MEGUMI FUSHIGURO

The official report was brief, clinical, and carefully worded.

An accident. An unfortunate tragedy. Circumstances unclear.

That was what the adults told everyone. That was what was written down. That was what Tokyo Jujutsu High was expected to accept.

Yet the silence that settled over the school afterward felt heavier than any explanation they had been given.

No one argued with the report. No one challenged it openly. Life as a sorcerer had already taught everyone that death arrived suddenly and often without mercy. Missions went wrong. Curses killed. People disappeared. Funerals became familiar far too quickly.

But this was different.

Because everyone remembered the weeks beforehand. The exhaustion. The distant looks. The way your smile had gradually become something thinner, something fragile. The way conversations had ended too quickly. The way concern had been brushed aside before it could become a discussion.

Nobody said it aloud. Nobody wanted to. Yet every hallway seemed haunted by words left unspoken.

Yuji carried it the worst. He tried convincing himself that there had been something he could have done differently. Some conversation he should have pursued longer. Some joke he should have made. Some moment where he should have recognized what nobody else had. He searched through memories until they blurred together, turning ordinary moments into questions. Questions became guilt, and guilt became something he carried quietly because there was nowhere useful to put it.

Nobara became angrier than anyone had ever seen her. The sharp confidence that usually defined her seemed dulled around the edges, replaced by frustration that had nowhere to go. Every reminder felt unfair. Every memory felt unfinished. She hated the careful way people spoke about what had happened. She hated the silence that followed your name. She hated the report most of all.

An accident.

As if a few carefully chosen words could make everything understandable.

Gojo smiled more than usual. That made it worse. Because everyone knew what was hidden underneath.

The familiar grin remained, effortless, bright, and careless-looking, but something about it no longer reached his eyes. No one asked him about it. No one needed to.

Even Nanami's absence from the school could not spare him from becoming another shadow that lingered around conversations involving loss. Every reminder of those who were gone only made your absence feel larger.

And Megumi rarely talked about it at all.

At first, people mistook that silence for acceptance. They were wrong.

Megumi simply carried grief differently. It settled inside him like a stone dropped into deep water, sinking lower and lower until it disappeared somewhere beyond reach.

He continued attending missions. Continued attending classes. Continued training. Continued moving forward because standing still was not an option available to sorcerers. There was always another curse. Another assignment. Another emergency waiting somewhere beyond the school grounds.

Life did not slow down simply because someone was missing from it.

But there were moments when someone would mention your name unexpectedly. Moments when he would glance toward a doorway before remembering. Moments when he would hear footsteps in an empty hallway and, for half a second, recognize a rhythm that was no longer there. His expression would tighten almost imperceptibly before returning to normal.

The others noticed.

Nobody commented.

The seasons changed. Weeks became months. Summer gave way to colder mornings. Leaves gathered along the paths surrounding the school before the wind swept them away. The dormitory remained occupied. Classes continued. The training grounds filled with the same sounds they always had.

Life continued. It always did.

Your absence simply became another part of it, an empty space everyone learned to walk around.

Then one night, everything changed.

The mission itself was insignificant. An abandoned district on the outskirts of Tokyo. Reports of lingering cursed energy. Nothing unusual. Nothing dangerous. Megumi had handled worse alone.

The sky hung heavy with low clouds as he moved through the empty streets. Broken windows reflected pale moonlight. Rusted signs creaked softly whenever the wind shifted direction. Water dripped somewhere in the distance, the sound echoing through streets where no one remained to hear it.

The entire area felt abandoned by more than just people.

Residual cursed energy stained the air. Cold. Unpleasant. Wrong.

Megumi moved quietly between crumbling buildings, his footsteps nearly soundless against the fractured pavement. Shadows stretched around his feet. He remained alert, expecting the familiar shape of a curse to emerge from one of the ruined structures.

Then he stopped.

Not because of danger.

Because of familiarity.

A strange feeling settled over him, like remembering a dream. The sensation was vague at first, almost impossible to identify. Then it intensified with every step.

The cursed energy nearby was unusual. Not hostile. Not aggressive.

Sad.

Megumi's eyes narrowed.

The realization struck him unexpectedly.

Cursed spirits were not supposed to feel familiar.

Yet this one did.

The pressure in the air wrapped around him like an old memory. Something tightened painfully inside his chest.

A moment later, he found the source.

The narrow alley should have been empty. Instead, there was a figure standing beneath the dim glow of a broken streetlamp.

Still. Silent. Watching.

For several seconds, Megumi genuinely thought he had imagined it. His mind reached for the simplest explanation. Residual cursed energy. A trick of the light. A curse capable of taking a familiar form.

Grief had a way of creating ghosts where none existed.

Because the figure standing there looked impossible.

Because the shape beneath the broken streetlamp looked exactly like you.

Nothing moved. The city itself seemed frozen. Even the wind had stopped.

Megumi's expression remained calm. His heartbeat did not.

The cursed energy surrounding the figure was undeniable. Dense. Stable. Powerful.

A cursed spirit.

And yet your face remained unmistakably yours.

Not twisted. Not monstrous. Not transformed into something unrecognizable.

Just you.

Or something that had once been you.

The realization landed with a weight heavier than any curse he had ever faced.

Sorcerers understood better than anyone that powerful emotions could leave stains behind. Hatred. Fear. Regret. Despair. The strongest feelings refused to disappear quietly. Some became curses. Some became remnants. Some refused to move on entirely.

