Convergence

Interlude (II)

Spoiler alerts

Do not read this chapter if you have not read the end of the manga,

or do not wish to know the end of the manga :)

...............................

Before December 24, 2018.

Before the final battle between Sukuna and Gojo.

Gojo Satoru: 29 years old / Utahime: 31 years old

............................

At the Tokyo Jujutsu High, night had just fallen.

The December cold had seeped in everywhere, slipping beneath doors, clinging to the windows, making the old corridors of the main building creak. Utahime knocked softly on the door of Satoru's office. Since his release from the Prison Realm, and since their marriage shortly after, he had been living almost secluded within that space. He only left the room to train, then returned to shut himself in until the middle of the night. He spoke little. Worse still—he joked less. Even his own students, usually so quick to provoke him or laugh at his eccentricities, now weighed each of their words before addressing him.

Something in him had darkened.

His gaze, once bright with insolence and certainty, now carried a new kind of fatigue. Purplish shadows hollowed his features for the first time, as though sleepless nights had finally caught up with the man who once seemed untouchable.

- "Who is it?"

His voice came through the door, low, almost hoarse.

- "It's Utahime."

A brief silence.

- "Come in."

She pushed the door open carefully. The room was bathed in dim light. A single desk lamp remained on, casting a golden halo over a mountain of documents. The rest of the room lay in shadow.

The air felt heavy, saturated with cold coffee, ink, and exhaustion.

Utahime closed the door quietly behind her.

She had been entrusted with bringing Gojo Satoru his meals. Officially, because she was now his wife. Unofficially, because no one truly dared face his current mood.

Her gaze drifted to the desk.

Satoru was slumped over it, his head resting on crossed arms, his long legs carelessly stretched beneath the table. For a second, she thought he was asleep.

He almost never rested.

A quiet ache tightened in her chest.

Since his return, he had known no respite. On the contrary—the world had been waiting for him at the edge of the abyss, only to crash down on him all at once. He now had to prepare to fight the King of Curses, Ryomen Sukuna, who had taken possession of Megumi's body.

Megumi... who had killed his own half-sister, Tsumiki—with his own hands—the same boy who had spent his entire life trying to protect her. The gods, Utahime thought, toyed with them with a cruelty far too methodical.

And that wasn't all.

In his absence, his friend Nanami had died horribly, completely disintegrated simply to protect his students. Thousands of civilians had perished in Shibuya. The world he had left behind had quite literally fallen apart.

And yet Satoru almost never spoke of it.

She set the tray down on the edge of the desk, then noticed the one she had brought earlier that day. Untouched. The soup had gone cold. The rice had hardened into a stiff mass. The meat hadn't even been touched.