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soft--dragon · 1 year

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Brother From Another Batch

First Bad Batch fic!! I love the show sm :D This features Echo and Crosshair, and I shouldn't have to say this but I will: SHIPPERS DNI THESE GUYS ARE BROTHERS. DONT BE NASTY >:(

This is set before the official Bad Batch series, about a month after Echo joins the team!

Word Count: 2512

Warnings: Semi-detailed self deprecation, past trauma, and panic attack but it gets fluffy pretty quickly :)

This is a SFW tickle fic, if you don’t like that then don’t read :)

It was one of those tougher days.

Echo was sitting on the edge of his rack, elbows pressed into the chilling metal of his legs, one of his heels bouncing against the floor. His hands were intertwined and resting in front of his mouth, thumbs pressed on the underside of his chin. It was a mirror image of what Tech did when he was lost in thought. Due to living with this new batch of clones for about a month and a half now, it made sense that Echo was starting to copy some of the Batch’s behaviours. The first time he did Hunter's signature 'I am too tired for this™' speech to tell off Tech and Crosshair for squabbling, Wrecker laughed so hard he almost cried, and Hunter light-heartedly accused him of being a copy-cat.

Currently, the others were all out; "A mandatory supply run," they had said before departing. Well, everyone except Crosshair who wasn’t in the mood to deal with anybody at the moment. So that left Echo alone in the sleeping quarters, subjected to his spiralling mental health that had been a swinging pendulum as of late, never remaining stable for longer than a few days. He hated it, and he hated inconveniencing the Batch even more. They had taken him in and given him a place amongst a group of misfits, but he doubted they counted on his mental state being as terrible as it was.

The chill of his legs was leeching the warmth from his one organic limb, making Echo bring his arms away from his knees, gripping them together against his chest. The metal prosthetics felt too cold against his scarred skin, and his thoughts were spiralling faster than he could control them.

The Techno Union, the Citadel explosion, his lost batch mates, the regs no longer trusting him, the weird looks, the whispers, the night terrors…

Echo gripped at his head, wincing at the feeling of the cybernetic tech piece wrapped around his skull. Wrong. It was all wrong. He wanted out. Out of the metal prosthetics, out of this body, out of this suffocating room-

Something heavy and soft suddenly dropped over his shoulders, wrenching a startled gasp out of him as he jolted to look up. Crosshair was standing at his side with a flat expression.

“Breathe Reg, you’re going to pass out,” he sniped, crouching down beside the rack that Echo was sitting on. “I don’t want to have to catch you if you fall.”

Echo stared at the sniper, his one hand curling into the fabric draped over him, then it clicked; it was a weighted blanket. Hunter’s one specifically for when his senses overwhelmed him and he needed a way to ground himself from the harsh stimulation. His grip tightened on the material immediately and he bowed his head, forcing himself to take in air that sounded horribly wheezy.

“Breathe in for four seconds.”

The quiet instruction made Echo look at Crosshair who had his lips set in a hard line, eyes studying the ARC trooper in an equitable manner. He huffed out a short breath when Echo still hadn’t listened and pointed his toothpick at the clone.

“Breathe in for four seconds, Reg,” he repeated in an anodyne voice. “You actually will pass out if you don’t.”

Realising how tight his chest had become, Echo choked and took in a trembling breath. Crosshair held up his fingers in time with the seconds passing, and upon reaching four, he spoke again. “Hold for seven seconds.”

Crosshair counted down with his hands again, keeping them in Echo’s view so he could count with him. Upon reaching zero, Crosshair murmured, “breathe out for eight.”

Echo followed the instruction, hearing the tremble of his breath as it was released and worriedly glanced at Crosshair. The sniper gave a small nod. “Repeat it.”

Wordlessly, Echo did so, going through the breathing exercise the best he could. Crosshair kept counting on his fingers, hearing Echo’s breathing to maintain the pattern, though his gaze was on the floor to give Echo some privacy. When Echo’s breaths became smoother and lost the wheeze, Crosshair dropped his hand and lifted his gaze to the cybernetic clone.

Echo had his eyes squeezed shut, teeth obviously clenched together. “S-Sorry for this, I don’t mean for it to happen… I don’t mean to be a b-burden.”

