pomegranate ink | y. okkotsu

xxxiii

a/n: i can't believe this is truly the final chapter

You weren't sure how long you dreamt for. The scenes you were shown were random, an assortment of the things you had lived through, but in no particular order. Many of them were about Yuta, or were memories featuring him — whether this was because he was generally there for the most important events of your life, or because he himself was the most important thing in your life, you did not know. Some of them were things you had not even experienced: a woman being eaten alive but spitting in defiance at her tormentor anyways, another woman embracing a tall, dark-haired man in the rain as she cried, and a girl with golden hair drinking someone's poisoned blood-like-pomegranates, signing a contract she was not even aware had been written.

When you opened your eyes, you were lying in a hospital bed, the last remnants of your hazy sleep fading in the face of the bright gold sunlight streaming through the glass-paned window. The room was sterile, as most hospital rooms tended to be, but on your bedside table was a pot of blue irises, the colorful petals brightening up the otherwise-white space.

"Am I dead?" you said, sitting up, your voice rough from disuse. You were not alone in the room; Maki was dozing off in a chair beside you, and this made you frown. If you were dead, that meant she was, too, and you hadn't wanted that to happen. You had sacrificed yourself so that she and the others didn't have to. Had it been for nothing?

Maki woke up with a start, scrambling to her feet as soon as she heard your voice. She stared at you for a second, and then her eyes filled with tears and she was wrapping her arms around you so snugly that you actually coughed from the pressure. Something wet and warm dripped onto your shoulder, and you realized she was sobbing as she hugged you, pressing her face against the crook of your neck.

"No," she choked out. "You're alive. Stupid, stupid Y/N...you're alive."

"I thought for sure I'd died, though," you said with a small frown. "Did I really grow so weak that I couldn't even manage that? Well, I guess it's not important. Where are the others? What about Sukuna?"

"Everyone else is as fine as you could expect," she said. "And Sukuna is gone."

Sukuna was gone. They had figured out some way to do it, some way to defeat him. The creature who took and took and took — you were finally free from his all-consuming grasp. You were all finally free. At least, those of you who were left to enjoy it were.

"That's good," you said. "Does that mean Megumi—?"

"Yes," Maki said, looking at the ground. You swallowed but nodded.

"How is Gojo?" you said, daring to hope for just that one second. She gave you a pitying look, and you knew even before she said it what her answer would be. You closed your eyes, waiting to hear it from her mouth.

"You're the prodigy with Composition," Maki said. "If you couldn't bring him back, that means no one else could, either. He's really gone."

You pushed aside your grief, knowing that the time to mourn would come, but not yet. There was still something you had to know, someone you had yet to ask about.

"Where is Yuta?" you said. It was odd that you were in a hospital room and he wasn't by your side, but you refused to think about what that could mean.

"He's..." Maki trailed off, lost for words.

"No," you said, cold washing over you. Her eyes widened as she realized what she was saying, and she immediately shook her head.

"It's not like that! He's alive." she said. "He's just in one of the hospital rooms."