Chapter Text
Something wakes Yuuji in the middle of the night. She blinks at the ceiling, her heart pounding in her chest; feeling as if something is watching her.
Did Kugisaki come back?
She and Maki hadn’t returned when Yuuji and the others went to sleep. Yuuji pushes herself up on her elbow, moving the folding screen between their tatami. In the darkness, Yuuji can’t see her body, or Kugisaki’s cursed energy either.
Did a servant drop something in the main dwelling? They work all through the night, and if something shattered, that noise could have woken Yuuji.
Which is odd. Yuuji doesn’t typically wake up because of noises.
She lays there, puzzled, straining her ears. A bird? Maybe an owl? She can hear the shift and rustle of cloth all around her; it could be the sudare, it could be Nishimiya, or Miwa, or Yuuji’s own clothing as she breathes.
A choked sob drifts from Maki and Mai’s dwelling and Yuuji’s stomach drops. Mai is crying. That’s what woke Yuuji.
It makes her uncomfortable. She doesn’t want to go and comfort Mai, especially not after she threw Yuuji to Todo, and kicked Kugisaki, but she also doesn’t want to listen to Mai cry to herself.
“Sh, sh, Mai-chan,” Naoya’s voice oozes through the walls between them, the whisper of his words writhing in the darkness like a viper. “Aren’t you happy to see me? Why are you crying? You should be thanking me for my attention.”
The shifting sound of fabric overlays in Yuuji’s memories, matching the beats of Sukuna’s body over hers, or Uraume’s. Silk on woven tatami, chanting the rhythmic cadence of one taking their pleasure in the body of another.
Yuuji is up and off her tatami before she can think, moving as if running away from and toward danger.
She can feel the spectre of Sukuna in her bed, and the shame of desire under it.
A hand catches her elbow, and a second covers her mouth. Yuuji hooks her fingers into claws, curse unspooling from her skin before she recognises the lily smell of Nishimiya’s incense sachet.123
Nishimiya turns Yuuji to face her, leaving one hand over her mouth. Nishimiya shakes her head ‘no’ to Yuuji, slowly, making sure she can see the gesture. Yuuji grits her teeth, trying to choose between listening to Nishimiya, and breaking her hold so she can rip Naoya to shreds.
As Yuuji’s eyes adjust, moonlight filtering between the slats of the sudare, she can see that Nishimiya’s expression is one of unbridled hatred. She shakes her head again, and slowly pulls her hand away from Yuuji’s mouth.
Nishimiya takes Yuuji’s palm, the hand which Yuuji had curled to strike her moments before and writes with her finger on Yuuji’s palm.
Punishment.
Mai.
Nishimiya stares at Yuuji significantly.
There’s a thump from within Mai’s dwelling, followed by the unmistakable sound of fingernails scratching, clawing, over wooden flooring. Mai’s next sob sounds as if it is pressed into a cushion.
A quiet, slick sound, echoes under the hush of rustling silk.
Yuuji pulls away from Nishimiya enough to crawl another arm’s length, toward the dwelling. Nishimiya lurches with her, and wraps her arms around Yuuji’s stomach, clinging tight.
Her face presses between Yuuji’s shoulders.Yuuji startles, pausing. Nishimiya’s too small to weigh her down. Nishimiya’s hand comes up again, one small, clammy finger resting at the base of Yuuji’s throat where her collar splits.
Fight.
Naoya.
Mai.
Punish.
Please.
Stop.
Yuuji sits still, her throat tightening. If she tries to help, Naoya will punish Mai.
“I heard something interesting, Mai-chan,” Naoya says, louder than before.
Yuuji and Nishimiya both freeze, sharing a look. Yuuji can read in Nishimiya’s eyes her concern that he heard them.
His breathing catches in a hiss, and the shucking sound gets louder. Yuuji and Nishimiya flinch. Yuuji feels worse knowing that Nishimiya hates this more than Yuuji does, for how much she loves Mai.
“You’ve been looking for a husband, is that right? You and that disgusting sister of yours.” His voice lowers again.
Mai gasps, and her palm squeaks against the floor, “I haven’t!” She says.
Nishimiya hides her face in Yuuji’s back this time, her arms locking so tightly around Yuuji that Yuuji knows it’s to keep herself in place, not Yuuji.
Yuuji’s spirit crumbles, and she sits back on her hip, wrapping her arms over Nishimiya’s.
They made it to the middle of the hall in Yuuji’s mad crawl toward the door. They sit there, and Yuuji pretends she doesn’t feel Nishimiya’s tears dampening her back.
Yuuji will be able to tell Uraume that someone else stained her silks for once. The thought weighs on her heart. Yuuji won’t call the feeling grief; it feels too much like pity.
“Then why is your father asking mine for permission to marry you two off? Did you think I wouldn’t notice? Or that any man could tolerate you?” Naoya says, pausing to pant.
Yuuji can tell that the cruelty excites him from the way he sounds.
“I didn’t ask, I’m – I didn’t do it,” Mai says, her voice tight with pain and fear.
There’s another thump, and more muffled sounds from Mai.