Crosshair was quiet at his side for a moment, watching with half lidded eyes and a toothpick between his teeth. “You’re fine.” He replied quietly. “It’s expected after what you went through. No one is mad at you for having justified reactions to trauma.” His nasally voice was an anchor for Echo to latch onto, keeping him on the Marauder and not into the pit that was his mental consciousness. “Just keep breathing, Reg, Hunter will kill me if you die.”

A stuttered chuckle left Echo and his eyes fluttered open, tipping his head to give Crosshair a weak smile. “D-Don’t worry, I’ll save you that trouble.”

“Appreciated,” Crosshair answered back cooly, not drawing attention to the stutter in Echo’s voice. He interlocked his hands together from where they were draped over his knees. “You dizzy at all? Any headaches?”

The ARC trooper gave a small shrug, exhaling slowly and taking a big breath in before he responded. “Not really, just kinda floaty. I’ll be okay.”

Crosshair was quiet for a moment then dipped his head to the side as he next spoke. “What spurred it this time?”

Echo’s wince was obvious. “Just a bad day.” He offered stiffly.

“Are you going to be alright?”

“Y-Yeah. Should be.”

“...Good.”

Though he hadn’t spent very long with them yet, Echo had started to pick up on the Bad Batch’s mannerisms, and that included speech patterns. He thought he caught a slight touch of relief in the man’s voice. He glanced at the sniper, his lips perking slightly despite the mellowness of his mood. “Are you worried about me or something, Crosshair?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

His expression was as flat as ever, but Echo could see the slight concerned flicker in his eyes. Echo’s smile became more genuine and he exhaled a small laugh, looking at the floor to avoid Crosshair’s gaze that instantly turned to him at the sound.

“Something funny, Reg?” His eyebrow lifted in question, toothpick shifting to the opposite side of his mouth when he spoke.

Echo shook his head, his grip on the weighted blanket loosening so his knuckles weren’t going white from the pressure. “No,” he hummed, his gentle grin remaining despite his words. “Just didn’t expect you to be a big softie is all.”

Crosshair’s eyelid twitched marginally, and the toothpick went still. “Pardon?”

Where this big surge of confidence came from, Echo had no idea, but he was gonna ride it out while Crosshair was still in a good mood. “Wrecker said you were a sweetheart, but I didn’t believe him.”

The enhanced clone was silent for a moment, then he answered snidely. “...He’s wrong.”

Oh, in the name of the Force, Crosshair couldn’t lie for shit. Echo looked him straight in the eyes, his mood taking a surprising turn into ‘chaos lane’, which he definitely preferred instead of ‘depression road’.

Innocently, Echo inquired, “You sure? Cause I thought you hated Regs.”

“I do.”

“Then why give me Hunter’s weighted blanket and help me out of a panic attack?”

“I’m not a complete asshole I’ll have you know.”

“So I’ve realised, shocking isn’t it?”

Crosshair held his gaze for a long while. He then slipped the tooth pick out of his mouth and flicked it away. “Are you still in heavy discomfort, Reg?”

Echo arched a brow in suspicion. The concern was gone, and there was a new glint in Crosshair’s eyes, he couldn’t place what it was though. “No, not anymore,” he replied warily.

Crosshair smiled, and it sent a chill down Echo’s spine. “Good.”

And then, without warning, he lunged forwards and tackled Echo down onto the rack.

Ah. That glint in his eyes was for murder.

Echo immediately went on the defensive, a startled laugh bursting free as Crosshair tussled with him, trying to pin him down. The sudden playfulness was unexpected from the stoic trooper, but it wasn’t unwelcome. It threw Echo back into the old times with Fives, and it was a good distraction from his spiralling from earlier.

“Crosshair, what the hell are you doing?!” Echo wheezed, his laughter blending with his words and making his movements weaker than they already were with the added weight of the blanket still covering him, and fatigue of his previous anxiety attack.

“Take back what you said about me being a softie,” Crosshair hissed, a smirk lifting his lips as he tried to not let Echo’s contagious laughter spread to him.

“I’m not wrong though!”

