.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.
"I should have hit you harder." Hajime, crouched near the doorway, was still buzzing with volatile cursed energy.
"Bold of you to assume you even touched me." Seijiro didn't even sit up; he lay sprawled on the tatami with one arm flung over his eyes, the other lazily draped across his stomach. His hair was still damp from being forced to wash like a civilized person, and the worst of the battlefield grime was gone. He looked almost offensively alive for someone who'd scaled a wall, insulted guards, and walked straight out of a war zone.
Hajime scowled harder, cyan eyes locked on Seijiro; he was still debating whether to finish what they had started, and the only thing that kept him from launching himself at Seijiro again was Kaoru's presence. "Oh, I would have. If only Kaoru hadn't—"
"Ah, please." Seijiro waved a hand as if dismissing a servant. "You all are acting like this is the worst thing that's ever happened here."
"It is," Tatsuhiro murmured, still struggling to understand how this had become his afternoon, how they had ended up discussing matters that could tilt the balance of the entire country. And yet, he trusted Kaoru; that was the only reason he was now sitting with one hand discreetly pressed beneath his nose where a thin line of blood had dried on his nostril. "Hajime nearly leveled the inner courtyard just because I had a nosebleed—"
Hajime snapped his head toward him. "I did not."
"You did," Tatsuhiro deadpanned. "There is a cracked beam."
"Then that beam is weak."
Kaoru made a noise in the back of her throat, unmistakably a warning. Hajime shut his mouth, and for a blessed moment, the room was quiet.
Then Seijiro, who had the survival instincts of a blind squirrel in a blizzard, cracked one eye open and smirked. "To be fair, I did tell him to calm down, but he didn't listen."
"Gojo-sama." Harunobu's voice came completely devoid of mercy. He had been sitting off to the side in perfect silence, and up until now, he'd maintained the kind of composure that made one forget he could, in fact, kill without raising his voice. He opened one eye and leveled Seijiro. "In the very short time you have been here, I have spent my afternoon—" He lifted one finger. "Containing the near-panic you instigated." A second finger. "Ensuring Hajime did not raze half the estate attempting to kill you." A third. "Convincing the guards that no assassination attempt had been carried out against Zenin-dono."
Seijiro pushed himself up on one elbow, hand to his chest like he'd been moved. "Wow. You did all of that for me, 'Nobu? Really. I'm touched."
The vein at Harunobu's temple twitched; otherwise, he didn't react.
Kaoru let out a slow breath and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Enough."
The room snapped into silence, and even Seijiro took the hint this time, letting himself fall back onto the tatami with a thud.
They were in the farthest edge of the estate, in quarters that had once belonged to Kaoru's mother—Reika Zenin—tucked away as Zenin women's rooms were meant to be. Minimal furnishings and unadorned walls, and an untouched altar in her memory at the far end that no one acknowledged, left to itself since the day she had died. No one came here anymore; not the elders, not the servants. Not even Kaoru, not for years.
Which made it perfect. Removed from the main halls and away from the bustling parts of Nagoya-go that had become, for the first time in Kaoru's memory, loud with life, her mother's former quarters were the perfect place to hide Seijiro and the Mitsuboshi no Yari.
A mess. A stupid, reckless mess. And Seijiro—
Kaoru stole a glance at him. Seijiro was here; he had come.
The thought landed somewhere heavy, and the heartbeat she'd been fighting down since Tokugawa had ordered her to join a war she didn't want, stuttered in her chest. She had spent weeks telling herself not to hope, that he wouldn't come, that he couldn't. The heir of the Gojo clan didn't simply walk away from the warfront in Iga, and Kaoru had braced for the humiliation of waiting.
Yet, here he was because... she had asked. It was stupid how much that mattered.
Seijiro stretched, arms lazy over his head; after the chaos he had stirred, he had made himself comfortable in a borrowed Zenin black uniform, in a borrowed Zenin quarter, with a speed that was concerning.
Kaoru curled her fingers against her sleeves. Unbelievable. Too long. She had been watching him for too long; she tore her gaze away and forced her attention back where it belonged.
In the center of the room, laid out between them, was the Mitsuboshi no Yari.
The very reason the entire balance of the country was shifting into chaos. Crimson shaft, golden tri-pointed blade, silk white binding near the base. Even unawakened, it released a faint hum of restless cursed energy as if asking to be used.
Kaoru didn't look away from it; It didn't let her.
"So."
Seijiro finally broke the silence, eyes drifting toward the ceiling as if he were not discussing possible national collapse. "I think I've pieced together the situation." He exhaled, casual. "The relocation of the Mitsuboshi no Yari, Tokugawa's order… all of this is known only to the people in this room, correct?"
Kaoru inclined her head. "Only the people in this room."
Seijiro clicked his tongue in irritation. Of course she couldn't just refuse, but— "Tch. Damn it, Kaoru."
She turned slightly, frowning. "What."
Slowly, his gaze drifted over each person present: Hajime, still bristling; Tatsuhiro, trying very hard not to look like a child with a nosebleed; Harunobu, still radiating homicide. Seijiro's expression hardened. "Too many people," he said, flatly. Then, pointedly, his eyes locked onto hers. "This isn't a secret anymore, Kaoru. It's an information leak. And information leaks get people killed."
Kaoru stiffened, offended on instinct. Her arms crossed tighter. "It's not a leak. Every person in this room is someone I trust with my life."
A beat.
Seijiro blinked; so did she.
Kaoru, who trusted no one lightly, had just included Seijiro Gojo in the list of people she'd entrust with her life, in front of her second in command, her heir, and her ward.
Harunobu let out a pointed cough, trying to save her dignity. "Kaoru-dono."
