[...] Carnage   ✷   Hashimoto Akira and Sachiko are two ends of a burning candle wick. One's end is another's.

Then he said: don't you know? I am trying to make you great.
              And I said: I do not want to be great, I want to be loved.

//  Sue Zhao.

[...] You say we're strangers? Search me, you know who am I.

        The Hashimoto legacy will go like this,

        in the hands of a soulless boy and with the help of a girl too soft for the name. 

        The elders will blame their mother for it. A single person, they say is the root of all this.

        Chiyo Hashimoto's first mistake: Hashimoto Akira. The firstborn who will live as he'll die. For his family. 

        Akira remembers boyhood albeit reluctantly. It's easier to say he came out of the womb grown and ready, but he knows everything he does had to be beaten into him. Akira will always be called, called to a name, called to a higher purpose. A life for a larger picture has become the forfeiture of his own. And this is fine. He has mourned the body and buried it a long time ago. The grave grows dusty and collects leaves; this makes it easier to move on, Akira realizes. He will take on the Hashimoto name, the responsibilities, and the curse of it all like he was born to do. Never meant to break the wheel or disrupt the cycle, Akira settles for being just another spoke, and peace smothers him into another dreamless sleep.

        Then, his mother sits him down. She says she has something to tell him, something important. But first Chiyo says she loves him, and he cringes at the preface of what must be bad news. He's old enough to understand enough, and he understands this. She tells him she's pregnant. Akira will have a baby sister; he'll be a brother. Something, like clockwork, begins to work again. It's like he's just relived his whole life again. It's one thing for it all to happen to you; it's another to see it happen to another. 

        There comes Chiyo's second mistake: Hashimoto Sachiko. You'd think she'd learn from her first mistake, but Sachiko, even as a frail, sickly baby, liked to defy. She follows her mother and her brother in their footsteps.

        Sachiko knows all her victims before death. 

        It's a swift period of time, sand slipping through her fingers. To her, it's a before and after. A quick snapshot of a camera shutter, and that momentarily black blocking that flickers between the two states of life and death is where Sachiko is allowed a little leeway. Guaranteed, Sachiko would never surround herself with a dead man walking for long enough, and in this life, as a legacy and a sorcerer, the names will pile up. Many are faceless, all should be forgotten. She may not always get a name, but she knows their soul. Mostly, that is enough for her to pull the trigger and for each and every one to stick.

        Despite this, her mother insists she is still too soft. To a little girl, always told and never answered, she couldn't quite place if it was a good thing or not. Sachiko is not the first to cut into the mind of another and dig for that pearl. When a last name holds as much power as a knife hidden, she is one out of a batch, but Sachiko finds the time to handle the procedure with care and time. Scalpels and gloves and meticulous consideration before anything else. Her mother tells Sachiko she handles it how Chiyo handled her as a baby. With velvet and finely sharpened shears to maintain the silk fabric. Maybe it's an out. An explanation as to why she keeps a little more to the left when everyone is in single file line, and a way to play the blame game without her knowing. It always has to come from somewhere, right? And if her elders love to blame her mother, shouldn't Sachiko follow them in this like they expected her to in everything? 

        Hashimoto Sachiko knows all her victims before death. ("You shouldn't," they tell her, "You take and disregard." [...] "Let me give them one more thing before they go," she pleads. To know, to be known, is all she's ever wanted.)

        You can be soft, but you cannot be a Hashimoto, too. Flip a coin and get it over with because it is one always over the other. The two cannot live in the same house, not peacefully.

        Sachiko determines this is why family dinners are always so tense. Why clan meetings are a meeting with the judge, jury, and executioner. And why eyes will follow her mother and by extension Akira and her everywhere they go. A home is simply a house with a fence that looks like prison bars to an eleven-year-old.

        When Sachiko ultimately leaves, she is not the first, but she certainly never looks back, not even for a small glimpse. Eventually, she knows she must return. There is still a cerebral tether that latches on, and Sachiko can pull it, she can tug and strum, but there it remains, leading her back like a lost dog. Time in that place causes the softness within her to ripple. It tears at the seams and begins to mat. It's hard to go back to her mother knowing full well she's different than before. She fears that one day it won't be enough for her mother to welcome her back with open arms, but Sachiko tells herself it prepares her for the future. Maybe that will give a mean to the end. 