“Do it, Reg. I am not above using heinous methods.”

Echo grinned, locking hands with the sniper and trying to push him off, while his scomp pressed flat against the man’s chest. ”Give it your best shot, Crossy.”

Crosshair’s whole face screwed up like he’d eaten a lemon and that only made Echo laugh harder, his strength sapped further from the force of his cackles and allowing Crosshair the upper hand.

“You’re gonna regret that, Reg,” Crosshair growled, and to Echo’s surprise and horror, the sniper’s hand holding the scomp dropped to drill into the clone’s underarm.

The sound that left Echo was downright unearthly, his startled shriek falling into a wild fit of laughter as he tried to curl into a ball and fight Crosshair off at the same time. The reaction was a surprise to the sniper, he’d expected some ticklishness, but this was about enough to rival Hunter or Tech. Echo was reduced to a state of laughter and squirming limbs, a complete mess due to his nervous system being attacked mercilessly.

“You best hope our enemies don’t find out about this,” Crosshair snarked, his playful smirk unable to be hidden now. “You’ll be Sarlacc food in an instant.”

“P-Pihihiss ohohoff!” Echo retorted through hysteric giggles, trying to push Crosshair back with his hand that was still locked with the sniper’s.

“Oh? You’re trying to fight back? Trying to get away? Heh, nope.” Crosshair’s hand slipped out of Echo’s and dropped to prod quickly along the ARC trooper’s ribs, tweaking some here and there. Echo yelped loudly at the sudden attack, his free hand now torn between shoving Crosshair’s fingers away and trying to shove at the man himself.

“You’re a strategist right, Reg? This counter attack doesn't seem very tactical.” Crosshair’s dry commentary only served to make Echo more giggly, his chest lighter in a way that it hadn’t been in a long time.

“Crohohoss! Shuhuhut ihihit!”

“You never learn do you?”

Crosshair’s hands shifted to test out Echo’s stomach and hips, dragging up his civilian shirt to show the pale skin just before where the prosthetics started. Echo was too busy giggling to realise the fate about to befall him, which caused Crosshair to smirk wickedly before he lightly dragged his nails across the soft, exposed flesh. Instantly, Echo’s legs kicked out and he threw his head back, bright, youthful laughter bursting free.

“Hmm. Bad spot then?”

“YEHEHES!” Echo wheezed, smacking at Crosshair’s fingers desperately to try and get rid of the horribly tingly sensations crawling all over his waistline.

“You do have a way out of this, remember?” Crosshair reminded, scratching quickly at Echo’s hip and snickering when the ARC trooper gave a screech, bending in a way that did not seem possible to try and avoid the sniper’s nails. “You’re only trapped for long as you choose to be.”

Echo managed to get in a smack to Crosshair’s forearm, just to be a little shit. He didn’t want to admit it, but this kind of messing around, it made him feel… human. He thought the Techno Union had robbed him of his humanity and everything that came along with it. Being able to process things, feel things, the ability to exist, they had all been altered in some way or another. But this? This felt normal. It felt just like it used to with his old squad, and Echo couldn’t be happier about it.

Although… he was reaching his limits because Crosshair wouldn’t leave his goddamn soft spot alone. He finally cracked.

“Mercy! Mehehehercy! Cross plehehease!” He gasped out, his stamina lacking from what it used to be after all that time with the Techno Union.

Crosshair’s hummed in contemplation, though he did lighten his touch to simple tracing and pokes. “You gonna take it back?”

Echo wheezed and nodded, grinning up at the sniper through watery eyes. “Ihihi wihihill! Juhust stohop!”

Crosshair chuckled and eased up entirely, getting off of the ARC trooper and pulling the weighted blanket back so it wasn’t keeping the clone down. Though Echo remained flat on his back, trying to pull in great gulps of stolen air while giggles intertwined with his efforts.

The enhanced clone huffed another chuckle in amusement. “You’re still laughing, Echo?”

There was a gentle kick to his leg from one of Echo’s metal prosthetics. “Shut uhuhup.”

Rolling his eyes, Crosshair settled against the wall of the ship, waiting patiently for Echo to get himself under control again, though he could tell it might take the clone a while. Out of pure curiosity, he asked, “Did this kind of thing happen a lot with your old batch?”

