.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.
2018, Tokyo Jujutsu High
As the afternoon sun filtered through the windows, Satoru Gojo, sunglasses on his nose and arms crossed, was lazily sprawled on a chair in the faculty lounge with his feet kicked up on an old wooden stool and his ever-present smirk in place.
"Did you know?"
Not far away, Megumi Fushiguro stood with his shoulder pressed against the wall and his hands shoved in his pockets. He cast a sideways glance at his mentor, half-listening.
"The reason why the Gojo and Zenin Clans are on bad terms?"
Megumi raised a brow. "Were they always on bad terms?"
Satoru tilted his head. "The worst." There was a pause as he let the weight of his words hang in the air, savoring Megumi's curiosity before continuing, smug and casual. "I think it was during the Edo period… or maybe Keichō? I forgot. But the heads of their respective households… killed each other in a fight. Right in front of the aristocracy. Big, dramatic stuff."
Megumi turned fully toward him this time, his interest piqued. "Back then, who were the heads?"
Satoru leaned forward just enough to let the insinuation hit. "A Limitless cursed technique user with the Six Eyes, like me, for the Gojo Clan… and a Ten Shadows cursed technique user, like you, for the Zenin Clan."
Megumi's eyes widened briefly in surprise, but before he could say anything, Satoru leaned back again, throwing one final comment at him.
"You get what I'm trying to say, right?"
.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.
In the final decades of the Sengoku period, jujutsu sorcerers were not mere exorcists; they were the foundations of power. While daimyō fought with steel, the Three Great Clans of sorcerers, Zenin, Gojo, and Kamo, shaped the battlefield with cursed energy, maintaining control over provinces and capitals alike. Their loyalties, often shifting, could determine the rise or fall of entire provinces.
The common folk called them onmyōji; the shogunate called them necessary evils. But among themselves, they knew what they were: hereditary weapons in a war without end.
Each clan played its role. The Zenin, warriors first and foremost, had carved out influence through raw strength, but politically, they remained the weakest. The Gojo, thanks to the Six Eyes, were elevated to the highest post among the three: guardians of the capital. The Kamo, youngest by far, cloaked themselves in diplomacy and neutrality, waiting for their moment to rise.
In this world, names carried weight; cursed techniques determined legacies; and a mistake, political or cursed, could mean the extinction of an entire bloodline.
.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.
400 years earlier
1580 - Nagoya-go - Zenin clan estate
The smell of rain permeated the night, and the shoji hardly muffled the distant echoing thunderclap; inside, the cries of a woman in labor pierced through the entire Zenin clan estate. Sweat mixed with blood, and incense filled the darkened room in a last-ditch effort to ward off the stink of death. It wasn't enough.
Another wave of misery ripped through the Zenin Clan head's third and last wife, the Okugata-sama Reika Zenin, who clenched her teeth hard to stop herself from screaming again. Her silk kimono, decorated with the Zenin mon and colored in a subdued red, clung to her damp skin, and her carefully combed black hair was now plastered to her flushed cheeks.
With their faces white in the lanterns' fading light, the midwives hovered, moving quickly. "Push, Okugata-sama," the senior midwife begged, trembling.
When the baby was delivered, there was a collective breath of relief.
"A boy, " one of the midwives whispered, holding up the small, still body. "The clan's heir."
With a slight smile forming on her lips, Reika's head leaned back on the futon. "An heir… my husband's son," she said in a tired voice. A son was a rightful heir. The Clan Head's wish was fulfilled, and with it her role as woman and wife.
However, the midwife hesitated, her hands immobile, instantly shattering the optimism. She pressed her fingers to the child's little chest, and the room fell silent. "... He's not breathing, " the woman's voice broke. "The boy… he is dead."
The color drained from Reika's face. "No," she rasped, sitting up despite her body's protests. "That can't be—"
The midwife's bowed head said everything.
Then, suddenly, came the second blow; another contraction, another wave of pain. The midwife's hands flew to Reika's belly, her expression shifting from grief to fear. "There's… there's another," she panicked. "Another child."
"What?" Reika's voice cracked in confusion and dread. "No…No, no, no, that's—that's impossible. Not twins—"
The midwives exchanged fearful glances, murmuring prayers under their breath. Futago. A curse in their world, a harbinger of divine punishment, usually killed upon birth or discarded on the street alongside the mother. If one were lucky, they were sent far away to serve in some temple, but Reika knew already which one her husband would pick, and she would not be lucky, not when he had other wives higher in ranks who had already failed for so long in giving him sons and heirs. He would not tolerate another failure.