Yuuji grits her teeth, and begins to shuffle herself and Nishimiya behind Nishimiya’s screens. It doesn’t stop Yuuji from knowing that Naoya holds Mai down while he rapes her, pressing her hard enough into her tatami that she can’t speak.
It makes Yuuji want to scream for her to fight back; she’ll be punished anyway, so why stay complacent?
Yuuji holds her tongue. She can’t make that choice for Mai, even if she wants to.
When Yuuji was in Sukuna’s bed, she had the lungs to scream for herself, but there were no ears to hear it. Now, she worries that even if Mai found the lungs to scream, the only people listening wouldn’t be able to help her.
Naoya waits, Yuuji recalls, for Maki and Mai to be apart before he acts.
“Then you’ll thank me for denying your father,” Naoya says.
Mai cries out, and Yuuji can hear the slap of skin on skin.
Miwa crawls into Nishimiya’s space with them, her lips pressed tight together and head lowered.
“Thank you,” Mai says, her voice cracked and breaking. “Naoya-sama.”
“So sweet, Mai-chan. Remember not to spend so much time with those commoners, you know how disgusting it is when they try to imitate us.” Naoya says, straining for every word against his pleasure.
Yuuji wants to break each of his fingers. She doesn’t care if he was the one who invited Gojo Satoru to the Zen’in estate, she’ll tell Gojo and Geto it’s him or her. She won’t work with that man.
Yuuji will beg Fushiguro Megumi to marry Maki and take the twins as far away from here if she has to.
If Maki doesn’t think she’s strong enough to do it, then Yuuji will help carry her burden.
“Yes, Naoya-sama,” Mai says.
Her voice is as small as a child’s.
Naoya speaks no more, and Yuuji sits in the company of other women while Mai is violated. When Naoya groans his pleasure, Yuuji considers attacking him, regardless of the issues it’ll cause.
She manages to hold herself still in Nishimiya’s screens when Naoya saunters out of the dwelling. He doesn’t turn to look at them, striding confidently through the hall. Once he gets to the door to Zen’in no Ogi’s dwelling, he pauses.
“One of you rats should clean her up,” He commands, lofty. “Don’t forget, that’s better than any of you will ever deserve.”
The door clicks shut behind him.
Miwa launches herself to her feet, running to Mai’s dwelling. Mai makes no sound at all, even though Miwa leaves the door ajar in her haste.
Yuuji swallows and weighs the things she could say. Should she commiserate? Tell Mai that Sukuna was similar to Naoya once?
Or is it crueller to say that Sukuna was once like that? Is it more shameful for Yuuji to admit that she ceased to hate the feeling of his touch?
Yuuji is saved from having to say anything at all by Nishimiya letting go, and rising stiffly to go and close the doors of Mai’s dwelling. She comes back to sit with Yuuji, her head lowered.
“I wish I could have let you stop him,” Nishimiya says, her voice quieted, only for Yuuji.
Naoya could have lowered his voice so they wouldn’t hear him. He didn’t. Yuuji wants to crush his face.
“I’m the oldest, so I have to look out for all of you. I don’t care if you and that awful Kugisaki are stronger than I am. I’m your senior, so I have to take care of you, even when I’m protecting you from yourselves, understand?” Nishimiya says, scrubbing the heel of her palm against her eyes to clear away the last of her tears. “You fighting Naoya would get us all punished, but Maki and Mai most of all.”
Yuuji bows her head. “I’m sorry,” she says.
“... You aren’t like us, Itadori.” Nishimiya says.
Yuuji blinks at her lap, surprised by the comment.
“You don’t have a family. You’re the wife of the King of Curses. It makes you desirable. The rest of us don’t have that; we have to be perfect. We can’t have scars on our faces, or legs that don’t work, or men who defile us but won’t be our husbands.124 It’ll leave us ruined; if you attacked Naoya for how he treats Mai it would shame Mai. Mai would never be able to leave this place. No one would marry her because she’s too much work, because she’s the sort of woman to draw a man astray.” Nishimiya says.
Tengen’s words echo.
Yuuji’s throat is tight.
“She didn’t do that. Naoya’s obsessed with her and Maki.” Yuuji says, weakly. Sukuna’s desires are her fault. Is Yuuji meant to bear him without getting angry? Without trying to stop him? Is she meant to passively turn away and pretend he didn’t dig his fingers into her soul?
Why does the purity of her spirit cost her body?
Nishimiya stares up at Yuuji with her large, deep eyes. “Have you ever cried for yourself?” She asks.
Yuuji has cried over Sukuna and Uraume hurting her. She hasn’t ever cried for what happened to her, she doesn’t think.
If she has, she can’t remember it.
Yuuji shakes her head no.
Nishimiya reaches up and pets her head, her small hand soft, her touch gentle. “I’m sorry, Itadori. You’re always going to be a monster to us, because you don’t have to live like we do. You can leave, and Maki’s trying to. It’s all the same in Mai’s eyes.”
Yuuji nods, letting her chin dip down toward her chest.
“What if this could be different?” Yuuji asks.
Nishimiya’s hand pauses on her head.
She leans forward until her lips brush Yuuji’s ear. “Then I’ll help, however I can. For Mai, and for Kasumi. I can’t die for you, I have to protect them.”
Yuuji swallows, and nods.