Echo huffed a small laugh, rubbing at his eyes that had gathered moisture from the laugh attack. “All the time,” he admitted, smiling at the rack above his own with bittersweet nostalgia. “The boys would gang up on me constantly, it was completely unfair.”

Crosshair smiled. “Oh don’t worry, the others and I will make it a habit again.”

Echo slung his arm over his eyes with a protesting groan, but Crosshair saw how his smile was still there. He leaned over and prodded Echo’s side again, taking satisfaction in the high pitched yelp that burst from the clone.

“You still haven’t said it, you know.” He didn’t really care about being called a softie if he was being honest, he knew his actions spoke more than words, but he wanted to drag this out.

Echo glared at him, and then lifted his scomp up horizontally to point at Crosshair.

The sniper looked at it in contemplative bemusement. “What are you doing?” He asked.

“I’m flipping you off.”

That startled an incredulous laugh out of the sniper, his eyes playfully narrowing once more. “Okay you motherkriffer, apparently you need a round two.”

“Wait- wait, it was a joke- CrosshAHAHAIR! Nohohot agahahain!”

Crosshair, who had slung an arm around Echo’s neck and yanked him against his chest, clawed at Echo’s sides and stomach again, smirking at the peals of bright laughter that spilled free of the trooper.

‘You’re gonna be just fine with us, Echo,’ he thought, fondness bleeding through no matter how much he tried to ignore it. ‘You’ll never have to be afraid again.’

#my fanfic #the bad batch #fanfic #lee!echo #ler!crosshair #i miss crosshair #go back to your family bro #i am in dire need of seeing echo actually having to cope with his trauma #so i did it myself #just crosshair looking out for their newest brother #mr filoni let me be a part of the BB writing team i will give the fans all the found-family fluff they want #bad batch tickle #star wars tickle

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polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup · 4 months

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what would megumi’s life have been if he was actually raised by the zenin from day one? like either gojo lost the custody battle or they were able to scoop him up before gojo ever reached them. i doubt they would want to keep tsumiki with them so she’s not there for little baby megs.

i think it would be really cool to see a zenin raised megumi interacting with his fellow classmates when he attends the school, not to mention the contrast between him and gojo. like on paper they both should have gotten the same treatment-being pampered and spoiled rotten but we also know that the zenin think that hurting little kids makes them stronger so it would be super interesting to see megumi realise that the stuff that happened to him wasn’t normal and for gojo to have a guilt trip bc he wasn’t able to help megumi when he needed someone to help him the most.

So I have a fanfic that I’ve half written (no idea if I’ll ever finish it—I’d love to, it’s just hard to find the time) about EXACTLY THAT that I talked about in this post for an ask game.

That being said, that entire thing happens from Tsumiki’s perspective, and I agree with you—I don’t think the Zenin would have ever actually taken her too. They don’t want her. She’s not Zenin. She’s not a sorcerer. They only bought Megumi. For the most part, Megumi is absent from that post, and you asked about Megumi. So this is what I think would happen on Megumi's side of that post I linked.

It comes down to two things:

1. He is never, ever happy with the Zenin.

2. He never lets go of his sister.

Megumi’s old enough to remember Tsumiki when the Zenin take him away. He's old enough to love her. And I think that Megumi loves very quietly, but he also loves very violently. He wouldn't let his sister hold his hand on the walk to school, but he would sacrifice himself for her future.

I think the Zenin took him from his sister, and I think he kicked and screamed and wasn't strong enough. I think they thought he would forget her eventually.

And then I think he bit most of the Zenin Clan.

At the end of the day, what Megumi wanted was the one thing the Zenin were not willing to give him. They were never like the Gojo clan, they were never going to pamper him, but there are a great many things in this world that they would give the Ten Shadows finally returned to them. But they would not give him a non-sorcerer, non-Zenin sister who would only be a weakness to him. They refused to let him have any contact with his sister, and that was the source of a lot of what soured.

Any Megumi that was taken in by the Zenin would have been taken in to Naobito's household directly. He would be announced as the one who finally inherited their most cherished technique, and he would be declared heir, and the Zenin would call him beloved for it.