The second child came into the world amidst more blood, pain, and screams. The first cry ripped through the room, piercing, a vibrant sound full of life. This time, Reika snatched the baby away from the midwife's hands and held it up to the faint lantern light, eyes searching.
The midwife who had caught it shrank back a little, shaking. In a terrified whisper, "It's a girl ."
Reika's eyes became wide in shock, and she froze. The weight of her responsibility and ancestry pressed on her, tilting the room, muffling every sound except her heartbeat. Her son—her ideal, priceless and perfect son—was gone, and a girl took his place. A female, the living twin, born of misfortune and blood.
Her first instinct was visceral; she reached for the child, her fingers trembling, intending to smother the source of this calamity. She could end this now. Kill the baby before anyone else could know. It was a mercy for her, the clan, and everyone in that room. But as her hands wrapped around the fragile, crying form, she paused. She looked at the child, looked at her. The child's cries were strong, defiant even. Her tiny fists were clenched as though challenging the world that had brought her into such circumstances.
Reika stared at her daughter, searching for a reason to follow through with what she knew had to be done. Instead, she saw something else: strength and life amidst the despair. She tightened her grip, her resolve becoming harsher and colder, grabbed the baby, and held it to her chest even though her hands shook and her hold was definitely too tight for a newborn.
When she did speak, it was like steel that had been tempered by fire. "No one must know." Her words were a terrifying mix of delirium and resolve. "No one will ever know what happened here tonight." She paused, lips curling in survival. "Not even my husband."
The midwives exchanged horrified glances. One dared to speak, voice faltering. "Okugata-sama—But the clan head will—"
"He will kill this baby and me before sunrise if he learns of this," Reika interrupted. Her gaze swept over the midwives, pinning each of them in place. "Do you understand? Tonight, I gave birth to a single son. That is the story we will tell."
The room fell silent, save for the baby's cries. The midwives cowed into submission by bowing their heads.
A young man, barely out of his teens, emerged from the darkness. He had been silently crouching at a reasonable distance with a katana by his side for the whole labor; his hakama featured the Zenin family's mon for the cadet branch, and his black as ink hair was beautifully tied in a long warrior queue. Harunobu had been Reika's personal retainer since she had married as the third wife of the Clan Head.
"Okugata-sama," he began, tone measured, "what do you intend to do with the child?"
The woman glanced down at the newborn, her expression unreadable. Then, with cold determination, she looked back at him. "She will grow up as a man. As the heir the Clan Head expected me to produce. Make the boy's body disappear. Burn it and throw the ashes in the river."
Harunobun's expression remained unreadable as he bowed slightly. "And the midwives? Should we cut their tongues off?"
Reika hesitated momentarily, her grip tightening on the baby so hard her nails dug into the soft skin, leaving red marks. "No. We cannot take the risk."
The midwives froze, understanding their fate in an instant.
"Understood," he replied, his tone steady as his hand landed on the hilt of his katana.
The sound of steel began cutting through the air and the silence. One by one, the midwives' terrified screams were silenced, their blood splashing across the shoji and soaking into the tatami as Harunobu carried out his orders.
Reika didn't flinch, didn't pay attention to the ongoing terror around her; her focus remained solely on the child in her arms. "You will live," she murmured, devoid of motherly warmth, filled only with an unsettling determination. "No one will ever know you are a girl. From this night forward, you are Kaoru. Kaoru Zenin."
Outside, the thunder rumbled again as Kaoru's cries softened under the finality in her mother's words.
.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.
1587, Nagoya-go, Zenin clan estate
The main hall was too cold. Not the dramatic kind of cold that bit into your skin, but the bureaucratic kind: ceremonial and soaked in enough incense to choke a corpse. It clung to her throat, and it was probably intentional.
Kaoru stood dead center, covered in her sweat and blood, chest rising and falling beneath the formal layers of a boy's kamishimo and a black hakama paired with a crimson kosode. A black-and-red silhouette against the wooden floor, motionless under the crushing weight of too many gazes. The candlelight danced on the boards beneath her feet, illuminating nothing useful, just her own shadow. Her black hair, yanked into a perfect ponytail at the crown of her skull, had begun to betray her after the intensity of the summoning ritual, and a few strands fell into her eyes.
She didn't dare fix them.
Not when every elder, every sycophant, every barely-interested Kamo diplomat had their eyes pinned to her like she was some rare, exotic insect on a display board.
Her breath came shallow and her arms stung with thin cuts; her blood had dried tacky against her skin, and still she forced herself to stand proud because Kaoru had done everything right. Perfectly.
She had summoned and subdued Nue. Her second shikigami. At seven years old.
The room wanted to be impressed; they were impressed. But none of it was hers, not the admiration, not the victory, not even the pain in her joints. It all belonged to the clan—to the Zenin name—and Kaoru was just the pretty, bloodied vessel who'd made it happen.