That was enough to snap them both back; they aggressively looked away, synchronized.
Casual. Not a big deal.
Seijiro cleared his throat quickly, redirecting his attention to the spear. "Anyway," he muttered, voice regaining its careless edge, "if my father finds out about this, he'll take decisive action." The lightness drained from his tone. Not completely, Seijiro could make a joke while dying, but it dulled. "Hell, he might march here himself to claim it for the Gojo clan, and even I won't be able to stop him without a fight."
Kaoru's jaw tightened. With the Zenin forces relocated to Edo, Nagoya-go was filled with civilians; if anyone moved now, there would be nowhere for this place to hide.
"I couldn't exactly refuse a direct order," she said, voice clipped. "But as long as the fact that the Mitsuboshi no Yari's here remains a secret, no one will look too closely at Nagoya-go. To your father's eyes, this is just a village full of farmers, too deep inside Tokugawa-dono's territory to be worth any attention. We'll be fine, if..."
She trailed off, looking at him with newfound attention. Seijiro exhaled slowly; he'd meant to make a point, not drag them into a courtroom, but now every pair of eyes was on him.
Ah. Right.
"What? Of course I haven't told anyone. I'm not eager to see my clan commit a genocide," he said, exaggeratedly put-upon, as if he deserved credit for not detonating the Zenin clan. "Though, let's be honest—" he gestured vaguely, "the Zenin mon on that letter wasn't exactly discreet."
Harunobu's voice cut through. "Not even your shinobi?"
"Not even Rensuke," he admitted, quieter. "He probably thinks I'm negotiating a truce in Edo."
The change was subtle, but Kaoru saw it in the way his fingers flexed against the tatami as the admission sat wrong in his mouth. Seijiro Gojo no longer trusted the man who'd stood behind him for all his life.
Kaoru exhaled slowly as she stepped forward; fingers curling around the crimson shaft, she lifted it easily, spinning it once, then twice—behind her back, over her shoulder—effortless. The weapon was light and too unassuming for something that would drag the country toward blood. Kaoru had spent months learning its presence, and she knew the exact ebb and flow of its cursed energy.
She'd made sure she could wield it if she had to; she didn't want to, but want didn't matter. Consequences did.
Her mind ran through options. Hide it. Move it again before Tokugawa could turn it into a blade pointed at the Kansai. Or—briefly, sweetly—drown Tokugawa in his own blood and call it justice.
The practical part of her brain, the part that kept the Zenin clan alive, whispered: then what? Kill the peak, and you don't get peace; you get a power vacuum and opportunists. Every move felt like a noose. Whatever they decided, they had to be first sure the damage would end with them; they had to be first sure the children who came after them could survive the aftermath of their actions.
Meanwhile, Hajime and Seijiro had started bickering again.
"Oy." Hajime scoffed, glaring like Seijiro was a stain. "How long do you plan to take advantage of Kaoru's hospitality?"
Seijiro let out a long, theatrical sigh from where he lounged. "Man, I can't believe I almost had to fight you just to walk through a door."
"You did fight me."
"You wish, Zenin watchdog."
Harunobu's patience frayed in real time. He exhaled slowly, visibly visualizing a quiet life on a farm far away. "And yet, Gojo-sama," he muttered in exhaustion. "You seem perfectly at ease. Wearing Zenin clothes. Eating Zenin food. Lying comfortably on Zenin tatami." He squinted. "Tell me, is there anything else from the Zenin you require for your comfort?"
Seijiro's grin widened, bright and infuriating. He leaned back on his palms and tilted his head toward Kaoru. "Oh, I don't know, what do you think, Pretty Boy?" he asked. "Should I take your family name while I'm at it? Zenin Seijiro? Think it would suit me?"
It was an objectively terrible joke.
Hajime blinked. Tatsuhiro's entire soul left his body. Harunobu froze.
Kaoru didn't twitch visibly, but there was a very lethal shift; her grip tightening on the shaft, her wrist turning just enough—
Without warning, the spear moved. The golden trident-like blade cut through the air in a merciless line. Seijiro's head jerked back at the last possible second, his exhale loud as the tip of the blade stopped a breath away from his neck.
A single severed strand of white hair drifted down and floated on the tatami.
Seijiro blinked, grin froze in place; swallowed; then slowly—very slowly—he lifted his gaze to her. "Really," he said, voice mild and vaguely alarmed. "This again?"
Kaoru lowered the spear a few inches and lifted a brow. "What?" she asked, pure innocence. "Scared? Your precious barrier should prevent any attack, shouldn't it?"
She intended it as a joke, a provocation, but the pause that followed was not a joke.
Seijiro's smirk vanished in a heartbeat as something clicked behind his eyes. Wait. His pulse slowed. Infinity was up. He knew it; his Six Eyes hadn't registered a drop. Infinity was still up. Yet—
His gaze dropped to the white hair on the floor, and Kaoru realized in the exact moment. She lowered the blade and slowly followed his gaze on the severed hair on the tatami. The spear had reached him. The spear had touched him. The spear had cut him. His eyes snapped back to Kaoru at the exact same moment her own snapped back to him; neither of them needed to say it out loud.
The Mitsuboshi no Yari had bypassed his cursed technique.
Infinity, the Gojo heir's pride and the country's favorite nightmare, simply ignored.
The room fell into silence, heavy, abrupt, sickening, and for the first time in a very long time, Seijiro felt something disturbingly close to fear. He rose to his feet in one slow motion, body taut from understanding. His gaze locked onto the spear that suddenly looked like a weapon specifically designed to get through him. Kaoru held it steady, fingers tightening around the shaft, but her throat felt tight. This wasn't just a tool for creating and breaking barriers; it could nullify cursed techniques.