They would keep him in a room that was large and empty and almost always dark, and he wouldn't be allowed to decide when he slept or woke, and the door would always be locked from the outside. They would give him a wardrobe of expensive clothes that he hated, and he would never get to pick which of them he wore.

Megumi would hate them. He would hate all of them.

He's just not the type to be comfortable with or enjoy the adoration of others--especially when it's not backed up by genuine love. Megumi is someone who very much values sincerity and depth to emotion--it's one of the reasons why he seems to respect Yuuji so much. Yuuji is a good person who follows through with what he says. He's not just going to talk about wanting to save people--he's there making the sacrifices as he does it.

The Zenin do not actually love him. And he knows it. He's experienced love before, and this isn't it.

They love the idea of him. The fantasy of him that lives in their heads. He has no interest in being their little god prince to contend with the Gojo's own. He knows who he is, and it's not this. He wants to go home. He wants to find his sister again. He doesn't want to do this anymore.

And I think that's a feeling Megumi never escape: he just didn't want to do this anymore.

Megumi would feel like a bug pinned beneath glass in the Zenin compound. He would constantly have people managing him--when he ate, what he ate, what he wore, when he slept, when he woke, when he trained, what he did. Having to become a jujutsu sorcerer signified an inherent loss of control, but it's nothing compared to the sheer objectification that he goes through when the Zenin have exclusive control over him.

He has no power of what clothes he wears. How his hair is styled. His schedule, his diet, the people he speaks too--he's suffocating and the Zenin are just increasing pressure on him.

I don't think Gojo ever thought that would be Megumi's life.

We’re gonna just have this imagining exist in the same world as the Tsumiki centric fic described in the linked post, and in that, the reason why Gojo never took him in was because he didn’t know Megumi had a sister. He showed up, saw the divine dogs, realized Megumi had the Ten Shadows, and decided he couldn’t do this. He was a mess. He was grieving Suguru and Haibara. Megumi looked just like the man who killed Riko, and apparently inherited the fucking Ten Shadows of all the goddamn things. The Zenin would lose their shit, and Gojo didn’t have the energy to fight and told himself he didn’t need to, because if Megumi was the Ten Shadows he’d be cared for like a prince with the Zenin. He turned around and left and spent the rest of his life with Megumi in the back of his mind, always nagging him with whether he made the right decision. It wasn’t until Maki got there and made a few worrisome references to Megumi's standard of living that he started to really worry that he had made the wrong one, and it wasn't until he found out about Tsumiki that he knew it was the wrong decision.

It's like this: The Zenin hurt Megumi in every world.

It would be bad no matter what, but it really gets bad because Megumi refuses to stop trying to get back to Tsumiki. She's his sister. They didn't have anyone or anything in this world, but they had each other, and he couldn't let these people just take her away. He’s feral about it. He refuses to fit the mold they keep trying to cram him in. He’s trying to scale the walls to escape. He’s increasingly desperate and angry and the Zenin are getting more and more frustrated the longer he fights them. He’s the heir to the clan, and he can’t stop trying to leave it to get back to some random girl who isn’t his real sister and isn’t someone they’ll ever allow him to have.

It gets bad.

They put him under increasingly strict levels of control. He’s constantly being trained, which means he's constantly being hurt. He’s not allowed to speak to anyone without the clan head’s approval. He is under absolutely constant guard after he manages to get over the wall and halfway to his old neighborhood before they catch him again. Tsumiki’s name is not allowed to be said aloud, or his old name. He forgets his name used to be Fushiguro, but he doesn’t forget Tsumiki. He doesn’t let himself.

I think it escalates until it hits a breaking point. Megumi becomes increasingly self-destructive and non-responsive to everything they try. They push him to extremes that start risking permanent damage.

I think Megumi would try to hurt himself, eventually.

He wouldn't be in his right mind. He's in the most shit situation possible. He's undergoing pretty severe abuse. He'd be at the end of his rope from the lack of control over his own life, and he'd be spiteful as hell towards the Zenin. And the only thing he has to hurt them with is himself.