On the dais at the head of the room sat the clan Head, Takahiro Zenin, her father. The man for whom nothing was ever good enough, not her posture, not her cursed technique, not her breath if it caught in the wrong place. He watched her like a hawk circling for weakness, dressed in his black montsuki and the Zenin mon blinding in gold. Still as stone, all authority and expectations, the kind Kaoru had spent all her young years trying desperately to meet.
To his left: the Zenin clan elders. To his right: the Kamo delegation, draped in polite neutrality like it was a religion, because for them it was. Led by their Clan Head, a fragile, unassuming elder with a gentle smile and a thin mustache.
Kaoru decided that his face reminded her of a fox, a smart one.
And just behind them, kneeling with the stillness of one who had long since surrendered the right to move freely, sat Reika Zenin, Kaoru's mother. Eyes forward, hands folded, perfectly beautiful and silent. A ghost in her own house, as expected from a Zenin wife. The only Zenin wife; after Kaoru's birth, after she managed to give the Clan Head his so long desired son and heir, she had been promoted to the main official wife. In the years that followed, the other wives had quietly disappeared and died. Of natural causes, officially. Kaoru knew better.
Behind her, as always, stood Harunobu, her mother's personal guard, hand resting casually on the hilt of his katana out of habit. He's not my father, Kaoru repeated to herself. That was a lesson she had learn the hard way. It wasn't her fault; she was just a child, and Harunobu had raised her more than her actual father ever had. All it took was a single, honest mistake when she was four or five. She almost called him "chichiue".
For that, Takahiro had punished himpublicly, no matter how much she had begged.
Kaoru had never made the same mistake again; still, Harunobu was the only adult in the room she trusted, if trust were the kind of luxury she could afford.
The Kamo patriarch leaned forward, stroking his mustache with the air of someone deeply satisfied with someone else's suffering. "A remarkable feat," he said, with his fox's smirk. "The second shikigami. At only seven. The heir of the Zenin Clan has truly exceeded every expectation."
Kaoru resisted the urge to blink. The compliment wasn't for her anyway.
Another Kamo elder nodded in agreement. "The Ten Shadows has not shown this level of control since the... well, since the unfortunate business during the Nanboku-chō. You've been cast away from Kyoto ever since, after all."
There were murmurs of agreement between the elders of the two clans.
There it is, she thought.
The Kamo patriarch chimed back in with a chuckle that sounded like a cough. "Perhaps this era will be known for its prodigies. The Gojo with their prized heir and the Zenin with their brilliant genius. Quite the match."
A Zenin elder chuckled, clearly pleased with the flattery. "Indeed," he said. "The Gojo clan is not the only one that can boast of a prodigy, now."
Kaoru bit the inside of her cheek, feeling the heat of shame and irritation rise in her chest. The taste of blood was preferable to the taste of diplomacy anyway. Her father's expression didn't shift, but the air grew heavier because comparisons to the Gojo were a sore spot, always had been since the Zenin had been losing influence while the Gojo rose in status in the capital. And the Kamo patriarch knew it. That was the point. Her father had no interest in an heir on par with the Gojos' one. He wanted a better heir. And Kaoru was still not enough.
Takahiro finally spoke. "A blessing," he said flatly, like someone reading from a prayer they really didn't believe in. "The kind we've long awaited."
And blessings could be withdrawn, especially if they started talking.
Then, with all the smugness of a merchant announcing a price hike, the Kamo patriarch stood and bowed slowly, sliding his hands in the large sleeves of his kosode. "Zenin-dono. The heir you've raised is... extraordinary. I'm sure the Zenin will soon see the dawn of a new era."
Kaoru's eyes snapped upward briefly, catching the shadow of a smirk on her father's lips. Her father didn't smile often, but when he did, it annoyed her how she could feel the pride blooming under her ribs.
"Perhaps," Takahiro said coolly. "Kaoru has yet to disappoint me."
Her fists clenched hard enough that her nails left half-moons in her palms. Yet. That single word slapped her in the face like a curse in her mind. She didn't flinch, she didn't move, but she wanted badly to throw the smirk back in his face.
What more do you want?
Kaoru knew the answer: more, always more. Until there was nothing left of her except power and performance. After all, he had never once expressed outright satisfaction with her progress, no matter how diligently she trained and learned every lesson in strategy and politics, or how perfectly she executed every assigned task. Her father always gave her that look, as if her every struggle was just a duty she was expected to perform. Nothing more, nothing less. And he was always waiting for her to fall, just to prove a point.
It made her want to live up to his expectations just to spite him.
