves to avoid capsizing, and people with less cursed energy generally had smoother flow.
His reworking of chakra techniques was going at a steady pace. At this point, he realized it was a marathon, not a race, and was okay with it.
His walk ended up with them directly at a door with a small placard indicating her office with her name on it. He gave it a quick knock, ignoring the rapid movement and chuckles from one of the two people inside.
Opening the door, he was greeted by the sight of Shoko halfway out of her chair and to the window, intent on throwing out the half butt of the cigarette she held in her hand, while Satoru sat on a chair on wheels, moving about with a carton of juice to his lips and a wide grin.
"Jiki-kun!!!"
"You miniature bastard!!!"
The simultaneous cries created a smile on his face.
"I heard you got past your forging with a bang," Satoru began, spinning his chair to face him. "Sorry I wasn't around, there was a hunger deity that was giving the higher-ups some problems."
"It's okay, Satoru, it was nothing much."
"Nothing much, he says, just after drawing attention from half of the jujutsu society, goddamn brat," Shoko barked out as she leisurely walked back to her seat to continue her smoking.
"Are you allowed to smoke in a hospital, Shoko-San?" he asked, playing up his innocence and ignorance.
"Doesn't matter, you brat, next time don't just barge in," she replied waving away the smoke.
Trust Shoko to be rebellious, then decide to follow up on one of the most challenging and serious occupations he had seen in this life and his past.
Turning his head to his grinning cousin, he spoke, "Why are you here though, thought you would've come to see me at least after your trip."
"Mau Mau, our primary doctor resigned. The principal asked me to offer the cushy gig up to—"
"And I've told you I'm not interested."
Satoru bulldozed past her interruptions and continued, "The great and beautiful Shoko Ieiri," he finished by spinning the chair and pointing towards the thoroughly unimpressed visage of Shoko.
"Too dangerous, I like my present job already and—"
"A hundred and twenty thousand dollars a year?"
"When am I starting?"
The whiplash of a conversation forced a laugh from behind him, and the weight of three gazes fell on the thoroughly surprised and frozen form of Aiko.
"Aiko-Chan," Satoru called out before spinning his chair past Jiki in a feat of skill and athleticism that Jiki was certain was impossible.
"Heard you've been taking your best care of my precious Jiki-kun."
He tuned out her reply and then walked towards the table where Shoko sat behind. As he got closer, his hands picked that moment to spasm out of his control, and the motion drew her eyes like a moth to fire.
"You hurt yourself a lot for a brat that is not even of age to attend Jujutsu High yet."
He gave her a shrug in reply before sitting opposite her and stretching his hands over the table for her to grasp.
He could feel the way her cursed energy slipped into his hands the moment she held his. She sent it scanning and categorizing his injuries and widened her eyes with each passing second.
"Did you try punching a wall or something? All the bones from your knuckles to your forearm have some degree of fracture. The only reason they didn't break is because of the way you braced your muscles to hold everything in check.
"I was trying out a new technique," was his nonchalant reply.
"The technique that killed Tanaka?" He turned his head at Satoru's intrusion into the conversation. He had an uncharacteristic frown on his face, as he looked at his injured arm with his eye wrap off and his eyes focused on the hand.
"Don't worry about it," he told his elder cousin. "The only reason it worked was because of his lack of the six eyes."
Satoru's reply was a dismissive hmph before focusing even harder on him. "I worry less about what it would do to me than its effect on your body. There's a seriously unhealthy amount of stress on your body. On the upside, if you grow old enough, your physique would be better built for it," he finished off with a soft smile at Jiki.
"What do you mean if?" Shoko butted in as she finished with the healing. "The little brat is just as stubborn as you. I doubt you have an enemy strong enough to put either of you down or even have the means to pull it off.
"But he can," Satoru cut in.
It took him a second longer to figure out who Satoru was talking about. Toji Fushiguro. The rumored sorcerer killer had only been seen a few times ever since the assassination of the plasma vessel.
Every time Satoru had hunted down the news of his appearance, it always ended up with him finding the dead body of whoever Toji's original target was. The scarred man was truly living up to the invisible man title.
"He's never bothered coming after us since then; I don't think we should be worried about him," Jiki tried to diffuse the situation, even though he knew the probability was always present.
"You're right," Satoru walked up to him and ruffled his white locks. "I'm also supposed to let the principal know of your approval," he nodded to Shoko, "Be right back."
