#muneyoshi never remarries despite numerous suggestions and offers

[yuesya]

I’m glad there’s SOMEONE in the Gojo Clan in the Cursed Twin au that is horrified by what they did to Shiki, AKA Shiki and Satoru’s mom.

What happened to her in this AU, if I may ask?

Muneyoshi tries to delude himself he did the right thing and before finding about the situation in one of your shorts, he is proud because Satoru is an outstanding genius and thinks they all did the right thing, but how did his wife - who actually loved Shiki and was horrified by this filicide - act towards Satoru throughout the years? Does she learn of Shiki before Muneyoshi does? Does she help Satoru hide Shiki from her husband in the early years? Did she eventually give up and also quietly followed the Gojo’s actions in raising Satoru as the genius Six Eyes? She dead?

I know this AU isn’t exactly the AU for fluff and unicorns, but is there absolutely no ray of sunlight in the shithole that was the Gojo Clan?

Gojo Hina knew her role:

To be the model wife of Gojo Muneyoshi, and the perfect mother to their future children. As far as marriages went, Muneyoshi wasn't the worst man she could've married. Sachie's husband was a high-ranked clan member with a penchant for drinking, and she's seen the bruises that Midori's husband left on the unfortunate girl's body. Even helped Midori apply herbal ointments, and bandage the worst of the injuries.

In comparison, even though Muneyoshi came off as cold and was a quietly reserved man, he was always unfailingly polite and treated her respectfully. He made an effort to portion out time for them to share their meals together, no matter how busy his schedule became.

Hina didn't love him, but she thinks that she could learn to, someday.

Would they finally become a true, loving family? ... It was something that Hina had never dared to hope for, even as a young girl. Her father's position in the main family ensured that Hina and her sisters would be bargained away in arranged marriages that would be advantageous for him. Hina's own mother walked the halls with empty steps and soulless eyes, and the girl dearly feared that would turn out to be her own future, one day.

Otherwise she would... she would...!

...

Fortunately, fate smiled upon her; Muneyoshi was a good man, and Hina was... content.

The first year of their marriage was a series of careful overtures, discrete glances, and all the things that one might expect to see in romantic stories of courtship, except their rushed political marriage had skipped over entirely.

The second year, Hina became pregnant.

Who would the little one look like? she marveled, one hand coming to a gentle rest atop her stomach. Would their child have Muneyoshi's dark ebon hair, glossy like the wings of ravens? Or would they have the lighter shade of Hina's own?

Would they be a boy, or a girl? The Gojo Clan insisted on being traditional, so instead of getting proper checkups and scans at a hospital, women were forced to rely on the clan's healers and midwives instead. Who were skilled in their own rights, to be fair, except it also meant that there was no way of knowing an unborn child's gender for sure.

In a soft voice, Muneyoshi asks her if she would like to name their child. For a moment, Hina's voice catches in her throat.

"'Satoru,' for a boy," she says. The character for enlightenment, and understanding, because Hina dearly hopes for her child to be able to look past the outdated ways of the clan and become someone capable and intelligent in their own right. Able to think for themselves, instead of mindlessly swallowing the views and beliefs of others. "And... 'Shiki,' for a girl."

Yes. The character for awareness and realization, to be discerning.

"Those are lovely names," Muneyoshi's voice is gentle. The way he looks at her is feather-soft, and it makes her cheeks warm with a faint blush.

Then, he tells her about his own childhood. How his father had always, always passed over him in favor of his more talented brothers, how the only time the man had even looked at him was on their wedding day, when their marriage finally brought the man the advantage that he needed to curtail his rival, Takatomi.

"When our child is born," he says, quiet and determined, "It doesn't matter if they're a boy or a girl. It doesn't matter how many more children we have in the future. I... want to nurture them. I won't be like my father. I'll give them all the attention they deserve. The proper resources that they need to grow into strong, capable individuals. I won't let anything obstruct them, or pull them down."

Hina falls in love just a bit more with her husband, at that declaration.

Yes, she's sure of it. Their child will be loved.

"Hear that, little one?" Hina says to her bloated stomach with a smile. "Your father and I are looking forward to meeting you."

There's a responding light kick beneath the palm of her hand. Hina's heart melts with the surge of warmth that rises in her chest, accompanying her child's movement.

Part of her is scared and nervous, because what if she's not a good mother? She doesn't know how to be a mother! And Hina is sure that her own mother is not a role model to emulate for motherhood. Should she just try to do the opposite?

But Muneyoshi will be with her, and his heart is in the right place. Both of them are determined to do right by their child, and Hina will-

Hina will-

"Twins! The girl's having twins, someone call-"

"That's a bad omen, isn't it? The main family isn't going to be very happy that-"

"Blood, she's losing blood, hand me the-"

"Oh my god. The boy. Look at the boy's eyes!"

"That's-?! Report this to the elders! It's the Six Eyes! Finally, another child has been born with the Six Eyes, how many generations has it been since-"

"Don't start celebrating too early, we still don't know if-"

"Wait, what about the girl? The... twin..."

...

Twins are cursed. Better to give birth to a stillborn than a pair of twins, or so the saying went. Because twins come from one entity in the mother's womb, and so they steal from each other. Fight with each other. Twins are cursed, because neither will ever realize their full potential, because they're incomplete on their own.