Someone—a Kamo, probably—said something vaguely optimistic and doomed about the future of inter-clan relations. Kaoru didn't bother memorizing it. Her father nodded once and said nothing, and that was endorsement enough. The meeting ended the way they always did, slowly, painfully, with a flurry of stiff bows and murmured platitudes. The Kamo filed out with all the grace of rats leaving a gilded boat. The Zenin elders followed, looking pleased, as if they had bled on the ritual floor. Her mother stayed kneeling, unmoving, her eyes locked on Kaoru with a tightness that might have once been something akin to love. Now? Mostly dread. Not for Kaoru. Never for Kaoru.
Only for herself.
Takahiro stood, his tall frame looming over the room. He turned toward Kaoru.
"You have done well."
Kaoru braced herself.
"Do not let me down."
And there it was: the real message. She felt her throat tighten, but she forced herself to kneel and bow low, her forehead touching the floor. "Yes, Takahiro-sama."
He left, and everyone else followed.
Only then did Kaoru straighten, alone under the gaze of her mother, who had not moved. Kaoru felt a shiver run down her spine: she could never decipher her mother's true thoughts, only her expectations. They exchanged a look, barely. A flicker of understanding, or exhaustion, or maybe just mutual recognition that the charade still held, that the lie was still in full force, and they would survive another day with their heads attached to their necks.
Kaoru's shoulders ached, and her chest was sticky with sweat and blood. She reached up and smoothed her robes, tugging them back into symmetry. No one could see the bruises under the perfection: that was the point. But on the inside of her cheek, she could still taste blood.
I will not disappoint him, she thought. I will be the perfect son my father demands.
She would be the perfect heir. The perfect clan head.
The perfect lie.
.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.
1598, Nagoya-go, Zenin clan estate
"Toyotomi Hideyoshi is dead."
The words landed without preamble, no weighty pause, just spoken aloud, like a report on the weather.
Kaoru remained perfectly still, kneeling on the tatami in the main hall of the Zenin estate in Nagoya-go. Back straight, hands resting lightly on her thighs, expression blank, as expected.
The man who had delivered the news, her father, sat across from her on the raised dais, cross-legged in his formal robes, his gray-streaked hair pulled back. His presence, as always, felt like being under judgement and that was usually true. He said nothing more, just let his eyes bore into her, waiting for her to react or give something.
Kaoru's chest stiffened, part nerves, part the tight linen binding pressed under too many layers of formalwear to flatten her breasts. Still, she kept her breathing controlled. She would not give him the satisfaction of blinking first. Her mind, however, raced. Toyotomi Hideyoshi's death was no small matter. The unifier of Japan, gone, and that single thread pulled from the tapestry of power left the entire country in a precarious balance.
"How?" she asked, voice flat and detached. "Natural causes? Or…" Her gaze lifted just enough to meet her father's. "The kekkai around Fushimi wasn't something one could just stroll through."
Her father's lips twitched. Not a smile because her father didn't smile, but a small approval, regardless, the kind of look that meant you're not an idiot. Good. "The Mitsuboshi no Yari," he said, leaning on one elbow, "is gone."
Kaoru blinked, her mask slipping for an instant. "Gone...?"
The room grew distant as she processed her father's words. The Mitsuboshi no Yari, the Three Stars Spear. That wasn't the kind of cursed artifact that just went missing. It was the kind that generations of Gojo sorcerers died to protect, the kind that got one executed just for asking the wrong questions about it. A high-grade weapon of unknown origin, said to have been forged back in the Heian era by hands lost to history. Little was known of its full capabilities, but its power is said to erect immense Kekkai and dismantle most top-level barriers. Unstable and dangerous, it requires tremendous control to wield without consequence, making it a weapon capable of shifting the tide of a war.
Centuries ago, after Nanboku-chō's facts, the spear was enshrined beneath the Fushimi Castle, forming the core of a city-wide barrier that purified the capital of curses and protected its political balance and, most importantly, protected the Ashikaga's bakufu. Even after their fall, even with the Toyotomi now ruling over the capital, it has never been moved; its maintenance and protection had been entrusted to the Gojo clan, appointed as the guardians of Kyoto, with only their prized heir now said to be able to wield it.
It wasn't something that could simply vanish, unless someone deliberately took it. And whoever bypassed those layers of court and protection must have a deep knowledge of the jujutsu arts, influence in the capital, and the stomach to commit a political suicide.
Her father's voice snapped her back, cool and deliberate. "Stolen. Along with it, the barrier around Kyoto has fallen, and with that, Toyotomi Hideyoshi was found dead."
Of course. One thread pulled, and the whole shroud came down.