As a character, Megumi has always considered his own sacrifice as an acceptable means to the end of getting back at someone. Mahoraga, intrinsically, requires him killing himself as a way of killing someone else. He'd hurt himself if it was the only way he had of hurting them.

Naobito would cover it up. He'd never, ever want the rest of the clan to find out that it happened. It was already bad enough that Megumi openly hated them--he couldn't have the Zenin seeing any vulnerability in what was meant to be their most powerful member. He'd put Megumi in total lockdown until he could make it all go away.

Then they'd make a deal.

A binding vow. Megumi could never purposefully hurt himself again. He could never again try to leverage his own safety against the clan.

And in exchange, Tsumiki would be taken care of.

The last time Megumi saw his sister, she was on a sinking ship. They were running out of food, money, options--he doesn't know if she even has food anymore. He doesn't know if she lost the apartment or if there's still running water.

They're not letting him see her. But they are letting him take care of her. He can sacrifice another piece of control over himself, and she'll never have to worry about money again. They'll pay for her housing, her food, her education, for her every desire for as long as she lives. The trust the Zenin set up for her will be a generous one, and it will be managed meticulously by a trustee who can make sure she'll be provided for until she's old and grey. And Naobito will vow to never hurt her or send someone else to hurt her. She'll be safe. She'll be taken care of.

Megumi makes the deal.

In the end, the deal's what sort of breaks him.

Because he doesn't promise to stop looking for her, but the Zenin manage to make it a part of the terms anyway. When they approach Tsumiki's mother with the offer to be her family's beneficiary, they include a requirement that Tsumiki be moved to another city entirely with no forwarding address given. She needs to be somewhere that Megumi can never find her again.

The Zenin keep the old apartment. They pay the rent every month. And the next time Megumi manages to make it off compound, they let him make it all the way there before dragging him home. They let him see the empty apartment with all its empty rooms.

Naobito wants him to know that Tsumiki's gone. He wants him to know that he'll never find her again.

He tries to run a few more times after that, but he never makes it very far. He doesn't have anywhere to go.

In the linked post, Megumi finds Tsumiki, just once. She's on a class trip. He's on one of his very few and far between allowed excursions off the compound grounds, and he sees her in the crowd and recognizes her, and he ducks away from his escort before anyone can stop him.

She remembers him. He didn't think she would do that.

She tries to save him. He didn't think she would do that either.

She still loves him. And he was always too afraid to hope she would do that.

It goes the same way it did the first time. There's a car, and the Zenin shove him in it. She's on the outside, and he's trapped within, and he wishes she didn't scream so loudly when it happens. The sound never seems to leave his dreams.

His sister still loves him. Naoya hits him in the back of the head. He wakes up, and it was like she was never there at all.

But they hit him harder, after. Like they're trying to beat the memory of her out of him. He has even less freedom, when he already had next to none at all.

But he still has a sister. He has a place to go that isn't here. He just has to figure out where that is.

He wouldn't really have anyone in the Zenin clan. Most people are just... weird about him. Naoya's violently abusive. Naobito's weird and violently abusive. Everyone wants him to be someone he's not.

Maki would be his favorite.

He doesn't care about whether she's got cursed energy--his sister didn't have any. And she's obviously strong. She doesn't treat him like a divine blessing or try to force him to act a certain way. I think they would have genuinely liked each other, but kept each other at a distance. They're both trapped in an abusive situation and keep themselves safe by keeping everyone else at arm's length.

He would have been happy to see her get out, though. He would have told her that she could have his spot as heir or head or whatever when she came back if she wanted it. She would have told him that if he ever got out... well, fuck it. They could be something then. Family. Whatever the fuck they weren't allowed to be here.

She would have told him she's sorry, and she would have meant it. The only one she she regretted more than Megumi was Maki. He would have told her not to be, that if she dared to be sorry for getting out that he would never forgive her, and he would have meant that too.

I think his relationship with his own techinque would be very different in a world where the Zenin raised him. In canon, his issue is that he doesn't view himself as someone who could be powerful or win in the long run, but in this world, all he ever hears is how powerful he is. Pride of the fucking Zenin. The most powerful of them in centuries. Meant to rival Gojo fucking Satoru himself.