A split second later, and he was gone. Jiki noted Satoru had gotten so much faster with his teleportation. "I'll be taking my leave too," he let Shoko know as he walked out, his only reply was a lazy wave.
"What do you think about an early lunch, Aiko?" Her distant eyes took a split second to refocus on him before she smiled back. Her follow-up nod was enough of a response for him.
xxxx
They sat under a shade just outside the restaurant. It felt so nice, he realized. The outside world, that is. He had spent so much time stuck in the clan grounds he had forgotten his plans of truly exploring the world. He still had a year left until he was supposed to enroll at Jujutsu High.
He looked up from his drink and saw Aiko staring listlessly into her unopened can of soda and untouched lunch. Maybe waiting for her to come to him about it wasn't the best plan, he realized with a frown.
"What's wrong, Aiko?" The firmness of his voice drew her attention immediately, with wide eyes staring at him, she automatically tried to deflect the question.
"The sun was—"
"Your behavior has nothing to do with the sun, Aiko," he replied softly this time, giving her a questioning look. He had thrown the life rope, and it was her choice to grab onto it.
It took her a couple of minutes, which he was comfortable resting in before she replied to him.
"What do you know about where I come from, Jiki-san?" she asked rhetorically, but he realized with a surprising pain in his chest, too little.
She continued before he could dwell on it too much.
"I come from a small village in the Tohoku area in Northern Japan, in the Iwate prefecture. It was a boring life, a nice one, but deep in the countryside, nothing interesting ever seemed to truly happen. Till something did."
Her tone got darker toward the end and drew Jiki's attention more. "A special grace spirit was born. I can't remember much, but I remember it took the help of the former clan head of the Gojo clan and the late Mikoto San to chase it off," she finished with a soft smile and an affirming nod at him, "Your mother."
He went rigid with shock at the revelation; the name brought memories of a kind yet strong and loving woman, hair of black and heart of gold. The memories were tainted with the image of her back to him as she sat in seiza while he plunged a sword into it.
Aiko retired her gaze back to the untouched soda in her hands, continuing her story. "My family was saved early enough, yet our farm was destroyed. I was given up to Mikoto-San, both as payment for the aid rendered and because they were not sure they would be able to raise me well.
Mikoto San gladly accepted me, and that is how I ended up here, although I never lost contact with my birth parents."
Aiko's surprising loyalty towards him in particular suddenly made much sense. She must've left the village very young, before moving into the Gojo clan. Yet, it didn't answer the current problem.
She glanced up at him before looking down once more. "For the past two weeks, I've been unable to reach them, and I fear they have fallen sick. I considered requesting a short time away from Satoru San, but–"
"Okay," he interjected, looking straight at her. Was this truly what she had spent so long thinking about, he quietly mused.
"But who will take care of–" he noted the way she seemed to forget he had other maids now and interjected again.
"Simple, I'll be coming with you," he stated flatly without giving her a chance to discourage him. He was already looking to stretch his legs a bit, and this was a good chance to do so. With a sharp nod at him, she quickly rushed to her feet, citing the need to use the bathroom.
He kept quiet about how he could see the tears forming already and gave her the space she needed to herself.
xxxx
A bus drove them through rolling fields of green. Even in Konoha, the famed village hidden in the leaves, he had never seen such a beautiful expanse of chest-high grass that seemed so natural yet perfectly groomed.
The closest comparison he could make was the village hidden in the grass, Kusagakure. But even those grasses were generally fertilized by the amount of blood spilled on them, as the place was notable for all the clandestine activities around its borders.
"This is the last stop," the driver called out as the bus slowed to a halt. Aiko had not lied about it; the village was truly out in the sticks. He followed behind her and stepped off the bus.
The feeling that struck him the moment his feet hit the ground sent his cursed energy igniting around his body as he sent scarlet roving eyes in search of the danger.
All his eyes could see were rolling fields with groups of widely spaced houses further ahead and a looming mountain range mixed with a forest that spread out in a semi-circle around the village.
"Is everything alright?" Aiko called out the moment she noticed how tense he was. Forcing himself to relax, he nodded and followed behind her as she walked towards the village. Could he have imagined that immense feeling of grief? he considered as he walked behind her.
Note: Dropped an interesting Easter bunny in this chapter. Interested to see if anybody gets it. It's going to be revealed in the next chapter anyway.