"Needless to say," he continued, "we are being blamed by the other two great clans. Our recent alignment with Tokugawa-dono was already inconvenient and now the loss of the spear makes us… convenient to blame."
Kaoru dropped her eyes to the tatami, her voice processing the implications. "Was it us?" she asked cautiously.
Takahiro didn't answer immediately. When he did, it was with that maddening tone of his, the one he used when a test was being administered. "What do you think?"
Kaoru welcomed the challenge, letting her mind race.
The Mitsuboshi no Yari. The shifting alliances of the Jujutsu clans. The delicate political scenario between the daimyo. Jujutsu sorcerers served as unseen but indispensable pillars of the mundane society for years.
The Gojo, as ever, guarded the capital; now they had both Limitless and the Six Eyes, and they were unassailable. Their loyalty had always lain with Hideyoshi, more a marriage of politics than sentiment, but strong nonetheless. It couldn't have been them; they would not have risked their alliance with the Toyotomi just for a cursed weapon that already belonged to them, even unofficially.
The Kamo were different. They were Kyoto-bred, publicly neutral, privately… calculating. They kept to the shadows and collected favors like shrine offerings, creating a network of connections wider than any other. No one knew much about them and their members, and sharing territories with the Gojo inside the capital, they wouldn't have risked an open conflict they couldn't win by moving the spear. It couldn't have been them.
And then there was them.
The Zenin.
They had no sacred inheritance like the Six Eyes. Just war and ambition. And now, the Ten Shadows. They had no real political power at the Toyotomi court, having been on the losing side during the Nanboku-chō. Casted away in Nagoya-go, far from the court, far from the capital. Too far to be trusted but too close to be ignored. When Tokugawa Ieyasu began consolidating power, Takahiro Zenin saw an opportunity. No one else would have them. So he pledged loyalty early, placing his ambitions and hopes on the rise of a new shogunate.
And now?
With Hideyoshi's death, Tokugawa's star would inevitably rise, and the Zenin's sympathies toward his faction painted a clear target on their backs. Of course, the blame was being delivered to them. The Gojo clan would waste no time in pointing fingers, and the conveniently neutral Kamo clan would likely align with them to protect their shared territory in the Kansai region.
What a damned timing.
Kaoru's hands tightened in her lap. Her father was ambitious, but not foolish enough for this. His hunger for power was his most significant flaw, but even he wouldn't invite a disaster like this. "No," she said finally. "It wasn't us."
Her father's expression didn't shift, but his posture relaxed slightly, as though her answer had passed. "Good," he said, leaning back slightly. "Then go convince the others of that."
Kaoru's head snapped up in alarm. "…Excuse me?"
Her father's tone hardened as he delivered his orders. "In two weeks, a council will convene in Kyoto to address the incident. You'll represent us."
Her stomach dropped. Not visibly, of course, but inwardly, she felt an awful click of a trap being set. The Gojo would be there, of course, and the Kamo would play mediator; and she, the young heir to the least trusted of the three Great Clans, would walk in and try not to get politically beheaded. She could already picture the accusations, the hostility, the scrutiny that would follow her every word and action. If she failed, it wouldn't just be her reputation at stake; it would be the Zenin name.
After a long moment, she nodded once. "I understand."
Takahiro rose to his feet easily, his hakama falling down neatly into place. He towered over, looking down at her with an austere expression. "Do not embarrass me," he said with a warning edge. "Do not embarrass this clan. Keep our position intact. But, if the opportunity arises…"
Kaoru's spine straightened before the sentence even finished.
"…retrieve the spear for the Zenin."
She bowed low. "I will not fail you, Takahiro-sama."
Takahiro turned and strode from the hall, leaving Kaoru alone with her tangled thoughts. The sliding doors closed behind him, and she exhaled the kind of breath you let out when no one's looking. Her ribs ached more than usual under the bindings. Her fingers twitched, then steadied. "Convince them," she muttered, eyes fixed on the tatami. "Sure. Let me just smile nicely and ask them a metaphorical truce of a blood feud older than any of us."
She didn't smile; she wanted to, but the silence in the room was deafening. She stayed kneeling long enough for the numbness in her legs to settle in, long enough to feel the full weight of it: the spear, the summons, the performance.
It was getting harder.