Hina. Doesn't. Care!

Her children are promptly taken away from her, as soon as they are born. Hina is left struggling weakly on the bloodied bed, to no avail, and the following days are nerve-wracking.

Your son is born with the Six Eyes.

It is confirmed. Your son possesses Limitless! Six Eyes, and Limitless! At long last, the Honored One is returned-

Part of Hina lights up with fierce joy and pride, upon hearing the news. Her son has inherited the prized cursed technique and ocular curse of the Gojo Clan! The first in hundreds of years!

Another part of her remains trembling with fearful trepidation. What about my daughter? What about Shiki?

...

Shiki is dead.

Muneyoshi killed her.

“... Muneyoshi, what did you do?! You monster, you wretched excuse of a husband, give me back my dAuGHTER-!”

How could he?! Hadn't he been the one who'd said that he would protect and cherish his children? To nurture them? To ensure that nothing would... obstruct or... drag... them... down...

Ah.

Is this how it's going to be, then? Satoru was his son, but Shiki wasn't his daughter?

...

Hina walks through the halls of her own home, feeling like a stranger. Rooms that are full of sunlight are now cold and dim. Walking into the nursery room that she and Muneyoshi had prepared for their child feels like stepping into a grave.

Shiki doesn't have a grave. They didn't even have the decency to write her name down in the clan registry! Instead, they just swept her infant daughter's corpse under the rug because they wanted to deny that she ever even existed-

Hina can't-

Hina can't-

She can't live like this.

One night, with shaking hands, Hina forms a noose out of her bedsheets, and throws it over the rafters. Steps on the edge of her bed. Closes her eyes, raises her neck and-

-falls.

Hina tumbles roughly to the ground with a startled gasp, because the bed had moved. Why? How?! She's not drunk, and there's no way that inanimate furniture just moves-

-on its own-

... oh.

Hina stares. A formless cloud of darkness dives under her skewed bedframe before she's able to get a clear view of it, but Hina can... Hina can feel it. There's a connection, from her to this odd cursed spirit -and there's no doubt that it is a cursed spirit; Hina might not be a sorcerer, but she grew up in a sorcery clan. Speaking of, how in the world was there a cursed spirit in the Gojo Clan? To be fair, it had a weak presence and Hina barely sensed any resentment from it, but that still didn't explain...

Hina slowly lowers herself in a crouch, cautiously peering towards the cursed spirit from where it's hiding under the bed. It shrinks in on itself, hiding from her with a wail-

An infant's cry-

Intuition clicks, and the pieces fall together in her mind. Hina trembles. "... Shiki?"

Her daughter. That's her daughter, turned into a cursed spirit by unjust murder at the hands of her father, that's her daughter-

Tears stream down Hina's cheeks as she finally reaches for her child. There's a faint air of confusion that Hina can sense emanating from her, which makes her cry even harder.

But, there's no time to lose.

She doesn't know how Shiki has been able to go unnoticed all this time, but this definitely won't last. The Gojo Clan is a clan of sorcerers, and it won't be long before her lingering presence is discovered, and the last traces of Shiki are erased. And even if a miracle happened and no one found her -how long would it last, once Satoru started training to become a sorcerer? If one day Satoru came back and found a cursed spirit in his home, wouldn't he exorcise it without a second thought? He wouldn't even know that he'd be killing-

Wait.

Satoru.

Satoru.

... Hina knows what to do.

For the first time, Hina holds her child in her arms. Shiki is oddly docile -can she sense the same connection that Hina feels? The bond between a mother and her newborn child that somehow transcends even death? Hina croons softly to the formless mass of darkness, where the silhouette of something that vaguely resembles a fetus can be glimpsed in its center.

She picks up a knife, and brings Shiki to Satoru's nursery room.

... Satoru is asleep. Of course he is, it's the middle of the night. Shiki stirs curiously, hesitantly lifting a messy tendril to reach for her brother, and Hina feels her heart break all over again.

In another world, if we didn't belong to the Gojo Clan. Would the four of us have been... happy?

Hina shakes her head roughly. Now is not the time for any doubts -and so she steels her will.

... Hina is not a sorcerer. However, her family comes from a long line of powerful sorcerers -one of her ancestors had, in fact, been an honored sorcerer who'd possessed both Six Eyes and Limitless. The very same one who'd died fighting the Zenin clan head at the time, one who'd inherited his clan's Ten Shadows... which then led to the family's difficulties within the Gojo Clan for several generations afterwards.

Her family had nursed a grudge against the Zenins. Decided to investigate the Ten Shadows, not only in terms of the shikigami that could be summoned... but also the particulars of shikigami binding. Which, coincidentally, was also related to the binding of cursed spirits.

"Shhh, be good, Shiki," she whispers to her daughter. "Satoru's cursed energy will be enough to mask your presence. Shadows are fragile, and this won't hold forever, but for now... Protect each other. Go, and stay safe in your brother's shadow."

Ten Shadows allowed a sorcerer to call upon their shikigami with no need for any preparations. Other shikigami users needed to pay a price, in order to bind their familiars. As for what Hina was attempting...

Ritualistic sacrifice. It was only fitting. Now, in order to complete this binding, there was only one thing left to do.

Hina tips her head back and slashes her knife across her throat.