A silent exchange passed between them, too quick for Hajime or Tatsuhiro to catch, but perfectly clear between them, who had somehow learnt to communicate without words.
If the spear was wielded in battle—
If it were unleashed in the Tokugawa–Toyotomi war—
It wouldn't just dismantle Kyoto's defenses.
It wouldn't just tip the balance.
It would erase the entire premise of jujutsu superiority. Centuries of technique, bloodline, and training wiped clean by one weapon swung by the right hand with one brutal rule: your cursed technique means nothing now.
Seijiro exhaled slowly, fingers twitching at his sides; if this knowledge escaped this room, if Tokugawa realized what he truly held and had Kaoru wield it in war, then the war was over before it began. The only question would be how many bodies it would take to prove it.
But right now, only the people in this room knew.
Harunobu's eyes flicked between them. "Kaoru-dono?" he asked.
Kaoru blinked, as if suddenly remembering they weren't alone; then, without thinking, she moved. The spear snapped toward Seijiro again, fast and testing, because her mind needed a second proof.
"Oi—!" Seijiro jerked back, his whole body reacting like she'd thrown a viper at him. His eyes widened, alarmed and offended. "Would you stop that—?!"
"Stand still!" Kaoru snapped, shifting into a stance. "I need to test it again!"
"The hell you do, lunatic!" Seijiro dropped, mirroring her with instincts that did not care about propriety as every part of him screamed don't let it touch you again. "You just tried to take my head off! Give me that cursed thing!"
"Absolutely not."
He grabbed the shaft; she yanked it away. The spear swung between them in a tight arc, and Seijiro leaned back with exaggerated disgust as they circled each other embarrassingly.
"Hands off. It's my spear," Kaoru glared at him.
Seijiro tried again, wrestling for the weapon like a spoiled child arguing over a toy. "And yet it is fair that I have it! That damned spear looks like it was invented specifically to kill me!"
Kaoru jerked it out of his reach. "Yeah? Welcome to being a normal person. Some of us never had an invisible wall to keep the world from touching us."
He darted in again; she pivoted. The spear whistled past his shoulder, and Seijiro recoiled. "Stop pointing it at me!"
"Then stop trying to steal it!"
From the side, Hajime made a noise, entertained in the way only a teenager could be entertained. "Kaoru's winning," he announced, helpful.
Tatsuhiro, still kneeling, still pale, finally spoke, hesitantly. "What... exactly is happening?"
"You cannot seriously be thinking of bringing that thing onto a battlefield against me," he hissed.
"Oh, please," Kaoru shot back. She lifted the spear again, just enough to make him take another involuntary step back. "Stop acting like a delicate little flower."
Seijiro stopped dead; his face did something genuinely scandalized. "I am not being a delicate flower," Seijiro insisted in his lie. "You are brandishing the only thing in this country that can make my technique irrelevant."
"If Tokugawa-dono finds out I handed it to the Gojo," Kaoru snapped, because she did not have the patience, "he'll sentence my entire clan to death. Including the people in this village."
That landed. Seijiro's grin faltered by a fraction, enough to show he remembered there was a village full of civilians beyond these walls, and not all of them were sorcerers who could dodge consequences.
He clicked his tongue, irritated at reality. "Fine."
A beat. Then, immediately, he tried to snatch the spear again. Kaoru shoved him back with her shoulder; he stumbled a half-step and caught himself, offended all over again, breathing a little harder than he wanted anyone to notice. "Ugh. That spear is going to be my death."
Kaoru froze at the exact same time, because the worst part was: Seijiro was right, and she could picture it cleanly. And she hated that she could picture it at all.
They turned away from each other; they'd spent the nervous energy, but they still had to find a way out.
Finally, Harunobu exhaled, weary. "Kaoru-dono... Gojo-sama... Would you mind explaining?"
Seijiro let out a long, dramatic stretch, rolling his shoulders, then stepped forward too casually and plucked the spear from Kaoru's hands before she could protest. This time, Kaoru didn't stop him; she did glare briefly. His fingers ran along the wood as his Six Eyes did its job, focusing until his expression went blank in a disturbing way. He tilted the spear under the candlelight, studying the structure that no one but him could see, the residual cursed energy, the abilities embedded in it, the way it pulsed beneath the surface like a heartbeat that didn't belong to any living thing.
"Look at this," he muttered.
Kaoru lifted her chin, tracking his thoughts without needing him to explain. "The Mitsuboshi no Yari," she said.
Seijiro's fingers drummed once against the shaft. "Each point carries—"
"—a distinct ability," Kaoru finished.
His gaze slid to her, quick. "One for barrier creation."
"One to destroy barriers," she added.
A pause; both of them leaned in a fraction. "And one for nullification."
The confirmation fell into place.
Kaoru swallowed. Seijiro's grip tightened, then loosened. That was it; the Mitsuboshi no Yari was a death sentence for any jujutsu sorcerer caught in its path. Both of them exhaled at the same time, shoulders squaring. The spear couldn't be allowed to exist in war between sorcerers, not if they wanted to preserve a future of balance among the clans. Not in Tokugawa's hands, not in Toyotomi's, not in anyone's.
"What's a family name?"
Hajime's voice instantly killed the tension. Seijiro and Kaoru exhaled in unison and pivoted away from each other as if they'd been caught in a compromising position.
Hajime tilted his head, genuinely baffled. "What? Was that a stupid question?"
"Yes," Seijiro muttered, dropping his face into his hands.
Kaoru sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. "This spear," she started, pushing forward, pacing with hands crossed behind her back. "We have to remove it from the war without compromising my clan and without having you accidentally killed."