Harder to keep the mask straight, harder to lie to her father, harder, since her mother died six years ago. She had been raised not as Kaoru the daughter, but Kaoru the son, the heir of the Zenin clan. She realized quite early that she was good at being a Zenin. That part was easy: if you knew how to hold a sword, had enough cursed energy, and kept your voice low, people would believe what you told them to. From the moment she could walk, it had been nothing but training: mornings in the dirt, evenings with scrolls. History, strategy, politics: everything she needed to lead the clan one day. Her first real battle came at the age of eleven, when a curse broke containment in the Owari province, and no senior sorcerer could be spared. She had returned bloodied but victorious, and for three days, the Zenin estate had been silent in shock. Her first real kill had come at twelve; her second, at twelve and a half. By fifteen, she had led five successful campaigns against cursed outbreaks in the Kiso valley, had faced opposition from the Koga clan's proteges, and held her ground.
The Zenin elders no longer doubted her ability. The retainers bowed. Reports were sent to the rising shogun. And yet…
And yet.
The rest was not so easy.
She raised a hand, brushing away a stray lock of hair from her face, fingers trembling.
Victories were just expectations fulfilled. Nothing was ever enough. Her father never said "well done." Only "again." As though to acknowledge her strength would be to admit that a mistake. And her body, year after year, betrayed her. Though she bound her breasts tightly beneath her robes, even now at eighteen, she heard the murmurs behind closed doors.
"Too soft," they said. "Too narrow in the shoulders. Too pretty."
As if strength needed stubble.
They called her the prodigy of the Zenin clan, one of the two strongest sorcerers of their time, nd still, respect felt like mist. Thin and waiting to evaporate the moment she slipped.
Kaoru pressed her hands to her thighs and rose in one controlled motion.
She had two weeks to prepare and survive the council.
The shoji of the audience hall closed behind her with a soft click.
Kaoru let out the breath she'd been holding since the first syllable of "you will attend." It didn't help much.
Waiting at the end of the engawa, as always, was Harunobu.
Tall, unshakable, dressed like the idea of discipline had been folded into human form, in the black formal uniform of the Zenin retainers. His hair was, as always, tied back into a no-nonsense ponytail; his katana sat at his hip. He wore his usual serene, prepared expression, Kaoru had grown accustomed to and even depended on. Her mother's old guard, Harunobu, was the only one who had remained resolutely loyal and knew the truth, the only consistency in her chaotic world.
"Kaoru-sama." At the sight of her, he bowed formally, watching her face and quickly scanning for discomfort in a way that spoke more of a parent than a bodyguard.
Kaoru nodded back, a short motion still too stiff to pass for normal. They began walking in silence, footsteps soft on the wooden floors of the engawa. The heat from the courtyard slanted sideways and made her skin itch. The bindings still crushed her ribs; the weight of her father's expectations crushed the rest. It was always worse the moment no one was watching.
By the time they reached the edge of the engawa, her control cracked. She stopped, scowled at her own hidden breasts as if they had personally wronged her because they had, then started adjusting the cloth beneath her layers with a subtle tug, barely visible. Mostly just an excuse to breathe.
Harunobu's voice arrived right on schedule. "Might I suggest saving that for your quarters, Kaoru-sama? Some of the servants here have excellent peripheral vision."
She didn't stop. "I can't breathe, 'Nobu."
He raised a brow. "You're speaking. That suggests otherwise. This is hardly the place."
Kaoru exhaled sharply, rolling her eyes as she stomped ahead. "A little compassion, perhaps?" she muttered under her breath with rare petulance. "These damned things are suffocating me."
"If I lacked compassion, Kaoru-sama," Harunobu replied without missing a beat, "I wouldn't suggest you avoid a scandal; you'd be out here alone. Consider that."
"Deeply appreciated." She let the fabric fall back into place without having resolved much. The moment of weakness had passed, or at least been shoved back for now. "We don't have time to linger," she began coolly. "We leave within the day."
Harunobu matched her pace without question. "Destination?"
"Kyoto," she replied, voice low enough to keep it from carrying beyond their conversation.
A beat.
"Ah," Harunobu said. "Subtle."
Kaoru didn't look back at him. "Orders of the clan head. I'll explain on the road." They moved through another corridor. "I want a small unit. No more than eight. Sorcerers, but not idiots or idealists. I won't spend the entire meeting apologizing for someone else's ego."
Harunobu's head inclined slightly in acknowledgment. "Any preferences beyond intelligence and restraint?"
Kaoru considered. "No facial scars. They're sensitive in the capital." That earned her a smile from Harunobu. "And no excess," she added. "The old men are already out for blood. I won't hand them a scandal on a silken parchment."
"Understood, Kaoru-sama," Harunobu said simply. "I'll see it done."
They stopped in front of her quarters, the inner heartbeat of the estate reserved for the men of the main branch of the clan, where no one wandered by accident. Kaoru paused at the threshold as something in her expression softened.
"Thank you, 'Nobu," she said, finally looking back at her retainer.
Harunobu bowed. Without another word, he turned and strode off, his long steps purposeful as he began to carry out her orders.