I think his real issue would be controlling it.

His technique would be a source of negative associations for him. It's the reason why the Zenin took him away. Most of his interactions with it have involved getting beaten and hurt by either his family or a high-level curse they shoved him in front of. I think he'd have a lot more firepower under his belt than at the start of canon, but he'd have less of a fine tuned control over it.

He lost control over his own life because of his shadows. It think that would manifest in struggling to control his own shikigami at times. he's not as in-sync with them as he is in canon.

Eventually, he'd go to Jujutsu High. He would be the only one in the first year class at the beginning, just like in canon. And he'd finally meet Gojo Satoru, the man he's supposed to topple.

He looks at Megumi really goddamn weird.

He's... enthusiastic. About. Teaching. He guesses. And constantly asking prying questions about the Zenin, but not in the sort of way he'd expect from a rival. In the sort of way he'd expect from someone concerned about him. Which is stupid. And annoying. And weird. He keeps a distance from everyone. They've all heard about the Zenin clan heir, and he has no interest in having to fit or break whatever mold they've already cast him in. He's better off on his own.

Maki's there. She's cordial where other people can see it, and in private, she takes care of him in a way that's terrifyingly close to familial. He's not sure if he likes it. He's not Mai, and she's not Tsumiki, and they both want someone they can't have.

She isn't sorry she left. She is sorry she left him. He can hate her for it all he goddamn pleases.

Of course, if this is in the same world as the linked post, Megumi finds Tsumiki again. He finds her in Sendai.

He gets to keep her, this time.

Gojo Satoru, of all the goddamn people, intervenes and becomes his sister's benefactor. It's super fucking weird. He won't stop looking at Megumi strangely. He won't stop insisting that he didn't know he had a sister, like that matters.

That would sort of be the first time in a long time that life actually gets better for Megumi.

I think he would ask to go by Fushiguro again, once he asks Tsumiki what his name used to be. He'd ask her if she minded it, him taking the name again, and he'd ask the rest of the school to call him Fushiguro instead of Zenin.

Predictably enough, Naobito loses his shit when he finds out, but it's not nearly as big of a pain in the ass as he thinks it is? Because Gojo intervenes.

Gojo keeps intervening.

It drives Megumi nuts, because if anyone was supposed to hate him, it was this guy. If anyone was supposed to be against him, it was this guy. This is the guy he was supposed to rival. This is the guy who killed his shitheel bio dad.

Gojo's just... good to him. He keeps him safe. He keeps him safe from his own goddamn family, and that's--no one's ever done that. No one's ever protected him from the Zenin.

The Zenin try to remove him from the Tokyo campus and move him to Kyoto the second they find out Tsumiki's there, and Gojo just... says no. It causes an uproar, and he doesn't fucking budge. It's treading dangerously close to him kidnapping the Zenin clan heir, his refusal to let them remove him from the Tokyo campus, and he doesn't care about whatever problems it causes him.

Megumi's his student. He doesn't want to leave. So Gojo won't let them take him.

He personally goes to Kyoto and collects him, the one time the Zenin force him into a car and move him when Gojo's off on a mission. He tells the higher ups to get fucked. He changes Megumi's student I.D. to read Fushiguro, and he causes problems for Yaga and the assistants until they start calling him Fushiguro as well.

Megumi's different with the other students once his sister is there.

He's more connected with them. He becomes best friends with Kugisaki and Itadori. He gets closer with the second years. He's visibly happier, and it sort of casts in sharp contrast how unhappy he was before this.

And Gojo? Gojo's so goddamn sorry. He didn't know megumi had a sister.

The thing is that now that both Tsumiki and Megumi are on campus, it sort of haunts Gojo with what could have been. They're both fantastic kids--funny, smart, resourceful. And it's painful watching them try to rebuild what was taken from them. And it could have just. never happened. Because he could have saved them both. He could have been their family.

It's sort of painfully obvious the Zenin abused Megumi, and it fucking haunts him. He doesn't even have to read into Megumi's behavior--he sees it happen, right in front of him, with how they try to control him and push him around. He wants to kill them for it. He wants to hate himself for it. He could have saved Megumi and he just. He didn't.

He wishes he did.