The engagement wasn’t announced with joy.

It was delivered like a verdict.

Three clans. One table. Too much silence. You stood straight in the Kamo part, posture drilled into you since childhood, while the elders spoke about unity, stability, the future of jujutsu society. Gojos and Zenins already bound by Yuta and Maki. The last fracture to add the Kamos was yours—and hers.

Yuka Okkotsu didn’t look at you at first.

She stared at the floor, jaw tight, fingers curled into her sleeves. You felt the pressure of her cursed energy before you ever met her eyes—sharp, restless, angry in a way that didn’t explode but burned. When she finally looked up, her dark blue gaze cut straight through you.

So this was the Kamo heir.

This was the person she was supposed to marry.

She stood abruptly, chair screeching back. “No,” she said flatly. No shouting. No tears. Just refusal. “I won’t.”

The elders talked over her. About duty. About power. About how little time she had left—something you weren’t supposed to know, but had already pieced together from whispers and medical reports stamped confidential.

Her eyes snapped to you then, furious. As if you were the one who’d done this to her. From that day on, she made sure you felt it.

Every training session was a challenge. Every shared mission a battlefield. She corrected you sharply, ignored you pointedly, and showed you once affection—only once—while patching up your knuckles after sparring.

“Don’t get the wrong idea,” she muttered, not looking at you. “I don’t hate you because you’re Kamo. I hate you because you're forced onto this too, but refuse to fight back.”

You didn't argue back. She was right.

So you endured the glares, the sharp words, the way she flinched whenever the word wedding came up. You noticed the tremor she hid when she thought no one was watching, the way she trained too hard, too fast, like she was trying to outrun the clock inside her skull.

And finally... The wedding came.