I don’t know if you already said this elsewhere, but did the Zenin ever hurt Megumi in a way it simply wasn’t possible for them to explain? Like being poisoned or bitten by one of the dozens curses? Did Gojo catch them red handed (the red is literally megumi’s blood💀)?
The first time that they hurt him in a way that they couldn’t explain away was the last time they hurt him, because Gojo immediately cut them off and refused to ever let them ever get near Megumi again. The Zenin didn't fully realize this at the time they had custody, but legitimately the only reason why it got as far as it did was because Gojo didn't know.
They weren’t exactly advertising “yeah we beat him when we have him” to him, but it wasn’t exactly because they thought gojo would put a stop to it, per se. They didn’t tell Gojo anything they did to Megumi because they felt absolutely entitled to him. They didn’t want Gojo’s input or interference, and they didn’t like feeling like they had to ask for permission around this with Megumi. But they didn’t think he actually would cut them off from him.
In the Zenin’s mind, Gojo doesn’t love Megumi. He’s never loved Megumi. Megumi’s just a political pawn to him, a way to insult the Zenin and steal their most valuable technique for his own. And he got way more value from letting them see him. He got to have his influence on someone who was very likely to be clan head one day—if Megumi’s cut off from them entirely, he’s not moving towards being clan head. He got a bargaining chip with the Zenin—he could further his own goals by offering them more time with him. Megumi’s a powerful piece of leverage but only if Gojo actually uses him. Him intervening to protect Megumi by severing all contact doesn’t further his own goals, so when it all came to a head, they pretty blindly assumed that he wouldn’t give a shit about what they had just done to Megumi, because at the end of the day, they thought he was going to keep using Megumi for his own ends, which meant giving them access.
Instead, Gojo immediately pulled the plug on the entire situation. They never touched or saw him again. The first time that Megumi saw them after the incident that made them go no contact was when Naoya came to pick him up at his school.
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