Under the Overpass ~ SatoSugu

Chapter 3

They heaved, dripping in sweat but maintaining eye contact.

Neither one of them wanted to give out first.

"Fuck." Geto dropped, his feet landing on the sandy dirt below.
"Heh heh," Gojo floated down to meet him.

"YOU." Geto tried to grab him but was ineffective against his dodging and weaving. "You said you wouldn't, you ass!" He licked the sweat from his upper lip.

"Your fault for not noticing," Gojo replied, already beginning to sprint away from the pull-up bars, knowing that would send Suguru over the edge. 

As they chased one another, the principal stood beneath the shade of the temple buildings overhanging. He called out to them both and fun ceased quite quickly with laconic orders of another mission given.

When out of range, Gojo's annoyance made itself known.
He tutted, "I just got back."
"Yeah, well, at least it's not far."

They readied themselves and met back up in preparation to go. The activity was within a psychiatric hospital-turned-office building.

They strolled along the bustling streets, and eventually to ones more secluded. Gojo still wore the banded eye covering, apart from sleep, not yet wanting to remove the quietness it granted. It made matters easier for Geto too, as it meant he could be inattentive to those eyes.

"Lemme see the squishy gumball one."

"Excuse me-"

"The curse with the big gummy mouth." Gojo clapped a singular hand together like an infant reaching out for a bottle.
Geto sighed, manifesting the correct volleyball-sized curse. "Ma-Ma-" it bleated slowly, like a famished sheep. Gojo giggled and tossed the nearly weightless mass from one hand to the other, bumping it upwards every once in a while, a smile staying on his face and infecting Geto's.

"Why do you choose to take ones like these?"
Especially if it hurts you so much.
Gojo asked, poking the cheek of the shut-eyed pink ball. It was a question even Geto asked himself, but in this particular case, it was a simple answer.

"I pity them."

There was something so heartfelt about his tone that Gojo held onto it.

They reached the veil, "What grade is this one, again?" Gojo asked.
"Second." They walked down clicking tile floors, echoing footsteps.

"I don't see any remnants of anything..." Geto said, almost annoyed. Gojo kept quiet for a moment, something Geto registered and raised warning flags over from its rarity.

"Let's check a different floor then." They found an elevator only for it to be out of order and entered a grimy stairwell. Peering up further, they could see that renovations were being made to cover markings and old stains with light blue paint. They exchanged a knowing glance and Geto sent out a centipede-looking curse from his palm which spiraled up the walls.

A second later it was sent flying down below them. Gojo instinctively put an arm out to cross in front of Geto protectively and peered down over the edge then back up to see nothing. The view was obstructed by a small landing. Geto pushed the arm down to get a confirming look himself. They both sprinted up the stairs for a better view and quickly drew back.

"What the hell is that," his pupils constricted, "It looks nothing like the file photo." Geto ushered loudly.

"It'll be fun!" Gojo went on ahead, fixing his gaze on the creature that occupied the highest corner of the stairwell. Its body was tucked tightly into the spot.

It resembled a spider but had multi-legged limbs that sprouted like tree branches made of bone, getting smaller the further out they extended. Its body supported the web of legs in a crunched mass of vertebrates.

Gojo hesitated in whether or not to remove the white blindfold, deciding on exposing just one eye, but Geto was first to get a hit. He used a small school of sharp-finned fish to swarm in front of the curse, confusing it on where to hit.

"N-oo moRE seDativES!" It wailed, shaking the deformed mass of cartilage it used as a head. The fish all fell, paralyzed, down the many flights of stairs to the bottom.

"Second grade, huh?" Gojo was already beginning to question the ranking, letting both eyes see it now, and dropping the small bunching of thick gauze that had previously acted as his blinder. On the atomic level, he conjured up a precise, yet small, amount of cursed energy, sending it straight to the spinal face.

"N-oo moRE seDativES!" It grew even more small limb extensions to block the hit in a shield-like fashion, almost as if expecting such an attack.
"Satoru!"
Geto was snatched by the opposite side of limbs, wrapped around all in twisted joints, and stretched out into the shape of a star. It sent him down with bony creaks to the floor.
Suguru.
Gojo tried again to hit the bones but it seemed to deflect any attempt.

Where there had been just bones started to now grow muscular tendons that wrapped around its core.
"You just gave yourself away, idiot." He targeted its core over and over, the muscle only further hardening. He grew angry at his inconsistency in producing cursed energy. Some had the power of a sneeze, others; an ineffective grenade.

Below, Geto manifested one curse after another, but the limbs that held him began to thicken with warm, squelching groups of muscle as well.

"Die!" Gojo blew.
"N-oo moRE seDativES!" It seemed to be confused when the nearly completely flesh-covered sticks were unable to wrap hold around Gojo as they did Geto.
His Blue technique proved not enough, which he thought impossible, and it is. However, he was unaware that his mind was secretly elsewhere, fixated and nervous about the situation Suguru was in. That distraction heavily altered his still-strengthening abilities.

"SATORU!" The flights echoed the voice upward. His ribs were close to being crushed.

He quit playing around and the curse seemed to almost be crying. In a single moment, the pushing and pulling of both techniques formed a deep purple ball. It obliterated that which it touched, which were not the arms that held Geto below, but without a core, hundreds of differently sized bones broke and sent splatters of what seemed eerily like human blood against the robin's egg-blue walls.

Gojo surprised himself, never having successfully pulled that off before. He decided against mentioning it at all, writing it off as some wild fluke. His hair stood upright, and he felt heart palpitations raise up into his throat. A new surge flooded his every tendril of axons.

This curse was particularly vile, and Geto's feelings of fear, even in the best attempt to remain calm began to best him. He swore at the fact he was bested by Gojo, but as oxygen continued to restrict, all he wanted was him.
Satoru.
Satoru...
He mouthed the name but couldn't form any words, a black haze wiping over the bottom of his eyes to the top of his head that snatched his consciousness with it.

Gojo didn't give enough time to fully catch his breath and leaped from the railing, holding the truck of bone like a pole, and sliding down to the bottom.

"Suguru!" His friend lay limp like a fallen angel beneath the calcium roots. Gojo swirled a motion of Red the size of a Christmas ornament and repelled all that surrounded him, giving the corseted lungs of Geto room to expand once again.

Gojo disallowed worry to best him. The black haze took a moment but ultimately subsided and Suguru saw what was bright and good in this world.

"Second grade felt more like fourth." Gojo lied, the false confidence not convincing, but so happy to see the narrow brown eyes looking back at him. Deciding against being a further ass at that moment, he opted for a more sympathetic line: "We're still always the strongest." Gojo extended a hand that Suguru forcefully clasped, getting to his feet.

They lingered for a moment too long when the squeeze naturally ended. Looking at one another.

They were two fish in the same pond, who swirled around the tail of the other. Their hearts beat in sync. One with understated beauty, one with radiating, ethereal beauty. Oppositely equals, one could not exist without the other, for if that swimming spiral stopped, whichever was left would collapse in exhaustion. They were merely blood in the already sullen water, doomed from the start. Those small fish having no true influence, but instead just serving as entertainment to those who peered into the bowl and tapped fat or knobbed fingers against the glass.