𝔟𝔩𝔢𝔰𝔰𝔢𝔡 𝔟𝔢 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔡𝔞𝔪𝔫𝔢𝔡.

Go tell The Birds that I am Gone

(warning: blood, gore, death)

Shoko refused to see you, after what you've done. You can't say you blame her, though you can't say it doesn't hurt, either. She refused to heal your hip properly, saying she had already cut contact the moment you became a traitor. The punishment was only being kind; Shoko would've done much worse if she had the energy for it. Yuta had to use his reverse cursed technique to heal your hip, and even then it wasn't fully recovered. You'd need to go to a hospital to get better treatment but all the hospitals nearby are shut down.

When the second years talked about you having changed since last year when times were still alright, Maki didn't believe it. She thought it was because you were just maturing, you were just growing up. Panda suggested that you'd become more blunt and quiet than last year, and dare he say, mean. Maki didn't believe it. Over the phone, when Maki was spending time on her own, Yuta would say the same thing. And in natural, she didn't believe it.

And now that she's been forced to go what felt like an eternity without you, her eyes have been opened. She sees what the others were talking about. The way you stare at the ground or at the wall like you want to punch a hole through it. The way you avoid everyone else despite their best advances. The way you sit, eat, drink and entertain yourself alone while everyone else sits together. A shadow is always cast over your face, your eyes are always dark and empty. This is what the others were talking about. That sad and depressing lump in the corner of the room drowning in who knows what, that lingering thought in the back of everyone's head that rots their minds like the plague.

A gust of wind blows through Maki's short hair, a stand of hair softly dancing in the wind, and she glares at it in a silent command to sit still, but it never stops. The strand keeps dancing. The wind keeps blowing. Her fingers tighten around the cup of water she's holding close to her chest, crossing her legs and leaning back against the couch.

Megumi, standing next to the couch adjacent to hers on the other side of the coffee table in the middle of the room, crosses his arms and lifts his eyebrow at her silence. In the moment that's passed she was arguing with Megumi about his role as the Head of the Zenin clan. Megumi was adamant about not doing it, though the fortune, the cursed tools, the power, role was all his. She understands why he doesn't want it but not why he won't do it. It would benefit the clan, wouldn't it? Or at least begin to. To evolve instead of go back in time, learn to move on from an old mindset and grow and change as a community. Because she'd be damned if another girl like her was born in the next generation and be treated any similarly like she was if she had a thing to do about it.

"I don't want to," Megumi argues back, tilting his head downwards to prove his point. "It's not for me."

"Who else is it for, then, Megumi?" Maki looks back up at Megumi—her eye narrowed slightly, as her other one had been bandaged. Her eyebrow furrows, making a crease in her nose. Megumi shrugs. He looks at the corner of the room, glancing at you sitting on the floor with your legs propped up and your arms on your knees, your head tilted down towards your crotch. He looks back at Maki.

"Wouldn't it be more suitable for you? Isn't that why you became a Jujutsu sorcerer in the first place?"

"There's no way they'd accept me as clan leader with the way I am now," Maki refers to her scars by looking down at her wrist. She almost flinches at the burned tissue. She swallows the lump in her throat, her thumb rubbing the side of her cup. Megumi silences for a moment, taking in the context of her words by looking at the floor.

"Plus, you inherited the family cursed technique, and learned a domain, and Satoru favored you, so it all adds up to you being good for the clan. So just take it."