"No shit," Seijiro said, mirroring her pacing on the opposite side of the room.
Kaoru shot him a glare; he looked delighted by it, which only made her want to throw the spear at his face again. "How has something like this gone unnoticed under the eyes of your clan for so long?"
Seijiro scoffed, adjusting the weapon's weight in his palm with arrogance. "It's been buried beneath the capital for hundreds of years," he said. "Everyone assumed it was a relic for controlling the kekkai around Kyoto."
"And no one ever thought to test its capabilities against a sorcerer?"
"Who in their right mind would?" he shot back, immediately.
"Fair," Kaoru conceded.
Tatsuhiro cleared his throat, still trying to be brave about asking questions in a room full of people who could erase him by accident. "And what exactly do you intend to do?"
Kaoru stilled; so did Seijiro. Their eyes slid to the spear, then to each other as the answer came at once. "Destroy it."
Tatsuhiro straightened with alarm in his young face. "Wouldn't that be—" He hesitated, choosing the safest wording. "—an act of treason against Tokugawa-dono?"
Kaoru scoffed. "Tokugawa-dono is a warlord, not a sorcerer," she said flatly, more to convince herself. "I can fabricate a dozen justifications for the accidental destruction of a cursed weapon, and he wouldn't suspect a thing."
The boy still looked uncertain; he was young enough to believe defying Tokugawa meant immediate death, and Kaoru couldn't blame him; defying Tokugawa was dangerous, but she was not willingly bringing that spear onto a battlefield against other sorcerers, against Seijiro. She was not going to let the spear be used as leverage against her clan either.
And yet, even Seijiro didn't look fully satisfied; he looked between her and the spear. "It's but a temporary fix," he admitted. "Tokugawa will still push forward with his war regardless; he won't know the full extent of what he's lost."
Kaoru frowned. It was true: destroying it wouldn't stop the war, but it would be one less disaster waiting to happen, and one less variable disrupting the balance among Zenin, Gojo, and Kamo. They could try. For a moment—just a moment—the weight of that decision pressed down on them.
Then—
"Great," Hajime said, rising with entirely too much enthusiasm for a situation that should've made him quiet. "So, when are we blowing it up?"
.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.
Kaoru had been awake long enough that her patience had started to feel empty.
An hour ago, she'd been in the main hall with the elders, listening to grown men argue themselves into bloodlust over a kitchen incident. A civilian child—seven, maybe eight—had stolen from the wrong pantry. Not stolen stolen, he'd taken a handful of dried fish from the storehouse reserved for the Kukuru unit because he was hungry and because children were, by nature, terrible at long-term survival planning.
The elders had actually decided, with perfect solemnity, that this required an example, or the civilians would grow even more unruly, stealing military provisions; he asked the boy to lose his hand.
Kaoru had stared at him for a full three seconds, making sure she'd heard correctly, then asked—very calmly—if he planned to feed the clan with the boy's severed fingers. When the elder sputtered about discipline and theft and precedent, she'd reminded him that precedent was her father choking on his own blood by her hand. Then she'd threatened to take his hand for wasting her morning.
It had solved the dispute quickly, and the child returned to his mother. That was leadership, apparently: preventing the clan from mutilating its own children over dried fish.
After that, there had been the correspondence. Edo and Miyako's careful, maddeningly precise reports. The Hei captain was arguing with her, with a pregnant woman who had received the blessing of the Clan Head, that the grain should be moved first and before the women of Nagoya-go.
And there was Date Masamune. Tokugawa's newest and literally hottest piece on the board had already arrived in Edo with his main forces and, according to the last message, "awaiting further orders with exemplary decorum." Kaoru immediately translated that from Miyako-speak: he's being reeducated and suffering.
Masamune Date, pyromaniac warlord with a scowl, was probably trapped in a guest room while Miyako did what Miyako did best: offered tea.More tea. A third tea. A fourth tea. Tea for his men. Tea for his horse, probably. Tea until even the One Eyed Dragon started to drown.
Good. If he were still drowning in tea, Kaoru and Seijiro had time to prevent the war and the march on the Tokaido from happening.
She'd sent instructions to Miyako and coded a reply to a Date's attendant that was as close as she could get to, Please don't burn my roof while you wait. Then she'd signed three documents and stamped the wax so hard it cracked.
Then, finally, she'd gotten up and walked outside because if she stayed in another room full of elders, she was going to start proving to violence. She stepped through the threshold into the courtyard behind Lady Reika Zenin's abandoned residence, where she was hiding a very unassuming Gojo heir and a cursed spear, out of sight, out of mind, convenient to forget until you needed it. Kaoru had changed into simple training attire, black and white kosode sleeves tied back, hair gathered away from her face, and a thick scroll tucked under her arm because she hadn't stopped being clan head just because she'd stepped outside.
When she saw them, and the part of her that had spent all night doing politics went quiet on instinct.
Seijiro and Hajime.
Seijiro's voice cut across the packed earth, lazy and not at the same time. "You're getting slow, Thunderbrat."
Hajime was already moving in a blur of cyan and white, barefoot and filthy and thrilled, kicking up dust. Cursed energy snapped like lightning along his arms, snapping and stuttering like a storm unraveling in real time as he struck again and again.
But Seijiro? Seijiro wasn't even pretending to fight seriously. Hajime's fist met nothing but empty space.
A breath later, Seijiro was behind him, and a thunk landed at the back of Hajime's head, more insult than real damage. Hajime growled, spinning on the spot, feral and delighted as he tried for a back-kick.
Infinity was up in an instant around Seijiro; the air distorted just enough to remind anyone watching that this wasn't fair. But Kaoru caught what Hajime didn't: this wasn't just Seijiro being a smug bastard. He was letting down Infinity on purpose, letting the boy get close, letting him commit before letting him fail, pushing Hajime without fully shutting him down.