Megumi stared.

The figure stared back.

Neither side moved.

For the first time in months, the numbness surrounding your death cracked open. Not because he was seeing a curse, but because he was seeing evidence that something had been left unfinished.

The air around you shimmered faintly. Not violently. Almost gently. Yet every shadow nearby seemed to react instinctively, as though even darkness itself recognized that something was wrong.

Megumi should have exorcised the spirit immediately.

A sorcerer's duty was clear. Simple. Necessary.

A cursed spirit was a cursed spirit. It did not matter whose face it wore. It did not matter what memories it carried. It did not matter how familiar its cursed energy felt.

Instead, he remained exactly where he was.

The distance between both of you measured only a few meters.

It felt infinite.

An ache settled over the alley, the kind that came from abandoned conversations and unanswered questions. Megumi had spent months convincing himself there was nothing left to say. Nothing left to understand. Nothing that could change what had happened.

Now, standing before the impossible, those assumptions felt fragile.

Because the curse before him was not born from hatred. It was not driven by bloodlust. It was not hunting victims.

It simply existed.

Lingering.

Waiting.

As though tethered to something it could not release.

The sight disturbed him more than any violent curse ever could because it suggested that whatever pain had existed before your death had followed you afterward. The thought made something twist painfully inside him.

Moonlight pierced through the clouds overhead. Silver light spilled across cracked pavement, across abandoned buildings, and across your unmoving form.

The world looked quiet.

Too quiet.

Like a photograph left untouched for years.

Megumi found himself remembering things he had not allowed himself to think about in months. Small moments. The kind people forgot to appreciate until they were gone. Shared missions. Passing remarks. Ordinary afternoons. The sound of your footsteps in the dormitory halls. The presence that had once been woven naturally into everyday life.

A place beside the others during training. A familiar shape crossing the courtyard. A voice that had once belonged so naturally among everyone else's that its absence had initially felt impossible to understand.

Now those memories felt distant, like pieces of another lifetime. Yet seeing you standing there dragged every single one back into focus.

Painfully clear.

Painfully alive.

The worst part was not simply that you had died. It was everything that death had left behind.

The uncertainty. The guilt. The endless questions.

People liked believing grief eventually disappeared. Sorcerers understood better.

Grief did not disappear. It adapted. Changed shape. Found places to hide.

Megumi had become skilled at pretending his had not existed.

The cursed spirit standing before him destroyed that illusion immediately.

You remained motionless. Not advancing. Not retreating. Simply watching.

The sadness surrounding your presence felt endless. Not dramatic. Not theatrical. Just heavy. A quiet wound refusing to heal.

Megumi understood something then. Not through words. Not through explanations. Through instinct.

This spirit was not trapped because it wanted revenge. It was not trapped because of anger. It was trapped because something had gone unresolved.

The realization hurt more than he expected.

Because everyone had spent months pretending the official story was enough. Pretending acceptance could replace understanding. Pretending silence was the same thing as healing.

The consequences now stood directly in front of him.

A reminder that pain ignored did not disappear.

It merely changed form.

Clouds shifted overhead. The city lights flickered in the distance. Somewhere far away, a train passed through the sleeping city.

Life continued moving.

Unaware of the figure standing in an abandoned alley.

Unaware of the sorcerer staring at it.

Megumi's hands remained at his sides. For once, there was no strategy to build. No opponent to outthink. No battle to win.

Only grief. Only loss. Only the painful reality that some wounds survived death itself.

The cursed energy surrounding you drifted softly through the darkness. No violence. No rage. Only loneliness.

A terrible, crushing loneliness that seemed to fill every corner of the alley.

Megumi suddenly understood why the place had felt familiar.

The cursed energy was not reminding him of a curse.

It was reminding him of you.

Months had passed, yet some part of his mind had never forgotten. Never stopped recognizing your presence. Never truly accepted your absence.

He had simply learned how to live around it.

The night stretched onward. Neither side moved. The silence between you contained more emotion than entire conversations.

Eventually, the realization settled with uncomfortable clarity.

This would not be the last time he saw you.

The bond anchoring the spirit was too strong. The existence standing before him was too stable. Too real.

Whether he wanted it or not, your story had not ended.

Not completely.

Something remained.

Something unresolved.

Something that refused to disappear quietly.

And as Megumi stared into the eyes of the cursed spirit wearing your face, he felt a cold certainty settle over him.

Everyone else had received a funeral. Everyone else had been forced to say goodbye.

But you had returned.

Not alive.

Not truly.

Yet not entirely gone either.

And somehow that felt far crueler than death itself.

Because now the grief that had finally begun scarring over had been torn open again. Every question returned with it. Every memory. Every moment he had dismissed as unimportant. Every opportunity that now seemed impossible to measure.

Your silent figure stood beneath the moonlight, surrounded by shadows, a reminder of everything no one had ever managed to understand.

Megumi eventually left the district before dawn.

The mission report filed the next morning mentioned unusual cursed energy. Nothing more.

No one would know what he had seen. No one would know that somewhere in Tokyo, a spirit carrying your face still wandered beneath the same sky.

No one would know that Megumi had stood only a few meters away from you and failed to raise his hands. Failed to summon anything. Failed, for once, to do what he had been trained to do.

The secret remained with him.

For now.

And when Megumi closed his eyes that night, the image waiting behind them was not a curse.

It was you.