Kaoru watched him until he disappeared around the corner. Then she stepped inside and closed the shoji behind her with a click, sealing the world out, at least for a minute. Though sparse and functional, the familiar space felt weighted by her thoughts. She leaned against the doorframe, exhaled through her nose, and let her head tilt back until it touched the wood. She stood there a little longer than usual before setting into motion. Her gaze shifted to the chabudai in the corner, and eventually, she crossed the room and knelt beside it. Ink, brush, maps. Kansai unrolled before her, and her fingers moved on instinct, checking supplies, rolling parchment, counting. She exhaled slowly, the faintest hint of a smile tugging at her lips. "Alright, Kaoru," she muttered to herself, stuffing a few scrolls into her satchel. "Time to convince your father and Kyoto's most influential senior citizens that you're not just a pretty face."
She tied the satchel shut with a tug and slung it over her shoulder.
"Should be fun."
.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.
August 1598, Kyoto, Kamo clan estate
The summer heat in Kyoto was somehow better than Nagoya-go's. Gold light filtered through the shōji of the Kamo audience hall, turning everything soft and ceremonial, but the heat was not oppressive.
Still, Kaoru felt oppressed.
She stood in the center, back straight, all formal with her kamishimo impeccably folded and the hair pulled high in a knot. She was every bit the image of the perfect heir. Behind her, Harunobu waited in silence, at a respectful distance but close enough to cut anything that soul comes her way. The rest of her delegation remained tucked away in an adjacent hall, as per etiquette, leaving Kaoru to face Kyoto's most politically astute clan on her own.
Across from her was the Kamo patriarch. He was exactly as she remembered: an old fox, silver-haired, draped in layers of brown silk and condescension. His smile was the kind that belonged on folding screens, painted and fake.
To his left slouched a disinterested functionary from the Council of Five Regents, who looked one blink away from death by boredom.
"Ara, ara," the Kamo patriarch drawled, his tone dripping with politeness so saccharine it bordered on cloying. "Zenin Kaoru-dono, in our humble halls. The prodigy himself. What an extraordinary occasion."
Kaoru inclined her head just enough to be polite, not enough to encourage further praise. Here we go again. We get it, you're neutral. So neutral you bleed bias, old man.
"Truly, the honor is mine, Kamo-dono," she replied, her tone so smooth it should've been illegal.
He didn't notice, or he didn't care.
"Of course, given the gravity of the situation," he went on, "I had hoped to see your esteemed father, the clan head, in attendance. Not that I doubt your capabilities, of course, not at all. It's simply that—"
Kaoru smiled tightly, the kind of smile that said, Try me.
He kept talking anyway. "—his presence would've reassured those of us with long memories."
Kaoru sighed internally. The Kamo clan's famed neutrality was already proving to be as genuine as a painted smile. Since her arrival the day before, the head of the Kamo clan had made no secret of his opinions, or rather, the ones he tried to disguise as harmless pleasantries. Her fingers twitched once at her side, remembering the way he'd looked at her the day before, not plainly disrespectfully, but long enough to catalogue: height, shoulders, jawline. Whatever conclusions he'd drawn, they weren't flattering. She'd held his gaze without flinching, returning the scrutiny until he'd politely looked away.
Since then, he hadn't stopped talking.
"I assure you," she replied, calm and steady, "my father has complete faith in my ability to speak for the Zenin clan."
Translation: I'm the best you're going to get. Try living with it.
Still, her patience was fraying, and not just from the Kamo patriarch's endless diplomacy, but from the absence of Kyoto's other shining star. A day late. An entire day late. While the country tipped into chaos, the Gojo, loyal supporters of the late Toyotomi Hideyoshi, clan had apparently stopped for tea or got lost in their own city.
It's absurd. Embarrassing and, frankly, insulting. Kaoru's jaw tightened as she stole a glance behind her. At least she wasn't alone in her frustration. Even Harunobu looked disappointed, and his tolerance for nonsense was legendary.
She was just about to cut off another round of compliments with something polite but vaguely disrespectful when the shoji finally creaked open.
A servant entered and bowed. "The Gojo delegation has arrived."
Kaoru didn't turn, but she felt it. The shift in the cursed energy in the air, the sudden pull of attention, the way the entire hall leaned, almost involuntarily.
And then he walked in with an ease that Kaoru found both irritating and undeniable
Tall. Just a few years older than her. Relaxed. Dressed in black with a white haori tossed over his shoulders as if he never learned to wear it properly. His hair, absurdly white, was tied back in the most half-hearted ponytail she'd ever seen, while the rest of it drifted around his face untamed. He carried himself with the sort of effortless confidence that Kaoru had spent her entire life striving to emulate, the kind that said this room belongs to me now, you just live in it.