A lesson. He was teaching him, and kami helped them, and whoever would be in Hajime's path in the future if something came from that single lesson.
"You're not adapting, pup," Seijiro chuckled, hands tucked into his sleeves, not even bothering to take a proper stance. "Keep this up, and you'll never land a hit on me."
Hajime's chest heaved as his eyes burned. He wasn't frustrated the way most people were when they lost; he was actually having the time of his life. "Again," he demanded, grinning like a wolf.
Seijiro tilted his head, mock-thoughtful. "You sure? That last one looked like it hurt."
"Didn't feel a thing," Hajime spat, and Kaoru believed him; the boy was built wrong, and she was not helping with that problem if she was being honest. If anything, she was making him worse.
Still grinning, Hajime sprinted again toward Seijiro, faster and more controlled this time. Mid-motion, he twisted, predicting Seijiro's dodge, and a fist wreathed in lightning aimed straight for the ribs. Seijiro just tilted his head, and Hajime's fist stopped just shy of his body, hovering against the invisible boundary of Infinity. The realization he had lost again hit Hajime a fraction too late, and his mouth was already forming an insult.
"Not bad," Seijiro mused, tone dangerously like concealed approval. "You'll get there eventually. Maybe in a decade or two."
"You bastard—!" Hajime pivoted, electricity flaring, and threw a reckless downward kick.
Seijiro didn't dodge; he moved forward so fast it almost looked like he'd stepped into Hajime's shadow. His palm caught Hajime's wrist before he could react, twisted it to throw him off balance. One tap, maybe a little too brutally and humiliatingly, and Hajime flew backward and hit the ground flat on his back as dust bloomed around him.
He stared up at the sky for half a second, then started laughing maniacally. So did Seijiro, because he liked the little monster. Not that he'd admit it, but Hajime was fast and stronger than he should be at his age for an orphan growing up starving on the street. A problem in the making.
Seijiro stepped back, adjusting the sleeves of the borrowed Zenin uniform. "I'll give you this, Thunderbrat," he said, smirking. "You're stubborn."
Hajime wiped sweat and dirt from his face, panting. "That wasn't a real fight," he complained. "You didn't even hit me properly."
"Duh, because I don't need to."
Seijiro rolled his shoulders, his bored grace hiding the fact that he could tear most people in half without raising his voice. He spent so much time lounging like a bored courtesan that it was easy to forget sometimes that he was not just an arrogant nuisance. Hajime glared up at him like he'd found his favorite enemy.
Infuriating.
Kaoru's lips almost quirked as she watched, arms crossed, letting herself take in the scene as if it belonged to some other life. An overpowered man babysitting an underpowered menace. It was a stolen peaceful time, a time they weren't supposed to have. And yet, they would take it anyway.
Then Hajime's cursed energy spiked in a way that made her stomach drop; she saw it before he did, the build, the unstable charge, and the reckless teenage need to prove something he couldn't control yet.
"Don't—" she called, eyes widening in alarm.
Already too late.
Hajime let his cursed energy charge; a violent pulse of purple lightning snapped across the ground, up his legs and arms, dissipating the static and cracking through the air. Dust spiraled upward and was dragged into the field around him as he tried to force the lightning into two separated flows.
Then, with a sharp exhale, the charging bolt of lightning ripped through the sky, condensing, ready to break all hell loose.
Kaoru tensed, cursing under her breath. She could already see the problem; if he misfired, if he held it too long, it would cook him from the inside. At this rate, the backlash could leave him spasming on the ground, if not outright incapacitated.
"Tch." Seijiro sighed, as if Hajime's stupidity was personally offensive.
With zero effort, he flicked a hand. A ripple in space, a small orb of Blue above Hajime's head, and the building pressure inverted. Seijiro's Blue grabbed Hajime's charge mid-formation up in the sky and yanked him off his feet before he could fully discharge. Hajime flew backward as his lightning collapsed in on itself just where he stood an instant ago, blackening the earth with a final pressure that echoed across Nagoya-go like thunder. The backlash still kissed his arms, small sparks ricocheting off his skin before dispersing.
Hajime hit the dirt hard, rolled multiple times, and skidded to a stop on his back. For a beat, the courtyard went still, if not for the thunder still echoing in the distance. Then Hajime cackled, sprawled flat with his arms thrown wide as if he'd just seen a kami. "Aaah!" He wheezed through laughter, utterly exhilarated. Matching his mood, his cyan hair crackled with excess charge. "That was so fucking cool—"
Seijiro dragged a hand down his face. "Great. You're actually insane."
Kaoru exhaled and stepped into the courtyard at last; her gaze swept the scene with the blunt appraisal of someone who had spent the morning preventing amputations and was now ready to prevent her favorite ward from frying himself. "Seijiro," she started by scolding the one who was technically an adult. "You let him push his charge too far,"
Seijiro didn't look at her; the smirk was already in his voice. "Oh? Took you long enough, Pretty Boy." The way he angled his head suggested that he'd been aware of her presence the whole time. "I needed morning entertainment. Your Thunderbrat is fine. Just out of his damn mind."
Kaoru didn't dignify that with an answer. She looked down at Hajime, who was still grinning in the dirt, unconcerned by the fact that he'd nearly electrocuted himself into oblivion. He flexed his fingers, testing for aftershocks, then turned his gaze toward Seijiro like a starving animal.
"Again!" he said, already shoving himself up.
Seijiro groaned. "No way."
Kaoru's voice cut through both of them, calm enough to be a threat. "Hajime." His laughter died instantly. She tilted her head, fully aware of the terror that her tone caused him. "If you want another round," she said, smiling briefly, "I'll gladly take you."