        Because either way, the Hashimoto legacy is always this: cruel and unforgiving, and their end will be the same. At the hands of their successors, nothing like their name.

HASHIMOTO SACHIKO ✷ MINDEATER
SOULSPITTER:                 PYSLOCKE.

GOJO SATORU ✷ SPECIAL GRADE
SIX EYES             /          LIMITLESS

GETO SUGURU ✷ SPECIAL GRADE
CURSED SPIRIT MANIPULATION

HASHIMOTO AKIRA ✷ CEREBRUM
SOULSPITTER:                       SYREN.

&&&.

🧠 Extended Cast

Shoko Ieiri  /   GRADE 1
Nanami Kento  /   GRADE 1
Yu Haibara   /  REMNANT
Amanai Riko   /  STAR PLASMA VESSEL
Masamichi Yaga  /   GRADE 1
Toji Zenin     /     KILLER

AND
HASHIMOTO CHIYO / Mother
[REDACTED] MISAKI / Forbidden Child
FUSHIGURO MEGUMI  /   Legacy
YUJI ITADORI  /   Dead Man Walking
NOBARA KUGISAKI  /   Grade 3

More to be added.

        🧠   All the graphics are made by me with resources I've found in various places (Pinterest, Tumblr, Google, etc). I do not any of the resources I use. The PSDs used are 'Charmed' by 'chrisbriney', 'PSD 111' by 'julella' and 'PSD 102' by 'sttoneds' on Deviantart. Please do not take credit for, steal, claim these graphics in any way. If you take major inspiration from any of these graphics please PM for permission.

         🧠   Carnage contains many difficult topics that may be difficult for readers. Watch out for blood & gore, vivid descriptions of death and violence, mental illness, PTSD, abuse, and terrible family dynamics. If there is anything else that may be triggering that I did not add, please don't hesitate to tell me.

        🧠   I do not own Jujutsu Kaisen. This includes manga, anime, or anything affiliated. I do however own Sachiko, Akira, their characters, and everything added into this book that was not previously included but was added by my own doing.

        🧠    HELLO AGAIN!! I keep posting fics because I know inevitably I'll disappear off the face of the earth with school coming back around. I was fortunate enough to get a week long break filled with snow days which has definitely made me go a little stir crazy and go through cabin fever, but it's okay. I wanted to publish one more thing before I possibly go though, and I love this story and what I've written for it (even though I've barely watched jjk and a lot of what I know is from TikTok edits...) This is mainly a way for me to explore my writing styles, and what techniques I use the best and convey the most. I hope you all enjoy it! I adore Sachiko, and I adore Akira, and I adore their sibling dynamic even if it doesn't necessarily end well. They both come from a powerful clan that is grooming Akira to take over eventually while keeping Sachiko on the sidelines. It is only until she proved herself valuable that they keep her locked and loaded and waiting like a gun in its holster. Now, she doesn't like any affliation to them, but since they are her family she hates being sidelined at all. It's a conundrum. The Hashimoto clan values discipline and strength and appearances before anything, so it is only expected they're successors exemplify just that.

               🧠    BUT THAT BRINGS US TO SACHIKO AND AKIRA AND WHO THEY REALLY ARE. With Akira being the firstborn child, a lot of it comes down onto his shoulders. Of course, he doesn't want it to be this way, but it's easier to comply then to push the boundaries and try to say something. That is until Sachiko comes in. She is definitely not made for this life. She's not a prodigy and no amount of pre-disposed talent will make her such. She needs to work very hard for it which can be frustrating when you come from a family of people who come out of the womb ready like Akira. There's so much more I wanna say on them separately and as a whole but i'll save it for later chapters!! the sibling angst will be here!!

                🧠    NOW, I don't have the biggest handle on the magic system in this world... bare with me if I make a fool out of myself. But basically the Hashimoto clan's inherited technique is heavily inspired Ino Yamanaka's Mind Body Switch Technique by Naruto where they can take control of another person's mind and simply persuade the opponent to do something. But Akira and Sachiko manifested their own techniques: SYREN and PYSLOCKE. But we'll also dive into those later into the story :)) These may not make sense or fit into the magic system, but idc. 🤷🏻‍♀️ womp womp. hope you enjoy!!

© 2023 / 24