The dark pressed heavy against the dorm windows, broken only by the pale sliver of moonlight stretching across the floor. Megumi blinked awake to the faint throb beneath the bandages on his forehead, the kind of dull ache that settled deep into the bone. His throat was dry, the taste of stale blood and bitter medicine lingering, and he pushed himself up with a wince. He had expected silence—an empty, unfamiliar room that still smelled faintly of antiseptic. Instead, his eyes caught on a shape near the door. At first, Megumi thought it was just his fatigue playing tricks on him, shadows pooling in the corner. But then the outline steadied, the rise and fall of quiet breathing breaking the illusion. Someone was sitting against the wall, knees loosely drawn up, head tipped forward in sleep. The faint moonlight caught on curls, freckles, the pale angle of a jaw. Recognition settled slow and heavy. Araújo.

Megumi stared for a long moment, thoughts shifting back to just hours before—the chaos, the curses, Sukuna’s presence hanging thick in the air, the impossible choice that had been made. He hadn’t expected to see Araújo conscious again so soon. He hadn’t expected to see him here at all. Unease threaded through the quiet, a tension that dug at the edges of Megumi’s composure. It wasn’t just that Araújo had survived; it was how. No normal person should have been able to wrest control back from Sukuna. Yet here he was, slumped against the wall like an exhausted student instead of a living disaster waiting to happen. Megumi let out a quiet sigh. Standing, he crossed the room and crouched, carefully sliding an arm under Araújo’s shoulders. He was lighter than Megumi expected, his weight settling easily as he lifted him. Without a word, Megumi carried him across the short stretch of floor and laid him down on the empty bed. As he drew the blanket over him, the thought pressed unbidden at the back of his mind: this was supposed to be the worst-case scenario. And yet, somehow, it didn’t feel like it.