Hajime, still catching his breath, looked between her and Seijiro, processing. This wasn't like fighting Seijiro. Sparring with Seijiro was like brawling with an older brother: humiliating, exhilarating, and full of insults. Even when you lost, it was still, somehow, fun. A spar with Kaoru was not fun; it was a hard lesson. Kaoru had been training him for months, in stolen windows of time between councils, correspondence, and war plans. The last time they'd sparred, she'd drilled every mistake into his head, making sure he ate dirt not metaphorically, then leaving him there to think about it.
And if Hajime currently feared anything in the world—truly feared—it was disappointing Kaoru Zenin.
He hesitated long enough for her to notice.
"You're hesitating," she said, cool.
Hajime scowled and glared instantly. "I'm not."
"Good." Kaoru flexed her fingers, rolled her wrists, stretched her arms overhead as she stepped forward, taking Seijiro's place. "I need a warm-up before we try to destroy the Mitsuboshi no Yari."
Seijiro, now thoroughly entertained, folded his arms and leaned against a wooden pillar. "Now this," he muttered, "I have to see."
He was fully aware of how absurd it was, really. He shouldn't be there, standing in a Zenin courtyard, dressed in borrowed robes, watching Hajime puff up like a stubborn pup about to get disciplined. He should've been at the border with the rest of the idiots who thought their pride could outlive them. And yet here he was, watching Kaoru prepare to ruin the boy's morning.
Kaoru dropped into a stance. "Come."
And Hajime did.
He lunged with impressive speed, all instincts, but Kaoru was gone before he could touch her, dropped and folded into her own shadow, slipping just out of reach. Hajime twisted mid-step, catching her movement to his left on pure reflex, and lashed out—
Nothing. She wasn't even there anymore; she was already behind him.
An arm locked under his arm and over his shoulder in a merciless hook, and in one smooth motion, he was twisted; the sky flipped in his vision as he hit the ground again. He wheezed, blinking up at the clouds, and scowled.
At least Seijiro let him get close without consequence; Kaoru did not. She barely broke a sweat; she had just moved once. "You can do better," she hummed, small private smile still there, insulting. "Come on. Again."
Hajime groaned, shoved himself up, cursed her and everything that existed, and tried. Again. Again. And again. The spar stretched long enough to make a point, and it ended the same way every time: Hajime on his back and Kaoru standing over him, smiling indulgently.
Finally, she pinned him properly, her knee pressing down against his chest, keeping him in place.
Hajime's breath came hard, more anger than exhaustion. "Wha—?!"
She pressed down just enough to make him stop trashing. "Your strength is nothing if you can't stop throwing lightning around like a toddler," she instructed, not smiling anymore. "Learn control. Adapt to this world or die. If you can't keep up with me, you will never touch someone like Seijiro."
Seijiro hummed in approval, delighted. "That's the nicest thing you've ever said about me."
Hajime gritted his teeth. He hated that she was right, he hated that it was true, he hated—
Kaoru tilted her head, the small, dangerous smile forming again. "Again...?"
For one horrifying second, Hajime considered saying yes. His own pulse betrayed him, jumping in anticipation because he hadn't learned the concept of self-preservation. Then he remembered that if he agreed, Kaoru would keep going until he stopped being stupid because she did not "wrap it up because it's been a long morning."
He exhaled, defeated. "…No thanks."
Kaoru nodded, pushed off him, then stepped past him as if he were part of the ground. "Good. Get stronger."
Seijiro whistled low from the side. "You did well, kid," he called. "Almost lasted two minutes."
Hajime groaned and flipped onto his back again. "Shut up, old man." He sat up, rubbing his shoulder where he'd hit the ground, scowling at Kaoru's back while muttering under his breath. "It's not fucking—"
Kaoru barely glanced at him. "Language."
He grumbled, bit his lip, recalibrated. "I said, it's not fair."
"What's not?" came Seijiro's amused question.
Hajime wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. "That a woman is this strong."
A long, absolute silence followed. The world froze like it was waiting to see who would die first.
Kaoru stopped mid-step and turned slowly, eyes narrowing dangerously locked on Hajime. Seijiro straightened off the pillar so fast he almost tripped on his feet, smirk vanishing in an instant. Harunobu, entering the courtyard at that exact moment, with the Mitsuboshi no Yari balanced against his shoulder, stopped dead in his tracks. Even the damn weapon seemed to hum, like it had opinions.
Hajime, still half-sprawled in the dirt, blinked at all of them, genuinely confused by the reaction. "…What? Did I say something stupid?"
The tension broke.
Seijiro wheezed, actually wheezed; he doubled over, laughing so hard he had to brace a hand on the pillar, clutching his side. "He—" he gasped between breaths, "he knows?"
Kaoru's eyelid trembled violently. "No. No, he shouldn't know—"
Hajime wiped dirt off his cheek, frowning. "I mean—c'mon." He sounded offended that this was even a discussion. "You train me daily. You don't sound like a guy, you don't move like one, and you're—y'know—" He gestured vaguely, as if anatomy was a minor detail. "You don't even try that hard to hide it."
Kaoru stared down at him, eye twitching. I don't even try that hard. Very, very fast and deliberate, she crouched before him, lowering herself so that they were eye level. Hajime yelped and scrambled back, laughing nervously even as her fingers fisted in his collar, yanking him nose to nose.
"Listen to me, you little mutt," she muttered with controlled violence. "You will not open that damned, filthy mouth of yours about this. To anyone."
Hajime blinked at her, then grinned and shrugged as if she'd just told him the sky was blue. "Yeah," he said. Figured that out ages ago."