His eyes—blue, cold like ice, and very sure of themselves—swept the room, and sure enough landed on her.
Kaoru did not blink; she knew who he was, everyone did. Too young to be the Head of the Gojo clan; too self-assured to be anyone short of the next one; this had to be him.
Seijiro Gojo.
Her jaw tightened imperceptibly.
The other prodigy of the Jujutsu world. Her counterpart. The Limitless heir with the Six Eyes, weapon and heir of the most arrogant clan in existence. A Kyoto-born golden boy with inherited untouchability and the kind of face that made people forgive him before he even spoke; unfortunately, he also spoke. Kaoru remembered seeing him once from across the banquet hall of the Kamo clan, when they were both children. That evening had been all silks, lanterns, and veiled tension among the clan heads, before things got bad enough that "cross-clan diplomacy" became a joke. She had been seven, eight, maybe. He'd been a loud, overdressed blur of arrogance with perfect manners and the moral restraint of a fox in a henhouse. He'd laughed too loudly, bowed too deeply, and flirted with a servant who was twice his age.
He hadn't noticed her. Worse: if he had, he hadn't cared. Kaoru's impression back then? Unbearably smug. Overdressed. Probably stupid.
Since that day, they'd never exchanged a single word, never crossed paths again. And if someone had told her she would one day have to stand across from that very same boy—grown, smugger, and more stupid with diplomatic power—she might have thrown herself into a lake. Unfortunately, he had grown into all of her worst assumptions and... taller than her.
Which made it worse because he looked ready to weaponize that.
It wasn't the constant comparison that bothered her, nor the white hair, though honestly, who had hair in disarray like that at his age? It wasn't even the absurd lateness, which had prompted two different Kamo elders to begin subtly speculating whether the Gojo clan had withdrawn from the talks entirely.
No. It was the fact that he was an actual man.
No binding, no lie, no secrets that could kill him if they slipped. Just a boy who had everything, and still expected applause when he arrived late.
Kaoru's eyes narrowed as he strolled toward them, stopping in front of the Kamo patriarch first, offering a bow that was exactly shallow enough to insult no one and impress even less. "My apologies for the delay," he said, clearly unconcerned by the criminally unserious apology. "We were… unavoidably detained."
Then he turned to her and paused. He tilted his head, as though seeing her for the first time. Then, his smirk widened in a challenge, and for a brief moment, his unnervingly blue eyes met hers. As if to confirm every bad impression she'd already formed, he stepped in front of her, and Kaoru felt a headache before he even opened his mouth.
"Well, well," he drawled, arms crossing lazily, "The famous prodigy of the Zenin Clan, I presume?" His gaze slid down and up again over her, from head to toe, deliberate and insolent. "I pictured someone taller."
Kaoru resisted the urge to summon something big just to wipe that smirk off his face and end the meeting early.
"So… Do you actually have one, Pretty Boy? You know, a—" he made a vague gesture toward her lower section with his hand, "—something between your legs? Or is it just that pretty face keeping you in the game?"
The silence that followed was immediate and volcanic. Even the Kamo patriarch blinked, the kind of blink that says I would very much like to not be here right now. Behind her, Kaoru could practically feel Harunobu's hand twitch toward his katana, and she wondered if he might draw his blade. She inhaled deeply, keeping her hands steady at her sides. She held his gaze and didn't blink, didn't breathe as her face remained glacial, controlled.
But inside? Inside her mind was already cataloging fifty-nine different ways to cut off his manhood without technically starting a war.
What a damn idiot.
"Gojo-sama," she began slowly, looking him dead in the eyes, as if daring him to try again. "My face is the least of your concerns." A pause. She smiled, a small thing, but the kind that left bruises. "Though I understand why you'd be focused on it, considering it's the only thing in this hall prettier than you."
Seijiro blinked, and for half a heartbeat, his smirk twitched. Murmurs rose from the corners of the hall. The Kamo patriarch coughed discreetly into his sleeve, clearly enjoying himself more than protocol allowed.
"Perhaps," she continued, tone cool, "if your punctuality matched your wit, we wouldn't be having this conversation a full day late." She let the silence sit for a moment. "Then again. I might have overestimated both."
Seijiro tilted his head again, the grin snapping back into place but now just a little tighter around the corners, with something unmistakably annoyed simmering just beneath the surface. Then, he laughed delightedly. Kaoru arched one brow, just enough to make it clear she was debating whether he counted as an actual threat or a prolonged waste of air.
Still, she sighed—internally—and braced herself.
This is going to be a long meeting.