Kaoru breathed in slowly. "Hajime," she said, still a warning.
The boy tilted his head, giving them all an exasperated look like they were the problem. "I just don't care about stuff that doesn't matter." He crossed his arms, ignoring the way he was still dangling from where she had grabbed his collar. "And this? Eh. Doesn't matter."
Across the courtyard, Harunobu pinched the bridge of his nose so hard it looked like it might leave a bruise.
This time, Seijiro choked on his own laughter, wiping at his eyes. "Oh my—Kid's not as dumb as he looks."
"He is," Harunobu muttered, his patience near collapse.
The spear thumped against the ground beside him, attracting every eye and their focus. The air shifted back, and the weight of what they had to do returned.
"Alright, alright. We've had our fun." Seijiro straightened, still grinning even as his eyes slid to the spear. "Time to break history."
Kaoru exhaled, released her feral ward, stood, and brushed dust off her hakama to regain control. She glanced at Harunobu, who looked like he'd aged ten years in the past minute, as Hajime, now released, stumbled back, sitting on the ground, crossed his legs as if pretending to be just an innocent boy.
"Yes," Kaoru murmured, eyeing the spear. "Let's end this."
.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.
One month later, they had not, in fact, broken history.
"Ready?" Kaoru didn't look at Seijiro when he said it.
Before her, the clearing looked like a broken record of all their bad decisions and failed attempts: scorched trunks, patches of earth turned to glass, the air perpetually threaded with ozone and burned sap, a stink that always followed Hajime's lightning. Every attempt they'd made sat in the ground laughing in their face.
Seijiro hovered a few feet above the wreckage, weightless and perfectly balanced over nothing in midair, ignoring gravity the same way the spear ignored his Infinity. His haori's loose sleeves rippled in the aftershock of the last blast as his too pale blue eyes stayed locked on the spear planted dead center in the ruin below him.
The Mitsuboshi no Yari, after a month, still gleamed, red and gold and smugly untouched.
"Ready," Hajime muttered, shifting weight from bare foot to bare foot, braced in cracked dirt and already bristling in lightning charging around him. His white training robes were streaked with dust and ash. "Just give the damn signal."
Seijiro sighed, all non-necessary theatrics. "Alright, alright." He pitched his voice across the field as if announcing a festival instead of another failed attempt in their plan. "Just one more time, okay? Maybe this time it'll actually explode."
Kaoru stepped back to give her shikigami more distance to charge, rolling her shoulders and settling her stance. A pause. Then—
"Now."
Hajime struck first. Lightning crawled along his arms, distorting the air with its charge; the clearing pulsed as he released it in a violent shockwave of purple lightning and cursed energy ripping forward, furious and crashing fully on the Mitsuboshi no Yari.
Above them, Seijiro pushed off the air and rose higher, casual as a man stepping onto a porch. He lifted a finger, pinpointing the spear below, even amidst the smoke Hajime's charge had lifted. Space twisted as pressure collapsed around the crimson orb forming on his fingertips.
Then he fired Red.
The crimson blast ripped downward, in an inverted pulse of cursed energy that repelled the vert air, folding in on itself before detonating. Trees groaned and split. and the ground buckled as deep cracks tore through the clearing.
Kaoru was already moving. Hand flying in a summoning sign, from the shadow behind her, a heavy and black shikigami surfaced: massive, obsidian fur, horns the only thing catching the sun. Piercing Ox charged forward, its hooves carving trenches in the ground as it reached the spear amidst the already formed hell. The impact added force to Seijiro's Red, fused with Hajime's lightning. Dirt and stone erupted, dust swallowing the world whole in that single brutal line that flattened another portion of forest just outside Nagoya-go.
Very slowly, as everyone held their breath, the dust thinned, and the light returned in strips, sneaking through smoke and dirt. And still, in the center of the shattered field, standing in mocking, perfect defiance—
The Mitsuboshi no Yari remained unscathed and completely intact.
Hajime growled loudly, kicked at a chunk of debris, and sent it skittering far. "I swear! This damn thing is laughing at us!"
Seijiro landed lightly beside him and stared at the devastation that had personally betrayed all of them. He clicked his tongue, ran a hand through his hair; he looked up at the spear again as if it might finally take pity on their efforts, but of course, no such luck.
"You've got to be joking," he said, flat.
Days. Days of this. And for what?
Behind the estate, the forest was no longer a forest. It was an ugly scar still humming with the remnants of their combined attacks and cursed energy. Days of controlled explosions and careful combination,s and Kaoru's measured voice saying again as if stubbornness could rewrite the law of cursed energy.
In the distance, Kaoru exhaled, wiped sweat from her brow, and didn't speak, didn't react. She just stood there, staring at the Mitsuboshi no Yari with a too-calm expression.
Seijiro hated it because he knew her, and that? That wasn't calm, no matter how much she pretended. That was a defeat buried neatly under control. He saw the way her fingers curled too tightly at her sides, and her shoulders held themselves too rigid. He wondered if she realized she hadn't looked away from the spear once since the dust had settled.
His smirk faded without his permission.
Kaoru had spent days like this, failing. All of them had, but she was the only one being that hard on herself. She'd bet everything on this working, needed it to work, because the alternative was admitting there was nothing they could do to keep the spear out of the war, to prevent the spear from becoming a pretense to drag their clans on opposite sides of a battlefield. And now she just stood there, in the wreckage of her own hope, refusing to let it show on her face. In the last year, Seijiro had watched her claw her way out of worse, watched her take inevitability by the throat and become Clan Head. But this was different. Kaoru looked like she'd always known it might end this way and had let herself hope anyway.
That was what burned the most.
His gaze softened; deep down, he had known, too, hell, he'd known months ago that peace was an illusion and they were naive for even thinking about it. But seeing her like this? Seeing her face what he had already accepted?
"Tch." He didn't have comfort, and even if he did, she'd spit it back at him.
They were out of time. His absence from the Iga border was already a problem with a countdown, and it was only a matter of time before Kaoru had to answer to Tokugawa. The longer the spear stayed here, the more likely someone outside this miserable little circle would notice the relocation and put the pieces together.
And once the world knew, if destroying the spear wasn't an option—
Hajime stomped forward and kicked the spear. Hard. Nothing. Not a scratch, not a tremor, not even the satisfaction of impact. "Stupid fucking thing," he growled.
Seijiro let out a single, humorless laugh. "That's not going to work, Thunderbrat."
"Nothing else has," Hajime shot back, crossing his arms. Then, quieter, muttering offended: "Damn cursed objects should be weaker than people."
Kaoru barely twitched at his tantrum, which was unusual. Her gazeslid absently and blankly to Hajime, then away again. That told Seijiro everything; she wasn't panicking as much as she was unraveling in that quiet way she did when the dam held and held and held until it didn't.
A war with the other clans was inevitable; she knew it. She just hadn't accepted it yet.
He studied her for a moment too long; one of them had to be the rational one and admit it out loud, and it was deeply insulting that it might have to be him this time.
Kaoru turned toward Harunobu. "'Nobu. Take care of the usual cleanup," she ordered, voice distant.
Harunobu stood at a respectful distance, because Harunobu always did, even when he was furious. His brow, still, twitched. "Kaoru-dono," he called at last, careful, "it is becoming increasingly difficult to convince anyone that these are merely your personal training exercises." He gestured toward the craters surrounding them.
She exhaled again. "Be creative."
"Yeah, 'Nobu," Seijiro put in, smirk returning to kill some tension. "Use that brilliant strategic mind of yours."
"If you ever speak again, Gojo-sama," Harunobu leveled him with a look of exhaustion, "it will be too soon."
Kaoru ignored them both, already turning away. "I'll head back first. I have things to handle."
Harunobu frowned slightly. "Your study?"
A hesitation. Seijiro caught it.
"Yes," Kaoru said too smoothly, but something about it felt off. She smoothed her expression, too, but it did nothing to make it convincing.
Lies.
She wasn't going to her study; she probably wasn't even sure where she was going. Anywhere but here, anywhere she didn't have to stare at the war waiting to swallow everything they'd been trying to build, children and civilians and the quiet, ridiculous life of a village figuring out how to fix a hoe.
Harunobu studied her a moment longer, deciding not to pree. "Understood, Kaoru-sama."
Kaoru didn't look back as she walked away; she didn't acknowledge the eyes following hers, didn't give them permission to worry. For once, Seijiro said nothing. He just watched her go while Hajime, oblivious in the way only a teenager could afford to be, kept kicking at dirt and muttering curses like he could swear the problem smaller.
Seijiro dragged a hand down his face, then turned to Harunobu with a pointed look. "She's frustrated," he said, voice deliberately casual to cover for the fact that he had already made a decision for both of them and she was not going to like it.
Harunobu crossed his arms defensively. "She is pragmatic."
"That doesn't mean she's not frustrated."
Harunobu's gaze slid toward him; Seijiro wasn't wrong, which was irritating on principle. It had always been Harunobu's job to know Kaoru, to always know what was going on in her mind, yet here was the Gojo bastard, doing it better anyway.
Seijiro caught the way Harunobu's fingers flexed once, like he was restraining the urge to go after her himself. He grinned, but it was not teasing for once. "You're worried. Cute."
"She is Zenin-dono, I'm not worried."
"She is also Kaoru."
There, that was the difference, and they both knew it.
"Gojo-sama," Harunobu said at last, patience thin. "You are not helping, standing there with your opinions."
Seijiro stretched his arms over his head in a show of feigned nonchalance. "So what I'm hearing, my dear 'Nobu," he drawled, deceptively casual, "is that I should go after her?"
Harunobu looked at him the way only someone who'd spent years watching Kaoru survive could. Yeah. Seijiro wasn't going after her to be sweet; he was going after her to make her face it, say it, accept it.
And the worst part? Kaoru would let Seijiro, just as she wouldn't let Harunobu right now. Annoying. Deeply annoying. This damn man. Harunobu had always been the one to know when to push and when to let her be, but now…
Maybe, now, that wasn't his role anymore.
Harunobu closed his eyes, letting the inevitability settle into his bones; then he opened them again, resigned to fate. "What's the point?" he murmured. "You're going to do it regardless of what I say."
Seijiro's grin turned bright. "Obviously."
"Just... stay out of sight of the elders, Gojo-sama," Harunobu called after him as Seijiro was already turning to follow her. "They are still recovering from your last appearance."
A lazy wave. Seijiro was already halfway across the clearing. "Duly noted."
A voice followed him, offended. "Oi! You promised me a rematch—!"
Seijiro turned, walking backward now, smiling straight at Hajime. "I did. This morning, didn't I? I threw you in the ground five times."
Hajime bristled, lips curling, ready to snap.
"But!" Seijiro cut in quickly, holding up a hand before the boy could commit to a fight. "If you behave and help Harunobu put that cursed stick back to sleep, I'll help you train later. Deal?"
Hajime's eyes narrowed with suspicion. He hated deals, but he loved the word "later" when it came with violence. Like a dog being promised off the leash, he lit up and nodded eagerly. "Fine," he called after him. "But you'd better not hold back this time."
"Me?" Seijiro laughed, finally turning away, waving behind him as his smile died. "Never."